World-first IVF trial reduces risk of babies inheriting diseases
The findings were hailed as a breakthrough, raising hopes that women with mutations in their mitochondrial DNA could one day have children without passing debilitating or deadly diseases on to the children.
One out of every 5,000 births is affected by mitochondrial diseases, which cannot be treated, and include symptoms such as impaired vision, diabetes and muscle wasting.
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Japan Times
6 days ago
- Japan Times
World-first IVF trial reduces risk of babies inheriting diseases
Eight healthy babies have been born in the U.K. using a new IVF technique that successfully reduced their risk of inheriting genetic diseases from their mothers, the results of a world-first trial said Wednesday. The findings were hailed as a breakthrough, raising hopes that women with mutations in their mitochondrial DNA could one day have children without passing debilitating or deadly diseases on to the children. One out of every 5,000 births is affected by mitochondrial diseases, which cannot be treated, and include symptoms such as impaired vision, diabetes and muscle wasting.
Japan Times
11-07-2025
- Japan Times
Gaza doctors cram babies into incubators as fuel shortage threatens hospitals
Doctors at Gaza's largest hospital say crippling fuel shortages have led them to put several premature babies in single incubators as they struggle to keep the newborns alive while Israel presses on with its military campaign. Overwhelmed medics say the dwindling fuel supplies threaten to plunge them into darkness and paralyze hospitals and clinics in the Palestinian territory, where health services have been pummeled during 21 months of war. An Israeli military official said around 160,000 liters of fuel destined for hospitals and other humanitarian facilities had entered Gaza since Wednesday but that its distribution around the enclave was not under Israel's purview. While Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu discussed the fate of Israeli hostages in Gaza with U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington this week, patients at Al Shifa medical center in Gaza City faced imminent danger, doctors there said. "We are forced to place four, five, or sometimes three premature babies in one incubator," said Dr. Mohammed Abu Selmia, Al Shifa's director. "Premature babies are now in a very critical condition." The threat comes from "neither an airstrike nor a missile — but a siege choking the entry of fuel," said Dr. Muneer Alboursh, director general of the Gaza Ministry of Health. Palestinian newborns share an incubator at Al-Helou hospital due to fuel crisis, according to medics, amid the Israeli military offensive, in Gaza City on Thursday. | REUTERS The shortage is "depriving these vulnerable people of their basic right to medical care, turning the hospital into a silent graveyard," he said. The Israeli military official said such depictions were creating "a false narrative." U.N. bodies working in Gaza decide how to distribute fuel and he did not know if fuel had reached Al Shifa yet, he said. Gaza, a tiny strip of land with a population of more than 2 million, was under a long, Israeli-led blockade before the war between Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas erupted. Palestinians and medical workers have accused the Israeli military of attacking hospitals, allegations it rejects. Israel accuses Hamas of operating from medical facilities and running command centers underneath them, which Hamas denies. Patients in need of medical care, food and water are paying the price. There have been more than 600 attacks on health facilities since the conflict began, the WHO says, without attributing blame. It has described the health sector in Gaza as being "on its knees," with shortages of fuel, medical supplies and frequent arrivals of mass casualties. Mourners carry the body of a Palestinian who was killed in an overnight Israeli strike on a house, according to medics, at Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, on Thursday. | REUTERS Just half of Gaza's 36 general hospitals are partially functioning, according to the U.N. agency. Abu Selmia warned of a humanitarian catastrophe and accused Israel of "trickle-feeding" fuel to Gaza's hospitals. COGAT, the Israeli military aid coordination agency, did not immediately respond to a request for comment about fuel shortages at Gaza's medical facilities and the risk to patients. Abu Selmia said Al Shifa's dialysis department had been shut down to protect the intensive care unit and operating rooms, which can't be without electricity for even a few minutes. There are around 100 premature babies in Gaza City hospitals whose lives are at serious risk, he said. Before the war, there were 110 incubators in northern Gaza compared to about 40 now, said Abu Selmia. "Oxygen stations will stop working. A hospital without oxygen is no longer a hospital. The lab and blood banks will shut down, and the blood units in the refrigerators will spoil," Abu Selmia said, adding that the hospital could become "a graveyard for those inside." Officials at Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis are also wondering how they will cope with the fuel crisis. The hospital needs 4,500 liters of fuel per day and it now has only 3,000 liters, said hospital spokesperson Mohammed Sakr. Doctors are performing surgeries without electricity or air conditioning. The sweat from staff is dripping into patients' wounds, he said. Earlier this year, Israel imposed a total blockade on Gaza for nearly three months, before partly lifting it while introducing a U.S. and Israeli-backed scheme that largely bypasses the U.N. system. Israel accuses Hamas of diverting aid, something Hamas denies. "You can have the best hospital staff on the planet, but if they are denied the medicines and the pain killers and now the very means for a hospital to have light ... it becomes an impossibility," said James Elder, a spokesperson for U.N. children's agency UNICEF, recently returned from Gaza. The latest bloodshed in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict was triggered in October 2023, when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel, killing around 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages, according to Israeli tallies. Gaza's health ministry says Israel's response has killed over 57,000 Palestinians. It has also caused a hunger crisis, internally displaced almost all Gaza's population and prompted accusations of genocide and war crimes, which Israel denies.
Japan Times
05-07-2025
- Japan Times
Study finds smartphone bans in Dutch schools improved focus
A ban on mobile phones and other electronic devices in Dutch schools has improved focus among students, a study commissioned by the Dutch government found. Three-quarters of the 317 surveyed high schools reported that the ban has had a positive effect on students' concentration. Additionally, nearly two-thirds noted an improvement in the social climate within their schools, and one-third observed better academic performance among students. "Less distraction, more attention to the lesson, and more social students. No more mobile phones in the classroom is having wonderful positive effects. It's great that schools are putting their shoulders to the wheel on this," State Secretary for Primary and Secondary Education Marielle Paul said. The ban has been in place since January 1, 2024, and also applies to primary schools. Typically, students only begin bringing phones to school in the final years of primary school and the survey, released late on Thursday, found the impact there was minimal. Most schools allow exceptions for devices needed for medical support, such as hearing aids connected to a mobile device.
