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European Commission, PR, 29.04.09
Louis Michel, European Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid
"Investing in Africa: a European Commission's perspective"
Conference "Outlook Africa: Investing in Africa's Growth and Health" - Solvay Library

European Parliament, Article, 07.04.09
AIDS: Therapeutic vaccine "in four or five years" says Montagnier
Last year French Professor Luc Montagnier jointly won the Nobel Prize for Medicine with Françoise Barré-Sinoussi for their discovery of the HIV virus in 1983. On 1 April he took part in a conference on biomedical research organised by the European Parliament. In an exclusive interview we spoke to him about his hopes for a therapeutic vaccine for AIDS sufferers within "four or five years". He also spoke of his worries about a lack of interest in scientific research by young people.

European Commission 06.04.2009
World Health Day: Commission Highlights Solidarity in Health
To mark World Health Day, European Commissioner for Health, Androulla Vassiliou will visit several community health projects in Kenya on 6 and 7 April. These projects promote social and economic development through poverty alleviation and strengthening health and education.

 

Kaiser Daily Global Health Policy Report
Daily global health news summaries provided by the Kaiser Family Foundation.
  • 6 Feb - Sugar Poses Significant Health Risks, Should Be Regulated Like Alcohol, U.S. Researchers Say
    "Sugar poses enough health risks that it should be considered a controlled substance just like alcohol and tobacco, contend a team of researchers from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF)," in an opinion piece called "The Toxic Truth About Sugar," published in the journal Nature on Wednesday, TIME's "Healthland" blog reports (Rochman, 2/2). "While acknowledging that food, unlike alcohol and tobacco, is required for survival, [authors Robert Lustig, Laura Schmidt and Claire Brindis] say taxes, zoning ordinances and even age limits for purchasing certain sugar-laden products are all appropriate remedies for what they see as a not-so-sweet problem," the Wall Street Journal's "Health" blog writes (Hobson, 2/2).
  • 6 Feb - Panel Discussion Shows Heated Controversy Over H5N1 Research
    "The controversy over research about potentially dangerous H5N1 viruses heated up [Thursday night] in a New York City debate that featured some of the leading voices exchanging blunt comments on the alleged risks and benefits of publishing or withholding the full details of the studies," CIDRAP News reports. "The debate, sponsored by the New York Academy of Sciences, involved two members of the biosecurity advisory board that called for 'redacting' the two studies in question to delete details, along with scientists who want the full studies published and representatives of Science and Nature, the two journals involved," the news service adds (Roos, 2/3).
  • 6 Feb - Supporting Scientific Evidence Under PEPFAR To End AIDS
    On Wednesday, several HIV experts spoke at a Capitol Hill briefing "supporting the U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) program's reliance on scientific evidence to drive its work to end AIDS," the Center for Global Health Policy's "Science Speaks" blog reports. The speakers, including Diane Havlir of the University of California, San Francisco, RJ Simonds of the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation, Renee Ridzon of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and Chris Beyrer of the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, talked about using antiretroviral treatment as a prevention method, the prevention of mother-to-child HIV transmission, voluntary medical male circumcision, and preventing HIV among marginalized populations at high risk of infection (Mazzotta, 2/3).
  • 6 Feb - WHO Disputes Study's Claims That Global Malaria Deaths Are Double Current Estimates
    The WHO has disputed a study published last week in the Lancet "that claims nearly twice as many people are dying of malaria than current estimates," VOA News reports. The WHO "says both its estimates of malaria deaths and those of the Lancet study are statistically the same for all groups in all regions," with one exception, VOA writes, noting, "WHO spokesman Gregory Hartl says there's a notable statistical difference in regard to children over five and adults in Africa."
  • 6 Feb - Dispute Over Malaria Figures Highlights Lack Of Certainty In Data In Age Of 'Information Overload'
    In this post in TIME World's "Global Spin" blog, TIME's Africa bureau chief Alex Perry examines questions surrounding an Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) study published in the Lancet on Friday that suggests "malaria kills almost twice as many people a year as previously believed," writing, "If correct, at a stroke that overturns medical consensus, makes a nonsense of decades of World Health Organization (WHO) statistics -- the official malaria numbers -- and plunges the current multibillion-dollars anti-malaria campaign, and the push to reach a 2015 deadline for achieving the eight Millennium Development Goals, into grave doubt."