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	<title>World Socialist Party (US) &#187; Health</title>
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	<copyright>Copyright &#xA9; World Socialist Party (US) 2010 </copyright>
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		<title>World Socialist Party (US) &#187; Health</title>
		<link>http://wspus.org</link>
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	<itunes:author>World Socialist Party (US)</itunes:author>
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		<title>Drug Dealers</title>
		<link>http://wspus.org/2011/11/drug-dealers/</link>
		<comments>http://wspus.org/2011/11/drug-dealers/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 19 Nov 2011 04:47:12 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>SPGB</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Health]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[News]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://wspus.org/?p=2290</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The Independent (UK) today reports on the story that SPGB previously reported upon in June of how the pharmaceutical industry preys on the poor to trial new drugs. Clinical trials for new pharmaceutical drugs are a sensitive business. But tests can be expensive. If they go wrong, companies are liable for compensation. No surprise, then, that in a globalised economy this business – like many others – is being outsourced to countries such as India where costs are far lower. In a country of 1.2 billion people, where more than half the population lives in chronic poverty according to a recent UN report, the supply of people willing to take part in tests for very modest fees is inexhaustible. Compensation payouts are a fraction of what they would be in the West. Since restrictions on drug trials were relaxed in 2005, the industry in India has swollen to the point where today more than 150,000 people are involved in at least 1,600 clinical trials, conducted on behalf of British, American and European firms including AstraZeneca, Pfizer, and Merck. Some estimates suggest the industry may be worth as much as £189m. The relationship is so exploitative that some believe it represents a new colonialism. [...]


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		<item>
		<title>Capitalism &#8211; the Sick Society</title>
		<link>http://wspus.org/2011/03/capitalism-the-sick-society/</link>
		<comments>http://wspus.org/2011/03/capitalism-the-sick-society/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 18 Mar 2011 01:44:13 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>FN Brill</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Health]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[News]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://wspus.org/?p=2170</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Mental illness in America has become an established epidemic. So-called miracle drugs like Prozac are taken by 11% of the population – and Prozac is only one of the 30 available antidepressants on the market. Antidepressants are accompanied by anti-anxiety and anti-psychotic drugs. Xanax, America&#8217;s leading anti-anxiety medication, is so ubiquitous that Xanax generates more revenue than Tide detergent. Anti-psychotics drugs alone net the pharmaceutical industry at least $14.6bn dollars a year. Psycho-pharmaceuticals are the most profitable sector of the industry, which makes it one of the most profitable business sectors in the world. Americans are less than 5% of the world&#8217;s population, yet they consume 66% of the world&#8217;s psychological medications. Do these psycho pharmaceuticals work to restore mental health? Actually, the evidence is overwhelming that they fail. Antidepressants, the most popular psycho-pharmaceuticals, work no better than placebos. They work 25% of the time and stop working when the user stops taking them. In addition, they may actually harm patients in the long run. They disrupt brain neurotransmitters and may usurp the brain&#8217;s organic soothing functions. Psycho-pharmaceuticals are less effective in the long run than talk therapy. Talk therapy, like drugs, does change brain and body chemistry; unlike drugs, [...]


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		<title>Poisoned For Pennies</title>
		<link>http://wspus.org/2008/10/department-of-book-reviews/</link>
		<comments>http://wspus.org/2008/10/department-of-book-reviews/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 03 Oct 2008 13:35:50 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>virgo47</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Books]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Capitalism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Environment]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Health]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.wspus.org/?p=575</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Poisoned for Pennies &#8211; The economics of toxics and precaution: principal author Frank Ackerman with Lisa Heinzerling, Rachel Massey, Wendy Johnecheck, and Elizabeth Stanton (2008)   The purpose of Ackerman’s book is to expose the weaknesses of the “cost-benefit method” of economic analysis, which has been promoted heavily since the Reagan administration, and increasingly used in this capacity since then, as the best way of determining whether a particular attempt at instituting public health safety or environment regulation of society, business, and industry should be allowed to proceed. Ackerman, who has spent the 21st century devoting his writing and speaking efforts to exposing the potential harm and overall inadequacy of using this method as the sole or main test for public policy in this arena. He, writing this book in conjunction with several others and using already published work, summarizes the process of cost benefit analysis as simply Calculating monetary value of costs Calculating monetary value of benefits Only recommend adopting policies where costs are less than benefits The book would not be of as much value to the average reader and in particular to socialists unless it offers some other way to determine the advisability of enacting health and [...]


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		<title>Nonprofit Production: Wave of the Future?</title>
		<link>http://wspus.org/2008/04/nonprofit-production-wave-of-the-future/</link>
		<comments>http://wspus.org/2008/04/nonprofit-production-wave-of-the-future/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 22 Apr 2008 03:43:57 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Stefan</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Economics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Health]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.wspus.org/?p=414</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Each year half a million people in India and other tropical countries catch visceral leishmaniasis, also known as black fever (kala-azar). Infected by the bite of a sand fly, they rapidly weaken and lose weight before dying with painfully swollen livers and spleens. A safe and effective treatment for black fever was found long ago: the antibiotic paromomycin (cure rate 95 percent). But the firm that developed it &#8212; Pharmacia, a precursor of Pfizer &#8212; shelved it in the 1960s for lack of a &#8220;viable market.&#8221; What that means is that the people who need it cannot afford to pay for it. It is simply not profitable for pharmaceutical companies to fight diseases that afflict the poor. Less than 1 percent of the new drugs developed in 1975&#8211;99 were for tropical diseases (Joel Bakan, The Corporation, p. 49). Lack of effective demand is not the only thing that makes many useful drugs unprofitable. In general, a capitalist can only make big profits by selling drugs on which he has a patent &#8212; that is, an exclusive right to make, use, and sell a new product for a certain period (in Britain and the US it is 20 or even 25 [...]


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		<title>Better Living Through Chemistry?</title>
		<link>http://wspus.org/2008/01/better-living-through-chemistry-2/</link>
		<comments>http://wspus.org/2008/01/better-living-through-chemistry-2/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 13 Jan 2008 22:26:48 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>virgo47</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Environment]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Health]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.wspus.org/?p=332</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[&#160; Pharmaceuticals and Personal Care Products in the Environment (originally published in WSR #20) All chemicals ingested or applied externally have the potential to be introduced into sewage systems and from there to aquatic or terrestrial environments. When those chemicals are components of personal care products such as suntan lotions, makeup, and toiletries, or human and veterinary pharmaceuticals, they represent a particular class of pollutants now being investigated by the Environmental Protection Agency, water and sewage treatment services and academia. These chemicals are given the acronym PPCP to facilitate communication and research on what can be a mind-boggling array of substances(1). At present no research has determined the effects of constant exposure to current levels, which are known to not be at hazardous levels at any given point in time (in fact those measured are found in the single digit parts per trillion, or 1 millionth of a gram per liter of water), However, scientists are anticipating a future problem due to the presence of a constant low background level that is constantly replenished, the possible but unknown effects of long term exposure, and the unknown reactions with substances in the environment. This issue is getting a lot of attention [...]


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		<title>We Could Live To Be 1,000 Years Old But For Capitalism</title>
		<link>http://wspus.org/2007/12/socialism-and-immortality/</link>
		<comments>http://wspus.org/2007/12/socialism-and-immortality/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 16 Dec 2007 23:23:47 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Dr. Who</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Books]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Health]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.wspus.org/?p=301</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The latest book by Aubrey De Grey, “Ending Aging” (St. Martin’s Press, 2007), raises the mind-bogglingly provocative possibility that science may within 20 years be able to extend human life long enough to develop successive improvements in life-extending therapies, thus potentially rendering humans capable of a youthful lifespan of 1,000 years. It all seems to hinge upon the much-anticipated ability to extend the lifespan of a middle-aged 2-year-old mouse to 5 years rather than the usual 3 using bioengineering techniques that would essentially clean up the junk that is produced within and outside their cells, as it is with ours, which is a normal byproduct of the metabolic process. You can see a video of an introductory talk by Dr. De Grey brieﬂy outlining his engineering approach to indeﬁnitely extending the human life span. Capitalist society, for all its extraordinary scientiﬁc developments, has long reached the point at which it increasingly limits the potentials to enjoying the fruits of such developments by the human race. It is this tension between the mode of production and the means of production that introduces a potentially revolutionary situation for our species. Socialists are encouraging fellow humans around the world to work to bring [...]


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		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Who Gains from Female Circumcision</title>
		<link>http://wspus.org/2007/05/who-gains-from-female-circumcision/</link>
		<comments>http://wspus.org/2007/05/who-gains-from-female-circumcision/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 29 May 2007 03:54:23 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>WSM Africa</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Africa]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Class]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Health]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.wspus.org/?p=245</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Female circumcision, like male circumcision, is a practice that dates back to the remotest of times in history. Today, however, the former has come under fire by feminists and other concerned groups and individuals. Why male circumcision is not touched is not clear. Perhaps the whole issue is still part of the male chauvinistic nature of contemporary society since it may not be plausible to claim that male circumcision is harmful as there are no statistics regarding the casualties the practice has caused or how it has affected fertility. I am not holding brief for this custom but some of those against it fail to situate the practice in its right perspective and thus fail to find the right solution. This myopic attitude is reminiscent of similar haughty attempts to characterise traditional African religion as &#8220;barbaric&#8221; and &#8220;uncivilised&#8221; (when in fact all religions are the same). Like other customary practices, female circumcision is a tool in the control and manipulation of society by the elders and leaders who in traditional society were the owners of wealth. In the case of female circumcision, a group of individuals (including vocal and influential women) soon emerged who specialised in the art of operation. [...]


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		</item>
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		<title>Bird Flu: how capitalism could make it worse</title>
		<link>http://wspus.org/2005/11/bird-flu-how-capitalism-could-make-it-worse/</link>
		<comments>http://wspus.org/2005/11/bird-flu-how-capitalism-could-make-it-worse/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 21 Nov 2005 17:34:34 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>SPGB</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Health]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.wspus.org/?p=73</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Nature can sometimes do worse things than capitalism. An earthquake kills 40,000 in a few minutes. A tsunami wipes out 200,000 in hours. And now the Department of Health contingency plan for bird flu in Britain is contemplating a ‘not impossible’ 750,000 deaths if the H5N1 virus goes pandemic. The government is buying up 14m doses of Tamiflu, a general-purpose antiviral and probably not very effective prophylaxis against a virus strain that hasn’t evolved yet, which in any case won’t be available until April next year and is only enough to treat 25% of the UK population. Meanwhile the United Nations is facing wildly varying estimates of the death toll, from 150m from its own advisors to a paltry 7.4m from the WHO, while newspapers range from tabloid ‘We’re all doomed’ sensationalism to an ‘It’ll be alright on the night’ conservatism from the better informed but possibly more complacent qualities. A pandemic may well be on the way. The government Chief Medical Officer, Sir Liam Donaldson, has announced his estimate of 50,000 ‘excess’ deaths (over and above the average annual death rate of 12,000 each flu season), stating: “We can’t make this pandemic go away, because it is a natural [...]


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		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Pres. Bush is for the Birds (Flu)</title>
		<link>http://wspus.org/2005/11/pres-bush-is-for-the-birds-flu/</link>
		<comments>http://wspus.org/2005/11/pres-bush-is-for-the-birds-flu/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 04 Nov 2005 20:33:15 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Cali Kid</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Health]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.wspus.org/?p=80</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Presidents Bush’s satisfaction numbers are dwindling across the US, with the war on terror, Iraq, the lack of preparedness for bad weather, and Karl Rove leading the way as the causes. To save his legacy as the man who freed Iraq and ended the world wide terrorist threat, Bush finds himself making decisions that will not reinforce his legacy but save it. On Tuesday (Nov. 1st), President Bush announced plans for spending 7.1 billion dollars to prepare the US for bird flu out break on US soil. The money will be split between stock piling and producing different vaccines for bird flu, and to assist state and local government. While I personally feel that this bird flu pandemic-to-be is all hype (remember SARS?) I also think that this move by Bush is not about bird flu but about covering his ass. His numbers aren’t great, and the government took a lot of hits for lack of preparedness for hurricane Katrina, and its unwillingness to spend on the upkeep and repair of New Orleans levies. With the war on terror and the development of Iraq stalling, Bush knows that he must now start prevailing good deeds to save face and his [...]


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		</item>
		<item>
		<title>The Right to Death</title>
		<link>http://wspus.org/2005/03/the-right-to-death/</link>
		<comments>http://wspus.org/2005/03/the-right-to-death/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 25 Mar 2005 20:16:21 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Cali Kid</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Health]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.wspus.org/?p=96</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I find the Terry Shiavo case very interesting and confusing. I can see how both sides have a case. Terry’s husband, believing he is fulfilling his wife’s wishes of not being left a vegetable, has finally filed enough legal documents to get the feeding tube, the tube that also provides her with water, removed so that she will die. Her parents and other family members have been fighting long and hard to have the tube maintained, or in some cases, reattached to keep her alive. They maintain that she can respond to their voices and they believe that with a little work and practice, some of Terry’s brain functions can return. I find myself sitting on the fence with this one. Who has more right to say what Terry Shiavo would want, her parents or her husband. I don’t think you can blame either side for what they want, one wanting to end the suffering of their loved one, while the other trying desperately to hold on. As a socialist, I tried to figure out the very best solution for this dilemma, and I also tried to figure out what exactly would be done if this situation occurred in a [...]


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