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ranga
USA
149 Posts |
 Posted - 08 Oct 2006 : 17:12:57
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Peanut-based wonder-food needs wider use
SANSANE HAOUSSA, 4 Sep 2006 (IRIN) - Smearing creamed peanut around his face like any child tucking into a tasty treat, 17 month old Nigerien Samara Issa nibbles away at his Plumpy’nut bar, a wonder-food health workers say could help stamp out malnutrition.
Eating three bars of the rich peanut, dry milk, sugar, salt and mineral blend every day for the last week has already put an extra 5kg on Issa’s tiny frame, nudging him towards his optimum weight. Doctors with the World Vision NGO treating him said he could be out of the malnutrition danger-zone in two weeks.
Tasty Plumpy’nut is not just a hit with hungry kids. Health workers say that Plumpy’nut, or similar products, could go a long way to bringing down child mortality rates across the region.
“This will do for the worst malnutrition what prophylactics did for malaria,” said Jean Herve Bradol, president of the global medical NGO Medicins Sans Frontiers/France (MSF), after surveying the group’s medical work in Niger.
Every year more than 50 percent of Niger’s population slips into malnutrition to some degree, but widespread use of the Plumpy’nut bar this year has helped reduce occurence of the most severe life-threatening cases.
According to the World Bank, one in twelve children dies before its fifth birthday in developing countries, compared with one in 152 in high-income countries. In many West African countries more than one five children do not reach their fifth birthday.
In Niger, Bradol said MSF has treated 63,000 children with Plumpy’nut. The group’s success rate has been 90 percent, compared to around 30 percent using traditional “therapeutic feeding” units which require admitting sick children for weeks in hospital tents and health centres.
One of the benefits of Plumpy’nut is it is simple to administer. Children just have to be given a set number of bars to eat each day, and can be treated as out-patients.
Bradol said the number of children treated by MSF in Niger using the new product is almost 10 times higher than MSF has ever achieved in operations with equally widespread hunger.
“After 20 years working with medical emergencies, it is a shock for me to see what is possible with this food,” Bradol said. “Acute malnutrition is facing a revolution in terms of treatment.”
LIMITED BY HIGH COST
Other major NGOs working on food-relief contacted by IRIN, Save the Children and Action Against Hunger/Spain, are also using the bars in Niger, but not on such a scale as MSF.
The main problem, aid workers say, is the product’s high cost. At roughly four US dollars per kilogram, Plumpy’nut is at least three times more expensive than traditional therapeutic feeding.
MSF’s Bradol said cost should not be a factor. MSF has started giving Plumpy’nut to children with more moderate forms of malnutrition in Niger this year.
But the product’s creator, Andre Briand, now a children’s health medical officer at the World Health Organisation (WHO) in Geneva, cautions against this approach. “Cost is the major issue,” he said.
Briand said costs can be reduced by using local production, tapping into Africa’s extensive peanut plantations. A Plumpy’nut factory is being set up in the Nigerien capital, Niamey.
But Briand said nuts are only around 20 percent of the blend, and the dry milk component is what pushes the price up.
Michele Falavigna, head of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Niger said he is concerned about the ethics of creating a new dependency in poor countries, rather than working on long-term fixes.
“This product is good if it can be provided at discounted cost. But it can also be bad if the country comes to depend on its supply,” he said.
Falavigna said if countries like Niger are going to go down the road of mobilising expensive resources to treat severe malnutrition, the developed world should first make a commitment to provide the product in the long-run.
“The supply of Plumpy’nut must not be part of charity,” Falavigna said. “It must be an obligation.”
Original at http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=55386
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T.K. "Ranga" Rengarajan
Founder, Geoseed Project
http://www.geoseedproject.com
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Babylon
Sweden
691 Posts |
Posted - 08 Oct 2006 : 18:22:27
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What's killing children?
The imperialist system is killing millions of children each year around the world.
A UNICEF report, while it didn't say it in those terms, recently admitted that the lives of 1 billion children are at risk, and earlier gains in child mortality have been stalled.
Poverty, war, HIV/AIDS and other diseases pose the biggest threats, especially in Africa and Asia.
A more focused study, led by Dr. Robert E. Black, chairperson of international health at the School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University, was published in the medical journal The Lancet. It estimates that 10.5 million children under the age of 5 die each year, and that more than 60 percent of the deaths are easily preventable.
It doesn't take much to see the connection between these unnecessary deaths and imperialism. Black's study "estimated that in the 42 countries accounting for the vast bulk of the deaths, about 80 percent of children did not receive oral rehydration therapy to fight life-threatening diarrhea; 61 percent were not exclusively breast-fed, weakening the infants' ability to fight off infections; and 60 percent did not receive simple antibiotic treatment for pneumonia, the single largest killer of young children." (Boston Globe, Dec. 9)
Diarrhea is caused mainly by a lack of pure water. A minimum investment from the imperialist countries could make drinking water available to the entire world. It's an investment they refuse to make. In Bolivia, an imperialist corporation based in the U.S., Bechtel, even tried to privatize the water supply for profit, until a mass protest drove them out.
The Swiss-based monopoly, Nestle, once campaigned to urge women in oppressed countries to replace breast-feeding with Nestle's powdered milk formula. The death rates went up from diarrhea--because of the lack of good water--and from other diseases because of decreased immunity. Demonstrations and protests confronted Nestle's, but the negative effect remains.
With pharmaceutical and health-equipment monopolies raking in profits at record rates from their patented drugs and high-tech devices, many have stopped producing older, generic medicines like the antibiotic that would stop pneumonia, as well as oral rehydration therapy equipment.
The criminal lack of public health services in Africa, Asia and much of Latin America can be traced to the demands of the International Monetary Fund that countries cut their social spending to better pay on their debts.
Poverty, war, HIV/AIDS. The plunder of imperialist super-exploitation, the "divide and conquer" ploy the imperialist powers use to help them grab the world's resources, the disruption of unemployment and forced migration that spreads diseases--all are part of how this pernicious system murders children around the world.
Reprinted from the Dec. 23, 2004, issue of Workers World newspaper
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ranga
USA
149 Posts |
Posted - 09 Oct 2006 : 01:18:50
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Babylon, between the two postings above, we have a few issues to discuss. Let me add some perspectives to Plumpy'nut news above.
France-based Nutriset makes Plumpy'nut at 25 US cents per packet. It does seem to help malnurished children. It is encouraging that they're trying to set up a factory in Niamey. Perhaps a Plumpy'nut factory in Gambia will create some local jobs. Perhaps an equivalent natural solution is domoda to kids (instead of Plumpy'nut). It is up to Africans to do what is best for themselves.
All Western companies want to make profit. The financial markets continuously drive public companies to increase their profit. They try to do just that by just about any lawful means. Educated consumers in the West know this and see through questionable marketing messages. It is important not to confuse the actions of such companies with actions of countries.
Countries try to protect their people's jobs by erecting trade barriers when it suits them. Peanut subsidies to farmers by US is an example.
It is hard to believe the West is consciously intentionally killing millions of children around the world. I'd very much like your insights into your news posting.
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T.K. "Ranga" Rengarajan
Founder, Geoseed Project
http://www.geoseedproject.com
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Babylon
Sweden
691 Posts |
Posted - 09 Oct 2006 : 08:51:00
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| exactly! that´s what I think too. It´s sick to make business out of poor people. Sick to think that some "snickers bar" (full of sugar -of course kids will gain weight) will save people from starving. what a joke. |
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Babylon
Sweden
691 Posts |
Posted - 09 Oct 2006 : 08:54:20
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| west is responsible simply because of their self interest. They dont help people unless it gains them or their companies. Its all about the money. That is why west dont care if their "help" kills ppl in the 3rd world. |
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ranga
USA
149 Posts |
Posted - 12 Oct 2006 : 02:27:06
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Babylon, it is not accurate to compare Plumpy'nut to Snickers bar. It appears that credible organizations like Doctors without Borders are supporting Plumpy'nut from Nutriset.
Most people and countries act in their own self interest. You cannot blame the West for doing what everyone else is doing. I do grant there are some companies that make money even if their product is harmful to their consumers. Cigarette makers are an example. To say such companies "kill" people is an extreme characterization.
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T.K. "Ranga" Rengarajan
Founder, Geoseed Project
http://www.geoseedproject.com
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gambiabev
United Kingdom
3091 Posts |
Posted - 12 Oct 2006 : 08:04:15
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We all have free will. We can choose to smoke, we can choose to drink, we can choose to eat burgers...and so on.
BUT:
I would like to see advertising for such harmful products band. The tobacco companies are especially ruthless, constantly looking for new markets, even though they KNOW their product is a killer. It saddens me to see Africas smoking American cigarettes.
Schools need to include smoking and alcohol in their health awareness. HIV is a serious problem, but SMOKING is too. |
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Babylon
Sweden
691 Posts |
Posted - 12 Oct 2006 : 11:04:44
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quote:
Originally posted by ranga
Peanut-based wonder-food needs wider use
SANSANE HAOUSSA, 4 Sep 2006 (IRIN) - Smearing creamed peanut around his face like any child tucking into a tasty treat, 17 month old Nigerien Samara Issa nibbles away at his Plumpy’nut bar, a wonder-food health workers say could help stamp out malnutrition.
Eating three bars of the rich peanut, dry milk, sugar, salt and mineral blend every day for the last week has already put an extra 5kg on Issa’s tiny frame, nudging him towards his optimum weight. Doctors with the World Vision NGO treating him said he could be out of the malnutrition danger-zone in two weeks.
Tasty Plumpy’nut is not just a hit with hungry kids. Health workers say that Plumpy’nut, or similar products, could go a long way to bringing down child mortality rates across the region.
“This will do for the worst malnutrition what prophylactics did for malaria,” said Jean Herve Bradol, president of the global medical NGO Medicins Sans Frontiers/France (MSF), after surveying the group’s medical work in Niger.
Every year more than 50 percent of Niger’s population slips into malnutrition to some degree, but widespread use of the Plumpy’nut bar this year has helped reduce occurence of the most severe life-threatening cases.
According to the World Bank, one in twelve children dies before its fifth birthday in developing countries, compared with one in 152 in high-income countries. In many West African countries more than one five children do not reach their fifth birthday.
In Niger, Bradol said MSF has treated 63,000 children with Plumpy’nut. The group’s success rate has been 90 percent, compared to around 30 percent using traditional “therapeutic feeding” units which require admitting sick children for weeks in hospital tents and health centres.
One of the benefits of Plumpy’nut is it is simple to administer. Children just have to be given a set number of bars to eat each day, and can be treated as out-patients.
Bradol said the number of children treated by MSF in Niger using the new product is almost 10 times higher than MSF has ever achieved in operations with equally widespread hunger.
“After 20 years working with medical emergencies, it is a shock for me to see what is possible with this food,” Bradol said. “Acute malnutrition is facing a revolution in terms of treatment.”
LIMITED BY HIGH COST
Other major NGOs working on food-relief contacted by IRIN, Save the Children and Action Against Hunger/Spain, are also using the bars in Niger, but not on such a scale as MSF.
The main problem, aid workers say, is the product’s high cost. At roughly four US dollars per kilogram, Plumpy’nut is at least three times more expensive than traditional therapeutic feeding.MSF’s Bradol said cost should not be a factor. MSF has started giving Plumpy’nut to children with more moderate forms of malnutrition in Niger this year.
But the product’s creator, Andre Briand, now a children’s health medical officer at the World Health Organisation (WHO) in Geneva, cautions against this approach. “Cost is the major issue,” he said.Briand said costs can be reduced by using local production, tapping into Africa’s extensive peanut plantations. A Plumpy’nut factory is being set up in the Nigerien capital, Niamey.
But Briand said nuts are only around 20 percent of the blend, and the dry milk component is what pushes the price up.
Michele Falavigna, head of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Niger said he is concerned about the ethics of creating a new dependency in poor countries, rather than working on long-term fixes.
“This product is good if it can be provided at discounted cost. But it can also be bad if the country comes to depend on its supply,” he said.
Falavigna said if countries like Niger are going to go down the road of mobilising expensive resources to treat severe malnutrition, the developed world should first make a commitment to provide the product in the long-run.
“The supply of Plumpy’nut must not be part of charity,” Falavigna said. “It must be an obligation.”
Original at http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=55386
I don´t know about you, but sounds like another product from the west to SELL to poor people. 3 bars a day full of sugar? What about the teeth? Would you feed your kids with sugar each day?
Maybe that is the point too, if the poor kids teeth get spoiled they will create a new product for dental care.
I don´t understand what you mean Ranga when you say "Most people and countries act in their own self interest. You cannot blame the West for what everyone else is doing."
So do you mean it´s ok to make money on poverty, is that what you´re saying? Like; everyone else is doing it, let´s jump onboard and act selfish too. Look, to me that sounds totally crazy and I really think that sort of typical western kind of thinking has to stop.
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serenata
Germany
1400 Posts |
Posted - 12 Oct 2006 : 13:17:37
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Babylon, I think ranga is partly right saying "Most people and countries act in their own self interest. You cannot blame the West for what everyone else is doing.".
Look at all the fake medicaments on the African market - most of them come from African countries... The same with these dangerous fake car spare parts (e.g. brakes) almost every Gambian mechanic is selling - they are manufactured in Nigeria.
But this should never be a criterion for responsible politics and economics, and I agree that the real killer is (western) greed. The Bechtel example ( this company seems to be a bunch of gangsters, I heard other bad things about them before) in Bolivia shows that people can put an end to these wheelings and dealings. But maybe it takes South Americans, who usually own a lot of political awareness, to do it... |
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Babylon
Sweden
691 Posts |
Posted - 12 Oct 2006 : 15:46:10
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Plumy´nut, allow me to be sceptic to western products, companies and intensions in Africa and in developing countries. After all the mess for example Nestlé, Shell and such created in Africa how can one trust the western companies intensions?
Plumpy´nut may be used as a temperal solution for starving people in refugee camps, but who is going to pay for it? That is always the main question for the west. Money.
For me, it is more important to attack the disease rather than the symptoms. Poverty, hunger, disease, war, no water, no medicine -what are the realcauses to these symptoms? Why are african leaders so corrupted? Who supports them?
Could it be that all this mess is really needed by the west for some sick (capitalistic or racist?) reason, so we don´t really want to adress the causes and do something about it but adress the symptoms so that we will always have our "victims"?
Can I trust my wests intentions after they ignored Rwanda, stood by and watched for not so many years ago?
Think about it.
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serenata
Germany
1400 Posts |
Posted - 12 Oct 2006 : 16:12:15
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quote:
Originally posted by Babylon
Plumy´nut, allow me to be sceptic to western products, companies and intensions in Africa and in developing countries. After all the mess for example Nestlé, Shell and such created in Africa how can one trust the western companies intensions?
Plumpy´nut may be used as a temperal solution for starving people in refugee camps, but who is going to pay for it? That is always the main question for the west. Money.
For me, it is more important to attack the disease rather than the symptoms. Poverty, hunger, disease, war, no water, no medicine -what are the realcauses to these symptoms? Why are african leaders so corrupted? Who supports them?
Could it be that all this mess is really needed by the west for some sick (capitalistic or racist?) reason, so we don´t really want to adress the causes and do something about it but adress the symptoms so that we will always have our "victims"?
Can I trust my wests intentions after they ignored Rwanda, stood by and watched for not so many years ago?
Think about it.
Look at Congo. The west supports Kabila. Kabila!!! The answers to your questions seem clear to me. Yes, we need this mess, and we do anything to keep it up. Coltane from Congo, e.g., is needed for our mobiles. Who provides it cheapest? And who, in addition, is the best customer for our weapon industries? It is sickening. |
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Babylon
Sweden
691 Posts |
Posted - 12 Oct 2006 : 16:55:02
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| Exactly! That´s what I think (or see) too Serenata. |
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ranga
USA
149 Posts |
Posted - 13 Oct 2006 : 08:07:04
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Babylon, I hope the folks at Nutriset did not set out to devise a way to make money on poverty. I suspect they were looking for a way to create a food that is nutritious, easy to distribute and will last long. I request you to read the portions of the quote you have NOT highlighted. They give the other side of the story.
You have interpreted "three bars of the rich peanut, dry milk, sugar, salt and mineral blend" as "3 bars a day full of sugar". Not the same it seems to me.
Since it is expensive and they want to reduce the dependency, they're setting up a factory in Niamey. This sounds reasonable to me.
I'm not using "everyone's doing it" as a justification for making money on poverty. I'm simply pointing out that businesses in all countries have a profit motive and all countries look after their own interests.
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T.K. "Ranga" Rengarajan
Founder, Geoseed Project
http://www.geoseedproject.com
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ranga
USA
149 Posts |
Posted - 13 Oct 2006 : 08:12:24
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Babylon, Serenata, you're entitled to your conspiracy theory that the West is keeping Africa poor because it suits their interest.
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T.K. "Ranga" Rengarajan
Founder, Geoseed Project
http://www.geoseedproject.com
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gambiabev
United Kingdom
3091 Posts |
Posted - 13 Oct 2006 : 08:18:38
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| Surely if Africa became richer then they would be a whole new market of consumers to tap into? People to sell stuff to!I don't see how it is in anyones interests to keep another person poor? Morally and ethically it is definately wrong, but economically I dont think it makes sense either. |
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Babylon
Sweden
691 Posts |
Posted - 13 Oct 2006 : 08:53:40
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quote:
Originally posted by gambiabev
Surely if Africa became richer then they would be a whole new market of consumers to tap into? People to sell stuff to!I don't see how it is in anyones interests to keep another person poor? Morally and ethically it is definately wrong, but economically I dont think it makes sense either.
Perhaps this story could help you open up your eyes a little, and think about why it is in anyones interest to keep another person poor:
www.nowtoronto.com/issues/2005-06-16/news_story7.php
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