Archive for category: News

Today marks the International Day against Climate Change, 2022 has shown worldwide the effects of global warming and the impacts on broad swaths of the population. The OAS reviews the situation in the region and puts the challenges for Latin American countries into perspective.

The American continent has witnessed this year how persistent droughts reveal the bottom of lakes and rivers dried up, cracked soils; Raging fires have also devastated forests one after another during extreme heat waves in the western United States and Canada.

Also in Latin America, the effects of global warming are beginning to take their toll on countries like Chile, Brazil, Argentina and parts of Peru that have had to face extreme and persistent drought, while in tropical areas the rains have come in excess.

This October 24, the world commemorates the World Day against Climate Change, a date that calls for reflection on the impact of the phenomenon associated with the climate and the patterns of human behavior to aggravate it.

In this context, the Organization of American States (OAS) presented a report to put the situation in the region into perspective and how joint public policies should be oriented to deal with the problem.

The study Climate Change: life, democracy, justice, freedom and equality analyzes the situation and the commitments that must be materialized in the short term in the region so that it can overcome the phenomenon that in some areas of the American continent has begun to trigger waves migratory

In others, it exposes vulnerabilities due to the accumulation of one disaster after another caused by extreme natural phenomena.

“There are countries, such as those in the Caribbean and Central America, that are in the group that suffer the most from the consequences and at the same time are the most vulnerable. In the absence of special conditions, the countries of Central America and the Caribbean will come out of each shock with more vulnerabilities and less capacity to face the next one”, the study explains.

And these dynamics -according to the OAS study- are repeated on a scale in each nation among the most vulnerable population and differs from those who have more capacities to deal with the problem.

It is considered that among “the continuous effects of climate change in the OAS member states, the irreparable damage and the high cost it has had stands out, both in human lives and in human displacement and economic destruction.”

The investigation has crossed data from other reports that have emerged in the different regions of the continent, contributions from experts who have systematized the information, and the visits that intergovernmental missions have made to assess the phenomenon in the face of “the serious challenges that the OAS member states are already facing. , and the way in which they can worsen if the factors that cause climate change are not counteracted”, reads the document.

Hypotheses and theories about the origin of COVID-19 in China gained new impetus this week with the announcement of a report from the US Department of Energy that claimed that the virus escaped from a Chinese laboratory.

The origins of COVID-19 remain unclear. Three years after the start of the pandemic, it is still not clear if the coronavirus that causes the disease left a laboratory or reached humans from an animal.

What is known is that when it comes to misinformation about COVID-19, any new report on the origin of the virus will soon lead to a relapse and a return of misleading claims about the virus, vaccines and masks that have resonated since the beginning of the pandemic.

It happened again this week after the US Department of Energy announced that a classified report had concluded, with a low level of confidence, that the virus had escaped from a laboratory.

Within hours, online mentions of COVID-19 conspiracy theories began to surface, with many people saying the classified report proved they had been right all along.

The Energy Department report adds to other attempts by scientists and authorities to identify the source of the virus, which has killed nearly 7 million people since it was first detected in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in late 2019.

The report has not been made public, and authorities in Washington stressed that several US agencies disagree on the origin.

Source: vozdeamerica.com

Although the rise in drug overdose deaths in the US appears to have stalled, experts say better treatment and counseling could begin to slow the trend, though they aren’t confident.

Drug overdose deaths in the United States increased slightly last year after two large increases during the pandemic.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) officials say the numbers have stagnated for most of the past year, but they’re not sure if that means the worst overdose epidemic in the US is finally coming to an end. top, or it will be like previous plateaus that were followed by new increases in deaths.

“The fact that it seems to be flattening out, at least nationally, is encouraging,” said Katherine Keyes, a Columbia University professor of epidemiology whose research focuses on drug use. “But these numbers are still extraordinarily high. We should not suggest that the crisis is by any means over.”

An estimated 109,680 overdose deaths occurred last year, according to figures released Wednesday by the CDC. That’s about 2% more than the 107,622 deaths recorded in 2021, but nothing like the 30% increase seen in 2020 and 15% in 2021.

While the overall national number was relatively stable between 2021 and 2022, there were drastic changes in several states: 23 reported fewer overdose deaths, one, Iowa, saw no change, and the rest continued to rise.

Eight states—Florida, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia—reported significant declines in overdose deaths of around 100 or more compared to the previous calendar year.

Some of those states had some of the highest overdose death rates during the epidemic, which Keyes said could be a sign that years of focused work to address the problem is paying off.

State officials cited several factors for the decline, including social media and health education campaigns to warn the public about the dangers of drug use, more addiction treatment such as telehealth, and wider distribution of the anti-inflammatory drug naxalone. the overdoses.

Also, the stigma that prevented drug users from seeking help, and some doctors and police officers from helping them, is diminishing, said Dr. Joseph Kanter, a state health official for Louisiana, where overdose deaths fell 4 percent last year. last year.

“We are catching up and the tide is turning, slowly,” said Kanter, whose state has one of the highest overdose death rates in the country.

Beginning in the mid-1990s, the abuse of prescription opioid painkillers was to blame for deaths before a gradual shift to heroin, which in 2015 caused more deaths than prescription painkillers or other drugs.

A year later, the deadlier fentanyl and its close cousins became the biggest killer drugs.

Last year, the majority of overdose deaths continued to be linked to fentanyl and other synthetic opioids. Around 75,000, 4% more than the previous year. There was also an 11% increase in deaths related to cocaine and a 3% increase in deaths related to methamphetamine and other stimulants.

Overdose deaths are often attributed to more than one drug. Some people take multiple drugs, and officials say cheap fentanyl is increasingly being used in other drugs, often without the knowledge of buyers.

Research by Dr. Daniel Ciccarone, a drug policy expert at the University of California, San Francisco, suggests that “there appears to be some substitution,” with a number of illicit drug users turning to methamphetamine or other options to try to stay away from fentanyl and drugs contaminated with fentanyl.

Ciccarone believes that overdose deaths will eventually decrease. He cited improvements in addiction counseling and treatment, better availability of naloxone and legal action that led to revenues of more than $50 billion, money that will need to be made available to bolster overdose prevention.

“We’ve invested a lot in this 20-year problem of opioid overdoses,” he said. “We must be bending the curve.”

However, he expressed some caution, saying “we’ve been here before.”

For example, in 2018, when overdose deaths fell 4% from the previous year, to around 67,000, then-President Donald Trump declared, “We are stopping the opioid epidemic.”

But overdose deaths then increase

on to a record 71,000 in 2019, and then skyrocketed during the COVID-19 pandemic to 92,000 in 2020 and 107,000 in 2021.

Lockdowns and other pandemic-era restrictions isolated people with drug addictions and made it harder to access treatment, experts say.

Keyes believes the 2022 numbers didn’t get worse in part because isolation eased as the pandemic abated. But there may be problems ahead, others say, such as increased detection of the veterinary tranquilizer xylazine in illicit drugs and proposals to reduce things like the prescription of addiction drugs through telehealth.

“What the last 20 years of this overdose crisis have taught us is that this really is a moving target,” Keyes said. “And when you think you’ve got it under control, sometimes the problem can morph into new and different ways.”

 

Source: www.vozdeamerica.com

The new messaging application is expected to compete with Twitter, one of the pioneers in sending instant messages.

Meta Platforms’ Instagram plans to launch a text-based app to compete with Twitter that could debut as early as June, Bloomberg News reported on Friday, citing sources familiar with the matter.

Facebook’s parent company is testing the product with influencers and some content creators on social networks, according to the report.

The company did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

Meta has been reaching out to talent agencies and celebrities to gauge interest in testing an early version of the app, which will integrate with Instagram, Verge reporter Alex Heath said in a newsletter.

“The decentralized app is based on Instagram, but it will be compatible with other apps, such as Mastodon,” Lia Haberman, a professor of social media and influencer marketing at the University of California (UCLA), said in a newsletter.

 

Source: www.vozdeamerica.com