Sugarcane Burning in Thailand, Eliminating a Vision-Robbing Disease, and Stories of Indigenous Guardianship
Sugarcane Burning in Thailand, Eliminating a Vision-Robbing Disease, and Stories of Indigenous Guardianship
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January 16, 2025 
Better health begins with ideas
Editors' Note Greetings on this first Friday in February. We hope you've had a productive, healthy, and safe week.
Fires from agricultural burning are the world's largest source of black carbon, an ingredient in air pollution that harms human health and accelerates climate change. Our first author looks at the burning of sugarcane and other types of crops in Thailand and Southeast Asia and the complexity behind efforts to reduce the practice. Our second piece is an eloquent discussion on the concept of vaccine hesitancy. An article on trachoma, a sight-robbing eye disease, looks at Gambia's successful approach to eliminating it. Commentary on noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) suggests that the pandemic and climate change will continue to deepen foreign policy disinterest in NCDs. And the latest in our Culture Friday series features Seedcast, a podcast produced by Nia Tero, which launches its second season this week and amplifies stories about indigenous guardianship around the world.
As always, thank you for reading. —Thomas J. Bollyky and Mary Brophy Marcus, Editors
This Week's Highlights 
by Danny Marks Agricultural burning is causing dangerously high air pollution levels, but stopping it is complicated
by Kyle Knight and Harris Solomon 
by Agatha Aboe and Niesha Foster
Stat of the Week Two Years Research suggests that severe air pollution reduces average life expectancy by two years in Thailand
Recommended Feature
by David P. Fidler
Culture Friday Feature
by Mary Brophy Marcus
What We're Reading The COVID-19 Pandemic and China's Global Health Leadership (Council on Foreign Relations)
Pandemic Preparedness and COVID-19 (Lancet)
Huge Volumes of COVID-19 Hospital Waste Threaten Health (Reuters)
Illegal Gold Mining Causing Record Mercury Levels in Peruvian Rainforests (CBS News)
There Will Be Another Variant. Here's What the World Can Do Now. (New York Times)
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