#International Agency of Research on Cancer

[indizombie]

Alcohol, according to the World Health Organisation, is a causal factor in more than 200 disease and injury conditions, and its harmful use is associated with 5 percent of deaths worldwide each year. As well as heart disease, drinking alcohol is associated with a risk of developing mental and behavioural disorders, including alcohol dependence, and major noncommunicable diseases such as liver cirrhosis and some cancers (at least six different kinds, including breast and colon cancer). Alcoholic drinks are classified by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) as a Group 1 carcinogen - the same as asbestos and tobacco. Alcohol is also a big contributor to injuries, including road crashes, violence and suicide. The burden from these tends to fall on younger age groups. Speaking of which, around 1800 babies are born with Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) in Aotearoa each year, a totally preventable lifelong condition encompassing a range of physical, cognitive, behavioural and neurodevelopmental disabilities. If the big stuff doesn't have you convinced, there are the many ways alcohol wreaks havoc in our everyday lives. It destroys our sleep, preventing the deep restful sleep we need. It's bad for our mood - contributing negatively to mood issues and mental health disorders such as anxiety and depression. And it's terrible for our nutrition, contributing to nutrient deficiencies, physical and mental performance and, because it's so energy-dense, weight gain.

Niki Bezzant, ‘Why now's the time to break up with alcohol (not just for July)’, RNZ

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Academic economists get big payouts when they help monopolists beat antitrust

After 40 years of rampant corporate crime, there's a new sheriff in town: Jonathan Kanter was appointed by Biden to run the DOJ Antitrust Divisoon, and he's overseen 170 "significant antitrust actions" in the past 2.5 years, culminating in a court case where Google was ruled to be an illegal monopolist:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/08/07/revealed-preferences/#extinguish-v-improve

Kanter's work is both extraordinary and par for the course. As Kanter said in a recent keynote for the Fordham Law Competition Law Institute’s 51st Annual Conference on International Antitrust Law and Policy, we're witnessing an epochal, global resurgence of antitrust:

https://www.justice.gov/opa/speech/assistant-attorney-general-jonathan-kanter-delivers-remarks-fordham-competition-law-0

Kanter's incredible enforcement track record isn't just part of a national trend – his colleagues in the FTC, CFPB and other agencies have also been pursuing an antitrust agenda not seen in generations – but also a worldwide trend. Antitrust enforcers in Canada, the UK, the EU, South Korea, Australia, Japan and even China are all taking aim at smashing corporate monopolies. Not only are they racking up impressive victories against these giant corporations, they're stealing the companies' swagger. After all, the point of enforcement isn't just to punish wrongdoing, but also to deter wrongdoing by others.

Until recently, companies hurled themselves into illegal schemes (mergers, predatory pricing, tying, refusals to deal, etc) without fear or hesitation. Now, many of these habitual offenders are breaking the habit, giving up before they've even tried. Take Wiz, a startup that turned down Google's record-shattering $23b buyout offer, understanding that the attempt would draw more antitrust scrutiny than it was worth:

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/wiz-turns-down-23-billion-022926296.html

As welcome as this antitrust renaissance is, it prompts an important question: why didn't we enforce antitrust law for the 40 years between Reagan and Biden?

That's what Kanter addresses the majority of his remarks to. The short answer is: crooked academic economists took bribes from monopolists and would-be monopolists to falsify their research on the impacts of monopolists, and made millions (literally – one guy made over $100m at this) testifying that monopolies were good and efficient.

After all, governments aren't just there to enforce rules – they have to make the rules first, and do to that, they need to understand how the world works, so they can understand how to fix the places where it's broken. That's where experts come in, filling regulators' dockets and juries' ears with truthful, factual testimony about their research. Experts can still be wrong, of course, but when the system works well, they're only wrong by accident.

The system doesn't work well. Back in the 1950s, the tobacco industry was threatened by the growing scientific consensus that smoking caused cancer. Industry scientists confirmed this finding. In response, the industry paid statisticians, doctors and scientists to produce deceptive research reports and testimony about the tobacco/cancer link.

The point of this work wasn't necessarily to convince people that tobacco was safe – rather, it was to create the sense that the safety of tobacco was a fundamentally unanswerable question. "Experts disagree," and you're not qualified to figure out who's right and who's wrong, so just stop trying to figure it out and light up.

In other words, Big Tobacco's cancer denial playbook wasn't so much an attack on "the truth" as it was an attack on epistemology – the system by which we figure out what is true and what isn't. The tactic was devastatingly effective. Not only did it allow the tobacco giants to kill millions of people with impunity, it allowed them to reap billions of dollars by doing so.

Since then, epistemology has been under sustained assault. By the 1970s, Big Oil knew that its products would render the Earth unfit for human habitation, and they hired the same companies that had abetted Big Tobacco's mass murder to provide cover for their own slow-motion, planetary scale killing spree.

Time and again, big business has used assaults on epistemology to provide cover for unthinkable crimes. This has given rise to today's epistemological crisis, in which we don't merely disagree about what is true, but (far more importantly) disagree about how the truth can be known:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/25/black-boxes/#when-you-know-you-know

Ask a conspiratorialist why they believe in Qanon or Hatians in Springfield eating pets, and you'll get an extremely vibes-based answer – fundamentally, they believe it because it feels true. As the old saying goes, you can't reason someone out of a belief they didn't reason their way into.

This assault on reason itself is at the core of Kanter's critique. He starts off by listing three cases in which academic economists allowed themselves to be corrupted by the monopolies they studied:

George Mason University tricked an international antitrust enforcer into attending a training seminar that they believed to be affiliated with the US government. It was actually sponsored by the very companies that enforcer was scrutnizing, and featured a parade of "experts" who asserted that these companies were great, actually.

An academic from GMU – which receives substantial tech industry funding – signed an amicus brief opposing an enforcement action against their funders. The academic also presented a defense of these funders to the OECD, all while posing as a neutral academic and not disclosing their funding sources.

An ex-GMU economist, Joshua Wright, submitted a study defending Qualcomm against the FTC, without disclosing that he'd been paid to do so. Wright has elevated undisclosed conflicts of interest to an art form:

https://www.wsj.com/us-news/law/google-lawyer-secret-weapon-joshua-wright-c98d5a31

Kanter is at pains to point out that these three examples aren't exceptional. The economics profession – whose core tenet is "incentive matter" – has made it standard practice for individual researchers and their academic institutions to take massive sums from giant corporations. Incredibly, they insist that this has nothing to do with their support of monopolies as "efficient."

Academic centers often serve as money-laundries for monopolist funders; researchers can evade disclosure requirements when they publish in journals or testify in court, saying only that they work for some esteemed university, without noting that the university is utterly dependent on money from the companies they're defending.

Now, Kanter is a lawyer, not an academic, and that means that his job is to advocate for positions, and he's at pains to say that he's got nothing but respect for ideological advocacy. What he's objecting to is partisan advocacy dressed up as impartial expertise.

For Kanter, mixing advocacy with expertise doesn't create expert advocacy – it obliterates expertise, as least when it comes to making good policy. This mixing has created a "crisis of expertise…a pervasive breakdown in the distinction between expertise and advocacy in competition policy."

The point of an independent academia, enshrined in the American Association of University Professors' charter, is to "advance knowledge by the unrestricted research and unfettered discussion of impartial investigators." We need an independent academy, because "to be of use to the legislator or the administrator, [an academic] must enjoy their complete confidence in the disinterestedness of [his or her] conclusions."

It's hard to overstate just how much money economists can make by defending monopolies. Writing for The American Prospect, Robert Kuttner gives the rate at $1,000/hour. Monopoly's top defenders make unimaginable sums, like U Chicago's Dennis Carlton, who's brought in over $100m in consulting fees:

https://prospect.org/economy/2024-09-24-economists-as-apologists/

The hidden cost of all of this is epistemological consensus. As Tim Harford writes in his 2021 book The Data Detective, the truth can be known through research and peer-review:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/04/how-to-truth/#harford

But when experts deliberately seek to undermine the idea of expertise, they cast laypeople into an epistemological void. We know these questions are important, but we can't trust our corrupted expert institutions. That leaves us with urgent questions – and no answers. That's a terrifying state to be in, and it makes you easy pickings for authoritarian grifters and conspiratorial swindlers.

Seen in this light, Kanter's antitrust work is even more important. In attacking corporate power itself, he is going after the machine that funds this nihilism-inducing corruption machine.

This week, Tor Books published SPILL, a new, free LITTLE BROTHER novella about oil pipelines and indigenous landback!

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/09/25/epistemological-chaos/#incentives-matter

Image: Ron Cogswell (modified) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:George.Mason.University.Arlington.Campus.jpg

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

[odinsblog]

Veterans’ health care


A 1996 law set eligibility requirements for military veterans to receive hospital, medical and nursing home care and authorized spending for those services and patient enrollment. That law has not been renewed, but Congress regularly allocates additional Department of Veterans Affairs funding and allows benefits to increase automatically based on inflation. VA provides medical care to more than 9.1 million enrolled veterans, according to the agency.
​

Drug development and opioid addiction treatment

Most of this spending relates to the bipartisan 21st Century Cures Act of 2016. That law provided money to the National Institutes of Health and Food and Drug Administration to modernize pharmaceutical research and medical trials. It funded research for cancer cures and state-level grants for opioid addiction and other substance abuse treatment.


​State Department

In 2003, Congress passed the Foreign Relations Authorization Act, which set policy priorities and created spending authority for the State Department. That law has not been renewed, but Congress every year since has passed annual funding bills for the department, which Trump has announced he’ll nominate Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida) to run.


​Housing assistance

President Bill Clinton in 1998 signed the Quality Housing and Work Responsibility Act, which overhauled federal housing assistance policies, including voucher programs and other antipoverty assistance. The Department of Housing and Urban Development and other agencies continue using this law to implement federal housing programs.


​Justice Department

In 1994, Congress passed the landmark Violence Against Women Act and has renewed it multiple times since. In 2006, lawmakers packaged a VAWA renewal with authorizing legislation for the Justice Department. As with the State Department, Congress has not approved new authorizing legislation for the Justice Department since, but it has funded the agency — and even authorized hundreds of millions of dollars more for a new FBI headquarters — every year.


​Education spending

The 2015 Every Student Succeeds Act delegated power to state and local education officials to set primary and secondary education achievement standards. It gives billions of dollars in federal grant money to state and local education officials to fund schools and school districts. Those standards are still used by the Education Department, even though the legislation has not been reauthorized. Trump has suggested he’d like to eliminate the entire department.

NASA

Stripping funding for NASA, which was last reauthorized in 2017, could spell doom for Musk’s commercial spaceflight firm, SpaceX. The company has contracts worth more than $4 billion — including for return trips to the moon and retiring the International Space Station — linked to programs approved in the 2017 law.


​Health-care and student loan programs

What’s known as the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, was actually passed in two separate bills in 2010. The Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act represents the second bill, which included some tax revisions and technical changes to the ACA. The law has not been reauthorized since, but the Department of Health and Human Services reported in March that more than 45 million people have health insurance coverage backed by the Affordable Care Act.

The law that made those final tweaks to the ACA also overhauled the Education Department’s student loan program. Where some schools relied on private lenders to issue federally backed loans, with this law, the government itself became the lender. That change has since enabled President Joe Biden to offer student loan debt relief, though many of his most ambitious policies have been blocked by the courts. Student loans are generally funded through mandatory spending — similar to social safety net programs such as Medicare and Social Security — and not subject to annual spending laws.


​International security programs

The 1985 International Security and Development Cooperation Act bundled together authorizations for a number of international security programs, including funding and regulations for arms sales to allies, economic aid for developing countries, airport security, anti-narcotics-trafficking policies, the Peace Corps and more. This Reagan-era law continues to be foundational to congressional funding and federal policy.


​Head Start

Head Start provides preschool education for children from low-income families. In the 2023 fiscal year, more than 800,000 children enrolled in Head Start programs, according to the National Head Start Association. The program also helped place more than 530,000 parents in jobs, school or job-training programs. It was last authorized in 2007.

(continue reading)

[mindblowingscience]

The World Health Organization's cancer agency on Friday classified talc as "probably carcinogenic" for humans, however an outside expert warned against misinterpreting the announcement as a "smoking gun". The decision was based on "limited evidence" talc could cause ovarian cancer in humans, "sufficient evidence" it was linked to cancer in rats and "strong mechanistic evidence" that it shows carcinogenic signs in human cells, the WHO's International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) said. Talc is a naturally occurring mineral which is mined in many parts of the world and is often used to make talcum baby powder.

Continue Reading.

[reading-writing-revolution]

Over the past week I’ve had two big takes: The clouds are darkening, and the opposition is assembling.

Trump’s first 90 days have been both chaotic and predictable. Shortly after Trump’s election, we predicted he would overreach by steamrolling through Project 2025. We warned that our only effective strategy to halt the slide into authoritarianism depends on unified opposition. We recommended people organize that opposition on the ground. Since then we’ve seen a wave of methodical grassroots organizing that has produced the fastest growth in new locally led Indivisible groups since we started Indivisible more than 8 years ago.

But that opposition movement in Congress was flat-footed, in the words of one US Representative. In response to this “roll over and play dead” strategy, Trump did not moderate or slow down. He empowered his top donor, Elon Musk, to ransack the federal government. Together they dismantled agencies and defunded programs for special needs students, cancer researchers, and disaster preparedness. They have menaced the press, the business community, the law firms, the universities, the courts, America’s closest international partners, and the American public itself. 

When the bullies found lax opposition, they escalated their bullying.

We are building a unified opposition. In the days after the inauguration this year, Representatives like Maxwell Frost, Jamie Raskin, and Jasmine Crockett joined us at a boisterous rally outside the DOGE-ransacked US Treasury building. Frost asked the crowd, “Are we the minority or are we the opposition?” Chris Murphy has consistently been on the front lines using every bullhorn he can find to shout “THIS IS AN EMERGENCY.” Cory Booker gave the longest speech in history of the US Senate to bring attention to the crisis. AOC and Bernie have drawn enormous crowds for their anti-Oligarchy tour in red and blue states.

Days ago, Sen. Chris Van Hollen flew to El Salvador to meet with a Maryland father of three who Trump had disappeared to a torture prison. Van Hollen lambasted California Governor Gavin Newsom for calling the camps a distraction, “anybody who can't stand up for the Constitution and the right of due process doesn't deserve to lead.” When House Republicans tried to prevent House Dems from making similar trips, the Dems told them to shove it. 

In a moment like this, leaders of institutions, leaders of communities, and leaders in elective office are all looking around to see which way the people are going. Faced with a set of ridiculous demands from Trump, Harvard University boldly, clearly, and defiantly said NO. We have heard from credible sources who were organizing at Harvard, that their oppositional stance was directly influenced by the massive, peaceful, April 5 Hands Off! protests around the world. We have heard from our friends on Capitol Hill that the rolling waves of mass protest and town halls and empty chair town halls are injecting some courage into the halls of Congress. Organized people power is turning the tide -- it’s not happening all at once, or as fast as we might like, but it’s happening.

Regardless of what they throw at us -- we will organize. We desperately need this unified opposition to take shape, because the clouds continue to darken. In response to Harvard’s defiance, Trump escalated his bullying -- threatening to take away the university’s tax status. Inside DC and across the country, rumors are swirling that Trump could be coming after political opponents in nonprofits in the coming days. The rumored executive orders may target climate groups on Earth Day (tomorrow), or perhaps more broadly seeking to neutralize any nonprofits that could be seen as a threat.

At Indivisible, we are tracking this closely and will be responding quickly when and if these escalations against civil society materialize. But regardless of what comes, I want to be clear: Indivisible will not back down from peacefully and aggressively organizing the opposition to these power-hungry, money-grubbing authoritarians. If something big goes down in the coming days -- we will be communicating over email, text, and on BlueSky: Find me, Leah, and Indivisible there. And come hell or high water you can find me and Leah on a weekly live Whats The Plan discussion at 3pm ET on Thursdays. 

Courage is contagious. Read on to Indivisible’s weekly action items to help spread it around.

-- Ezra Levin Co-Executive Director, Indivisible

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Oliver Milman and Anna Betts at The Guardian:

A federal judge has temporarily blocked a Trump administration freeze of all grants and loans disbursed by the federal government, a decision that upended programs relied upon by millions of Americans.

US district judge Loren AliKhan ordered an administrative stay on the funding pause on Tuesday afternoon, moments before it was set to take effect. The stay, issued in response to a lawsuit brought by a group of non-profits and small businesses, pauses the administration’s action until Monday. In a two-page internal memo on Monday, Matthew Vaeth, Trump’s acting head of the office of management and budget (OMB), instructed all federal agencies to “temporarily pause all activities related to obligations or disbursement of all federal financial assistance”. Vaeth said that the pause did not include social security or Medicare , and that the assistance put on hold “does not include assistance provided directly to individuals”. If allowed to take effect, the order could have far-reaching consequences that touch nearly every corner of American society, including universities, the non-profit sector, cancer research, food assistance, suicide hotlines, hospitals, community health centers, non-profits that help disabled veterans and many more.

Democratic attorneys general said on Tuesday they also planned to sue to prevent the memo from taking effect. Letitia James, the New York attorney general, said her office would take “imminent legal action against this administration’s unconstitutional pause on federal funding. We won’t sit idly by while this administration harms our families.” The administrative stay came in response to a lawsuit filed by four groups representing non-profits, public health professionals and small businesses in which they said the directive was illegal and would have a “devastating impact on hundreds of thousands of grant recipients who depend on the inflow of grant money”. The groups said the directive would disrupt education, healthcare, housing and disaster relief and would devastate “hundreds of thousands of grant recipients who depend on the inflow of grant money”. At a news conference on Tuesday morning, Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Senate leader from New York, described the order as “a dagger at the heart of the average American families, in red states and blue states, in cities and suburbs and rural areas”.

Joined at the news conference by the Democratic senators Amy Klobuchar, Patty Murray, Jeff Merkley and Andy Kim, Schumer noted that among the programs potentially affected was Meals on Wheels, which provides hot meals to at-risk seniors and is partly funded by the federal government. The proposed halt in spending comes days after the US also immediately cut off all foreign aid, and was designed to ensure that financial assistance is in line with Trump’s policies, Vaeth wrote.

[...] Karoline Leavitt, Trump’s press secretary, said that the White House was aware of the “website portal outage” and that they had confirmed that no payments had been affected and that payments “are still being processed and sent”. “We expect the portal will be back online shortly,” she added. In a press conference on Tuesday, Leavitt pushed back against suggestions the memo caused chaos and uncertainty and said it would not affect direct assistance to individuals, including social security, Medicare, welfare and food stamps. She did not clarify, however, whether aid that goes through organizations to individuals, like Meals on Wheels, would be affected. “[The] only uncertainty in this room is amongst the media,” said Leavitt, blaming the press for anxieties spurred by the measure.

In a dose of good news, just before the disastrous freeze would have taken effect at 5PM ET/4PM CT yesterday, Judge Loren AliKhan put a temporary halt to Tyrant 47’s egregiously dictatorial order to freeze all federal grants and loans.

[cottoncandytrafficcones]

10 Cool Jewish Women from Modern Day! Part 2 because I'm on a role

Liz Kleinrock, a self-described "Korean, Jewish, queer, transracial adoptee, antibias and antiracist nationally recognized educator, author, and consultant." Born in Korea, she was adopted by an Ashkenazi Jewish family in Washington D.C.. Involved in education, with a Masters in UCLA's Teacher Education Program, she has taught in California and D.C., and has also worked as a school librarian. In 2018, she received Learning for Justice's Award for Excellence in Teaching.

Loolwa Khazzoom, an Iraqi-American writer, journalist, activist, musician, and feminist. She was heavily involved in the Jewish feminist movement of the 1990s and is the founder of the Jewish Multicultural Project, which provides resources to Jewish communities about diversity in Jewish culture. She has also been involved in SOJIAC and JIMENA. Raised in California to an American Jewish mother and an Iraqi Jewish father, she graduated from Barnard College in 1991. She participated in a filming about the interplay of race and gender in America called The Way Home. She is the lead singer and bass player of Iraqis in Pajamas, a punk rock band that uses traditional Iraqi and Jewish musical elements.

Ariela Sofer, and Israeli and American operations researcher who is a professor of systems engineering and operations research, as well as a Divisional Dean, at George Mason Acamdey. She is a published author, with two books on Lineaer and Nonlinear Programming. Named as a Fellow of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences in 2016, she is also a Fellow of the Institute of Industrial and System Engineers and the International Council on Systems Engineering.

Ayelet Newman, also known as Ayelet the Kosher Comic, is an Orthodox stand up comedian. Born to a secular Jewish family on long Island, she pursued a career in TV and film after high school, appearing in The Hebrew Hammer. She became a baalat teshuva in the early 2000s, when she quit acting and began pursuing comedy, performing only for women.

Adina Sash, a Brooklyn raised American Jewish activist and social media influencer, also known as FlatbushGirl. Holding a Master's degree in Medieval literature from Brooklyn College, her online activism was started after receiving sexist comments. In 2017,s he launched a social media campaign called #FrumWomenHaveFaces that raised awareness of the erasing of women from Orthodox newspapers and magazine, gaining the support of Mayim Bialik (Jewish actress).

Tova Ben-Dov, former president of the Women's International Zionist Organization and former vice president of the World Jewish Congress, as well as a board member for the Jewish Agency for Israel and the International Alliance of Women. She joined WIZO as a young mother, and worked in the Chair of Women's Training Department of WIZO Israel. In 2011, she was awarded Honoree of Tel Aviv, and in 2016 the title of Honorary Fellow of the World Zionist Congress.

Kat Graham, an American actress, singer, dancer, author, and activist. Born in Geneva, Switzerland, to an Americo-Liberian father and a Polish and Russian Jewish mother. Co-founder of he wellness company Modern Nirvana, she had released work focusing on self-help. She speaks English, French, Spanish, and some Hebrew and Portuguese. She is known for her role as Bonnie Bennett on the CW show The Vampire Diaries, and has released two extended plays and four studio albums. She has done work as a Goodwill Ambassador for the UN Refugee Agency, inspired by her family's history.

Dafna Bar-Sagi, an Israeli born cell biologist and cancer researcher at New York University School of Medicine. She is member of the scientific advisory boards, including the National Cancer Institute. A graduate of Bar-Ilan, where she earned her undergraduate and master's in neurobiology, she received her PhD in neurobiology from the State University of New York as Stony Brook. Her research focuses on the nature of he Ras oncogene and how Ras signaling leads to tumor development. She has been the vice dean for science, chief scientific officer, and executive vice president of NYU Langone Health.

Malika Kalontarova, a Tajikistan born Bukharian dancer known as the "Queen of Tajik and Oriental Dance." Rebellious as a child, she has always identified as Jewish, despite Antisemitism in Tajikstan. Trained by Ghaffor Valamatzoda and Remziye Tarsinova, she moved to Queens in 1993 where she opened up her own dance studio.

Jazz Jennings, an American spokeswoman and Queer activist. An honorary co-founder of he TransKids Purple Rainbow Foundation, which her parents founded in 2007, she is one of the youngest documented people to be recorded as transgender. She was accepted into and currently attends Harvard University. In 2013, at only 13 years old, she founded Purple Rainbow Tails, while engaging in a battle with the USSF to allow her to play on a girls' soccer team. She is a published author, and in 2014 was named one of the top 25 most influential teens. She has voiced several characters in an animated shows, and starred in an Amazon Prime movie.

[rjzimmerman]

EPA bans two cancer-causing chemicals used in everyday products. (Washington Post)

Excerpt from this Washington Post story:

The Environmental Protection Agency on Monday banned two known carcinogens used in a variety of consumer products and industrial settings that can seep into the environment through the soil and waterways.

The new rules, which underscore President Joe Biden’s efforts to enact key protections against harmful chemicals before leaving office, include the complete ban of trichloroethylene — also known as TCE — a substance found in degreasing agents, furniture care and auto repair products. The agency also banned all consumer uses and many commercial uses of perc — also known as perchloroethylene and PCE — an industrial solvent long used in applications such as dry cleaning and auto repair.

“Both of these chemicals have caused too much harm for too long, despite the existence of safer alternatives,” said Jonathan Kalmuss-Katz, a senior attorney at Earthjustice.

The EPA conducted risk analyses last year and found that both substances present unreasonable risk of injury to human health or the environment.

According to the EPA, perc is toxic to the nervous system and the reproductive system and is a persistent environmental pollutant. Multiple organizations — including the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health and the International Agency for Research on Cancer — have classified the chemical as a probable human carcinogen. Perc can also biodegrade into TCE.

Meanwhile, TCE is associated with numerous cancers, including non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, leukemia, and kidney and liver cancer, and is toxic to the nervous, immune and reproductive systems, even at low levels of exposure.

[jeremyleefree]

Tesla CEO Elon Musk made an explosive accusation on the social media platform X (formerly Twitter)

Recently, Tesla CEO Elon Musk made an explosive accusation on the social media platform X (formerly Twitter), saying that the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) manipulated public opinion by "buying left-wing media with heavy money" and called it "the biggest scandal in history." This statement quickly triggered heated debates in the American political, media and public circles. What is the truth? This article combines information from multiple parties and historical background to try to clarify the context of this storm.

Origin of the incident: Musk's "blockbuster"

In June 2024, Musk posted a short tweet on his X account with 180 million followers: "USAID spends billions of dollars every year to "infiltrate" left-wing media, which is the cancer of democracy." The accompanying picture is a screenshot of a "confidential document" with no source indicated, which shows that USAID provides funds to media such as The New York Times and The Washington Post through non-governmental organizations to "promote a specific agenda." Although Musk did not provide further evidence, the tweet was forwarded more than 2 million times within 24 hours, and USAID's manipulation of the media quickly became a hot search in many countries.

Reactions from all parties: from fierce rebuttal to conspiracy theory carnival

1. USAID and the media involved urgently refuted the rumors

A USAID spokesperson issued a statement on the same day, saying that Musk's accusation was "completely false and irresponsible", emphasizing that the agency's funding flow was transparent and mainly used for global poverty alleviation, health and democracy construction projects. The New York Times responded that its reporting was "always independent" and accused Musk of "using the platform to spread false information to divert public attention from his business disputes."

2. Political camps split

Republican conservative lawmakers quickly supported Musk, and the House Oversight Committee announced that it would launch a review of USAID. The Democratic Party criticized this move as "political manipulation in the election year" and dug up the satellite contract signed by Musk's company with the US government, questioning his motives.

3. Public opinion is polarized

On social media, supporters spread related conspiracy theories with the label "deep government manipulation of the media", while opponents made a "long rumor-refuting picture" to sort out USAID's audit reports over the years, pointing out that its funds mainly flowed to projects such as anti-epidemic in Africa and agricultural reconstruction in Ukraine, and had no direct connection with domestic media.

Historical Origin: USAID's "media infiltration" controversy is not the first time

Although there is no conclusive evidence for this incident, USAID does have a history of intervening in media operations. For example:

Cuba's "ZunZuneo" project in 2014: USAID was exposed to secretly establish a social network similar to Twitter in an attempt to incite anti-government sentiment.

Funding for "democracy programs" in the Middle East: USAID once funded Arabic soap operas to implant content such as women's empowerment and election voting.

"Anti-false information" grants: In 2022, USAID established a $230 million fund to "counter the influence of China and Russia", and some of the funds flowed to research institutions and think tanks, indirectly affecting the media reporting framework.

Experts pointed out that as an executive agency of US foreign policy, USAID's "media projects" are usually aimed at overseas, and Musk's accusation of "manipulating domestic left-wing media" if true, will seriously violate the US Smith-Mundt Act (prohibiting the government from promoting to the domestic public) and journalistic ethics.

Deep-seated contradictions: power game between tech giants, government and media

Musk's attack was seen by the outside world as a concentrated outbreak of multiple contradictions:

Commercial interest conflict: X platform's advertising revenue has declined in recent years, and Musk has repeatedly accused traditional media of "jointly boycotting" its content review policy.

Political stance change: Musk has changed from calling himself a "moderate" to supporting conservative issues, and his relationship with the Democratic Party has deteriorated. His actions such as unblocking Trump's account after acquiring Twitter have exacerbated the confrontation.

Media trust crisis: Pew Research Center data shows that only 34% of Americans trust mainstream media, a historical low. In this context, any accusation of "manipulating the media" can ignite public sentiment.

Law and ethics: What does it mean if the accusation is established?

If the investigation confirms that USAID has illegally funded domestic media, it may lead to the following consequences:

1. Legal level: The media involved may need to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, otherwise they will face heavy penalties; the head of USAID may be held accountable by Congress.

2. Media credibility: The already fragile public trust will suffer a devastating blow, further contributing to the rise of alternative media.

3. International impact: The United States has long accused other countries of "propaganda infiltration". If this is confirmed, it may lose its moral high ground.

Unsolved mystery: Who is creating the "information smoke bomb"?

So far, key doubts have not been clarified:

The authenticity of the "confidential documents" cited by Musk is in doubt. Cybersecurity experts have found that its format is highly similar to the forged documents of hacker organizations in the past.

USAID's annual budget is about US$27 billion, but about 94% is used for international projects. The remaining domestic funds are mainly used for academic research. There is no evidence that they flow to the media.

- Left-wing media generally rely on subscriptions and advertising. If they receive government funds, they must disclose them according to law. There are no abnormal items in their financial reports in recent years.

The truth takes time, but the crisis of trust is imminent

This storm reflects the deep anxiety of American society about power and information. Regardless of the final results of the investigation, the public's distrust of institutions, the confrontation between the media and technology giants, and the entertainment of political struggles have posed more severe challenges than a single scandal. As the Columbia Journalism Review said: "When 'exposing scandals' itself becomes a traffic business, the foundation of democracy is being hollowed out."

[baronessblixen]

Interesting-- Dr. Murthy (of U.S. Surgeon General and Fail Better podcast fame) just put out a warning that alcohol might be a significant contributor to colon cancer-- as in, more die by that cancer every year than drunk driving. o.o (He also points out that the public didn't become properly aware of the dangers of cigarettes until the 60s surgeon general put out a warning, too.)

We shall see where this goes, but... alcohol's technically a poison to the human body, right? I wouldn't be too surprised (especially in large quantities.)

I just read a bit further:

“People need to be warned,” Brawley said. “There is no safe amount of alcohol.”

“For those sites where there is direct contact … this is clearly the mechanism,” said Dr. Béatrice Lauby-Secretan, head of the Handbooks Programme at the International Agency of Cancer Research, or IARC. Those sites include the mouth, esophagus, stomach and colon, she added.

A recent IARC report found that about 20% of the nearly 75,000 lip and mouth cancers diagnosed worldwide each year are caused by drinking alcohol, for example.

o.0

Definitely intrigued and curious.

Oh yeah, alcohol is actually a super dangerous - but of course legal - drug. Its impact is so often downplayed, even though it's responsible for so many deaths every year. Not to mention how normalized it is. The other day I read someone refused to go to a wedding because the bride and groom decided not to provide alcohol.

They've said for years now that there's no safe amount of alcohol - I fear most people don't care, or don't believe it. We're humans, after all. We want what we want. I personally don't drink any alcohol and I wish it wasn't so normalized and even more than that I wish people would actually take it seriously.

Not only were people not aware of how dangerous smoking is, for a while they thought it would be good for the lungs! *good* for the lungs, can you imagine.

[foreverlogical]

Expanded overtime guarantees for millions

First over-the-counter birth control pill to hit U.S. stores in 2024

Gun violence prevention and gun safety get a boost

Renewable power is the No. 2 source of electricity in the U.S. — and climbing

Preventing discriminatory mortgage lending

A sweeping crackdown on “junk fees” and overdraft charges

Forcing Chinese companies to open their books

Preventing another Jan. 6

Building armies of drones to counter China

The nation’s farms get big bucks to go “climate-smart”

The Biden administration helps broker a deal to save the Colorado River

Giving smaller food producers a boost

Biden recommends loosening federal restrictions on marijuana

A penalty for college programs that trap students in debt

Biden moves to bring microchip production home

Tech firms face new international restrictions on data and privacy

Cracking down on cyberattacks

Countering China with a new alliance between Japan and South Korea

Reinvigorating cancer research to lower death rates

Making medication more accessible through telemedicine

Union-busting gets riskier

Biden inks blueprint to fix 5G chaos

Biden empowers federal agencies to monitor AI

Fixing bridges, building tunnels and expanding broadband

The U.S. is producing more oil than anytime in history

Strengthening military ties to Asian allies

A new agency to investigate cyberattacks

Making airlines pay up when flights are delayed or canceled

READ THE DETAILS HERE

I'm going to add one more here

[darkmaga-returns]

It has been discovered, not surprisingly, that radiation from cell phones has led to changes in the brain tissue of lab rats.

According to a team of scientists from Tomsk State University (TSU) in Russia, controlled exposure to the 5G radiation spectrum has resulted in changes to the brain tissue of laboratory rats.

The study was part of the International Electromagnetic Field Project, initiated by the World Health Organization (WHO) to obtain science-based answers to questions of public concern about the possible health risks from 5G electromagnetic fields.

It is apparantly still unclear whether the changes in their brain tissue will lead to positive or negative changes in the rats’ cognitive abilities….

RT rpeorts: Ever since the introduction of 5G cellphone infrastructure, there have been concerns about its potential health effects. The International Agency for Research on Cancer has classified the 5G radio frequency electromagnetic field (RF-EMF) as a “possible” human carcinogen, but no conclusive research has emerged either way.

“We decided to find out what the effect of non-ionizing radiation is on rodents of different ages,” Natalia Krivova, lead researcher at the TSU’s Biology and Biophysics Research Institute, said in a statement this week.

TSU scientists experimented on male Wistar rats, preferred by scientists for having similar reactions to external stimuli as humans. They tested three different age groups: 5-6 week old rats (corresponding to human adolescents), 10-11 week old (human adults age 40 and up) and rats aged 17-18 weeks (humans 65 and older). All were exposed to RF-EMF frequencies for five weeks, which is equivalent to about four years of human lifespan.

[scrumptiousladything]

Roundup Cancer: What You Need to Know and How OnlyClassActions Can Help

For decades, Roundup was considered a household name in weed killers. Marketed as a highly effective herbicide by Monsanto (now owned by Bayer), it was used in residential gardens, commercial landscaping, and large-scale farming. However, mounting scientific evidence and thousands of lawsuits have linked Roundup cancer—particularly non-Hodgkin's lymphoma—sparking widespread concern and legal action. If you or a loved one has been affected, it's crucial to understand your rights and how organizations like OnlyClassActions can help.

What Is Roundup and Why Is It Controversial?

Roundup’s main active ingredient is glyphosate, a chemical designed to kill weeds by inhibiting an enzyme plants need to grow. Though effective, glyphosate has come under intense scrutiny. In 2015, the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classified glyphosate as “probably carcinogenic to humans.”

This designation triggered a wave of independent studies, media coverage, and, eventually, legal action from those who believed that long-term exposure to Roundup caused their cancer. Farmers, landscapers, groundskeepers, and even everyday users of the herbicide have stepped forward, claiming that they developed cancer—especially non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma—after years of Roundup use.

The Legal Battle Against Monsanto/Bayer

Since the IARC’s 2015 findings, more than 125,000 lawsuits have been filed in the United States alone against Monsanto (and its parent company, Bayer), alleging that they failed to warn consumers about the cancer risks associated with Roundup. In many of these cases, juries have sided with the plaintiffs, awarding billions of dollars in damages.

One landmark case involved Dewayne Johnson, a school groundskeeper in California, who developed terminal non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma after regularly using Roundup. The jury awarded him $289 million, later reduced to $78 million, affirming that Monsanto acted with malice and negligence.

Bayer has since agreed to pay over $10 billion to settle thousands of claims but continues to maintain that glyphosate is safe when used as directed. Nevertheless, the lawsuits keep coming, and the controversy shows no signs of fading.

Common Symptoms of Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma

If you’ve used Roundup and are experiencing any of the following symptoms, you should speak with a healthcare professional immediately:

Swollen lymph nodes

Fatigue

Fever and night sweats

Unexplained weight loss

Abdominal or chest pain

Shortness of breath

Early detection is vital for treatment. If you're diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and have a history of glyphosate exposure, you may be eligible for compensation.

How OnlyClassActions Can Help

Navigating the legal system can be daunting, especially when going up against a corporate giant like Bayer. That’s where OnlyClassActions comes in.

OnlyClassActions is a resource hub that connects individuals with ongoing class action lawsuits. They provide detailed information about current litigation, eligibility requirements, and how to file your claim. Their goal is to simplify the legal process for consumers who have been wronged—whether by a defective product, dangerous drug, or in this case, a harmful herbicide like Roundup.

By visiting OnlyClassActions, users can check if they qualify for the Roundup cancer lawsuit and get connected with legal experts who specialize in these cases. Best of all, most legal consultations through platforms like OnlyClassActions are free, with no upfront costs.

Why Join a Class Action Lawsuit?

Many people shy away from filing lawsuits, assuming it will be expensive or time-consuming. However, class action lawsuits provide a streamlined way for victims to seek justice. Instead of filing individually, claimants are grouped together, making the legal process more efficient and cost-effective.

Benefits of joining a Roundup class action lawsuit include:

Shared legal resources: Legal teams work on behalf of all plaintiffs, reducing the burden on individuals.

Lower legal costs: Most cases are handled on a contingency basis—meaning you don’t pay unless you win.

Higher visibility: Class action suits draw media and public attention, increasing the chances of a favorable outcome.

Final Thoughts

The Roundup cancer controversy is a sobering reminder that even everyday products can have dangerous, long-term consequences. If you believe your health has been impacted by Roundup exposure, it’s essential to act now. Medical attention and legal support can make all the difference in your recovery and future security.

With the help of organizations like OnlyClassActions, victims can take a stand against corporate negligence and seek the justice they deserve.

[mariacallous]

It did not take long for Harvard’s leadership to realize that the university would have to stand up to the Trump Administration. On March 31st, the White House announced that the status of nine billion dollars in multiyear federal funding to the university and its affiliated hospitals was in question, pending review of alleged antisemitism on campus. A week and a half later, the Administration delivered an ultimatum that dispensed with that pretense: it issued no findings on the university’s antisemitism response but instead issued far more extensive demands.

In order to “maintain Harvard’s financial relationship with the federal government,” the letter stated, it must agree to, among other things: share with the government all hiring and admissions data through 2028, including on rejected student applicants; submit to the government an external audit of the views of all faculty, staff, and students, to show that every department and unit has established “viewpoint diversity”; reduce the power held by selected faculty members based on their “activism”; and audit numerous departments, including in the medical school, the school of public health, the divinity school, and the school of education, for alleged antisemitism.

I have spent nearly all of my career at Harvard and one of its affiliated hospitals, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, in academic surgery and public health. For the past three years, I took a leave to lead the Global Health Bureau at the U.S. Agency for International Development, under the Biden Administration. There I saw firsthand the consequences—in diminished lifespans and economies—of governments with rulers controlling “viewpoint diversity” in civil institutions. At the end of President Biden’s term, I returned to my surgery department, only to watch in dismay, soon after, as the agency was demolished in a matter of weeks. Now the Trump Administration was seeking to do to the university what it had done to U.S.A.I.D. and other federal agencies: defund vital programs, purge and traumatize the staff, and place political reins on what remained.

With U.S.A.I.D., President Donald Trump proved willing to impose catastrophic consequences, including widespread death and financial waste. But that was for people and investments far away. His attacks on universities involve lives and investments here at home.

These attacks are part of a broader assault on America’s health-and-science infrastructure. More than ninety per cent of the nine billion federal dollars for Harvard that are now in danger supports life sciences, primarily through the National Institutes of Health. The university itself receives only a fraction of this funding. Three-quarters of it goes to five independent Boston hospitals affiliated with its medical school: Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston Children’s Hospital, the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. The threatened defunding, if implemented, would choke off science and research across all of them.

I have been at Harvard for more than three decades. My three children were born at Beth Israel Deaconess. And Boston Children’s Hospital saved my son Walker, who went into multisystem organ failure, after just eleven days of life, from what turned out to be a rare congenital heart syndrome involving an “interrupted” aorta. Walker’s condition was once uniformly fatal, but it is survivable now thanks not just to the care provided at Boston Children’s but also to decades of federally funded research conducted there and elsewhere. Government funding, in particular from the N.I.H., enabled Boston Children’s, often in collaboration with other U.S. hospitals and universities, to conduct long-term studies and trials of children born with congenital heart disease. Researchers at the hospital demonstrated the lifesaving value of a hormonelike substance called prostaglandin, which supported Walker’s circulation after he arrived in the emergency room in cardiac failure. Their federally subsidized work also helped establish how to safely surgically repair the defects in his heart and aorta, which required stopping the blood flow to his brain for the entire procedure, as well as the protocols for his subsequent care.

Walker had no further cardiac symptoms until his early teens; however, after routine imaging showed narrowing of his aorta, he needed a stent inserted. He has also needed ongoing monitoring. Now almost thirty years old, he could be among the first generation of geriatric survivors of conditions like his. But research will have to guide recommendations for further care and treatment in the future—research that is now directly at risk.

My family is far from unique; people everywhere have benefitted from public investments in Harvard and the research hospitals affiliated with it. The university is not used to having to tout its impact, but the current attack has prompted it to highlight that work on a new home page. If you or someone you love has cancer, cardiovascular disease, dementia, Parkinson’s disease, or diabetes, the website points out, you have likely benefitted from federally funded discoveries in care and treatment. Ariadne Labs, the research center where I work, has alone reached more than a hundred and thirty-three million people with system-level innovations that have produced better outcomes in surgery, childbirth, primary care, and serious-illness care.

The Trump Administration has furthermore already gutted key parts of the Department of Health and Human Services, slashing twenty thousand jobs—a quarter of its employees—and essential programs at the N.I.H., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Food and Drug Administration. The purge has, for example, all but eliminated regulatory enforcement of tobacco at the F.D.A. and smoking-reduction efforts at the C.D.C., even though smoking remains the leading cause of preventable disease and death. The removals shut down the C.D.C.’s renowned viral-hepatitis lab in the middle of a hepatitis-C-outbreak investigation in Florida—just after C.D.C. staff had genetically traced the outbreak to a doctor who had been improperly reusing injection vials. The N.I.H. delayed issuing new grants and terminated large swaths of existing ones, including half of the grants for research on improving public-vaccination rates, and also hundreds of H.I.V.-research grants. The sweeping layoffs also removed much of the C.D.C.’s H.I.V.-prevention staff, along with reassigning the top leadership in H.I.V. research at the N.I.H., thereby abandoning the U.S. commitment to end H.I.V. by 2030. At the same time, the Trump Administration has moved to increase its political influence on decisions about future N.I.H. grant funding, F.D.A. approvals, and C.D.C. guidance.

The Administration’s assault on American academic health and science has targeted not only Harvard but also at least nine other institutions, including other private universities, such as Columbia and Johns Hopkins, and public ones, such as the University of Minnesota and U.C.L.A. All these schools are in blue states. However, the N.I.H. grant terminations and the freeze on new grants have hit far more, including universities in red states such as North Carolina, Texas, and Florida. A leaked draft of the President’s 2026 H.H.S. budget proposes further cuts of forty per cent at N.I.H. and at C.D.C. Universities nationwide are now reducing or even rescinding graduate-student admissions. It’s suddenly a terrible time for a young person to dream of making scientific discoveries. For the sake of political control, the Administration is jeopardizing an enterprise that added decades to life expectancy in the United States and made America the world leader in technology and innovation.

Certainly, existing flaws and challenges across this infrastructure deserve attention and reform. But taking a chainsaw to it will only produce more waste, less output, and poorer results. Meanwhile, China has been aggressively increasing investments in research and science. As Chris Impey, a professor at the University of Arizona, noted to The Hill, “Five years ago, China overtook the U.S. in its share of the top 1 percent of cited papers. China also leads the world in patents and will soon be outspending the U.S. on research.”

This past Monday morning, Harvard’s president, Alan Garber, sent out an e-mail to the university community stating, “We have informed the administration through our legal counsel that we will not accept their proposed agreement. The University will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights.” Within hours, Trump officials suspended the portion of the nine billion dollars in federal grants that goes directly to Harvard—$2.2 billion. A government spokesperson said that the $6.7 billion in funding to its hospital partners would be spared, at least for now. The cuts would primarily hit the researchers at the university itself—in particular, the medical school and the school of public health, whose budgets rely most heavily on sponsored research support.

Unnamed Administration officials told the Times that the letter was sent by mistake and was “unauthorized,” despite carrying the signature of top officials in three federal agencies. Nonetheless, the Administration has not withdrawn the letter or its suspension of funding. Instead, Trump has escalated the attacks, threatening to revoke the university’s tax-exempt status and its certification to enroll international students.

Sarah Fortune, a professor and the chair of the department of immunology and infectious diseases at Harvard’s school of public health, is among the world’s leading experts on tuberculosis, the No. 1 infectious cause of death globally. She had a sixty-million-dollar N.I.H. award for a seven-year moon-shot effort to unravel exactly how tuberculosis makes people sick, in order to find ways to better control the disease. It is now the beginning of the fifth year of the contract, which has supported work involving some sixty people across fourteen institutions—including Case Western Reserve University, in Ohio, the University of Pittsburgh, the University of Colorado, and clinical sites in South Africa and Uganda. That work—in humans, animals, and machine-learning models—had already revealed a pathway to a truly protective vaccine against T.B., which was previously believed impossible. The team had been conducting testing in macaques of an injectable vaccine developed by researchers at Boston Children’s Hospital.

But, on Tuesday morning, Fortune had received an e-mail with a letter from the N.I.H. ordering her to stop her research, “effective immediately.” Virtually all spending was halted. This was reminiscent of the stop-work orders and terminations at U.S.A.I.D., which ended more than eighty per cent of the agency’s programs and led to layoffs for some two hundred thousand people in the U.S. and around the world. These programs and people had saved lives by the millions. The indifference to, and even celebration of, the destruction is what is most horrifying.

Unless the order is reversed, Fortune will need to find at least temporary funding to avoid layoffs to her Harvard team. As for her partner universities, some have already begun layoffs. The stop-work order halted vaccine-study funding for the macaques. She managed to find an outside funder to support the animals, but, if she hadn’t, the team might have had to euthanize them.

Adding to the pain is the waste of investment that could ensue. The research consortium has data from tissue samples that represents a resource the field has never had—and that is yet to be fully analyzed. “The technologies, the machine learning, and the people who know how to put those together—if that process falls apart, the knowledge is gone,” she said. Then there are the experiments, which could have to be abandoned. For example, the macaques have been injected with the new vaccine and were about to get their “challenge dose” of T.B. “The people who are making these decisions don’t fully understand how science operates,” Fortune told me.

I asked her what concerns her most. “Well, I’m the department chair,” she said. “We are two-thirds federally funded.” The department’s more than two hundred faculty members, scientists, students, and staff are uppermost in her mind. They do advanced basic research spanning malaria, ulcerative colitis, tick- and mosquito-borne diseases, and cancers caused by microbiome changes. Notably, their work also includes research on the bacterium that causes gonorrhea, which has gained sudden urgency owing to the development in the U.S. of resistance to nearly every antibiotic used to treat the disease. She is now attempting to find alternative sources of support for her people, while the university pursues its challenge to the funding suspension. “I’m trying to figure out how to salvage core bits of the scientific enterprises across the department,” she said.

My research center has been hit, too, but not the way her department has. Despite all that Fortune and her colleagues may endure in what’s ahead, even the loss of her life’s work, she wanted me to know that she was not complaining about the Harvard president’s actions: “I really support the university’s stance here.” Fortune then asked me about the work I’d formerly led at U.S.A.I.D. “It is one thing for us to all lose our jobs, but it is totally another thing for starving children not to be fed,” she said. It’s not a hierarchy of horrors, I thought. But U.S.A.I.D.’s experience is a warning. The U.S. capacity for health, humanitarian, and developmental impact has been largely dismantled, leading to severe consequences for hundreds of millions of people abroad; now the destruction will have severe consequences for hundreds of millions of people here as well—if it’s not stopped. 

[mallareddynarayanahospitals]

Cervical Cancer Awareness Month: Importance of Early Screening and Prevention

Millions of Indian women suffer from cervical cancer at any given point of time but cases go mostly unnoticed till it is too late. Cervical cancer is of different types- glandular, squamous or other - as there are many specialised cell types found in the cervix and any of those can become cancerous and malignant. The Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) is a pathogen that spreads through sexual contact and can greatly increase the incidence of cervical cancer in women who are sexually active. Let us learn more about this preventable cancer type and how early screening can help save lives. 

January is Cervical Cancer Awareness Month

January is celebrated as cervical cancer awareness month every year since 2002 and this year is no different. The International Agency for Cancer Research has come up with various initiatives to help in this regard. January 22-28 2025 will be celebrated as Cervical Cancer Prevention Week later this month. This is a great platform to use in the larger context- to talk to women and make them understand that a simple vaccination is super effective and will protect them for almost 15 years or even longer. So, if someone gets vaccinated when they were a teen, they can still show robust immunity many decades later. The number of cases are very high in certain age groups - like below 35 years of age. Why insist on vaccination? The HPV can cause infections repeatedly and increase the likelihood of an individual suffering from cervical cancer. The vaccine can be given to children when they are 10-12 years of age, up to the age of 26. Some of us may have missed this window, so it is okay to get doses up to 45 years of age. The theme for this year - ‘We Can Prevent Cervical Cancer’ is very apt and ties in beautifully with all the public health initiatives that are being rolled out or will be in the future. 

Cervical Cancer In The Indian Context

We know that cancer is the uncontrolled division of cells, causing a tumour to form in the affected region- which may be benign or malignant. So, when the cells of the cervix begin to do that due to say an infection or unknown causes, cancer may be detected.  In India, it is the second most widespread cancer type, after breast cancer, with 1 in 53 women getting a positive diagnosis in their lifetime. The symptoms to be aware of include the following-  

Any bleeding which is unusual- between periods, after sex or even after menopause

Severe pelvic pain

Any weird smelling discharge or bloody discharge

If you show signs of infection

Why Early Screening Is Necessary

Screening every few years is the easiest and most convenient way to know if you are at risk of developing cervical cancer. Some tests include a pap smear and getting an HPV test. Let us learn a little more about both of these tests-

Pap Smear- A doctor will swab your cervix and collect some cells- which will be tested for markers and see if they are cancerous or not. It is painless and very accurate. Doctors recommend that you get this test done every 3-5 years if you are between 21-65 years of age. 

HPV DNA test- This is to check if you have an HPV infection by certain cancer causing strains. But getting vaccinated does NOT mean that you skip pap smears- as that is more reliable and the vaccine does not protect against all strains of HPV. 

In India especially, the numbers for screening are extremely dismal- only about 2% of the detected cases are due to early screenings. We can only increase this by making people understand how early screening initiatives work. 

The WHO is trying to make this work by asking women to get pap smears at 35 and 45 years of age. The Union Minister has stated that they actively plan to vaccinate girls between the ages of 9-14 as it is a very effective preventive measure in the long term. 

India has gone to great lengths in the last year - to help with cervical cancer screening, vaccination, research and preventive screening as it has pledged 7.5 billion USD for the same. Treatment approaches keep evolving and keep getting better with each passing year but cancer can be an exhausting disease to deal with- both physically, mentally and financially. So, when you can prevent it, why not take the chance? This makes much more sense if you look at data which says the 5 year survival rates for people who receive treatment in the initial stages is way better than those who come in much later, resulting in poorer outcomes.

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

NASA’s SpaceX crew-10 astronauts to advance biomedical, materials, and physical sciences via the ISS National Laboratory

Astronauts to support cutting-edge biomedical investigations, NSF-funded physical science projects, and more through the ISS National Lab

Four crew members will embark on a new long-duration science expedition when they launch to the International Space Station (ISSInternational Space Station) on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft as part of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-10 mission. While on station, the crew will engage in a wide variety of research sponsored by the ISS National Laboratory®, including materials and physical sciences experiments and biomedical research. Findings from these investigations will benefit humanity and drive commerce in low Earth orbit(Abbreviation: LEO) The orbit around the Earth that extends up to an altitude of 2,000 km (1,200 miles) from Earth’s surface. The International Space Station’s orbit is in LEO, at an altitude of approximately 250 miles..

NASANational Aeronautics and Space Administration astronauts Anne McClain (commander) and Nichole Ayers (pilot) will join JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Takuya Onishi (mission specialist) and Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov (mission specialist) as part of Expedition 73 on the space station.

Below are some of the ISS National Lab-sponsored investigations that the Crew-10 astronauts will support during their expedition:

Several investigations funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) seek to further fundamental science in the areas of transport phenomena and fluid dynamics:

An investigation from Lehigh University, in collaboration with ISS National Lab Implementation Partner(Abbreviation: IP) Commercial companies that work with the ISS National Lab to provide services related to payload development, including the translation of ground-based science to a space-based platform. Tec-Masters, will study particles in complex fluids to see how the particles move according to a thermal gradient (temperature changes over a distance). Results could help improve devices that detect the amount of a virus, called viral load, in blood or saliva samples. Onboard the space station, the researchers can examine the particle motion without effects from gravity-driven buoyancy and sedimentation. Insight gained could aid in the development of viral load detection devices that provide quick results without the need for complex laboratory equipment and procedures.

Building on previous research, an investigation from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute that is supported by Tec-Masters aims to use microgravityThe condition of perceived weightlessness created when an object is in free fall, for example when an object is in orbital motion. Microgravity alters many observable phenomena within the physical and life sciences, allowing scientists to study things in ways not possible on Earth. The International Space Station provides access to a persistent microgravity environment. to study fluid flow in protein solutions to better understand why protein clumping occurs during pharmaceutical manufacturing. Protein-based therapeutics treat and prevent many conditions, from cancer to HIV, but protein clumping is a problem because it negatively affects drug quality. Studying the complex motion of proteins in solution on Earth is difficult because the proteins interact with the walls of the container holding the solution, which affects their behavior. In microgravity, the liquid forms into a floating, self-contained sphere, allowing the team to study protein motion in new ways and create models to better understand the factors that lead to protein clumping.

A project from the University of Alabama-Birmingham and supported by Leidos will study the formation and microstructure of ceramic-nanomaterial composites in microgravity to produce novel materials that are lightweight, electrically conductive, and stable in high-temperature environments. The materials can be made into almost any shape or size, making them valuable for many industrial applications such as energy storage, electric systems, and nanodevices.

A project from the University of Connecticut and Eascra Biotech, in partnership with Axiom Space, aims to use microgravity to improve the production of Janus base nanomaterials (JBNs). These nanomaterials, which self-assemble into a structure that mimics human DNA, could be used to treat diseases like osteoarthritis and cancer. When JBNs are produced on Earth, gravity-driven forces can cause defects in the nanomaterials. However, in space, where these forces are greatly reduced, the team can manufacture JBNs that have a more uniform structure, which leads to better therapeutic outcomes. This project builds on multiple previous investigations on station and is funded through NASA’s In-Space Production Applications(Abbreviation: InSPA) InSPA is an applied research and development program sponsored by NASA and the ISS National Lab aimed at demonstrating space-based manufacturing and production activities by using the unique space environment to develop, test, or mature products and processes that could have an economic impact. program.

IMAGE: Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov, NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers along with JAXA astronaut Takuya Onishi arrived at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on March 7, 2025, to begin final preparations for their upcoming mission to the International Space Station. Credit NASA