News and Notes

Abstract

It is always a pleasure to start the column with good news and here is some very heartening news indeed: ‘I have no words to express our delight in using HINARI. The library staff and the library users extremely appreciate this initiative. It has helped us regain our sense of giving valuable and prompt information to our medical doctors and researchers.’ Medical Faculty, Skopje, Macedonia ‘On behalf of the University of Asmara biomedical literature users, I thank you very much. We are all very excited to use it.’Dean, College of Health Sciences, University of Asmara, Eritrea ‘It has been a very popular initiative here. Intellectual isolation is considered one of the factors why African research centers cannot develop world-class researchers. This can go some way to changing that.’ MRC Laboratories, The Gambia These comments are just some of the thanks that the World Health Organization has received about HINARI—the Health InterNetwork Access to Research Initiative—to bring online medical and health science journals to researchers in low-income countries. Our publishers, Blackwell Publishing, are one of the founding partners and Addiction is proud to be one of the journals offered. HINARI has been in place for 18 months and the uptake of the offer amongst eligible nations has been very strong. In 103 countries, 1220 institutions have so far benefited from improved e-journal availability. Of course there remain many challenges related to infrastructure and Internet access in some areas, but one senses the enormous goodwill that exists to help solve the problems. More information about HINARI is at http://www.healthinternetwork.net The World Health Organization has just published its Global Report on Alcohol Policy (WHO 2004), the most ambitious attempt yet to describe the present status of alcohol policies in 118 countries across the world. Part of the continuous work coming out of the WHO Global Alcohol Database, and building on earlier reports (Global Status Report on Alcohol 1999, and Global Status Report on Alcohol and Young People 2001), the present work aims to provide an objective baseline for monitoring and evaluation efforts; also to act as an advocacy tool for identifying gaps and raising awareness of public health issues among government officials and policymakers. Alcohol consumption is the leading risk factor for disease burden in low-mortality developing countries, and the third largest risk factor in developed countries. Causal relationships have been established between alcohol consumption and more than 60 types of disease and injury. More generally, the report's message is clear and emphatic on the impact of alcohol-related harm: ‘On a population level, alcohol-related harm is not confined to the relatively small number of heavy drinkers or people diagnosed with alcohol use disorders. Even non-drinkers can become victims of alcohol-related aggression, for example. Light and moderate drinkers, i.e. the majority of the population in many countries, who occasionally drink at high risk levels, while being individually responsible for fewer harms than heavy drinkers, are collectively responsible, due to their greater numbers, for the largest share of alcohol's burden on society.’ On the same theme, Nordic Studies on Alcohol and Drugs (English supplement; Ramstedt 2004) carries an ‘everyman's guide’ to the role of alcohol in the global and regional burden of disease. It can be accessed online in full text (see URL below). The issue also contains an analysis of changing alcohol policies in the Nordic countries (brought about by the impact of the world trade treaties) and commentaries on the relation between the industry, scientific research community and policymakers in both the alcohol and tobacco fields. Furthermore, readers may be interested to know that Addiction has commissioned a series of in-depth profiles of the alcohol experience in different parts of the world. The featured countries are Australia, Brazil, China, France, Germany, India, Russia, South Africa, UK and USA. Look out for these editorials in volume 100. To round off this survey of new reading material, the Eurocare magazine, The Globe, has a double issue featuring Bridging the Gap, the European Alcohol Policy conference held in Warsaw, Poland, in June (The Globe 2004). Summaries of keynote speeches are given, along with selected papers from this important conference: Christine Godfrey on financial costs and benefits of alcohol; Ann Hope on alcohol policy and young people; Hans Laurell on measures against drink-driving; Alain Rigaud and Michel Craplet on the ‘Loi Evin’ (which prohibits alcohol advertising in France) and how it could form a model for the development of advertising bans and restrictions in other countries.