Supported projects

Only when Corien van Zweden lost her left breast to breast cancer did she delve into the biology and meaning of this intimate part of the body. She discovered that there is no other part of the body with such a multi-faceted course of life as the female breast.

JOHANNESBURG - Close to two thirds of women in poor areas in Africa resort to selling sex to be able to feed themselves and their families. That is the result of a random interviewing exercise conducted in seven African countries in areas where the average income is on or below the poverty line of ...

EL SALVADOR - "When I woke up in the hospital, there were police officers around me. They said that I had killed my child." Maria Teresa De Rivera is 34 when she gets a miscarriage on the toilet. Due to strict abortion laws in her country, she is sentenced to 40 years in prison. She not only loses a ...

TBILISI - This article aims to map the thriving surrogacy business between Israel and Georgia, with a particular focus on the role of women in this increasingly global and more lucrative baby business.

BRUSSELS - The share of the pharmaceutical sector in the Belgian economy is large. According to the organization pharma.be in 2017, the sector employed 35,711 people and our country exported for a total value of 40.5 billion euros of medicines and vaccines worldwide, which is about 10% of Belgian ...

BRUSSELS - Vulnerable Bulgarian women are coming to Belgium and the Netherlands to live with elderly people who prefer to stay at home rather than go to a nursing home. They will care for these elderly people during the last years or months of their lives. This research is a case study of the ...

You are what you eat, as the saying goes. But you're also what you smear. Through our skin, all kinds of things - creams, shampoos, make-up and other substances - partly penetrate our body. Yet not many people know what's in their daily dose of cosmetics.

BRUSSELS - Fourteen years ago, Karen * gave birth to a daughter. A girl like other girls, but with a Y-chromosome, that's how Karen describes it herself. This Y-chromosome caused her daughter to develop testicles during pregnancy. Her body was insensitive to the testosterone that the testicles ...

KAMPALA - Having a child with a disability poses severe challenges to parents, making their lives more difficult. For parents living in a very poor developing country it’s even more challenging.

PORT MORESBY - Jimmy Hendrickx traveled to a remote tribe in Papua in the footsteps of the Belgian missionary Petrus Vertenten. He worked there about a hundred years ago and saved the tribe from extermination, for which he is still honored.

During his training to become a general practitioner, Egmont Ruelens met several bus and tram drivers with stress complaints and physical problems. They flirt with a burn-out. 

GHENT - Research by Apache shows how 'chronic fatigue specialist' Kenny De Meirleir sells his patients, through numerous small companies, often controversially expensive tests and medication that he prescribes himself.

DODOMA - Some of the G8's New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition projects aiming to combat hunger and poverty in Africa go directly against the interests of the smallholder farmers they're supposed to benefit.

BRUSSELS - "You have cancer" is a diagnosis with a tremendous psychological impact. But not only for you, but also for your life partner.

RIGA - There are important disparities in the price of cancer medicines within the 28 EU member States. New cancer drugs are incredibly expensive for patients in some Eastern member states or simply not available because of shortages.

MAASTRICHT - What are all those E numbers doing in the kitchens of our restaurants? An investigation into molecular gastronomy and the food additives industry in our modernist cuisine.

MECHELEN - In April 2015 it will have been exactly five years since the start of the scandal involving Bruges bishop Roger Vangheluwe, who was accused of having sexually abused several children. In the book Through my fault Machteld Libert, journalist for Flemish public broadcaster VRT, investigates ...

BERLIN - The e-cigarette is a new, controversial and booming device. Manufacturers are racing to become the biggest in the market. What is the truth behind the device, and why is the tobacco industry looming to take over? An investigation into the politics, lobbying strategies and profits behind the ...

THE HAGUE - More than 60,000 people in the Netherlands are infected with salmonella every year. The resistant ESBL bacterium has been found on three-quarters of the chicken meat there. Is our food as safe as manufacturers and ministers claim?

PRISTINA - Between 1999 and 2001, Kosovo's Liberation army, the KLA, possibly used Serbian war prisoners' organs to supply illegal organ trafficking on a massive and international scale, under the eyes and maybe even with the collaboration of the international community present in the country.

DE HAAN - Irem, Velten and Isabel. Photographer Yann Bertrand made portraits of them for a year in the preventorium in De Haan, at a pivotal moment in their lives. A thirty-year-old with cystic fibrosis, and two obese teenagers.

HANOI - Last year's publication of a scientific paper announcing Dutch virologist Ron Fouchier had succeeded in growing an airborne avian influenza virus in his lab in Rotterdam caused a big stir. Though inherently risky, such research was necessary, he argued, because it would teach us which ...

HANOI - Last year's publication of a scientific paper announcing Dutch virologist Ron Fouchier had succeeded in growing an airborne avian influenza virus in his lab in Rotterdam caused a big stir. Though inherently risky, such research was necessary, he argued, because it would teach us which ...

BERLIN - The free movement of labour within the European Union has led to a significant and growing number of doctors working abroad. However, this also requires the free movement of information to ensure patient safety.

BRUSSELS - Antibiotics have long been a sort of wonder drug that allowed for a significant decrease in mortality from all kinds of infectious diseases. But there is one disadvantage to antibiotics: bacteria develop a resitance for them. In The End of Antibiotics journalist Rinke van den Brink puts ...

ANTWERP - It’s the latest fashion in maternity hospitals. Mothers throughout the EU are encouraged to privately bank the cord blood of their newborn babies. But private cord blood banks are not free from criticism. On the contrary.

NEW DELHI - According to The Times of India, the medical tourism sector in India adds up to at least a hundred thousand patients per year - and an amount of dollars many times higher. Consequently, the country was convulsed when in the Summer of 2010 British microbiologist Timothy Walsh announced he ...

BRUSSELS - Can we expect pill manufacturers to provide objective information? This is the first in a series of articles on the influence of the pharmaceutical industry in Europe.

JOHANNESBURG - South Africa attracts a large number of migrants and refugees from across the African continent. However, the country lacks the institutions required to manage or accommodate this steady influx.

BRUSSELS – Drinking water is arguably one of the most strictly regulated foodstuffs. After all, it is vital for life and consumed in large quantities every day. The water that European water companies pump through their pipes is clean. But what about the water that comes out at the other end of the ...