Americans are about 20% more likely to experience memory problems if they lived in areas with high levels of atmospheric lead, according to a study of over 600,000 adults over the age of 65 released at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference in Toronto on Tuesday. Researchers examined how exposure to airborne lead between 1960 and […] Continue reading ->
Governments have weakened their commitment to addressing non-communicable diseases (NCDs) after pressure from “big tobacco, alcohol, junk food, and fossil fuels”, according to civil society. Their claim centres on the draft political declaration due to be adopted at the UN High-Level Meeting (HLM) on NCDs in September, which no longer calls on countries to implement […] Continue reading ->
The proportion of the world’s population suffering acute hunger declined globally in 2024 to about 673 million people, but continued to rise in most African regions as well as western Asia, according to the new UN State of Food Security and Nutrition (SOFI) report, launched Monday in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Global hunger levels have remained […] Continue reading ->
LONDON – Summit it was not as there were no heads of state or even Bill Gates, although the UK’s Minister for Climate Change made a compelling presentation showing the kind of policy leadership starkly absent in the United States. Even so, the recent Climate and Health Summit, hosted by the UK Physiological Society, the […] Continue reading ->
As negotiators prepare to meet in Geneva, 5-14 August in yet another attempt to finalize the United Nations Global Plastics Treaty addressing a pollution crisis affecting oceans and ecosystems worldwide – a critical linkage between health and environment governance seems to be largely missing from the draft text. After nearly three years of negotiations, the […] Continue reading ->
US State Department officials are developing a plan to transform the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) from an entity that tackles HIV to one that is broadly focused on protecting and promoting American interests. This is according to a report in the New York Times on Thursday, based on leaked planning documents that […] Continue reading ->
“There is mass starvation in Gaza,” World Health Organization (WHO) Director General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus asserted on Wednesday, aligning with a statement by 110 aid organisations released earlier that day. “A large proportion of the population of Gaza is starving. I don’t know what you would call it other than mass starvation, and it’s […] Continue reading ->
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled on Wednesday that states have a duty to prevent significant harm to the environment from climate change in a landmark advisory opinion. The court also ruled that the states have a duty to cooperate internationally and called on them to set national climate targets that are of the […] Continue reading ->
United States (US) Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr should promote public confidence in vaccines or be fired, according to Mike Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York, who has been the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Global Ambassador for Noncommunicable Diseases (NCDs) and Injuries since 2018. “Kennedy, who has no training […] Continue reading ->
A large outbreak of the mosquito-borne virus, chikungunya, is spreading rapidly from three Indian Ocean islands to Africa, while parts of South East Asia are also experiencing outbreaks, warned the World Health Organization (WHO) on Tuesday. Around two-thirds of the population of the French island of Réunion has been infected with chikungunya over the past […] Continue reading ->