Health

Dangerous complacency’ looms over world AIDS meeting

  by Mariëtte Le Roux Agence France Presse PARIS, France (AFP) — Thousands of experts and activists descend on Amsterdam Monday to bolster the battle against AIDS amid warnings that “dangerous complacency” may cause a resurgence of the epidemic that has already killed 35 million people. Rather than closing in on the goal of “ending” AIDS, new HIV infections have surged in parts of the world as global attention has dwindled and funding levelled off, […]

Teens glued to phones risk ‘modest’ rise in ADHD symptoms: study

TAMPA, United States (AFP) — Could teenagers suffer symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder after engaging in excessive smartphone use? A new study out Tuesday says digital overload could be linked to a “modest” but significant rise in new ADHD behaviors, offering a warning to parents about the potential dangers of too much screen time. The findings in the Journal of the American Medical Association were based on nearly 2,600 Los Angeles teens who answered […]

Health experts sa publiko: Mag-ingat sa leptospirosis

(Eagle News) — Nararanasan pa rin ang pagbaha sa maraming lansangan sa kasalukuyan kung kaya naman patuloy na nagbabala ang mga eksperto na lalong mag-ingat sa leptospirosis. Ayon kay Dr. Daisy Tagarda, isang fellow sa Philippine Society for Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (PSMID), ang leptospirosis ay sakit na maaaring makuha sa paglusong sa baha na kontaminado ng leptospira bacteria na nagmumula sa ihi ng mga hayop tulad ng daga. Kabilang naman sa sintomas ng leptospirosis […]

Pfizer reverses some drug price hikes after Trump tweet

  NEW YORK, United States (AFP) — Pfizer has reversed price increases on some drugs following White House pressure and the US drugmaker on Wednesday pledged to decide soon whether to sell its consumer drugs business. A day after President Donald Trump threatened action on drug prices, and said on Twitter drug companies should be “ashamed” for boosting costs, the pharmaceutical giant said it would reverse price increases that took effect July 1. In a […]

Sterilized mosquito trial slashes dengue-spreading population in an Australian town

SYDNEY, Australia (AFP)–More than 80 percent of a dengue fever-spreading mosquito has been wiped out in an Australian town during a landmark trial scientists said Tuesday offered hope for combating the dangerous pest globally. Researchers from Australia’s national science body CSIRO bred millions of non-biting male Aedes aegypti mosquitoes in laboratory conditions at James Cook University (JCU) in a project funded by Google parent company Alphabet. The insects were infected with the Wolbachia bacteria, which […]

Candidate AIDS vaccine passes key early test

  by Mariëtte Le Roux Agence France Presse PARIS, France (AFP) — The near 40-year quest for an AIDS vaccine received a hopeful boost Saturday when scientists announced that a trial drug triggered an immune response in humans and shielded monkeys from infection. Shown to be safe in humans, the candidate vaccine has now advanced to the next phase of the pre-approval trial process, and will be tested in 2,600 women in southern Africa to see […]

Air pollution plays significant role in diabetes: study

PARIS, France (AFP)–Air pollution caused one in seven new cases of diabetes in 2016, according to a US study, which found even low levels raised the chances of developing the chronic disease. Diabetes has primarily been associated with lifestyle factors like diet and a sedentary lifestyle, but research by the Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis said pollution also plays a major role. The study estimated that pollution contributed to 3.2 million new […]

Human lifespan may not have peaked after all: study

by Kerry SHERIDAN Agence France-Presse TAMPA, United States (AFP) — Has the maximum lifespan for a human already been reached? Maybe not, said a study of Italian centenarians published Thursday that found that human longevity is slowly increasing. Scientists have long debated whether or not the ultimate lifespan in people has been attained. A 2016 study in the journal Nature argued that it has, in 1997, when Frenchwoman Jeanne Calmant died at the record-breaking age […]

US trial over Roundup cancer link set to open

SAN FRANCISCO, United States (AFP)– First of its kind trial over whether Monsanto herbicide Roundup caused a groundskeeper’s lethal cancer is scheduled to begin here on July 9 with opening remarks by attorneys. The stakes are high for Monsanto, which could face massive losses should it have to pay out damages over the product, whose main ingredient is glyphosate, a substance which some say is dangerously carcinogenic. Dewayne Johnson, a 46-year-old father of two, says […]

Singapore may send back unvaccinated foreign travelers

SINGAPORE, Singapore (AFP)–Singapore may start turning back foreign visitors who do not have required vaccinations, authorities said, in a bid to protect the tightly-controlled country from infectious diseases. The country of 5.6 million people is a popular tourist destination, with 17.4 million visitors arriving in 2017. But its small size and openness have sometimes left it vulnerable, and it was hit hard by the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreak in 2003. Travelers are currently […]

Commercial flight crews show higher cancer rates: study

PARIS, France (AFP) — Flight crews have higher than average rates of certain cancers, according to a study of more than 5,000 US-based flight attendants. “We report a higher lifetime prevalence of breast, melanoma and non-melanoma skin cancers among flight crews relative to the general population,” said Irina Mordukhovich, a researcher at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and co-author of a study published Tuesday in the journal Environmental Health. “This is striking given […]

Polio returns to Papua New Guinea after 18 years: WHO

SYDNEY, Australia (AFP) – An outbreak of polio has been confirmed in Papua New Guinea, the World Health Organization and the government said, with the virus detected in a child 18 years after the Pacific nation was declared free of the disease. The WHO said there was one confirmed case — a six-year-old boy with lower limb weakness from Morobe province — with the disease detected in late April, and paralysis associated with the virus […]