Brazil's "Poison Package," Corporate Junk Food, Health Care's Carbon Woes, and Stopping Anthrax in Uganda
January 5, 2024
Editor's Note
Happy 2024! Many people usher in the new year focused on their waistlines and diets, so this week's issue of Think Global Health begins with a pair of stories on the international food industry.
Irene Torres of Fundacion Octaedro and Daniel López Cevallos of the University of Massachusetts Amherst draw on their recent study in the Lancet that analyzed Ecuador's child malnutrition policies approved between 2020 and 2023. They identify how commercial interests increasingly influence those policies and allow businesses in the food-and-beverage industry to shape public health strategies.
Journalist Jill Langlois then takes us to Brazil, where a controversial set of bills—dubbed the Poison Package—recently passed the Senate. The legislation will relax pesticide regulations, and its potential consequences extend well beyond Brazilian dinner plates, as the country is a major food exporter.
Next, Vincent Bretin of Unitaid continues the climate-health conversation coming out of the twenty-eighth Conference of Parties (COP28) by looking at the paradox of the global health sector. It saves millions of lives from diseases but contributes significantly to carbon emissions and faces climate-related risks.
Amanda McClelland of Resolve to Save Lives wraps up the week by explaining how Uganda curbed an anthrax outbreak through enhanced situational awareness (ESA). That new approach significantly reduced anthrax outbreak detection time—from sixty-four days to just two days in the Mbale region.
Until next week!—Nsikan Akpan, Managing Editor, and Caroline Kantis, Associate Editor
