Cost of Growing Food to Rise Even More Amid Weedkiller Supply Crunch

Elizabeth Elkin and Tarso Veloso Ribeiro, Bloomberg News

(Bloomberg) -- A supply crunch is threatening to cause a spike in prices for the world’s No. 1 weedkiller, making it even more expensive for farmers to grow food.

A major supplier of an ingredient in glyphosate — an herbicide that’s widely used by corn, soy, cotton and other farmers around the world — shut down production due to mechanical failures, and repairs could take three months. Bayer AG, the maker of Roundup, whose active ingredient is glyphosate, declared a force majeure on Feb. 11, meaning it may not be able to meet its sales agreements.

That’s likely going to lead to a supply crunch, according to a an emailed statement by U.K.-based analysis company AgbioInvestor, as well as higher prices at a time when farmers are already experiencing soaring costs for everything from seeds to fertilizers. Rising production costs are part of what’s behind near-record global food prices.

“These impacts will place farmers under further pressure in a number of key markets” where costs are up, according to the statement.

Read more: Bayer Says Glyphosate Production Hurt by Supplier Failure

Farmers are anxious. Aprosoja, an association of soybean producers in Brazil’s top-producing state Mato Grosso, sent a letter to Bayer’s chief executive officer in Brazil asking for assurances that there will be no shortages of glyphosate. Over 90% of soybeans grown in Brazil are genetically modified to resist glyphosate. 

“Problems within industrial structures are not atypical events, and that’s why corporations as big as Bayer have contingency plans” that the group wants to be informed of, Aprosoja’s president Fernando Cadore said in the letter.

Bayer has previously said that glyphosate pricing gained 25% between January 2021 and November, and the company expected prices to keep rising. 

Pesticide Prices Are Rising, Hindering Farmers

With More Costs

Elizabeth Elkin
Wed., February 9, 2022, 


(Bloomberg) -- Farmers are going to be paying more for herbicides and pesticides as they grapple with higher costs for fertilizer, seeds and fuel.

Agriculture chemical company FMC Corp. said it’s raising prices to counter what Chief Executive Officer Mark Douglas called “significant” increased costs for making and distributing crop protection products. The move follows similar efforts announced last week by U.S. rival, Corteva Inc.

“Quite frankly, there’s not a lot of choice here,” Douglas said Wednesday during FMC’s quarterly earnings call.

Costs for materials used by the agricultural industry have risen during the last several months, putting strain on producers and raising concern for further inflation when food prices are already near record highs.

FMC shares rose as much as 7.6% in New York trading on Wednesday, its biggest intraday increase in three months. Corteva rose as much as 2.1% to reach a new record high of $51.41.

Bookchin M. Our Synthetic Environment - Libcom

https://libcom.org/files/Bookchin M. Our Synthetic Environment.pdf · PDF file

Our Synthetic Environment Murray Bookchin 1962 Table of contents Chapter 1: THE PROBLEM Chapter 2: AGRICULTURE AND HEALTH Chapter 3: URBAN LIFE AND HEALTH Chapter 4: THE

Elon Musk’s brain implant startup Neuralink denies that researchers abused monkeys

Adi Robertson -
The Verge


Elon Musk’s company Neuralink has denied claims that university researchers abused monkeys in experiments backed by the brain-computer interface startup. In a statement posted online, Neuralink responded to a federal complaint from the nonprofit Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM), which alleged that Neuralink and its partners at the University of California, Davis conducted inhumane tests on animals.

A PCRM statement said that monkeys at UC Davis “had their brains mutilated in shoddy experiments and were left to suffer and die.” Neuralink, by contrast, says that the lab “did and continue to meet federally mandated standards,” although it has since moved the animals to an in-house facility.

The PCRM complaint, filed with the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) against UC Davis last week, is based on documents released after a public records lawsuit. The documents outline a partnership that provided the university with around $1.4 million and ran between 2017 and 2020. The researchers tested an implant “approximately the size of a quarter coin” that was anchored to the skull of macaque monkey test subjects.

The nonprofit — which opposes the use of animals in medical experiments — says that the team “failed to provide dying monkeys with adequate veterinary care, used an unapproved substance known as ‘BioGlue’ that killed monkeys by destroying portions of their brains, and failed to provide for the psychological well-being of monkeys assigned to the experiment.”

The complaint claims monkeys were “left to suffer and die”

A tweet from Neuralink calls that description “misleading” and lacking context. It says that several animals with a “wide range of pre-existing conditions unrelated to our research” were euthanized so that researchers could practice the implant surgery on cadavers, and six more were euthanized because of infections related to the implant or a complication involving BioGlue, a widely used surgical adhesive. (An internal email references necropsy reports for 23 animals in total, plus 10 living test subjects that were either shipped to Neuralink or removed from the project.)

“All animal work done at UC Davis was approved by their Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) as mandated by federal law, and all medical and post-surgical support, including endpoint decisions, were overseen by their dedicated and skilled veterinary staff,” Neuralink says.

Neuralink called itself “absolutely committed to working with animals in the most humane and ethical way possible.” The company also said it moved its test animals to its own facility in 2020 to improve their standard of living beyond a federally mandated minimum, working with United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) inspectors and receiving accreditation from the Association for the Assessment and Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care (AAALAC) International.

Neuralink moved animals to an in-house facility in 2020

The blog post suggests that with sufficient options in an enclosed environment, animals could have “freedom of choice the same as they would have in their natural world” and choose to participate in trials the way a human volunteer would. “Some people want to contribute to medical research for various reasons. Some do not. Why can this not be the same for animals?” it asks. (It’s not clear how a monkey would offer informed consent for something like brain surgery.)

Neuralink’s brain-computer interface (or BCI) implant is designed to let monkeys — and theoretically human subjects — control electronic systems with neural activity. While Musk has floated far-future possibilities of mass-market implants, Neuralink is currently following in the footsteps of other research teams that have tested BCI’s potential to let people with paralysis type words or manipulate robotic arms. The company demonstrated an early iteration of its research last year when it released video of a monkey appearing to play Pong via its implant.

Greta Thunberg takes on British mining company Beowulf

The British company plans to create an open-pit mine on historical Sami reindeer-herding lands, in Sweden, which they have lived on for thousands of years.

Zeleb.es





43 PHOTOS OF GRETA THUNBERG GROWING UP AS AN ACTIVIST

UNION BUSTING 

Exxon welcomes upcoming vote on offer to locked-out Texas refinery workers

By Erwin Seba - Yesterday 


HOUSTON (Reuters) - Exxon Mobil Corp on Tuesday welcomed an upcoming vote by workers at its Beaumont, Texas, refinery on a new contract offer, saying its terms ensure the refinery can stay profitable over the long-term.

Nearly 600 workers represented by the United Steelworkers union were locked out of the 369,024 barrel-per-day (bpd) refinery and adjoining lubrication plant last May 1 and have been without paychecks.

"We are pleased that our represented employees will have another chance to vote," said Exxon spokesperson Julie King. "Our offer provides long-term stability, including job protections and wage progressions for employees."


© Reuters/Loren ElliottFILE PHOTO: An Exxon gas station is seen in Houston

A USW official said the union is withholding recommendations on the proposal but wants members to decide on the twice-sweetened offer. A membership vote is scheduled for Feb. 21.

USW Local 13-243 said in a statement it would "continue to hold Exxon Mobil management accountable and pursue our charges with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) over the company's serious unfair labor practices."

The proposal would give Exxon new control over job assignments, something it has sought as part of an expansion at the refinery. The expansion would make Beaumont its largest by oil-processing capacity in the United States.

Exxon has said the changes in job seniority were necessary so it could be competitive even in low-margin environments.

The workers rejected a similar contract proposal in October.

The new offer makes Martin Luther King Day a paid holiday, clarifies language about a union committee, and provides a job description for operators in the lubrication oil plant, Exxon has said.

Still to be determined is whether the USW will continue to represent the plant's workers. The U.S. National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) held a vote on decertifying the union late last year. Results of that vote have been withheld while the NLRB reviews USW unfair labor practice charges alleging Exxon began the lockout to force the union's removal.

(Reporting by Erwin Seba; Editing by David Gregorio)

WAGE THEFT
A restaurant in Massachusetts denied overtime pay to workers and took their tips, a federal court says

gdean@insider.com (Grace Dean) - Yesterday 

© Provided by Business InsiderA restaurant in Weymouth, Massachusetts (not pictured) didn't pay staff an overtime premium and kept all the tips the servers earned, the DOL said. Thomas Barwick/Getty Images

A Massachusetts restaurant and its owner have been ordered to pay staff $344,798 in back wages, tips, and damages.
The restaurant didn't give staff tips or overtime pay, a federal court found.
Sweet Lemons also didn't keep accurate records of wages and retaliated against some workers.

A federal court has ordered a Massachusetts restaurant to pay more then $340,000 in back wages and damages to 13 servers who were found to have been denied tips and overtime between 2016 and 2019.

The US District Court for the District of Massachusetts found that Sweet Lemons Thai Restaurant in Weymouth also didn't keep accurate records of wages and retaliated against some workers, violating the Federal Labor Standards Act.

The restaurant ultimately "deprived workers of their hard-earned wages and tips," the Department of Labor, who filed the civil-action lawsuit in December 2020, said in a press release on Friday.

The ruling comes as the US engages in heated and often politicized debate over fair minimum wage for workers, particularly for tipped staff whose employers can pay them as little as $2.13 an hour. During the pandemic, workers have been leaving the industry over low wages, a lack of benefits, and poor or unsafe working conditions.

"The court's decision recognizes that employers who retaliate against employees who assert their rights under the Fair Labor Standards Act may pay the price in punitive damages," Maia Fisher, the DOL's regional solicitor of labor in Boston, said in the press release.

Sweet Lemons didn't pay staff an overtime premium when they worked more than 40 hours in a week and kept all the tips the servers earned, the DOL said in the lawsuit.

The restaurant paid staff in cash "off-the-books" and had "false and incomplete" payroll records, the DOL said. It didn't keep accurate records of staff names and addresses, how long they worked, and when or how much they were paid, per the lawsuit. The records that were available didn't include all the restaurant's staff, the lawsuit said.

The restaurant also gave the DOL "inaccurate" time records that "consistently underreported" how many hours staff worked, per the lawsuit.

It also charged that owner and director Pornthip Neampong retaliated against workers by "coercing" them into signing false statements, telling them to lie to a DOL investigator, and telling staff not to be on site at the restaurant when the investigator was there, per the lawsuit.

The lawsuit said that Sweet Lemons and Neampong willfully violated labor laws.

"Defendants' actions of making off-the-books cash payments to employees and manipulating payroll records demonstrate that Defendants knew or showed reckless disregard for the fact that their pay practices violated the FLSA," the DOL said in the lawsuit.

The restaurant and its lawyer did not respond to Insider's request for comment.

In a filing in February 2021, the restaurant's attorney said that it denied all the offenses in the lawsuit.

But in a motion for summary judgment in December 2021, the DOL said that Sweet Lemon had admitted to not paying overtime premium, keeping staff tips, failing to keep accurate records, and asking staff to sign false statements during the DOL's investigation.

In early January 2022, the court ordered Sweet Lemons and Neampong to pay 13 affected workers $130,018 in back wages, $29,881 in tips that were taken, and $159,899 in liquidated damages. They were also ordered to pay $25,000 in punitive damages, for a total of $344,798.

UPDATED

A US ban on Mexican avocados could have a major impact on US fast-food chains
mmeisenzahl@businessinsider.com (Mary Meisenzahl)

© Provided by Business Insider

Chipotle restaurant workers fill orders for customers on the day that the company announced it will only use non-GMO ingredients in its food on April 27, 2015 in Miami, Florida. The company announced, that the Denver-based chain would not use the GMO's, which is an organism whose genome has been altered via genetic engineering in the food served at Chipotle Mexican Grills. 

Joe Raedle/Getty

The US banned avocados from the Mexican state that produces the bulk of imports to the US.
Experts say that California producers cannot grow enough to keep up with demand.
Chipotle says it has enough avocados for several weeks of guacamole.

Avocados are about to get much more expensive as the US limits imports from Mexico.

The US banned importation of avocados from Michoacán, Mexico, which exports about $3 billion of avocados annually, on Friday. The ban started because of a US safety inspector who received a threatening phone call, Bloomberg reported, although details are scarce. It will "remain in place for as long as necessary to ensure the appropriate actions are taken, to secure the safety of APHIS personnel working in Mexico," the Department of Agriculture told The New York Times, referring to the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service.

Slowing the flow of avocados to the US is bad news for consumers, who are consuming record volumes of avocados and already paying more than 10% more than they were at this time last year.

About 80% of US avocados are imported from Mexico, so even a temporary ban could have wide-reaching affects, reducing availability and spiking prices. Fast-food chains that rely on avocados are adding yet another product to their lists of supply-chain woes.

Experts say California isn't able to produce enough avocados to meet demand. California supplier Eco Farms says wholesale clients are reaching out about securing their supplies, Bloomberg reported. Prices could increase as much as 25%, Eco Farms president Steve Taft said.

At Chipotle, guac is famously extra but beloved by many customers.

"We are working closely with our suppliers to navigate through this challenge. Our sourcing partners currently have several weeks of inventory available, so we'll continue to closely monitor the situation and adjust our plans accordingly," Jack Hartung, chief financial officer, told Insider.

Hartung previously commented on avocado prices during a fourth-quarter earnings call earlier in February, when he noted high avocado prices cut into the margins gained by raising prices. Hartung said that he didn't expect a supply-chain crisis around the fruit, because prices typically jump seasonally. Historically, avocado prices tend to increase in the first quarter, as Hartung previously warned in 2021.

Moe's, Subway, and Taco Bell all also sell products that contain avocado, but did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comments.


Mexico Hopes to Resolve Avocado Spat With U.S. in Coming Days


Max de Haldevang, Bloomberg News


(Bloomberg) -- Mexico says it hopes to resolve the U.S. ban on avocado imports in a matter of days after finding the source of a threat to an inspector that triggered the suspension.

The country’s presidential spokesman Jesus Ramirez played down the nature of the threat to the U.S. inspector, but said the government is working with its northern neighbor to guarantee everyone’s safety.

The ban on avocados from Michoacán, a coastal state just west of Mexico City that has been plagued with violence in recent years, went into effect on Feb. 11 after an inspector said he received a threatening call to his cell phone. Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador responded by suggesting there were political and economic interests at play in the U.S. decision.

Ramirez, who said he didn’t personally know the culprit’s identity, said the threat wasn’t concerning. “It has no importance,” he said in a phone interview with Bloomberg News, saying he understands it wasn’t a “direct threat.” He noted that Mexico’s national guard accompanies inspectors to ensure their safety. “There’s no problem so we’re going to see what more is required.”

Separately, Mexico’s avocado export group APEAM met with several U.S. and local authorities to review security measures and protocols, according to a tweet from the organization.


Mexico accounts for 80% of the U.S. market, and the ban could drive up prices for American shoppers on yet another product in an economy grappling with its worst inflation surge in four decades.

©2022 Bloomberg L.P.

Avocado Spat Brews After U.S. Inspector Is Threatened in Mexico

Elizabeth Elkin, Carolina Gonzalez and Leslie Patton
Mon., February 14, 2022, 


(Bloomberg) -- The great avocado affair of 2022 began with a little-noticed weekend press release from Mexico’s Agriculture and Rural Development Ministry. The U.S. was shutting down imports of avocados from Mexico because one of its inspectors received a threatening phone call.

Details are hard to come by -- who made the threat? what was the threat? -- but what’s known is this: Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has not taken kindly to the U.S. action. In a Monday morning press conference, he said Mexican authorities would look into the allegations but also made clear he believes there’s something fishy about the incident. There are political and economic interests, Lopez Obrador said, who want to keep the Mexican avocados out of the U.S. market.

One group that wants the avocados to keep flowing north: U.S. consumers, who now eat more guacamole than ever. It’s only a matter of time before the import halt will squeeze supplies, as Mexico accounts for 80% of the U.S. market, and drive up the price on yet another product in an economy grappling with its worst inflation surge in four decades.

“We could see a significant reduction in availability” of avocados in the U.S. and higher prices as a result, said David Magana, senior analyst for Rabobank International in Fresno, California.

The ban on avocados from Michoacán, a coastal state just west of Mexico City, went into effect on Feb. 11, a day before Mexico issued its statement. The U.S. Department of Agriculture only confirmed its actions on Monday. Neither side would answer questions on the nature of the alleged threat, but Michoacán has been riddled by violence since drug cartels took over large swathes of the state years ago.

Read more: Did Avocado Cartels Kill the Butterfly King?

Avocados are already the most expensive for this time of year in government data going back two decades due to the labor shortfalls, higher production costs and wage hikes that have plagued the broader economy. It’s one of the many products that’s helping to push global food prices closer to a record high.

At the same time, demand for the fruit is booming. Per-capita consumption doubled in the 10 years through 2020 to 9 pounds, and could surpass 11 pounds by 2026, Magana said, citing industry projections.

Many of Michoacán’s avocados will likely have nowhere to go. It will be difficult to find new markets for the fruits, a spokesperson for Mexico’s Ministry of Agriculture said. Other possible destinations could be Chile, China, Korea, the European Union, United Arab Emirates, Canada and Japan. But those countries will buy fewer fruits and pay less for them.

In the U.S., avocado buyers are closely monitoring the situation. Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc.’s suppliers have “several weeks” of inventory available, Chief Financial Officer Jack Hartung said in a statement. Mission Produce, the biggest U.S. distributor, said it’s trying to source additional products from around the world. There may be limits to that, however, as there isn’t enough global supply to make up for the loss of Mexican avocados, especially on a near-term time horizon, JPMorgan Chase & Co. analysts said.

Francesco Brachetti, co-founder of Avocaderia, an avocado bar in New York City, said it’ll be a couple of weeks before consumers see impacts because there’s a lag between when fruit ships and when it’s sold in the U.S. Disruptions to the avocado supply chain usually don’t last longer than a few days or at most a week or two, but this time could be different, he said.

“The last couple of years have been unique, so we’ll take it with caution and wait for this situation to evolve,” Brachetti said.

Read more: Guacamole Prices Hit Record Before Super Bowl: Supply Lines

Avocado supplier Eco Farms in California is seeing an uptick in inquiries from wholesale clients worried about securing extra product in light of the ban, according to the company’s president Steve Taft. Taft said he could foresee raising prices by as much as 25% depending on how long the ban goes on.

Michoacán is “the big bully on the block. They dictate the market,” he said.

(Adds comments fromMexico’s Ministry of Agriculture, Chipotle in eighth and ninth paragraphs.)

Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek

UPDATED

First woman reported cured of HIV after stem cell transplant

By Julie Steenhuysen - Yesterday 

CHICAGO (Reuters) - A U.S. patient with leukemia has become the first woman and the third person to date to be cured of HIV after receiving a stem cell transplant from a donor who was naturally resistant to the virus that causes AIDS, researchers reported on Tuesday.

The case of a middle-aged woman of mixed race, presented at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunisitic Infections in Denver, is also the first involving umbilical cord blood, a newer approach that may make the treatment available to more people.

Since receiving the cord blood to treat her acute myeloid leukemia - a cancer that starts in blood-forming cells in the bone marrow - the woman has been in remission and free of the virus for 14 months, without the need for potent HIV treatments known as antiretroviral therapy.

The two prior cases occurred in males - one white and one Latino - who had received adult stem cells, which are more frequently used in bone marrow transplants.

"This is now the third report of a cure in this setting, and the first in a woman living with HIV," Sharon Lewin, President-Elect of the International AIDS Society, said in a statement.

The case is part of a larger U.S.-backed study led by Dr. Yvonne Bryson of the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), and Dr. Deborah Persaud of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. It aims to follow 25 people with HIV who undergo a transplant with stem cells taken from umbilical cord blood for the treatment of cancer and other serious conditions.

Patients in the trial first undergo chemotherapy to kill off the cancerous immune cells. Doctors then transplant stem cells from individuals with a specific genetic mutation in which they lack receptors used by the virus to infect cells.

Scientists believe these individuals then develop an immune system resistant to HIV.

Lewin said bone marrow transplants are not a viable strategy to cure most people living with HIV. But the report "confirms that a cure for HIV is possible and further strengthens using gene therapy as a viable strategy for an HIV cure," she said.

The study suggests that an important element to the success is the transplantation of HIV-resistant cells. Previously, scientists believed that a common stem cell transplant side effect called graft-versus-host disease, in which the donor immune system attacks the recipient’s immune system, played a role in a possible cure.

"Taken together, these three cases of a cure post stem cell transplant all help in teasing out the various components of the transplant that were absolutely key to a cure," Lewin said.

(Reporting by Julie Steenhuysen; Editing by Bill Berkrot and David Gregorio)

Third person apparently cured of HIV using novel stem cell transplant


Patient is mixed-race woman treated in New York using umbilical cord blood, in technique raising chances of finding suitable donors

Doctor involved in the treatment estimates 50 people a year in the US could benefit. Photograph: Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group/Getty Images

Maya Yang

THE GUARDIAN
Tue 15 Feb 2022

Scientists appear to have cured a third person, and the first woman, of HIV using a novel stem cell transplant method, American researchers in Denver, Colorado, said on Tuesday.

The patient, a woman of mixed race, was treated using a new method that involved umbilical cord blood, which is more readily available than the adult stem cells which are often used in bone marrow transplants, according to the New York Times.

Umbilical cord stem cells also do not need to be matched as closely to the recipient as bone marrow cells do.


HIV after Covid: Anthony Fauci and an army of researchers seek to regain momentum

“We estimate that there are approximately 50 patients per year in the US who could benefit from this procedure,” said Dr Koen van Besien, one of the doctors involved in the treatment.

“The ability to use partially matched umbilical cord blood grafts greatly increases the likelihood of finding suitable donors for such patients.”

The group of researchers revealed some of the case details at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in Denver. The woman is being called the “New York patient” by scientists, because she received the treatment at the New York-Presbyterian Weill Cornell Medical Center.

In 2013, she was diagnosed with HIV. Four years later, she was diagnosed with leukemia. In a procedure known as a haplo-cord transplant, she was given cord blood from a partially matched donor to treat her cancer. A close relative also provided her with blood to boost her immune system as she underwent the transplant.

After patients receive an umbilical cord blood transplant, they are then given additional adult stem cells. The stem cells grow quickly but are eventually replaced by cord blood cells.

Although cord blood is more adaptable than adult stem cells, it does not yield enough to serve as effective treatments of cancer in adults. As a result, in haplo-cord transplants, the additional transplant of stem cells helps make up for the scarcity of cord blood cells.

“The role of the adult donor cells is to hasten the early engraftment process and render the transplant easier and safer,” said Van Besien.

Since the woman’s transplant in August 2017, she has been in remission from her leukemia for more than four years. Three years after the transplant, she and her doctors discontinued her HIV treatment. Fourteen months since, she has yet to experience any resurgent virus.

According to the scientists, the majority of donors in registries are of Caucasian descent. As a result, allowing for only partial matches can open up the potential to treat patients who have both HIV and cancer, and also those who come from more diverse racial backgrounds.

“The fact that she’s mixed race, and that she’s a woman, that is really important scientifically and really important in terms of the community impact,” Dr Steven Deeks, an Aids expert at the University of California, told the Times.

Even though more than half of the world’s 35m HIV cases are found in women, women only make up 11% of participants in cure trials.

Although Deeks was not involved in the case, he acknowledged that “these are stories of providing inspiration to the field and perhaps the road map.

“Umbilical stem cells are attractive,” he added. “There’s something magical about these cells and something magical perhaps about the cord blood in general that provides an extra benefit.”

Woman Cured of HIV Using New Method Shows Potential for Others: Scientists

BY LORA KORPAR ON 2/15/22 

A stem cell transplant has appeared to cure the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in a woman for the first time.

This is the third known case of HIV remission from a stem cell transplant, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) said in a news release. It's a massive breakthrough in treatment for a virus that for decades was completely incurable.

The woman, who has not yet been named, joins two men who have been cured or likely been cured of the virus, NBC News reported. However, there is still a ways to go before the treatment can be widely used. It's a risky procedure involving the destruction of the immune system, so scientists have only tried it on those suffering from potentially deadly cancers. The patient had received the stem cell transplant to treat her acute myeloid leukemia, according to the NIAID.

The new treatment uses stem cells from umbilical cord blood, which are more widely available than adult stem cells, The New York Times reported. There has been no detected HIV in the woman for 14 months, the NIAID release said, even after stopping antiretroviral therapy, an HIV treatment.

A woman has likely been cured of HIV for the first time.

Above, a woman is seen holding an HIV/AIDS awareness ribbon.

STOCK IMAGE/GETTY IMAGES

The treatment works by essentially destroying one's immune system and replacing it with a new one, which treats the person's cancer while curing their HIV.

"By killing off the cancerous immune cells via chemotherapy and then transplanting stem cells with the CCR5 genetic mutation, scientists theorize that people with HIV then develop an HIV-resistant immune system," the NIAID said.

Experts told NBC News that this treatment would be "unethical" if tried on someone without life-threatening cancer or another medical condition that qualifies them for it, as it is "toxic" and "sometimes fatal."

Dr. Deborah Persaud, a pediatric infectious disease specialist and one of the leaders of the study, told the outlet while the stem cell transplant is an exciting development, it is "still not a feasible strategy for all but a handful of the millions of people living with HIV."

The first man cured using the stem cell treatment, known as the "Berlin patient," was in HIV remission for 12 years and deemed cured of it before his death from leukemia in September 2020, according to the NIAID. The second man, dubbed the "London patient," continues to be in remission after 30 months.

HIV attacks the immune system and, if not treated, can lead to AIDS, which makes one susceptible to many severe illnesses, called "opportunistic infections," according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). While cases of HIV and AIDS have declined since peaks in the 1980s and 1990s, the Kaiser Family Foundation reported as of June 2021, there were 1.2 million people living with HIV in the United States.

Remedy Deemed Too Risky for Healthy Patients After First Woman Cured of HIV

Justin Klawans - Yesterday 
Newsweek

While a risky stem cell therapy has successfully cured the first woman of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), the procedure is deemed too dangerous to use on the average patient.


© iStock/Getty

An experimental stem cell treatment has successfully cured a woman of HIV. However, the procedure is considered extremely risky and potentially dangerous, and as a result it is only being offered to HIV patients with end-stage cancer. Here, stem cells from human bone marrow can be seen under a microscope.

The therapy—known as a cord blood stem cell transplant—was given to an American woman from a donor who was naturally immune to HIV, according to a press release issued Tuesday from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). She became the third person overall and first woman to be declared cured of HIV after the virus was not detected in her system within 14 months.

The case is also reportedly the first involving the use of umbilical cord blood, a newer approach could provide further breakthroughs.

However, despite the woman appearing to have been cured, researchers have reiterated that the therapy is still considered extremely risky and has only been tested on patients suffering from end-stage cancers, such as the woman—who had been diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia. Experts told NBC News that it would even be considered "unethical" to attempt the transplant in an otherwise healthy patient due to its danger.

The risk comes, scientists stated, because of the nature of the transplanted bone marrow, which attacks a patient's cancerous immune system in an effort to replace it with one containing the HIV-immune cells of the donor. This, in theory, means that the patient's immune system is being completely replaced by another person's, which both treats the cancer and cures them of HIV.

"By killing off the cancerous immune cells via chemotherapy and then transplanting stem cells with the CCR5 genetic mutation, scientists theorize that people with HIV then develop an HIV-resistant immune system," NIAID said.

However, the complex procedure can often result in the death of the patient, scientists told NBC News, and as a result the treatment is not offered for those who do not already have a potentially fatal illness.

"[The stem cell treatment is] still not a feasible strategy for all but a handful of the millions of people living with HIV," Dr. Deborah Persaud, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at Johns Hopkins University and one of the chairs of the case study, stated. However, Persaud added that, despite this, her team was still "very excited" about the potential future of the treatment.

Additionally, Sharon Lewin, the president-elect of the International AIDS Society, expressed hope that the three combined cases could eventually be used to develop a stem cell therapy that is safe for the masses.

"Taken together, these three cases of a cure post stem cell transplant all help in teasing out the various components of the transplant that were absolutely key to a cure," Lewin said in a statement.

HIV and its associated illness, acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), are most often treated using a combination of drugs and experimental tests, as in the three people who have been cured therapeutically. However, there have been extremely rare cases of an HIV-positive person being "naturally" cured of the virus.

In November 2021, a woman in Argentina became the second documented HIV patient whose own immune system cured her of the disease, with no outside intervention.

"This is really the miracle of the human immune system that did it," Dr. Xu Yu, one of the leaders of the Argentine case study, said at the time.

Newsweek has contacted the CDC's National Center for HIV, Hepatitis, STD and TB Prevention for comment.

SEXISM IN SPORTS

Mother vs. athlete: University of Alberta study highlights gaps in gender equity in sport

Elite athletes who become mothers need better support from sporting bodies to continue their careers after birth, a University of Alberta study suggests.
Clare Bonnyman - 
cbc.ca

© Trent Stellingwerff

After her first race back from pregnancy, Hilary Stellingwerff crossed the finish line to her one-and-a-half-year-old son, Theo. As an elite athlete and mother, she wants to make sports more equitable for elite athletes doing both.

Tara-Leigh McHugh, a professor of kinesiology at the University of Alberta, interviewed 20 women who competed at elite levels before becoming pregnant.

"There's so little support and there's so little value given to pregnant athletes and to women who want to be able to be mothers and compete," McHugh said.

"We need to start to normalize and value pregnancy … to demonstrate that it is possible and women can actually succeed and thrive as mother athletes."

For McHugh, the findings identified a clear gap in support for athletes during and after pregnancy and the effect it has on careers.

"Girls need to know they belong in sport," she said. "Even if they do want to start a family."

Pregnancy as injury

Hilary Stellingwerff is a former Olympian and nationally ranked track-and-field athlete who took part in the study.

As a "carded" athlete, she received financial assistance from the federal government throughout her career and her first pregnancy.

Under Athletics Canada, athletes that compete at a certain level can apply for the Athletic Assistance Program or AAP, and those that qualify for funding receive their 'card' for the year. There are different kinds of cards, including one medical card for athletes who are pregnant, ill or injured.

When Stellingwerff was competing, athletes could only receive one medical card in their career.

In a bid to make the Olympic team for Rio, Stellingwerff, a new mom, returned to training and hit the ground running. In 2015, she had a stress fracture and applied for another medical card.

"I applied for a medical card and they said, you've already used your medical card for pregnancy and you can't have a second," she said.

"And I said, 'That's unfair.'"

Stellingwerff appealed and brought her complaint to the Sport Dispute Resolution Centre of Canada, where she was allowed to apply for a second medical card. But she still wasn't approved for financial support through the AAP.

While raising her young son, Stellingwerff continued training and qualified for the Canadian team in 2016. She received financial assistance retroactively.

In 2016, Athletics Canada changed its policy, allowing athletes to be nominated for a medical card for pregnancy more than once.

In her current role as head coach at the University of Victoria, Stellingwerff makes a point of sharing her story with female athletes.

"More people need to be thinking about these things and women need to stand up for each other," she said.

Mother vs. athlete

McHugh and co-researcher Margie Davenport identified key recommendations for sporting organizations.

Davenport, who specializes in exercise and pregnancy, said a first step is understanding the physical effects of training on pregnant athletes.

"We don't have a lot of information about what is safe and beneficial for athletes who are regularly exceeding current recommendations [of physical activity]," Davenport told CBC's Radio Active.

The study calls for more research to create evidence-based guidelines specific to athletes who continue to train at high levels during and after pregnancy.

In interviews, many athletes also identified the need for clear policies and expectations around pregnancy from sporting organizations.

The study asks sporting bodies to be clear about when and how an athlete can return to sport after pregnancy, including whether or not their spot on a team is safe.

"We heard from a number of athletes who are really scared to disclose that they were pregnant for fear that they were going to lose their position," she said.

"We need to start to normalize and value pregnancy. To be able to demonstrate that it is possible and women can actually succeed and thrive as mother athletes."

ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE

COVID Dead Could 'Poison' the Living 

Due to Groundwater Pollution

Ed Browne - Yesterday 

Newsweek
© vyasphoto/Getty

Experts are warning that an increase in buried bodies as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic could be having an impact in the environment.

In the U.S. alone, the number of people who have died with COVID-19 exceeded 900,000 this month and the number is increasing all the time.

Around the world, the death toll is over 5.8 million according to the World Health Organization (WHO), though some estimates of excess mortality—a measure comparing all deaths recorded with those expected to occur—have put that figure close to 20 million.

What this means is that burial facilities have faced unprecedented pressure as they attempt to allocate space and resources to store the bodies of those who have passed away.

This presents an environmental problem, since dead bodies and the processes used to bury them respectfully are not always particularly clean. Buried bodies release what is known as cemetery leachate, a liquid composed of organic substances that can be highly toxic, and with associations with cancer.

Metallic elements, medicines used by the person when they were living, preservation chemicals and even pacemakers can all contribute to this leaking substance.

One study from 2019 suggested that coffin materials, too, may leak into the environment and potentially pose health problems. These materials included metals such as aluminum, iron, and copper.

In a study released in October last year, researchers noted that the environmental impact caused by decomposing bodies was "another casualty of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic".

It described how this cemetery leachate can flow into the soil near to burial sites and potentially reach underground water resources.

According to the study, "it is possible to infer that the high number of human losses caused by the COVID-19 pandemic may also raise the level of contamination in cemetery environments and, consequently, in the surrounding urban environment, especially for medium to large cities."

Alcindo Neckel is an environmental engineer and professor at the School of Architecture and Urbanism at IMED in Brazil. He led a similar study investigating the problem there, which concluded that vertical rather than horizontally-designed cemeteries could allow for the implementation of technologies that adequately treat the liquid pollutants.

Neckel told Popular Science last week that cemeteries need to have disposal systems in place "similar to how wastewater is treated in coastal areas before it is released in the ocean."

"This is not just a public health issue but also an economic problem of growing cities," he added. "At this rate, dead people are slowly poisoning those who are alive."

THE TRUCKER CONVOY IS OPPOSED TO MIGRATION

Canada's New Immigration Plan Wants To Welcome More Than 1.3 Million Newcomers By 2024

Canada Edition (EN) -
Narcity

New targets have been announced for Canada's immigration plan and the federal government wants to welcome more than 1.3 million newcomers into the country in the next three years.

On February 14, Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Sean Fraser tabled the 2022‒2024 Immigration Levels Plan which lays out the government's framework for newcomers to help the Canadian economy recover and stimulate post-pandemic growth.

It outlined that even though many jobs lost during the pandemic have been recovered, there are still hundreds of thousands of positions that need to be filled.

Since immigration accounts for almost all of the labour force growth in Canada and it's expected that millions of Canadians will retire by the end of the decade, that gave a "clear sign" to the government that there is "a strong economic need for increased immigration."

"The 2022–2024 Immigration Levels Plan aims to continue welcoming immigrants at a rate of about 1% of Canada's population."

For the next three years, the plan is to let in 431,645 permanent residents in 2022, 447,055 in 2023 and then 451,000 in 2024 which works out to 1,329,700 people in total.

This goal is bigger than the previous plan for 2021–2023 which aimed for 401,000 new permanent residents in 2021, 411,000 in 2022 and 421,000 in 2023 for a total of 1,233,000 people.

Since there are increased targets, the government plans to address challenges with Canada's immigration system by modernizing it which will reduce application backlog and create predictable processing times.

In 2021, Canada welcomed more immigrants – 405,000 – than it ever had in a single year and broke the record from back in 1913!

If the goals of the new plan are met, the country would smash the record every year from 2022 to 2024.