Cardiovascular disease is a growing health concern in Kenya and around Africa. In Nairobi, 100 motorcycle taxi drivers are riding stationary bicycles and being trained to provide emergency resuscitation using automatic electronic defibrillators. It’s all part of an ongoing campaign to raise awareness about heart health in Kenya. Lenny Ruvaga reports from Nairobi.
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To the untrained eye, the Scottish wildcat looks quite similar to a normal domestic cat. But it is a unique species, and it could become extinct. As VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports, the greatest threat to these cats is other cats.
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A new simple dipstick test can provide fast results for people who may have contracted the Zika virus or dengue fever. People who fear they may have been exposed to the mosquito-borne viruses can seek immediate help. And women can be tested for the Zika virus before they get pregnant to ensure their babies are not born brain-damaged. VOA’s Deborah Block reports.
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Nearly 300 species of fish, mussels and other sea critters hitchhiked across the Pacific Ocean on debris from the 2011 Japanese tsunami, washing ashore alive in the United States, researchers reported Thursday.

 

It is the largest and longest marine migration ever documented, outside experts and the researchers said. The scientists and colleagues combed the beaches of Washington, Oregon, California, British Columbia, Alaska and Hawaii and tracked the species to their Japanese origins. Their arrival could be a problem if the critters take root, pushing out native species, the study authors said in Thursday’s journal Science.

 

“It’s a bit of what we call ecological roulette,” said lead author James Carlton, a marine sciences professor at Williams College, in Williamstown, Massachusetts.

It will be years before scientists know if the 289 Japanese species thrive in their new home and crowd out natives. The researchers roughly estimated that a million creatures traveled 4,800 miles (7,725 kilometers) across the Pacific Ocean to reach the West Coast, including hundreds of thousands of mussels.

 

Invasive species is a major problem worldwide with plants and animals thriving in areas where they don’t naturally live. Marine invasions in the past have hurt native farmed shellfish, eroded the local ecosystem, caused economic losses and spread disease-carrying species, said Bella Galil, a marine biologist with the Steinhardt Museum of Natural History in Tel Aviv, Israel, who wasn’t part of the study.

‘Jaw-dropping diversity’

A magnitude 9 earthquake off the coast of Japan triggered a tsunami March 11, 2011, that swept boats, docks, buoys and other man-made materials into the Pacific. The debris drifted east with an armada of living creatures, some that gave birth to new generations while at sea.

 

“The diversity was somewhat jaw-dropping,” Carlton said. “Mollusks, sea anemones, corals, crabs, just a wide variety of species, really a cross-section of Japanese fauna.”

 

The researchers collected and analyzed the debris that reached the West Coast and Hawaii over the last five years, with new pieces arriving Wednesday in Washington. The debris flowed across the North Pacific current, as other objects do from time to time, before it moved north with the Alaska current or south with the California current. Most hit Oregon and Washington.

 

Last year, a small boat from Japan reached Oregon with 20 good-sized fish inside, a kind of yellowtail jack native to the western Pacific, Carlton said. Some of the fish are still alive in an Oregon aquarium. Earlier, an entire fishing ship, the Sai sho-Maru, arrived intact with five of the same 6-inch fish swimming around inside.

Co-author Gregory Ruiz, a Smithsonian marine ecologist, is especially interested in a Japanese parasite in the gills of mussels. Elsewhere in the world, these parasites have taken root and hurt oyster and mussel harvests and they hadn’t been seen before on the West Coast.

Much of debris is plastic

 

The researchers note another huge factor in this flotilla: plastics.

 

Decades ago, most of the debris would have been wood and that would have degraded over the long ocean trip, but now most of the debris — buoys, boats, crates and pallets — are made of plastic and that survives, Carlton said. And so the hitchhikers survive, too.

 

“It was the plastic debris that allowed new species to survive far longer than we ever thought they would,” Carlton said.

 

James Byers, a marine ecologist at the University of Georgia in Athens, who wasn’t part of the study, praised the authors for their detective work. He said in an email that the migration was an odd mix of a natural trigger and human aspects because of the plastics.

 

“The fact that communities of organisms survived out in the open ocean for long time periods (years in some cases) is amazing,” he wrote.
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Melania Trump invited experts and people affected by addiction to opioids to the White House for a listening session and discussion about the epidemic.

 

The first lady hosted Thursday’s event in the State Dining Room and invited journalists to attend a portion of the meeting to help raise awareness. She joined President Donald Trump at a briefing on the crisis during the president’s vacation last month at his New Jersey golf club.

 

WATCH: Melania Trump on opioid crisis

Stephanie Grisham, a spokeswoman for Mrs. Trump, said the first lady met regularly during the presidential campaign with families who had been affected by drug abuse and addiction.

 

She said Mrs. Trump wants to work in tandem with the president’s drug commission on youth and prevention initiatives.

 

“The opioid crisis is the deadliest epidemic in American history, and it is getting worse,” Grisham said in an email. “It affects children of all ages, even before they are born. As a mother, and as first lady, she is anxious to use her platform to help.”

 

Grisham added that the first lady is focused on the overall well-being of children.

 

The president said last month that he will officially declare the opioid crisis a “national emergency,” but he has yet to issue a formal national declaration.

 

“We’re going to spend a lot of time, a lot of effort and a lot of money on the opioid crisis,” Trump told reporters last month during a different briefing at the New Jersey club.

 

A drug commission created by Trump and led by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has called on the president to declare a national emergency to help deal with the growing crisis.

 

An initial report from the President’s Commission on Combating Drug Abuse and the Opioid Crisis noted that the approximately 142 deaths each day from drug overdoses mean the death toll from the epidemic is “equal to September 11th every three weeks.”

 

Christie led a meeting of the commission Wednesday in an office building on the White House grounds. The first lady was in New York and did not attend.

 

Michael Passante, a member of the panel, said the commission plans to issue its final report by Nov. 1, a month later than originally scheduled.
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Giant pandas Cai Tao and Hu Chun arrived Thursday to fanfare in Indonesia where a new “palace” like home that cost millions of dollars has been built for them.

The male and female pair landed at Jakarta’s international airport from Chengdu and will be quarantined at Taman Safari zoo outside the capital for about a month before the public can visit.

The zoo hopes the 7-year-olds will mate and add to the giant panda population. It’s built a special enclosure and facilities that cost about 60 billion rupiah ($4.5 million), Taman Safari President Tony Sumampouw told The Associated Press.

There are less than 1,900 giant pandas in their only wild habitats in the Chinese provinces of Sichuan, Shaanxi and Gansu.

China gifted friendly nations with its national mascot in what was known as “panda diplomacy” for decades.

Countries now pay to be loaned pandas but they remain a potent symbol of Chinese soft power at a time when Beijing is seeking Southeast Asia cooperation for its ambitions plans to create a modern-day Silk Road that enhances its economic and political clout.

Zoo spokesman Yulius Suprihardo said the living quarters for Cai Tao, the male, and Hu Chun, the female, resemble a three-tier temple.

It’s on a hill surrounded by about 5,000 square meters of land and equipped with an elevator, sleeping area, medical facilities and indoor and outdoor play areas.

He said after the quarantine period a “soft launch” for public viewing could be held by late October or early November.

“During this time we can only see the adorable pandas from images, videos or television. In the near future, Indonesian people can see panda directly,” Suprihardo said. “And we hope they can breed here, that’s part of our goal.”
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It is estimated that nearly 40 million people in the U.S. alone suffer from chronic sleep deprivation. But a new study, perhaps the first of its kind, is shedding light on how and why humans sleep, or don’t sleep. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
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In the Australian bushland, citizen scientists are helping conservation officials track invasive, and endangered species. Using a special app, nature lovers can mark the vulnerable or even invasive wildlife as they wander the countryside. VOA’s Kevin Enochs.
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Rocky outcrops in eastern Canada contain what may be some of the oldest evidence of life on Earth, dating back about 3.95 billion years.

Scientists said on Wednesday they found indirect evidence of life in the form of bits of graphite contained in sedimentary rocks from northern Labrador that they believe are remnants of primordial marine microorganisms.

The researchers carried out a geological analysis of the Labrador rocks and measured concentrations and isotope compositions of the graphite, and concluded that it was produced by a living organism.

They did not find fossils of the microorganisms that may have left behind the graphite, a form of carbon, but said they may have been bacteria.

“The organisms inhabited an open ocean,” said University of Tokyo geologist Tsuyoshi Komiya, who led the study published in the journal Science.

Earth formed about 4.5 billion years ago and the oceans appeared roughly 4.4 billion years ago. The new study and some other recent research indicate that microbial life emerged earlier than previously known and relatively soon after the Earth’s formation.

Canada has produced some of the most ancient signs of life.

Another team of scientists in March reported that microfossils between 3.77 billion and 4.28 billion years old found in northern Quebec, relatively close to the Labrador site, are similar to the bacteria that thrive today around sea floor hydrothermal vents.

Other scientists last year described 3.7 billion-year-old fossilized microbial mats, called stromatolites, from Greenland.
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Researchers say the likelihood of scorching summer temperatures in southern Europe is increasing because of man-made climate change.

Hotter-than-usual temperatures in the Mediterranean region – including an August heatwave in Italy and the Balkans dubbed ‘Lucifer’ – resulted in higher hospital admissions, numerous forest fires and widespread economic losses this summer.

The World Weather Attribution team says it combined temperature measurements and computer simulations, concluding that greenhouse gas emissions linked to human activity have increased the chances of such heatwaves four-to-tenfold.

They warned Wednesday that summers like this one could become the norm in the Euro-Mediterranean region by 2050 if emissions continue to rise.

The team’s techniques are widely accepted among scientists as a means of determining whether climate change plays a role in extreme events.
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According to U.S. government statistics, nearly 40 percent of all pregnancies around the world are unwanted or unplanned. And yet the means to prevent every unwanted pregnancy in the world exists, and has existed for more than 50 years. VOA’s Kevin Enochs looks at the history of birth control on World Contraception day.
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The United States and Mexico have agreed to renew and expand a far-reaching conservation agreement that governs how they manage the overused Colorado River, which supplies water to millions of people and farms in both nations.

 

The agreement to be signed Wednesday calls for the U.S. to invest $31.5 million in conservation improvements in Mexico’s water infrastructure to reduce losses to leaks and other problems, according to officials of U.S. water districts who have seen summaries of the agreement.

 

The water that the improvements save would be shared by users in both nations and by environmental restoration projects

 

The deal also calls on Mexico to develop specific plans for reducing consumption if the river runs too low to supply everyone’s needs, said Bill Hasencamp of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which supplies water to about 19 million people in and around Los Angeles.

Major river consumers in the U.S. would be required to agree on their own shortage plan before Mexico produces one, he said.

 

The deal will extend a previous agreement that both countries would share the burden of water supply cutbacks if the river runs low, Hasencamp said.

 

The International Boundary and Water Commission, which has members from both countries and oversees U.S.-Mexico treaties on borders and rivers, declined to release a copy of the agreement before Wednesday’s signing ceremony in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

 

Officials with the Mexican foreign ministry said in an email Tuesday they had no immediate comment, but U.S. officials who have been briefed on the details said the deal will help both sides.

 

“It’s good news for both nations, for water users in the U.S. and Mexico,” said Chuck Collum of the Central Arizona Project, another Colorado River user that will help fund the infrastructure improvements in Mexico.

 

The agreement provides more certainty in how the two countries will deal with the risk of a shortage and recognizes the danger the river faces, he said.

 

“It’s an acknowledgement that the U.S. and Mexico both share risk due to a hotter and drier future,” Collum said.

 

The Colorado River is in the midst of a prolonged regional drought, and some climate scientists have said global warming is already reducing the amount of water it carries.

A study published in February by researchers from the University of Arizona and Colorado State University said climate change could cut the river’s flow by one-third by the end of the century.

 

The river begins in the mountains of Colorado and winds 1,400 miles (2,250 kilometers) to Mexico, although heavy use means it usually dries up before it reaches its delta on the Gulf of California where Mexico’s Sonora and Baja California states meet.

 

Along the way, it supplies water to about 40 million people and 6,300 square miles (16,300 square kilometers) of farmland in the United States alone. Equivalent figures for Mexico weren’t immediately available.

 

The deal being signed Wednesday, known as Minute 323, is an amendment to a 1944 U.S.-Mexico treaty that lays out how the two nations share the river. The treaty promises Mexico 1.5 million acre-feet (1.9 billion cubic meters) of water annually.

 

The U.S. uses the rest. The average annual flow in the river is about 16.4 million acre-feet (20 billion cubic meters), according the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, which manages the river in the United States.

 

One acre-foot (1,200 cubic meters) is enough to supply a typical U.S. family for a year.

 

The new agreement, which will be in force for nine years, does not include a repeat of the historic 2014 “pulse” that sent about 105,000 acre-feet (130 million cubic meters) of water surging into river’s delta in Mexico, the U.S. water officials said.

 

That was an environmental experiment that brought water and life to the dried-out delta for the first time in years.

 

But the agreement does include up to 210,000 acre-feet (260 million cubic meters) for environmental restoration projects, according to a briefing from Southern California’s Imperial Irrigation District, one of the funders of the Mexican infrastructure projects.

 

Details of those projects were not immediately available.
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Miami is a city that lives on air conditioning. When it fails, people can die.

After Hurricane Irma knocked down power lines and disconnected the cooling system at a nursing home north of Miami this month, 11 residents perished when temperatures inside soared.

Florida Governor Rick Scott blamed management at the facility for allowing patients to endure sweltering conditions as the heat index — a measure of combined heat and humidity — passed 100 degrees Fahrenheit.

But public outrage has also targeted the local utility company for not restoring electricity fast enough, and the city for not ordering and assisting with an evacuation.

In this often sweltering southern city, widespread use of air conditioning makes it easy to overlook the growing risks of extreme heat. But the risks are there — and they can be just one power failure away.

Around the world, a surge in extreme weather events, including storms, floods and droughts, has focused attention on the risks associated with global warming.

But one of the biggest threats — and a particularly serious one for already hot countries and cities — is worsening heat waves, which remain an under-estimated risk, experts say.

In the United States, Florida is predicted to experience the greatest increase in the deadly combination of heat and humidity over the next decades.

The number of extreme heat days, when the heat index is above 105 degrees Fahrenheit (40.6 degrees Celsius), is expected to jump to 126 a year by 2030 and 151 by 2050 in Miami, according to a study by Climate Central, a U.S. nonprofit science and media organization.

In 2000, Miami saw 24 such extreme heat days, the study noted.

Miami’s sweating residents — particularly those who spend a lot of time outside — say they’re noticing the difference already.

“I’ve been here all my life and working in construction, and I can tell you: It’s getting hotter every year,” said Rai Finalet, as he moved barriers along Little Havana’s Flagler Street, which is being repaved.

On a summer day in early September, there was not even a hint of fall in the air. Instead it was 93 degrees, with a heat index of 107 degrees.

Finalet’s long-sleeve shirt, which he needed to protect his skin from the scorching sun, had been soaked since he started his shift at 8 a.m., he said.

Taking frequent breaks and drinking “gallons” of water is his secret to surviving an outdoor job, even as most Miami residents try to avoid stepping out of air-conditioned spaces.

Tourists wilt

With only a thin canopy of trees and a location far from Miami’s breezy shores, densely populated Little Havana often registers the city’s hottest temperatures.

In the summer, which effectively lasts from April through October, the average temperature is often above 86 degrees and very few locals venture out on the streets around midday.

But Nolvia Hernandez, parasol in hand, had rushed out to pick up her son from school.

“I avoid going out during the hottest times of the day, and when I do, I take my umbrella,” she said. Asked why she was wearing a long-sleeve shirt, she said the air conditioning is kept very cold at her workplace.

Tourists regularly brave the heat to experience iconic Little Havana, where hundreds of thousands of Cuban immigrants settled over the decades, opening quaint cigar shops, lively restaurants and salsa clubs.

At the Ball and Chain, a traditional bar with a live salsa band playing most days and evenings, a powerful misting system along the facade offers visitors an inviting respite from the heat.

Next door, the Azucar ice cream shop, with its powerful air conditioning, is another spot where tourists can take a break from suffocating temperatures outside.

Veronica Agudo, Lucia Beth Marcoleta and Tatiana Harder walk in and breathe a big sigh of relief as the cold air sweeps over them. The friends from Chile sit on a bench and slouch against the wall, sweat trickling down their faces.

“This humidity is killing us,” said Marcoleta. “We want to walk around and see all the sights, but it’s just so hot.” “It’s better to stay on Miami Beach, in the water, for our entire vacation,” Agudo joked.

One outdoors spot in the heart of Little Havana where temperatures are cooler is Maximo Gomez park, also known as Domino Park. It’s a small green oasis with lush trees where residents play dominoes and chess on tables under gazebos fitted with ceiling fans.

Leo Diaz, one of the players, lives in a building with a new central air system, but prefers to spend time outdoors. He worries about Miami’s future as climate change boosts temperatures.

“This city is building more, paving more areas, and we can all feel that the climate is changing. Soon we won’t even be able to stand being here. I hope I don’t see that in my lifetime,” said the former radio announcer who arrived in Miami from Cuba almost 30 years ago.

‘Immune’ to heat

Already heat is the top weather-related killer in the United States — but it is a silent one, with heat-linked illnesses often diagnosed as other disorders, said Laurence Kalkstein, a climatology professor at the University of Miami’s Miller School of Medicine.

In places like Florida, there is low awareness of heat risks because people expect days to be hot, and the state is relatively well-equipped to deal with high temperatures, he said.

“Heat-related mortality isn’t very common here, so most people believe they are immune to it,” he noted. “But we have a growing vulnerable population — of aging people who don’t sweat as efficiently, and others like the homeless, obese people, or those on certain medications.”

In steamy Florida, high humidity makes it harder for sweat to evaporate, preventing the body from cooling off. That’s what can cause heat exhaustion and potentially deadly heat stroke — and what may have contributed to the deaths at the nursing home.

Climate change has already given Florida a lot to worry about, with many officials so far more focused on dealing with rising sea level and worsening flooding than heat threats.

But cities in Florida also have created “resilience” offices to try to adapt to and plan for coming changes, including worsening monster storms — and rising heat.

“Heat is an issue for low-income communities and more vulnerable individuals, [such as] the elderly population,” Jane Gilbert, the chief resilience officer for the city of Miami, said in an interview before Hurricane Irma.

“We want to understand better if there are places where people can’t afford to have air conditioning, and to have an efficient plan for the more vulnerable groups to evacuate to shelters in case of power outages,” she said.

Miami is also working to increase the number of trees in neighborhoods such as Little Havana, and to guarantee that key facilities, such as hospitals, gas stations and supermarkets, have alternative power sources when electricity fails, she said.

After Irma, more than 12 million people lost power. Many had already evacuated to other areas, fearing the aftermath of being stuck at home for days without air conditioning or working refrigerators.

Air conditioning boom

The invention of air conditioning has in many ways made modern Florida possible, fueling a population boom after World War II, according to a history book by the University of South Florida.

The state’s famed tourism industry, its top revenue generator, for instance, only took off after most hotels invested hefty sums in efficient cooling systems by the 1960s.

Now nearly everyone relies on air conditioning — and plenty of it.

Silvana Giuffrida, an architect in Miami, has three units in her townhouse-style condo in the luxury Brickell neighborhood, one on each floor.

She keeps her home’s remote-controlled shades down as much as possible to reduce the heat that floods into her sun-bathed home facing spectacular Biscayne Bay.

“I try to keep the temperature around 78 degrees, which is also the best level for energy efficiency,” she said.

Drinking a lot of water, wearing light-colored clothes and avoiding going outside in peak temperature hours are also part of her routine to beat the heat, she said.

For the most vulnerable, however, state authorities have decided to step up protections after the nursing home tragedy exposed the dangers of extreme heat.

Governor Scott issued an emergency order requiring nursing homes to have generators that can keep air conditioners running for up to four days.

Kalkstein, of the University of Miami, said the deaths highlight the risk that heat poses for Miami — and for many more cities.

“What we all need to realize is that these excessive heat events will happen more and more often, all over the world, and we all need to be more aware of the potential health impacts,” he said.
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The World Health Organization reports 844,000 people in northeast Nigeria have been reached with one dose of oral cholera vaccine in an effort to prevent the fatal disease from spreading.  The latest figures show nearly 4,000 suspected cases, including 54 deaths in the region.  

The week-long campaign that ended Monday was centered in a camp for internally displaced people in Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state, as well as in several local government areas nearby.

World Health Organization spokesman Tarek Jasarevic says hundreds of thousands of people above age one have received the oral vaccine and will be protected against cholera for up to six months.  He notes the number of people at risk of getting cholera within an affected population decreases sharply as more people are vaccinated.

“Cholera vaccines are used as a preventive tool in areas with few or no cases, but at high risk of the spread of the disease,” said Jasarevic. “For example, there are neighboring areas that are more affected.  Obviously, I think there is an issue of access.  Security is a major constraint with the recent attacks on humanitarian staff.”   

The World Food Program suspended its operation in Borno state after aid workers were attacked in a camp for displaced people in Maiduguri at the end of August.  The Boko Haram insurgency has killed more than 20,000 people and displaced more than two million since 2009.

Jasarevic says the oral cholera vaccine is only one of the tools available to combat this disease.  He says it should be combined with prevention activities, such as informing communities about the need for good sanitation and hygiene and providing them with access to safe water.  

He says the World Health Organization is establishing cholera treatment centers as another important element in containing this outbreak. 
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Mount Everest is indisputably the world’s highest peak. But precisely how tall is it and did the powerful 2015 earthquake in the high Himalayas shrink the giant mountain? 

Nepal is setting out on an ambitious two-year project to re-measure the peak hoping to settle conflicting data about the famous mountain, a magnet for climbers from the world over.  

But the project is as much about national pride — the measurements so far have come from an Indian and Chinese survey. Now the tiny country, nestled amid mighty Himalayan ranges, wants to decide the height of the Everest on its own and demonstrate it does not lag behind its two giant neighbors.   

National pride

Calling the towering peak Nepal’s baby, the Survey Department’s Director General Ganesh Prasad Bhatta said, “I used to say since the birth (discovery) of Mount Everest, Nepal has not measured it.” He underlines that Nepal can technologically measure up to the task. “We want to uphold the national dignity that Nepal is competent to carry out any kind of challenging survey work on its own.”

Although Nepal boasts of eight of the world’s 14 peaks over 8,000 meters, it is the Everest that is central to the country’s economy, earning millions of dollars from climbers wanting to conquer the biggest prize.

History of measurement

The first-ever measurement of Everest was made in 1854, but the peak’s widely-accepted height, 8,848 meters was established a century later by an Indian survey.

In 1999, using satellite technology an American team sponsored  by Boston’s Museum of Science and the National Geographic Society concluded that the mountain is a tad taller – 8,850 meters. But six years later, a Chinese mission to the peak lowered its height saying the rock height of the mountain is 8,844.43 meters. The mountain lies on the border between Nepal and China.

A dispute erupted between the two countries, but Nepal insisted that the measure of a mountain is its snow height. So officially it remained at 8,848 meters.

An initiative to re-measure the mountain in 2012 never took off.

Climate change

However questions resurfaced after a 7.8 magnitude earthquake ripped Nepal and caused massive landslides on Everest in 2015. There are also concerns that the world’s tallest peak is not immune to climate change. Climbers and locals say portions of the trail leading to the summit are turning rocky as they lose snow cover. Add to this shifting geology of the young Himalayan range that is still growing – and the stage was set for a reassessment of Everest.

Earlier this year, India offered to re-measure the mountain, but that raised questions in Nepal. In an editorial, the Kathmandu Post said “It is our property and our heritage. We have to determine the height of our property ourselves with modern technology in a way that satisfies the researchers of the world. This is our responsibility.”

The country believes it is not just important to come out with an authentic measurement, but one of its own, said Yubaraj Ghimire, a Nepalese commentator. “They are a bit emotional about it also.”

A final verdict

In two years time, Nepal hopes to deliver the final verdict on the conflicting measurements.

Bhatta said his office is finalizing the methodology and a team of Sherpas equipped with measuring equipment will be dispatched to the summit in April or October next year.  

While remaining firmly in charge of the project, Nepali officials say they will take care to get international endorsement of the data and could permit international scientists to support them technically or join the project.  

“We want to assure the international community that whatever has been done has been done accurately with standard methodology and there should not be any question about the results, whatever we produce,” said Bhatta. 

It is important to settle the confusion on the height of the world’s most towering peak. But for communities that live in its shadow, the greater concern is the impact of global warming on the mountain, according to 63-year-old Ang Tshering Sherpa. The seasoned mountaineer, who grew up in a village along the slopes of the Everest, has planned many expeditions up its slopes.

He said locals believe “Mount Everest is massive, solid, unchanging, strong, mighty, lofty and unable to be hurt.” However his decades-long, first-hand knowledge of the mountainous region tells a different story. “But the truth is this is one of the most vulnerable area in the world because of the impact of climate change. White snow peaks and glaciers are melting rapidly and retreating at an unprecedented pace.”
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Venezuela’s doctors, fed up with what they called the World Health Organization’s passive attitude toward the country’s deep medical crisis, protested at the agency’s Caracas office on Monday to demand more pressure on the government and additional assistance.

Venezuela is suffering from a roughly 85 percent shortage of medicines, decrepit hospital infrastructure, and an exodus of doctors during a brutal recession.

Once-controlled diseases like diphtheria and measles have returned due in part to insufficient vaccines and antibiotics, while Venezuelans suffering chronic illnesses like cancer or diabetes often have to forgo treatment.

Malnutrition is also rising, doctors say.

Rare government data published in May showed maternal mortality shot up 65 percent while malaria cases jumped 76 percent. The former health minister was fired shortly after the bulletin’s publication, and it has not been issued since.

In the latest protest by an umbrella group of health associations, dozens of doctors and activists gathered at the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), the WHO’s regional office, urging the agency step up pressure on Nicolas Maduro’s leftist government and provide more aid during its 29th Pan American Sanitary Conference this week.

“There’s been a complicit attitude because they haven’t denounced things,” Dr. Rafael Muci said during the rally.

“This is an unlivable country, and no one is paying attention,” he said, adding he earns about $8 a month at a state hospital.

In a statement on Monday, PAHO stressed its main role was to provide “technical cooperation” and highlighted recent help in providing vaccines.

The Venezuelan government, which accuses activists of whipping up panic and the business elite of hiding medicines, did not respond to a request for comment.

Venezuelans seeking certain drugs often have to scour pharmacies, seek foreign donations or turn to social media.

Sociologist Maria Angelica Casanova, 51, has struggled to find psychiatric medicines for a year. “Sometimes they come, sometimes they don’t. It’s serious,” she said, as passers-by shouted “Down with Maduro!”

Measles, which were controlled after a mass immunization in the 1990s, has returned to Venezuela’s jungle state of Bolivar, PAHO data show.

As the crisis stokes emigration, Venezuela’s health problems could be exported, doctors warned.

“We don’t know how many people who are emigrating could have some of these pathogens in incubation period,” said Andres Barreto, an epidemiologist who had participated in the measles vaccination drive.
…

The latest Republican effort to overhaul the nation’s health care system appears to have failed after another Republican senator came out against the plan.

Senator Susan Collins from Maine became the third Republican senator to oppose the measure, saying Monday night, “This is simply not the way that we should be approaching an important and complex issue that must be handled thoughtfully and fairly for all Americans.”

Collins’ announcement came after the Congressional Budget Office said the attempt to end the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, would reduce health insurance coverage for “millions” of people.

With 52 seats in the 100-member Senate, Republicans could afford only two “no” votes from their ranks if the health reform bill were to pass, given unified opposition from Democrats.

Previously, two Republicans, John McCain of Arizona and Rand Paul of Kentucky, had announced their opposition to the legislation.

The only remaining hope for Republican party leaders is to change opponents’ minds.

Earlier Monday, U.S. senators alternately criticized or defended the last-ditch Republican attempt to end Obamacare at the only committee hearing to examine the bill.

Wheelchair-bound demonstrators chanting “No cuts to Medicaid” delayed the start of the hearing by nearly 20 minutes to the irritation of the Senate Finance Committee’s chairman, Republican Orrin Hatch of Utah.

“If you want a hearing, you’d better shut up,” Hatch warned before calling a brief recess so police officers could remove the protesters. When the hearing resumed, he pleaded, “Let’s have a civil discussion.”

At issue is Graham-Cassidy, the Republican bill that would break up Obamacare, transfer funding to all 50 U.S. states to craft their own health care programs, and pare back federal dollars for Medicaid, a program that pays medical costs for the poor and disabled. Republicans have until the end of the month to pass the bill with a simple majority vote in the Senate.

Proponents argued the status quo will bankrupt America.

“By 2027, we’re going to be spending more on Medicaid than on the [U.S.] military,” said Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, who co-authored the bill with Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, testifying as a witness before the committee. “We’re going to send this money back to the states. … My goal is to get the money and power out of Washington, closer to where people live.

“We’re going to get a better outcome,” Graham added.

Opponents accused Republicans of rushing to pass a poorly-crafted bill that will leave dozens of states with less health care funding.

“This Trumpcare bill is a health care lemon, a disaster in the making,” said the committee’s top Democrat, Ron Wyden of Oregon. “It’s going to be a nightmare for tens of millions of Americans, and it makes a mockery of the president’s promise of better insurance for everybody, at lower cost.”

President Donald Trump has blasted Senate Republicans for failing to repeal and replace Obamacare, one of the party’s core promises to voters since the law was enacted in 2010.

“7 years of Repeal & Replace and some senators not there,” Trump lamented on Twitter on Sunday. A day earlier, he tweeted, “Large Block Grants to States is a good thing to do. Better control & management.”

Democrats noted that a bipartisan effort was under way to fix Obamacare’s shortcomings without scrapping the law entirely, but said the effort has been undermined by Graham-Cassidy, the latest in a series of Republican attempts to reform health care on their own.

“Millions of lives are at stake. Let’s return to the bipartisan negotiations,” urged Senator Mazie Hirono of Hawaii. “This is exactly how we should approach health care in our country.”

Republican leaders tried on Sunday night to persuade senators on the fence to vote for Graham-Cassidy by adding additional health care funding to their states, including the states of Maine, Arizona and Kentucky.

McCain provided the decisive “no” vote that torpedoed a previous Republican health care bill in July. The Arizona senator argued the bill had not been properly vetted in committee, a criticism he repeated last week in explaining his opposition to Graham-Cassidy.

Dachog Duzor in Washington contributed to this report.
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U.S. researchers are getting ready to recruit more than 1 million people for an unprecedented study to learn how our genes, environments and lifestyles interact.

Today, health care is based on averages, what worked best in short studies of a few hundred or thousand patients. The massive “All of Us” project instead will push what’s called precision medicine, using traits that make us unique to forecast health and treat disease.

 

The goal is to end cookie-cutter health care.

 

A pilot is under way now. If all goes well, the National Institutes of Health plans to open enrollment early next year.

 

Participants will get DNA tests, and report on their diet, sleep, exercise and numerous other health-affecting factors. It’s a commitment: The study aims to run for at least 10 years

 

___

 

The pilot testing now under way involves more than 2,500 people who already have enrolled and given blood samples. More than 50 sites around the country – large medical centers, community health centers and other providers like the San Diego Blood Bank and, soon, select Walgreens pharmacies – are enrolling patients or customers in this invitation-only pilot phase.

 

If the pilot goes well, NIH plans to open the study next spring to just about any U.S. adult who’s interested, with sign-up as easy as going online.

 

The goal is to enroll a highly diverse population, people from all walks of life – specifically recruiting minorities who have been under-represented in scientific research.

 

And unusual for observational research, volunteers will receive results of their genetic and other tests, information they can share with their own doctors.

 

“Anything to get more information I can pass on to my children, I’m all for it,” said Erricka Hager, 29, as she signed up last month at the University of Pittsburgh, the project’s first pilot site. A usually healthy mother of two, she hopes the study can reveal why she experienced high blood pressure and gestational diabetes during pregnancy.

 

_____

 

Heading the giant All Of Us project is a former Intel Corp. executive who brings a special passion: How to widen access to the precision medicine that saved his life.

 

In college, Eric Dishman developed a form of kidney cancer so rare that doctors had no idea how to treat him, and predicted he had months to live. Only two studies of that particular cancer had ever been done, on people in their 70s and 80s.

 

“They didn’t know anything about me because they’d never seen a 19-year-old with this disease,” said Dishman.

 

Yet he survived for two decades, trying one treatment after another. Then, as he was running out of options, a chance encounter with a genetics researcher led to mapping Dishman’s DNA – and the stunning discovery that his kidney cancer was genetically more like pancreatic cancer. A pancreatic cancer drug attacked his tumors so he could get a kidney transplant.

 

” I’m healthier now at 49 than I was at 19,” said Dishman. “I was lucky twice over really,” to be offered an uncommon kind of testing and that it found something treatable.

 

Precision medicine is used most widely in cancer, as more drugs are developed that target tumors with specific molecular characteristics. Beyond cancer, one of the University of Pittsburgh’s hospitals tests every patient receiving a heart stent – looking for a genetic variant that tells if they’ll respond well to a particular blood thinner or will need an alternative.

 

The aim is to expand precision medicine.

 

“Why me?” is the question cancer patients always ask – why they got sick and not someone else with similar health risks, said Dr. Mounzer Agha, an oncologist at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.

 

“Unfortunately I don’t have answers for them today,” said Agha, who says it will take the million-person study to finally get some answers. “It’s going to help them understand what are the factors that led to their disease, and it’s going to help us understand how to treat it better.”

 

And NIH Director Francis S. Collins expects surprises. Maybe, he speculates, Type 2 diabetes will turn out to be a collection of genetic subtypes that require varied treatments.

 

“This looks at individual responses to treatment in a way we couldn’t do previously with smaller studies.”

 

_____

 

The study starts simply: Volunteers get some standard health checks – weight, blood pressure and heart rate. They answer periodic questionnaires about their health, background and habits, and turn over electronic health records. They give a blood sample that, if they agree, will undergo DNA testing sometime next year.

 

Eventually, researchers will ask some participants to wear sensors that may go beyond today’s Fitbit-style health trackers, such as devices that measure blood pressure while people move around all day, or measure environmental exposures, Collins said.

 

In Pittsburgh, the Rev. Paul Abernathy made a health change after signing up for the pilot study: Surprised to learn his BMI was too high despite regular weight-lifting, he began running.

 

“I’m praying I have the discipline to continue that, certainly in midst of a busy schedule,” said Abernathy, who directs the nonprofit Focus Pittsburgh that aids the poor and trauma victims.

 

“We have a chance really to influence history, to influence the future of our children and our children’s children,” added Abernathy, who hopes the study will help explain racial disparities such as lower life expectancies between African-Americans and whites who live in the same areas.

 

At NIH, Collins plans to enroll, too. He’s had his DNA mapped before but can’t pass up what he’s calling a one-in-a-million experience to be part of a monumental study rather than the scientist on the other side.

 

“I’m curious about what this might teach me about myself. I’m pretty healthy right now. I’d like to stay that way.”

 

* This Associated Press series was produced in partnership with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

 

 
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As lawmakers propose banning the sale of shark fins in the U.S., a pair of scientists is pushing back, saying the effort might actually harm attempts to conserve the marine predators.

Democratic Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey introduced a bill this year designed to prevent people from possessing or selling shark fins in America, much to the delight of conservation groups such as Oceana. But marine scientists David Shiffman and Robert Hueter said this approach could be wrongheaded.

Shiffman and Hueter authored a study that appears in the November issue of the journal Marine Policy, saying that the U.S. has long been a leader in shark fisheries management and that shutting down the U.S. fin trade entirely would remove a model for sustainability for the rest of the world.

The U.S. also is a minor contributor to the worldwide shark fin trade, and countries with less regulated fisheries would likely step in to fill the void if America left the business altogether, Shiffman said.

“Removing that from the marketplace removes a template of a well-managed fishery,” said Shiffman, a shark researcher with Simon Fraser University in British Columbia. “It’s much easier for us to say, here’s a way you can do this.”

Shark fins are most often used in a soup considered a delicacy in Asia. Shark fins that American fishermen harvest are often shipped to Asia for processing.

Environmentalists and animal advocates have long blamed shark fin soup for the decline of certain shark species. Their criticism of shark fin soup often includes arguments against “finning,” which is a practice that’s illegal in the United States and involves removing the fins from recently caught, often live sharks and discarding the animals.

Nearly a quarter of U.S. states have bans in place on the sale of fins, and sharks were afforded new protections with the Shark Conservation Act of 2010. But the country still has hundreds of shark fishermen, and they are allowed to have the shark’s fins removed for sale during processing on land.

Booker’s proposal would change that, making it illegal for any person to “possess, transport, offer for sale, sell, or purchase shark fins or products containing shark fins.” The bill was approved by a commerce and science committee in May, and a similar bill has been proposed in the House of Representatives.

More than 100 scientists have endorsed the bill, said Kristin Lynch, a spokeswoman for Booker.

“Unfortunately, current laws have proven inadequate at stopping the trade of fins from threatened and endangered sharks,” she said.

Marine conservation group Oceana is standing by Booker’s proposal, said Lora Snyder, a campaign director for the group. Shutting down the fin trade is akin to getting the U.S. out of the ivory business, she said.

A “near total” ban on commercial elephant ivory took hold in the U.S. last year, according to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.

The U.S. fin trade needs to be shut down in part because violations of the “finning” ban have continued to take place, Snyder said. An investigation by Booker’s office earlier this year showed that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has investigated more than 500 incidents of alleged shark finning since 2010.

“Yes, we are better, but just because we are better doesn’t mean we are good,” Snyder said. “There are other threats facing sharks, but this is a very important step in the right direction.”

Some commercial fishing groups have vowed to fight efforts to shut down the fin trade. About a quarter of the value of a shark is in its fins, and the rest is in its meat, Shiffman and Hueter’s study said.

That means the fin ban is essentially an effort to shut down shark fishing altogether, said Jeff Oden, a Hatteras, North Carolina, fisherman who started fishing for sharks about 30 years ago.

“They want to stop it, just period,” he said. “Forget the fact that we fish sustainably in this country.”
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The Environmental Protection Agency says it has recovered 517 containers of “unidentified, potentially hazardous material” from highly contaminated toxic waste sites in Texas that flooded last month during Hurricane Harvey.

The agency has not provided details about which Superfund sites the material came from, why the contaminants at issue have not been identified and whether there’s a threat to human health.

The one-sentence disclosure about the 517 containers was made Friday night deep within a media release from the Federal Emergency Management Agency summarizing the government’s response to the devastating storm.

A dozen sites

At least a dozen Superfund sites in and around Houston were flooded in the days after Harvey’s record-shattering rains stopped. Associated Press journalists surveyed seven of the flooded sites by boat, vehicle and on foot. The EPA said at the time that its personnel had been unable to reach the sites, though they surveyed the locations using aerial photos.

The Associated Press reported Monday that a government hotline also received calls about three spills at the U.S. Oil Recovery Superfund site, a former petroleum waste processing plant outside Houston contaminated with a dangerous brew of cancer-causing chemicals. Records obtained by the AP showed workers at the site reported spills of unknown materials in unknown amounts.

Local pollution control officials photographed three large tanks used to store potentially hazardous waste completely underwater Aug. 29. The EPA later said there was no evidence that nearby Vince Bayou had been impacted.

PRP Group, the company formed to clean up the U.S. Oil Recovery site, said it does not know how much material leaked from the tanks, soaking into the soil or flowing into the bayou. As part of the post-storm cleanup, workers have vacuumed up 63 truckloads of potentially contaminated storm water, totaling about 315,000 gallons.

It was not immediately clear whether those truckloads accounted for any of the 517 containers cited in the FEMA media release Friday. The EPA has not responded to questions from AP about activities at U.S. Oil Recovery for more than a week.

Waste pit underwater

About a dozen miles east, the San Jacinto River Waste Pits Superfund site is on and around a low-lying island that was the site of a paper mill in the 1960s, leaving behind dangerous levels of dioxins and other long-lasting toxins linked to birth defects and cancer. The site was covered with floodwaters when the AP surveyed it Sept. 1.

To prevent contaminated soil and sediments from being washed down river, about 16 acres of the site was covered in 2011 with an “armored cap” of fabric and rock. The cap was reportedly designed to last for up to 100 years, but it has required extensive repairs on at least six occasions in recent years, with large sections having become displaced or been washed away.

The EPA has not responded to repeated inquiries over the past two weeks about whether its assessment has determined whether the cap was similarly damaged during Harvey.

The companies responsible for cleaning up the site, Waste Management Inc. and International Paper, have said there were “a small number of areas where the current layer of armored cap is thinner than required.”

“There was no evidence of a release from any of these areas,” the companies said, adding that sediments there were sampled last week.

The EPA has not yet released those test results to the public.
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Royal families around the world, from Britain, to Jordan, to Nepal, have given their time, attention and resources to conservation efforts. Prince Albert II of Monaco has received numerous awards for his conservation work. This month he joined an Atlantic mission to save an endangered seal species. Faith Lapidus reports.
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The U.S. Justice Department has announced it is putting nearly $59 million toward fighting the epidemic of opioid drug addiction.

In a news release Friday, the department cited preliminary figures from the National Center for Health Statistics showing that drug overdose deaths in the United States rose 21 percent from 2015 to 2016. In 2016, a record high of around 65,000 people died from drug overdoses, driven by the opioid crisis.

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the new figures Thursday, blaming opioid painkiller addiction for the rise.

The 2016 estimate “would be the highest drug death toll and the fastest increase in that death toll in American history,” Sessions said. “And every day this crisis continues to grow, as more than 5,000 Americans abuse painkillers for the first time [daily].”

Opioids such as heroin and the synthetic drug fentanyl were responsible for most of the fatal overdoses, killing more than 33,000 Americans — quadruple the number from 20 years ago.

The Justice Department said about $24 million in federal grants would be awarded to 50 cities, counties and public health departments for creation of “comprehensive diversion and alternatives to incarceration programs” for people impacted by the epidemic.

An additional $3.1 million will be awarded by the National Institute of Justice for research and evaluation on drugs and crime, prioritizing heroin and other opioids and synthetic drugs.

Also, $22 million is being awarded to 53 jurisdictions to support implementation of adult drug courts and veterans’ services.

And $9.5 million is going to juvenile and family treatment to “build effective family drug treatment courts and ensure current juvenile drug treatment courts follow established guidelines.”

In March, U.S. President Donald Trump named New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, a former presidential candidate, to head the newly formed President’s Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis.

Last month, the commission urged the administration to declare the opioid crisis a national emergency.

“With approximately 142 Americans dying every day, America is enduring a death toll equal to September 11th every three weeks,” the commission said in an interim report.

Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price said that no declaration was necessary to combat the crisis, but White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders later said Trump was taking the idea “absolutely seriously.”
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Early in life, children get the message that boys are strong and capable and that girls are vulnerable and limited in what they can do. That’s the result of a new study, the first ever, that looks at adolescents and the messages they get from society and their parents. VOA’s Carol Pearson has more.
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NASA’s asteroid-chasing spacecraft is swinging by Earth on its way to a space rock.

Launched a year ago, Osiris-Rex will pass within about 11,000 miles (17,700 kilometers) of the home planet Friday afternoon. It will use Earth’s gravity as a slingshot to put it on a path toward the asteroid Bennu.

If all goes well, Osiris-Rex should reach the small, roundish asteroid next year and, in 2020, collect some of its gravel for return to Earth.

Friday’s close approach will occur over Antarctica. It will be a quick hello: The spacecraft will speed by at about 19,000 mph (31,000 kph). NASA has taken precautions to ensure Osiris-Rex does not slam into any satellites. Ground telescopes, meanwhile, have been trying to observe the spacecraft while it’s in the neighborhood.
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