Month: December 2017

The United Nations is calling on all parties in the Afghan conflict to facilitate health workers in conducting Monday’s urgent polio vaccination campaign in a volatile southern district with the highest number of polio virus cases of any district in the world.

U.N. Humanitarian Coordinator Toby Lanzer warned Sunday the situation in Shahwalikot district in Kandahar province puts hundreds of thousands of children at risk. He said a polio vaccination campaign throughout the district is more urgent than ever

Afghan officials last week reported a new case of wild polio virus, raising the number of cases in Kandahar to five and the nationwide total to 12 in 2017.

Afghan authorities with support from UNICEF and WHO are to vaccinate thousands of children in Shahwalikot starting Monday.

“The outbreak of polio in Shahwalikot means that Afghanistan remains one of only three countries in the world that is still polio-endemic and polio eradication is at risk globally,” Lanzer noted.

“I call on the authorities and all people with influence, including the leaders of the communities in Shahwalikot, to ensure that this polio vaccination campaign takes place by helping health workers, facilitating their task and protecting them and their supplies so that all children are protected against polio.”

Shahwalikot has been the scene of deadly clashes between Afghan security forces and Taliban insurgents. Southern Afghan provinces, including Kandahar, have been hub of insurgent activities.

Lanzer said that International humanitarian law stipulates clear responsibilities for all warring sides to facilitate the anti-polio drive.

“Together, with the support of all actors on the ground, we can help Afghans rid themselves once and for all of this terrible disease,” emphasized the U.N. Humanitarian Coordinator.

Afghanistan and Pakistan officially are now the only two nations across the globe to have reported wild polio virus cases so far this year, though the numbers of cases have dipped to historic lows. Pakistani authorities have reported six cases so far in 2017.

Nigeria is the third country in the world with ongoing wild polio-virus transmission, but so far this year no new cases have been reported.

 
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Controversy is swirling around the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World.  This new non-profit organization has come under intense criticism from health agencies and anti-tobacco campaigners who accuse it of acting as a smoke-screen for Big Tobacco, a charge vigorously denied by the foundation’s president.  

Derek Yach, who created and heads the foundation, was one of the architects of the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, which came into force February 27, 2005.   

He said he believes the provisions of the Convention were still valid and have been largely successful in preventing people from smoking and “in slowing the increase in kids through higher taxes, marketing and so on.”  

But, he told VOA that the Convention focuses little attention on trying to get the billion current smokers in the world to quit the habit.

“To actually accelerate the decline in the billion smokers, we need to have better cessation, harm reduction and better product regulation,” he said.  “And, I think those elements, I do not think have got the energy that we actually require.”

Yach said more than seven million people globally die prematurely each year from tobacco.  He said his foundation’s mission was to wean these smokers away from their deadly addiction by using new harm reduction tools such as e-cigarettes and vaping.

“If these products have an impact,” he said, “we need to have independent research to show that they should be given more support.  

“So, our work will not be to simply push them out, but to do high quality research to look at the negative and positive sides.”

Philip Morris is a producer of an e-cigarette-type product and is pushing hard into the vaping market.

The foundation is being subsidized by a $1 billion grant from tobacco giant Philip Morris, to be paid in $80 million yearly increments over the next 12 years.  This eye-popping amount of money makes people like Vince Willmore, Vice-President of Communications at the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids, cringe.

He told VOA that the alliance between the foundation and Philip Morris has no credibility.

“This foundation is really a smoke-screen designed to promote Philip Morris’ business interests and undermine real efforts to reduce the death and disease caused by tobacco use around the world.  

“It is hard to take Philip Morris seriously that they want a smoke-free world when they are marketing cigarettes as aggressively as ever and they are fighting real solutions to reduce smoking.”

If Philip Morris really was serious about bringing smoking rates down, he said, it would embrace proven solutions, such as higher tobacco taxes, smoke-free policies, advertising bans and graphic health warnings on cigarette packages.

He said that “The actions of Philip Morris show that they are the main cause of the problem and not part of the solution”

Yach assured VOA that he had not “gone over to the dark side.”

He suggested that some people “could never understand that profitability and public health can actually work together.”

He said his relationship with Philip Morris was not based on trust.  “I am not naïve enough to believe that Philip Morris is doing this because of the warm fuzzy feeling that they want to lower the death rates.

“No.  What they want to do is have a product that is less risky and that makes them profits.  That is the beginning and end of it.”

Yach recognizes that many of his former colleagues at the World Health Organization disagree with his approach.  He said he shared their passion to rid the world of tobacco products entirely, but “with one billion lives hanging in the balance, we urgently must do more to cut the adult smoking rate,” he said.  “Too much is at stake.”

WHO would not comment for this article.  However, it did issue the following statement, which calls into question the tobacco harm reduction work of the foundation.

“The tobacco industry and its front groups have misled the public about risks associated with other tobacco products.  This includes promoting so-called light and mild tobacco products as an alternative to quitting, while being fully aware that those products were not less harmful to health.”

WHO noted the many “conflicts of interest” involved in the foundation’s alliance with a tobacco company “funding a purported health foundation.”

It stated that “WHO will not partner with the foundation. Governments should not partner with the foundation and the public health community should follow this lead.”

Foundation Chief Derek Yach told VOA that stringent safeguards were in place and that he had set up a legal firewall to insulate the foundation from the influence of the tobacco company.

“These are legally binding agreements under U.S. laws,” he said.  “If they are found to be inappropriately influencing, adversely influencing, we would lose our tax exempt status and under the law the foundation would be closed.”

Despite his many protestations, Yach acknowledged that he had a tough time dealing with his tobacco business partner.

“When I go into meetings with Philip Morris, I feel I have to hold my nose and that is something I suspect will continue for a long time,” he said.

 
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A trio of U.S. and Japanese astronauts and a Russian cosmonaut blasted off from Kazakhstan on Sunday for a two-day trip to the International Space Station, a NASA TV broadcast showed.

Commander Anton Shkaplerov of Roscosmos and flight engineers Norishige Kanai of Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and Scott Tingle of NASA lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome at 1:21 p.m. local time (0721 GMT/0221 EST).

The crew will gradually approach the station, which orbits about 250 miles (400 kilometers) above Earth, for two days before docking.

Shkaplerov, Kanai and Tingle will join Alexander Misurkin of Roscosmos and Mark Vande Hei and Joe Acaba of NASA, who have been aboard the orbital outpost since September.

Onboard cameras showed crew members making thumbs-up gestures after the liftoff. Also visible was a stuffed dog toy chosen by Shkaplerov’s daughter to be the spacecraft’s zero-gravity indicator.

Soyuz was safely in orbit about 10 minutes after the launch.
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Asbestos is a fibrous mineral that is incredibly useful, but it also causes lung cancer after long-term exposure. Fifty-five countries around the world have banned the use of asbestos, but not the United States, China, Russia or India. Indonesia has not banned asbestos either, but a recent court case suggests that its days there may be numbered. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
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As climate change and rising seas threaten the world’s coastal cities, experts say natural systems can offer protection. VOA’s Steve Baragona reports from Florida, where mangroves may help shield shorelines.
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The Pentagon acknowledged Saturday that its long-secret UFO investigation program ended in 2012, when U.S. defense officials shifted attention and funding to other priorities.

But whether the Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program has continued to investigate UFO sightings since its funding ended five years ago could rank as an unexplained phenomenon.

The New York Times reported Saturday that the hush-hush program, tasked with investigating sightings of unidentified flying objects, ran from 2007 to 2012 with $22 million in annual funding secretly tucked away in U.S. Defense Department budgets worth hundreds of billions of dollars.

Its initial funding came largely at the request of former Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid, the Nevada Democrat long known for his enthusiasm for space phenomena, the newspaper said.

Yet according to its backers, the program remains in existence and officials continue to investigate UFO episodes brought to their attention by service members, the newspaper said.

Other issues pursued

The Pentagon openly acknowledged the fate of the program in response to a Reuters query.

“The Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program ended in the 2012 time frame,” Pentagon spokeswoman Laura Ochoa said in an email.

“It was determined that there were other, higher priority issues that merited funding and it was in the best interest of the DoD to make a change,” Ochoa said.

But the Pentagon was less clear about whether the UFO program continues to hover somewhere in the vast universe of the U.S. defense establishment.

“The DoD takes seriously all threats and potential threats to our people, our assets, and our mission and takes action whenever credible information is developed,” Ochoa said.

What is less in doubt is Reid’s enthusiasm for UFOs and his likely role in launching the Pentagon initiative to identify advanced aviation threats.

“If you’ve talked to Harry Reid for 60 seconds then it’s the least surprising thing ever that he loves UFOs and got an earmark to study them,” former Reid spokeswoman Kristen Orthman said in a message on Twitter.

Or as Reid himself said in a tweet that linked to the Times’ story: “The truth is out there. Seriously.” 
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The U.S. Centers for Disease Control is reportedly banning a list of seven words or phrases in official documents, sparking a flood of reaction on social media platforms.

Policy analysts at the CDC, based in Atlanta, Georgia, were told about the list of prohibited words at a meeting Thursday with senior CDC officials, according to an unnamed analyst who attended the meeting as reported by The Washington Post newspaper.

The banned words are “diversity,” “entitlement,” “evidence-based,” “fetus,” “science-based,” “transgender,” and “vulnerable.”

The meeting was led by Alison Kelly, a top official in the CDC’s Office of Financial Services, according to the analyst who the Post said remained anonymous because the person was not authorized to speak publicly about agency affairs. The analyst said Kelly did not explain why the words were being forbidden.

The Planned Parenthood Federation of America, a non-profit group that provides reproductive health care, said on Twitter the action sends strong messages about the administration of President Donald Trump.

“It’s clearer than ever: this administration has disdained women’s health, LGBTQ people, and science since day one.”

David Reiss, an internationally recognized psychiatrist, tweeted that the administration’s decision is counterproductive and outside the boundaries of traditional Washington politics.

“This is an attack on reality. Censoring names, Trump attempts to disappear knowledge, people & rational discourse. This is not politics or partisan but a takeover of society by authoritarian kleptocrats. Resist or Collaborate. No other options.”

Legal Lambda is a legal organization that advocates on behalf of bisexuals, gay men, lesbians, transgender people and people who have contracted HIV. The group responded on Twitter with disbelief.

“Unbelievable. You cannot erase us, @realDonaldTrump…”

Many of the responses on Twitter were triggered by comments from Democratic Congressman Ted Lieu, who blasted the Trump administration for reportedly banning the words.

“The @realDonaldTrump Administration is making America stupid again. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention banned from using “science-based” and “evidence-based” terms. Are we now going to use Voodoo & leeches to treat diseases?…”

Other officials with the nation’s top public health agency confirmed the existence of the list of banned words, the Post reported. The newspaper added the words will be prohibited from inclusion in any official CDC documents being prepared for the 2019 budget.

Unprecedented

The analyst, described by the Post as a “longtime CDC analyst” who helps write descriptions of the agency’s work for the administration’s annual budget proposal, could not remember past incidents of words being banned from budget documents because they were deemed controversial.   

“In my experience, we’ve never had any pushback from an ideological standpoint,” the analyst told the Post.

Others in the meeting reacted with disbelief, the analyst said.

The Trump administration has grappled with how to address issues such as abortion rights, gender identity and sexual orientation. Several federal agencies have altered some federal policies and how they gather information about bisexual, gay, lesbian and transgender citizens.

The Department of Health and Human Services has eliminated questions about gender identity and sexual orientation in two surveys of older people. The agency has also deleted information about LGBT people from its website.

On many occasions, the Trump administration has dismissed science-based findings in favor of opinion – particularly regarding climate change. Trump has not said if he believes in climate science and numerous members of his administration have denied facets of scientific findings related to climate change.

The Environmental Protection Agency has eliminated references to climate change on its website and has prohibited its scientists from presenting scientific reports on the topic.

The Office of Management and Budget, which produces the president’s budget and monitors federal agencies for compliance with the president’s policies, has not responded to requests for comment, nor has the CDC, the Post reported.

 
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