Author Archives: Hermine73K

One Weird Trick to Curb Antibiotic Overuse

by Hermine73K Posted on February 20, 2014

Mother Jones

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Antibiotic overprescription is a major problem. While there have been several campaigns to curb it, few have made a big impact—until now. In a new study, researchers Jason Doctor, an associate professor at the the University of Southern California’s Schaeffer Center for Health Policy and Economics and Daniella Meeker, an information scientist at the research think tank RAND Corporation, showed that they were able to reduce unnecessary antibiotic prescriptions among study participants by 20 percent simply by posting signs.

“We were interested in some of the psychological factors that may affect what physicians are doing, and one of the big ones is this idea of a public commitment,” Doctor explained. “If physicians make a public commitment they want to follow through with it, so that is how we came up with this poster idea.”

The signs looked like they were meant for patients: Each 18-by-24-inch poster showed two letters—one in English and another in Spanish—explaining how unnecessary use of antibiotics can be harmful, causing side effects like diarrhea and yeast infections, as well as contributing to drug resistance. The most important part of the posters, however, was the signature and photo of the physicians who practiced in the offices where they were displayed. The researchers did not tell the doctors that the signs’ real purpose was to remind the doctors themselves of their commitment.

“There have been studies that have posted these kinds of reminders and education,” Meeker explained, “but our results have been much larger, and we attribute that to this commitment device.”

Half the patients in the study saw doctors who had posted the commitment letter and the rest served as a control group. In the 12-week study period, inappropriate prescriptions—those written for conditions such as laryngitis, bronchitis, and non-strep sore throat, which don’t usually respond to antibiotics—fell from 43 percent to 33.7 percent. For providers who did not post the commitment letter, the rate of inappropriate prescriptions actually rose to 53 percent. Researchers found in both cases appropriate antibiotic prescriptions were unaffected.

The study was small—it included just 14 physicians who saw close to 1,000 adult patients. But the team hopes to expand the experiment to more doctors’ offices soon. Doctor and Meeker calculate that if applied throughout the US, the poster method could potentially save more than $70 million in drug costs and stop over 2 million inappropriate antibiotic prescriptions.

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One Weird Trick to Curb Antibiotic Overuse

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Bees exposed to neonic pesticides suck at gathering pollen

by Hermine73K Posted on January 31, 2014

Bees exposed to neonic pesticides suck at gathering pollen

By

Johan J.Ingles-Le Nobel

First plant STDs, and now this? Bees these days just can’t catch a break: New research shows that bumblebees that have been exposed to neonic pesticides are hopeless when it comes to gathering food.

British scientists reared commercial bumblebees for two weeks on sugar and pollen laced with imidacloprid, which is one of the world’s most commonly used insecticides. The pesticide concentration mimicked that found in farmed oil seed rape, which is grown for biofuel, vegetable oil, and animal feed. Similar colonies were fed pesticide-free sugar and pollen.

After the colonies were released into Scottish gardens to forage for their own food, the scientists monitored how much pollen and nectar the bees gathered and brought back to their hives. When it came to pollen, which is the main part of the bees’ diet, the differences between the pesticide-fed bees and those from control hives was striking. From the paper, published this month in the journal Ecotoxicology:

Whilst the nectar foraging efficiency of bees treated with imidacloprid was not significantly different than that of control bees, treated bees brought back pollen less often than control bees (40 % of trips vs 63 % trips, respectively) and, where pollen was collected, treated bees brought back 31 % less pollen per hour than controls.

This study demonstrates that field-realistic doses of these pesticides substantially impacts on foraging ability of bumblebee workers when collecting pollen. …

Pollen is the main protein source for bumblebees and is particularly important for the rearing of young to replace older workers. It has been suggested that foraging for pollen is more challenging than foraging for nectar, and it is usually restricted to dry, sunny weather, whereas nectar can be collected in most conditions except heavy rain, so that pollen rather than nectar shortages are more likely to limit colony success

The research was conducted on buff-tailed bumblebees — not on the more familiar honeybees. It’s “quite likely” that neonics have similar effects on the pollen-gathering ability of honeybees, researcher Dave Goulson told Grist. “But, obviously, we can’t say for sure.”

Previous research has shown that honeybee behavior is also affected by neonics — and scientists fear that those behavioral changes could be linked to the growing problem of colony collapse disorder. “Nonlethal exposure of honey bees to thiamethoxam (neonicotinoid systemic pesticide) causes high mortality due to homing failure at levels that could put a colony at risk of collapse,” French scientists wrote in a paper published in the journal Science.


Source
Field realistic doses of pesticide imidacloprid reduce bumblebee pollen foraging efficiency, Exotoxicology
A Common Pesticide Decreases Foraging Success and Survival in Honey Bees, Science

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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Bees exposed to neonic pesticides suck at gathering pollen

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Obama Expected To Move Forward With Climate Plan in State of the Union

by Hermine73K Posted on January 28, 2014

Mother Jones

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This story was originally published in the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

Campaigners are looking to Barack Obama to expand his use of executive powers to deliver action on climate change in Tuesday night’s State of the Union address.

Obama unveiled a sweeping climate plan last June, after warning in last year’s State of the Union address that if Congress did not act on climate change, he would.

The president is expected to reaffirm his commitment to that plan in Tuesday night’s address, defending his decision to direct the Environmental Protection Agency to cut carbon dioxide emissions from power plants.

He is also expected to offer details on actions by other federal government agencies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, promote wind and solar energy, and prepare for a future under climate change.

“I am sure it will be part of his comments in the State of the Union,” Carol Browner, who served as White House climate adviser in Obama’s first term, told a conference call with reporters. “What we see is a real commitment to moving us forward.”

The core of Obama’s climate plan remains the EPA’s proposed rules for power plants, the largest single source of carbon dioxide emissions.

The agency plans to release the next set of proposed rules, which would limit emissions from existing plants, by June of this year.

Obama was widely expected to use the spotlight on Tuesday night to try to get the public behind the new power plant rules, that are at the core of his climate plan.

But Heather Zichal, another former Obama climate adviser, said she expected other federal government agencies to take up climate change.

Zichal said last week she expected the president to press for further tax credits and other incentives to promote renewable energy.

But campaigners will be looking for Obama to expand even more on his climate plan.

They are also unlikely to be happy with Obama’s continued promotion of oil and gas drilling, something they say is incompatible with action on climate change.

Obama was widely expected to talk up domestic oil production in the speech. “I expect we will hear a message that is consistent with the ‘all of the above’ message we have heard before,” Jason Bordoff, director of Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy, said.

Last year was the fourth hottest year on record, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency. Despite Obama’s directive to the EPA, US carbon dioxide emissions rose 2 percent in 2013, because power plants burned more coal.

Without additional measures, America will fail to meet its commitment to cut emissions by 17 percent from 2005 by 2020.

Campaigners said they were looking to Obama to promise action on rising methane emissions produced by the country’s shale boom.

Recent studies have shown the gas industry—from well site to power station—produces far more methane than earlier government estimates, and methane is 80 times more powerful at warming the atmosphere than carbon dioxide over a 20-year time frame.

There were also calls for Obama to use the speech to reject the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, which will transport crude oil from the Alberta tar sands to refineries on the Texas coast.

“From our perspective, there is just no way, no how this tar sands oil gets out of the ground,” said Gene Karpinski, who heads the League of Conservation Voters.

A political action committee founded by the former hedge fund manager and Keystone opponent, Tom Steyer, has bought ads to air on the MSNBC cable network on Tuesday night, urging Obama to reject the project.

In Washington, protesters were planning to encircle Congress with a giant inflatable pipeline.

However, it is extremely unlikely the president will announce a decision on Keystone XL in his speech.

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Obama Expected To Move Forward With Climate Plan in State of the Union

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This Holiday Season, Brick-and-Mortar Stores Had Fewer Customers But Bigger Sales

by Hermine73K Posted on January 17, 2014

Mother Jones

The Wall Street Journal reports that foot traffic in retail outlets plummeted this holiday season:

A long-term change in shopper habits has reduced store traffic—perhaps permanently—and shifted pricing power away from malls and big-box retailers.

….Traffic to U.S. retailers was hurt during the financial crisis and recession, when job losses soared and shoppers kept a tight grip on their dollars. But nearly five years into the recovery, it appears many of those shoppers may never be coming back….Shoppers don’t seem to be using physical stores to browse as much, either. Instead, they seem to be figuring out what they want online then making targeted trips to pick it up from retailers that offer the best price.

This is actually not quite the tale of woe that it sounds like. It’s more interesting than that. In the past, brick-and-mortar outlets complained about shoppers coming to stores to check out the merchandise but then buying online. Now the tables have turned: shoppers are going online to check out prices and products, and then making a quick trip to pick up their goods instead of driving around town to a bunch of stores to do comparison shopping.

The result is that foot traffic is down, but sales are up: holiday spending increased 2.7 percent in 2013 compared to 2012. That’s not a great number, and obviously profits have taken a big hit as stores try to compete with low internet prices. Still, if sales are up 2.7 percent and foot traffic is down 14 percent, that means your staffing cost per dollar of sales is down. This is not unalloyed bad news for physical stores.

I’m not trying to be Pollyanna-ish here. Obviously brick-and-mortar stores have big challenges. Still, they might be able to thrive if they can learn to adapt to an environment in which there’s less casual browsing and more serious, targeted shopping. Anybody who’s worked in retail knows that you treat these kinds of shoppers differently, and perhaps the brick-and-mortar world needs to transition to a model in which they treat their customers by default as targeted shoppers. After all, there are still plenty of us who don’t believe everything we read online and still want to see things with our own eyes before we buy them.

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This Holiday Season, Brick-and-Mortar Stores Had Fewer Customers But Bigger Sales

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