Hui Min Neo reports for AFP that 10 million people in the Horn of Africa are affected by the region’s worst drought in 60 years. Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, and Uganda are suffering severe food shortages, and malnutrition rates are rising.
When I decided yesterday to watch the Republican candidates debate, I created a scorecard to use while I observed the two-hour event. I was interested particularly in exchanges related to public health topics, such as access to health care, and clean air and safe drinking water. Within minutes of first tuning in, I remembered how […]
After blaming cucumbers, backpedaling on the cucumbers and blaming bean sprouts, then backpedaling on the sprouts, German authorities have now concluded that bean sprouts are, in fact, to blame for the spread of E. coli O104:H4, which has sickened more than 3,000 people and killed 31. Patients with the most severe cases have suffered kidney […]
In Germany, 17 people have died and more than 1,500 sickened by a particularly virulent strain of E. coli. Der Spiegel explains that this rare E. coli serotype, O104:H4, is especially virulent; after infection by as few as 100 bacteria, many patients develop hemolytic uremic syndrome, which can result in kidney failure and even death. […]
Today is World Health Day, and the World Health Organization is using the occasion to draw attention to a serious global health problem: the rapid spread of bacteria resistant to antibiotics. The development and widespread use of antibiotics counts as a public health triumph, as infections that once routinely killed large numbers of people became […]
New York Times columnist Mark Bittman (famous for his writing on food) reported on Tuesday that he was joining more than 4,000 others who’ve been fasting to call attention to House legislation’s proposed cuts to programs for the poor and hungry. He explains: [The poor] are — once again — under attack, this time in […]
Earlier this week, the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food released a report stating that agroecology – basically, sustainable agriculture – can double global food production over the next decade. Specifically, agroecology can raise production in the poor, food-deficit countries that most need additional crops. The techniques, which include using plants and beneficial […]
We’re hearing a lot of rhetoric about the need to slash government spending, so it’s a good time to remind everyone that there’s no such thing as a free lunch – and if you think you’re getting a free lunch, it might be loaded with pathogens. Maryn McKenna, writing at Superbug about a New England […]
Last week, Mark Bittman published the New York Times column “A Food Manifesto for the Future,” in which he proposed ways to “make the growing, preparation and consumption of food healthier, saner, more productive, less damaging and more enduring.” Among his suggestions was outlawing concentrated animal feeding operations, so it wasn’t surprising to see a […]
Some villages in Pakistan’s Sindh province are still underwater following August’s floods, and a new UNICEF survey has found that nearly one-fourth of the children under five there are malnourished. The deputy head of UNICEF Pakistan, Karen Allen, calls conditions “shockingly bad” and compares them to “the worst of the famine in Ethiopia, Darfur, and […]