CAFOs Raise Stink... and Asthma, Antibiotic Resistance, and Swine Flu

Farm Bureau propagandists like Troy Hadrick criticize those darn lawyers and other folks who find the odor of concentrated animal feeding operations offensive. Dr. Donna Wong-Gibbons documents other CAFO harms that go far beyond stink:

...[O]dor is only part of the concern. [Ammonia and hydrogen sulfide] are also airway irritants that can cause respiratory problems. If you’re in a situation where you’re exposed to a high level of ammonia in the air, your eyes are going to water. Your throat is going to hurt. These are the biological and physiological signs that something is wrong — that these compounds are not good for you.

Particulate matter is also an issue with livestock confinements. This includes things such as dust, feathers, fecal matter, and fur. There is extensive research on associations between airborne particulate matter and respiratory problems or cardiovascular problems.

But as far as the irritation from ammonia and hydrogen sulfide — that’s essentially what you see in areas that are downwind or surrounding these facilities. There have also been documented respiratory problems in the people who work in these facilities — in livestock confinements — that are likely due to those exposures [Dr. Donna Wong Gibbons, interview with Julia Wasson, "Plains Justice -- CAFOs and Threats to Human Health," Blue Planet, Green Living, 2010.01.06.

Kelly Fuller pointed me toward this report, which Dr. Wong-Gibbons produced for Plains Justice, the group for which Fuller works, to document the range of public health threats caused by CAFOs. The report also documents higher instances of asthma, water pollution, arsenic in chicken, antibiotic resistance, and bird and swine flu, all related to big animal feedlots.

Read the full (PDF) report here. Then be prepared for the likely impolite and aggressive responses from the defenders of unhealthy factory farms.

Pronouns in the Press... and PSA Death Pig!

I judged Central Forensic Conference debate at Lennox HS yesterday. Between rounds, I found more interesting posters:
In the Kealey Bultena Memorial Visual News Laboratory,* I found this eye-catching admonition about pronouns. It struck me as metaphorically significant that we instruct our young journalists to associate I, you, and we with a frowny face. The poster reminds us that in its pretense to objectivity, professional journalism (not to mention academic research) strips its practitioners of identity and community membership. Each of us (not just reporters and bloggers, but every one of us capable of communication) tells stories as an I. We direct our stories toward you. We tell stories about us. To remove even those simple pronouns that mark the identity and context of a story unavoidably diminishes the story's authenticity.

And in lighter news, I found this public service announcement:


I generally oppose fear-mongering... but not when it's this funny. This student artist clearly understands how to increase immunization rates: beware the vampire pig! (Principal Raabe, I have Mr. Rommereim from the South Dakota Pork Producers Council on line 2....)

*Kealey! Kidding! You know we all love you. ;-)

H1N1 Vaccine Safer than South Dakota Highways

The state of South Dakota has distributed over 165,000 doses of H1N1 flu vaccine. By next week, we will have had at least one public vaccine clinic in every county of the state. According to the Center for Disease Control's Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (it's online! it's searchable! there goes my morning!), as of November 24, it appears 22 South Dakotans have reported non-serious reactions to the H1N1 vaccine. There have been no serious reactions (i.e., death, life-threatening illness, or significant disability). Looking at all vaccines given this year in South Dakota, 92 individuals have experienced non-serious reactions and 3 have experienced serious reactions.

Nationwide, the CDC finds 13 people have died within 19 days after getting swine flu shots. According to the New York Times, nine of those folks had "serious underlying illnesses, and one woman... died in a car crash after leaving the clinic."

Meanwhile, 408 South Dakotans have gone to the hospital with H1N1, and 21 South Dakotans have died of H1N1. And over 4600 people have experienced injury or death on South Dakota's highways so far this year.

The CDC's latest report says that, based on the first couple months of H1N1 vaccine data, the adverse event reporting rate for H1N1 is 82 per million vaccinations, compared 47 per million seasonal flu vaccinations. It would appear your chances of feeling yucky after a swine flu shot are 1 in 12,000, while your chances of feeling yucky after a seasonal flu shot are 1 in 21,000. The report editor notes that those number may not indicate that H1N1 vaccine causes more reactions; the VAERS data is based on voluntary reporting, and the extra attention given to H1N1 may contribute to higher rates of reporting adverse reactions.

Madison Swine Flu Clinic Gives 775 Shots

I went to the Lake County H1N1/sine flu free vaccine clinic yesterday—not to get a shot (I'm not in Tier 1), but to enter data. That meant I got to be one of the first people to see the shot totals for the day.

Our vaccine clinic gave out all 775 doses of H1N1 vaccine it had available. 23% of the shots went to kids 5 and under. 50% went to kids 6-18. 19% went to young people 19–24.

Everyone [edit!] under 10 years oldwho got a shot yesterday has to come back in a month to get a second shot to make the vaccine stick (careful, moms: now those little ones know what's coming!). And given that we used up our full supply yesterday, there's that much more chance that, as more vaccine comes available, we may get another such clinic later this season.

And for my Glenn Beck readers, there were no signs of microchips in the injections or the lollipops. There didn't appear to be any government mismanagement either. The whole show at the Playhouse ran quite smoothly, ably planned and managed by local emergency director Don Thomson*. That's government for you: just getting the job done.

Update 12:15 CST: The local press adds to the list of folks deserving credit for a smoothly run ship yesterday: "Cathy Hanson from the Madison Community Hospital,
CHN Jen Fouberg and Peggy Young (also from the public health nurse's office)" also coordinated the Lake County vaccine clinic.

Not Enough H1N1 Vaccine? Why Isn't Free Market Solving?

GOP House candidate Thad Wasson tickles my logical-fallacy bone this morning with a dollop of "blame government" paranoia. He sees detainees at Guantanamo slated to receive H1N1 vaccine as a sign that the federal government's "total control of health" leads to rationing and prioritizing.

I prefer to look at the treatment of prisoners throughout the country as part of the moral argument that we have a moral obligation to take care of each other and that government ought to be the single provider at least of health insurance. If it's good enough for prisoners, soldiers, veterans, public employees, and retirees, it's good enough for me.

But specifically on swine flu shots: if everyone is so darned eager to get shots, why isn't the free market solving? Medicine comes from private companies running private factories. If I were a pharmaceutical giant, and I knew there were a bunch of scared folks eager to pay top dollar to avoid the pandemic they hear about in the news every day, I'd be running my factories overtime... unless, of course, someone demonstrated that the profit such basic, essential medicine wouldn't outweigh what I make on luxury drugs like Botox and Viagra.

The Obama Administration has said that they've made their predictions on vaccine avvailability based on numbers provided by industry. And really, if you want more vaccine, what solution do you want? Would you prefer the government nationalize the pharmaceutical industry and direct all production toward H1N1 vaccine and Tamiflu? Would you prefer the CDC do even less science, less testing before sending the vaccine to market?

Blaming the government for H1N1 vaccine shortage, not to mention the conclusions that "government can't do anything right," is just a smokescreen of political spin. I could suggest a free market solution: if you want more vaccine, you should make it yourself. But that's about as realistic as Steve Sibson's suggestion that the solution to underinsurance is for you and me to start our own insurance companies.

For all the griping, I still haven't heard an effective free market solution for the H1N1 vaccine situation. If you want more shots, it seems to me your only option is more radical government intervention in health care, not less.

Fight Swine Flu: Eat More Bacon!

(Hat tip to Amanda Nolz at AgWired!)

You've heard me grumble about the word games the pork industry wants to play with "swine flu" and "H1N1." Hoosier Ag Today's Gary Truitt says the pork industry's effort to eradicate the term "swine flu" from the press has been a failure. Truitt suggests pork boosters quit whining and take laughter as their best medicine:

There is a web site that is selling a verity of products with humorous swine flu sayings on them. T-shirts that read, “Prevent swine flu eat more bacon.” They also sell neckties with photos of pigs wearing surgical masks. The internet is filled with funny photos, sayings, and stories all making fun of swine flu. One e-mail message that crossed my desk warmed me to disregard any messages asserting eating canned pork could give you swine flu, it said it was just Spam. There are rumors that a line of special swine flu get well cards is in the works. Perhaps Gary Varvel will do a cartoon showing healthy hogs in a bio-secure confinement facility watching CNN and saying they are glad they are not human so they can’t get swine flu [Gary Truitt, "Prevent Swine Flu, Eat More Bacon," Hoosier Ag Today, 2009.11.01].

Mmm, bacon! And pass the chops.

Lake County Offering H1N1 Shots for Students, Pregnant Women November 18

The Lake County Planning Pandemic Committee (didn't know we had one, did you?) has sent out the following announcement of activation of its "mass prophylaxis plan" (didn't know we had that, either!). In a nutshell, pregnant women, babies, toddlers, and children with other ailments get first dibs; everyone else under 24 gets in next.

October 27, 2009

Dear Parent/Student:

Children and young adults are one of the primary groups affected by the H1N1 virus. Because of this, if adequate supplies are available, the H1N1 vaccine will be offered to all children/young adults 6 months through 24 years of age at a local community clinic.

The Lake County Pandemic Planning Committee will be exercising its mass prophylaxis plan by offering free H1N1 vaccine to the following individuals (if adequate vaccine): Tier 1: Pregnant women, Contacts of infants under 6 months of age, children 6 months to 4 years, and children 5-18 years with a chronic health condition AND Tier 2: Healthy Children age 5-18 years and young adults 19-24 years. If there are vaccine limitations the 1st Tier groups will take priority.

The community based H1N1 Clinic will be at the Dakota Prairie Playhouse in Madison, on November 18th, 2009 from 1PM-8PM. Parents/guardians are to come to the clinic to be with their child when the vaccine is administered. There will be no charge for the vaccine.

Due to the uncertainty of vaccine availability, an alternative date of December 2nd, 2009 from 1PM-8PM, has been chosen, in case the clinic needs to be rescheduled.

This exercise will allow our community the opportunity to test/exercise the Madison Area POD Plan. The POD (Points of Dispensing) Plan is a coordinated effort among several agencies and community members to dispense and distribute medication or vaccine to a regional population in an efficient/effective manner.

The attached Vaccine Information Statement can be read and the Influenza Vaccination Record Consent can be completed by parents/guardians prior to arriving to save some time at the clinic.

If you have questions about the vaccine or the scheduled clinic, please contact the South Dakota Department of Health Community Health Services Office in Lake County at 605-256-5309 or Miner County at 605-772-5381.

We hope that you will take an active part in protecting the health of yourself and/or child!

Lake County Pandemic Planning Committee

See the original letter (.doc) here; get a copy of the consent form (PDF) here.

Good News: Madison Arts Surge, Stricherz Supports Troops, SF Rations Flu Meds

Who says I never look at the bright side?

Arts Center to Open in Madison: The Madison Area Arts Council announces that it will open a Community Arts Center on November 1. They'll be at 106 Southeast 2nd Street, south of the Leader building. First they'll seet up an office for the organization and some public meeting space, then by spring get going with some classes and exhibits. Remake the city branding line: "Discover the Arts," indeed!

Stricherz Working Hard with Operation Homefront: Can't keep a good woman down—former legislative candidate Patricia Stricherz from the southern Moody County metroplex is busy running a new chapter of Operation Homefront, a national organization that provides support for families of deployed and wounded soldiers. They do things like help with auto repairs and utility payments, provide backpacks for school for soldiers' kids, and provide holiday meals and gifts. Stricherz says the South Dakota branch is finally moving out of her living room and into real office space—if you have any office equipment or furniture you could donate to help Operation Homefront set up shop, or if you'd like to help out in other ways, give Stricherz a call: 888-293-3775.

Of course, one could argue that the best help we could give Operation Homefront would be to eliminate the need for their services by bringing the troops home....

Free Market Shows Rationale for Rationing Medicine: In a demonstration of why free market principles don't work in health care, Sioux Falls docs say they aren't testing for swine flu. They aren't even handing out Tamiflu to everyone who wants it—also known as rationing. What? Did we turn into Canada?

No: the doctors are just practicing good, efficient medicine, with a dose of socialism:

"We're seeing huge numbers of patients presenting all across the region and it just doesn't make sense to try to test because we know it's there, it's widespread," Sanford Infectious Disease Dr. Wendell Hoffman said.

He says that means if you feel like you have the flu, it's a safe bet it's H1N1, which many can recover from without seeing their physician.

"Unless they're part of those designated groups that are at high risk for the complications of influenza, they also don't need to be treated," Hoffman said.

...Hoffman says there's one more thing the public should know. TamiFlu isn't widely available. And because health officials aren't really sure where this virus is headed and because we're early on in the flu season, giving the medication to only those who need it is crucial [Kelli Grant, "Why... Doctors Aren't Testing for H1N1," KELOLand.com, 2009.10.20].

The free market would lead to overutilization: underinformed citizens flooding clinics and inflating demand for goods and services they don't need. That demand would prevent some people who most need care from getting it, and that would mean more dead people. The free market also apparently can't produce enough of the irrationally desired product, Tamiflu (Gilead Sciences holds an exclusive patent on the drug until 2016). Thus, doctors have to step in and ensure that the drug is distributed on the basis of need rather than ability to pay... a nice little affirmation of socialist principle over free-market fundamentalism.

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Update 09:40 CDT: And some bad news/good news: The bad news is, no South Dakota Online broadcast today. The good news: the delay is because Ben Hanten got new gear! They're putting together new equipment and a new set and are aiming to broadcast tomorrow, Thursday, at 2:30 p.m. (New set? Rumor has it Ben's pals raided KELO's secret warehouse south of Rowena and liberated KELO's 1968 newscast set, complete with Terrace Park signs and the original 50 pieces of Dave Dedrick's ugly necktie collection.)

Swine Flu. Yes, I Said Swine Flu. Pass the Bacon

Jon Hunter expresses his deep concern about the darned media that persists in referring to H1N1 as "swine flu." Calling it swine flu, says Hunter, "causes confusion and likely contributes to some people not eating pork products for fear of contracting the virus."

Obviously we need a fine slew of swine flu euphemisms... lest pork producers whine and sue.

It grinds my gourd that we have masses of media muckrakers calling the President of the United States of America all sorts of things he isn't—Communist, socialist, Kenyan—and that's all fine and dandy. But refer to a virus by a name that might threaten the price of bacon, and see the editorials fly!

And the funny thing is, even the CDC calls H1N1 swine flu and says it is "of swine origin."

Swine flu. H1N1. Whatever. You can't catch it from eating pork; you're probably a greater danger to your pigs (and ferrets). Now pass the bacon.

H1N1 at SDSU: ThePostSD.com Breaks Story

I'm not big on H1N1 hysteria and media fear-mongering. But given the general concern about the Disease Formerly Known as Swine Flu until pork industry lobbysists got riled up, I note with respect the fact that in just its second week of business, ThePostSD.com appears to have broken the story last night of the first reported cases of H1N1 on a South Dakota campus this season. Amy Dunkle from up Brookings way gets the news up first—nice work, Amy!

The story is worth noting, since college campuses have been especially diligent in planning for flu outbreaks this year, since college students' lifestyle—less frequent doctor visits, less likely to go get shots, not to mention all that carousing in close quarters—poses some increased risk for spreading disease. Keep sneezing into your elbow (but wait: what about those elbow bumps?), and stock up on that chicken soup! (By the way, if it can be solved with chicken soup, it's not a crisis.)

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Update 18:45 CDT: KELO has picked up the story for tonight's six o'clock report. But notice: The Post gets comment directly from an official at SDSU, where the story is happening. The Post's Dunkle follows up with information from officials at DSU and Mines. The first quotes in KELO's story come from two freshmen at Augustana, 50 miles away from the story. We also hear from an Augie official. KELO follows with a second story that adds no information about the SDSU story, instead getting quotes from students at, inexplicably, the University of Iowa.

Score one for real local news by The Post.

Right Response to Pandemic Swine Flu: Universal Health Care

When I talk health care, some commenters complain that paying for health care through the government is really theft, forcing them to pay for other people's health problems and getting nothing in return.

So what do you get from universal health coverage? How about not dead from swine flu?

The Marketplace Morning Report just ran a commentary from Robert Reich that provoked this realization. The Berkeley prof and former Labor Secretary was simply complaining that the folks who view a possible swine flu pandemic as an economic problem are missing the point, that taking care of people always trumps concern over this abstract thing called "the economy." We simply cannot afford to have 44 million of our fellow Americans uninsured and millions more just one diagnosis or layoff away from losing their coverage, says Reich.

That triggered the connection in my head: right now we have millions of people who won't go to see a doctor because they can't afford it. Even a lot of folks with insurance are carrying high deductibles and thus are more likely to delay or skip doctor visits.

So suppose a thousand uninsured/underinsured people around the country feel under the weather. Without universal coverage, there are that many more of those folks who will look at their thin wallets and say, "Ah, it's just stress or something I ate. I'll be fine." They wait a day, or two, or three, until they're so under the weather they decide they can't wait any longer.

And during that wait, their swine flu has spread to that many more people and created that much bigger of a public health problem. Public health problem, as in impacting the entire public, every taxpayer.

I suggest that universal health coverage and the increased preventive care it would bring could be a first line of defense against pandemics. There will still be outbreaks. There will still be cranky people like me who don't like to go to the doctor even my taxes have already paid for the visit. But a health system where anyone, rich or poor, can walk into a hospital for a check-up and a prescription without incurring a sudden, unexpected expense would strengthen our ability to fight swine flu and other public health crises.