LANDFILL WOES

HAWAI'I RESIDENTS MUST SUPPORT RECYCLING

As a concerned citizen, I support the city's efforts involving the new magnet program at the landfill.

It is definitely a step in the right direction, seeing as how our landfills are filling up.

However, it is only a bandage on a wound that may require a tourniquet.

It is very important for residents to become active in supporting a recycling program. Our increasingly materialistic life-styles are short-sighted and arrogant for island living.

UH RESPONSE

ARMING GUARDS ADDS TO EMPHASIS ON VIOLENCE

I have been nearly as horrified by the University of Hawai'i's response to the shooting at Virginia Tech as I have been to the event itself.

Why? Because the UH response has been to propose arming its security guards. Would armed guards be able to stop an event like that here? Would armed guards be able to stop most of the crime that occurs on or near the UH-Manoa campus? It is highly unlikely.

The knee-jerk reaction to events such as that at Virginia Tech has been to pass laws or policies that continue to erode our daily lives. A university (or downtown city area or office building or neighborhood) is a free and open place, where you cannot restrict access in the hopes of making it safer.

The Virginia Tech event was tragic, and one that we hope to never see again. But arming UH security cannot prevent such an event. Reacting in that way only adds to the current emphasis on violence and reduction of personal freedoms in the misguided hope that this will keep our families free and safe.

HEALTH SYSTEM

SB 1792 WILL BE GOOD FOR ISLE RURAL HOSPITALS

I support Senate Bill 1792.

The bill will not break up the Hawai'i Health Systems Corp. The bill is designed to leave HHSC intact and will allow HHSC to focus on corporation-wide benefits.

The bill allows the regions to control the day-to-day operations of the public health facilities in their regions, and it will give these regions more say over how their finances are handled.

The bill does not fragment HHSC; it will help rural hospitals be more responsive to local needs. This can only improve the system as a whole.

HHSC should look at the bill in a positive fashion and work with the regions rather than fighting change by using scare tactics and misinformation. Those who support this bill are concerned with improving the system, not tearing it down.

The current system is one that is focused on the bottom line, not on providing the best patient care possible. Support the bill and help to change the culture of the system into one where innovation, improvement and growth are encouraged and supported rather than discouraged and opposed.

AVIAN FLU PANDEMIC

MORTALITY PREDICTIONS HIGHLY SPECULATIVE

Recently, articles have appeared regarding the potential severity of an avian flu pandemic in the U.S.

The most important question, which can't be answered definitively, is how devastating could the avian flu pandemic be to Americans?

Predictions of mass death are highly speculative. We cannot apply statistics, such as the 50 percent mortality rate from avian flu in Southeast Asia, to a bird flu pandemic in the U.S.

First, in the 1918-1919 Spanish flu pandemic, more than 500,000 U.S. deaths were recorded, relative to 50 million deaths worldwide.

Second, the Asian flu pandemic of 1957-1958 produced 70,000 deaths in the U.S., while the 1968-1969 Hong Kong flu pandemic resulted in 34,000 deaths, or a death rate of about 5 percent.

Explaining a steady reduction in deaths from influenza pandemics in the U.S. over the past 90 years is not easy.

Variables, such as the relative virulence of the influenza A viral strains responsible for each pandemic, the general improving nutritional and immunological state of the population, better public health measures, improved surveillance and diagnostics, and other factors must all be considered.

As Americans have become more diligent in receiving annual flu shots, the population has gradually built a cumulative immunity against many strains of the influenza A virus.

Anti-flu immunity is essentially nonexistent in Southeast Asia. The anti-flu immunity we now possess to varying degrees is not directed specifically to the highly pathogenic H5N1 avian virus, but because of certain similarities among all influenza A viruses, it may prove immunologically beneficial in restricting the severity of the anticipated Avian flu pandemic.

ENVIRONMENT

ANIMAL PRODUCTS CAUSE MUCH OF OUR POLLUTION

Recently, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change provided a more detailed assessment of the effect of global warming on North America.

The 67-page report predicts droughts, hurricanes and extensive flooding of coastal areas, displacing millions.

Erratic weather fluctuations are likely to increase human and animal casualties from heat, storms, pollution and infectious diseases.

A report released by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization in November blamed animal agriculture for 18 percent (more than automobiles) of greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming.

Carbon dioxide, the chief greenhouse gas, is emitted by burning forests to create animal pastures and by combustion of fossil fuels to operate farm machinery, trucks, refrigeration equipment, factory farms and slaughterhouses.

Methane and nitrous oxide are released from the digestive tracts of cattle and from animal waste cesspools, respectively.

The annual observance of Earth Day today provides a great opportunity to start saving our planet by dropping animal products from our diet.