Health

“I never had to use a medical cream in my life,” says Biren Bhuiyan. Pointing to the skin ailments which he now treats with store-bought medicine, he says, “There used to be abundant medicinal plants around us, but we can’t find them here. We are dependent on hospitals now.” 

Earlier this year, I embarked on a probing trip to a small coastal area in Southeast Asia to see what this ancient wood-eater could offer us: about resilience, and the many ways life endures, adapts, and sustains others.

He was treated for skin burns at the hospital, yet more than a year and a half later, a numbness prevails in his groin and stomach.  Ahmad still continues to use the herbicide in his crop, as it is the cheapest herbicide option. 

Since some chemicals become increasingly concentrated in animal tissues as they move up the food chain, long-lived, top predators like alligators — which may spend 50 years or more swimming and eating fish in potentially polluted water — are exemplary sentinels of lurking health threats.

“Before, it used to be around 40 cases a day, but after the protests, it went over 100 — mostly people who had inhaled tear gas and thick smoke from burning buildings [and] seeking emergency care for respiratory complications,” says Dr. Niraj Bam, associate professor and head,  Department of Pulmonology and Critical Care Medicine, TUTH.

Extreme heat poses a significant threat to millions of people worldwide, particularly to burn victims, who have lost the ability to regulate their internal body temperatures through the natural process of homeostasis.

The root causes of period poverty in Zimbabwe run deeper than simple affordability. Prolonged droughts, many worsened by climate change, have devastated crops and pushed millions into deeper poverty, leaving agrarian families unable to buy basic menstrual products.

Since 2024, six large oil spills have polluted India's western coast, affecting millions; yet, no one, including the government, wants to take responsibility for the cleanup.

Ukraine is by far the country most hard hit by cuts to USAID. With the end of the Russian invasion nowhere in sight, doctors have to make use of the dwindling resources at their disposal to save as many victims with severe burns as possible.

A week after a deadly shooting at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) rattled the nation, Atlanta residents flooded the streets again Saturday morning to protest against the Trump administration’s research cuts and promotion of public health misinformation.