November 19, 2008

Today's guest host was Matt Galloway.

It's Wednesday, November 19th.

U.S. President-elect Barack Obama is under increasing pressure to give up his beloved Blackberry.

Currently, his advisers are suggesting a more appropriate technology ... like a post-racialberry.

This is The Current.

Intimidation - Prescription Drugs

It's a story we've all seen played out in the headlines. A promising new drug comes on the market. Millions of prescriptions are written. And then come reports that the medicine is harming, or even killing people.

Vioxx is one of the most notorious examples. Researchers in the U.S. say Vioxx killed at least forty thousand Americans and likely caused more than a hundred thousand cases of heart disease before it was finally taken off the market.
There are other examples ... thalidomide, which caused deformities in thousands of children. Or Fen-phen, the diet drug that damaged heart valves and was removed from the market in 1997.

It would seem reasonable to assume that whenever something like that happens... a lesson is learned. But as CBC Radio's national health reporter Pauline Dakin has found out, that may not always be the case. Pauline has been looking at how early warnings of dangerous drugs can be ignored, or even silenced and she joined us from our Halifax studio.

Links: Worst Pills, Best Pills, Washington post story about the intimidation of Dr. John Buse, Health Canada's warning about Avandia, Cochrane review of rosiglitazone (Avandia)

Listen to Part One:

Mogadishu - Reporter

Somali pirates have successfully commandeered two more ships over the past 24 hours -- this time a Greek bulk carrier and Thai fishing boat. That brings the total to nine ships seized in the Gulf of Aden and off the Kenyan coast in the past two weeks... the most spectacular being the hijacking of a huge oil tanker on Sunday. One exception though, this morning the Indian navy is saying one of its warships fought off pirates and destroyed their vessel after a short battle.

The piracy is putting Somalia back in the headlines. After all, the alarming escalation in piracy in the waters off Africa's eastern coasts is largely rooted in the sheer anarchy and lack of any effective government in Somalia. And as bad as things got there in the early 1990s, some say the situation is worse now.

Years of conflict have left large parts of the country in the hands of warlords, while Ethiopian-backed government forces, African Union troops and armed insurgents fight for the capital city of Mogadishu. The city has been abandoned by at least half of its residents.

Now there are reports that the Islamic Courts, which controlled much of Somalia in 2006, is closing on Mogadishu again. And the Ethiopian-backed President - Abdullahi Yusuf - admits his government only has control in the cities of Mogadishu and Baidoa. Freelance journalist Abdulrrahman Warssameh has been covering the conflict, and we reached him this morning in Mogadishu.

Somalia - Context

According to some observers, much of the lawlessness and political violence in Somalia today could actually have been prevented. Salim Lone, is a columnist with the Daily Nation in Kenya as well as the British newspaper, The Guardian. He is also the former spokesperson for Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga and a former spokesperson for the United Nations in Iraq. He joined us from London, England.

Somalia - U.S. Analyst

It's clear a number of international players have a vested interest in Somalia's future. But what's not clear is whether any of them are actually helping stabilize the situation. David Shinn is a Professor at George Washington University. He was the American Ambassador to Ethiopia from 1996 to 1999 and he was in Washington.

The Current Situation

To another troubled part of the world now. Millions of Sri Lankans have been brutalized by the civil war that has raged for more than a quarter of a century. Tens of thousands have been killed ... the economy has been fractured ... and life and progress in the island nation has been put on hold as the Tamil Tigers continue to fight the government for an independent homeland in the north.

But even in such a grim and intractable conflict, there's the odd silver lining like career opportunities for women and girls. Some have the chance to break out of traditional jobs and join more lucrative trades.

Jessica Barrett has been looking into this phenomenon. She was a student at Langara College in Vancouver and with help from the school and the Canadian International Development Agency she travelled to Sri Lanka this past summer.
Jessica Barrett joined us from Vancouver.

Doc Promo

The March 26, 2003 cover of USA Today featured a photo of US Army medic Joseph Dwyer carrying an injured Iraqi boy in his arms. The Iraq war was only a couple of weeks old, and the photo was taken just over a hundred kilometers outside Baghdad.

Within 24 hours, Private Joseph Dwyer was getting calls from CNN, the New York Times, ABC News, Newsday. Everyone wanted to talk to the subject of that iconic photo... the soldier who seemed to embody the war's promise in those early days.

Warren Zinn, who was embedded with the US Cavalry at the time, was the photojournalist who recorded that image. And this past June, he received an email from a friend letting him know that ...the soldier he had made famous five years earlier had just killed himself.

Next week on The Current, we'll bring you a documentary revisiting that photo and we'll hear from Warren Zinn, who was left wondering what role that photo played the tragic turn Private Joseph Dwyer's life would take.

We aired an excerpt from the documentary 'Out of Frame' from Current producer Aaron Brindle.

Last Word

Coming up this afternoon on CBC Radio One... it's The Point with host Aamer Haleem. And tonight on The Fifth Estate ... an examination of why the life expectancy of professional football players is up to 20 years shorter than that of the general population. That's tonight on the Fifth Estate on CBC Television at 9 o'clock, 9:30 in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Listen to Part Three: