Global

Holdouts Strain Efforts To Erase Polio Worldwide
(Chicago Tribune, July 5, 2007)
"[E]liminating polio in its last few strongholds -- including the north Indian city of Moradabad, the center of India's continuing problem -- is proving excruciatingly and unexpectedly difficult."
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North America

California Investigates a Mother-and-Child Prison Center
(The New York Times, July 8, 2007)
"The authorities in California are investigating accusations that poor health care at a center where mothers serve prison terms with their young children led to the stillbirth of a 7-month-old fetus and endangered the lives of several children."
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U.S. Contractors Face Combat-Related Stress After Iraq
(The New York Times, July 5, 2007)
"Contractors who have worked in Iraq are returning home with the same kinds of combat-related mental health problems that afflict United States military personnel, according to contractors, industry officials and mental health experts."
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Massachusetts: With Rise in Autism, Programs Strained
(The Boston Globe, July 5, 2007)
"Boston-area parents, worried their child may be autistic, routinely face delays as long as nine months to confirm the diagnosis -- even though current wisdom holds that treatment should begin as early as possible."
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University of Chicago Hospital Hit with Insulin Scare
(Chicago Tribune, July 3, 2007)
"University of Chicago Hospitals have asked police to investigate whether 'an intentional act' caused the unexplained and overwhelming increases in insulin that apparently killed one patient and put another in a coma."
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California: State Rule Sought for Vaccinations
(The Sacramento Bee, July 3, 2007)
"A proposal to allow state public health officials to mandate new vaccines for children without legislative tinkering is picking up steam among California lawmakers. Assembly Bill 16, the bill that originally would have required the cervical cancer vaccine for girls, now addresses how vaccines are included on the state's list of required childhood immunizations, authorizing the state public health officer to make the final call."
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Three Heart Transplant Programs Get Warning
(Los Angeles Times, July 3, 2007)
"Federal regulators have threatened to pull funding from three more heart transplant programs, continuing a national crackdown on substandard programs that began last year."
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Homelessness: What Works
Editorial
(The Boston Globe, July 2, 2007)
"The threat of homelessness hangs over many heads. Nearly 5 percent of households nationally have 'worst case housing needs.' That means they pay more than 50 percent of their income for housing, have no housing assistance, and have low incomes, according to a new report from the Boston Foundation and the McCormack Graduate School at the University of Massachusetts in Boston...The report's key finding is that prevention works, and is much cheaper than using shelters."
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Iowa: Booze and Boating Equals Danger
(Des Moines Register, Iowa, July 1, 2007)
"Iowa instituted a law on boating while intoxicated because of pressure put on the Legislature after a boating accident on Saylorville Lake in Polk County in 1999 that killed Donna Sanders...The Legislature last session considered changing the blood-alcohol limit for boating to .08. That would have put boating rules in line with the limit for operating a motor vehicle. The bill passed the Senate on a unanimous vote, but it failed to move past the House."

Ohio: DUI Prevention or PR?
(The Cincinnati Enquirer, July 1, 2007)
"[A]re sobriety checkpoints working here? Are they deterring drunken or drugged drivers?"

Canada: Children's Advocate Needed, Doctors Say
(The Globe and Mail, Toronto, June 29, 2007)
"Public policy measures designed to promote and protect the health and wellbeing of Canadian children are being implemented in a piecemeal fashion and, as a result, far too many kids are falling through the cracks and suffering sickness and injuries, the Canadian Paediatric Society says."
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Africa

Anti-Poverty Targets in Africa Will Not Be Met, U.N. Warns
(The Guardian, London, July 2, 2007)
"The whole of sub-Saharan Africa -- the poorest region of the world -- will fail to meet the goals set seven years ago for eradicating global poverty by 2015 -- the United Nations warned today."

Refugees Flood South Africa from Zimbabwe
(The Observer, London, July 1, 2007)
"The number of Zimbabweans seeking asylum in South Africa has increased dramatically since Robert Mugabe's police assaulted the country's opposition leaders on 11 March, experts say."

Uganda: 'LRA Won't Free Children in Captivity'
(The Monitor, Uganda, via allAfrica.com, June 29, 2007)
"The Lords Resistance Army rebels recently said they would not release children and women under their captivity."

Asia

In India, a Prayer for Rain Despite a Deluge
(The New York Times, July 8, 2007)
"Even as India bounds ahead in development, two of three citizens live in the countryside and still largely subsist on rain-fed agriculture, nearly everything -- life, prices, politics -- remains at the mercy of the rains."
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Micronesia: Little-Known Virus Challenges a Far-Flung Health System
(The New York Times, July 3, 2007)
"A little-known virus is causing a big fuss in Micronesia, the Pacific island nation partly managed by the United States...While Zika does not seem to be fatal, it is posing unusual challenges to the public health system, not just in this remote chain of islands, about 600 miles east of the Philippines, but also in the United States."
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China 'Buried Smog Death Finding'
(BBC News Online, July 3, 2007)
"The World Bank is alleged to have cut from a report research that suggests pollution causes hundreds of thousands of premature deaths annually in China."

Japan: Emergency Hospitals Decreasing Due to Staff Shortage
(The Japan Times, July 1, 2007)
"The number of emergency hospitals in 33 of Japan's 47 prefectures has decreased in the last three years, due mainly to staff shortages."

Thailand: Ailing Textile Workers Win 12-Year Fight for Compensation
(The Bangkok Post, July 2, 2007)
"After a 12-year battle, 37 former employees of a textile factory who developed a work-related lung disease have been awarded compensation ranging from 60,000 to 110,000 baht by the Central Labour Court."

Australia, New Zealand

New Zealand: GP Visits To Be Cheaper for Those Aged 25-44
(The New Zealand Herald, June 30, 2007)
"Most New Zealanders aged 25 to 44 will enjoy cheaper visits to the GP from tomorrow. Subsidies will cover 750,000 to 800,000 people in that age group, the last to benefit from the Government's seven-year spending programme on primary health care."

Australia: Saving the Children
(Time, June 28, 2007)
"For most of his eleven years in office, Australian Prime Minister John Howard has been accused of doing too little to right the problems of indigenous Australians. Not any more: now he's being criticized for attempting too much, after announcing the most startling government intervention in Aboriginal affairs in decades."

Europe

First NHS Live Liver Transplant
(BBC News Online, July 2, 2007)
"Doctors in Leeds have carried out the NHS's first adult-to-adult live donor liver transplant."

Calls for Childhood Vomiting Jab
(BBC News Online, June 29, 2007)
"[T]he expert advisory body, the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), has recently set up a sub-committee to consider whether to vaccinate all UK babies [against rotavirus]."

Dirty Hospitals Must Clean Up, Says Prime Minister
(The Observer, London, July 1, 2007)
"A drive to slash the rates of MRSA and other hospital infections is being masterminded by Gordon Brown, who is convinced that the public's perception of the NHS has been swayed by concerns over cleanliness on the wards."

Middle East

Israel: Health Funds To Take Responsibility for Mental Health Services
(The Jerusalem Post, July 2, 2007)
"For the first time in the state's history and 13 years after it was supposed to have been enacted and after six delays in implementation, responsibility for mental health services will be transferred from the Health Ministry to the four health funds starting in January."
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