Following an outbreak of anthrax disease in the West African nation of Ghana, Nigerian authorities have urged citizens to halt consumption of cooked animal hides, a delicacy also known as “pomo” in the country. Gibson Emeka has this story from Abuja, Nigeria, narrated by Salem Solomon.
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The only break much of America can hope for soon from eye-watering, dangerous smoke from fire-struck Canada would be brief bouts of shirt-soaking, sweltering heat and humidity from a deadly, Southern heat wave, forecasters say.

And then the smoke will likely return to the Midwest and East.

Here’s why: Neither the 235 out-of-control Canadian wildfires nor the weather pattern that’s responsible for this mess of meteorological maladies are showing signs of relenting for the next week or longer, according to meteorologists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Weather Prediction Center.

First, the weather pattern made abnormally hot and dry conditions for Canada to burn at off-the-chart record levels. Then it created a setup where the only relief comes when low pressure systems roll through, which means areas on one side get smoky air from the north and the other gets sweltering air from the south.

Smoke or heat.

“Pick your poison,” said prediction center forecast operations chief Greg Carbin. “The conditions are not going to be very favorable.

“As long as those fires keep burning up there, that’s going to be a problem for us,” Carbin said. “As long as there’s something to burn, there will be smoke we have to deal with.”

Take St. Louis. The city had two days of unhealthy air Tuesday and Wednesday, but for Thursday “they’ll get an improvement of air quality with the very hot and humid heat,” said weather prediction center meteorologist Bryan Jackson. The forecast is for temperatures that feel like 42.8 degrees Celsius (109 degrees Fahrenheit) — with 38.3 degrees Celsius (101 degrees Fahrenheit) heat and stifling humidity.

On Wednesday, the low pressure system was parked over New England and because winds go counter-clockwise, areas to the west – such as Chicago and the Midwest – get smoky winds from the north, while areas east of the low pressure get southerly hot winds, Jackson said.

As that low pressure system moves on and another one travels over the central Great Plains and Lake Superior, the Midwest gets temporary relief, Jackson said. But when low pressure moves on, the smoke comes back.

“We have this, this carousel of air cruising around the Midwest, and every once in a while is bringing the smoke directly onto whatever city you live in,” said University of Chicago atmospheric scientist Liz Moyer. “And while the fires are ongoing, you can expect to see these periodic bad air days and the only relief is either when the fires go out or when the weather pattern dies.”

The weather pattern is “awfully unusual,” said NOAA’s Carbin who had to look back in records to 1980 to see anything even remotely similar. “What gets me is the persistence of this.”

Why is the weather pattern stuck? This seems to be happening more often — and some scientists suggest that human-caused climate change causes more situations where weather patterns stall. Moyer and Carbin said it’s too soon to tell if that’s the case.

But Carbin and Canadian fire scientist Mike Flannigan said there’s a clear climate signal in the Canadian fires. And they said those fires aren’t likely to die down anytime soon, with nothing in the forecast that looks likely to change.

Nearly every province in Canada has fires burning. A record 80,000 square kilometers (30,000 square miles) have burned, an area nearly as large as South Carolina, according to the Canadian government.

And fire season usually doesn’t really get going until July in Canada.

“It’s been a crazy, crazy year. It’s unusual to have the whole country on fire,” said Flannigan, a professor at Thompson Rivers University in British Columbia. “Usually, it’s regional … not the whole shebang at once.”

Hotter than normal and drier air made for ideal fire weather, Flannigan said. Warmer weather from climate change means the atmosphere sucks more moisture out of plants, making them more likely to catch fire, burn faster and hotter.

“Fires are all about extremes,” he said.

And where there’s fire, there’s smoke.

High heat and smoky conditions are stressors on the body and can present potential challenges to human health, said Ed Avol, a professor emeritus at the Keck School of Medicine at University of Southern California.

But Avol added that while the haze of wildfire smoke provides a visual cue to stay inside, there can be hidden dangers of breathing in harmful pollutants such as ozone even when the sky looks clear. He also noted there are air chemistry changes that can happen downwind of wildfire smoke, which may have additional and less well-understood impacts on the body.

It’s still only June. The seasonal forecast for the rest of the summer in Canada “is for hot and mostly dry” and that’s not good for dousing fires, Flannigan said. “It’s a crazy year and I’m not sure where it’s going to end.”
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Researchers say they are detecting a dramatic spike in ocean surface temperatures around the world — reaching as much as 5 degrees Celsius (9 degrees Fahrenheit) above normal in the North Atlantic — and they could rise even higher.

“It is very alarming, and as temperatures keep spiking, this is not unexpected,” said Kim Cobb, a climate scientist and professor of earth, environmental and planetary sciences at Brown University in Rhode Island.

As the oceans get warmer each year, scientists say they are triggering chaotic weather patterns around the world, including torrential downpours and intense heat waves that cause flooding and severe drought.

Climate scientists attribute much of the warming to so-called greenhouse gases and say that to prevent the most severe consequences, the use of fossil fuels must be cut in half by 2030.

The most recent increase has caused the most extreme ocean heat wave in the British Isles in 170 years, according to the Met Office, the United Kingdom’s national weather service.

“This is an off-the-charts heat wave in the oceans,” said John Abraham, a climate change scientist at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota. “The temperatures we are seeing this year are a remarkable excursion from normal temperatures.”

Oceans, which cover 70% of the Earth, have a huge impact on weather.

“When the air blows over the oceans, the air warms up and gets more humid and that drives storms,” Abraham told VOA.

“The water vapor amplifies warming by trapping outgoing radiation from escaping and that feeds the storms,” noted Kevin Trenberth, a global warming expert and a scholar at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. “So, there is a huge magnifying effect.”

A study in the journal Earth System Science Data published in April warns that oceans are heating-up more rapidly than previously thought, creating a greater risk for extreme weather, rising sea levels, and the loss of marine ecosystems.

Even a small increase in ocean temperature can have other profound effects, which include coral bleaching and more intense hurricanes.

“There is also the loss of ice, the disintegration of the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets that are contributing to sea level rise earlier than we expected it to,” said Michael Mann, professor of environmental science at Pennsylvania State University.

There are many places in the world that will be warmer than usual this year, Abraham said.

“In South America, we expect both coasts to be warmer than average and the Caribbean and Central American regions to be both warm and dry. In large parts of Southeast Asia, we should expect drier conditions in the upcoming months.”

Adding to the already crucial situation, an El Niño has formed that is likely to bring extreme weather patterns later this year. An El Niño refers to a warming of the ocean surface in the central and eastern Pacific Ocean. Scientists say the phenomenon is not caused by global warming but may be exacerbated by it.

“It causes unprecedented but strong dry spells in many places, and droughts that may promote wildfires, such as those we’re seeing in Canada, and torrential rains in other places in the world,” said Trenberth.

“The temperatures will spike higher every time there is an El Niño,” said Abraham. “What we’re seeing now is a foretelling of our future unless we reduce our greenhouse emissions.”

“In a warmer world, we’re in for a very bumpy ride that includes extreme rainfall, mudslides, wildfires, drought and failed crop yields,” said Cobb of Brown University.

Mann said greenhouse gases need to be significantly reduced soon or the environmental consequences will become even worse.

“We need governments to provide incentives to move the energy and transportation industries away from fossil fuels and towards renewable energy,” he said.
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Need Plan B? Tap your credit card and enter B6. 

Since last November, a library at the University of Washington has featured a different kind of vending machine, one that’s become more popular on campuses around the country since the U.S. Supreme Court ended constitutional protections for abortion last year. It’s stocked with ibuprofen, pregnancy tests and the morning-after pill. 

With some states enacting abortion bans and others enshrining protections and expanding access to birth control, the machines are part of a push on college campuses to ensure emergency contraceptives are cheap, discreet and widely available. 

There are now 39 universities in 17 states with emergency contraceptive vending machines, and at least 20 more considering them, according to the American Society for Emergency Contraception. Some, such as the University of Tulsa in Oklahoma, are in states where abortion is largely banned. 

Over-the-counter purchase of Plan B and generic forms is legal in all 50 states. 

The 2022 ruling overturning Roe v. Wade “is putting people’s lives at stake, so it makes pregnancy prevention all the more urgent,” said Kelly Cleland, the ASEC’s executive director. “If you live in a state where you cannot get an abortion and you can’t get an abortion anywhere near you, the stakes are so much higher than they’ve ever been before.” 

Washington this year became first U.S. state to set aside money — $200,000 to fund $10,000 grants that colleges can obtain next year through an application process — to expand access to emergency contraceptives at public universities and technical colleges through the automatic dispensers. 

The University of Washington’s machine was installed after a student-led campaign. It offers boxes of generic Plan B for $12.60, about a quarter of what the name-brand versions sell for in stores, and more than 640 have been sold. 

The drug is even cheaper in some machines than it is in UW’s, as low as $7 per box. That’s because it is sold at just above wholesale cost, compared with pharmacy retail prices that might go up to $50. 

In Illinois and New York, lawmakers are developing legislation that would require at least one vending machine selling emergency contraceptives on state college campuses. 

In Connecticut, Yale had to drop plans to install an emergency contraceptive vending machine in 2019 after learning it would violate state law. 

But this year the state approved a measure allowing Plan B and other over-the-counter medications to be sold from vending machines on campuses and other locations. 

The machines can’t be placed in K-12 schools or exposed to the elements, and they must have temperature and humidity controls and include plans for power outages and expired items. 

“This just enables people to have better access and easier access,” said Rep. Nicole Klarides-Ditria, one of several Republicans in Connecticut’s Democratic-controlled General Assembly who supported the measure. “You may need Plan B, as we all know, in the middle of the night, and you won’t have access to a pharmacy until the morning.” 

Although the morning-after pill has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration for over-the-counter sale, many stores and pharmacies keep it behind the counter or locked up, require identification for purchase and make the experience of purchasing it intimidating. 

“There is a stigma associated with getting access to these medications,” said Zoe Amaris, a University of Washington pharmacy student and board member of UW Pharmacists for Reproductive Education and Sexual Health. “Having a vending machine is so easy. You don’t need to go to a pharmacy. You don’t need to go through your health care provider.” 

Plan B is more effective the sooner it is taken, and vending machine access could be particularly crucial for victims of rape when pharmacies are closed. The anonymity the machines afford may also be important to some assault victims. 
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WASHINGTON – Long time, no speak: NASA has re-established contact with the intrepid Ingenuity Mars Helicopter after more than two months of radio silence, the space agency said Friday. 

The mini rotorcraft, which hitched a ride to the Red Planet with the Perseverance rover in early 2021, has survived well beyond its initial 30-day mission to prove the feasibility of its technology in five test flights. 

Since then, it has been deployed dozens of times, acting as an aerial scout to assist its wheeled companion in searching for signs of ancient microbial life from billions of years ago, when Mars was much wetter and warmer than today.  

Ingenuity’s 52nd flight launched on April 26, but mission controllers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California lost contact as it descended to the surface following its two minute, 1,191-foot (363-meter) hop. 

The loss of communications was expected, because a hill stood between Ingenuity and Perseverance, which acts as a relay between the drone and Earth.  

Nonetheless, “this has been the longest we’ve gone without hearing from Ingenuity so far in the mission,” Joshua Anderson, Ingenuity team lead at JPL, told AFP. 

“Ingenuity is designed to take care of itself when communication gaps like this occur, but we all still had a sense of relief finally hearing back.” 

Data so far indicate that the helicopter is in good shape. If further health checks also come back normal, Ingenuity will be all set for its next flight, westward toward a rocky outcrop the Perseverance team is interested in exploring.  

It’s not the first time Ingenuity has experienced downed communications. The helicopter was scouring an ancient river delta when it went missing for around six days in April, “an agonizingly long time,” chief engineer Travis Brown wrote in a blog post.
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Heat waves like the one that engulfed parts of parts of the South and Midwest and killed more than a dozen people are becoming more common, and experts say the extreme weather events, which claim more lives than hurricanes and tornados, will likely increase in the future.

A heat dome that pressured the Texas power grid and killed 13 people there and another in Louisiana pushed eastward Thursday and was expected to be centered over the mid-South by the weekend. Heat index levels of up to 112 degrees (44 Celsius) were forecast in parts of Florida over the next few days.

Eleven of the heat-related deaths in Texas occurred in Webb County, which includes Laredo. The dead ranged in age from 60 to 80 years old, and many had other health conditions, according to the county medical examiner. The other two fatalities were Florida residents who died while hiking in extreme heat at Big Bend National Park.

Scientists and medical experts say such deaths caused by extreme heat will only increase in the U.S. each summer without more action to combat climate change that has pushed up temperatures, making people especially vulnerable in areas unaccustomed to warm weather.

“Here in Boston we prepare for snowstorms. Now we need to learn how to prepare for heat,” said Dr. Gaurab Basu, a primary care physician and the director of education and policy at the Center for Climate, Health, and the Global Environment at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

Planting more trees to increase shade in cities and investing in green technology like heat pumps for home cooling and heating could help, Basu said.

Extreme heat already is the deadliest of all weather events in the United States, including hurricanes, tornadoes, wildfires and flooding.

“Heat waves are the deadliest because they affect such large areas and can go on for days or weeks,” said Joellen Russell, a climate scientist who teaches at the University of Arizona in Tucson and is currently on a Fulbright scholarship in Wellington, New Zealand. “And they catch people by surprise.”

Phoenix, the hottest large city in America, faces an excessive heat warning headed into the weekend. Dangerously hot conditions are forecast from Saturday through Tuesday, including temperatures of 107-115 degrees (41.6-46.1 Celsius) across south-central Arizona.

“Arizona already understands heat to a certain extent, but it’s getting hotter for us, too,” said Russell. “That means a lot of people will continue to die.”

Counting heat deaths has become a science in Arizona’s Maricopa County, which includes metro Phoenix. The county tallied 425 heat-associated deaths last year, a 25% increase over 2021.

Located in the Sonoran Desert, Maricopa County counts not just deaths due to exposure but also deaths in which heat is among several major contributing factors, including heart attacks and strokes.

The county’s Office of the Medical Examiner updates suspected and confirmed heat-associated deaths every week through the warm season, which runs from May through October. So far this season, there have been six heat-associated deaths in Maricopa County, home to nearly 4.5 million people.

Dr. Sameed Khatana, a staff cardiologist at the Philadelphia VA Medical Center and assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine, said deaths in which heat contributed significantly to fatalities from causes like heart failure should also be considered to provide a more complete picture.

Khatana participated in research published last year that suggested that from 2008 and 2017 between 13,000 to 20,000 adult deaths were linked to extreme heat, about half due to heart disease.

Older people and those with diabetes, obesity, heart disease and other serious health conditions are most at risk, he said.

“Hurricanes, flooding and wildfires are very dramatic,” said Khatana. “Heat is harder to see and especially affects people who are socially isolated or living on the margins.”

The city of Phoenix’s Office of Heat Response and Mitigation has opened summertime shelters for homeless people, operates cooling centers in libraries and other community spaces to help people get out of the sun and distributes bottled water, hats and sunscreen. The city also has a “Cool Callers” program with volunteers dialing vulnerable residents who ask to be checked on during hot periods.

Even the Phoenix Zoo is taking measures to cool off the monkeys, big cats and rhinos, spraying them with water, delivering frozen treats, and providing shaded areas and cooled water pools.

Extreme heat deaths are a global problem.

Mexican health authorities this week said there have been at least 112 heat-related deaths so far this year, acknowledging for the first time the deadliness of a recent heat wave that President Andrés Manuel López Obrador previously dismissed as an invention of alarmists.

The report released Wednesday also shows a significant spike in heat-related fatalities in the last two weeks. So far this year, Mexico’s overall heat-related deaths are almost triple the figures seen in 2022.

A flash study released this spring said record-breaking April temperatures in Spain, Portugal and northern Africa were made 100 times more likely by human-caused climate change.

Deaths and widespread hospitalizations were caused by searing heat wave that broiled parts of southern Asia in April with temperatures of up to 113 degrees (45 Celsius) was made at least 30 times more likely by climate change, according to a rapid study by international scientists.
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In the northern Indian state of Himachal Pradesh, women are crafting products from pine needles as part of an initiative that aims at providing them with livelihood opportunities while reducing the risk of forest fires. Anjana Pasricha reports on one project in the district of Mandi. Video: Rakesh Kumar
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SYDNEY – Australia on Saturday will become one of the first countries to recognize psychedelic drugs as medicines. In February, the Therapeutic Goods Administration, Australia’s medical regulator, sanctioned use of psychedelics for some mental health conditions. Experts agree that psychedelic-assisted therapies in Australia are in their infancy.

Starting Saturday, authorized psychiatrists in Australia will be able to prescribe methylenedioxy methamphetamine – MDMA, the active ingredient in such party drugs as ecstasy or molly — to treat post-traumatic stress disorder.

They will also be allowed to prescribe psilocybin, a compound found in psychotropic “magic” mushrooms, to treat depression that has not responded to other therapies.

Susan Rossell, a cognitive neuropsychologist at Swinburne University in Melbourne, is conducting one of Australia’s biggest clinical trials of psilocybin. Preliminary results show significant improvements in some patients’ mental health while others have shown no signs of getting better.

Rossell told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. that psychedelic therapies research is still in its early stages.

“We have been stuck for very many years in terms of mental health treatments for people with treatment-resistant conditions,” she said. “So, the fact that psychedelic medicines do seem to be working for a number of people is fantastic. However, they are not working for some people as well, and that is where I would note a great deal of caution in this field at the moment.”

The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists has issued new guidelines for its members’ use of psychedelic drugs. They must only be administered in a hospital or clinic, where two psychotherapists must stay with the patient for six to eight hours to ensure their safety.

The organization has said that with a lack of mental health professionals in Australia, it is likely that few providers will be able to meet these conditions.

Other experts fear that the new regulations that permit the use of MDMA and psilocybin in Australia have been approved too quickly. They believe there is potential for psychedelic substances to provoke anxiety, panic or cause psychological damage to patients.

Australia’s official medical regulator, the Therapeutic Goods Administration, approved the use of psychedelics to treat some mental health conditions in February, making the country one of the first in the world to recognize the drugs as medicines.

In announcing its decision, the regulators said the “benefits to patients and public health … outweigh the risks.”
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ALBUQUERQUE, NEW MEXICO — A team of Italian researchers reached the edge of space Thursday morning, flying aboard Virgin Galactic’s rocket-powered plane as the company prepares for monthly commercial flights.

The flight launched from Spaceport America in the New Mexico desert, with two Italian Air Force officers and an engineer with the National Research Council of Italy focusing on a series of microgravity experiments during their few minutes of weightless.

One wore a special suit that measured biometric data and physiological responses while another conducted tests using sensors to track heart rate, brain function and other metrics while in microgravity. The third studied how certain liquids and solids mix in that very weak gravity.

Virgin Galactic livestreamed the flight on its website, showing the moment when the ship released from its carrier plane and the rocket was ignited. The entire trip took about 90 minutes, with the plane’s touchdown on the runway prompting cheers and claps by Virgin Galactic staff.

With the ship’s copilots, it marked the most Italians in space at the same time. Colonel Walter Villadei, a space engineer with the Italian Air Force, celebrated by unfolding an Italian flag while weightless.

Next up for Virgin Galactic will be the first of hundreds of ticket holders, many who have been waiting years for their chance at weightlessness and to see the curvature of the Earth. Those commercial flights are expected to begin in August and will be scheduled monthly, the space tourism company said.

Virgin Galactic has been working for years to send paying passengers on short space trips and in 2021 finally won the federal government’s approval. The company completed its final test fight in May.

The Italian research flight was initially scheduled for the fall of 2021 but Virgin Galactic at the time said it was forced to push back its timeline due to a potential defect in a component used in its flight control system. Then the company spent months upgrading its rocket ship before resuming testing in early 2023.

After reaching an altitude of nearly 15,000 meters, Virgin Galactic’s space plane is released from a carrier aircraft and drops for a moment before igniting its rocket motor. The rocket shuts off once it reaches space, leaving passengers weight before the ship then glides back to the runway at Spaceport America.

Virgin Galactic has sold about 800 tickets over the past decade, with the initial batch going for $200,000 each. Tickets now cost $450,000 per person.

The company said early fliers have already received their seat assignments.
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LONDON – One of the world’s most common artificial sweeteners is set to be declared a possible carcinogen next month by a leading global health body, according to two sources with knowledge of the process, pitting it against the food industry and regulators.

Aspartame, used in products from Coca-Cola diet sodas to Mars’ Extra chewing gum and some Snapple drinks, will be listed in July as “possibly carcinogenic to humans” for the first time by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), the World Health Organization’s (WHO) cancer research arm, the sources said.

The IARC ruling, finalized earlier this month after a meeting of the group’s external experts, is intended to assess whether something is a potential hazard or not, based on all the published evidence.

It does not take into account how much of a product a person can safely consume. This advice for individuals comes from a separate WHO expert committee on food additives, known as JECFA (the Joint WHO and Food and Agriculture Organization’s Expert Committee on Food Additives), alongside determinations from national regulators.

However, similar IARC rulings in the past for different substances have raised concerns among consumers about their use, led to lawsuits, and pressured manufacturers to recreate recipes and swap to alternatives. That has led to criticism that the IARC’s assessments can be confusing to the public.

JECFA, the WHO committee on additives, is also reviewing aspartame use this year. Its meeting began at the end of June, and it is due to announce its findings on the same day that the IARC makes public its decision – on July 14.

Since 1981, JECFA has said aspartame is safe to consume within accepted daily limits. For example, an adult weighing 60 kilograms would have to drink between 12 and 36 cans of diet soda – depending on the amount of aspartame in the beverage – every day to be at risk. Its view has been widely shared by national regulators, including in the United States and Europe.

An IARC spokesperson said both the IARC and JECFA committees’ findings were confidential until July, but added they were “complementary,” with IARC’s conclusion representing “the first fundamental step to understand carcinogenicity.” The additives committee “conducts risk assessment, which determines the probability of a specific type of harm (e.g., cancer) to occur under certain conditions and levels of exposure.”

However, industry and regulators fear that holding both processes at around the same time could be confusing, according to letters from U.S. and Japanese regulators seen by Reuters.

“We kindly ask both bodies to coordinate their efforts in reviewing aspartame to avoid any confusion or concerns among the public,” Nozomi Tomita, an official from Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, wrote in a letter dated March 27 to WHO’s deputy director general, Zsuzsanna Jakab.

The letter, reviewed by Reuters, also called for the conclusions of both bodies to be released on the same day, as is now happening. The Japanese mission in Geneva, where the WHO is based, did not respond to a request for comment.

Debate

The IARC’s rulings can have huge impact. In 2015, its committee concluded that glyphosate is “probably carcinogenic.” Years later, even as other bodies like the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) contested this assessment, companies were still feeling the effects of the decision. Germany’s Bayer in 2021 lost its third appeal against U.S. court verdicts that awarded damages to customers blaming their cancers on use of its glyphosate-based weedkillers.

The IARC’s decisions have also faced criticism for sparking needless alarm over hard to avoid substances or situations. It has previously put working overnight and consuming red meat into its “probably cancer-causing” class, and using mobile phones as “possibly cancer-causing,” similar to aspartame.

“IARC is not a food safety body, and their review of aspartame is not scientifically comprehensive and is based heavily on widely discredited research,” said Frances Hunt-Wood, the secretary general of the International Sweeteners Association (ISA).

The body, whose members include Mars Wrigley, a Coca-Cola unit and Cargill, said it had “serious concerns with the IARC review, which may mislead consumers.”

Aspartame has been extensively studied for years. Last year, an observational study in France among 100,000 adults showed that people who consumed larger amounts of artificial sweeteners – including aspartame – had a slightly higher cancer risk.

It followed a study from the Ramazzini Institute in Italy in the early 2000s, which reported that some cancers in mice and rats were linked to aspartame.

However, the first study could not prove that aspartame caused the increased cancer risk, and questions have been raised about the methodology of the second study, including by EFSA, which assessed it.

Aspartame is authorized for use globally by regulators who have reviewed all the available evidence, and major food and beverage makers have for decades defended their use of the ingredient. The IARC said it had assessed 1,300 studies in its June review.

Recent recipe tweaks by soft drinks giant Pepsico demonstrate the struggle the industry has when it comes to balancing taste preferences with health concerns. Pepsico removed aspartame from sodas in 2015, bringing it back a year later, only to remove it again in 2020.

Listing aspartame as a possible carcinogen is intended to motivate more research, said the sources close to the IARC, which will help agencies, consumers and manufacturers draw firmer conclusions.

But it will also likely ignite debate once again over the IARC’s role, as well as the safety of sweeteners more generally.

Last month, the WHO published guidelines advising consumers not to use non-sugar sweeteners for weight control. The guidelines caused a furor in the food industry, which argues they can be helpful for consumers wanting to reduce the amount of sugar in their diet. 
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TERRA CEIA ISLAND, FLORIDA — The Florida Health Department has issued a statewide mosquito-borne illness advisory after four locally contracted cases of malaria were reported along the Gulf Coast south of Tampa. 

On Monday, a health alert issued by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also noted that another case had been detected in Texas, marking the first time there has been a local spread of malaria in the United States in 20 years. 

The four residents in Sarasota County received treatment and have recovered, according to the state’s Health Department advisory. Malaria, caused by a parasite that spreads through bites from Anopheles mosquitoes, causes fever, chills, sweating, nausea and vomiting, and headaches. It is not spread person to person. 

It’s the threat of the mosquito-borne illness that concerns Kathleen Gibson-Dee, who lives on Terra Ceia Island, which is about 32 kilometers north of Sarasota County. 

Even though no malaria cases have been reported in Manatee County, where Terra Ceia is located, Gibson-Dee said that she’s now routinely using bug repellent while working in her garden. 

“I don’t go out without it,” she told The Associated Press on Tuesday. “And we don’t go out in the evening because you can see clouds and clouds of bugs now. They may not all be mosquitoes, but there’s certainly mosquitos out there.” 

Another resident, Tom Lyons, says news of the malaria cases “makes me take mosquito protection a little more seriously.” 

The mosquito population thrives in Terra Ceia because “it’s an island surrounded by a lot of shallow water and mangroves, and ideal places for mosquitoes,” Lyons said. 

Stepping up control efforts

Officials in Manatee County have ramped up efforts to control the mosquito population. 

Chris Lesser, director of the Manatee County mosquito control district, said they’re primarily using helicopters to combat the mosquito population because they cover between 6,070 to 8,082 hectares in one night. A truck can only cover around 404 hectares a night, he said. 

“We really want to focus on killing the adult mosquito before they have the opportunity to feed on one person that may be infected with malaria and then transmit that disease to a second person,” Lesser said. 

He said the time frame for when a mosquito can become infected to when it can transmit the disease to a person is about 14 days. 

“So, we’re trying to get in there about once every seven to 10 days and really knock down the mosquito population. And that process will continue until the public health alert that we’re currently under is lifted,” Lesser said. 

“It’s a curtain,” he continued. “We’re trying to keep the malaria mosquitos from coming into our county through our southern border by using aggressive mosquito control activities.” 

Officials in Sarasota County area also are using similar tactics to control mosquitos, the county’s health department said in an advisory. 

The initial malaria advisory was issued in Sarasota County after the first case was reported in late May. That was followed by a second case, and then two more, said Jae Williams, the press secretary for the Florida Department of Health. 

“As soon as it crossed over from one to two confirmed cases, it progressed to an alert,” Williams said, comparing it to the system of issuing a hurricane watch versus a hurricane warning — when a storm is imminent. 

“Listen, the conditions are favorable,” Williams continued. “It’s not just some rogue one mosquito. People need to be paying attention.” 

Williams said health officials are being proactive. 

“We know we are going into the Fourth of July holiday. We know the summer’s only getting hotter and wetter over the next couple of months,” Williams said. “So, we just wanted to give Floridians a big kind of heads up, put the whole state on notice.” 

About 2,000 U.S. cases of malaria are diagnosed each year — the vast majority in travelers coming from countries where malaria commonly spreads. 

Since 1992, there have been 11 outbreaks involving malaria from mosquitoes in the U.S. The last one occurred in 2003 in Palm Beach County, Florida, where eight cases were reported.
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South Korea is changing the way it calculates a person’s age. 

Under a new law that takes effect Wednesday, South Korea is adopting the international method that uses a person’s actual date of birth to determine their age.   

Under its traditional method, South Koreans are considered to be one year old at birth, including their months in the womb, and become a year older every January 1 regardless of their actual date of birth. 

The new law that takes effect Wednesday means all South Koreans will officially become a year or two younger.   

Officials say a separate method of calculation that uses the date a person is born and then adds a year each January 1 will remain in effect for compulsory military service, education and the legal drinking age. 

Some information for this report came from Reuters, Agence France-Presse.  
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A dangerous and prolonged heat wave blanketed large parts of the southern United States on Tuesday, buckling highways and forcing people to shelter indoors in what scientists called a climate-change supercharged event. 

Excessive heat warnings were in place from Arizona in the southwest to Alabama in the southeast, with south and central Texas and the Lower Mississippi Valley worst hit, the National Weather Service said. 

Victor Hugo Martinez, a 57-year-old foreman who was leading workers repairing a road in Houston, told AFP: “We can’t keep up with it. It’s too much, we have like 10 or 12 spots like this right now.” 

The crew wrapped bandanas around their heads to protect themselves from the blazing heat, with Martinez explaining they made sure to drink plenty of water and take several breaks to protect their health. 

The National Weather Service meanwhile urged Americans in across the South to drink water, stay indoors, and check on vulnerable friends and relatives. 

Andrew Pershing, a scientist with Climate Central, told AFP the “really unusual thing about this event is how big it is, and how long it has lasted.” 

“There have been places in Texas that have had more than two weeks of over 100 degrees Fahrenheit, which are just really unusual temperatures for this time of year even in a region that is used to heat.” 

Extreme weather more likely

Accumulated historic greenhouse emissions made the extreme weather event at least five times more likely than otherwise, according to preliminary calculations by a team led by Pershing. 

The sweltering conditions are expected to expand throughout the South beginning Wednesday and continue into the long July 4 holiday weekend.  

The extreme heat appears to have claimed some lives. 

Last week, a 66-year-old postal worker in Dallas fainted while delivering mail as the heat index hovered around 115 F. He died hours later, the U.S. Postal Service told the media, though the cause of death is still being investigated. 

And on Friday, a 14-year-old boy collapsed from exhaustion while hiking in Big Bend National Park in Texas and later died, according to an official statement. 

His stepfather left the scene to hike back to their vehicle to find help while the teen’s brother attempted to carry him back to the trailhead. The father was later found dead in a car crash. 

Power grid strained

The strain is sure to put the power grid in Texas to the test, as millions of people switch on their air conditioners to cope, with demand peaking around late afternoon. 

ERCOT, the state utility operator, has issued a Weather Watch, calling on individuals and institutions to voluntarily save energy to avoid an emergency, and has so far been able to cope, thanks in part to an increasing contribution from solar power in recent years. 

Public cooling centers run by local authorities or the Red Cross are available for vulnerable people. 

Animals, too, were suffering. The Houston Humane Society said 12 cats and one dog were found dead in an abandoned apartment. The group was able to rescue six cats from the property. 

Air conditioning can be climate feedback loop

Kristina Dahl, principal climate scientist of the Union of Concerned Scientists said that the widespread use of air conditioning was itself a climate feedback loop. 

“We know that one of the most effective things you can do to prevent heat, illness and death during heat waves is to run the air conditioning,” she told AFP.  “And yet if we are not powering that air conditioning with clean renewable energy sources, we are contributing more carbon emissions to the atmosphere which will further worsen heat which will necessitate greater air conditioning use.” 

Recent years have seen an explosion in litigation aimed at shifting the financial responsibility of climate disasters toward fossil fuel companies.  

Last week, a county in the northwestern state of Oregon filed a lawsuit against major fossil fuel companies seeking more than $51 billion over the 2021 “heat dome,” which blighted Canada and the United States.  

“Communities everywhere are now paying the price for the fossil fuel industry’s decades of climate deception and pollution,” Richard Wiles, president of the Center for Climate Integrity, told AFP.   
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The number of different electronic cigarette devices sold in the U.S. has nearly tripled to over 9,000 since 2020, driven almost entirely by a wave of unauthorized disposable vapes from China, according to tightly controlled sales data obtained by The Associated Press.

The numbers demonstrate the Food and Drug Administration’s inability to control the tumultuous vaping market more than three years after declaring a crackdown on kid-friendly flavors.

Most disposables e-cigarettes, which are thrown away when they’re used up, come in sweet, fruity flavors like pink lemonade, gummy bear and watermelon that have made them the favorite tobacco product among teenagers. All of them are technically illegal because they haven’t been authorized by the FDA.

Once a niche market, cheaper disposables made up 40% of the roughly $7 billion retail market for e-cigarettes last year, according to data from analytics firm IRI obtained by the AP. The company’s proprietary data collects barcode scanner sales from convenience stores, gas stations and other retailers.

More than 5,800 unique disposable products are now being sold in numerous flavors and formulations, according to IRI’s data, up 1,500% from 365 in early 2020. That’s when the FDA effectively banned all flavors except menthol and tobacco from cartridge-based e-cigarettes like Juul, the rechargeable device blamed for sparking a nationwide surge in underage vaping.

But the FDA’s policy — formulated under President Donald Trump — excluded disposables, prompting many teens to switch from Juul to the newer flavored products.

“The FDA moves at a ponderous pace and the industry knows that and exploits it,” said Dr. Robert Jackler of Stanford University, who has studied the rise of disposables. “Time and again, the vaping industry has innovated around efforts to remove its youth-appealing products from the market.”

Adding to the challenge, FDA has little visibility into a sprawling industry centered in China’s Shenzhen manufacturing hub. Agency records show that FDA inspectors have only conducted a tiny handful of inspections in China, despite the fact that it produces nearly all e-cigarettes used in the U.S. today.

“FDA theoretically has the authority to inspect foreign manufacturing facilities,” said Patricia Kovacevic, an attorney specializing in tobacco regulation. “But practically speaking, the inspection program that the FDA has in place only happens in the U.S.”

Most disposables mirror a few major brands, such as Elf Bar or Puff Bar, but hundreds of new varieties appear each month. Companies copy each other’s designs, blurring the line between the real and counterfeit. Entrepreneurs can launch a new product by simply sending their logo and flavor requests to Chinese manufacturers, who promise to deliver tens of thousands of devices within weeks.

Under pressure from politicians, parents and major vaping companies, the FDA recently sent warning letters to more than 200 stores selling popular disposables, including Elf Bar, Esco Bar and Breeze. The agency also issued orders blocking imports of those three brands. But IRI data shows those companies accounted for just 14% of disposable sales last year, leaving dozens of other brands untouched, including Air Bar, Mr. Fog, Fume and Kangvape.

FDA’s tobacco director, Brian King, said the agency is “unwavering” in its commitment against illegal e-cigarettes.

“I don’t think there’s any panacea here,” King said. “We follow a comprehensive approach and that involves addressing all entities across the supply chain, from manufacturers to importers to distributors to retailers.”

IRI restricts access to its data, which it sells to companies, investment firms and researchers. A person not authorized to share the information gave access to the AP on condition of anonymity.

IRI declined to comment on or confirm the data, saying the company doesn’t offer such details to news organizations.

To be sure, the FDA has made progress in a mammoth task: processing nearly 26 million product applications submitted by manufacturers hoping to enter or stay on the market. And King said the agency hopes to get back to “true premarket review” once it finishes plowing through that mountain of applications.

Meanwhile, parents, health groups and major vaping companies essentially agree: The FDA must clear the market of flavored disposables.

But lobbying by tobacco giant Reynolds American, maker of Vuse e-cigarettes, has made some advocates wary about pushing the issue. The company petitioned the FDA earlier this year to restrict flavors in all disposable vaping products.

FDA’s King says the agency already has ample authority to regulate disposables.

“There’s no loophole to close,” King said, pointing to FDA’s recent actions against disposable makers.

But King’s predecessor at the FDA says the current situation could have been avoided but for a decision by Trump’s White House to exclude disposables from the 2020 flavor ban.

“It was preventable,” said Mitch Zeller, who retired from the FDA last year. “But I was told there was no appeal.”

In September 2019, Trump announced at a news conference a plan to ban non-tobacco flavors from all e-cigarettes — both reloadable devices and disposables. But his political advisers worried that could alienate voters.

Zeller said he was subsequently informed in December 2019 that the flavor restrictions wouldn’t apply to disposables.

“I told them: ‘It doesn’t take a crystal ball to predict that kids will migrate to the disposable products that are unaffected by this, and you ultimately won’t solve the problem,'” Zeller said.
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Deforestation rates are near record lows in Indonesia, home to the world’s third-largest rainforests.

It’s one of the few bright spots in an otherwise grim annual report, on the loss of forests worldwide, from the environmental research and policy group World Resources Institute.

Overall, the world lost 4.1 million hectares of undisturbed tropical forest last year, an area the size of Switzerland, according to WRI. That’s a 10% increase from 2021. The loss of forest released as much planet-warming carbon dioxide as all the fossil fuels burned in India in 2021.

Deforestation reverses the CO2 removal function that trees perform. It raises local temperatures and disrupts rainfall patterns.

World leaders pledged to end deforestation by the end of the decade during climate negotiations in Glasgow in 2021.

“Are we on track to halt deforestation by 2030? The short answer is a simple no,” Rod Taylor, head of WRI’s forests program, told reporters at a news conference announcing the results.

Deforestation rates

The good news from Indonesia is that government moratoriums on logging and palm oil plantations and increased fire prevention measures have kept forest losses low.

Corporate pledges to end deforestation in the palm oil supply chain also appear to be working, WRI says.

The 230,000 hectares of untouched, primary forest lost last year is a sharp decline from the 2016 peak of 930,000 hectares.

Still, “that’s a pretty big loss,” Arie Rompas, head of the forest campaign for Greenpeace Indonesia, told VOA. “The area lost is about three times the size of the capital, Jakarta.”

Deforestation is still taking place in protected areas, he noted.

Indonesia’s environment ministry released official figures Monday showing far less deforestation than WRI’s. The ministry says 104,000 hectares (256,990 acres) were lost last year, down from 113,500 hectares (280,464 acres) in 2021.

WRI says it is working with the ministry on forest monitoring but describes the partnership as “a work in progress.”

Deforestation rates also have leveled off in neighboring Malaysia, another major palm oil exporter with similar policies and pledges on deforestation. Commitments to end deforestation in the world’s two largest palm oil producers now cover more than four-fifths of their refining capacity, according to WRI.

Brazil tops forest losses

Separately, forest losses increased by 15% in Brazil. The 1.8 million hectare (4.45 million acre) decline in undisturbed forest was the largest since 2005.

Brazil was responsible for 43% of the losses worldwide.

They took place during the last year of President Jair Bolsonaro’s term. He encouraged increased logging, mining and agriculture in the Amazon rainforest.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, known as Lula, took over at the beginning of 2023 and has promised to reverse course.

Earlier in June, Lula released his plan to reach zero deforestation by 2030. The Brazilian space agency, INPE, reported 31% less forest loss in the first five months of 2023 compared to last year.

Experts say Lula’s efforts will face opposition from agribusiness supporters in the legislature.

The second-largest forest losses were in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Poverty, not commercial agriculture, is the leading driver of deforestation in the DRC, WRI says. Most forests are cleared for small-scale farming and production of charcoal, the main cooking fuel.

The region’s growing population is putting increasing pressure on tropical forests in the Congo Basin, the world’s second largest.

Elsewhere, Bolivia lost the third-largest area of undisturbed forest, and its losses are increasing. The country lost one-third more forest last year than in 2021.

Land clearing for soybeans and other commodity crops is mainly responsible, and Bolivia’s government backs a further increase in large-scale farming. The country is one of the few that did not sign the 2021 Glasgow pledge to end deforestation.

Four of the 10 countries with the highest rates of forest loss are in Latin America.

Commodity crops drive deforestation

Global demand for soybeans, corn, sugar, paper, timber and livestock are the main forces of deforestation worldwide.

Legislation in the European Union will soon prohibit deforestation in supply chains.

Indonesia and Malaysia call the legislation discriminatory.

But WRI’s Taylor said, “It’s an encouraging decision and hopefully it will impact on deforestation rates in the near future.”

He added, “It’s one big market, but there are other markets that haven’t moved on that kind of legislation yet.”

Rio Tuasikal contributed to this report.
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Which is the longest river in the world, the Nile or the Amazon? The question has fueled a heated debate for years. Now, an expedition into the South American jungle aims to settle it for good.   

Using boats run on solar energy and pedal power, an international team of explorers plans to set off in April 2024 to the source of the Amazon in the Peruvian Andes, then travel nearly 7,000 kilometers (4,350 miles) across Colombia and Brazil, to the massive river’s mouth on the Atlantic.

“The main objective is to map the river and document the biodiversity” of the surrounding ecosystems, the project’s coordinator, Brazilian explorer Yuri Sanada, told AFP.   

The team also plans to make a documentary on the expedition.   

Around 10 people are known to have traveled the full length of the Amazon in the past, but none have done it with those objectives, said Sanada, who runs film production company Aventuras (Adventures) with his wife, Vera. 

Decades-old dispute

The Amazon, the pulsing aorta of the world’s biggest rainforest, has long been recognized as the largest river in the world by volume, discharging more than the Nile, the Yangtze and the Mississippi combined. 

But there is a decades-old geographical dispute over whether it or the Nile is longer, made murkier by methodological issues and a lack of consensus on a very basic question: where the Amazon starts and ends. 

The Guinness Book of World Records awards the title to the African river.

But “which is the longer is more a matter of definition than simple measurement,” it adds in a note. 

The Encyclopedia Britannica gives the length of the Nile as 6,650 kilometers (4,132 miles), to 6,400 kilometers (3,977 miles) for the Amazon, measuring the latter from the headwaters of the Apurimac River in southern Peru. 

In 2014, U.S. neuroscientist and explorer James “Rocky” Contos developed an alternative theory, putting the source of the Amazon farther away, at the Mantaro River in northern Peru. 

If accepted, that would mean the Amazon “is actually 77 kilometers longer than what geographers had thought previously,” he told AFP.  

Challenges could include alligators

Sanada’s expedition will trace both the Apurimac and Mantaro sources. 

One group, guided by Contos, will travel down the Mantaro by white-water raft. The other will travel the banks of the Apurimac on horseback with French explorer Celine Cousteau, granddaughter of legendary oceanographer Jacques Cousteau. 

At the point where the rivers converge, Sanada and two other explorers will embark on the longest leg of the journey, traveling in three custom-made, motorized canoes powered by solar panels and pedals, equipped with a sensor to measure distance.   

“We’ll be able to make a much more precise measurement,” Sanada said.   

The explorers plan to transfer the sustainable motor technology to local Indigenous groups, he added.

The expedition is backed by international groups including The Explorers Club and the Harvard map collection.  

The adventurers will traverse terrain inhabited by anacondas, alligators and jaguars — but none of that scares Sanada, he said

“I’m most afraid of drug traffickers and illegal miners,” he said.   

The boats will be outfitted with a bulletproof cabin, and the team is negotiating with authorities to obtain an armed escort for the most dangerous zones.   

If the expedition is successful, it may be replicated on the Nile. 

Sanada said the debate over the world’s longest river may never be settled. But he is glad the “race” is drawing attention to the Amazon rainforest’s natural riches and the need to protect it as one of the planet’s key buffers against climate change. 

“The Amazon is [here],” he said, “but the consequences of destroying it and the duty to preserve it are everyone’s.”
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Muhammad Ali Pate, a Harvard professor who has held top health jobs in Nigeria, has relinquished the top job at the Gavi global vaccine alliance, the organization announced Monday.

Pate, a medical doctor trained in internal medicine and infectious disease, was due to assume the helm on August 3, Gavi had announced in February, taking over from U.S. medical epidemiologist Seth Berkley, who had been in charge since 2011.

Pate informed Gavi “that he has taken an incredibly difficult decision to accept a request to return and contribute to his home country, Nigeria,” the statement said, without further details about the decision.

Gavi’s Chief Operating Officer David Marlow will instead assume the position of Interim Chief Executive Officer while a search for a new CEO continues.

The Gavi vaccine alliance is a nonprofit organization created in 2000 to provide an array of vaccines to developing countries.

Gavi says that since its inception, it has provided vaccines to more than 981 million children, “and prevented more than 16.2 million future deaths, helping to halve child mortality in 73 lower-income countries.”

Gavi has taken the lead on the COVAX initiative, alongside the World Health Organization and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations.

The global scheme has so far shipped nearly 1.9 billion COVID-19 vaccines to 146 territories, with the focus on providing donor-funded jabs to the 92 weakest economies.
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According to the U.N., in 2021, Nigeria had the most child deaths caused by pollution-related pneumonia in the world, at nearly 70 thousand. UNICEF says 40 percent of those deaths are a result of breathing air pollution caused by burning solid cooking fuels in the home. Timothy Obiezu has this report from Abuja, Nigeria.
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Researchers from the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration are in Australia carrying out research that will help future missions to Mars. The NASA delegation is looking for the earliest signs of life on Earth that will eventually be compared to rocks brought back from Mars.

NASA officials have said that parts of the Pilbara region in Western Australia are like “stepping back in time.” Some areas date to 3.5 billion years old.

In the red Outback dust, they have found some of the earliest evidence of life on Earth — fossils of ancient microorganisms encased in rocks.

The NASA team plans to compare these terrestrial samples with those brought back from Mars to see if they have any similar characteristics. NASA says it could be well over a decade before the Martian rocks are brought to Earth.

Eric Ianson, the director of NASA’s Mars Exploration Program, told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. Monday that Australia’s red dust could yield clues about past life on the Red Planet.

“We are looking at what are called stromatolites, which are actually some of the earliest evidence of life that existed on Earth and there are fossils that are actually captured within the rock. And how this relates to Mars is that we are currently working on bringing samples back from Mars — rock samples back from Mars — and if we see similar patterns and indications, it could indicate that life actually existed in the past on Mars.”

NASA has also indicated that humans could be sent on a mission to Mars by the mid- to late 2030s, although no definite timetable has been set.

Australia has worked with the United States in space for decades, including helping to broadcast the Apollo 11 Moon landing to the world in 1969.

The Tidbinbilla facility near Canberra is the only NASA tracking station still operational in Australia.

Australian engineers and scientists will also have key roles in the Artemis II mission. They are developing a small autonomous rover to be sent to the Moon and also will establish contact with astronauts on the first crewed voyage to the lunar surface since 1972. That mission could take place as early as 2025 or 2026.
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The next big advance in cancer treatment could be a vaccine.

After decades of limited success, scientists say research has reached a turning point, with many predicting more vaccines will be out in five years.

These aren’t traditional vaccines that prevent disease, but shots to shrink tumors and stop cancer from coming back. Targets for these experimental treatments include breast and lung cancer, with gains reported this year for deadly skin cancer melanoma and pancreatic cancer.

‘We’re getting something to work. Now we need to get it to work better,’ said Dr. James Gulley, who helps lead a center at the National Cancer Institute that develops immune therapies, including cancer treatment vaccines.

More than ever, scientists understand how cancer hides from the body’s immune system. Cancer vaccines, like other immunotherapies, boost the immune system to find and kill cancer cells. And some new ones use mRNA, which was developed for cancer but first used for COVID-19 vaccines.

For a vaccine to work, it needs to teach the immune system’s T cells to recognize cancer as dangerous, said Dr. Nora Disis of UW Medicine’s Cancer Vaccine Institute in Seattle. Once trained, T cells can travel anywhere in the body to hunt down danger.

‘If you saw an activated T cell, it almost has feet,’ she said. ‘You can see it crawling through the blood vessel to get out into the tissues.’

Patient volunteers are crucial to the research.

Kathleen Jade, 50, learned she had breast cancer in late February, just weeks before she and her husband were to depart Seattle for an around-the-world adventure. Instead of sailing their 46-foot boat, Shadowfax, through the Great Lakes toward the St. Lawrence Seaway, she was sitting on a hospital bed awaiting her third dose of an experimental vaccine. She’s getting the vaccine to see if it will shrink her tumor before surgery.

‘Even if that chance is a little bit, I felt like it’s worth it,’ said Jade, who is also getting standard treatment.

Progress on treatment vaccines has been challenging. The first, Provenge, was approved in the U.S. in 2010 to treat prostate cancer that had spread. It requires processing a patient’s own immune cells in a lab and giving them back through IV.

There are also treatment vaccines for early bladder cancer and advanced melanoma.

Early cancer vaccine research faltered as cancer outwitted and outlasted patients’ weak immune systems, said Olja Finn, a vaccine researcher at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.

‘All of these trials that failed allowed us to learn so much,’ Finn said.

As a result, she’s now focused on patients with earlier disease since the experimental vaccines didn’t help with more advanced patients. Her group is planning a vaccine study in women with a low-risk, noninvasive breast cancer called ductal carcinoma in situ.

More vaccines that prevent cancer may be ahead too. Decades-old hepatitis B vaccines prevent liver cancer and HPV vaccines, introduced in 2006, prevent cervical cancer.

In Philadelphia, Dr. Susan Domchek, director of the Basser Center at Penn Medicine, is recruiting 28 healthy people with BRCA mutations for a vaccine test. Those mutations increase the risk of breast and ovarian cancer. The idea is to kill very early abnormal cells, before they cause problems. She likens it to periodically weeding a garden or erasing a whiteboard.

Others are developing vaccines to prevent cancer in people with precancerous lung nodules and other inherited conditions that raise cancer risk.

‘Vaccines are probably the next big thing’ in the quest to reduce cancer deaths, said Dr. Steve Lipkin, a medical geneticist at New York’s Weill Cornell Medicine, who is leading one effort funded by the National Cancer Institute. ‘We’re dedicating our lives to that.’

People with the inherited condition Lynch syndrome have a 60% to 80% lifetime risk of developing cancer. Recruiting them for cancer vaccine trials has been remarkably easy, said Dr. Eduardo Vilar-Sanchez of MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, who is leading two government-funded studies on vaccines for Lynch-related cancers.

‘Patients are jumping on this in a surprising and positive way,’ he said.

Drugmakers Moderna and Merck are jointly developing a personalized mRNA vaccine for patients with melanoma, with a large study to begin this year. The vaccines are customized to each patient, based on the numerous mutations in their cancer tissue. A vaccine personalized in this way can train the immune system to hunt for the cancer’s mutation fingerprint and kill those cells. But such vaccines will be expensive.

‘You basically have to make every vaccine from scratch. If this wasn’t personalized, the vaccine could probably be made for pennies, just like the COVID vaccine,’ said Dr. Patrick Ott of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston.

The vaccines under development at UW Medicine are designed to work for many patients, not just a single patient. Tests are underway in early and advanced breast cancer, lung cancer and ovarian cancer. Some results may come as soon as next year.

Todd Pieper, 56, from suburban Seattle, is participating in testing for a vaccine intended to shrink lung cancer tumors. His cancer spread to his brain, but he’s hoping to live long enough to see his daughter graduate from nursing school next year.

‘I have nothing to lose and everything to gain, either for me or for other people down the road,’ Pieper said of his decision to volunteer.

One of the first to receive the ovarian cancer vaccine in a safety study 11 years ago was Jamie Crase of nearby Mercer Island. Diagnosed with advanced ovarian cancer when she was 34, Crase thought she would die young and had made a will that bequeathed a favorite necklace to her best friend. Now 50, she has no sign of cancer and she still wears the necklace.

She doesn’t know for sure if the vaccine helped, ‘But I’m still here.’
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Forest fires in Canada left Montreal blanketed with smog on Sunday, giving it the worst air quality of any major city in the world, according to a pollution monitor.

Quebec province’s most populous city had “unhealthy” air quality according to IQAir, which tracks pollution around the globe, as hundreds of wildfires burned across the country.

Environment Canada issued smog warnings in several Quebec regions due to the fires, saying, “high concentrations of fine particulate matter are causing poor air quality and reduced visibilities,” with conditions to persist until Monday morning

The agency urged residents to avoid outdoor activities and wear face masks if they must go outside.

Outdoor pools and sports areas have been closed and multiple outside events, including concerts and sports competitions, have been cancelled due to the unhealthy smog.

“It’s really like a fog, except it’s smoke from the forest fires. It’s really hard to breathe, and it stings the eyes a bit too,” said 18-year-old Fauve Lepage Vallee, lamenting that a festival she was due to attend had been canceled.

There are 80 active forest fires in Quebec, according to Quebec’s forest fire protection agency, SOPFEU, with several growing over the weekend due to dry weather and high temperatures.

“The extent of the smoke is making it particularly difficult for air tankers and helicopters to be effective,” SOPFEU said.

However, “significant amounts” of rain are expected on Monday or Tuesday in the northwest of the province, it added.

On Wednesday, 119 French firefighters are due arrive in Quebec to relieve a contingent of their compatriots in the field since early June.

“They will also be deployed to Roberval,” 250 kilometers (150 miles) north of Quebec City, for a 21-day mission, said Stephane Caron, a spokesman for SOPFEU.

Across the country, the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre lists more than 450 active fires, some 240 of which are deemed out of control.

Canada is experiencing an unprecedented year of fires, with more than 7.4 million hectares burned since the beginning of January.
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Cocaine demand and supply are booming worldwide, and methamphetamine trafficking is expanding beyond established markets, including in Afghanistan where the drug is now being produced, a United Nations report said Sunday.

Coca bush cultivation and total cocaine production were at record highs in 2021, the most recent year for which data is available, and the global number of cocaine users, estimated at 22 million that same year, is growing steadily, the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime said in its annual World Drug Report.

Cocaine seizures have, however, grown faster than production, containing the total supply to some extent, the report said. The upper band of the estimated total supply was higher in the mid-2000s than now.

“The world is currently experiencing a prolonged surge in both supply and demand of cocaine, which is now being felt across the globe and is likely to spur the development of new markets beyond the traditional confines,” the UNODC report said.

“Although the global cocaine market continues to be concentrated in the Americas and in Western and Central Europe (with very high prevalence also in Australia), in relative terms it appears that the fastest growth, albeit building on very low initial levels, is occurring in developing markets found in Africa, Asia and South-Eastern Europe,” it said.

While almost 90% of methamphetamine seized worldwide was in two regions – East and Southeast Asia and North America – seizure data suggests those markets have stabilized at a high level, yet trafficking has increased elsewhere, such as the Middle East and West Africa, the report said.

It added that reports and seizures involving methamphetamine produced in Afghanistan suggested the drug economy was changing in that country, where 80% of the world’s illicit opium poppy, which is used to make heroin, is produced.  

“Questions remain regarding the linkages between illegal manufacture of heroin and of methamphetamine (in Afghanistan) and whether the two markets will develop in parallel or whether one will substitute the other,” it added.
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