DEVELOPING COUNTRIES CORNER

Developing leaders? Developing countries?

A visit to Ghana, with the hosts interested in developing leaders and the guest interested in developing countries, led to a questioning of both. Three approaches to development are discussed. The top-down government planning approach, discredited with the fall of communism, has been replaced by an outside-in ‘globalisation’ approach, which is now promoted as the way to develop an economy. But ...

Developing Countries

Developing biobanks in developing countries

We call for the development of human biobanks in developing countries and describe several examples from low income countries which are already building their own biobanks. Developing human biobanks in developing countries requires strengthening of the research capacity to use the new technologies, as well as a shift in research investment priorities in order to reduce the inequity in internati...

Developing bioethics in developing countries.

Bioethics, the investigation of ethical issues in medicine, biology, and health sciences, is in vogue in the developed world. Television news often shows feature stories on debates over the proper uses of such new developments as embryonic stem cells or gene therapy, and newspapers elicit public comments on their Internet sites. Societal responses to these technological advances are mediated th...

Developing drugs for developing countries.

Infectious and parasitic diseases create enormous health burdens, but because most of the people suffering from these diseases are poor, little is invested in developing treatments. We propose that developers of treatments for neglected diseases receive a "priority review voucher." The voucher could save an average of one year of U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) review and be sold by the...