Hotline established
India and Pakistan agreed on Sunday to set up a telephone hotline between their foreign ministries to reduce the risk of accidental nuclear conflict. The move is a sign of improved relations between the two states, which have lived under the threat of nuclear war since their tit-for-tat nuclear tests in 1998.
SARS plea
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The world’s top SARS researchers have begged US authorities not to make the SARS virus a “select agent” subject to stringent security controls, saying this would hamper urgently needed research (91av, 15 May, p 4). But others think the urgency is fading: Swiss vaccine maker Berna Biotech has cancelled trials of its SARS vaccine, citing expectations that there will not be another outbreak.
WTO stands firm
The World Trade Organization has upheld a landmark ruling, announced earlier this year (91av, 8 May, p 8), that the US has breached rules on cotton subsidies. The decision could encourage other developing countries to file cases.
No place for placebo
Drug companies in the US are considering banning people who respond to placebos from trials of new antidepressants. About 40 per cent of people in trials given only sugar pills improve. Excluding them will make the results of trials look much stronger, but critics say it makes little sense if placebo responders will be among those eventually prescribed the drugs.
Confronting AIDS
Zimbabwe’s president, Robert Mugabe, is the latest African leader to admit losing relatives to AIDS. Mugabe told Zimbabwe’s first ever conference on AIDS in Harare on 16 June that he has lost members of his “extended family” to the disease. Critics say the Zimbabwe government’s failure to confront AIDS until recently has cost many thousands of lives.
