US vacation hotspot testing water supply for drugs
The Health Department aims to use this data to understand trends in illegal substance use and assess the effectiveness of prevention and intervention programs.
Biobot, a Cambridge-based company, will conduct the drug testing using samples already collected for COVID-19 and other disease monitoring.
The initiative seeks to provide a data-driven understanding of local drug usage, moving beyond anecdotal evidence.
Test results will be shared with healthcare partners to inform outreach and treatment efforts, though they will not be made public.
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Reuters
43 minutes ago
- Reuters
WHO pushes countries to raise prices on sugary drinks, alcohol and tobacco by 50%
LONDON, July 2 (Reuters) - The World Health Organization is pushing countries to raise the prices of sugary drinks, alcohol and tobacco by 50% over the next 10 years through taxation, its strongest backing yet for taxes to help tackle chronic public health problems. The United Nations health agency said the move would help cut consumption of the products, which contribute to diseases like diabetes and some cancers, as well as raising money at a time when development aid is shrinking and public debt rising. "Health taxes are one of the most efficient tools we have," said Jeremy Farrar, WHO assistant-director general of health promotion and disease prevention and control. "It's time to act." The WHO launched the push, which it called "3 by 35" at the UN Finance for Development conference in Seville. WHO said that its tax initiative could raise $1 trillion by 2035 based on evidence from health taxes in countries such as Colombia and South Africa. The WHO has backed tobacco taxes and price rises for decades, and has called for taxes on alcohol and sugary drinks in recent years, but this is the first time it has suggested a target price rise for all three products. WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told the conference that the taxes could help governments "adjust to the new reality" and bolster their own health systems with the money raised. Many low and middle-income countries are coping with cuts to aid spending led by the United States, which is not attending the Seville conference. The U.S. is also in the process of withdrawing from the WHO. FROM $4 to $10 As an example, the initiative would mean a government in a middle-income country raising taxes on the product to push the price up from $4 today to $10 by 2035, taking into account inflation, said WHO health economist Guillermo Sandoval. Nearly 140 countries had already raised tobacco taxes and therefore prices by over 50% on average between 2012 and 2022, the WHO added. Sandoval said the WHO was also considering broader taxation recommendations, including on ultra-processed food, after the agency finalises its definition of that type of food in the coming months. But he added that the agency expected pushback from the industries involved. 'It's deeply concerning that the World Health Organization (WHO) continues to disregard over a decade of clear evidence showing that taxing sugar-sweetened beverages has never improved health outcomes or reduced obesity in any country,' said Kate Loatman, executive director of the International Council of Beverages Associations, adding that the industry was working on options to support health. 'The World Health Organization's suggestion that raising taxes will prevent alcohol-related harm is misguided,'said Amanda Berger, senior vice president of science and research at the Distilled Spirits Council, adding that it would not prevent alcohol abuse. The tax initiative is backed by Bloomberg Philanthropies, the World Bank and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and involves support for countries who want to take action.
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
‘Am I just an asshole?' Time blindness can explain chronic lateness - some of the time
Dr Melissa Shepard has a problem with managing her time. She had always been a high achiever, making it through medical school to become a psychiatrist and assistant professor at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. But no matter how hard she worked, she struggled with one of life's simplest expectations: being on time. 'I really felt like I could just not crack the code,' Shepard said. 'I worried: am I just an asshole? Is that why I'm always late? No matter how hard I wanted to be on time, it was a struggle.' When Shepard learned about time blindness as a symptom of ADHD, which she has, it all clicked. Russell Barkley, a former clinical psychologist and expert on ADHD, coined the term in 1997 to describe what he calls 'the serious problem people with ADHD have with governing their behavior relative to time intervals and the passage of time more generally'. Time blindness can be a symptom of ADHD or other conditions such as anxiety or autism spectrum disorder. Shepard now frequently talks about time blindness and other mental health struggles on TikTok, where she has 1.5m followers. The term has become something of a buzzword in certain corners of the video-sharing app, with some pointing to its legitimacy as a symptom of a medically recognized disorder to explain why they can't get out of the door in the morning. Others use it to vent about their 'chronically late' friends. You know the type: you say 'let's have lunch at 1pm' but make the reservation closer to 2pm, because you've learned to factor in their perpetual tardiness. Everyone has their slow days, but some TikTokers argue that people who are habitually 30 or 45 minutes late are claiming time blindness when in reality they're being inconsiderate. As one person posted in a video liked over 125,000 times: 'I think that being chronically late is a character flaw, and I think that it's disrespectful across the board … I know people are like, 'time blindness' – no, you need to figure out how to be on time for things.' Some people are bad planners. But others, like Shepard, do live with time blindness. 'We all sort of have this internal clock that we use to estimate how much time has passed,' Shepard said, 'but people with ADHD tend to not have as good of an internal clock.' On social media, those who have time blindness share examples of their inability to gauge how long a task might take. For instance, one woman created a timetable for waiting for freshly brewed coffee to cool down, so she doesn't burn herself. (At 30 seconds: 'very hot - ouch!' One minute: 'Hot but could drink if urgent.' One minute 30 seconds: 'Ideal drinking temp.') Dr David W Goodman, an assistant professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins, clarified that time blindness as a symptom of ADHD or other conditions refers to a difficulty with the perception of the passage of time. He said it is different than poor time management, or when someone can successfully perceive how long it takes to do something but fails to plan accordingly. (So-called 'time optimists', or people who constantly underestimate how long it takes to get somewhere or complete a task, fall into the latter category.) The popularity of the phrase does seem to point to the proliferation of 'therapy speak', or how psychobabble has made its way into the mainstream to excuse poor behavior with fancy-sounding clinical explanations. Could 'time blindness' be a get-out-of-jail-free card for anyone strolling into work 45 minutes late, toting an iced coffee? According to the Attention Deficit Disorder Association, it is possible for people with ADHD to receive disability accommodations at work via the Americans With Disabilities Act, provided they have proper documentation of their condition from a medical provider. Shepard also noted that the rise of remote or flexible work has eased the strain people with time blindness feel, since it eliminates the need for a traditional commute. Still, one TikTok user sparked a mini-meltdown on the app in 2023 after suggesting that employers should allow for disability accommodations for people with time blindness. 'They exist actually!' one user commented. 'They're called watches and clocks and alarms.' On Reddit, professors have voiced frustrations that more universities are allowing students extra time to get to class or submit assignments due to time blindness. 'Any student, regardless of ability, who does not learn what they need to do to show up and turn work in, is not prepared for a job in most fields,' one wrote on r/Professors in 2022. 'We are setting these students up for failure.' Shepard has written accommodation letters for people with time blindness, but she'll also work with those patients on strategies to help them be more prompt. Many are common-sense solutions, such as setting alarms in the morning to denote it's time to start a new task (wake up, brush teeth, shower, get dressed, eat breakfast). Some are less obvious: Shepard said that people with time blindness do better working with old-fashioned, analog clocks that have hands, as it's easier to physically see the passage of time that way. Goodman said it's 'cloudy' whether or not time blindness constitutes a disability for which someone should get accommodations at work or school. 'You really do need to have a formal diagnosis in which that would fit,' he said. 'Not just that you didn't plan or anticipate. You have to make a decision: is time blindness an explanation or an excuse?'
Daily Mail
2 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Top expert reveals shocking first sign of type of dementia that hits in your 30s - 'patients think it's normal'
If someone close to you has become a heavy drinker since they hit their thirties, check in with them—a top expert has warned that it might be a sign they have dementia. While dementia is most often associated with the elderly, it can affect people of all ages. One type in particular, frontotemporal dementia (FTD), is most often diagnosed in men and women aged between 45 and 65, but there have been confirmed cases of it in people decades younger. The first signs of FTD are often related to changes in behaviour; people can become rude or violent, struggle with their words or communication, or start to behave in impulsive or risky ways. But as these behaviours are often mistaken for another health condition, or simply written off as an unpleasant blip in someone's usually calm and collected demeanour, people can end up very, very unwell before they get the help they need. Paul Little, CEO of Vesper Bio, a biotech firm working to improve the lives of people diagnosed with FTD, said that a misdiagnosis can have serious repercussions. Speaking to the FT, he explained: 'There are patients as young as 29 that's not uncommon, who get frontotemporal dementia (FTD). 'Often times it's misdiagnosed as bipolar disorder or some form of midlife crisis, because in some cases, there's a behavioural component. View this post on Instagram A post shared by FT Partner Content (@ftpartnercontent) 'The patient may start drinking heavily, may get into trouble with the police and end up in the wrong form of help.' He added that there is no cure for FTD, and that tragically it is never just the person who is diagnosed who suffers—it has massive ramifications which ripple outwards, destroying the lives and dreams of everyone close to them. Mr Little continued: 'It's invariably fatal when you get the disease, it's catastrophic for families, because you will see changes in behaviour and changes in language that mean that the patient themselves is unable to work. 'It means that caregivers also have to give up jobs, and these are the most fruitful, best parts of life for earning money and building families.' Figures released by the Alzheimer's Society reveal that there are around 70,800 people in the UK living with early-onset, or young-onset, dementia, which is defined as when symptoms start before the age of 65. The causes of dementia in younger people are essentially the same as for older patients. In the case of Alzheimer's, proteins build up in the brain, forming plaques and tangles. With vascular dementia, this is caused by problems with the blood supply to the brain, and might be the result of heart disease. FTD is a rarer form of the condition, and affects 16,000 people in the UK. It leads to a loss of cells in the front and side of the brain which are the areas that control behaviour, hence why it might cause changes to how people interact with others, or care for themselves. Although it can progress slowly, survival time after an FTD diagnosis is between just two and 12 years. Concerns have been raised about a rise in cases of young-onset dementia in the UK. A study of GP practice records in England in 2022 revealed an alarming 69 per cent increase since 2014 (from 28,800 cases).
