LONDON – One of the world’s most common artificial sweeteners is set to be declared a possible carcinogen next month by a leading global health body, according to two sources with knowledge of the process, pitting it against the food industry and regulators.

Aspartame, used in products from Coca-Cola diet sodas to Mars’ Extra chewing gum and some Snapple drinks, will be listed in July as “possibly carcinogenic to humans” for the first time by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), the World Health Organization’s (WHO) cancer research arm, the sources said.

The IARC ruling, finalized earlier this month after a meeting of the group’s external experts, is intended to assess whether something is a potential hazard or not, based on all the published evidence.

It does not take into account how much of a product a person can safely consume. This advice for individuals comes from a separate WHO expert committee on food additives, known as JECFA (the Joint WHO and Food and Agriculture Organization’s Expert Committee on Food Additives), alongside determinations from national regulators.

However, similar IARC rulings in the past for different substances have raised concerns among consumers about their use, led to lawsuits, and pressured manufacturers to recreate recipes and swap to alternatives. That has led to criticism that the IARC’s assessments can be confusing to the public.

JECFA, the WHO committee on additives, is also reviewing aspartame use this year. Its meeting began at the end of June, and it is due to announce its findings on the same day that the IARC makes public its decision – on July 14.

Since 1981, JECFA has said aspartame is safe to consume within accepted daily limits. For example, an adult weighing 60 kilograms would have to drink between 12 and 36 cans of diet soda – depending on the amount of aspartame in the beverage – every day to be at risk. Its view has been widely shared by national regulators, including in the United States and Europe.

An IARC spokesperson said both the IARC and JECFA committees’ findings were confidential until July, but added they were “complementary,” with IARC’s conclusion representing “the first fundamental step to understand carcinogenicity.” The additives committee “conducts risk assessment, which determines the probability of a specific type of harm (e.g., cancer) to occur under certain conditions and levels of exposure.”

However, industry and regulators fear that holding both processes at around the same time could be confusing, according to letters from U.S. and Japanese regulators seen by Reuters.

“We kindly ask both bodies to coordinate their efforts in reviewing aspartame to avoid any confusion or concerns among the public,” Nozomi Tomita, an official from Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, wrote in a letter dated March 27 to WHO’s deputy director general, Zsuzsanna Jakab.

The letter, reviewed by Reuters, also called for the conclusions of both bodies to be released on the same day, as is now happening. The Japanese mission in Geneva, where the WHO is based, did not respond to a request for comment.

Debate

The IARC’s rulings can have huge impact. In 2015, its committee concluded that glyphosate is “probably carcinogenic.” Years later, even as other bodies like the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) contested this assessment, companies were still feeling the effects of the decision. Germany’s Bayer in 2021 lost its third appeal against U.S. court verdicts that awarded damages to customers blaming their cancers on use of its glyphosate-based weedkillers.

The IARC’s decisions have also faced criticism for sparking needless alarm over hard to avoid substances or situations. It has previously put working overnight and consuming red meat into its “probably cancer-causing” class, and using mobile phones as “possibly cancer-causing,” similar to aspartame.

“IARC is not a food safety body, and their review of aspartame is not scientifically comprehensive and is based heavily on widely discredited research,” said Frances Hunt-Wood, the secretary general of the International Sweeteners Association (ISA).

The body, whose members include Mars Wrigley, a Coca-Cola unit and Cargill, said it had “serious concerns with the IARC review, which may mislead consumers.”

Aspartame has been extensively studied for years. Last year, an observational study in France among 100,000 adults showed that people who consumed larger amounts of artificial sweeteners – including aspartame – had a slightly higher cancer risk.

It followed a study from the Ramazzini Institute in Italy in the early 2000s, which reported that some cancers in mice and rats were linked to aspartame.

However, the first study could not prove that aspartame caused the increased cancer risk, and questions have been raised about the methodology of the second study, including by EFSA, which assessed it.

Aspartame is authorized for use globally by regulators who have reviewed all the available evidence, and major food and beverage makers have for decades defended their use of the ingredient. The IARC said it had assessed 1,300 studies in its June review.

Recent recipe tweaks by soft drinks giant Pepsico demonstrate the struggle the industry has when it comes to balancing taste preferences with health concerns. Pepsico removed aspartame from sodas in 2015, bringing it back a year later, only to remove it again in 2020.

Listing aspartame as a possible carcinogen is intended to motivate more research, said the sources close to the IARC, which will help agencies, consumers and manufacturers draw firmer conclusions.

But it will also likely ignite debate once again over the IARC’s role, as well as the safety of sweeteners more generally.

Last month, the WHO published guidelines advising consumers not to use non-sugar sweeteners for weight control. The guidelines caused a furor in the food industry, which argues they can be helpful for consumers wanting to reduce the amount of sugar in their diet. 
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TERRA CEIA ISLAND, FLORIDA — The Florida Health Department has issued a statewide mosquito-borne illness advisory after four locally contracted cases of malaria were reported along the Gulf Coast south of Tampa. 

On Monday, a health alert issued by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also noted that another case had been detected in Texas, marking the first time there has been a local spread of malaria in the United States in 20 years. 

The four residents in Sarasota County received treatment and have recovered, according to the state’s Health Department advisory. Malaria, caused by a parasite that spreads through bites from Anopheles mosquitoes, causes fever, chills, sweating, nausea and vomiting, and headaches. It is not spread person to person. 

It’s the threat of the mosquito-borne illness that concerns Kathleen Gibson-Dee, who lives on Terra Ceia Island, which is about 32 kilometers north of Sarasota County. 

Even though no malaria cases have been reported in Manatee County, where Terra Ceia is located, Gibson-Dee said that she’s now routinely using bug repellent while working in her garden. 

“I don’t go out without it,” she told The Associated Press on Tuesday. “And we don’t go out in the evening because you can see clouds and clouds of bugs now. They may not all be mosquitoes, but there’s certainly mosquitos out there.” 

Another resident, Tom Lyons, says news of the malaria cases “makes me take mosquito protection a little more seriously.” 

The mosquito population thrives in Terra Ceia because “it’s an island surrounded by a lot of shallow water and mangroves, and ideal places for mosquitoes,” Lyons said. 

Stepping up control efforts

Officials in Manatee County have ramped up efforts to control the mosquito population. 

Chris Lesser, director of the Manatee County mosquito control district, said they’re primarily using helicopters to combat the mosquito population because they cover between 6,070 to 8,082 hectares in one night. A truck can only cover around 404 hectares a night, he said. 

“We really want to focus on killing the adult mosquito before they have the opportunity to feed on one person that may be infected with malaria and then transmit that disease to a second person,” Lesser said. 

He said the time frame for when a mosquito can become infected to when it can transmit the disease to a person is about 14 days. 

“So, we’re trying to get in there about once every seven to 10 days and really knock down the mosquito population. And that process will continue until the public health alert that we’re currently under is lifted,” Lesser said. 

“It’s a curtain,” he continued. “We’re trying to keep the malaria mosquitos from coming into our county through our southern border by using aggressive mosquito control activities.” 

Officials in Sarasota County area also are using similar tactics to control mosquitos, the county’s health department said in an advisory. 

The initial malaria advisory was issued in Sarasota County after the first case was reported in late May. That was followed by a second case, and then two more, said Jae Williams, the press secretary for the Florida Department of Health. 

“As soon as it crossed over from one to two confirmed cases, it progressed to an alert,” Williams said, comparing it to the system of issuing a hurricane watch versus a hurricane warning — when a storm is imminent. 

“Listen, the conditions are favorable,” Williams continued. “It’s not just some rogue one mosquito. People need to be paying attention.” 

Williams said health officials are being proactive. 

“We know we are going into the Fourth of July holiday. We know the summer’s only getting hotter and wetter over the next couple of months,” Williams said. “So, we just wanted to give Floridians a big kind of heads up, put the whole state on notice.” 

About 2,000 U.S. cases of malaria are diagnosed each year — the vast majority in travelers coming from countries where malaria commonly spreads. 

Since 1992, there have been 11 outbreaks involving malaria from mosquitoes in the U.S. The last one occurred in 2003 in Palm Beach County, Florida, where eight cases were reported.
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South Korea is changing the way it calculates a person’s age. 

Under a new law that takes effect Wednesday, South Korea is adopting the international method that uses a person’s actual date of birth to determine their age.   

Under its traditional method, South Koreans are considered to be one year old at birth, including their months in the womb, and become a year older every January 1 regardless of their actual date of birth. 

The new law that takes effect Wednesday means all South Koreans will officially become a year or two younger.   

Officials say a separate method of calculation that uses the date a person is born and then adds a year each January 1 will remain in effect for compulsory military service, education and the legal drinking age. 

Some information for this report came from Reuters, Agence France-Presse.  
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A dangerous and prolonged heat wave blanketed large parts of the southern United States on Tuesday, buckling highways and forcing people to shelter indoors in what scientists called a climate-change supercharged event. 

Excessive heat warnings were in place from Arizona in the southwest to Alabama in the southeast, with south and central Texas and the Lower Mississippi Valley worst hit, the National Weather Service said. 

Victor Hugo Martinez, a 57-year-old foreman who was leading workers repairing a road in Houston, told AFP: “We can’t keep up with it. It’s too much, we have like 10 or 12 spots like this right now.” 

The crew wrapped bandanas around their heads to protect themselves from the blazing heat, with Martinez explaining they made sure to drink plenty of water and take several breaks to protect their health. 

The National Weather Service meanwhile urged Americans in across the South to drink water, stay indoors, and check on vulnerable friends and relatives. 

Andrew Pershing, a scientist with Climate Central, told AFP the “really unusual thing about this event is how big it is, and how long it has lasted.” 

“There have been places in Texas that have had more than two weeks of over 100 degrees Fahrenheit, which are just really unusual temperatures for this time of year even in a region that is used to heat.” 

Extreme weather more likely

Accumulated historic greenhouse emissions made the extreme weather event at least five times more likely than otherwise, according to preliminary calculations by a team led by Pershing. 

The sweltering conditions are expected to expand throughout the South beginning Wednesday and continue into the long July 4 holiday weekend.  

The extreme heat appears to have claimed some lives. 

Last week, a 66-year-old postal worker in Dallas fainted while delivering mail as the heat index hovered around 115 F. He died hours later, the U.S. Postal Service told the media, though the cause of death is still being investigated. 

And on Friday, a 14-year-old boy collapsed from exhaustion while hiking in Big Bend National Park in Texas and later died, according to an official statement. 

His stepfather left the scene to hike back to their vehicle to find help while the teen’s brother attempted to carry him back to the trailhead. The father was later found dead in a car crash. 

Power grid strained

The strain is sure to put the power grid in Texas to the test, as millions of people switch on their air conditioners to cope, with demand peaking around late afternoon. 

ERCOT, the state utility operator, has issued a Weather Watch, calling on individuals and institutions to voluntarily save energy to avoid an emergency, and has so far been able to cope, thanks in part to an increasing contribution from solar power in recent years. 

Public cooling centers run by local authorities or the Red Cross are available for vulnerable people. 

Animals, too, were suffering. The Houston Humane Society said 12 cats and one dog were found dead in an abandoned apartment. The group was able to rescue six cats from the property. 

Air conditioning can be climate feedback loop

Kristina Dahl, principal climate scientist of the Union of Concerned Scientists said that the widespread use of air conditioning was itself a climate feedback loop. 

“We know that one of the most effective things you can do to prevent heat, illness and death during heat waves is to run the air conditioning,” she told AFP.  “And yet if we are not powering that air conditioning with clean renewable energy sources, we are contributing more carbon emissions to the atmosphere which will further worsen heat which will necessitate greater air conditioning use.” 

Recent years have seen an explosion in litigation aimed at shifting the financial responsibility of climate disasters toward fossil fuel companies.  

Last week, a county in the northwestern state of Oregon filed a lawsuit against major fossil fuel companies seeking more than $51 billion over the 2021 “heat dome,” which blighted Canada and the United States.  

“Communities everywhere are now paying the price for the fossil fuel industry’s decades of climate deception and pollution,” Richard Wiles, president of the Center for Climate Integrity, told AFP.   
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The number of different electronic cigarette devices sold in the U.S. has nearly tripled to over 9,000 since 2020, driven almost entirely by a wave of unauthorized disposable vapes from China, according to tightly controlled sales data obtained by The Associated Press.

The numbers demonstrate the Food and Drug Administration’s inability to control the tumultuous vaping market more than three years after declaring a crackdown on kid-friendly flavors.

Most disposables e-cigarettes, which are thrown away when they’re used up, come in sweet, fruity flavors like pink lemonade, gummy bear and watermelon that have made them the favorite tobacco product among teenagers. All of them are technically illegal because they haven’t been authorized by the FDA.

Once a niche market, cheaper disposables made up 40% of the roughly $7 billion retail market for e-cigarettes last year, according to data from analytics firm IRI obtained by the AP. The company’s proprietary data collects barcode scanner sales from convenience stores, gas stations and other retailers.

More than 5,800 unique disposable products are now being sold in numerous flavors and formulations, according to IRI’s data, up 1,500% from 365 in early 2020. That’s when the FDA effectively banned all flavors except menthol and tobacco from cartridge-based e-cigarettes like Juul, the rechargeable device blamed for sparking a nationwide surge in underage vaping.

But the FDA’s policy — formulated under President Donald Trump — excluded disposables, prompting many teens to switch from Juul to the newer flavored products.

“The FDA moves at a ponderous pace and the industry knows that and exploits it,” said Dr. Robert Jackler of Stanford University, who has studied the rise of disposables. “Time and again, the vaping industry has innovated around efforts to remove its youth-appealing products from the market.”

Adding to the challenge, FDA has little visibility into a sprawling industry centered in China’s Shenzhen manufacturing hub. Agency records show that FDA inspectors have only conducted a tiny handful of inspections in China, despite the fact that it produces nearly all e-cigarettes used in the U.S. today.

“FDA theoretically has the authority to inspect foreign manufacturing facilities,” said Patricia Kovacevic, an attorney specializing in tobacco regulation. “But practically speaking, the inspection program that the FDA has in place only happens in the U.S.”

Most disposables mirror a few major brands, such as Elf Bar or Puff Bar, but hundreds of new varieties appear each month. Companies copy each other’s designs, blurring the line between the real and counterfeit. Entrepreneurs can launch a new product by simply sending their logo and flavor requests to Chinese manufacturers, who promise to deliver tens of thousands of devices within weeks.

Under pressure from politicians, parents and major vaping companies, the FDA recently sent warning letters to more than 200 stores selling popular disposables, including Elf Bar, Esco Bar and Breeze. The agency also issued orders blocking imports of those three brands. But IRI data shows those companies accounted for just 14% of disposable sales last year, leaving dozens of other brands untouched, including Air Bar, Mr. Fog, Fume and Kangvape.

FDA’s tobacco director, Brian King, said the agency is “unwavering” in its commitment against illegal e-cigarettes.

“I don’t think there’s any panacea here,” King said. “We follow a comprehensive approach and that involves addressing all entities across the supply chain, from manufacturers to importers to distributors to retailers.”

IRI restricts access to its data, which it sells to companies, investment firms and researchers. A person not authorized to share the information gave access to the AP on condition of anonymity.

IRI declined to comment on or confirm the data, saying the company doesn’t offer such details to news organizations.

To be sure, the FDA has made progress in a mammoth task: processing nearly 26 million product applications submitted by manufacturers hoping to enter or stay on the market. And King said the agency hopes to get back to “true premarket review” once it finishes plowing through that mountain of applications.

Meanwhile, parents, health groups and major vaping companies essentially agree: The FDA must clear the market of flavored disposables.

But lobbying by tobacco giant Reynolds American, maker of Vuse e-cigarettes, has made some advocates wary about pushing the issue. The company petitioned the FDA earlier this year to restrict flavors in all disposable vaping products.

FDA’s King says the agency already has ample authority to regulate disposables.

“There’s no loophole to close,” King said, pointing to FDA’s recent actions against disposable makers.

But King’s predecessor at the FDA says the current situation could have been avoided but for a decision by Trump’s White House to exclude disposables from the 2020 flavor ban.

“It was preventable,” said Mitch Zeller, who retired from the FDA last year. “But I was told there was no appeal.”

In September 2019, Trump announced at a news conference a plan to ban non-tobacco flavors from all e-cigarettes — both reloadable devices and disposables. But his political advisers worried that could alienate voters.

Zeller said he was subsequently informed in December 2019 that the flavor restrictions wouldn’t apply to disposables.

“I told them: ‘It doesn’t take a crystal ball to predict that kids will migrate to the disposable products that are unaffected by this, and you ultimately won’t solve the problem,'” Zeller said.
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Deforestation rates are near record lows in Indonesia, home to the world’s third-largest rainforests.

It’s one of the few bright spots in an otherwise grim annual report, on the loss of forests worldwide, from the environmental research and policy group World Resources Institute.

Overall, the world lost 4.1 million hectares of undisturbed tropical forest last year, an area the size of Switzerland, according to WRI. That’s a 10% increase from 2021. The loss of forest released as much planet-warming carbon dioxide as all the fossil fuels burned in India in 2021.

Deforestation reverses the CO2 removal function that trees perform. It raises local temperatures and disrupts rainfall patterns.

World leaders pledged to end deforestation by the end of the decade during climate negotiations in Glasgow in 2021.

“Are we on track to halt deforestation by 2030? The short answer is a simple no,” Rod Taylor, head of WRI’s forests program, told reporters at a news conference announcing the results.

Deforestation rates

The good news from Indonesia is that government moratoriums on logging and palm oil plantations and increased fire prevention measures have kept forest losses low.

Corporate pledges to end deforestation in the palm oil supply chain also appear to be working, WRI says.

The 230,000 hectares of untouched, primary forest lost last year is a sharp decline from the 2016 peak of 930,000 hectares.

Still, “that’s a pretty big loss,” Arie Rompas, head of the forest campaign for Greenpeace Indonesia, told VOA. “The area lost is about three times the size of the capital, Jakarta.”

Deforestation is still taking place in protected areas, he noted.

Indonesia’s environment ministry released official figures Monday showing far less deforestation than WRI’s. The ministry says 104,000 hectares (256,990 acres) were lost last year, down from 113,500 hectares (280,464 acres) in 2021.

WRI says it is working with the ministry on forest monitoring but describes the partnership as “a work in progress.”

Deforestation rates also have leveled off in neighboring Malaysia, another major palm oil exporter with similar policies and pledges on deforestation. Commitments to end deforestation in the world’s two largest palm oil producers now cover more than four-fifths of their refining capacity, according to WRI.

Brazil tops forest losses

Separately, forest losses increased by 15% in Brazil. The 1.8 million hectare (4.45 million acre) decline in undisturbed forest was the largest since 2005.

Brazil was responsible for 43% of the losses worldwide.

They took place during the last year of President Jair Bolsonaro’s term. He encouraged increased logging, mining and agriculture in the Amazon rainforest.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, known as Lula, took over at the beginning of 2023 and has promised to reverse course.

Earlier in June, Lula released his plan to reach zero deforestation by 2030. The Brazilian space agency, INPE, reported 31% less forest loss in the first five months of 2023 compared to last year.

Experts say Lula’s efforts will face opposition from agribusiness supporters in the legislature.

The second-largest forest losses were in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Poverty, not commercial agriculture, is the leading driver of deforestation in the DRC, WRI says. Most forests are cleared for small-scale farming and production of charcoal, the main cooking fuel.

The region’s growing population is putting increasing pressure on tropical forests in the Congo Basin, the world’s second largest.

Elsewhere, Bolivia lost the third-largest area of undisturbed forest, and its losses are increasing. The country lost one-third more forest last year than in 2021.

Land clearing for soybeans and other commodity crops is mainly responsible, and Bolivia’s government backs a further increase in large-scale farming. The country is one of the few that did not sign the 2021 Glasgow pledge to end deforestation.

Four of the 10 countries with the highest rates of forest loss are in Latin America.

Commodity crops drive deforestation

Global demand for soybeans, corn, sugar, paper, timber and livestock are the main forces of deforestation worldwide.

Legislation in the European Union will soon prohibit deforestation in supply chains.

Indonesia and Malaysia call the legislation discriminatory.

But WRI’s Taylor said, “It’s an encouraging decision and hopefully it will impact on deforestation rates in the near future.”

He added, “It’s one big market, but there are other markets that haven’t moved on that kind of legislation yet.”

Rio Tuasikal contributed to this report.
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Which is the longest river in the world, the Nile or the Amazon? The question has fueled a heated debate for years. Now, an expedition into the South American jungle aims to settle it for good.   

Using boats run on solar energy and pedal power, an international team of explorers plans to set off in April 2024 to the source of the Amazon in the Peruvian Andes, then travel nearly 7,000 kilometers (4,350 miles) across Colombia and Brazil, to the massive river’s mouth on the Atlantic.

“The main objective is to map the river and document the biodiversity” of the surrounding ecosystems, the project’s coordinator, Brazilian explorer Yuri Sanada, told AFP.   

The team also plans to make a documentary on the expedition.   

Around 10 people are known to have traveled the full length of the Amazon in the past, but none have done it with those objectives, said Sanada, who runs film production company Aventuras (Adventures) with his wife, Vera. 

Decades-old dispute

The Amazon, the pulsing aorta of the world’s biggest rainforest, has long been recognized as the largest river in the world by volume, discharging more than the Nile, the Yangtze and the Mississippi combined. 

But there is a decades-old geographical dispute over whether it or the Nile is longer, made murkier by methodological issues and a lack of consensus on a very basic question: where the Amazon starts and ends. 

The Guinness Book of World Records awards the title to the African river.

But “which is the longer is more a matter of definition than simple measurement,” it adds in a note. 

The Encyclopedia Britannica gives the length of the Nile as 6,650 kilometers (4,132 miles), to 6,400 kilometers (3,977 miles) for the Amazon, measuring the latter from the headwaters of the Apurimac River in southern Peru. 

In 2014, U.S. neuroscientist and explorer James “Rocky” Contos developed an alternative theory, putting the source of the Amazon farther away, at the Mantaro River in northern Peru. 

If accepted, that would mean the Amazon “is actually 77 kilometers longer than what geographers had thought previously,” he told AFP.  

Challenges could include alligators

Sanada’s expedition will trace both the Apurimac and Mantaro sources. 

One group, guided by Contos, will travel down the Mantaro by white-water raft. The other will travel the banks of the Apurimac on horseback with French explorer Celine Cousteau, granddaughter of legendary oceanographer Jacques Cousteau. 

At the point where the rivers converge, Sanada and two other explorers will embark on the longest leg of the journey, traveling in three custom-made, motorized canoes powered by solar panels and pedals, equipped with a sensor to measure distance.   

“We’ll be able to make a much more precise measurement,” Sanada said.   

The explorers plan to transfer the sustainable motor technology to local Indigenous groups, he added.

The expedition is backed by international groups including The Explorers Club and the Harvard map collection.  

The adventurers will traverse terrain inhabited by anacondas, alligators and jaguars — but none of that scares Sanada, he said

“I’m most afraid of drug traffickers and illegal miners,” he said.   

The boats will be outfitted with a bulletproof cabin, and the team is negotiating with authorities to obtain an armed escort for the most dangerous zones.   

If the expedition is successful, it may be replicated on the Nile. 

Sanada said the debate over the world’s longest river may never be settled. But he is glad the “race” is drawing attention to the Amazon rainforest’s natural riches and the need to protect it as one of the planet’s key buffers against climate change. 

“The Amazon is [here],” he said, “but the consequences of destroying it and the duty to preserve it are everyone’s.”
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Muhammad Ali Pate, a Harvard professor who has held top health jobs in Nigeria, has relinquished the top job at the Gavi global vaccine alliance, the organization announced Monday.

Pate, a medical doctor trained in internal medicine and infectious disease, was due to assume the helm on August 3, Gavi had announced in February, taking over from U.S. medical epidemiologist Seth Berkley, who had been in charge since 2011.

Pate informed Gavi “that he has taken an incredibly difficult decision to accept a request to return and contribute to his home country, Nigeria,” the statement said, without further details about the decision.

Gavi’s Chief Operating Officer David Marlow will instead assume the position of Interim Chief Executive Officer while a search for a new CEO continues.

The Gavi vaccine alliance is a nonprofit organization created in 2000 to provide an array of vaccines to developing countries.

Gavi says that since its inception, it has provided vaccines to more than 981 million children, “and prevented more than 16.2 million future deaths, helping to halve child mortality in 73 lower-income countries.”

Gavi has taken the lead on the COVAX initiative, alongside the World Health Organization and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations.

The global scheme has so far shipped nearly 1.9 billion COVID-19 vaccines to 146 territories, with the focus on providing donor-funded jabs to the 92 weakest economies.
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According to the U.N., in 2021, Nigeria had the most child deaths caused by pollution-related pneumonia in the world, at nearly 70 thousand. UNICEF says 40 percent of those deaths are a result of breathing air pollution caused by burning solid cooking fuels in the home. Timothy Obiezu has this report from Abuja, Nigeria.
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Researchers from the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration are in Australia carrying out research that will help future missions to Mars. The NASA delegation is looking for the earliest signs of life on Earth that will eventually be compared to rocks brought back from Mars.

NASA officials have said that parts of the Pilbara region in Western Australia are like “stepping back in time.” Some areas date to 3.5 billion years old.

In the red Outback dust, they have found some of the earliest evidence of life on Earth — fossils of ancient microorganisms encased in rocks.

The NASA team plans to compare these terrestrial samples with those brought back from Mars to see if they have any similar characteristics. NASA says it could be well over a decade before the Martian rocks are brought to Earth.

Eric Ianson, the director of NASA’s Mars Exploration Program, told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. Monday that Australia’s red dust could yield clues about past life on the Red Planet.

“We are looking at what are called stromatolites, which are actually some of the earliest evidence of life that existed on Earth and there are fossils that are actually captured within the rock. And how this relates to Mars is that we are currently working on bringing samples back from Mars — rock samples back from Mars — and if we see similar patterns and indications, it could indicate that life actually existed in the past on Mars.”

NASA has also indicated that humans could be sent on a mission to Mars by the mid- to late 2030s, although no definite timetable has been set.

Australia has worked with the United States in space for decades, including helping to broadcast the Apollo 11 Moon landing to the world in 1969.

The Tidbinbilla facility near Canberra is the only NASA tracking station still operational in Australia.

Australian engineers and scientists will also have key roles in the Artemis II mission. They are developing a small autonomous rover to be sent to the Moon and also will establish contact with astronauts on the first crewed voyage to the lunar surface since 1972. That mission could take place as early as 2025 or 2026.
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The next big advance in cancer treatment could be a vaccine.

After decades of limited success, scientists say research has reached a turning point, with many predicting more vaccines will be out in five years.

These aren’t traditional vaccines that prevent disease, but shots to shrink tumors and stop cancer from coming back. Targets for these experimental treatments include breast and lung cancer, with gains reported this year for deadly skin cancer melanoma and pancreatic cancer.

‘We’re getting something to work. Now we need to get it to work better,’ said Dr. James Gulley, who helps lead a center at the National Cancer Institute that develops immune therapies, including cancer treatment vaccines.

More than ever, scientists understand how cancer hides from the body’s immune system. Cancer vaccines, like other immunotherapies, boost the immune system to find and kill cancer cells. And some new ones use mRNA, which was developed for cancer but first used for COVID-19 vaccines.

For a vaccine to work, it needs to teach the immune system’s T cells to recognize cancer as dangerous, said Dr. Nora Disis of UW Medicine’s Cancer Vaccine Institute in Seattle. Once trained, T cells can travel anywhere in the body to hunt down danger.

‘If you saw an activated T cell, it almost has feet,’ she said. ‘You can see it crawling through the blood vessel to get out into the tissues.’

Patient volunteers are crucial to the research.

Kathleen Jade, 50, learned she had breast cancer in late February, just weeks before she and her husband were to depart Seattle for an around-the-world adventure. Instead of sailing their 46-foot boat, Shadowfax, through the Great Lakes toward the St. Lawrence Seaway, she was sitting on a hospital bed awaiting her third dose of an experimental vaccine. She’s getting the vaccine to see if it will shrink her tumor before surgery.

‘Even if that chance is a little bit, I felt like it’s worth it,’ said Jade, who is also getting standard treatment.

Progress on treatment vaccines has been challenging. The first, Provenge, was approved in the U.S. in 2010 to treat prostate cancer that had spread. It requires processing a patient’s own immune cells in a lab and giving them back through IV.

There are also treatment vaccines for early bladder cancer and advanced melanoma.

Early cancer vaccine research faltered as cancer outwitted and outlasted patients’ weak immune systems, said Olja Finn, a vaccine researcher at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.

‘All of these trials that failed allowed us to learn so much,’ Finn said.

As a result, she’s now focused on patients with earlier disease since the experimental vaccines didn’t help with more advanced patients. Her group is planning a vaccine study in women with a low-risk, noninvasive breast cancer called ductal carcinoma in situ.

More vaccines that prevent cancer may be ahead too. Decades-old hepatitis B vaccines prevent liver cancer and HPV vaccines, introduced in 2006, prevent cervical cancer.

In Philadelphia, Dr. Susan Domchek, director of the Basser Center at Penn Medicine, is recruiting 28 healthy people with BRCA mutations for a vaccine test. Those mutations increase the risk of breast and ovarian cancer. The idea is to kill very early abnormal cells, before they cause problems. She likens it to periodically weeding a garden or erasing a whiteboard.

Others are developing vaccines to prevent cancer in people with precancerous lung nodules and other inherited conditions that raise cancer risk.

‘Vaccines are probably the next big thing’ in the quest to reduce cancer deaths, said Dr. Steve Lipkin, a medical geneticist at New York’s Weill Cornell Medicine, who is leading one effort funded by the National Cancer Institute. ‘We’re dedicating our lives to that.’

People with the inherited condition Lynch syndrome have a 60% to 80% lifetime risk of developing cancer. Recruiting them for cancer vaccine trials has been remarkably easy, said Dr. Eduardo Vilar-Sanchez of MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, who is leading two government-funded studies on vaccines for Lynch-related cancers.

‘Patients are jumping on this in a surprising and positive way,’ he said.

Drugmakers Moderna and Merck are jointly developing a personalized mRNA vaccine for patients with melanoma, with a large study to begin this year. The vaccines are customized to each patient, based on the numerous mutations in their cancer tissue. A vaccine personalized in this way can train the immune system to hunt for the cancer’s mutation fingerprint and kill those cells. But such vaccines will be expensive.

‘You basically have to make every vaccine from scratch. If this wasn’t personalized, the vaccine could probably be made for pennies, just like the COVID vaccine,’ said Dr. Patrick Ott of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston.

The vaccines under development at UW Medicine are designed to work for many patients, not just a single patient. Tests are underway in early and advanced breast cancer, lung cancer and ovarian cancer. Some results may come as soon as next year.

Todd Pieper, 56, from suburban Seattle, is participating in testing for a vaccine intended to shrink lung cancer tumors. His cancer spread to his brain, but he’s hoping to live long enough to see his daughter graduate from nursing school next year.

‘I have nothing to lose and everything to gain, either for me or for other people down the road,’ Pieper said of his decision to volunteer.

One of the first to receive the ovarian cancer vaccine in a safety study 11 years ago was Jamie Crase of nearby Mercer Island. Diagnosed with advanced ovarian cancer when she was 34, Crase thought she would die young and had made a will that bequeathed a favorite necklace to her best friend. Now 50, she has no sign of cancer and she still wears the necklace.

She doesn’t know for sure if the vaccine helped, ‘But I’m still here.’
…

Forest fires in Canada left Montreal blanketed with smog on Sunday, giving it the worst air quality of any major city in the world, according to a pollution monitor.

Quebec province’s most populous city had “unhealthy” air quality according to IQAir, which tracks pollution around the globe, as hundreds of wildfires burned across the country.

Environment Canada issued smog warnings in several Quebec regions due to the fires, saying, “high concentrations of fine particulate matter are causing poor air quality and reduced visibilities,” with conditions to persist until Monday morning

The agency urged residents to avoid outdoor activities and wear face masks if they must go outside.

Outdoor pools and sports areas have been closed and multiple outside events, including concerts and sports competitions, have been cancelled due to the unhealthy smog.

“It’s really like a fog, except it’s smoke from the forest fires. It’s really hard to breathe, and it stings the eyes a bit too,” said 18-year-old Fauve Lepage Vallee, lamenting that a festival she was due to attend had been canceled.

There are 80 active forest fires in Quebec, according to Quebec’s forest fire protection agency, SOPFEU, with several growing over the weekend due to dry weather and high temperatures.

“The extent of the smoke is making it particularly difficult for air tankers and helicopters to be effective,” SOPFEU said.

However, “significant amounts” of rain are expected on Monday or Tuesday in the northwest of the province, it added.

On Wednesday, 119 French firefighters are due arrive in Quebec to relieve a contingent of their compatriots in the field since early June.

“They will also be deployed to Roberval,” 250 kilometers (150 miles) north of Quebec City, for a 21-day mission, said Stephane Caron, a spokesman for SOPFEU.

Across the country, the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre lists more than 450 active fires, some 240 of which are deemed out of control.

Canada is experiencing an unprecedented year of fires, with more than 7.4 million hectares burned since the beginning of January.
…

Cocaine demand and supply are booming worldwide, and methamphetamine trafficking is expanding beyond established markets, including in Afghanistan where the drug is now being produced, a United Nations report said Sunday.

Coca bush cultivation and total cocaine production were at record highs in 2021, the most recent year for which data is available, and the global number of cocaine users, estimated at 22 million that same year, is growing steadily, the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime said in its annual World Drug Report.

Cocaine seizures have, however, grown faster than production, containing the total supply to some extent, the report said. The upper band of the estimated total supply was higher in the mid-2000s than now.

“The world is currently experiencing a prolonged surge in both supply and demand of cocaine, which is now being felt across the globe and is likely to spur the development of new markets beyond the traditional confines,” the UNODC report said.

“Although the global cocaine market continues to be concentrated in the Americas and in Western and Central Europe (with very high prevalence also in Australia), in relative terms it appears that the fastest growth, albeit building on very low initial levels, is occurring in developing markets found in Africa, Asia and South-Eastern Europe,” it said.

While almost 90% of methamphetamine seized worldwide was in two regions – East and Southeast Asia and North America – seizure data suggests those markets have stabilized at a high level, yet trafficking has increased elsewhere, such as the Middle East and West Africa, the report said.

It added that reports and seizures involving methamphetamine produced in Afghanistan suggested the drug economy was changing in that country, where 80% of the world’s illicit opium poppy, which is used to make heroin, is produced.  

“Questions remain regarding the linkages between illegal manufacture of heroin and of methamphetamine (in Afghanistan) and whether the two markets will develop in parallel or whether one will substitute the other,” it added.
…

When a pharmacist in Iraq told Umm Mohammed her prescription for a skin ailment would cost about $611, she turned to cheaper natural remedies as some of her relatives had done.

In an herbal remedy shop, the 34-year-old mother-of-two found a treatment eight times cheaper. “Pharmacies are a disaster at the moment, poor people turn to medicinal herbs because of the prices,” she said. “Who can afford this? Should one die? So you turn to medicinal herbs.”

Ibrahim al-Jabouri, the shop’s owner and a professor of pharmacology, told Reuters that he is receiving customers suffering from various health issues, such as skin diseases, bowel troubles, colon infections or hair loss.

While some Iraqis choose alternative treatments out of conviction, others have no other choice as they can’t afford the cost of conventional medicines.

“The economic situation the country is passing through means that the cost of medicine is hard to bear, especially for those with a limited income,” said Dr. Haider Sabah, who heads Iraq’s national center for herbal medicine, a regulatory state body affiliated to the Ministry of Health.

Iraq’s health care system, once one of the best in the Middle East, has been wrecked by conflict, international sanctions, the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 and rampant corruption.

Although public medical services are free of charge, a lack of medicines, equipment and adequate services mean citizens often need to turn to the more expensive private sector.

In recent years, Sabah has seen more herbal centers open in the capital, Baghdad. There are now 460 establishments with a permit to sell herbal medicines, up from 350 in 2020, according to his database.

Standards vary greatly, from shops selling neatly packaged and licensed products in Baghdad’s better-off neighborhoods to more traditional herbologists mixing plants scooped out of jars in front of customers.

“I inherited the job,” said Mohammed Sobhi, who followed in the footsteps of his brother and has sold remedies since the 1980s.

“The ones who can’t afford medicine don’t go to the doctor to begin with,” he added.

But replacing medical prescriptions with herbal products can be dangerous and result in harm for patients if not administered properly, said physician Ali Naser.

He recalled the case of a patient who had replaced his prescription with an herbal treatment and “reached the point of what we doctors refer to as diabetic ketoacidosis and the patient had to be admitted to the ICU,” Naser said.

At the heart of the problem is Iraq’s failure to establish an adequate medical system or regulatory framework for the country’s multitude of health service providers, he added.

According to Sabah, inspection teams monitoring establishments selling herbal medicines have closed down for serious violations since 2019. “Most of the violations detected by the inspection teams are corrected,” he said.
…

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

An elevated train clangs along tracks above Dr. Kwane Stewart as the veterinarian makes his way through a chain link gate to ask a man standing near a parked RV whether he might know of any street pets in need.

Michael Evans immediately goes for his 11-month-old pit bull, Bear, his beloved companion living beneath the rumbling San Francisco Bay Area commuter trains.

“Focus. Sit. That’s my boy,” Evans instructs the high-energy pup as he eagerly accepts Stewart’s offer.

A quick check of the dog reveals a moderate ear infection that could have made Bear so sick in a matter of weeks he might have required sedation. Instead, right there, Dr. Stewart applies a triple treatment drop of antibiotic, anti-fungal and steroids that should start the healing process.

“This is my son right here, my son. He’s my right-hand man,” an emotional Evans says of Bear, who shares the small RV in Oakland. “It’s a blessing, really.”

“The Street Vet,” as Stewart is known, has been supporting California’s homeless population and their pets for almost a decade, ever since he spontaneously helped a man with a flea-infested dog outside of a convenience store. Since then, Stewart regularly walks the heart of Los Angeles’ infamous Skid Row, giving him a glimpse into the state’s homelessness crisis — and how much they cherish and depend on their pets.

After treating Bear, Stewart hands Evans, a Louisiana transplant, a list of the medicine he provided along with contact information in case the dog needs further treatment. Stewart always promises to cover all expenses.

“It was a good catch,” Stewart said before heading out on his way to the next stop, in West Oakland.

California is home to nearly a third of the nation’s homeless population, according to federal data. About two-thirds of California’s homeless population is unsheltered, meaning they live outside, often packed into encampments in major cities and along roadways. Nationally, up to 10% of homeless people have pets, according to an estimate from the advocacy group Pets of the Homeless. Stewart believes that number is greater.

Homeless shelters often don’t allow pets, forcing people to make heart-wrenching decisions. Stewart sees it as his mission to help as many of them as he can.

A 52-year-old former college hurdler at New Mexico now living in San Diego, Stewart is a lifelong animal lover who grew up in Texas and New Mexico trying to save strays — or at least feed and care for them. He founded Project Street Vet, a nonprofit charity dedicated to helping homeless pets. Stewart funded the group himself for years, saving a chunk of his paycheck before later gaining sponsors and donors.

There’s plenty of heartbreak in Stewart’s work, too. He once performed emergency surgery on a pregnant chihuahua, and the two puppies didn’t make it. But more often than not these pet owners are beyond grateful for Stewart’s kindness. He guesses that maybe 1 in 25 times someone turns down his help.

Stewart hollers “Hello?” outside tents, makeshift structures or campers. He can usually tell there’s a pet if he sees a dog bowl or animal toy. He purposely wears his navy scrub top with his name on it, so no one mistakes him for animal control or other authorities and feels threatened.

“People are reticent, they don’t always know why I’m coming up to them. If they’re going to you to beg or panhandle, it’s different but if you come up on them they don’t know if you’re law enforcement or you have an agenda,” he said, “so I do take it very slow and I’ll announce myself from afar.”

Approaching Misty Fancher to see if her pit bull, Addie – purchased at a nearby gas station for $200 — might need shots, Stewart offers, “Can she have treats so we can make friends?”

“Sometimes I pull over and just talk,” Stewart explained.

Addie is the first pet Fancher has had as an adult and provides the 42-year-old with some comfort that she is safe living in a relatively unstable neighborhood of Oakland.

“She’s a very good girl,” Fancher said. “She keeps a lot of trouble away. She protects me. She’ll bite someone if they act aggressive or anything toward me. She has before. But she just discourages them from even trying.”

Stewart notices a puncture on the dog’s paw to monitor and also gives her a rabies shot, writing out a certificate for Fancher to keep as proof her dog is vaccinated. He leaves her with tablets for de-worming, treatments for fleas and ticks and — as usual — his contact information.

A little while later, Stewart stops on the outskirts of a park nearby. He walks the perimeter and encounters an RV owned by Eric Clark, who has lived in the same downtown spot for seven years. He has a male bulldog, pregnant pit bull and another pregnant Doberman.

“It’s hard to get to the vet,” Clark said. “I appreciate you. They’re family.”

Stewart is happy he can make a small difference like this with a largely misunderstood community. He strives to treat every person on the streets with the same professionalism and care as he would a patient at his veterinary clinic. His mantra: no judgment, just help.

“They live in the shadows. They live amongst us but not with us,” he said. ” … It is really rewarding. It gets to you a little bit. When they tear up about the tough times they’ve had, you try to care for them, support them.”
…

When it comes to flying, going green may cost you more. And it’s going to take a while for the strategy to take off. 

Sustainability was a hot topic this week at the Paris Air Show, the world’s largest event for the aviation industry, which faces increasing pressure to reduce the climate-changing greenhouse gases that aircraft spew. 

Even the massive orders at the show got an emissions-reduction spin: Airlines and manufacturers said the new planes will be more fuel-efficient than the ones they replace. 

But most of those planes will burn conventional, kerosene-based jet fuel. Startups are working feverishly on electric-powered aircraft, but they won’t catch on as quickly as electric vehicles. 

“It’s a lot easier to pack a heavy battery into a vehicle if you don’t have to lift it off the ground,” said Gernot Wagner, a climate economist at New York University. 

That means sustainable aviation fuel has become the industry’s best hope to achieve its promise of net zero emissions by 2050. Aviation produces 2% to 3% of worldwide carbon emissions, but its share is expected to grow as travel increases and other industries become greener. 

Sustainable fuel, however, accounts for just 0.1% of all jet fuel. Made from sources like used cooking oil and plant waste, SAF can be blended with conventional jet fuel but costs much more. 

Suppliers are “going to be able to kind of set the price,” Molly Wilkinson, an American Airlines vice president, said at the air show. “And we fear that at that point, that price eventually is going to trickle down to the passenger in some form of a ticket price.” 

With such a limited supply, critics say airlines are making overly ambitious promises and exaggerating how quickly they can ramp up the use of SAF. The industry even has skeptics: Nearly one-third of aviation sustainability officers in a GE Aerospace survey doubt the industry will hit its net zero goal by 2050. 

Delta Air Lines is being sued in U.S. federal court by critics who say the carrier falsely bills itself as the world’s first carbon-neutral airline, and that Delta’s claim rests on carbon offsets that are largely bogus. The Atlanta-based airline says the charges are “without legal merit.” 

Across the Atlantic, a consumer group known by its French acronym, BEUC, filed a complaint this week with the European Union’s executive arm, accusing 17 airlines of greenwashing. 

The group says airlines are misleading consumers and violating rules on unfair commercial practices by encouraging customers to pay extra to help finance development of SAF and offset future carbon emissions created by flying. 

In one case, the group’s researchers found Air France charging up to 138 euros ($150) for the green option. 

“Sustainable aviation fuels, they are indeed the biggest technological potential to decarbonize the aviation sector, but the main problem … is that they are not available,” said Dimitri Vergne, a senior policy officer at BEUC. 

“We know that before the end of the next decade — at least — they won’t be available in massive quantities” and won’t be the main source of fuel for planes, Vergne added. 

Producers say SAF reduces greenhouse gas emissions by up to 80%, compared with regular jet fuel, over its life cycle. 

Airlines have been talking about becoming greener for years. They were rattled by the rise of “flight shaming,” a movement that encourages people to find less-polluting forms of transportation — or reduce travel altogether. 

The issue gained urgency this year when European Union negotiators agreed on new rules requiring airlines to use more sustainable fuel starting in 2025 and rising sharply in later years. 

The United States is pushing incentives instead of mandates. 

A law signed last year by President Joe Biden will provide tax breaks for developing cleaner jet fuel, but one of the credits will expire in just two years. Wilkinson, the American Airlines executive, said that was too short to entice sustainable fuel producers and that the credit should be extended by 10 years or longer. 

The International Air Transport Association, an airline trade group, estimates that SAF could contribute 65% of the emissions reductions needed for the industry to hit its 2050 net-zero goal. 

But very few flights are powered by SAF because of the limited supply and infrastructure. 

Just before the Paris Air Show opened, President Emmanuel Macron announced that France would contribute $218 million toward a $1.1 billion plant to make SAF. 

Many airlines have touted investments in SAF producers such as World Energy, which has a plant in Paramount, California, and Finland’s Neste. 

United Airlines plans to triple its use of SAF this year, to 10 million gallons — but it burned 3.6 billion gallons of fuel last year. 

Some see sustainable fuel as a bridge to cleaner technologies, including larger electric planes or aircraft powered by hydrogen. But packing enough power to run a large electric plane would require a fantastic leap in battery technology. 

Hydrogen must be chilled and stored somewhere — it couldn’t be carried in the wings of today’s planes, as jet fuel is. 

“Hydrogen sounds like a good idea. The problem is the more you look into the details, the more you realize it’s an engineering challenge but also an economics challenge,” Richard Aboulafia of AeroDynamic Advisory, an aerospace consultancy, said at the Paris Air Show. “It’s within the realm of possibility, (but) not for the next few decades.” 
…

Newly declassified intelligence on the origins of the coronavirus pandemic appears to cast doubt on theories that the outbreak that killed millions around the world began at a research laboratory in Wuhan, China.

A report issued late Friday by U.S. intelligence agencies and shared with members of Congress said that despite concerns about biosafety measures at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), and despite its history of work with coronaviruses, there is no intelligence that indicates COVID-19 was present in the lab before the outbreak.

“We continue to have no indication that the WIV’s pre-pandemic research holdings included SARS-CoV-2 or a close progenitor, nor any direct evidence that a specific research-related incident occurred involving WIV personnel before the pandemic that could have caused the COVID pandemic,” according to the report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

The report further states that the available evidence indicates the lab did not get possession of the COVID-19 virus until late December 2019, “when WIV researchers isolated and identified the virus from samples from patients diagnosed with pneumonia of unknown causes.”

The newly declassified intelligence also seems to reject concerns that one of a handful of researchers at the lab who fell ill in November 2019 might have been patient zero.

“This information neither supports nor refutes either hypothesis of the pandemic’s origins,” the report said. “The researchers’ symptoms could have been caused by a number of diseases and some of the symptoms were not consistent with COVID-19.”

Yet despite the lack of evidence to support the idea that the COVID-19 pandemic originated at the lab in Wuhan, the U.S. intelligence report makes clear that neither of the leading theories – natural transmission from animals or a lab incident – can be ruled out.

“All [U.S. intelligence] agencies continue to assess that both a natural and laboratory-associated origin remain plausible hypotheses to explain the first human infection,” the report said.

And it said almost all intelligence agencies assess the virus “was not genetically engineered,” while noting that while “most agencies assess that SARS-CoV-2 was not laboratory-adapted; some are unable to make a determination.”

As for how the pandemic did start, there is less agreement.

The National Intelligence Council and four of the intelligence agencies continue to assess patient zero contracted SARS-CoV-2 as the result of exposure to an infected animal.

The FBI announced this past February that its analysts assess with “moderate confidence” that the pandemic began at the research lab in Wuhan, China.

Intelligence analysts at the Department of Energy have concluded, although with “low confidence,” that the virus spread as a result of a lab leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

Two other intelligence agencies, including the CIA, have not been able to determine a precise origin for the pandemic.

The new disclosure by the U.S. intelligence community comes three months after President Joe Biden signed legislation ordering the agencies to declassify as much information as possible about the pandemic’s origins.

But the newly declassified information, in some ways, reflects few changes from the initial intelligence assessments shared in 2020, when U.S. agencies said that their information supported “the wide scientific consensus that the COVID-19 virus was not man-made or genetically modified,” but that more work was needed to determine how the initial transmission of the virus took place.

Since the World Health Organization first declared a global health emergency in January 2020, COVID-19 has killed nearly 7 million people worldwide, with some officials suggesting the true death toll could be as high as 20 million.

Chinese health officials have repeatedly defended their handling of the COVID-19 outbreak, criticizing any suggestions that they should have shared more information sooner as “offensive and disrespectful.”

As recently as March, leading U.S. intelligence officials noted collecting additional information on the COVID-19 virus has been difficult due, in part, to China’s refusal to cooperate.

In a statement late Friday, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and the chairman of the Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic praised the newly declassified report, saying, “The Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese People’s Liberation Army have some serious explaining to do.”

“Everyone deserves to know the truth, and the declassification of this report is a promising step toward full transparency,” said Republicans Mike Turner and Brad Wenstrup.

“Based on the classified information that we received, we suspected right away that the coronavirus was not a natural phenomenon,” they added. “We’ve been pushing for years to make this information available for all to see.” 
…

The Transportation Safety Board of Canada has opened an investigation into the implosion of the Titan, the underwater sea vessel that imploded with five people onboard as it was traveling to the wreckage of the Titanic, the British ocean liner that sank in the North Atlantic in 1912 after striking an iceberg.

The submersible vessel was the property of OceanGate Expeditions, a U.S.-based company. Its support ship, Polar Prince, however, is a Canadian-flagged ship.

“The Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) is launching an investigation into the fatal occurrence involving the Canadian-flagged vessel Polar Prince and the privately operated submersible Titan,” the board said in a statement Friday, raising questions about the safety of the ill-fated excursion. The board said a team of investigators has been sent to St. John’s, Newfoundland, to gather information and conduct interviews.

U.S. officials said they too, were opening an investigation.

“The U.S. Coast Guard has declared the loss of the Titan submersible to be a major marine casualty and will lead the investigation. The NTSB has joined the investigation and will contribute to their efforts. The USCG is handling all media inquiries related to this investigation,” the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board said Friday in a tweet.

The Polar Prince lost contact with the Titan an hour and 45 minutes after the submersible began its descent Sunday.

Responders rushed equipment to where remains of the Titan were found. Five major fragments of the 6.7-meter Titan were located in the debris field left from its disintegration, including the vessel’s tail cone and two sections of the pressure hull, U.S. Coast Guard officials said. No mention was made of whether human remains were sighted.

OceanGate Expeditions said in a statement the five people on the vessel were company CEO Stockton Rush, Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman Dawood, Hamish Harding, and Paul-Henri Nargeolet.

Since the submersible went missing with an approximately four-day air supply, questions about it its safety have grown.

“I know there are also a lot of questions about how, why and when did this happen,” said Rear Adm. John Mauger of the First Coast Guard District. “Those are questions we will collect as much information as we can about now.”

According to an Associated Press report, David Lochridge, a former OceanGate director of marine operations, raised questions in 2018 about the methods the company used to insure the structural viability of the hull.

Filmmaker James Cameron, who directed the 1997 Academy Award-winning film Titanic and who has made several dives to the ocean liner’s wreckage aboard other deep-sea submersibles, said in an interview with the BBC that he was sure an “extreme catastrophic event” had happened when he heard the submersible had lost communication and navigation.

“For me, there was no doubt,” he said.

He told the BBC the news about the air supply and underwater noises were a “prolonged and nightmarish charade” to provide false hope to the families of the passengers. Cameron said that once a remotely operated vehicle reached the depth of the vessel, it was likely to be found “within hours … probably within minutes.”

Arthur Loibl, a passenger on the Titan two years ago, described his trip to the Titanic as a “kamikaze operation.” The retired German businessman said, “Imagine a metal tube a few meters long with a sheet of metal for a floor. You can’t stand. You can’t kneel. Everyone is sitting close to or on top of each other.”

Scientist and journalist Michael Guillen, who survived an expedition in 2000 that ran into some challenges, said, “We need to stop, pause and ask this question, why do you want to go to the Titanic and how do you get there safely?”

Some information is from The Associated Press and Reuters.
…

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

The Carter Center was already a decade into its fight against Guinea worm globally when former President Jimmy Carter and his nonprofit took on another neglected tropical disease in the African nation of Mali.

“From 1996 to 1998, it was estimated about 85,000 to 90,000 people would go blind from trachoma,” said Kelly Callahan, director of the Carter Center’s trachoma control program. “Twenty-five[%] to 50% of the children between the ages of 1 and 9, in all areas of Mali, suffered from the beginning stages of this disease.”

It was a statistic Callahan said troubled Carter.

“The Hilton Foundation asked President Carter and the Carter Center if we would be willing to consider working on sanitation and water to combat this disease called trachoma in Mali and Niger,” she said. The nonprofit foundation has been working to prevent avoidable blindness for more than 20 years.

The Carter Center set a goal of eliminating the disease in both countries. Trachoma can be transmitted through infected discharge from the eyes and nose.

“This disease is preventable,” Callahan explained to VOA during a recent Skype interview. It is “a bacterial infection that stems from access, or lack of access, to water and sanitation, poor living conditions, socioeconomically stressed populations.”

Since 1998, the Carter Center and its partners have funded and staffed programs with host nations to develop widespread strategies to treat and prevent infections, even during Mali’s recent armed conflict and continuing instability.

In May, the World Health Organization certified that the countries of Benin and Mali had eliminated trachoma as a public health problem. Six countries in Africa have reached that milestone.

The Carter Center believes its program in Mali has helped avert blindness in more than 5 million people, and the antibiotics used to combat trachoma also help prevent infant mortality, the center said.

“The elimination of trachoma as a public health problem is no less than Herculean,” Callahan told VOA.

Sadi Moussa, the Carter Center’s senior representative in Mali who spoke to VOA via Skype, said he believed the success of his organization’s program to eliminate trachoma could boost efforts to combat other neglected tropical diseases, like Guinea worm.

“Working in an unstable country like this is really challenging for everyone,” Moussa said. “This will also help us with donors to show them that we are serious in what we are doing, and we can convince them to get more resources.”

While Carter has retired from public life and is receiving hospice care at his home in Plains, Georgia, Callahan said the center keeps him up to date on the status of its health programs, including recent developments in Mali.

“We heard that President Carter was thrilled beyond belief, so we’re very excited that he knows,” Callahan said, adding that while Mali’s elimination milestone is important, the Carter Center’s work in Africa is far from over.

“Currently, we work in five countries, including Mali. Those countries have the worst known trachoma in the world and are also areas of severe challenges and insecurity and are areas of conflict,” she said.

The World Health Organization said trachoma remains in 23 countries throughout Africa, with approximately 105 million people on the continent living in areas at high risk for infection.
…

One year ago, the U.S. Supreme Court rescinded a five-decade-old right to abortion, prompting a seismic shift in debates about politics, values, freedom and fairness.

Twenty-five million women of childbearing age now live in states where the law makes abortions harder to get than they were before the ruling.

Decisions about the law are largely in the hands of state lawmakers and courts. Most Republican-led states have restricted abortion. Fourteen ban abortion in most cases at any point in pregnancy. Twenty Democratic-leaning states have protected access.

Here’s a look at what’s changed since the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling.

Laws enacted in 25 states to ban or restrict abortion access

Last summer, as women and medical providers began to navigate a landscape without legal protection for abortion, Nancy Davis’ doctors advised her to terminate her pregnancy because the fetus she was carrying was expected to die soon after birth.

But doctors in Louisiana, where Davis lived, would not provide the abortion due to a new law banning it throughout pregnancy in most cases.

At the same time, abortion opponents who worked for decades to abolish a practice they see as murder cheered the Supreme Court’s Dobbs ruling. Anti-abortion groups said the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that legalized abortion nationwide was undemocratic because it prevented states from enacting bans.

“The Dobbs decision was a democratic victory for life that generations fought for,” said E.V. Osment, a spokeswoman for Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, a major anti-abortion group.

While some states scrambled to pass new restrictions, others already had enacted laws that were designed to take effect if the court overturned Roe.

More than 25 million women ages 15 to 44, or about 2 in 5 nationally, now live in states where there are more restrictions on abortion access than there were before Dobbs.

Davis received help from a fund that raises money for women to travel for abortions and went to New York for a procedure. The whole experience was heartbreaking, she said.

“A mother’s love starts as soon as she knows she’s pregnant. That attachment starts instantly,” she said. “It was days I couldn’t sleep. It was days I couldn’t eat.”

Abortion access has been protected in 20 states

As some states restricted abortion, others locked in access. In 25 states, abortion remains generally legal up to at least 24 weeks of pregnancy. Twenty of them have solidified abortion rights through constitutional amendments or laws.

CHOICES Center for Reproductive Health had for decades treated patients seeking abortions in Memphis, Tennessee. After Tennessee’s abortion ban kicked in last year, the clinic opened an outpost three hours away, in Carbondale, Illinois.

“They’re coming from Tennessee, Mississippi, Arkansas and even Texas,” said CEO Jennifer Pepper. “But now they’re having to travel much farther.”

Number of abortions is not clear

With lags and gaps in official reporting, the impact of the Dobbs ruling on the number of abortions is not clear.

A survey conducted for the Society of Family Planning, a nonprofit organization that promotes research and supports abortion access, has found that the number has fallen to nearly zero in states with bans and risen in neighboring states with fewer restrictions. On balance the number of abortions is declining. But the survey does not capture self-managed abortions outside the traditional medical system, usually done with through a two-pill regimen.

Before the Dobbs ruling, pills were already the most common method of abortion in the U.S. Now, there are more networks to provide access to pills in states with abortion bans.

Some abortion opponents are calling for the abortion drug mifepristone to lose its government approval. The Supreme Court has preserved access for now.

Lawsuits abound

More than 50 lawsuits have been filed over abortion policy since the Dobbs ruling. Many challenges rely on arguments about the rights to personal autonomy or religious freedom. A Texas lawsuit alleges women were denied abortions even when their lives were at risk.

Bans or restrictions are on hold in at least six states while judges sort out their long-term fate. The only states where the top court has permanently rejected restrictions since the Dobbs ruling are Iowa and South Carolina.

Criminal courts have not been busy with abortion cases

There’s little evidence that doctors, women, or those who help them get abortions are being prosecuted.

The Mississippi attorney general’s office says no charges have been brought under a new law that calls for up to 10 years in prison for anyone who provides or attempts to provide an abortion in cases where it wasn’t to save the woman’s life or to end a pregnancy caused by rape or incest.

Progressive prosecutors across the country, including in states with bans, have said that they would not pursue abortion-related cases, or that they would make them a low priority.

Abortion remains a dominant political issue

The political table has been reset, with Republicans entering a new election season weighing how to balance the interests of a base that wants the strictest bans possible against the desires of the broader electorate.

Polling has consistently found that most Americans think abortions should be available early in a pregnancy, but that most also favor restrictions later in a pregnancy.

Last year, voters sided with abortion-rights advocates in all six states with abortion-related ballot measures. The issue was also a major factor in why Democrats performed better than expected in 2022 elections.

It has emerged as a key issue in the race for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination.
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Evidence is growing about the many ways that traveling in the microgravity environment of space tampers with the human body, with new research showing how it dials down the activity of genes in white blood cells crucial to the immune system.

A study involving 14 astronauts who spent 4½ to 6½ months aboard the International Space Station found that gene expression in these cells, also called leukocytes, quickly decreased when they reached space and then returned to normal not long after returning to Earth, researchers said Thursday.

The findings offer insight into why astronauts are more susceptible to infections during flights, showing how the body’s system for fighting off pathogens is weakened in space.

“A weaker immunity increases the risk of infectious diseases limiting astronauts’ ability to perform their very demanding work in space. If an infection or an immune-related condition was to evolve to a severe state requiring medical care, astronauts while in space would have limited access to care and medication,” said molecular biologist Odette Laneuville of the University of Ottawa in Canada, lead author of the research published in the journal Frontiers in Immunology.

Leukocytes are produced in the bone marrow and travel through the bloodstream and tissues. Once they detect bodily invaders like a virus or bacterium, they produce antibody proteins to attack the pathogen. Specific genes govern the release of such proteins.

The researchers examined leukocytes isolated in blood drawn from astronauts — 11 men and three women — from the Canadian Space Agency and U.S. space agency NASA, once before the flight, four times aboard the space station and five times after returning to Earth.

Gene expression in 247 genes in leukocytes was at about one third the normal levels while in space, the study found. This occurred within the first few days in space, but then remained at a stable level. The genes typically returned to normal behavior within about a month of an astronaut’s return to Earth.

“White blood cells are very sensitive to the environment of space. They trade their specialized immune functions to take care of cell maintenance or housekeeping roles. Before this paper, we knew of immune dysfunction but not of the mechanisms,” said study co-author Guy Trudel, an Ottawa Hospital rehabilitation medicine specialist.

Discovering altered gene behavior in leukocytes is “a significant step toward understanding human immune dysregulation in space,” Trudel added.

This altered behavior, the researchers said, may result from a phenomenon called “fluid shift” in which blood in the absence of Earth’s gravitational pull is redistributed from the lower to the upper part of the body. It is unlikely that greater solar radiation exposure in space was the culprit, they added.

“New and specific countermeasures will be needed,” Trudel said.

Scientists previously documented astronauts experiencing immune dysfunction in space. This has included reactivation of latent viruses such as: Epstein-Barr, responsible for infectious mononucleosis; varicella-zoster, responsible for shingles; and herpes simplex 1, responsible for cold sores.

It also has been shown that astronauts in space shed more viral particles in their biological fluids — saliva and urine — increasing the risk of spreading pathogens to other astronauts whose own immune systems may be weakened.

The study, funded by the Canadian Space Agency, follows NASA-funded research published June 8 that detailed brain changes in astronauts — expansion of spaces in the brain containing fluid that cushions it to protect against sudden impact and remove waste products.

Other documented effects of space travel include bone and muscle atrophy, cardiovascular changes, issues with the balance system in the inner ear and a syndrome involving the eyes.

Cancer risk from greater radiation exposure is another concern.
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A panel of advisers to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Wednesday recommended that new vaccines from Pfizer and GSK to prevent severe respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infections be available to older adults in the U.S. but stopped short of saying all of them should get the shots.

In two separate votes, the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) said that people aged 60 and older may receive the RSV shots after consulting with a health care provider.

It was not the strongest recommendation that the ACIP could have made for the shots. Some committee members wanted a broader recommendation, but others had concerns that there was not enough data about how effective the vaccines are in people over age 75 and other high-risk groups.

“Those who are at high risk for disease and for high risk for hospitalizations and death were actually not included in the trials,” said committee member Dr. Helen Keipp Talbot. “The patient population that participated in the study were younger and healthier and had fewer comorbid conditions, were not immunocompromised and were not living in nursing homes.”

The CDC’s director needs to sign off on the recommendation before the vaccines can be made available. Both drugmakers have said they expected to be able to supply the shots ahead of the RSV season later this year.

RSV usually causes mild cold-like symptoms but can also lead to serious illness and hospitalization. It is estimated to be responsible for 14,000 deaths annually in adults aged 65 and older in the United States, according to government data.

During the meeting, the companies presented data on whether one inoculation could remain effective over the course of two RSV seasons compared with protection seen with an annual shot.

In older adults, the efficacy of Pfizer’s vaccine in preventing lower respiratory tract disease with three or more symptoms fell from 88.9% at the end of the first season to 78.6% through the middle of a second RSV season. Efficacy fell to 48.9% from about 65% for less severe forms of the disease in that age group.

With the GSK vaccine, efficacy in preventing severe disease defined by three or more symptoms fell to 84.6% through the middle of the second RSV season, from about 94% at the end of first in older adults. Efficacy of the vaccine in preventing lower respiratory tract disease fell to 77.3% from 82.6% at the end of the first season in older adults.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration last month approved the first RSV vaccine from GSK, branded as Arexvy, and later Pfizer’s Abrysvo for people aged 60 and older to protect them from lower respiratory tract disease caused by the virus.

Pfizer and GSK have said they expect RSV vaccines to eventually become multibillion-dollar sellers.

For this year, GSK has said it expects the U.S. market to be in the range of 10 million to 15 million people, a small fraction of the size of the expected flu or COVID-19 market for 2023.

At the meeting, GSK said it expects to price its shot between $200 and $295 a dose. Pfizer provided the CDC with a price range of $180 to $270 per dose but would not guarantee that its final price would fall within that range, saying it was in the middle of competitive price negotiations on the shots.
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