Saturday, August 2, 2014


News Clips For The Day


http://news.yahoo.com/iran-opens-first-state-run-alcohol-rehab-center-175657630.html

Iran opens first state-run alcohol rehab center
AP August 1, 2014

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran has opened the country's first, state-run rehab and treatment center for alcoholism, an Iranian semi-official news agency reported on Friday.

According to the report by ISNA, the center was inaugurated at the Tehran University's Medical School. One of the physicians at the center, Dr. Mohammad Reza Sargolzaiee, was quoted as saying that the center opened "following an increase in alcohol use among Iranians."

Drinking alcohol is illegal for Muslims under Iran's strict Islamic teachings but there is open violation of the law. And even though there is widespread consumption of alcohol, there are no firm statistics available on how prevalent alcoholism is in the officially booze-free nation.

In February 2013, Iran's police chief Esmaeil Ahmadi-Moqaddam said that there are about 200,000 people in Iran addicted to alcohol.

The year before, a Tehran official Abbas Ali Nasehi said Iran has about 2 million drug addicts, some of whom "are also addicted to alcohol."

Most of Iran's drug users are addicted to opium, the raw material for heroin.

Iran lies on a major trafficking route between Afghanistan and Europe, as well as the Persian Gulf states. Large drug seizures are common across the region and Iran regularly arrests drug smugglers and addicts.




“According to the report by ISNA, the center was inaugurated at the Tehran University's Medical School. One of the physicians at the center, Dr. Mohammad Reza Sargolzaiee, was quoted as saying that the center opened 'following an increase in alcohol use among Iranians.'... Drinking alcohol is illegal for Muslims under Iran's strict Islamic teachings but there is open violation of the law. And even though there is widespread consumption of alcohol, there are no firm statistics available on how prevalent alcoholism is in the officially booze-free nation.... Most of Iran's drug users are addicted to opium, the raw material for heroin. Iran lies on a major trafficking route between Afghanistan and Europe, as well as the Persian Gulf states. Large drug seizures are common across the region and Iran regularly arrests drug smugglers and addicts.”

I wonder what the drug and alcohol use among other Islamic groups is. In the US, making something a sin or outlawing it have never prevented some people from participating in the forbidden practice. It almost makes it more alluring. The use of drugs has gone back into the earliest times of human development. An archaeologist I volunteered with in Northern Virginia said that the American Indians used some 200 plants for spiritual or general inebriation purposes. Many plants have strong chemicals in them to prevent insects or other animals from eating them, some of which are lethal and others that are stimulating in some way. I remember watching a number of wasps eating overripe pears that had fallen under our pear tree, eagerly drinking the yummy alcohol infused pear juice, and believe it or not, staggering around on the ground after they got too much. From this article on the actual pattern of alcohol use in Iran, their setting up a treatment program is long overdue. There have been several signs since Rouhani came into power that Iran is looking around more freely now at how the rest of the world does things. That's very good.





http://news.yahoo.com/u-bans-gmos-bee-killing-pesticides-wildlife-refuges-193150944.html

The U.S. Bans GMOs, Bee-Killing Pesticides in All Wildlife Refuges
By Todd Woody | Takepart.com
July 31, 2014

The U.S. government is creating a safe place for bees on national wildlife refuges by phasing out the use of genetically modified crops and an agricultural pesticide implicated in the mass die-off of pollinators.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s National Wildlife Refuge System manages 150 million acres across the country. By January 2016, the agency will ban the use of neonicotinoids, widely used nerve poisons that a growing number of scientific studies have shown are harmful to bees, birds, mammals, and fish. Neonicotinoids, also called neonics, can be sprayed on crops, but most often the seeds are coated with the pesticide so that the poison spreads throughout every part of the plant as it grows, including the pollen and nectar that pollinators like bees and butterflies eat.

“We have determined that prophylactic use, such as seed treatments, of the neonicotinoid pesticides and that can distribute systemically in a plant and can affect a broad spectrum of non-target species is not consistent with Service policy,” James Kurth, chief of the National Wildlife Refuge System, wrote in a July 17 memo.

The move follows a regional wildlife chief’s decision on July 9 to ban neonics in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Hawaii, and the Pacific Islands by 2016.

The nationwide ban, however, goes further as it also prohibits the use of genetically modified seeds to grow crops to feed wildlife.

A FWS spokesperson declined to comment on why the agency was banning genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in wildlife refuges.

But in his memo, Kurth cited existing agency policy. “We do not use genetically modified organisms in refuge management unless we determine their use is essential to accomplishing refuge purpose(s),” he wrote. “We have demonstrated our ability to successfully accomplish refuge purposes over the past two years without using genetically modified crops, therefore it is no longer to say their use is essential to meet wildlife management objectives.”

GMOs have not been linked directly to the bee die-off. But the dominance of GMO crops has led to the widespread use of pesticides like neonicotinoids and industrial farming practices that biologists believe are harming other pollinators, such as the monarch butterfly.

Neonicotinoids account for 40 percent of the global pesticide market and are used to treat most corn and soybean crops in the U.S.

“We are gratified that the Fish and Wildlife Service has finally concluded that industrial agriculture, with GE crops and powerful pesticides, is both bad for wildlife and inappropriate on refuge lands,” Jeff Ruch, executive director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, said in a statement. 




“The U.S. government is creating a safe place for bees on national wildlife refuges by phasing out the use of genetically modified crops and an agricultural pesticide implicated in the mass die-off of pollinators.... By January 2016, the agency will ban the use of neonicotinoids, widely used nerve poisons that a growing number of scientific studies have shown are harmful to bees, birds, mammals, and fish. Neonicotinoids, also called neonics, can be sprayed on crops, but most often the seeds are coated with the pesticide so that the poison spreads throughout every part of the plant as it grows, including the pollen and nectar that pollinators like bees and butterflies eat....GMOs have not been linked directly to the bee die-off. But the dominance of GMO crops has led to the widespread use of pesticides like neonicotinoids and industrial farming practices that biologists believe are harming other pollinators, such as the monarch butterfly.

It seems to me that the next logical step is to ban Neonics entirely, since they are apparently as deadly to wildlife as DDT is. I don't think GMOs are necessarily harmful to humans, though they could be according to what characteristics are modified, but I do think Neonics could potentially poison humans who consume a plant treated with them. The article says the chemical, if applied to the seeds, goes throughout the tissues of the plant, which would include the fruit. Industrial farming practices were involved in the case a year or so of the unnecessarily brutal methods used to kill livestock, too, along with some unhealthy ways that have come into being of raising pigs and chickens. Besides, the huge industrial farms are driving the small farmers out of business, and I think that is a basic loss to our society and to the health of our economy. My grandparents and country cousins lived on farms, and I remember visiting them with fondness.





http://news.yahoo.com/millions-jellyfish-creatures-wash-western-u-beaches-194401490.html

Millions of jellyfish-like creatures wash up on western U.S. beaches
By Courtney Sherwood
Reuters July 31, 2014

PORTLAND Ore. (Reuters) - Millions of jellyfish-like creatures have washed up on beaches along the U.S. West Coast over the past month, giving the shoreline a purple gleam and, at times, an unpleasant odor, ocean experts said on Thursday.

Though not poisonous to most people, beachgoers should avoid the animals because their venom can cause stinging in the eyes and mouth, said Steve Rumrill, an expert at the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Known as Velella velella to scientists, and more informally as "by-the-wind sailors," the creatures regularly cluster offshore each spring. But it is unusual for so many to wash ashore at once, especially this late in the summer, he said.

In addition to the millions that have been spotted on beaches from Southern California to Washington, millions more are floating near the ocean surface offshore, Rumrill added.

Ocean experts do not know why more by-the-wind sailors are washing up this year, or why they are arriving later than usual, said Erin Paxton, spokeswoman for the Oregon Coast Aquarium.

Climate change may be a factor, but it is impossible to be certain, Rumrill said. "This is a wind-driven event, and winds are unusual this year," he said.

Though most people think the animals are jellyfish, they are in fact colonies of much smaller creatures known as hydrozoans, Rumrill said.

Hundreds of tiny organisms cluster together to create a gleaming purple body and a translucent sail-like protrusion that looks like a single animal.


Velella
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Velella is a cosmopolitan genus of free-floating hydrozoans that live on the surface of the open ocean. There is only one known species, Velella velella, in the genus.[1] Velella velella is commonly known by the names sea raft,by-the-wind sailor, purple sail, little sail, or simply Velella.[2]

These small cnidarians are part of a specialised ocean surface community which includes the better-known cnidarian siphonophore, the Portuguese Man o' War. Specialized predatory gastropod mollusks prey on these cnidarians. Such predators include nudibranchs (sea slugs) in the genusGlaucus and purple snails in the genus Janthina[citation needed].

Each apparent individual Velella velella is in fact a hydroid colony, and most are less than about 7 cm long. They are usually deep blue in colour, but their most obvious feature is a small stiff sail that catches the wind and propels them over the surface of the sea. Under certain wind conditions, they may be stranded by the thousand on beaches.


Hydrozoa
Wikipedia

“Hydrozoa (hydrozoans) are a taxonomic class of individually very small, predatory animals, some solitary and some colonial, most living in salt water. The colonies of the colonial species can be large, and in some cases the specialized individual animals cannot survive outside the colony. A few genera within this class live in fresh water. Hydrozoans are related to jellyfish and coralsand belong to the phylum Cnidaria.

Some examples of hydrozoans are the freshwater jelly (Craspedacusta sowerbyi), freshwater polyps (Hydra), Obelia, Portuguese man o' war (Physalia physalis), chondrophores (Porpitidae), "air fern" (Sertularia argenta), and pink-hearted hydroids (Tubularia).”




I clipped this article because the photograph of the little animal -- velella (a colony actually) -- is really beautiful, and it does have a little “sail” on its back. This is the first time I've ever heard of the term hydrozoans, but I did have a great part time laboratory job when I was in college feeding, changing the water and counting two groups of hydras in petri dishes, one green (from algae which live in the cells) and the other brown. I used to watch them eat the brine shrimp which I also had to hatch and then feed to the hydras. A hydra looks like a thin, graceful tube that stands upright with 5 or 6 tentacles sprouting around the top where its mouth is located. The hydra, like a jellyfish, uses stinging cells located in the tentacles to kill the brine shrimp, and then stuffs the shrimp down into its hypostome or mouth. After taking a few minutes to digest its meal, the hydra spits out the indigestible shells. Then I would rinse the little fellows off with fresh water and put in a clean water supply. Then I put them under a microscope and counted them. They propagate by budding. That was for a population study, of course. That remains one of my favorite jobs of all time.





http://news.yahoo.com/gop-tells-obama-ignore-congress-one-day-suing-203633750.html

GOP Tells Obama to Ignore Congress One Day After Suing Him for Ignoring Congress
By Russell Berman
July 31 2014

On Wednesday, House Republicans sued President Obama for acting on his own without approval from Congress. On Thursday, House Republicans told President Obama he should act on his own to fix the border crisis.

The messaging whiplash resulted from Speaker John Boehner's failure – so far – to pass a Republican spending bill that would provide $659 million to help stem the child migrant crisis on the U.S.-Mexico border.

In a statement following the decision to abruptly scrap a vote on the measure, Boehner and his fellow GOP leaders tried to put the onus back on Obama, saying the president had the power to act unilaterally, "without the need for congressional action," to respond to the crisis.

There are numerous steps the president can and should be taking right now, without the need for congressional action, to secure our borders and ensure these children are returned swiftly and safely to their countries."

Yet that was a polar opposite message from the one Republicans delivered a day earlier, when they voted to authorize a lawsuit against Obama for "bypass[ing] the legislative process to create his own laws by executive fiat," according to an accompanying committee report.

It was a contradiction not lost on Democrats, who reacted with their usual schadenfreude to the latest collapse of House GOP legislation.

“Senator Reid agrees with House Republican leaders’ statement that President Obama has the authority to take steps on immigration reform on his own," said Adam Jentleson, a spokesman for a clearly gloating Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

He's glad Republicans have come around and hopes this means they’ll drop their frivolous lawsuit against the President instead of continuing to waste the American people’s time and money.”

House Democrats mocked Republicans over the confusion at a hearing late Thursday. "I wonder if after today the president might want to sue the House of Representatives for malpractice," Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.) mused.

And Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) asked what would happen if Obama actually listened to the Republican plea. "If we get the president to take executive action, are we going to sue him again a second time?" he asked.

Boehner's office, of course, argues there is a clear distinction between the president's existing executive authority to, say, send more troops to the border or require migrant children to return to their home countries and his actions to "change laws" passed by Congress.

Meanwhile, House Republicans were meeting behind closed doors Thursday as leaders tried to decide whether to make another run at passing their bill or to simply give up and take a five-week vacation. 

This article was originally published athttp://www.thewire.com/politics/2014/07/gop-tells-obama-to-ignore-congress-a-day-after-suing-him-for-ignoring-congress/375418/




“Senator Reid agrees with House Republican leaders’ statement that President Obama has the authority to take steps on immigration reform on his own," said Adam Jentleson, a spokesman for a clearly gloating Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. 'He's glad Republicans have come around and hopes this means they’ll drop their frivolous lawsuit against the President instead of continuing to waste the American people’s time and money.' House Democrats mocked Republicans over the confusion at a hearing late Thursday. 'I wonder if after today the president might want to sue the House of Representatives for malpractice,' Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.) mused.”

I'm glad to see the Democrats are having some fun. Dealing with the Tea Party on a daily basis can't be much fun. I await the President's next action. I'll keep everyone posted when I get some more news.





Gaza conflict scrambles delicate dance of Mideast diplomacy – NPR
By JAKE MILLER CBS NEWS August 2, 2014, 6:00 AM

The continued fighting between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip has scrambled the already-complicated world of Middle Eastern diplomacy, pitting occasional allies against one another and making strange bedfellows of countries that have watched their interests unexpectedly align.

The consequences of these emerging fault lines for U.S. interests in the region are hard to predict, analysts say -- but America needs to tread delicately.

"The United States has to navigate very carefully these waters, because any step we take vis-a-vis Israel and the Gaza situation has implications for [regional] alliances," explained CBS News Senior National Security Analyst Juan Zarate.

"The obvious problem is the United States has a whole series of allies which are conditional," explained Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "They don't have some magic common interests, but they need to preserve their ties. Turkey is a major ally. Qatar has the main U.S. air facility and provides a source of prepositioning in the region, and it's also a key ally in terms of the U.S. ability to deal with Iran."

The most significant development is the widening rift between Turkey and Qatar on one side, which have come down "much harder on the side of Hamas," Zarate said, and Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates on the other, which are "ardent opponents" of Hamas.

The Egyptians and Saudis have offered "tacit or quiet approval to what Israel is doing," Zarate said, but they've been careful to not offer full-throated support for Israel, largely because they continue to support many of the Palestinians' goals in the broader conflict.

"They would never change their position on the right of Palestinian statehood or the right of the Palestinian people, and they certainly are not going to mute themselves in terms of objecting to what they view as the slaughter of innocents" by Israel in Gaza, Zarate explained.

"There is no alliance or underlying broad common interest between Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the Arab Gulf states," said Cordesman. "They do have a common interest in this one limited area."

What that common interest can accomplish, Zarate said, is a muting of the official public opposition to Israel's actions from other countries in the region. And that, in turn, could give the Israelis more breathing room to continue carrying out their military campaign in Gaza.

"Everybody wants a ceasefire, provided it isn't on the terms that would allow Hamas to rearm or claim victory," Cordesman said. "The problem for the Gulf States isn't a deep emotional concern for Israel's security. It's that Hamas if it appeared as any kind of victor, they might well be able to displace the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, and they would further empower ISIS in Iraq."

Those are also concerns for the U.S., which has struggled to contain ISIS' ferocious Islamist insurgency in Iraq, and has labored to build up the Palestinian Authority as a moderate alternative to Hamas in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

Much of Egypt's tacit support for Israel can be blamed on the close ties between Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, which the current Egyptian government under Gen. Abdul Fattah al-Sisi has been trying to "eradicate," according to Zarate.

"This is no kind of alliance, it's just a matter of parallel interests," explained Cordesman.

A candidate friendly to the Muslim Brotherhood won the presidential election in Egypt following the overthrow of former President Hosni Mubarak during the Arab Spring in 2011. That man, Mohammed Morsi, was himself ousted from the presidency roughly two years later by Egypt's military under al-Sisi. Since then, supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood have occasionally skirmished with Egyptian security forces.

"What you have is a realignment of a forces given the tumult of the Arab revolutions, some of which has been festering for some time, but has crystallized in the context of this conflict, so much so that you have real tensions diplomatically," Zarate explained.

And those tensions could make the task of peacemaking dramatically more difficult as U.S. officials navigate a minefield of conflicting interests and regional pressure points.

For example, "when [U.S. Secretary of State John] Kerry meets with Turkey and Qatar to try and bring a ceasefire forward, that sends a very strong signal to Israel, Saudi Arabia Egypt, and the U.A.E. that in some way the U.S. is kowtowing or empowering that alliance in opposition to them," Zarate explained. "And so this is a very fluid dynamic, but one that impacts even American diplomacy."

But Cordesman cautioned that for all of the diplomatic upheaval sown by the fighting in Gaza, stability and constancy have never been a feature of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East.

"The underlying patterns, in many ways, have not been all that different," he explained. "If you look back, we've had problems with Turkey and Qatar before, we have to keep adjusting our relationship with major Gulf States. We've had tensions before with Israel."

"Welcome to the new, old Middle East," he quipped.

But for all the complications and unresolved questions, one simple fact seems certain about the conflict in Gaza, which has already killed over 1,400 Palestinian civilians, 56 Israeli soldiers, and 3 Israeli civilians: It's not likely to end any time soon.

"Israel has made the determination that they are in this for a longer haul, because they have to destroy the infrastructure that Hamas has built," Zarate said, citing the rockets Hamas has stockpiled and the tunnels they've used to infiltrate Israeli territory and launch suicide attacks. "[The Israelis] think they have to destroy this capability, otherwise they're going to be vulnerable."




“The Egyptians and Saudis have offered "tacit or quiet approval to what Israel is doing," Zarate said, but they've been careful to not offer full-throated support for Israel, largely because they continue to support many of the Palestinians' goals in the broader conflict.... Much of Egypt's tacit support for Israel can be blamed on the close ties between Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, which the current Egyptian government under Gen. Abdul Fattah al-Sisi has been trying to "eradicate," according to Zarate. 'This is no kind of alliance, it's just a matter of parallel interests,' explained Cordesman.... 'Israel has made the determination that they are in this for a longer haul, because they have to destroy the infrastructure that Hamas has built,' Zarate said, citing the rockets Hamas has stockpiled and the tunnels they've used to infiltrate Israeli territory and launch suicide attacks. '[The Israelis] think they have to destroy this capability, otherwise they're going to be vulnerable.'"

Due to my religious background as a Christian, I have a special feeling for Israel, seated as it is in the Holy Land, but I link Palestine in with it as a culture that was thriving in 2000 AD – part of the scene of Jesus' life and times. I do think that the modern day nation of Israel is more advanced and democratic than are some of the more radical and woman-hating Islamic cultures. Of course, I remember that Jesus stopped a mob of Jewish men from executing a woman with stones who was “taken in adultery,” so Jews at that time were equally harsh in their views toward women.

Setting that aside, however, it is also a simple fact that Israel is a genuine ally of ours, while many of the Islamic cultures hate Americans and are potentially a great danger to us. Al Qaeda made that clear in 2001. Those peoples that I consider to be civilized are in danger from this new group ISIS, so if the US should go to war in some fashion against them I would consider ISIS to be a legitimate target.

The trouble with the situation in the Middle East is that the many warring groups have been fighting for so long that they don't know how to make peace, at least permanent peace. Given that, an American involvement in a war there again might simply enmesh us ever deeper in the confusing set of conflicts, and drain our economy of its wealth.





Treating Ebola With An Experimental Serum: Why It Might Help –- NPR
by RICHARD HARRIS
August 02, 2014

Last week we learned that two Americans working in Liberia for a medical charity, Samaritan's Purse, were among those who had contracted Ebola. When their symptoms took a turn for the worse, the organization announced that the two were going to get experimental treatments. One was going to get a blood transfusion from a 14-year-old boy who recovered from the disease, the organization said; the other was to get an "experimental serum." What's that?

We know there's no drug to treat Ebola (though several are in development). But sometimes the human body can mount a successful defense against this deadly virus. And 20 years ago, doctors adapted this natural defense to make an impromptu treatment during a previous Ebola outbreak.

The year was 1995. Ebola had erupted in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Eighty percent of patients were dying. But a small group of doctors took blood samples from people who appeared to be on the road to recovery — and used that as an experimental treatment for other sick patients.

Here's the idea: A person who had managed to fight off the infection may have developed antibodies that circulate in the blood and that could neutralize the Ebola virus.

This isn't as crazy as it might seem. In fact, these "sera" were a common treatment for infectious diseases in the 19th century, before antibiotics came along. Sera are proven treatments for many infectious diseases, including diphtheria and botulism. In fact, the immune globulins used to treat tetanus today are a refined version of this process.

"For example, if you step on a nail and are exposed to tetanus, and you've never been vaccinated, you can get something called tetanus immune globulin, which works immediately," saysDr. E. Richard Stiehm, a pediatrics professor at the UCLA School of Medicine. These antibodies only stay in your body for about four weeks, he says, but that's often enough time to treat a sudden infection like Ebola.

And the source doesn't have to be other people — horses are also used to produce these antibodies for human drugs.

Because antibiotics are safer, sera fell out of favor starting in the 1940s for most diseases. And vaccines are a closely related concept — except that vaccines generally stimulate the body's immune system to produce its own antibodies, rather than transferring antibodies from somewhere else. Vaccines are much more effective because the antibodies are there at the time of infection. It's harder to knock down a disease that's already raging.

Still, if there's no drug, there's not much choice. Attempts to use sera against Ebola date back to 1977, just a year after the virus was first recognized as a threat to public health. But the technique relies on finding Ebola survivors who can donate their blood (and the antibodies it contains). So it's challenging even in the best of circumstances.

Stiehm and a pediatrician colleague from UCLA, Dr. Margaret Keller, note, in a published overview of the science, that goats were used to produce antibodies against Ebola in the early 1990s, and this serum "was then used in Russia for emergency prophylaxis for four patients exposed by laboratory accidents." Nobody got seriously ill, but it's not entirely clear what role the serum played in protecting them.

The most hopeful experience to date involves blood donors who were recovering from Ebola, back in Congo in 1995. Their blood was transfused into eight patients who were ill with Ebola. Normally 80 percent of people with Ebola die, but in this case, seven of the eight survived, according to a report by scientists from Congo and Belgium.

The medical charity Samaritan's Purse hasn't spelled out the source or the nature of the serum available to its workers.

These days, blood transfusions aren't the only possible source of sera. Researchers in Canada and Japan are currently developing custom-tailored antibodies to combat Ebola. These are "monoclonal" antibodies, meaning they are specifically designed to attack one thing — in this case, the Ebola virus. They've been successfully tested in monkeys, but it's not clear under what circumstances this material would be tested in humans.




I am glad to see that our two American missionaries are both to be treated with antibodies taken in a more primitive form than a vaccine. I just wish doctors down there, when this epidemic first started, had done that immediately to save some of the hundreds who have died of the disease. I first heard of this technique a few years ago when Ebola was raging, and a local African doctor took it upon himself to transfuse about 8 people in the hospital with the blood from a recovered patient, and it cured most of them. The other two died, but it was basically a very successful experiment. Then there was no news of the process being used again in this epidemic. The “powers that be” in the American medical field thought it was not reliable – hadn't gone through all the tests. As a result, this time when Ebola has been sweeping from country to country in Africa it has taken them this long to come to the idea of using the same treatments again. At any rate, I'm glad to see that they are doing it now. Hopefully they will in Africa, too.

I had not heard of the procedure mentioned here to gather fluid containing Ebola antibodies, or “sera,” but it seems to work, too. The website http://www.medterms.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=5470 gives the following definition of “serum”: “Serum: The clear liquid that can be separated from clotted blood. Serum differs from plasma, the liquid portion of normal unclotted blood containing the red and white cells and platelets. It is the clot that makes the difference between serum and plasma.”

“These 'sera' were a common treatment for infectious diseases in the 19th century, before antibiotics came along. Sera are proven treatments for many infectious diseases, including diphtheria and botulism. In fact, the immune globulins used to treat tetanus today are a refined version of this process.” The rarity of recovering patients who can be used for transfusions or the producing of sera is not an impenetrable barrier. “In the early 1990s” goats were used to produce antibodies, and Russia used the sera produced from goats to save the lives of lab workers who had been exposed.

I can't help wondering what they were doing in the lab with Ebola virus at that time. Hopefully not making a weapon to use in germ warfare. I would suspect the US of doing that, too, so I'm not just out to defame Russia. I'm not really paranoid about government either, just cynical.

From a news report last week a lab in Canada is developing a real vaccine against Ebola, which could be used ahead of infection, hopefully, and not run the risk of giving the person a case of Ebola. I hope they get results fast, because this particular disease is one of the most frightening I've ever heard of – as bad if not worse than smallpox and AIDS. I hope next week will bring a story of success in curbing the present epidemic in Africa with a serum made using goats. Until a good, safe vaccine is developed, that would be a very good second best.




A Right Or A Privilege? Detroit Residents Split Over Water Shut-Offs – NPR
by QUINN KLINEFELTER
August 01, 2014

In Detroit, protests continue over the city's massive effort to shut off water to thousands of customers who aren't paying their bills. Activists call the move a violation of a basic human need, while city officials call it an economic reality.

Detroit's Water and Sewerage Department has been accruing a massive debt for decades — in part because officials say there was only a token attempt to collect past-due bills. By this year, about half of all water customers were behind on payments, owing a combined $90 million.

So officials here launched an aggressive campaign targeting back payments, using the time-honored utility tactic of shutting off water service until payment arrangements were made.

Some Detroiters are split on the move.

Along the city's busy Woodward Avenue, longtime residents like Clifford Durham say water customers should have known what was coming.

"It's a shame that it's happening, but they had options and budget plans like, 10, 15 years ago," Durham says. "Tell 'em your situation. Don't wait 'til your bill is $300 or $400 and get a shut-off notice," he says. "The protesting that's gonna go on for the water I think is ridiculous."

A Cause Celebre

The sheer number of people shut off — 17,000 — has led to frequent demonstrations and some international attention. The United Nations declared it a human rights violation. Activists, a federal judge, even movie stars like actor Mark Ruffalo — who portrays the alter ego of The Hulk in the Avengers films — joined in what's truly become a cause celebre.

"There's no reason that this city and this state, with all of its wealth, can't come up with some sort of a program to keep this water from being turned off. I mean, it's insane," Ruffalo said.

City officials say they are setting up payment plans for residents, and add that more than half of those who had their water shut off subsequently paid their bills and had service quickly restored.

But others have tried to block the shut-offs, pouring concrete over water mains tagged by the city with blue paint — a kind of scarlet letter indicating the pipes there should be closed.

Tutorials have also spread on Facebook describing how to get water flowing again. Detroiter Nita O'Neal says it's relatively easy to find someone with the kind of long metal keys that open closed water valves — even though only city workers are supposed to have them.

"People gonna turn that water back on. Somebody has a water key, trust me. You give 'em $5, you gonna get your water back on," O'Neal says. "People have to have shelter, food and water."

Turning the water back on that way is, in fact, a crime — it's stealing water. But for families with little or no income, O'Neal says, the stakes are too high to worry about that.

"You got babies that's probably not taking baths. That's opening up the door for protective services to come in, say that you are unfit parent," she says. "This is a game that they're playing, and it's a serious, dangerous game."

City officials counter that water rates are going up in part because people game the system. Paying customers, they say, have to cover the costs for those not paying their bills.

But Water and Sewerage Deputy Director Darryl Latimer says the department wants to cooperate with customers, even those who argue water should be a right, not a privilege.

"I think water is a right. However, if all of our customers took that stand — that it's a human right and we're not gonna pay — then no one would have water," Latimer says.

It remains very much an evolving situation in the city. The water and sewerage department recently began targeting past-due commercial and residential customers, then declared a two-week moratorium on all shut-offs.

Detroit's emergency manager put Mayor Mike Duggan in charge of the formerly autonomous water system. But the department itself remains a bargaining chip in Detroit's ongoing bankruptcy proceedings. The city wants out of the water business and the debt it carries and is pushing to either regionalize or privatize the system.






“Detroit's Water and Sewerage Department has been accruing a massive debt for decades — in part because officials say there was only a token attempt to collect past-due bills. By this year, about half of all water customers were behind on payments, owing a combined $90 million.... 'It's a shame that it's happening, but they had options and budget plans like, 10, 15 years ago,' Durham says. 'Tell 'em your situation. Don't wait 'til your bill is $300 or $400 and get a shut-off notice,' he says. 'The protesting that's gonna go on for the water I think is ridiculous.'.... The sheer number of people shut off — 17,000 — has led to frequent demonstrations and some international attention. The United Nations declared it a human rights violation. Activists, a federal judge, even movie stars like actor Mark Ruffalo — who portrays the alter ego of The Hulk in the Avengers films — joined in what's truly become a cause celebre..... "I think water is a right. However, if all of our customers took that stand — that it's a human right and we're not gonna pay — then no one would have water," Latimer says.... Detroit's emergency manager put Mayor Mike Duggan in charge of the formerly autonomous water system. But the department itself remains a bargaining chip in Detroit's ongoing bankruptcy proceedings. The city wants out of the water business and the debt it carries and is pushing to either regionalize or privatize the system.”

Detroit was just recently in the news for its bankruptcy, so it isn't the case that the city could afford to deliver water for free, as it doesn't get it without cost. Most cities buy water from local resources which they often share with several other cities, unless they have their own reservoir or river to use, and cities are responsible for purifying the water enough that it is safe to drink. So there are costs to supplying water. I agree with the one resident Clifford Durham who said that if people are having trouble making payments, they should talk to the Water Department and get a payment plan which keeps the payments at a minimum and allows them to pay off any unpaid amount over time. They can't honestly expect the city to foot the bill for the water. If they lived in the country they wouldn't have a water bill, but they would have to dig a well. This is one “cause celeb” that I don't buy into. Life is hard. Bite the bullet.






A Conservative Mayor Fights To Expand Medicaid In North Carolina – NPR
by HYUN NAMKOONG
August 01, 2014

Last month, the only hospital in the sleepy town of Belhaven in eastern North Carolina closed its doors, prompting Belhaven Mayor Adam O'Neal to step out of party lines and call for an expansion of Medicaid in North Carolina. And then he took a lot more steps.

The Republican mayor and self-proclaimed conservative spent the last two weeks walking the 237 miles from eastern North Carolina to Washington, D.C., to raise awareness of the need to save his and other rural hospitals around the nation.

O'Neal did it with the support of the North Carolina chapter of the NAACP. O'Neal, Belhaven residents and NAACP members met on the front steps of a U.S. Senate building on Monday. They demanded the reopening of the hospital and hoped to draw attention to what they call a rural health care crisis.

The protesters fear that the 20,000 residents of Beaufort and Hyde counties will have to travel as far as 75 miles for emergency department facilities. O'Neal asserts that people will die as a result of the hospital's closure and that one woman, 48-year-old Portia Gibbs, was the first victim of Vidant Health's "shameless and immoral" decision to close the hospital.

Barry Gibbs, husband of Portia Gibbs, joined O'Neal at the rally in D.C. He says his wife died as a result of delayed care, waiting for a helicopter to airlift her to Norfolk, Va., because the hospital in Belhaven had closed. There aren't any doctor practices or hospitals in Hyde County.

In general, rural hospitals are more financially distressed, have lower profit margins than their urban counterparts and are disproportionately affected by states' decisions to opt out of Medicaid expansion, according to Mark Holmes, director of the North Carolina Rural Health Research and Policy Analysis Center.

The Vidant Pungo Hospital is one of dozens that have closed since last January. Holmes says that 14 of the 16 rural hospitals that have closed in the last 18 months are in Southern states that chose to not expand Medicaid.

Failed agreement

Vidant Health is the largest health care provider in an area historically referred to as the "Stroke Belt." Since the company announced last September that the hospital would close, town officials, residents and the NAACP have been actively fighting to keep the hospital's lights on.

The North Carolina chapter of the NAACP filed a complaint against Vidant Health in January, alleging discrimination against residents who are "very poor minorities" and need access to emergency department services due to a high burden of chronic diseases.

In April, the town of Belhaven, the NAACP and Vidant Health signed an agreement brokered by the U.S. Department of Justice to transfer ownership of the hospital from Vidant Health to a community-based board, and the complaint was dropped.

But what had been hailed as a promising and historic agreement between these parties fell through, and on June 24 the NAACP refiled the complaint. Instead of a transfer of ownership, the hospital doors were padlocked and bolted.

More than a loss of health care

The closure of the Vidant Pungo Hospital has caused a wave of anxiety among Belhaven residents, both for the loss of health care and for the loss of jobs and people. They say the closure of a community's sole hospital can risk putting the local economy in a downward cycle from which it's very difficult to recover.

Roads leading into this town that once had a thriving shrimping and lumber industry are conspicuously lined with signs reading "Save our Hospital."

Belhaven's local businesses, property values and tax base depend on attracting retirees who not only seek warm weather and beaches, but also access to health care, the mayor says.

"They have ripped our economic heart out of our community," O'Neal said in a recent interview. "How many people go retire somewhere where it doesn't even have a hospital?"

Roger Robertson, president of Vidant Community Hospitals, said that the decision to close the hospital was influenced by a number of reasons, including the hospital's location in a flood zone, the deteriorating building and the state's decision to opt out of Medicaid expansion as allowed for under the Affordable Care Act.

"We had to factor in a lot of different things; Medicaid expansion is one factor out of many," he says. "It does influence people's access to that form of payment."

As of now, 21 states have not expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, including most southern states. In North Carolina, an estimated 318,710 poor and uninsured adults would be eligible for Medicaid if the state expands it.
O'Neal and the North Carolina chapter of the NAACP are determined to see the hospital in Belhaven up and running again.

"We're not going anywhere until people quit dying from lack of emergency room services," O'Neal says.



https://www.vidanthealth.com/vidant/dynamic-detail.aspx?id=5565

Vidant Medical Center Foundation

Vidant Medical Center Foundation is the custodian for all financial gifts and bequests to Vidant Medical Center. It is an independent, non-profit, tax-exempt, charitable corporation. Its board members are community leaders charged with overseeing fund-raising projects and managing the Foundation's assets in ways that enhance the quality of healthcare in our region.

The Foundation supports Vidant Medical Center through equipment purchases, capital construction, research, education, patient and family support, community benefits and health initiatives.

Vidant Medical Center Foundation
690 Medical Drive
PO Box 8489
Greenville, NC, 27835-9920
252.847.5626

Welcome to Vidant Health

Welcome to Vidant Health. We are a regional health system serving 29 counties in eastern North Carolina, and we’re working every day to improve the health of the 1.4 million people we serve. 




“The Republican mayor and self-proclaimed conservative spent the last two weeks walking the 237 miles from eastern North Carolina to Washington, D.C., to raise awareness of the need to save his and other rural hospitals around the nation. O'Neal did it with the support of the North Carolina chapter of the NAACP. O'Neal, Belhaven residents and NAACP members met on the front steps of a U.S. Senate building on Monday. They demanded the reopening of the hospital and hoped to draw attention to what they call a rural health care crisis.... In general, rural hospitals are more financially distressed, have lower profit margins than their urban counterparts and are disproportionately affected by states' decisions to opt out of Medicaid expansion, according to Mark Holmes, director of the North Carolina Rural Health Research and Policy Analysis Center.... Holmes says that 14 of the 16 rural hospitals that have closed in the last 18 months are in Southern states that chose to not expand Medicaid.... Roads leading into this town that once had a thriving shrimping and lumber industry are conspicuously lined with signs reading 'Save our Hospital.'"

“Roger Robertson, president of Vidant Community Hospitals, said that the decision to close the hospital was influenced by a number of reasons, including the hospital's location in a flood zone, the deteriorating building and the state's decision to opt out of Medicaid expansion as allowed for under the Affordable Care Act.... As of now, 21 states have not expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, including most southern states. In North Carolina, an estimated 318,710 poor and uninsured adults would be eligible for Medicaid if the state expands it. O'Neal and the North Carolina chapter of the NAACP are determined to see the hospital in Belhaven up and running again.”

This problem is due directly to the ultraconservative dogma of the Republican Party as it exists today. Can you imagine? Twenty-one states declined to expand Medicaid. Just because most people live in cities nowadays, that's no reason to pull all the resources out of the rural areas, causing them to die economically and socially. The shame is that those same poor people, many of them, voted for the Tea Party candidates who have taken over in both Washington and the state governments around the country, largely over race and other cultural issues such as gay rights or abortion. These communities could support businesses and jobs if they had a better infrastructure, and that includes health facilities and doctors. If I see any more about this problem in Belhaven or other places I will clip the article. An interesting law would be one that subsidizes or gives tax perks to physicians who will move into such communities as Belhaven around the nation to provide medical care. That sounds like a good project for the Democrats.