Month: December 2018

A cleft lip or cleft palate is one of the most common birth defects worldwide. Before birth, babies can have a split, or cleft, in their lip and the roof of the mouth. This split normally closes between the 6th to 11th week of pregnancy. If this doesn’t happen, and the baby is born with this split, doctors can usually fix it. But if the cleft isn’t fixed, the baby can have serious health problems and a shortened life.

In the U.S. and other developed countries, corrective surgery is done when a baby is between three months and 18 months old.  Surgical intervention is less common in less developed nations.

Dr. Albert Oh, a pediatric plastic surgeon, said he performs one or two corrective surgeries a week at Children’s National hospital in Washington.

“We’re one of the busiest centers in the United States, and so my partner and I, we average over a hundred primary cases per year.”

About one out of every 1,500 babies in the U.S. is born with a cleft palate. One out of every 900 babies is born with cleft lip. Babies of African descent have lower odds — one out of every 1,200 births.

Dr. Yang Chai at the University of Southern California said Asians are most at risk.

“If you look at a patient population worldwide, if you are Asian, the prevalence is about 1 out of 700.”

These children are often stigmatized because of the way they look. But complications from a cleft lip and cleft palate go beyond the cosmetic. They impact speech and cause dental problems. A baby with a cleft palate cannot suck and is at risk of being malnourished. Malnutrition, in turn, causes stunted growth.

Dr. Ben Gitterman, a pediatrician who has worked as a volunteer in low-income countries to help these children, said the experience was life-changing.

“Seeing these kids and thinking, ‘What a cute little 3 or 4 year old,’ and finding that 3 or 4 year old was 7, 8 or 9.  And because of the fact that they couldn’t process food, they couldn’t eat well. They had been so stunted … by malnutrition. Not malnutrition from the lack of food in the community, but because they couldn’t feed properly because of the cleft lip and palate situation. These were tiny little kids, and I was in shock.”

Gitterman has volunteered numerous times with Operation Smile, one of the charities that organizes surgical missions to help these children.  In a Skype interview with Dr. Bill Magee, Operation Smile’s founder, Magee said his organization’s mission has expanded in the more than 35 years of its existence.

“Up until about 1999, all of our volunteers pretty much came out of the United States. Today, 70 to 80 percent of our missions are done by local people in their countries that we have trained.”

Charitable organizations perform more than 80 percent of cleft lip and cleft palate surgeries in Vietnam, according to a 2016 study issued by Dr. William Magee III and his colleagues at the University of Southern California. Magee III is the son of the founder of Operation Smile.

The report showed how difficult it is for parents to get the surgery their children need in low and middle income countries. It’s common in these countries for medical care to be paid in advance, which many families cannot afford.  

Operation Smile is working to change that.

“It’s given us this incredible opportunity to understand how the infrastructure of surgery is so important … and how to advance that infrastructure in countries all over the world,” Magee said.

As for what causes this condition, genetic factors account for about 30 percent of cleft conditions. The mother’s health is a contributing factor, but scientists are still searching for other causes with the hope of one day being able to prevent children from being born with cleft lips or palates.
…

From floods to extreme heat, 10 of the worst climate-linked disasters in 2018 caused at least $84.8 billion worth of damage, said a study released by the charity Christian Aid on Thursday.

Extreme weather driven by climate change hit every populated continent this year, the British relief organization said, warning urgent action was needed to combat global warming.

“This report shows that for many people, climate change is having devastating impacts on their lives and livelihoods right now,” said Kat Kramer, who heads Christian Aid’s work on climate issues, in a statement.

Experts say a warming world will lead to sweltering heatwaves, more extreme rainfall, shrinking harvests and worsening water shortages, causing both monetary losses and human misery.

Almost 200 nations are aiming to limit the rise in average world temperatures under the landmark 2015 Paris Agreement, though some warn progress to meet targets has been slow.

The 20 warmest years on record have been within the last 22 years, the United Nations said last month, with 2018 on track to be the fourth hottest.

The most expensive climate-linked weather events of 2018 were Hurricanes Florence and Michael, which caused at least $32 billion worth of damage as they slammed into the United States, the Caribbean and parts of Central America, the report said.

The United States also suffered at least $9 billion of losses from wildfires that caused dozens of deaths and destroyed thousands of homes in California.

Japan was badly hit by severe floods over the summer, followed by the powerful Typhoon Jebi in autumn, which together caused more than $9.3 billion in damages, said the report.

It also cited droughts in Europe, floods in southern India and Typhoon Mangkhut in the Philippines and China among the most expensive climate-linked disasters of 2018.

The report’s authors collated total cost figures using data from sources including governments, banks and insurance firms, though in some cases the figures only covered insured losses and also failed to take account of the human costs of such events.

They added that rising temperatures would continue to drive extreme weather events as they urged action to prevent further global warming which would impact the poorest and most vulnerable communities hardest.

“The impacts of climate change are no longer subtle,” said Michael Mann, professor of Atmospheric Science at Penn State University, in a statement on the study.

“The world’s weather is becoming more extreme before our eyes – the only thing that can stop this destructive trend from escalating is a rapid fall in carbon emissions.”

 
…

The last year was a 12-month champagne toast for the legal marijuana industry as the global market exploded and cannabis pushed its way further into the financial and cultural mainstream.

Liberal California became the largest legal U.S. marketplace, while conservative Utah and Oklahoma embraced medical marijuana. Canada ushered in broad legalization , and Mexico’s Supreme Court set the stage for that country to follow.

U.S. drug regulators approved the first marijuana-based pharmaceutical to treat kids with a form of epilepsy, and billions of investment dollars poured into cannabis companies. Even main street brands like Coca-Cola said they are considering joining the party.

“I have been working on this for decades, and this was the year that the movement crested,” said U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer, an Oregon Democrat working to overturn the federal ban on pot. “It’s clear that this is all coming to a head.”

With buzz building across the globe, the momentum will continue into 2019.

Luxembourg is poised to become the first European country to legalize recreational marijuana, and South Africa is moving in that direction. Thailand legalized medicinal use of marijuana on Tuesday, and other Southeastern Asian countries may follow South Korea’s lead in legalizing cannabidiol, or CBD. It’s a non-psychoactive compound found in marijuana and hemp plants and used for treatment of certain medical problems.

“It’s not just the U.S. now. It’s spreading,” said Ben Curren, CEO of Green Bits, a San Jose, California, company that develops software for marijuana retailers and businesses.

Curren’s firm is one of many that blossomed as the industry grew. He started the company in 2014 with two friends. Now, he has 85 employees, and the company’s software processes $2.5 billion in sales transactions a year for more than 1,000 U.S. retail stores and dispensaries.

Green Bits raised $17 million in April, pulling in money from investment firms including Snoop Dogg’s Casa Verde Capital. Curren hopes to expand internationally by 2020.

“A lot of the problem is keeping up with growth,” he said.

Legal marijuana was a $10.4 billion industry in the U.S. in 2018 with a quarter-million jobs devoted just to the handling of marijuana plants, said Beau Whitney, vice president and senior economist at New Frontier Data, a leading cannabis market research and data analysis firm. There are many other jobs that don’t involve direct work with the plants but they are harder to quantify, Whitney said.

Investors poured $10 billion into cannabis in North America in 2018, twice what was invested in the last three years combined, he said, and the combined North American market is expected to reach more than $16 billion in 2019.

“Investors are getting much savvier when it comes to this space because even just a couple of years ago, you’d throw money at it and hope that something would stick,” he said. “But now investors are much more discerning.”

Increasingly, U.S. lawmakers see that success and want it for their states.

Nearly two-thirds of U.S. states now have legalized some form of medical marijuana.

Voters in November made Michigan the 10th state — and first in the Midwest — to legalize recreational marijuana. Governors in New York and New Jersey are pushing for a similar law in their states next year, and momentum for broad legalization is building in Pennsylvania and Illinois.

“Let’s legalize the adult use of recreational marijuana once and for all,” New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said last week.

State lawmakers in Nebraska just formed a campaign committee to put a medical cannabis initiative to voters in 2020. Nebraska shares a border with Colorado, one of the first two states to legalize recreational marijuana, and Iowa, which recently started a limited medical marijuana program.

“Attitudes have been rapidly evolving and changing. I know that my attitude toward it has also changed,” said Nebraska state Sen. Adam Morfeld, a Democrat. “Seeing the medical benefits and seeing other states implement it … has convinced me that it’s not the dangerous drug it’s made out to be.”

With all its success, the U.S. marijuana industry continues to be undercut by a robust black market and federal law that treats marijuana as a controlled substance like heroin. Financial institutions are skittish about cannabis businesses, even in U.S. states where they are legal, and investors until recently have been reluctant to put their money behind pot.

Marijuana businesses can’t deduct their business expenses on their federal taxes and face huge challenges getting insurance and finding real estate for their brick-and-mortar operations.

“Until you have complete federal legalization, you’re going to be living with that structure,” said Marc Press, a New Jersey attorney who advises cannabis businesses.

At the start of the year, the industry was chilled when then-U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions rescinded a policy shielding state-licensed medical marijuana operators from federal drug prosecutions. Ultimately the move had minimal impact because federal prosecutors showed little interest in going after legal operators.

Sessions, a staunch marijuana opponent, later lost his job while President Donald Trump said he was inclined to support an effort by U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner, a Colorado Republican, to relax the federal prohibition.

In November, Democrats won control of the U.S. House and want to use it next year to pass legislation that eases federal restrictions on the legal marijuana industry without removing it from the controlled substances list.

Gardner and Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren have proposed legislation allowing state-approved commercial cannabis activity under federal law. The bill also would let states and Indian tribes determine how best to regulate marijuana commerce within their boundaries without fear of federal intervention.

If those provisions become law, they could open up banking for the marijuana industry nationwide and make it easier for cannabis companies to secure capital.

Blumenauer’s “blueprint” to legalize marijuana also calls for the federal government to provide medical marijuana for veterans, more equitable taxation for marijuana businesses and rolling back federal prohibitions on marijuana research, among other things.

“We have elected the most pro-cannabis Congress in history and more important, some of the people who were roadblocks to our work … are gone,” Blumenauer said. “If we’re able to jump-start it in the House, I think there will be support in the Senate, particularly if we deal with things that are important, like veterans’ access and banking.”
…

Japan will withdraw from the International Whaling Commission and resume commercial whaling in July. Wednesday’s announcement was met with opposition from animal rights groups, who say that Tokyo is violating international law. Japan says whaling will only be in its own waters and exclusive economic zone. Arash Arabasadi reports.
…

Female circumcision — a practice that opponents call female genital mutilation — has been a coming-of-age ritual among the Maasai tribe of Kenya for generations. But it is becoming less common, in part because of one man who is trying to persuade tribe members to abandon the practice. Douglas Meritei began his campaign about 10 years ago. He spoke to Rael Ombuor, who reports for VOA from the Kimana settlement in southern Kenya.
…

Although space travel exposes astronauts to forms of radiation that are uncommon on Earth, and that are linked to cancers and heart problems, a U.S. study suggests this doesn’t significantly shorten their lives.

Researchers compared nearly 60 years of data on U.S. male astronauts and a group of men who are similarly extra-fit, affluent and receive elite health care: pro athletes. They found that neither group has higher rates than the other of death overall or of early deaths. Both groups do tend to outlast the 

rest of us, however. 

Astronauts are generally well-educated, more affluent and more physically fit than the typical American, and some previous research has linked this career to a lower risk of premature death, the study team notes in Occupational & Environmental Medicine. 

But much of the previous research on mortality rates in astronauts hasn’t accounted for the mental and physical demands of this career, or the so-called “healthy worker effect” that leads people with employment of any kind to typically have fewer medical issues than individuals who are unable to work, said study co-author Robert Reynolds of Mortality Research & 

Consulting Inc. in City of Industry, Calif. 

Comparable group needed

“The challenge has always been to understand if astronauts are as healthy as they would be had they been otherwise comparably employed but had never gone to space at all,” Reynolds said by email. “To do this, we needed to find a group that is comparable on several important factors, but has never 

been to space.” 

The researchers compared mortality rates for male U.S. astronauts to those of professional athletes from Major League Baseball and the National Basketball Association between 1960 and mid-2018.

Both athletes and astronauts had a lower risk of premature death than the general population, the study found. And there was no meaningful mortality difference between NBA and MLB players.

Astronauts were more likely to die of accidents and other external causes, and less likely to die from heart disease and all other natural causes, the study also found. 

“We cannot be sure from the data we have, but we speculate that cardiovascular fitness in particular is the most important factor in astronaut longevity,” Reynolds said. 

The results suggest that radiation exposure in space might not lead to a premature death for astronauts due to heart problems or certain cancers, the study authors conclude. In fact, astronauts had a lower rate of death from heart disease than the NBA and MLB players, and had cancer mortality similar to the athletes’ rates.

The study wasn’t designed to prove whether or how space travel may directly impact human health. It also didn’t examine mortality among female astronauts or athletes. 

Lower radiation exposure

Radiation exposure may also have been much lower during early missions to the moon and not reflect what would happen with the current generation of astronauts, said Francis Cucinotta, a researcher at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas, who wasn’t involved in the study.

“The missions in the past were low dose, while in the future the dose would be 50 to 100 times higher for a Mars mission,” Cucinotta said by email.

Astronauts have typically never smoked, leading to a lower risk of heart disease than the general population, Cucinotta added. 

Diet and exercise also set astronauts and professional athletes apart from the rest of the population, said Michael Delp, a researcher at Florida State University in Tallahassee who wasn’t involved in the study.

“When physical fitness is a requisite part of a job, such as with astronauts and professional athletes, this is a major determinant of the healthy worker effect,” Delp said by email. 

Even for the rest of us, “remaining or becoming physically active and maintaining a well-balanced diet greatly improves overall health and well-being, and can enhance successful aging,” Delp said.
…