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Louisiana Department of Wellness and Hospitals Secretary Alan Levine wrote to B

P America requesting $28.9 million in funding to enhance mental well being services via October 2011. The text with the letter is below:

July 29, 2010

Frank Hernandez
V.P. Government & Public Affairs
BP America Inc.
501 Westlake Park Blvd., WL1 – 25188
Houston, TX 77079

Dear Mr. Hernandez:

This is to follow up on our previous requests for BP’s support of our efforts to supply behavioral wellness services to Louisiana residents impacted by the ongoing disaster off our coast. Pursuant to your request, we have worked with Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) to format our strategy making use of the framework SAMHSA along with the other coastal states have agreed upon. SAMHSA has agreed our plan “is nicely thought out, utilizes evidence based standards, and gives a rational and comprehensive approach to addressing the behavioral wellness requirements with the citizens of Louisiana.” The strategy is enclosed for your review and approval.

Previously, on May 28, we requested $10 million to meet the want for six months, and we followed up on this request June 29. As we pointed out in those requests, counselors on the ground have been reporting increased signs and symptoms of behavioral health instability that experience demonstrates will manifest into much more clinically substantial behaviors if left untreated. The net result could possibly be a preventable tragedy if we don’t perform together to make certain we address it head-on.

Research soon after the Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska showed definitively the long-lasting mental health impacts of this sort of disaster. Additionally, a study conducted last month by Louisiana State University researchers showed practically 90 percent of the coastal residents surveyed are worried concerning the quite survival of their communities and “the findings suggest that important public wellness resources may possibly be needed to mitigate the pernicious consequences of this disaster for coastal Louisiana residents.” Experience from hurricanes Katrina and Rita taught us that these consequences could be mitigated through an aggressive and consistent early response such as those outlined in our enclosed program. We suspect this is why SAMHSA agrees using the comprehensiveness and appropriateness of our plan.

As requested, this program goes beyond the six months of our original request and outlines the state’s wants via October, 2011, and also contains the separate requests submitted by VOAD-Catholic Charities. We are delivering the consolidated request to guarantee you have a full picture with the need and comprehensiveness of our coordinated response. Overall, $28.9 million in funding will probably be employed to continue and enhance the perform already underway by Louisiana Spirit, the locally governed human services districts and our private, non-profit partners by means of October, 2011. As a way to make sure rapid deployment of the funds within the most accountable manner, we are requesting BP direct funds separately towards the state and VOAD-Catholic Charities consistent with our enclosed request.

Kenneth Feinberg has stated that mental health requirements won’t be covered within the individual claims approach he is overseeing. His decision further intensifies the urgency of this request. With no other recourse for these residents, it is incumbent on BP to separately fund nearby solutions to offer services so desperately needed. Your continued commitment to this effort is crucial.

I presume you’ll be able to understand our concern that it has been two months given that our first request. We’re asking for a response no later than August five, as the funds available for the services we are currently providing will expire. We simply do not think it is appropriate to abandon these families, and we strongly urge you to bring this to resolution.

Please direct any correspondence following Aug. 3 to interim Secretary Anthony Keck.

Sincerely,
Alan Levine
Secretary, Department of Wellness and Hospitals

Source: Louisiana Dept of Well being

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Pakistanis in the northwest part of the country face “life-threatening shortages” of food following flooding has killed 1,400 and “devastated the lives of far more than three million men and women,” Reuters reports. World Food Programme spokesman Amjad Jamal said, “People have lost their food stocks. The markets aren’t up and operating. Shops have collapsed. Men and women are definitely within the greatest need to have of food” (Ali, 8/4).

IRIN reports: “Shopkeepers were keeping back [food]stock inside the hope prices would rise,” citing 1 shop that is only selling two kilos of flour at a time. Flooded roads and bridges were “hampering” the arrival of goods and aid. “Media reports … say some relief trucks have been looted and there were also claims of aid becoming unfairly distributed, with officials favouring relatives” (8/4).

The floods have also “swept away farmland and devastated livestock in Pakistan’s northwest, costing farmers millions of dollars and sparking demands for government compensation,” Agence France-Presse writes. “Entire villages have been swept away … Dead livestock have been left rotting in the mud. Irrigation systems have been wiped out” (Tarakzai, 8/3).

This info was reprinted from globalhealth.kff.org with kind permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family members Foundation. You’ll be able to view the whole Kaiser Day-to-day Global Health Policy Report, search the archives and sign up for email delivery at globalhealth.kff.org.

? Henry J. Kaiser Loved ones Foundation. All rights reserved.

care Prof:

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has todaylaunched a major airlift, using helicopters to boost its ongoing reliefoperation and bring desperately needed food to individuals cut off by thedevastating floods in northern Pakistan.

The Pakistan government has offered WFP the use of six helicopters totransport food to tens of thousands of hungry and desperate men and women inisolated communities across the Swat Valley.

A WFP team has been in the Swat Valley identifying safe locations for thehelicopters to land. WFP and its international and national NGO partnerswill carry out distributions of ready-to-eat foods for infants and youngchildren, high energy biscuits and wheat flour, to WFP-identifiedbeneficiaries.

The very first three missions to the town of Kalam took place on Thursdaymorning, carrying a total of 7 metric tons of food – sufficient to feed2,500 people for one week.

“In this scene of devastation, with roads cut and bridges washed away,these helicopters are literally life-savers as they’re the only way to getvital food supplies to several thousands of hungry and desperate men and women,” saidWFP Executive Director Josette Sheeran.

WFP started food distributions on Sunday in the worst-affected locations ofPeshawar, Mardan, Charsadda and Nowshera and by Wednesday evening hadprovided rations for nearly 155,000 individuals.

WFP is currently conducting food desires assessments in 5 of theworst-hit locations, and will move into additional areas as they becomeaccessible. Initial indications are that around 1.8 million people across theKhyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) province are in require of food help.

WFP could be the world’s largest humanitarian agency fighting hunger worldwide.Each year, on average, WFP feeds more than 90 million folks in a lot more than70 countries.

Source:
WFP

care Prof:

Unknown to most non-scientists, the nation’s oldest mollusk collection resides four floors above one of Philadelphia’s busiest tourist areas and is now getting pressed into action to determine the impact with the nation’s worst oil spill.

Scientists recently borrowed a sampling of oyster shells from the Academy of Natural Sciences’ malacology collection, the third largest in the globe with some 12 million specimens, for their study of the impact with the Deepwater Horizon oil spill on marine life within the Gulf of Mexico. California Academy of Sciences Curator Dr. Peter Roopnarine, along with Laurie Anderson of Louisiana State University and David Goodwin of Denison University, want to find out how marine life in sensitive marshlands along the Gulf coast will probably be affected over time.

The study centers on how rapidly it takes the hydrocarbons and heavy metals in crude oil to affect marine food webs, something scientists know quite little about. As a way to track the alterations inside the specimens which will be studied, a lot of previous samples collected from similar locations and from different time periods are required. Roopnarine said only the Academy of Natural Sciences has suitable specimens from every decade of the 20th century.

“We often think of our collections as storehouses of past knowledge,” Roopnarine stated. “The collections, however, are tremendously important assets for scientific research on the present.”

By employing the Academy’s oyster shells as a baseline, Roopnarine and his colleagues will probably be able to determine the quantities of hydrocarbons and heavy metals that had been already present in the Gulf mollusks before oil drilling began after which track how much has accumulated consequently with the recent oil spill. The scientists also will have a look at tellinid clams and periwinkles. Each of the three species uses a different pathway to feed.

If their findings reveal that the shells are adopting hydrocarbons at the exact same speed, it means they’re all drawing these compounds from the water column. If, however, they are becoming incorporated at different rates, it would mean the animals are receiving contaminants from their food sources. Mollusks are getting studied simply because, as “primary consumers,” shellfish are likely to be the very first to show traces of hydrocarbons and heavy metals that could later be passed on to creatures that feed on shellfish. Given the carcinogenic nature of hydrocarbons, the concern lies with the physiological harm to marine life when the supplies have spread by way of the food chain.

“There is little use saying ‘the BP spill will pollute the Gulf’ unless you’ll be able to demonstrate how polluted the Gulf was to begin with and how lengthy it’s been given that it wasn’t polluted at all,” said Paul Callomon, the Academy of Natural Sciences’ malacology collection manager. “While much of the oil spill’s impact is unknown, Dr. Roopnarine’s study making use of the Academy’s collection will create a foundation to answer some of these questions.”

On a related note, Academy Malacology Curator Dr. Gary Rosenberg documented far more than 1,700 species of mollusks from the Gulf of Mexico for a book published last year on the fauna and flora of that region. Rosenberg said “about 10 percent with the species of mollusks in the Gulf are endemics, known from nowhere else on earth. Such species are the ones at greatest risk from the oil spill.”

Source:
Carolyn Belardo
The Academy of Natural Sciences

care Prof:

“A simmering dispute with all the World Bank and reconstruction leaders is threatening the pace of rebuilding efforts in Haiti,” reports the Miami Herald. The paper reports that nearly seven months after the country’s devastating earthquake, “only 18 percent” with the $5.3 billion pledged by international donors “has been disbursed.”

Former President Bill Clinton and Haitian President Jean-Max Bellerive, co-chairs of the Interim Haiti Reconstruction Commission, “have been expressing frustrations not just with donors,” who’ve not followed through on pledges, “but also using the World Bank – the trustee in charge of managing a multidonor trust fund dedicated to the reconstruction.” Based on the newspaper, each leaders “say that the fees charged by the bank” for administering the donor money is “too high for small-scale projects” and the Bank’s procedures are “too bureaucratic and further threaten to slow down the rebuilding by adding months towards the approval process.”

The issues are “expected to come up” subsequent week when two Globe Bank leaders will “visit Haiti to meet with Bellerive and others to review progress.” In accordance with the Miami Herald: “The Globe Bank check out comes as concerns mount inside the U.S. Congress over rebuilding efforts in Haiti and at a time when hundreds of millions of U.S. dollars are becoming available for Haiti.”

The write-up includes comments from Pamela Cox, the Globe Bank’s vice president for Latin America along with the Carribean, who said, “The last thing any of us want to see is actually a entire bunch of money going into Haiti and nobody knows where it went or what it results in.” Cox also “said the bank’s goal is to balance results along with the want for accountability,” and discussed Haiti’s require for “carefully planned” infrastructure (Clark/Charles, 8/3).

Senate Passes Bill To Ease Haitian Adoptions

Congressional Quarterly reports that the Senate passed a bill that would “clarify rules to assist ease the method for children born in Haiti to be adopted inside the United States.” The legislation (HR 5283) would grant up to 1,400 orphans permanent residency in the United States if “certain conditions are met.” CQ reports that the original bill passed within the House on July 20 and could be cleared when the House reconvenes for a unique session subsequent week (Lesniewski, 8/4).

This data was reprinted from globalhealth.kff.org with kind permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Loved ones Foundation. You are able to view the entire Kaiser Every day Global Health Policy Report, search the archives and sign up for e-mail delivery at globalhealth.kff.org.

? Henry J. Kaiser Loved ones Foundation. All rights reserved.

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Governments and aid groups ought to do more to assist the world’s hungry create sustainable agricultural systems, U.S. Agriculture Department (USDA) Undersecretary James Miller stated during an address Wednesday on the final day with the International Food Aid and Development Conference, the Associated Press reports (Hollingsworth, 8/4).

“According to U.S. government estimates, far more than 1 billion people – practically a sixth of the world’s population – suffer from acute hunger in developing countries. Much more than 3.five million kids die each year from hunger,” the Kansas City Star reports (Gikunju, 8/4).

At the conference, Miller discussed the U.S. Feed the Future initiative – a program geared towards bolstering local food “productivity and improving markets in places exactly where regional trade may be limited and much of what is grown spoils before it reaches starving men and women,” the AP continues. The initiative also places “an emphasis on allowing poor nations to set priorities for aid projects,” the news service notes.

“We recognize that this is not a project that any 1 country can achieve on its own, but we’re going to have to draw from the experiences, expertise and resources that exist across every part with the United States and all parts of the world – public resources and private resources alike,” Miller said.

Following a commitment by G8 leaders in July 2009 to contribute much more than $20 billion to fight hunger right after high food prices led to “a series of riots in some countries,” the Obama administration unveiled the U.S. plans to invest $3.5 billion over a three-year period in Could 2010. “We will offer financial and technical assistance so that countries can find a approach to not only feed the folks that are so in need to have nowadays but find techniques to grow their economies so that they are a lot more self sustaining within the future,” Miller said.

The AP article details Miller’s comments on future food challenges, the continued need to have for humanitarian help to help the poor and those facing disasters and also the growing U.S. interest in tapping into mechanisms such as private money and trade to assist poor countries to become much more able to feed their own populations. The post also includes comments from a manager from the Food for the Hungry group, who addresses the importance of country ownership in meeting hunger requirements (8/4).

The Kansas City Star notes that participants from the African Growth and Opportunity Act Conference (AGOA) arrived in Kansas City Wednesday to continue their focus on “trade and investment relations between Africa along with the United States. The AGOA Conference, which started on Monday in Washington, aims to boost Africa’s economic growth by easing access towards the American market by eliminating trade tariffs,” the newspaper notes.

The newspaper also includes comments from Miller on the news that a drought in Russia is resulting in escalating wheat prices. “Miller stated, the bumper wheat harvest in the United States will stabilize prices with the grain. … The USDA undersecretary predicted the bumper harvest expected in America will plug any shortfall inside the international markets,” the newspaper writes.

“We’ll continue to see the volatility until harvesting inside the Northern Hemisphere currently below way is concluded,” Miller stated (8/4).

This info was reprinted from globalhealth.kff.org with kind permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Loved ones Foundation. You’ll be able to view the whole Kaiser Daily Global Wellness Policy Report, search the archives and sign up for e-mail delivery at globalhealth.kff.org.

? Henry J. Kaiser Household Foundation. All rights reserved.

care Prof:

After flooding in northwest Pakistan killed far more than 1,500 individuals and displaced an estimated 300,000, leaders with the State Department and USAID are “promising an extended mission to handle the long-term effects,” Foreign Policy’s “The Cable” weblog reports. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah briefed reporters Wednesday concerning the disaster and their agencies’ efforts inside the region (Rogin, 8/4)

In response to a question about disease prevention, Shah said the well being effort “will commence by standing up this early warning method so that there’s a expert surveillance capability so we know if and when you can find disease outbreaks, how you can handle that and exactly where they are. We’ll also consist of field hospitals in addition to just a broad restocking of health clinics and support,” in accordance with a State Department transcript. He stated USAID has been sending commodities, medicines and vaccines to Pakistan from a warehouse in Dubai (8/4).

“Shah stated that hundred[s] of USAID staff are being mobilized to assist using the response and that a few of the planning and assessments had been being carried out by the U.S. military in cooperation using the Pakistani government,” The Cable writes (8/4).

At the identical briefing, Clinton “said Pakistan can count on long-term U.S. support as it deals with all the consequences with the worst flooding in decades,” VOA News reports. The news service notes that although the U.S. has made “several aid announcements” concerning the flood scenario, “Clinton’s televised look within the State Department treaty room gave a greater profile to U.S. efforts” (Gollust, 8/4). NPR’s “The Two-Way” blog has a video of Clinton’s remarks (Gura, 8/4).

Clinton also “said that disaster relief was component of the new strengthening of the U.S.-Pakistan relationship,” according to The Cable blog. She called aid an “essential part” of the partnership between the two countries (8/4).

This info was reprinted from globalhealth.kff.org with kind permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Loved ones Foundation. You can view the whole Kaiser Daily Global Wellness Policy Report, search the archives and sign up for e-mail delivery at globalhealth.kff.org.

? Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.

care Prof:

Save the Kids deployed its rapid response team towards the worst-affected and hardest to reach communities in Pakistan’s Swat Valley, where record-breaking monsoon rains have triggered deadly floods and mudslides. The team had to navigate the rushing waters utilizing rafts linked to ropes and pulleys in order to distribute temporary shelters and supplies to stranded youngsters and their households.

The Data Minister with the worst affected province of KhyberPakthunkhwa, Mian Ifthikar Hussain, estimates 1,500 have been killedby the floods nationwide. Now, officials fear an outbreak of diseaseamong the millions left homeless and with no clean water supplies.

“In practically all of the flood-affected locations, water supplies have beencontaminated,” stated Annie Foster, Save the Children’s associate vicepresident for humanitarian response. “There are confirmed reports ofdiarrhea and cholera that might spread rapidly amongst the hundreds ofthousands who have lost their properties. In this sort of environment,young children — specially those under 5 years of age — are the mostvulnerable to severe illness and even death.”

Save the Youngsters sent mobile well being teams to offer emergencymedical aid to treat much more than 1,400 people in DI Khan, Buner and theSwat Valley area. The teams travelled by boat and often had to hikemany kilometers to remote villages, exactly where roads and bridges had beenwashed away.

The floods are now heading towards Muzaffargarh, Layyah and DG Khanand Rajanpur, in Punjab. Heavy rains predicted for the very first twoweeks of August are expected to increase the difficulty of deliveringhumanitarian aid.

“People are stranded and are quickly making use of up their supplies ofstored food,” said Foster. “There is actually a crucial need to get moreclean water, food and medical help to thousands of kids andtheir families in the subsequent few days.”

Save the Children has been working using the kids of Pakistan andtheir households for far more than 30 years, and supplied assistance tothose affected by Tropical Storm Phet in June, the conflict inKhyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province in 2009 as well as the massive earthquake in2005.

Donate Now towards the Pakistan Children in Emergency Fund or call (800)728-3843.

Source:
Save the Youngsters

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International Help Mission, an international charity, informs that 10 members of one of their medical teams were murdered in Badakhshan, Afghanistan. The charity says they were members with the International Assistance Mission (IAM) eye camp team.

The medics had been in Nuristan after responding to an invitation by neighborhood communities. They had completed their medical perform and had been on their way back to Kabul, the Afghan capital.

According to IAM, details on what specifically occurred are rather sketchy. The charity expressed its thoughts and prayers for the families and pals of those who died.

IAM says it objects “to this senseless killing of men and women who’ve carried out nothing but serve the poor. Some of the foreigners have worked alongside the Afghan folks for decades.”

IAM says that this tragedy significantly undermines its capability to continue serving the Afghan peoples – some thing it has been doing considering that 1966. Hopefully, it’s going to not halt their work that positive aspects a lot more than 250,000 Afghan patients annually.

According to Voice of America, six Americans, one German, one Briton and two Afghan interpreters had been killed. The team consisted of males and females.

The Taliban have claimed responsibility for the killings. A spokesperson said the deaths were ordered due to the fact the missionaries had been Christians.

According to Voice of America, among the team recited passages from the Koran, told the killers he was a Muslim, and survived.

Afghan authorities inform that the attack occurred in a dense forest. Numerous villagers had warned the medics concerning the dangers of going into that forest.

Sources: Voice of America, International Help Mission (IAM)

Written by Christian Nordqvist
Copyright: Medical News Today
Not to be reproduced with no permission of Medical News These days

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Specially treated waste material from electric energy plants will soon be utilised to clean up oil within the Gulf thanks towards the ingenuity of a University of Central Florida professor.

The National Science Foundation awarded Sudipta Seal a $67,000 grant which will help the professor turn waste material, commonly referred to as flyash, into a cleaning agent. Seal will modify the flyash so that it absorbs oil and might be delivered to a coal-burning facility and re-used.

The flyash will be safe, preserve the oil’s energy-generating capabilities and be reusable when the oil is burned off.

“It’s a totally green process quite cost powerful and easy to scale up,” said Seal, who has been studying the characteristics of flyash for more than a decade as component of his study on rare earth nanoparticles.

Seal is director of UCF’s Advanced Supplies Processing and Analysis and NanoScience Technologies Centers along with a professor of mechanical, materials and aerospace engineering.

Larry Hench, a renowned ceramic materials professor who conducts unique projects for UCF, will function with Seal to develop the flyash and prepare a approach for deployment that may then be licensed to a commercial partner.

They envision that the flyash is going to be retrieved from the water in a low-cost mesh packaging material and then transported to a coal-burning energy plant or other facility exactly where the oil will fuel production processes.

The flyash has also shown the capability to clump oil that has already washed up on shore, enabling it to be very easily collected and, once more, re-used.

Since the Deepwater Horizon spill started in April, NSF has funded 65 of the rapid response grants to researchers across the country addressing all aspects with the clean-up.

The grants are deployed in times of natural or accidental disasters to swiftly engage the world’s ideal scientists and engineers to assist search for solutions.

Source:
Zenaida Gonzalez Kotala
University of Central Florida