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Symposia |
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EMBL Mini-Symposium |
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| 4 June 2004 |
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Life Sciences and the developing world
How much do we care? |
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A great humanitarian challenge for the life sciences
lies in helping to alleviate illness, starvation
and environmental degradation faced by hundreds
of millions of people in many parts of the world.
What can the scientific community do for those who
suffer from poor health and nutrition while their
environment is being destroyed at an alarming rate?
It is vital that researchers in wealthy countries,
both in the public and private sector, reflect on
how they can become positively engaged. But on the
other hand, ongoing development efforts in third
world countries will continue to be undermined as
long as the current phenomenon of human capital
flight, or 'brain drain' as it is commonly known,
continues. A study by the World Bank reported that
some 70,000 highly qualified African scholars and
experts leave their home countries every year in
order to work abroad, often in more developed countries.
Moreover, developing countries pay at a high price
their dependence, as scientists in these poorer
countries have to pay up to 70% more than their
wealthier colleagues for identical supplies, as
revealed by a recent Nature survey. Which raises
the question to what extent we actually 'give to',
as opposed to 'take away from', the developing countries? |
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