Poor countries

In many places, the need for desalination is even more urgent than the production of food, which is limited by water shortages. These shortages exist both in the petroleum-rich countries and in many of the least-developed and poorest countries of the world. In the case of the former, the improved water supply obtained through desalination has already had stunning effects by contrast, Httie hope for progress is on the horizon for the poor countries. 

Because much of the world lacks the natural gas resources and transportation pipelines of the United States, remote natural gas must be liquefied and transported by ship. Gas-rich countries want to capture stranded gas by liquefying and shipping it to gas-poor regions as LNG. The gas-poor countries enter into contracts so that a long-term supply is available to warrant the investment in the electricity-generating infrastructure. The overall investment is enormous, not only in the liquefaction plant, but in the refrigerated tankers and the regasification plant at the deliveiy site. 

The resurgence of malaria since the 1970s pitted environmentalists against international health officials over the continued use of DDT in poor countries. Each year, malaria infects and enervates half a billion people, roughly 10 percent of Earth s population. It kills up to 2.7 million people annually, mostly small African children and pregnant women. DDT is still used for spraying inside houses in more than two dozen poor countries, including China, India, and Mexico, where approximately 40 percent of the world s population lives. 

There are serious questions about the effect of continued growth of the human population. We often focus on the matter of adequate food production, but large populations also affect the environment and our need for energy. Chemists can furnish the tools to help deal with the political and social questions. Some population growth occurs not because it is intentional, but because adequate methods for birth control are unavailable to people in poor countries. Thus one challenge for chemists is to develop better methods that would be safe, effective, and inexpensive and would enable all people to pursue their own decisions regarding population growth. 

In October 2000, the latest revision of the Declaration of Helsinki was approved by the WMA (see Appendix 1). The new version is very different from previous versions, with more detail on how clinical trials should be conducted. It requires that study subjects should have access to the best treatment identified by the study once the study has been completed. It also recommends that local participants in a study should be able to benefit from the study results, whether they are positive or negative. These principles were approved to avoid the exploitation of economically poor countries. In addition, the Declaration requires greater transparency regarding economic incentives involved in clinical research. 

Lanjouw, J. O., and M. MacLeod. 2005. Statistical Trends in Pharmaceutical Research for Poor Countries. Available at www.who.int/inteUectualproperty/studies. Last accessed May 10, 2005. 

Two chapters in this volume discuss the precautionary principle. For rich countries, application of the principle may result only in some minor irritations and higher prices as products are taken off the market in poor countries, it can mean death. 

Many reasons, such as the expectation of a hostile media response, local political considerations, international pressures, or even personal aggrandizement can explain why poor-country politicians do not always do what is, seemingly, best for their people.4 There are probably thousands of examples of these decisions, such as recent rejections of well-planned, needed dam construction projects because of environmental destruction that accompanied poorly planned dams in years past. Although it s relatively easy and inexpensive to discover anecdotal examples of such decisions, few such decisions have been analyzed and documented, probably because research costs are so high. Careful, properly documented analyses are particularly rare in the environmental field. 

Governments of the developed world, and increasingly of poor countries, stopped producing DDT, so that only India... 

Aidan Hollis continues the discussion about neglected diseases and illuminates how research can foster R D for neglected diseases. He makes the important point that poor countries not only face the problem of neglected diseases, but also must usually contend with a number of other problems, including a lack of doctors, nurses, clinics, hospitals, and equipment. 

Patented Medicine Prices Review Board (PMPRB). 2004. Annual Report 03. Ottawa PMPRB. Pecoul, B., P. Chirac, P. Trouiller and J. Pinel. 1999. Access to Essential Drugs in Poor Countries ... 

If the fundamental change scenario becomes dominant, it will significantly affect the possibility of the drugs developed in this way ever becoming available in resource-poor countries. 

If pharmacogenetic tests continue to be outside the price or practicality range of resource-poor countries, it means that patients in these countries cannot get access to those drugs that can only be used with testing, and if the drug development process... 

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