DOCTORS RAPPED
THE RIGHT Livelihood Award Foundation has rejected criticism about selecting Bangladesh's Gonoshasthaya Kendra and its founder, Zafrullah Chowdhury, for its 1992 award, by the Bangladesh Medical Association (BMA), which claimed the recipients had been engaged in anti-people activities.
In a letter to the BMA, the foundation said that for more than 20 years, the recipients "have been at the forefront of an integrated attempt to put into practice the basic tenets of primary health care".
Chowdhury had convinced ousted president H M Ershad to announce a pro-people drug policy (Down To Earth, June 15, 1993), which angered many companies and medical lobbies.