[The climate crisis as an ethical challenge].

Climate change is a threat to health and social security of billions of people. Health and quality of life are increasingly affected in many ways due to the climate crisis. Rising global temperatures are resulting in increasingly frequent and severe extreme weather events, contributing to further increase in inequality, discrimination, and injustice overall and in health care specifically.

Health Symptoms Related to Pesticide Use in Farmers and Laborers of Ecological and Conventional Banana Plantations in Ecuador.

Conventional banana farming is pesticide-intensive and leads to high exposure of farmworkers. Ecuador is the world's biggest exporter of bananas. In this field study in 5 communities in Ecuador, we recorded potentially pesticide-associated subjective health symptoms in farmworkers and compared pesticide users to workers in organic farming.

Air Pollution Is Associated with COVID-19 Incidence and Mortality in Vienna, Austria.

We determined the impact of air pollution on COVID-19-related mortality and reported-case incidence, analyzing the correlation of infection case numbers and outcomes with previous-year air pollution data from the populations of 23 Viennese districts. Time at risk started in a district when the first COVID-19 case was diagnosed. High exposure levels were defined as living in a district with an average (year 2019) concentration of nitrogen dioxide (NO) and/or particulate matter (PM10) higher than the upper quartile (30 and 20 µg/m, respectively) of all districts.

Nitrogen-Dioxide Remains a Valid Air Quality Indicator.

In epidemiological studies, both spatial and temporal variations in nitrogen dioxide (NO) are a robust predictor of health risks. Compared to particulate matter, the experimental evidence for harmful effects at typical ambient concentrations is less extensive and not as clear for NO. In the wake of the "Diesel emission scandal-Dieselgate", the scientific basis of current limit values for ambient NO concentrations was attacked by industry lobbyists.

Time Course of COVID-19 Cases in Austria.

COVID-19 is an infectious disease caused by a novel coronavirus, which first appeared in China in late 2019, and reached pandemic distribution in early 2020. The first major outbreak in Europe occurred in Northern Italy where it spread to neighboring countries, notably to Austria, where skiing resorts served as a main transmission hub. Soon, the Austrian government introduced strict measures to curb the spread of the virus.

Indicators of Genotoxicity in Farmers and Laborers of Ecological and Conventional Banana Plantations in Ecuador.

Banana farming represents an important segment of agricultural production in Ecuador. The health of farmworkers might be compromised by the extensive use of pesticides in plantations applied under poorly regulated conditions. Due to an increased awareness of pesticide-related problems for nature, as well as for worker and consumer health, ecological farming has been established in some plantations of Ecuador.

Alien Species and Human Health: Austrian Stakeholder Perspective on Challenges and Solutions.

No saturation in the introduction, acceleration of spread and the increasing impacts of alien species are a characteristic feature of the Anthropocene. Concomitantly, alien species affecting human health are supposed to increase, mainly due to increasing global trade and climate change. In this study, we assess challenges and solutions posed by such species to the public health sector in Austria over the next few decades.

Subjective Symptoms of Male Workers Linked to Occupational Pesticide Exposure on Coffee Plantations in the Jarabacoa Region, Dominican Republic.

Acute and sub-acute effects of pesticide use in coffee farmers have rarely been investigated. In the present field study, self-reported health symptoms from 38 male pesticide users were compared to those of 33 organic farmers. Results of cytological findings have been reported in an accompanying paper in this issue.

Cytotoxic and Genotoxic Effects of Pesticide Exposure in Male Coffee Farmworkers of the Jarabacoa Region, Dominican Republic.

Intensive agrochemical use in coffee production in the Global South has been documented. The aim of this study was to investigate cytotoxic and genotoxic effects of pesticide exposure in male farmworkers in the Dominican Republic comparing conventional farming using pesticides to organic farming. Furthermore, feasibility of the buccal micronucleus cytome assay (BMCA) for field studies under difficult local conditions was tested.