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by Marlowe HOOD PARIS, France (AFP) — Air pollution causes 790,000 premature deaths every year in Europe and 8.8 million worldwide, doubling recent assessments, according to a study released Monday. Between 40 and 80 percent of those excess deaths are caused by heart attacks, strokes and other types of cardiovascular disease underestimated up to now as a driver of smog-related mortality, researchers reported. On average, a toxic cocktail of pollutants from vehicles, industry and agriculture […]
by Patrick GALEY A quarter of all premature deaths and diseases worldwide are due to manmade pollution and environmental damage, the United Nations said Wednesday in a landmark report on the planet’s parlous state. Deadly smog-inducing emissions, chemicals polluting drinking water, and the accelerating destruction of ecosystems crucial to the livelihoods of billions of people are driving a worldwide epidemic that hampers the global economy, it warned. The Global Environment Outlook (GEO) — a report […]
by Tsiresena MANJAKAHERY ANTSIRANANA, Madagascar (AFP) — Frangeline is aged two but weighs no more than a four-month-old — the terrible result of her battle with measles, which is cutting a deadly swathe through Madagascar. Widespread malnutrition and low rates of immunisation on the Indian Ocean island have ramped up the killing power of the highly infectious virus. In the last six months, nearly 1,000 children have been killed by a resurgent disease that vaccination […]
BANGKOK, Thailand (AFP) — Thailand is poised to start its first tests of cannabis oil on patients, a health official said Friday, as excitement swirls around a new industry that could create money-making avenues for entrepreneurs while offering relief for suffering patients. Marijuana has been used as a traditional herb for centuries in Thailand but was banned decades ago. The junta’s rubber-stamp parliament voted in December to legalise it for medical purposes. Thailand is […]
WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — Facebook launched an offensive Thursday to suppress the spread of misinformation about vaccines on the 2.3-billion-member social network. The company has faced pressure in recent weeks to tackle the problem, amid outbreaks of measles around the United States attributed to growing numbers of parents who refuse to vaccinate their children. US lawmakers have decried the higher incidences of preventable diseases in the wake of a movement against child vaccination, in […]
WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — Alex Trebek, the beloved host of US game show ‘Jeopardy!’, announced Wednesday that he has stage 4 pancreatic cancer. The Canadian said he planned to “beat the low survival rates for this illness” and keep working on NBC’s long-running syndicated TV show. “This week I was diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer,” Trebek said in a video shared on the show’s Twitter account. “Truth be told, I have to (keep […]
WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — A study following more than 650,000 Danish children for over a decade has led researchers to the same conclusion as previous efforts: the measles, mumps, rubella (MMR) vaccine does not increase a child’s risk of autism. The study, which followed all Danish children born between 1999 and 2010 until 2013, compared the number of vaccinated and unvaccinated kids who were diagnosed with autism, and found no difference “We found no […]
by Marlowe HOOD and Patrick GALEY Agence France Presse PARIS, France (AFP) — A second person is in sustained remission from HIV-1, the virus that causes AIDS, after ceasing treatment and is likely cured, researchers said Tuesday in what was hailed as proof that the condition could one day be cured. Ten years after the first confirmed case of an HIV-infected person being rid of the deadly disease, a man known only as the “London […]
PARIS, France (AFP) — Just 10 countries were responsible for three-quarters of a global surge in measles cases last year, the UN children’s agency said Friday, including one of the world’s richest nations, France. Ninety-eight countries reported more cases of measles in 2018 compared with 2017, and the world body warned that conflict, complacency and the growing anti-vaccine movement threatened to undo decades of work to tame the disease. “This is a wakeup call. We […]
by Sara HUSSEIN Agence France-Presse TOKYO, Japan (AFP) — For years, insecticide-soaked mosquito nets have helped dramatically lower malaria infections, but insecticide resistance has driven a search for alternatives and a new study may have uncovered one option. The weapon is a familiar one: an anti-malarial drug already used by humans to prevent them contracting the disease, and researchers now envisage using it on netting like insecticides. Their research shows the drug works on mosquitoes, […]
by Ivan Couronne Agence France Presse WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — US public health experts sounded the alarm Wednesday over a resurgence of measles in recent years, principally in communities where people reject vaccinations and obtain exemptions for religious or “personal” reasons. Six outbreaks of the disease have been reported in the United States since January 1, totalling 159 cases, in the states of Washington, Colorado and New York. Since 2000, between 50 or several […]
TOKYO, Japan (AFP) — A baby born in Tokyo weighing the same as a large onion has gone home healthy, becoming the smallest newborn boy in the world to leave hospital safely. The tiny tot weighed just 268 grams — under 10 ounces — when he was delivered at 24 weeks, reportedly after he stopped growing in the womb. He was so small he fit in an adult’s cupped hands. But after five months […]
