Press Releases Saturday 14 August 1999
No 7207 Volume 319
Please remember to credit the BMJ as source when publicising
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(1) INCIDENCE
RATE OF LAND MINE VICTIMS IN
KOSOVO IS
HIGH
(2) Most of this week's
issue of the BMJ is devoted to issues around
medicine and international
law. A number of researchers from
the International Committee
of the Red Cross report the findings
of studies into the impact
of modern weapons on both military
and civilian populations
The papers include:-
(1) INCIDENCE RATE OF
LAND MINE VICTIMS IN
KOSOVO IS HIGH
(Number of land mine victims in Kosovo
is high)
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/319/7207/450
The incidence rate of injuries and deaths
in Kosovo caused by
mines and unexploded ordnance exceeds
that found in many
other countries affected by antipersonnel
mines, such as
Mozambique, Afghanistan or Cambodia, say
researchers in a
letter in this week's BMJ.
Dr Etienne Krug and Dr A Gjini from the
World Health
Organisation report that during the four
week's after 13 June,
when Kosovar refugees began returning
home, an estimated 150
people were maimed or killed by mines
or unexploded ordnance
in Kosovo. Seventy one per cent of the
survivors were younger
than 24 years of age and most were boys
and men, say Krug and
Gjini. They report that the rates of such
injuries are expected to
remain high as the population has not
yet started to return to the
fields and the collection of fire wood
for the winter is expected to
start in September.
Mines and unexploded ordnance are not only
a public health
problem because they kill and maim, but
also because they drain
resources from an already depleted health
system, say the
authors. They say that their study confirmed
that current efforts
at raising mine awareness and demining
should be encouraged
and increased. They also argue that awareness
raising efforts
should be especially targeted at young
men and children and that,
as in other countries, the international
community should first
train and equip the local deminers.
Contact:
Dr Etienne Krug, Medical Officer, Violence
and Injury
Prevention, Department for Disability,
Injury Prevention and
Rehabilitation, Social Change and Mental
Health, World Health
Organisation, Geneva
Email: kruge{at}who.ch
(2) Most of this week's
issue of the BMJ is devoted to issues
around medicine and international law.
A number of researchers
from the International Committee of
the Red Cross report the
findings of studies into the impact
of modern weapons on both
military and civilian populations The
papers include:-
(Clinical and legal significance
of fragmentation of bullets in
relation to size of wounds: retrospective
analysis)
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/319/7207/403
(Mortality associated with use of
weapons in armed conflicts,
wartime atrocities and civilian
mass shootings: literature review)
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/319/7207/407
(Effect of type and transfer of conventional
weapons on civilian
injuries: retrospective analysis
of prospective data from Red
Cross hospitals)
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/319/7207/410
Contact:
Robin Coupland, Surgeon, Unit of the Chief
Medical
Officer, International Committee of the
Red Cross, Geneva,
Switzerland
Email: rcoupland{at}icrc.org
(Circumstances around weapon injury
in Cambodia after
departure of a peacekeeping force:
prospective cohort study)
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/319/7207/412
(Incidence of weapon injuries not
related to interfactional combat
in Afghanistan in 1996: prospective
cohort study)
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/319/7207/415
Contact:
Dr David Meddings, Epidemiologist, Unit
of the chief Medical
Officer, International Committee of the
Red Cross, Geneva,
Switzerland
Email: dmeddings{at}icrc.org
(New challenges for humanitarian
protection)
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/319/7207/430
In the Education and Debate section of
this week's BMJ a team
from Harvard Center for Population and
Development Studies in
the States discusses the role physicians
can and, they argue,
should play in establishing civilian protection
during hostilities and
providing neutral space where medical
and aid workers can
deliver relief.
Contact:
Claude Bruderlein, Research Fellow and
Special Adviser to UN
Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian
Affairs, Harvard
Center for Population and Development
Studies, Cambridge,
MA, USA
Email: cbruderl{at}hsph.harvard.edu
(North-South research partnerships:
the ethics of carrying out
research in developing countries)
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/319/7207/438
A doctor from the World Health Organisation
in Geneva explores
the differing interpretations of ethical
standards for conducting
medical research in developing countries
and highlights the
inequitable distribution of funding ,
ten per cent of global research
funding goes to diseases comprising 90
per cent of global burden.
Contact:
Tessa Tan-Edejer, Medical Officer/Scientist,
Global Programme
on Evidence for Health Policy, World Health
Organisation,
Geneva, Switzerland
Email: tantorrest{at}who.ch
(Supporting sharia or providing treatment
the International
Committee of the Red Cross)
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/319/7207/445
(Learning to express dissent: Mdecins
Sans Frontires)
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/319/7207/445
The International Committee of the Red
Cross and Mdecins Sans
Frontires discuss the ethical dilemma
posed by working in
countries operating under sharia law,
such as in Afghanistan.
Should aid organisations continue to provide
health care in
countries where amputation after a conviction
is the norm" should
they treat a person who has been punished,
or would this make
the organisation complicit in a practice
that is recognised as
contrary to human rights"
Contact:
Dr Pierre Perrin, Chief Medical Officer,
International Committee
of the Red Cross, Geneva, Switzerland
Email: pperrin{at}icrc.org
Hanna Nolan, Humanitarian Affairs Adviser,
Mdecins Sans
Frontires, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Email: hanna_nolan{at}amsterdam.msf.org
(Science for evil: the scientist's
dilemma)
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/319/7207/448
A mathematician from the University of
Edinburgh discusses the
role of the Pugwash organisation, which
was set up by a group of
physicists after the building of the atomic
bomb, in an attempt to
contain the malign use of their science.
Contact:
Michael Atiyah, President of Pugwash, Department
of
Mathematics and Statistics, University
of Edinburgh, Edinburgh
Email: atiyah{at}maths.ed.ac.uk
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