Month: June 2023

The next big advance in cancer treatment could be a vaccine. After decades of limited success, scientists say research has reached a turning point, with many predicting more vaccines will be out in five years. These aren’t traditional vaccines that prevent disease, but shots to shrink tumors and stop cancer from coming back. Targets for these experimental treatments include breast and lung cancer, with gains reported this year for deadly skin cancer melanoma and pancreatic cancer. ‘We’re getting something to work. Now we need to get it to work better,’ said Dr. James Gulley, who helps lead a center at the National Cancer Institute that develops immune therapies, including cancer treatment vaccines. More than ever, scientists understand how cancer hides from the body’s immune system. Cancer vaccines, like other immunotherapies, boost the immune system to find and kill cancer cells. And some new ones use mRNA, which was developed for cancer but first used for COVID-19 vaccines. For a vaccine to work, it needs to teach the immune system’s T cells to recognize cancer as dangerous, said Dr. Nora Disis of UW Medicine’s Cancer Vaccine Institute in Seattle. Once trained, T cells can travel anywhere in the body to hunt down danger. ‘If you saw an activated T cell, it almost has feet,’ she said. ‘You can see it crawling through the blood vessel to get out into the tissues.’ Patient volunteers are crucial to the research. Kathleen Jade, 50, learned she had breast cancer in late February, just weeks …

Forest fires in Canada left Montreal blanketed with smog on Sunday, giving it the worst air quality of any major city in the world, according to a pollution monitor. Quebec province’s most populous city had “unhealthy” air quality according to IQAir, which tracks pollution around the globe, as hundreds of wildfires burned across the country. Environment Canada issued smog warnings in several Quebec regions due to the fires, saying, “high concentrations of fine particulate matter are causing poor air quality and reduced visibilities,” with conditions to persist until Monday morning The agency urged residents to avoid outdoor activities and wear face masks if they must go outside. Outdoor pools and sports areas have been closed and multiple outside events, including concerts and sports competitions, have been cancelled due to the unhealthy smog. “It’s really like a fog, except it’s smoke from the forest fires. It’s really hard to breathe, and it stings the eyes a bit too,” said 18-year-old Fauve Lepage Vallee, lamenting that a festival she was due to attend had been canceled. There are 80 active forest fires in Quebec, according to Quebec’s forest fire protection agency, SOPFEU, with several growing over the weekend due to dry weather and high temperatures. “The extent of the smoke is making it particularly difficult for air tankers and helicopters to be effective,” SOPFEU said. However, “significant amounts” of rain are expected on Monday or Tuesday in the northwest of the province, it added. On Wednesday, 119 French firefighters are due arrive …

When a pharmacist in Iraq told Umm Mohammed her prescription for a skin ailment would cost about $611, she turned to cheaper natural remedies as some of her relatives had done. In an herbal remedy shop, the 34-year-old mother-of-two found a treatment eight times cheaper. “Pharmacies are a disaster at the moment, poor people turn to medicinal herbs because of the prices,” she said. “Who can afford this? Should one die? So you turn to medicinal herbs.” Ibrahim al-Jabouri, the shop’s owner and a professor of pharmacology, told Reuters that he is receiving customers suffering from various health issues, such as skin diseases, bowel troubles, colon infections or hair loss. While some Iraqis choose alternative treatments out of conviction, others have no other choice as they can’t afford the cost of conventional medicines. “The economic situation the country is passing through means that the cost of medicine is hard to bear, especially for those with a limited income,” said Dr. Haider Sabah, who heads Iraq’s national center for herbal medicine, a regulatory state body affiliated to the Ministry of Health. Iraq’s health care system, once one of the best in the Middle East, has been wrecked by conflict, international sanctions, the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 and rampant corruption. Although public medical services are free of charge, a lack of medicines, equipment and adequate services mean citizens often need to turn to the more expensive private sector. In recent years, Sabah has seen more herbal centers open in the …

Cocaine demand and supply are booming worldwide, and methamphetamine trafficking is expanding beyond established markets, including in Afghanistan where the drug is now being produced, a United Nations report said Sunday. Coca bush cultivation and total cocaine production were at record highs in 2021, the most recent year for which data is available, and the global number of cocaine users, estimated at 22 million that same year, is growing steadily, the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime said in its annual World Drug Report. Cocaine seizures have, however, grown faster than production, containing the total supply to some extent, the report said. The upper band of the estimated total supply was higher in the mid-2000s than now. “The world is currently experiencing a prolonged surge in both supply and demand of cocaine, which is now being felt across the globe and is likely to spur the development of new markets beyond the traditional confines,” the UNODC report said. “Although the global cocaine market continues to be concentrated in the Americas and in Western and Central Europe (with very high prevalence also in Australia), in relative terms it appears that the fastest growth, albeit building on very low initial levels, is occurring in developing markets found in Africa, Asia and South-Eastern Europe,” it said. While almost 90% of methamphetamine seized worldwide was in two regions – East and Southeast Asia and North America – seizure data suggests those markets have stabilized at a high level, yet trafficking has increased elsewhere, such …

The frantic search for a missing submersible craft in the North Atlantic Ocean came to an end Thursday following news of the craft’s destruction at sea. All five aboard the Titan died as they descended toward the shipwrecked remains of the Titanic. Now investigators want to know why. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi has the latest. …

An elevated train clangs along tracks above Dr. Kwane Stewart as the veterinarian makes his way through a chain link gate to ask a man standing near a parked RV whether he might know of any street pets in need. Michael Evans immediately goes for his 11-month-old pit bull, Bear, his beloved companion living beneath the rumbling San Francisco Bay Area commuter trains. “Focus. Sit. That’s my boy,” Evans instructs the high-energy pup as he eagerly accepts Stewart’s offer. A quick check of the dog reveals a moderate ear infection that could have made Bear so sick in a matter of weeks he might have required sedation. Instead, right there, Dr. Stewart applies a triple treatment drop of antibiotic, anti-fungal and steroids that should start the healing process. “This is my son right here, my son. He’s my right-hand man,” an emotional Evans says of Bear, who shares the small RV in Oakland. “It’s a blessing, really.” “The Street Vet,” as Stewart is known, has been supporting California’s homeless population and their pets for almost a decade, ever since he spontaneously helped a man with a flea-infested dog outside of a convenience store. Since then, Stewart regularly walks the heart of Los Angeles’ infamous Skid Row, giving him a glimpse into the state’s homelessness crisis — and how much they cherish and depend on their pets. After treating Bear, Stewart hands Evans, a Louisiana transplant, a list of the medicine he provided along with contact information in case the dog …

When it comes to flying, going green may cost you more. And it’s going to take a while for the strategy to take off.  Sustainability was a hot topic this week at the Paris Air Show, the world’s largest event for the aviation industry, which faces increasing pressure to reduce the climate-changing greenhouse gases that aircraft spew.  Even the massive orders at the show got an emissions-reduction spin: Airlines and manufacturers said the new planes will be more fuel-efficient than the ones they replace.  But most of those planes will burn conventional, kerosene-based jet fuel. Startups are working feverishly on electric-powered aircraft, but they won’t catch on as quickly as electric vehicles.  “It’s a lot easier to pack a heavy battery into a vehicle if you don’t have to lift it off the ground,” said Gernot Wagner, a climate economist at New York University.  That means sustainable aviation fuel has become the industry’s best hope to achieve its promise of net zero emissions by 2050. Aviation produces 2% to 3% of worldwide carbon emissions, but its share is expected to grow as travel increases and other industries become greener.  Sustainable fuel, however, accounts for just 0.1% of all jet fuel. Made from sources like used cooking oil and plant waste, SAF can be blended with conventional jet fuel but costs much more.  Suppliers are “going to be able to kind of set the price,” Molly Wilkinson, an American Airlines vice president, said at the air show. “And we fear that …

Newly declassified intelligence on the origins of the coronavirus pandemic appears to cast doubt on theories that the outbreak that killed millions around the world began at a research laboratory in Wuhan, China. A report issued late Friday by U.S. intelligence agencies and shared with members of Congress said that despite concerns about biosafety measures at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), and despite its history of work with coronaviruses, there is no intelligence that indicates COVID-19 was present in the lab before the outbreak. “We continue to have no indication that the WIV’s pre-pandemic research holdings included SARS-CoV-2 or a close progenitor, nor any direct evidence that a specific research-related incident occurred involving WIV personnel before the pandemic that could have caused the COVID pandemic,” according to the report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. The report further states that the available evidence indicates the lab did not get possession of the COVID-19 virus until late December 2019, “when WIV researchers isolated and identified the virus from samples from patients diagnosed with pneumonia of unknown causes.” The newly declassified intelligence also seems to reject concerns that one of a handful of researchers at the lab who fell ill in November 2019 might have been patient zero. “This information neither supports nor refutes either hypothesis of the pandemic’s origins,” the report said. “The researchers’ symptoms could have been caused by a number of diseases and some of the symptoms were not consistent with COVID-19.” Yet despite the …

In May, the World Health Organization certified that the countries of Benin and Mali eliminated trachoma as a public health problem, the fifth and sixth African countries to do so. As VOA’s Kane Farabaugh reports, while the Carter Center is celebrating the milestone in Mali, its work in eliminating and eradicating trachoma in Ethiopia, Niger, South Sudan and Sudan continues. …

The Carter Center was already a decade into its fight against Guinea worm globally when former President Jimmy Carter and his nonprofit took on another neglected tropical disease in the African nation of Mali. “From 1996 to 1998, it was estimated about 85,000 to 90,000 people would go blind from trachoma,” said Kelly Callahan, director of the Carter Center’s trachoma control program. “Twenty-five[%] to 50% of the children between the ages of 1 and 9, in all areas of Mali, suffered from the beginning stages of this disease.” It was a statistic Callahan said troubled Carter. “The Hilton Foundation asked President Carter and the Carter Center if we would be willing to consider working on sanitation and water to combat this disease called trachoma in Mali and Niger,” she said. The nonprofit foundation has been working to prevent avoidable blindness for more than 20 years. The Carter Center set a goal of eliminating the disease in both countries. Trachoma can be transmitted through infected discharge from the eyes and nose. “This disease is preventable,” Callahan explained to VOA during a recent Skype interview. It is “a bacterial infection that stems from access, or lack of access, to water and sanitation, poor living conditions, socioeconomically stressed populations.” Since 1998, the Carter Center and its partners have funded and staffed programs with host nations to develop widespread strategies to treat and prevent infections, even during Mali’s recent armed conflict and continuing instability. In May, the World Health Organization certified that the countries …

One year ago, the U.S. Supreme Court rescinded a five-decade-old right to abortion, prompting a seismic shift in debates about politics, values, freedom and fairness. Twenty-five million women of childbearing age now live in states where the law makes abortions harder to get than they were before the ruling. Decisions about the law are largely in the hands of state lawmakers and courts. Most Republican-led states have restricted abortion. Fourteen ban abortion in most cases at any point in pregnancy. Twenty Democratic-leaning states have protected access. Here’s a look at what’s changed since the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling. Laws enacted in 25 states to ban or restrict abortion access Last summer, as women and medical providers began to navigate a landscape without legal protection for abortion, Nancy Davis’ doctors advised her to terminate her pregnancy because the fetus she was carrying was expected to die soon after birth. But doctors in Louisiana, where Davis lived, would not provide the abortion due to a new law banning it throughout pregnancy in most cases. At the same time, abortion opponents who worked for decades to abolish a practice they see as murder cheered the Supreme Court’s Dobbs ruling. Anti-abortion groups said the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that legalized abortion nationwide was undemocratic because it prevented states from enacting bans. “The Dobbs decision was a democratic victory for life that generations fought for,” said E.V. Osment, a spokeswoman for Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, a major anti-abortion group. While …

Evidence is growing about the many ways that traveling in the microgravity environment of space tampers with the human body, with new research showing how it dials down the activity of genes in white blood cells crucial to the immune system. A study involving 14 astronauts who spent 4½ to 6½ months aboard the International Space Station found that gene expression in these cells, also called leukocytes, quickly decreased when they reached space and then returned to normal not long after returning to Earth, researchers said Thursday. The findings offer insight into why astronauts are more susceptible to infections during flights, showing how the body’s system for fighting off pathogens is weakened in space. “A weaker immunity increases the risk of infectious diseases limiting astronauts’ ability to perform their very demanding work in space. If an infection or an immune-related condition was to evolve to a severe state requiring medical care, astronauts while in space would have limited access to care and medication,” said molecular biologist Odette Laneuville of the University of Ottawa in Canada, lead author of the research published in the journal Frontiers in Immunology. Leukocytes are produced in the bone marrow and travel through the bloodstream and tissues. Once they detect bodily invaders like a virus or bacterium, they produce antibody proteins to attack the pathogen. Specific genes govern the release of such proteins. The researchers examined leukocytes isolated in blood drawn from astronauts — 11 men and three women — from the Canadian Space Agency and …

A panel of advisers to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Wednesday recommended that new vaccines from Pfizer and GSK to prevent severe respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infections be available to older adults in the U.S. but stopped short of saying all of them should get the shots. In two separate votes, the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) said that people aged 60 and older may receive the RSV shots after consulting with a health care provider. It was not the strongest recommendation that the ACIP could have made for the shots. Some committee members wanted a broader recommendation, but others had concerns that there was not enough data about how effective the vaccines are in people over age 75 and other high-risk groups. “Those who are at high risk for disease and for high risk for hospitalizations and death were actually not included in the trials,” said committee member Dr. Helen Keipp Talbot. “The patient population that participated in the study were younger and healthier and had fewer comorbid conditions, were not immunocompromised and were not living in nursing homes.” The CDC’s director needs to sign off on the recommendation before the vaccines can be made available. Both drugmakers have said they expected to be able to supply the shots ahead of the RSV season later this year. RSV usually causes mild cold-like symptoms but can also lead to serious illness and hospitalization. It is estimated to be responsible for 14,000 deaths annually …

In astronomical terms, summer begins Wednesday with the arrival of the summer solstice, which marks the longest day of the year for everyone north of the equator.  This year, the summer solstice falls at exactly 10:57 a.m. EDT, when the sun is directly over the Tropic of Cancer. South of the equator, the same time marks the astronomical start of winter.  On two moments each year, Earth’s axis tilts the most toward the sun. The hemisphere that tilts closer to the sun experiences its longest day, whereas the hemisphere that tilts away from the sun experiences its longest night.  The summer solstice takes place between June 20 and 22 each year. By meteorological standards, summer for the Northern Hemisphere begins on June 1.  This year, the winter solstice will take place on December 21, marking the shortest day of the year for the Northern Hemisphere.  On the summer solstice, the amount of sunlight people experience depends on how far north they are. The northernmost latitudes experience a full 24 hours of sunlight. By comparison, most of the United States will experience between 14 and 16 hours of sunlight.  The word solstice comes from the Latin words sol (sun) and sistere (to stand still). Nowadays, the summer solstice comes and goes with little significance to many.  But for millennia, people around the world celebrated the summer solstice in various ways. Some still take part in festivities.  The most well-known celebration takes place at 5,000-year-old Stonehenge in England. Crowds of about 10,000 …

For the first time, U.S. regulators on Wednesday approved the sale of chicken made from animal cells, allowing two California companies to offer “lab-grown” meat to the nation’s restaurant tables and, eventually, supermarket shelves.  The Agriculture Department gave the green light to Upside Foods and Good Meat, firms that had been racing to be the first in the U.S. to sell meat that doesn’t come from slaughtered animals — what’s now being referred to as “cell-cultivated” or “cultured” meat as it emerges from the laboratory and arrives on dinner plates.  The move launches a new era of meat production aimed at eliminating harm to animals and drastically reducing the environmental impacts of grazing, growing feed for animals and animal waste.  “Instead of all of that land and all of that water that’s used to feed all of these animals that are slaughtered, we can do it in a different way,” said Josh Tetrick, co-founder and chief executive of Eat Just, which operates Good Meat.  The companies received approvals for federal inspections required to sell meat and poultry in the U.S. The action came months after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration deemed that products from both companies are safe to eat. A manufacturing company called Joinn Biologics, which works with Good Meat, was also cleared to make the products.  Cultivated meat is grown in steel tanks, using cells that come from a living animal, a fertilized egg or a special bank of stored cells. In Upside’s case, it comes out …

Australia’s annual whale migration has started with researchers documenting an unusually high number of humpbacks off the coast. Scientists say the surge is a sign that whale populations are recovering. From Sydney, Phil Mercer reports. …

As the world mark Sickle Cell Day on Monday, Nigeria accounts for about 33% of the 300,000 children diagnosed every year with the disease. The World Health Organization and Nigeria’s Health Ministry say 25% of the country’s total population are carriers of mutant genes that give rise to the genetic disorder. In 2011, Nigeria’s Health Ministry initiated mandatory screening for newborns to help detect the condition early, but many Nigerian hospitals have yet to comply with the directive. Anna Ochigbo of Nigeria has lost two siblings to sickle cell anemia. In May 2022, Ochigbo launched the nonprofit Hoplites Sickle Cell Foundation in memory of her siblings.  “We don’t just create awareness on the importance of genotype testing before marriage,” she said. “We go as far as conducting free genotype testing in certain communities, and we also try as much as possible to educate young people.” About 50 million people are estimated to be living with sickle cell disease globally, but Nigeria has the highest burden. Every year, an estimated 100,000 kids are diagnosed with the condition in Nigeria, according to the Health Ministry, and up to 80% die before they turn five.  Hoplites Foundation holds periodic hangouts for sickle cell warriors to meet and share their experiences. “The participation has been really, really massive,” Ochigbo said. “A lot of sickle cell warriors are coming out now. They want to connect. They want to network. They want to go to a place where they feel loved and appreciated.” Nigerian authorities in …

Members of the United Nations adopted the first-ever treaty to protect marine life in the high seas on Monday, with the U.N.’s chief hailing the historic agreement as giving the ocean “a fighting chance.” Delegates from the 193 member nations burst into applause and then stood up in a sustained standing ovation when Singapore’s ambassador on ocean issues, Rena Lee, who presided over the negotiations, banged her gavel after hearing no objections to the treaty’s approval. The treaty to protect biodiversity in waters outside national boundaries, known as the high seas, covering nearly half of earth’s surface, had been under discussion for more than 20 years as efforts to reach an agreement had repeatedly stalled. But in March delegates to an intergovernmental conference established by the U.N. General Assembly in December 2017 agreed on a treaty. The new treaty is under the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, which came into force in 1994, before marine biodiversity was a well-established concept. It will be opened for signatures on Sept. 20, during the annual meeting of world leaders at the General Assembly, and it will take effect once it is ratified by 60 countries. The treaty will create a new body to manage conservation of ocean life and establish marine protected areas in the high seas. It also establishes ground rules for conducting environmental impact assessments for commercial activities in the oceans. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told delegates that the adoption of the treaty comes at a critical time, with …