We begin with a continuing outbreak from CNN:
Measles cases in California soar
Last Wednesday, the number was 59. Nine days later, there are 91 cases of measles in California.
The California Department of Public Health sent out the latest numbers Friday of confirmed cases since December and while the total is still small, the jump was a startling 54% in just more than a week.
Most cases — 58 — are linked to an outbreak at Disneyland in mid-December. Health officials said 40 of the cases were employees or park patrons, while 18 of the cases were secondary infections.
The new numbers include two cases in Marin County, near San Francisco, where one parent of a 6-year-old has asked school officials to bar any children who have not been vaccinated for measles, mumps and rubella (MMR).
A massive public health breach, via ABC News:
Passenger With Measles Takes Amtrak Train to Penn Station
Program notes:
NY health officials say patient may have exposed fellow travelers.
From the New York Times, viral blowback:
Vaccine Critics Turn Defensive Over Measles
The anti-vaccine movement can largely be traced to a 1998 report in a medical journal that suggested a link between vaccines and autism but was later proved fraudulent and retracted. Today, the waves of parents who shun vaccines include some who still believe in the link and some, like the Amish, who have religious objections to vaccines. Then there is a particular subculture of largely wealthy and well-educated families, many living in palmy enclaves around Los Angeles and San Francisco, who are trying to carve out “all-natural” lives for their children.
“Sometimes, I feel like we’re practicing in the 1950s,” said Dr. Eric Ball, a pediatrician in southern Orange County, where some schools report that 50 to 60 percent of their kindergartners are not fully vaccinated and that 20 to 40 percent of parents have sought a personal beliefs exemption to vaccination requirements. “It’s very frustrating. It’s hard to see a kid suffer for something that’s entirely preventable.”
Two of Dr. Ball’s patients are unvaccinated girls who became sick with the measles last week, though they had not been at Disneyland and it was unclear how they had been infected. Their father called the clinic to tell Dr. Ball and has been sending digital photographs of the girls, their faces stippled with red dots, to update him on how they are doing.
From SciDev.Net, ISIS public health woes:
ISIS-held Iraq plagued by health problems
- Healthcare is in decline in areas under Islamic State control
- Scabies, lice and leishmaniasis are widespread in ISIS areas
- There are medical shortages and refugees are suffering from diarrhoea
Residents of Iraqi areas under Islamic State (ISIS) control are suffering from health problems due to a breakdown in local health services, shortages of medicines and contaminated drinking water.
Iraq’s Ministry of Health has confirmed that healthcare is declining in areas held by the militant Islamic group.
The ministry says it is trying to implement vaccination campaigns in collaboration with international organisations to stop viral diseases spreading across ISIS-affected areas. Activities such as insecticide spraying to kill disease-transmitting insects and the delivery of medicine to conflict-affected areas are also under way, it adds.
“Diseases that are currently widespread [in ISIS-held areas] include scabies, lice, and cutaneous and visceral leishmaniasis,” says Mohammed Jabr, the deputy director-general of the ministry’s public health department. “There are also cases of diarrhoea among internally displaced people due to the contamination of drinking water.”
Outbreak News Today covers another outbreak:
Nevada becomes sixth state to report bird flu
Nevada agricultural officials report a case of H5N8 avian influenza in a mallard duck in Lincoln County making Nevada the sixth state to confirm an H5 avian flu-Washington, Oregon, Utah, Idaho and California have all previously reported cases.
The California Animal Health & Food Safety Laboratory tested the bird for the virus.
The Nevada Department of Agriculture (NDA) will be working with the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) to monitor the situation.
“So far this is an isolated case,” said Nevada State Veterinarian Michael Greenlee. “If commercial poultry producers or bird owners are concerned about the possible spread to domestic foul, they need to take the proper steps to limit exposure. Prevent contact between their birds and wild birds.”
From New York Times, toxic binging:
Litchi Toxin May Give Rise to Mysterious Epidemic in India, Inquiry Finds
An intensive investigation of a mysterious annual epidemic in northern India in which thousands of young children suffer convulsions, lapse into comas and die has concluded that a toxin found in litchi fruit may be the cause.
“We believe it’s likely to be some sort of toxin” that causes a sharp drop in blood sugar levels that then leads to seizures, said Dr. Padmini Srikantiah, one of the authors of a description of the investigation in this week’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, a publication of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States.
Investigators are testing a variety of possible poisons as catalysts for the malady, including pesticides and heavy metals. But the region is India’s litchi center, and the epidemic occurs every year just as the fruit ripen. So a toxin found in litchi seeds has become a focus of further testing, Dr. Srikantiah, a senior epidemiologist with the American agency, said on Thursday.
The London Telegraph covers a British arboreal plague:
British woods in crisis as ash disease triples
- Number of British woods suffering from ash dieback has almost tripled in two years
The number of British woods suffering from ash dieback has almost tripled in two years, new figures reveal, as ministers admit they have no solution to the crisis.
Almost 1,000 sites across the UK have now been affected by the disease, which was first detected in 2012.
Ministers are now focusing on slowing the spread of the disease and developing varieties of ash tree that are resistant to the fungus.
Experts now believe ash die-back, which is known as Chalara, is unstoppable and will ultimately spread across the entire country.
From the Independent, a stunning warning:
A quarter of the world’s marine species in danger of extinction
The world’s ocean species are up to nine times more likely to become extinct than previously thought, according to new research.
The alarming study by the University of Sheffield, said to be the most thorough analysis of marine conservation data yet, comes as campaigners accused the Government of “watering down” plans to protect England’s marine life.
Researchers found that up to a quarter of the planet’s well-known marine species, from the Mediterranean monk seal to the Pondicherry shark, are in danger of being wiped out. This overturns the conventional scientific wisdom that marine species are far safer than others, by establishing that the risk is equally high. In each case, between 20 and 25 per cent of species are threatened with extinction, researchers said.
Al Jazeera America covers contamination cleanup angst:
Pompton Lakes community fears DuPont could shirk toxic cleanup
- Munitions plant that polluted New Jersey town for decades is passing the cleanup to spinoff company Chemours
Marsh’s neighborhood in Pompton Lakes, New Jersey, was adjacent to a DuPont munitions plant — a village built by the company for employees and their families. Her father worked at the DuPont plant for 28 years.
The manufacturing and waste management practices caused toxic seepage into the soil, air and groundwater of the nearly 600-acre site and its vicinity. More than two decades after the plant shut down, site cleanup efforts have started and stalled, and significant contamination remains in the town, home to about 11,000 people.
Marsh’s story is common among those who grew up in Pompton Lakes. Central nervous conditions and behavioral disorders affect her family members, from her parents to her great-nieces and -nephews. A New Jersey Department of Health study indicates abnormally high rates of numerous cancers in the borough, especially kidney cancer and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. An ongoing state health department survey with public data from 1979 to 2008 indicates that women in Pompton Lakes are hospitalized for tumorous cancers nearly 40 percent more frequently than those in neighboring communities and the borough’s men are hospitalized 23 percent more often than elsewhere in the state.
Global Times covers Chinese pollution:
Filmmaker focuses on pollution caused by overseas waste
Freelance filmmaker Wang Jiuliang can best be described as an idealist.
Over the past seven years, Wang has dedicated himself to two things: spending three years taking photos showing the garbage that besieged the capital city Beijing, and making a documentary on pollution in vast areas of China caused by plastic waste from overseas, titled Plastic China, for the past three years.
The documentary is scheduled to be released this June. The 12-minute trailer has already gone viral on the Internet, drawing huge media attention and public concern.
Wang is a controversial figure. His photos confronted viewers with the dark side of China’s economic development: mounting heaps of rubbish and vast piles of plastic.
From Reuters, a Latin American drought:
Brazil farmers battle worst drought in 80 years
Program notes:
Agricultural producers in Rio de Janeiro state battle with the worst drought Brazil has seen in 80 years which is killing large numbers of livestock and crops. Nathan Frandino reports.
Another drought, closer to Casa esnl,, via the Ecologist:
California drought: rains bring scant relief
- California’s worst drought on record is far from over, writes Kieran Cooke. But while residents are getting used to dusty cars and parched lawns, the state’s massive agricultural sector is still growing water-intensive crops like rice. How crazy is that?
Whatever the cause of the drought, the lack of rain is doing considerable environmental and economic damage. The Public Policy Institute of California, a not-for-profit thinktank, estimates that $2.2 billion in agricultural revenues and more than 17,000 jobs have been lost as a result of the drought.
Thousands of acres of woodland have been lost due to wildfires, while fisheries experts are concerned that severely depleted streams and rivers could lead to the disappearance of fish species in the area, such as coho salmon and steelhead trout.
The drought is not limited to California. Adjacent states are also affected, and over the US border to the south, in Mexico’s Chihuahua state, crops have been devastated and 400,000 cattle have died.
After the jump, the rising Chesapeake Bay shoreline, one island nation on the way up, climate change-friendly Republicans, Liberian climate change woes, BP’s vast underseas Gulf oil slick, Chevron gives up on Polish fracking, illegal dumping of radioactive fracking waste in the U.S., On to Fukushimapocalypse Now!, first with hot zone buses, opposition to a reactor restart filed, and a pending decision on a decommissioning. . .
From EcoWatch, waters rising:
On the Front Lines of Mitigating Climate Change
Sea levels in the Chesapeake Bay region of Virginia are rising at a rate more than twice the global average. Since 1960, the area has experienced a 325 percent increase in “nuisance flooding” that disrupts business by closing roads and flooding parking lots and putting undue stress on infrastructure, like storm water drains, roads and sidewalks.
Some of this recurrent flooding is due to the land settling, the geologic results of a massive meteor strike here 35 million years ago. But there’s little doubt the Virginia coast is also on the frontline of climate change, surging waters and more intense storms. It’s no longer a question if and when the sea will rise here; the challenge is how much and how to adapt.
The Chesapeake Bay is our nation’s largest estuary and home to more than 3,600 species of plants and animals, including thousands of acres of valuable coastal marsh and wetlands. Scientists anticipate Virginia will lose 50-80 percent of these wetlands in the next 50 years at the current rate of sea-level rise. And it isn’t just the beautiful vistas we’ll lose, but everything else these wetlands provide—protection from erosion near waterfront property; flood control; filtration of runoff and removal of pollutants; and the food, water and habitat for the critters that call the wetlands home.
One island nation on the way up, from Public Radio International:
A rising tide lifts Iceland — literally
A team of geoscientists has detected evidence that Iceland is literally rising along with sea levels.
How is that possible? Think of a trampoline. “The weight of that person is going to make the trampoline sag beneath them,” explains Kathleen Compton, a graduate student in the Department of Geosciences at the University of Arizona. “If they hop off, the trampoline regains its shape. It’s a similar phenomenon going on with the Earth. The weight of the ice is so much that it makes the surface of the Earth sag.”
But now that ice sheets are melting, the crust of the Earth is rebounding and taking Iceland up with it. And Compton says the Arizona-led researchers, who also include Icelandic geoscientists Richard Bennet and Sigrun Hreinsdottir, are seeing “accelerated uplift.”
“What we’re finding in Iceland is that the rebound is getting faster and faster each year,” Compton says. “The ice caps in Iceland are melting faster and faster each year. So there’s a direct connection between how much ice is being melted and how fast the Earth comes up.”
From the New York Times, climate change-friendly Republicans:
Most Republicans Say They Back Climate Action, Poll Finds
An overwhelming majority of the American public, including half of Republicans, support government action to curb global warming, according to a poll conducted by The New York Times, Stanford University and the nonpartisan environmental research group Resources for the Future.
In a finding that could have implications for the 2016 presidential campaign, the poll also found that two-thirds of Americans said they were more likely to vote for political candidates who campaign on fighting climate change. They were less likely to vote for candidates who questioned or denied the science that determined that humans caused global warming.
Among Republicans, 48 percent say they are more likely to vote for a candidate who supports fighting climate change, a result that Jon A. Krosnick, a professor of political science at Stanford University and an author of the survey, called “the most powerful finding” in the poll. Many Republican candidates question the science of climate change or do not publicly address the issue.
Liberian climate change woes from the New Dawn:
Liberia vulnerable to Climate Change
The environmental protection agency or EPA has alarmed here that Liberia is vulnerable to climate change due to the high rate of poverty, poor infrastructure, as well as inadequate and lack of trained human resources, among others.
The EPA described the vulnerability of the country as a serious threat to country’s Poverty Reduction Strategy, also threatening national sustainable development, peace, security and stability.
According to the EPA, Adaptation and mitigation options were two main strategies that must be considered in addressing the issue of climate change at the national, as well as global levels, as advanced by Article 2 of the Convention.
BP’s vast underseas Gulf oil slick, via Salon:
Millions of gallons of BP oil found resting on the Gulf floor
- Yet another study raises questions about the long-term impact of the 2010 disaster
Another study has identified a massive amount of oil resting on the Gulf of Mexico’s floor, contradicting BP’s claims that everything is totally better now and raising questions about the lasting impact of the 2010 spill.
Researchers at Florida State University identified some 6 to 10 million gallons of BP oil buried in the sediment at the bottom of the Gulf, covering a 9,300 square mile area southeast of the Mississippi Delta. Their findings, published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology, help solve the mystery of where all the oil went: a federal judge ruled that BP spilled about 134 million gallons of oil in total, although government estimates put that amount even higher.
Last year, geochemists at the University of California-Santa Barbara identified a similar phenomenon, of what they called a “bathtub ring” of oil the size of Rhode Island scattered across the Gulf. The authors of this study, as with that one, express concern about what it’s doing down there. Jeff Chanton, a professor of oceanology at FSU and the study’s lead author, notes that as oil remains deep underwater, it encounters less oxygen, making it more difficult to decompose.
Chevron gives up on Polish fracking, via the New York Times:
Chevron to Abandon Shale Natural Gas Venture in Poland
Chevron said on Friday that it would abandon efforts to find and produce natural gas from shale rock in Poland, in perhaps the biggest setback yet to fledgling efforts to start a European shale oil and gas industry that might help replace the region’s dwindling fuel resources.
Shale development in the United States has been one of the reasons the American energy industry has experienced a renaissance in recent years — so much so that it has contributed to the global glut now depressing oil prices. But Europe, heavily reliant on imported fuel, has had trouble getting started with shale, for geological, environmental and political reasons.
Chevron announced it was abandoning the Poland project the same day the company reported that its earnings for the fourth quarter of 2014 fell nearly 30 percent compared with a year earlier, to $3.5 billion. The company blamed lower oil prices for much of the damage.
A radioactive fracking fail in the U.S., via RT America:
‘Frackers’ trying to cut corners and dump radioactive waste in landfills
Program notes:
With the worldwide price of oil continuing to drop, natural gas companies in North Dakota are trying to stay competitive by pushing through changes allowing radioactive fracking waste to be dumped in landfills. Current rules require drillers to transport potentially harmful fracking byproducts to specialized facilities in neighboring states, but with the industry fighting for its survival, cutting corners is just one strategy to remain profitable. RT’s Marina Portnaya examines.
On to Fukushimapocalypse Now!, first with hot zone buses from the Asahi Shimbun:
1st bus service starts through Fukushima no-entry zone
Public transportation has finally returned to an evacuation zone close to the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant, with a bus route that runs through an area with high radiation levels.
East Japan Railway Co. (JR East) started the temporary bus service Jan. 31 that operates in the government-designated “difficult-to-return zone,” where evacuees will not be allowed to return home until at least March 2017.
The 46-kilometer route connects Haranomachi Station in Minami-Soma and Tatsuta Station in the town of Naraha on the JR Joban Line.
Opposition to a reactor restart filed, via Jiji Press:
Petition Filed to Block Restart of Takahama N-Reactors
A group of citizens filed a petition on Friday to block the expected restart of two reactors at Kansai Electric Power Co.’s Takahama nuclear power station in the central Japan prefecture of Fukui.
In its filing with Otsu District Court, the group of 29 residents of Shiga Prefecture, just south of Fukui, sought an injunction to prevent the restart of the plant’s No. 3 and No. 4 reactors.
A similar petition was rejected by the same court last year. The group took the latest action after both reactors have now effectively cleared safety screening by the Nuclear Regulation Authority.
And a pending decision on a decommissioning, via NHK WORLD:
Abe: Whether to scrap Fukushima Daini plant
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe says Tokyo Electric Power Company will decide whether to scrap reactors at its Fukushima Daini plant. It’s about 10 kilometers south of the Fukushima Daiichi plant, which was crippled by the earthquake and tsunami in 2011.
TEPCO’s Daiichi complex suffered a meltdown after the earthquake, but the Daini plant did not.
Abe was answering a question from Chizuko Takahashi of the Communist Party during a session of a Lower House committee meeting on Friday.
Takahashi said that the government should focus on bringing the situation at the Daiichi plant under control. She stressed it should not try to resume operations at Daini which have been suspended since the disaster.
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