In this new piece, former Medact Director and Professor of Global Public Health David McCoy discusses the need for a much broader, whole-societal response to COVID-19.
Medact Director, David McCoy, was recently involved in an online discussion about the politics of global health initiated by Professor Solly Benatar from South Africa, and involving Professors Gorik Omms from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and Ron...
David McCoy on why we are campaigning for the phase out of diesel on health grounds, and why tax on diesel cars should be increased at the point of sale.
That Lancashire County Council has been forced to grant Cuadrilla permission to undertake exploratory fracking should come as no surprise. Planning law meant that the Council could only block Cuadrilla on the back of a set of narrow, limited and localised...
On both grounds of preserving our antibiotics and preventing irreversible ecological degradation and further global warming, the message is clear: we need to reverse the trend of increasing meat production and consumption, and limit forms of livestock farming that are ultimately dangerous.
This briefing by Dr David McCoy provides a structured and detailed examination of the arguments used by Jeremy Farrar (Wellcome Trust) and Charlie Jeffery (University of Edinburgh) to support continued investment in fossil fuel companies and ‘stakeholder...
According to Jeremy Farrar, head of the Wellcome Trust, the Guardian’s “Keep in the Ground” campaign to promote divestment from fossil fuel companies is merely a “grand gesture” that can be made only once. At one level, he is right. The financial impact of the...
By David McCoy The Ebola virus is finally receiving attention after years of being ignored as just another deadly disease in Africa. Yet it was only when the current outbreak got out of control and threatened commercial and western interests did the story became news....
To no one’s surprise, the Lancet-Oslo Commission did not withdraw its disappointing recommendations on global governance for health. In an earlier blog, I criticised the Commission’s failure to act on its own analysis of the impact of politics and power disparities on...
Ghassan Hamdan is a doctor from Gaza. He works for the Palestinian Medical Relief Society, and is a member of the Peoples Health Movement. He has been sending frequent messages of despair from Gaza, including photographs of the carnage that has been unfolding there....