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BMJ 2004;329 (20 November), doi:10.1136/bmj.329.7476.0-f
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
Last week we had a theme issue on what the rich world could learn from the poor. This week, the cynics will say, it's back to normal: citizens of the rich world only really care about a poor world problem when it might affect them.
An Education and Debate article (p 1231) points out that there's now a sudden interest in organophosphate poisoning in the West because of the fear of chemical attacks by terrorists. Yet organophosphate poisoning has long been a major health problem in many developing countries of the Asia-Pacific region, from poorly controlled pesticides. Actually Nick Buckley and his colleagues aren't that cynical. They argue for better research into organophosphate poisoning because it's in everyone's interest. The standard antidote, atropine, isn't known to be effective, and no new treatments have been developed or tested for the past 30 years. Buckley and his colleagues show that
Jane Smith, deputy editor
(jsmith@bmj.com)
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