SciDev.Net: Budget cuts and vaccine fears threaten health progress
“Cuts to global health research budgets and people’s wariness of vaccines could hamper efforts to improve health around the world, two separate reports have warned in the run-up to World Health Day, which is marked [April 7]. One of the reports, published by the Global Health Technologies Coalition (GHTC), reveals that total U.S. government spending on global health research and development (R&D) is now US$185 million — or 11 percent — lower than it was in 2009. … The launch of the GHTC report on 26 March coincided with a report released by the Vaccine Confidence Project, a research group funded by the World Health Organization, highlighting the danger of opposition to vaccination in many countries…” (Hazelton, 4/7).