The Iowa Attorney General’s Office has paused its practice of paying for emergency contraception — and in rare cases, abortions — for victims of sexual assault, a move that drew criticism from some victim advocates. Federal regulations and state law require Iowa to pay many of the expenses for sexual assault victims who seek medical help, such as the costs of forensic exams and treatment for sexually transmitted infections. Under the previous attorney general, Democrat Tom Miller, Iowa’s victim compensation fund also paid for Plan B, the so-called morning after pill, as well as other treatments to prevent pregnancy. A spokeswoman for Republican Attorney General Brenna Bird, who defeated Miller’s bid for an 11th term in November, told the Des Moines Register that those payments are now on hold as part of a review of victim services. “As a part of her top-down, bottom-up audit of victim assistance, Attorney General …

Climate change, deforestation, and urbanization are some of the major risk factors behind the increasing number of outbreaks of viruses such as dengue, Zika, and chikungunya around the world, warns a study by the World Health Organization.  The study says the incidence of infections caused by these mosquito-borne illnesses, which thrive in tropical and subtropical climates, have grown dramatically in recent decades.  The report says cases of dengue have increased from just over half a million globally in 2000 to 5.2 million in 2019.  And the trend continues.  The latest data show about half of the world’s population now is at risk of dengue, the most common viral infection that spreads from mosquitoes to people, with an estimated 100 to 400 million infections occurring every year.  “Right now, around 129 countries are at risk of dengue, and it is endemic in over 100 countries,” said Raman Velayudhan, unit head of …

A 17-meter-long said Sunday, making it the third whale that beached itself on the Indonesian island in just a little over a week.  The male sperm whale was found stranded on Yeh Leh beach in west Bali’s Jembrana district Saturday afternoon.  “We are currently trying to pull the carcass to the shore to make it easier for the necropsy test and we will bury it after the test is concluded,” Permana Yudiarso, a local marine and fisheries official, told AFP Sunday.  This is the third whale that has beached itself in Bali, a popular tourist destination for, in April alone.  On Wednesday, an 18-meter-long male sperm whale was stranded in Klungkung district, on Bali’s eastern coast.  Before that, a Bryde’s whale weighing more than two tons and at least 11 meters long was found stranded on a beach in Tabanan on April 1 — its carcass already rotted when discovered …

Qamar Ali Haji has been using skin-lightening products for four years. Initially she liked the change in her appearance but now the exposure to the chemicals in the products is taking a toll. She says she regrets it. “I can’t sit too long in the school, I cannot bear the heat, my cheeks turn red, and I cannot go into the kitchen,” Haji said. “I cannot bear the slightest heat, I become boiled, there are ulcers on my legs, redness all over.” The 19-year-old student is one of a growing number of women in Somalia who use the skin-lightening products. Locally known as “qasqas” or “mixture,” the term reflects the combination of various skin-whitening products. Health advocates say using these products can cause dangerous side effects and lead to physical and mental health problems. Somali officials and activists said the country’s political upheavals and the war on the al-Shabab militant …

During the coronavirus pandemic, telemedicine became a virtual phenomenon. As people remained in their homes during the pandemic, they began chatting with their doctors over the phone or video platforms on subjects such as chronic disease management, ongoing medical support, mental health issues and specialty care. To reach their patients, many health professionals had to figure out quickly how to set up their first online systems for telemedicine, also known as telehealth. “Doctors hadn’t provided it as an option previously because the infrastructure and technology wasn’t widely available,” said Dr. Shira Fischer, a physician policy researcher at the RAND Corp., which has conducted surveys asking Americans whether they use telehealth. Fisher noted that in a February 2019 survey, less than 4% of the respondents said they used video telehealth. But two years later during the pandemic, that number had skyrocketed to 45%. “I think telehealth is great,” said Michael Wu, …

With the whir of a mower under a clear blue sky, Senegalese researchers have begun harvesting a crop of experimental homegrown wheat, the latest step in a yearslong effort to reduce reliance on imports. The second-most consumed cereal after rice, wheat is an important staple in the bread-loving West African nation. But Senegal, like many of its neighbors, depends entirely on foreign supplies. It imports 800,000 metric tons of the grain per year. Its tropical climate is not naturally suited to wheat, but domestic trials have been underway for years. Supply chain problems, rising grain prices and inflation caused by the war in Ukraine have added urgency to the country’s efforts to achieve self-sufficiency. Four varieties Since late last week, researchers from the Senegalese Institute for Agricultural Research, a public research institute, have been harvesting four varieties of wheat on a demonstration plot in Sangalkam, 35 kilometers from the capital …

A growing number of state legislatures are considering bans on cosmetics and other consumer products that contain a group of synthetic, potentially harmful chemicals known as PFAS. In Vermont, the state Senate gave final approval this week to legislation that would prohibit manufacturers and suppliers from selling or distributing any cosmetics or menstrual products in the state that have perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, as well as a number of other chemicals. The products include shampoo, makeup, deodorant, sunscreen, hair dyes and more, said state Sen. Terry Williams, a Republican, and member of the Senate Committee on Health and Welfare. “Many known toxic chemicals are used in or found as contaminants in personal care products, including PFAS, lead and formaldehyde,” Williams said in reporting the bill to Senate colleagues. California, Colorado and Maryland passed similar restrictions on cosmetics that go into effect in 2025. Other proposals are under consideration in Washington …

Dust off your eclipse glasses: It’s only a year until a total solar eclipse sweeps across North America.  On April 8, 2024, the moon will cast its shadow across a stretch of the U.S., Mexico and Canada, plunging millions of people into midday darkness.  It’s been less than six years since a total solar eclipse cut across the U.S., from coast to coast. That was on August 21, 2017.  If you miss next year’s spectacle, you’ll have to wait 20 years until the next one hits the U.S. But that total eclipse will be visible only in Montana and the Dakotas.  Here’s what to know to get ready for the 2024 show:  Where can I see it?  Next year’s eclipse will slice a diagonal line across North America on April 8, which falls on a Monday.  It will start in the Pacific and first reach land over Mexico around 11:07 …

Changes in air patterns as the world warms will likely push more and nastier hurricanes up against the United States’ East and Gulf coasts, especially in Florida, a new study said. While other studies have projected how human-caused climate change will probably alter the frequency, strength and moisture of tropical storms, the study in Friday’s journal Science Advances focuses on where hurricanes are going. It’s all about projected changes in steering currents, said study lead author Karthik Balaguru, a Pacific Northwest National Laboratory climate scientist. “Along every coast they’re kind of pushing the storms closer to the U.S.,” Balaguru said. The steering currents move from south to north along the Gulf of Mexico; on the East Coast, the normal west-to-east steering is lessened considerably and can be more east-to-west, he said. Overall, in a worst-case warming scenario, the number of times a storm hits parts of the U.S. coast in …

India’s federal government asked states to identify emergency hotspots and ramp up testing for COVID-19 after the country recorded its highest daily case count since September, a Reuters tally showed on Friday. There were 6,050 new cases of COVID-19 in the past 24 hours, the federal Health Ministry said on Friday, continuing a sharp upward trend since a lull last year. At a meeting to review the degree to which the states are prepared, Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya asked them to ramp up genome testing and conduct mock drills in hospitals, a government statement said. Daily new cases have nearly tripled from around 2,000 at the end of March. The prevalence of XBB.1.16, classified as a variant of interest by the World Health Organization, increased from 21.6% in February to 35.8% in March, the Health Ministry said, adding there that was no evidence of an increase in hospitalizations or deaths. …

Health care workers in Zimbabwe have condemned the government’s plan to criminalize their recruitment to work in other countries as part of efforts to reduce a medical brain drain.  Zimbabwe’s vice president and health minister, Constantino Chiwenga, said the country will introduce a law to make it illegal for foreign nations to hire their health care workers.  Zimbabwe’s Association of Doctors for Human Rights says any attempt to prevent health care workers from leaving the country for better jobs would be illegal. The head of the association, Dr. Norman Matara, told VOA Friday the government’s plan to criminalize foreign recruitment of health care workers was shocking.  “Also in our constitution, the Zimbabwe constitution, it guarantees citizens have the right to move freely within the country or leave the country,” Matara said. “We don’t know why those comments were made by the honorable minister of health. The government continue to use scare tactics …

Celebrations marking World Health Day are taking place in the shadow of the coronavirus that has sickened more than 762 million people around the world and killed more than 6.8 million.  “For the past three years, [the World Health Organization] has coordinated the global response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the most severe health crisis in a century,” said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO director-general. “And as COVID-19 has exposed so brutally, there remain serious gaps in the world’s defenses against epidemics and pandemics.  “For all these reasons and more, the world needs WHO now more than ever,” he said.  This year’s World Health Day coincides with the 75th anniversary of the founding of the WHO, which emerged from the ashes of World War II to create a healthier world in the aftermath of what is recognized as the deadliest and most destructive war in human history.  The vision of attaining a …

The World Health Organization said Thursday that it was sure China had far more data that could shed light on the origins of COVID-19, demanding that Beijing immediately share all relevant information. “Without full access to the information that China has … all hypotheses are on the table,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in Geneva. “That’s why we have been asking China to be cooperative on this,” he said, insisting that if Beijing does provide the missing data, “we will know what happened or how it started.” More than three years after COVID-19 surfaced, heated debate still rages around the origins of the pandemic. The issue has proved divisive for the scientific community and even different U.S. government agencies, which are split between one theory that the virus jumped naturally from animals to humans and another that the virus likely leaked from a Wuhan laboratory — a claim China …

Cyclone Freddy killed hundreds of people in February and March as it pummeled Madagascar, Malawi, and Mozambique. While the long-running storm’s victims were mostly in Malawi, floodwaters in Mozambique have created a fresh threat there from cholera. Cases have nearly doubled in one week to 19,000 amid a shortage of facilities, many of which were badly damaged by the cyclone, especially in the worst-hit province of Zambezia. The neighborhood of Icidua, on the outskirts of Quelimane city in Mozambique’s central Zambezia province, has reported the highest number of cholera cases. Most here lived in flimsy huts made of mud or bamboo that were flattened by the cyclone’s up to 215 kilometer per hour winds. The local health center’s building is no longer stable, so doctors and nurses work outside under the shade of trees. Mothers lined up patiently this week with their children for cholera treatment in one of the …

Life on our planet faced a stern test during the Cryogenian Period that lasted from 720 million to 635 million years ago when Earth twice was frozen over with runaway glaciation and looked from space like a shimmering white snowball. Life somehow managed to survive during this time called “Snowball Earth,” and a new study offers a deeper understanding as to why. Fossils identified as seaweed unearthed in black shale in central China’s Hubei Province indicate that habitable marine environments were more widespread at the time than previously known, scientists said Tuesday. The findings support the idea that it was more of a “Slushball Earth” where the earliest forms of complex life — basic multicellular organisms — endured even at mid-latitudes previously thought to have been frozen solid. The fossils date from the second of the two times during the Cryogenian Period when massive ice sheets stretched from the poles …

Farmers and Silicon Valley technologists are collaborating to make agriculture more efficient and productive. Michelle Quinn reports on the ag technology being developed and what is to come. …