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Climate Change: Influence on the Spread of Lyme Disease
By Roberta Attanasio Blacklegged ticks feed on blood — they attach to the skin of humans and many animals and, slowly, suck for several days. To get there, they patiently wait on the tip of grasses and shrubs using their lower legs to hold on, until a human or an animal passes by. Ticks can’t jump or fly, so they keep their upper pair of legs outstretched, ready to climb aboard. Once there, they insert their feeding tube into the skin and start to suck the blood — this is how they become infected by or transmit Borrelia burgdorferi, the micro-organism that causes Lyme disease. Lyme disease is one of the most common infectious diseases in…
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Tuberculosis in China: A Success Story for a Global Problem
By Roberta Attanasio Sometimes called “The Silent Killer”, tuberculosis, or TB for short, is a huge worldwide public health problem — according to the World Health Organization (WHO), one-third of the human population is infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the micro-organism that causes the disease. In 2012, an estimated 8.6 million people developed TB and 1.3 million died from it. The number of TB deaths is unacceptably large, given that most are preventable — indeed, a cure for TB, consisting of a six-month course of drugs, has been available for more than 50 years. If treatment is incomplete, TB can come back, often in a form resistant to treatment. Years ago, the WHO developed a strategy known…
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A New Kind of Global Die-Off: Bananas Hit by Rapidly Spreading Diseases
By Roberta Attanasio The world loves bananas. Actually, the world loves the Cavendish bananas, mostly because it is (almost) the only variety commercially available worldwide. The entire global banana industry relies on this seedless and, therefore, sterile variety made of bananas all essentially identical to each other — and equally susceptible to infection by the same harmful microbes, which can spread very easily across plantations around the world. This is not a hypothetical scenario — instead, it’s happening as we speak. Two species of fungi are threatening the world supply of the Cavendish bananas. One is Mycosphaerella fijiensis, a fungus that causes a disease dubbed Black Sigatoka, also known as…
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Lead Exposure in Infants: The Role of Breastfeeding
By Roberta Attanasio Lead, a toxic heavy metal, is the well-known cause of a global epidemic. It has acute and chronic effects on human health, causing neurological, cardiovascular, renal, gastrointestinal, haematological and reproductive effects. Children under the age of 6 are especially vulnerable to lead poisoning, which can severely and adversely influence mental and physical development. In the U.S., lead poisoning has been called the “silent epidemic” — children are exposed mostly because of the remodeling of old houses painted before lead paint was banned in 1978. Indeed, lead paint is one of the most common health hazards. Children exposed to lead experience brain damage, behavioral problems and developmental delays. Recently (December 2013), a…
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Flame Retardants in Honey?
By Roberta Attanasio When the bees feast on flowers, we enjoy honey, the increasingly popular nature’s sweetener and bearer of many health benefits. The “foodie” boom has generated not only appreciation for the aroma, texture and flavor profiles of different types of honey, but also demand for cosmetics and fragrances that contain it. Not everything about honey is as good as it seems, though – there are things like frauds and unexpected chemicals. Pesticides are a known problem for bees and honey, but now there is something else here – flame retardants. These toxic chemicals are widespread throughout the globe and contaminate the food chain, including human milk, as they are present in…
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Electronic Waste: A Global, Interactive Map
By The Editors In one of our previous posts (Electronic Waste and the Global Toxic Trade) we said “As technology changes come by very rapidly in great acceleration-style, the amount of obsolete and discarded high tech material also grows, great acceleration-style, around the world.” Now, data compiled by “Solving the E-Waste Problem (StEP) Initiative“, a partnership of UN organizations, industry, governments, non-government and science organizations, provide a staggering forecast of how rapidly electronic waste is accumulating globally – by 2017, we can expect an increase of 33%, up to one-third to 65.4 million tons. The escalating e-waste problem is graphically shown in a first-of-its-kind StEP E-Waste World Map, available online…
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Preterm Birth and Exposure to Environmental Pollutants
By Roberta Attanasio “Being born too soon is an unrecognized killer” – these are the words of Professor Joy Lawn, Director of the MARCH Centre at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and a Senior Health Advisor to Save the Children. Professor Lawn is one of the co-editors of a 2012 seminal report entitled “Born too soon: the global action report on preterm birth.” Globally, more than 15 million babies are born prematurely (before 37 completed weeks of gestation) each year, with over a million neonatal deaths from complications of preterm birth. To reduce the global staggering numbers of preterm births, it is necessary to find ways to help…
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The Global Toll of Preterm Births
By Roberta Attanasio Too many babies are born too soon – not ready for life outside the womb – year after year. In May 2012, the World Health Organization (WHO), the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn & Child Health, Save the Children and the March of Dimes, published a report (Born too soon: the global action report on preterm birth) that included the first-ever estimates of preterm birth by country. At the time it was released, Dr. Joy Lawn, one of the report co-editors, said “Being born too soon is an unrecognized killer. Preterm births account for almost half of all newborn deaths worldwide and are now the second leading cause of death…
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Genetically Modified Crops: Caterpillars versus Aphids
By Roberta Attanasio To label or not to label? The debate is still on — despite the defeat of the ballot initiative in Washington state that would have required special labels for foods containing genetically engineered ingredients. A year ago, a similar measure was defeated in California. Why? One of the reasons is that there is no scientific evidence to support the notion that genetically modified organisms (GMO) are dangerous — to our health. The danger here is that “no need for labeling” could be thought of as “no reason to worry”. Even if we should not worry that much about the health risks of GMOs, there are other worrisome…
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A Small Molecule Repairs the Damage Caused by Nuclear Radiation
By Roberta Attanasio Invisible and often dangerous, nuclear radiation is all around us. It comes at low levels from natural sources – radon gas, the earth’s radioactive elements and cosmic rays – as well as from human activities. Testing of nuclear weapons, nuclear waste disposal and accidents at nuclear power plants increase our exposure to radiation – sometimes at very high doses. Nuclear disasters such as those at Chernobyl and Fukushima generate global fear and profound emotional responses, while radiation’s medical applications raise safety concerns despite their beneficial use. Because of our fear of all things nuclear, we might welcome a recent discovery. A group of researchers has shown that a small molecule protects from death…
