Uploaded July 2011 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Martin is raising funds for his photography project The Bandim Inoculation Backdraft. In order to receive contributions, the project must be funded in full by September 23rd, 2011. To help: http://www.emphas.is/web/guest/discoverprojects?projectID=320
From Martin: The small West African country of Guinea-Bissau is not only one of the poorest nations on earth, it also has one of the highest rates of child mortality. One in every five children do not live beyond the age five. And in spite of that fact, the chances of survival have never been greater.
Projecto de Saúde Bandim, or the Bandim Health Project, is a medical research centre in Bissau. Established in 1978 by Danish medical anthropologist Dr. med. Peter Aaby, only four years after the country won it's independence from Portugal, the project primarily strives to decrease mortality and morbidity amongst women and children. Furthermore, the project monitors all admissions to Guinea-Bissau's only pediatric ward. Now, after more than 30 years of civil wars, natural disasters and epidemics, Peter Aaby still pushes on.
A cornerstone in the research is scrutinizing the effects of new vaccines, vitamin A supplements and other health improvements. Back in the 1990s they discovered that a new measles vaccine administered in low-income countries doubled mortality of girls, potentially costing the lives of 500.000 African girls every year, had it not been withdrawn until the exact cause could be determined.
More recently research from the Bandim Health Project points to the fact, that the most important health interventions, including vaccines and vitamin A supplementation, have non-specific and sex-differential effects. To be concise, the combination of the DTP (diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis)-vaccine and vitamin A supplementation given at birth, as the World Health Organization recommends, has little overall effect on child mortality rates, but seems to decrease the mortality rate for boys, while increasing the mortality rate for girls. On an African scale it amounts to approximately saving 200.000 boys and killing 400.000 girls every year. The WHO has dismissed these findings as insufficiently documented, and claims that it would be unethical to continue randomized research, since it may result in some children not getting the vaccines recommended by the WHO. However, the WHO Task Force has not been able to disprove the results accumulated by the Bandim Health Project. On the other hand the health intervention guidelines of the WHO are based on, thus far, well documented research and work to save millions of lives worldwide, every year. The harmful effects of a "vaccine-scare" are neither to be overlooked, since it might cause parents to turn down a potentially lifesaving treatment of their child.
This is a completely new project and I need your support to get it off the ground and investigate the issue further. The end game is to make a video documentary about the controversy of the Bandim Health Project, but for the first stage of the project, I need to go to Guinea-Bissau to document the work of Peter Aaby and the Bandim Health Project, in the form of a photographic feature story and a preliminary documentary short, which I need to pitch the second stage of the project later on: the actual documentary feature film.
Bio: I was born on February the 14th 1979, in the northern Copenhagen suburb of Charlottenlund, Denmark. During my childhood, we moved around a lot, including an 18 month stay in London UK, so I learned how to adapt to new surroundings early in life. A skill I've come to appreciate in my profession as a photojournalist. I graduated from the Danish School of Journalism in January 2008 -- with a bachelor in photojournalism -- although I have worked as a freelance photographer since 2001.I have a firm belief, that the best pictures a created through mutual understanding and genuine respect between photographer and subject, rather than aesthetics and assumptions.Today I live in Copenhagen with my three year old son Mikkel, and my wife Kirsten. I work mainly for major newspapers, magazines and communication firms.
Martin is raising funds for his photography project The Bandim Inoculation Backdraft. In order to receive contributions, the project must be funded in full by September 23rd, 2011. To help: http://www.emphas.is/web/guest/discoverprojects?projectID=320
From Martin: The small West African country of Guinea-Bissau is not only one of the poorest nations on earth, it also has one of the highest rates of child mortality. One in every five children do not live beyond the age five. And in spite of that fact, the chances of survival have never been greater.
Projecto de Saúde Bandim, or the Bandim Health Project, is a medical research centre in Bissau. Established in 1978 by Danish medical anthropologist Dr. med. Peter Aaby, only four years after the country won it's independence from Portugal, the project primarily strives to decrease mortality and morbidity amongst women and children. Furthermore, the project monitors all admissions to Guinea-Bissau's only pediatric ward. Now, after more than 30 years of civil wars, natural disasters and epidemics, Peter Aaby still pushes on.
A cornerstone in the research is scrutinizing the effects of new vaccines, vitamin A supplements and other health improvements. Back in the 1990s they discovered that a new measles vaccine administered in low-income countries doubled mortality of girls, potentially costing the lives of 500.000 African girls every year, had it not been withdrawn until the exact cause could be determined.
More recently research from the Bandim Health Project points to the fact, that the most important health interventions, including vaccines and vitamin A supplementation, have non-specific and sex-differential effects. To be concise, the combination of the DTP (diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis)-vaccine and vitamin A supplementation given at birth, as the World Health Organization recommends, has little overall effect on child mortality rates, but seems to decrease the mortality rate for boys, while increasing the mortality rate for girls. On an African scale it amounts to approximately saving 200.000 boys and killing 400.000 girls every year. The WHO has dismissed these findings as insufficiently documented, and claims that it would be unethical to continue randomized research, since it may result in some children not getting the vaccines recommended by the WHO. However, the WHO Task Force has not been able to disprove the results accumulated by the Bandim Health Project. On the other hand the health intervention guidelines of the WHO are based on, thus far, well documented research and work to save millions of lives worldwide, every year. The harmful effects of a "vaccine-scare" are neither to be overlooked, since it might cause parents to turn down a potentially lifesaving treatment of their child.
This is a completely new project and I need your support to get it off the ground and investigate the issue further. The end game is to make a video documentary about the controversy of the Bandim Health Project, but for the first stage of the project, I need to go to Guinea-Bissau to document the work of Peter Aaby and the Bandim Health Project, in the form of a photographic feature story and a preliminary documentary short, which I need to pitch the second stage of the project later on: the actual documentary feature film.
Bio: I was born on February the 14th 1979, in the northern Copenhagen suburb of Charlottenlund, Denmark. During my childhood, we moved around a lot, including an 18 month stay in London UK, so I learned how to adapt to new surroundings early in life. A skill I've come to appreciate in my profession as a photojournalist. I graduated from the Danish School of Journalism in January 2008 -- with a bachelor in photojournalism -- although I have worked as a freelance photographer since 2001.I have a firm belief, that the best pictures a created through mutual understanding and genuine respect between photographer and subject, rather than aesthetics and assumptions.Today I live in Copenhagen with my three year old son Mikkel, and my wife Kirsten. I work mainly for major newspapers, magazines and communication firms.
