Year: 2023

The Biden administration and a drug manufacturer asked the Supreme Court on Friday to preserve access to an abortion drug free from restrictions imposed by lower court rulings, while a legal fight continues.  The Justice Department and Danco Laboratories both warned of “regulatory chaos” and harm to women if the high court doesn’t block an appeals court ruling in a case from Texas that had the effect of tightening Food and Drug Administration rules under which the drug, mifepristone, can be prescribed and dispensed.  The new limits would take effect Saturday unless the court acts before then.  “This application concerns unprecedented lower court orders countermanding FDA’s scientific judgment and unleashing regulatory chaos by suspending the existing FDA-approved conditions of use for mifepristone,” Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, the Biden administration’s top Supreme Court lawyer, wrote Friday, less than two days after the appellate ruling.  A lawyer for the anti-abortion doctors and medical organizations suing over mifepristone said the justices should reject the drugmaker’s and the administration’s pleas and allow the appeals court-ordered changes to take effect.  The fight over mifepristone lands at the Supreme Court less than a year after conservative justices reversed Roe v. Wade and allowed more than a dozen states to effectively ban abortion outright.  The justices are being asked for a temporary order to keep in place Food and Drug Administration regulations governing mifepristone. Such an order would give them time to more fully consider each side’s arguments without the pressure of a deadline.  The Biden administration …

Taifa 1, Kenya’s first operational 3U nanosatellite, was set to launch aboard the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from the Vandenberg Space Force Base in the U.S. state of California on Friday after being delayed twice. But the launch was scrubbed at the last minute because of unfavorable weather.   Teddy Warria, with Africa’s Talking Limited, a high-tech company, traveled to the University of Nairobi in Kenya from Kisumu, 563 kilometers west of Nairobi. He said he’ll stay as long it takes to witness the historic day.   “It shows us through science, technology, engineering and mathematics, and if we apply the lessons learned from STEM, we can go as far as our minds and imagination can take us,” Warria said.  Regardless of the delay, Charles Mwangi, the acting director of space sector and technology development at the Kenya Space Agency, said the satellite is quite significant.  “… [I]t’s initiating conversations we’ve not been having in terms of what our role within the space sector should be,” Mwangi said. “How do we leverage the potential space to address our societal need. More importantly, how do we catalyze research and activities of developing systems within our region.”   Mwangi told VOA that launching the satellite will have some major benefits “that will help us in monitoring our forests, doing crop prediction, determine where the yield for our crops, disaster management, planning.”  The satellite was developed by nine Kenyan engineers and cost $385,000 to build. The engineers collaborated with Bulgarian aerospace manufacturer Endurosat …

A European spacecraft rocketed away Friday on a decadelong quest to explore Jupiter and three of its icy moons that could have buried oceans. The journey began with a morning liftoff by Europe’s Ariane rocket from French Guiana in South America. Arianespace’s chief executive Stephane Israel called it “an absolutely perfect launch.” But there were some tense minutes later as controllers waited for signals from the spacecraft nearly an hour into the flight. When contact was confirmed, European Space Agency’s Bruno Sousa declared from Mission Control in Germany: “The spacecraft is alive!” It will take the robotic explorer, dubbed Juice, eight years to reach Jupiter, where it will scope out not only the solar system’s biggest planet but also Europa, Callisto and Ganymede. The three ice-encrusted moons are believed to harbor underground oceans, where sea life could exist. Then in perhaps the most impressive feat of all, Juice will attempt to go into orbit around Ganymede: No spacecraft has ever orbited a moon other than our own. With so many moons,— at last count 95 — astronomers consider Jupiter a mini solar system of its own, with missions like Juice long overdue. “We are not going to detect life with Juice,” stressed the European Space Agency’s project scientist, Olivier Witasse. But learning more about the moons and their potential seas will bring scientists closer to answering the is-there-life-elsewhere question. “That will be really the most interesting aspect of the mission,” he said. Juice is taking a long, roundabout route to …

The World Health Organization says that the focus of this year’s World Chagas Disease Day observation is expanding awareness of Chagas and on “providing access to crucial care and implementing disease surveillance, at the primary health care level.” The Centers for Disease Control says Chagas is caused by the parasite Trypanosoma cruzi, which is transmitted to animals and people by insects. It is often referred to as a silent killer because if it is not detected early, it can cause serious heart and digestive problems and can be fatal. It is found mainly in Latin America, but according to WHO, it has been detected elsewhere, including the United States, Canada, some European countries and some African, Eastern Mediterranean and Western Pacific countries. WHO reports 6 million to 7 million people worldwide are infected with Chagas and 30,000 to 40,000 new cases are detected yearly.   Approximately 12,000 Chagas-related deaths are reported annually. The disease is named after Carlos Justiniano Chagas, a Brazilian doctor who discovered the disease in 1909. …

A Zimbabwean actress battling cancer has asked wealthy citizens to buy a radiotherapy machine for government hospitals because she says the country’s only unit has stopped working. As Columbus Mavhunga reports from Harare, many blame Zimbabwe’s high mortality rate among cancer patients on the country’s poor state of health care.] Camera: Blessing Chigwenhembe …

The Republican-dominated Florida Legislature on Thursday approved a ban on abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, a proposal supported by the Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis as he prepares for an expected presidential run. DeSantis is expected to sign the bill into law. Florida currently prohibits abortions after 15 weeks. A six-week ban would give DeSantis a key political victory among Republican primary voters as he prepares to launch a presidential candidacy built on his national brand as a conservative standard-bearer. The policy would also have wider implications for abortion access throughout the South in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision last year overturning Roe v. Wade and leaving decisions about abortion access to states. Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi have banned abortion at all stages of pregnancy, while Georgia forbids the procedure after cardiac activity can be detected, which is around six weeks. “We have the opportunity to lead the national debate about the importance of protecting life and giving every child the opportunity to be born and find his or her purpose,” said Republican Rep. Jenna Persons-Mulicka. Democrats and abortion-rights groups have criticized Florida’s proposal as extreme. “This ban would prevent 4 million Florida women of reproductive age from accessing abortion care after six weeks — before many women even know they’re pregnant,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement issued after Thursday’s vote. “This ban would also impact the nearly 15 million women of reproductive age who live in abortion-banning states throughout the South, …

The U.S. Department of Justice responded Thursday to a ruling that limits access to the abortion pill mifepristone and said it would ask the Supreme Court for an emergency order to put any restrictions on hold. After conflicting rulings by various courts on mifepristone, a pill that induces abortion and is the most commonly used method in the United States, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday that it could be used for now but with some restrictions. They include reducing the period of time when the drug can be taken and prohibiting it from being mailed. Mifepristone has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration for 23 years. Last week, Matthew Kacsmaryk, a U.S. district judge in Texas, reversed approval of the pill’s use following a lawsuit by opponents of abortion. Less than an hour later, a judge in Washington state ordered the FDA to preserve access to the drug in 17 states and the District of Columbia. In response, the New Orleans-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit voted late Wednesday to temporarily narrow the ruling by Kacsmaryk. In a 2-1 vote, the judges on the appeals court put on hold changes made by the FDA in 2016 and 2021 that relaxed the rules for prescribing and dispensing mifepristone. The relaxed rules included allowing the pill to be sent through the mail, lifting a requirement for three in-person doctor visits, and approving the drug’s use for up to 10 weeks into a pregnancy, rather than seven …

An activist in Ghana is swimming the nearly 500-kilometer-long Volta River, including Lake Volta, to bring attention to worsening water pollution. Yvette Tetteh is also collecting water samples along the way to test for pollution. Senanu Tord reports from Lake Volta, Ghana. …

The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Climate Prediction Center on Thursday issued an El Nino watch for the next six months, a climate pattern that is likely to play a role in this year’s Atlantic hurricane season.  In a statement, NOAA said the indications are favorable — a 62% chance — for an El Nino pattern to form sometime from May to July. The pattern is characterized by warmer ocean temperatures and higher than normal precipitation in the central to eastern Pacific Ocean.  The El Nino pattern would follow nearly two continuous years of La Nina conditions in the Pacific.  El Nino and La Nina are opposite extremes of the El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) climate pattern that occur across the equatorial Pacific and can influence weather across the United States and around the world. NOAA monitors ENSO and issues monthly outlooks on the patterns.  The agency’s El Nino watch comes as the first forecast for the 2023 Atlantic hurricane season was issued by Colorado State University (CSU), led by meteorologist Philip Klotzbach.  The CSU forecast calls for a slightly below normal hurricane season but cautions there is a great deal of uncertainly as the forecast depends heavily on the likelihood of El Nino forming and how strong it might be. The warmer than normal ocean temperatures associated with El Nino are conducive to an active hurricane season.  The CSU forecast predicts 13 named storms to form during the 2023 season compared with the annual average of 14.4. Of …

Ghana has become the first country to approve a new malaria vaccine described as a “world changer” by scientists who developed it at the University of Oxford. The mosquito-spread parasitic disease kills more than 600,000 people every year. The majority are children in sub-Saharan Africa. A statement issued Wednesday by Oxford University says its new malaria vaccine called R21 has secured regulatory approval by Ghanaian officials for use in the age group at highest risk of death from malaria — children age 5-to-36 months. Malaria is an endemic disease in Ghana. The West African country’s health service says it accounts for 38% of all outpatients, with the most vulnerable groups being children younger than 5 years old. “We have tested a lot of vaccines — and to be here now, to have a vaccine that is being approved first for use in Ghana — is fantastic. It is what we’ve all been working hard towards,” said Dr. Katie Ewer, head of malaria immunology and professor of vaccine immunology at the Jenner Institute at the University of Oxford. Ewer said R21 has higher efficacy — about 75% in the data from the phase two trial. “We think perhaps the durability of the response has been better as well,” she said. Some hesitant to accept vaccine Ghana was one of three African countries in 2019 to have piloted the first malaria vaccine, known as RTS,S. But public acceptance of the vaccine, according to health officials, was somewhat below target due to hesitancy …

NASA opens the door to its Mars simulator. Plus, a private spaceflight contender gets knocked out, and the hooves of a beloved children’s character return to British soil. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi brings us The Week in Space. …

The first image of a black hole captured four years ago revealed a fuzzy, fiery doughnut-shaped object. Now, researchers have used artificial intelligence to give that cosmic beauty shot a touch-up. The updated picture, published Thursday in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, keeps the original shape, but with a skinnier ring and a sharper resolution. The image released in 2019 gave a peek at the enormous black hole at the center of the M87 galaxy, 53 million light-years from Earth. A light-year is 5.8 trillion miles. It was made using data gathered by a network of radio telescopes around the world, showing swirling light and gas. But even with many telescopes working together, gaps remained in the data. In the latest study, scientists relied on the same data and used machine learning to fill in the missing pieces. The resulting picture looks similar to the original, but with a thinner “doughnut” and a darker center, researchers said. “For me, it feels like we’re really seeing it for the first time,” said lead author Lia Medeiros, an astrophysicist at the Institute for Advanced Study in New Jersey. Medeiros said the team plans to use machine learning on other images of celestial objects, including possibly the black hole at the center of our Milky Way galaxy. …

A plan to legalize irrigation around the Donana wildlife reserve in southern Spain, one of Europe’s largest wetlands and a wintering location for migratory birds, has sparked an outcry during a prolonged drought. Andalusia’s conservative regional government wants to allow agricultural irrigation in five municipalities around Donana, saying the move poses no risk to the national park. The regional assembly, where the conservatives have a majority, on Wednesday voted in favor of proceeding with detailed studies of the proposal. During the debate, a lawmaker for the left-wing Adelante Andalucia party emptied a glass full of sand on regional leader Juanma Moreno’s vacant seat after accusing him of wanting to “dry up” Donana. ‘No water at all’ Scientists and the national government warn the park is in critical condition with lagoons drying out and biodiversity disappearing, and want a reduction in water extracted. “There is no water at all. It makes no sense to promise something that is not there,” Environment Minister Teresa Ribera said on Tuesday, vowing to take all possible legal measures to protect Donana from the move “that directly attacks one of the country’s most precious ecosystems.” While some irrigation is already allowed, many farmers use illegal wells that drain underwater reserves. The central government closed this week 220 illegal wells and plans to close hundreds more in the near future. The European Commision, which has already taken Spain to court for failure to protect the wetlands, warned last month the plan could lead to sanctions. Home to …

Electronic cigarette-maker Juul Labs will pay $462 million to six states and the District of Columbia, marking the largest settlement the company has reached so far for its role in the youth vaping surge, New York Attorney General Letitia James said Wednesday. The agreement with New York, California, Colorado, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Mexico and Washington, D.C., marks the latest in a string of recent legal settlements Juul has reached across the country with cities and states. The vaping company, which has laid off hundreds of employees, will pay $7.9 million to settle a lawsuit alleging the company violated West Virginia’s Consumer Credit and Protection Act by marketing its products to underage users, the state’s Attorney General Patrick Morrisey announced Monday. Last month, the company paid Chicago $23.8 million to settle a lawsuit. Minnesota’s case against Juul went to trial last month with the state’s Attorney General Keith Ellison asserting that the company “baited, deceived and addicted a whole new generation of kids after Minnesotans slashed youth smoking rates down to the lowest level in a generation.” Like some other settlements reached by Juul, this latest agreement includes various restrictions on the marketing, sale and distribution of the company’s vaping products. For example, it is barred from any direct or indirect marketing that targets young people, which includes anyone younger than 35. Juul is also required to limit the purchases customers can make in retail stores and online. “Juul lit a nationwide public health crisis by putting addictive products in the …

Hospitals in Cameroon are reporting an increase in cases of river blindness, a parasitic disease caused by bites from infected blackflies. Hundreds of aid workers have been dispatched to remote, riverside villages to encourage those infected to seek treatment.  In Sa’a district, 74 kilometers north of Cameroon’s capital of Yaounde, 45-year-old Jean Christophe Onana says he has not been able to recover his sight after receiving treatment from an African traditional healer for two months. He says he strongly believes that he has been bewitched by his enemies who are envious of last year’s abundant yield from his cocoa farm. Aid workers say Onana suffers from river blindness, a parasitic disease particularly prevalent in Africa, where 99% of all cases occur. Cameroon’s ministry of public health says that hospitals in Lekie, the administrative unit where Sa’a is located, have reported several hundred fresh cases of river blindness within the past three months.  The central African state’s government says the increase is in areas where there have been floods and where new farmland was opened near rivers, attracting settlers. Ophthalmologist Raoul Edgard Cheuteu, one of the aid workers in Sa’a, says humanitarian agencies and the government of Cameroon have decided to jointly equip the Sa’a district hospital and scores of other hospitals in areas where there is an increase in river blindness cases with standard tests for the diagnosis of the disease. Cheuteu says Onchocerciasis is increasing in Sa’a because of its many rivers that are breeding sites for blackflies that …

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Wednesday proposed sweeping emissions cuts for new cars and trucks through 2032, a move it says could mean two out of every three new vehicles automakers sell will be electric within a decade. The proposal, if finalized, represents the most aggressive U.S. vehicle emissions reduction plan to date, requiring 13% annual average pollution cuts and a 56% reduction in projected fleet average emissions over 2026 requirements. The EPA is also proposing new stricter emissions standards for medium-duty and heavy-duty trucks through 2032. The EPA projects the 2027-2032 model year rules would cut more than 9 billion tons of CO2 emissions through 2055 – equivalent to more than twice total U.S. CO2 emissions last year. Automakers and environmentalists say the administration is moving quickly in order to finalize new rules by early 2024 to make it much harder for a future Congress or president to reverse them. Then President Donald Trump rolled back tough emissions limits through 2025 set under Barack Obama but the Biden administration reversed the rollback. The agency estimates net benefits through 2055 from the proposal range from $850 billion to $1.6 trillion. By 2032 the proposal would cost about $1,200 per vehicle per manufacturer, but save an owner more than $9,000 on average on fuel, maintenance, and repair costs over an eight-year period.   “A lot has to go right for this massive – and unprecedented – change in our automotive market and industrial base to succeed,” said John Bozzella, …

The U.S. has named a veterinary tranquilizer as an “emerging threat” when it’s mixed with the powerful opioid fentanyl, clearing the way for more efforts to stop the spread of xylazine. The Office of National Drug Control Policy announced the designation Wednesday, the first time the office has used it since the category for fast-growing drug dangers was created in 2019. Dr. Rahul Gupta, director of the drug policy office, said xylazine has become increasingly common in all regions of the country. It was detected in about 800 drug deaths in the U.S. in 2020 — most of them in the Northeast. By 2021, it was present in more than 3,000 fatalities —with the most in the South — according to a report last year from the Drug Enforcement Administration. “We cannot ignore what we’re seeing,” Gupta said. “We must act and act now.” Xylazine was approved for veterinary use in 1971. Sometimes known as “tranq,” it’s been showing up in supplies of illicit drugs used by humans in major quantities in only the last several years. It’s believed to be added to other drugs to increase profits. Officials are trying to understand how much of it is diverted from veterinary uses and how much is made illicitly. The drug causes breathing and heart rates to slow down, sometimes to deadly levels, and causes skin abscesses and ulcers that can require amputation. Withdrawal is also painful. While it’s often used in conjunction with opioids, including fentanyl and related illicit lab-made …

U.S. health officials released data Tuesday showing how chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis cases have been accelerating, but doctors are hoping an old drug will help fight the sexually transmitted infections. Experts believe STDs have been rising because of declining condom use, inadequate sex education, and reduced testing during the COVID-19 pandemic. Millions of Americans are infected each year. Rates are highest in men who have sex with men, and among Black and Hispanic Americans and Native Americans. “Sexually transmitted infections are an enormous, low-priority public health problem. And they’ve been a low-priority problem for decades, in spite of the fact that they are the most commonly reported kind of infectious disease,” said Dr. John M. Douglas Jr., a retired health official who lectures at the Colorado School of Public Health. To try to turn the tide, many doctors see promise in doxycycline, a cheap antibiotic that has been sold for more than 50 years. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is drafting recommendations for using it as a kind of morning-after pill for preventing STDs, said Dr. Leandro Mena, director of the agency’s STD prevention division. The drug is already used to treat a range of infections. A study published last week in The New England Journal of Medicine showed its potential to prevent sexually transmitted infections. In the study, about 500 gay men, bisexual men and transgender women in Seattle and San Francisco with previous STD infections took one doxycycline pill within 72 hours of unprotected sex. Those …

Even before he has dipped his toes into the murky waters of Paris ‘ famous but forbidden River Seine, French triathlete Thibaut Rigaudeau is already fielding questions from disbelieving friends. “Are you scared of swimming in the Seine?” he says they ask him. “It looks disgusting.’” For decades, it was. Though immortalized in art, literature and song, and cherished by lovers who whisper sweet nothings or tearfully part on the privacy of its banks, the river was ecologically dying. It was too toxic for most fish and for swimmers, largely useful only as a waterway for goods and people or as a watery grave for discarded bicycles and other trash. Swimming in the Seine has, with some exceptions, been off-limits since 1923. Now, however, its admittedly unappetizing green-brown waters hide a tale of rebirth. A costly and complex cleanup is resuscitating the Seine just in time for it to play a starring role in the 2024 Paris Olympics and, after that, for it to genuinely live up to its billing as the world’s most romantic river, one that’s actually fit again for people. And in a warming world, a renewed ability to take cooling dips in the river should help France’s capital remain livable during increasingly frequent heat waves. It possibly might also inspire other cities to invest in reclaiming their waterways. “It will create waves, so to speak, across the world because a lot of cities are watching Paris,” says Dan Angelescu, a scientist who is tracking the Seine’s …