news bites

United States

Defying the right

Voters in the US state of South Dakota rejected a tough abortion law, crushing the hopes of campaigners, who wanted to use the bill to change national laws on terminating pregnancy.

Supporters of the bill had hoped the law, which prohibits termination except to save the life of a pregnant woman, would be challenged in court, potentially leading to a reversal of the 1973 Supreme Court decision on the Roe v Wade case that legalised abortion.

sipa/rex
South Dakota didn't listen

Elsewhere, Arizona became the first state to defeat an amendment banning gay marriage. The 27 other states that have considered such motions have all backed them. Missouri also approved a measure backing stem cell research (www.ap.org).

Zimbabwe

One crisis after another

Deteriorating health services in Zimbabwe's second city of Bulawayo prompted doctors to strike in protest about shortages of drugs, food, and equipment.

Zimbabwe, mired in a seven year economic crisis, has the world's highest inflation rate of about 1000%. Shortages of hard currency have made it hard to buy food, fuel, and hospital supplies, and many skilled workers have moved abroad.

"It has become very difficult to work with basically nothing to use in all departments; it is disappointing to watch patients deteriorating in a hospital, as no help can be given to them," medical practitioners at Bulawayo's two main referral centres said in a statement (www.alertnet.org).

United Kingdom

Euthanasia for neonates?

Active euthanasia and withdrawal of treatment should be considered among other management options for very sick newborns, the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) said in a response to an inquiry into the ethics of prolonging life in premature infants.

The inquiry is being conducted by the Nuffield Council on Bioethics. "We would particularly like the Working Party to ... think more radically about non-resuscitation, withdrawal of treatment decisions, the best-interests test and active euthanasia as they are means of widening the management options available to the sickest of newborns," the college said in its submission.

It added in a statement: "The RCOG is sympathetic to the suffering of premature babies and made every attempt to understand the dilemmas relating to both the short and long term consequences of living with irreversible and severe disability in its submission" (www.timesonline.co.uk).

Libyan HIV trial

Bad blood

British science journal Nature published a report arguing that the main evidence in Libya's trial of six foreign health workers accused of deliberately spreading HIV was worthless. A group of international experts wrote in the US journal Science that the confessions of the health workers had been extracted under torture, and the court had excluded independent testimony.

The six, a Palestinian doctor and five Bulgarian nurses, are accused of infecting 426 children, 52 of whom have died. Last year, Libya's supreme court scrapped the death sentences that had been issued after a previous trial and ordered a retrial, for which judgment is expected on 19 December (http://english.aljazeera.net)

United Kingdom

Into the valley of debt

The average UK final year medical student owes more than £21 000 (a31 000, $40 000), more than the basic annual salary of a junior doctor, a survey by the British Medical Association showed.

The BMA found that 13% of respondents owed in excess of £25 000. "The government has said it wants to increase the number of UK doctors and to widen participation in medicine. It will fail in both of these aims unless it takes action to tackle the significant financial pressures facing medical students," said Emily Rigby, chair of the BMA's medical students committee (www.guardian.co.uk).

Chan will lead the way

WHO

Margaret Chan will lead the United Nation's fight against HIV/AIDS, polio, and other diseases as the new head of the World Health Organization.

peter williams/who

Chan is widely credited with heading off a public health crisis in 1997 when, as Hong Kong's health director, she ordered the slaughter of the entire population of poultry in the city after the human outbreak of H5N1 bird flu. In that post she also won praise for her handling of the 2003 Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) crisis. Since 2005 Chan has been leading WHO's efforts against pandemic flu.

However, Richard Horton, editor of the Lancet, questioned the breadth of her experience. "Although Margaret Chan has strong abilities in some areas, like epidemic diseases, she is very much untested in other areas," he said (www.washingtonpost.com).

Access to life saving drugs

Show me the progress

Rich nations are taking little or no action to improve access to life saving drugs in poorer countries, five years after a pledge to do so, the charity Oxfam, AIDS campaigners, and medical groups said.

The World Trade Organization granted a special exemption in 2001 allowing countries to put public health ahead of patents. But Oxfam said rich countries, particularly the United States, were bullying developing countries into imposing stricter patent rules to preserve drug monopolies (http: //today.reuters.com).

China

Discontent shows

A crowd of 2000 people ransacked a hospital in southwestern China during a protest about fees and healthcare standards. Locals had gathered near the Guang'an City No 2 People's Hospital after a boy died after an emergency admission. An activist group said that a row over payment had hindered treatment, although an official report denied this.

Hundreds of millions of Chinese have no health insurance or a public safety net, and soaring medical costs have become a sensitive issue (http://nytimes.com).