HEALTH AND SCIENCE HIGHLIGHTS

August 3, 2022 (San Diego's East County) -- Our Health and Science Highlights provide cutting edge news that could impact your health and our future.

HEALTH

• Polio case in New York is the first in the U.S. since 2013  (NPR)
• WHO declares monkeypox a public health emergency  (NPR)
• More people are catching coronavirus a second time, heightening long COVID risk, experts say  (Los Angeles Times)
•  Monkeypox symptoms: Here's what scientists are learning (NPR)
• An Idaho abortion law draws a Justice Department lawsuit  (NPR)
• 3 common myths about the abortion debate that many people get wrong (NPR)

SCIENCE AND TECH

• U.S. to plant 1 billion trees as climate change kills forests (AP)
• Cell carrier privacy settings to change now  (Time)

For excerpts and links to full stories, click “read more” and scroll down.

HEALTH

Polio case in New York is the first in the U.S. since 2013  (NPR)

…The case was confirmed in a resident of Rockland County, about 36 miles north of New York City…The patient is no longer considered contagious, the AP reports, but has developed paralysis. The patient was unvaccinated, the CDC reports.

WHO declares monkeypox a public health emergency  (NPR)

The World Health Organization on Saturday declared the monkeypox outbreak a public health emergency…The monkeypox outbreak is largely among men who have sex with men and have multiple sexual partners. There are more than 16,000 cases globally and according to the Centers for Disease Control, 2,891 cases have been confirmed in the U.S.  There are vaccines available for monkeypox, but those supplies are strained.

More people are catching coronavirus a second time, heightening long COVID risk, experts say  (Los Angeles Times)

A study suggests that individuals who caught the coronavirus a second time were at 2½ times greater risk of developing heart or lung disease and blood clotting issues.

Monkeypox symptoms: Here's what scientists are learning (NPR)

…some patients have only one or two small lesions that can easily be confused with lesions caused by several sexually transmitted diseases, such as herpes and syphilis…And what about those flu-like symptoms? Sometimes they don't appear at all…

An Idaho abortion law draws a Justice Department lawsuit  (NPR)

The Justice Department on Tuesday filed a lawsuit that challenges Idaho's restrictive abortion law, arguing that it conflicts with a federal law requiring doctors to provide pregnant women medically necessary treatment that could include abortion.

The federal government brought the lawsuit seeking to invalidate the state's "criminal prohibition on providing abortions as applied to women suffering medical emergencies," Attorney General Merrick Garland said.

3 common myths about the abortion debate that many people get wrong (NPR)

In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to overturn the federal right to abortion, things are more than a little confused.

SCIENCE AND TECH

U.S. to plant 1 billion trees as climate change kills forests (AP)

The Biden administration on Monday said the government will plant more than one billion trees across millions of acres of burned and dead woodlands in the U.S. West, as officials struggle to counter the increasing toll on the nation’s forests from wildfires, insects and other manifestations of climate change.  Destructive fires in recent years that burned too hot for forests to regrow naturally have far outpaced the government’s capacity to plant new trees. That has created a backlog of 4.1 million acres (1.7 million hectares) in need of replanting, officials said.

Cell carrier privacy settings to change now  (Time)

Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile can use your web history and app use to help advertisers target you. Here's how to say "no."