A breast cancer diagnosis is terrifying enough at any time. But for 49-year-old Grecia Solis, the arduous choices faced by all cancer patients were complicated by the crippling decline of Venezuela’s public health facilities.After her diagnosis two years ago, doctors recommended surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Before the oil-producing nation’s steep economic decline of recent years, those services would have been available free of charge or for a nominal fee at a state-run public hospital.Grecia Solis is 49 years old; she raised money among family and friends to undergo her breast cancer operation in a private clinic, due to the lack of supplies in the public hospital.But trained staff, medicines and equipment are in such short supply at those facilities today that a public hospital was no longer an option. Instead, Solis was forced to borrow money from family and friends to pay for her operation at a privately run, for-profit …

Experts warn that climate change is speeding up melting on Earth’s frozen peaks, threatening the planet’s long-term water supply. The more than 150 global mountain experts attending the first High Mountain Summit warn time is running out for the world’s glaciers. They say climate change is causing temperatures to rise in Earth’s frozen zones, leading to a rapid melting on vital peaks.For example, scientists say Swiss glaciers have lost 10 percent of their volume in the past five years. The disappearance of hundreds of small glaciers in the Alps was dramatized when hundreds of mourners recently attended what was dubbed a “funeral” to mark the loss of Switzerland’s Pizol glacier.The World Meteorological Organization reports international observers show an acceleration in the retreat of 31 major glaciers in the past two decades. They include mountains in the Himalaya and Hindu Kush regions and Tibetan Plateau in Asia.  Summit co-chair, Canadian John Pomeroy, …

The United Nations global climate meeting next month will take place in Madrid rather than Chile, which had to bow out as host on short notice, officials said Friday. U.N. climate chief Patricia Espinosa said representatives of the body that organizes the annual conference had accepted Spain’s offer to host it in the country’s capital Dec. 2-13. Chilean President Sebastian Pinera announced Wednesday that he was canceling plans to host the meeting, as well as a summit of Asia-Pacific leaders, to focus on restoring security in his country following weeks of protests in which at least a dozen people have died. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s office offered Thursday to step in, sending delegates from around the world scrambling to change their travel plans. Sanchez, who is facing a national election Nov. 10, celebrated Friday’s decision. Excellent news: Madrid will host the global climate meeting from Dec. 2-13. Spain is already at work to guarantee its …

On Aug. 25, 1989, an 8-year-old girl with cystic fibrosis wrote in her journal that it was “the most best day” because scientists had “found a Jean for Cistik fibrosis.”  On Thursday, the current head of the National Institutes of Health — who was a member of one of the teams that found the gene — wrote in The New England Journal of Medicine that a triple-drug therapy has been found to be highly effective in treating the life-threatening disorder.”We hoped that the gene discovery would someday lead to effective treatments for children and adults with cystic fibrosis,” Francis Collins wrote. “Now, 30 years later, that time has come.”The drug, called Trikafta, was approved by the Food and Drug Administration last week.Some 30,000 Americans have been diagnosed with cystic fibrosis, which causes thick mucus buildup in the patient’s organs, affecting respiration and digestion. While other drugs have helped lengthen patients’ …