Category Archives: Health

New York ends religious exemption to vaccine mandate for schoolchildren

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State lawmakers vote to repeal exemption amid country’s worst measles outbreak in decades

New York eliminated the religious exemption to vaccine requirements for schoolchildren Thursday, as the country’s worst measles outbreak in decades prompts states to reconsider giving parents ways to opt out of immunization rules.

The Democratic-led state senate and assembly voted Thursday to repeal the exemption, which allows parents to cite religious beliefs to forego getting their child the vaccines required for school enrollment.

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Contraceptive injections do not increase risk of contracting HIV, study finds

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Research also finds scale of crisis among African women higher than expected

A landmark study has ended 30 years of anxiety that hormonal contraceptive injections may increase women’s chances of infection from HIV.

But the study found a dramatically higher rate of HIV infection among women in southern Africa than was expected, which one leading campaigning organisation said signified a public health crisis”.

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Five-year-old boy dies in Uganda as Congo Ebola outbreak spreads

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Ugandan authorities confirm two other patients also undergoing treatment as officials consider declaring global health emergency

A five year-old-boy who became the first confirmed Ebola case outside the Democratic Republic of the Congo during the current outbreak died in Uganda on Tuesday night.

The child’s three-year-old brother and 50-year-old grandmother are also being treated, according to the Ugandan authorities. They have been isolated at a hospital near the Congo border.

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Female nurse who played crucial role in IVF ignored on plaque

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Despite a senior colleague’s protests, Jean Purdy’s name was not included on memorial

The name of a female nurse and embryologist who played a crucial role in developing the world’s first test-tube baby was excluded from a plaque honouring the pioneers of IVF despite objections from her colleagues, newly released letters reveal.

Jean Purdy was one of three scientists whose groundbreaking work led to the birth of the first IVF baby, Louise Brown, in 1978. Yet her central role was largely forgotten in the rush to praise her colleagues, Prof Sir Robert Edwards and the surgeon Patrick Steptoe.

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Exclusive: US homeopaths claim ‘therapies’ prevent measles and ‘cure’ autism

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Thousands of children put on alternative therapies amid measles outbreak, potentially exposing them to life-threatening illness

Thousands of American children are being put on homeopathic alternatives to vaccination by practitioners who claim they can prevent measles and “cure” autism, the Guardian has learned.

At least 200 homeopaths in the US are practicing a controversial “therapy” known as Cease that falsely asserts that it has the power to treat and even cure autism. The acronym stands for Complete Elimination of Autistic Spectrum Expression.

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Trump’s anti-abortion global gag rule harming women in Africa and Asia, report says

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‘People are dying as a result of the policy’ that bans aid to foreign groups who provide or promote abortions, says author of report

The Trump administration’s anti-abortion restrictions on US global health aid funding have significantly damaged health care for women in Africa and central Asia, according to a new report.

Restrictions on funding also include limiting access to funds for sex education, and shifting funds to anti-LGBTQ and pro-abstinence groups such as Focus on the Family, researchers say.

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Fight the fakes: how to beat the $200bn medicine counterfeiters | Helen Lock

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Armed with blockchain and AI, health workers and campaigners are battling the bogus business that kills thousands

By the time the teenage boy was standing in front of Bernice Bornmai, feverish and delirious, it was already too late.

It wasn’t just the malaria that was killing the 17-year-old, it was the time he’d wasted taking fake medicine. The antimalarials did nothing to stop the disease marching through the young Ghanaian’s body: his organs were already shutting down.

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One in five young women have self-harmed, study reveals

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Experts warn of higher suicide rates as self-harm rises across both sexes and all age groups

So many young people are self-harming that it risks becoming normalised and increasing the number who commit suicide when they are older, a study reveals.

One in five girls and young women in England aged 16 to 24 have cut, burned or poisoned themselves, according to research that mental health experts said was “very worrying”.

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Trump wavers after saying NHS must be on table in US-UK trade talks

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US president says he refused to meet Corbyn, who vows to fight any grab at health services

Donald Trump has declared he wants the NHS to be on the table in any US-UK trade deal and refused to meet the “negative” Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, who pledged to oppose US corporations taking over the health service with every breath in his body.

On the second day of his state visit, during which he has been hosted by the Queen and Theresa May, the US president set out his ambitions for a “phenomenal” post-Brexit trade deal with the UK.

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DRC Ebola cases pass 2,000, prompting call for ‘total reset’

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Violence by armed groups and community mistrust hamper attempts to halt epidemic

More than 2,000 people have been infected with Ebola in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the health ministry has said, and aid agencies expressed concern over the accelerating spread of the disease.

So far there have been 1914 confirmed and 94 probable cases of infection with the virus, making the outbreak, which was declared in August last year, the second largest in history. New cases are being reported at a rate of around 10 every day. Some 1,346 people have died

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US abortion policy is ‘extremist hate’ and ‘torture’, says UN commissioner

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Trump administration’s ban on terminations is a crisis directed at women, warns Kate Gilmore

The US policy on abortion is a form of extremist hate that amounts to the torture of women, the UN deputy high commissioner for human rights told the Guardian.

The attack on women’s rights was a “crisis”, organised and well-resourced by very extremist groups.

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Climate crisis seriously damaging human health, report finds

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National academies say effects include spread of diseases and worse mental health

A report by experts from 27 national science academies has set out the widespread damage global heating is already causing to people’s health and the increasingly serious impacts expected in future.

Scorching heatwaves and floods will claim more victims as extreme weather increases but there are serious indirect effects too, from spreading mosquito-borne diseases to worsening mental health.

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Bluetooth your bladder: the hi-tech way to beat incontinence

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Urinary leakage affects millions of women, who have often suffered in silence. That may change with Elvie, a new way to strengthen the pelvic floor – involving an app

There are nappies in my wardrobe, but I have no children nor a sexual fetish. Instead, I have a problem shared by millions of women (and some men): I cannot always control my bladder as well as I want to, no matter how many toilet visits I have made beforehand. I have incontinence, and I am not alone: in the UK, up to 40% of women have incontinence at some point, either because they have given birth or are menopausal, because of genetics, or simply because of age. Up to 70% of expectant and new mothers experience incontinence, and a quarter of men over 40 – though, given how shameful it is thought to be, the figures are likely to be conservative. We mask, we hide, we cope.

The pelvic floor – a sling of muscles stretching from the tailbone to the pubic bone – supports the bladder, bowel and womb. These muscles are meant to contract to stopper any flow of urine. (The muscles are also sometimes referred to as a “trampoline” – a sour joke for women who know trampolining is a sure way to wet pants.)

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Austerity to blame for 130,000 ‘preventable’ UK deaths – report

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Two decades of public health improvements have stalled, says IPPR thinktank

More than 130,000 deaths in the UK since 2012 could have been prevented if improvements in public health policy had not stalled as a direct result of austerity cuts, according to a hard-hitting analysis to be published this week.

The study by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) thinktank finds that, after two decades in which preventable diseases were reduced as a result of spending on better education and prevention, there has been a seven-year “perfect storm” in which state provision has been pared back because of budget cuts, while harmful behaviours among people of all ages have increased.

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Threat to Missouri abortion clinic leaves neighboring providers scrambling

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With reproductive rights under aggressive attack, clinics across state lines are bracing for an influx of women seeking care

Dr Erin King felt a weight lift off her shoulders – at least for a few minutes.

The executive director of Hope Clinic in Granite City, Illinois had spent a week “scrambling” to prepare for an influx of patients from St Louis – just about a 10 minute drive across the Mississippi River – as Missouri threatened to close its last legal abortion provider by the end of the week at midnight.

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Judge blocks closure of Missouri’s last abortion clinic – live

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Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has been bartending this week - returning to the job she had before running for Congress - to raise support for living wage legislation. NY1 and WNYC have some scenes from today’s venue.

She’s now going around the restaurant, pen and pad in hand taking orders.

.@AOC begins serving tables at an embargoed location in Queens - she says she’s excited for servers to be the served today. pic.twitter.com/YdCjZvkSI7

There’s a new push from the left to defeat one of the only remaining anti-abortion Democrat in the House, BuzzFeed reports.

Progressives are targeting Dan Lipinski, an Illinois congressman. Marie Newman, a Chicago businesswoman, is running against him for the second time. “This type of legislation is authoritarian and totalitarian. There’s no other way to describe it,” Newman told BuzzFeed of the recent spate of state-level abortion bans. “Let’s be honest about what it is. It’s taking us back 100 years, and that’s not exaggerating.”

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Missouri abortion clinic to stay open – for now – after judge’s order

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  • Michael Stelzer stops Missouri from allowing license to lapse
  • Threat to clinic came amid growing push against women’s rights

A judge has issued an order allowing Missouri’s only abortion clinic to continue to provide the service, just hours before the St Louis Planned Parenthood clinic’s license to perform abortions was set to expire.

Planned Parenthood supporters gathered outside the clinic breathed a sigh of relief after the ruling from circuit judge Michael Stelzer. He issued a temporary restraining order prohibiting Missouri from allowing the license to lapse.

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Ctrl Alt Delete: the pro-choice comedy that’s the bravest TV show in America

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They have been called ‘worse than Nazis’ for their abortion-clinic comedy. But for Roni Geva and Margaret Katch, the hate pales beside the outpouring of gratitude

The makers of Ctrl Alt Delete like to say it’s a typical workplace comedy. “But not your typical workplace,” says co-creator Roni Geva. “Do you come here often?” jokes a woman in the abortion clinic waiting room in the first episode, and from that moment they’re off – in short snappy episodes, the laughs come fast in this pro-choice comedy.

At a time when the debate around abortion in the US is reaching vitriolic and absurd levels – see last month when President Trump said women were giving birth and then deciding, with their doctor, whether to “execute” the baby, and the number of states seeking to restrict abortions, including Alabama’s ban last week – it seems right for a different, more humorous and human, approach.

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Revealed: women’s fertility app is funded by anti-abortion campaigners

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The Femm app has users in the US, EU and Africa and sows doubt over the safety of birth control, a Guardian investigation has found

A popular women’s health and fertility app sows doubt about birth control, features claims from medical advisers who are not licensed to practice in the US, and is funded and led by anti-abortion, anti-gay Catholic campaigners, a Guardian investigation has found.

The Femm app, which collects personal information about sex and menstruation from users, has been downloaded more than 400,000 times since its launch in 2015, according to developers. It has users in the US, the EU, Africa and Latin America, its operating company claims.

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Heavily processed food like ready meals and ice-cream linked to early death

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Two major studies add to body of evidence against foods made with industrial ingredients

People who eat large amounts of heavily processed foods, from breakfast cereals and ready meals to muffins and ice-cream, have a greater risk of heart attack, stroke and early death, according to two major studies.

The findings, from separate teams in France and Spain, add to a growing body of evidence that foods made in factories with industrial ingredients may have a hand in an array of medical disorders such as cancer, obesity and high blood pressure.

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