Is America recycling e-waste properly, or do the electronic muck actually end up in other countries' backyards? An article in The News Times reveals the darker, grittier side of e-waste recycling. Read on to find out more.

Pharmaceutics company Pfizer is currently facing various allegations in Nigeria concerning malpractice and illegal drug trial that cost the lives of 11 poor children. The country's federal government and state government of Kano filed lawsuits against the company asking US$ 10 billion in damages.

According to accounts of people in Nigeria and Kano State Hospital, Pfizer administered untested drug Trovan Floxacin back in 1996 to around 200 Nigerian children. Aside from those who died, a good number of the said sample population are now stricken with sickness and abnormalities such as being deaf, brain damage, and paralysis.

During that time, Nigeria was plagued by meningitis. Trovan wasn't licensed at that time and the other alternative is the use of common antibiotic ceftriaxone. People at medical charity Médecins sans Frontières (MSF) said that Pfizer wanted to compare the new medicine with the antibiotics.

However, the children allegedly didn't respond to the medicine and it's standard operating procedure among doctors to immediately change the medication in the event that the patients' health doesn't show any improvements. MSF added that Pfizer doctors continued administering Trovan to children despite the lack of positive response.

For purposes of information, be informed that this happened in 1996. Trovan Floxacin was approved for use in the United States in 1997 for adults and not in children. However, this medicine is not in use today anywhere in the world because many patients in U.S. died of liver problems after having put under the said medicine.

Trovan Floxacin remained in circulation for two years.

Officials confirmed last Saturday that the dreaded H5N1 strain of the bird flu virus had been found in turkeys on a commercial farm in Britain. According to the Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs, the virus strain similar to the one found in Hungary, has already killed about 2,500 potential Thanksgiving birds. This is the first time that the strain was found on a British farm.

Fred Landeg, Britain's deputy chief veterinary officer said that all 159,000 turkeys on the said farm in eastern England would be slaughtered. Aside from that, the virus was found in only one of 22 turkey sheds on the farm. The farm is owned by Europe's largest turkey producer, Bernard Matthews PLC.

Officials and experts fear that it could mutate into a form that would spread easily among humans. This of course could spark a global pandemic. They also mentioned that the situation didn't pose a public health threat and that eating properly prepared and well-cooked poultry products posed no risk. But close contact to the sick birds, such as in slaughtering and plucking, could lead to the transmission of the disease from birds to humans. Bird flu expert, Colin Butter had this to say:

There is no need for immediate concern, but we do need to identify the source of the virus...If the virus has come from the wild bird population, we need to know which birds and how much of the population has been affected.

Aside from Britain, African country Nigeria is also affected by the virus. WHO recently confirmed the first Nigerian death from the H5N1 strain of the bird flu virus - a 22 year old woman who died last January 17.

In this day and age, one would wonder why an ancient disease such as polio still exists. That's not to say there have been no developments in the field of vaccine formulation and immunization. In fact, polio has been eliminated in developed nations. The sad part is that polio still persists in India, Nigeria, Afghanistan, and Pakistan - all emerging countries (read: poor countries). The infectious disease continues to cripple populations with overcrowded living conditions and poor sanitation.

The World Health Organization (WHO) will have none of that... in the next decade, that is. Experts have identified new vaccine strategies that could get rid of polio, for good. The solution is in the form of "monovalent vaccine against the strain in India from the standard trivalent vaccine that protects against three types of polio virus". 

It's been almost 19 years since WHO launched the Global Polio Eradication Initiative. If the new vaccine strategy works, we can all say goodbye to the debilitating disease. Sayonara. Au revoir. Arrivederci. Hasta la vista...

According to OPEC, the global demand for oil in the first half of 2006 was weaker than expected.

The report said US gasoline demand “grew by only 0.7%, well below the annual average of 1.6% despite the stabilisation of gasoline prices. This has led to downward revisions of 200,000 barrels per day and 100,000 bpd to second- and third-quarter oil demand figures for North America.”

While the global economy had grown strongly in 2006, OPEC said this “has not been matched with commensurate growth in oil demand”.

"Oil intensity", defined as the amount of oil needed to produce a unit of energy, had declined significantly, especially in Europe and the US. The dropped was attributed to improved oil efficiency.

According to the report, the US requires a quarter less oil to produce a unit of output today compared to the early 1970s. Efficiency is even better in European countries.

The OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) is a cartel which includes Algeria, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Venezuela.

Although one of the group's objectives is "ensuring the stabilization of prices in international oil markets with a view to eliminating harmful and unnecessary fluctuations" OPEC's influence on the market has not always been positive.

It set set off a global panic and triggered high inflation in both developing and developed countries by using oil as a weapon in the 1973 oil crisis.

OPEC warned that sustained high prices may accelerate further fall in oil intensities.

Oh, boo hoo hoo!

We say let's keep working on bringing down oil intensities. Let's get the governments of the world and private companies to invest and develop alternative energy. Let's give the OPEC and oil company executives something to really cry about!