About 20 million years before the massive Tyrannosaurus Rex roamed the earth, a distant cousin was hunting in the prehistoric jungle. But this T-Rex was very different from the famous version of the giant predator. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
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More U.S. adults are dying from heart failure today than a decade ago, and the sharpest rise in mortality is happening among middle-aged and younger adults, a new study suggests.

Researchers examined data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on deaths from heart failure between 1999 and 2017 among adults 35 to 84 years old.

Between 1999 and 2012, annual heart failure death rates dropped from 78.7 per 100,000 people to 53.7 per 100,000, the researchers found. But then mortality rates started to climb, reaching 59.3 fatalities for every 100,000 people by the end of the study period.

“Up until 2012, we saw decline in cardiovascular deaths in patients with heart failure and this was likely due to advances in medical and surgical treatments for heart failure,” said senior study author Dr. Sadiya Khan of Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago.

“However, this study demonstrates for the first time that the cardiovascular death rate is now increasing in patients with heart failure and this increase is especially concerning for premature death in people under 65,” Khan said by email.

​Heart failure by the numbers

About 5.7 million American adults have heart failure, according to the CDC, and about half of the people who develop this condition die within five years of diagnosis. Heart failure happens when the heart can’t pump enough blood and oxygen to supply vital organs.

In the study, African Americans were more likely to die of heart failure than whites, and this disparity was especially pronounced among younger adults, researchers report in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

Compared to white men, black men had a 1.16-fold higher risk of death from heart failure in 1999 but a 1.43-fold higher mortality risk by 2017, the study found.

And, compared to white women, black women started out with a 1.35-fold higher risk of death from heart failure and had a 1.54-fold greater risk by the end of the study period.

When researchers looked just at adults 35 to 64 years old, the racial disparity was even starker: by 2017 black men had a 2.60-fold higher risk of death from heart failure and black women had a 2.97 fold higher risk of death.

“More than 50 percent of black adults have hypertension and have high rates of obesity and diabetes, and this may explain a portion of the disparities in heart failure mortality,” Khan said.

Risk factors, access to care

“Beyond differences in risk factor prevalence, disparities in access to care unfortunately contribute to both inadequate prevention and diagnosis,” Khan added. “We need to do better in terms of access to care for all Americans.”

The study used data from the CDC that includes the underlying and contributing cause of death from all death certificates in the U.S. between 1999 to 2017, for a total of more than 47.7 million people.

The study wasn’t designed to determine what might be causing the rise in heart failure deaths.

“Some have speculated this mortality increase has to do with increased prevalence of heart failure risk factors of diabetes and obesity,” said Dr. Gregg Fonarow, a cardiologist and researcher at the University of California, Los Angeles, who wasn’t involved in the study.

However, it’s also possible that a recent shift in Medicare payment rules designed to curb repeat hospitalizations may have “also contributed to the increases in mortality by restricting necessary care, particularly in the most vulnerable heart failure patients,” Fonarow said by email.

While black men are more likely to develop heart failure at younger ages, and less likely to receive recommended treatments, they’re also more likely to be treated at hospitals that are disproportionately impacted by Medicare efforts to curb repeat hospitalizations, or readmissions, Fonarow said.

“Heart failure is preventable and treatable,” Fonarow said. “There is an urgent need … to eliminate the healthcare policy that has been associated with the increase in heart failure deaths.”
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Scientists say you may go your entire life without seeing an endangered species, yet the globe’s biodiversity crisis threatens all of humanity in unseen ways.

A massive United Nations report Monday said that nature is in trouble and that 1 million species are threatened with extinction if nothing is done about it.

The report says nature is essential for human existence.

It spells out 18 ways nature helps keep people alive. Those include food, energy, medicine, water, protection from storms and floods, and slowing climate change. The report said 14 of those are on long-term declining trends.

Duke University ecologist Stuart Pimm says if you destroy nature it bites you.
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The long awaited UN report on Biodiversity has been released – and as we reported last week, the extensive study shows how human activity is threatening the mass extinction of one million of the world’s plant, insect and animal species. However, the report also suggests we can fix the problem. VOA’s Kevin Enochs has more.
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Giving local communities the responsibility to manage forests — which are shrinking worldwide — could help ease poverty and deforestation, scientists said Monday in what they described as one of the largest studies of its kind.

Researchers examined more than 18,000 community-led forest initiatives in Nepal, using satellite images and census data from the South Asian country, where more than a third of forests are managed by a quarter of the population.

Giving Nepalese communities the chance to look after their own forests led to a 37 percent drop in deforestation and a 4.3 percent decline in poverty levels between 2000 and 2012, they said in a paper published by the journal Nature Sustainability.

“Community forest management has achieved a clear win-win for people and the environment across an entire country,” said lead author Johan Oldekop, an environment lecturer at Britain’s University of Manchester.

Deforestation is the second-leading cause of climate change after fossil fuels, accounting for almost a fifth of planet-warming emissions, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization said in a 2018 report.

Trees soak up carbon dioxide from the air as they grow, and release back stored carbon when they burn or rot.

Cutting down forests can also harm livelihoods and cause tensions, as people compete for fewer resources.

“Nepal proves that with secure rights to land, local communities can conserve resources and prevent environmental degradation,” Oldekop said in a statement.

Worldwide numbers

Yet indigenous peoples and local communities legally own only about 15 percent of forests worldwide, according to a 2018 analysis by the Rights and Resources Initiative, a global land rights coalition.

The world lost 12 million hectares (30 million acres) of tropical tree cover in 2018 — the equivalent of 30 football pitches a minute, said an April report by Global Forest Watch, run by the U.S.-based World Resources Institute.

The researchers who studied Nepal said other countries should try to follow its example by allowing local communities to manage forests as a way to cut emissions, while lifting people out of poverty.

The study said Mexico, Madagascar and Tanzania had similar community-led forest initiatives.

“Identifying a mechanism — community forestry — that can credibly reduce carbon emissions at the same time as improving wellbeing of the poor is an important step forward in global efforts to combat climate change and protect the vulnerable,” said co-author Arun Agrawal from the University of Michigan.
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Young activists pressuring U.S. lawmakers to aggressively tackle climate change and reject fossil fuel company donations got their first major financial boost Monday from a foundation that wants to “amplify” the Green New Deal movement ahead of the 2020 presidential election.

The Wallace Global Fund, a nonprofit that supports social movements, has given the Sunrise Movement $250,000 and committed $750,000 in grants in 2019 to Sunrise partner groups to advance the goals of the Green New Deal, a congressional resolution introduced this year by progressive Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Ed Markey that has reignited the U.S. debate around climate change.

The Sunrise Movement, formed in 2017, has been at the forefront of the Green New Deal movement, which calls for a 10-year, government-driven mobilization to decarbonize the economy through investments in clean energy, buildings and transportation, as well as job-retraining and social and economic justice programs.

It has become a political target of President Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress who call the plan socialist and radical.

“They have a smart strategy around building power with the audacity of their vision,” said Ellen Dorsey, executive director of the fund. “Critics belittle them and question their authenticity but they are brave and are doubling down.”

The WGF said it is one of the few funders to publicly back groups advocating for the Green New Deal and is working to rally others to support the youth-led activism that is putting lawmakers on notice globally.

While the Sunrise Movement has been central in putting the Green New Deal in the national spotlight, young people in Europe have staged school strikes and launched civil disobedience campaigns to demand action on climate change.

Dorsey said the Green New Deal follows in the footsteps of the New Deal, a sweeping public works and financial reform program created by President Franklin Roosevelt to lift the United States out of the Great Depression in the 1930s. Wallace Global Fund namesake Henry Wallace was Roosevelt’s vice president.

Growing the Sunrise Movement 

The Sunrise Movement first made waves after the 2018 midterm elections by holding a sit-in with Ocasio-Cortez outside the office of incoming Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, demanding that Congress adopt a Green New Deal.

Since then its activists have been a presence on the presidential campaign trail.

“A large part of our strategy is to make sure that every candidate hears us wherever they go,” said Varshini Prakash, president of the Sunrise Movement.

More than half of the crowded field of Democratic contenders, including Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Beto O’Rourke, Cory Booker, Jay Inslee and Pete Buttigieg said they back the resolution.

Prakash said the group will use the funds to train activists around the country and partner with environmental justice, Native American and other groups.

She said the group has already been effective in pressuring candidates to change their positions. Last week former Texas congressman O’Rourke announced he will no longer accept donations from fossil fuel companies or executives after months of pressure from Sunrise activists.

The group’s next target is likely to be former Vice President Joe Biden, who entered the presidential race in late April. Prakash said Biden has only mentioned Obama-era measures like entering the Paris Climate Agreement as climate change solutions.

“We are ready and willing to call out the insufficiency of policies like that,” she said. “We deserve a leader who understands the urgency of climate change.”
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Teenagers in the U.S. coastal state of North Carolina who were schooled in the basics of man-made climate change saw their parents grow more concerned about the issue, scientists said on Monday in the first study of its kind.

The results suggested nationwide protests by young people urging action to tackle global warming could influence the views of adults at home, researchers told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Danielle Lawson, lead author of the study published by the journal Nature Climate Change and a researcher at North Carolina State University, said the findings could “empower” ongoing efforts by students, such as the “Fridays for Future” marches.

That movement has seen school children around the world walk out of classes on Fridays, including in the United States, in protest at government inaction on climate change.

In the study, parents whose middle school-age children followed a curriculum that included learning about climate change increased their own level of concern by nearly 23 percent on average, the researchers found.

For conservative parents, the rise was significantly higher, averaging 28 percent.

The two-year experiment, involving about 240 students and nearly 300 parents, was the first to demonstrate that climate change education for children promotes parental concern, a North Carolina State University statement said.

But the results could only be generalized to North Carolina coastal counties, where the experiment took place, said Lawson.

In the research, teachers gave some students lessons on climate change, including classroom activities like mapping data and field trips to places experiencing degradation linked to global warming.

Another group did not follow that curriculum.

Parents of both groups shared their level of preoccupation about global warming in surveys administered before and after the experiment.

Brett Levy, an assistant professor of education at the New York-based University at Albany who was not involved in the study, said the results potentially spoke to dynamics at play as students skipped school to demand climate action.

“Sometimes people who participate in protests learn about the issues involved,” he said. “This study suggests that young people involved in these climate demonstrations could influence the views of their parents.”

Currently, 37 of 50 U.S. states, plus Washington D.C., have adopted science education guidelines that include learning about climate change as a result of human activity, said Glenn Branch, deputy director of the National Center for Science Education.

Thirteen states do not mention climate change as man-made, describe it only as a possibility, or misrepresent the scientific consensus about the phenomenon, he added.
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The active ingredients of commonly-used sunscreens end up in the bloodstream at much higher levels than current U.S. guidelines from health regulators and warrant further safety studies, according to a small study conducted by U.S. Food and Drug Administration researchers and published on Monday.

The over-the-counter products originally marketed to prevent sunburn with little regulation are widely used to block radiation from the sun that can cause skin cancer, the most common malignancy in the United States.

The study of 23 volunteers tested four sunscreens, including sprays, lotion and cream, applied to 75 percent of the body four times a day over four days, with blood tests to determine the maximum levels of certain chemicals absorbed into the bloodstream conducted over seven days.

The study found maximum plasma levels of the chemicals it tested for — avobenzone, oxybenzone, octocrylene and in one sunscreen ecamsule — to be well above the level of 0.5 nanograms per milliliter (ng/mL) at which FDA guidelines call for further safety testing.

For example, the maximum concentration of avobenzone was found to be 4 ng/mL and 3.4 ng/mL for two different sprays, 4.3 ng/mL for a lotion and 1.8 ng/mL for the cream.

Researchers did not name the products used in the study.

The effects of plasma concentrations exceeding the FDA’s limit is not known and needs to be further studied, the research team wrote in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).

The results in no way suggest that people should stop using sunscreen to protect against the sun’s harmful ultraviolet (UV) rays, researchers said.

“The demonstration of systemic absorption well above the FDA guideline does not mean these ingredients are unsafe,” Dr. Robert Califf and Dr. Kanade Shinkai said in an editorial that accompanied the study in JAMA.

“The study findings raise many important questions about sunscreen and the process by which the sunscreen industry, clinicians, specialty organizations, and regulatory agencies evaluate the benefits and risks of this topical OTC medication,” they added.

David Andrews, a senior scientist at the nonprofit health and environmental advocacy group Environmental Working Group, called for thorough testing of sunscreen ingredients.

“For years the sunscreen chemical manufactures have resisted common sense safety testing for their ingredients and now FDA is proposing that these common ingredients must undergo additional testing to stay on the market,” Andrews said.

However, the Personal Care Products Council trade association pointed out limitations of the study and expressed concern that it may confuse consumers.

Sunscreens in the study were used at “twice the amount that would be applied in what the scientific community considers real-world conditions,” said Alexandra Kowcz, the group’s chief scientist.
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Scientists have identified an early cousin of the Tyrannosaurus Rex, a pipsqueak that only reached the 3-foot height of a toddler.

The new dinosaur, found in New Mexico, is called Suskityrannus hazelae (SUE-ski-tie-ran-us HAY-zel-a), a name that uses a Native American word for coyote.

Sterling Nesbitt, a paleontologist at Virginia Tech, said this dinosaur lived about 92 million years ago — millions of years before T. rex. It weighed up to 90 pounds, almost nothing compared to the nine-ton king of the dinosaurs.

Suskityrannus hazalae isn’t the first or even smallest of the Tyrannosaurus family tree, but it provides the best example of how this family of modest-sized dinosaurs evolved into the towering horror of movies and nightmares.

The findings were announced Monday in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution.
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Scientists gathering in Paris are issuing a dramatic warning of the effects that human activity is having on the world’s biodiversity — saying species are being wiped out at an unprecedented rate. Their 1,800-page report was released Monday at a meeting of experts and officials from 132 nations at the 7th session of the Intergovernmental Science and Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services.

The situation, as scientists describe it,  is serious. In a statement, IPBES estimates that “about one million animal and plant species are now threatened with extinction over the next few decades, something that has never happened before in human history. Nature is globally declining at an unprecedented rate in human history,” warns the scientists’ report.

The scenario they describe is frightening because all depend on the same ecosystem, without exception. Biodiversity is the diversity of the eight million animal and plant species on Earth. The current rate of their extinction, scientists say, is higher than the average of the last 10 million years.

“On average, about a quarter of all species, across many groups, are threatened with high risk of extinction,” said Thomas Brooks, the International Union For Conservation of Nature’s chief scientist.

This IPBES gathering is the first of several events to put the ecosystem at the center of discussions. Next deadline: the G-7 at the end of August in Biarritz, chaired by France, which wants to put biodiversity on the agenda.
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Hippos are helping to rejuvenate African rivers and lakes. Scientists say the animal’s nutrient-rich dung makes them vital to the health of the aquatic ecosystem. But the researchers also warn that the dwindling hippo population could prove harmful to those waterways. VOAs Deborah Block takes us to Kenya where the scientists did their latest research.
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Childhood asthma is the most common serious chronic disease among children according to the World Health Organization. A new report says traffic pollution is a major cause of the disease. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
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The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) says the outbreak of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo is “worsening” and has killed more than 1,000 people.

IFRC said Saturday that in the past week, 23 cases were reported in one day, a record number since the start of the outbreak in 2018.

The DRC health ministry said Friday the Ebola death toll has risen to 1,008.

Violence helps cases spike

Violence has complicated efforts to contain the second most deadly Ebola virus outbreak in history, as the number of new cases increases each time treatment and prevention work is disrupted.

Many people are afraid to go to Ebola treatment centers because of the violence. They may instead choose to stay home where they run the risk of infecting their caretakers and neighbors.

“We are at a critical juncture where we need to step up our support to communities that are facing greater risk of infection, yet Ebola responders face massive security challenges and a lack of resources for the response,” said Nicole Fassina, IFRC Ebola Virus Disease Coordinator. “An under-resourced operation creates a very real risk of an international spread of Ebola,” she added.

“We are dealing with a difficult and volatile situation,” said Michael Ryan, the World Health Organization’s executive director of emergencies program. “We are anticipating a scenario of continued, intense transmission.”

Insecurity has become a “major impediment,” Ryan said.

The most deadly Ebola outbreak occurred in West Africa in 2014. More than 11,000 people had been killed by 2016.
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Scientists are conducting a large-scale, underwater experiment in the North Sea, testing for carbon dioxide leaks in what they say is world first. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports the researchers are testing a plan to pump some of the world’s excess carbon into depleted underwater wells.
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Guatemala’s subsistence farmers and indigenous people living in poor rural 

communities are most affected by rising temperatures and unpredictable rainfall linked to climate change, a leading researcher said Friday.

Poverty makes the Central American country highly vulnerable to the impact of global warming that damages harvests and causes food shortages, said Edwin Castellanos, lead author of a report by the Guatemalan System of Climate Change Sciences (SGCCC). 

Guatemala could see a rise of 3 to 6 degrees Celsius by 2100 and a drop of 10 to 30 percent in rainfall if countries such as China, India and the United States do not cut greenhouse gas emissions, according to the SGCCC. 

Nearly 200 countries agreed in 2015 to curbing greenhouse emissions enough to keep the global hike in temperatures “well below” 2 C above pre-industrial times while pursuing a tougher 1.5 C ceiling. 

Carbon dioxide and methane are the main greenhouse gases that trap heat and contribute to climate change. 

“Guatemala is very vulnerable due to its high levels of poverty,” said Castellanos, who is dean of the Research Institute at Guatemala’s Valle University and a leading expert in climate change in Central America. 

“Changes in weather exacerbate and worsen the situation, especially among the poorest populations,” he said. 

Chronic malnutrition

Seven in every 10 farming families live in poverty, and nearly half of all children under age 5 have chronic malnutrition, according to a report this week by the SGCCC, a group of universities, researchers and government agencies. 

About half of Guatemala’s population of 17 million is indigenous, many of them subsistence bean and maize farmers. 

“It will depend a lot on what developed countries do to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions,” Castellanos told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. 

Rainfall in Guatemala is becoming more unpredictable, resulting in crop losses, he said. 

“The rainy season is starting later,” he said. “When it does start to rain, the rains are very intense.” 

Guatemala is located in a wet, tropical area but poor management has caused major water shortages in many areas, he said. 

Also, over the past four decades, the average temperature in Guatemala has risen already by at least 1 degree Celsius, according to the SGCCC. 

In 2013, Guatemala passed a law requiring all government agencies to draw up plans to combat climate change, but it lacks the resources and funding to effect major change, he said. 

Guatemala’s agriculture ministry has started helping small farmers set up irrigation systems to cope with drought, but only about a thousand irrigation systems are being built a year when millions of families are in need, he said.
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Democratic presidential hopeful Jay Inslee, as part of his pledge to make combating climate change the top national priority, is calling for the nation’s entire electrical grid and all new vehicles and buildings to be carbon pollution free by 2030. 

 

It’s the first major policy proposal from the Washington governor as he tries to gain a foothold in a field of more than 20 candidates. 

 

The plan, the first piece of a series of climate action proposals from Inslee, would represent a national shift from coal-powered plants and traditional fuel engines in vehicles, while requiring an overhaul in the way most buildings are heated and cooled. Inslee’s outline would require legislation and executive action, some of it similar to what Inslee has pushed during his six-plus years as governor, but on a scale not seen at the federal level. 

 

Inslee, who announced his campaign in March, has not yet attached a public or private cost estimate for a wide-ranging approach that would involve some direct federal spending, tax subsidies, and outlays by utilities and the private sector. He argues that doing nothing would cost more and that investments in clean energy will create millions of jobs to spur the economy, with that developing market and targeted government programs ensuring a stable transition for existing coal workers. 

​Worthy of “can-do nation”

 

This is the approach that is worthy of the ambitions of a can-do nation and answers the absolute necessity of action that is defined by science,'' Inslee told The Associated Press, adding that President Donald Trump's denial of climate change willdoom us” to a stagnant or declining economy repeatedly hammered with natural disasters. 

 

“We are already paying through the nose” through increased insurance rates and federal disaster declarations, he said. ”And there’s a heckuva lot more jobs defeating climate change than there are in denying it.” 

 

Trump has called climate change a Chinese hoax,'' and he used a cold snap that hit much of the nation in January to again cast doubts, tweeting,People can’t last outside even for minutes. What the hell is going on with Global Waming (sic)? Please come back fast, we need you!” But the Pentagon and the Republican president’s intelligence team have mentioned climate change as a national security threat. 

 

Inslee pitched his proposal Friday in Los Angeles at the city’s new clean-energy bus depot. 

 

He emphasizes that many U.S. cities and states already have set ambitious timelines for carbon emissions reductions but that there must be national action. Washington state this spring passed a law requiring that all power produced in the state be zero-emission by 2045; California, Hawaii, New Mexico and Puerto Rico have adopted similar requirements. 

 

Inslee’s appearance with Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, who considered a presidential bid, came days after former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke, who’s also running for president, went to Yosemite National Park to announce his own climate action plan that he says would require $5 trillion of public and private spending to put the economy on track to be carbon neutral by 2050. 

​Longtime advocate

 

Climate change has garnered more attention in the early months of the 2020 nominating fight than it did four years ago, but Inslee noted that he’s still the lone major candidate making climate action the centerpiece of a campaign, and he touted his decades of climate advocacy as a member of Congress and as governor. 

 

Inslee, 68, said climate action “has been a lifetime passion for me.” 

 

Some highlights of Inslee’s proposal: 

 

— Utilities would be required to achieve 100% carbon neutral electricity production by 2030 and reach zero-emission production by 2035. Inslee proposes refundable tax credits to help spur the development, and his plan calls for “guaranteeing support” for existing energy sector workers who lose jobs or otherwise are negatively affected in a transition to clean energy. 

 

— All light-duty passenger vehicles, medium-duty trucks and buses would be required to be zero-emission by 2030. Vehicles already in service would be exempted, though a “Clean Cars for Clunkers” program would provide rebates when consumers trade old vehicles for new, zero-emission models. The plan would expand business and individual tax credits to encourage production and purchase of zero-emission vehicles. 

 

— A national Zero-Carbon Building Standard would be created by 2023, helping states and cities redevelop their own building codes for residential and commercial construction. Tax incentives for builders and buyers would be used to encourage energy-efficient heating and cooling systems in construction. 

 

— All federal agencies would be brought under the 2030 timeline. That includes everything from making the government’s vehicle fleet zero-emission to using federal lands and property, including offshore waters, to capture and distribute more wind and solar power.
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VOA Africa Division’s Linord Moudou spoke to Melinda Gates about women’s empowerment, work in Africa, the work of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and how men can benefit from women’s empowerment. The interview also touched on the pay gap between men and women and the anti-vaccination movement. 

  

Q: Melinda Gates, thank you so much for joining us on the Voice of America. 

 

Melinda Gates: Thanks for having me. 

 

Q: You just released a book, The Moment of Lift. First of all, you are well known as a accomplished businesswoman and a philanthropist. Why was it important for you to become an author and write this book? 

 

Gates: Well, I have met so many women and families over 20 years of foundation travels to many, many, many countries, and the stories these women have shared with me about their lives have called me to action. And I wanted to write a book that would call others to action, because I believe that equality can’t wait. When we make women equal in society, it lifts up their family and society, and we need to make sure that we really get to equality for women all over the world.

 

Q: So when we talk about equality for women, how would you describe it? What are some of the basic steps? 

 

Gates: To me, equality for women shows up when they have their full voice and their full decision-making authority in their home, in their community and in their workplace. If we can make sure women have that, you will have true equality in society for all women. 

WATCH: Melinda Gates Speaks About Women’s Empowerment 

​Q: So, why did you think of this title, The Moment of Lift? What is the moment? 

 

Gates: Well, when I was a little girl my dad was an Apollo engineer, and he worked on that first mission that went up to space, and my sister and I would get to be in our jammies late at night, watching that that rocket take off. And I love that moment when the engines were ignited, and the Earth was shaking and rumbling, and that rocket would lift off against the forces of gravity that pushed it down, and head off to the moon. And I thought about women. I have thought about all the barriers that hold us down in various societies, and if we could remove those barriers, we would get this moment of lift for women and men all over the world. 

 

Q: And let’s talk about some of those barriers. You’ve traveled around the world, working and empowering women and girls. What are some of the commonalities you were able to see, to witness? 

 

Gates: Well, I see so many women that if we allow them, as a world, to have access to contraceptives, what we know from society after society around the world is once a woman has access to contraceptives, she can time and space the births of her children. She can continue her education, she can work in the workforce if she chooses, her kids are healthier, she’s healthier, the family’s wealthier and better educated. So that barrier — every society has to make the transition through contraceptives first. If women have access to contraceptives, and their kids and they have good health, the next barrier you have to remove is education. Because when women are educated, it changes absolutely everything in their family, and even the decisions they make and what they go do in the world. 

 

Q: So you went to an all-girls Catholic high school. So did I, actually. And one of the things I can remember is contraceptives are not a part of discussion — not very often, at least. So what prompted you to really turn your interest into enabling women to have access to contraceptives, as well as family planning? Why is it such an important part of your work? 

 

Gates: Yes, so I was meeting so many women around the world, and I would be there to talk about vaccinations for their children, which they were thrilled to talk about. They said, “You know, I walk 10 kilometers in the heat to get them. I know the difference.” But when I turn the questions and let them ask questions of me, they would say, “But what about my health? What about that contraceptive that, at this little clinic, I can get vaccines and I used to be able to get contraceptives and now I can’t?” And it was through these rallying calls for women saying, “Why isn’t the world allowing us to have these anymore?” that I came to learn and realize the difference they make in women’s lives. And 200 million women are asking us as a world for contraceptives. It’s a very inexpensive tool. We use it in the United States. More than 90% of women use it in the United States and in Europe, and yet if we don’t allow women to have that tool, [if] we don’t provide it, they can’t lift themselves out of poverty. And so I started to realize that was a really important piece of the work. 

 

Q: And you say in the book, as you work to empower women, others have empowered you. How so? 

 

Gates: I think by other women sharing the stories of their lives. I would often be coming back from various countries in Africa — Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, Senegal — and as I was flying home I kept thinking of all these barriers I would see holding women down in Africa. And I would think, “If women could only have this barrier removed or that.” But it was then their stories that helped me turn the question back on the U.S. and say, “How far are we really in the United States?” OK, we’ve made some distance, but less than 25% of people in Congress are women. Less than 5% of Fortune 500 CEOs are women. If a woman wants to start a business in the United States, less than 2% of venture capital funding goes to women-led businesses. So they helped me see what needs to get done around the world, not just in their own countries and where we can help and intervene, but really in our own country, too, in the United States. 

 

Q: So you talked about stories of women in the book. You also bring some of your stories in the book, and you are known to be a private woman. Why was it so important for you to share your own stories? You talk about abuse and other stories — why did you do that?  

  

Gates: Yes. So in this book, even though I’m incredibly private, I decided to be pretty vulnerable, quite vulnerable. That was not an easy decision, but I do. I share stories of my own personal journey because they are the stories, also, of millions of other women. So this story that I do tell of abuse that I experienced — it silenced me. I lost my self-confidence. And we know millions of women around the world are in relationships where they’re being abused. Women tell me about it when I go in villages. I hear about sexual harassment in the workplace in many places in the United States. It’s a spectrum, but any type of harassment holds a woman back. It pushes her back into her corner and she doesn’t get her voice or she doesn’t feel confident to take a decision. So I choose to share a story like that, and my own climb to equality, to let everyone know it is possible. 

 

Q: I would like to read something from the book. You write, “The first time I was asked if I was a feminist, I didn’t know what to say because I didn’t think of myself as a feminist. Twenty-two years later, I am an ardent feminist.” Feminism is a word that is celebrated by some and makes others cringe, even some women. So, what is feminism to you? How are you a feminist? 

 

Gates: Feminism is when a woman has her full voice, and her full decision-making authority wherever she is in her life, in her home, in her community and in her workplace. If she has her voice and can take any decision, then she is fully empowered. And if you believe that, then you are feminist, in my opinion. 

 

Q: Great. Now, the work of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has impacted the world. And particularly, you have worked on the continent of Africa. More than $15 billion has been invested in projects related to Africa. Would you tell us about the impact that you were able to see that has really transformed people’s lives? 

 

Gates: Yes, so the foundation has been in existence now for over 20 years. I think the most important thing for everybody to know is we work in partnership. There is nothing the foundation has ever done without being in full partnership with others, and particularly with governments and citizens on the ground in various countries. And philanthropy is just — all it can be is this catalytic wedge. We can try things; we can experiment where you wouldn’t want a government to do that with taxpayer money. But if we can prove things out and measure it, then we can ask government to scale it up. And so I think one of the foundation’s biggest successes has been in vaccinations. Why is childhood death down, cut in half since 1990? Two enormous reasons: vaccinations and malarial bed nets. And we’re part of two large-scale partnerships to try — that we have done, worked on — to scale up vaccines, in many countries in Africa and all over the world, and to make sure that malaria bed nets through the Global Fund are distributed. 

 

Q: So speaking of vaccinations, vaccines have helped the world get rid certain diseases, like smallpox. Today we see a resurgence of measles. And one of the reasons is because some parents in the United States refused to vaccinate their children. How does it make you feel? 

 

Gates: When I hear that there are cases of measles in the United States, I’m incredibly frustrated. And I’m saddened to think that a global health issue that we have solved in the United States has come back because parents have believed misinformation. And, you know, no child should have measles in this country. No person who is in an immune-compromised situation in the United States should be affected by someone else because a parent has chosen not to get the measles vaccine. These are lifesaving tools. Women tell me all over Africa they walk 10 miles in the heat to get vaccines because it saves their children’s lives. So I’m saddened to see this in the United States and I hope it makes people realize how lucky we are to have vaccines in our country. 

 

Q: Now, working on the African countries, on the African continent, as well as other countries in the world, there are some changes that cannot occur without abandoning certain cultural practices and beliefs. So how do you get people to embrace new ideas in such circumstances? 

 

Gates: Well, everywhere we work, for instance, on the continent of Africa, you know, each country is different and then there are many, many cultures inside of each country. So what you can do, the way to work, is to go — or what we’ve chosen to do — is to work with partners who’ve been on the ground often 30 or 40 years, living with villagers, and people from the community are part of those partners. And what you do is you come in and see where the community’s at, what they’re trying to learn, what their requests and needs are, and then you start to bring in some education — educating around the things they care about and some education about tools we have here in the United States, like contraceptives. And when you’re in a trusting relationship where the villagers start to believe and understand some of the education you’ve brought in, they will start to ask for those tools. And so we do all of our work in that cultural context, [that] hopefully  appropriate way.

 

Q: So to go back to the family planning — why is it so important? What is the message behind family planning? 

 

Gates: Family planning is the greatest anti-poverty tool we have in the world. When a woman can time and space the births of her children, her family is healthier — her entire family — the kids are better educated, and the family is wealthier. And I met a woman named Marianne in Korogocho — in a slum, actually, in Kenya — and she summed up this family planning conversation that we’d had. There’s about 30 women there, and at the end, after two hours, she finally said — she had this beautiful baby girl in her arms, a newborn — and she said, “I want to give every good thing to this child — before I have another one.” And I thought, “Yeah. That sums up how parents feel about their children.” We want to time and space when we have children, so we can bring every good thing to our child, and then have another one. 

 

Q: So what do you say to men in countries where women are treated unequally? 

 

Gates: We go in and work with partners, and we say to men, “If you want your children to be healthy, you need to think about certain things that your wife is doing — the amount of unpaid labor she does, the amount she chops wood, carries water, cooks the meals — and if you’re willing to think about that and to take some of that burden away from her, she will actually be better off and your kids will be better off.” And the only way to do that is to, again, work with partners who are from the community and on the ground, and then have the village look at the tasks that women and men do, have an open conversation over time about that, and then commit to change. And when you do that — I’ve actually seen this in Malawi — the men become champions. They say, “My gosh, my whole house has changed because I’m carrying water now and my wife isn’t, or I’m chopping the firewood, and she has more time for these other things.” And so that’s a conversation we need to have all over the world. Even in the United States, women do 90 minutes more of what we call this “unpaid labor” in our homes [per day] than men do. Some of it is loving, caring work we want to do, caring for our loved ones, but some of it is just chores, right? And so we need to look at that 90 minutes, even in the U.S. — or six hours more that a woman does every day in India versus her husband — and say, “How do we redistribute the workload so women can do other things in the productive work they want to do in their lives?” 

 

Q: Do you see a world where unpaid labor will become maybe something more valued for women who are doing it? 

Gates:  Absolutely. It needs to. I mean, when we think of what paid labor is and unpaid labor, we didn’t for a long time even measure this unpaid labor, and that’s because — let’s go back in time: Economists were predominantly men. It’s a very male-dominated field. So they chose to measure what they knew, which was productive labor. But I would tell you, and what I see from the research, is that our economies are built on the backs of this unpaid labor that women do all over the world. That is also productive. We want somebody taking care of the kids. We want things to happen in our homes. But men and women need to look at that, and I am so encouraged by this next generation that I see who’s coming up, where many young men, particularly in the United States and in Europe, have been raised under moms who work. So the way they look at the work in the home is, they know when they come into the partnership or the marriage, they’re going to do half the work.

 

Q: So speaking of the next generation and men, while empowering women and girls, what is the message to boys and young men? Will men now feel marginalized when they see all this movement around empowering girls?

 

Gates: What I would say to everyone in the world is that equality can’t wait. Our societies are better off when we have equality. Men will actually tell you — I’ve met men in Kenya and Tanzania and Malawi who’ve done this looking at the redistribution of labor in their homes; I meet men in the United States who say, “Hey, I’m actually helping do things I didn’t do before” — and what they start to see is they’re happier, their families are happier, their wife is happier. And what I’ve learned from men around the world, they’ll say — particularly in countries that have paid family medical leave for a long time, like Sweden — they say, “I want to be there at the birth of my child and to take care of my child. I want to participate in that, and my society values it, and so we have paid family medical leave so I can take care of the kids or take care of my aging parents.” And to me that’s enlightened men, and that makes a better society.

 

Q: And now before we wrap two more questions. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, along with partners and other organizations, has invested lots of resources and money in various programs to help developing countries, yet we still see a lot of suffering, whether it’s in health or other areas. Why does it seem like there is a gap between the amount of assistance out there and the number of people who die from preventable diseases? 

 

Gates: I think — I know there’s still people dying of preventable diseases, and every one of those lives, what I want people to know is it’s a tragedy. And when there is generosity from the developed world, in conjunction with African nations putting in some of their own taxpayer monies, you start to move societies forward. And so in the United States, less than 1% of our foreign aid budget goes to countries all over the world. And what you do is you create peace and stability in those places and families lift themselves up. And so what I want people to know is we need to continue to make those investments, because many of these deaths or these diseases, those are needless health emergencies in a family, and they affect families. 

 

Q: And finally, how does empowering women change the world? What is the takeaway from the book? 

 

Gates: If you empower women, they empower everybody else around them. And so if we want healthy societies, we lift up all women. And the goal is not just equality. The goal is a better human race with more connection, and that’s the message of the book. 

 

Q: Melinda Gates, thank you so much for your time. 

Gates: Thank you. 
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VOA Africa Division’s Linord Moudou spoke to Melinda Gates about women’s empowerment, work in Africa, the work of the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation and how men can benefit from women’s empowerment.
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Officials from 132 nations have been gathering in Paris to look at the state of biodiversity around the world. The meeting is the 7th session of the Intergovernmental Science and Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, which will culminate with the presentation of a huge report when the meeting concludes on May 4.

The task is enormous. The challenges even more. About 150 scientists have worked to establish a detailed assessment of the current state of global biodiversity. The 1,800-page report, the first inventory in 15 years, is expected to become a scientific reference in biodiversity

A quarter of the 100,000 species assessed, a tiny portion of the estimated 8 million on Earth, are already threatened with extinction. But “an imminent rapid acceleration in the rate of species extinction” is expected by scientists, according to the draft report. And between 500,000 and one million are expected to become threatened, including “many in the coming decades.”

The roots of the problem are well known : climate change and human activities. In 2018, a World Wildlife Fund report indicated that half of all wildlife species have disappeared in just 40 years. Deforestation, pesticide use, fishing, are among the culprits.

The report alleges that human activity as a whole is responsible for a 60 percent decline in global wildlife between 1970 and 2014.

“The conversion and destruction of natural habitats, for example for agriculture, and also by direct exploitation of animals and plants, through hunting, fishing or forestry,” says Thomas Brooks, the International Union For Conservation of Nature’s chief scientist.

The warning from scientists and officials gathering here is that by destroying their own planet, people are also threatening mankind — and hurting people.

“The continued loss of biodiversity will undermine the ability of most countries to achieve most of the sustainable development goals. In particular, it will undermine our ability for poverty reduction, food and water security, human health and the overall goal of leaving nobody behind,” says Bob Watson, chairman of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosytem Services.

“The loss of living nature, the loss of biodiversity is something that has dramatic and negative implications for all people in all countries,” says Brooks. “It is well documented that the most severe impacts of the loss of biodiversity are felt by the people who have the fewest resources to be able to respond to those losses.”

This gathering is the first of several events to put the ecosystem at the center of discussions. The next is the G-7 at the end of August in Biarritz, chaired by France, which wants to put biodiversity on the agenda.

 

 

 
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The Caribbean nation of St. Lucia has imposed a quarantine on a visiting cruise ship, barring any passengers or crew from leaving the boat while in port, after a case of measles was diagnosed on board, the island’s chief medical officer said.

Dr. Merlene Frederick-James said in a video statement posted to YouTube Tuesday that the St. Lucia Ministry of Health ordered the restriction after conferring with the Pan American Health Organization and others about the risk of exposure to islanders.

The ministry learned of the confirmed measles case from “two reputable sources,” and in light of current measles outbreaks in the United States and the highly infectious nature of the disease “we thought it prudent that we quarantine the ship,” Frederick-James said.

She gave no information about the ship or its origins.

Church of Scientology

NBC News, citing a St. Lucia Coast Guard sergeant, reported the boat in question is named Freewinds, which is the name of a 440-foot vessel owned and operated by the Church of Scientology.

The international vessel-monitoring website MarineTraffic.com also showed that a Panamanian-flagged passenger ship identified as SMV Freewinds docked in port near the St. Lucia capital of Castries. The website indicated the ship was headed next to the island of Dominica.

The Church of Scientology website describes the Freewinds as a floating “religious retreat ministering the most advanced level of spiritual counseling in the Scientology religion.” It says its homeport is Curacao.

Church officials did not immediately respond to efforts by Reuters seeking comment on the situation.

NBC News reported that nearly 300 passengers and crew were aboard the vessel, with one female crew member diagnosed with measles.

Measles resurgence

The cruise ship quarantine comes as the number of measles cases in the United States has reached a 25-year peak with more than 700 people diagnosed as of this week, part of an international resurgence in the disease.

Public health officials blame declining vaccination rates in some communities driven by misinformation about inoculation that has left those populations vulnerable to rapid spread of infection among those with no immunity to the virus.

Health authorities in Los Angeles last month ordered quarantines on two university campuses after each one had reported at least one confirmed case.

The vast majority of U.S. cases have occurred in children who have not received the three-way vaccines against measles, mumps and rubella (MMR), which confers immunity to the disease, officials said.

Measles is spread through casual contact with the virus, which can remain infectious in the air of an enclosed space for up to two hours after it is breathed out by someone carrying the disease.

The rate of transmission from an infected person to another person nearby who lacks immunity is about 90 percent, and an infected person can be contagious for four days before showing signs of the disease.
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Congressional budget experts said Wednesday that moving to a government-run health care system like “Medicare for All” could be complicated and potentially disruptive for Americans.

The report from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office was a high-level look at the pros and cons of changing the current mix of public and private health care financing to a system paid for entirely by the government. It did not include cost estimates of Sen. Bernie Sanders’ Medicare for All legislation or its House counterpart, but raised dozens of issues lawmakers would confront.

“The transition toward a single-payer system could be complicated, challenging and potentially disruptive,” the report said. “Policymakers would need to consider how quickly people with private insurance would switch their coverage to a new public plan, what would happen to workers in the health insurance industry if private insurance was banned or its role was limited, and how quickly provider payment rates under the single-payer system would be phased in from current levels.”

One unintended consequence could be increased wait times and reduced access to care if there are not enough medical providers to meet an expected increased demand for services as some 29 million currently uninsured people get coverage and as deductibles and copayments are reduced or eliminated for everyone else.

“An expansion of insurance coverage under a single-payer system would increase the demand for care and put pressure on the available supply of care,” the report said.

Sanders, I-Vt., pushed back, telling reporters that what’s really disruptive is that millions of Americans remain uninsured while others can’t afford high co-pays and drug prices. “That is disruptive,” said Sanders. “What is not disruptive is expanding Medicare, which is a very popular and cost-effective program to guarantee health care for every man, woman and child.”

The Democratic presidential candidate’s single-payer proposal is coloring the nomination fight and is likely to be a significant theme in the 2020 elections. President Donald Trump derides it as “socialism.”

Employers now cover more than 160 million people, roughly half the U.S. population. Medicare covers seniors and disabled people. Medicaid covers low-income people and many nursing home residents. Other government programs serve children or military veterans.

Proponents of Medicare for All say the complexity of the U.S. system wastes billions in administrative costs and enables hospitals and drugmakers to charge much higher prices than providers get in other economically advanced countries. Critics acknowledge the U.S. has a serious cost problem, but they point out that patients don’t usually have to wait for treatment and that new drugs are generally available much more rapidly than in other countries.

While a government-run system could improve the overall health profile of the U.S., pressure on providers to curb costs could reduce the quality of care by “by causing providers to supply less care to patients covered by the public plan.”

Other potentially difficult choices flagged in the report included:

• Coverage for people living in the country without legal permission, which CBO called “a key design issue.” Sanders’ bill and its House counterpart would cover all U.S. residents, leaving it to a future administration to define that term.

• Payment for long-term care services, which CBO said could substantially increase government costs. Sanders and House counterparts would cover long-term care.

• Use of a government-set “global budget” to control cost, a strategy CBO said is “barely used” in the U.S. Programs like Medicare and Medicaid rely on other approaches.

Private payments from employers and individuals currently cover close to half of the nation’s annual $3.5 trillion health care bill. A government-run system would entail new taxes, including income taxes, payroll taxes, or consumption taxes, said CBO. Or lawmakers could borrow, adding to the overhang of national debt.

Several independent studies of Sanders’ plan have estimated it would dramatically increase government spending, from $25 trillion to $35 trillion or more over 10 years. But supporters say the expense could be much lower if expected savings are factored in.

Single-payer health care doesn’t have a path to advance in Congress for now.

It has zero chances in the Republican-led Senate. In the Democratic-controlled House, key committees that would put such legislation together have not scheduled hearings. They’re instead crafting bills to lower prescription drug costs and stabilize and expand coverage under the Affordable Care Act.

The CBO report was prepared for the House Budget Committee, which is expected to hold hearings but does not write health care legislation.

Within the health care industry, groups including hospitals, insurers, drugmakers and doctors have formed a coalition to battle a government-run system. Major employers are likely allies.

Polls show that Americans are open to single-payer, but it’s far from a clamor. Support is concentrated mostly among Democrats.
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Congressional budget experts said Wednesday that moving to a government-run health care system like “Medicare for All” could be complicated and potentially disruptive for Americans. 

 

The report from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office was a high-level look at the pros and cons of changing the current mix of public and private health care financing to a system paid for entirely by the government. It did not include cost estimates of Sen. Bernie Sanders’ Medicare for All legislation or its House counterpart, but listed dozens of trade-offs lawmakers would confront. 

 

The transition toward a single-payer system could be complicated, challenging and potentially disruptive,'' the report said.Policymakers would need to consider how quickly people with private insurance would switch their coverage to a new public plan, what would happen to workers in the health insurance industry if private insurance was banned or its role was limited, and how quickly provider payment rates under the single-payer system would be phased in from current levels.” 

Longer waits, less access

 

One unintended consequence could be increased wait times and reduced access to care if there are not enough medical providers to meet an expected increased demand for services as 29 million currently uninsured people get coverage and as deductibles and copayments are reduced or eliminated for everyone else.  

“An expansion of insurance coverage under a single-payer system would increase the demand for care and put pressure on the available supply of care,” the report said. 

 

Employers now cover more than 160 million people, roughly half the U.S. population. Medicare covers seniors and disabled people. Medicaid covers low-income people and many nursing home residents. Other government programs serve children or military veterans.

Wasteful, costly

Proponents of Medicare for All say the complexity of the U.S. system wastes billions in administrative costs and enables hospitals and drugmakers to charge much higher prices than providers get in other economically advanced countries. Critics acknowledge the U.S. has a serious cost problem, but they point out that patients don’t usually have to wait for treatment and that new drugs are generally available much more rapidly than in other countries. 

 

While a government-run system could improve the overall health profile of the U.S., pressure on providers to curb costs could reduce the quality of care by “by causing providers to supply less care to patients covered by the public plan.”  

Private payments from employers and individuals currently cover close to half of the nation’s annual $3.5 trillion health care bill. A government-run system would entail new taxes, including income taxes, payroll taxes or consumption taxes. Or lawmakers could borrow, adding to the overhang of national debt. 

 

Single-payer health care doesn’t have a path to advance in Congress for now.

It has zero chances in the Republican-led Senate. In the Democratic-controlled House, key committees that would put such legislation together have not scheduled hearings. They’re instead crafting bills to lower prescription drug costs and stabilize and expand coverage under the Affordable Care Act. 

 

The CBO report was prepared for the House Budget Committee, which is expected to hold hearings but does not write health care legislation. 

 

Coalition in opposition

Within the health care industry, groups including hospitals, insurers, drugmakers and doctors have formed a coalition to battle a government-run system. Major employers are likely allies. 

 

Polls show that Americans are open to single-payer, but it’s far from a clamor. Support is concentrated mostly among Democrats, with many of them indicating similarly high levels of approval for less ambitious changes such as allowing people to buy into a public insurance plan modeled on Medicare. 

 

A recent Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll found that 42% of Americans support a single-payer plan, while 31% were opposed and one-quarter said they were neither in favor nor opposed. 

 

By a comparison, a buy-in option got support from 53%, including more than 4 in 10 Republicans. Overall, 17% opposed a Medicare buy-in while 29% were neutral.
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