There were a few hours left before the disaster struck in Valencia and part of Albacete when I informed my boss by message that the embargoed study that we had planned to publish at midnight was ready: it was of a new edition of the “Lancet Countdown”. , an annual report prepared by around a hundred scientists and international organizations which assesses the impacts of climate change on health. I titled: Climate change is faster than human capacity to adapt. At the time of publication of this text, we already knew – one evening glued to the radio – that the floods caused by the passage of a DANA had killed an “undetermined number” of people.
Since then, the words that the World Health Organization keeps repeating come back to me with every image on television; with every testimony we hear; to every story we tell: “the climate crisis is a health crisis”. A health crisis that can cost us our lives.
Who would have thought that a DANA would cause the death of more than a hundred people in Spain? This feeling of invulnerability has already been interrupted by the pandemic. Today, this tragedy puts us in our place. Well, almost everyone, except those who question the alerts issued by the Spanish Meteorological Agency (Aemet).
Climate change is making extreme weather events more frequent and more intense. This question is only the concern of the Holocaust deniers, who have found the best fertile ground for spreading hoaxes. Acting as agents of chaos in the midst of human despair.
The reality is that alerts are used to predict, but above all to prevent. Underestimating this is a bad idea. The Valencian Community sent a message to all cell phones in the area when there were already many people up to their necks in water. Literally. Having a good early warning system has become essential. “They are a proven, effective and cost-effective way to save lives, jobs, land and infrastructure,” says the UN. With DANA passing through Castelló, people were warned not to leave their homes and to take refuge in high areas; In Catalonia, the population of the Ebro has also been advised against traveling by road.
The areas affected by DANA, now that the rain has stopped, face a long, dark tunnel of grief and collective trauma. In the City of Justice, corpses continue to arrive that must be identified and people continue to disappear while the living drain the little mud they have left. “We lost everything but we are alive,” a woman said above my head – one of the newsroom TVs was falling right on me – on Channel 24 Hours.
While you were doing something else…
- Communities are skipping the six-month wait time established since 2011 for five surgeries. It’s the data.
- This interview with the creator of CAR-T cancer therapies, Carl June, is very interesting: “It’s like putting a disease patrol in the blood”
No ADHD Medication
Children and adults with ADHD have been struggling for weeks to buy in pharmacies across Spain the drug that allows them to have a functional life: methylphenidate. There are patients who have had to stop taking it because they could not find it in any establishment.
It is a “misalignment” at the academic, family and behavioral levels, because it serves, among other things, to control impulsivity, neuropsychiatrist Marcos Madruga explained to us. And, worse still, there is no near horizon for a solution: normality will not be restored, as expected, until early 2024.
Three laboratories produce this drug, under different trade names: Janssen, Laboratorios Rubió and Exeltis Healthcare. Only one, the first, answered our questions: the situation is due to “production limitations”, without further details, and to “growing demand in multiple markets”. We haven’t heard from the other two.
Thank you for reaching the end of this newsletter in these sad days. If you have loved ones in this region, a very big hug from here.
Sofia
