A recent study from the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health has confirmed that gas stoves are bad for you. Gas stoves do not often have the proper ventilation required to filter the air. Data in California shows that 47% of homes had improper ventilation while 7% had no ventilation hoods at all. In California, only an estimated 35% of residents even bother to turn on their hoods. Cooking with gas stoves releases indoor greenhouse gas emissions, in which nitrogen dioxide was the worst. Nitrogen dioxide exceeded the level appropriate level set by California Ambient Air Quality Standards and the National Ambient Air Quality Standards. People don’t turn on their hoods often due to the noise. Additionally, people often don’t clean the filters in their hoods because they can be difficult to get to.

Indoor air pollutants included Carbon Monoxide, Nitrogen Oxide, Nitrogen Dioxide and particulate matter. Nitrogen Dioxide was the worst, “exceeding the level set by both the chronic California Ambient Air Quality Standards (CAAQS) ambient annual average limit of 57 micrograms per cubic meter (μg/m3), and the acute National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS, set by the US EPA) 1-hour limit of 188 μg/m3 or 100 parts per billion (ppb). ”

New study confirms that gas stoves are bad for your health

Related: Best Supplements To Kill Candida and Everything Else You Ever Wanted To Know About Fungal Infections 

Gas is much cheaper than electricity, and more people prefer to cook with it. Despite this, numbers show that if everyone switched to clean electric alternatives, we could reduce the number of deaths by 354 a year and reduce the number of acute bronchitis by 596 cases yearly in California alone.

Source:

• New study confirms that gas stoves are bad for your health – Tree Hugger

A small cohort study in China found Sars-CoV-2 in semen, suggesting that coronavirus transmission could occur through sexual contact. Researchers tested the semen of 38 men who had tested positive for COVID-19 in China. Twenty-three patients had achieved a clinical recovery, and 15 were still in the acute infection stage. Six semen samples tested positive for COVID-19, with four positives coming from acute cases and two from recovered patients.

If it could be proved that SARS-CoV-2 can be transmitted sexually in future studies, sexual transmission might be a critical part of the prevention of transmission, especially considering the fact that SARS-CoV-2 was detected in the semen of recovering patients.”

JAMA Network

This is a very small study, and the implications of the results are unclear. Other similar studies haven’t received any positives in semen. It is also not unheard of for semen to test positive for other viruses.

However, we should not be surprised if the virus which causes Covid-19 is found in the semen of some men, since this has been shown with many other viruses such as Ebola and Zika…”

Allan Pacey, Sheffield University

Recommended:

• How Long Can Germs Survive on Surfaces?
• How to Eliminate IBS, IBD, Leaky Gut

Sources:

• Scientists detect coronavirus in sperm, raising questions on sexual transmission – Mazech

The lack of tourists in Thailand has left many elephants without work. Many elephant camps are unable to feed them and have left operators with no way to take care of their charges. Elephants are an integral part of the tourist industry in Thailand, and 3,800  elephants in the country are working domesticated animals. 

The tourism industry, 20% of Thailand’s economy, has been devastated by the pandemic, and many organizations are struggling to pay for the food and handlers needed for their elephants.  An elephant eats as much as 300 kg (660 lbs) of fruits and vegetables each day. Elephants, especially in the northern part of Thailand, have been left chained up as companies deal with the lack of work for them. 

We saw the one camp [in Chiang Mai] that had closed and was basically holding all of their elephants parked on one-meter chains 24 hours a day. It’s like battery farming of chickens. Basically, you throw food at them, you scrape the dung away and that’s going to be their existence for the next three months.”

John Roberts – Golden Triangle Asian Elephant Foundation

There aren’t many good options for out-of-work elephants. Some of them may end up working for illegal logging operations. It is also illegal to release the elephants into the wild, and national parks and sanctuaries don’t have enough resources to handle the doubling of the elephant population. Some operators have been forced to bring their elephants back to rural villages where the elephants are more able to feed off the land. 

Recommended:

• Supplements To Defend Against Coronavirus
• How Long Can Germs Survive on Surfaces?
• Holistic Guide to Healing the Endocrine System and Balancing Our Hormones

Sources

• Thailand’s working elephants, now unemployed due to coronavirus, trudge home to natural habitat – Abc.net.au

Over the weekend a medical researcher reportedly on the verge of a new coronavirus discovery was shot and killed over the weekend. Bing Liu, 37, was found inside his home in North Pittsburgh on Saturday. Shortly after Liu was found, the body of Hao Gu was found shot dead inside his car less than a mile from Liu’s home. Some have reported Gu shot Liu before taking his own life, reporting this as a murder-suicide. A motive is still unknown at this time.

Liu had a Ph.D. in computational science from the National University of Singapore and worked as a research associate at the University of Pittsburgh. Liu was reportedly close to making a significant discovery about COVID-19, with the university saying the following;

Bing was on the verge of making very significant findings toward understanding the cellular mechanisms that underlie SARS-CoV-2 infection and the cellular basis of the following complications,

Researcher ‘on verge of making very significant’ coronavirus findings shot to death

We will update with new information if any becomes available.

Recommended:

• Supplements To Defend Against Coronavirus
• How Long Can Germs Survive on Surfaces?
• Holistic Guide to Healing the Endocrine System and Balancing Our Hormones

Sources:

• Researcher ‘on verge of making very significant’ coronavirus findings shot to death-Yahoo News
• Professor researching Covid-19 was killed in an apparent murder-suicide, officials say -CNN

A lawsuit has recently been filed against a Smithfield Foods pork plant in Milan, Missouri. The pork-processing plant is accused of not adequately protecting workers during the coronavirus pandemic. Workers have reported not taking time to cover their mouths after coughing or covering their mouths after sneezing for fear of missing meat as it goes by, thus resulting in the risk of disciplinary action. The complaint was filed by an anonymous worker. Along with the health of the workers, the health of the public has also been brought into question.

Several dozen workers signed a letter that was delivered to plant management during the week of March 30 complaining of cramped conditions and a lack of protective equipment and accommodations for sick leave. It cited the company’s policy of assigning workers a disciplinary point — a tally that can lead to dismissal — if they took a day off.

Missouri Pork Plant Workers Say They Can’t Cover Mouths to Cough

Many meatpacking facilities around the country have shut down or are working at a lower capacity. Ten workers have died from the coronavirus while around 6,500 employees either contracted the virus, are showing symptoms and/or have missed work due to self-quarantine. The CDC has recommended that Smithfield facilities establish stricter social distancing regulations. Through the lawsuit, workers are requesting changes to Smithfield’s practices rather than compensation.

Recommended: How to Eliminate IBS, IBD, Leaky Gut 

Smithfield workers are not unionized. Before the Coronavirus outbreak workers reported not having enough time for bathroom breaks. Workers frequently suffered from urinary tract infections and other stress injuries.

Sources:

• Missouri Pork Plant Workers Say They Can’t Cover Mouths to Cough -Organic Consumers Association
• Missouri Pork Plant Workers Say They Can’t Cover Mouths to Cough -The New York Times

China’s Ministry of Agricultural and Rural Affairs has marked the practice of raising dogs for meat as forbidden in a new draft policy. The ministry further explained its policy, saying dogs were a “special companion animal.” Animal rights activists have long decried the eating of dogs in China, and this new stance from the government is a step towards banning the practice.

That signals a major shift, recognising that most people in China don’t eat dogs and cats and want an end to the theft of their companion animals for a meat trade that only a small percentage of the population indulge in,”

Wendy Higgins, Humane Society International

Recommended: How to Eliminate IBS, IBD, Leaky Gut 

Due to the coronavirus outbreak, China’s National People’s Congress has banned the consumption of all wild animal meat. Shenzhen, a city in the populous province Guangdong, has put forward additional regulations banning the eating of dogs and cats. On May 1st, the law will take effect, and restaurants that serve pet meat will receive a fine of 20,000 to 200,000 yuan (2,800 – 28,000 USD).

Sources

• Shenzhen could be first city in China to ban eating of dogs and cats – The Guardian
• Shenzhen becomes first Chinese city to ban eating cats and dogs – BBC

As a result of the coronavirus pandemic, in recent months we have seen a massive reduction in energy usage. We’re seeing the greatest decrease is fossil fuel usage since fossil fuels became widely used in the mid 20th century. Coal demand is expected to fall more than it did after WW2. Energy demand is expected to drop by an unprecedented 6% this year, this is around the equivalent of the entire energy demand of India.

While fossil fuel demand decreases, renewable energy is expected to grow this year. The pandemic has shown how poor the fossil fuel industry functions. The cost of storage and the cost of the supply chain to move fossil fuel is extremely expensive, and without the demand for fossil fuels, the industry is collapsing.

Birol and the IEA are confident that the growth in renewables should signal a shift from fossil fuel companies toward generating clean energy.

Green Energy Surges as Demand for Fossil Fuel Collapses — and It Could Be Here to Stay -The Mind Unleashed

Recommended: How to Eliminate IBS, IBD, Leaky Gut 

Some experts have pointed out that if the 2008 recession is anything to go off of we may likely see a large spike in energy usage after the pandemic is over. Others have talked about the importance of using this pandemic as an opportunity to make the transition to renewable energy and not go back to our old ways.

We want to see emissions drop because of a stronger and bigger renewable industry, lower fuel bills and the creation of hundreds of thousands of new green jobs. And that’s what must be at the heart of our recovery from this crisis. 

Johnathan Bartley, co-leader of the Green Party

Sources:

• Green Energy Surges as Demand for Fossil Fuel Collapses — and It Could Be Here to Stay -The Mind Unleashed
• Climate crisis: Coronavirus causing collapse in demand for fossil fuels while renewables make major gains, according to major global report -Independent