Fighting blindness may prevent deaths in Ethiopia, By Carla K. Johnson (AP), September 1, 2009, Washington Post: “An antibiotic widely used in Africa to treat eyesight-robbing infections seems to help prevent Ethiopian children from dying of other diseases. A study in Wednesday’s Journal of the American Medical Association suggests an unintended benefit from efforts to wipe out trachoma, the world’s leading preventable cause of blindness. The World Health Organization has set 2020 as the target for eliminating trachoma. The United States has been free of the disease since the 1970s, but it persists in 48 countries. In Ethiopia, a hotbed, 40 percent of children under 10 show signs of active trachoma…”
Day: September 3, 2009
OECD Child Welfare Report
- Child welfare: The nanny state, September 3, 2009, The Economist: “When the poet William Wordsworth declared that ‘the Child is father of the Man’, he meant that the gifts of childhood endow adults with some of their finest qualities. And many governments, these days, feel that the path to happiness for society as a whole lies through spending on the welfare of its youngest members: their health, education and general well-being. A report from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), a rich-country think-tank, scrutinises these efforts and asks if the aim is being achieved. With its stress on quantifiable facts, the spirit of the OECD report differs from one by UNICEF, the UN children’s agency, in 2007 which made waves by saying children in Britain did badly. UNICEF relied too much on asking youngsters how they felt (did they have ‘kind and helpful’ schoolmates?); the new study stresses meatier things like vaccination and test scores…”
- Spending levels on single-parent benefits criticised, By Carl O’Brien, September 2, 2009, Irish Times: “The government has been criticised for spending considerable amounts on single-parent welfare benefits with little evidence that they influence the wellbeing of children. In a report comparing child welfare in 30 developed countries, the Paris-based International Organisation for Economic Development (OECD) said Ireland, along with a handful of other countries, was spending significant sums on lone parent benefits that last until children are well into their teens…”