AFRICA NEWS

Rival unions unite in dispute over gold miner pay

29TH SEPTEMBER 2021
BY: BLOOMBERG

South Africa’s long-divided mining unions are forging a united front against the industry’s largest employer as they declared a dispute over wage negotiations with Sibanye-Stillwater.

The National Union of Mineworkers, Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union, UASA and Solidarity will hold an unprecedented joint press conference over their issues with the company on October 1, the labour groups said Wednesday in a statement. Collectively, they are asking for a monthly pay increase of R1 500 rand for workers in Sibanye’s gold mines. The deal would run over each of the next three years.


A united labor force will present a different dynamic for South African mining companies. NUM and AMCU, the biggest unions in the gold sector, have previously refused to sit at the same negotiating table, with a history of violent clashes between their members. Three years ago, AMCU embarked on a five-month strike that crippled Sibanye’s gold mines after it initially rejected a wage deal that had been agreed upon by the other unions.

“We are all fighting for the common cause,” said NUM spokesman Livhuwani Mammburu. “What’s the use of allowing companies like Sibanye-Stillwater to divide us.”


The unions signed a wage deal earlier this month with Harmony Gold Mining Co., which Sibanye should reference for its own offer, they said. Harmony workers will receive a monthly pay increase of R1 000 for each year of the agreement.

The labour groups have declared a dispute and the talks are now taking place under the auspices of the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration, said Sibanye spokesman James Wellsted. The wage increases are unaffordable for the company and “will result in the early closure of the mines if we accede to the unions demands,” he said.

Sibanye employs almost 31 000 workers in a South African gold industry that’s struggling to curb costs amid the geological challenges of the world’s deepest mines. 

Humanitarian Crisis in Mozambique As Militants Use Child SoldiersFacebook

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Human Rights Watch (HRW) has denounced the use of child soldiers by the Islamic State-linked insurgent group Al-Shabaab, in the northern Mozambican province of Cabo Delgado.  HRW in a statement, said that the armed group abducted hundreds of boys, some as young as 12, trained them in bases across Cabo Delgado province, and forced them to fight alongside adults against government forces. It added that in the town of Palma, parents said they watched their sons wield guns when they returned with other fighters to raid their village.

Despite the progress in pushing back the insurgents, there is still a humanitarian crisis in Cabo Delgado. According to the United Nations Children's Fund, 862,990 people have been displaced due to the violence. It calculates that 48.2% of these are children and 11% of the displaced people are now based in resettlement sites, 6% in temporary accommodation, and 82.7% living with host families.

The UN Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict, which Mozambique ratified in 2004, prohibits non-state armed groups from recruiting children under the age of 18. The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court categorizes as a war crime the conscription, enlistment, or active use of children under 15 years old in active hostilities during armed conflict.

AllAfrica's Silencing The Guns series focuses on peacebuilding on the continent, and today we're talking about the situation in Mozambique, where terror engulfs the northern province of Cabo Delgado. We'll hear from David Matsinhe, Southern African researcher at Amnesty International and author, historian, and peace practitioner Yussuf Adam, who shares his experiences after a field visit in the north.

First, delving into what led Cabo Delgado to become the centre of battles between government troops and fighters led by men the U.S. has now designated as Islamist terrorists, then one of the most respected long-term researchers of Cabo Delgado in northern Mozambique speaks out after seeing the horrific living conditions of Mozambicans displaced by the ongoing fighting.

Villagers Demand Complete Halt to Namibia Sand MiningFacebooTwitterWhatsAppFlipboarLinkedI

RedditEmaiShareNamibian villagers of Ondado C in Oniipa in northen Namibia are demanding a complete halt to sand mining activities in the area. The community has further lashed out at the Ondonga Traditional Authority (OTA) as well as Environment Minister Pohamba Shifeta after an appeal meeting was called off for a second time. 

The meeting sought to iron out a longstanding conflict with the OTA who were granted a licence to mine sand at Ondado C against the wishes of the community.  In June 2021, that licence was revoked, following complaints from the community, of which the environmental commissioner Timoteus Mufeti found that the OTA had transgressed, after the extraction activities interfered with underground water.

Excessive sand mining can alter a river bed, force the river to change course, erode banks and lead to flooding. It also destroys the habitat of aquatic animals and micro-organisms besides affecting groundwater recharge. Sand mining generates extra vehicle traffic, which negatively impairs the environment.

Can Agritech Bring Africa's Young People Back to FarmingFacebook

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As communities in Africa start to rebound from the initial impacts of the novel coronavirus pandemic and look ahead, the importance of creating millions of jobs for the continent's booming youth population cannot be overstated. This will require concerted efforts across myriad sectors. One sector that is brimming with vast and untapped resources, is agriculture.  

The future of food on the continent is in the hands of African farmers, particularly our young farmers, of whom we are in desperately short supply. About 60% of Africans are under 25 years old, but the average age of Africa's smallholder farmers is over 60 years.

Too many young people view farming as exhausting work with antiquated tools for very low pay. A report released by Heifer International in August 2021 explained why young people are turning away from agriculture. The report emphasised that this is a major opportunity to evolve the sector and bring them back, writes Adesuwa Ifedi for African Arguments.

The report also found that with the appropriate financing, training, and access to technologies, many more African youth would seriously consider pursuing a career in agriculture. The survey, which included focus groups with farmers and tech companies, revealed evidence of rapidly growing agritech start-ups operated by creative young people across the continent. By encouraging and supporting this new generation of innovators, the report says that access to labour-saving and transformative technologies for huge numbers of smallholder farmers, can be boosted.

Nigeria: Covid-19: Current State of Access to Vaccines Unacceptable - Buhari to Global Community

Lisa Ferdinando/U.S. Secretary of Defense/Flickr
A vial of the Covid-19 vaccine.

1 OCTOBER 2021
Premium Times (Abuja)By Mojeed Alabi

We must act now to accelerate equitable distribution of COVID-19 vaccines, Mr Buhari said.

Nigeria's President, Muhammadu Buhari, has condemned the current method of global distribution of vaccines against the rampaging coronavirus pandemic.

He said the world cannot afford the situation "where a handful of countries keep the global vaccine supply to themselves at the expense of other nations."

Mr Buhari stated this in his broadcast to Nigerians on Friday as part of activities to mark the nation's 61st independence anniversary.

He said he had shared the same message to the global community during his presentation at the United Nations assembly in New York, last week.

He said: "We must act now to accelerate equitable distribution of COVID-19 vaccines. This is the message I conveyed to the international community in New York last week."

Nigeria's journey against COVID-19

The President said, just like other nations of the world, since 2020 when the index case was recorded in the country, the pandemic has altered Nigeria's recovery plans from economic recession earlier experienced.

"Our original priorities for 2020 were to continue stabilising our economy following the deep recession while restoring peace in areas confronted with security challenges. But the

The President, however, commended Nigerians for what he described as their united stand against the pandemic. He said such unity of purpose is required to confront all other challenges facing the country.

The President said: "Nigerians came together as one to fight against COVID-19. It is this attitude and by the special grace of God, we continue to survive the pandemic as a nation and indeed, provide leadership and example at regional and international levels.

"The doomsday scenario predicted for our country never came. Even as the Delta variant continues to spread, we have built the capacity we need to respond now and into the future.

"I will therefore appeal to Nigerians not to take COVID lightly, adhere to public health and social measures, put your mask on and get vaccinated. We can control this pandemic, but it requires effort on everybody's part. The investments we made in response to

Nigeria's vaccination campaign

The President said despite the global inequity in access to vaccines, Nigeria has continued to explore all available options to ensure free access to safe and effective vaccines in the country.

He pleaded with Nigerians to take get vaccinated and observe all necessary protocols in the fight against the pandemic.

"Some five million vaccine doses have been administered to Nigerians through efforts led by the National Primary Health Care Development Agency and we will continue to explore options for purchase or acquisition of vaccines such as through COVAX and the 

He pledged the commitment of his administration to the provision of needed support for upgrade of facilities within the nation's health sector.

Local vaccine production

The President said the ultimate ambition is to achieve local manufacturing of vaccines against similar diseases and pandemic in the future.

"As we push to source vaccines for our immediate needs, we shall invest more to support our pharmaceutical and research agencies to come up with ideas for locally developed vaccines. Should another pandemic arise in the future, Our question is simple; will Nigeria be ready?

"Accordingly, I have directed the Ministries of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Health, Education and Science and Technology to work with Nigerian and International pharmaceutical companies and research organisations to enhance Nigeria's domestic pharmaceutical capacity.

"Already, the Nigerian Sovereign Investment Authority is raising a $200 million fund for this initiative that will complement the Central Bank of Nigeria's ongoing N85 billion Healthcare Sector Research and Development Intervention Scheme to support local researchers in the development of vaccines and drugs to combat communicable and non-communicable diseases, including COVID-19."

COVID-19 in Nigeria

Since 2020 when the index case was recorded in Nigeria, more than 2,000 Nigerian citizens have been claimed by the pandemic.

Similarly, the country has recorded 205,765 infections while a total of 193,617 Nigerians have been recovered and discharged nationwide.


Read the original article on Premium Times.

CAPITALI$M MUST END TO STOP CLIMATE CHANGE
UK business confidence collapses as fears of ‘stagflation’ grow

Supply chain shortages and price rises could lead to the zero growth and high inflation seen in the 1970s

Drivers queue to fill up in Datchet, Berkshire, on 28 September. The fuel shortage is one of the reasons business confidence in the UK is currently so low. 

Photograph: Maureen McLean/Rex/Shutterstock

Richard Partington and Larry Elliott
Fri 1 Oct 2021 

Business confidence in the UK has collapsed after a month that has seen supply bottlenecks, rising energy prices, fuel shortages and looming tax increases combine to stifle growth.

In its latest health check on the economy, the Institute of Directors said sentiment had “fallen off a cliff” in September, adding to fears that Britain was on course for a dose of 1970s-style stagflation.

The warnings from the IoD came as people queued to fill up on garage forecourts and road traffic fell in the last week. The online clothes retailer Boohoo said its profit margins were being squeezed by higher shipping costs and the need to increase pay for staff in its warehouses.

The IoD said the sharp fall in business confidence from +22 points to –1 point in September meant a return to the pessimism of February, when the economy was constrained by lockdown restrictions.

Kitty Ussher, the IoD’s chief economist, said: “The business environment has deteriorated dramatically in recent weeks. Following a period of optimism in the early summer, people running small and medium-sized businesses across the UK are now far less certain about the overall economic situation and the IoD Directors’ Economic Confidence Index fell off a cliff in September.

“A higher proportion of our members expect costs to rise in the next year than expect revenues to rise. This is not helped by the government’s recent decision to raise employers’ national insurance contributions, which acts as a disincentive to hire just when the furlough scheme is ending.”

Although the ONS upgraded its growth estimates for the UK in the second quarter of this year from 4.8% to 5.5%, activity has slowed since the middle of the year as a result of rising infection rates, the “pingdemic”, and labour and supply-chain shortages.

The latest weekly update on the economy from the ONS showed that job vacancies in the transport, logistics and warehousing sector were up by more than 350% on pre-pandemic levels. The combination of pressures has led to warnings the UK could be heading for a winter of stagflation, when a stagnating economy combines with rising prices.

Shevaun Haviland, director general of the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC), which represents thousands of companies across the UK, said ministers needed to work with firms to deal with the growing fallout from Covid and Brexit.

Writing in the Guardian, she warned that businesses were facing the most difficult operating environment for a generation. “It’s not just labour shortages. The price of energy, raw materials and shipping have all risen sharply. It’s often taking longer to move goods across borders and businesses are facing higher taxes in the coming year,” she said.

As the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, unwinds emergency support schemes that helped limit the fallout from the worst recession in 300 years, the Guardian’s monthly dashboard of economic developments shows signs of distress spreading across the economy.

Businesses and households are coming under growing pressure from rising costs, with inflation at the highest rate in a decade ahead of a tough winter, as shortages of goods and materials drag on growth. In the depths of a fuel crisis as petrol stations run dry, company bosses warned that removing furlough and other support schemes risked a “perfect storm” for growth and jobs.

“One of these issues alone would be tough, but together they create a perfect storm as we head into an unpredictable winter,” said Haviland.

For more than a year, the Guardian has tracked the economic fallout from the pandemic on a monthly basis, following infection rates, eight key growth indicators and the level of the FTSE 100. Faced with the deepest global recession since the Great Depression, the Covid crisis watch also monitors Britain’s performance compared with other countries.

After suffering one of the worst death rates in the world from Covid-19 and the deepest economic slump in the G7, Britain’s economy has recovered faster than expected and is forecast to grow at the fastest rate among the group of wealthy nations this year. However, economic growth has dropped close to stalling point despite the end of most pandemic restrictions.

Official figures show that weaker retail sales and shortages of workers and raw materials dragged down GDP growth in July to 0.1% on the month, and the IoD survey will add to fears that the economy has flatlined in the third quarter.

 

Zebrafish predict the future to avoid virtual danger

Peer-Reviewed Publication

RIKEN

 

IMAGE: SCHEMATIC OF THE SETUP USED IN THIS STUDY. THE VIRTUAL REALITY PRESENTED TO THE FISH ADAPTED BASED ON THE TAIL MOVEMENTS OF THE FISH. THIS ALLOWED THE FISH TO FEEL AS IF THEY WERE SWIMMING IN THEIR TANK. view more 

CREDIT: RIKEN

Scientists from the RIKEN Center for Brain Science (CBS) and collaborators in Japan have discovered particular neurons in the brain that monitor whether predictions made by fish actually come true. By making use of a new virtual reality-outfitted aquarium where brain imaging of zebrafish can be done as they learn and navigate through virtual reality cues, researchers found neurons that allow efficient risk avoidance and create a “hazard map” in the brain that allows for escape to safety. The study was published in Nature Communications on September 29.

Predicting the future is an integral part of decision-making for fish and humans alike.  When real situations do not match expectations, the brain generates “prediction errors”, which let us know that our expectations were off. Expectations are formed by internal models of the environment, and just like people, the new study found that fish have such models in their brains. The researchers monitored prediction-error associated brain activity in real-time as zebrafish learned to avoid danger in their tank. They found that the fish tried to keep the prediction error low to efficiently avoid danger. Because risk avoidance is an evolutionarily conserved behavior, these results shed light on important brain circuits that are shared across all vertebrates, including humans.

Zebrafish are small and transparent, which makes it easy to record the activity of the whole brain. In the experiment, the fish saw a choice between red or blue virtual reality zones as they virtually swam and learned to associate the colors of the virtual zones with danger or safety. The researchers were particularly interested in a front part of the brain called the telencephalon, which corresponds to the cerebral cortex and other structures in mammals, and which contributes to decision-making. As zebrafish learned to avoid danger in virtual reality, the time-lapse change in their brain activity was recorded, leading to the discovery of neurons that represent the prediction error.

CAPTION

Two swimming zebrafish

CREDIT

RIKEN

Distinct active populations of neurons emerged as fish started to learn that choosing the virtual route through blue surroundings led to danger and choosing the red route meant safety. Later, an experimental reversal of the association, in which red became dangerous instead of blue, led to an inactivation of these neurons. This told the researchers that the neurons were likely coding a behavioral rule, not simply the color that the fish were seeing. In another change to the virtual reality space, the scenery was altered so that it did not change based on the tail movements of the fish. For example, trying to swim forwards by flipping the tail did not make the view recede as expected. These manipulations revealed a group of neurons that was activated only when actions the fish thought would allow them to reach safety did not have the expected result. “We think this population of neurons is encoding a prediction error in the brain, comparing the actual view of their surroundings with the predicted view that they have learned would get them to safety if they behaved in a certain way,” says lead author Makio Torigoe.

“Every animal has to make predictions for its future based on what it has learned before,” adds research team leader Hitoshi Okamoto. “Now we know how these predictions are compared to what animals actually encounter in the world, and which parts of the zebrafish brain drive the subsequent decision-making.”

VIDEO Virtual swimming [VIDEO] | EurekAlert! Science News Releases

Reference:
Torigoe et al. (2021) Zebrafish capable of generating future state prediction error show improved active avoidance behavior in virtual reality. Nat Commun. doi: 10.1038/s41467-021-26010-7

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JOURNAL

Nature Communications

DOI

10.1038/s41467-021-26010-7 

FREE PLAY! SUMMERHILL

Let babies play! Study shows free play may help infants learn and develop

Peer-Reviewed Publication

SOCIETY FOR RESEARCH IN CHILD DEVELOPMENT

The benefits of object play (blocks, puzzles, cars, dolls and so on) for infant learning and development are well documented. However, nearly nothing is known about how natural play unfolds in the ecologically valid home environment (real-life settings). Indeed, research on infant play is limited to structured tasks in child-friendly lab environments, where infants engage with predetermined objects for a fixed amount of time. Although structured observations illuminate how infants explore, interact, and learn with novel objects under controlled conditions, they reveal little about how infants spontaneously play in their everyday environments. A new study published in Child Development by researchers at New York University aimed to address this gap by examining infant free play outside the confines of a lab setting and pre-selected toys.

“Our findings show an essential first step in identifying the everyday inputs to infants’ natural learning,” said Catherine Tamis-LeMonda, Professor of Applied Psychology at New York University. “At a time in development when infants must acquire information about what objects are and what they can do with them, massive amounts of practice playing with a variety of objects at home is beneficial for learning. And varied exploration is adaptive. We thus seek to flip the narrative from a critique of what infants have not yet achieved to an acknowledgement of how infants interact with their natural learning environment at home.”

Study participants included 40 infants: 20 13-month-olds, 10 18-month-olds and 10 23-month-olds. Twice as many 13-month-olds were observed to enable comparisons between crawlers and walkers. Most infants were from White (75%), middle-class English-speaking families and were only children. Families were recruited in New York City through hospitals, referrals, and brochures. Mothers ranged from 27 to 46 years old and most (93%) had earned college or higher degrees and 65% worked part- or full-time. The study was conducted between December 2017 and September 2019. Families received a $75 gift card for each visit.

An experimenter recorded infants and their mothers with a handheld video camera during two home visits with minimal interference. Infants were free to interact with whatever objects were available. Object interaction was defined as infants manually displacing an object with their hands. Banging hands on a table or swiping hands on a surface did not count if the infant did not displace the object nor did touches with body parts other than the hands (e.g., kicking a ball, sucking on a pacifier) or touches to the infants’ own body (including clothing), the mother’s body, or a pet’s body.

During play at home, where objects abound and infants were free to play as they wished, babies transitioned among dozens of objects per hour in short bursts of activity, flitting between toys and non-toys alike. The short interactions added up to infants spending 60% of their time interacting with objects. Moreover, infants spent as much time playing with household objects—bins, boxes, pillows, remote controls, stools, cabinet doors, and so on—as they did with toys. Such findings provide a key to understanding how object play might facilitate everyday learning and development.

“Our research yields an unprecedented picture of infants’ spontaneous object interactions,” said Orit Herzberg, postdoctoral fellow at New York University. “Instead of viewing infant behavior as flighty and distractible, infants’ exuberant activity should be viewed as a developmental asset—an ideal curriculum for learning about the properties and functions that propels growth in motor, cognitive, social and language domains. Infants learn about the world by playing with as many things as possible, in short bursts of activity. And every object is a potential play object.”

The authors acknowledge several limitations of the research. First, infants were drawn from predominantly White, upper-middle class, educated families living in a large metropolitan area, thus the experiment was not tested in other samples, including communities where manufactured toys are rare or even nonexistent. Additionally, infants’ object interactions were only observed with their mothers present; thus whether infants’ spontaneous interactions vary by different types of social engagement remains an open question.  

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This research was supported by the LEGO Foundation and the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

Summarized from Child Development, Infant exuberant object play at home: Immense amounts of time-distributed, variable practice by Herzberg, O., Fletcher, K., Schatz, J., Adolph, K., and Tamis-LeMonda, C. (New York University). Copyright 2021 The Society for Research in Child Development, Inc. All rights reserved.

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JOURNAL

Child Development

DOI

10.1111/cdev.13669 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Infant exuberant object play at home: Immense amounts of time-distributed, variable practice

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

29-Sep-2021

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Social inclusion of women by male colleagues in STEM fields can improve their workplace experience

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF WATERLOO

Organizations working to meaningfully improve diversity and inclusion in STEM may be missing a crucial consideration, new research suggests.

Rather than organizations solely focusing on hiring more women or increasing the visibility of women’s workplace achievements, new research highlights the importance of fostering positive workplace social relationships.  Specifically, facilitating male-female friendships might uniquely improve gender equity and inclusion in the fields of science, technology, engineering and math.

Hilary Bergsieker, a professor in Waterloo’s Department of Psychology and co-author of the study, said they found even a small amount of social inclusion of women by male colleagues can go a long way toward reducing the gender barriers experienced by women in those fields.

“Merely working in a mixed-gender team—or even feeling respected as highly competent by men—is not sufficient to protect women from the psychological costs of experiencing social exclusion from male coworkers,” Bergsieker said. “When women and men have ample opportunity to interact informally and forge workplace friendships, these bonds can meaningfully improve women’s feelings of fit and engagement in STEM fields.”

In a two-part study, the researchers first examined whether acts of gendered social exclusion are systematically associated with men’s implicit gender stereotypes. They then turned to women’s experiences, investigating whether women’s workplace outcomes are associated with being socially excluded by male colleagues. 

Using a sample of 1,247 professional scientists and engineers from nine organizations, the researchers had participants complete a survey that measured their social networks, workplace outcomes, and implicit gender stereotypes (using a reaction time task). To gain insight into social network structures, participants listed up to five teammates and then indicated who, including themselves, sought out each person for informal socializing. Then, to measure workplace outcomes, participants completed a self-report of workplace engagement, efficacy, social fit, social identity threat, and workplace support.  

“Our research shows how positive day-to-day interactions between colleagues reflect and reinforce this chilly climate, and points to a counter-intuitive way that we can help fix it,” said Emily Cyr, a PhD candidate in social psychology at Waterloo. “When men made even small gestures of social inclusion, for example, chatting with female teammates during breaks, women reported feeling less worried about being stereotyped at work and more engaged in their careers. However, men were less likely to socially include their female colleagues than their male colleagues, especially men with stronger unconscious (implicit) gender stereotypes.”

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The study, Mapping Social Exclusion in STEM to Men’s Implicit Bias and Women’s Career Costs, authored by Bergsieker, Cyr, Tara Dennehy and Toni Schmader appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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JOURNAL

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

 

Most cases of never-smokers’ lung cancer treatable with mutation-targeting drugs

Available, FDA-approved drugs may be effective in targeting about 80% of never-smokers’ lung tumors

Peer-Reviewed Publication

WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MEDICINE

 

IMAGE: PICTURED ABOVE IS A RADIOGRAPHIC IMAGE OF A LUNG TUMOR IN A PATIENT WHO NEVER SMOKED BUT STILL DEVELOPED LUNG CANCER. A NEW STUDY FROM WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MEDICINE IN ST. LOUIS ESTIMATES THAT 78% TO 92% OF LUNG CANCERS IN PATIENTS WHO HAVE NEVER SMOKED CAN BE TREATED WITH PRECISION DRUGS ALREADY APPROVED BY THE FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION TO TARGET SPECIFIC MUTATIONS IN A PATIENT’S TUMOR. view more 

CREDIT: WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MEDICINE

Despite smoking’s well-known role in causing lung cancer, a significant number of patients who develop lung tumors have never smoked. While scientists are still working to understand what spurs cancer in so-called “never-smokers,” a study led by scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis demonstrates new possibilities for treating these baffling tumors.

The new analysis suggests that 78% to 92% of lung cancers in patients who have never smoked can be treated with precision drugs already approved by the Food and Drug Administration to target specific mutations in a patient’s tumor. The researchers found that most never-smokers’ lung tumors had so-called driver mutations, specific mistakes in the DNA that fuel tumor growth and that can be blocked with a variety of drugs. In contrast, only about half of tumors in people who smoke have driver mutations.

The study appears Sept. 30 in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

“Most genomic studies of lung cancer have focused on patients with a history of tobacco smoking,” said senior author Ramaswamy Govindan, MD, a professor of medicine. “And even studies investigating the disease in patients who have never smoked have not looked for specific, actionable mutations in these tumors in a systematic way. We found that the vast majority of these patients have genetic alterations that physicians can treat today with drugs already approved for use. The patient must have a high-quality biopsy to make sure there is enough genetic material to identify key mutations. But testing these patients is critical. There is a high chance such patients will have an actionable mutation that we can go after with specific therapies.”

In the U.S, about 10% to 15% of lung cancers are diagnosed in people who have never smoked, and that proportion can be has high as 40% in parts of Asia.

The researchers analyzed lung tumors from 160 patients with lung adenocarcinoma but no history of tobacco smoking. They also compared data from these patients to data in smokers and never-smokers from The Cancer Genome Atlas and the Clinical Proteomic Tumor Analysis Consortium, projects led by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to characterize different types of cancer. The scientists verified never-smoker status by examining the mutation patterns in these patients and comparing them to mutation patterns in lung cancers of patients who had smoked. Past work led by Govindan and his colleagues found that smokers’ lung tumors have about 10 times the number of mutations as the lung tumors of never-smokers.

“Tobacco smoking leads to characteristic changes in the tumor cells, so we can look for telltale signs of smoking or signs of heavy exposure to secondhand smoke, for example,” said Govindan, who treats patients at Siteman Cancer Center at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and Washington University School of Medicine. “But very few of these patients’ tumors showed those signs, so we could verify that this was truly a sample of lung cancer tumors in patients who had never smoked or had major exposure to tobacco smoke.”

The researchers also found that only about 7% of these patients showed evidence of having mutations present at birth that raised the risk of cancer — either inherited or arising randomly — furthering the mystery of what causes lung cancer in never-smokers.

“There appears to be something unique about lung cancer in people who have never smoked,” Govindan said. “We didn’t find a major role for inherited mutations, and we don’t see evidence of large numbers of mutations, which would suggest exposure to secondhand smoke. About 60% of these tumors are found in females and 40% in males. Cancer in general is more common among men, but lung cancer in never-smokers, for some unexplained reasons, is more common among women. It is possible additional genes are involved with predispositions to cancers of this kind, and we just don’t know what those are yet.”

The study also shed light on the immune profiles of these tumors, which could help explain why most of them do not respond well to a type of immunotherapy called checkpoint inhibitors. Unlike the smokers’ lung tumors studied, very few of the never-smokers’ tumors included immune cells or immune checkpoint molecules that these drugs trigger to fight the cancer.

“The most important finding is that we identified actionable mutations in the vast majority of these patients — between 80% and 90%,” Govindan said. “Our study highlights the need to obtain high-quality tumor biopsies for clinical genomic testing in these patients, so we can identify the best targeted therapies for their individual tumors.”

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This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), grant numbers 2U54HG00307910 and U01CA214195; and the Mesothelioma Biomarker Discovery Laboratory.

Devarakonda S, et al. Genomic profiling of lung adenocarcinoma in never-smokers. Journal of Clinical Oncology. Sept. 30, 2021.

Washington University School of Medicine’s 1,700 faculty physicians also are the medical staff of Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Children’s hospitals. The School of Medicine is a leader in medical research, teaching and patient care, consistently ranking among the top medical schools in the nation by U.S. News & World Report. Through its affiliations with Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Children’s hospitals, the School of Medicine is linked to BJC HealthCare.

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JOURNAL

Journal of Clinical Oncology

ARTICLE TITLE

Genomic profiling of lung adenocarcinoma in never-smokers

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

30-Sep-2021

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Center for Health, Work & Environment receives award to continue National Center of Excellence for Total Worker Health®

The Center for Health, Work & Environment at the Colorado School of Public Health has been awarded a five-year cooperative agreement from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to operate a Center of Excellence for Total Worker Health®

Grant and Award Announcement

UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO ANSCHUTZ MEDICAL CAMPUS

(AURORA, Colo.) September 30, 2021 - The Center for Health, Work & Environment at the Colorado School of Public Health has been awarded a five-year, approximately six million dollar, cooperative agreement from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to operate a Center of Excellence for Total Worker Health. Support of this program from the CDC’s National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) will further advance Total Worker Health (TWH) as an emerging field of science and practice and address the needs of the 21st century of workforce through research, intervention, and outreach activities. 

The Center for Health, Work & Environment (CHWE) first received designation as a CDC/NIOSH Center of Excellence in 2016. With this renewal, it will be one of ten centers nationwide. The Centers of Excellence represent the extramural portfolio of TWH research to further its mission of protecting and advancing the safety, health, and well-being of the diverse population of workers in our nation. Under the direction center director, primary investigator, and University of Colorado (CU) distinguished professor Lee Newman, MD, MA, the new funding will support research on emerging issues impacting the well-being of American workers as well a robust community outreach program.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has reminded the public of the high value we all place on having safe, healthy, and productive workplaces,” said Dr. Newman. “Now more than ever, there is a demand for research and interventions designed to keep workers safe,” he added.

The award will fund three new research projects led by investigators from the Colorado School of Public Health (ColoradoSPH), CU School of Medicine, and Colorado State University (CSU). Dr. Cathy Bradly, professor and associate dean for research at the ColoradoSPH and deputy director of the CU Cancer Center, will partner with Drs. Lee Newman and Lili Tenney to lead a five-year study that examines the employment experience of low-income, Latino men newly diagnosed with cancer. This flagship project will test a clinical-based TWH intervention delivered by oncology care teams to improve patients’ ability to continue working during cancer therapy. 

Dr. Kathy James, associate professor at ColoradoSPH, and Dr. Gwen Fisher, associate professor at CSU, will launch a new project that addresses behavioral health for farm workers and owners in the San Luis Valley of southern rural Colorado. A growing body of evidence shows that anxiety, depression, suicide, and other behavioral health challenges occur at significantly higher rates among U.S. agricultural workers, magnified by physical isolation from medical providers. The project will further investigate the contributions to this crisis and form a network of community partners and providers to better support the community.

The third project will be a two-year study to adapt and test a workforce mental health intervention with emergency preparedness programs in Pre-K-8 schools (led by ColoradoSPH assistant professors Dr. Courtney Welton-Mitchel and Dr. Natalie Schwatka). The project will review and co-create revisions to emergency preparedness plans and the mental health supports in participating schools.

The award will also support the center’s TWH initiatives including Health Links®, a program providing businesses with TWH assessment, certification, and advising. The outreach core, led by Dr. Tenney, will focus on dissemination and implementation projects to reach underserved organizations and working communities including small businesses, Latinx, and Black workforces. The award will support the development of new TWH training in the areas of behavioral health, leadership, and emerging issues.   

“The exposures of the traditional workplace have been expanded,” said Dr. Tenney. “Our center has been developing TWH initiates for the past five years and is excited to continue working with an expanded portfolio of research and outreach projects that are issue-driven. Our goal is to understand and adapt evidence and practice to the inevitable changing nature of work.”

“With this award, we can focus on partnerships with business leaders and employees to find and implement practical solutions that benefit all workers, especially those at greatest risk of job-related injuries and illness,” Newman said.  “We are committed to protecting and promoting the health and well-being of workers in the state of Colorado and the region, especially those who are in greatest need,” Newman added.

For more information about Total Worker Health, visit this webpage. For more information on the Centers of Excellence, please visit NIOSH’s website. 

 

About the Center for Health, Work and Environment

The Center for Health, Work and Environment (CHWE) at the Colorado School of Public Health is one of ten Centers of Excellence for Total Worker Health® and houses the Mountain and Plains Education and Research Center, one of 18 centers of its kind supported by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). Main offices for the Center are located at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus in Aurora, Colorado. The Center team works with faculty, students, and community partners on numerous projects in occupational and environmental health, safety, and well-being.

About the Colorado School of Public Health

The Colorado School of Public Health is the first and only accredited school of public health in the Rocky Mountain Region, attracting top tier faculty and students from across the country, and providing a vital contribution towards ensuring our region’s health and well-being. Collaboratively formed in 2008 by the University of Colorado, Colorado State University, and the University of Northern Colorado, the Colorado School of Public Health provides training, innovative research, and community service to actively address public health issues including chronic disease, access to health care, environmental threats, emerging infectious diseases, and costly injuries. Learn more and follow Colorado SPH’s updates on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.