• Health

Study Shows Spending On Conservation For Pandemic Prevention Yields Huge Benefits

• Conservation International
• COVID-19
• pandemic
• wildlife trade
• wildlife trafficking
• zoonotic disease

A new study published in the Journal Science yesterday found that the costs preventing pandemics using three conservation strategies are substantially less than the economic losses and mortality costs of responding to a global zoonotic virus once it occurs.

Why This Matters:  As the study’s authors explain, the risks of zoonotic disease are higher than ever as increasingly intimate associations between humans and wildlife disease reservoirs accelerate the potential for viruses to spread globally.

• Health

Bubonic Plague Emerges in Mongolia and Colorado

• bubonic plague
• Colorado
• Mongolia
• zoonotic disease

As the world is grappling with the coronavirus pandemic, the World Health Organization has warned that another infamous killer–the bubonic plague–has made a comeback by categorizing it as a re-emerging disease. As CNN reported, on July 7, Chinese authorities confirmed a case of the bubonic plague in inner Mongolia. and yesterday in an unrelated case, […]

• Health

Farmworkers Face Outsized Heat Fatalities, States Must Work to Protect Their Health

• agriculture
• Farm Workers
• food safety
• labor
• labor rights

by Julia Fine, ODP Contributing Writer Farmworkers in Florida have to work in “dangerously hot” heat for 116 days of the year, Sam Bloch reported in The Counter. These farmworkers, according to the CDC, are 20 times more likely to die from heat than other US civilians. Despite the high levels of fatalities farmworkers face […]

• Health

Consumers Beware: Some Hand Sanitizer Brands Are Toxic

• CDC
• COVID-19
• FDA
• hand washing
• methanol
• toxic

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) now has identified fourteen brands of hand sanitizer products on the market that contain methanol, “a substance that can be toxic when absorbed through the skin or ingested,” according to the agency. 

Why This Matters:  After the President suggested that disinfectants might be a good treatment for COVID-19, many worried about the public improperly using household cleaning products to treat themselves.  But there are also manufacturers who peddle dangerous products and we need to be able to trust the government when it says a product should or should not be used in fighting COVID.

• Health

As Governors Rollback Reopening, Confusion Remains

• California
• coronavirus
• COVID-19
• Gavin Newsom

As coronavirus cases are once again surging across the country, it’s evident that our leaders do not have total control of this pandemic. This week, Dr. Anthony Fauci’s issued a dire warning that daily new cases could surpass 100,000 new infections per day if the outbreak continues on its current trend.  While some states have […]

• Health

Roundup Plaintiffs Negotiate Record Settlement of Thousands of Claims

• Bayer
• carcinogen
• litigation
• lymphoma
• Monsanto
• pesticide
• Roundup
• science
• settlement
• toxic
• weedkiller

In a massive and highly complex legal settlement covering the majority of the claims against Monsanto, a U.S. company that makes the weedkiller Roundup, its parent, Bayer Corporation, will pay nearly $11B to settle approximately 95,000 claims and set aside $1.25 billion for potential claims from Roundup customers who may develop cancer in the future. 

Why This Matters: This must end the debate about whether Roundup can still be sold to consumers.