The global history of health and nutrition

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The impact of globalization on global health
The history of the World Health Organizaton
The global history of disease
The global history of hunger and nutrition
The global history of narcotics

Social Summit Fails to Treat Global Health Crisis: IPS, 20 March 1995. The World Summit on Social Development called for universal primary health care by 2000, but it failed to diagnose the root causes of the global health crisis. NGOs say it is due to ill-advised policies for developing countries and structural adjustment programmes that forced governments to cut back on health budgets to meet macroeconomic targets.
New head of WHO warns against market oriented strategies: By Gustavo Capdevila, IPS, 28 April 1998. Warning to Asian governments against the risk of prescribing for the health sector the same neoliberal formulas that have been applied to the economy. Don’t sacrifice health in the quest for budget cuts; the long term expenses will go beyond the short term gains.
GATS (General Agreement on Trade in Services) Attack: American Health Transnationals’ Goals for the WTO Negotiations on Services: From Ellen Gould, 28 June 1999. Both the U.S. and the EU, the dominant forces at the WTO, have declared that education and health services in particular should be on the table and liberalized. A statement of what private health corporations want out of the WTO negotiations on services.
UK life blamed for ethnic schizophrenia: From Vera Hassner Sharav, President, CIRCARE, 18 July 2000. Poor social conditions—not biology or genes—are causing a disproportionate number of black people in the U.K. to develop the symptoms of mental illness.
Gender Inequality Causes Unsafe Abortions and AIDS: By Thalif Deen, IPS, 29 September 2000. The UN Population Fund (UNFPA) says that gender inequality is a key factor in a growing number of unsafe abortions, sexually transmitted diseases and maternal deaths worldwide. Gender inequality is a massive global violation of human rights, but it also has many practical and malign consequences.
Heart diseases claim 17m lives: WHF: DAWN, 7 June 2002. A twelvefold increase in mortality for 25- to 35-year-olds due to obesity. Urban populations in many countries have changed their diets, increasing their consumption of saturated fats and sugar, and reducing fibre consumption, and low-and middle-income countries are increasingly affected by obesity. The poor eat only what they can afford, and spiralling health costs add to the problem.
Aid Groups Say World Bank Policies Could Harm 80 Million: From Save the Children Organization, 18 September 2003. A coalition of aid agencies say that more than 80 million mothers and children will die unnecessarily over the next dozen years unless misguided World Bank policies are changed and more money is made available. The Bank’s health development model diverts scarce funds from broad-based primary health care to narrower projects focused on cost savings, with responsibility moved to the private sector.