Bird flu has been detected in the Antarctica region for the first time, according to British experts, raising concerns the deadly virus could pose a threat to penguins and other local species.

Scientists had been fearing that the worst outbreak of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) in history would reach Antarctica, a key breeding ground for many birds.

The British Antarctic Survey said its staff took samples from brown skua seabirds after they died on Bird Island in South Georgia, a British overseas territory east of South America’s tip and north of Antarctica’s main landmass.

The tests were sent to Britain and came back positive, the U.K.’s polar research institute said in a statement on Monday.

The virus was most likely brought by birds returning from their migration to South America, where there has been a huge number of bird flu cases, it added.

Visitors to South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands are under enhanced biosecurity measures, and scientific field work involving birds there has been stopped, the statement said.

There have been regular bird flu outbreaks since the virus first emerged in 1996.

Since mid-2021, much larger outbreaks started to spread southward to previously untouched areas including South America, leading to mass deaths among wild birds and tens of millions of poultry being culled.

‘Devastating news’

Michelle Wille, a bird flu expert at the University of Melbourne, said the spread of bird flu to the Antarctica region was “devastating news.”

“The situation could change rapidly,” she wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

Ian Brown, virology head at the U.K.’s Animal and Plant Health Agency, warned last week that there was a risk migrating birds could spread the virus from South America to the Antarctica islands and then onto the main landmass.

This could be a “real concern” for populations of birds such as penguins that are unique to Antarctica, he told journalists.

Birds such as penguins that have never before been exposed to the virus would have no prior immunity, potentially making them more vulnerable.

In better news, the Animal Plant Health Agency also said last week that preliminary research had confirmed that the populations of two seabirds — northern gannets and shag — had shown immunity to bird flu.

Humans rarely catch bird flu, but when they do it is usually via direct contact with infected birds.

Earlier this month, a two-year-old girl died from bird flu in Cambodia, the third death recorded in the country this year.

The virus has also been detected in a growing number of mammals, raising fears it could mutate into a version that is more transmissible between humans. 
…

The World Health Organization reported Monday that progress was being made in efforts to prevent and respond to cases of sexual misconduct but acknowledged that abuse by WHO staff remained problematic.  

“For the past two years, WHO has intensified our work to prevent and respond to any form of sexual misconduct, sexual exploitation, sexual harassment, said Gaya Gamhewage, director of prevention and response to sexual misconduct at WHO.

“However, the numbers are still going up for the simple reason, I believe, that all the cases have not surfaced yet. So, the numbers will keep going up for some time. But this does not mean that what we are doing is not having any effect. In fact, what we are doing is surfacing this issue, as well,” she said.

The numbers would seem to bear this out. Over the past 12 months, the United Nations Office of Internal Oversight Services, or IOS, reports it has investigated 287 allegations of sexual misconduct in all WHO regions.

Gamhewage said, “WHO is working on preventing and responding to sexual misconduct related to its own workforce—our staff, our contractors, our implementing partners.  This does not include numbers for peacekeepers.”

Approximately 83 of these cases are related to the 10th Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo, with 25% of that number pertaining to alleged abuse by WHO personnel.  

According to a WHO press release, the remaining allegations were related to other agencies operating during the outbreak. The WHO received investigation reports related only to accusations against people associated with the WHO, including consultants and other contractors.

“Since 2021, we have entered the names of 25 alleged perpetrators of sexual misconduct into the U.N. Clear Check database to prevent future employment within the U.N. system,” said LisaMcClennon, IOS director.

“Several have been dismissed, including five staff members related to findings of sexual conduct during the period. And several former personnel were informed that their actions would have led to termination had they still been in service.”

The Democratic Republic of Congo announced its 10th Ebola outbreak on August 1, 2018, in the country’s volatile Eastern provinces, claiming 2,299 lives by the time WHO declared the epidemic over on June 25, 2020.

WHO created a special unit in November 2021 to address sexual misconduct to rid the organization of exploitative behavior.  This was triggered by a sexual scandal which erupted during the Ebola epidemic involving many responders including peacekeepers, U.N. personnel, and contractors.

McClennon said the 83 alleged perpetrators identified in the report are connected to that 2018-2020 mission in the DRC.

“WHO has been taking required follow-up action for each of these cases, including information shared with the national authorities, referral to other U.N. agencies and issuing case closure letters to the alleged subjects,” McClennon said. “While reports are confidential, we are taking disciplinary action in the substantiated cases.”

WHO reports that the highest number of alleged sexual perpetrators are found in Africa and the Eastern Mediterranean.

“We do not like to reveal which countries because we can identify alleged perpetrators and it can actually interfere with the investigation,” Gamhewage said.

The WHO official said she believed populations in these regions are highly vulnerable to sexual abuse due to the large number of countries affected by health emergencies and humanitarian crises, explaining that the large U.N. presence in these countries was in response to the enormous needs.

“We know sexual misconduct happens when there is a power differential, and that power differential is used for sexual exploitation. And this used to happen with impunity.

“But with the work we are doing, we are getting complaints and concerns raised. So, I think we should not expect numbers to go down any time soon,” Gamhewage said. “What we want is to surface all of the numbers, so Lisa [McClennon] and her team can assess which ones need to be investigated.”

Gamhewage said it was important to listen to the testimony and experience of any victim or survivor.

“What we need to do is understand there could be a risk there, and then we can start preventive action,” she said.

Since it was unlikely that sexual misconduct could be completely eradicated, Gamhewage said, “What we are looking for is zero tolerance, not for zero cases.”
…

The world is moving too slowly to meet pledges to end deforestation by 2030, with the destruction worsening in 2022, according to a report by a coalition of environmental organizations released on Monday.

More than 140 countries – representing the vast majority of the world’s woodlands – pledged at the 2021 United Nations climate summit in Glasgow to halt and reverse forest loss and degradation by the end of the decade.

Yet deforestation increased by 4% worldwide in 2022 compared with 2021, as some 66,000 square kilometers (25,000 square miles) were destroyed, the annual Forest Declaration Assessment report said. That means the world is 21% off track to end deforestation by 2030.

“The world’s forests are in crisis. The opportunity to make progress is passing us by,” said Erin Matson, a senior consultant at environmental group Climate Focus.

The report was conducted by a coalition of civil society and research organizations who assess progress toward pledges to eliminate deforestation by 2030.

That includes the Glasgow pledge and the 2014 New York Declaration on Forests, which saw a shorter list of countries as well as dozens of the world’s biggest companies make a similar commitment.

Efforts to preserve old-growth tropical forests — prized for their dense carbon content and rich biodiversity — are 33% off track, with 4.1 million hectares lost in 2022, according to the study.

In a news briefing, the researchers involved in the report stressed that the annual $2.2 billion in public funds channeled to projects to protect forests every year is a fraction of the investment needed.

The study also looked beyond deforestation to analyze forest degradation, with one researcher estimating the area of degraded forests to be much larger than the area of global deforestation.

Drivers of forest degradation include logging activities, livestock grazing, and road construction, according to Climate Focus.

But some parts of the world are making progress, said Franziska Haupt, a lead author and managing partner at consultancy Climate Focus.

Haupt said that some 50 countries are on track to end forest loss, with Brazil, Indonesia and Malaysia showing drastic reductions in deforestation.

“Hope isn’t lost,” Haupt said. “These countries set clear examples that others must follow.”

Brazil, which is responsible for around 30 percent of the world’s deforestation, has seen a significant turnaround with a new government that is much more committed to fighting deforestation than the last, said a WWF Brazil representative during the news conference.

“This showcases what could happen when countries with good laws and the books actually invest in enforcing them,” said Darragh Conway, lead on rights & governance for the Forest Declaration Assessment.
…

Nigeria is ramping up its environmental education efforts as floods and soil erosion increase due to climate change. The latest education initiative is a card game called Play, Learn and Act Now, or PLAN. Gibson Emeka has this story from Abuja, Nigeria.
…

The coming election to choose the World Health Organization’s next chief of the South-East Asia Regional Office, or SEARO, has become contentious as the person who takes up that post could influence the health of billions of people. 

The daughter of Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is one of two candidates for the SEARO position. Saima Wazed’s nomination has sparked controversy with many health experts calling it “nepotism,” and expressing concern over the election process to fill senior roles at the U.N. health body. 

A candidate for the SEARO post should have a “strong technical and public health background and extensive experience in global health”, according to the WHO website. The candidate should also have “competency in organizational management” and “proven historical evidence for public health leadership”, the website says.

The next SEARO chief will be elected through a secret ballot by the region’s 11 member countries, which include Bangladesh, Nepal and India. The vote is scheduled to take place in New Delhi during a WHO regional committee meeting Oct. 30-Nov. 2. 

Countries in the region nominate candidates to head the WHO regional office.

Wazed was nominated by the government of Bangladesh. 

In addition to Wazed, who is a mental health advocate, only one other candidate has been put forward: Shambhu Acharya, a public health expert and senior WHO official who was nominated by Nepal. 

Questions have been raised about the disparity between the candidates’ qualifications.  

Wazed has a master’s degree in clinical psychology from Barry University, a school in Florida. She has spent nearly a decade serving as an adviser to the director general of the WHO on mental health and autism issues. 

Acharya has been with the WHO for almost 30 years. He has experience working with the U.N. body in senior positions and holds a Ph.D. in public health, health policy and financing from the University of North Carolina. 

Sixteen public health experts in Nepal issued a statement saying that Acharya “is the better fit” of the two candidates vying for the SEARO director’s position. 

“[Acharya] possesses a very strong public health background and has extensive leadership experience in tackling global health issues,” the statement said. 

“He knows the public health and medical challenges of our region intimately, having worked for three decades to strengthen responses at local, national, regional and global levels, including in Nepal, Bangladesh and India, apart from his responsibilities at [the] WHO headquarters in Geneva.” 

So far there have not been any public statements of support for Wazed from public health experts in Bangladesh.  

Right now a strong anti-Hasina wave is sweeping Bangladesh, ahead of next general election all likely to be held in January. With the US closely monitoring the forthcoming election in Bangladesh many believe the ruling Awami League party will not be able to rig the elections this time and lose power. In such a situation many, long-known as pro-Awami League groups, are not speaking in support of Hasina, her party and family members now. 

However, AK Abdul Momen, Bangladesh’s foreign minister spoke in support of Wazed’s candidacy several days ago. 

In an interview with the Indian newspaper The Hindu, the minister demanded that Nepal withdraw its candidate from the contest for the WHO-SEARO post.

“[Nepal’s candidate] had been working in the WHO for the last 30 years and was in a decision-making position. So why have [health indices] not improved in the whole of the South East Asian region, even though he himself is a person of South Asian origin?” Momen asked while adding that Acharya should “step down” from the race for the WHO-SEARO post.

Wazed, who has held advisory positions at some Bangladesh government mental health bodies, rebuffed accusations that her nomination was “fueled by nepotism” because her mother is the prime minister. She said those critical of her nomination were overlooking her experience and achievements in the field of mental health. 

“They ignore that I have been an adviser to WHO’s DG on Mental Health & Autism, or that I have been a member of the WHO’s Expert Advisory Panel on mental health for almost a decade,” Wazed wrote in an Inter Press Service opinion piece earlier this month. 

“They do not mention that I am [the] chief adviser to Bangladesh’s National Mental Health Strategic Plan, or that I was a technical expert for Bangladesh’s National Mental Health Act of 2018,” she wrote.

Bangladesh’s nomination of Wazed has also come under scrutiny by several activists and public health experts. 

Bishow Parajuli, former U.N. resident coordinator and U.N. Development Program representative in Myanmar and Zimbabwe, said that Wazed has limited experience and qualifications to assume such a leadership position. 

“In a country with so many qualified and competent health professionals, the nomination of Ms. Wazed, and her use of the Prime Ministerial Office to engage with the various world leaders, also shows nepotism and the influence of her mother’s office in the process. …The selection must be made ‘on the basis of merits,’” he said in emailed comments. 

Paris-based Bangladeshi social activist and physician Pinaki Bhattacharya said Wazed has none of the required qualifications for the WHO-SEARO post.

“Hasina and her daughter are not aware that while being a descendant of the powerful can give one political advantage, the position of a professional international health leader requires the necessary education, skills and talent,” he told VOA. 

In recent weeks, Wazed accompanied her mother, Sheikh Hasina, on a high-profile diplomatic tour attending the U.N. General Assembly in New York and the summit in New Delhi of the 20 biggest economies, known as the G20. Wazed accompanied Prime Minister Hasina during her meetings with U.S. President Joe Biden, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Wazed said she is used to being held to different professional standards than men, and having her identity reduced to simply being “her mother’s daughter,” which is blatant sexism, Wazed said.

Wazed has not responded to a VOA email requesting direct comment on the nepotism issue.

Kent Buse is director of the Global Healthier Societies Program at The George Institute for Global Health at Imperial College London. Buse told VOA that the rules governing the selection of directors across all WHO regions need considerable reform to ensure public confidence in the merit-based nature of the organization. 

“This relates to improving transparency and delivering enhanced oversight of the election process. This should include better scrutiny of the candidate’s compliance with the existing codes of conduct governing the campaign processes.”
…

Countries are deadlocked over how to design a fund to help countries recover and rebuild from climate change-driven damage, with just over 30 days left before crucial United Nations climate negotiations kick off in Dubai.  

Two dozen countries involved in a committee tasked with designing a “loss and damage” fund wrapped up the last meeting in the early hours of Saturday in Aswan, Egypt, with developing and developed countries at odds over central questions: which entity should oversee the fund, who should pay and which countries would be eligible to receive funding.  

The committee was expected to draft a list of recommendations for implementing the fund, which was agreed in a breakthrough last year at COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, and would be the first U.N. fund dedicated to addressing irreparable climate-driven damage from drought, floods and rising sea levels.  

Instead, the group agreed to meet one more time in Abu Dhabi on Nov. 3 before the COP28 U.N. summit begins in Dubai on Nov. 30 to try to bridge divisions, which could set the tone for the two-week climate negotiations.  

“The entire COP28 negotiations could get derailed if developing countries’ priorities on funding for loss and damage are not adequately addressed,” said Preety Bhandari, a senior adviser on finance at the World Resources Institute.  

Among the most contentious issues last week was whether the World Bank should host the fund – a position pushed by the U.S. and developed countries – or whether the U.N. create a new body to run the fund, as developing countries have urged.  

Housing a fund at the World Bank, whose presidents are appointed by the United States, would give donor countries outsized influence over the fund and result in high fees for recipient countries, developing countries argue.  

“Its operational culture, the way in which the World Bank has been assisting countries in their development policies, I think it’s not fit for purpose in relation to what we’re looking for from this new climate facility,” said Cuba’s U.N. Ambassador Pedro Pedroso Cuesta, chair of the G77 (developing countries) and China.  

He said the creation of a “new independent entity” to run the fund is the core of its position.  

In response to these criticisms, a spokesperson for the World Bank told Reuters: “We are supporting the process and are committed to working with countries once they agree on how to structure the loss and damage fund.”  

The United States, the European Union and others want a more targeted fund. The EU wants a fund dedicated to the most “vulnerable” while the U.S. has said the fund should focus on areas like slow-onset climate impacts such as sea-level rise.  

Countries are also split over who should pay.  

Brandon Wu, director of policy & campaigns for NGO ActionAid USA called on the United States to back off its insistence that the World Bank house the fund.  

U.S. negotiator Christina Chan, a senior adviser to Special Envoy on Climate John Kerry, pushed back on criticism that the U.S. is obstructing progress on loss and damage.  

“We have been working diligently at every turn to address concerns, problem-solve, and find landing zones,” she said.
…

A California research team is conducting a five-year ecological study of six songbird species in northwestern New Mexico oil fields to see how sensory intrusions affect the birds’ survival, reproduction and general health.

The Santa Fe New Mexican says the study by avian researchers from California Polytechnic State University will zero in on the specific impacts of noise and light pollution.

As the human population swells and generates more light and sound, researchers are curious about how those multiplying stressors might compound the challenges of climate change in New Mexico’s San Juan Basin, the newspaper reported.

Clint Francis, an ecology professor at California Polytechnic, said early studies that examined whether excessive noise and light decreased bird populations were done in more urban settings, where the birds were threatened by prowling cats, toxic chemicals and speeding cars.

The next step is to isolate either noise or light in a rural area to see how one or the other affects the songbirds, Francis said.

He did such research in this same northwestern New Mexico region in 2005. This time the aim is to observe how the two together affect the birds in a locale where the conditions can be clearly measured in tandem.

“We try to hold everything constant but vary noise and light pollution to try to understand whether there is, perhaps, surprising cumulative effects when you have both of those stimuli together,” Francis told the New Mexican.

The research will focus on six types of songbirds: ash-throated flycatchers, gray flycatchers, mountain bluebirds, Western bluebirds, chipping sparrows and house finches.

Francis hopes the study will uncover information that can help people adjust their noise and light to coexist better with birds.

The study is being funded by a grant of almost $900,000 from the National Science Foundation.
…

Researchers in the United States have shown for the first time they can safely and effectively infect human volunteers with Zika virus, a step toward learning more about the disease and developing vaccines and treatments.  

The study – known as a “controlled human infection model” – has previously been controversial for Zika because of the risks to participants and lack of treatments. 

But U.S. regulators and the World Health Organization ruled the new model, developed by a team at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, was safe and scientifically important.  

Zika is a viral infection spread by mosquitoes, which is usually mild or asymptomatic. 

But a major outbreak in the Americas in 2015 and 2016 showed it can be dangerous for pregnant women and fetuses, causing devastating birth defects such as microcephaly, a disorder in which a child is born with an abnormally small head and brain.  

There are no vaccines or treatments, and the outbreak in the Americas ended before new ones could be fully tested. Infections have dwindled worldwide since, with about 40,000 reported last year from that region. 

But the WHO has warned that surveillance can be patchy, and transmission patterns for Zika are not well understood. Climate change is also likely to boost the spread, which is already established in 91 countries. 

Anna Durbin, the Johns Hopkins professor who led the study, said developing countermeasures was essential because infections could re-surge. 

Also significant, she added, was the mental health burden on pregnant women in endemic regions, who worry about the virus and their babies — but have limited protection options.  

Durbin and her colleagues used two strains of Zika to infect 20 female volunteers who were not pregnant or lactating. All developed laboratory-confirmed infections, with mild illness. Eight others got a placebo.  

To minimize the risks, the patients were admitted to an inpatient unit and monitored until they were free of the virus. They agreed to use birth control methods for two months.  

The next step is evaluating the strains in male volunteers, in part to assess how long the virus, which can be sexually transmitted, stays infectious in semen.  

Durbin said several vaccine manufacturers have already asked to use the strains to test experimental products.  

The data was presented as an abstract at the annual meeting of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene in Chicago.  
…

The World Health Organization warns that tens of thousands of survivors of a series of powerful 6.3 magnitude earthquakes that struck western Afghanistan’s Herat province between October 7 and 15 are in desperate need of humanitarian aid and essential health services.

“I have personally seen how these multiple earthquakes flattened villages, displaced thousands of people and left many families in urgent need of humanitarian and health assistance,” said Alaa AbouZeid, health emergencies team lead for WHO Afghanistan.

Speaking in Kabul on Friday, AbouZeid said, “Over 114,000 people are in urgent need of lifesaving health assistance. … The health consequences are staggering.”

Those most seriously affected by the disaster, he said, are women, girls, boys and the elderly, “who account for over 90% of the deaths and injuries. Many children are left orphaned.”

The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, or OCHA, reports that the earthquakes directly affected more than 66,000 people — about 1,500 killed, some 2,000 injured, at least 3,700 homes destroyed and another 21,300 buildings damaged.

“I have talked to people affected by earthquakes, and the sense of loss is heartbreaking,” said Luo Dapeng, WHO representative in Afghanistan. “Many people spent days digging under the rubble to search for members who either died or got injured.”

According to an initial assessment by the WHO, at least 40 health facilities across nine districts were damaged, resulting in severe disruptions of health services for an estimated 580,000 people.

AbouZeid said health providers were afraid to go into those buildings, which showed visible cracks and risked collapse. “So, most health services for now are provided from tents,” he said, calling the situation untenable.

“We need immediate action to restore, renovate and ensure services that provide health facilities, especially in wintertime. The survivors need water [and] better shelters that can protect them from the harsh winter,” he said.

“Last year, Herat experienced minus 30 degrees centigrade during wintertime, and winter has already started in Afghanistan,” he said. “So, there are needs for water and sanitation to stop any possible disease outbreaks.”

He said that WHO staff in Afghanistan was on the ground within hours of the disaster and able to treat the injured, provide medicine and medical supplies, and give mental health and trauma care.

“Thanks to the long and established presence in Herat, we were able to rapidly mobilize resources … and extend immediate lifesaving support to the affected population at the most critical time of the emergency.”

He said the WHO has deployed 21 female health workers, including doctors and midwives, to Herat to ensure that women have unimpeded access to the health services they need.

“They have been distributed over different facilities to provide services for their female patients, with a special focus on reproductive health services, obstetrics, gynecology services and child health services,” AbouZeid said.

The WHO launched an appeal for $7.9 million Wednesday to provide urgent and essential health services for 114,000 of the most vulnerable people in the next six months.

AbouZeid said the WHO needs to scale up emergency health needs urgently and swiftly “as the upcoming winter season is bringing new health risks and exposure to the affected population currently living outdoors or in tents.”
…

India successfully carried out Saturday the first of a series of key test flights after overcoming a technical glitch ahead of its planned mission to take astronauts into space by 2025, the space agency said.

The test involved launching a module to outer space and bringing it back to earth to test the spacecraft’s crew escape system, said the Indian Space Research Organization chief S. Somanath, and was being recovered after its touchdown in the Bay of Bengal.

The launch was delayed by 45 minutes in the morning because of weather conditions. The attempt was again deferred by more than an hour because of an issue with the engine, and the ground computer put the module’s liftoff on hold, said Somanath.

The glitch caused by a monitoring anomaly in the system was rectified and the test was carried out successfully 75 minutes later from the Sriharikota satellite launching station in southern India, Somanath told reporters.

It would pave the way for other unmanned missions, including sending a robot into space next year.

In September, India successfully launched its first space mission to study the sun, less than two weeks after a successful uncrewed landing near the south pole region of the moon.

After a failed attempt to land on the moon in 2019, India in September joined the United States, the Soviet Union and China as only the fourth country to achieve the milestone.

The successful mission showcased India’s rising standing as a technology and space powerhouse and dovetails with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s desire to project an image of an ascendant country asserting its place among the global elite.

Signaling a roadmap for India’s future space ambitions, Modi earlier this week announced that India’s space agency will set up an Indian-crafted space station by 2035 and land an Indian astronaut on the moon by 2040.

Active since the 1960s, India has launched satellites for itself and other countries, and successfully put one in orbit around Mars in 2014. India is planning its first mission to the International Space Station next year in collaboration with the United States.
…

It’s been a month since a Maryland man became the second person to receive a transplanted heart from a pig — and hospital video released Friday shows he’s working hard to recover.

Lawrence Faucette was dying from heart failure and ineligible for a traditional heart transplant because of other health problems when doctors at the University of Maryland School of Medicine offered the highly experimental surgery.

In the first glimpse of Faucette provided since the September 20 transplant, hospital video shows physical therapist Chris Wells urging him to smile while pushing through a pedaling exercise to regain his strength. 

“That’s going to be tough, but I’ll work it out,” Faucette, 58, replied, breathing heavily but giving a smile. 

The Maryland team last year performed the world’s first transplant of a heart from a genetically altered pig into another dying man. David Bennett survived just two months before that heart failed, for reasons that aren’t completely clear, although signs of a pig virus later were found inside the organ. Lessons from that first experiment led to changes before this second try, including better virus testing. 

Attempts at animal-to-human organ transplants — called xenotransplants — have failed for decades, as people’s immune systems immediately destroyed the foreign tissue. Now scientists are trying again using pigs genetically modified to make their organs more humanlike. 

In Friday’s hospital video, Faucette’s doctors said the pig heart has shown no sign of rejection. 

“His heart is doing everything on its own,” said Dr. Muhammad Mohiuddin, the Maryland team’s cardiac xenotransplantation chief. 

A hospital spokesperson said Faucette, of Frederick, Maryland, has been able to stand and physical therapists are helping him gain the strength needed to attempt walking. 

Many scientists hope xenotransplants one day could compensate for the huge shortage of human organ donations. More than 100,000 people are on the nation’s list for transplants, most awaiting kidneys, and thousands will die waiting. 

A handful of scientific teams have tested pig kidneys and hearts in monkeys and in donated human bodies, hoping to learn enough for the Food and Drug Administration to allow formal xenotransplant studies. 
…

Astronomers have detected an intense flash of radio waves coming from what looks like a merger of galaxies dating to about 8 billion years ago — the oldest-known instance of a phenomenon called a fast radio burst that continues to defy explanation. 

This burst in less than a millisecond unleashed the amount of energy our sun emits in three decades, researchers said. It was detected using the Australian SKA Pathfinder, a radio telescope in the state of Western Australia. Its location was pinpointed by the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope in Chile, one of the most powerful optical telescopes. 

A fast radio burst, or FRB, is a pulse of radio-frequency electromagnetic radiation. It lasts a small fraction of a second but outshines most other sources of radio waves in the universe. Radio waves have the longest wavelengths in the electromagnetic spectrum. 

“The radio waves in FRBs are similar to those used in microwave ovens. The amount of energy in this FRB is the equivalent to microwaving a bowl of popcorn twice the size of the sun,” said astronomer Ryan Shannon of Swinburne University of Technology in Australia, co-leader of the study published this week in the journal Science. 

Until now, the oldest known such burst dated to 5 billion years ago, making this one 3 billion years older. The universe is about 13.8 billion years old. For comparison, Earth is about 4.5 billion years old. In seeing objects and events from long ago, astronomers peer across vast cosmic distances, making this burst also the farthest of any FRB ever detected. 

“We now know that fast radio bursts have been around for more than half the age of the universe,” said astronomer and study co-leader Stuart Ryder of Macquarie University in Australia. 

Fast radio bursts were discovered in 2007. 

“The most likely source is a hypermagnetized neutron star, called a magnetar. These stars are stellar corpses the mass of the sun but only the size of a small city. They are some of the most extreme objects in the universe, which you would need to produce such extreme bursts,” Shannon said. 

“There are more energetic events in the universe, associated with stellar explosions or a black hole shredding a star apart. But FRBs are unique in that they produce all their energy in radio waves, with nothing seen in other bands — optical light or X-rays, for example — and that the signals are so short,” Shannon added. 

They also are more common, Shannon added, with upward of 100,000 thought to occur somewhere in the universe daily. Far fewer have been detected, Shannon said, and only around 50 — including this one — have been traced back to the galaxy where they originated. 

“Galaxies in the distant universe look different than those nearby — they don’t have nice spiral arms — so it wasn’t clear if what we were seeing was one galaxy with a few clumps, or a few smaller galaxies. It is likely that the source is a few galaxies, possibly merging,” Shannon said. 

The researchers said that studying these bursts also can help to detect and measure the immense amount of matter believed to populate the expanses of space between galaxies. As these radio waves zip though the cosmos, they can flag the presence of this intergalactic plasma — gas so hot that some or all its atoms are split into the subatomic particles electrons and ions. 

“Most of the normal matter in the universe — this is the regular matter that makes up stars, planets, humans — is thought to reside in a diffuse cosmic web of gas between galaxies,” Shannon said. “People have been searching for this matter for decades using other techniques. Because it is so diffuse, it is nearly invisible in any other way, so [it] was considered ‘missing.'”
…

With warmer oceans serving as fuel, Atlantic hurricanes are now more than twice as likely as before to rapidly intensify from wimpy minor hurricanes to powerful and catastrophic, a study said Thursday.

Last month Hurricane Lee went from barely a hurricane at 129 kph to the most powerful Category 5 hurricane with 249 kph winds in 24 hours. In 2017, before it devastated Puerto Rico, Hurricane Maria went from a Category 1 storm with 145 kph to a top-of-the-chart whopper with 257 kph winds in just 15 hours.

The study looked at 830 Atlantic tropical cyclones since 1971. It found that in the last 20 years, 8.1% of the time storms powered from a Category 1 minor storm to a major hurricane in just 24 hours. That happened only 3.2% of the time from 1971-90, according to a study in the journal Scientific Reports. Category 1 hurricanes top out at 153 kph and a hurricane has to have at least 178 kph winds to become major.

Those are the most extreme cases, but the fact that the rate of such turbocharging has more than doubled is disturbing, said study author Andra Garner, a climate scientist at Rowan University in New Jersey.

When storms rapidly intensify, especially as they near land, it makes it difficult for people in the storm’s path to decide on what they should do — evacuate or hunker down. It also makes it harder for meteorologists to predict how bad it will be and for emergency managers to prepare, Garner and other scientists said.

“We know that our strongest, most damaging storms very often do intensify very quickly at some point in their lifetimes,” Garner said, highlighting 2017’s Maria, which some researchers said killed nearly 3,000 people directly and indirectly. “We’re talking about something that’s hard to predict that certainly can lead to a more destructive storm.”

And this “has become more common in the last 50 years,” Garner said. “This has all happened over a time period when we’ve seen ocean waters get warmer.”

“We’ve had 90% of the excess warming that humans have caused to the planet going into our oceans,” Garner said.

Oceans this year have been setting heat records monthly since April with scientists warning of off-the-charts temperatures.

Garner found the rapid intensification of hurricanes was primarily along the East Coast’s Atlantic seaboard, more so than the Gulf of Mexico.

It’s not just the cases of extreme rapid intensification. Garner looked at all storms over different time periods and found that in general they’re intensifying faster than they used to.

There have been more Atlantic storms in the last few decades than in the 1970s and 1980s – scientists have several theories for why, from changes in air pollution to natural cycles – but Garner said by looking at percentages she took out the storm frequency factor.

Previous studies had found an increase in rapid intensification. Garner’s study was statistically meticulous in confirming what scientists had figured, said Karthik Balaguru, a Pacific Northwest National Lab climate scientist who last year had a paper demonstrating how storms near the Atlantic coast are intensifying faster before landfall than they did in the 1970s and 1980s.

The National Hurricane Center considers a storm to rapidly intensify if it increases wind speed by 46 kph in 24 hours.

In 2020, a record year for hurricanes and the last year of Garner’s study, six storms rapidly intensified that much. Hannah, Laura, Sally, Teddy, Gamma and Delta. Since then, there have been several rapid intensifying and deadly storms, including 2021’s Ida, 2022’s Ian and 2023’s Idalia.

“If we don’t work to lower our (carbon) emissions, then that’s a trend that we likely could expect to see continue to happen in the future” and even get worse, Garner said.
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Burkina Faso’s health ministry has declared a dengue fever epidemic amid the deadliest outbreak in years. More than 200 people have died, and new cases are rising sharply.

There have been 50,478 suspected cases and 214 deaths of the mosquito-borne illness this year, the ministry said in a statement released on Wednesday, mostly in the urban centers of the capital, Ouagadougou, and Bobo Dioulasso. It said about 20% of the cases and deaths were recorded last week alone.

Dengue kills an estimated 20,000 people worldwide each year. Rates of the disease have risen eightfold since 2000, driven largely by climate change, the increased movement of people and urbanization.

The World Health Organization this month warned that the disease would become a major threat in new parts of Africa as warmer temperatures create conditions for the mosquitoes carrying the infection to spread.

Dengue is spread by infected Aedes aegypti mosquitoes. Symptoms include fever, muscle pain, nausea and rashes. Lack of treatment or misdiagnosis, common in poverty-stricken countries such as Burkina Faso where health care is spotty, increase the chance of death.

Burkina Faso’s outbreak dwarfs other African outbreaks in recent years. According to figures from the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, dengue killed 18 people in Burkina Faso in 2017 and 15 in 2016.

The health ministry said that it was providing free rapid diagnostic tests and had organized spraying of insecticide in public places to counter the spread.
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Australian researchers say they have produced the most comprehensive view of the history of the universe to date. An Australian National University team says their study offers new ideas about how the universe might have started.

The research team says the study’s aim was to understand the origins of all the objects in the universe.

The U.S. space agency, NASA, says the universe “includes all of space, and all the matter and energy that space contains. It even includes time itself and, of course, it includes you.”

NASA adds that “the Milky Way is but one of billions of galaxies in the observable universe — all of them, including our own, are thought to have supermassive black holes at their centers.”

The Australian team says it has created the most comprehensive chart ever created of the history of the universe.

The lead author is honorary associate professor Charley Lineweaver. He said that when the universe began 13.8 billion years ago in a hot big bang, there were no objects, such as protons, atoms, people, planets, stars or galaxies.

The authors say the charts provide new ideas about how the universe came into being.

The first shows temperature and density of the universe as it expanded and cooled. The second plots the mass and size of all objects in the universe. The ANU researchers say the study suggests the universe may have started as what is known as an instanton, which has a specific size and mass, rather than a singularity, which they say is a hypothetical point of infinite density and temperature. Put simply, this would mean that at its beginning the universe may have been finite, and not infinite, in size. This is important because researchers say that what lies beyond the boundary of the universe is “also a major mystery.”

Lineweaver told VOA that mapping the universe will boost our understanding of it.

“When you extrapolate in so many different ways it gives you just a lay of the land that I just think is a beautiful way of understanding the universe,” he said. “If there is one way to understand the Big Bang it started out hot and dense and it got cooler and less dense, and as it did that particles and objects of all kinds condensed out of this hot, dense background. And understanding that is something that we should all make an attempt to do that because that is probably the most profound underlying theme of the history of the universe.”

Lineweaver also said he believes that research into the origins of the universe could help to answer some fundamental scientific questions about life beyond Earth.

“How did we get here? So, I am kind of semi-obsessed with the big picture of life on Earth and what it means and whether we are alone or not and so I have been writing quite a few things about that,” he said. “The basic idea is, well, if we can figure out how we got here, maybe we can make better guesses about whether other life forms have evolved elsewhere.”

The Australian National University study is published in the latest issue of The American Journal of Physics. 
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U.N. inspectors took samples from a fish market near the Fukushima nuclear power plant on Thursday following the release of wastewater from the wrecked facility in August.

China and Russia have banned Japanese seafood imports since the discharge began but Japan says it is safe, a view backed so far by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Some 540 Olympic swimming pools worth of water have been collected since a tsunami sent three reactors at Fukushima-Daiichi into meltdown in 2011 in one of the world’s worst nuclear disasters.

Japan says that the water has been filtered by its special ALPS technology of radioactive substances — except tritium — and diluted with seawater.

Japan says tests have shown that tritium levels are within safe limits.

The IAEA team comprising scientists from China, South Korea and Canada were collecting fish, water and sediment samples this week to verify Japan’s findings.

Paul McGinnity, a member of the mission, told reporters that the aim was “to ascertain whether the Japanese labs are measuring and analyzing properly” tritium levels.

“Tritium is the concern because tritium levels as you know are relatively high because it is not removed by the ALPS process,” McGinnity said.

“I can say that we don’t expect to see any change (in tritium levels), certainly in the fish. We do expect to see a small rise in levels of tritium in seawater samples very close to the discharge point. But otherwise, we don’t. We expect to find levels that are very similar to what we measured last year.”

Samples will be sent back to labs in the team members’ home countries for independent review, and the IAEA will evaluate and publish those results.

Russia this week followed its ally China in banning Japanese seafood imports, although it buys relatively small volumes.

Japan, which has called China’s ban politically motivated, said Moscow’s move was an “unjust” step “without any scientific basis.”

The water release is aimed at making space to begin removing the highly dangerous radioactive fuel and rubble from the wrecked reactors.
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As the war drags on, some severely injured Ukrainians who received medical help abroad are returning home. Yana Stepanenko and her mother have resettled in Lviv after a year of treatment and rehabilitation in the U.S. Omelyan Oshchudlyak has the story. Camera: Yuriy  Dankevych      
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A clinical trial is recruiting thousands of volunteers — including a large number of Black women who face disparities in breast cancer death rates — to try to find out.

People like Carole Stovall, a psychologist in Washington, D.C., have signed up for the study to help answer the question.

“We all need a mammogram anyway, so why not do it with a study that allows the scientists to understand more and move closer to finding better treatments and ways of maybe even preventing it?” Stovall said.

The underrepresentation of women and minorities in research is a long-simmering issue affecting health problems including Alzheimer’s disease, stroke and COVID-19. Trials without diversity lead to gaps in understanding of how new treatments work for all people.

“Until we get more Black women into clinical trials, we can’t change the science. And we need better science for Black bodies,” said Ricki Fairley, a breast cancer survivor and advocate who is working on the issue.

Black women are 40% more likely to die from breast cancer than white women and tend to be diagnosed younger. But it’s not clear whether 3D mammography is better for them, said Dr. Worta McCaskill-Stevens of the National Cancer Institute.

“Are there populations for whom this might be important to have early diagnosis?” asked McCaskill-Stevens. “Or is it harmful,” causing too many false alarms or unneeded follow-up tests and treatments?

McCaskill-Stevens, who is Black, leads NCI’s efforts to boost access to cancer research in minority and rural communities. She has joined the study herself.

The newer 3D technique has been around for a decade, but there’s never been conclusive evidence that it’s better than 2D at detecting advanced cancers. The screening technique combines multiple pictures of the breast taken from different angles to create a 3D-like image. Both 3D and 2D mammograms compress the breast and use low doses of radiation.

Prior studies suggest that 3D finds more cancers than 2D, but catching more cancers doesn’t necessarily mean more lives saved. Some cancers missed by standard screening may not progress or need treatment. Previous studies did not randomly assign patients to a screening method, the gold standard for research.

The notion “that if it’s new, it’s shiny, then it’s better,” isn’t necessarily true, McCaskill-Stevens said. “Until we have the evidence to support that, then we need well-designed randomized trials.”

The trial has enrolled nearly 93,000 women so far with a goal of 128,000. The NCI-funded study is now running in Canada, South Korea, Peru, Argentina, Italy and 32 U.S. states. A site in Thailand will soon begin enrolling patients.

“We added more international sites to enhance the trial’s diversity, particularly for Hispanic and Asian women,” said Dr. Etta Pisano, who leads the study.

Overall, 42% of participants are Hispanic. As recruiting continues, enrolling Black women and other women of color will “absolutely” continue as a priority, Pisano said.

Participants are randomly assigned to either 2D or 3D mammograms and are followed for several years. The number of advanced cancers detected by the two methods will be compared.

At the U.S. study sites, 21% of study participants are Black women — that’s higher than a typical cancer treatment study, in which 9% of participants are Black, McCaskill-Stevens said.

The University of North Carolina has signed up more Black women than any other study site. Nearly a quarter of the nearly 3,000 women enrolled at UNC’s two locations are Black.

“Women in North Carolina want to take part in something that’s bigger than them,” said Dr. Cherie Kuzmiak, who leads the UNC arm of the study. “They want this active role in helping determine the future of health care for women.”

In Washington, D.C., word of mouth has led to successful recruiting.

A chance encounter at her hair salon persuaded Stovall to join the research. While waiting for a hair appointment, she met Georgetown University cancer researcher Lucile Adams-Campbell. The two, both Black, started chatting.

“She explained how important it was to get women of color into the program,” said Stovall, who jumped at the chance to catch up on her mammograms after the COVID-19 pandemic delayed screening for her and thousands of others.

For Stovall, there was a personal reason to join the research. Her sister recently completed treatment for triple negative breast cancer, an aggressive type that affects Black women at higher rates than white women.

Women ages 45 to 74 without a personal history of breast cancer are eligible for the study, which launched in 2017. Many women also are providing blood and cheek swab samples for a database that will be mined for insights.

“It’s a dream that people had since the beginning of screening that we wouldn’t fit everybody into the same box,” Pisano said. The study’s findings could “reduce disparities if we’re successful, assuming people have access to care.”

Stovall, 72, had a brief scare when her mammogram, the traditional 2D type, showed something suspicious. A biopsy ruled out cancer.

“I was extremely relieved,” Stovall said. “Everybody I know has heard from me about the need for them to go get a mammogram.”
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Four-day work weeks improved Spanish workers’ health several ways, such as by lowering stress while reducing fuel emissions and benefiting children, a pilot program showed on Tuesday. 

The coastal city of Valencia — Spain’s third largest with more than 800,000 inhabitants — scheduled local holidays to fall on four consecutive Mondays between April 10 and May 7 this year. The project affected 360,000 workers. 

Many participants used the long weekends to develop healthier habits such as practicing sport, resting and eating homemade food, according to an independent commission of health and social science experts that evaluated the program. 

The data showed an improvement in self-perceived health status, lower stress levels and better feelings regarding tiredness, happiness, mood and personal satisfaction, it added. 

A drop in the use of motor vehicles led to better air quality on the four Mondays during the program’s period, as less nitrogen dioxide was emitted, according to the city’s daily emissions measurements. 

However, smokers and drinkers increased their overall use of tobacco and alcohol, it said.

More time for hobbies, leisure

A high percentage of those surveyed said they were more likely to read, study, watch films and pursue hobbies such as  photography, music or painting, the commission said. It did not specify the percentage. 

Children benefited the most, thanks to improved work-life balance enjoyed by their parents, the commission found. 

Retail sales down

While the hospitality and tourism sectors served more customers during extended weekends, retailers reported a decrease in sales and emergency medical services may have been overextended as more healthcare workers took time off, the report said. 

The project was designed by the left-wing Compromis coalition of progressive, green and regionalist parties, which ruled the city at the time. 

Last year, the Spanish government launched a similar two-year project focused on small and medium-sized industrial companies nationwide. 
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Foreigners who live in Italy will be able to use the national health service after paying a $2,109 annual fee, the government said Monday. 

The charge, part of the 2024 budget adopted by the cabinet, will apply only to citizens from outside the European Union, the economy ministry said in a statement.  

The ministry said there would be an unspecified discount for those with legal residency papers, as well as for foreign students and au pairs.  

It was not immediately clear how far the reform would change the current system, which already foresees payments for some categories of foreigners. 

Giordana Pallone of the Cgil trade union told the Adnkronos news agency the reform risked falling foul of the Italian constitution, which guarantees free medical care for the poor.  

“We’ll now have to wait to see how the law is written, because as it is reported today, it has no value or basis compared to the system and regulations that we have,” she said.  

Foreign workers, job seekers, asylum-seekers and unaccompanied minors currently have access to free health care, like Italian nationals.  

Other foreigners with legal residency, such as diplomats and students, can join the Italian health service voluntarily, for a variable fee. 

For students, for example, the charge is capped around $150 per year, while for others it depends on their annual income and can go up to more than $2,950.  

Last month, Italy’s right-wing government sparked controversy by decreeing that migrants would have to pay more than $5,200 to avoid detention while their request for protection was being processed. 
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All About America explores American culture, politics, trends, history, ideals and places of interest.

West Virginia (41%), Louisiana (40.1%) and Oklahoma (40%) are the states with the fattest populations in the nation, laying claim to the highest proportion of adults with a body mass index (BMI) of 40% or greater, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

“The latest data from CDC is looking grim,” says Jamie Bussel of Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, a health-based philanthropic organization. “Twenty-two states had an adult obesity rate at or above 35%. And that was up from 19 states the year before. And when we look back a decade ago, no states had an adult obesity rate at or above 35%. So yes, clearly, when you look at the numbers, they’re not going in the right direction.”

In addition to West Virginia, Louisiana and Oklahoma, the 22 states with an obesity rate of 35% or higher are Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and Wisconsin.

The highest prevalence of obesity can be found in the Midwest and South, followed by the Northeast and the West. Obesity rates trended higher among Blacks, Hispanics, Native Americans and Alaska natives.

Every U.S. state had an obesity rate of at least 20%. The CDC calls additional support for obesity prevention and treatment “an urgent priority.”

“Obesity is a disease caused by many factors, including eating patterns, physical activity levels, sleep routines, genetics and certain medications,” said Karen Hacker, director of CDC’s National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, in a press release. “This means that there is no one size fits all approach. However, we know the key strategies that work include addressing the underlying social determinants of health such as access to healthcare, healthy and affordable food, and safe places for physical activity.”

Bussel says more robust federal food programs are necessary to help families living in poverty.

“In February of 2023, the USDA proposed updates to the school meals to align them with a diet that was [in line with] the latest dietary guidelines, and some of those changes include limits on added sugar, reductions in sodium levels, etc.,” she says. “We believe that those types of changes are really important changes that could improve students’ health and diet quality.”

There have also been changes to the WIC program, a federally funded supplemental nutrition program for women, infants and children, aimed at filling key nutritional gaps.

“A year ago in November, the USDA proposed updates to the WIC food package that will aim to help families purchase more nutritious foods,” Bussel says. “So again, these are federal-level policies that we believe are really important in helping ensure that all kids and families can thrive and be healthy and access good, high-quality food.”

Sheldon Jacobson, a professor of computer science at the University of Illinois, has studied obesity and says the government should invest more in public transportation to get people moving.

“We are such an automobile-centric society. We build our communities centered around suburbs,” he says. “We focus on driving rather than bicycling or walking or even public transportation and, as a result, that basically contributes to the fact that this inactivity is forcing people to gain weight, whether we like it or not, because we do less.”

The states and U.S. territories with the lowest rates of obesity are the District of Columbia (24.3%), Colorado (25%), Hawaii (25.9%) and Vermont (26.8%).
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Rite Aid Corp filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Sunday, as it comes under pressure from lawsuits alleging that the drugstore chain helped fuel the opioid crisis in the United States.

Rite Aid listed estimated assets and liabilities in the range of $1 billion to $10 billion in a court filing with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of New Jersey.

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania-based Rite Aid operates more than 2,000 retail stores across 17 states in the U.S., although it is much smaller than its rivals such as Walgreens Boots Alliance and CVS Health.

Along with other pharmacy chains, it has been named a defendant in lawsuits that alleged they helped fuel the opioid crisis in the United States.

The U.S. Department of Justice in March sued Rite Aid, accusing the pharmacy chain of missing “red flags” as it illegally filled hundreds of thousands of prescriptions for controlled substances, including opioids.

More than 900,000 people have died of drug overdoses in the U.S. since 1999, with opioids playing an outsized role, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

 
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The medicine in the diabetes drug Mounjaro helped people with obesity or who are overweight lose at least a quarter of their body weight, or about 27 kilograms (60 pounds) on average, when combined with intensive diet and exercise, a new study shows.

By comparison, a group of people who also dieted and exercised, but then received dummy shots, lost weight initially but then regained some, researchers reported Sunday in the journal Nature Medicine.

“This study says that if you lose weight before you start the drug, you can then add a lot more weight loss after,” said Dr. Thomas Wadden, a University of Pennsylvania obesity researcher and psychology professor who led the study.

The results, which were also presented Sunday at a medical conference, confirm that the drug made by Eli Lilly & Company has the potential to be one of the most powerful medical treatments for obesity to date, outside experts said.

“Any way you slice it, it’s a quarter of your total body weight,” said Dr. Caroline Apovian, who treats obesity at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and wasn’t involved in the study.

The injected drug, tirzepatide, was approved in the U.S. in May 2022 to treat diabetes. Sold as Mounjaro, it has been used “off-label” to treat obesity, joining a frenzy of demand for diabetes and weight-loss medications including Ozempic and Wegovy, made by Novo Nordisk.

All the drugs, which carry retail price tags of $900 a month or more, have been in shortage for months.

Tirzepatide targets two hormones that kick in after people eat to regulate appetite and the feeling of fullness communicated between the gut and the brain. Semaglutide, the drug used in Ozempic and Wegovy, targets one of those hormones.

The new study, which was funded by Eli Lilly, enrolled about 800 people who had obesity or were overweight with a weight-related health complication — but not diabetes. On average, study participants weighed about 109.5 kilograms (241 pounds) to start and had a body-mass index — a common measure of obesity — of about 38.

After three months of intensive diet and exercise, more than 200 participants left the trial, either because they failed to lose enough weight or for other reasons. The remaining nearly 600 people were randomized to receive tirzepatide or a placebo via weekly injections for about 16 months. Nearly 500 people completed the study.

Participants in both groups lost about 7% of their body weight, or almost 8 kilograms, ( 17 pounds) during the diet-and-exercise phase. Those who received the drug went on to lose an additional 18.4% of initial body weight, or about 20 kilograms (44 pounds) more, on average. Those who received the dummy shots regained about 2.5% of their initial weight, or 2.7 kilograms 6 pounds).

Overall, about 88% of those taking tirzepatide lost 5% or more of their body weight during the trial, compared with almost 17% of those taking placebo. Nearly 29% of those taking the drug lost at least a quarter of their body weight, compared with just over 1% of those taking placebo.

That’s higher than the results for semaglutide and similar to the results seen with bariatric surgery, said Apovian.

“We’re doing a medical gastric bypass,” she said.

Side effects including nausea, diarrhea and constipation were reported more frequently in people taking the drug than those taking the placebo. They were mostly mild to moderate and occurred primarily as the dose of the drug was escalated, the study found. More than 10% of those taking the drug discontinued the study because of side effects, compared with about 2% of those on placebo.

Lilly is expected to publish the results soon of another study that the firm says shows similar high rates of weight loss. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has granted the company a fast-track review of the drug to treat obesity, which Eli Lilly may sell under a different brand name. A decision is expected by the end of the year.
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As more children emerge from the pandemic grappling with mental health issues, their parents are seeking ways for them to build emotional resilience. 

And toy companies are paying close attention. 

While still in its early phase, a growing number of toy marketers are embracing MESH — or mental, emotional and social health — as a designation for toys that teach kids skills like how to adjust to new challenges, resolve conflict, advocate for themselves, or solve problems. 

The acronym was first used in child development circles and by the American Camp Association 10 years ago and gained new resonance after the pandemic. Rachele Harmuth, head of ThinkFun, a division of toy company Ravensburger, and resilience expert and family physician Deborah Gilboa, formed a MESH taskforce earlier this year with the goal of getting manufacturers to design toys with emotional resilience in mind and to have retailers market them accordingly. 

“We just need to educate parents and educators just a little bit to know that we could be using their play time a little bit intentionally,” Gilboa said. 

The plan is to certify MESH toys by mid-2024 the same way the Toy Association did for STEAM toys, which emphasize science, tech, engineering, arts, and math. Adrienne Appell, a spokeswoman at the Toy Association, notes that MESH is an area it will continue to monitor as it evolves. 

Many toys that could be considered MESH happen to already be in children’s toy chests — like memory games, puppets, certain types of Legos, Pokémon trading games, and Dungeons & Dragons. The concept was highlighted at the toy industry’s recent four-day annual show in New York, which featured an abundance of toys from the likes of hand2mind and Open the Joy that encourage children to express their feelings with mirrors or puppets. 

James Zahn, editor- in-chief of the trade publication the Toy Book, noted the bulk of the new toys being developed with MESH in mind will be out starting next year. 

But some worry the MESH approach might end up promising parents something it can’t deliver. There’s also a risk of companies preying on parents’ anxieties about their kids’ mental health. 

“My fear is that MESH will be used as the next marketing gimmick,” said Chris Byrne, an independent toy analyst. “It will create a culture of fear that their children are not developing socially and emotionally. And that’s not really the job of the toy industry. ” 

Experts say childhood depression and anxiety were climbing for years, but the pandemic’s unrelenting stress and grief magnified the woes, particularly for those already grappling with mental health issues who were cut off from counselors and other school resources during remote learning. Many educators began emphasizing social emotional learning in response, which teaches children soft skills like helping them manage their emotions and create positive rapport with others. 

Dave Anderson, vice president of school and community programs and a senior psychologist in the ADHD and Behavior Disorders Center at the Child Mind Institute, applauded the toy industry’s efforts to likewise address emotional resilience. But he said parents need to be careful about claims that companies may be making. While there’s evidence that skills highlighted by the MESH taskforce can build resilience, there’s no evidence that the toys themselves will, he said. 

“The concepts are evidence based; the toys themselves are not,” he said. 

Bryne notes that the skills being highlighted by the MESH taskforce are the basics of play, whether it’s skateboarding that builds perseverance or learning how to share toys to help with conflict resolution. 

“In my opinion, if you live in a healthy home and you’re having healthy play and your parents are engaged, the MESH stuff kind of happens automatically, ” he said. 

The U.S. toy industry itself has been in need of a jolt following a weak year, particularly a lackluster holiday 2022 season when retailers were stuck with a surplus of toys after enjoying a pandemic-induced toy splurge by parents. The malaise has continued so far this year, with toy sales in the U.S. down 8% from January through August, based on Circana’s retail tracking service data. 

For its part, the MESH taskforce is initially working with specialty stores like Learning Express and small toy companies like Crazy Aaron’s, which has expanded beyond its Thinking Putty to add activity kits that teach kids problem solving like how magnets work with putty. One game ThinkFun is marketing: Rush Hour, a sliding block logic game that has kids battle traffic gridlock. 

But large retailers like Amazon are also waking up to the MESH approach. 

“The rising popularity of MESH toys speaks to the power of play and the important role that toys play in our lives,” said Anne Carrihill, Amazon’s director of toys and games. 

Richard Derr, owner of the Learning Express franchise in Lake Zurich, Illinois, said that he trained his workers on helping parents this past spring to pick the right toys. But the challenge is not to scare parents. 

“You don’t want to rush up to somebody and say, ‘Hey, how’s your mental health today of your kids?'” Derr said. “That’s why local toy stores are a great place to start because of our relationships with the community, customers and teachers.” 

But he noted toymakers can’t be overusing the word MESH without any meaning. 

Sarah Davis, the mother of three boys ages 3, 6 and 9, is open to the idea of MESH toys. The Great Falls, Virginia resident said her 6-year-old had delayed speech because he was wearing a mask during the heart of the pandemic, while her 9-year-old son has some issues with social interaction after being isolated and glued to his laptop. 

“My kids don’t have an issue with anxiety in terms of school,” she said, but added. “I still worry about the long-term effects of what that was like.” 

More than the promise of building emotional resilience through MESH is whether the toys themselves will actually be fun. 

“Are my kids going to ask for those kind of toys for Christmas?” Davis asked. “I’m going to be really curious and I will keep an eye out for them.” 
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