Global Health

KPLU's Tom Paulson wondered over on our Humanosphere blog: "What has happened to our sense of ourselves as global citizens and how Sept. 11, 2001, may have altered matters of global health, foreign aid, development — basically, the global humanitarian agenda.

The short answer: It’s a mixed bag of good and bad, some clear signs of what many see as progress but also some disturbing lessons not learned."

Read more at Humanosphere.

Words can be just as important as vaccines, drugs or better seeds when it comes to helping the world’s poorest.

And Cliff Schmidt, founder of a Seattle-based organization called Literacy Bridge, has created a device to get these valuable words out to the world’s poorest. It’s called the Talking Book.

Read more on Humanosphere.

Time for another movie about a killer virus that spreads across the planet: "Contagion" by Steven Soderbergh is due out in a few days. Can these movies teach us anything?

Humanosphere’s Tom Paulson writes about the movie and his science-writing colleague, “one of the top public health and pandemic journalists out there," who was a consultant for it.

“Despite her misgivings, Garrett agreed to work as a consultant to the filmmakers for 'Contagion.' She says it is definitely based on an extraordinarily virulent bug that spreads fast. But the science is solid, she says, and there are some valuable lessons contained in the drama.”

Read more on Humanosphere.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has done a lot to boost the science and delivery of vaccines for human health and to assist in the fight against disease.

Now, the Seattle philanthropy would like to start vaccinating crop plants to help poor farmers and hopes solutions will emerge through its next round of Grand Challenges Explorations.

CNN’s Global Public Square blog writes "... as the first unambiguous military enforcement of the Responsibility to Protect norm, Gadhafi’s utter defeat seemingly put new wind in the sails of humanitarian intervention."

Tom Paulson, blogger for KPLU's Humanosphere, has written on this topic before and continues the discussion on Humanosphere.

The heroic narrative is almost irresistible as a storytelling strategy.

But many in the aid and development community think it frequently does more harm than good.

Read more on Humanosphere.

In response to this somewhat typical (if not also dispiriting) celebration of American celebrity elite – particularly when it comes to lists of "power women" – Nigerian writer Mfonobong Nsehe decided to put together for Forbes his own list of the top 20 young power women of Africa.

Read more on Humanosphere.

The World Health Organization has long been worried over reports that mosquitoes were increasingly resistant to chemical-treated bed nets, a mainstay in the Gates Foundation-led, worldwide campaign against malaria.

Now, a study from Senegal raises doubts over Gates’ plant to beat malaria, blaming mosquitoes’ growing resistance to insecticide.

Tom Paulson introduced the teen-directed program, Girl Up, last year, on Humanosphere.org, as the United Nations Foundation and Seattle students helped launch the new initiative.

This year, the Girl Up campaign says it has mobilized 150,000 American teens around the issue of child brides. Organizers say the disturbing prospect of 100 million child brides in the next decade has galvanized American teenage girls, who are demanding action on behalf of their young counterparts around the world.

Read more on Humanosphere.org