‘World Is Not Ready’: WHO Report Issues Warning About Growing Likelihood Of Next Global Pandemic That Could Kill Millions
The report highlights a "lack of continued political will" from national leaders who aren't devoting enough energy and resources to disaster preparation. Other public health news looks at declining childhood mortality, online recruiting by white supremacists, fetuses harmed by pollution, caring physicians on the border, food safety at pork plants, additional treatment for Alex Trebek, erotica, and poop shame, as well.
CNN:
Global Pandemic Risk Is Growing -- And The World Isn't Ready, WHO Says
The chances of a global pandemic are growing -- and we are all dangerously under prepared, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). In a report published on Wednesday by a panel of international health experts and officials, they pointed to the 1918 influenza pandemic as an example of a global catastrophe. That killed as many as 50 million people -- if a similar contagion happened today, it could kill up to 80 million people and wipe out 5% of the global economy. (Yeung, 9/18)
The New York Times:
Almost Everywhere, Fewer Children Are Dying
Two decades ago, nearly 10 million children did not live to see a 5th birthday. By 2017, that number — about 1 in every 16 children — was nearly cut in half, even as the world’s population increased by more than a billion people. The sharp decline in childhood mortality reflects work by governments and international aid groups to fight child poverty and the diseases that are most lethal to poor children: neonatal disorders, pneumonia, diarrhea and malaria. But the results are also highly imbalanced. (Katz, Parlapiano and Sanger-Katz, 9/17)
The Washington Post:
‘Do You Have White Teenage Sons? Listen Up.’ How White Supremacists Are Recruiting Boys Online.
At first, it wasn’t obvious that anything was amiss. Kids are naturally curious about the complicated world around them, so Joanna Schroeder wasn’t surprised when her 11- and 14-year-old boys recently started asking questions about timely topics such as cultural appropriation and transgender rights. But she sensed something off about the way they framed their questions, she says — tinged with a bias that didn’t reflect their family’s progressive values. (Gibson, 9/17)
The Associated Press:
Study Finds Air Pollution Reaches Placenta During Pregnancy
A new study suggests when a pregnant woman breathes in air pollution, it can travel beyond her lungs to the placenta that guards her fetus. Pollution composed of tiny particles from car exhaust, factory smokestacks and other sources is dangerous to everyone's health, and during pregnancy it's been linked to premature births and low birth weight. (Neergaard, 9/17)
Medpage Today:
Physicians Struggle To Care For Migrants On U.S.-Mexico Border
A 17-year-old girl came into his clinic dizzy, fatigued, and dehydrated, but Carlos Gutierrez, MD, expected that, knowing she'd recently traveled 2,000 miles from Guatemala. He told her to drink plenty of water to stay hydrated. She had just been released from a detention center and the next part of her journey would begin the following day, traveling east to stay with relatives. (Hlavinka, 9/17)
Reuters:
U.S. Worker, Food-Safety Advocates Sound Alarm Over New Hog Slaughter Rules
U.S. food safety and the health of plant workers will be at risk from new federal rules that allow meat companies to slaughter hogs as fast as they want and shift the role of government inspectors, food and environmental advocates said on Tuesday. The warnings about the U.S. Department of Agriculture's first update of inspection procedures at hog slaughterhouses in more than 50 years come after several high-profile recalls in the meat sector. (Polansek, 9/17)
The New York Times:
Alex Trebek Says He’s In A New Round Of Chemotherapy
Alex Trebek, the longtime host of “Jeopardy!” who announced in March he had Stage 4 pancreatic cancer, revealed on Tuesday that he was undergoing a new round of chemotherapy to treat the disease. Mr. Trebek disclosed the additional treatment in an interview with T.J. Holmes on “Good Morning America.” (Holson, 9/17)
The New York Times:
What Can Brain Scans Tell Us About Sex?
Men have a far greater appetite for sex and are more attracted to pornography than women are. This is the timeworn stereotype that science has long reinforced. Alfred Kinsey, America’s first prominent sexologist, published in the late 1940s and early 1950s his survey results confirming that men are aroused more easily and often by sexual imagery than women. It made sense, evolutionary psychologists theorized, that women’s erotic pleasure might be tempered by the potential burdens of pregnancy, birth and child rearing — that they would require a deeper emotional connection with a partner to feel turned on than men, whose primal urge is simply procreation. (Tingley, 9/18)
The New York Times:
Women Poop. At Work. Get Over It.
There once was a woman who walked regularly from her office in Midtown Manhattan to a hotel across the street in order to use the restroom, and that woman may have been one of us. That woman had a friend, at another office job, who carried a book of matches and a can of air freshener in her purse — more willing to set off the office fire alarm than leave any hint of odor in a public lavatory. That friend had another friend, at another office job, who repeatedly forced her body to do the deed so quickly — racing from cubicle to bathroom and back, in an effort to deflect attention from what she might be doing in there — that it led to a semi-serious hemorrhoid problem. (Bennett and McCall, 9/17)
