Health

A second farmworker in the U.S. has tested positive for bird flu, public health officials from the patient’s home state of Michigan announced May 22. During a press conference, health officials said the case was “not unexpected,” given the ongoing spread of avian influenza among birds and mammals in the U.S., and that risk to the general public remains low. But the case raises the question: is human-to-human transmission of bird flu a serious concern?Not at this point, according to Dr. Nirav Shah, principal deputy director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). “We have not seen evidence of other cases in this area or elsewhere in any of our monitoring systems, let alone any evidence of human-to-human transmission,” Shah said during the May 22 press briefing. “This i...

Extreme heat in Mexico, Central America and parts of the U.S. South has left millions of people in sweltering temperatures, strained energy grids and resulted in iconic Howler monkeys in Mexico dropping dead from trees.Meteorologists say the conditions have been caused by what some refer to as a heat dome — an area of strong high pressure centered over the southern Gulf of Mexico and northern Central America that blocked clouds from forming and caused extensive sunshine and hot temperatures. This extreme heat is occurring in a world that is quickly warming due to greenhouse gases, which come from the burning of fossil fuels like oil, gas and coal.The high temperatures are stretching across the Gulf of Mexico into parts of the United States including Texas and Florida. The heat comes as tho...

Wake me when it’s over—summer, that is. I know, I know, you just love it: the long days, the warm evenings, the trips to the beach, the afternoons at the ballpark when your favorite team is playing and the pennant race is tightening—and the temperature is skyrocketing, and your skin is blistering, and the beer is $6, and the drive home will be in 88° heat, which is fine if you don’t mind running the air conditioner, except that you’re burning through $4–a-gallon gas, because it’s summer-driving season and the giant oil companies didn’t get to be the giant oil companies without knowing the right time of year to hike their prices. And that’s hardly all of it. Summertime is the season of horribles, from higher crime rates, to increased warfare, to spikes in asthma, to raging wildfires, to swa...

As more than a trillion cicadas emerge from underground this month, experts warn that people on the autism spectrum or who are sensitive to sound may find the insects’ noise overwhelming.The large co-emergence of cicadas from both a 13-year and 17-year brood this spring is the first of its kind in more than 200 years. The emergence has already begun in some regions, and the cicadas will be visible in several states, including Illinois, Iowa, Georgia, and Tennessee. The emergence is expected to last until June.Read More: An Animated Guide to the Rare 2024 Cicada Co-EmergenceOnce they emerge, male cicadas sing a mating call to attract female cicadas. Because of the insects’ large presence, the continuous and high-pitched buzzing sound can be loud; the Centers for Disease Control and Preventi...

Health officials are warning people not to “fry,” but to protect their skin and eyes while enjoying the outdoors this Memorial Day weekend.The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the National Council on Skin Cancer Prevention announced that Friday marks the 16th annual “Don’t Fry Day,” a day meant to encourage people to protect themselves from the sun as the weather starts warming up over the long weekend. Officials warned that too much exposure to the sun’s ultraviolet (UV) radiation can increase the risk of developing skin cancer and cataracts.“Remember to protect your skin and eyes from UV rays before you go outdoors,” EPA Assistant Administrator for the Office of Air and Radiation Joseph Goffman said in a press release announcing Fry Day. “Don’t Fry Day is a great annual rem...

Geneva — A global treaty to fight pandemics like COVID is going to have to wait: After more than two years of negotiations, rich and poor countries have failed — for now — to come up with a plan for how the world might respond to the next pandemic.After COVID-19 triggered once-unthinkable lockdowns, upended economies and killed millions, leaders at the World Health Organization and worldwide vowed to do better in the future. In 2021, member countries asked the U.N. health agency to oversee negotiations to figure out how the world might better share scarce resources and stop future viruses from spreading globally.On Friday, Roland Driece, co-chair of WHO’s negotiating board for the agreement, acknowledged that countries were unable to come up with a draft. WHO had hoped a final draft treaty...

NEW ORLEANS — First-of-its-kind legislation that classifies two abortion-inducing drugs as controlled and dangerous substances was signed into law Friday by Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry.The Republican governor announced his signing of the bill in Baton Rouge a day after it gained final legislative passage in the state Senate.Opponents of the measure included many physicians who said the drugs have other critical reproductive health care uses, and that changing the classification could make it harder to prescribe the drugs.Supporters of the bill, which affects the drugs mifepristone and misoprostol, said it would protect expectant mothers from coerced abortions, though they cited only one example of that happening, in the state of Texas. Source link

A bill passed by Louisiana lawmakers Thursday could see the state become the first in the country to classify two abortion-inducing drugs as controlled and dangerous substances—a move doctors and reproductive rights advocates say could have far-reaching implications for health care access in the state. The bill, SB 276, passed the state Senate with a vote of 29 to 7, after having passed in the House with a vote of 66 to 30 on Tuesday. It will next go to Republican Gov. Jeff Landry, who is expected to sign it into law. Supporters of the bill say it will protect pregnant people from coerced abortions, while opponents argue that the two drugs, mifepristone and misoprostol, have many other uses aside from abortion, and that reclassifying them as controlled substances would make it more difficu...

New research suggests the HPV vaccine is preventing cancer in men, as well as in women, but fewer boys than girls are getting the shots in the United States.The HPV vaccine was developed to prevent cervical cancer in women and experts give it credit, along with screening, for lowering cervical cancer rates. Evidence that the shots are preventing HPV-related cancers in men has been slower to emerge, but the new research suggests vaccinated men have fewer cancers of the mouth and throat compared to those who didn't get the shots. These cancers are more than twice as common in men than in women.For the study, researchers compared 3.4 million people of similar ages — half vaccinated versus half unvaccinated — in a large health care dataset.As expected, vaccinated women had a lower risk of deve...

Millions of people in the U.S. report using marijuana daily or nearly every day, according to an analysis of national survey data, and those people now outnumber those who say they are daily or nearly-daily drinkers of alcohol.Alcohol is still more widely used, but 2022 was the first time this intensive level of marijuana use overtook daily and near-daily drinking, said the study’s author, Jonathan Caulkins, a cannabis policy researcher at Carnegie Mellon University.“A good 40% of current cannabis users are using it daily or near daily, a pattern that is more associated with tobacco use than typical alcohol use,” Caulkins said.The research, based on data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, was published Wednesday in the journal Addiction. The survey is a highly regarded source...