Health Breaking News: Link 288

Health Breaking News Links, as part of the research project PEAH (Policies for Equitable Access to Health), aim to focus on the latest challenges by trade and governments rules to equitable access to health in resource-limited settings

Health Breaking News: Link 288

 

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Swiss Group Suggests Switzerland Use Compulsory Licences To Curb Cancer Drug Prices 

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The Lancet Taskforce on NCDs and economics 

Poor air quality is linked to decreased productivity, school attendance and even lifetime earnings 

Global alliance puts carbon capture back on the agenda 

London one of worst capitals in Europe for clean, safe transport, study shows 

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UN: The lazy person’s guide to saving the world 

Decarb Europe forum 4 June 2018 Residence Palace, Brussels 

How biodiversity secures our future of food and much more 

Smart agriculture can help cut ammonia emissions from agriculture, experts say 

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UN General Assembly president urges global efforts to tackle migration 

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Health Breaking News: Link 287

Health Breaking News Links, as part of the research project PEAH (Policies for Equitable Access to Health), aim to focus on the latest challenges by trade and governments rules to equitable access to health in resource-limited settings

Health Breaking News: Link 287

 

DR Congo Ebola outbreak spreads to Mbandaka city 

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HPV Awareness Day

Despite the existence of prevention and screening tools, not everybody is aware of HPV (Human Papilloma Viruses), that it is associated with multiple types of cancer, and of the fact that HPV-related cancers can potentially be prevented. To help address the lack of knowledge and awareness, the International Papillomavirus Society (IPVS) coordinated the first International HPV Awareness Day on March 4, 2018

By Corie Leifer

Give Love Not HPV Campaign Coordinator

International Papillomavirus Society*

International HPV Awareness Day

 

HPV Affects Everyone

HPV Affects Everyone. Regardless of age, gender, race, or sexual orientation, the Human Papilloma Viruses (HPV) affects you, either directly or indirectly.

The most widespread and common sexually transmitted infections (STIs) in the world, there are many different types of HPV.

Studies show that more than 80% of sexually active men and women will acquire at least one HPV infection by the age of 45 years. As an infection with HPV may have no symptoms, it can go unnoticed.  Most HPV infections clear on their own, but some can lead to genital warts, and others can even lead to cancer.

HPV- Related Cancers

Cervical, anal, oral, penile, and other deadly cancers can all be related to HPV infection.  HPV is associated with 1 in every 20 cancer cases worldwide including almost all cervical and anal cancers, over a third of throat cancers and a quarter of mouth cancers. This accounts for approximately 640,000 new cancer diagnoses around the world every year. 80% of these diagnoses will be cervical cancer, but head and neck cancers continue to grow in number of cases at an alarming rate.

In 2006, HPV vaccines began to be introduced worldwide. These vaccines are both effective and safe for both boys and girls. Along with screening, vaccines provide the possibility to significantly reduce the number of newly diagnosed HPV-related cancers.

International HPV Awareness Day

Despite these alarming facts and the existence of prevention and screening tools, not everybody is aware of HPV, that it is associated with multiple types of cancer, and of the fact that HPV-related cancers can potentially be prevented.

To help address the lack of knowledge and awareness, the International Papillomavirus Society (IPVS) coordinated the first International HPV Awareness Day on March 4, 2018. Rather than a focus on a disease, this campaign focuses on HPV, which causes many diseases. This initiative was implemented in partnership with more than 80 organisations around world and will take place every March 4.

Campaign activities included press releases, workshops, conferences, races, rallies, interviews, print ads and conversations on a wide variety of social media.

On social media the #GiveLoveNotHPV  increased in the online conversation about HPV by over 5000% on March 2nd – March 5th and the campaign hashtag reached 2 million unique users on social media.

 

The International Papillomavirus Society (IPVS) is the leading global authority on human papillomaviruses (HPV). Our work facilitates the worldwide exchange of ideas, knowledge, and research about HPV and related diseases. IPVS actively promotes the translation of research results into new clinical applications and public health policies. IPVS inaugurated International HPV Awareness Day on March 4th 2018 as part of the organization’s commitment to raising awareness of HPV. Through this annual campaign IPVS aims to promote progress on HPV prevention, screening and management of HPV related diseases.

Health Breaking News: Link 286

Health Breaking News Links, as part of the research project PEAH (Policies for Equitable Access to Health), aim to focus on the latest challenges by trade and governments rules to equitable access to health in resource-limited settings

Health Breaking News: Link 286

 

Improving Individual And Community Health Through Better Employment Opportunities 

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Ongoing training of community health workers in low-income and middle-income countries: a systematic scoping review of the literature 

Development Cooperation Has Emerged a Winner in the EU’s 2021-2027 Budget Proposal, but the Odds Are Stacked against It 

Open letter to the EU on the use of ODA to support private investments in developing countries 

IMF conditionality: still undermining healthcare & social protection? 

Dept. of Renewal: A Pharma Foundation Keeps the Money Flowing to Its Global Health Grantees 

UN forum to coordinate global efforts to address worsening water shortages 

Recipe to Save 700,000 Young Children a Year: Clean Water & Decent Toilets 

A Simple Way to Improve a Billion Lives: Eyeglasses 

Global Health: Chatham House Round-Table Re-Defines Development Of Bio-Safety Labs In Developing Countries 

MSF: Access Campaign Year in Review 2017 

Unitaid Calls For Proposals On TB, Hails New Insecticide 

Against all odds, Yemen launches its first large-scale treatment campaign against trachoma  

(S)WASH-D for Worms: A pilot study investigating the differential impact of school- versus community-based integrated control programs for soil-transmitted helminths 

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Ebola: DR Congo confirms new outbreak in country’s north-west 

UK joins Ebola fightback as four more cases are reported  

Lesotho HIV and health situation room brings innovation to country’s AIDS response 

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Brazilian Superior Court Of Justice Stops Patent Term Extension Attempts  

Study Finds Rise In Use Of India’s Section 3(d) Against Pharma Primary Patents 

US State-By-State Analysis Shows Benefits Of Funding Global Health Research 

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The Green Climate Fund commits billions, but falls short on disbursements 

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NGOs tell Commission to listen to science and differentiate biofuels 

Waste in Medical Research Threatens SDG Health Targets

The negative effects of incomplete registration and reporting of clinical trials go far beyond the wasteful duplication of research efforts. Opacity in clinical trials also slows down the discovery of new treatments and cures. In addition, selective reporting of trial results tends to make new and more expensive drugs look more effective than cheaper generic alternatives, leading to the misallocation of scarce public health funds, including in developing countries

By Till Bruckner

Founder of TranspariMED

Governments’ Failure to Curb Rampant Waste in Medical Research Threatens SDG Health Targets

 

Most major medical research funders are still failing to curb research waste, slowing down medical progress and threatening the attainment of several of the Sustainable Development Goalshealth targets, a new study shows.

Published in JAMA in April 2018, the study led by Nicholas DeVito of the University of Oxford shows that many of the world’s largest public and philanthropic funders have failed to put into place basic safeguards to ensure that the results of the clinical trials they fund contribute to scientific progress and global health, with public funders in China, France, Italy, and Spain performing particularly poorly.

Around half of all clinical trials conducted worldwide do not report their results, and hence make no contribution whatsoever to the global search for new treatments and cures. As a result, an estimated $85 billion invested into medical research go to waste every year. For example, a recent search of the U.S. government run registry Clinicaltrials.gov conducted by TranspariMED identified 494 completed clinical trials of potential vaccines for HIV, tuberculosis and malaria. Out of those, 82% had not posted summary results onto the registry, contrary to best practices set out by the World Health Organization. The proportion of these trials that have additionally failed to publish results in the academic literature is unknown.

For the new study, the team in Oxford selected the top 20 non-commercial funders of health research globally and examined their policies on clinical trial transparency and research waste. (Between them, these funders spent $41 billion on health care research in 2013 alone.)

Only four of the twenty top funders, Britain’s National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), Germany’s Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), the European Union’s Horizon 2020 programme, and the United States’ National Institutes of Health (NIH), earned full marks for demanding that all trials they fund are registered and their results reported, and for ensuring grantees’ compliance with these rules through audits.

In contrast, public research funders in China, France (CNRS and Inserm), Italy (Ministry of Health), and Spain (ISCIII) had not even put related policies onto paper, let alone taken steps to ensure that they were followed in practice.

Which Funders Ensure that Clinical Trials are Registered and Reported?

Note: A funder is counted as ensuring that trials are registered and/or reported only if it has a relevant policy and audits grantees’ compliance. Table adapted from DeVito et al (2018). Countries highlighted in yellow have a mixed performance.

The performance of major philanthropic funders was also disappointing. At the time they were assessed, in spring 2017, neither the Gates Foundation nor the Wellcome Trust required their grantees to share the results of their research. Both organizations have since pledged to strengthen their policies and conduct regular audits of their grantees’ performance.

Clinical trials are the cornerstone of modern medicine. The negative effects of incomplete registration and reporting of clinical trials go far beyond the wasteful duplication of research efforts. For example, it can leave potential harms undetected; over 100,000 patient deaths in the United States alone have been directly linked to weak clinical trial transparency.
Opacity in clinical trials also slows down the discovery of new treatments and cures. In West Africa, efforts to contain the Ebola epidemic foundered because the results of many Ebola trials remained unknown. Unless research funders fix the system and speed up results sharing, the Sustainable Development Goals’ targets of supporting the development of new vaccines and medicines, and of ending the epidemics of AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and neglected tropical diseases by 2030, are unlikely to be achieved.

In addition, selective reporting of trial results tends to make new and more expensive drugs look more effective than cheaper generic alternatives, leading to the misallocation of scarce public health funds, including in developing countries. For example, governments worldwide spent billions on the drug Tamiflu based on partial trial data, only to discover later that the drug was largely ineffective. Clearly, the Sustainable Development Goals’ target of “access to safe, effective, quality and affordable essential medicines and vaccines for all” cannot be achieved as long as health officials cannot even determine whether a given drug is safe or effective, let alone whether it is cost-effective compared to other treatments.

For this reason, a coalition of health integrity groups led by Transparency International recently called on governments worldwide to take decisive action to make clinical trials transparent. “In future, to help ensure that public funding for medical research actually benefits the public, government funders should only give taxpayers’ money to institutions and individuals that verifiably comply with best practices in clinical research,” the global anti-corruption group recommended. “Taking this simple first step would deliver significant transparency gains at minimal cost.”

As the transparency pioneers in Britain, Germany and the United States demonstrate, this is entirely feasible. The next step will be for global health advocates, scientists and taxpayers in Australia, China, France, Italy, and Spain to ask their politicians why they are still allowing public funds to be wasted on clinical trials that fail to adhere to global transparency norms.

 

AUTHOR BIO

Till Bruckner (tillbruckner@gmail.com) is the founder of TranspariMED, a campaign that works to end evidence distortion in medicine. He previously worked for the AllTrials campaign and the anti-corruption group Transparency International. He remains active with Transparify, an initiative to promote transparency and integrity in policy research and advocacy. In his previous life, he worked in international development, occupying both field and research roles. Till holds a PhD in political science from the University of Bristol, U.K.  

 

 

 

 

Health Breaking News: Link 285

Health Breaking News Links, as part of the research project PEAH (Policies for Equitable Access to Health), aim to focus on the latest challenges by trade and governments rules to equitable access to health in resource-limited settings

Health Breaking News: Link 285

 

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