Archive for category: Health

Information and stories on health topics.

Barbara Bush and Global Health Corps

global_health_corps
Former President George W. Bush is remembered for his efforts to combat AIDS in Africa during his time in the Oval Office, but, as it turns out, he isn’t the only Bush with a passion for global health.

It was on a trip with her father to Uganda in 2003 that Barbara Bush, the elder of the former president’s twin daughters, was shocked by the toll AIDS was taking on population and the health inequality in the country.

One of the 43rd president’s lasting legacies is his creation of the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), which as of September of last year had supported life-saving treatment for seven point seven million people with the virus, in addition to helping provide over 56.7 million people with testing and counseling.

After graduating from Yale with a humanities degree in 2004, Barbara worked at the Red Cross Children’s Hospital in Capetown, South Africa, where she frequently worked with kids with AIDS, before returning to the United States to try to mobilize the global health movement and get more people involved.

The end result was she and five friends creating Global Health Corps, which she became chief executive of at the age of 26. The organization gives young professionals the chance to work at the front of the fight for global health equity and places fellows in Burundi, Malawi, Rwanda, Uganda, the United States, and Zambia.

According to Global Health Corps website, the goal of the organization is “to mobilize a global community of emerging leaders to build the movement for health equity.” The website also says that health is a human right.

Fellows are placed with organizations, such as Partners in Health, in either of the two continents, where two fellows work together for a year. One fellow is from the host country, whereas the second is from abroad.

For example, young professionals with expertise in logistics worked to improve drug access in Tanzania by working on the supply chain. In Rwanda, architects designed medical clinics with less airflow, making it less likely that those with tuberculosis would infect others.

Today, Global Health Corps is booming, receiving praise from health professionals around the world. In addition, the organization gets around 6,000 applications a year for fewer than 150 fellows positions.

– Matt Wotus

Sources: Global Health Corps, The New York Times, PEPFAR
Photo: Huffington Post

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Deworming Rwanda

Deworming campaign Improving School Attendance in Rwanda
Unquestionably, one of the most effective weapons fighting global poverty today is education, and in Rwanda, a small country in central eastern Africa, it’s essential. Absence is commonplace however, with children suffering from abdominal pain, diarrhea and nausea. Attendance in school is difficult for children with soil-transmitted helminth infections.

In collaboration with Ministries of Health, a campaign to combat the disease was launched by the World Health Organization (WHO) and has shown success in getting students back in school.

According to WHO, soil-transmitted helminth infections are among the most common infections worldwide and affect the poorest and most deprived communities. They are transmitted by eggs present in human feces, which contaminate soil in areas where sanitation is poor. The disease is easily contracted by walking barefoot on contaminated soil or eating contaminated food.

The main species that infect people are the roundworm (Ascaris lumbricoides), the whipworm (Trichuris trichiura) and the hookworms (Necator americanus and Ancylostoma duodenale).

Soil-transmitted helminth causes a spectrum of health problems, from the indiscernible to the severe, which can includ abdominal pain, diarrhea, blood and protein loss, rectal prolapse and physical and mental retardation. The severity of infection is directly related to the worm burden.

The disease, one of the most common parasitic ailments in the world, affects approximately 2 billion people, nearly two thirds of the world’s population, and it is estimated that 4 billion others are at risk.

In Rwanda, illnesses can be extraordinarily bad. According to WHO, ninety-five percent of school aged children living in the Musanze District were suffering in 2007, one of the highest rates in the country.

There, soil-transmitted helminth is contracted mainly from dirty water, fetched from nearby Lake Ruhondo and those who use the stagnant water from the former banks of the Mukungwa River. Open defecation is still practiced in the area and sanitation is almost non-existent.

In 2007, whole families were getting sick. Parents stayed home caring for sick children, which prevented them from being able to work, and children were too sick to go to school or earn a menial income raising livestock or growing vegetables.

Worldwide, the WHO has been working tirelessly to control the spread of soil-transmitted helminth by facilitating wider access to preventive medicine such as albendazole and mebendazole. According to Dr. Antonio Montresor, Medical Officer for WHO in the Department of Control of Neglected Tropical Diseases, the deworming campaign reached more than 395 million children in 2014, making it one of the largest global public health interventions.

In the Musanze District of Rwanda, the WHO provides the necessary medications to local schools, which are then disseminated to the population. Since the program started, the rate of children with intestinal worms has been reduced by nearly 20 percent.

Education is essential in alleviating global poverty. Every day a child is absent from class, the likelihood they can break the endless cycle disappears a little more. The WHO is striving to keep students in school and families healthy, making a chance to prosper a reality.

– Jason Zimmerman

Sources: WHO 1, WHO 2
Photo: TheGuardian

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Bolivian Healthcare: Percentages over People

Bolivian-Healthcare

Although the Bolivian government’s new and improved universal healthcare plan has made a considerable dent in child and maternal mortality numbers, the plan still seems to be more suited for improving statistics than the lives of rural Bolivian women.

With one of highest rates of maternal and child mortality in the Latin America, second only to Haiti, Bolivia remains one of the worst places in the world to give birth, especially in rural areas. Mortality rates have historically totaled to 390 mortalities for every 100,000 live births in central cities (like the capital, La Paz), and reach as high as 887 per 100,00 live births in rural areas, according to UNICEF.

Beginning in 1994, Bolivian government officials centered in La Paz developed a series of free healthcare plans—or, more aptly, three free service packages—intended to keep mothers and children alive past the ordeal of childbirth. The most recent addition to these packages is the “Universal Maternal and Child Heath Insurance plan (SUMI).”

Upon its creation, SUMI was lauded as the symbol of iconic change of fate for Bolivian mothers. Targeted at pregnant women and children under the age of five, the program boasted that it would cover 500 common ailments. Additionally, SUMI was the first Bolivian public health program that did not come from a presidential decree, meaning that it would have longevity through congress even as presidential power shifted.

“The system was created to fight child mortality, to fight that economic barrier that prevented the mother from having proper attention from the start,” said Dr. Dante Ergueta, who works with SUMI at the Bolivian Health Ministry, in an interview with the U.K. Guardian. “It is an icon for Bolivia and I might even say for Latin America.”

Initially, SUMI managed to cut the alarming child mortality statistics. After its introduction, Bolivia saw reduction in infant mortality between 37.7% in urban areas. Even in rural areas, the program saw a 29.9% drop in infant mortality, which, although still less than the drop in metropolitan areas, represented a significant change.

However, the effects of SUMI have been blunted, if not entirely counteracted, since this initial drop.

The seeds for this decline can be found written into SUMI itself. According to a study done by Focal, SUMI’s plan to attack statistics was limited to quick fixes. Every service that SUMI provided was a double-edged sword, all of which left the deep roots of maternal health barriers in Bolivia untouched.

Where SUMI expanded the number of ailments covered by insurance, it also drastically tightened the program’s membership requirements, restricting it to women who had given birth within the past six months and children under the age of five. Previously, Bolivian health insurance had covered all women of childbearing age as well as the general population for endemic disease. SUMI cut the general public endemic disease coverage entirely, along with several family planning services for non-pregnant women.

Focal reports that “health indicators worsened after its [SUMI’s] implementation, particularly in rural areas. Inequity in health outcomes also grew because the services of high complexity that the SUMI plan made available in urban areas never reached the segment of the population [rural, indigenous communities] that needed them most.”

This “icon for Bolivia” is perhaps one of the most stark examples of one of the most common failures in public health: the rush to address startling statistics, instead of attacking underlying socioeconomic, or even cultural, gender-based problems.

According to UNICEF, Bolivian women exist in a culturally persistent subordinate role to men. Their rates of illiteracy are significantly higher, ranging as high as 37.91%, compared to 14.42% of men. This gap also drastically decreases the number of women who are capable of participating in the workforce, giving women less access to employment-based private healthcare options.

These socioeconomic and cultural forces show that the answer to improving Bolivian maternal health is more complicated than implementing a system of health-services handouts. It is not about the number of services the state can provide; it is about changing the situations of people receiving those services.

– Emma Betuel

Sources: Unicef, The Guardian, ITG, WHO, Focal
Photo: Projects Abroad

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Pilot Program Trains Health Workers for Post-Ebola

Pilot Program Trains Health Workers for Work Post Ebola

After tending to Ebola patients in West Africa for over a year, health workers have begun returning to their regular jobs. Because of the disease’s decline, a pilot training program to prepare these employees to return to work took place in May 2015 in Liberia.

The training program’s aim was to “refresh important skills but also address weaknesses exposed by the Ebola outbreak,” according to Foday Kanneh, a Ministry of Health training coordinator. Dr. April Baller, head of World Health Organization’s (WHO) clinical management and infection control—along with other prevention teams and Ministry of Health and WHO staff—created the training program. It was a rigorous course designed to “support the restoration and strengthening of the health system which virtually collapsed during the epidemic, while also giving health workers the confidence and capacity to respond in the event that Ebola re-emerges,” said Baller.

Although Ebola is in decline, no one knows when it could return. This disease first appeared in 1976 and did not resurface in human beings between 1977 and 1994. With such erratic exposure, health workers need to be trained for the post-Ebola environment.

Doris Sannoh, a trainee and social worker in Liberia, said that she normally worked in an outreach capacity to prevent HIV and gender-based violence. During the outbreak, she found herself working in the triage area of the hospital, counseling and assisting sick patients. “I never had any infection prevention training as a social worker, but I needed it. As health workers, we all need training like this.”

The training sessions were led by 40 trained facilitators and assisted by Ebola survivors. The survivors role played the parts of patients and critiqued the trainees on the quality of care they administered. In order to ensure that the training acquired during the sessions was used regularly and effectively, on-site mentoring and monitoring was crucial, according to Kanneh. Currently, the Ministry of Health and the WHO are evaluating the course and, if appropriate, will refine it and expand it throughout the country.

According to the WHO, “The West African Ebola outbreak has been the largest, most severe and most complex in human history.” When the outbreak began in March 2014, health workers from all over the world stepped up to work with the WHO to stop the epidemic. It peaked in September 2014 and is now in decline. Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone reported a combined total of 27,705 confirmed, probable and suspected cases up to July 19, 2015. Deaths from confirmed as well as probable and suspected cases totaled 11,269.

The good news is that in the week before July 19, Guinea reported only 22 new confirmed cases, and Sierra Leone reported four. This good news gets even better: Liberia has not reported any new cases in the week before July 19. Currently in Liberia, 56 people who have had contact with Ebola patients are under follow-up care. Eighteen have completed the 21-day surveillance period. If no new cases arise, all contacts will complete follow-up by August 2.

– Janet Quinn

Sources: WHO 1, WHO 2, WHO 3
Photo: World Health Organization

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Why Menstrual Hygiene Remains a Challenge in Nepal

Menstrual-Hygiene

Old taboos surrounding menstruation die hard in Nepal where, until 2005, Chhaupadi, the practice of ostracizing women and girls from their own homes during their periods, did not face a national ban.

The Nepalese Supreme Court declared Chhaupadi illegal in 2005. However, the practice still retains a foothold in the country’s western region and myths surrounding women’s natural cycles remain a national problem.

Chhaupadi, which is based upon the belief that menstruating women are toxic, prohibits menstruating women and girls from inhabiting any public space, socializing with others and using water sources that other people share.

According to the tradition, women and girls on their periods are also banned from sharing food or touching anyone. Rather than eating with their families, these “untouchables” must remain outside the house and keep their distance while a family member throws boiled rice to them, like they would to a dog.

The effects of Chhaupadi are extremely dehumanizing and psychologically stressful, with young girls told that they will bring bad luck on their families if they enter their own homes during menstruation. In communities where the tradition is still practiced, even women and girls who do not believe they are truly toxic fear disobeying the rules of Chhaupadi and incurring the anger of family or village elders.

In addition to being emotionally degrading, Chhaupadi also places women and girls at risk for rape, abduction, snakebites and animal attacks, as well as malnourishment. Forced to sleep in rickety huts without adequate insulation or ventilation, women and girls face illness exacerbated by the cold and unhygienic conditions or asphyxiation from improperly ventilated heat sources.

Even in regions where Chhaupadi is not practiced, taboos surrounding menstruation still affect Nepalese women and girls. The Nepali Times reports that today many households in Kathmandu still prohibit menstruating women from entering kitchens or temples, eating with the family and sleeping on their beds.

These practices condition women to view their bodies as unclean and to devalue themselves because they take the blame for any misfortune their families may experience. Chhaupadi’s legacy contributes to a wider disregard of women and girls that places them in danger.

A prime example comes in the wake of the recent earthquake that devastated Nepal. Although the refugees require many resources that aid organizations are working to meet, menstrual hygiene is far from the minds of most.

Female refugees have few sanitary resources. Some reuse the same menstrual products for days, washing them in unfiltered water sources in the same areas where refugees openly defecate.

“There are no proper toilet facilities or private spaces in the camps,” reported Dr. Hema Pradhan, consultant gynecologist and fistula surgeon at the Kathmandu Model Hospital. She called the sanitary practices in these camps “worrisome.”

Ursula Singh, a program officer for women’s rights NGO Loom Nepal, stated, “We went to the village of Kavre on the outskirts and saw some girls sitting huddled in tents, covered in blood.” Most girls, she elaborated, wait until dark to step outside and dispose of or attempt to sanitize menstrual products.

“We want them to at least practice hygienic disposal because they are in super exposed conditions and that puts them at a higher risk to contract diseases,” Singh said. However, the only hygienic means of disposing of sanitary napkins is often digging holes and burying them in the ground.

In a culture with superstitions such as the belief that any plant a menstruating woman touches will die, disposing of menstrual products and trying to manage period blood and symptoms in an area with as little shelter or privacy as a refugee camp must be a traumatic experience. Lingering stigmas place women under intense scrutiny and many would rather risk disease, injury or abuse than suffer negative social responses to their behavior while menstruating.

– Emma-Claire LaSaine

Sources: Time, Nepali Times, IRN News, Reuters, New York Times
Photo: Time

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Urban Water and Sanitation Project to Benefit 590,000 in Dakar

Urban_Water
Only 62% of households in Senegal’s capital city have access to sanitation facilities. Considering that nearly half the Senegalese people live in urban areas, improving access to clean water and proper sanitation in these regions is imperative to the population’s health and the country’s development.

In an effort to help Senegal extend water and sanitation access throughout urban and peri-urban areas, the World Bank’s International Development Association has just approved $70 million in credit to fund an Urban Water and Sanitation Project, which is estimated to better the lives of 590,000 Senegalese people by 2030.

Senegal has made great strides in the past, achieving a 98% rate of urban access to safe water; however, population growth in the capital city, Dakar, and Petite Côte, a prominent tourist destination, has led to increased water shortages. The water deficits are set to worsen over the next five years, reaching 35,000 cubic meters and 60,000 cubic meters per day respectively in Petite Côte and Dakar by 2020.

Tackling these water deficits will be a major component of the Urban Water and Sanitation Project. One strategy proposed is the desalination of seawater as a supplement to groundwater and surface water resources.

Another area that the project will address is social sustainability, seeking to develop “pro-poor policies” that will improve access for impoverished Senegalese households. The program will target low-income areas in and around urban centers currently underserved by water and sanitation networks.

The project proposal promises that the newly developed water connections will be freely available to beneficiary households after “a small refundable deposit of $31, whereas the average price of a standard connection is $145. Similar rules will apply to social connections to sewers.”

In addition to supplying important access to sanitation services and safe water, the initiative hopes to promote gender equality. As is the case in many developing nations, Senegalese women and girls are largely responsible for the burden hauling water in areas without pipelines and distribution systems. The development of water and sanitation systems to impoverished areas will afford those women and girls more time for employment, education and other activities that promote social mobility.

The Urban Water and Sanitation Project also seeks to actively promote women’s interests, stating: “Attention will be given to promoting women’s entrepreneurship through the project as well as access to opportunities for training, business and leadership where feasible.”

Furthermore, women will take a central role in hygiene education and information programs associated with the Urban Water and Sanitation Project. The proposal also promises that women will also participate in selecting the locations of public sanitation facilities.

“By expanding access to clean water and sanitation, the project will help boost the health of Senegal’s urban population,” noted Matar Fall, World Bank Task Team Leader for the Urban Water and Sanitation Project. “Water access can also form the basis for many types of income-generating activities such as home-based manufacturing and services that can turn the poor into local entrepreneurs.”

The World Bank and Senegal are looking ahead to a future in which sanitation and water work to promote equality and opportunity, rather than functioning as a sign of poverty.

– Emma-Claire LaSaine

Sources: The World Bank, All Africa, USAID, WASH
Photo: Hampton Roads PDC

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Taken From the Streets: The Disappearing Homeless of Japan

disappearing_homeless
A resident of Osaka recently informed me that the homeless in Japan’s Nishinari district are disappearing.

In some contexts this could be positive, for they could be disappearing due to lowering poverty rates or a growth in the number of available shelters. But as it turns out, the Osaka homeless are disappearing to a nuclear plant.

In 2011, an earthquake caused a nuclear accident in Fukushima. Apparently, the disaster was so destructive that the cleanup process was too difficult to regulate adequately. Therefore, when the government tasked Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) with cleaning up the disaster, TEPCO called on outside subcontractors. These subcontractors had difficulty recruiting a large enough workforce willing to work on such a dangerous, health threatening job. As a result, these subcontractors asked Japan’s notorious gangs to come to their rescue.

The Yakuza are well known for exploiting the homeless such as through putting up, “vulnerable individuals in shoddy, inadequate apartments to scam the welfare system, taking the lion’s share of any benefits from the state they may receive under threat of violence,” says the Japan Visitor Blog. In this circumstance, the gangs pulled on their affinity for exploiting the country’s poor by recruiting them to work in cleaning the Fukushima plant.

The homeless population in Japan, the Nishinari district Osaka in particular, is vulnerable to this sort of exploitation due to their desire to work. The Nishinari district was once a place where men would come to find jobs as day laborers. These jobs now barely exist, though men – especially older men – still live in these areas in hopes that they may one day find some sort of opportunity.

Japan’s Disposable Workers quoted a man in the Nishinari district saying that, “I really want to work but I’m mentally prepared that I will never get another job for the rest of my life.” So when the Yakuza come around offering any sort of job, it is hard for the Japanese homeless to refuse. Especially when there is some threat of violence if they did turn down these “opportunities.”

Beyond the innate exploitation involved in targeting a vulnerable population for such dangerous work, the homeless were not even well compensated. Often the Yakuza took some of these workers wages for themselves. In addition, Russia Today stated that, “many of the cleanup workers, who exposed themselves to large doses of radiation without even knowing it, were given no insurance for health risks, no radiation meters even.”

Reuters’ report on the homeless working for Fukushima discusses the occurrence of workers having such a significant amount of money deducted from their paychecks by companies that they were left with only US$10 at the end of their work. The deductions were for food and accommodations through the company. So sometimes the workers put themselves into a severe health risk for essentially no pay.

I heard that the homeless are likely still disappearing, though there is little to no coverage on the recruitment of workers in the past two years.

It is possible that the homeless are being treated with more respect, or perhaps the effect of growing media censorship in Japan is preventing further news about the exploitation of Japan’s homeless from being released.

– Clare Holtzman

Sources: The Asahi Shimbun, Japan’s Disposable Workers, The Japan Times 1, The Japan Times 2,  Japan Visitor Blog, Reuters, Russia Today, World Nuclear Association
Photo: Japan’s Disposable Workers

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The Power of Touch: A New Method to End Poverty

The Power of Touch: New Method to Help End Poverty?
A simple, nonsexual, touch can make a huge difference in the people around us. Through our five senses of sight, smell, hearing, taste and touch we perceive the world around us. In our current world, we rely mostly on our eyes and ears and we base our opinions and focus on the information we hear and the sights we see. However, touch is also as vital to our everyday lives because even the slightest touch can influence the way we think and act.

In a recent article by Spring, a Psychology blog, they discussed the different types of touch that can influence behavior. There is the money touch, such as a well-timed touch on a patron’s arm by a waitress, which has been shown to encourage a bigger tip. Another is the compliance touch, where a light touch on the upper arm extended a broader range of compliance out of the receiver.

The article discussed many different types, but one that needed closer examination was the touch for help. In a study, strangers who were touched lightly on the arm when asked for help were more likely to help with a variety of tasks than those who were not. In fact, the percentage of those who helped went from 63 percent when they were not touched on the arm to 90 percent when they were touched.

If something as simple as a light touch could provide such a drastic change in the results of individuals, think of the potential applications it could have with helping those in poverty.

Many poverty-stricken people within the United States beg on the streets, and organizations that try to help them usually have little success trying to make change, whether that be political, social or economic. If both could involve slight well-timed touches into their appeals to pedestrians, think of the amount of change that could potentially occur.

Although the direct causes of poverty have been generally seen as a topic of debate, it is a fact that those subjected to poverty have higher rates of depression and other illnesses. It has also been medically proven that the power of touch can help alleviate the stresses of depression and help show support to those in need.

If we were to focus some efforts on using the power of touch and spending time being a little more compassionate to those in need, it’s possible that change to the state of poverty could be made.

– Alysha Biemolt

Sources: Spring, Nicolas Gueguen, Gallup, The Borgen Project, Fast Coexist, Prevention
Photo: Flickr

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5 Possible Changes to Bring a New Era of Reproductive Health

reproductive_health

Only governments can ensure that Universal Health Coverage (UHC) is achieved within their nations. While it is widely regarded to be making strides with reproductive health services, it is important to take note of the following changes to ensure so that new era of services can emerge:

1. Domestic Financing
The Universal Health Coverage goal allows everyone access to health services regardless of financial hardship. Pursuing this goal often leads to dramatic health financing reforms, but the key is to give rise to national insurance initiatives that allow health budgets to be spent on strategic purchasing of health services, rather than on keeping the doors open at public facilities alone.

2. Cost-effective Service Package
Few services are as cost-effective for both health and economic development as contraception. Thus, contraception must be prioritized for universal access. It would be imperative to place importance on measurable health outcomes, or possibly the Sustainable Development Goals.

3. Making UHC Work in the Low-Level Private Sector
Lower-level private facilities, which are often a lifeline to communities, should not be forgotten in public financing reforms. This will prevent a wider spread of coverage to communities that need the types of services that accompany the lower-level private facilities.

4. Advocating Financing by Doing
In countries that have not taken strides with the UHC, organizations can still contribute to progress through proof-of-concept financial projects like large-scale voucher programs to remove financial barriers. All types of health providers (faith-based, for-profit or public) need to be quality-assured for the services they offer.

5. Disrupting the Status Quo
Youth, women, tech-savvy entrepreneurs, health workers, civil society and the private sector will all be the influencers to drive change within family panning over the next 15 years. It is important to welcome new voices to the debates and meetings of importance. Frankness will be key to change, by dropping euphemisms and vague terms there will less trickery and more discussion of the topics that need to be discussed. Even the term “family planning” was created to avoid the associated taboo of the world’s abortion and contraception.

Investment in the health, education and rights of young people, and the alignment of related policies, is critical as it enables productivity and economic growth and the better spread and knowledge of reproductive health services is key to that.

– Alysha Biemolt

Sources: AllAfrica, Impatient Optimists, World Bank
Photo: myScience.org

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What Could GMOs Do to Eliminate Global Poverty?

GMOs

“Genetically modified organism,” or GMO, is a popular term rampant in mainstream Western food culture. Being critiqued for being unhealthy and harmful to the human body, GMOs have gotten a bad reputation.

Many companies like Chipotle, 365 (Whole Foods store brand) products, and Annie’s products pride themselves in earning a non-GMO sticker from the Non-GMO Project, certifying that they have gone through the motions to avoid GMOs in their food.

However, although sometimes controversial in Western culture, GMOs are transforming the agriculture platform all over Africa. GMOs serve as an efficient tool to use when farming.

In all forms of farming, GMOs serve as a way to curb diseases from reaching crops and increase the number of crops grown. An organism developed in laboratories helps poor farmers to not only be efficient but to earn more money for their families.

However, putting the economic advantages of farming with GMOs aside, many are against GMOs because of the potential health problems they present for the human body.

Due to obesity, a lack of government oversight and harm to the environment, many are against the integration of GMOs in agriculture. Others have also accused those who have patented GMOs (like Monsanto) of only pushing them forward so they can make a profit.

A positive is that it helps to defend crops who are potential candidates for diseases. According to AAAS, GMOs “pose no greater risk than the same foods made from crops modified by conventional plant breeding techniques.” But many, like the Non-GMO Project and Responsible Technology, suggest otherwise.

According to some, the use of GMOs can put money into the pockets of poor farmers, which, in turn, helps to eliminate extreme poverty. Their ability to provide food for those in their region would also help people who are not farmers. They would be able to provide food at a lesser cost.

However, should the overall health of people be sacrificed so they can eat consistently? Is the push for GMOs to be used really for the benefit of the poor farmers or the companies who have patents on them?

Perhaps GMOs should be used until those in extreme poverty have the ability to purchase crops that are less damaging to their long term health.

The debate over the use of GMOs on those in extreme poverty will continue to develop.

– Erin Logan

Sources: The Guardian, Non-GMO Project, AAAS, Huffington Post, UC Berkley, Responsible Technology,
Photo: The Guardian