Nigeria gets antidote for baby poison. After Nigerian babies died from taking tainted teething syrup, medical officials flew in 100 doses of an antidote, reports the BBC. The syrup, called “My Pikin,” has caused at least 34 children to die from kidney failure. Some insist the number could be higher since not all parents can take their children to the hospital. Authorities have taken 425 bottles of the syrup from stores Nov. 21, just a couple of days after getting reports it might by tainted. The syrup contained diethylene glycol, a toxic ingredient used in engine coolant. The syrup manufacturer has since been shut down by the government. The antidote is being flown in from the United Kingdom and should arrive in Nigeria by Thursday.

Haiti must protect girls, rights group says. The government of Haiti should do more to protect the safety and wellbeing of girls, according to a report by the human rights group Amnesty International, reports the BBC. The Caribbean island nation (the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere) has many problems, including hunger, governmental instability and crime. “[Haiti's government] is trying to strengthen development, good governance and the rule of law – none of which could be fully achieved without the protection of girls’ and women’s rights,” Gerardo Ducos, Amnesty’s Caribbean researcher said. According to the report, titled “Don’t turn your back on girls: Sexual violence against girls in Haiti,” the country doesn’t have any laws on the books specifically against domestic violence. Within the first half of this year (between January and June) there were 105 reported rapes, with more than half of the victims under 18, the report says. The problem could be worse, since the county are short of figures, it says. The Minors’ Protection Brigade, the unit in charge of safeguarding youngsters, is “woefully understaffed.” The report also described the justice system as being “weak and largely ineffectual” in its response to the crimes. “Sexual violence against girls, particularly rape, is pervasive in Haiti, and it can no longer be ignored,” Ducos said.

The study did not look into the behavior of young White females.

Black girls who smoke pot are far more likely to take sexual risks and to contract sexually transmitted diseases than non-weed-smokers, according to a new study that examines the behavior of young African-American females. Girls who took marijuana had significantly higher rates of STDs than non-marijuana users (32 percent compared to 23 percent), Emory University researchers found after studying marijuana use and self-reported sexual behavior of 439 sexually active African-American females between the ages of 15 and 21. Marijuana users also had more sex partners, riskier sex partners, including a partner just released from jail, and more recent episodes of engaging in vaginal sex, compared to those who did not use marijuana, the study found. “While adolescent African-American females remain a high-risk group for STDs, little research has examined their marijuana use, sexual behaviors and incidence of STD infection,” said study co-author Ralph DiClemente, professor of public health at Emory’s Rollins School of Public Health. “Although no differences in condom use were identified between marijuana users and non-users, results suggest that marijuana users are engaging in sexual acts with riskier partners and under riskier circumstances, and had higher rates of STDs,” DiClemente said. DiClemente and his team did not compare the behavior of Black girls’ using marijuana against White girls or girls of other ethnic groups. However, they recommend STD- and HIV-intervention programs designed for adolescent African-American females that promote condom use as well as emphasize the risks of drug use and STD and HIV infection. These findings are being presented at the International AIDS Conference meeting now in Mexico City.

Deceased mom of rap star is object of foreclosure effort.

Northern Trust Bank is asking for $606,983.43 cents to prevent the foreclosure of rapper Kanye West’s late mother’s L.A. home. Donda West died last year of complications from cosmetic surgery. Her estate matters have been handled by the rapper, but he has not commented on the alleged bank debt. A former Chicago professor, Donda West also doubled as Kanye’s business associate.

King mag lists worst model-turned-actress gigs.

Oscar win aside, Halle Berry has a worst performance of all time, according to King magazine. Berry is named as the top offender on the publication’s list of most dreadful model-turned-actress film showings for her role in Gothika. Following Berry were Garcelle Beauvais for her part in Wild, Wild West and Tyra Banks for Coyote Ugly. Cameron Diaz (Any Given Sunday) and Cindy Crawford (Fair Game) also made the unfortunate top five.

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Singer’s appearance blocked by show’s postponement. It may be a while before India.Arie fans see the singer on stage after a financial backer has reportedly pulled out of the production “For Colored Girls Who Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf.” Arie was slated to act in the popular Ntozake Shange “choreopoem.” But the production is on hold indefinitely.

Keeping Kenyan girls in school helps reduce HIV.

Reducing the school dropout rate for girls in Kenya and providing adequate HIV/AIDS and sex education could reduce HIV incidence in the country, experts said recently. “Young people do not have the information they need, and the dropout rate, particularly for girls, is still too high,” Rosemarie Muganda-Onyando, executive director of the Centre for the Study of Adolescence in Nairobi, Kenya, told IRIN News. “Dropping out of school ensures a life of poverty for these girls, and many of them also wind up HIV-positive because the male-female power dynamics become even more slanted against them.” In 2003, Kenya introduced no-cost primary school education, but an estimated 1 million school-age children still are not attending school. In addition, up to 13,000 Kenyan girls drop out of school annually as a result of pregnancy, and about 17 percent of girls have had sex before age 15. HIV prevalence among Kenyan women between ages 15 and 24 is about 5 percent, compared with 1 percent for their male counterparts, IRIN News reports. According to the Kenya Demographic and Health Survey of 2004, educated girls were less likely to marry early and more likely to practice family planning. In addition, their children had a higher survival rate. UNICEF also found that uneducated girls are more likely to contract HIV, compared with girls who have had some schooling.

The U.N. extended its Darfur peacekeeping mission. The Security Council on Thursday extended by one year the mandate of the joint United Nations-African Union (AU) peacekeeping mission in the strife-torn western Sudanese region of Darfur. With 14 votes in favor and an abstention by the United States, a resolution was adopted to extend the mission known as UNAMID – which was authorized by the Council exactly one year ago – for another 12 months to 31 July 2009. The current mandate expired Thursday night. “The United States abstained because language added to the resolution would send the wrong signal to Sudanese President [Omar al-] Bashir” and undermine efforts to bring him to justice, U.S. Ambassador Alejandro D. Wolff told the 15-member panel after the vote. Earlier this month, Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo of the International Criminal Court (ICC) announced that he is seeking an arrest warrant for Mr. Bashir for “criminal responsibility in relation to 10 counts of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.” Since taking over from an AU peace-monitoring mission at the start of this year, UNAMID has just under 10,000 uniformed personnel in place, far short of the approximately 26,000 troops and police officers expected when the force reaches full deployment. A report by a group of non-governmental organizations this week found that the peacekeeping mission faces critical shortages in troops, other personnel, helicopters, equipment and logistics. The report indicates that there are not enough troops, helicopters or other equipment for the force to be effective.

More Americans are going deaf
One of three U.S. adults already suffers from some degree of hearing loss, experts said on Monday. The use of personal stereos and an aging population may create a hearing impairment epidemic, a new study shows. A team at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore estimated that 55 million Americans have hearing loss in one or both ears, with men, Whites and the least-educated most affected, the researchers said. One out of six – or 29 million adults – has some trouble discerning speech, more than previous estimates, they reported in the Archives of Internal Medicine. “The prevalence of hearing loss in the United States is predicted to rise significantly because of an aging population and the growing use of personal listening devices. Indeed, there is concern that we may be facing an epidemic of hearing impairment,” Dr. Yuri Agrawal of the Baltimore hospital wrote. It is normal for people to ignore or disavow hearing loss, the researchers said, leading to difficulty communicating that can result in productivity problems at work, depression, and less access to health care that ultimately raises the risk of sickness and death. Hearing loss affected 8.5 percent of those in their 20s and 17 percent of people in their 30s. Exposure to workplace noise, firearms and loud music were all risk factors.

You need 55 minutes a day to lose weight permanently
Obese and overweight women need to cut calories and exercise 275 minutes a week more than their baseline physical activity – or at least 55 minutes a day, five days a week to lose weight and keep it off , a new study says. The research was led by John M. Jakicic, Ph.D., of the University of Pittsburgh, and colleagues. They tracked 201 overweight and obese women over a two-year period; 170 women completed the study. At the start, all of the participants were sedentary. They were randomly assigned to one of four groups based on how much and how intensely they exercised and how many calories they burned. The participants were told to eat or drink no more than 1,200 to 1,500 calories a day. Researchers tracked them by talking to them on the phone and having face-to-face talks. Participants were encouraged to spread the exercise out over five days during a week, done in at least 10-minute chunks. The women were given treadmills to use at home and taught to monitor their own heart rates. At the end of the two-year study, women who had lost 10 percent or more of their initial body weight reported that they had done more physical activity, compared with those who did not lose as much weight. After six months, women in all four groups had lost an average of 8 percent to 10 percent of their initial body weight. But the hard part was keeping that weight off. Most of them regained the weight. Nearly 25 percent of the participants managed to keep 10 percent or more of their original body weight off over the two years. Those women exercised about 275 minutes a week more over their baseline activity levels.

Will Michelle Obama’s image help young Black girls?
Vital Signs: She’s been called unamerican, an “angry Black woman,” the “b” word and worse. But is the criticism of Michelle Obama, whose worked to soften her image, hurt or help how young girls see themselves and what they can accomplish? Read more at Vital Signs.

Black girls are reaching puberty earlier
There’s new evidence that girls might be reaching puberty, and developing breasts and pubic hair, much earlier than ever. Dr. Paul Kaplowitz of the Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, D.C., has suggested that genetic differences between Blacks and Whites may explain early puberty in Black girls. Until 10 years ago, breast development at age 8 was considered an abnormal event that should be investigated by an endocrinologist. Then a landmark study in the April 1997 issue of the journal Pediatrics, written by Marcia Herman-Giddens, adjunct professor at the School of Public Health at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, found that among 17,000 girls in North Carolina, almost half of Blacks and 15 percent of Whites had begun breast development by age 8. Two years later, the society suggested changing what it considered medically normal. Kaplowitz suggests that the genes involved in insulin resistance, which occurs more often in Black Americans, may predispose Black girls to earlier puberty by affecting their hormone levels. However, other doctors have suggested that the dramatic rise in childhood obesity has contributed to earlier puberty. Research shows that being overweight increases estrogen in girls and estrogen is the chief trigger for breast budding. But Dr. Sandra Steingraber, author of the Breast Cancer Fund’s comprehensive 2007 report “The Falling Age of Puberty in U.S. Girls” considers early puberty to be “an ecological disorder” resulting from a complex web of environmental influences, reports New America Media. Pollutants, plastics and chemicals may be the hidden causes of early puberty in girls, and Black girls seem to be more vulnerable. While early menstruation is a known risk factor for breast cancer, no one knows what earlier breast development means for the future of girls’ health. “We’re not backing up all events in puberty,” Steingraber says. “We’re backing up the starting point.” Earlier breast development is now so typical that the Lawson Wilkins Pediatric Endocrine Society urged changing the definition of “normal” development. The new “8″ – the medically suggested definition for abnormally early breast development – is 7 for White girls and 6 for Black girls, the society says.

Viagra being considered for women
The drug that turned around the sex lives of many older men has also proved to help women on antidepressants who experience sexual dysfunction. The eight-week, small-scale study found that Viagra, also known as sildenafil, helped women achieve orgasm. “In this study population, sildenafil treatment of sexual dysfunction in women taking SRIs was associated with a reduction in adverse sexual effects,” the study’s authors wrote. Results of the study are in the July 23/30 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.