Ethical Aspects of Healthcare Reforms in Malaysia.

I propose in this paper to address selected bioethical issues in Malaysia

Developing Countries, Donor Leverage, and Access to Bird Flu Vaccines

In early 2007, the Indonesian government decided to withhold its bird flu virus samples from WHO’s collaborating centres pending a new global mechanism for virus sharing that had better terms for developing countries. The 60th World Health Assembly subsequently resolved to establish an international stockpile of avian flu vaccines, and mandated WHO to formulate mechanisms and guidelines for equitable access to these vaccines. Are there analogous opportunities for study volunteers or donors of biological materials in clinical trials or other research settings to exercise corresponding leverage to advance health equity?avian flu vaccines, global health equity, international health security, essential medicines, public patents

Foreign Direct Investment Volatility And Economic Growth In Asean-Five Countries

This study examines the role of foreign direct investment (FDI) volatility as a source of variability in five major ASEAN economies. Using bounds testing approach, we show that while FDI has positive and significant effect in all the ASEAN economies considered, its volatility retards long-run economic growth in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand. Moreover, FDI volatility can be welfare reducing even after controlling for other country-specific growth correlates. This finding is robust to different measures of FDI volatility

Peace with Justice: Equitable Access to Pre-Pandemic Avian Flu Vaccines

Asian Bioethics Review1167-7

Healthcare entitlements for citizens and transborder mobile peoples in Southeast Asia

The health of a population is shaped by a complex interplay of economic, political, social, cultural and biological factors that transcend national borders. In this chapter, we consider how these factors work together within the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), a supra-national regional political space encompassing a population of over 600 million across ten countries. Specifically, we query how economic liberalization and corollary increases in the movement of people, goods and services are challenging and transforming entrenched ideas about who is entitled to and responsible for health and social care within and across ASEAN member states’ national borders

Medical tourism in Malaysia: how can we better identify and manage its advantages and disadvantages?

Following the identification of medical tourism as a growth sector by the Malaysian government in 1998, significant government sector and private-sector investments have been channeled into its development over the past 15 years. This is unfolding within the broader context of social services being devolved to for-profit enterprises and ‘market-capable’ segments of society becoming sites of intensive entrepreneurial investment by both the private sector and the state. Yet, the opacity and paucity of available medical tourism statistics severely limits the extent to which medical tourism's impacts can be reliably assessed, forcing us to consider the real effects that the resulting speculation itself has produced and to reevaluate how the real and potential impacts of medical tourism are – and should be – conceptualized, calculated, distributed, and compensated for. Contemporary debate over the current and potential benefits and adverse effects of medical tourism for destination societies is hamstrung by the scant empirical data currently publicly available. Steps are proposed for overcoming these challenges in order to allow for improved identification, planning, and development of resources appropriate to the needs, demands, and interests of not only medical tourists and big business but also local populations