Health

Court hears whether silicosis miners can bring class action

Lawyers for the mining companies have begun to set out their case in the South Gauteng High Court, which is hearing an application from mineworkers to be allowed to claim for damages due to exposure to silica dust on behalf of a bigger group of affected mineworkers.

Lwandile Fikeni and GroundUp staff

News | 15 October 2015

Sick miners in court for landmark silicosis case

Bangumzi Balakazi, from Peddie in the Eastern Cape, was among the former gold miners sitting in the South Gauteng High Court this week as the landmark silicosis court case got underway.

Lwandile Fikeni and GroundUp staff

News | 14 October 2015

New technology to help diagnose hearing disability

Software developed by University of Pretoria researchers could bring cheaper hearing tests to South Africa's rural areas. The hearScreen technology, which has been patented and is in the process of being licensed, can turn any smartphone into an audiometer to test people's hearing.

Sarah Wild

News | 13 October 2015

Abortion stigma harms thousands of young women

Many South African women are still resorting to unsafe abortions with illegal providers, often with disastrous implications even though safe legal abortion has been available since 1997.

Thembela Ntongana

Feature | 12 October 2015

Will gold miners get justice?

In King Leopold’s Ghost, the historian Adam Hochschild uncovers the horrors committed in the Belgian Congo in the years before and after 1900. It is a history of slavery, murder and mutilation – anyone who’s seen the pictures of piles of cut-off hands cannot but be horrified by it.

Marcus Low

Opinion | 9 October 2015

Time to reposition one of Africa’s great debates: gay rights

Over the past few years, we have seen an explosion of arguments for and against gay rights in Africa. Those in favour of gay rights point out that they can help to protect sexual minorities by making discrimination illegal, in the process making societies more equitable. Those opposed to gay rights allege that homosexuality only arrived with Europeans, that gay rights are a threat to the African nation, and a threat to the heterosexual family.

Andrew Tucker

Opinion | 6 October 2015

Life-saving drug stopped by sole supplier

South Africa is running out of an essential medicine for treating very sick patients with tuberculosis (TB) and drug-resistant bacterial infections. Many hospitals are already out of stock.

GroundUp Staff

News | 5 October 2015

South Africa’s real nutrition problems

Based on how much of our public space Tim Noakes and the Banting diet occupy, you might think that one of the most important nutrition problems facing South Africa is the carbohydrate vs fat intake in our diets. It just isn’t.

Ashleigh Furlong

News | 2 October 2015

How bureaucracy is delaying Virginia’s dream of being a doctor

Virginia Sibanda, like thousands of youth across South Africa in November 2014, was hunched over a desk, pen in hand, taking her matric exams. Her years of accumulated academic trophies and certificates culminated in these papers. She had attended tutoring sessions, practiced the past exams, and had applied to universities to pursue her dream of studying medicine.

Sarita Pillay

Feature | 1 October 2015

I’ve been raped. What do I do now?

“There are so many things that rapists and communities do that feed myths and false notions about rape,” says Rape Crisis director Kathleen Dey.

Barbara Maregele

News | 28 September 2015

The banal evil of drug pricing

Martin Shkreli was the most hated man on the internet for a brief time this week. His company, Turing Pharmaceuticals, pushed up the price of a medicine, pyrimethamine, used to treat a life-threatening disease from $13.50 (approx R185) to $750 (approx R10,250) a pill.

Nathan Geffen

Opinion | 23 September 2015

Barcelona’s garbage finally collected

The City of Cape Town has begun collecting the rubbish that has been piling up in front of people's homes in Barcelona informal settlement.

Bernard Chiguvare

Brief | 18 September 2015

Capetonians rally to help family with epilepsy

People from various parts of Cape Town have rallied to help a Site C family with a disabled teenager who, like her father, has epilepsy.

Pharie Sefali

News | 17 September 2015

The harm of quackery

There are at least three clear ways in which pseudoscience or bad science can harm consumers.

Jacques Rousseau

Opinion | 16 September 2015

USN sues consumer activist

R2 million. That’s how much sport supplement company Ultimate Sports Nutrition (USN) wants consumer activist Harris Steinman to pay for calling its owner, Albe Geldenhuys, a “scam artist”, “liar”, “quack”, “fraud” and “snake oil salesman”.

GroundUp Staff

News | 16 September 2015

Changing your gender in South Africa

“I have some very vivid memories of when I was really young, say four or five years old, my grandmother would dress me in women’s clothing and say, ‘Look at my granddaughter’, but also in a playful way,' says Sandile Ndelu, a transgender woman, who is a law student at UCT.

Ashleigh Furlong

Feature | 15 September 2015