Month: July 2023

The U.K.’s oldest medical union Saturday hit out at government plans to increase the amount migrant workers pay to use the state health care service, to cover public-sector wage increases.   Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s government this week approved recommendations to boost wages of teachers, doctors and police by between 5.0 to 7.0 percent.   Sunak ruled out tax increases or government borrowing to fund the raise but instead said hikes in the Immigration Health Surcharge (IHS) and visa fees would raise $1.3 billion.   Doctors in Unite, which represents junior doctors, general practitioners and hospital consultants, said it was “appalled” at the move, as it would see migrants pay double to use the National Health Service (NHS).   Most employees in the U.K. have National Insurance contributions deducted at the source on their salaries, which pays for the National Health Service, as well as state pension and unemployment schemes.  “Just like other workers, migrants contribute to NHS funding through general taxation. Doubling the NHS surcharge to over $1,570 per year is an unjust additional penalty,” Doctors in Unite said.   “Migrants are effectively ‘taxed twice’ to access the same service,” it added, calling the move “immoral and divisive.”   The IHS, initially brought in to prevent “medical tourism,” is now paid by most migrants under tighter post-Brexit entry rules.  It is paid per person in addition to visa fees for stays of more than six months.   Over-18s pay $817 per year while students and under-18s pay $615 per year.   The government has proposed raising the …

United Nations agencies said Friday that millions of Sudanese cannot obtain treatment for emergency and chronic health conditions because fighting has brought the country’s fragile health system to near total collapse.    The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in a statement violence and “shortages of supplies, damage or occupation of facilities and assaults on medical staff” are having a devastating impact on people’s lives and on their ability to access health care.  The World Health Organization has said that some 50 attacks on health care facilities have caused 10 deaths and 21 injuries since fighting began between the Sudanese armed forces and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces three months ago.  “Ongoing violence, rampant insecurity, repeated attacks on health, and limited access to essential health supplies, are putting the people of Sudan in a life-or-death situation, with no immediate political solution in sight,” Rick Brennan, emergency director for the WHO’s regional office for the Eastern Mediterranean said.   Speaking from Cairo, Brennan said the violence has had a huge impact on access to the most basic health care, including treatment of such common infections as pneumonia and diarrhea, trauma treatment, and obstetric care.    He said the conflict is preventing people with chronic conditions, such as diabetes and hypertension from getting treatment.    “Patients who have been receiving dialysis for kidney failure and treatment for cancer are facing a sudden cessation of their treatment, with life-threatening consequences,” he said.  He said disrupted access to those services is risking the lives of 8,000 …

Visitors to Las Vegas on Friday stepped out momentarily to snap photos and were hit by blast-furnace air. But most will spend their vacations in a vastly different climate — at casinos where the chilly air conditioning might require a light sweater. Meanwhile, emergency room doctors were witnessing another world, as dehydrated construction workers, passed-out elderly residents and others suffered in an intense heat wave threatening to break the city’s all-time record high of 47.2 degrees Celsius this weekend. Few places in the scorching Southwest demonstrate the surreal contrast between indoor and outdoor life like Las Vegas, a neon-lit city rich with resorts, casinos, swimming pools, indoor nightclubs and shopping. Tens of millions of others across California and the Southwest, were also scrambling for ways to stay cool and safe from the dangers of extreme heat. “We’ve been talking about this building heat wave for a week now, and now the most intense period is beginning,” the National Weather Service wrote Friday. Nearly a third of Americans were under extreme heat advisories, watches and warnings. The blistering heat wave was forecast to get worse this weekend for Nevada, Arizona and California, where desert temperatures were predicted to soar in parts past 48.8 degrees Celsius during the day and remain above 32.2 C overnight. Sergio Cajamarca, his family and their dog, Max, were among those who lined up to pose for photos in front of the city’s iconic “Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas” sign. The temperature before noon already topped 37.8 …

Countries at this year’s U.N. climate summit must face up to how far behind they are on climate change targets and agree to a plan to get on track, the United Arab Emirates’ incoming president of the event said on Thursday.  In a speech laying out the country’s plan for the COP28 summit, to be held in Dubai in November, Sultan al-Jaber said the event should also yield international goals to triple renewable energy as well as double energy savings and hydrogen production by 2030.  “We must be brutally honest about the gaps that need to be filled, the root causes and how we got to this place here today,” Jaber told a meeting in Brussels of climate ministers and officials from countries including Brazil, China, the United States and European Union members.  “Then we must apply a far-reaching, forward-looking, action-oriented and comprehensive response to address these gaps practically,” he said.  The COP28 summit will be the first formal assessment of countries’ progress towards the Paris Agreement’s target to limit climate change to 1.5 Celsius (34.7 Fahrenheit) of warming. The current policies and pledges of countries would fail to meet that goal.   “We can’t afford a meaningless stocktake. This is about accountability of our previous, present and future updates,” Canadian Climate Minister Steven Guilbeault told Thursday’s meeting.  The assessment at COP28 — known as the Global Stocktake — will increase pressure on major emitters to update their actions to cut greenhouse gas emissions.  Jaber said all governments should update …

Health care providers in Zimbabwe are leaving the country in droves for better work abroad. The government is scrambling to fill the gaps by better equipping hospitals, as Columbus Mavhunga reports from Harare, Zimbabwe. …

An Indian rocket hurtled into space Friday to land a robotic rover on an unexplored area of the moon – a challenging feat India was unable to accomplish on a mission four years ago.    Only three countries, the U.S., China and Russia, have made what is called a “soft” or “controlled” landing on the lunar surface. If the Indian Space Research Organization, or ISRO, is successful this time, some observers say the mission will establish India’s position as one of the world’s leading space powers.    Millions around the country watched a live telecast of the launch of the “Chandrayaan-3” spacecraft from Sriharikota in southern India and thousands packed a viewing gallery in the launch site’s vicinity.    “Congratulations India. Chandrayaan-3 has started its journey toward the moon,” ISRO Chairman Sreedhara Panicker Somanath said, after the launch, as scientists at the mission control center clapped and shook hands.    The mission’s real test will come some 40 days from now when the lander equipped with a robotic rover will separate from the main spacecraft to land on the lunar surface on August 23 or August 24.   “This remarkable mission will carry the hopes and dreams of our nation,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is visiting France, tweeted ahead of the launch.   Friday’s launch by the ISRO is the country’s first major space mission since the failed attempt in 2019 when scientists lost contact with the lander minutes before it was scheduled to descend on the lunar surface. It …

Leading global health agencies report consumers who limit their intake of aspartame and other artificial sweeteners are at little risk of getting cancer. “The occasional level of exposure, which is far from the acceptable daily intake, is safe and is not producing appreciable health risk,” said Francesco Branca, World Health Organization director, department of nutrition and food safety. “The problem is for high consumers and the problem is for situations where consumption is shifting towards high consumers,” he said. “But I think our results do not indicate that occasional consumption should pose a risk to most consumers.” Aspartame, an artificial sweetener, has been widely used in a variety of foods and beverages, including diet soda, chewing gum, ice cream, and breakfast cereal, since the 1980s. Recent media reports that the WHO’s cancer research arm, the International Agency for Research on Cancer, or IARC, was likely to declare aspartame carcinogenic for humans created an uproar among stalwart dieters hooked on these low-fat products. Two scientific bodies conducted independent but complementary reviews to assess the potential carcinogenic hazard and other health risks associated with aspartame consumption. Mary Schubauer-Berigan, head of the IARC monographs program, says her agency’s task was to identify the possible hazards, not the risks associated with aspartame. “It is very important to note that this was a hazard identification and not a risk assessment,” she said. “A hazard identification aims to identify the specific properties of the agent and their potential to cause harm, that is the potential of …

The World Health Organization’s cancer agency has deemed the sweetener aspartame — found in diet soda and countless other foods — as a possible cause of cancer, while a separate expert group looking at the same evidence said it still considers the sugar substitute safe in limited quantities. The differing results of the coordinated reviews were released early Friday in Europe. One came from the International Agency for Research on Cancer, a special branch of the WHO. The other report was from an expert panel selected by WHO and another U.N. group, the Food and Agriculture Organization, based in Rome. The Lyon, France-based cancer agency periodically reviews potential cancer hazards but doesn’t determine how likely they are to cause cancer in their evaluations, which range from possibly carcinogenic to probably to cancer-causing. Aspartame joins a category with more than 300 other possible cancer-causing agents, including things like aloe vera extract, Asian-style pickled vegetables and carpentry work. The guidance on use of the sweetener, though, isn’t changing. “We’re not advising consumers to stop consuming [aspartame] altogether,” said WHO’s nutrition director, Dr. Francesco Branca. “We’re just advising a bit of moderation.” Here’s a look at the announcement: What is aspartame? Aspartame is a low-calorie artificial sweetener that is about 200 times sweeter than sugar. It is a white, odorless powder and the world’s most widely used artificial sweetener. Aspartame is authorized as a food additive in Europe and the U.S. and is used in numerous foods, drinks such as Diet Coke, desserts, …

HIV/AIDS can end as a public health threat by 2030 if nations can muster the political will and critical financial support to completely defeat it, a new report published Thursday says. The deadly disease has killed 40.4 million people since the start of the epidemic in 1981. “The data in this report show that the path that ends AIDS is not a mystery, but it is a choice. It is a political and a financial choice,” said Winnie Byanyima, executive director of UNAIDS. “The report shows that HIV responses can succeed when they are anchored in strong political leadership,” she said. The report released by UNAIDS, the United Nations AIDS program, finds that in 2022, 39 million people worldwide were living with HIV, 1.3 million became newly infected and 630,000 died from AIDS-related illnesses.  While new infections have been declining globally over the past 10 to 12 years, rates remain high in several regions. Data show that two-thirds of all people living with HIV are found in sub-Saharan Africa, the hardest-hit region in the world. Other heavily infected regions include Asia and the Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as Eastern Europe and Central Asia. The report says women and girls are still disproportionately affected, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. “Every single week, 4,000 adolescent girls and young women were newly infected with HIV globally; 3,100 of those are from sub-Saharan Africa. It is a sub-Saharan crisis,”  Byanyima said. At the same time, she noted that eastern and southern …

U.S. officials have approved the first over-the-counter birth control pill, which will let American women and girls buy contraceptive medication from the same aisle as aspirin and eyedrops. The Food and Drug Administration said Thursday it cleared Perrigo’s once-a-day Opill to be sold without a prescription, making it the first such medication to be moved out from behind the pharmacy counter. The company won’t start shipping the pill until early next year, and there will be no age restrictions on sales. Hormone-based pills have long been the most common form of birth control in the U.S., used by tens of millions of women since the 1960s. Until now, all of them required a prescription. Medical societies and women’s health groups have pushed for wider access, noting that an estimated 45% of the 6 million annual pregnancies in the U.S. are unintended. Teens and girls, women of color and those with low incomes report greater hurdles in getting prescriptions and picking them up. Some of the challenges can include paying for a doctor’s visit, getting time off from work and finding child care. “This is really a transformation in access to contraceptive care,” said Kelly Blanchard, president of Ibis Reproductive Health, a non-profit group that supported the approval. “Hopefully this will help people overcome those barriers that exist now.” Ireland-based Perrigo did not announce a price. Over-the-counter medicines are generally much cheaper than prescriptions, but they aren’t covered by insurance. Many common medications have made the switch to non-prescription status in …

It is possible to end AIDS by 2030 if countries demonstrate the political will to invest in prevention and treatment and adopt non-discriminatory laws, the United Nations said on Thursday. In 2022, an estimated 39 million people around the world were living with HIV, according to UNAIDS, the United Nations AIDS program. HIV can progress to AIDS if left untreated. “We have a solution if we follow the leadership of countries that have forged strong political commitment to put people first and invest in evidence-based HIV prevention and treatment programs,” UNAIDS said in a report published on Thursday. It said an effective response to HIV also meant adopting non-discriminatory laws and empowering community networks, among other initiatives. People living with HIV or AIDS in many countries face stigma, discrimination and violence. “Progress has been strongest in the countries and regions that have the most financial investments, such as in eastern and southern Africa, where new HIV infections have been reduced by 57% since 2010,” the report said. It added, however, that there has been a steep increase in new infections in eastern Europe and central Asia, as well as in the Middle East and North Africa. “These trends are due primarily to a lack of HIV prevention services for marginalized and key populations and the barriers posed by punitive laws and social discrimination,” it said. Last year, 1.3 million people became newly infected with HIV and 630,000 died from AIDS-related illnesses, according to UNAIDS. …

Warmer, drier weather because of an earlier-than-usual El Nino is expected to hamper rice production across Asia, hitting global food security in a world still reeling from the impacts of the war in Ukraine.  An El Nino is a natural, temporary and occasional warming of part of the Pacific that shifts global weather patterns, and climate change is making them stronger. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced this one in June, a month or two earlier than it usually does. This gives it time to grow. Scientists say there’s a one in four chance it will expand to supersized levels.  That’s bad news for rice farmers, particularly in Asia where 90% of the world’s rice is grown and eaten, since a strong El Nino typically means less rainfall for the thirsty crop.  Past El Ninos have resulted in extreme weather, ranging from drought to floods.  There are already “alarm bells,” said Abdullah Mamun, a research analyst at the International Food Policy Research Institute or IFPRI, pointing to rising rice prices due to shortfalls in production. The average price of 5% broken white rice in June in Thailand was about 16% higher than last year’s average.  Global stocks have run low since last year, in part due to devastating floods in Pakistan, a major rice exporter. This year’s El Nino may amplify other woes for rice-producing countries, such as reduced availability of fertilizer due to the war and some countries’ export restrictions on rice. Myanmar, Cambodia and Nepal are particularly …

BEIJING — Employers across much of China were ordered Monday to limit outdoor work due to scorching temperatures, while the east and southwest were warned to prepare for torrential rain as the country struggled with heat, flooding and drought. Temperatures as high as 40 C (104 F) were reported in cities including Shijiazhuang, southwest of Beijing, the capital. Highs of 35 C (95 F) to 38 C (100 F) were reported in Beijing, Guangzhou in the south, Chongqing in the southwest and Shenyang in the northeast. The weather agency issued an orange alert, its second-highest warning, for heat across southern China and much of the north and northeast. That requires employers to limit outdoor work, though delivery workers for restaurants and online retailers were still working. The agriculture ministry warned Sunday that persistent hot weather could damage rice harvests and told local authorities to ensure adequate water supplies to prevent the crop from ripening prematurely. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Water Resources warned the provinces of Shandong on the east coast and Sichuan in the southwest to prepare for heavy rain from Tuesday to Friday, according to the official Xinhua News Agency. It said multiple rivers were likely to rise above safe levels. In the central city of Yichang, in Hubei province, heavy rain triggered a landslide Saturday that buried a highway construction site and killed one person. Authorities were searching Monday for seven missing construction workers, Xinhua reported. Business and schools in Heilongjiang province in the northeast were ordered Monday …

The Webb Space Telescope is marking one year of cosmic photographs with one of its best yet: the dramatic close-up of dozens of stars at the moment of birth.  NASA unveiled the latest snapshot Wednesday, revealing 50 baby stars in a cloud complex 390 light-years away. The region is relatively small and quiet yet full of illuminated gases, jets of hydrogen and even dense cocoons of dust with the delicate beginnings of even more stars.  “Prepare to be awestruck!” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson tweeted, noting that the image “presents star birth as an impressionistic masterpiece.”  All of the young stars appear to be no bigger than our sun. Scientists said the breathtaking shot provides the best clarity yet of this brief phase of a star’s life.  “It’s like a glimpse of what our own system would have looked like billions of years ago when it was forming,” NASA program scientist Eric Smith told The Associated Press.  “I like to remind people that when this light left, it was roughly 1633. … People were putting Galileo on trial for believing that the Earth goes around the sun, and here we are seeing separate suns and planets forming today,” Smith said.  This cloud complex, known as Rho Ophiuchi, is the closest star-forming region to Earth and is found in the sky near the border of the constellations Ophiuchus and Scorpius, the serpent-bearer and scorpion. With no stars in the foreground of the photo, NASA noted, the details stand out all the more. …

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) said on Tuesday it has extended its probe into Novo Nordisk’s diabetes drugs Ozempic and weight-loss treatment Saxenda, following two reports of suicidal thoughts, to include other drugs in the same class. The agency began its review on July 3 after Iceland’s health regulator flagged the reports of patients thinking about suicide and one case of thoughts of self-harm after use of Novo Nordisk’s drugs. There have been issues of suicidal thoughts linked to another class of weight-loss drugs, which have hobbled previous attempts by the drug industry to develop lucrative weight-loss drugs. Sanofi’s weight-loss drug Acomplia, which never won U.S. approval, was withdrawn in Europe in 2008 after being linked to suicidal thoughts. The EMA said on Tuesday it will investigate the class of drugs known as GLP-1 receptor agonists, which trigger a feeling of fullness after eating. The review is expected to be completed in November, according to the agency. Drugmaker Eli Lilly’s shares closed down 3.1%. Its diabetes drug Trulicity also belongs to the same class. Novo Nordisk’s weight-loss drug Wegovy, which contains the active ingredient semaglutide, is also part of the review. Other GLP-1 drugs include Sanofi’s Suliqua and AstraZeneca’s Bydureon. Both are approved in Europe for treatment of type 2 diabetes. Sanofi said it has not identified any safety concerns related to “suicidal ideation” from use of its GLP-1 receptor agonist. However, the company has started an investigation and will share all relevant information with the European health regulator. Eli …

Australian scientists say they have developed a special glue that can be used to repair parts of the World Heritage-listed Great Barrier Reef. Researchers at the Queensland University of Technology believe the biodegradable putty has the potential to help the coral recover after it’s been damaged by cyclones, hit by boats or suffered bleaching. The Great Barrier Reef is arguably Australia’s most valuable natural treasure. It is the world’s largest coral system and faces an array of threats, including climate change, pollution, over-fishing and coral-eating crown-of-thorns starfish. When reefs are damaged by cyclones, or struck by boats, patches of rubble are often left behind. These can be shifted by waves and currents, preventing the formation of a stable seabed that coral needs to grow. Coral bleaching can also cause reefs to disintegrate. When ocean temperatures are too warm – a consequence of climate change – the coral responds to the heat by expelling the algae that give them their brilliant colors and most of their energy. When a coral bleaches, it is not dead, but it becomes far more fragile. In a bid to reverse some of that degradation, a team at the Queensland University of Technology has made a reef-binding glue that eventually dissolves away. Leonie Barner is a professor of chemistry at the Queensland University of Technology. She told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. that the glue should be a sustainable way to help reefs recover. “One component that we are using is actually a plant extract. It’s coming …

Humanity has etched its way into Earth’s geology, atmosphere and biology with such strength and permanence that a team of scientists figures we have shifted into a new geologic epoch — one of our own creation. It’s called the Anthropocene. A geologic task force recommends marking this new epoch’s start in the deep, pristine Crawford Lake outside Toronto, Canada, with a “golden spike.” The start of the human epoch is sometime around 1950 to 1954. The specific date will be determined soon, probably by levels of plutonium in new measurements from the bottom of the lake. “It’s quite clear that the scale of change has intensified unbelievably and that has to be human impact,” said University of Leicester geologist Colin Waters, who chaired the Anthropocene Working Group, which is making the recommendation. “It’s no longer just influencing Earth’s sphere, it’s actually controlling.” The burning of coal, oil and gas that’s changing Earth’s climate and atmosphere, nuclear bomb detonations spotted in soil around the globe, plastics and nitrogen from fertilizers added on land, and dramatic changes to species that make up the rest of the Earth characterize the new epoch, scientists said. The idea of the Anthropocene was proposed at a science conference more than 20 years ago by the Nobel Prize-winning chemist Paul Crutzen. Teams of scientists have debated the issue for decades. A special committee was set up to examine whether the designation was needed, when it would start and where a golden spike would be placed to commemorate …

Double Olympic champion runner Caster Semenya won an appeal against track and field’s testosterone rules on Tuesday when the European Court of Human Rights ruled she was discriminated against and there were “serious questions” about the rules’ validity. World Athletics, which enforces the regulations, said in reaction to the decision that its rules would remain in place, however, meaning there would not be an immediate return to top-level competition for the South African runner. Semenya’s case at the rights court was against the government of Switzerland, and not World Athletics itself, although the decision was still a major moment in throwing doubt on the future of the rules. Semenya was legally identified as female at birth and has identified as female her entire life, but regulations introduced by track and field’s governing body in 2019 forced her to artificially suppress her natural testosterone to be allowed to compete in women’s competitions. World Athletics says she has one of a number of conditions known as differences in sex development, which results in a natural testosterone level in the typical male range and which gives her an unfair advantage in women’s competitions. Semenya has been challenging the testosterone rules in the courts for years, but had previously lost an appeal at sport’s highest court in 2019 and a second challenge against the rules at Switzerland’s supreme court in 2020. That second rejection of her appeal was the reason why the Swiss government was the respondent in the European Court of Human Rights …

India will launch a mission to the moon later this week hoping to become the fourth country to land a craft on the lunar surface.     So far only three countries — the United States, Russia and China — have achieved what is called a “soft landing” on the moon in which vehicles touch down without damage.   The mission marks the Indian Space Research Organization’s (ISRO) second attempt to land a rover on the moon — a previous effort nearly four years ago failed.     The spacecraft called Chandrayaan-3, which means moon vehicle in Sanskrit, is scheduled to be launched Friday afternoon (2:35 p.m. Indian time) It is equipped with a lander and a robotic rover that are expected to land on the moon on August 23 or August 24 to map the lunar surface for about two weeks.  “The date is decided based on when the sunrise is on the moon; it will depend on the calculations, but if it gets delayed, then we will have to keep the landing for the next month in September,” ISRO director S. Somanath said.   He said the main objective is to demonstrate “a safe and soft landing.”      India aims to land its rover on the South Pole of the moon, a previously unexplored part that lies in near darkness. It will study the topography of this region.    “There is expectation that the southern parts of the moon have a lot of mineral deposits and helium-3. There is also the possibility of water deposits …