Category Archives: Human Reproduction

Modern technologies prove effective for biodiversity management, but sustainable consumption and production practices have no substitutes

Life forms on Earth have much diversity, ranging from bacteria to plants and animals. No life form can survive on Earth without the direct or indirect support of other organisms. Each of these species and organisms works together in an ecosystem to maintain balance and sustain life. Biodiversity thus includes not only the variety of different species but also the variations within and among them and between ecosystems such as different habitats and ecological processes.

Biodiversity provides humans with a variety of essential resources and ecosystem services, including food production, pollination of plants, air and water purification and climate stabilization. It can also be instrumental in achieving sustainable development goals (zero hunger, improvement of land and soil quality), halting land degradation, building food security, preventing future pandemics and providing jobs in agriculture, fisheries, forestry, etc.

However, the world is currently experiencing an unprecedented biodiversity loss. Over one million species are at a risk of extinction and we are in the midst of a sixth mass die-off ? the largest since the extinction of dinosaurs. The most notable drivers behind this crisis are habitat loss, overexploitation, invasive species, fragmentation, pollution and climate change. Recent climate changes such as rising temperatures, changing precipitation patterns and more extreme weather events have disrupted species' tolerance limits and nutrient cycling processes.

It is possible that these changes may create opportunities for invasive species which could further add to the stress on species already struggling to adapt to changing environmental conditions. Fragmented ecosystem is often less resilient than a contiguous one, because areas cleared for farms and roads provide pathways for invasion of non-native species, which further contribute to the decline of native species. The genetic loss also threatens species' survival over time, mainly because the number of mates becomes scarce and the chances of inbreeding risk rises. So, the best way to conserve biodiversity is to save habitats and ecosystems, because no organism can exist in isolation. Hence, a diverse pool of data from all possible domains that are directly or indirectly related to biodiversity is required for monitoring and assessing these multiple pressures on species and formulating conservation strategies.

Although, it requires a more coordinated, coherent and strategic approach by all stakeholders such as scientists, biologists, ecologists, government, private sector, forest sector, civil society and individuals. Historically, bio-geographical surveys for conservation usually involved many hours of field work performed by professional researchers, rangers, which certainly could not scale up to meet today's conservation goals.

Surveillance, especially in tropical and inaccessible terrains, is also challenging and complex. It was implausible to predict the global consequences of human activities from these locally collected data. However, recent technological advances have facilitated biodiversity conservation on many fronts, notably for collecting field data and analyzing large datasets, which is expanding human understanding of ecosystems. The increased availability of satellite imagery for instance has revolutionized data collection for ecological survey and monitoring. Similarly, application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) can also change the dynamics of the field in favour of threatened species. Varieties of algorithms can be developed to harness AI for surveillance, capturing picture, security, animal counting, poaching management, research, etc.

Today, satellites are being used worldwide to collect data of temperature, location, moisture, etc. These environmental information along with geo-location data are essential for understanding the scope of threat to a given species.

Habitat maps or land cover data are usually the most commonly derived product from satellite imagery which can be used to determine species' presence and absence with vegetation types and habitat components.

Even regions that are experiencing rapid change, such as tropical environments, can be closely surveyed through these means. Remote sensing enables faster and more frequent analysis of terrestrial and aquatic landscapes, including chemical and geological parameters and biological processes, which are crucial for taking timely action. It can also help conservation biologists in assessing biodiversity hotspots, maintaining healthy habitats and protecting the life they harbor by detecting failing food webs and excessive human interference.

By conventional means, this kind of surveillance was unfeasible, exhaustive and the territories needed to be monitored by the rangers were humongous when compared with the number of rangers. Fortunately, there are a variety of wildlife tracking systems now that allow us to identify protection priority areas and track animals' movements, assess critically endangered species and protect them from natural calamities and illicit activities. Data gathered from these tracking systems generates massive high-resolution datasets that reflect the ecological context in which animals perceive, interact with and respond to their surroundings.

The AI-enabled robots or drones image datasets are becoming increasingly useful for identifying species, determining animals' social groups, population, location, migration patterns, their daily activities, habitat, repeated behaviors reproduction patterns, foraging routes, hunting habits, etc. Researchers are using floating robots equipped with image classification algorithms to locate and eradicate invasive species of marine algae before they become well-established. Also, drones can also be used to select ideal seeding sites by assessing site conditions like soil types, gradients and competing vegetation.

AI-powered acoustic sensors are helping conservationists in understanding the underwater ecosystem health by observing species behavior and their presence in a specific region or island through their sounds. Acoustic sensors can also be used to detect chainsaws, vehicles and gunshots sounds and alert authorities in real time about illegal poaching, mining or logging. Similarly, camera traps are facilitating conservationists to non-invasively monitor and track both vulnerable species and human presence in largely inaccessible areas and quickly spot anomalies or warning signs. Using environmental DNA, conservationists are quickly and easily collecting traces of animal DNA by scanning water and soil samples which can reveal the presence of unobserved species and make the case for greater protection of an area.

These conservation technologies are rapidly expanding scientific frontiers, improving conservation opportunities and assisting scientists, ecologists, foresters, policymakers and others in better understanding the complex natural environment at national, regional and species level. However, human technology cannot fully replace nature's technology, which has evolved over millions of years to provide essential services to sustain life on Earth. It is challenging to conserve the biosphere with standard economic practices that ignore sustainability issues in relation to resources or excessive stress on the environment. The success of our civilization has been largely dependent on a diverse, productive natural world and a stable climate. Thus, more sustainable production and consumption practices alongwith national and sector policies are required to address climate and biodiversity change together.

The author is former Principal Chief Conservator of Forests, Uttar Pradesh

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Saving life on Earth in times of climate change - Daily Pioneer

What's happening

The monkeypox outbreak is still growing in the US. In response, the government is releasing more doses of the monkeypox vaccine to people at higher risk of getting it.

Controlling monkeypox is important for public health. Some people with monkeypox may have only a small rash or blemishes mistaken for something else.

Anyone can get monkeypox, but gay and bisexual men are being disproportionately affected in the current outbreak. If you have an unexplained rash or skin blemish or think you may have been exposed, seek medical care.

There are at least 1,814 cases of the monkeypox in the US, according to Friday's data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And while there's an ongoing vaccine response in the US for people most at-risk of catching monkeypox, there's more demand than there is vaccine supply, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said, as reported by The New York Times.

Some officials think the monkeypox outbreak is becoming harder to control, and the confirmed number cases is understood to be much smaller than the true number of cases, due to inadequate testing resources or confusion on how the disease is presenting.

Monkeypoxis a disease caused by an orthopoxvirus that belongs to the same family as the viruses that cause smallpox and cowpox. Monkeypox is endemic in West and Central Africa. Reports of it in the US have been rare but not unheard of. (There were two reported cases in 2021 and47 cases in 2003during an outbreak linked to pet prairie dogs.)

In a health alert to medical providers in mid-June on the spread of monkeypox in the US, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned that some cases of monkeypox might be getting missed in testing, and that the monkeypox rash could be mistaken for (or come in addition to) other common infections, like herpes.

CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky had previously said that current monkeypox infections were causing people to develop blemishes that more closely resembled a pimple or blister as opposed to a more classic, spreading rash, as reported by NBC. While no deaths from the outbreak have been reported in the US, it's important for individuals and their health care providers to catch symptoms early to contain the outbreak of monkeypox occurring in many countries.

Here's what to know.

Examples of monkeypox "pox" or rashes.

Monkeypox is a zoonotic disease, which means it's transmitted from animals to humans. It's caused by an orthopoxvirus of the same family as the one that causes smallpox, though smallpox is considered more clinically severe than monkeypox.

There are two clades or types of monkeypox virus, according to the World Health Organization: the West African clade and the Congo Basin clade. The West African strain, which has been identified in the recent cases, according to a May 26 presentation by the WHO, has a fatality rate of less than 1%. The Congo Basin or Central African clade has a higher mortality rate of up to 10%, per the WHO.

Monkeypox has caused 72 deaths this year in countries where it's endemic, according to the WHO, but no deaths have been reported in the current outbreak in countries where it isn't endemic, including the US.

Monkeypox was first discovered in the 1950s in colonies of monkeys that were being researched, according to the CDC, but it's also been found in squirrels, rats and other animals. The first human case was discovered in 1970.

Monkeypox spreads between peopleprimarily through contact with infectious sores, scabs or bodily fluids, according to the CDC, but it can also spread through prolonged face-to-face contact via respiratory droplets or by touching contaminated clothing or bedding. (Think the close contact you'd have with a sexual partner, or the close contact you have with strangers at a busy event or club.) Experts are currently investigating whether monkeypox can be spread through semen or vaginal fluid.

Anyone can be infected with monkeypox, but many of the cases in the US recently have been in men who have sex with men, the CDC says. The close contact you have with a sexual partner may expose you to monkeypox, and the current outbreak is linked to social networks or sexual activity within some communities.

Gay and bisexual communities tend to have particularly "high awareness and rapid health-seeking behavior when it comes to their and their communities' sexual health," Dr. Hans Henri P. Kluge, the WHO's regional director for Europe, said in a statementat the end of May, noting that those who sought early health care services should be applauded.

The "close" in close contact is a key element in the transmission of monkeypox. That, along with the fact that the virus that causes monkeypox appears to have a slower reproduction rate than the COVID-19 virus, sets it apart from the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Tom Inglesby, director of the Center for Health Security at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said in June at a media briefing.

While scientists are still learning about monkeypox in the newer outbreaks, and some experts are pushing back on the idea it isn't airborne, "It's not acting like influenza or COVID or chicken pox or measles -- things that spread quickly in an unvaccinated community," Inglesby said. "It's acting much more like a disease that requires close contact."

"It's not a situation where if you're passing someone at a grocery store, they're gonna be at risk for monkeypox," Dr. Jennifer McQuiston, deputy director at the Division of High Consequence Pathogens and Pathology, said at a May briefing with the CDC.

Because many of the recent cases of monkeypox in Europe have resulted in lesions in the genital region and resemble symptoms of sexually transmitted infections like herpes, you should ask to be evaluated if you have an unexplained rash in your genital region, Dr. John Brooks, epidemiologist in the division of HIV/AIDS prevention, said at a May CDC media briefing.

Symptoms of monkeypox in humans are similar to (but milder than)smallpox, which WHO declared eliminated in 1980.

A monkeypox infection typically begins with flulike symptoms, including fatigue, intense headache, fever and swollen lymph nodes. Within one to three days of a fever developing, according to the CDC, a rash or sores develop and can be located pretty much anywhere on the body, including the hands, genitals, face, chest and inside of the mouth.

But wherever they develop, the rash or monkeypox lesions can be flat or raised, full of clear or yellowish fluid and will eventually dry up and fall off.

You can spread monkeypox until the sores heal and a new layer of skin forms, according to the CDC. Illness typically lasts for two to four weeks. The incubation period ranges from five to 21 days, according to the CDC.

Notably, some people never experience flulike symptoms, the CDC says, and you may experience all or only few of the typical monkeypox symptoms. For safer sex and social gatheringswhere you may be in close contact with other peoples' bodies, the CDC has a fact sheet for practices to consider.

Monkeypox doesn't have the same ability to infect people like the virus that causes COVID-19, says Dr. Amesh Adalja, an infectious-disease expert and senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.

"Monkeypox is not contagious during the incubation period, so it doesn't have that ability to spread the way certain viruses like flu or SARS-CoV-2 can," he said. Experts are studying whether this will remain true in the current outbreak.

Monkeypox lesions progress through a series of stages before scabbing, according to the CDC.

While traditionally the rash starts on the face before becoming more widespread, monkeypox blemishes can be limited, resemble a pimple or other sore and aren't always necessarily accompanied by flulike symptoms.

Yes. The US Food and Drug Administration has approved Jynneos to prevent smallpox andmonkeypox. Because monkeypox is so closely related to smallpox, vaccines for smallpox are also effective against monkeypox. In addition to Jynneos, the US has another smallpox vaccine in its stockpile, called ACAM2000. Because ACAM2000 is an older generation of vaccine with harsher side effects, it's not recommended for everyone, including people who are pregnant or immunocompromised.

Jynneos is what's being shipped out to states, though states can also request ACAM2000 because supply of Jynneos -- a two-dose vaccine with each dose given four weeks apart -- is relatively low. Individual health departments will determine eligibility for the vaccine, but they're meant for close contacts of someone with monkeypox or people who believe they're at high risk for an exposure.

Vaccinating people who have been exposed to monkeypox is what Adalja calls "ring vaccination," where health officials isolate the infected person and vaccinate their close contacts to stop the spread. Because cases may be going undetected, the US and the UK have expanded the eligibility for who can get vaccinated (to include those without a confirmed exposure).

Dr. Daniel Pastula, chief of neuroinfectious diseases and associate professor of neurology, medicine and epidemiology at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, said the vaccine is used in people who've been exposed but aren't yet showing symptoms of monkeypox, because the incubation period for the disease is so long.

"Basically what you're doing is stimulating the immune system with the vaccine, and getting the immune system to recognize the virus before the virus has a chance to ramp up," Pastula said.

Though health care and lab professionals who work directly with monkeypox are recommended to receive smallpox vaccines (and even boosters), the original smallpox vaccines aren't available to the general public and haven't been widely administered in the US since the early 1970s. Because of this, any spillover or "cross-protective" immunity from smallpox vaccines would be limited to older people, theWHO said. According to the WHO, vaccination against smallpox was shown to be about85% effectiveat preventing monkeypox.

Now playing: Watch this: Monkeypox Explained: What You Need to Know

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It's important to be aware of the symptoms of monkeypox, and to know your current individual risk level. Monkeypox spreads through close contact and doesn't require sex.

"This shows the need for public health," Pastula said. "As we saw with COVID, it is so important to have a robust public health system and to support our public health system."

It also calls attention to the wide variety of viruses we live with. All zoonotic diseases (which includeCOVID-19) have the potential to be serious, which is why monitoring them is so important, he said.

"I think this shows that there are lots of potential zoonotic threats -- these are diseases that can hop from animals to humans," Pastula said. This exemplifies the need for public health surveillance, he said, "but it also really shows that we should be careful and deliberate in our interactions with both wild animals and domestic animals."

It's also a developing situation, he said, so recommendations made by public health officials will change as the information does; the same goes for all diseases and new science.

The information contained in this article is for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended as health or medical advice. Always consult a physician or other qualified health provider regarding any questions you may have about a medical condition or health objectives.

Read more here:
What to Know About the Monkeypox Outbreak - CNET

In two blockbuster decisions, the U.S. Supreme Court throttled the power of government to regulate pollution (West Virginia v. EPA) and expanded the power of government to regulate women's reproductive lives (Dobbs v. Jackson). There is no contradiction in these two decisions. They continue a hundred years of right-wing support for private enterprise and control over women's autonomy.

The American right has held together as a political movement through its core commitment to conserving what it views as traditional Christian values and private enterprise. American conservative politics is not about limited government, states' rights, individual freedom or free markets. These are all dispensable ideas that the right has adjusted and readjusted to protect core principles. Conservatives have built their own versions of big government and carved out innumerable exceptions to free markets for tariffs, business subsidies, friendly regulations and pro-business interventions abroad. They have backed individual choice and states' rights, for example, on racial issues, but not on alcohol and drug use, pornography, contraception, abortion and same-sex marriage. In defense of core objectives, conservatives shifted from being isolationists before Pearl Harbor to aggressive warriors against communism and terrorism. They have abandoned protectionism for free trade, public education for private school vouchers, and deficit control for "supply-side" tax cuts.

Control over women's allegedly dangerous sexuality and autonomy grounds the moral appeal of conservative politics. In this view, a morally-ordered society requires a morally-ordered family, with clear lines of divinely ordained masculine authority and the containment within it of women's erotic allure. Salacious, non-motherly displays of female bodies, sex education in schools, abortion rights, easy divorces and the tolerance of homosexuality and other forms of "deviance" undercut the reproduction and orderly progress of civilization. Feminist demands since the 1920s to upset manly and womanly distinctions and erode patriarchy, through the right's lens, de-feminizes women and feminizes men, opening the family and the nation to conquest (rape) and subversion (seduction). The history of failed civilizations, conservative physicianArabella Kenealywrote in 1922, "shows one striking feature as having been common to most of these great decadences. In nearly every case, the dominance and [sexual] license of their women were conspicuous."

Conservative politics has had an enduring appeal to Americans seeking the clarity and comfort of absolute moral codes, clear standards of right and wrong, swift and certain penalties for transgressors and established lines of authority in public and family life. Ultimately conservatives have engaged in a struggle for control over American public life against a liberal tradition they have seen as not just wrong on issues, but sinful, un-American and corrosive of the institutions and traditions that made the nation great. To achieve their ambitious aims, conservatives had to stay disciplined, mobilize their resources and wage total war against liberals, with unconditional surrender as the only acceptable result.

During the 1920s, conservatives pioneered their programs for enforcing their vision of traditional values and protecting private enterprise, which endure today. Efforts to uphold the traditional family and control the licentiousness of women emerged in the 1920s, not just through the prohibition of alcohol but in lesser-known campaigns against sexual "deviance," "smut" and drugs, and in defense of conservative motherhood. In 1925, British historianA.F. Pollardcited the U.S. as "the rising hope of stern and unbending Tories." American laws, he said, "were not so much a means of change as a method of putting on record moral aspirations, a liturgy rather than legislation; and the statutebook was less the fiat of the State than a book of common prayer."

The erotically charged society of the 1920s led to fears that Americans, especially the young, were falling victim to deviant sexuality, such as oral sex and homosexuality, and to the scourge of venereal disease. After World War I,however, efforts to prevent venereal disease through education and the administration of chemical prophylaxis gave way to moral uplift and law enforcement. For moral reformers of the 1920s, preventative measures only encouraged prostitution and promiscuity.

Conservative answers to venereal disease involved the restoration of the supposed moral integrity of society and the rigorous prosecution of prostitutes and other sex offenders. Congress failed to renew wartime appropriations for controlling venereal disease, and state censorship boards banned as obscene sex-education films and other forms of anti-venereal propaganda. In 1926, the federal government eliminated federal aid to the states to prevent venereal disease, while state appropriations for this purpose declined.

After World War I, the Catholic Church crusaded worldwide for moral renewal. In 1920,Pope Benedict XVwarned that atrocities of war had led to "the diminution of conjugal fidelity and the diminution of respect for constituted authority. Licentious habits followed, even among young women." In 1930, his successorPope Pius XIissued 12 rules designed to assure that "feminine garb be based on modesty and their ornament be a defense of virtue." Catholic authorities joined by evangelical white Protestants promoted in the 1920s the censorship of books, plays, movies and artwork that displayed obscenity, nudity, drinking, sex outside of wedlock, suggestive dancing, drug use, homosexuality, prostitution and love between people of different races.

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In the 1920s, conservatives backed the closing of America's public drug treatment clinics and, as they did with venereal disease, adopted a moral and law enforcement approach to narcotics. Addicts had no recourse other than illegal sources of supply. For moral reformers, drug and alcohol use undermined the family and threatened the purity of American women. Even more than drink, however, enslavement to narcotics was understood to undercut discipline, self-mastery and the free will needed to follow a godly life.Richard P. Hobson, head of the International Narcotic Education Association, charged that civilization was "in the midst of a life and death struggle with the deadliest foe that has ever menaced its future." Narcotics threatened "the perpetuation of civilization, the destiny of the world, and the future of the human race." In 1929, Congress began the national war on drugs by establishing a Federal Bureau of Narcotics to enforce the drug laws.

Conservative women drew on a maternalist ideology that affirmed inherent differences between the sexes and women's unique role in rearing children as healthy, moral and productive citizens. Conservative maternalists urged women of the New Era not to slip the bonds of men and custom but to reclaim their motherly responsibilities to rear courageous sons and domesticated daughters. They opposed reforms that confused sex roles, weakened families or substituted state paternalism for parental responsibility.

Conservative women warned against radicals who would rip children from the home and rear them in nurseries run by the state. The radicals would end sexual restraint and manly competition. They would feminize men and coerce women into "unnatural" masculine roles through forced work and conscription. Conservative women found dangerous sex-role reversals in women who embraced the unisex hedonism of the times: short skirts and bathing suits, bobbed hair, drinking, smoking, vigorous sports, necking and petting, and sensual music and dancing. Patriotic mothers would uphold family morals and shun the competitive male spheres of business, politics and war. Like women of Sparta, they would raise patriotic sons ready to risk their lives for the common defense. This view of women and their place in society was represented in such 1920s organizations as the Women's Auxiliary of the Ku Klux Klan, the Daughters of the American Revolution, the General Federation of Women's Clubs, the American Legion Auxiliary and the Daughters of 1812.

Women of the right mobilized against the first federal welfare measure, the Sheppard Towner Bill of 1921, which provided aid to the states for the health care of mothers and infants. They argued that the law would weaken families, undercut traditional values and advance paternalistic government. In the Sheppard-Towner fight, wrote editor Mary Kilbreth of the conservative publication Woman Patriot, "we have with us as allies the Constitution, and all the institutions on which 'Western civilization is based.'"

The right's pro-business policies included the anti-government initiatives of deregulation and tax cuts. Yet they also turned to government for protective tariffs, support for foreign trade and investment, controls over strikes and labor organizing, and pro-business regulations. Our goal is "putting government behind rather than in business,"Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hooversaid in 1924. In 1926, under Hoover's guidance, the Republican Congress stabilized the struggling airline and railroad industries with the Air Commerce Act and the Railway Act. On the seas, Congress extended subsidies to shipbuilders and operators in the Merchant Marine Act of 1928. To impose order on the broadcast spectrum, Congress established a Federal Radio Commission in 1927 and let broadcasters keep or sell their existing frequencies and block competitors from sharing airtime. Republican presidents appointed pro-business jurists to regulatory agencies and the federal courts.

Support for profit-seeking enterprise may contradict the right's emphasis on moral probity. However, conservatives linked private enterprise to stable, traditional families that nurtured the virtues of thrift, sobriety, self-reliance, honor and diligence. Even as Americans evolved from savers and craftsmen to producers and consumers, conservatives sustained the linkage between family virtue and enterprise. "The whole fabric of Business rests upon these moral forces," wrote journalistEdward Bokin 1926. Cultural warfare, in turn, gave the right a mass base and a passion that economic conservatism lacks. By uniting traditional Christian values and enterprise, conservatives claim to have protected Americans' pocketbooks and saved their souls.

Cultural and business conservatism converged forcefully again when the right regrouped in the 1970s. Conservatives then put a positive spin on their cultural prohibitionism. They weren't just against sinners and feminists; they were the "pro-family" and "pro-life" champions of wholesome "family values." Still, defense of the family meant battling the Equal Rights Amendment, abortion, pornography, gay rights and gun control. Phyllis Schlafly, the prime mover of the pro-family agenda, described "the family as the basic unit of society, with certain rights and responsibilities, including the right to insist that the schools permit voluntary prayer and teach the 'fourth 'R' (right and wrong) according to the precepts of the Holy Scriptures." At a well-attended "Pro-Family Rally" that upstaged the feminist 1977 "International Year of the Woman" gathering in Houston, she warned that feminists were "going to drive the homemaker out of the home. They want to relieve mothers of the menial task of taking care of their babies. They want to put them in the coal mines and have them digging ditches." The ERA would "only benefit homosexuals. The American women do not want ERA, abortion, lesbian rights, and they do not want childcare in the hands of government."

In 1971, corporate lawyer Lewis Powell issued a call to arms by conservatives shortly before his appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court. The "Powell Memo"guided the rebuilding of business conservatism and the presidency of Ronald Reagan. He warned that new regulations that cut across industry to limit pollution, control energy production, advance minority and consumer rights and protect worker health and safety threatened the survival of private enterprise. Powell insisted that conservatives, aided by the financial might of business, should not have "the slightest hesitation to press vigorously in all political arenas for support of the enterprise system. Nor should there be reluctance to penalize politically those who oppose it." Conservatives must aggressively capture the centers of power that shaped policy and public opinion: the political parties, the academy, the media, the courts and popular culture.

Consistent with the reformulation of cultural issues, conservatives in the 1970s put a positive spin on their pro-business policies, labeling them "supply-side economics." Entrepreneurs would create a new era of American abundance if they were free to innovate without penalty or control. They would produce enough goods and services to cure inflation, accelerate government revenue growth and reduce the deficit. Supply-side advocates promised that their bonanza to business would flow down or "trickle down," as critics charged to the lower strata because employment and wages would boom.

After his transformation election in 1980, President Ronald Reagan turned the supply-side dream into reality. His conservative economic policies rested on reducing tax liabilities for corporations and the wealthy, relieving businesses of civil rights, environmental, and economic regulations, cutting social spending and curbing the power of labor unions. It was a blueprint that the right would follow through today.

The history of the modern American conservative movement demonstrates that the Dobbs and EPA decisions are not aberrations. In fact, they realize priorities that the right has pursued since the 1920s. The only change is a right-wing grip on the Supreme Court that is unprecedented in modern American history. The court will likely extend its curtailment of air pollution regulation to water pollution in the upcoming case ofSackett v. EPA. And despite surface disagreement from other justices, it is also likely to follow Justice Clarence Thomas' call for reconsidering the rights to contraception, private sexual encounters and same-sex marriage. Given the right's quest for absolute power, it would not be surprising if the court then grants state legislatures controlled by Republicans in key swing states exclusive control over federal elections.

Read more

on the far right's assault on America

Originally posted here:
How the right waged a 100-year war to conquer America and why it's winning - Salon

We have long been baffled as to why men live around five years less than women, on average. But now a new study suggests that, beyond the age of 60, the main culprit is a genetic defect: the loss of the Y chromosome, which determines sex at birth.

Its clear that men are more fragile, the question is why, explains Lars Forsberg, a researcher at Uppsala University in Sweden.

For decades it was thought that the male Y chromosomes only function was to generate sperm that determine the sex of a newborn. A boy carries one X chromosome from the mother and one Y from the father, while a girl carries two Xs, one from each parent.

In 1963, a team of scientists discovered that as men age, their blood cells lose the Y chromosome due to a copying error that happens when the mother cell divides to produce a daughter cell. In 2014, Forsberg analyzed the life expectancy of older men based on whether their blood cells had lost the Y chromosome, a mutation called mLOY. The effect recorded was mindblowing, the researcher recalls.

Men with fewer Y chromosomes had a higher risk of cancer and lived five and a half years less than those who retained this part of the genome. Three years later, Forsberg discovered that this mutation makes getting Alzheimers three times as likely. What is most worrying is the enormous prevalence of this defect. Twenty percent of men over the age of 60 have the mutation. The rate rises to 40% in those over 70 and 57% in those over 90, according to Forsbergs previous studies. It is undoubtedly the most common mutation in humans, he says.

Until now, nobody knew whether the gradual disappearance of the Y chromosome in the blood played a pivotal role in diseases associated with aging. In a study just published in the journal Science, Forsberg and scientists from Japan and the US demonstrate for the first time that this mutation increases the risk of heart problems, immune system failure and premature death.

The researchers have created the first animal model without a Y chromosome in their blood stem cells: namely, mice modified with the gene-editing tool CRISPR. The study showed that these rodents develop scarring of the heart in the form of fibrosis, one of the most common cardiovascular ailments in humans, and die earlier than normal mice. The authors then analyzed the life expectancy recorded in nearly 15,700 patients with cardiovascular disease whose data are stored in the UK public biobank. The analysis shows that loss of the Y chromosome in the blood is associated with a 30% increased risk of dying from cardiovascular disease.

This genetic factor can explain more than 75% of the difference in life expectancy between men and women over the age of 60, explains biochemist Kenneth Walsh, a researcher at the University of Virginia in the US and co-author of the study. In other words, this mutation would explain four of the five years lower life expectancy in men. Walshs estimate links to a previous study in which men with a high mLOY load live about four years less than those without it.

It is well known that men die earlier than women because they smoke and drink more and are more prone to recklessness. But, beyond the age of 60, genetics becomes the main culprit in the deterioration of their health: It seems as if men age earlier than women, Walsh points out.

The study reveals the molecular keys to the damage associated with the mLOY mutation. Within the large group of blood cells can be found the immune systems white blood cells responsible for defending the body against viruses and other pathogens. The loss of the Y chromosome triggers aberrant behavior in macrophages, a type of white blood cell, causing them to scar heart tissue, which in turn increases the risk of heart failure. Researchers have shown that the damage can be reversed if they give mice pirfenidone, a drug approved to treat humans with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, a condition in which the lungs become scarred and breathing becomes increasingly difficult.

There are three factors that increase the risk of Y chromosome loss. The first is the inevitable ageing process. The longer one lives, the more cell divisions occur in the body and the greater the likelihood of mutations occurring in the genome copying process. The second is smoking. Smoking causes you to lose the Y chromosome in your blood at an accelerated rate; if you stop smoking, healthy cells once again become the majority, says Walsh. But the third is also inevitable: other inherited genetic mutations can increase the gradual loss of the Y chromosome in the blood by a factor of five, explains Forsberg.

Both Forsberg and Walsh believe that this study opens up an enormous field of research. Still to be studied is whether men with this mutation also have cardiac fibrosis and whether this is behind their heart attacks and other cardiac ailments. We also need to better understand why losing the Y chromosome damages health. For now, we have shown that the Y chromosome is not just there for reproduction, but is is also important for our health, says Forsberg. The next step is to identify which genes are responsible for the phenomenon.

The loss of this chromosome has been detected in all organs and tissues of the body and at all ages, although it is more evident after 60. It is abundant in the blood because this is a tissue that produces millions of new cells every day from blood stem cells. Healthy stem cells produce healthy daughter cells and mutated ones produce daughter cells with mLOY.

A previous study showed that this mutation of the Y chromosome disrupts the function of up to 500 genes located elsewhere in the genome. It has also been shown to damage lymphocytes and natural killer cells, evident in men with prostate cancer and Alzheimers disease, respectively.

There are hardly any tests for mLOY at present. But Forsberg and his colleagues have designed a PCR test that measures the level of this mutation in the blood and could serve to determine which levels of this mutation are harmful to health. Right now, we see people in their 80s with 80% of their blood cells mutated, but we dont know what impact this has on their health, says Walsh.

Another unanswered question is why men lose the genetic mark of the male with age. The evolutionary logic, argue the authors of the paper, is that men are biologically designed to have offspring as soon as possible and to live 40 to 50 years at most. The spectacular increase in life expectancy in the last century has meant that men and women live to an advanced age 80 and 86 years in Spain, respectively which makes the effect of these mutations more evident. Another fact which possibly has some bearing on the issue: the vast majority of people who reach 100 are women.

To transform all these discoveries into treatments, we first need to better understand this phenomenon, says Forsberg. We men are not designed to live forever, but perhaps we can increase our life expectancy by a few more years.

Biochemist Jos Javier Fuster, who studies pathological mutations in blood cells at the National Center for Cardiovascular Research, stresses the importance of the work. Until now it was not clear whether the loss of Y was the cause of cancer, Alzheimers disease and heart failure, he explains. This is the first demonstration in animals that it has a causal role. The human Y chromosome is different from the mouse chromosome, so the priority now is to accumulate more data in humans. This is a great first step in understanding this new mechanism behind aging-linked diseases, he adds.

The cells of the human body group their DNA into 23 pairs of chromosomes that pair up one by one when a cell copies its genome to generate a daughter cell. The Y is the only one that does not have a symmetrical partner to pair up with: instead, it does so with an X chromosome; and the entire Y chromosome is often lost, explains Luis Alberto Prez Jurado from Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona. For now, six genes have been identified within the Y chromosome that would be responsible for an impact on health, he says. All of them are related to the proper functioning of the immune system. In part, this would also explain the greater vulnerability of males to viral infections, including Covid-19.

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mLOY: The genetic defect that explains why men have shorter lives than woman - EL PAS USA

News Release

Thursday, April 21, 2022

Children conceived with infertility treatment may have a higher risk for asthma and allergies, suggests a study by researchers at the National Institutes of Health. The study was conducted by scientists at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, part of the National Institutes of Health. It appears in Human Reproduction.

The study enrolled approximately 5,000 mothers and 6,000 children born between 2008 and 2010. Mothers responded periodically to questionnaires on their health and their childrens health and medical histories. Infertility treatments included in vitro fertilization (sperm and egg are combined in a laboratory dish and inserted in the uterus), drugs that stimulate ovulation, and a procedure in which sperm are inserted into the uterus.

Compared to children conceived without infertility treatment, children conceived after treatment were more likely to have persistent wheeze by age 3, a potential indication of asthma. At 7 to 9 years old, children conceived with treatment were 30% more likely to have asthma, 77% more likely to have eczema (an allergic condition resulting in rashes and itchy skin) and 45% more likely to have a prescription for an allergy medication.

The authors called for additional research to determine how infertility treatment or lower parental fertility might influence the development of asthma and allergy in children.

Edwina Yeung, Ph.D., of the NICHD Epidemiology Branch and senior author of the study, is available for comment.

Polinski KJ et al. Infertility treatment associated with childhood asthma and atopy. Human Reproduction. 2022.https://doi.org/10.1093/humrep/deac070

About the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD): NICHD leads research and training to understand human development, improve reproductive health, enhance the lives of children and adolescents, and optimize abilities for all. For more information, visit https://www.nichd.nih.gov.

About the National Institutes of Health (NIH):NIH, the nation's medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit http://www.nih.gov.

NIHTurning Discovery Into Health

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Asthma, allergy risk may be higher for children conceived with infertility treatment - National Institutes of Health (.gov)

THE DEPARTMENT OF Health is planning to fund IVF services from 2023, with Taoiseach Michel Martin saying today that regional fertility hubs will be established before that.

A public fund which promised financial support for people undergoing fertility treatmentwas first announced in 2017, with commitments to fund IVF also contained in the Programme for Government.

Earlier this year, the government published the Health (Assisted Human Reproduction) Bill which will provide a basis for infertility services but no strict timeline for public IVF was provided.

It has now been confirmed by the Department of Health that it is hoped this would come on stream in 2023.

Speaking in the Dil today, Martin said Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly increased funding for womens health in this years Budget.

The minister intends to have a model of care for infertility, which will see the introduction of advanced assisted human reproduction treatments, including IVF, in the public health system. Mr Donnelly plans to commence this in 2023.

Currently, Ireland is the only country in the European Union where fertility treatments such IVF are not publicly funded.

Martin was speaking in the Dil today in response to questions from People Before Profit TD Paul Murphy, who has spoken publicly about the cost of IVF treatments for himself and his partner.

Murphy noted that there have been promises from previous governments about IVF funding and that he was doubtful whether it would happen next year.

I dont want to hold my breath about it, because we have heard this before, from the then minister for health Leo Varadkar in 2016, its in Slintecare, its in the Programme for Government and there has been precious little progress, he said.

So Im asking Taoiseach for a guarantee that this is actually going to happen in 2023 and a timeframe for when that will be within that year. Im also asking for a commitment that sufficient funding will be provided for the public system to ensure it can be done publicly, as opposed to outsourced private, mostly for-profit providers.

The question of the private companies profiting from infertility treatments is one that has been investigated by Noteworthy, with some private facility clinics reporting profits of well over 1 million in financial statements.

Speaking today, Fine Gael TD Neale Richmond also told the Dil that publicly available IVF must be matched but statutory employee leave to attend appointments.

What preparatory work has begun in relation to ensure that both parents will be eligible for leave dates and sick leave dates during this period, that eligibility will be inclusive of all of society?, he said.

Can we ensure that this process will be open and accessible to all very quickly because the uncertainty is already playing on so many hearts and minds of people around the country.

Taoiseach Michel Martin noted that theAssisted Human Reproduction Bill passed its second stage in March and continues to work its way through the Oireachtas.

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Phase One of the rollout of the model of care has involved the establishment at secondary care level of regional fertility hubs within maternity networks in order to facilitate the management of a significant proportion of people presenting infertility issues at this level of intervention, he said.

Phase Two of the rollout will see the introduction of tertiary infertility services, including IVF, in the public health system planned for 2023 at such time as infertility serves a secondary level services have been developed across the country.

The key legislation, the Assisted Human Reproduction Bill, passed second stage on 23 March, has been referred to the Select Committee on Health for third stage. Its important to get that through to create the legislative base.

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Publicly-funded IVF to begin in 2023 with 'regional fertility hubs' before that - TheJournal.ie