Gratitude ceremonies give students and faculty members a chance to recognize the sacrifice of those who gave their bodies for medical research and education, and the loved ones they left behind.A solemn gathering at Columbia University last month had the trappings of a traditional memorial service. Students and faculty members performed music and gave speeches. The university’s chaplain closed the ceremony with a reflection.But there was one key difference: No one in the room had ever met the people whose lives were being honored. The attendees were all students and faculty members at Columbia’s medical school, and they were gathered to show gratitude for the people who had donated their bodies for the students to study in the anatomy lab.“Who were they before?” said Bree Zhang, a first-year dental student. “A parent, a child, a co-worker, a friend? What books did they read? How is their family doing now, and do they know how much their loved one has given me and the rest of us?”Similar scenes played out across the country this spring as medical, dental and physical therapy students assembled to offer tributes to whole-body donors and their families. At the ceremonies, students perform music, light candles, read letters and share art. (A heart diagram from Ms. Zhang’s anatomy studies, overlaid with her whimsical drawings of books, tree roots and human figures, was projected behind her as she spoke at Columbia.) A nondenominational spiritual leader often plays a role. Sometimes a tree designation or an offering of flowers to a donor’s family, is included.Bree Zhang, a first-year dental student at Columbia, spoke at the ceremony and shared artwork inspired by her experience in the anatomy lab.Diana Cervantes for The New York TimesIt is not clear how many people in the United States donate their bodies for medical research and education, though estimates suggest that about 20,000 people or their families do so each year. Criteria vary by program and by state; generally anyone over 18 can become a donor, though people with certain transmissible diseases, such as hepatitis B or C, tuberculosis, H.I.V. or AIDS, are typically excluded. Many programs also exclude bodies that have been autopsied or have had organs removed for donation.Even with the introduction of elaborate 3-D visualization software, dissection remains a cornerstone of a medical education for most first-year students, as it has for centuries. Students spend months methodically studying the structures of the body, including organs, tendons, veins and tissue. The experience teaches more than the foundations of medicine. Treating the donor, who is viewed as a doctor’s first patient, with respect and care gives students a grounding in ethics and professionalism, said Joy Balta, the chair of the American Association for Anatomy’s human body donation committee.Recognizing a sacrificeBody donation is a selfless act by the donors, as well as by their families, who can wait as long as a couple of years to receive the ashes. The memorials, often called ceremonies of appreciation or gratitude, recognize the sacrifice.“You’re able to think about the donor that you’ve been working with,” said Dr. Balta, who is also the director of the Anatomy Learning Institute at Point Loma Nazarene University in San Diego. “These are people,” he added, “that donated their bodies, that wanted you to work with them to improve science and health care.”The Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia began hosting a donor gratitude ceremony in the late 1970s as a way of marking an experience that “is very difficult for some students and really transformative,” said Paulette Bernd, who runs the school’s clinical gross anatomy course.Georgetown University medical students, from left, Justine Mann, Lauren Bierman and Jacqueline Antonishek, with a donor body in an anatomy lab in 2011.Bill O’Leary/The Washington Post via Getty ImagesRelatives of the donors are invited to the events at some schools. At others, the ceremonies are only for students and faculty members, an extension of the anonymity that is provided to the donors in the lab. At Brown University, for instance, only a donor’s age, cause of death, marital status and occupation are shared with students, and the donor’s hands and faces are covered for much of the process.“The bodies go through this whole process of being de-identified,” said Nidhi Bhaskar, a first-year medical student who helped coordinate a gratitude ceremony at Brown this month. “And this is a really great way to re-humanize them. We take into account the very real gift they left, and the family members who are still processing their loss.”The anatomy lab can be a fraught experience for medical students, for whom “it may be their first experience where they’re dealing with death and dying,” said Dr. Daniel Topping, a clinical associate professor in the department of anatomy and cell biology at the University of Florida College of Medicine.Abby Carey-Ewend, a second-year student at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, remembers being incredibly nervous about it.“But when I started it,” she said, “I realized that it was really a phenomenal opportunity to be able to work with three other students and one donor, and to really learn the intricacies of the human body from something beyond a textbook or videos.”Ms. Carey-Ewend helped plan the appreciation ceremony for her medical program, which was held in April. A priority, she said, was acquainting family members of the donors with the campus community and the students their loved ones had helped educate.‘I knew she was helping somebody.’Among the guests at the ceremony at Washington University was Regina Dunn. When her mother, Louise Dunn, died in July at 90, she was too distraught to plan a funeral. The donor remembrance was Louise Dunn’s first memorial service, she said.“They just made you feel so comfortable,” Regina Dunn said of the students. “And a lot of people wanted that closure.”Louise Dunn, who opened a modeling school for women of color in St. Louis in 1960, was driven throughout her life by a desire to help people, her daughter said. So it was not surprising that she wanted to continue to help others after her death, Ms. Dunn said, even if some of her survivors had to overcome a degree of apprehension over her decision to donate her body to science.Medical students paying their respects to body donors at Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, China, in 2018.Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesRegina Dunn said that a Black student told a friend who accompanied her to the ceremony that having a Black donor in the lab, when most donors are white, had a profound impact.“I felt honored, I really did,” Ms. Dunn said, “because I knew she was helping somebody.”For the family of Michael Haas, who donated his body to the Indiana University School of Medicine, a gratitude ceremony last month was a full-circle moment in several ways.It was held on April 16, four days before the anniversary of Mr. Haas’s death, his wife, Molly Haas, said. The ceremony was held on the university’s campus in Bloomington, Ind., where the couple were engaged in 1970. The families received white and red carnations; Ms. Haas recalled that her husband always bought her red carnations.Both decided to donate their bodies in 2012, around the time that the symptoms of Mr. Haas’s Alzheimer’s disease began to show. For Mr. Haas, a former social worker and Episcopal priest, becoming a whole-body donor was a way of extending a lifelong mission of service, his wife said.“His values, his ethics were always very generous,” Ms. Haas said.‘A great sense of gratitude’The appreciation ceremonies are typically planned by students, but they also give the faculty members who run the anatomy labs a way of processing their relationships with the people who donate their bodies for medical education.“I feel a great sense of gratitude and responsibility and honor every time I’m around a donor,” said Dr. Topping, of the University of Florida. “It’s a very sacred thing for me.”When the Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra University, on Long Island, made its gratitude ceremony a virtual event during the coronavirus pandemic, it allowed donor relatives from across the country and around the world to participate, said Robert Hill, an associate professor. In 2020, relatives of one donor logged on from India, he said.The Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia has been hosting donor gratitude ceremonies since the 1970s, said Paulette Bernd, who runs the school’s clinical gross anatomy course.Diana Cervantes for The New York Times“It’s a way of bringing closure to their shared journey,” he said. “Our students are on an educational journey, and our donor families are navigating the world without their loved one.”Nirusha Lachman, the chair of the department of clinical anatomy at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science, attended her first gratitude ceremony about 40 years ago when she was a student in South Africa, and she has since spoken at several.The gatherings, she said, serve to drive home the point that donors live on through the education that their bodies have provided.“You want this to resonate, even with the families,” Dr. Lachman said, “that death was not the end for their loved ones.”

Continued consumption doesn’t reduce weight and could increase the risk of Type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and mortality in adults, the W.H.O. said on Monday.The World Health Organization on Monday warned against using artificial sweeteners to control body weight or reduce the risk of noncommunicable diseases, saying that long-term use is not effective and could pose health risks.These alternatives to sugar, when consumed long term, do not serve to reduce body fat in either adults or children, the W.H.O. said in a recommendation, adding that continued consumption could increase the risk of Type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and mortality in adults.“The recommendation applies to all people except individuals with pre-existing diabetes and includes all synthetic and naturally occurring or modified nonnutritive sweeteners that are not classified as sugars found in manufactured foods and beverages, or sold on their own to be added to foods and beverages by consumers,” the W.H.O. said.The W.H.O. recommendation is based on a review of available evidence, the agency said, and is part of a set of guidelines for healthy diets being rolled out.Some examples of the sweeteners include aspartame, saccharin, sucralose and stevia. The W.H.O.’s announcement contradicts previous studies that have said these sweeteners don’t offer any health benefits but also do not cause harm.Nutrition research is constantly evolving and findings are being updated with stronger data, said Stephanie McBurnett, a registered dietitian and nutrition educator with the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. Examining the effects of saturated fats and other parts of people’s diets may provide more insight into the overall reasons behind some health issues that have been blamed on sugar.“It’s not surprising to me that the World Health Organization didn’t find really any difference in health benefits between a regular soda and a diet soda,” said Ms. Burnett, who is also a licensed dietitian and nutritionist. “They’re both processed foods.” She added, “If you look at what’s driving these chronic diseases like heart disease, diabetes, obesity, sugar is not always the only factor.”The recommendation from the W.H.O. does not directly affect any individual country’s policy. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, for example, might take this guidance into account and institute its own concerns or tweak labeling, Ms. McBurnett said. But it is not under any obligation to do so, either.The F.D.A. did not immediately respond to a request for comment.The W.H.O.’s recommendation is currently considered conditional, the organization said.“This signals that policy decisions based on this recommendation may require substantive discussion in specific country contexts, linked for example to the extent of consumption in different age groups,” the statement said.The recommendation doesn’t extend as far as personal care and hygiene products that include artificial sugars such as toothpaste, skin creams and medications, the W.H.O. said. it also doesn’t include low-calorie sugars and sugar alcohols, which come from sugar itself.“People need to consider other ways to reduce free sugars intake, such as consuming food with naturally occurring sugars, like fruit, or unsweetened food and beverages,” said Francesco Branca, the W.H.O. director for nutrition and food safety. He said that non-sugar sweeteners “are not essential dietary factors and have no nutritional value. People should reduce the sweetness of the diet altogether, starting early in life, to improve their health.”

The luxury laundry brand recalled items sold between January 2021 and September 2022.About eight million laundry and cleaning products from the brand the Laundress were recalled because they may contain bacteria that can cause infections in people, especially those with weakened immune systems.Laundry detergent, fabric softener, fabric shampoo and conditioners and other cleaning products from the brand produced between January 2021 and September 2022 were recalled, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission said on Thursday.The recalled products may contain bacteria found widely in soil and water. It was not clear how the contamination took place.“People with weakened immune systems, external medical devices, and underlying lung conditions who are exposed to the bacteria face a risk of serious infection that may require medical treatment,” the commission said. “The bacteria can enter the body if inhaled, or through the eyes or a break in the skin.”Eleven consumers have reported bacterial infections, the commission said. The company said it was investigating whether the infections were connected to the recalled products.“Symptoms may range from mild skin symptoms to more serious signs of infection,” the company said.The company said customers could continue using the Laundress products not included in the recall.“We are undertaking decisive steps with our suppliers to ensure production processes meet our safety and quality standards,” the company said.The products were sold directly by the Laundress, as well as at Bloomingdale’s, Brooklinen, the Container Store, Jenni Kayne, Kith, N.Peal, Nordstrom, Peruvian Connection, Saks Fifth Avenue, Target and other major retailers in the United States and Canada, the commission said. Consumers can request a refund.“After requesting a refund, consumers should dispose of the product by closing the bottle tightly and placing it in household trash,” the commission said. “Do not empty the product prior to disposal.”

Green Sprouts recalled the cups and bottles because the base can break off and expose a piece that contains lead.A company has recalled about 10,500 bottles and cups for toddlers over lead poisoning concerns to children if a part of the product breaks off, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission said.The base of these bottles and cups, manufactured by Green Sprouts, can come off and expose a solder dot that contains lead, posing a potential poison hazard to children, the commission said in a post dated Wednesday.No injuries have been reported, the commission said, but the company is aware of seven incidents in which the base broke.“Lead is toxic if ingested by young children, and can cause adverse health effects,” the commission said.Consumers should take the bottles and cups away from children immediately and discard them, the commission said.In a statement on its website, Green Sprouts said: “There is negligible risk to the health and safety of users. We are undertaking the costs and challenges of this recall voluntarily because our customers’ health and safety must come first.”The solder dot, which contains lead, is supposed to be inaccessible under normal use, so this portion was not tested by a safety lab, the company said.“As we approach the redesign of these products, whose benefits for keeping drinks cold safely have made them a popular choice for parents, we will ensure that lead is not used as a soldering material, no matter whether it would be accessible,” Green Sprouts said.The plant-plastic and silicone lid and spout can be reused with other Green Sprouts cups and bottles, the company said.The recalled products, which were sold in aqua, green, navy and pink, come in 6- and 8-ounce sizes. They were available at Buy Buy Baby and Whole Foods stores, and online at Amazon, Buy Buy Baby and Bed Bath & Beyond from January 2020 through September 2022, the commission said.The commission said Green Sprouts is “contacting all known purchasers directly.” Those who bought the products can contact the company for refunds.High levels of lead exposure in children can cause comas, convulsions and even death, according to the World Health Organization. Neurological and behavioral effects are believed to be irreversible.“Children who survive severe lead poisoning may be left with intellectual disability and behavioral disorders,” a W.H.O. statement said.

The outbreak is centered on humans, not animals, health officials said, after a report that some monkeys were harmed in São Paulo, Brazil, out of fear of transmission, according to local authorities.Monkeys are not to blame for the monkeypox outbreak that has triggered health alerts, including a national health emergency in the United States, as the viral disease has continued to spread, the World Health Organization said this week after reports of attacks against the animals in Brazil.At least 10 monkeys were rescued last week in São José do Rio Preto in the Brazilian state of São Paulo after the authorities found signs they had been attacked or poisoned, out of fear of monkeypox transmission, according to the G1 news site in that country. Seven of the monkeys later died.The police in São Paulo are investigating those cases and said the mistreatment of animals could be punishable by three months to one year in jail.Despite the name, the risk of monkeypox transmission during this outbreak is centered on humans, not animals, Margaret Harris, a W.H.O. spokeswoman, said during a Tuesday news conference.“What people need to know very clearly is the transmission we are seeing is happening between humans to humans,” she said. “It’s close-contact transmission. The concern should be about where it’s transmitting in the human population and what humans can do to protect themselves from getting it and transmitting it. They should certainly not be attacking any animals.”The statement was prompted by a question at the news conference in Geneva about the recent monkey attacks in Brazil.The virus named after it was originally found in a group of laboratory monkeys in 1958 in Denmark, but rodents are thought to be the primary animal hosts for the virus, Ms. Harris said.Some scientists and public health officials have called for a new name for the disease, citing racist overtones and stigmatization, but no official change has been announced. They say the current name could have “potentially devastating and stigmatizing effects” or erroneously link the virus solely to the African continent, when it is now an international crisis.The W.H.O. is having ongoing conversations on what should be the right name for the virus, Ms. Harris said. She said an announcement would be coming soon.“Any stigmatization of any person infected is going to increase the transmission,” Ms. Harris said. “Because if people are afraid of identifying themselves as being infected, then they will not get care and they will not take precautions and we will see more transmission.”The monkeypox virus is primarily found in Central and West Africa, particularly in areas close to tropical rainforests — and rope squirrels, tree squirrels, Gambian pouched rats and dormice have all been identified as potential carriers.People who get sick commonly experience a fever, headache, back and muscle aches, swollen lymph nodes, and exhaustion. A rash that looks like pimples or blisters is also common. Transmission occurs with close physical contact and most commonly spreads once symptoms have appeared, about six to 13 days after exposure. A majority of cases this year have been in young men, many of whom self-identify as men who have sex with men.The United States declared a national health emergency this month over the monkeypox outbreak, with more than 10,000 confirmed cases nationwide according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The W.H.O. activated its highest level of alert for monkeypox in July, with the number of international confirmed cases rising to more than 31,000 so far.Two vaccines originally developed for smallpox can help prevent monkeypox infections, with Jynneos considered the safer choice. Supplies in the United States, however, have been limited. People can be vaccinated after exposure to the virus to prevent the development of the disease.Juliana Barbassa

Two people infected with the virus died in Ghana last month, though no other cases were found, experts said. The disease’s fatality rate is high.Ghana announced the country’s first outbreak of Marburg virus disease after two people who were not related died on June 27 and 28. Word of a new outbreak of a lethal disease caused by viral infections added to the concerns of a public weary from battling the coronavirus pandemic, and recently alarmed by the spread of monkeypox and a new case of polio.Doctors and public health experts in the country immediately started searching for anyone who had been exposed and investigating the cause of the spread in an effort to contain infection. For now, health researchers in Ghana and in other parts of the world said that there was no indication that the virus had spread further.What is Marburg virus disease?Marburg was first detected in 1967, when outbreaks of hemorrhagic fever occurred simultaneously in laboratories in Marburg and Frankfurt in Germany, and in Belgrade, in what is now Serbia — in cases that were linked to African green monkeys imported from Uganda. Other cases have since been found in Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, South Africa and Uganda, according to the World Health Organization. Last month’s cases in Ghana were the first recorded in that country.The Marburg virus is the pathogen that causes Marburg virus disease in humans, health experts said.Marburg virus particles (in blue), both budding and attached to the surface of infected cells (in yellow).Photo by: IMAGE POINT FR/NIH/NIAID/BSIP/Universal Images Group via Getty ImagesThere are no vaccines or antiviral treatments for the disease, medical experts said, but hydrating patients and treating their specific symptoms can improve their chances of survival.The disease is clinically similar to Ebola in its spread, symptoms and progression, although it is caused by a different virus, according to the W.H.O. In Marburg’s case, fruit bats are considered to be the hosts of the virus, though researchers say it does not cause them illness. Researchers believe that Ebola is likely carried by bats or by nonhuman primates, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Even though it has not spread widely, Marburg has been deadly, with case fatality rates ranging from 24 to 88 percent, depending on which strain people contract and the management of cases, according to the W.H.O. The Ebola case fatality rates are nearly the same.The Marburg virus can spread through direct contact with blood, secretions or other bodily fluids from infected people, according to the W.H.O. It can also spread through contact with contaminated surfaces and materials like bedding or clothing.What are the symptoms of Marburg virus disease?Marburg can cause severe viral hemorrhagic fever, which interferes with the blood’s ability to clot. The incubation period ranges from two to 21 days, and symptoms begin abruptly with high fever, severe headache and severe malaise, according to the W.H.O. Other symptoms can include muscle aches, diarrhea, nausea, lethargy and bleeding through vomit, feces and from other body parts.Marburg is not contagious during the incubation period, according to the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control. Severely ill patients often die eight or nine days after the onset of symptoms, according to the W.H.O.A member of the World Health Organization taking an oral sample from a woman in Angola in 2005. She tested negative, but her grandmother, sister and ex-husband died of Marburg virus disease.Photo by Christopher Black/WHO/AFP via Getty Images“Mortality is very high,” said Dr. John Amuasi, who leads the global health and infectious disease research group at the Kumasi Center for Collaborative Research in Tropical Medicine in Kumasi, Ghana. “And there’s no asymptomatic Marburg.”A patient can confirm their condition is Marburg through antibody, antigen and polymerase chain reaction tests, health organizations said.Soldiers in biohazard suits burying two bodies during a 2005 Marburg outbreak in Uige, Angola. The dead were not known to have had the virus.Photo by Evelyn Hockstein for The New York TimesHow many cases have there been this year?There have only been two cases of Marburg virus disease this year, both reported in Ghana. The people who contracted the virus were not related and they were in different parts of the Ashanti region of Ghana, Dr. Amuasi said. They both died.Both patients were men who worked on farms, he said. One was a 26-year-old farmhand who had recently been to a different part of the country for work, and the other was a 56-year-old subsistence farmer. Contact tracing by local authorities led them to conclude that the men had not been in the same places.Fruit bats, known to be the carriers of the virus, are common in the Ashanti region.A fruit bat captured in 2018 by C.D.C. scientists in Queen Elizabeth National Park in Uganda.Photo by Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post via Getty ImagesHow does the outbreak compare to previous ones?More than 200 people died in an outbreak in Angola from 2004 to 2005 and more than 100 died of the disease in the Democratic Republic of Congo from 1998 to 2000, according to the C.D.C. Other outbreaks of Marburg have not involved as many cases.In 2021, there was one case in Guinea, which resulted in that person’s death, and three of four people who had the disease in Uganda in 2017 also died, according to the C.D.C.Experts want to know how the two people contracted the virus in Ghana, said Dr. Francis Kasolo, the W.H.O. representative to the country.“The current investigation is not only focusing on contacts,” Dr. Kasolo said. “We are also going back to medical records in these areas to see if there were unusual events in terms of cases that presented with symptoms. That is why we are holding back in saying that this is just a one-off event.”Should we be worried?The C.D.C.’s office in Ghana is working with local health authorities to assist with testing and epidemiological investigations, said Dr. Jonathan Towner, who leads the Virus Host Ecology Section at the C.D.C.People in the United States are at not at high risk for exposure, Dr. Towner said.“It’s a very, very low risk probability at this point that there will be some travelers, for example, coming into the country with Marburg right now,” he said.So far, Dr. Amuasi said, the public health response has been appropriate and transparent. Contacts of the two infected people were monitored, particularly in the 21 days after the two died.