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28 April
Toxics
Ultraviolet disinfectant of coronavirus can be dangerous
Natural or man-made, the invisible light can be highly carcinogenic, with disinfecting results that vary widely.
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www.washingtonpost.com
22 April
Toxics
As coronavirus spreads, poison hotlines see rise in accidents with cleaning products
A new study suggests a link between the increase and recommendations to clean and disinfect.
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www.nytimes.com
21 April
Toxics
US lockdowns coincide with rise in poisonings from cleaners
Reports of accidental poisonings from cleaners and disinfectants are up sharply, and researchers believe it's related to the coronavirus epidemic.
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apnews.com
14 April
Toxics
Makers of Covid-19 disinfectants given more flexibility by EPA
The EPA is temporarily allowing manufacturers to change how products are formulated, without waiting for agency approval, because of shortages of active ingredients used to make surface disinfectants effective against coronavirus.
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news.bloombergenvironment.com
06 April
Toxics
E.P.A. threatens legal action against sellers of fake coronavirus cleaners
The federal government is asking online retailers to take unregistered products that falsely claim protection from coronavirus off the market.
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www.nytimes.com
20 March
Justice
What about the workers cleaning up coronavirus?
Janitors, domestic workers, housekeeping, and office cleaning crews are on the front lines of the battle against Covid-19. Can they protect their own health?
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www.citylab.com
17 September 2018
Toxics
Household cleaners may make children overweight
Canadian study shows changes to gut biota come with regular use of disinfectants.
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cosmosmagazine.com
15 October 2017
Toxics
It's surprisingly hard to ban toxic sex toys, but here's how to protect yourself.
It's Surprisingly Hard to Ban Toxic Sex Toys, But Here's How to Protect Yourself
<p>BY</p><p>KATE SLOAN</p><p>OCTOBER 13, 2017 3:05 PM</p><p></p><p>PHOTO: COMEDY CENTRAL</p><p>These days, most of us will carefully check ingredients lists for gluten and trans fats, demand that our water bottles be made without BPA, and seek out paraben-free, body-safe cosmetics. But the average person can’t tell you what a toxic sex toy is—or even that they exist. Unfortunately, in the unregulated sex toy industry, plenty of sex toys are potentially rife with products that can hurt you (and not even in the fun, kinky way).</p><p>Perhaps the most well-known offender in terms of toy toxicity is a group of chemicals known as phthalates, a plasticizer that can be blended with other substances to make them softer and more flexible. A spotlight’s been shone on phthalates in recent years, as publications like Bustle and Bitch, and feminist-oriented sex shops like Good Vibes and Babeland have spoken out against them.</p><p>So why all the hullabaloo? It turns out that phthalates may have side effects when they come into contact with your body that could potentially be terrible for you—and aren’t disclosed by most sex toy manufacturers. According to Amanda Morgan, D.H.S., a faculty member at the School of Community Health Sciences at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, who wrote her master’s thesis on harmful sex toy materials, phthalates are known endocrine disruptors that can cause health problems. “[Phthalates] mess with your hormones; they can cause birth defects, or other things related to liver or kidney functioning,” Morgan told me, referencing studies that have linked phthalates to irregular fetal development, early-onset puberty, and lower sperm counts, among other issues. “They can really mess you up because they pretend to be your hormones, and so your body’s hormonal cycle gets knocked out of whack from exposure to these things.”</p><p>With the short-term effects of chlorine and the long-term effects of phthalates, PVC is, Morgan said, “definitely one of the worst sex toy materials we’ve seen.”</p><p>When you hear horror stories about sex toys, though, it’s not necessarily phthalates that are to blame. One of the most common anecdotal complaints about toxic toys is that they cause skin irritation: “I first thought [it] was a yeast infection or BV, because of extreme itching and burning on my inner labia,” reports one reader who wrote in to sex toy review blog Dangerous Lilly. “My ass suddenly felt like it was on fire. A burning sensation spread throughout my butt,” recalled sex educator Tristan Taormino about a questionable dildo she used. One Playboy story described a dildo that caused a woman “such severe pain that she could barely speak.”</p><p>I asked Emily S. Barrett, Ph.D., a professor at the Rutgers University School of Public Health who has done extensive research on the prenatal effects of endocrine disruptors like phthalates, whether these reported burning sensations fit with her understanding of the chemicals. She told me she hasn’t seen evidence that phthalates irritate the skin in this way, and that they tend to “act on a much more subtle level most of the time.”</p><p>So what is causing these health problems? According to Amanda Morgan, phthalates aren’t the only sketchy ingredient still getting into our sex toys. As part of her thesis research, Morgan tested 32 sex toys to determine their chemical makeup. What she found was pretty scary: The toys she tested typically contained 30 to 35 percent chlorine. She said PVC, a material commonly used to make inexpensive sex toys, always contains chlorine (hence the chemical name “polyvinyl chloride”). Even scarier, in 2006, BadVibes.org—an organization that, full disclosure, is linked to pro-toy-safety sex shop The Smitten Kitten—ran lab tests on four popular sex toys. They found that two of them were made of PVC and contained “very high levels of phthalate plasticizer.”</p><p> </p><p>“We use chlorine to kill bacteria in things,” Morgan said. “If you are being exposed to this high level of chlorine, especially in a sensitive membrane area [like the vagina or rectum], we could definitely chalk that up to causing irritation, burning, or messing up the environment by exposing it to something that is, as we know, a sterilization product.” So with the short-term burning effects of chlorine and the long-term endocrine effects of phthalates, PVC is, Morgan said, “definitely one of the worst sex toy materials we’ve seen.”</p><p> </p><p>Now, you might be thinking, “OK, great to know! I’ll just buy only safe toys from now on!” Well, it’s not so simple. Since the sex toy industry is unregulated, it doesn’t fall under the current purview of the Food and Drug Administration. According to FDA press officer Angela Stark, that’s because the agency “does not regulate devices meant purely for sexual pleasure. It does, however, regulate genital devices that have a medical purpose such as vibrators intended for therapeutic use to treat sexual dysfunction or to supplement Kegel exercises.” Of course, the vast majority of sex toys don’t fall under this “health aid” umbrella.</p><p>The current Congress likely wouldn't rush to make a bold, sex-positive statement like mandating sex toy safety.</p><p>The responsibility of regulating sex toys could potentially fall to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, but Morgan told me the understaffed CPSC is already in charge of regulating over 15,000 types of products—not to mention the products themselves. The complex issue of sex toy regulation would be a big ask on top of all that.</p><p>Add to all of this the fact that the current Congress likely wouldn’t rush to make a bold, sex-positive statement by mandating sex toy safety, and there are plenty of reasons your sex toy might not meet body-safe standards. “Our government doesn’t generally like to talk about people pleasuring themselves,” Morgan pointed out.</p><p>Beyond that, though, Morgan adds that regulating the sex toy industry might not even be the best solution to getting rid of toxic toys anyway. “If something is federally regulated, that means that the federal government—depending on where they are in their political leanings at that time—could potentially make it illegal to have these products, by saying they are ‘dangerous’ and then regulating them out of existence,” she reasoned. “You get certain types of people in power, and they may not believe in sexual health, wellness, [or] self-pleasuring. It might go against their core values, and therefore they [might] use their political agenda and the federal regulation system to regulate these products out of people’s hands.”</p><p>It’s a conclusion that Zach Biesanz, a legal assistant in the office of New York’s Attorney General, came to in his 2007 paper in the journal Law & Inequality: "Special regulation of the sex toy industry would be unreasonably burdensome from a regulatory standpoint,” he wrote. "Only banning these toxins outright will suffice to protect consumers from phthalates' harmful and even lethal effects.”</p><p>"Sniff your sex toy. That's the easiest thing you can do [to protect yourself]."</p><p>In the meantime, how do you tell if a toy is safe? Sex toy experts like Morgan, Smitten Kitten founder Jennifer Pritchett, and seasoned sex toy reviewer Epiphora all recommend buying toys made of phthalate-free, body-safe materials like pure silicone, stainless steel, glass, and hard plastic. Still, it’s difficult to know what’s what in an industry that mislabels its products so frequently. “Sniff your sex toy,” said Morgan. “That’s the easiest thing you can do. If you smell these products and they don’t smell like anything, then it most likely is a stable chemical compound like silicone.” Phthalates and PVC, however, smell “like chemicals,” according to Morgan, “like a new shower curtain,” according to Epiphora, and “like a headache,” according to Pritchett. The sex toy smell test might sound a little weird, but it’s a pretty good first line of defense.</p><p>Morgan also recommends buying toys made by “companies that take a lot of pride in making good-quality, body-safe toys,” citing Tantus and Jimmyjane as examples. Other companies that proudly declare their products body-safe include We-Vibe, Fun Factory, Vixen Creations, and Funkit Toys.</p><p>And when in doubt, find a reviewer you can trust. Sex toy review blogs abound on the internet —Epiphora, Dangerous Lilly, and Formidable Femme, to name just a few—and while you’d be wise to take claims about sex toys with a grain of salt in this unregulated industry, sometimes the preponderance of good or bad reviews about a particular company or toy can suggest conclusions about its safety (or lack thereof).</p><p>Most important, though, demand body-safe sex toys by buying only from companies you can trust. “Consumers vote with their pocketbook,” said Tantus founder Metis Black. “Support the businesses that make safe toys a priority, that use their resources to educate, that take a stand and advocate for consumers.” She added that while pure silicone toys are expensive now—especially in comparison to PVC toys, which can often be under $30 a pop versus $100+ for silicone—more consumer demand for body-safe toys will create a larger supply at lower prices, as bigger companies with more resources start making nontoxic toys in larger quantities. That’s just sex toy economics.</p><p>Bloggers, consumers, and ethical toymakers alike all dream of a future in which no sex toys will burn your junk, give you infections, or cause long-term bodily harm. It seems reasonable enough. And if we keep fighting for it, maybe one day it’ll be reality.</p>
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www.glamour.com
11 October 2017
Climate
Warming oceans may make ‘Nemo’ harder to find.
Like coral reefs, sea anemones—with their flashy, tentacle-like polyps that waggle and wave in vibrant reds, greens, pinks, and yellows—provide homes and hiding spots for dozens of fish species, most memorably the orange clownfish made famous in Finding Nemo. Also like coral, rising water temperatures associated with climate change can severely weaken these anemones, causing them to expel the tiny symbionts that keep them alive and lend them color, a process known as bleaching.
<p></p><p>That, it turns out, is just where trouble starts.</p><p></p><p>When anemones bleach, Nemo and pals get stressed out and simply stop laying eggs, according to new research published Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications. And scientists suspect that pattern may hold for untold numbers of other fish nurtured by either corals or anemones.</p><p></p><p>In other words, the mere stress associated with bleaching may be enough by itself to drive down many fish populations.</p><p></p><p>And, of course, bleaching no longer happens by itself.</p><p></p><p>Scientists also working with baby clownfish already have shown that shifts in ocean chemistry as the seas absorb excess carbon-dioxide—a process known as ocean acidification—can be unusually deadly. It scrambles juvenile fishes' brains, hampering their ability to see, hear, and smell. All that causes confusion, often leading them to swim toward—rather than away from—predators. The end result: they die far more often.</p><p></p><p>While few if any longterm studies have yet looked at just how bleaching and acidification may work in concert, scientists say they certainly aren't likely to somehow cancel each other out.</p><p></p><p>"Both bleaching and acidification are really stressful events separately," says Danielle Dixson, with the University of Delaware's College of Earth, Ocean and Environment, who spent years researching clownfish and acidification, but wasn't part of the new bleaching study. "I can't imagine that when they both happen it's going to somehow be any less stressful." (Learn how breeding aquarium fish can help reefs.)</p><p>THE CRITICAL ROLE OF HORMONES</p><p>The most recent research began when an ocean heat wave washed across French Polynesia in 2015 and 2016. A team of scientists tracked 30 different species of anemones in a lagoon off the island of Moorea. That warmth didn't just cripple corals. For more than four months, it attacked and bleached roughly half of those sea anemones. So scientists sampled the fish living among these overheated anemones and compared them with fish living in healthy ones nearby.</p><p></p><p>The release of hormones is known to affect how everything from sea birds to marine iguanas weather the rapid upheaval associated with climate change. That's true for fish, too.</p><p></p><p>The team found that the creatures associated with bleached anemones were chronically stressed, showing high levels of cortisol in their blood, says study co-author Suzanne Mills, with the Center for Insular Research and Observatory of the Environment in French Polynesia. Reproductive hormones dropped in both males and females. Fish pairs from bleached anemones spawned less and ultimately produced far fewer viable young.</p><p></p><p>That could have longterm implications that could ripple through entire marine systems.</p><p></p><p>"The cascading effects of bleaching at the community and ecosystem levels will, and may have already, played an important role in population impacts," Mills says.</p><p></p><p>THE BIGGER PICTURE</p><p>Mills and her co-authors figured out that of 464 coastal fish species in French Polynesia, 56—about 12 percent—depend on species susceptible to bleaching for food or shelter from predators.</p><p></p><p>"If these species suffer even a fraction of the impact found for anemone fish, then a short-lived bleaching event could decrease the reproductive output of at least 12 percent of species," the study authors wrote. Ecosystem-wide impacts "may be considerable."</p><p></p><p>Dixson says Mills' findings are "really, really solid." And while they may not be terribly surprising to marine scientists, it should be an eye-opener for the public.</p><p></p><p>And, of course, that's only one part of the equation.</p><p></p><p>"Unfortunately, we're never going to have a world where the oceans are acidifying but not warming," Dixson says. "And all of the data suggests that won't be good."</p>
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news.nationalgeographic.com
10 October 2017
Toxics
Even third-hand smoke poses health risks.
Yes, there is such a thing as thirdhand smoke and it’s more dangerous than you think.
<p></p><p>Thirdhand smoke is residual chemicals that include nicotine left on surfaces by tobacco smokers. We are exposed to these chemicals by touching contaminated surfaces or breathing in the off-gassing from these surfaces. This residue can react with common indoor pollutants to create toxic mixes including cancer-causing compounds, which pose a potential health hazard to the smoker, non-smokers and children.</p><p></p><p>Thirdhand smoke clings to clothes, furniture, drapes, walls, bedding, carpets, dust, vehicles and other surfaces long after the smoker is gone. The residue from thirdhand smoke builds up on surfaces over time. To remove the residue, hard surfaces, fabrics and upholstery need to be regularly cleaned or laundered. You can’t eliminate thirdhand smoke by airing out rooms, opening windows, using fans or air conditioners, or confining smoking to only certain areas of a building.</p><p></p><p>Children and non-smoking adults are at risk of tobacco-related health problems when they inhale, swallow or touch substances containing thirdhand smoke. Infants and young children might have increased exposure to thirdhand smoke due to their tendency to mouth objects and touch affected surfaces.</p><p></p><p>When researchers examined children who arrived in the emergency room with breathing problems associated with second-hand smoke exposure, they found alarming facts. They discovered the average level of nicotine on the children’s hands was more than three times higher than the level of nicotine found on the hands of non-smoking adults who live with smokers. They said nicotine on the skin of a non-smoker is a good proxy to measure exposure to thirdhand smoke.</p><p></p><p>While thirdhand smoke is a relatively new concept, and researchers are still studying its possible dangers, common sense should tell you there is danger. In the meantime, the only way to protect non-smokers from thirdhand smoke is to create a smoke-free environment.</p><p></p><p>Thirdhand smoke can linger in an area long after the smoke has cleared. It can take up to five years to clear.</p><p></p><p>Almost half (46.8 percent) of Black non-smokers in the United States are exposed to smoke or smoke residuals. Tobacco smoke exposure is higher among people with low incomes. Two out of every five non-smokers (43.2 percent) who live below the poverty line were exposed to smoke residuals. This means if you are Black and below the poverty line, you are almost assured you will be exposed to thirdhand smoke.</p><p></p><p>Thirdhand smoke occurs when non-smokers breathe in other people’s smoke residuals. This includes direct smoke, smoke that is drawn through a cigarette mouthpiece, pipe or cigar and then exhaled into the air by smokers, the smoke that comes directly from burning tobacco and any residual substances left behind after the smoker has left the area. Thirdhand smoke contains the same harmful chemicals as the smoke that smokers inhale. Direct smoke is even more dangerous because it is formed at lower temperatures and gives off even larger amounts of some cancer-causing substances.</p><p></p><p>Thirdhand smoke also affects non-smokers by causing eye irritation, headaches, nausea and dizziness. Children of parents who smoke are more likely to suffer from pneumonia, bronchitis, ear infections, coughing, wheezing, increased mucus production and asthma. Several studies have also shown a link between smoking parents and SIDS. Children of smoking parents have a greater chance of dying of SIDS.</p><p></p><p>Thirdhand smoke has been shown, in mice, to damage the liver and lungs, complicate wound healing and cause hyperactivity. Thirdhand smoke can increase your risk of Type 2 diabetes.</p><p></p><p>Can you develop cancer from smelling smoke odors on clothing or being in a room where people have been smoking? There is no medical research about the cancer-causing effects of tobacco odors, but the medical research shows that the particles that make up second-hand tobacco smoke and thirdhand residuals can attach itself to hair, clothing and other surfaces. Any amount of smoke is dangerous and will cause health problems.</p><p></p><p>The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has classified second-hand smoke or environmental tobacco smoke as a Group A carcinogen. This means it causes cancer in humans. The Group A designation has been used by the EPA for only 15 other pollutants. This list of pollutants includes radon, asbestos and benzene. The EPA has also called environmental tobacco smoke a public health epidemic.</p><p></p><p>Thirdhand smoke contains over 7,000 chemical compounds. More than 70 of these are known to cause cancer. Some of the toxins or irritants in second-hand smoke include carbon monoxide, nicotine, hydrogen cyanide, ammonia, formaldehyde and sulfur dioxide. Carcinogens in thirdhand smoke include benzene, aromatic amines (especially carcinogens such as 2-naphthylamine and 4-aminobiphenyl), vinyl chloride, arsenic, nitrosamines and cadmium. The greater your exposure to thirdhand smoke, the greater your level of these harmful compounds in your body.</p><p></p><p>There are three locations where you have to be concerned about exposure to second- or thirdhand smoke — your workplace, who children spend time public places and your home.</p><p></p><p>Here is what you can do to reduce the health risks of passive smoke:</p><p></p><p>In Your Home</p><p></p><p>Making your home smoke-free is the most important thing you can do. All family members will develop health problems related to second-hand smoke if anyone smokes in your house. A smoke-free home protects your family, your guests and even your pets. Don’t let anyone smoke in your home.</p><p></p><p>Where Children Spend Time</p><p></p><p>Every organization dealing with children should have a smoking policy that effectively protects children from exposure to thirdhand smoke. This should include day-care providers, preschools, schools and other caregivers for your children.</p><p></p><p>In the Workplace</p><p></p><p>The only way to protect workers is to prohibiting smoking indoors, around entrances to buildings and in common recreational areas. The EPA recommends that every company have a smoking policy that effectively protects non-smokers from involuntary thirdhand smoke. Simply separating smokers and non-smokers within the same area, such as a cafeteria and indoor and outdoor recreational areas, may reduce exposure, but non-smokers will still be exposed to recirculated smoke or smoke drifting into non-smoking areas.</p><p></p><p>Tobacco smoke doesn’t go up in the air and disappear. It settles on everything.</p><p></p><p>Call the American Cancer Society at (800) 227-2345 for more information on quitting.</p><p></p><p>If you have a fitness question or concern, write to “Tips to be Fit,” PO Box 53443, Philadelphia, PA 19105, or tipstobefit@gmail.com. Previous articles can be found at www.phillytrib.com by searching “Tips to be Fit.”</p>
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10 October 2017
Climate
The Great Barrier Reef can repair itself, with a little help from science.
The Great Barrier Reef is suffering from recent unprecedented coral bleaching events. But the answer to part of its recovery could lie in the reef itself, with a little help.
<p></p><p>In our recent article published in Nature Ecology & Evolution, we argue that at least two potential interventions show promise as means to boost climate resilience and tolerance in the reef’s corals: assisted gene flow and assisted evolution.</p><p></p><p>Both techniques use existing genetic material on the reef to breed hardier corals, and do not involve genetic engineering.</p><p></p><p>But why are such interventions needed? Can’t the reef simply repair itself?</p><p></p><p>Damage to the reef, so far</p><p></p><p>Coral bleaching in 2016 and 2017 took its biggest toll on the reef to date, with two-thirds of the world’s largest coral reef ecosystem impacted in these back-to-back events. The consequence was widespread damage.</p><p></p><p>Reducing greenhouse gas emissions will dampen coral bleaching risk in the long term, but will not prevent it. Even with strong action to tackle climate change, more warming is locked in.</p><p></p><p>So while emissions reductions are essential for the future of the reef, other actions are now also needed.</p><p></p><p>Even in the most optimistic future, reef-building corals need to become more resilient. Continued improvement of water quality, controlling Crown-of-Thorns Starfish, and managing no-take areas will all help.</p><p></p><p>But continued stress from climate change – in frequency and intensity – increasingly overwhelms the natural resilience despite the best conventional management efforts. Although natural processes of adaptation and acclimation are in play, they are unlikely to be fast enough to keep up with any rate of global warming.</p><p></p><p>So to boost the reef’s resilience in the face of climate change we need to consider new interventions - and urgently.</p><p></p><p>That’s why we believe assisted gene flow and assisted evolution could help the reef.</p><p></p><p>Delaying their development could mean that climate change degrades the reef beyond repair, and before we can save key species.</p><p></p><p>What is assisted gene flow?</p><p></p><p>The idea here is to move warm-adapted corals to cooler parts of the reef. Corals in the far north are naturally adapted to 1C to 2C higher summer temperatures than corals further south.</p><p></p><p>This means there is an opportunity to build resistance to future warming in corals in the south under strong climate change mitigation, or to decades of warming under weaker mitigation.</p><p></p><p>There is already natural genetic connectivity of coral populations across most of the reef. But the rate of larval flow from the warm north to the south is limited, partly because of the South Equatorial Current that flows west across the Pacific.</p><p></p><p>The South Equatorial Current splits into the north-flowing Gulf of Papua Current and south-flowing East Australian Current off the coast of north Queensland. This means coral larvae spawned in the warm north are often more likely to stay in the north.</p><p></p><p>So manually moving some of the northern corals south could help overcome that physical limitation of natural north-to-south larval flow. If enough corals could be moved it could help heat-damaged reefs recover faster with more heat-resistant coral stock.</p><p></p><p>We could start safe tests at a subset of well-chosen reefs to understand how warm-adapted populations can be spread to reefs further south.</p><p></p><p>What is assisted evolution?</p><p></p><p>While assisted gene flow may be effective for southern or recently degraded reefs, it will not be enough or feasible for all reefs or species. Here, we argue that assisted evolution could help.</p><p></p><p>Assisted evolution is artificial selection on steroids. It combines multiple approaches that target the coral host and its essential microbial symbionts.</p><p></p><p>These are aimed at producing a hardier coral without the use of genetic engineering. Experiments at the Australian Institute of Marine Science are already making progress, with results yet to be published.</p><p></p><p>First, evolution of algal symbionts in isolation from the coral host has been fast-tracked to resist higher levels of heat stress. When symbionts are made to reengage with the coral host, benefits to bleaching resistance are still small, but with more work we expect to see a hardier symbiosis.</p><p></p><p>Secondly, experiments have created new genetic diversity of corals through hybridisation and researchers have selected these artificially for increased climate resilience.</p><p></p><p>Natural hybridisation happens only occasionally on the reef, so this result gives us new options for climate hardening corals using existing genetic stocks.</p><p></p><p>The danger of doing nothing?</p><p></p><p>The right time to start any new intervention is when the risk of inaction is greater than the risk of action.</p><p></p><p>Assisted gene flow and assisted evolution represent manageable risk because they use genetic material already present on the reef. The interventions speed up naturally occurring processes and do not involve genetic engineering.</p><p></p><p>These interventions would not introduce or produce new species. Assisted gene flow would simply enhance the natural flow of warm-adapted corals into areas on the reef that desperately need more heat tolerance.</p><p></p><p>Risk of increasing the spread of diseases may also be low because most parts of the Reef are already interconnected. A full understanding of risks is an area of continued research.</p><p></p><p>These are just two examples of new tools that could help build climate resilience on the reef. Other interventions are developing and should be put on the table for open discussion.</p><p>*********************</p><p></p><p>Ken Anthony</p><p>Principal Research Scientist, Australian Institute of Marine Science</p><p></p><p> Britta Schaffelke</p><p>Research Program Leader - A Healthy and Sustainable Great Barrier Reef, Australian Institute of Marine Science</p><p></p><p> Line K Bay</p><p>Senior Research Scientist and Team Leader, Australian Institute of Marine Science</p><p></p><p> Madeleine van Oppen</p><p>Marine molecular ecologist, Australian Institute of Marine Science</p><p></p><p>Disclosure statement</p><p></p><p>Ken Anthony receives funding from the Australian Government, the Queensland Government and the Great Barrier Reef Foundation</p><p>Britta Schaffelke works for the Australian Institute of Marine Science, a publicly funded research organisation that receives funding from the Australian Government, State Government Departments, foundations and private industry.</p><p>Line Bay receives funding from the Australian Government through their National Environment Science Program .</p><p>Madeleine van Oppen receives funding from the Australian Research Council, The Paul G. Allen Foundation, the Great Barrier Reef Foundation, the Australian Institute of Marine Science.</p>
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08 October 2017
Toxics
Delhi: Capital's poor air quality makes sniffer dogs unable to track suspects.
Delhi: Capital's poor air quality makes sniffer dogs unable to track suspects
<p></p><p>High pollution levels hold back canines trained to pick up smell and culprit movement from the crime scene.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Chayyanika Nigam | Posted by Amit Vasudev</p><p> Chayyanika.Nigam@mailtoday.in</p><p>New Delhi, October 9, 2017 | UPDATED 01:31 IST</p><p>A +A -</p><p>City police dogs can't smell a rat</p><p>HIGHLIGHTS</p><p></p><p>1'Tracker' dogs of Delhi Police are failing in their duties because of pollution.</p><p>2Delhi Police dog squad has 15 tracker and 45 sniffer dogs.</p><p>3The tracker cell spends Rs 40 lakh annually on the upkeep of its team.</p><p>Worsening air quality in the national Capital is making criminals breathe easy. The 'tracker' dogs of Delhi Police that are employed to pick up the trail from a crime scene are failing in their duties due to high pollution levels in the city.</p><p></p><p>Delhi Police dog squad has 15 tracker and 45 sniffer dogs. The tracker cell spends Rs 40 lakh annually on the upkeep of its team which includes their special diet and vaccination. Sources in the team told Mail Today that for the past several years, there has not been a single case where the trackers could assist an investigation team.</p><p></p><p>"When a tracker dog is taken to the crime spot, it 'collects' the scents from the scene based on the evidence left behind by the suspect. These odour samples help the police team in tracking the movements of a suspect or the victim. But pollution dilutes or messes up these samples," a top police official told Mail Today on the condition of anonymity.</p><p></p><p>The official said that taking the tracker dog to a crime spot in the national Capital merely serves to "satisfy" the complainant. "In the rarest of cases, where the trackers help the cops about the direction in which the suspect had fled, the area of their operation remains confined within 20 to 30 metre. After that, concrete roads, pollution confuse the tracker," said the official. "The trackers can be efficient only in rural areas," he said and cited studies to support his claim. "Chronic exposure to everyday ambient air pollution on the cellular structure of the nasal epithelium will affect the sniffing power of any dog. Volatile organic compounds and nitrogen oxides, emitted from industrial processes that undergo transformation in the atmosphere to form ozone are harmful to olfactory senses."</p><p></p><p>Toxic air It is an established fact that ozone, sulphur dioxide, and nitrogen dioxide primarily affect the respiratory tracts of humans and animals. "Organic and synthetic chemicals, such as dioxins and organochlorines also affect the smelling power of a canine," the police official said, adding that the situation gets the worst when smog or festive pollution makes the breathing difficult even for humans. Animal experts believe there are other factors also responsible behind the failure of tracker dogs. "Pollution is just one impediment. The number of people surrounding a crime scene and urban concrete structure too distract the dog in smelling and differentiating," Abhina Srihan, managing trustee of Fauna Police, an animal rights group, told MailToday. "These inefficiencies can be removed by providing advanced training and better handler."</p><p></p><p>Prime role Crime experts said the role of a tracker must not be undermined due to unfriendly environment. "Even if after hundreds of failures, a tracker helps Delhi Police in solving a single case, then all the money spent on their maintenance become fruitful," said a police officials associated with the tracker squad. Rajan Bhagat, DCP (crime records office), who is also incharge of the dog squad, said he was satisfied with the role played by the dog squad and stressed that police needed to improve the strength of the canine in the force. "Police dogs are categorised into two segments - trackers and sniffers. Delhi Police have around 60 Army-trained canines (all Labradors) in their premier dog squad that includes around 15 trackers and 45 sniffers.</p><p></p><p>The work of a tracker is to assist police in tracking and solving crime incidents. It also includes gathering of evidences from the crime spots. Currently, we have 60 canines in the dog squad but Delhi Police require around 150 more dogs. After inputs from the special cell of Delhi Police about possible terror attacks in the city, a demand of 100 dogs has been raised with the authorities," Bhagat said. "Each district has one tracker dog while few districts in Delhi have two. In very gruesome cases, these trackers are taken to the crime spot," Bhagat added.</p><p></p><p>Each dog is taken care by a constable-rank handler who is responsible for the canines's training and upkeep. While most canines join the squad as a pup, police said they now prefer to take trained canines from the Army above the age of 18 months.</p><p></p><p> </p><p>For more news from India Today, follow us on Twitter @indiatoday and on Facebook at facebook.com/IndiaToday</p><p>For news and videos in Hindi, go to AajTak.in. ताज़ातरीन ख़बरों और वीडियो के लिए आजतक.इन पर आएं.</p>
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07 October 2017
Food
Battling a sport's hidden foe.
The Never-Ending Battle Against Sport’s Hidden Foe
<p>By BILL PENNINGTONOCT. 6, 2017</p><p>Continue reading the main storyShare This Page</p><p>Share</p><p>Tweet</p><p>Email</p><p>More</p><p>Save</p><p>Photo</p><p></p><p>Steve Chouinard, Colgate University’s director of sports medicine and an athletic trainer, working with a student in the training room. Colgate began an aggressive battle against the MRSA bacteria a decade ago, after a hockey player developed a staph infection. Credit Brett Carlsen for The New York Times</p><p>The first thing Colgate University did was purchase a sophisticated $14,000 machine that used ozone gas, not water or detergent, to disinfect all its athletes’ gear. An ice hockey player had come down with a staph infection, and Colgate, fearing the severe and sometimes fatal form of it known as MRSA, was not going to take any chances.</p><p></p><p>The university didn’t stop at gassing gear.</p><p></p><p>Out went the shared bars of soap in the Colgate showers. Water bottles were sterilized nightly. Athletes in contact sports got two or three sets of equipment so one set could always be sanitized. Even the university’s furry mascot costume was regularly blasted with ozone gas.</p><p></p><p>That was a decade ago, and Colgate, like many schools, is still fighting the germ. This year, among other measures, it unveiled plans for a cutting-edge system that would zap locker rooms with a decontaminating fog of hydrogen peroxide and silver to leave an anti-bacterial coating on every surface.</p><p></p><p>“It’s not weird anymore to implement these kinds of advanced tools because technology has really helped,” said Steve Chouinard, Colgate’s director of sports medicine and an athletic trainer. “We sprung into action, and you consider every possible way to keep the athletes safe.”</p><p></p><p>By the thousands, high schools, colleges and professional teams have followed Colgate’s path with aggressive, almost obsessive, steps to prevent MRSA outbreaks.</p><p></p><p>Continue reading the main story</p><p>RELATED COVERAGE</p><p></p><p>Giants Are Briefed on MRSA as Teammate Recovers OCT. 7, 2015</p><p></p><p>Deadly, Drug-Resistant ‘Superbugs’ Pose Huge Threat, W.H.O. Says FEB. 27, 2017</p><p></p><p>THE CHECKUP</p><p>When Athletes Share Infections SEPT. 25, 2017</p><p>HEALTH GUIDE</p><p>MRSA</p><p>ADVERTISEMENT</p><p></p><p>Continue reading the main story</p><p></p><p>And yet, the battle is not won. It has become a never-ending fight against a hidden foe that resists conventional antibiotics. And in the sports world, where the bacteria can flourish in crowded gyms and locker rooms, and amid frequent skin-to-skin contact on the playing field, there is not even a scoreboard to definitively keep track of who is winning.</p><p></p><p>The disease has disabled some athletes, cutting short their careers, and the most severe cases have been fatal. Ricky Lannetti, a Division III all-American wide receiver at Lycoming College in Pennsylvania, died from a MRSA infection in 2003.</p><p></p><p>Two seasons ago the Giants tight end Daniel Fells contracted MRSA in his lower leg and spent several tense weeks in a hospital as doctors contemplated amputating one of his feet. Fells retired from football 10 months later. In 2013, three Tampa Bay Buccaneers came down with the infection — two never returned to the field.</p><p></p><p>Continue reading the main story</p><p>FROM OUR ADVERTISERS</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Photo</p><p></p><p>Colgate’s athletic department has taken many steps to prevent outbreaks of the life-threatening bacteria MRSA. Top row, from left: A Sport-O-Zone machine uses ozone gas to sanitize things like football equipment and hockey goalie pads without water or soap; every hockey player’s locker has a ventilation system. Bottom row, from left: Chouinard cleaning a table where student athletes are worked on by trainers; individual showers have become part of the athletic facilities. Credit Brett Carlsen for The New York Times</p><p>Such cases have generated enough anxiety that teams have pulled out all the stops to eradicate the germ or to prevent it from settling in.</p><p></p><p>Although the most recent study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in 2015, reported a decrease in MRSA infections in the general public since 2005, it is difficult to tell what is happening in locker rooms because there has been no study specifically on sports. Anecdotally, based on the number of cases they have treated in recent years, athletic trainers and team doctors nationwide have insisted that MRSA cases in sports declined substantially in the last decade. But they, too, have no data.</p><p></p><p>Moreover, the movement to curb MRSA in athletics is butting heads with new behavioral trends — like some teenagers’ dogged aversions to showering after games and practices — that imperil the best preventive efforts.</p><p></p><p>Likewise, practices like body shaving, which has become more popular among young people and can cause tiny cuts that allow MRSA to propagate, have been shown to increase the risk of infection sixfold, according to the National Athletic Trainers’ Association.</p><p></p><p>Football, like any sport with frequent skin-to-skin contact, continues to be a breeding ground for the disease. Professional football players are seven to 10 times more likely than the general public to have MRSA bacteria on their skin, according to Duke University researchers.</p><p></p><p>“It is a job hazard present for people who play football,” said Dr. Deverick Anderson, a director of the Duke Infection Control Outreach Network, which serves as a consultant to the N.F.L.</p><p></p><p>MRSA, the acronym for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, was once mostly found in hospitals, clinics and other health care settings. About 20 years ago, it began afflicting athletes in contact sports.</p><p></p><p>Over time, hospitals and other medical facilities developed more stringent hygiene routines that successfully reduced the prevalence of MRSA. It is these best practices that professional teams and athletic departments have spent the last decade emulating.</p><p></p><p>Sports teams, even at some high schools that have the necessary budget, tended to ramp up their preventive efforts with avant-garde measures.</p><p></p><p>Photo</p><p></p><p>Thorough, persistent cleaning of uniforms and other equipment is important in the prevention of MRSA outbreaks. Athletic trainers and team doctors say MRSA cases in sports declined substantially in the last decade, but there is no data to back up that contention. Credit Brett Carlsen for The New York Times</p><p>In the N.F.L., the effort to curb MRSA now borders on a crusade, with an official prevention manual that is 315 pages long. There are meticulous protocols for dozens of procedures, right down to the approved method for refilling the anti-bacterial solution in hand-sanitizer dispensers, which are now omnipresent in locker and weight rooms. (Prepackaged containers are preferred to topping off the dispensers with a large jug — a process that can spread contamination.)</p><p></p><p>The best-intentioned and most sophisticated tactics, however, can be undone by the simplest omissions. At the high school and college levels, the downfall can be players who refuse to shower with teammates, which is common. A shower can greatly diminish the chance that exposure to MRSA in practice or in a game will lead to an infection.</p><p></p><p>“It’s like pulling teeth to get the athletes in the shower,” said Bernie Stento, an athletic trainer at Chesterton High School in Indiana. “Some kids are very squeamish about it. After practice, they’re sweaty and have dirt and mud on them. In football, they might have cuts, scrapes and abrasions. I say to them, ‘Guys, without a shower, we’re inviting infection.’</p><p></p><p>Newsletter Sign UpContinue reading the main story</p><p>Sports</p><p>Get the big sports news, highlights and analysis from Times journalists, delivered to your inbox every week.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Enter your email address</p><p> Sign Up</p><p></p><p>You agree to receive occasional updates and special offers for The New York Times's products and services.</p><p></p><p>SEE SAMPLE MANAGE EMAIL PREFERENCES PRIVACY POLICY OPT OUT OR CONTACT US ANYTIME</p><p>“But just as a practice ends, I’ll be taking things off the field and see kids leaving already.”</p><p></p><p>It’s a phenomenon discussed often among coaches and trainers.</p><p></p><p>“It started 10 or 15 years ago, and now there are a lot of social stigmas with the shower in a school setting,” said Bart Peterson, the head athletic trainer at Palo Verde High Magnet School in Tucson. “I don’t know, maybe they don’t want the hazing. But it’s pervasive.”</p><p></p><p>At Colgate, which is in upstate New York, a fervent education program has changed habits.</p><p></p><p>Owen Buscaglia, a junior wide receiver at Colgate, said he and his friends in high school considered it weird to shower after practice.</p><p></p><p>“Now it’s weird if you don’t shower,” Buscaglia said.</p><p></p><p>Across the nation, the efforts to foster proper hygiene involve far more than shower routines. Some teams buy athletes their own water bottles to deter sharing.</p><p></p><p>To prevent teammates from sharing towels to wipe their faces or arms on the sideline, trainers have sometimes employed a small army of interns who scoop up any used towel so it can quickly be placed in the laundry. Jim Thornton, the athletic trainer at Clarion University in Pennsylvania, said his teams had begun using chemically treated towelettes that are about half the size of a standard towel and are discarded after each use.</p><p></p><p>The expense may be worthwhile. One study of high school football players concluded that sharing a towel makes the chance of a MRSA infection eight times more likely.</p><p></p><p>Continue reading the main story</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Photo</p><p></p><p>Skin-to-skin contact in sports contributes to the spread of MRSA. “It is a job hazard present for people who play football,” said Dr. Deverick Anderson, a director of the Duke Infection Control Outreach Network, which serves as a consultant to the N.F.L. Credit Brett Carlsen for The New York Times</p><p>In wrestling, where the occurrence of skin disorders has been elevated for decades, many college and high school teams mandate frequent examinations for suspicious lesions. In all sports, the ubiquitous training tables, where athletes receive treatment, are now subject to regular, thorough disinfection. Athletes are required to shower before entering any kind of pool or tub used for therapy.</p><p></p><p>With athletic teams soiling hundreds of pounds of jerseys, T-shirts and padded equipment on a daily basis for sports like football, hockey and lacrosse, a cottage industry has sprung up to rid that gear of bacteria that might lead to a MRSA infection.</p><p></p><p>High-tech laundry systems — featuring programmable chemical disinfectant injections, high speed water extractors and synchronized cycles that assiduously monitor water levels and temperatures — have become commonplace. Ozone gas machines, like the Sport-O-Zone manufactured in Elkhart, Ind., can be found in equipment rooms from the N.F.L. to small public high schools.</p><p></p><p>Infectious disease experts are more likely to emphasize other elements of a comprehensive MRSA prevention program, but they do not spurn the emerging devices.</p><p></p><p>“I would think it would make a contribution to the reduction of staphylococcal infection in the athletic environment,” Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease specialist at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, said of the ozone gas machines.</p><p></p><p>At Bowdoin College in Maine, Dan Davies, the athletic trainer, said the college had not had a MRSA case involving an athlete in the 10 years since it bought an ozone gas unit. That track record has motivated Bowdoin officials to consider installing a system that would fill the locker rooms and the training room inside the college’s new facility with ozone gas transmitted through the heating and air-conditioning ducts.</p><p></p><p>Overnight, custodians would lock the doors to the building serving Bowdoin’s football and lacrosse teams, then turn on the ozone gas. The facility is to open next year, and while the new system could add to the renovation cost, Bowdoin, like so many other institutions, may decide it is worth the price. The college once had a MRSA scare.</p><p></p><p>About 10 years ago, a Bowdoin athlete was unaware he had contracted MRSA, and with a contagious, open wound on his leg, he wandered around the campus — to the dining hall, the weight room, the locker room and the coaches’ offices.</p><p></p><p>“That gets your attention,” Davies said. “We said, ‘Oh, boy, we’ve got to sit down and make a game plan to fix this.’ We took the stance that we’ve got to push prevention to the forefront. And we haven’t turned back.”</p><p></p><p>Follow Bill Pennington on Twitter: @billmpennington.</p>
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06 October 2017
Water
Hepatitis A in San Diego: An outbreak waiting to happen.
By USHA LEE MCFARLING @ushamcfarling
<p></p><p>SAN DIEGO — The hepatitis A outbreak now roiling this well-heeled, coastal city may have had its roots in a baseball game — when the city cleaned up for the 2016 All-Star Game by pushing its homeless out of the touristy areas downtown and into increasingly congested encampments and narrow freeway onramps just east of downtown. The lines of tents stretched for blocks.</p><p></p><p>At the same time, the city was locking and removing bathrooms to help control the rampant drug and prostitution trade they’d spawned. Hepatitis A is transmitted through contact with feces from an infected person, and in close, unsanitary conditions, the highly contagious virus can spread explosively. So it was only a matter of time, experts say, before cases would surge among the homeless.</p><p></p><p>“I’m not so much surprised it occurred, but surprised it didn’t occur earlier,” said Dr. Robert Schooley, who chairs the division of infectious diseases at the University of California, San Diego, and currently serves as an informal health adviser to the city’s mayor. “In some ways, it was the perfect storm.”</p><p></p><p>Today, the tents are gone. There are clusters of newly installed portable toilets open and guarded 24 hours a day. More than 60 new hand-washing stations dot the city. Workers in hazmat suits spend mornings spraying bleach onto streets and sidewalks. Armies of nurses walk through encampments and even into riverbeds and canyons to offer the highly effective hepatitis A vaccine to homeless people. And on Monday, the first city-sanctioned homeless camp — with 200 four-person tents, security, showers, and bathrooms — is slated to open in a parking lot near Balboa Park.</p><p></p><p>It’s an extraordinary campaign to control an outbreak that’s so far known to have stricken 481 and killed 17 here, mainly people who are homeless or drug users, or work with them. The city of San Diego had more than 5,600 homeless residents at last count, the fourth-largest population of any U.S. city, and many health officials fear the outbreak could worsen as new cases continue to surface.</p><p></p><p>“I don’t expect this is going to be solved overnight,” said Dr. Jonathan Fielding, a UCLA professor who previously headed the LA County Department of Public Health. “It could take a year or more.”</p><p></p><p>Doctors and nurses here are grappling with a population that’s extremely challenging to work with, or even find. Because homeless people are transient and receive little regular health care, even severe illnesses can go unnoticed and untreated for long periods. In the case of hepatitis A, this allows a carrier to keep spreading it. Issues such as mental illness and a deep culture of mistrust of the government also make many homeless patients difficult to reach or reason with. Many routinely turn away offers of free vaccines or medical attention.</p><p></p><p>“This is new territory,” said Dr. Wilma Wooten, San Diego County’s public health officer. “It’s challenging on so many levels.”</p><p></p><p>The challenges became clear on Wednesday, when county public health nurse Paulina Bobenrieth and three fellow nurses set up outside a public restroom near city hall that’s often used by homeless people, and gently asked passers-by if they’d been vaccinated. They had plenty of takers; word has gotten out on the street about the outbreak and many are scared.</p><p></p><p>“At the beginning, a lot of people said, ‘I don’t need that. I don’t do shots,’” Bobenrieth said. “Now people are really open to it.”</p><p></p><p>“I come get a booster every month?” asked one man who’d been recently immunized. “No, just one time, in six months,” replied a police officer who specializes in homeless outreach and was accompanying the nurses.</p><p></p><p>People sat before Bobenrieth, often parking carts filled with salvaged metal or sleeping bags, to roll up their sleeves. She gently cleaned dusty arms with alcohol wipes and administered the shots.</p><p></p><p>Sixty-three-year-old William, who goes by the name “Dollar Bill,” rolled up his sleeve to expose a tanned, tattooed arm and winced as he was injected. He still seemed a little wary and doubtful it would help. “When you live on the streets, there is no protection,” he said. Still, he thanked Bobenrieth and listened as she told him, “Wash your hands, wash your hands, wash your hands.”</p><p></p><p>The nurses kept an eye out for people who might be sick and need hospital care. “Have you been feverish? Do you feel nauseous?” Bobenrieth asked.</p><p></p><p>But it was sometimes hard convincing people to go. One clearly sick man — “really yellow,” Bobenrieth said — refused to go to the hospital because he was worried about losing the recyclables he’d collected in his cart. A team member paid him for the recyclables out of her own pocket, but the man still refused to go. “You do what you have to do,” Bobenrieth said.</p><p></p><p>That dedication is evident among more than nurses and doctors. Bobenrieth points to tiny Christina Huynh — homeless people call her “The Hammer” — a bathroom attendant who unlocks the doors, enforces the two-minute time limit, and, since the outbreak began, has been disinfecting the bathrooms three to four times during her shift.</p><p></p><p>“I don’t dilute the bleach,” she said. “I spray so much I get dizzy. But I have to.”</p><p></p><p>Overall, the county has vaccinated more than 54,000 people at risk of hepatitis — on the streets and at clinics, social service agencies, the central library, jails, and emergency rooms. The campaign has reached so many people that health workers find they are talking to many folks who already have Band-Aids on their upper arms.</p><p></p><p>While the conditions were ripe here for a hepatitis A outbreak, its arrival still came as a surprise. There have been very few outbreaks of the virus — other than a handful related to contaminated imported foods — since the hepatitis A vaccine became available in 1999, and fewer still since 2006, when it became a universally recommended childhood vaccine, said Dr. Monique Foster, a medical epidemiologist who runs the division of viral hepatitis for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.</p><p></p><p>(By coincidence, the world’s premier infectious diseases meeting, IDWeek, is being held in San Diego this week; conference organizers took the opportunity to add a late-breaking session so experts, including Foster, could discuss the outbreak.)</p><p></p><p>Though the virus does show up in the U.S. among travelers and gay men, hepatitis A, which is rarely fatal and does not cause chronic liver disease, has not been largely on the public health radar. “There’s been so much focus on hepatitis B and C over the past few years, hepatitis A has been kind of the neglected virus,” UC San Diego’s Schooley said.</p><p></p><p>The disease causes mild to serious illness and is spread by the ingestion of even microscopic amounts of infected feces. Symptoms include extreme fatigue, diarrhea, yellow skin and eyes, and urine so dark it looks like Coca-Cola.</p><p></p><p>The San Diego strain is not the one typically found in the United States, said Foster, but is a strain called 1B that appears to be spreading here. It is not necessarily more virulent, she said, just hitting hard in an already weakened homeless population.</p><p></p><p>Many of the 17 hepatitis deaths occurred in people who already had liver disease, said Dr. Eric McDonald, who directs San Diego County’s Epidemiology and Immunization Services Branch. Hospitalizations occurred in many cases because victims were older and already ill or weak.</p><p></p><p>The virus has been challenging to stem because of its long, 50-day incubation period, meaning someone can be carrying and spreading it for weeks before it’s detected. The county is now seeing about 20 new cases a week, meaning the outbreak may have plateaued, but Wooten said she won’t be sure until she sees another month of data.</p><p></p><p>Meanwhile, the outbreak has spread out of San Diego as infected people travel to new cities. Foster said the CDC has issued a nationwide public health alert because the same strain found in San Diego has sickened people in Los Angeles, Santa Cruz, Calif., and now a homeless shelter in Maricopa County, Arizona, and is linked to patients in Colorado, Utah, and Rhode Island as well. Wooten has been busy fielding calls from fellow public health officers around the country asking what they should do.</p><p></p><p>San Diego’s response is seen as flawed by a number of critics, including some of its homeless residents. Tammy, 49, red-haired, sunburned, and missing a few teeth, was one of the early cases. She contracted hepatitis A in May while living in one of the denser homeless encampments and was hospitalized for five days. “What do you expect?” she said. “There was no place to go to the bathroom.”</p><p></p><p>Tammy was extremely weak, sick, unable to keep any food down, and “yellow as a daisy,” said her partner, Benjamin. But in some ways, things are worse now. Tammy and Benjamin and almost everyone else living in the long cluster of tents they used to call home have been jailed or kicked out, they said.</p><p></p><p>On a recent night, she and Benjamin hovered a few blocks away, with their belongings neatly tucked into a shopping cart and their two dogs in a stroller. They warily watched for cops as they waited until dark so they could pop open their tent and climb inside with their pets. They planned to be up and out by 4:30 a.m.</p><p></p><p>“I am so done,” said an exhausted Tammy. “I knew they had to clean up the place, but they went about it the wrong way.”</p><p></p><p>Perching on his bike as he commuted home through the homeless encampments, San Diego Councilmember David Alvarez looked around. “It’s very strange. Where is everyone?”</p><p></p><p>Alvarez was outside a new cluster of portable bathrooms with a hand-washing station with no one in sight, save for a lone security guard who’d only seen a handful of people use the bathrooms during his entire shift. (Bathrooms in other areas are seeing heavier use, say the guards — and often getting their toilet paper, a luxury on the street, stolen.)</p><p></p><p>Alvarez, a vocal critic of both Mayor Kevin Faulconer and county officials, has been urging the city to shelter the homeless in properties such as a vacant former public library, the old convention center, or the 160 acres of parking lots and shower-rich training facilities left behind when the San Diego Chargers moved north to Los Angeles.</p><p></p><p>He’s worried that the rousting and cleanup prompted by the outbreak has forced homeless people into hiding in canyons, river beds, parks, and vacant lots — taking their belongings, as well as the virus, with them.</p><p></p><p>“It’s shocking to me,” said Alvarez. “Which begs the question, given the hep A situation, does it make sense to spread them all over the place?”</p><p></p><p>Michael McConnell is a local coin dealer who became a homeless advocate as he saw the homeless population increase year after year. He called the city’s response to the outbreak almost laughable and noted that there had been massive tents set up to shelter homeless people — until the mayor ordered them taken down in 2015.</p><p></p><p>“They’re playing whack-a-mole with all these encampments,” McConnell said. “It’s totally a man-made disaster. They created an environment for hep A to fester.” Putting people in temporary tents is just a Band-Aid, he said, when efforts need to be made to get people permanently off the streets.</p><p></p><p>The outbreak has led to a lot of finger-pointing between local officials and between city and county departments that are responsible for health, safety, and sanitation. The mayor has called his response immediate and comprehensive.</p><p></p><p>For the last four years, Jeannette, 69, who hails from Georgia and her husband, Benny, a former marine, have spent each night outside a collision shop. They haven’t been bothered, she said, because she keeps the sidewalk clean for the owner. Every morning, she picks up waste by hand and empties buckets of bleach onto the sidewalk.</p><p></p><p>“We used to have port-a-potties out here, but they took them away after they found a couple of dead ones in there,” she said. “Now I find buckets full of needles and feces.”</p><p></p><p>Some health officials speculate that one trigger of the outbreak might have been the state’s plastic bag ban, which went into effect in November. What had once been a practice of last resort — defecating in a plastic bag and tossing it in the trash — is no longer an option. (The first recorded hepatitis A case occurred at the end of November.)</p><p></p><p>The outbreak may be bringing much-needed attention to such grim realities. “This is a warning shot that homelessness is something we can’t ignore,” said Dr. Jeffrey Norris, the medical director for a health center embedded within Father Joe’s Villages, a charity that provides food, shelter, and medical care for San Diego’s homeless.</p><p></p><p>Norris was shaken when one of his patients died of hepatitis A in June. “It’s really getting to the fact that if you don’t deal with the homeless situation, you’re going to have a public health crisis, a social crisis, and a political crisis on your hands,” he said. “The unintended consequences are huge.”</p><p></p><p>About the Author</p><p></p><p></p><p>Usha Lee McFarling</p><p>West Coast Correspondent</p><p>Usha is STAT's West Coast correspondent.</p><p>ushalee.mcfarling@statnews.com</p><p>@ushamcfarling</p>
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