Blog 15: Brazil Cracks Down on Animal Trafficking

Annually, about 38 million animals are poached from forests in Brazil and sold illegally on the black market. However, close to 90% of the animals die during transportation, and those that survive live in terrible conditions and are usually very sick and starved. Many animal traffickers don't mind these losses though because they are still able to make a profit, sometimes off of just a single sale. The illegal trafficking of animals is an ever-increasing industry that is worth an estimated $2 billion a year, but authorities are cracking down on it and becoming more stringent in enforcement. Each year, federal police seize about 250,000 wild animals being traded illegally. Ibama, the Brazilian environmental agency, rescues an additional 45,000 and helps to rehabilitate them at wildlife centers because many are ill and starving when they're rescued. Unfortunately, it is difficult to release them back into the wild because the animals are unable to fend for themselves, so only about 20-30% of them are successfully released. Even though it is illegal in Brazil to hunt or hold wild animals in captivity, poachers continue to do so, and it is contributing to the destruction of biodiversity and threatens hundreds of species. According to the records of the environmental agency, the number of endangered species has increased threefold in the past 15 years, and 627 species are now faced with the threat the extinction.

http://phys.org/news/2012-05-brazil-lucrative-wild-animal.html

Blog 14: New Plant That Can Possibly Be Used In Pancreatic Cancer Treatment

 According to the CDC, each year about 44,000 cases of pancreatic cancer are diagnosed, and there is only a 20% survival chance for patients who are sick for over a year. It drops to a 14% survival rate after five years, and the current drug on the market for treatment, Gemzar, doesn't do much to combat the cancer. It's rather ineffective, and Vice Chairman of Research at the CDC, Ashok Saluja, even said, "It adds six weeks- it's nothing." There has been a need for a more effective drug treatment, and researchers think that the answer may be a drug made from a plant called "Thunder God Vine." The plant is commonly used in traditional Chinese medicine for rheumatoid arthritis. In a study conducted among lab mice with pancreatic cancer, after 40 days of treatment with the drug they showed no signs of tumors. Thunder God Vine, or its technical name Tripterygium wilfordii, contains the compound triptolide, which has shown to kill cancer cells in previous studies. Although there is no guarantee whatsoever that the plant will be effective in combating pancreatic cancer in humans, researchers hope to soon begin the first three stages of human clinical trials necessary before being approved by the Food and Drug Administration, and hopefully the results from the trials are successful.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-17/drug-from-chinese-thunder-god-vine-slays-tumors-in-mice.html

Blog 13: Controversial Population Control in India

Due to India's massive population of about 1.2 billion, the country has been trying to implement various ways to stabilize population growth. Attempted methods by the government include forced vasectomies in the 1970s, having parents sign written pledges prohibiting their daughter(s) from marrying before age 18, and, recently, even paying 5,000 rupees, or about $106, to couples who promised to wait until after saving up money and finishing schooling to have children. Almost every attempt by the government received some kind of backlash from the public for being an infringement upon personal rights, but the efforts have been met with some success, more so in some areas than others. But overall, the success has been limited especially outside of major, urbanized cities in India, like Kerala. Population control methods were met with hostility and resistance from many citizens, who viewed them as "top-down" coercive acts that targeted the poor. Despite limited success, these methods in the long run are not viable solutions to rapid population growth and more effective ways to control the population will have to be introduced.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/22/world/asia/22india.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0