Health

Take Your Vitamins

It isn't just a lack of food that's robbing the world's poor of a healthy future.

BY BJØRN LOMBORG | APRIL 18, 2007

A Patently Simple Idea

Half the world is dying of diseases for which we have the cure. Here's a solution that will cost us nothing.

BY SEBASTIAN MALLABY | MARCH 31, 2007

Biological Weapons

AUGUST 8, 2006

The Failed States Index

Democracy may be spreading, but is the world more stable? In the second-annual Failed States Index, FP and the Fund for Peace track the countries on the edge of collapse.

BY FOREIGN POLICY & THE FUND FOR PEACE | APRIL 25, 2006

The Deadliest Virus

After reading John Barry's The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History, U.S. President George W. Bush put the country on high alert for avian flu. With the World Health Organization (WHO) predicting a death toll of up to 100 million, FP spoke to the man who convinced the president of how dangerous the virus really is.

JANUARY 4, 2006

Prime Numbers: The Battle of the Bulge

Obesity grows ever larger worldwide.

BY KELLY D. BROWNELL, DEREK YACH | NOVEMBER 9, 2005

Privileged Kids

NOVEMBER 9, 2005

Polio

BY JULIE L. GERBERDING | AUGUST 30, 2005

Doctors' Offices

BY CRAIG MUNDIE | AUGUST 30, 2005

The Sanctity of Life

BY PETER SINGER | AUGUST 30, 2005

The Price of Life

The misplaced priorities of the pharmaceutical industry.

BY RACHEL GLENNERSTER, MICHAEL KREMER, HEIDI WILLIAMS | MAY 5, 2005

The Great Stem Cell Race

Scientists around the world are scrambling to unlock the potential of stem cells. Governments trying to balance research and ethics have quickly learned that they have little control. Competition for top researchers and private capital is pushing the pace -- and punishing those who stumble.

BY ROBERT L. PAARLBERG | MAY 5, 2005

Observing Earth

MARCH 1, 2005

Is Wealthier Really Healthier?

BY TODD J. MOSS | MARCH 1, 2005

Organs Without Borders

A new comparative advantage? Why the poor are selling their organs.

BY NANCY SCHEPER-HUGHES | JANUARY 5, 2005

A Prescription for Marxism

The next great battle between socialism and capitalism will be waged over human health.

BY KENNETH ROGOFF | JANUARY 5, 2005

Set My Research Free

BY JENNIFER KUO | MARCH 1, 2004

Measuring Globalization: The Days of our Lives

Levels of globalization vs. life expectancies at birth.

MARCH 1, 2004

Africa's Custom-Made Cures

BY MARTIN ENSERINK | JANUARY 1, 2004

Waist Not, Want Not

SEPTEMBER 1, 2003

Disease Deadbeats

BY ANTHONY ROBBINS, PHYLLIS FREEMAN | SEPTEMBER 1, 2003

Pests and Pestilence

Why humans are more vulnerable than ever to animal-borne diseases.

BY FRED PEARCE | JULY 1, 2003

A Plague's Bottom Line

FP looks at the AIDS crisis.

BY KEITH HANSEN | JULY 1, 2003

Think Again: Tobacco

For tobacco control advocates, the tobacco industry is public health enemy number one: It sells a commodity that will kill 500 million of the 6 billion people living today. For governments, tobacco is both a health threat and a powerful economic force that annually generates hundreds of billions of dollars in sales and billions more in tax revenues. That clash of interests fuels a debate ensnarling everything from farm subsidies and export controls to healthcare spending, taxation, law enforcement, and free speech.

BY KENNETH E. WARNER | MAY 1, 2002

Gene Regime

Imagine the World Trade Organization (WTO) striking down a national ban on importing cloned embryos because it is a barrier to trade. Neither the WTO, nor individual governments, nor scientists, nor ethicists can effectively regulate human biotechnology on a global scale. So who will settle the troubling questions it raises?

BY FRANCIS FUKUYAMA | MARCH 1, 2002

Make Peace, Not Love

MARCH 1, 2002

The Global War for Public Health

So this is the way the world ends, not with a bang but … a cough. Shocked by anthrax attacks and widespread talk of other types of bioterrorism, today's cataclysmists can perhaps be forgiven their fears that Western civilization faces a fatal threat. But for Gro Harlem Brundtland, the director-general of the World Health Organization, it's just another day at the office. As leader of the global fight to protect public health, Brundtland already contends with current plagues such as AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis -- diseases whose daily death toll is measured not in headlined ones or twos, but in anonymous tens of thousands. Her foes in that struggle are not terrorists, but tight-fisted politicians, recalcitrant bureaucrats, and hard-nosed corporate executives. Luckily, Brundtland's experience and tenacity as three-time prime minister of Norway and head of the World Commission on Environment and Development (known as the Brundtland Commission) have made her not just one of the world's most seasoned female politicians, but what one observer called "a warrior for public health." Here, in an October 18, 2001, conversation with FP Editor Moisés Naím in New York City, she talks about tomorrow's greatest health threats, the best and worst of global medical care, her fight against Big Tobacco and Big Drugs, and the vital role her underfunded, increasingly politicized institution plays in the unending war against disease and poverty.

JANUARY 1, 2002

Dark Winters Ahead

BY PETER HOTEZ | NOVEMBER 1, 2001

Malaria Returns

JULY 1, 2001

Vaccine Diplomacy

The multinational effort to eliminate disease might not only save lives but prevent conflict.

BY PETER J. HOTEZ | MAY 1, 2001