Health

Ohio train derailment 2023

The train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, highlighted safety regulation failures, indifference and anti-union bias, writes Malik Miah.

Binoy Kampmark argues that the shortcomings of the COVIDSafe app provide a lesson in exaggerated prowess and diminished performance.

In October, the Central Jakarta District Court ruled on a lawsuit accusing the Indonesian government of unlawfully permitting air pollution in the capital to exceed permissible, healthy limits, reports Binoy Kampmark.

The vaccine rollout in Australia, argues Markela Panegyres, has been held back by the lack of publicly-owned vaccine infrastructure and the government's own vaccine nationalism.

The people of Sydney are facing not one, but five proposed waste incinerators, writes Susan Price. If built, they would create thousands of tonnes of toxic ash per year and release dangerous air pollutants.

Below are five new books for the “ecosocialist bookshelf” on climate change and human health, ecology and imperialism, environmental economics, capitalism and universities, and the meaning of hegemony.

They have been compiled by Ian Angus, the editor of Climate and Capitalism, where this first appeared. Angus is the author of A Redder Shade of Green, which has just been published by Monthly Review Press.

A new influenza pandemic is quite possible, according to a study by researchers at the University of NSW’s School of Public Health. The study notes that 19 different influenza strains have affected humans in the last 100 years, but the speed with which new strains have emerged has increased over the past 15 years. There have been seven new strains in the past five years alone.

About 100 members of Fair Go for Pensioners (FGFP) rallied in Melbourne on May 25 to call on political parties to reverse severe funding cuts to welfare, health and education in the federal budget which will condemn more pensioners and low-income families to living below the poverty line. FGFP president Roger Wilson said the budget focus on giving the business sector generous tax cuts came at the expense of slashing services for the most vulnerable — pensioners, low-income families, the unemployed and those fearing homelessness.
Today we visited one of the solidarity clinics that operates in the suburb of Peristeri. We met with some of the volunteers that work in the clinic that included two doctors as well as other activists. The clinic is staffed by 60 volunteers, including 20 doctors, and offers free medical consultations and pharmaceuticals. Peristeri is largely a working class suburb of 400,000 people and is located in west Athens, which has a population of 1 million. Before the economic crisis most residents worked in blue-collar industry or were self-employed in small businesses.