Stephan: A few months ago I wrote a lengthy
essay on opioid addiction, a completely legal manufactured health crisis in which everyone but the users profited -- Big Pharma, doctors, drugstores, various kinds of distributor middlemen, law enforcement, judges, and prisons. It condensed the systemic evil of the American Illness Profit System into one murderous catastrophe. And, as a trend, it has been getting worse. Here is the latest.
Credit: FangXiaNuo/iStock
More dismal news from the front lines of the opioid epidemic: Emergency room visits for opioid overdoses climbed by nearly 30 percent between July of 2016 and September 2017, (emphasis added) according to a report published Tuesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Nearly 143,000 Americans were brought to the ER for opioid overdoses during the 15-month period.
Unlike annual overdose deaths, which take more than a year to tally up, data on ER visits comes in real time, giving a more accurate portrait of the ongoing epidemic. The data also capture the tens of thousands of nonfatal overdoses. “For every fatal case, there are many more nonfatal cases, each one with its own personal and economic toll,” said Anne Schuchat, the CDC’s acting director. Because research shows that having one overdose is a good predictor of having another, the data presents an opportunity for targeting prevention efforts—like giving overdose reversal drug naloxone to family members and guiding the overdose victim […]
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Wednesday, March 7th, 2018
CAROLYN GRAMLING , - Science News
Stephan: Yet another climate change alarm bell, one I had not fully appreciated until I read the paper.Once again it warned me that we do not know all the effects of climate change but it is now very clear these are interlocking systems and that the effects on human civilization are going to be much more grievous than is generally recognized.
Citation: D.L. Harris
et al.
Coral reef structural complexity provides important coastal protection from waves under rising sea levels.
Science Advances. Published online February 28, 2018. doi: 10.1126/sciadv.aao4350.
BREAKING WAVE Healthy coral reefs are an important buffer against beach erosion and inundation from ocean waves. That’s true even in a world with rising sea levels.
Credit: R. Canavesio
A complex coral reef full of nooks and crannies is a coastline’s best defense against large ocean waves. But coral die-offs over the next century could allow taller waves to penetrate the corals’ defenses, simulations suggest. A new study finds that at some Pacific Island sites, waves reaching the shore could be more than twice as high as today’s by 2100.
The rough, complex structures of coral reefs dissipate wave energy through friction, calming waves before they reach the shore. As corals die due to warming oceans (SN: 2/3/18, p. 16), the overall complexity of the reef also diminishes, leaving a coast potentially more exposed. At the same time, rising sea levels due to climate change increasingly threaten low-lying coastal communities with inundation and beach erosion — and stressed corals may not be able to grow vertically fast enough to match the pace of […]
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Wednesday, March 7th, 2018
Derek Seidman, Public Accountability Initiative - truthout
Stephan: Do you ever wonder who is being enriched with blood money paid for by the 35,000 lives a year of people who die from gunfire? I think those people should be made pariahs, so I am happy to provide some information in answer to that question.
Lloyd Blankfein
The recent shooting rampage at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School put renewed focus on the firearms manufacturing industry — which, along with ammunitions production, accounts for an estimated $17 billion in revenue.
Thousands of students — with those from Parkland, Florida leading the way — have staged walk-outs across the nation to protest the firearms industry, the NRA, and industry’s bought-off politicians. It’s starting to feel like it could be some sort of turning point.
Even corporations are feeling the heat over their ties to the firearms industry. A slew of corporate have already ended partnerships with the NRA due to public pressure — United Airlines, Delta Airlines, MetLife, and First National Bank of Omaha among them. Dick’s Sporting Goods, a major firearms retailer, has just announced that it is halting all sales of automatic weapons, and both Dick’s and Walmart are raising their minimum age to 21 for all gun buyers.
BlackStone, the powerful private equity firm headed by billionaire Trump ally Stephen Schwarzman, even put out an urgent request to the funds it […]
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Wednesday, March 7th, 2018
MARK HAND, - Think Progress
Stephan: The corruption of the American government is now complete. In the EPA you can work for a polluter who, in your official capacity you oversee, and draw paychecks from both. I don't know how you could get more corrupt than that.
Where are the Republican congressional politicians as this is happening? Why, on their knees of course. Party first, who cares about the people of America.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is giving top officials permission to moonlight for private companies in their off-time, a practice that could conflict with their official duties at the federal agency.
Two of the most prominent EPA officials currently under scrutiny are John Konkus, who serves as the EPA’s deputy associate administrator for the Office of Public Affairs, and Patrick Davis, an EPA senior adviser.
Konkus received approval from ethics officials at the EPA to work outside the agency as a media consultant. He was approved to advise clients on “strategy, mail and media production,” according to an ethics form signed last August, E&E News reported Monday. The EPA is refusing to disclose Konkus’s clients, raising more questions about potential conflicts of interest with his official and outside work.
Prior to joining the Trump administration, Konkus worked as an executive with Jamestown Associates, a political consulting firm. According to the firm’s website, Konkus “worked on the ground tirelessly to help President Trump win Florida.”
Davis, a top official in the EPA’s Denver office and former director of Trump’s presidential campaign in Colorado, was given approval in February 2017 to work as the sales director for Telephone Town Hall Meeting, which does outreach for legislators and political […]
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