The World Health Organization (WHO) negotiations on the world’s first Pathogen Access and Benefit Sharing (PABS) system resumed in Geneva on Tuesday – with only two more weeks of formal negotiations left before the May deadline. Symbolically, this week’s talks resumed on the first anniversary of US President Donald Trump’s announcement that his country would […] Continue reading ->
One year ago today (20 January), the Trump administration exploded the global health sector by immediately “pausing” all aid for 90 days – and dispensing with 83% of US Agency for International Development (USAID) projects six weeks later. Trillionaire Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) “chainsawed” at USAID projects and contracts, folding […] Continue reading ->
Governments should “significantly strengthen” taxes on alcoholic and sugary drinks as these products are getting cheaper, fueling obesity, diabetes, heart disease, cancers and injuries. This is according to the World Health Organization (WHO), which issued two reports on taxing sugary drinks and alcohol on Tuesday, including how countries are implementing these. “In most countries, these […] Continue reading ->
Senior United Nations officials and humanitarian leaders have urged Israel to reverse plans to withhold registration from more three-dozen international NGOs providing humanitarian relief in war-torn Gaza and the Israeli-occupied West Bank – warning that the move would severely undermine life-saving aid in a moment of acute humanitarian need. Israel said last Thursday that some […] Continue reading ->
The US Environmental Protection Agency has dismissed a recent finding that atrazine, the second most widely-used herbicide in the United States, is “probably carcinogenic to humans” by the World Health Organization’s cancer review agency.  Atrazine is used extensively in the US on crops like corn, sorghum, and sugarcane. However, over 60 countries have banned the […] Continue reading ->
Sudden fever, a severe cough and acute respiratory distress are the familiar onset symptoms of seasonal flu, which has affected WHO’s European Region with unusual intensity and speed this year. As the Northern Hemisphere enters winter, health systems are struggling to manage an epidemic driven by an aggressive, genetically mutated influenza strain A(H3N2) subclade K. […] Continue reading ->