WAIT, WHAT?!

Eating fruits, vegetables and whole grains may increase chance of early onset lung cancer

Pesticide residue may play a role in increased rates of lung cancer in non-smokers under age 50

University of Southern California - Health Sciences

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Jorge Nieva, MD, is a medical oncologist and lung cancer specialist with Keck Medicine of USC and lead investigator of the study.

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Credit: Ricardo Carrasco III

LOS ANGELES — A diet rich in fruit, vegetables and whole grains is generally recommended for better health and to lower the risk of cancer and other diseases.  

However, new research from USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center, part of Keck Medicine of USC, presented at the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research suggests that this type of diet may put non-smoking Americans under the age of 50 at greater risk of developing lung cancer.  

“Our research shows that younger non-smokers who eat a higher quantity of healthy foods than the general population are more likely to develop lung cancer,” said Jorge Nieva, MD, a medical oncologist and lung cancer specialist with USC Norris and lead investigator of the study. “These counter-intuitive findings raise important questions about an unknown environmental risk factor for lung cancer related to otherwise beneficial food that needs to be addressed.”  

Nieva and his fellow researchers speculate that this risk factor may be the pesticides used to keep crops pest-free. Commercially produced (non-organic) fruits, vegetables and whole grains are more likely to be associated with a higher residue of pesticides than dairy, meat and many processed foods, according to Nieva. He also notes that agricultural workers exposed to pesticides typically have higher rates of lung cancer, which adds credence to the theory.  

The study also showed that young women who don’t smoke have a higher incidence of lung cancer than men, and that women tended to also have a diet higher in produce and whole grains than men.  

A New Epidemic of Lung Cancer 

Lung cancer has typically been a disease that affects older adults (the average age of lung cancer onset is 71), men more than women, and smokers. 

Smoking rates have fallen since the mid-1980s, which has led to fewer lung cancer cases across the United States, except for one unique group — non-smokers age 50 and younger, especially women, who are now more likely to get lung cancer than men.  

To investigate this trend, researchers launched the Epidemiology of Young Lung Cancer Project, which surveyed 187 patients who were diagnosed with lung cancer by age 50. Patients provided details on demographics, diet, smoking history and lung cancer diagnosis.  

Most patients had never smoked and had a form of lung cancer biologically different from lung cancer caused by smoking. A 2021 study from the Epidemiology of Young Lung Cancer Project, the Genomics of Young Lung Cancer Project, found that the subtypes of lung cancer seen in people under 40 were distinct from lung cancer in older adults.  

Researchers used the Healthy Eating Index (HEI), a ranking of the overall quality of Americans’ diet on a scale of 1-100, to compare patients’ diets with the broader United States population. Young non-smoking lung cancer patients had an average HEI score of 65 out of 100, compared to the national average of 57. Among participants in the study, women had higher HEI scores than men. 

On average, the young lung cancer patients ate more daily servings of fruit, vegetables and whole grains than the general population. For example, participants averaged 4.3 servings of dark green vegetable and legumes and 3.9 servings of whole grains per day, while the average U.S. adult eats 3.6 servings of dark green vegetables and legumes and 2.6 servings of whole grains per day. 

More Research Needed 

The link between pesticides and lung cancer in young people, especially women, needs more research, said Nieva. 

In the study, researchers did not test specific foods for pesticides. Instead, they used published data on average pesticide levels for food categories such as fruits, vegetables and grains to estimate exposure. The next step, said Nieva, is to confirm the link by directly measuring pesticide levels in blood or urine samples from patients. This could also help reveal whether or not some pesticides increase lung cancer risk more than others. 

“This work represents a critical step toward identifying modifiable environmental factors that may contribute to lung cancer in young adults," said Nieva. “Our hope is that these insights can guide both public health recommendations and future investigation into lung cancer prevention.”  

The research is supported by the Addario Lung Cancer Medical Institute, a nonprofit focused on advancing lung cancer research and care, as well as AstraZeneca, the Beth Longwell Foundation, Genentech, GO2 for Lung Cancer and Upstage Lung Cancer.  

Researchers also received funding from the National Institutes of Health, grant number R25CA225513 and the National Cancer Institute, grant number P30CA014089. 

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For more information about Keck Medicine of USC, please visit news.KeckMedicine.org. 

Disclosure: Dr. Nieva has received consulting payments from AstraZeneca and Genentech. 

US Mining Plan Will Sacrifice Mexico’s Environment for Weapons and Tech

A new mining agreement provides no benefits for Mexico and fails to address health and environmental impacts.

By Tamara Pearson , 

Truthout

PublishedApril 18, 2026

The Autlán plant in Teziutlan, in the Sierra Norte, Puebla.Tamara Pearson


The U.S. and Mexico have established a mining agreement which has Indigenous and other residents of the Sierra Norte mountains, as well as activists around Mexico, worried.

Announced on February 4, the U.S.-Mexico Action Plan on Critical Minerals aims to guarantee the U.S.’s supply of minerals for its arms industry, technology like data centers and smartphones, and the so-called energy transition. It sets out price floors, identification of mining projects, geological mapping coordination, and mineral location identification for the U.S., but provides no benefits for Mexico and fails to address health and environmental impacts.

“They want us to show these gringo companies where the minerals are and then go and hand over everything, all without a fuss,” said Miguel Sánchez Olvera, a Totonac man from the Sierra Norte region who has been at the forefront of struggles that have expelled mines from the area. “That’s concerning, because where does it leave us, as Mexicans? Basically, they are going to keep stealing from us.”

Miguel Sánchez Olvera, a Totonac man and environment activist from the Sierra Norte, Puebla, speaking at a protest on March 22, 2026.Tamara Pearson

The beautiful Sierra Norte — teeming with rivers and sprawling forests, and where a majority of people speak Indigenous languages — has massive amounts of minerals that the U.S. has identified as “critical,” such as manganese, gold, silver, and copper.

According to NATO, manganese is one of 12 minerals critical for the weapons industry; it is used in submarines, fighter aircraft, tanks, and torpedoes. For Mexico, however, manganese is a source of distress before it is even processed. In the lush Sierra Norte cordillera, stark black mountains of manganese ore and slag piles are set off by smoking chimneys from a plant run by Autlán, a major Mexican mining company. Homes nearby are drenched in black stains. Residents describe mornings of black clouds along the ground and black dust covering their windows.

Sand Mining Is a Booming Industry — This Mexican Community Is Paying the Price
Fifty-six residents of an Indigenous Oaxaca community face 200 trumped-up charges for resisting mining in their rivers. By Tamara Pearson , Truthout July 9, 2025

Autlán operates four electric furnaces in its Teziutlán plant to smelt manganese ore, producing ferroalloys. Manganese is also on the U.S.’s critical minerals list and aside from weapons, it is vital to batteries and other steel applications.

Homes in Teziutlan, right near the Autlán plant, are drenched in black soot from the plant.Tamara Pearson

Mexico as a whole is the top silver-producing country, and among the top producers of copper, lead, and zinc — all on the U.S.’s list. Silver is vital for new weapon systems, hypersonic missiles, bombs, fighter jets, satellites, torpedoes, radar systems, AI data centers, electric vehicles, 5G infrastructure, and smartphones. Demand for copper for munitions is skyrocketing as the U.S. restocks its arsenal, and it is essential for armor and electronics. Copper supply problems can cause significant weapon production delays, and supply chain vulnerabilities for weapons manufacturers.

The U.S. is home to 6 of the top 10 global arms companies and 13 of the top 15 global tech companies. The White House’s 2027 budget includes over 18 billion U.S dollars for the Department of Defense to stockpile minerals that are critical to the military industry. That figure is up from the current 2 billion U.S. dollars.

A few days before the U.S.-Mexico plan was signed, the White House had also announced Project Vault, which will establish a public-private partnership to stockpile critical minerals for U.S. businesses. These moves “imply hyper-extractivism — or basically, renewed extractivism,” César Enrique Pineda, a researcher and professor of geopolitical and capitalist intersections with the environment at the José María Luis Mora Research Institute, told Truthout.

An Open-Pit Mine for the U.S.

Autlán is the largest manganese producer in Central and North America. Like other mining companies in Mexico, it exports much of what it produces, including to the U.S. In late March, the environmental protection agency Profepa temporarily shut down one of its furnaces in the Teziutlan plant after finding that it was operating without an emissions filter. Locals told Truthout they had complained about the resulting harsh black clouds for more than six months, but Autlán did nothing.

The Autlán plant in the Sierra Norte is located right in the center of the town of Teziutlan.Tamara Pearson

Autlán continues to accumulate massive mountains of slag rock, a byproduct of metal smelting, in open air. Exposed slag can release small particulates that can lead to respiratory or skin problems. Too much manganese in the body can affect the nervous system, and another potential component, hexavalent chromium, can cause cancer. Leachates — toxic liquid runoffs — spill onto nearby land and eventually into the water system.

Before the fourth furnace was shut down, Gisela Macias Dionisio, a local water activist with Servicios Ambientales Amelatzin Hualactoc, told Truthout, “the dust was like snow. You couldn’t even sweep it up. They tell us babies are being born with gestational cancer.”

“Nobody speaks up, nobody says anything out of fear. A doctor told me that 50 percent of his patients have cancer,” said another woman who lives just behind the mine but who requested anonymity out of fear. “My house is covered in black dust, even the dishes have black dust on them, the trees are covered in it too. Our fruit used to be nice and big and now it’s small and rots quickly. The sound (from the plant) never stops.”

Pollution Doesn’t Squash Mining Companies’ Excitement

Nevertheless, the Mexican government is already promoting the critical minerals action plan as an investment opportunity, and companies here are using the plan to demand relaxation of regulations. The mining industry chamber, Camimex, said it sees the U.S.’s focus on securing strategic minerals as a moment to push for mining interests after the reforming of the 2023 mining law, which was a result of years of movement struggle.

The law was “a historic achievement,” said Beatriz Olivera Villa, an industrial engineer and a founder of Cambiémosla Ya — a coalition of communities and organizations campaigning around the mining law. The reformed law made environmental assessments and informed consent from affected communities obligatory, “and now they aren’t handing out concessions, at least not like they used to,” she said.

Now, with the critical minerals action plan, “we’re worried, because the economy secretary [of Mexico] has been speaking with the mining companies … and they are talking about modernizing the mining law to recover the privileges they lost,” Olivera said. “With the demand for critical minerals … it seems like they would increase extraction at any cost.”

“Trump’s administration doesn’t just represent extractive capital, but also an authoritarian approach that disregards any kind of regulation. Therefore, we should expect significant pressure to ensure, at any cost and regardless of our laws, that the mining industry’s needs are met with this plan,” Pineda said.


Nobody Benefits From Weapons Except Weapons Companies


But while the mining industry is being heard, the mines bring no economic benefits to the country or to nearby communities.

“I very much doubt that Mexico would benefit economically from this plan because it has never been that way with mining projects. Extraction only contributes 0.9 percent to the GDP, for example,” said Olivera. “Mining represents just 0.66 percent of formal employment, and in terms of taxes, they contribute very little.” There are 22,247 active mining concessions in Mexico, with a total surface area of 10.2 million hectares, or 5.2 percent of Mexico’s territory

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The Autlán plant is located right in the center of the town of Teziutlan and within the lush Sierra Norte mountains.Tamara Pearson

“Towns like Guadalupe y Calvo in Chihuahua (state) are among the top producers of gold and silver, but it is one of the poorest towns in Mexico,” Olivera said. In Fresnillo, another top global silver producer, 40 percent of the population lives in poverty, and in Eduardo Neri, a key gold producer, 65 percent do. Across Mexico, mining regions have very high poverty rates, “and a lack of access to services like water or electricity,” she added.


“There is a militarization of these resources. The U.S. is considering securing minerals for war as part of its national security strategy.”

Meanwhile, arms producers are breaking revenue records, with 679 billion U.S. dollars in 2024. Increased production requires more minerals. “There is a militarization of these resources. The U.S. is considering securing minerals for war as part of its national security strategy,” said Olivera.

And as minerals flow from Global South countries like Mexico to the Global North for manufacturing and sales, so do the profits. Mining took off “in an intense way” after the signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1994, which served U.S. and Canadian markets, Olivera says, calling it a “legalized plundering.” In 2024, Mexico exported 42.3 billion U.S. dollars in minerals, making it the 24th-largest exporter. Its main destinations were the U.S. ($17.7 billion), China ($6.31 billion), and Spain ($4.58 billion). Mexico exports 70 to 80 percent of its copper production.


Mining’s Legacy of Environmental Disaster



The U.S.-Mexico action plan “benefits investors, but it doesn’t benefit us at all,” said Urbano Córdova Guerraas, a local resident and also a member of Servicios Ambientales Amelatzin Hualactoc as we chatted in a small eatery near the Autlán plant. To extract copious amounts of manganese, Autlán has destroyed whole mountain tops in nearby Hidalgo state, buying off local politicians in order to do so. In Zoquitlán, Autlán chopped down 77 hectares of forest for a hydroelectric plant.

Communities in the Sierra Norte have successfully resisted various hydroelectric, fracking, and mining projects in their region. In 2022, they managed to cancel mining concessions in Ixtacamaxtitlán, Cuetzalan, Tlatlauquitepec, and Yaonáhuac, including for the Canadian gold-mining company, Almaden Minerals. Sánchez, a member of the land movement Makxtum Kalaw Chuchutsipi (Everyone United as a People), along with various movements in the region, including Masuel Indigenous communities, shut down three of Autlán’s gold, silver, and copper concessions last year.

“Our territory isn’t a resource. It’s our body, our memory, our spirituality,” the Maseual Altepetajpianij Council wrote to the court at the end of their 11-year battle. The council, made up of 35 Indigenous and small-farmer communities in the Sierra Norte, defends the region against mines.

“(Autlán) had just finished the exploration stage and was about to start exploiting, but with the strength of women and men here, they left the Sierra very pissed off because they had bought 1,000 hectares of land,” said Sánchez.

Meanwhile, in the north of the country, the U.S. consul general in Mexico, Michelle Ward, visited the country’s Buenavista copper mine on March 25, stressing that it is one of the top copper mines globally. She said that with the joint action plan, the U.S. government wants to strengthen its presence in the region. Ward omitted that the mine was the site of Mexico’s worst environmental disaster, when in 2014, a leaching pool collapsed, spilling 40,000 cubic meters of copper sulfate into the Sonora River, eventually reaching wells that supplied the city of Hermosillo

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A Google Maps screenshot shows an aerial view of the Buenavista copper mine in Sonora, taken on March 27, 2026. At 93,706 hectares in size, it is almost as big as New York City, and has carved out a large chunk of the Sierra Madre Occidental mountain range.Google Maps / Tamara Pearson

Over a decade later, according to Olivera, members of the Sonora River Basin Committee say “their demands haven’t been met and the damage hasn’t been repaired, the skin problems are ongoing due to high levels of arsenic. They’re still finding arsenic in their urine and blood.” Even before the spill, authorities had found copper, arsenic, aluminum, cadmium, iron, manganese, and lead in the water supply.

Pineda lists off more negative impacts from mines in Mexico, including displacement of communities, water scarcity, contamination of tributaries and aquifers, heavy metal contamination, health harm, and toxic dust. “These are not things you can negotiate with the mining companies. You can’t negotiate if water is contaminated or not … so communities typically demand the closure of mines,” he said.

To mine just one ounce of gold, 40 kilograms of explosives and 200,000 liters of water are used, and 650 kilograms of carbon dioxide are emitted.


Imposing Destruction



In order to operate without disruption, mining companies in Mexico are often involved in the disappearance of activists and with organized crime. The top minerals that attract organized crime groups are the same critical minerals that Mexico plans to supply to the U.S.

In 2022, Indigenous activists Ricardo Lagunes and Antonio Díaz, who had opposed a Ternium mine, were forcibly disappeared; they are still missing. The year before, anti-mining activist Higinio Trinidad De la Cruz and another activist were kidnapped by organized crime members and told to stop their activism, then released. Trinidad De la Cruz was killed the following year.

Autlán too has reportedly used violence, intimidation, death threats, buying people off, sowing community division, and attacking activists — including burning a bus that activists were in after a protest against one of Autlán’s hydroelectric plants — in order to get its way. In 2018, Sergio Rivera Hernández disappeared after opposing Autlán’s Coyolapa-Atzalan hydroelectric project.

There is a similar logic of control in the U.S. plans to funnel Mexico’s critical minerals its way. “With this plan, the U.S. government is taking advantage of Mexico’s deep economic dependency on it in order to impose a new instrument of subordination,” wrote the Mexican Network of those Affected by Mining in a statement.

“Mexico isn’t in a position to negotiate on equal terms,” said Pineda. “This plan doesn’t just mean communities losing control over their ecosystems, but that the whole country loses control over its ecosystems.”

Of course, Mexico isn’t alone. The U.S. has made an alarming deal with the Democratic Republic of the Congo, exchanging “security” support for access to its minerals, while threatening to cut off Zambia’s aid if it doesn’t increase the U.S.’s mineral access. A trade deal with Indonesia in March also paves the way for the U.S.’s access to minerals, with few environmental safeguards.

“The environmental impact stays in the (Global) South, and the raw materials head to the North … at a scale that is unsustainable,” said Pineda.

Over the years, thousands of organized communities have declared themselves “mining-free territory” to legally prohibit mining in their territory.

Stopping mines after the fact is much harder, but many communities are willing to wage the legal and organizational battle. Even after victory, the struggle continues.

“We want to clean our rivers, so that the Sierra Norte de Puebla can be a paradise again,” said Sánchez.


This article is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), and you are free to share and republish under the terms of the license.


Tamara Pearson is an Australian-Mexican journalist, editor, activist and literary fiction author. Her latest novel is, The Eyes of the Earth, and she writes the Global South newsletter, Excluded Headlines.

Cigarette Smoking Almost Twice As Likely For People Living With Chronic Pain

April 14, 2026

By Eurasia Review

New research from the University of Kansas shows people who experience chronic pain tend to consume cigarettes and e-cigarettes at higher rates than others. The findings, based on analysis of the National Health Interview Survey from 2014-2023, should inform therapies for both chronic pain and smoking cessation.

The study appears in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

“People get caught in this really vicious cycle where pain is driving smoking, smoking makes the pain worse, which makes it really hard to quit,” said co-author Jessica Powers, assistant professor of psychology at KU. “We know pain drives tobacco use. Tobacco has short-term pain-relieving properties, so a lot of people find it helpful in the moment, but it actually causes negative effects in the long term. Tobacco smoking can actually make pain worse and make you more likely to develop a chronic pain condition.”

Powers, who also serves as assistant scientist with the KU Life Span Institute’s Cofrin Logan Center for Addition Research & Treatment, said there’s a growing understanding that chronic pain relates to substance-use disorders and addiction.

“In our case, we’re seeing a lot of data showing that those with chronic pain are much more likely to use tobacco — cigarettes, e-cigarettes and other types of nicotine or tobacco products,” she said.


Powers and her colleagues analyzed responses from more than 195,600 Americans surveyed over 10 years. The key finding: Chronic pain is tied to smoking and vaping at higher rates.

“Smoking tends to make everything worse,” Powers said. “We see impacts on mental health. As a pain psychologist, when I work directly with patients, we talk about smoking as a way to cope with the lower mood that comes with living with chronic pain, not being able to get out of the house or do things that are important to them. That coping strategy tends to make everything worse. We talk about it as a cycle involving pain, addiction, mood and functioning.”

While fewer Americans are smoking overall, the reduction is declining more slowly in people with chronic pain, the study shows.

“We know that cigarette smoking rates overall are going down, which is good,” Powers said. “But what these results show is that the decline isn’t happening as fast for people with chronic pain. People with chronic pain are about twice as likely to smoke cigarettes and to use other types of tobacco products, including e-cigarettes, and to use multiple products together.”

Furthermore, the KU researcher said people with chronic pain are more likely to vape e-cigarettes.

“There’s a lot of complexity with e-cigarettes,” she said. “On the one hand, an e-cigarette is going to be a less harmful product than a combustible product. You’re not getting all the carcinogens from smoking. But we also have reason to believe that nicotine and the way it works on our pain system might also make pain worse. In folks with pain, we’re not quite sure yet what level of harm we may be seeing from e-cigarettes.”

The data also revealed more frequent or disabling pain was tied to a higher likelihood of tobacco smoking.

“You can think about this in two ways,” Powers said. “Smoking may be making pain worse and increasing the likelihood of high-impact chronic pain. At the same time, people with greater pain impact are more likely to turn to cigarettes as a way to cope. When pain interferes with seeing grandchildren or doing meaningful activities, negative mood increases. All of those things may drive further smoking as a coping mechanism.”

Powers said the takeaway from her research for clinicians and policymakers is people with chronic pain are being left behind


“We know that cigarette smoking rates overall are going down, which is good,” she said. “But what these results show is that the decline isn’t happening as fast for people with chronic pain.”

Powers’ collaborators were Julianna Lazzari and Dana Rubenstein of the Duke University School of Medicine, joined by F. Joseph McClernon and Maggie Sweitzer, also of the Duke University School of Medicine in Durham, North Carolina. Additional co-authors included Lauren Pacek of Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Brunswick, New Jersey.

Moving forward, Powers thinks the results should inform clinical interventions for those living with chronic pain and looking to quit tobacco.

“I’m a licensed clinical psychologist and worked in addiction and pain settings,” she said. “When I was doing intensive outpatient treatment groups for people early in withdrawal, pain came up frequently in clinical work. The goal of my research is to develop smoking cessation interventions that incorporate pain management for people with chronic pain. We have great pain treatments and great smoking cessation treatments, but we need to put them together.”

 

Racial profiling and aggressive policing can affect infant health, UO research finds

The study is the first to investigate how stop-and-frisk policies affect newborn health

University of Oregon

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Aggressive policing tactics like stop-and-frisk are linked to worse newborn health outcomes in neighborhoods where such tactics are most pervasive, University of Oregon research finds.

Babies of non-Hispanic Black mothers had lower birth weights in New York City neighborhoods where police made more on-the-street stops, even when controlling for variables like income and education, according to the research, which analyzed data from 2006 to 2013.

The study is the first to examine the effects of overall community exposure to police stops on newborn wellness, an important public health metric. The findings were published in the journal Social Science & Medicine.

“This study offers important insights for public safety and efforts to reduce gaps for infant health disparities that correlate with race,” said study co-author Nicole Ngo, an associate professor in the UO’s School of Planning, Public Policy and Management in the College of Design.

“People who don’t have direct interactions with police could still be affected by stop-and-frisk,” Ngo said. “Those effects on pregnant mothers and their children could lead to health problems across generations.”

Stop-and-frisk, a crime prevention program adopted by New York City in the 1990s, entails detaining, questioning and searching people when police officers have a reasonable suspicion that a crime has been, or will be, committed.

But stop-and-frisk sowed mistrust and anxiety, especially among minority populations. In 2013, a federal judge found the program violated the constitutional rights of minorities by disproportionally targeting Black and Hispanic populations.

The ruling did not end the practice but led to changes in how it was done. Today, similar practices play out in communities across the United States.

“Racism has been recognized as a public health threat,” Ngo said. “However, it’s difficult to measure exposure to racism. This specific police activity offers a measurable indicator for researching how racial bias may drive health disparities.”

Ideally, policing and public health share a common goal to protect communities, such as efforts to reduce traffic accidents, Ngo said. But aggressive policing practices associated with racial profiling may negatively impact public health, even if they curb crime.

To connect the dots, Ngo and co-author James Rising at the University of Delaware investigated how the number of police stops per capita in different neighborhoods affected infant health, a key indicator of safety and social welfare.

The duo pored over information about police stops and health benchmarks for newborns from 2006 to 2013. They looked at infant birth weights, gestational ages and tests that hospitals use to measure newborn health and compared police stops per capita in the neighborhoods where the mothers lived while pregnant.

After overlaying the police stop and health data, they discovered that neighborhoods with more stops correlated with worse infant health disparities.

The greatest effects on birth weight, a widely used public health indicator, occurred in non-Hispanic Black mothers: a decrease of 1.9 grams from a 10% increase in community exposure to police stops.

The health effects were statistically small but significant, Ngo said. Small reductions in birth weight have been linked to declines in education and income.

The data does not indicate if the mothers were stopped, observed stops or were simply aware of them. However, the general perception of living in a neighborhood with racial profiling and fears of being targeted could be connected to health impacts.

The most active neighborhoods in the study experienced triple the median number of stops per capita.

The researchers used statistical methods to control for other factors that can also affect infant health. For example, mothers in neighborhoods with more police stops may differ from mothers in other neighborhoods in ways that also affect infant health such as income, education, smoking or alcohol consumption.

Ngo emphasized this research covers one city during a specific period of time, providing a snapshot of how policing and public health data correlate. Though observational studies like these don’t prove causation, they make connections that could not be practically or ethically tested with lab experiments.

“The results make a compelling case,” Ngo said. “Any police practice with clear evidence of racial profiling can do more harm than good for public safety.”

— By Ed Dorsch, University Communications

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Journal

Social Science & Medicine

Article Title

Does aggressive policing worsen infant health disparities? Evidence from ‘Stop and Frisk’ in New York City

Don’t Forget Ukraine

Peter Bach

 April 13, 2026

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Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair

Was it just me or was there nothing more weird than when the US over a year ago opened up direct US-Russian talks on Ukraine without even having Ukraine in the room? I keep coming back to that, especially after seeing Vance recently in Budapest.

Even with all this spiralling and insinuating madness in the Middle East, the thought is always there. Lest we forget, on February 18, 2025, the Trump administration agreed to continue talks with Russia on ending the war after an initial meeting in Riyadh that excluded Kyiv. Reuters described it as a departure from the previous US policy of isolating Putin and placing Ukraine at the centre.

And I still find myself wondering how you can talk about the fate of a country while it’s still burying its dead, still being bombed, without that country present? To this day, it feels like one of the clearest indicators of a Russia-first negotiating position.

Then there’s the rhetoric. On February 19, 2025, Trump called Zelenskyy a “dictator” and warned him to move fast or lose his country. I keep going back to that phrase—lose his country—as if that loss is theoretical, when in reality it has meant shattered cities, families displaced, terrified children, brave civilians living under sirens and missile fire.

Whether or not one agrees with Trump’s view, and people obviously can disagree, that rhetoric echoed Kremlin-style attacks on Ukrainian legitimacy a hell of a lot more than it resembled any kind of pressure on the aggressor state that invaded Ukraine.

The US also sided with a much more neutral line on Ukraine at the UN. On February 24, 2025, Reuters reported that the UN Security Council adopted a US resolution with Russia voting in favour after European efforts to add more pro-Ukraine language were blocked.

I don’t believe that would have been even imaginable a few years ago. When Moscow is comfortable voting for Washington’s Ukraine text, something has definitely shifted—something that, at the very least, sits uneasily against the backdrop of a war that is still killing civilians.

Then Trump cut military aid to Ukraine after the famous Oval Office blowup. Reuters reported that the US halted military aid to Kyiv in early March 2025. And again, I struggle with the asymmetry. Pressure was applied overwhelmingly against Ukraine while Russia continued its war. It is more than hard not to think about what that means in real terms—fewer air defences, more successful strikes, more lives at risk.

The administration also paused intelligence sharing with Ukraine. On March 5, 2025, Reuters reported that the US paused intelligence sharing and explicitly noted it could hurt Ukraine’s defence against missile strikes, reflecting a “more conciliatory approach to Moscow.” That’s not abstract. That’s the genuine difference between warning and no warning.

US agencies then halted parts of the effort to counter Russian sabotage, cyberattacks, and disinformation. Didn’t they? On March 19, 2025, Reuters reported that several national-security agencies had stepped back from coordinated efforts, thereby “easing pressure on Moscow.” That goes a long way beyond rhetoric. It’s a kind of tangible loosening—at a time when the war, and its ripple effects, hasn’t stopped.

The White House explored sanctions relief for Russia, including the ubiquitous oligarchs, instead of escalating costs. Reuters reported on March 3, 2025, that officials were asked to draft options for easing sanctions, and again in March 2026 that broader relief was under consideration. Easing pressure while bombs are still falling? What message does that send, not just to governments, but to people on the ground?

The administration also appears to have tied US security guarantees for Ukraine to territorial concessions. I have written about this here before. Reuters reported on March 25, 2026, citing Zelenskyy, that guarantees were offered if Ukraine handed over the Donbas. Even if framed as pragmatic peacemaking, it still means asking a country to give up land taken from it by force—land where people have lived, fled, or died.

On the Russia–Iran intelligence issue, the administration’s posture looked unusually trusting of Putin. After reports that Russia may have shared targeting information with Iran, envoy Steve Witkoff relayed Russia’s denial publicly following a Trump-Putin call. I can’t help but seriously pause on that, especially given how high the stakes are when multiple conflicts begin to overlap. Zelenskyy later accused Washington of ignoring evidence because it still trusted Putin. Okay, that may or may not be fair, but the perception itself is telling.

Then there was Vance in Budapest on April 8, 2026. He defended Orbán and criticised Zelenskyy, calling Zelenskyy’s remarks “scandalous,” during a visit meant to bolster one of Europe’s most Russia-friendly leaders. At the same time, reports were circulating about Hungary’s links with Moscow. The optics were… well, difficult to ignore. While Ukraine was still under attack, the US vice president was publicly siding against its leader in that context.

It’s not one smoking gun. It’s the pattern—the repeated asymmetry. Again and again, pressure seems to fall on Ukraine, while engagement, relief, or benefit of the doubt always seems to flow towards Russia. And all the while, the war continues—not as some dinky, abstract, geopolitical contest, but as something measured in lives lost, in families displaced, in civilians living under constant and unbearable threat.

Of course, there are counterarguments, and I find myself wanting to believe them. That this is negotiation, not alignment. That the US pressures Kyiv because it can, not because it prefers Russia. That ending the war quickly—even imperfectly—might save lives in the long run. That territorial concessions could be pragmatic, however painful. That there is no proof Trump wants Russia to win, only that he wants the war to end. That perhaps this is about shifting the burden to Europe.

I want those explanations to hold.

But I am afraid I keep coming back to the same difficulty: I don’t see any clear evidence of that broader strategy—only the immediate effects, and the people living through them.

Peter Bach lives in London.