Health

While Germany faces a persistent shortage of skilled workers, one factor remains largely ignored: the impact of perimenopause. At this pivotal stage of their careers, many experienced women reduce their hours or leave the workforce because their needs are rarely recognised or supported. According to a survey, one in 10 women has left – or plans to leave – work due to menopause symptoms, while one in four reduces her working hours. ]

Swiss food giant Nestlé is facing criticism over the sugar content of Cerelac, its infant cereal brand sold in Africa. An investigation by the NGO Public Eye found that while the product is sold without added sugar in Europe, African versions can contain up to 15 percent sugar. ]

France is Europe's second-largest consumer of benzodiazepines – a class of sedatives that includes drugs like Valium and Xanax. Every year, nearly 10 million patients are prescribed these pills to treat anxiety and insomnia. While they are intended only for short-term use, treatments are often extended indefinitely, without proper supervision. Dependency sets in, affecting everyone from teenagers to elderly patients. FRANCE 24's Olivia Bizot reports.  ]

Some 2 million people worldwide are poisoned by snakebites every year, resulting in the deaths of around 130,000 of them. Yet these deaths are avoidable through preventive measures, first aid and public policies to make antivenom available. The World Health Organization has labelled snakebite a neglected tropical disease and believes the subject should be given more attention. Our correspondent reports from Kenya, where war has been declared on snakebites.  ]

European countries have some of the best public health systems in the world. And yet cancer rates have been going up, according to the European Commission. For instance, in 2022, there was a 2.3 percent increase on the year 2020. ]

In Africa clean cooking is an issue of major concern, and with a billion people relying on wood and charcoal to cook their food each day there is a disproportionate number of deaths due to fine particle air pollution. FRANCE 24's Mark Owen speaks with Andy Herscowitz, CEO of Mission 300 Accelerator, about the group's aim to expand access to modern and cleaner cooking technologies across Africa. https://www.rockefellerfoundation.org/news/rockefeller-foundation-global-energy-alliance-clean-cooking-alliance-energy-corps-scale-modern-cooking-technologies-in-africa/ ]

Ever since Donald Trump's return to the White House and the appointment of Robert F. Kennedy Jr as Secretary of Health, the United States has become the scene of a growing clash between science and politics. One field in particular is paying the price of this ideological battle: health. FRANCE 24's Pierrick Leurent and Valerie Defert report from Texas. ]

Imagine designing a society without knowing your role in it. Would you still choose the inequality we live with today? Eve Irvine welcomes Kate Pickett, Author and Professor of Epidemiology at the University of York. Her work as a social epidemiologist concludes that inequality is not just unfair, it has real-life, even deadly, consequences. It erodes trust, wellbeing, education, and even the length of our lives. We already have the answers. What we lack is the will to act. This book, The Good Society, is a call to collective courage, to choose policies that prioritize human flourishing, over GDP, a focus on designing equity. ]

The Trump administration on Thursday unveiled TrumpRx, a website aimed at helping Americans access discounted prescription drugs directly from manufacturers. The initiative, part of broader efforts to tackle rising health care costs, includes weight-loss and fertility medications. ]

As FRANCE 24 marks World Cancer Day, François Picard welcomes Lars Henning Milman Engelholm, Associate Professor and Group Leader at the Finsen Laboratory, Rigshospitalet / Biotech Research & Innovation Centre (BRIC), University of Copenhagen. From his lab in Copenhagen, Professor Engelholm describes a seismic shift underway in pancreatic cancer research, the result of a decade-long commitment to the steady evolution of translational science. ]