Health

Stephen 1 Must Read, Africa, developing world, economics, Energy, Global Issues and Perspectives, News, Pollution and Toxics, Science/Tech , , , , , , , ,

We all have responsibility to ensure our stuff if properly disposed of.

Stephen Leahy, International Environmental Journalist

‘Public largely unaware of the e-waste impacts on human health and environment’

By Stephen Leahy

UXBRIDGE, Canada, Nov 1, 2011 (IPS)

Mountains of hazardous waste grow by about 40 million tons every year. This waste, mostly from Europe and North America, is burned in developing countries like Ghana in a hazardous effort to recover valuable metals.

A children’s school in Accra, Ghana’s capital, was recently found to be contaminated by lead, cadmium and other health-threatening pollutants at levels over 50 times higher than risk-free levels. The school is located directly beside an informal electronic waste salvage site.

“Poor people in Africa cannot afford to process Europe’s or America’s electronic wastes,” said Ghanaian researcher Atiemo Sampson.

“Those wastes are poisoning our children,” Sampson told IPS from Accra.

Ghana does not regulate the importation and management of electronic waste, or e-waste. The government hopes to have rules in place next year, he…

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Exposure to air pollution from traffic damages Swedish children’s lungs

Stephen 1 Must Read, Energy, Health, News, Pollution and Toxics, Science , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Source:  American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine. 13 Oct 2012

Exposure to air pollution from traffic during infancy is associated with lung function deficits in children up to eight years of age, particularly among children sensitized to common allergens, according to a new study.

“Earlier studies have shown that children are highly susceptible to the adverse effects of air pollution and suggest that exposure early in life may be particularly harmful,” said researcher Göran Pershagen, MD, PhD, professor at the Karolinska Institutet Institute of Environmental Medicine in Stockholm, Sweden.

“In our prospective birth cohort study in a large population of Swedish children, exposure to traffic-related air pollution during infancy was associated with decreases in lung function at age eight, with stronger effects indicated in boys, children with asthma and particularly in children sensitized to allergens.”

The findings were published online ahead of print publication in the American Thoracic Society’s American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

The study included more than 1,900 children who were followed from birth through age eight. ….

[edit]

“Our study shows that early exposure to traffic-related air pollution has long-term adverse effects on respiratory health in children, particularly among atopic children,” concluded Dr. Pershagen.

“These results add to a large body of evidence demonstrating the detrimental effects of air pollution on human health.”

via Exposure to traffic air pollution in infancy impairs lung function in children.

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Injecting Drug Use Spreads HIV in Eastern Europe

Stephen 1 Must Read, Culture, economics, Health , , , , , , ,

By Stephen Leahy

LIVERPOOL, Apr 29, 2010 (IPS)

Poor intervention in Injecting drug use (IDU) is driving the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Eastern Europe and is also largely responsible for the tuberculosis epidemic in parts of Russia, says a new study.

Shockingly, a mere three US cents a day per injecting drug user are being invested to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS and TB, according to the study released at the opening of the Harm Reduction 2010 conference this week in this English port city.

“Our report shows that just 160 million US dollars a year are being used in total for all the harm reduction programmes to prevent the spread of HIV around the world,” says Gerry Stimson, executive director of the International Harm Reduction Association.

Harm reduction involves providing access to the drug methadone, needle exchange services, and counselling. “Barack Obama’s presidential inauguration cost at least that much,” Stimson, emeritus professor at the Imperial College, London, told IPS in an interview.

In Russia there are an estimated 1.6 million IDUs of which 60 to 70 percent have HIV-related illnesses. In the past decade the number of HIV-infected people increased tenfold from an estimated 100,000 to one million, he said.

“Three cents a day is a terrifying figure and equally terrifying are the HIV infection rates amongst IDUs in parts of Eastern Europe and Asia.”

See rest of story here:  HEALTH: Injecting Drug Use Spreads HIV in Eastern Europe 

Cell Phone Service, But No Toilets or Drinking Water for the Poor

Stephen Africa, CLIMATE CHANGE/GLOBAL WARMING, economics, Global Issues and Perspectives, News, water , ,

By Stephen Leahy

[Why are there mobile phone networks and not sanitation networks?]

UXBRIDGE, Canada, Oct 20 (IPS) – It is a fact of the 21st century that some of the poorest regions of the world have good mobile phone coverage but no toilets or safe drinking water.

Simply installing toilets where needed and ensuring safe water supplies would do more to end crippling poverty and improve world health than any other possible measure, according to an analysis released Monday by the United Nations University (UNU).

“Water problems, caused largely by an appalling absence of adequate toilets in many places, contribute tremendously to some of the world’s most punishing problems, foremost among them the inter-related afflictions of poor health and chronic poverty,” said Zafar Adeel, director of the U.N. University’s Canadian-based International Network on Water, Environment and Health. Continue reading →