Potential human health benefits of antibiotics used in food animals: a case study of virginiamycin

Risk management of food-animal antibiotics has reached a crucial juncture for public health officials worldwide. While withdrawals of animal antibiotics previously used to control animal bacterial illnesses are being encouraged in many countries, the human health impacts of such withdrawals are only starting to be understood. Increases in animal and human bacterial illness rates and antibiotic resistance levels in humans in Europe despite bans on animal antibiotics there have raised questions about how animal antibiotic use affects human health. This paper presents a quantitative human health risk and benefits assessment for virginiamycin (VM), a streptogramin antibiotic recommended for withdrawal from use in food animals in several countries. It applies a new quantitative Rapid Risk Rating Technique (RRRT) that estimates and multiplies data-driven exposure, dose-response, and consequence factors, as suggested by WHO (2003) to estimate human health impacts from withdrawing virginiamycin. Increased human health risks from more pathogens reaching consumers if VM use is terminated (6660 estimated excess campylobacteriosis cases per year in the base case) are predicted to far outweigh benefits from reduced streptogramin-resistant vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus faecium (VREF) infections in human patients (0.27 estimated excess cases per year in the base case). While lack of information about impacts of VM withdrawal on average human illnesses-per-serving of food animal meat precludes a deterministic conclusion, it appears very probable that such a withdrawal would cause many times more human illnesses than it would prevent. This qualitative conclusion appears to be robust to several scientific and modeling uncertainties.     

Heavy metal distribution and controlling factors within coastal plain sediments, Bells Creek catchment, southeast Queensland, Australia

Bells Creek catchment in southeast Queensland (Australia) is a non-industrialised coastal plain limited to small settlements and agricultural land. A study was initiated to examine elevated metal concentrations and to assess horizontal and vertical distribution of those elements. Ninety-nine samples were analysed for Cr, V, Ni, Cu, Zn, Pb, As, Fe, Mn and Al. Total organic carbon, sulfur content and mineralogy of samples along with land-use practices across the catchment were used to identify processes which influence metal distribution. A comparison between metal concentration within the study area and mean heavy metal content of standard sandstone showed that except for Mn, all other metals showed elevated levels throughout the catchment. When metal concentrations were compared to parent bedrock, however, it was concluded that elevated levels are likely to be natural. A normalisation procedure was applied to the data set and this analysis validated that elevated trace metal concentrations in most samples are not due to artificial contamination. While surficial estuarine sediments were only enriched in V, soils were dominantly enriched in Cr, Zn and V. Overall, geochemistry and mineralogy of the samples show the effect of both natural and anthropogenic inputs to the catchment, however, natural processes are more dominant than anthropogenic inputs in concentrating metals.     

A process-based model designed for filling of large data gaps in tower-based measurements of net ecosystem productivity

In this paper we present a simple hybrid gap-filling model (GFM) designed with a minimum number of parameters necessary to capture the ecological processes important for filling medium-to-large gaps in Flux data. As the model is process-based, the model has potential to be used in filling large gaps exhibiting a broad range of micro-meteorological and site conditions. The GFM performance was evaluated using “Punch hole” and extrapolation experiments based on data collected in west-central New Brunswick. These experiments indicated that the GFM is able to provide acceptable results (r² > 0.80) when >500 data points are used in model parameterization. The GFM was shown to address daytime evolution of NEP reasonably well for a wide range of weather and site conditions. An analysis of residuals indicated that for the most part no obvious trends were evident; although a slight bias was detected in NEP with soil temperature. To explore the portability of the GFM across ecosystem types, a transcontinental validation was conducted using NEP and ancillary data from seven ecosystems along a north-south transect (i.e., temperature–moisture gradient) from northern Europe (Finland) to the Middle East (Israel). The GFM was shown to explain over 75% of the variability in NEP measured at most ecosystems, which strongly suggests that the GFM maybe successfully applied to forest ecosystems outside Canada.     

Mapping fires and American Red Cross aid using demographic indicators of vulnerability

Social vulnerability indicators can assist with informing disaster relief preparation. Certain demographic segments of a population may suffer disproportionately during disaster events, and a geographical understanding of them can help to determine where to place strategically logistical assets and to target disaster‐awareness outreach endeavours. Records of house fire events and American Red Cross aid provision over a five‐year period were mapped for the County of Los Angeles, California, United States, to examine the congruence between actual events and expectations of risk based on vulnerability theory. The geographical context provided by the data was compared with spatially‐explicit indicators of vulnerability, such as age, race, and wealth. Fire events were found to occur more frequently in more vulnerable areas, and Red Cross aid was found to have an even stronger relationship to those places. The findings suggest that these indicators speak beyond vulnerability and relate to patterns of fire risk.     

Protection of workers’ mental health in Québec: Do general duty clauses allow labour inspectors to do their job?

Given that no specific provisions of the Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) Act explicitly deal with psychosocial risk factors, in Québec, occupational health and safety inspectors employed by the Commission de la santé et de la sécurité du travail (CSST) address psychosocial hazards under the Act’s general duty clause. This general duty clause and related provisions require that all employers eliminate hazards at source and protect the health of workers. More specifically, they are required to ensure that the organisation of work does not adversely affect the safety or health of the worker. Since 2004, Québec minimum standards legislation has also provided for the right of workers to an environment that is free from psychological harassment.Written from both a legal and public health perspective, this paper has two primary objectives: first, to better understand the potential and limits of the current legislative framework for the protection of the mental health of workers and second, to describe how scientific knowledge related to high risk situations for the mental health of workers might inform interventions by inspectors for the protection of workers’ mental health.     

Stakeholder Involvement in Coastal Decision-making Processes

This article discusses the current framework of coastal decision making which tends to exclude participation by individuals and those without a strong institutional representation. A distinction is drawn between institutional and local stakeholders to illustrate weaknesses in the existing decision framework. It is argued that particularly in the coastal environment, the relationship between changes in physical form and changes in social welfare is critical to understanding how decision making may engage more fully with local stakeholders and ultimately improve decision outcomes. A reordering of stakeholder engagement in decision systems at the coast is proposed and a framework is outlined which enhances the capacity of local stakeholders to influence decision making.     

Quality circle programmes: Volunteering for participation

Discriminant analysis was used to develop a profile of a typical Quality Circle Programme participant. Selected demographic, attitudinal, and behavioural characteristics were evaluated. Six characteristics significantly differentiated quality circle members from non-members, including educational level, tenure, job satisfaction, consideration, performance, and absenteeism. A profile of the typical circle member is described, and interpretations of the discriminant analysis are discussed.     

Precision Measurements from Very-Large Scale Aerial Digital Imagery

Managers need measurements and resource managers need the length/width of a variety of items including that of animals, logs, streams, plant canopies, man-made objects, riparian habitat, vegetation patches and other things important in resource monitoring and land inspection. These types of measurements can now be easily and accurately obtained from very large scale aerial (VLSA) imagery having spatial resolutions as fine as 1 millimeter per pixel by using the three new software programs described here. VLSA images have small fields of view and are used for intermittent sampling across extensive landscapes. Pixel-coverage among images is influenced by small changes in airplane altitude above ground level (AGL) and orientation relative to the ground, as well as by changes in topography. These factors affect the object-to-camera distance used for image-resolution calculations. ‘ImageMeasurement’ offers a user-friendly interface for accounting for pixel-coverage variation among images by utilizing a database. ‘LaserLOG’ records and displays airplane altitude AGL measured from a high frequency laser rangefinder, and displays the vertical velocity. ‘Merge’ sorts through large amounts of data generated by LaserLOG and matches precise airplane altitudes with camera trigger times for input to the ImageMeasurement database. We discuss application of these tools, including error estimates. We found measurements from aerial images (collection resolution: 5–26 mm/pixel as projected on the ground) using ImageMeasurement, LaserLOG, and Merge, were accurate to centimeters with an error less than 10%. We recommend these software packages as a means for expanding the utility of aerial image data.