Iraq: Preparing for September

HOMELAND SECURITY — BUSH’S CUTS TO DISEASE CONTROL PLACE AMERICANS AT RISK: A Georgia man with extremely drug-resistant tuberculosis (TB) “is now in an Atlanta hospital under federally enforced isolation” after recently taking two transatlantic flights, which might have exposed other passengers to the disease. Though the man ignored requests by public health officials not to travel, The New York Times reports that “the episode also raised questions about how rapidly health officials could respond to a similar emergency with other deadly infectious diseases.” The task has been made more difficult by President Bush’s repeated attempts to slash the budget of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) by about $500 million. CDC Director Julie Gerberding warned earlier this year that this exact type of situation could result from the administration’s proposed cuts in a report submitted to the House Appropriations Committee, in which she noted that “emerging plagues such as drug-resistant tuberculosis represent ‘urgent threats that have become more prominent in the dawn of the 21st century.'” Committee chairman Rep. David Obey (D-WI) took the unusual step of instructing Gerberding to submit the report directly to the committee, as opposed to first sending it to the White House, as is customary. He did so in order to receive what Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association, called “the kind of unvarnished guidance the Congress needs to make its decisions.” Benjamin and others also point out that though CDC funding may appear to have increased in recent years, the “erosion of its traditional disease control activities has been ‘masked’ by infusions of cash earmarked for spending on bioterrorism and pandemic activities.” Bush’s narrow focus on terrorism does not appear to have been successful, as the Department of Homeland Security could not explain how the TB-infected man could simply drive into the United States on his return trip when “all border crossings had been given his name and told to hold him if he appeared.”

ENERGY — CARBON CAPTURE PROVIDES MEANS TO HARNESS COAL ENERGY WHILE COMBATING GLOBAL WARMING: As the most plentiful fossil fuel available, coal is a staple of U.S. energy production. But growing consumer and government thirst for cheap energy through the construction of a new generation of coal-fired power plants poses a grave threat to the environment. “In the absence of emission controls, these new plants will increase worldwide annual emissions of carbon dioxide by approximately 7.6 billion metric tons by 2030. These emissions would equal roughly 50 percent of all fossil fuel emissions over the past 250 years,” according to a new report by the Center for American Progress, titled Global Warming and the Future of Coal: The Path to Carbon Capture and Storage. “Technology currently exists to capture CO2 emissions from coal-fired plants before they are released into the environment and to sequester that CO2 in underground geologic formations,” so-called carbon capture and storage (CCS) systems. This pathway, as American Progress proposes it to be implemented, “would allow continued use of coal as an energy source without magnifying the risk of global warming.” Unfortunately, “we are so far failing” in the effort to expand use of CCS, as industry experts predict only a small percentage of coal plants in the next quarter century will be using clean technology. To expand the use of clean coal technology, Congress must take bold action to “put in place an emission performance standard for new coal-fired plants.” Subsequently, such leadership would build a foundation for developing nations like India and China — which rival the U.S. in greenhouse emissions — to emulate. Our leadership on this front is crucial, as “[l]ack of progress in these countries would doom to failure global efforts to combat global warming.”

HEALTH CARE — FDA REMAINS A ‘BROKEN’ AGENCY: The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is suffering from “growing internal dissension between officials who approve drugs and those who track the safety of drugs after they have been approved.” This “dissension” was made public last month when it was revealed that FDA had ignored indications that Avandia, a diabetes pill, “substantially increased the risks of heart attack” in patients. The FDA’s “safety group recommended months ago that the drug agency put its severest warning on Avandia.” As of yet, no action has been taken. Dr. David Graham, who first discovered Avandia’s risks, said that “top agency officials had demanded an unreasonable level of certainty about a drug’s risks before agreeing to warn the public” and another FDA doctor said, “Safety is just not a high priority to them.” Such safety concerns were also raised yesterday when the FDA reported that “levels of a chemical used to make rocket fuel” — known as “perchlorate” — “found in commonly consumed food are not high enough to pose a health risk.” The Washington Post reports, however, that current standards adopted in 2005, are “more than 20 times the amount of perchlorate contamination in food found to be safe under previous standards.” The Natural Resources Defense Council has opposed the new levels and argues that “new FDA estimates show that some food items ‘come perilously close to what EPA considers an unsafe level.'” Members from both houses of Congress have pledged to address both of these issues in the coming weeks.

Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) blames U.S. troop deaths on Congress’s Iraq debate. “Al-Qaida knows that we’ve got a lot of wimps in Congress,” DeMint said at a luncheon Tuesday. “I believe a lot of the casualties can be laid at the feet of all the talk in Congress about how we’ve got to get out, we’ve got to cut and run.” He later added that while Iraq has “gone badly and it’s a mess, it would have been worse if we hadn’t gone in.”

“The United States is among the least peaceful nations in the world, ranking 96th between Yemen and Iran, according to an index of 121 countries.” Iraq ranks last.

President Bush “is under pressure from European allies to give ground on climate change at next week’s meeting of the world’s richest countries, but policy experts say prospects for a breakthrough are slim.”

“Twenty months after its depleted ranks of soldiers and airmen were pressed into service for Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the Louisiana National Guard still lacks hundreds of military troop trucks that can handle high water as it faces a new storm season that begins Friday.” The culprit, they say, is Iraq.

The Supreme Court ruling this week “in favor of an Alabama employer that had underpaid a female employee for years” is effectively “gutting a key part of the Civil Rights Act,” The New York Times writes. “Fortunately, Congress can amend the law to undo this damaging decision.” House Education and Labor Committee chairman George Miller (D-CA) and others have announced plans to do just that. 

Global warming is shrinking the Great Lakes, New Scientist reports. “Lake Superior, the largest body of fresh water in the world by surface area, is experiencing its lowest water levels since the record set in 1926.”

“A NATO helicopter on a night mission crashed late yesterday in southern Afghanistan, killing all seven service members aboard in what officials believe was a coordinated attack in an area known for aggressive Taliban fighting.”

“A Sunni police chief praised by U.S. forces for clearing his city of insurgents has been arrested following an investigation into alleged murder, corruption and crimes against the Iraqi people, the U.S. military said Wednesday.”

And finally: The World Bank Blackberry bruise. “After his introduction as the U.S. pick to lead the World Bank, Robert Zoellick said he had to turn off his BlackBerry. He wears the device on his belt, and typically keeps it on vibrate. ‘I’m getting bruises,‘ he said, pointing to it. ‘I’ve never had so many emails.'”