By Annie Snider 14 May 2018 (Politico) – Scott Pruitt’s EPA and the White House sought to block publication of a federal health study on a nationwide water-contamination crisis, after one Trump administration aide warned it would cause a “public relations nightmare,” newly disclosed emails reveal. The intervention early this year — not previously disclosed […]
By Michael Greshko 10 May 2018 (National Geographic) – Many of the world’s amphibians are staring down an existential threat: an ancient skin-eating fungus that can wipe out entire forests’ worth of frogs in a flash.This ecological super-villain, the chytrid fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, has driven more than 200 amphibian species to extinction or near-extinction—radically rewiring […]
2 May 2018 (UN News) – In a call for Member States to take action urgently, World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General, Tedros Adhanom Gebreyesus, warned that air pollution “threatens us all, but the poorest and most marginalized people bear the brunt of the burden.”According to WHO’s ambient air quality database, despite some improvements, pollution levels […]
1 May 2018 (E360 Digest) – The number of people in the United States infected by mosquito, tick, and flea-transmitted diseases have tripled, increasing from 27,388 cases in 2004 to 96,075 in 2016, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control. Since 2004, nine insect-borne diseases have also been discovered or introduced […]
12 September 2017 (UNCCD) – There is broad evidence to suggest that direct human alteration of terrestrial ecosystems by hunting, foraging, land clearing, agriculture, and other activities started about 12,000 years ago. Sometimes referred to as the “Neolithic Revolution,” agriculture slowly began to transform societies and the way in which people lived; traditional hunter-gatherer lifestyles […]
By Emily Baumgaertner 13 April 2018 (The New York Times) – The first known epidemic of extensively drug-resistant typhoid is spreading through Pakistan, infecting at least 850 people in 14 districts since 2016, according to the National Institute of Health Islamabad. The typhoid strain, resistant to five types of antibiotics, is expected to disseminate globally, […]
Dr Jonathan D Quick 18 March 2018 (The Guardian) – Somewhere out there a dangerous virus is boiling up in the bloodstream of a bird, bat, monkey or pig, preparing to jump to a human being. It’s hard to comprehend the scope of such a threat, for it has the potential to wipe out millions […]
By L.A. McKeown 12 April 2018 (TCTMD) – New data show a surprising pattern of increased emergency department (ED) visits for cardiovascular and cerebrovascular problems on days when wildfires are burning in California. Researchers say the fine particulate matter created by the fires poses significant risk beyond the state’s borders, and in particular to people […]
By Julia Belluz 28 March 2018(Vox) – There’s a reason sports heroes like Michael Jordan have been appearing on cereal boxes for decades. Food and beverage companies have learned that spending billions of dollars on marketing targeted at kids as young as 2 can sway the food choices they make for a lifetime. Yet we […]
By Will Porter and Kyle Anzalone 7 March 2018 (Consortium News) – In Afghanistan, the world’s most powerful military is threatened by a small, pink flower.Despite an escalation of the Afghan conflict under the Trump administration, a record opium crop, coupled with steady Taliban gains, foretell bitter fighting in the coming months for American forces […]
