SOUTH AFRICA— Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, the health minister of the world’s most heavily AIDS-infected nation has taken a considerable amount of criticism for questioning the use of male circumcisions to reduce the rate of HIV transmission. Tshabalala-Msimang, who openly mistrusts the efficacy of antiretroviral drugs and recommends lemon and garlic as an AIDS remedy, noted that there "wasn’t enough information" to justify the forcing of the procedure upon some of South Africa’s traditional tribal communities. In addition, her comments came shortly after a meeting of traditional leaders who see the measure as an attempt by the Western world to force their customs and ideologies upon Africans. The United Nations, World Health Organization, and UNAIDS all endorse male circumcision, as an extensive study in South Africa, Kenya, and Uganda showed that the procedure reduced the risk of men contracting the HIV virus by up to 60 percent. Scientifically, this is supported by the finding that the cells of the penile foreskin are especially vulnerable to the infection. One study even noted that male circumcision could prevent 2 million new HIV infections and 300,000 deaths within the next ten years. South Africa has approximately 5.4 million people infected with the virus—more than any other country.

CHINA—In response to growing concerns about the safety of pharmaceutical drugs and foodstuffs from China, the U.S. and Chinese governments have signed an agreement allowing U.S. inspection officials expanded oversight in Chinese food and drug production. The preliminary deal, which extends only to a limited range of products, will embed more U.S. inspectors in Chinese factories, as well as create more stringent registration and inspection guidelines. Officials from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration felt that the agreement did not cover as many products as needed, but was still a promising first step. FDA officials also voiced hopes that American inspectors would continue to play an expanded role in China’s consumer safety framework, eventually helping to train Chinese inspectors. China’s reputation as a food and drug exporter has been tarnished in the last two years due to several high-profile incidents, the most drastic of which occurred in 2006, when a poison falsely labeled as a cough syrup ingredient found its way into medicines in Panama, killing 138.

BANGLADESH—The Bangladeshi government has embarked on a campaign to vaccinate 25 million children under the age of five against polio. Bangladesh saw the virus resurface last year after a six-year span free of the illness. With the support of UNICEF and the World Health Organization, vaccination centers have been set up around the capital, Dhaka, to give children the vaccine. This past year, the government has also focused on fighting polio near Bangladesh’s borders with India and Myanmar to hinder the spread of the disease into the country. When the polio virus infects a body, it can invade and damage the nervous system, often leading to lifetime paralysis—a condition that is especially difficult for children to cope with. 

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UNITED KINGDOM—The common winter flu is evolving and developing resistance at a staggering rate. More than 10% of the virus samples taken from Western Europe this winter season were resistant to front-line anti-flu treatment. Almost 10% of the samples in Canada, and 7% in the U.S. were resistant. In Norway, the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) found a 75% resistant rate. All the samples are from a strain of flu virus known as H1N1. Though H1N1 is a subtype of the same influenza A virus, it is distinct from the avian flu of the H5N1 strain. The H1N1 strain is developing resistance to Tamiflu, a post-exposure treatment (not a vaccine) that helps prevent the virus from spreading within the body, and reduces symptoms. This is the same drug that countries have been stockpiling tens of millions of doses of, following recent predictions of an imminent flu pandemic. However, resistance does not necessarily mean that the H1N1 virus is more dangerous. Lab studies by the World Health Organization have even suggested that Tamiflu-resistant flu viruses may be less infectious. The dreaded avian flu shows only limited resistance to the drug.

UNITED STATES—College campuses across America are faced with an ethical question: Should "tainted" money be used for beneficial causes? Money donated by tobacco companies are used by schools for research or for student activities. Phillip Morris, the biggest tobacco company in the U.S., says the money it donates for research is given with no strings attached. Donations from the company even finances a University of Texas Austin study on how certain toxic compounds in cigarette smoke react with DNA, causing damage that can lead to cancer. At the McCombs School of Business, the money was used to empower Hispanic businesswomen. The Australian movement to ban tobacco money sparked when nearly 20 universities stopped accepting money from the tobacco industry in the 1990s because they did not want to suggest that they endorsed the companies’ products. "The argument for rejecting funding is that the tobacco industry has a 50-plus-year history of a corrupting influence on medical research," said Dr. Michael J. Thun, the chief of epidemiological research at the American Cancer Society. In a growing trend, the University of California system, Stanford, the medical school at Emory University and the public health schools at Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Ohio State, Louisiana State and the Universities of Arizona, Iowa and North Carolina have all recently banned tobacco money.

Compiled from the Associated Press Medical, International Herald Tribune, New York Times, and Time Health.