Health
Global food prices at ‘record high’
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Global food prices rose to a new high in December, according to the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organisation. Its food price index went above the previous record of 2008 that saw prices spark riots in several countries. We hear from three countries what that means for people on the ground. Download MP3
Neanderthal diet study
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
A new study shows for the first time that Neanderthals were eating cooked grains and cereals. Also, the plant portion of Neanderthal diet is not too different from modern human diet. Anchor Katy Clark learns more from study author, Dolores Piperno. Download MP3
Researchers analyze pollution effect on Lebanon
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Beirut’s streets are filled with aging cars spewing clouds of toxic fumes in the air. Ben Gilbert reports that researchers hope to find out exactly how much damage those exhaust fumes are doing to Lebanese health. Download MP3
Responses to Rationing Health series forum
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Our series last week about health care rationing has generated a lively online discussion. Listeners are sharing their thoughts with journalist Sheri Fink and Harvard ethicist Dan Wikler. Check out what others have written in, and bring your own stories and thoughts to the conversation. Sheri Fink and Dan Wikler are taking your questions until December 31st.Download MP3
Remembering a pioneer in the fight against river blindness
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
French entomologist Rene Le Berre passed away earlier this month. He led efforts to eradicate the disease known as river blindness from the African continent. Anchor Lisa Mullins speaks with Dr. Joel Breman, a friend of Le Berre and a tropical disease expert at the National Institutes of Health. Download MP3
Rationing Health in disasters
Medical rationing sometimes seems inevitable during disasters. Major earthquakes, floods, and pandemics can leave health workers scrambling to care for all the patients who need attention and can force some patients to go without. But even in such dire circumstances, can rationing be avoided? Sheri Fink found a doctor in India with a hopeful tale.
Part 4: India: Rationing in disasters
Discuss medical rationing in the US
For some perspective on medical rationing in the US, we invited Dan Wikler. He’s an ethics professor at the Harvard School of Public Health and former staff ethicist for the World Health Organization. You can join the conversation with Dan Wikler and Sheri Fink at theworld.org/rationinghealth
The discussion is live through next week.
Rationing Health Care in Zambia
The rationing of health care is not always obvious or explicit. Implicit factors may determine who receives care and who does not.One such factor may have imposed a form of unintentional rationing on AIDS care in the Southern African nation of Zambia, as David Baron reports.
Rationing Health Care in Britain
Some argue that the goal of medical rationing should be to focus resources where they will offer the greatest health benefit to the greatest number of people.That is the aim of the UK’s rationing plan but Britain’s plan is now under fire. Patrick Cox has part 2 of our series. (Photo: Mark Wessels)
Rationing Health series
In South Africa, the government puts limits on life-sustaining kidney dialysis, and that puts medical professionals in a difficult position. They have to decide who lives and who dies. Reporter Sheri Fink has the first in a four-part series on health care rationing around the world.
Upcoming series ‘Rationing Health’
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
As medical costs rise and budgets tighten, some fear the United States will be forced to ration health care. PRI’s The World takes a global look at the controversial issue with four perspectives from four countries. Series editor David Baron explains. Download MP3
On Wednesday and Thursday you can tweet us your questions @pritheworld in live twitter chats between 12-1pm ET using #rationinghealth
Socks may keep mosquitoes at bay
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
A new scientific study suggests smelly socks could help in the fight against malaria. The odors could be used to attract mosquitoes into traps. Anchor Lisa Mullins speaks with the lead author of the study, Dr. Renate Smallegange in the Netherlands. Download MP3
Do you have a mosquito story? Tell us about it here
‘Breakthrough’ pill could help prevent HIV
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Scientists recently announced a potential breakthrough in the prevention of HIV. A pill normally used to treat HIV was found to protect gay men from becoming infected with the virus. Yet in Brazil — one of the countries involved in the study — it’s not clear when the pill will start being used. Solana Pyne reports from Rio de Janeiro. Download MP3Guatemala syphilis study still provokes anger
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Last month President Obama apologized to the people of Guatemala for an unethical study of syphilis. In the mid-1940s, hundreds of Guatemalans were unwitting subjects of the US study.Lorne Matalon reports that today, many Guatemalans are still outraged, despite the apology. Download MP3
How cholera outbreak started
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Scientists are still trying to understand how the cholera epidemic in Haiti began. Anchor Marco Werman speaks with public health and cholera expert Rita Colwell, about her theory. She says the right environmental conditions were there for the outbreak to flourish.Download MP3
Additional funding for PRI's The World is provided by:
