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Articles in the Public Health Category

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Eljibiti Mon Amour

Lost Decade Gays

It used to be simple: there were the Gay ones and the Rest (though the Rest would have said that “there was us and the Gay guy next door”). But starting at the end of the “sleepy 50s” to climax by the end of the “Glorious 30s” (1945-1975), a sexual revolution had happened and had revealed a world of sexualities.
It was no coincidence that the “Lost Decade” (1980-1990) inaugurated by the abandon of state-led development policies in favour of Neo-liberalism was also the starting point of the tragic …

Economics, Public Health »

Did IMF neoliberal economic policies contribute to the HIV/AIDS epidemic?

And would alternative policies deliver in the fight against HIV/AIDS?
This is what Rick Rowden, Senior Policy Analyst at ActionAid International USA, puts forward in his book “The Deadly Ideas of Neoliberalism: How the IMF has Undermined Public Health and the Fight Against AIDS”.

I have not read the book yet but went to the recent UK launch organised by the publisher Zed at the SOAS in London. I can only report on my first impressions about the thesis that IMF policies, by constraining and limiting health policies and budgets in poor …

Public Health, Science, Technology »

HIV Prevention Clinical Trials: Size Matters

In February 2009 the Microbicide Trial Network (MTN) announced the main finding of its Phase II/IIb Safety and Effectiveness Study of the Vaginal Microbicides 0.5% PRO 2000 Gel for the Prevention of HIV Infection in Women (a.k.a HPTN 035).
This study conducted in Africa and the US was set up to find out if a chemical compound called PRO 2000 could prevent HIV infection in women. The compound itself came as a gel that women needed to apply vaginally prior to have sex. The concept of a product that can be …

Public Health, Science »

DART Study: Saving money on lab tests can help providing ART

The largest clinical trial of anti-retroviral therapy (ART) for people with HIV infection ever run in Africa has found that regular laboratory tests offer little additional clinical benefit to populations when compared to careful clinical monitoring.
The DART study was a controversial one that saw mislead and misleading activists trying to stop a study which outcome could contribute to save many lives.
The study published in The Lancet today concluded that “ART can be delivered safely without routine laboratory monitoring for toxic eff ects, but diff erences in disease progression suggest a …