It seems there’s another dog snack from China to worry about: sweet potato treats.
According to the Veterinary Information Network (VIN) 1, vets are now reporting health problems linked to sweet potato treats similar to those related to chicken jerky treats also made in China.
Test results on sick dogs show kidney problems similar to the symptoms of Fanconi syndrome. Most dogs recover, but there have been some deaths related to the chicken jerky treat problem.
Symptoms may show up within hours or days after a treat is eaten and include decreased appetite, vomiting, diarrhea, lethargy, and increased thirst and urination.
If you’ve fed your dog either chicken jerky treats or sweet potato treats made in China and your pet has fallen ill, I recommend you contact your veterinarian – especially if the symptoms persist for more than 24 hours or are severe.
Pet Treats You May Want to Avoid
The brands allegedly implicated in the sweet potato treat problem are:
Beefeaters Sweet Potato Snacks for Dogs (16 varieties of yam-related treats)
Canyon Creek Ranch Chicken Yam Good Dog Treats (Nestlé Purina)
Dogswell Veggie Life Vitality (4 varieties)
Keep in mind that although the problem treats are often identified as “jerky” treats, they also go by a host of other names, including tenders, strips, chips, wraps, twists, and several others.
Per Poisoned Pets 2, in 2010 the FDA found that a sweet potato dog treat made by a certain company in China was contaminated with phorate, a highly toxic pesticide.
There is speculation there could be problems with pork treats and cat treats imported from China as well.
For more information on why you need to be vigilant about reading pet food labels, making phone calls to manufacturers, and really doing your homework on what you’re feeding your dog or cat, read my article Pet Food and China – More Cause for Concern?
If You Feed Your Pet Commercially Prepared Treats …
PLEASE know that if you choose to buy any treat made in China, your pet may be at risk. Chicken jerky treats, chicken tenders, chicken strips, chicken treats or sweet potato treats, they can all pose a potential threat. Play it safe. Buy only food and treats made in the U.S. Buying pet food made in this country won’t remove all risk of winding up with a tainted product, but it will certainly improve your chances of keeping your pet safe.
Consider making your own sweet potato treats at home. Try to buy produce locally and make sure to wash the sweet potatoes or yams thoroughly. Then slice them nice and thin, arrange on a baking sheet, and cook in a 300º oven for about 45 minutes. Let the slices cool and store them in plastic bags.
For homemade chicken jerky treats, buy some boneless chicken breasts, clean them, and slice into long, thin strips – the thinner the better. Place the strips on a greased or non-stick cookie sheet and bake them for at least three hours at 180 degrees. The low temp dries the chicken out slowly and the strips wind up nice and chewy. Let the strips cool, and then store them in plastic bags or another airtight container. You can also freeze them.
Update:
We have removed the reference to Drs. Foster and Smith. We also included a message from their organization. Drs. Foster and Smith products were not implicated in this problem.
Statement from Drs. Foster and Smith
There has been a lot of discussion lately on the internet regarding dog treats made in China. The FDA has been monitoring this situation and performing a battery of tests. Their web site is the most reliable source of information on this. Much of the other discussion on the internet, including some “reports”, is based on speculation rather than facts.
The FDA has not issued any report that identifies any of the Drs. Foster and Smith treats as being the cause of an illness in animals. The latest information from FDA is that after running many tests on products from multiple manufacturers for many harmful substances, they still cannot establish any link between any cases of illness in animals and treats from China. We are continuing to watch this situation closely.
Please be assured that our goal at Doctors Foster and Smith is to provide pet products of only the highest quality. The treat products we receive from China come from companies that we have worked with for many years. These companies hold quality and safety certifications from many US and European inspection agencies, and are frequently inspected by our representatives from the United States to assure they are following proper safety and quality control practices. For those people who wish to buy US-manufactured products, we carry many products made in the United States. Our dry and canned pet foods are made in the US. Many of our Doctors Foster and Smith treats are also made in the United States- for example our Premium Natural Biscuits are made here in Wisconsin. We also carry, under other labels, some chicken jerky and other treats made in the US.
I have sent the photo to Stanton Friedman, he actually lives in the same 'city' as me, a few houses up the street from my grandfather (who sold the house to him years ago). I have met Stan, I went for a coffee with him back in 2006-ish, and have been to a lecture. Nice guy, and smart. Thought he would be interested in this photo since it was taken about a 15 minute walk from where he lives. If he elaborates on the subject, I will post it here (with his permission, of course)
Update: Mr Friedman has contacted me - he is currently away for a convention but will be back next week and will no doubt get a hold of me. He told me he is interested in the photo
--------------
Well, a friend of mine showed me this photo awhile back knowing I am into the UFO subject. He had always been interested in it, and in fact it's usually what we end up talking about on the rare occasions we hang out.
This photo was taken around 2007, in downtown Fredericton, New Brunswick. He and his friends have always been into recording themselves doing tricks on their boards, then editing them into little shorts to show friends. Later on after going through some of the film and photo's from that day - they spotted something unusual to the right of the tree - between the church.
This is a classic Saucer shaped UFO. And an absolute brilliant capture at that.
I have posted this here to give you an idea of the complexities of a Nuclear disaster clean up and what that would entail. In this video they demonstrate the contamination level that a particle smaller in size than a grain of rice. Just imagine what that would mean in a case as complicated and volatile as Fukushima with its many reactors and the amount of spent fuel that is actually stored there. Not to mention the danger that a particle that small would pose to the safety and well being of a person. A particle of that size could be ingested without detection very easily.
The area surrounding the incomplete natural-draft cooling towers at ChNPP’s Unit 5 construction site is littered with local hot spots that are easy to find with a scintillation detector. In this video, I dig up one of these hot spots, and learn that the object responsible for the prominent radiation is a hard black fleck a mere 0.5 mm on a side.
What is it? I collected the specimen and brought it back to the Interinform hotel for further explorations. The CDV-700 Geiger probe measures 35-40,000 cpm on contact with the beta window closed, translating into about 60 milliroentgen / hr and an activity of about 40 microcuries by comparison with other, known Cs-137 sources. Next I illustrate a rudimentary form of scintillation gamma spectrometry making use of my netbook’s sound card and a clever piece of free pulse analysis software called PRA, written by Australian physicist Marek Dolleiser. This spectrometer arrangement works on the AC-coupled linear scintillation pulses from the Ludlum 12 preamp, and displays a pulse-height spectrum that conclusively identifies the medium-lived fission product Cs-137 as the nuclide responsible for all the gamma radiation from this particle. No surprise.
About the only reasonable assumption based on the high activity (~20 mCi / g) is that this particle is a fragment of spent fuel that was ejected from Unit 4 at the time of the accident there. In color and appearance it is consistent with sintered uranium dioxide fuel, and the activity is broadly consistent as my calculation at the end of the video shows.
Ms. Noro, the chairman of NPO called Bridges to Chernoby (cf. Numayu’s blog shut down) l warned about the risk to let children play on the contaminated ground.
<Translate> I didn’t know how serious it (radiation exposure of sexual organs) can be until I actually went to see the medical situation in Belarus. I didn’t know how risky it can be to let children play sports or play with mud, sit down on, or crawl on stomach in school play ground. It’s full of contaminated sand and soil. There is no data to prove it’s safe to let children swim in contaminated pool. It’s supposed to be safe only because the radiation level is lower than safety limit, but it has no basis. Do not underrate nosebleed. It’s the beginning of every symptom. You do not ignore it. Cases of childhood cancer are recorded in the bonus part of the movie “Living with internal exposure” (Director is Kamanaka Hitomi)
A 2 years old girl got uterine cancer, had a part of uterus melt to leak out. (Doctor says though it is a rare case, a few of those cases are reported in the world regardless of the age.) I actually saw girls turned to be boys through secondary sexual character to be hospitalized. In the contaminated area of Balarus, only 20% of women can bear baby. None of the adults can take responsibility for destroyed lives of children. <End>
“Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”- George Santayana
Past presidents of the United States and other high profile political leaders have repeatedly issued warnings over the last 214 years that the U.S. government is under the control of an “invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people.”
According to a half-dozen of our former presidents, one vice-president, and various high profile political leaders, an invisible government that is “incredibly evil in intent” has been in control of the U.S. government “ever since the days of Andrew Jackson” (since at least 1836). They “virtually run the United States government for their own selfish purposes. They practically control both parties… It operates under cover of a self-created screen [and] seizes our executive officers, legislative bodies, schools, courts, newspapers and every agency created for the public protection.”
As a result, “we have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated, governments in the civilized world—no longer a government by free opinion, no longer a government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and the duress of small groups of dominant men.”
The sources for the above quotes (and more) are listed below. All of the quotes listed in this article have been verified as authentic and have associated links to the source materials. Also included are statements by Federal Reserve Chairman’s Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke that seemingly confirm some of the warnings.
Warnings About the Invisible Government Running the U.S.
The warnings listed below, which appear in chronological order, began with our first president – George Washington. The last president to speak out was JFK, who was assassinated. Read what they and others have said about the invisible government that apparently controls many of our top elected officials and the government agencies that are supposed to serve and protect the people . Some emphasis (bolding) has been added to point out the key phrases.
George Washington wrote that the Illuminati want to separate the People from their Government
“It was not my intention to doubt that, the Doctrines of the Illuminati, and principles of Jacobinism had not spread in the United States. On the contrary, no one is more truly satisfied of this fact than I am. The idea that I meant to convey, was, that I did not believe that the Lodges of Free Masons in this Country had, as Societies, endeavoured to propagate the diabolical tenets of the first, or pernicious principles of the latter (if they are susceptible of seperation).That Individuals of them may… actually hada seperation [sic] of the People from their Government in view, is too evident to be questioned.” – George Washington, 1st President of the United States (1789–1797), from a letter that Washington wrote on October 24, 1798, whichcan be found in the Library of Congress. For an analysis of Washington’s warning, see the article “Library of Congress: George Washington Warns of Illuminati”
“I sincerely believe, with you, that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies.” —Thomas Jefferson, 3rd President of the United States (1801–1809) and principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence (1776), in a letter written to John Taylor on May 28, 1816
“A power has risen up in the government greater than the people themselves, consisting of many and various powerful interests, combined in one mass, and held together by the cohesive power of the vast surplus in banks.” John C. Calhoun, Vice President (1825-1832) and U.S. Senator, from a speech given on May 27, 1836
Note that it appears that Washington’s and Jefferson’s concerns regarding bankers and separation of the people from the government was realized by 1836. This fact was confirmed in a letter written by FDR in 1933 (see below) in which he wrote that “a financial element in the large centers has owned the government ever since the days of Andrew Jackson.” Jackson was the seventh president of the United States (1829-1937). Calhoun served as Jackson’s vice-president from 1829-1932.
“Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people. To destroy this invisible government, to befoul the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of the day.”— Theodore Roosevelt, 26th President of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt, An Autobiography, 1913 (Appendix B)
“A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is privately concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men… [W]e have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated, governments in the civilized world—no longer a government by free opinion, no longer a government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and the duress of small groups of dominant men.” – Woodrow Wilson, 28th President of the United States, The New Freedom, 1913
“Since I entered politics, I have chiefly had men’s views confided to me privately. Some of the biggest men in the United States, in the field of commerce and manufacture, are afraid of something. They know that there is a power somewhere so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive, that they had better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it.” – Woodrow Wilson, 28th President of the United States, The New Freedom, 1913
“The real menace of our Republic is the invisible government, which like a giant octopus sprawls its slimy legs over our cities, states and nation… The little coterie of powerful international bankers virtually run the United States government for their own selfish purposes. They practically control both parties, … and control the majority of the newspapers and magazines in this country. They use the columns of these papers to club into submission or drive out of office public officials who refuse to do the bidding of the powerful corrupt cliques which compose the invisible government. It operates under cover of a self-created screen [and] seizes our executive officers, legislative bodies, schools, courts, newspapers and every agency created for the public protection.” - New York City Mayor John F. Hylan, New York Times, March 26, 1922
“Mr. Chairman, we have in this country one of the most corrupt institutions the world has ever known. I refer to the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve Banks. The Federal Reserve Board, a Government board, has cheated the Government of the United States and the people of the United States out of enough money to pay the national debt…Mr. Chairman, when the Federal Reserve act was passed, the people of the United States did not perceive that a world system was being set up here… and that this country was to supply financial power to an international superstate — a superstate controlled by international bankers and international industrialists acting together to enslave the world for their own pleasure.” – Congressman Louis T. McFadden, from a speech delivered to the House of Representatives on June 10, 1932
“Today the path to total dictatorship in the U.S. can be laid by strictly legal means… We have a well-organized political-action group in this country,determined to destroy our Constitution and establish a one-party state… It operates secretly, silently, continuously to transform our Government… This ruthless power-seeking elite is a disease of our century… This group…is answerable neither to the President, the Congress, nor the courts. It is practically irremovable.” – Senator William Jenner, 1954 speech
“The individual is handicapped by coming face-to-face with a conspiracy somonstrous he cannot believe it exists. The American mind simply has not come to a realization of the evil which has been introduced into our midst.It rejects even the assumption that human creatures could espouse a philosophy which must ultimately destroy all that is good and decent.” —J. Edgar Hoover, The Elks Magazine, 1956
“For we are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies primarily on covert means for expanding its sphere of influence–on infiltration instead of invasion, on subversion instead of elections, on intimidation instead of free choice, on guerrillas by night instead of armies by day. It is a system which has conscripted vast human and material resources into the building of a tightly knit, highly efficient machine that combines military, diplomatic, intelligence, economic, scientific and political operations. Its preparations are concealed, not published. Its mistakes are buried, not headlined. Its dissenters are silenced, not praised.No expenditure is questioned, no rumor is printed, no secret is revealed.” — John F Kennedy, 35th President of the United States, from a speech delivered to the American Newspaper Publishers Association on April 27, 1961 and known as the “Secret Society” speech.
“The Rockefellers and their allies have, for at least fifty years, been carefully following a plan to use their economic power to gain political control of first America, and then the rest of the world. Do I mean conspiracy? Yes, I do. I am convinced there is such a plot, international in scope, generations old in planning, and incredibly evil in intent.” Congressman Larry P. McDonald, November 1975, from the introduction to a book titled The Rockefeller File.
“There exists a shadowy government with its own Air Force, its own Navy, its own fundraising mechanism, and the ability to pursue its own ideas of national interest, free from all checks and balances, and free from the law itself.” – Daniel K. Inouye, US Senator from Hawaii, testimony at the Iran Contra Hearings, 1986
formal Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said, essentially, that the Federal Reserve was above the law and that no agency of government can overrule their actions:
Jim Lehrer: “What is the proper relationship, what should be the proper relationship between a chairman of the Fed and a president of the United States?”
Alan Greenspan: “Well, first of all, the Federal Reserve is an independent agency, and that means, basically, that there is no other agency of government which can overrule actions that we take. So long as that is in place and there is no evidence that the administration or the Congress or anybody else is requesting that we do things other than what we think is the appropriate thing, then what the relationships are don’t frankly matter.”
The fact that the Fed is above the law was demonstrated by current Fed chairman, Ben Bernanke, during his appearance before Congress on March 4, 2009
Senator Bernie Sanders asked Bernanke about $2.2 trillion in American tax dollars that was lent out by Federal Reserve. Bernanke refused to provide an answer:
Senator Sanders: “Will you tell the American people to whom you lent $2.2 trillion of their dollars? … Can you tell us who they are?”
Bernanke: “No”
What Can We Do?
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” – Margaret Mead
Do your own research, spread the word (feel free to share this article), and get involved. The Thrive Solutions Hub is an excellent place to start.
Two of the most basic ingredients, barley and wheat are highly contaminated and distributed to everyday supermarkets.
Though Japanese barley and wheat don’t have price competitive power, we need to check the exporting volume of Japanese contaminated products and to where. On this article, I will only report the contamination situation of them.
In July of 2011, Ibaraki prefecture measured high level of cesium from their barley.[Link 12] However because the safety limit of food was 500 Bq/Kg at that time, they were let to the market.
(Ibaraki prefecture is the third largest producing area of barley in Japan.(7.9%, 2005) )
Highest readings.
Sample 1
Sample taken : 6/20 ~ 7/4/2011
Measurement data : 7/8/2011
Location : Hitachinaka city
Cesium : 460 Bq/Kg
Sample 2
Sample taken : 6/20 ~ 7/4/2011
Measurement data : 7/8/2011
Location : Hitachinaka city
Cesium : 340 Bq/Kg
Barley can be used for barley tea of this year. On 8/12/2012, a media writer, Chidai measured 19.89 Bq/Kg from tea bags of barley tea. [Link]
On 7/11/2012, he also measured 16.65 Bq/Kg of cesium from Japanese wheat. [Link] Contaminated ingredients are already processed for variety of food.
<Settlement report 8/11/2012>
I’m taking up this space to report how much donation I received yesterday.
I’m sorry for the belated report.
I booked a flight ticket yesterday but soon after I submit my credit card information, I was transfered to their starting page and no confirmation code was received. thought that was the first fishing fraud I’ve encountered in my life.
I managed to call them to check and so far, they are an ok airline company and safe.. hope so.
Today I’m going to catch up with news. Sorry for inconvenience.
Out of the 36 patients, who underwent prophylactic treatment after identification of the anthrax hot bed in Zaporizhia region, currently two of them are remaining under supervision of physicians. “Today we can say that everything is fine with the people: out of 36 people, who received preventive treatment, only two are under the supervision of doctors now. They are a man and a woman from Voznesenka village, who had contacted the infected animal and were hospitalized immediately after the accident. Currently, they have no manifestations of disease, but to make sure that the health condition of these people is good, we should get the results of laboratory tests and withstand a certain period,” chief medical officer of Zaporizhia region Anatoly Sevalnev said. According to the deputy head of the Main Department for Veterinary Medicine in Zaporizhia region Serhit Dehtiarenko, the quarantine measures will continue until September 5.
Biohazard name:
Anthrax
Biohazard level:
4/4 Hazardous
Biohazard desc.:
Viruses and bacteria that cause severe to fatal disease in humans, and for which vaccines or other treatments are not available, such as Bolivian and Argentine hemorrhagic fevers, H5N1(bird flu), Dengue hemorrhagic fever, Marburg virus, Ebola virus, hantaviruses, Lassa fever, Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever, and other hemorrhagic or unidentified diseases. When dealing with biological hazards at this level the use of a Hazmat suit and a self-contained oxygen supply is mandatory. The entrance and exit of a Level Four biolab will contain multiple showers, a vacuum room, an ultraviolet light room, autonomous detection system, and other safety precautions designed to destroy all traces of the biohazard. Multiple airlocks are employed and are electronically secured to prevent both doors opening at the same time. All air and water service going to and coming from a Biosafety Level 4 (P4) lab will undergo similar decontamination procedures to eliminate the possibility of an accidental release.
Streaks of red tide – a toxic algal bloom that threatens both marine life – were clearly visible in Noyac Bay during a flyover on Thursday. Aerial photographer Jeff Cully captured images of red tide lining the shore at Long Beach. Red tide has appeared in Long Island waters every summer since 2004, Chris Gobler, Ph.D., told Patch earlier this month, when the algal bloom made its first showing of the year. Gobler, a Stony Brook Southampton School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences professor, said red tide typically appears in late August, but this summer it was detected in late July. The early arrival could be attributed to high temperatures this summer, he said. “This red tide is caused by the dinoflagellate, cochlodinium,” Gobler explained. “Cochlodinium is not a human health threat but is highly toxic to marine life. Fish exposed to dense cochlodinium blooms cannot survive more than one to six hours, depending on their size. We have had fish die at the Southampton marine lab when our intake system brought in red tide water.” After patches of red tide have passed through, pound net fisherman have found that catches have died off, he added. The School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, thanks to $3 million in grants, announced Monday a plan to restore the health of another local bay, Shinnecock, by seeding eelgrass and shellfish beds in strategic areas where they are most likely to thrive. Shellfish filter algae from water, but their populations in Long Island waters have declined in recent decades, a trend marine sciences hope to turn around. If the effort proves successful, it could be implemented in other distressed bodies of water, both locally and around the world. Research demonstrates that algal blooms are made worse by an increased flow of nitrogen into the bays, from sources such as cesspools and fertilizers, Gobler said.
Biohazard name:
Red Tide
Biohazard level:
0/4 —
Biohazard desc.:
This does not included biological hazard category.
Symptoms:
Status:
Today
Biological Hazard
Ireland
Multiple areas, [Beaches in Waterford and Cork, and Kerry]
Portuguese men-of-war, which look like jellyfish and whose sting can cause severe pain and, in rare cases, death in humans, has been seen on beaches in Waterford and Cork, and may yet reach Kerry coasts. The Irish Water Safety organisation yesterday warned swimmers, surfers and other beach users that Portuguese men-of- war have been seen in Tramore, Ardmore, Inchydoney and Schull, and that there is a risk they may drift farther north. The invertebrate and carnivore creature is a siphonophore, which means it is made up of a colony of organisms working together. Its float is about 30cm long and 13cm wide and it has tentacles that can reach 50m in length. The stinging venom-filled nematocysts in the tentacles cause severe pain to humans, leaving whip-like red welts on the skin. A sting may lead to an allergic reaction. There can also be serious effects, including fever, shock, and interference with heart and lung function. Stings may also cause death, although this is extremely rare.
Biohazard name:
Portuguese man O War Jellyfish invasion
Biohazard level:
0/4 —
Biohazard desc.:
This does not included biological hazard category.
Once a resident of rivers throughout Japan, the Japanese river otter hasn’t been seen for more than 30 years. Today, the otter was officially deemed extinct by Japan’s Ministry of the Environment. The unique species of otter was designated as natural monument in Japan as the first Japanese mammal to have survived into the Showa Era (1926-1989) before succumbing to extinction. Two species of Japanese bat and two species of wolves became extinct in the Meija Era (1868-1912).
Over-hunting for its fur combined with habitat destruction from human development drove the river otter to near extinction by the 1930s. By the late ’70s the river otter was added to the “Red List of Threatened Mammals of Japan” as critically endangered. The last official sighting of a Japanese river otter was in 1979 along the banks of the Shinjo River in Susaki, Kochi Prefecture.
An adult river otter grew to about 110 centimeters (43 inches) in length, including a tail of up to 50 centimeters (20 inches), sporting a thick, lush coat of fur and short webbed feet. The typical diet for a Japanese river otter consisted mainly of fish, crab and shrimp, but they also dined on eels, sweet potatoes, watermelons and beetles.
Hope after extinction?
Official survey records from the Ministry of the Environment indicate the river otter disappeared from the northern island of Hokkaido in the 1950s and on the main island of Honshu in the 1960s. In the early 1990s research teams assembled in Kochi Prefecture, located in the southwestern part of the island of Shikoku, to see if they could find evidence of surviving otters. In March 1992 the researchers found hair and excrement that was determined to have come from an otter — perhaps the last official evidence of a surviving Japanese river otter.
But Yoshihiko Machida, professor emeritus at Kochi University, isn’t quite ready to sound the death knell for the Japanese river otter, citing reports of confirmed otter droppings found as late as 1999:
“I think it is possible that they still exist, and I want to continue my investigations,” he said in response to the declaration of the otter’s extinction.
Hope springs eternal.
30.08.2012
Environment Pollution
United Kingdom
Scotland, North Sea, [Between Tartan Alpha platform and Galley field]
An oil spill response spill vessel has been deployed to a North Sea field after oil started leaking from crack in a subsea pipeline. An estimated 13 barrels of oil have leaked from the pipeline which connects the Galley field to Talisman’s Tartan Alpha platform, 117 miles north-east of Aberdeen. The leak was first spotted last Friday. A spokesman for Talisman Energy said: “Talisman Energy (UK) Limited can confirm that following the identification of a crack in the production pipeline which connects the Galley field to the Tartan Alpha platform, flushing operations are being carried out using seawater to remove the production fluids from the pipeline. “This is being carried out in accordance with a plan developed by a specialist team and agreed with the Department of Energy and Climate Change, bringing the situation to a safe and timely resolution. All relevant authorities have been informed and are being kept updated.” He added: “Based on the investigatory and monitoring activity undertaken since we identified the issue on 24 August, we estimate the maximum total release to date is 88 barrels of fluids, of which approximately 13 would be oil and the rest water. “We take our responsibility to safeguard the environment very seriously and, as a precaution we deployed a spill recovery and containment vessel with oil spill response equipment on board, while monitoring the leak area by ROV (Remotely Operated Vehicle) on a round-the-clock basis. The oil spill response vessel will remain on station during subsequent remedial works. “In addition, we have established a regular programme of spotter plane flights to monitor the sea surface and placed a trained wildlife observer on a vessel at the site to monitor seabirds and marine life.”
Aug. 30 (Bloomberg) — Almost half of tuberculosis patients who received prior treatment were resistant to a second-line drug, suggesting the deadly disease may become “virtually untreatable,” according to a new study.
Among 1,278 patients who were resistant to two or more first-line tuberculosis drugs in Estonia, Latvia, Peru, Philippines, Russia, South Africa, South Korea and Thailand, 43.7 percent showed resistance to at least one second-line drug, according to a study led by Tracy Dalton at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The findings were published in the Lancet medical journal today.
About 1.4 million people died from TB, the second-deadliest infectious disease globally after AIDS, and 650,000 cases were multi-drug resistant in 2010, according to the World Health Organization. Rising infection rates prompted the U.K. to announce in May it will require pre-entry tuberculosis screening for migrants from 67 countries seeking to enter the country for more than 6 months.
“The global emergence of extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis heralds the advent of widespread, virtually untreatable tuberculosis,” the study authors said in the published paper.
Previous treatment with second-line drugs was the strongest risk factor for resistance to these drugs, the authors said.
Alcohol Abuse
The prevalence of drug resistance, which ranged from 33 percent in Thailand to 62 percent in Latvia, also correlates with how long second-line drugs have been available in each country.
South Korea and Russia had the longest histories of availability — more than 20 years — and the highest rates of resistance. In contrast, Thailand, Philippines and Peru, where second-line drugs were introduced 10 years ago or less, had the lowest resistance rates.
Unemployment, alcohol abuse and smoking were also associated with resistance to second-line injectable treatment across countries.
This is one of the few studies that have followed patients with the multi-drug-resistant form of TB for several years, Justin Denholm, an infectious disease epidemiologist at the Royal Melbourne Hospital, said in a phone interview.
Patients not taking their medicines properly is a major driver for resistance, said Denholm, who is studying TB transmission patterns in Australia’s Victoria state.
Individualized Treatment
The WHO’s current strategy for tackling TB is called Dots, short for “directly observed treatment, short course.” Under Dots, patients are required to show up at a clinic three times a week to be supervised when taking their medicine to be sure they complete the treatment.
“The reality is that this one-size-fits-all approach is a major part of what’s led to this drug resistance issue,” Denholm said. “I think individualized treatment is what we should be aiming for.”
Scientists are also researching new treatments. In a study published last month in the Lancet, researchers from Stellenbosch University in Cape Town said an experimental three- drug combination killed 99 percent of the bacteria within two weeks. As the combination doesn’t contain isoniazid or rifampicin, the two main medicines used against TB, it may also provide a much-needed weapon against drug-resistant strains, the researchers wrote.
China Survey
India and China, which have the world’s highest numbers of tuberculosis cases, weren’t included in Dalton’s study as they hadn’t begun pilot programs for increasing access to second-line drugs until after the study began.
In a 2007 national survey in China, 27 percent of multi- drug-resistant tuberculosis cases showed resistance to the antibiotic fluoroquinolone, according to the Lancet report. In India, a 2006 population-based survey in the western state of Gujarat reported fluoroquinolone resistance in 24 percent of cases.
The U.K. Border Agency this month began requiring TB screening for Indians applying for a settlement visa and will extend the rule to those obtaining a work visa from Sept. 10. The new requirement replaces screening at airports.
TB is at the highest level in 30 years in the U.K. In London, 84 percent of the 3,302 people infected in 2010 were foreign-born, according to the Health Protection Agency.
30.08.2012
Epidemic Hazard
USA
State of Colorado, [Cimarrona Campground, Archuleta County]
A camper near Pagosa Springs has contracted bubonic plague. The Durango Herald reports that the person contracted the plague during a family outing in the Cimarrona Campground. The San Juan Basin Health Department did not give the victim’s age or gender. Warning signs are being posted in the campground, The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports an average of seven cases of plague each year across the country. Most human cases tend to occur in rural areas in the Southwest. Symptoms of plague begin two to six days after a person is bitten by an infected flea, rodent or cat. The plague can be successfully treated if diagnosed promptly.
A vast outcrop of the Arctic Siberian coast that had been frozen for tens of thousands of years is releasing huge carbon deposits as rising temperatures thaw parts of its coastline, a study warned Wednesday.
The carbon, a potential source of Earth-warming CO2, has lain frozen along the 7,000-kilometre (4,400-mile) northeast Siberian coastline since the last Ice Age.
But atmospheric warming and coastal erosion are gnawing at the icy seal, releasing about 40 million tonnes of carbon a year — 10 times more than previously thought, said a study in the journal Nature.
About two-thirds of the carbon escapes into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide (CO2) and the rest becomes trapped in higher layers of ocean sediment.
About half the carbon pool in soil globally is held in permafrost in the Arctic, a region that is experiencing twice the global average of climate warming, said the study led by researchers at Stockholm University.
Earlier this week, US scientists said the sea ice in the Arctic Ocean had melted to its smallest point ever.
The region covered by the Nature study, called Yedoma, is twice the size of Sweden but has been poorly researched because it is so remote.
The finding touches on a vicious circle, or positive feedback in climate parlance.
Under this, man-made warming caused by the burning of fossil fuels releases naturally-occurring stocks of CO2 that have been stored in permafrost since the last Ice Age, called the Pleistocene.
The released gases in turn add to global warming, which frees even more locked-up carbon, and so on.
“Thermal collapse and erosion of these carbon-rich Pleistocene coastline and seafloor deposits may accelerate the Arctic amplification of climate warming,” the paper warned.
The atmospheric leakage from Yedoma is equivalent to the annual emissions of around five million passenger cars, on the basis of average carbon output (five tonnes per year) of vehicles in the United States.
In a separate study also in Nature, researchers in Britain, the Netherlands and the United States used computer models to estimate there could be as much as four billion tonnes of methane under Antarctica’s icesheet.
Methane is 25 times more efficient at trapping solar heat than carbon dioxide.
Before it froze over, the region teemed with life whose organic remains became trapped in sediment later covered by ice sheets.
“Our modelling shows that over millions of years, microbes may have turned this old organic carbon into methane,” which could boost climate warming if released by icesheet collapse, the researchers said in a statement.
The collapse of the Antarctic icesheet is considered an extremely remote scenario by most climatologists, and some studies have suggested that parts of it could be thickening, due to localised increases in snowfall.
South Korean rescuers Wednesday recovered two more bodies near two wrecked Chinese fishing boats, bringing the confirmed death toll from a powerful typhoon to 18.
Typhoon Bolaven — the strongest to hit the South for almost a decade — left a trail of death and damage in southwestern and south-central regions of the country.
It drove two Chinese fishing ships aground early Tuesday off the southern island of Jeju, sparking a dramatic rescue operation.
Coastguards wearing wetsuits struggled through high waves and pulled a total of 12 people to safety, and six swam ashore. Eight bodies had been recovered as of Wednesday and seven were still missing, the coastguard in Jeju said.
Dozens of divers are involved in the ongoing search. The coastguard said in a statement it would make “utmost efforts” to account for all the missing.
Most of the other deaths, confirmed by the public administration ministry, were caused by wind gusts that toppled walls or roofs or blew victims off their feet.
Typhoon alerts covering most of the country were lifted as ferries and flights returned to normal and schools reopened. But South Korea is now on watch for another typhoon, Tembin.
Bolaven moved on to North Korea, damaging crops and toppling some 3,700 roadside trees, the North’s official news agency said. Human casualties were not reported.
In North Hwanghae Province, the typhoon deactivated television relay facilities and destroyed or damaged some 20 houses and public buildings, the agency said, adding that “a lot of houses and roads” were submerged in other provinces.
Bolaven crossed the Yalu border river into China early Wednesday.
In South Korea, the typhoon was the strongest since 2003 in terms of wind speed. A maximum speed of 214 kilometres per hour (134 miles per hour) was recorded at Mount Mudeung in the southwestern city of Gwangju.
Power cuts of five minutes or longer hit nearly two million homes, a record in the country, the public administration ministry said.
The storm toppled nearly 8,000 trees and damaged 42 ships or boats and 35 houses. A total of 6,418 hectares (15,852 acres) of farmland was damaged.
Typhoon Tembin, located about 350 kilometres northeast of the Taiwanese capital Taipei early Wednesday, is approaching South Korea at a speed of 20 kilometres an hour.
The situation was bleak in some Eastbank Plaquemines Parish neighborhoods that were inundated by water as Hurricane Isaac pushed across the region.
Officials said an 18-mile stretch of levees was overtopped by water from the Mississippi River early Wednesday. The resulting flood brought as much as 10 feet of water to residential areas, early reports indicated.
The area includes a stretch from Braithwaite to White Ditch. Those communities were under a mandatory evacuation order because of safety concerns.
Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser told WDSU that the problem was limited to overtopping, and not a breach. He described the situation as “serious.”
The National Weather Service noted: “This will result in significant deep flooding in this area.”
The levee is not part of the federal Corps of Engineers protection system.
WDSU reporter Travers Mackel said flood gates were closed to contain the water. He said there was concern that some people were trapped in dangerous conditions.
In nearby St. Bernard Parish, trees blocked roadways, making driving nearly impossible.
More than 400,000 Entergy customers on the south shore were without power.
WDSU reporter Gina Swanson said water was encroaching on an evacuation shelter in Raceland, in Lafourche Parish.
Jefferson Parish reported flooding in Lower Lafitte and water levels in the bayou that were up two feet from Tuesday.
The Harvey and Belle Chasse tunnels were closed — a move that followed the shut-down of the Lake Pontchartrain Causevay Tuesday evening.
Several fires, including major ones in Gretna and Arabi, were also reported.
(MOBILE, Ala.) – While Louisiana appears to be taking the heaviest blow from Hurricane Isaac, there’s no doubt the storm is impact our stretch of the Gulf.
One viewer send in video of waves churning in Mobile Bay ripping up a dock, and a man in Pensacola uploaded video of driving wind and rain from his pool.
Thousands have been without power in Mobile County but crews have been out trying to make those repairs today.
Lake Tangipahoa, a 450 to 500-acre lake at Percy Quinn State Park just north of the Mississippi state line, was swollen from Isaac’s rain, undermining a dam that, if it failed, would release the body of water into the Tangipahoa River that meanders down the parish’s length to Lake Pontchartrain. “That’s going to inundate an already flooded river,” said National Guard Col. Rodney Painting, the incoming commander of the Guard’s 225th Engineer Brigade who started his day helping oversee the evacuation of flooded areas in LaPlace and would end it in his native Tangipahoa helping oversee what appears to be the largest such effort in the state since Isaac made landfall Tuesday. Authorities in Mississippi tried to ease the pressure by releasing some of the water, an effort said to be working. Louisiana officials are taking no chances.State and parish officials called a mandatory evacuation for communities from Kentwood to Robert. If the dam breaks, the National Guard will go into the affected communities with high-water vehicles and small boats, “that we can get through the flooded woods or streets if we have to,” said Painter, who during the Isaac state of emergency has helped coordinate evacuation sites at Zephyr Field in Metairie and in Slidell before moving to Laplace and Amite. In the “controlled release” using spillways, the water from the lake flooded out into a sparsely inhabited area of Mississippi on Thursday afternoon, relieving pressure on a dam scoured by Hurricane Isaac that threatened to push water levels in the Tangipahoa River up to 17 feet in Louisiana. Officials believe the controlled release of waters through emergency spillways will allow the water level to stabilize and lessen pressure on the dam until crews can breach the edge of Tangipahoa Lake near McComb and drain another 8 feet of water.While the release is expected to protect communities on the north shore, officials in Mississippi said about 20 homes on their side of the state line will be flooded out and emergency crews conducted a door-to-door effort to warn residents to leave their homes. Meanwhile, a more massive effort was occurring miles downriver, as National Guard units and other state assets attempted to get 40,000 to 60,000 people out of their homes. Though the water level in the lake was dropping and Mississippi officials downplayed the seriousness of the dam’s condition, Gov. Bobby Jindal continued to urge residents to leave potential flood zones in Tangipahoa Parish Thursday night. “The worse thing that could happen is that people get a false sense of confidence and then if there be a breach overnight it would be a lot harder for people to evacuate,” Jindal said. From the Florida Parishes Arena, troops drove school buses to collection points, where they’re driving evacuees to evacuation shelters set up at schools. School buses have been brought in from as far as Avoylles Parish and Terrebonne Parish, each driven by soldiers. “I’ve already got buses on the road full of people,” said Lt. Col. Vincent Tallo.
About 200 coaches and school buses are being rushed to Tangipahoa, said First Sgt. Rufus Jones of 3rd Battalion, 156th Infantry Regiment, a Guard combat unit whose soldiers, all armed with M4 rifles, waited in the arena for missions that would likely would include security details. By Thursday night, Tallo said he expected 300 National Guard troops in the parish, assisting the evacuation. The National Guard received the mission at 10 a.m., Thursday, said Maj. Scott Slaven, who commands the 205th Engineer Battalion in Bogalusa. Troops and equipment are staged on both sides of the Tangipahoa River, Slaven said. At Pontchatoula High School, Darryl Holliday of Kajun Kettle Foods Inc., which has a state contract to feed evacuees, was told to brace for 2,000 people. At 6:30 p.m., none of the evacuees had reached the school on Louisiana 22. Holliday said he was told that 40 people were en route. Painter said the plan calls for keeping evacuees in Tangipahoa Parish. At the Florida Parishes Arena, employees of the state Department of Children and Family Services prepared to account for the evacuees with forms, in part designed to identify families.
The damage to dam prompted Parish President Gordon Burgess to order mandatory evacuations along the Tangipahoa River, which were carried out with the assistance of the state and National Guard units. The first reports of problems with the dam came into emergency operations officials at 8 a.m., when crews noticed two “sloughs” where dirt was sliding down the sides of the earthen structure, said Greg Flynn, spokesman for the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency. Those sloughs are the first sign of a problem with the integrity of a dam, Flynn said. The damage was caused by rain from Hurricane Isaac, which raised the water level of the recreational fishing lake by several feet, said Richard Coghlan, Emergency Coordinator for Pike County. “The dam appears very stable at this time,” Coghlan said. Mississippi officials stressed that reports Thursday that the waters had breached or overtopped the dam were incorrect. Opening the spillways will bring the water level back to normal but could cause flooding in a wide, sparsely populated stretch of Mississippi. Coghlan said residents had been warned and were planning on leaving for at least a night.
Those homes would also have been flooded in the event that the dam failed, he said. Once the water level drops back to normal, a process that could take days, crews will dig a trench out of the lake with the intention of causing a more serious drop in the water levels, Coghlan said. That will allow maintenance crews to go in and repair the dam, he said. Louisiana state officials estimated that between 40,000 and 60,000 homes would take on some water should the river flood. Many of those were outside the mandatory evacuation zone, which extended one mile on either side of the Tangipahoa River from Kentwood to Robert. It was unclear on Thursday exactly how many people lived in that area or how many were evacuated by the end of the day.
Officials rushed to evacuate more than 100 nursing home residents from Plaquemines Parish, an area with a reputation for weathering storms and perhaps the hardest hit by Isaac. In this hardscrabble, mostly rural parish, even the sick and elderly are hardened storm veterans. Other residents in the Riverbend Nursing and Rehabilitation Center were loaded into ambulances and taken to a nearby naval station. By midafternoon Wednesday, Isaac had been downgraded to a tropical storm. The Louisiana National Guard ceased rescue operations in Plaquemines Parish, saying it felt confident it had gotten everyone out. There were no serious injuries. National Guard spokesman Capt. Lance Cagnolatti said guardsmen would stay in the area over the coming days to help. By early Thursday, Isaac’s maximum sustained winds had decreased to 45 mph and the National Hurricane Center said it was expected to become a tropical depression by Thursday night, meaning its top sustained winds would drop below 39 mph. The storm’s center was on track to cross Arkansas on Friday and southern Missouri on Friday night, spreading rain as it goes.
Torrential rain left motorists battling flooded roads and residents using sandbags to stem the flow of flash floods. And yesterday’s downpour means the county is on track to record one of the wettest Augusts in recent years as families rue the summer that never was. The rain – which hit Staffordshire during yesterday morning and afternoon – forced local authorities and members of the emergency services to attempt to combat a number of deep floods. Weather experts said yesterday’s adverse conditions mean the region is on course to have endured a worse summer than the previous year. Figures from the Met Office have revealed the first two weeks of August saw 36mm of rain fall in the county. In July the region was hit with 139mm. Yesterday’s downpour caused problems across the city, along with Newcastle and the Staffordshire Moorlands. Staff from Staffordshire Moorlands District Council’s street cleaning team handed out sandbags to residents in Endon, Blythe Bridge, Stockton Brook and Brown Edge in a bid to tackle flooding. Firefighters were sent out to close off Endon’s Brook Lane after a flooded ford resulted in the area being deluged in 3ft high water. Crews from Leek and Endon also helped residents safely turn off their electricity and gas as water swept through the area. Last night motorists were being advised to avoid Brown Edge’s Breach Lane. A spokesman for Staffordshire Fire and Rescue said: “We’d urge people to monitor warnings given by the Environment Agency and to avoid driving in areas where there is localised flooding.”
A series of small earthquakes which began Wednesday night and continued into Thursday near a long-dormant volcanic peak in Alaska’s Aleutian Islands has prompted researchers to raise the alert level for the Little Sitkin volcano.
The nearly 4,000-foot-high Little Sitkin volcano is named for the island where it resides, located in the Rat Islands in the Aleutian chain. The volcano has shown little activity since scientists have started observing it, with only three questionable eruptive events at the volcano since that time. The most recent eruption may have come in 1900, according to the Alaska Volcano Observatory.
Still, the AVO page for Little Sitkin mentions there may have been a “cataclysmic eruption” on the island sometime after the last ice age, which ended more than 11,000 years ago.
Seismic equipment located near the volcano began detecting a “swarm of high-frequency earthquakes” at about 7:15 p.m. Wednesday, the AVO reports. The earthquakes continued through the night into Thursday, prompting the alert level at the volcano being raised. The alert level is currently at yellow, which means that the “volcano is exhibiting signs of elevated unrest above known background level.” Additionally, aircraft traveling in the area are advised to exercise caution.
The volcano is located in a remote part of the Aleutians, about 35 miles northwest of the World War II outpost of Amchitka and 200 miles west of Adak.
Little Sitkin joins two other Alaska volcanoes, Iliamna and Cleveland, currently sitting at elevated alert levels.
Photos: Alaska volcanoes
Apr 02, 2012
Pavlof volcano and eruption plume on evening of Aug. 30, 2007. View is to the south. Plume height approximately 17-18,000 ft.
Iliamna, 130 miles from Anchorage, Alaska’s largest city, was first elevated in March of this year following a continued increase in seismic activity.
“The current level of activity at Iliamna does not indicate an imminent or certain eruption,” a status update from the AVO said Thursday. “Seismic activity, along with gas emissions, appear to be declining gradually.”
Meanwhile, the oft-erupting Cleveland volcano which, like Sitkin, is located in the Aleutians, remains elevated as well. Cleveland has been upgraded a half-dozen times in since 2010 alone, and most recently erupted in June, when a pilot reported an ash cloud reaching up to 35,000 feet. Cleveland sits at a higher alert level than Iliamna or Little Sitkin, meaning the volcano still has a higher potential for eruption at any time.
Seismologists say a cluster of earthquakes has been detected at a remote volcano in Alaska’s western Aleutian Islands. The Alaska Volcano Observatory says the quakes began Wednesday evening at Little Sitkin Volcano and are continuing as of Thursday morning. No eruption has been detected. Scientist in charge John Power says there is no direct link to the swarm of earthquakes at Little Sitkin and a cluster of quakes that shook California’s Imperial County earlier this week. Powers says Little Sitkin is located on an uninhabited island and is far from any populated areas. He says the seismic activity is unusual for Little Sitkin, whose last eruption possibly in the early 1900s is questionable. Powers says the concern about an eruption would be the possible threat posed to aircraft.
