Global Pulse

分类： health

  • Ingham’s boss gives stark chicken price warning as H5 bird flu crisis spreads

    Ingham’s boss gives stark chicken price warning as H5 bird flu crisis spreads

    As the H5 avian influenza outbreak continues its spread across Australian wildlife, the head of the nation’s largest poultry producer has issued a clear warning that consumers will soon face higher retail prices for chicken, driven by rising industry costs tied to the growing public and animal health crisis.

    Edward Alexander, chief executive and managing director of Ingham’s Group, which supplies approximately 40% of all chicken meat consumed in Australia, outlined the mounting cost pressures facing the domestic poultry industry during a recent investor meeting. Alexander told shareholders that even without a single confirmed outbreak of the virus among the country’s commercial poultry flocks to date, the industry is already shouldering an extra $130 million in additional costs. These costs stem from a confluence of factors: enhanced biosecurity measures to prevent the virus, soaring feed prices driven by global inflation and geopolitical instability in the Middle East, and ongoing surveillance protocols.

    According to Alexander, these expanded costs will inevitably pass through to end consumers. “Retail pricing moves more with changes to the cost base … so we will see that take effect,” he stated.

    The spreading virus represents an unprecedented and serious threat to Australia’s commercial poultry sector, Alexander emphasized. In response to the growing risk, Ingham’s has already dispatched a team of senior executives to Europe, where nations have spent years navigating widespread H5 bird flu outbreaks, to gather critical insights and best practices for biosecurity management. “We take this risk extremely seriously,” Alexander said, noting that predicting the exact timing and location of a commercial outbreak remains impossible.

    Despite the grave risk, Alexander expressed confidence in Ingham’s preparedness, positioning the company as better resourced to handle an outbreak than any other competitor in the Australian market. Over the past months, the firm has poured significant resources into prevention protocols, widespread surveillance, contingency scenario planning, and rapid response frameworks to mitigate the risk of the virus reaching its operations. Its geographically diverse national production network, Alexander explained, adds an extra layer of resilience: “An outbreak in one location does not automatically translate into disruption across our broad network. We have the ability to isolate affected areas, protect other parts of the network and redirect production and supply.”

    Alexander also confirmed that so far, the spread of bird flu in Australian wildlife has not dented consumer demand for chicken products. He credited clear public communication around the fact that properly handled poultry remains safe for human consumption for the steady demand, noting “we’re not seeing any impact on demand at the moment.”

    Alexander’s warning comes on the heels of a series of alarming new developments in the spread of the H5 strain across Australia. The virus was first detected in the country in migratory wild birds, but it has quickly jumped to native bird species, including giant petrels. In recent days, it has begun spreading to wild mammals, triggering growing concern among conservation and health officials about the risk to vulnerable native species including the iconic Tasmanian devil.

    This week, a dead red fox found in the Adelaide metropolitan area tested positive for H5 avian influenza, marking the first confirmed case of an infected mammal in an Australian urban center. On the heels of that discovery, South Australian authorities confirmed that a dolphin that washed ashore on Goolwa Beach is also suspected to have died from the virus. Dr Skye Fruean, the state’s chief veterinarian, noted that authorities are still investigating how the marine mammal contracted the virus, but the most likely pathway is interaction with or consumption of an infected wild bird.

    The cross-species jump of the virus has amplified existing concerns about the threat it poses to scavenging native Australian species, particularly the endangered Tasmanian devil, which regularly feeds on carrion that may include infected bird or animal carcasses.

  • A summer of foodborne illness is already testing Trump’s pick for top regulator

    A summer of foodborne illness is already testing Trump’s pick for top regulator

    A historic wave of foodborne illnesses across the United States this summer has thrown the future of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration into sharp relief, as former President Donald Trump’s nomination of White House insider and physician Heidi Overton to lead the agency faces growing scrutiny from lawmakers, public health experts, and even some administration allies. The nomination arrives at a moment of deep crisis for the FDA, which has been gutted by widespread staffing cuts, a mass exodus of senior leadership, and widespread public anger over a delayed, disjointed response to outbreaks that have sickened thousands of Americans.

    This summer’s outbreak season has been one of the worst on record. More than 17,000 confirmed cases of cyclospora, a parasite that causes severe persistent diarrhea, have been reported, a massive jump from just 1,180 cases during the same period last year. Most cases have been linked to contaminated iceberg lettuce produced by Taylor Farms, with infections recorded across nine states. Alongside the cyclospora surge, outbreaks of E. coli and salmonella have been traced to alfalfa sprouts, eggs, jalapeños, frozen blueberries, and multiple other common food products, leaving consumers confused and anxious about which foods are safe to eat.

    Public health experts and food safety advocates trace the slow, ineffective response to these outbreaks directly to years of staffing cuts and institutional disruption at the FDA. Current and former agency observers warn that years of underfunding was pushed to a breaking point last year, when Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. fired 20% of FDA employees as part of the Trump administration’s broader effort to downsize the federal civil service. The agency has also been without a permanent Senate-confirmed commissioner for nearly three and a half months, following the resignation of former head Marty Makary, who stepped down after a public clash with the White House over Trump’s plan to lift a ban on flavored vapes over concerns about youth addiction. Several senior agency leaders left shortly after Makary’s departure, leaving critical leadership posts vacant and agency morale at historic lows.

    “We’re already working with a system that was teetering on the edge, and last year’s cuts and upheaval have pushed it over the cliff,” explained Sarah Sorscher, food safety director at the non-profit Center for Science in the Public Interest. Jerold Mande, a former FDA and U.S. Department of Agriculture official and current nutrition professor at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, noted that the CDC’s first public health alert for the cyclospora outbreak came 10 weeks after the first cases were detected in early May, a delay that left the public in the dark for months. “Poor communication has left people on edge and panicked about what they can eat,” Mande said.

    For many affected consumers, the frustration is deeply personal. David Hargrave, a 59-year-old Texas resident, has experienced daily diarrhea for a month and a half after contracting cyclospora over the Fourth of July holiday. “It scares you, not knowing what’s safe to eat anymore,” he said. Toby Davis, another person sickened by the parasite after eating at a Taco Bell that required an emergency room visit, blamed mass layoffs of veteran FDA experts for the slow response. “This is the consequence of careless mistakes,” said Davis, an independent voter. “Do I think more people will get sick because of their negligence? Absolutely.”

    Even some supporters of the administration’s health agenda have expressed caution. Jacqueline Capriotti, a supporter of the “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) movement founded by Kennedy, agreed that food safety must be the FDA’s top priority. “We tell people to eat real food, but we first have to guarantee that real food is safe to eat,” she said.

    Against this backdrop of crisis, Trump has tapped Overton, a former general surgery resident at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and chief policy officer at the conservative America First Policy Institute, to lead the agency. Trump has publicly praised Overton as a “rockstar” and a trusted ally who will advance his administration’s priorities. But public health experts worry that Overton, a long-time Trump insider, will prioritize loyalty to the president over evidence-based public health policy.

    John Swartzberg, professor emeritus of infectious diseases at the UC Berkeley School of Public Health, warned that Overton inherits an agency with shattered morale and a long list of unaddressed crises. “She’s stepping into an agency where morale is already rock bottom,” Swartzberg said. “Turning that around is going to be an enormous, incredibly difficult challenge.”

    Overton’s nomination also faces political headwinds. She must first win confirmation from the U.S. Senate, with no hearing date set yet. The Senate Health Committee, which will consider her nomination, is chaired by Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy, a physician who has already voiced “strong concerns” about Overton due to her support for Trump’s executive order to overhaul the childhood vaccine schedule. Even some members of the MAHA movement oppose her nomination over her reported role in a Trump executive order to expand domestic production of glyphosate, a weed killer that MAHA activists argue is carcinogenic. The White House has denied that Overton played any key role in drafting the order, but prominent MAHA influencer Alex Clark has publicly raised the accusation on social media. Still, Capriotti argues that critics are too quick to judge, saying “She’s a well-respected physician, and I think she deserves a chance to prove herself.”

    The Trump administration has pushed back against claims that staffing cuts and leadership turnover have hampered its outbreak response. A HHS spokesperson insisted that “the Trump Administration has mounted a robust response to each outbreak” and claimed that “FDA has the staff needed to continue investigating outbreaks, as no FDA investigators were affected by staffing changes or reductions in force.” White House spokesperson Kush Desai defended Overton’s qualifications in a statement to the BBC, saying she “has been integral to ensuring that the Administration’s policies are correct, consistent, and grounded in Gold Standard Science,” and adding that the White House “looks forward to her swift confirmation by the Senate.”

    The stakes of the confirmation fight extend far beyond food safety, as Overton would also oversee the FDA’s handling of other high-profile controversial policy priorities for the Trump administration, including vaccine regulation and access to abortion medication. For public health advocates and consumers still reeling from this summer’s outbreak wave, the confirmation will set the course for the agency that regulates 80% of the U.S. food supply at a moment of historic institutional instability.

  • Congo begins Ebola vaccinations to fight country’s worst outbreak on record, health minister says

    Congo begins Ebola vaccinations to fight country’s worst outbreak on record, health minister says

    KAMPALA, Democratic Republic of Congo – In a urgent, long-awaited step to curb the deadliest Ebola outbreak the nation has ever faced, Congolese health authorities officially launched a nationwide vaccination campaign on Thursday in the eastern provincial capital of Kisangani, Health Minister Roger Kamba announced.

    The campaign prioritizes high-risk groups first, with frontline health workers, response personnel and close contacts of confirmed Ebola patients topping the list of those to receive doses. Minister Kamba confirmed that the campaign will use the Ervebo vaccine, currently the only widely available Ebola vaccine authorized for emergency use. As of this week, government data puts the outbreak’s toll at 5,713 confirmed cases across six affected provinces – Ituri, North Kivu, South Kivu, Tshopo, Haut-Uele, and Bas-Uele – with 2,744 recorded deaths, translating to a 48% mortality rate among confirmed infections.

    This current outbreak, driven by the rarely-seen Bundibugyo Ebola variant, has spread rapidly against a backdrop of crippling systemic challenges: persistent regional insecurity, mass population displacement, a recent nationwide strike by health care workers, and unregulated cross-community population movements. The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned the outbreak remains fully out of control, and is on track to exceed the 2014-2016 West Africa Ebola epidemic – the previous global deadliest on record, which claimed more than 11,000 lives across Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

    To address the crisis, global health bodies have fast-tracked vaccine shipments to Congo. Congolese state media confirm the country has already received more than 50,000 doses of Ervebo, while the WHO approved a total of 70,000 doses for deployment in the outbreak response last week. Of the total approved doses, 50,000 are allocated to frontline and at-risk health workers, with the remaining 20,000 reserved for a clinical trial investigating Ervebo’s efficacy against the Bundibugyo variant.

    Crucially, Ervebo is only formally approved to protect against Zaire ebolavirus, a different strain of the virus, and no vaccine is yet specifically authorized for Bundibugyo Ebola. The rollout is proceeding under a compassionate use framework, which permits unapproved off-label use of medical products during public health emergencies when no targeted alternatives exist. Health officials note that the two Ebola strains are genetically related, leading experts to hypothesize Ervebo may offer partial cross-protection, though this hypothesis remains unconfirmed and is the subject of ongoing clinical investigation.

    Placide Mbala Kingebeni, director of research, clinical trials and innovation at the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), confirmed that systematic efficacy data will be collected throughout the vaccination campaign to answer critical questions about Ervebo’s performance against Bundibugyo Ebola. The initial phase of the campaign will target 14 high-risk health zones across Tshopo, Bas-Uele, and Haut-Uele provinces, the three current hotspots of transmission.

    In his remarks launching the campaign, Kamba issued a strong call to action for all frontline health workers to accept vaccination, emphasizing that protecting care providers not only saves their lives, but also prevents secondary transmission of the virus from health settings into the broader community.

  • Jury deliberating in trial of Lindsay Clancy, US woman accused of killing her children

    Jury deliberating in trial of Lindsay Clancy, US woman accused of killing her children

    The high-stakes trial of Lindsay Clancy, a Massachusetts mother charged with murdering her three young children, has drawn national attention as closing arguments conclude and jury deliberations begin. Clancy, who does not deny killing her two sons and daughter aged between eight months and five years, faces a potential life sentence without parole if convicted of first-degree murder, the most severe charge in the case.

    The core controversy of the trial hinges on one critical question: was Clancy in the grips of postpartum psychosis, a severe and acute perinatal mental health emergency, when she committed the fatal acts in January 2022? Her legal team has spent five weeks arguing that the rare mental health condition stripped her of the ability to understand or control her actions, making her not legally responsible for the deaths. After killing the children with exercise bands at the family home, Clancy attempted suicide by jumping from a window, an injury that left her paralyzed; she has attended all trial proceedings in a wheelchair. In his closing argument, lead defense attorney Kevin Reddington reiterated that Clancy was suffering from a severe mental illness that drove her actions, telling jurors, “This young lady is not guilty of the killing of her children because she was suffering from a disease and defect.” Reddington also pressed back against prosecution claims that Clancy’s suicide attempt was not genuine, a moment of tension that led the judge to interrupt and order him to direct all comments to the jury.

    Prosecutors do not dispute that Clancy lives with mental illness, but they reject the defense’s insanity claim. Lead prosecutor Jennifer Sprague argued to the jury that Clancy was capable of distinguishing right from wrong at the time of the killings, framing the deaths as a calculated, premeditated act. Sprague also noted that the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), the standard reference for mental health diagnoses in the U.S., does not formally recognize postpartum psychosis as an independent diagnosis. She added that Clancy had access to extensive medical care, but deliberately hid her harmful thoughts about her children from treating clinicians.

    Defined by the UK’s National Health Service as a rare, life-threatening mental health emergency that develops shortly after childbirth, postpartum psychosis has never before received this level of national public scrutiny in a U.S. criminal trial. As the jury weighs its verdict, it faces a range of possible outcomes: a first-degree murder conviction with a mandatory sentence of life in prison without parole, a conviction on lesser charges including second-degree murder or involuntary manslaughter that would still carry significant prison time, or a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity. Contrary to common public misunderstanding, a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity would not result in Clancy’s immediate release; instead, she would be committed to a state psychiatric facility, potentially for the rest of her life.

    This case includes distressing details of harm to children and attempted suicide. For anyone experiencing suicidal thoughts or perinatal mental health distress, support is available globally through Befrienders Worldwide at www.befrienders.org, and for people in the UK, additional resources are listed at bbc.co.uk/actionline.

  • Parents and teachers in Congo urge delay of school resumption as Ebola outbreak rages on

    Parents and teachers in Congo urge delay of school resumption as Ebola outbreak rages on

    In the heart of the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s fastest-expanding Ebola outbreak on record, caregivers and educators are pressing regional and national authorities to postpone the nationwide school reopening scheduled for September 1, warning that unchecked community spread continues to put children at catastrophic risk.

    Centered in Congo’s eastern Ituri province, the ongoing outbreak has already reached staggering public health proportions: Congolese health authorities confirm 5,713 confirmed infections and 2,744 recorded deaths to date, with transmission outpacing all containment efforts. This epidemic, which official data traces back to February despite an official declaration in mid-May, has ballooned from three initial affected health zones to nearly 60 across the country, with the majority of new cases and deaths occurring in unmonitored community settings rather than clinical facilities. The World Health Organization has confirmed the outbreak remains fully out of control and is on track to surpass the 2014–2016 West Africa Ebola epidemic, the deadliest in recorded history that killed more than 11,000 people.

    Comprehensive public health data from the outbreak reveals a particularly alarming risk for young children: kids aged 4 and under face a 60% case-fatality rate, the highest mortality rate of any age group impacted by the virus. This stark statistic has fueled growing calls from local stakeholders to delay the scheduled return to classrooms, even as many families and educators acknowledge the urgent need to resume interrupted learning.

    “We want to get back to teaching, but not at the cost of our lives or the lives of our students,” said Fazila Rebecca, a primary school teacher based in Bunia, the capital of Ituri province, in an interview with the Associated Press. “As long as the virus is still circulating widely in our communities and sufficient protective measures are not in place, opening our school doors is a risk we simply cannot afford to take.”

    On Tuesday, the Ituri regional teachers union held an emergency assembly in Bunia, formally calling on public health authorities to conduct a full, transparent assessment of current transmission rates before finalizing any decision on school reopening. “We are not against resuming classes — we just believe that the health and safety of every teacher and every student has to come first,” explained Budju Lobo Isaac, a representative for the union. Ituri authorities had not issued a public response to the union’s request or growing public pressure as of Thursday.

    The current outbreak has been amplified by a perfect storm of systemic challenges: chronic regional insecurity from rebel violence, mass population displacement, a recent strike by frontline health workers, and constant cross-community population movement have all hampered containment efforts. Beyond logistical barriers, the strain of the outbreak is exacerbated by the fact that it is driven by the rare Bundibugyo Ebola virus, for which no widely approved vaccines or specific treatments currently exist. While clinical trials for experimental vaccines and therapeutics are already underway in the region, no fully vetted, large-scale intervention is available to stop transmission at this time. The Congolese government has noted that it is set to receive 70,000 doses of Ervebo, an Ebola vaccine that proved effective against previous outbreaks of other Ebola strains, though its effectiveness against Bundibugyo remains unconfirmed.

    Widespread outbreak control measures, including limits on public gatherings, social distancing requirements, and regional airport closures, have already upended daily life across six affected provinces, particularly in Ituri, which has already been devastated by years of rebel conflict. While the national government has rolled out limited public health interventions, including the installation of basic sanitation equipment at high-traffic locations, child health advocacy groups say far more work is needed to both scale up protective resources and build community trust around public health guidance.

    “Beyond practical logistical challenges, community buy-in remains the most critical piece of outbreak response,” noted Greg Ramm, country director for Save the Children in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. “Our immediate priority right now is to make sure every school, every teacher, and every family has the accurate public health information and personal protective resources they need to make the start of the school year as safe as possible for every child.”

    For many parents in Bunia, the uncertainty around school reopening has created an impossible dilemma: many are eager to get their children back to structured learning after months of disruption, but fear the risk of viral exposure. “As a parent, I want my children in school — I know how important their education is,” said Espérance Dz’venga, who was purchasing school supplies for her children at Bunia’s central market this week. “But like every other parent, what I want most is for them to come home healthy at the end of the day. We are terrified that they will be exposed at school, and then bring the virus home to our whole families.”

  • US drug agency approves breakthrough treatment for pancreatic cancer

    US drug agency approves breakthrough treatment for pancreatic cancer

    In a landmark step forward for cancer care, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has greenlit a new targeted treatment for pancreatic cancer, one of the most lethal forms of the disease globally, after clinical data demonstrated it nearly doubles the average overall survival time for patients.

    Developed by biotech firm Revolution Medicines, the treatment, generically named daraxonrasib and sold under the brand name Rasonque, is being hailed as a long-awaited breakthrough for a cancer that has defied effective treatment for decades. Results from a late-stage clinical trial involving 500 pancreatic cancer patients revealed that participants who took the daily oral pill achieved a median overall survival of 13.2 months, compared to just 6.6 months for patients treated with standard chemotherapy.

    Unlike traditional chemotherapy that attacks both cancerous and healthy cells, daraxonrasib works through targeted precision: it binds to and inactivates the mutated KRAS gene, a genetic driver that fuels uncontrolled tumor growth. This specific mutation is present in more than 90% of all pancreatic tumors, making the treatment widely applicable for the most common form of the disease.

    Pancreatic cancer remains one of the deadliest major cancers, with grim statistics underscoring the urgent need for new treatment options. The American Cancer Society reports roughly 67,000 new cases are diagnosed in the U.S. each year, and the cancer carries the highest mortality rate among all common malignancies. Most cases are detected at an advanced stage after the cancer has already spread, and more than half of patients die within three months of receiving a diagnosis.

    The path to approval was accelerated due to the urgent unmet medical need for effective pancreatic cancer treatments. In 2025, the FDA awarded daraxonrasib a “Breakthrough Therapy” designation, a special status that streamlines review for treatments targeting serious, life-threatening conditions. The agency ultimately issued its approval six months ahead of its original regulatory deadline, a decision driven by the treatment’s unmatched trial results.

    Angelo de Claro, director of the FDA’s Oncology Center of Excellence, emphasized the transformative potential of the new approval, noting the drug “showed unprecedented results in an area of high unmet need.” The FDA itself described the treatment as a “critical new option for patients facing an extraordinarily difficult and historically hard-to-treat cancer.”

    Data on side effects also show the new treatment is better tolerated than traditional chemotherapy. While common adverse reactions include rash, diarrhea, nausea, fatigue and vomiting, the rate of severe side effects was 44% for patients taking daraxonrasib, compared to 57.5% for those on chemotherapy. High-profile patient outcomes have also highlighted the drug’s promise: former U.S. Senator Ben Sasse, who announced a Stage 4 pancreatic cancer diagnosis in December, is currently enrolled in the clinical trial and has confirmed the treatment has reduced the size of his tumors.

    This approval marks a turning point in pancreatic cancer care, opening a new door of hope for thousands of patients facing a diagnosis that has long carried very poor prognoses.

  • German airport worker dies of malaria after ‘mosquito arrives on plane’

    German airport worker dies of malaria after ‘mosquito arrives on plane’

    A rare local malaria outbreak at Germany’s busiest travel hub, Frankfurt Airport, has claimed the life of one employee and left five others infected with the mosquito-borne disease, public health and airport authorities have confirmed.

    German public health officials trace the origin of the disease-carrying mosquitoes to incoming air travel, saying the insects likely hitched a ride on commercial aircraft arriving from malaria-endemic regions. Fraport, the public company that operates Frankfurt Airport, announced Tuesday that the five remaining infected staff members are currently receiving targeted medical care for their infections.

    In a statement shared with the BBC, a Fraport spokesperson confirmed the fatality: “Sadly, we must confirm that one employee has died as a result of the infection.” The operator has since rolled out broad awareness campaigns for all on-site workers, advising anyone who develops malaria symptoms to seek immediate medical attention from a licensed provider. To contain the spread and identify the exact origin and species of the mosquitoes, authorities have deployed dozens of insect traps across airport grounds, with captured specimens set for laboratory analysis.

    The outbreak was first flagged to the public in July, when four cases were initially reported. Germany’s leading public health research and disease control body, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), later confirmed the four initial cases developed symptoms between July 4 and July 6, reiterating the assessment that infected mosquitoes arrived via aircraft. The institute notes that locally transmitted malaria at a German airport is an extremely rare event: nearly all malaria cases recorded in Germany occur in international travelers who picked up the parasite in high-risk tropical regions.

    In its epidemiological bulletin, the RKI warned that the absence of a recent international travel history among affected workers in this outbreak can lead to critical delays in diagnosis, which in turn raises the risk of severe, life-threatening progression of the disease. The institute also added that the last recorded case of airport-transmitted malaria in Germany occurred in 2023, also at Frankfurt Airport.

    The BBC has reached out to the Frankfurt Public Health Department, which is leading the ongoing investigation into the outbreak, for additional comment on containment efforts and new case tracking.

    According to the World Health Organization (WHO), malaria is a parasitic infection spread exclusively through the bite of specific Anopheles mosquito species, and it is most prevalent in tropical and subtropical climate zones. While the infection is both fully preventable and curable with appropriate medical intervention, it ranges in severity from mild, flu-like symptoms to fatal complications, and cannot spread directly from person to person.

  • Radiation link in flight attendant’s breast cancer, French court finds

    Radiation link in flight attendant’s breast cancer, French court finds

    In a groundbreaking legal decision that could reshape occupational health protections for aviation workers globally, a French court in Bayonne has become the first judicial body in the country to formally link cosmic radiation exposure to a flight attendant’s breast cancer, marking a historic turning point for aviation industry occupational safety.

    The case was brought by 59-year-old Sophie Lainault, a former Air France flight attendant who spent three decades in the air before retiring in 2019. Lainault, who is currently in remission from breast cancer, had petitioned the court to recognize her illness as an occupational disease caused by working conditions inherent to her role. The court’s ruling backed her claim, identifying cosmic radiation as one of three confirmed carcinogenic occupational hazards she faced during her career. The other two documented hazards are prolonged night shifts and chronic exposure to secondhand smoke, a common in-flight condition that persisted on Air France flights until smoking was banned on board in 2000.

    Over her 30-year career from 1989 to 2019, Lainault accumulated a total of 12,600 flight hours, with more than half of those logged on overnight routes. Many of her long-haul high-altitude trips out of Paris operated near the North Pole, a region where cosmic radiation exposure is far more intense than at lower latitudes. Unlike most locations on Earth, the North Pole receives weaker protection from the planet’s magnetic field, which normally deflects the energetic particles that make up cosmic radiation originating from the sun and distant stars.

    The implications of this ruling extend far beyond Lainault’s individual case. For the former flight attendant, the decision unlocks critical benefits: she will now be eligible for early retirement, and all future medical costs related to her cancer will be fully covered by France’s public health system. Legal experts note that the ruling also sets a binding precedent that clears the path for hundreds of other current and former aviation crew members to file similar claims seeking occupational disease recognition for radiation-linked cancers.

    Speaking after the decision, Lainault shared her hope that the ruling would empower other aviation workers to come forward. “My dearest wish is that the decision encourages other women who up until now have not had the courage to take this step,” she said.

    Her lawyer Elisabeth Leroux emphasized the uniqueness of the ruling, explaining that while France had previously recognized links between breast cancer and occupational hazards for workers such as nurses, this is the first time the connection has been formalized for a flight attendant.

    The decision aligns with newly published research from Harvard Medical School in the United States, which underscores the elevated cancer risk faced by aviation crews. A study released by the institution this month analyzed mortality data across more than 500 different professions, finding that flight attendants and pilots have the highest proportion of radiation-related cancer deaths among all occupational groups tracked. Researchers found that roughly 6.9% of all deaths among flight attendants and 6.7% of deaths among pilots are attributable to radiation-related cancers — proportions higher even than nuclear technologists, a profession routinely exposed to non-cosmic radiation, which ranked 12th on the list.

    While it has long been understood that high-altitude air travel exposes people to elevated levels of cosmic radiation, public health experts have long held that the cumulative exposure for occasional leisure travelers is too low to pose a statistically significant cancer risk. For crew members who spend hundreds of hours annually at high altitude, however, cumulative exposure adds up to a measurable long-term health hazard.

    In a statement following the ruling, Air France noted that it had not participated in Lainault’s legal proceedings and had not reviewed the full text of the court’s reasoning. The airline reaffirmed its commitment to employee well-being, saying, “The health and security of our staff is an absolute imperative. Every employee has a medical accompaniment that goes well beyond the regulatory minimum.”

  • Chinese teens are turning to mind-numbing drugs to ‘run away from reality’

    Chinese teens are turning to mind-numbing drugs to ‘run away from reality’

    Against the backdrop of China’s intensely competitive academic culture, a growing number of teenagers are turning to unprescribed recreational use of pharmaceutical drugs to escape crippling study and exam pressure, a hidden public health crisis that has prompted warnings from authorities and experts alike.

    The crisis is illustrated by the story of 14-year-old Xiaomei (a pseudonym to protect her identity), a high-achieving student from a coastal Chinese province who first turned to prescription cough medicine after an older peer suggested it would help her relax. Though the drug required a doctor’s prescription to access legally, she easily purchased it through online platforms. Initially experiencing mild dizziness, Xiaomei quickly grew dependent on the soft numbing effect, which offered a fleeting escape from the anxiety of upcoming high-stakes exams. When consumed in large doses, the medication can trigger severe harmful outcomes, including hallucinations and loss of motor control.

    Over two years, Xiaomei moved between different unprescribed medications shared and recommended to her via anonymous social media chat groups – ranging from epilepsy treatments to neuropathic pain relievers. She sometimes took five pills at a time, occasionally more than 10 to chase the desired calming or intoxicating effect. “When I felt too much pressure from my studies, or I didn’t do well at exams, or even when I quarrelled with my parents, I would take these drugs,” she told the BBC. “I was running away from reality.”

    Xiaomei’s experience is far from unique. The BBC collected dozens of similar accounts from teenagers across Chinese social media chat rooms, where young users collectively pursue what they call a “pharmaceutical high” to cope with uniform academic pressure. In one recorded interaction, a girl shared a slurred, incomprehensible voice note after overdosing on a neuropathic pain drug, saying “I feel my body doesn’t belong to me. I’m so dizzy.” Other users shared tips for accessing unregulated drugs, offered to forge prescriptions using family members’ old documents, and discussed alternate code names for controlled substances to avoid platform detection. For example, one user noted that a Parkinson’s tremor medication, which causes delirium and confusion in excessive doses, remains unregulated and easy to purchase.

    Officially, it is difficult to measure the full scale of this trend due to limited public aggregated data, but the Chinese government has already acknowledged its severity. Two years ago, authorities launched a nationwide crackdown on the cough suppressant many teenagers like Xiaomei first used, reclassifying it as a controlled psychotropic substance that requires a formal prescription. That crackdown made the drug far harder to access online, but by April this year, regulators found teenagers had simply shifted to alternative unprescribed medications. Even after new controls were imposed on the new drug of choice, BBC reporters were still able to purchase it for less than $1.5 per gram via an anonymous online chat room.

    A 2025 research paper from China’s Ministry of Justice Crime Prevention Institute explains why regulatory crackdowns on individual drugs have had limited success: “Non-regulated substances are easy to acquire and even when one drug is controlled by the authorities, young people quickly find alternatives.” As the world’s largest producer of active pharmaceutical ingredients, China has widespread, low-cost access to a huge range of prescription medications, and weak age verification on many platforms lets minors purchase them easily. Xiaomei told the BBC that purchasing a full box of cough suppressant only took a few clicks – she simply entered her national ID number (which clearly displays her underage status) and received the delivery with no additional checks, paying less than $1 for 50 tablets.

    While official 2025 data shows a 41% drop in newly identified drug users under 35, the China National Narcotics Control Commission has issued explicit warnings that non-medical prescription drug misuse is growing rapidly, particularly among minors. Experts point to the uniquely intense pressure facing Chinese teenagers as the root cause of the trend.

    Xiaomei, who attended an elite academic class with a strict elimination system – students who drop in rankings are removed from the advanced program – explains the stakes: “It is just so hard to pass exams and to stay in elite classes. When you fail, you feel like a failure, believing you have no chance in life.”

    Renowned Chinese sociologist Xiang Biao, director of the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, notes that decades of the now-ended one-child policy left many families with a single child who carries all of their household’s future expectations, compounding that pressure. “What makes Chinese teens different is their isolating environment,” Xiang explains. “They spend at least nine or 10 hours in school. They have very few chances to develop social relationships, very few opportunities to witness what life is really like.” Xiang also links rising prescription drug misuse to a documented increase in teen self-harm, a trend the BBC observed in chat rooms where users encouraged one another to self-injure “to feel something”.

    For Xiaomei, the misuse of drugs took a severe physical toll. As the critical high school entrance exam approached, she switched to a new epilepsy and pain management drug to numb her anxiety, and quickly experienced rapid memory deterioration, living in a constant mental fog. After being advised to switch to another pain reliever, she eventually overdosed on 50 tablets, becoming severely ill and forced to confess to her parents. Unlike many families, Xiaomei’s parents responded with empathy rather than anger: “They mostly expressed how heartbreaking it was for them to see me like that. They didn’t scold or criticise me. Their approach was gentle.” This shift in support, she says, changed everything.

    Xiang notes that this lack of emotional validation is a common gap for Chinese teens: “Many children receive lots of attention but the type of attention they want is to be asked how they feel. Do they feel lonely or stressed? Often in China parents brush that away and say you just have to be stronger.” Experts argue that rather than focusing solely on cracking down on illegal online drug sales – a strategy they compare to playing whack-a-mole – policymakers should address the underlying teen mental health crisis driving the trend. Recent data underscores the scale of that crisis: a 2023 China Mental Health Blue Book study found that nearly 95 million people in China live with depression, and over 30% of that group are under 18.

    The Chinese government has acknowledged the need for expanded mental health support for teenagers, and has announced plans to roll out counselling rooms in all schools, add psychiatric services to at least one hospital per county, and train more mental health professionals, with a goal of building a national psychological support and crisis intervention system by 2030. To date, 92% of primary schools and 95% of junior secondary schools have employed on-campus counsellors, and major cities including Beijing have integrated mental health education into standard school curricula. However, the system still faces a critical shortage of specialized child and adolescent psychiatrists: a 2020 study published in *The Lancet* found only 500 qualified child psychiatrists across the entire country, most concentrated in major urban centers.

    Wider social and economic shifts have also amplified teen and parental anxiety. The China that Xiaomei’s parents grew up in followed a clear social contract: hard work and strong grades guaranteed stable success. Today, even high grades and a university degree do not guarantee a secure future, particularly after the COVID-19 pandemic left China’s economy struggling to recover, with youth unemployment reaching 20% in recent estimates. “People have become more pessimistic in general,” Xiang says. “Parents feel confused and anxious because they see a problem in their children, but they don’t see an alternative. If my child has a problem, it’s the end of the world. I think we should pay more attention to parents as well as children.”

    For Xiaomei, her parents’ new willingness to listen helped her recover, and she ultimately performed well on the entrance exam that had caused her so much anxiety. “I am lucky to have their support,” she says. But not all teens have access to that kind of support, which is why 22-year-old Lu Jingchan, a former prescription drug user who overcame addiction after four years and four overdoses, now advocates against teen misuse on social media. “The drugs drove me to the brink of madness. You risk sinking into an abyss of addiction, destroying your health,” he says. His message to teens struggling with the pressure he once faced is direct: “I hope you can face life head-on, without needing medicines to numb yourselves. If you are overdosing, I want to give you the courage to stop. I believe your lives will improve. I believe you will all find happiness.”

  • Two unvaccinated people die of measles in Pennsylvania

    Two unvaccinated people die of measles in Pennsylvania

    The United States is facing its most severe measles outbreak in three and a half decades, with two unvaccinated individuals in Pennsylvania becoming the latest fatalities of the highly contagious viral disease, state health officials have confirmed.

    As of the eighth month of 2026, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has recorded 2,777 confirmed measles cases across the country, a figure that already surpasses 2025’s total of 2,289 cases — the previous high for decades. This growing public health crisis is rooted in years of rising vaccine hesitancy that has pushed childhood immunization rates below the threshold needed for effective herd protection.

    In Lancaster County, the location of the two recent deaths, just 85% of kindergarten-age children have received the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine. That rate falls far short of the 95% herd immunity benchmark required to slow transmission and shield immunocompromised community members who cannot receive the vaccine themselves. This is not the first deadly measles incident in recent years: in 2025, two unvaccinated children in Texas died during an outbreak that infected more than 1,000 people, most of them under 18. So far in 2026, Pennsylvania alone has logged 393 confirmed cases.

    Pennsylvania Secretary of Health Debra Bogen extended condolences to the families of the deceased in an official statement, noting that decades of near-elimination have left many Americans unaware of how dangerous the virus can be. “Because measles was largely eliminated in the Commonwealth for more than three decades, people are not familiar with this disease and don’t fully understand the potential severity of the illness,” Bogen said. She reaffirmed that the standard two-dose MMR vaccine regimen, recommended for all children between 1 and 6 years old, remains the most effective defense against measles, with clinical data showing it is 97% effective at preventing infection. State health officials have not released any additional details about the identities of the two people who died to protect family privacy.

    The accelerating outbreak has unfolded alongside controversial shifts in federal vaccine policy led by the Trump administration. Earlier this month, former President Donald Trump signed an executive order calling for reduced childhood vaccination volumes and splitting the combined MMR vaccine into three separate individual doses. Public health experts across the country have warned that the order will spread unnecessary confusion about a vaccine that has been proven safe and effective for more than half a century, and will create additional costs for healthcare providers and families.

    The order is the latest policy change from Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a prominent vaccine skeptic who has led a widespread overhaul of national vaccine policies and childhood immunization schedules over the past year. Most of Kennedy’s proposed changes were already blocked by a federal judge earlier in 2026. Kennedy has sent inconsistent public messages about the MMR vaccine: he has occasionally issued weak endorsements of the shot while repeatedly sharing unsubstantiated, debunked claims about its safety.

    By the end of 2026, an international public health panel will review whether the United States will lose its measles elimination status, a designation it has held for nearly two decades. Canada lost this status in 2025 amid its own rising outbreak driven by low vaccination rates, and current trends put the United States on track to follow suit.