Month: May 2017

New WHO Chief Stresses Health as Human Right

By Uponsci | | No Comments | Science

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the World Health Organization’s newly elected director-general, says health as a human right is at the core of his vision for the organization he soon will lead.

The former Ethiopian health and foreign minister is the first African chosen to head the organization, which was created 69 years ago.  

After a long, bruising campaign that began in 2015, Tedros beat out two other contenders, David Nabarro of Britain and Pakistani physician Sania Nishtar, for the post by winning 133 of the votes cast by 185 WHO member states.

“The outcome of the voting was very, very clear,” said Tedros.  “Having confidence from the majority of member states gives me legitimacy to really implement the vision that I have already outlined.”

Tedros’ goals

That vision included five promises, which Tedros made to the World Health Assembly during a final campaign pitch preceding Tuesday’s secret ballot vote.

He said that he would “work tirelessly” to fulfill the WHO promise of universal coverage and would ensure “a robust response for emergencies to come.”

He promised to strengthen the frontlines of health, transform the World Health Organization into a world class force and lastly “place accountability, transparency and continuous improvement at the heart of WHOs culture.”

At a news conference in Geneva, he said the concept of health as a human right would be at the heart of whatever he did.

“Half of our population does not have access to health care,” he said.  That, he said, could and should be remedied through universal health care coverage, which would address the issue of health as a human right and act as a spur to development.  

“All roads should lead to universal health coverage and it should be the center of gravity of our movement,” he said.  

Tedros begins his five-year term as director-general on July 1, succeeding Margaret Chan, who has headed the WHO for the past 10 years.  

The newly elected director general said he wants to reform and transform the World Health Organization into a better, more responsive agency.    

As Ethiopia’s minister of health, Tedros led a comprehensive reform of the country’s health system, including the expansion of the country’s health infrastructure and health insurance coverage.

Resources a constant priority

As WHO leader, Tedros said one of his first orders of business would be to strengthen the organization’s ability to respond swiftly and effectively to emergencies because “epidemics can strike at any time” and the WHO must be prepared.

“The campaign has ended, as you know, officially, but I think the work begins actually now.  I know it is very difficult.  It is going to be tough,” he said.  

One of the major difficulties is that of money.  Reform, tackling emerging and ancient diseases take a lot of money, something the World Health Organization, which reportedly is struggling to close a $2.2 billion gap, does not have.

The problem is likely to be made even worse given the Trump administration announced budget cuts to global health programs, including a 32 percent cut to USAID (U.S. Agency for International Development) and between 20 percent and 30 percent cuts for scientific research institutes.

The United States is the biggest WHO donor.  U.S. President Donald Trump has suggested funding cuts to the organization might be in the offing.

Tedros observed that it is the poor that are the most affected by big financial cuts.

“I hope this will be understood before finalizing the proposal.  I believe this will be taken into consideration,” he said.

He can take heart in that a congratulatory statement on his election from Tim Price, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary did not threaten any funding cuts.  Instead, he told Tedros the United States looked forward to working with him on changing the World Health Organization for the better.

“The United States is committed to helping advance reforms and cultivating greater global health security,” he said.
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Instagram, Snapchat Rated ‘Worst’ Platforms for Young People

By Uponsil | | No Comments | Silicon Valley

Instagram and Snapchat are the worst social media platform for young people’s mental health, and YouTube is the most positive, a new study suggests.

The ranking comes in a report from the British Royal Society for Public Health, which ranked the sites’ impact on young people.

“Social media has been described as more addictive than cigarettes and alcohol, and is now so entrenched in the lives of young people that it is no longer possible to ignore it when talking about young people’s mental health issues,” said Shirley Cramer, the chief executive of the RSPH.

“It’s interesting to see Instagram and Snapchat ranking as the worst for mental health and well being, both platforms are very image-focused and it appears they may be driving feelings of inadequacy and anxiety in young people.”

For the study, researchers surveyed about 1,500 young people age 14 to 24 from Britain, asking them to score the impact social media sites had on 14 “health and well-being” issues. Those include anxiety, depression, quality of sleep, body image, loneliness and real-world friendships and connections.

According the RSPH, YouTube was the most positive, followed by Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat and Instagram.

“Social media has dramatically shifted how we socialize, communicate, and form relationships with each other,” said Laci Green, a professional health YouTuber with 1.5 million subscribers. “Its impact cannot be understated.”

She added that since Instagram and Facebook “present highly curated versions of the people we know and the world around us, it is easy for our perspective of reality to become distorted.”

To combat the negative influence of social media, the researchers recommend adding pop ups that warn users of heavy usage, which was supported by 71 percent of the people surveyed.

Another recommendation is for social media companies that can tell from a user’s post that they’re in distress could discretely point them toward help. That was supported by 80 percent of those surveyed. Finally, nearly 70 percent said social media sites should note when a photo has been manipulated.

“As the evidence grows that there may be potential harms from heavy use of social media, and as we upgrade the status of mental health within society, it is important that we have checks and balances in place to make social media less of a wild west when it comes to young people’s mental health and well being,” said Cramer. “We want to promote and encourage the many positive aspects of networking platforms and avoid a situation that leads to social media psychosis which may blight the lives of our young people.”
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Amazon Founder Gives $1 Million to Support Press Freedom

By Uponsil | | No Comments | Silicon Valley

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has promised to donate $1 million to support press freedom, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press announced Tuesday.

“This generous gift will help us continue to grow, to offer our legal and educational support to many more news organizations, and to expand our services to independent journalists, nonprofit newsrooms and documentary filmmakers,” Reporters Committee Chairman David Boardman said. “We’ll also be better positioned to help local newsrooms, the places hit hardest by the disruption in the news industry and whose survival is every bit as crucial to American democracy as those entities headquartered in Washington and New York.”

The gift from Bezos, who also owns The Washington Post newspaper, is the largest the organization has ever received.

The Reporters Committee also announced that it will support First Look Media and help administer its Media Press Freedom Defense Fund of up to $6 million. First Look Media was established by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar.

Bezos and Omidyar have cited a need for efforts to support an independent press.

Last month, Omidyar’s philanthropy, the Omidyar Network, promised $100 million over the next three years to support journalism and fight fake news.
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Moody’s Cuts China Credit Rating One Notch

By Uponbiz | | No Comments | Business

Moody’s Investors Service downgraded China’s credit rating Wednesday – from Aa3 (Double A-3) to A1 – saying it expects China’s economy to erode in coming years as growth slows and its debt burden continues to rise. The downgrade comes as the government faces new financial challenges after years of credit-fueled stimulus.

Craig Erlam, senior market analyst at foreign exchange firm Oanda, said the credit downgrade comes as no surprise. “Because talk of Chinese debt and concerns about the size of Chinese debt has been going on for the last few years.  They seem to be very reliant on these high levels of growth, which has been slowing,” according to Erlam.

China’s economy, the second largest in the world, grew 6.7 percent in 2016, down from 6.9 percent the previous year, the slowest pace since 1990. Erlam says the next few years could be challenging.

“They’ve [the Chinese government] talked about wanting to move away from an investment and export-led economy and focus more on domestic consumption and look at a more sustainable model. But, as we’ve seen over the last couple of years, as soon as it runs into any difficulties – it seems to revert back to where it was a couple of years ago and start spending more money on infrastructure.”

Moody’s expects the government’s direct debt burden to rise to 40 percent of GDP by 2018 and closer to 45 percent by the end of the decade. That’s still well below the 60 percent debt to GDP warning line for the European Union.

China’s Finance Ministry said the downgrade overestimates the risks of rising debt and claims it was based on “inappropriate methodology.” The downgrade is likely to increase the cost of borrowing, but analysts say the one-notch downgrade remains comfortably within the investment grade rating range.

Triple A is the highest rating for creditworthiness, followed by Double A, then Single A. C represents the weakest creditworthiness and means default is imminent.  

China’s Shanghai Composite Index fell more than 1 percent after the credit downgrade while the value of the yuan slipped briefly 0.1 percent against the U.S. dollar.
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Serena Williams Accepts a New Challenge – in Silicon Valley

By Uponent | | No Comments | Entertainment

Tennis star Serena Williams has 39 Grand Slam titles, four Olympic medals, major endorsement deals and her own line of clothing and accessories. Now she is embarking on a new mission: She says she wants to help tech companies diversify their workforces and solve one of the industry’s most vexing problems.

Williams, 35, will get her chance as she joins a Silicon Valley boardroom. Online poll-taking service SurveyMonkey announced Williams’ appointment to its board on Wednesday, along with Intuit CEO Brad Smith.

“I feel like diversity is something I speak to,” Williams said in an interview with The Associated Press. “Change is always happening; change is always building. What is important to me is to be at the forefront of the change and to make it easier for the next person that comes behind me.”

Williams didn’t offer specifics about her goals as a corporate director. She implied that her very presence can help push the company — and, by extension, the industry as a whole — in a more diverse direction.

Individual board members don’t usually exert great influence over the companies they oversee, although they are often compensated handsomely in cash and stock for their part-time work. SurveyMonkey, a private company, didn’t say how much Williams will be compensated.

Valley diversity

Silicon Valley’s lack of diversity has become a recurring source of embarrassment in a region that has long sought to position itself as an egalitarian place that doesn’t favor one gender, ethnicity or race over another. Yet that philosophy hasn’t been reflected in high-tech workforces , despite the efforts of companies such as Google, Apple and Facebook to fix the problem.

Williams has been hanging around Silicon Valley more frequently now that she is engaged to high-tech entrepreneur, Alexis Ohanian, the co-founder of the online forum Reddit. Like many other African-Americans, she says she’s disappointed that the vast majority of high-paying technology jobs are filled by white and Asian men.

At SurveyMonkey, which employs about 650 workers, only 27 percent of technology jobs are filled by women. Just 14 percent of its total payroll consists of African-Americans, Latinos or people identifying themselves with at least two races, according to numbers the company provided to the AP.

What she can do

Williams’ appointment is part of the solution, according to SurveyMonkey CEO Zander Lurie. “My focus is to bring in change agents around the table who can open our eyes,” he said.

Diversity advocates say women and minorities add value to corporate boards — as well as companies’ executive ranks — by offering new perspectives and advocating for a broader range of a company’s stakeholders, whether that’s customers, shareholders or employees.

In a report on France’s quota requirements for corporate boards, the business research group Conference Board found that the real value of adding women came from the fact that they were more likely to be outsiders. They were more likely to be foreigners, have expertise in more diverse business issues than men and more likely to have risen through the ranks outside traditional networks, such as elite universities. This, in itself, can “substantively” improve the collective decision-making of a board, according to the report.

Stepping stone

Racism is something Williams confronted and overcame at an early age when she began playing a predominantly white sport. She grew up to become the top-ranked female tennis player in the world.

Diversifying Silicon Valley isn’t the only item on Williams’ agenda. Like a lot of rich athletes, she is interested in becoming more involved in the business opportunities amid the high-tech boom in Silicon Valley. She says she is already exploring other opportunities in the area, but isn’t ready to provide details yet.

Her connection to SurveyMonkey came through her friendship with Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s chief operating officer and another member of SurveyMonkey’s board. Sandberg’s husband, Dave Goldberg, was SurveyMonkey’s CEO before he died in 2015 while the couple was vacationing in Mexico.

“I have been really interested in getting involved in Silicon Valley for years, so I have been kind of in the wading waters,” Williams said. “Now, I am jumping into the deep end of the pool. When I do something, I go all out.”

 

 
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More Robots to Take Over Humans’ Jobs

By Uponsil | | No Comments | Silicon Valley

According to a recent analysis, in about 15 years, depending on the country, up to 38 percent of jobs performed by humans may be turned over to robots. Experts who gathered last week at a robotic expo in Paris say we have to prepare for the new reality if we want to avoid disruptive social changes. VOA’s George Putic reports.
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E-vision Glasses Enhance Vision for the Legally Blind

By Uponsil | | No Comments | Silicon Valley

There are an estimated 39 million blind people in the world. Another 200 million, people like Julissa Marquez, are visually impaired. A knife attack left her with a less than 10 percent chance of having useful vision. But some new technology has literally opened her eyes. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
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So Many Wonders… So Little Time…

By Uponent | | No Comments | Entertainment

As he wrapped up his journey through southwestern Texas, national parks traveler Mikah Meyer admits he didn’t allocate enough days for his visit to the huge — and hugely popular — Big Bend National Park and Rio Grande Wild & Scenic River.

“Big Bend is so huge that to go from the western edge of the park to the eastern edge is about 50 miles (80 kilometers),” he said. “I planned three days for Big Bend and one day for the Rio Grande and I really should have had more days.”

But he still managed to squeeze in an impressive number of adventures in that relatively short amount of time.

Stark beauty

Driving through a mountainous region of the park, he was immediately struck by its beauty. “It was just stunning,” he recalled. “It looks like something out of a painting or a movie or a postcard.”

That rugged terrain was just one of the features of the park’s diverse landscape, which spreads across 324,000 hectares. The rest is made up of hot, dry desert, and part of the Rio Grande, which forms the natural 1600 kilometer long border between Texas and Mexico.

“It’s like something straight out of a wild, wild west movie,” Mikah remarked as he stood on a hill overlooking the river that separates the two countries. “It’s kind of dry and flat desert and then suddenly these gorgeous mountains just appear, scattered everywhere like little sprinkles on ice cream.”

A lick of ice cream would have been a refreshing welcome from the searing 37 degree Celsius heat as Mikah navigated his way along the Rio Grande Village Nature Trail on the banks of the river.  During his hike, he got to observe some of the park’s many plant and animal species. He marveled at the variety of cactuses, many blooming with colorful flowers, and peered into a shallow pool of water that was so clear, he could see the scales on the fish swimming around in it.

Nature’s hot tub

Hot and dusty after that, Mikah immersed himself in the park’s ancient hot springs – which are believed to have healing powers. He described it as “a hot tub basically made out of local rocks.”

“They used to be part of a Hot Springs resort, but now they are free and open to the public.” He relaxed in the calming waters as the river around him rushed by. He called it a “pretty cool experience,” to be able to enjoy the waters “out in the wild, out in the open, at a national park.”

Day 2 – Cool peaks

On day two of his trip, Mikah waded across the Rio Grande into Mexico, rode a kilometer or so into the border town of Boquillas for a tasty lunch, then headed back to the U.S. just in time to start a climb up to the Chisos Mountains. The entire range, including a large swath of the Chihuahuan Desert, is contained in Big Bend National Park.

The tough workout put Mikah’s fitness to the test. “I worked so hard to get to the top of this mountain,” he recounted. “It was dry and my glasses were fogging up and I had sunscreen in my eyes and I was sweating and my nose was running because it was cold up there… I felt so miserable but it was so gorgeous that I couldn’t help but keep a pep in my step and keep going.”

He made it all the way to Emory Peak, which – at 2385 meters – is the highest point in Big Bend National Park.

“The view at the top was just so gorgeous that it was worth it,” Mikah said. “The whole latter half of the hike, you’re high enough that you can look down at the Chisos Mountains Lodge,” a rustic refuge nestled in the basin of the mountain range where he had stayed the night before.

Day 3 – Ancient lands

By day three of his trip, Mikah was ready for some canoeing with the Far-flung Outdoor Center. He grabbed an oar and headed out onto the Rio Grande.

Starting at the mouth of the Santa Elena Canyon, a popular destination in and of itself, he had a spectacular view of the majestic canyon from the base of its 450 meter high cliffs while he enjoyed a guided, multi-hour float down the river… at least until the the water got too shallow to float the canoes.  

“One of the guides is pulling two canoes at the same time to help get people over these really shallow parts,” Mikah said. “So it was not like the wild rafting excursion you might imagine, it was more like a very shallow canoe float.”

 

“As I was looking up at these massive canyon walls, I realized that if you were a Native American or somebody from hundreds of years ago, this was probably the biggest, highest thing you’ve ever seen. And I understand now why people saw these massive rocks and mountains and thought they were gods,” he said.

Day 4 – Bumpy ride

On his fourth and final day in the park,  Big Bend Overland Tours took Mikah was taken on a long and bumpy tour through some of the park’s most remote areas – a day-long adventure most visitors don’t get to experience.

“What made this so special is that there’s a lot of roads in the park that you really can’t get to unless you have a four wheel drive or a high-clearance Jeep, and so this company, Big Bend Overland Tours, takes people on these back roads that you can’t access without a vehicle.”

Mikah said that despite being exhausted and “disgustingly dirty and dusty” by the end of the day, he also felt “fulfilled that I had really fully experienced this park and got to see portions of it that I never imagined I would get to see.”

In fact, after his time in Big Bend National Park, Mikah says it’s now one of his favorites.

Looking back… and ahead

Mikah wrapped up his adventures in Texas with a visit to Guadalupe Mountains National Park in West Texas, which stretches into the state of New Mexico.

Just as he did in the Chisos Mountains, Mikah hiked to Guadalupe Peak, at 2666 meters, the highest point in Texas .

“The coolest part was getting to the top and getting to look across Texas and seeing both the diversity of land in Texas, everywhere I’d just come from, then also look to the north to New Mexico,” Mikah said. “Everywhere I was about to go.”

Mikah, who plans to visit all 400 plus sites within the U.S. National Park Service, invites you to learn more about his ongoing journey across the American southwest by visiting him on his website, Facebook and Instagram.
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Ariana Grande Returns to US Following Manchester Bombing

By Uponent | | No Comments | Entertainment

Ariana Grande returned to the United States on Tuesday, one day after a suicide bomber killed 22 people at the singer’s concert in Manchester, England, as questions lingered over whether she would continue her European tour.

Grande, 23, was seen in photographs posted by Britain’s Daily Mail newspaper walking down the steps of a private plane at an airport in her hometown of Boca Raton, Florida, and being met by family members.

The Daily Mail images showed the diminutive pop star dressed casually in sweats and appearing downcast as she greeted her boyfriend, the rapper Mac Miller, on the tarmac.

Grande had not been seen publicly since an explosion ripped through the packed Manchester Arena at the end of her performance there. Some of the 22 people who died in the attack were teens or young girls. Grande was apparently unharmed.

British police have identified the man suspected of carrying out the massacre as 22-year-old Salman Abedi, who was born in Manchester to parents of Libyan origin. Islamic State claimed responsibility for what it called revenge against “Crusaders,” but there appeared to be contradictions in its account of the operation.

In her only statement so far, Grande took to Twitter some five hours after the bombing to describe herself as “broken” in the aftermath of the attack.

“from the bottom of my heart, i am so so sorry. i don’t have words,” she said in the tweet.

Grande was performing in Manchester during the European leg of a tour to promote her third album, “Dangerous Woman,” which also has her scheduled to visit London, Belgium, Poland, Germany and Switzerland in the coming weeks.

Despite speculation that she would cancel the rest of the tour, no formal announcement had been made as of Tuesday. Grande’s manager, Scooter Braun, did not respond to requests for comment by Reuters.

“We mourn the lives of children and loved ones taken by this cowardly act,” Braun said in a statement posted on Twitter on Monday evening. “We ask all of you to hold the victims, heir families and all those affected in your hearts and prayers.”

Grande, a native of Boca Raton, starred in the Broadway musical “13” and on the Nickelodeon TV series “Victorious” before releasing her solo debut album, “Yours Truly.”

Best known for her singles “Problem” and “Break Free,” Grande is credited with having an exceptionally broad vocal range for a pop star.
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Singer Angaleena Presley Brings Her Truth to Nashville

By Uponent | | No Comments | Entertainment

Country singer Angaleena Presley takes on Nashville in her new CD Wrangled.
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Actress-Philanthropist Dina Merrill Dies at 93

By Uponent | | No Comments | Entertainment

American actress and philanthropist Dina Merrill, best known for playing regal aristocratic blondes, has died at 93.

Merrill defied her wealthy family’s wishes to enter show business. Her father was E.F. Hutton, a founder of the American stock brokerage firm that bears his name, and her mother was Marjorie Merriwether Post, heiress to the Post Cereal fortune and a noted collector of pre-revolutionary Russian art.

 

Merrill and her family lived for a time at the Mar-a-Lago estate, the Florida resort now owned by President Donald Trump.

Merrill appeared on the stage, on television and in more than 100 films, including The Desk Set, Operation Petticoat, and Butterfield 8.

She used her family’s fortune for numerous charitable endeavors, including providing food and shelter for impoverished families and a foundation to help children suffering from diabetes.
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South Sudan State Partially Closes Border in Ebola Scare

By Uponsci | | No Comments | Science

State authorities in South Sudan closed part of their border with the Democratic Republic of the Congo last week in an effort to prevent the spread of the deadly Ebola outbreak, declared by the World Health Organization in a remote, northern part of the DRC two weeks ago.

The WHO has confirmed that four people have died from the disease in the DRC. Lino Utu, deputy governor of Tambura state, said the movement of people and goods between the two countries at the border town of Ezo had been restricted until further notice.

“We closed the border temporarily because of Ebola,” Utu said. “We have been told it has been found in DR-Congo. If we leave the border open, it can trickle down to Tambura state.”

He said the area along the border with the DRC had been teeming with activity, “because it is where the people from the Democratic Republic of the Congo bring in their goods, and also the people from Tambura state bring in their goods. It’s a big market.”

Uto said doctors have confirmed that Ebola can be found in bushmeat, so state officials have temporarily banned the sale of all bushmeat in the markets.

“We cannot allow bushmeat to be sold any longer because people can easily contract Ebola from meat,” Utu said.

The minister of health was informed about Tambura’s move to close the border at Ezo on Tuesday.

Utu said international health workers, including those with the WHO, are partnering with local officials to educate the public about how Ebola is spread. “This is awareness that has been going on and on and on,” he added.

Utu is appealing to the WHO to send experts to Tambura to screen people for the deadly virus “and advise us in other areas as far as how Ebola is contracted and how we can prevent the spread of Ebola,” he said, adding, “I really need them to come to us on the ground in Tambura state.”

Authorities in Gbudue state, which also runs along the DRC, have banned the sale of bushmeat in Yambio markets, but have kept border crossing points open. The Gbudue state minister for information, Gibson Bullen Wande, said wildlife officials are creating awareness about the dangers of eating bushmeat. He said state officials and nongovernmental organization health partners have trained and deployed health workers along the border to monitor movement of traders. “We have also left some medical workers along those areas to let them monitor,” he said.

Bullen said as far as he is concerned, it is the responsibility of the national government to decide whether to close the border between the two countries.

On Tuesday, the state director of wildlife went on the air to warn people against eating bushmeat.

“We are going to ban the sale of all bushmeat or any trading of the bushmeat [because] those are the things that people get Ebola from,” Bullen said.
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Youth Robotics Contest Promotes Innovation for Africa Economic Growth

By Uponsil | | No Comments | Silicon Valley

Several hundred middle school and high school students from Senegal and surrounding countries spent last week in Dakar building robots. Organizers of the annual robotics competition say the goal is to encourage African governments and private donors to invest more in science and math education throughout the continent. Ricci Shryock reports for VOA from Senegal’s capital.
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Big adventures in Big Bend National Park

By Uponent | | No Comments | Entertainment

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US Sues Fiat Chrysler Over Emissions Cheating Accusations

By Uponbiz | | No Comments | Business

The U.S. government has filed a civil lawsuit against automaker Fiat Chrysler, saying the company has used illegal software to fake emission results on its diesel vehicles.

The civil complaint filed Tuesday follows initial accusations from the Environmental Protection Agency released in January.

The software reportedly hid emissions of nitrogen oxide, allowing the vehicles to appear to comply with regulations set forth in the Clean Air Act, while still emitting more of the gas than is allowed.

At issue are the 2014 to 2016 models of Grand Cherokees and Dodge Ram 1500 pickup trucks with three-liter diesel engines sold in the United States, around 104,000 vehicles in total, the EPA said.

In 2015, Volkswagen was caught using a similar device to cheat emissions standards. Volkwagen, however, admitted to having cheated, while Fiat Chrysler denies wrongdoing. The VW scandal eventually led to approximately $20 billion worth of fines levied against the company and indictments of seven company executives.

Fiat Chrysler did not immediately comment Tuesday, but its shares fell 2.9 percent.
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Tattoos Talk and Play Music

By Uponsil | | No Comments | Silicon Valley

A tattoo artist in California has created what many of us can’t imagine — a tattoo that also produces sound. Artist Nate Siggard inks audio soundwaves onto the skin that makes it possible to hear music or someone’s voice by using a smartphone app. VOA’s Deborah Block explains how he does it.
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Ethiopian Elected to Head World Health Organization

By Uponsci | | No Comments | Science

Ethiopian official Tedros Adhanom Gheybreysus has been elected director-general of the World Health Organization. Tedros won the post in two rounds of balloting Tuesday, defeating Dr. David Nabarro of Britain and Dr. Sania Nishtar, a Pakistani cardiologist. The vote by 185 member states took place by secret ballot after the candidates made last minute pitches.

The candidates have been campaigning for this fiercely contested post for the past year-and-a-half.  As they approached the final stretch, each in turn presented his or her most persuasive arguments for becoming the new director-general of the World Health Organization.

Tedros, a former Ethiopian health minister, told the assembly that he has dedicated his whole life to improving health, reducing inequalities, and helping people everywhere to lead more productive lives.

He noted that while the WHO has never had a director-general from Africa, no one should elect him just because he’s from Africa.

“But, there is a real value in electing a leader who has worked in one of the toughest health environments and transformed the health system.  I bring a fresh perspective, an angle with which the world has never seen before,” Tedros said.

Others in the running

Not to be outdone, the second candidate, David Nabarro of Britain, put in a vigorous performance.  He touted his long experience in global health and described the work he has done in tackling infectious outbreaks and emergencies, such as the Ebola epidemic in West Africa.  He said he was the best person to lead the fight against newly emerging diseases and ongoing old diseases, including tuberculosis, malaria and AIDS.

“Governments and other investors rightly expect value for money in everything that WHO does.  As director-general, I will make sure that the organization’s goals are results-focused, transparent and measurable.  All staff, myself included, will be held to account for delivering,” said Nabarro.   

 

The third candidate, Pakistani physician Sania Nishtar, said she had a proven record of dealing with hard issues and would make constructive changes to the WHO if elected.

“I promise to run WHO in the same manner in which I ran my campaign – cost-effectively, with full transparency, with a global outlook, with integrity, and respect for all .… I have the ability to accelerate the reforms that you have championed.”  

Ethiopia’s Tedros takes over as new WHO director-general, on July 1.
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Alcohol Increases, Exercise Decreases Breast Cancer Risk

By Uponsci | | No Comments | Science

One of the largest cancer prevention studies of its kind to date reached a sobering conclusion.  Just one alcoholic drink per day can increase the risk of breast cancer in women.  But researchers also concluded there are things women can do to decrease their risk of breast cancer.  

The study by the American Institute for Cancer Research was a review of 119 prior studies involving 12 million women, 260,000 of who had developed breast cancer.  

Lead author Anne McTiernan is a cancer prevention expert at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, Washington.

In 10 of the studies involving 4,000 women of childbearing age who developed breast cancer, McTiernan said investigators uncovered a connection between alcohol consumption and increased risk of breast cancer.

“We found that those women who drank an average of just 10 grams of alcohol a day had a five percent increased risk of breast cancer.  So, five percent is a small amount but it was statistically significant so it gives us more confidence that it’s probably real,” said McTiernan.  She noted, “Ten grams of alcohol is like a small glass of wine.”

In another subset of studies involving 35,000 post-menopausal women who developed breast cancer, McTiernan said alcohol was found to be a greater risk factor.

According to McTiernan, “We found that there was a nine percent increased risk of drinking that same amount of alcohol, drinking 10 grams per day of alcohol.  Again, small glass of wine, eight ounce of beer, one ounce of hard liquor.”

McTiernan said the World Health Organization considers alcohol a carcinogen, or cancer-causing agent.  It contains a metabolite called acetaldehyde that is damaging to DNA, according to McTiernan.

Lowering risk

On the positive side, investigators found that vigorous exercise, such running or bicycling fast, decreased the risk of breast cancer in young women by 17 percent and 10 percent in post-menopausal women.  

Moderate activity, such as walking and gardening frequently, was found to reduce the risk of breast cancer by 13 percent in the most active women compared to the least active.

There was also evidence too that eating a non-starchy, plant-based diet is beneficial.

“That does not mean becoming a vegetarian,” said McTiernan.  “It just means eating a lot of fresh vegetables and fruit.  Making sure most of the vegetables are non-starchy, not potatoes.  Eating dairy products because they are high in calcium and they have some benefit on their own.”

To the extent that being overweight has been found to increase an older woman’s breast cancer risk, McTiernan said eating a diet full of fruits and vegetables can help women keep their weight down.

According to the American Institute for Cancer Research, an organization concerned with cancer prevention, one in three breast cancer cases in the United States could be prevented if women did not drink alcohol, stayed physically active and maintained a healthy weight.

McTiernan said the evidence of “this comprehensive and up-to-date report … is clear: Having a physically active lifestyle, maintaining a healthy weight throughout life and limiting alcohol, these are all steps women can take to lower their risk” of breast cancer.

The American Institute for Cancer Research is part of the World Cancer Research Fund, which collects and analyzes data from around the world on cancer prevention, drawing conclusions on how attention to weight, diet and exercise can reduce the risk of developing cancer. 
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