Month: March 2019

Millions of people live with the constant pain of fibromyalgia. It’s a disorder that’s often misdiagnosed. And while lab tests can help identify a lot of diseases, until recently there was no test for fibromyalgia. Now, a simple blood test could finally give these patients scientific proof of their condition. Constant pain is a symptom of fibromyalgia. Barb Hartong suffered from this disorder for a long time before she finally got the right diagnosis.  “It was almost a relief because I finally knew what was wrong with me,” Hartong said. Fibromyalgia is a disorder with symptoms of widespread muscle and joint pain, accompanied by fatigue and problems with sleep, memory and mood. Researchers believe that with fibromyalgia, the brain amplifies the pain signals it gets. About 75 percent of those who suffer from fibromyalgia are undiagnosed. Some people live with pain for years. Many patients receive treatment that’s ineffective or even harmful. Researchers at the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center formed a multi-disciplinary team to see if they could develop a laboratory test to diagnose this disorder and make it easier for patients to get some relief. Dr. Kevin Hackshaw led the study.  “Many of the patients with chronic opiate use turn out to have underlying fibromyalgia. So in fact, if that was recognized then we could realize that we can stem the tide of treating them inappropriately with opiates,” Hackshaw said. The result was a simple blood test that could diagnose fibromyalgia with nearly 100 percent accuracy. Hackshaw worked …

At the 27th annual Environmental Film Festival in the nation’s capital, over 100 hundred films were showcased in 25 locations around the city. Many of them focused on the human impact on Climate Change worldwide, pointing to severe weather phenomena already underway, such as rising sea levels, and disappearing biodiversity. VOA’s Penelope Poulou spoke with filmmakers who came to DC to present their work. …

March 26 will mark the fourth anniversary of the Saudi-led coalition campaign to oust the Houthi rebels from parts of Yemen they had occupied. The fighting has caused what the UN calls “the world’s worst humanitarian crisis,” displacing people from their homes, creating food shortages, a growing civilian death toll and undermining children’s development. The UN estimates that about 10 children die every day in Yemen from preventable diseases caused by hunger. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke has this story. …

Millions of people live with a the constant pain of fibromyalgia. It’s a disorder that’s often misdiagnosed. And while lab tests can help identify a lot of diseases, until recently there was no test for fibromyalgia. Now, as VOA’s Carol Pearson reports, a simple blood test could finally give these patients scientific proof of their condition. …

Efforts to control the Democratic Republic of Congo’s Ebola outbreak are hitting a roadblock, says Doctors Without Borders (MSF). The medical charity group says security forces and a climate of community mistrust are hampering efforts to combat the outbreak. Meanwhile the country of Madagascar is struggling to curb a measles outbreak. VOA’s Mariama Diallo reports. …

Parts of our oceans routinely go through temperature swings. The El Nino and La Nina effects in the Pacific are perhaps the best known. But new research in Britain suggests that those heat waves are becoming more common and more extreme. And that spells trouble for the world’s waters. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports. …

The World Health Organization says that on March 27, India’s 1.3 billion people and the entire WHO Southeast Asia region will celebrate five years of being polio-free. Twelve years ago, the WHO said, India alone was responsible for almost 70 percent of all polio cases around the world. It called India’s success against polio one of the most significant achievements in public health. WHO officials said India’s accomplishment proved the crippling disease could be eliminated in even the most challenging circumstances with a strong political commitment. Worldwide, the number of cases due to wild poliovirus has decreased from an estimated 350,000 a year in 1988, when the WHO launched its global eradication campaign, to 33 in 2018.  Trouble spots WHO spokesman Christian Lindemeier told VOA that polio remained endemic in only three countries in two of the organization’s six regions: Nigeria in the African region and Pakistan and Afghanistan in the eastern Mediterranean region.    “There has been no wild polio virus detected in Africa since 2016, and we are cautiously optimistic that AFRO, our African region, is on the path to certification as well,” Lindemeier said. “EMRO, our eastern Mediterranean region, has only those two countries, which have never stopped polio, unfortunately — Afghanistan, Pakistan.”  Lindemeier said the countries are considered a joint reservoir of the virus. Therefore, he said, both are getting most of the focus and support from the WHO’s polio eradication program. He said tailored and innovative tactics were being put in place to deal with the challenges in each …

A group of experts meeting for the first time to examine the pros and cons of human genome editing say it would be “irresponsible” to engage in this procedure at this time.   Late last year, a Chinese scientist triggered an international storm when he announced he had created the first gene-edited babies.  He said he had edited the DNA of the twin girls to protect them from HIV. Having met at World Health Organization headquarters in Geneva earlier this week, the 18-person panel warned the procedure is too risky and should not be attempted before a system of strong rules governing this technique are established.  Co-chair of the advisory committee, Margaret Hamburg, said the group has agreed on a set of core principles. She said the panel recommends the WHO create a registry for human genome editing research.  Under this system, she said scientific work in these technologies would be registered in a transparent way. “We think it is very important to establish this registry to get a better sense of the research that is going on around the world, greater transparency about it, and in fact greater accountability in terms of assuring that research meets standards in terms of science and ethics,” Hamburg said. The experts agree this would preclude the kind of secrecy that surrounded the work of the Chinese scientist.  She said the panel would like this transparency to extend to the publication of manuscripts that emerge from important research.  Hamburg said publishers will be asked …

Twenty-six-year-old Precious, as she has asked us to call her to protect her identity, is 16 weeks pregnant. And so is her best friend, also by Precious’ boyfriend. That event turned her life upside down and brought her to the difficult decision to seek an abortion. She lives in South Africa, where abortion is legal without justification and available through a nurse through 12 weeks of pregnancy, and legal up to 20 weeks, when done by a doctor and with justification. But when she tried to get an abortion in her home city of Johannesburg, she ran into problems. “When I went to register my name, I simply said, ‘I want to do abortion,’ and then they said, ‘No,’” she told VOA. “And there were two nurses there, and the older one said, ‘Oh, thank God, I’m not trained for this,’ whilst the other one said, ‘no, you have to do back to your place and do it there.’ Then we had a disagreement there, as, like, I’m being against God and more stuff like that.” Hers is a common experience, and it’s what reproductive health advocates say drives 10,000 South African women to seek illegal, backstreet abortions every year. The nation’s health department estimated that as many as 25 percent of maternal deaths from septic miscarriages were the result of such illegal abortions. More than half of all abortions in South Africa are unlicensed, despite the fact that half of all government hospitals offer the service for free. Precious, who …

Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley found herself in a Twitter feud with the people of Finland on Thursday, after she commented unfavorably on their health care system. Haley, a savvy politician who as President Donald Trump’s United Nations ambassador from 2017 until December 2018, regularly topped opinion polls as the most popular member of his administration, ignited the Finns when she tried to take a swipe at a tweet by Democratic U.S. presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders.  Sanders, who has made universal health care one of his signature platforms, said it costs an average of $12,000 for a woman to have a baby in the United States, while in Finland it costs only $60.  Haley, who is touted as a rising star in the Republican Party and a potential presidential candidate in 2024, shot back that, “Health care costs are too high that is true but comparing us to Finland is ridiculous. Ask them how their health care is. You won’t like their answer.” It is more likely that it is the former U.N. ambassador who does not like their answer. The reaction was immediate, with hundreds of people identifying themselves as Finns happy with their health care system offering statistics and anecdotes about how good it is.  While personal income tax rates are very high — 51.60 percent — Finns get many services in return, not just health care. But for new mothers, the system offers comprehensive services.  While the charge to the patient who gives birth is only $60, the …

The European Parliament faced calls Thursday to strip ExxonMobil lobbyists of their access badges after the US oil giant missed the assembly’s first hearing into claims it knowingly misled the public on climate change. Greens deputy Molly Scott Cato told the hearing in Brussels she would formally make the request later Thursday to deny ExxonMobil its six registered parliament access badges. Activists and scientists told the hearing that ExxonMobil has for decades misled the public about the threat climate change poses to the world, comparing it the tobacco lobby’s past campaign. Under parliamentary rules, Cato said, “lobbyists shall have their access badges denied” when they refuse without good reason to comply with a formal summons to attend a committee hearing or inquiry. “I believe this provides us with grounds we need to withdraw Exxon’s lobby badges,” the British MEP said, adding she would write a letter to that effect later Thursday. Her call was supported by MEP Eleonora Evi, who sits on the petition and environment committees that hosted the first EU public hearing into Exxon’s approach to climate change. In a letter dated Wednesday, ExxonMobile said the oil company is “constrained from participating because of ongoing climate litigation in the United States.” It said it was concerned that public commentary, including at the Brussels hearing, “could prejudice those pending proceedings,” according to a copy obtained by AFP. Geoffrey Supran, a Harvard University researcher, told the panel that Exxon has known since 1959 that fossil fuel burning “was sufficient to …

March 22 is the annual observance of World Water Day. This year’s theme is “No One Left Behind.” But according to a report from UNICEF and the World Health Organization, nearly a billion people today live without access to clean drinking water. Arash Arabasadi reports. …

Hurricanes Florence and Michael, which caused widespread death and destruction in the United States last year, have earned the dubious distinction of having their names retired.  The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Wednesday that the two names will be replaced with Francine and Milton, starting with the 2024 hurricane season.  The United Nations’ World Meteorological Organization maintains six lists with 21 names each that are organized alphabetically and alternate between male and female names.  Each list is used once every six years. The current group goes from 2018 to 2023, with the cycle restarting in 2024.  Names are retired when meteorologists determine that a hurricane has been so destructive that reusing its name would be insensitive. The first hurricane name to be retired was Carol, in 1954. So far, 88 names have been dropped from the list.  …