Latest news with #FederalUniversityofRiodeJaneiro
Boston Globe
20 hours ago
- Health
- Boston Globe
‘I was terrified I was going to die.' Rape victims in Brazil struggle to access legal abortions
The Associated Press does not identify people without their permission if they say they have been sexually assaulted. In Brazil, abortion is legally restricted to cases of rape, life-threatening risks to the pregnant woman, or if the fetus has no functioning brain. Theoretically, when a pregnancy results from sexual violence, the victim's word should suffice for access to the procedure. 'The law doesn't require judicial authorization or anything like that,' explained Ivanilda Figueiredo, a professor of law at the State University of Rio de Janeiro. 'A woman seeking an abortion recounts the situation to a multi-disciplinary team at the healthcare clinic and, in theory, that should be enough.' Advertisement In practice, however, advocates, activists, and health experts say women encounter significant barriers to ending a pregnancy even under the limited conditions provided for by the law. This is due to factors including lack of facilities, disparities between clinic protocols, and even resistance from medical personnel. 'Healthcare professionals, citing religious or moral convictions, often refuse to provide legal abortions, even when working in clinics authorized to perform them,' said Carla de Castro Gomes, a sociologist who studies abortion and associate researcher at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. Advertisement Women in Brazil also face geographical barriers to legal abortions. Only 290 facilities in a mere 3.6 percent of municipalities around the country of approximately 213 million people provide the service, according to a 2021 study from scientific journal Reports in Public Health. In June 2022, four nonprofits filed a legal challenge with the Supreme Court, arguing that restrictions on abortion access violate women's constitutional rights. The case is currently under review. A 35-year-old cashier from a small city in the interior of Rio de Janeiro state also said she became pregnant as a result of a rape. But, unlike the woman in Brasilia, she chose to pursue an abortion through legal means, fearing the risks that come with a clandestine procedure. Although Brazil's Health Ministry mandates that, in the case of a pregnancy resulting from rape, healthcare professionals must present women with their rights and support them in their decision, the woman said a hospital committee refused to terminate the pregnancy. They claimed she was too far along, despite Brazilian law not stipulating a time limit for such procedures. She eventually found help through the Sao Paulo-based Women Alive Project, a nonprofit specializing in helping victims of sexual violence access legal abortions. The organization helped her locate a hospital in another state, an 18-hour drive, willing to carry out the procedure. Thanks to a fundraising campaign, the woman was able to travel and undergo the operation at 30 weeks of pregnancy in late April. Advertisement 'We are already victims of violence and are forced to suffer even more,' she said in a phone interview. 'It's a right guaranteed by law, but unfortunately still seen as taboo.' Brazil's abortion laws are among the most constrictive in Latin America, where several countries — including Mexico, Argentina, and Colombia — have enacted sweeping reforms to legalize or broadly decriminalize abortion. This legislative environment is exacerbated by a political landscape in which far-right politicians, supported by Catholic and Evangelical voters who make up a majority in the country, regularly seek to further restrict the limited provisions within the country's penal code. In 2020, the government of far-right former President Jair Bolsonaro issued an ordinance requiring doctors to report rape victims seeking abortions to the police. Current President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva revoked the measure in his first month in office in 2023. But the measure left lasting effects. 'These changes end up generating a lot of legal uncertainty among health professionals, who fear prosecution for performing legal abortions,' Castro Gomes said. Last year, conservative lawmaker Sóstenes Cavalcante proposed a bill to equate the termination of a pregnancy after 22 weeks with homicide, sparking widespread protests by feminist groups across Brazil. The protests ultimately led to the proposal being shelved. But in November, a committee of the Chamber of Deputies approved a proposed constitutional amendment that would effectively outlaw all abortions by determining the 'inviolability of the right to life from conception.' The bill is currently on hold, awaiting the formation of a commission. Earlier this month, Rio Mayor Eduardo Paes, a Lula ally, came under fire after sanctioning a bill mandating anti-abortion messages on posters in municipal hospitals and other health establishments. Advertisement Advocates say access to abortion highlights significant disparities: women with financial means dodge legal restrictions by traveling abroad for the procedure, while children, poor women, and Black women face greater obstacles. According to the Brazilian Forum on Public Safety, 61.6 percent of the 83,988 rape victims in 2023 were under the age of 14. A statistical analysis that year by investigative outlet The Intercept estimated less than 4 percent of girls aged 10 to 14 who became pregnant as a result of rape accessed a legal abortion between 2015 and 2020. Feminist groups in Brazil are campaigning at a federal level for enhanced access to legal abortion services. Last year, 'A Child Is Not a Mother,' a campaign by feminist groups, successfully advocated for the National Council for the Rights of Children and Adolescents to adopt a resolution detailing how to handle cases of pregnant child rape victims. The body, jointly made up of government ministries and civil society organizations, approved the resolution by a slim majority in December.
Los Angeles Times
a day ago
- Health
- Los Angeles Times
‘I was terrified I was going to die.' Rape victims in Brazil struggle to access legal abortions
RIO DE JANEIRO — A 27-year-old Brazilian woman, who said she became pregnant after being raped in March during Carnival in Brasilia, should have been granted access to a legal abortion. But when she sought to terminate the pregnancy at a hospital around a month later, she was told she needed a police report to access the service, despite it not being a legal requirement. She decided to abort at home with medication she bought on the black market, with only a few friends on site to help. 'I fainted several times because of the pain. I was terrified I was going to die,' she said. The Associated Press does not identify people without their permission if they say they have been sexually assaulted. In Brazil, abortion is legally restricted to cases of rape, life-threatening risks to the pregnant woman or if the fetus has no functioning brain. Theoretically, when a pregnancy results from sexual violence, the victim's word should suffice for access to the procedure. 'The law doesn't require judicial authorization or anything like that,' explained Ivanilda Figueiredo, a professor of law at the State University of Rio de Janeiro. 'A woman seeking an abortion recounts the situation to a multi-disciplinary team at the healthcare clinic and, in theory, that should be enough.' In practice, however, advocates, activists and health experts say women encounter significant barriers to ending a pregnancy even under the limited conditions provided for by the law. This is due to factors including lack of facilities, disparities between clinic protocols and even resistance from medical personnel. 'Healthcare professionals, citing religious or moral convictions, often refuse to provide legal abortions, even when working in clinics authorized to perform them,' said Carla de Castro Gomes, a sociologist who studies abortion and associate researcher at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. Women in Brazil also face geographical barriers to legal abortions. Only 290 facilities in a mere 3.6% of municipalities around the country of approximately 213 million people provide the service, according to a 2021 study from scientific journal Reports in Public Health. In June 2022, four nonprofits filed a legal challenge with the Supreme Court, arguing that restrictions on abortion access violate women's constitutional rights. The case is currently under review. A 35-year-old cashier from a small city in the interior of Rio de Janeiro state also said she became pregnant as a result of a rape. But, unlike the woman in Brasilia, she chose to pursue an abortion through legal means, fearing the risks that come with a clandestine procedure. Although Brazil's Health Ministry mandates that, in the case of a pregnancy resulting from rape, healthcare professionals must present women with their rights and support them in their decision, the woman said a hospital committee refused to terminate the pregnancy. They claimed she was too far along, despite Brazilian law not stipulating a time limit for such procedures. She eventually found help through the Sao Paulo-based Women Alive Project, a nonprofit specializing in helping victims of sexual violence access legal abortions. The organization helped her locate a hospital in another state, an 18-hour drive, willing to carry out the procedure. Thanks to a fundraising campaign, the woman was able to travel and undergo the operation at 30 weeks of pregnancy in late April. 'We are already victims of violence and are forced to suffer even more,' she said in a phone interview. 'It's a right guaranteed by law, but unfortunately still seen as taboo.' Brazil's abortion laws are among the most constrictive in Latin America, where several countries — including Mexico, Argentina and Colombia — have enacted sweeping reforms to legalize or broadly decriminalize abortion. This legislative environment is exacerbated by a political landscape in which far-right politicians, supported by Catholic and Evangelical voters who make up a majority in the country, regularly seek to further restrict the limited provisions within the country's penal code. In 2020, the government of far-right former President Jair Bolsonaro issued an ordinance requiring doctors to report rape victims seeking abortions to the police. Current President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva revoked the measure in his first month in office in 2023. But the measure left lasting effects. 'These changes end up generating a lot of legal uncertainty among health professionals, who fear prosecution for performing legal abortions,' Castro Gomes said. Last year, conservative lawmaker Sóstenes Cavalcante proposed a bill to equate the termination of a pregnancy after 22 weeks with homicide, sparking widespread protests by feminist groups across Brazil. The protests ultimately led to the proposal being shelved. But in November, a committee of the Chamber of Deputies approved a proposed constitutional amendment that would effectively outlaw all abortions by determining the 'inviolability of the right to life from conception.' The bill is currently on hold, awaiting the formation of a commission. Earlier this month, Rio Mayor Eduardo Paes, a Lula ally, came under fire after sanctioning a bill mandating anti-abortion messages on posters in municipal hospitals and other health establishments. Advocates say access to abortion highlights significant disparities: women with financial means dodge legal restrictions by traveling abroad for the procedure, while children, poor women and Black women face greater obstacles. According to the Brazilian Forum on Public Safety, 61.6% of the 83,988 rape victims in 2023 were under the age of 14. A statistical analysis that year by investigative outlet The Intercept estimated less than 4% of girls aged 10 to 14 who became pregnant as a result of rape accessed a legal abortion between 2015 and 2020. In Rio de Janeiro's Mare favela, one of the city's largest low-income communities, the nonprofit Networks of Mare's House of Women provides women with information regarding their reproductive rights, including legal provisions for abortions. It was there, during a recent workshop, that Karina Braga de Souza, a 41-year-old mother of five, found out abortion is legal in certain cases in Brazil. 'We don't have access (to information). Doctors don't tell you,' she said. Feminist groups in Brazil are campaigning at a federal level for enhanced access to legal abortion services. Last year, 'A Child Is Not a Mother,' a campaign by feminist groups, successfully advocated for the National Council for the Rights of Children and Adolescents to adopt a resolution detailing how to handle cases of pregnant child rape victims. The body, jointly made up of government ministries and civil society organizations, approved the resolution by a slim majority in December. Brazilian activists also are seeking to improve access to abortion by forging links with organizations abroad. In May, members of feminist groups in Brazil including Neither in Prison, Nor Dead and Criola met with a delegation of mostly Black U.S. state legislators. The meeting, organized by the Washington, D.C.-based Women's Equality Center, aimed to foster collaboration on strategies to defend reproductive rights, especially in light of the U.S. Supreme Court 2022 decision to strip away the constitutional right to abortion. In the meantime, the consequences for women who struggle to access their rights run deep. The woman in Brasilia who underwent an abortion at home said she is coping thanks to therapy and the support of other women, but has been traumatized by recent events. By being denied access to a legal abortion, 'our bodies feel much more pain than they should,' she said. 'Whenever I remember, I feel very angry.' Hughes writes for the Associated Press.
a day ago
- Health
'I was terrified I was going to die.' Rape victims in Brazil struggle to access legal abortions
RIO DE JANEIRO -- A 27-year-old Brazilian woman, who said she became pregnant after being raped in March during Carnival in Brasilia, should have been granted access to a legal abortion. But when she sought to terminate the pregnancy at a hospital around a month later, she was told she needed a police report to access the service, despite it not being a legal requirement. She decided to abort at home with medication she bought on the black market, with only a few friends on site to help. 'I fainted several times because of the pain. I was terrified I was going to die,' she said. The Associated Press does not identify people without their permission if they say they have been sexually assaulted. In Brazil, abortion is legally restricted to cases of rape, life-threatening risks to the pregnant woman or if the fetus has no functioning brain. Theoretically, when a pregnancy results from sexual violence, the victim's word should suffice for access to the procedure. 'The law doesn't require judicial authorization or anything like that,' explained Ivanilda Figueiredo, a professor of law at the State University of Rio de Janeiro. 'A woman seeking an abortion recounts the situation to a multi-disciplinary team at the healthcare clinic and, in theory, that should be enough.' In practice, however, advocates, activists and health experts say women encounter significant barriers to ending a pregnancy even under the limited conditions provided for by the law. This is due to factors including lack of facilities, disparities between clinic protocols and even resistance from medical personnel. 'Healthcare professionals, citing religious or moral convictions, often refuse to provide legal abortions, even when working in clinics authorized to perform them,' said Carla de Castro Gomes, a sociologist who studies abortion and associate researcher at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. Women in Brazil also face geographical barriers to legal abortions. Only 290 facilities in a mere 3.6% of municipalities around the country of approximately 213 million people provide the service, according to a 2021 study from scientific journal Reports in Public Health. In June 2022, four nonprofits filed a legal challenge with the Supreme Court, arguing that restrictions on abortion access violate women's constitutional rights. The case is currently under review. A 35-year-old cashier from a small city in the interior of Rio de Janeiro state also said she became pregnant as a result of a rape. But, unlike the woman in Brasilia, she chose to pursue an abortion through legal means, fearing the risks that come with a clandestine procedure. Although Brazil's Health Ministry mandates that, in the case of a pregnancy resulting from rape, healthcare professionals must present women with their rights and support them in their decision, the woman said a hospital committee refused to terminate the pregnancy. They claimed she was too far along, despite Brazilian law not stipulating a time limit for such procedures. She eventually found help through the Sao Paulo-based Women Alive Project, a nonprofit specializing in helping victims of sexual violence access legal abortions. The organization helped her locate a hospital in another state, an 18-hour drive, willing to carry out the procedure. Thanks to a fundraising campaign, the woman was able to travel and undergo the operation at 30 weeks of pregnancy in late April. 'We are already victims of violence and are forced to suffer even more,' she said in a phone interview. 'It's a right guaranteed by law, but unfortunately still seen as taboo.' Brazil's abortion laws are among the most constrictive in Latin America, where several countries — including Mexico, Argentina and Colombia — have enacted sweeping reforms to legalize or broadly decriminalize abortion. This legislative environment is exacerbated by a political landscape in which far-right politicians, supported by Catholic and Evangelical voters who make up a majority in the country, regularly seek to further restrict the limited provisions within the country's penal code. In 2020, the government of far-right former President Jair Bolsonaro issued an ordinance requiring doctors to report rape victims seeking abortions to the police. Current President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva revoked the measure in his first month in office in 2023. But the measure left lasting effects. 'These changes end up generating a lot of legal uncertainty among health professionals, who fear prosecution for performing legal abortions,' Castro Gomes said. Last year, conservative lawmaker Sóstenes Cavalcante proposed a bill to equate the termination of a pregnancy after 22 weeks with homicide, sparking widespread protests by feminist groups across Brazil. The protests ultimately led to the proposal being shelved. But in November, a committee of the Chamber of Deputies approved a proposed constitutional amendment that would effectively outlaw all abortions by determining the 'inviolability of the right to life from conception.' The bill is currently on hold, awaiting the formation of a commission. Earlier this month, Rio Mayor Eduardo Paes, a Lula ally, came under fire after sanctioning a bill mandating anti-abortion messages on posters in municipal hospitals and other health establishments. Advocates say access to abortion highlights significant disparities: women with financial means dodge legal restrictions by traveling abroad for the procedure, while children, poor women and Black women face greater obstacles. According to the Brazilian Forum on Public Safety, 61.6% of the 83,988 rape victims in 2023 were under the age of 14. A statistical analysis that year by investigative outlet The Intercept estimated less than 4% of girls aged 10 to 14 who became pregnant as a result of rape accessed a legal abortion between 2015 and 2020. In Rio de Janeiro's Mare favela, one of the city's largest low-income communities, the nonprofit Networks of Mare's House of Women provides women with information regarding their reproductive rights, including legal provisions for abortions. It was there, during a recent workshop, that Karina Braga de Souza, a 41-year-old mother of five, found out abortion is legal in certain cases in Brazil. 'We don't have access (to information). Doctors don't tell you,' she said. Feminist groups in Brazil are campaigning at a federal level for enhanced access to legal abortion services. Last year, 'A Child Is Not a Mother,' a campaign by feminist groups, successfully advocated for the National Council for the Rights of Children and Adolescents to adopt a resolution detailing how to handle cases of pregnant child rape victims. The body, jointly made up of government ministries and civil society organizations, approved the resolution by a slim majority in December. Brazilian activists also are seeking to improve access to abortion by forging links with organizations abroad. In May, members of feminist groups in Brazil including Neither in Prison, Nor Dead and Criola met with a delegation of mostly Black U.S. state legislators. The meeting, organized by the Washington, D.C.-based Women's Equality Center, aimed to foster collaboration on strategies to defend reproductive rights, especially in light of the U.S. Supreme Court 2022 decision to strip away the constitutional right to abortion. In the meantime, the consequences for women who struggle to access their rights run deep. The woman in Brasilia who underwent an abortion at home said she is coping thanks to therapy and the support of other women, but has been traumatized by recent events. By being denied access to a legal abortion, 'our bodies feel much more pain than they should,' she said. 'Whenever I remember, I feel very angry.'
The Journal
5 days ago
- Health
- The Journal
Debunked: A study into music's effect on cells doesn't show Beethoven's 5th can 'fight cancer'
A SPURIOUS CLAIM that music can be used to fight cancer has repeatedly gone viral online over the course of more than a decade. There have been real studies on the effects of sound and music on cancer. However, the viral posts vastly overstate the findings, including adding fictional details unsupported by studies. 'Music might do more than move our souls—it could help fight cancer,' one 8 June Facebook post read. 'Scientists found that Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 destroyed 20% of cancer cells in lab tests, while leaving healthy cells untouched. 'Another piece, Ligeti's 'Atmosphères,' showed similar effects, hinting that certain compositions might carry healing powers science is just starting to explore. 'Dr. Márcia Alves Marques Capella and her team in Rio de Janeiro are expanding their research, testing rhythms like Samba and Funk to find nature's own soundtrack for healing.' This post has been viewed more than a thousand times. Dr. Márcia Alves Marques Capella is an Associate Professor at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro and has researched the effects of music on cancer cell samples. However, she has explicitly stated that her research did not provide the 20% figure, nor did it indicate music could fight cancer in people, nor has her research shown that music leaves 'healthy cells untouched'. The story likely originated in a 2011 interview with Capella in the Brazilian newspaper O Globo. That story about Capella's research into music's effects on cancer is more accurate than later social media posts, noting that the cancer cells were lab-grown on Petri dishes, not in humans or lab animals. The article makes no mention of healthy cells remaining intact. However, it does contain the claim about one fifth of the cancer cells dying. It also mentions plans to test the effect of samba and funk on cancer cells — tests that never went ahead and that the researcher interviewed by O Globo says had never been planned. The scientific papers based on the work of Capella and other researchers were published in 2013 and 2016 , and are available online. Advertisement The series of experiments described in the 2013 paper involved exposing samples of a human breast cancer cell line to the first movement of one of three compositions: Mozart's Sonata for Two Pianos in D major, KV. 448; Beethoven's 5th Symphony; and Ligeti's Atmosphères. Additional control samples were exposed only to silence — some in an incubator chamber with plugged in speakers playing nothing, and others without any speaker. After multiple repetitions of the experiment, the researchers concluded that some compositions disrupted the cells' cycles and markers for DNA degradation were recorded, 'suggesting an increase in cell death'. The Mozart composition and the control groups did not show these results. The second experiment looked at a second breast cancer cell line, and more definitively demonstrated that certain compositions induced cell death. Other types of cells tested, including two leukaemia cell lines, were unaffected. The researchers were unsure of how the music caused cell death in the affected cell lines, though hypothesised the sound may have caused a specific mechanical vibration. The paper ends by noting they planned longer observations 'to understand the properties observed by music intervention to people with disease.' Neither paper gives a 20% figure for cell death. And the only mention of any intact healthy cells was MDCK, a line of dog kidney cells which were tested but showed no change. Neither study suggested the results showed music should be used a method to treat cancer in actual patients, and in an email to Snopes , Capella said that the experiments she performed on cell lines in petri dishes 'could not be extended to human beings'. She also noted that their methods did not allow them to quantify cell death, and as such the 20% figure spread online was not based on real research. The effect of sounds or music on cells, including cancer cells, is a real subject of scientific study. And the research carried out by Capella has shown compelling results. However, claims that music can fight cancer are not supported by scientific evidence and can be potentially dangerous if they dissuade patients from taking conventional therapies. Such exaggerated claims are often shared in alternative medicine circles to show that 'frequencies' or 'vibrations' can be used as medicine, or that cures for cancer are known, but ignored or suppressed. Want to be your own fact-checker? Visit our brand-new FactCheck Knowledge Bank for guides and toolkits The Journal's FactCheck is a signatory to the International Fact-Checking Network's Code of Principles. You can read it here . For information on how FactCheck works, what the verdicts mean, and how you can take part, check out our Reader's Guide here . You can read about the team of editors and reporters who work on the factchecks here . Readers like you are keeping these stories free for everyone... It is vital that we surface facts from noise. Articles like this one brings you clarity, transparency and balance so you can make well-informed decisions. We set up FactCheck in 2016 to proactively expose false or misleading information, but to continue to deliver on this mission we need your support. Over 5,000 readers like you support us. If you can, please consider setting up a monthly payment or making a once-off donation to keep news free to everyone. Learn More Support The Journal
Yahoo
29-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Scientists Discover Molecule That Blocks Aging And Dementia in Mice
Scientists are looking at ways to tackle Alzheimer's and dementia from all kinds of angles, and a new study has identified the molecule hevin (or SPARCL-1) as a potential way of preventing cognitive decline. Hevin is a protein naturally produced in the brain by cells called astrocytes. These support-worker cells look after the connections or synapses between neurons, and it's thought that hevin plays a role in this essential work. In this new study, researchers from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) and the University of São Paulo in Brazil boosted hevin production in the brains of both healthy mice and those with an Alzheimer's-like disease. That hevin overload worked wonders: over six months of testing, the treated mice demonstrated better memory and learning capability than untreated animals, while brain scans showed improved neuron communication across synapses. "Hevin is a well-known molecule involved in neural plasticity," says neurobiologist Flávia Alcantara Gomes from UFRJ. "We found that the overproduction of hevin is capable of reversing cognitive deficits in aged animals by improving the quality of synapses in these rodents." Further analysis showed that the additional hevin in the mouse brains was triggering the production of other proteins related to synapse health. It seems hevin isn't working alone when it comes to maintaining neuron connectivity. The research team also looked at the wider context, digging into publicly available health data to find that hevin levels in the brains of Alzheimer's patients were lower than normal. That suggests hevin and astrocytes do have a role to play in the disease. "The originality lies in understanding the role of the astrocyte in this process," says Gomes. "We've taken the focus away from neurons, shedding light on the role of astrocytes, which we've shown could also be a target for new treatment strategies for Alzheimer's disease and cognitive impairment." It will take a significant amount of time to go from lab tests in mice to actual treatments that people with dementia are able to take, of course, but it's a promising start – and eventually, treatments based on these findings could complement other drugs. Many of the treatments currently being explored for Alzheimer's look to tackle the toxic protein clumps that build up in the brain, but those protein bundles aren't targeted by hevin. In fact, the new research showed hevin had no impact on plaque build-up, which could support the emerging idea that they aren't a 'cause'. "Although there's still no consensus among researchers, I work with the hypothesis that the formation of beta-amyloid plaques isn't the cause of Alzheimer's," says Felipe Cabral-Miranda, biomedical scientist at UFRJ. "And the results of the study, by providing proof of concept for a molecule that can reverse cognitive decline without affecting beta-amyloid plaques, support the hypothesis that these, although involved in the mechanisms of the pathology, aren't enough to cause Alzheimer's." It's a complex picture, and while we're still not sure how Alzheimer's disease gets started in the brain, it's probable that numerous factors are involved. That means any potential treatment or prevention is going to need to be complex as well. "Of course, in the future it'll be possible to develop drugs that have the same effect as hevin," says Gomes. "For now, however, the fundamental benefit of this work is a deeper understanding of the cellular and molecular mechanisms of Alzheimer's disease and the aging process." The research has been published in Aging Cell. Your Coffee May Not Even Need Caffeine to Wake You Up Your Stress Could Be a Hidden Trigger For Future Dementia Over 2 Million Americans Went 'Missing' During 2020 And 2021
