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Watching the World

▪ In Brazil, use of amphetamines to lose weight by eliminating appetite increased 500 percent from 1997 to 2004.—FOLHA ONLINE, BRAZIL.

▪ Airline pilots are three times more likely than others to develop cataracts, possibly because of increased exposure to cosmic rays.—THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, U.S.A.

▪ Over the next decade, almost half of Asia’s 1.27 billion children will be deprived of some of their basic needs, such as safe water, food, health care, education, and shelter.—PLAN ASIA REGIONAL OFFICE, THAILAND.

▪ Secondhand cigarette smoke is “more dangerous than anyone suspected.” In the 18 months following a ban on smoking in offices, restaurants, and other indoor spaces in Pueblo, Colorado, U.S.A., the number of heart attacks among residents fell by 27 percent.—TIME, U.S.A.

Marriage Breakups Increasing in Spain

In the year 2000, there were twice as many marriages in Spain as there were separations and divorces. But by 2004, two marriages were failing for every three weddings. Since 1981, when laws permitting divorce came into effect, over a million children have seen their parents split up. What explains the increase in marital breakdown? According to psychologist Patricia Martínez, “the precarious nature of marriage relationships [is] caused above all by cultural changes, the loss of religious and moral standards, the incorporation of women into the workforce, and the lack of male collaboration in caring for household chores.”

Obesity in China

China “will have 200 million people who are dangerously overweight within the next 10 years,” says The Guardian of London. Fast-food outlets “have become ubiquitous in many cities—a rising middle class is doing less physical exercise, driving more, and spending more time motionless in front of televisions, computers and video games.” The number of children considered obese is increasing by 8 percent every year, and in Shanghai more than 15 percent of primary school children are already obese.

River Indicates Vast Drug Use

Water samples taken from Italy’s Po River indicate that cocaine use by residents of the river basin is vastly greater than official estimates, says a study published in the magazine Environmental Health. Cocaine users excrete benzoylecgonine in their urine. The presence of this breakdown product in a person is often used as forensic evidence of cocaine consumption. The levels of the chemical entering the river through the sewage system indicate that about nine pounds [4 kg] of cocaine, or 40,000 doses, is consumed every day in the catchment area—a figure 80 times greater than previous estimates.

Preventable Mortality

“This year, almost 11 million children under five years of age will die from causes that are largely preventable,” states the World Health Organization’s 2005 report. Some 90 percent of these deaths are due to just a few causes: acute neonatal conditions such as preterm birth, infections, and birth asphyxia; lower respiratory infections, primarily pneumonia; diarrhea; malaria; measles; and HIV/AIDS. “Most of these deaths are avoidable through existing interventions that are simple, affordable and effective,” says the report. Additionally, over half a million women die in pregnancy or childbirth each year, mainly because of “lack of access to skilled care.”