CONTRACTING OUT = UNION BUSTING

110 WestJet employees in Manitoba permanently laid off as airline switches to contractor

© Walther Bernal/CBC WestJet kiosks at James Armstrong Richardson airport in Winnipeg, Tuesday, Feb. 2, 2021. Around 110 WestJet employees working in customer service and ground handling services will lose their jobs as the company shifts those jobs to…

An anticipated wave of layoffs from Canadian air carrier WestJet has hit workers in Manitoba as the company starts contracting out all customer service and ground handling duties in the province.

In June, WestJet announced it was laying off 3,333 workers across the country due to the loss of business caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The company said it would consolidate its call centre in Alberta, and contract out its operations in all but four of its 38 domestic airports, leaving just Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver and Toronto.

A company called Airport Terminal Services has been contracted to provide services in all other airports in Canada. The layoffs, which are permanent, will take effect in the coming days.

A spokesperson for Unifor, the union representing the roughly 110 laid-off workers in Winnipeg and Brandon, called the move "a slap in the face."

Of the people the union spoke to, the lowest-seniority person had 16 years of experience and was making $23 an hour, with benefits. That same employee was being offered $13 an hour with essentially no benefits to do the same job as a contract worker, said Chris MacDonald, assistant to the national president of Unifor.

"Yes, it's difficult for all airlines in the country right now, but … the crisis will end, COVID will end, and things will pick up again in sometime in the future," said MacDonald.

"And WestJet will have outsourced basically all of their labour to third party companies that rely on minimum-wage workers."

The Calgary-based company had 14,000 staff before pandemic border closures and travel restrictions grounded two-thirds of its fleet, WestJet said in a June announcement.

Operations had been reduced by 90 per cent, year-over-year. Despite instituting a hiring freeze, cutting executive, vice-president and director salaries and pausing more than 75 per cent of its capital projects, CEO Ed Sims said the company would have to make "painful decisions" to ensure its viability.

MacDonald accused the company of using the pandemic as a way to shed itself of its obligations to its direct employees, many of whom had recently unionized.

"The bottom line is that this is the last major airline in the country that was sitting non-union. And in the last number of years, the employees have realized that they need a union," he said.

"What they've done is they've taken it as an opportunity to contract out the work forever. And that's not a COVID problem. That's a decision of the business."

A spokesperson for WestJet said no other layoffs are planned for operations in Manitoba at this time.

Anonymous donor gives £11m to London’s UCL 

to fund study of ancient Mesopotamia

Additional funding will support the teaching and research of the region’s heritage, history and languages

Jamie Prentis
Feb 3, 2021

An Iraqi woman walks on towards the Great Ziggurat temple, a massive Sumerian stepped mudbrick construction dedicated to the moon god Nanna. AFP

An anonymous philanthropist has given more than £11million ($15m) to University College London to support the teaching and research of the heritage, history and languages of ancient Mesopotamia.

The funding will build on the UCL-led Nahrein Network, which seeks to end the systematic exclusion of researching and remembering Middle Eastern history in Iraq and the wider region, and to tackle the impact of major population growth – both within the context of instability, poverty and unemployment among young people.

READ MORE

British sculptor launches collection of Mosul artefacts that replicate those destroyed by ISIS

Iraq’s cultural heritage negatively impacted by sectarian politics

The donation will fund Nahrein’s work for the next decade. UCL’s president and provost Dr Michael Spence said it marked “a seminal moment in the decolonisation of knowledge production in Iraq and other regions in the Global South”.

The Nahrein Network has until now been funded by the UK Research and Innovation Arts and Humanities Research Council and the Global Challenges Research Fund.

UCL’s head of history Prof Eleanor Robson said ancient Mesopotamia had only really been the subject of academic interest since the 19th century, with most studies coming from a Western perspective.


“This outstandingly generous donation will help transcend barriers associated with a fragile, post-conflict state and ensure Iraqis can reclaim their ancient heritage as local history – with all the social, cultural, economic and educational benefits that can bring,” she said.

“Since 2014, the destruction of heritage sites throughout Syria and Iraq has received widespread publicity, with talk of a ‘race against time’ to preserve what remains.

Experts said ancient Mesopotamia had only really been the subject of academic interest since the 19th century. Corbis via Getty Images

“International projects have invested millions in the documentation, digitisation, and conservation of threatened and damaged buildings and archaeological sites across the Middle East. However, only a few of these projects have focused on the interests and impact on the ground for local people in their communities. It is the longer term impact on them that is the priority for the Nahrein Network,” Prof Robson added.

The additional resources are expected to strengthen work between UCL and Iraqi universities.

“This new funding will strengthen the work of Iraqi researchers and heritage experts to address the impact of decades of conflict, war and neglect. It will provide an important resource for Iraqi researchers, universities and civil society,” said Dr Mehiyar Katham, who will soon become the deputy head of the Nahrein Network.

Circa 700 BC, soldiers of the Assyrian army besieging a city, using a battering ram, on a wall-carving, Mesopotamia. Getty Images

Dr Rozhen Kamal Mohammed-Amin of Sulaimani Polytechnic University in Iraq said he planned “to carry out innovative interdisciplinary research and capacity building in digital cultural heritage and digital architecture in Iraq”.

“These cutting-edge and promising research areas are barely heard of, undertaken, or even understood in the country,” he added.


Updated: February 3, 2021 

4-year-old discovers impressive dinosaur footprint on Wales beach

A 4-year-old girl walking on a beach with her family in Wales has discovered the best-preserved dinosaur track from the area.

 

© Provided by Live Science A "grallator" track made by a three-toed Triassic dinosaur was found by a 4-year-old girl on a beach in Wales.

The track is from a beach known for footprints from crocodilians, extinct ancestors of modern crocodiles. The dinosaur that made the print probably stood 30 inches (75 centimeters) tall and 8.2 feet (2.5 meters) long. Its 4-inch (10 cm) track looks similar to that of the dinosaur Coelophysis, though that particular species lived in North America, not what is now Europe.

Lily Wilder, a preschooler on a stroll with her father at Bendricks Bay, discovered the track.

Related: Photos: Dinosaur tracks reveal Australia's 'Jurassic Park'

"It was Lily and Richard (her father) who discovered the footprint," Lily's mother Sally Wilder said in a statement. "Lily saw it as they were walking along, and said 'Daddy look.' When Richard came home and showed me the photograph, I thought it looked amazing. Richard thought it was too good to be true. I was put in touch with experts who took it from there."

The print was on a loose rock and has now been removed to National Museum Wales (Amgueddfa Cymru in Welsh) with permission from Natural Resources Wales, the government-sponsored body that regulates conservation and environmental issues.

"This fossilized dinosaur footprint from 220 million years ago is one of the best-preserved examples from anywhere in the U.K. and will really aid palaeontologists to get a better idea about how these early dinosaurs walked," Cindy Howells, the paleontology curator at the museum, said in the statement.

The fossil is so detailed that the claws and pads of the feet are visible. The print is a type known as a grallator, meaning a bipedal theropod dinosaur with three toes created it. The dinosaur lived at the beginning of the Triassic period, when the region was a desert dotted with occasional saline lakes. Dinosaurs had evolved only about 10 million years before this mysterious three-toed creature walked this landscape, so its print is a tantalizing clue into early dinosaur history, according to National Museum Wales.

"During the COVID pandemic, scientists from Amgueddfa Cymru have been highlighting the importance of nature on people's doorstep, and this is a perfect example of this," Howells said. "Obviously, we don't all have dinosaur footprints on our doorstep, but there is a wealth of nature local to you if you take the time to really look close enough."

Originally published on Live Science.

AstraZeneca COVID vaccine's complex EU supply chain

The firm has blamed production woes in the EU for not delivering as many doses of its COVID vaccine as it had promised. These are some of the companies involved in the production of the AstraZeneca vaccine in the EU.


AstraZeneca was able to iron out production glitches at its UK factories earlier than in Europe

British-Swedish drugmaker AstraZeneca drew a sharp rebuke from the European Union after the company said late last month it would cut EU supplies of its COVID-19 vaccine in the first quarter.

EU leaders lashed out at the company for not honoring its contractual obligations, with some accusing it of diverting vaccines produced in the bloc to other countries. AstraZeneca, which has developed the vaccine in cooperation with the University of Oxford, has denied the charges, blaming the supply cut on production issues.

The spat comes at a time the EU's vaccination drive is faltering and the bloc is taking much flak for trailing the United States and the United Kingdom in getting shots into the arms of its citizens. EU members, including Germany and France, are facing supply shortages, which has forced authorities in some regions to delay or suspend vaccinations. The EU has responded by introducing export controls on coronavirus vaccines to monitor doses leaving its shores.

AstraZeneca has agreed to supply to the EU only around half of the 80 million doses it had committed to deliver during the first quarter.

Watch video01:37 EU, AstraZeneca in bitter vaccine dispute

 

 

Why did AstraZeneca cut vaccine supplies?

The production of AstraZeneca's vaccine broadly involves two steps: one is producing the actual vaccine or drug substance, and the other is putting the vaccine into vials. Those two steps can take up to 60 days each.

AstraZeneca has said while it's facing no issues with the second step, it's struggling to produce high quantities of the vaccine at an EU production plant.

"Essentially, we have cell cultures, big batches, 1,000-liter or 2,000-liter batches. We have cell cultures inside those batches, and we inject them with the virus, the vaccine if you will. Those cells produce the vaccine — it's biotechnology protection," AstraZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot told Italian newspaper La Repubblica last week. "Now, some of those batches have a very high yield and others have low yield. Particularly in Europe, we had one site with large capacity that experienced yield issues.

"The yield varies from one to three, by the factor of three. The best site we have produces three times more vaccine out of a batch than the lowest producing site," he added

Soriot also said the company faced similar glitches in other countries, including in the UK, but was able to sort them out because it had more time given that London had signed its contract three months before the EU.

Watch video01:44 Germany's coronavirus vaccine rollout falters

AstraZeneca's European supply chain

AstraZeneca has partnered with several contract manufacturers across the EU to scale up the production of its COVID-19 vaccine. The vaccine, or the drug substance, is currently being produced at two facilities in the Netherlands and Belgium. It's the company's Belgian partner, Novasep, which has struggled with low yields.

The vaccine is then filled into vials and packaged in Dessau in eastern Germany by IDT Biologika and by Catalent in Anagni, Italy. Spanish pharmaceutical group Insud Pharma will also undertake vial filling and packaging services for the vaccine in Spain's Castilla-La Mancha region.

Russian pharma company R-Pharm's German unit has also signed up to produce the vaccine at its site in Illertissen in southern Germany. China's Wuxi Biologics could potentially use a former Bayer factory in Wuppertal, Germany, to manufacture the vaccine.

AstraZeneca plans to deliver up to 3 billion doses across the globe by the end of this year. The EU has made a €336 million ($404 million) down payment to secure up to 400 million doses of the vaccine, which was approved by the EU's drugs regulator last week.
How are other vaccine makers faring?

Pfizer and BioNtech are also struggling to stick to their delivery commitments due to production and supply chain problems. But the EU has said that unlike AstraZeneca, the companies are distributing the impact of the disruption fairly among buyers.

Several European governments confirmed last month that Pfizer-BioNtech would temporarily cut shipments of its vaccine due to "modifications" at its Puurs plant in Belgium.

On Monday, the companies promised to deliver up to 75 million more doses to the EU in the second quarter. The companies said they would increase production with a new facility set to open in the German city of Marburg in February. The facility will have the capacity to produce 750 million vaccine doses each year.

Russia's Sputnik V COVID vaccine highly effective, new study shows

The previously contentious vaccine has shown promising results in a phase III trial. Its efficacy also looks to be high for the coronavirus risk group of people of 60 and over.



Preliminary results show the Sputnik V vaccine to be almost 92 % efficient

The Russian vaccine Gam-COVID-Vac, also known as Sputnik V, is 91.6 % effective against symptomatic COVID-19, a phase III trial has shown. The preliminary results of this crucial final round of testing were published in the prestigious medical journal The Lancet on Tuesday.

The findings are based on data from nearly 20,000 people who participated in the study in 25 hospitals and clinics in Moscow from September through November 2020.

STUDY: Russia's Sputnik V vaccine is 91.6% effective

Participants received an initial shot of either the vaccine or a placebo and then a booster shot 21 days later. Of the 14,964 people in the vaccine group, only 16 had developed symptomatic cases of COVID-19 after receiving the second shot of the vaccine. This compares to 62 infected people in the 4,902-strong placebo group. PCR tests for the coronavirus were conducted at screening, on the day participants received the booster shot and if they reported symptoms of a respiratory infection.

Researchers at Russia's Gamaleya National Research Centre for Epidemiology and Microbiology, where Sputnik V was developed, say they are happy with the results.

"Our interim analysis of the randomized, controlled, phase III trial of Gam-COVID-Vac in Russia has shown high efficacy, immunogenicity and a good tolerability profile in participants aged 18 years or older," says Gamaleya's Dr. Inna V Dolzhikova, co-lead author of the study published in The Lancet. 

The Sputnik V vaccine is already being used on a large scale in Russia

The researchers found no serious negative consequences of vaccination. Reported side effects included flu-like symptoms and pain at the injection site.

Encouraging result for previously contentious vaccine

Sputnik V was the first coronavirus vaccine to be released worldwide. Russia's move to start using it on a mass scale last year, before all the trials were completed and results analyzed, has been criticized by the international community. Another point of contention: The Gamaleya research center did not just develop the vaccine but was also in charge of authorizing its use in Russia. In the EU or the US, authorization is handled not by the companies who develop the serum, but by separate entities like the European Medicines Agency (EMA) or the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA)

Russia rolls out Sputnik vaccine against COVID-19

The release of the phase III results is likely to increase confidence in the Russian vaccine.

"The development of the Sputnik V vaccine has been criticized for unseemly haste, corner-cutting and an absence of transparency. But the outcome reported here is clear and the scientific principle of vaccination is demonstrated," Professor Ian Jones, University of Reading, and Professor Polly Roy, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, who were not involved in the study, wrote in a comment about the new findings.

Good results with the elderly as well

The most recent Sputnik V trial included 2,144 participants over 60 years of age, and the vaccine efficacy in this group was 91.8 %. A British coronavirus vaccine developed by AstraZeneca had been criticized for not testing a sufficient number of people from this risk group.

Watch video01:37 EU and AstraZeneca in bitter dispute over COVID vaccine

The Russian COVID-19 vaccine includes two adenovirus (a common cold virus) vectors that have been modified to carry the gene for the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein, which makes Sputnik V similar to the AstraZeneca vaccine in the way it works.

The study's authors note that because COVID-19 cases were only detected when participants reported symptoms themselves, the efficacy analysis includes only symptomatic cases of COVID-19. Further research is needed to understand how efficient the vaccine is when it comes to asymptomatic COVID-19 cases and their transmission.

UAE, US and Israeli think tanks advise Biden on Iran policy

Experts from three countries urge new administration to listen 

to regional players on Tehran

President Joe Biden in the Oval Office of the White House, Thursday, January 28, 2021. AP Photo

Think tanks from the UAE, the US and Israel issued a Middle East policy guide for US President Joe Biden on Monday, in the latest sign of growing co-operation after last year’s normalisation pact.

Experts from the Atlantic Council in Washington, the Emirates Policy Centre in Abu Dhabi and the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv released a nine-point plan called, “How President Biden can Tackle the Middle East’s Biggest Problems”.

The three-page document, dealing with problems including Covid-19 and restraining Iran’s nuclear programme, comes after the Abraham Accord that normalised UAE-Israel ties last year and fostered greater engagement between the two countries.

The authors of the report – the Atlantic Council’s Kirsten Fontenrose, Emirates Policy Centre founder and director Ebtesam Al Ketbi and Institute for National Security Studies director Udi Dekel – said it was the first such collaboration.

They wrote about a “new regional landscape” since the Accord was signed at the White House in September and of co-operation between Israeli and Emirati think tanks, which was not previously possible.

“Through joint reports, conferences and online seminars, the partners intend to reinforce regional stability and promote mutually beneficial ties between Israel and the Arab world,” they wrote.

The policy advice would help Mr Biden to “score some early successes and avoid familiar minefields” in a region beset by wars in Yemen, Syria and Libya, and decades-old enmity between the Palestinians and Israelis, they wrote.

On Iran, the analysts advised Mr Biden to “consult closely” with America’s regional allies before re-entering the 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and major world powers, from which former US president Donald Trump withdrew in 2018.

Washington should consult with its Gulf allies, Israel and others to address ballistic missiles, cyber warfare and other concerns that were left out of the original deal.

The Biden administration should strengthen co-operation between Israel and Arab states, including by emulating Israeli-UAE partnerships on vaccines against the coronavirus pandemic, the authors wrote.

On Palestinian-Israeli tension, the analysts urged Mr Biden to “create a pathway for diplomatic engagement” between the two sides and revive a peace process that was upended by Mr Trump’s pro-Israel deal making

“The alignment of many Arab, Israeli and American visions represents a new architecture in the Middle East,” the experts wrote.

“It signals a tectonic shift that creates new diplomatic options and geopolitical 

UAE, US and Israeli think tanks advise Biden on Iran policy | The National (thenationalnews.com)

Protesters besiege police station as Rochester officers suspended for PEPPER SPRAYING 9yo girl (VIDEOS)

2 Feb, 2021 Get short URL

People protest after police handcuffed and sprayed a chemical irritant at a nine-year-old girl in Rochester, New York, US, February 1, 2021 © Reuters / Lindsay DeDario

Protesters in Rochester, New York toppled a police barricade during a demonstration after footage emerged showing officers pepper spraying a handcuffed 9-year-old, stoking outrage and prompting the suspension of the cops involved.

The demonstrators staged a march on Monday to protest the excessive use of force against the young girl, who was pepper sprayed as nine officers responded to a domestic disturbance call last week, rallying outside the Rochester Police Department to demand accountability.

ALSO ON RT.COM ‘I want these officers fired!’ Outrage after police pepper-spray handcuffed NINE-YEAR-OLD girl in Rochester, New York (VIDEO)

Footage circulating online showed the march and ensuing rally, including the moment protesters overturned a metal barrier erected outside the police station, allowing them to advance to an inner fence surrounding the squad car parking lot.

Demonstrators were also seen rattling the fence around the lot, but while police reportedly told them to disperse, little was done to push back the protesters, with officers instead milling in the doorway of the police station and periodically issuing orders through a loudspeaker set up in the parking lot.

Activists passed around a megaphone to deliver brief speeches during the rally, some heard calling for the firing of the officers who sprayed the young girl, while footage from earlier in the day showed a sizable crowd taking part in the march, estimated in the hundreds by videographer Brenden Gutenschwager.

As the protest was still underway, Rochester Mayor Lovely Warren issued a statement noting that at least some of the officers involved in the 9-year-old’s pepper-spraying had been suspended, pending an internal probe. While it isn’t clear whether all nine officers present during the incident were placed on leave, those who were suspended will continue to receive full pay, according to USA Today.

Body camera footage of the encounter emerged on Monday, with the 1-minute video showing a distressed girl handcuffed in the back of a police car as officers attempt to subdue her. Through the girl’s sobs, a female officer is heard threatening to pepper spray the child if she doesn’t calm down, and proceeds to do so moments later. Police were reportedly responding to “family trouble” and a potentially stolen vehicle at the time, and claim the girl was handcuffed for her own “safety” and at the request of one of her parents.



The girl has since been released to her family, but the footage has kicked off a major bout of controversy, inflaming existing tensions between police and Rochester residents, many of whom are still up in arms over the killing of Daniel Prude. The 41-year-old African American man died last March after officers pinned him to the ground during a mental health crisis, where he eventually stopped breathing. His death has also stoked a series of protests.

After weathering hours of snowfall and below-freezing temperatures, the marchers dispersed later on Monday evening, seen leaving the police station in groups to minimize the chance of arrests on their way out.

Researchers identify foods that cause 90% of food allergies

Reviewed by Emily Henderson, B.Sc.

Jan 27 2021

The United States Department of Agriculture identifies a group of "big eight" foods that causes 90% of food allergies. Among these foods are wheat and peanuts.

Sachin Rustgi, a member of the Crop Science Society of America, studies how we can use breeding to develop less allergenic varieties of these foods. Rustgi recently presented his research at the virtual 2020 ASA-CSSA-SSSA Annual Meeting.

Allergic reactions caused by wheat and peanuts can be prevented by avoiding these foods, of course. "While that sounds simple, it is difficult in practice," says Rustgi.

Avoiding wheat and peanuts means losing out on healthy food options. These two foods are nutritional powerhouses.

Wheat is a great source of energy, fiber, and vitamins. Peanuts provide proteins, good fats, vitamins and minerals.

"People with food allergies can try hard to avoid the foods, but accidental exposure to an allergen is also possible," says Rustgi. Allergen exposure can lead to hospitalization, especially for people with peanut allergies.

"For others, avoiding wheat and peanuts is not easy due to geographical, cultural, or economic reasons," explains Rustgi.

Rustgi and his colleagues are using plant breeding and genetic engineering to develop less allergenic varieties of wheat and peanuts. Their goal is to increase food options for people with allergies.

For wheat, researchers focus on a group of proteins, called gluten.

The gluten in bread flour makes dough elastic. Gluten also contributes to the chewy texture of bread.

But gluten can cause an immune reaction for individuals with Celiac disease. In addition, others experience non-celiac gluten sensitivity, leading to a variety of adverse symptoms.

Researchers have been trying to breed varieties of wheat with lower gluten content. The challenge, in part, lies in the complicated nature of gluten genetics. The information needed to make gluten is embedded in the DNA in wheat cells.

But gluten isn't a single protein - it's a group of many different proteins. The instructions cells needed to make the individual gluten proteins are contained within different genes.

In wheat, these gluten genes are distributed all over a cell's DNA. Since so many portions of the DNA play a role in creating gluten, it is difficult for plant breeders to breed wheat varieties with lower gluten levels.


When we started this research, a major question was whether it would be possible to work on a characteristic controlled by so many genes."

Sachin Rustgi, Member of Crop Science Society of America

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For peanuts, the situation is similar. Peanuts contain 16 different proteins recognized as allergens.

"Not all peanut proteins are equally allergenic," says Rustgi. Four proteins trigger an allergic reaction in more than half of peanut sensitive individuals.

Like the gluten genes in wheat, the peanut allergen genes are spread throughout the peanut DNA.

"Affecting this many targets is not an easy task, even with current technology," says Rustgi.

Rustgi and the research team are testing many varieties of wheat and peanuts to find ones that are naturally less allergenic than others.

These low-allergenic varieties can be bred with crop varieties that have desirable traits, such as high yields or pest resistance. The goal is to develop low-allergenic wheat that can be grown commercially.

In addition to traditional breeding efforts, Rustgi is also using genetic engineering to reduce allergenic proteins in wheat and peanuts.

For example, a technology called CRISPR allows scientists to make very precise changes to a cell's DNA.

Rustgi is using CRISPR to target gluten genes in wheat. Recent improvements in CRISPR technology allow researchers to target many genes at once.

Genes targeted by CRISPR are changed or mutated. This means that cells can no longer 'read' these genes to make the specific proteins.

"Disrupting the gluten genes in wheat could yield wheat with significantly lower levels of gluten. A similar approach would work in peanuts," says Rustgi.

Other approaches include understanding how gluten production is regulated in wheat cells. As it turns out, one protein serves as a 'master regulator' for many gluten genes.

That's important because disrupting this master regulator could lead to reduced amounts of gluten in wheat. Targeting a single gene is much easier than trying to disrupt the several gluten genes.

"Wheat and peanuts are the major sources of proteins to many, especially those living in resource-deprived conditions," says Rustgi. "Finding affordable ways to make wheat and peanuts available for all is very important."

Developing wheat and peanuts with reduced allergen levels is a key step toward this goal.

These crops will also reduce accidental exposure to allergens. Also, they would limit the severity of reactions if exposure did happen."

Sachin Rustgi, Member of Crop Science Society of America

Source:

American Society of Agronomy

Simple soil remediation can save children from lead toxicity
Reviewed by Emily Henderson, B.Sc.Feb 2 2021

Simple soil remediation can substantially reduce levels of the toxic metal lead in the blood of children living in heavily contaminated areas, says a new study conducted in Bangladesh.

Lead exposure can affect every system of the human body. In children it can affect brain development, resulting in reduced intelligence. Every year, intelligence deficit and reduced productivity from lead exposure costs the world about US$1 trillion and Bangladesh US$16 billion, according to the study.

To be published in the March issue of Environmental Research, the study showed that removing contaminated soil and fallen leaves led to a 96 per cent reduction in soil concentrations of lead and a 35 per cent lowering of lead in the blood of children living in an area where lead batteries were recycled.

While the industrialized world has largely eliminated lead poisoning in children, the potent neurotoxin still lurks in one in every three children globally, said a press release by Stanford University, California, which conducted the study, along with the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh, and other institutes.

Soil remediation involved scraping off 1—2centimetres of soil and leaf matter in areas close to smelting zones and 4—5centimetres within smelting zones. To ensure that sufficient soil was removed, lead concentrations in underlying soil were measured, the study says.

Stephen Luby, study co-author and professor at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment, says that all 69 children who participated in the study had dangerously high blood lead levels. "With focused efforts to decontaminate the area the intervention substantially reduced their blood lead levels," he tells SciDev.Net.

After 14 months of remediation, median soil lead concentration dropped from 1,400 milligrams per kilogram to 55 milligrams per kilogram. Also, as observed in 25 children, median blood lead levels dropped from 22.6 micrograms per decilitre to 14.8micrograms per decilitre.

Jenna Forsyth, corresponding author of the study and post-doctoral fellow at Stanford University says soil remediation is a critical tool to reduce lead exposure.


Without remediation, contaminated soil would be a source of lead exposure for generations since the estimated half-life of lead in soil is estimated at around 700 years."

Jenna Forsyth, Corresponding Author

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An earlier assessment in Bangladesh found nearly 300 recycling sites with elevated soil lead concentrations with some 700,000 people across the country living within contaminated sites, said the Stanford University press release.

According to Forsyth while soil remediation of a few priority sites is affordable even in low- to middle-income countries, Bangladesh presents a particularly difficult case. "With hundreds of such sites in Bangladesh, it would be too expensive to remediate all of them," Forsyth says.

The researchers note that unsafe recycling of batteries substantially contributes to childhood lead poisoning. At least 80 per cent of global lead use is in batteries required for automobiles and backup power storage systems.

Michal Shoshan, research group leader of the Department of Chemistry in the University of Zurich, Switzerland, says the study implies that relatively low-cost approaches can dramatically reduce lead in the environment and reduce blood lead levels of children living in or near contaminated areas. "Yet, a reduction of only 35 per cent [in blood lead levels] shows that educational tools, household cleaning and soil scraping, are not enough."

Fighting lead poisoning calls for "changes in legislation, education, environmental remediation, and safe and nontoxic medications to deplete the toxic metal from the bodies of these children", Shoshan tells SciDev.Net.

Source:
SciDev.Net

Young, Black patients at higher risk of death in the first year after a heart transplant

Reviewed by Emily Henderson, B.Sc.Feb 2 2021

Young, Black adults are more than twice as likely to die in the first year after a heart transplant when compared to same-age, non-Black heart transplant recipients, according to new research published today in Circulation: Heart Failure, an American Heart Association journal.

Research has consistently shown that Black heart transplant recipients have a higher risk of death following heart transplantation compared to non-Black recipients. Black patients have a higher prevalence of cardiovascular disease at younger ages, and therefore, they may need heart transplants at younger ages.

Researchers hypothesized that studies focused on disparities among Black heart transplant recipients may be missing an even greater disparity – younger Black patients.

Generally, older patients are at a higher risk of having worse outcomes following a major procedure. Organ transplantation, however, is a complex operation that requires lifelong, specialized medical and surgical care. Continued access to the health care system and financial resources such as insurance may be unfairly limited in younger patients, potentially leading to worse outcomes."

Errol L. Bush, MD, Study Senior Author and Associate Professor of Surgery, and Surgical Director of the Avanced Lung Disease and Lung Transplant Program, Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore

Researchers analyzed the outcomes of almost 23,000 adults (median age 56, 25% female) who had a heart transplant between Jan. 1, 2005, and Jan. 31, 2017. Patient information was obtained from the Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients, a registry that includes data on all transplant donors, wait-listed patients and recipients in the United States.

Risks of mortality were compared between Black and non-Black transplant recipients in four different age groups (18-30 years, 31-40 years, 41-60 years, and 61-80 years).

The researchers found that when compared to other heart transplant recipients:

• Across all age groups, Black heart transplant recipients had approximately a 30% higher risk of death.
• However, when examined by age groups, the risk of death among Black heart transplant recipients was 2 times higher among recipients aged 18-30 years and 1.5 times higher among recipients aged 31-40 years.
• Among Black heart transplant recipients aged 18-30, the risk of death was primarily during the first year after transplant, with Black recipients having 2.3 times higher risk of death in this time period.

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"Our study is the first to highlight young, Black recipients as a subgroup at a higher risk of death during the first year after a heart transplant," said Hasina Maredia, M.D., first author of the study whose interest in health disparities inspired her to initiate and lead the project as a medical student at Johns Hopkins. "Our findings indicate clinical research moving forward should focus attention on young, Black recipients during this high-risk period so that longstanding racial disparities seen in heart transplant survival can be improved."

In the study, young, Black heart transplant recipients differed from young, non-Black recipients in several ways, including being more likely to have diabetes and/or high blood pressure; have a weakened heart muscle (cardiomyopathy), and be insured by Medicaid rather than a private insurer.

More serious illness and additional medical problems prior to surgery might increase the risk of death from surgical complications, and financial constraints might make it more difficult for younger recipients with limited insurance to access specialized care and take the medications needed to prevent organ rejection, according to the researchers' discussion of possible mechanisms for the disparity.

"The high risk associated with Black race is not specifically due to race itself; it is a marker of systemic racism and inequities that have resulted in significant health care disparities," said Bush and Maredia.

The American Heart Association recently published a presidential advisory that addresses structural racism as a cause of poor health and premature death from heart disease and stroke.

The advisory, titled "Call to Action: Structural Racism as a Fundamental Driver of Health Disparities," reviews the historical context, current state and potential solutions to address structural racism in the U.S. and outlines steps the association is taking to address and mitigate the root causes of health care disparities.

Source:

American Heart Association

Journal reference:

Maredia, H., et al. (2021) Better Understanding the Disparity Associated With Black Race in Heart Transplant Outcomes. Circulation: Heart Failure. doi.org/10.1161/CIRCHEARTFAILURE.119.006107.