Tagged: WHO

Could playing Fortnite lead to video game addiction? The World Health Organisation says yes, but others disagree - Guest Work

Guest Author • Jun 20, 2018 •

• Addiction,
• video games,
• WHO

Joanne Orlando, Western Sydney University Could your child be addicted to playing video games? Maybe. If you’re a parent looking for tips on moderating your child’s gaming habits, read on. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has, for the first time, recognised “gaming disorder” – compulsive and obsessive playing of video games – as a diagnosable condition. Read More

Promising male birth control pill has its origin in an arrow poison - Guest Work

Guest Author • Jan 31, 2018 •

• birth control,
• contraceptive,
• fertility,
• infertility,
• mating,
• pharmacology,
• sperm,
• toxicology,
• toxin,
• WHO

Gunda Georg, University of Minnesota; Jon Hawkinson, University of Minnesota, and Shameem Syeda, University of Minnesota This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article. After decades of research, development of a male birth control may now be one step closer. My colleagues and I are working on a … Read More

Anti-vaccination activists – deluded and dangerous - BioBlog

Alison Campbell • Sep 14, 2017 •

• antivaxxers,
• Infectious Diseases,
• online discussion,
• public health,
• Science and Society,
• vaccination,
• vaccines,
• vaxxers,
• WHO

The latest news reports indicate that the mumps outbreak in Auckland is spreading. As you might expect, the very first commenter on the FB page for that story is someone claiming that vaccines don’t cure mumps and offer a significant risk to health. (I wish Moveable Type allowed the Comic Sans font…) The only reason I bother dipping … Read More

The dramatic decrease in life-saving tobacco control policies - News

Jean Balchin • Jul 20, 2017 •

• cigarettes,
• Taxes,
• tobacco advertising,
• tobacco control policies,
• WHO

4.7 billion people – 63% of world’s population – are covered by polices such as strong graphic warnings, smoke-free public places or other measures. According to the latest World Health Organisation report, more countries have implemented tobacco control policies, ranging from graphic pack warnings and advertising bans to no smoking areas. Roughly 4.7 billion people, or 63% of the world’s … Read More

Fluoridation: New scientific review of fluoride and oral health - Open Parachute

Ken Perrott • Jan 11, 2017 •

• access,
• community water fluoridation,
• detal health,
• fluoride,
• Health and Medicine,
• review,
• Science,
• teeth,
• WHO

Want to get up to date on  research about community water fluoridation (CWF) and the effects of fluoride in dental health in general? Have a read of this new review. It’s published in a special issue of Community Dental Health devoted to the WHO approach to the prevention of dental caries through the use of fluoride. And is also … Read More

The consensus on coffee and cancer - News

Erica Mather • Jun 22, 2016 •

• cancer,
• Coffee,
• hot drinks,
• oesophagus,
• WHO

There is no conclusive evidence that drinking coffee causes cancer, but experts report that drinking very hot beverages ‘probably’ causes cancer of the oesophagus. The specialized cancer agency of the World Health Organization (WHO) – the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), held a press call last week where they released the results of a thorough investigation of the … Read More

Superbugs could kill more people than cancer by 2050 - Infectious Thoughts

Siouxsie Wiles • May 28, 2016 •

• antibiotic discovery,
• antibiotics,
• Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy,
• colistin,
• e coli,
• Jim O'Neill,
• Superbugs,
• USA,
• WHO,
• World Health Organization

Antibiotic-resistant superbugs are in the news again. This time a strain of E. coli resistant to the antibiotic colistin has been spotted in the USA. So why is this newsworthy and should we be scared?  A strain of E. coli has been identified in the USA that is resistant to the antibiotic colistin. A paper describing the strain has just been published … Read More

About those meat and cancer stories - Code for life

Grant Jacobs • Oct 28, 2015 •

• bacon,
• cancer,
• IARC,
• meat,
• WHO

Many media reports are reporting it incorrectly or confusingly. For example, in New Zealand’s TV3 News starts out1 World Health Organisation (WHO) experts have put processed meat in the same cancer-causing category as cigarettes … … it has ranked processed meat in the highest cancer risk category, alongside asbestos and even smoking. Sorry, but … Read More

Fluoridation: Connett’s naive used of WHO data debunked - Unsorted

Ken Perrott • Aug 12, 2015 •

• Connett,
• dan savage,
• fluoridation,
• fluoride,
• Ireland,
• New Zealand,
• oral health,
• Sciblogs,
• WHO

Paul Connett is the Executive Director of the anti-fluoride propagandists group, the Fluoridation Action Network (FAN). His recent presentation to the Denver Water Board’s fluoridation forum was full of scientific misrepresentations and distortions. I debunked his claims on fluoridation and … Continue reading → … Read More

Monday Micro: Middle East Respiratory Syndrome in Korea - Infectious Thoughts

Siouxsie Wiles • Jun 08, 2015 •

• camel,
• coronavirus,
• Korea,
• Maia Majumder,
• MERS,
• MERS-CoV,
• Middle East,
• Middle East Respiratory Syndrome,
• virus,
• WHO

“MERS-CoV electron micrograph1” by Maureen Metcalfe/Cynthia Goldsmith/Azaibi Tamin – http://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/mers/photos.html. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons. In 2012 a new virus emerged in the Middle East. Causing severe respiratory and flu-like, the disease was called Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS)* or “Saudi-SARS”. The virus responsible was found to be a … Read More