Articles du dimanche 16 octobre 2022
Ecrits par Danish Adha
Edition: Léandre Saussay
Gambia’s Deaths by Cough Syrups
Within three months, a devastating amount of 69 children’s deaths in The Gambia were believed to be caused by toxic cough syrups medicines.
Parents, who sought to find help at the hospital after their children were feverish, were heartbroken upon discovering that the medication prescribed by the doctors had caused kidney problems for their children, just within a week after it was consumed, and ultimately death.
“It hurts my heart so much”, expressed Bailo Keita, mother of Fatoumatta, one of the victims who died on August 23. She explained that, as the authorities were delayed in reacting, she had to watch her daughter suffer, before finally succumbing to death.
The first reported case was on July 16, but authorities only started recalling the tampered medicines on September 23. This sparked an outrage amongst parents who demanded justice for the deaths of their children.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), the contaminated syrups were laced with dangerous amounts of chemicals that are commonly used in brake fluids. They had issued an alert on October 5, followed by the closing of Maiden Pharmaceuticals, the manufacturers of the cough syrups who failed to conduct quality controls on their products.
Sources:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-63238084
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/10/12/india-halts-cough-syrup-production-at-factory-after-gambia-deaths
The Attempted Tainting of Van Gogh’s Sunflower
On the 14th of October, two activists from the Just Stop Oil environmental group threw a can of tomato soup at Van Gogh’s Sunflower (1888) and proceeded to glue themselves on the wall.
The attack, which occurred in London’s National Gallery, luckily had not damaged the painting, although the frame suffered from minor damages as reported by the Gallery. According to them, the motive of the attack was to divert public attention towards the severity of climate change, which is becoming more and more prevalent in these recent times.
“The cost of living crisis is part of the cost of oil crisis”, proclaimed one of the activists, stating that millions of starving families could not afford fuel to heat a tin of soup. This was then associated with a bigger problem ; food shortages caused by the climate crisis.
The two perpetrators are now currently awaiting trial at the Westminster Magistrates’ Court, but this attack was not the first of its kind, as there were already cases of climate activists gluing themselves to works of arts across Europe in an effort to raise awareness on the severity of the climate crisis. “What use is art when we face the collapse of civil society?" tweeted Just Stop Oil on their Twitter page recently, calling for the need for us to step up and confront the climate crisis if we want to live in a world where humans still exist to appreciate art.
Sources:
Van Gogh's Sunflowers: Women charged with damaging frame https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-63268435
Climate Activists Just Threw a Can of Tomato Soup on Van Gogh’s ‘Sunflowers’ at London’s National Gallery
https://news.artnet.com/art-world/van-gogh-sunflowers-attacked-2192303
Image reference : Climate Protesters throw Soup over Van Gogh’s ‘Sunflowers’
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/14/arts/design/soup-van-gogh-sunflowers-climate.html