Philly doctors join national NRA debate over gun safety

The American College of Physicians in Philadelphia says caring for patients with gunshot wounds puts those in the medical profession on the front lines of dealing with gun violence. That's contrary to the National Rifle Association's position. (dolgachov/BigStock)

The American College of Physicians in Philadelphia says caring for patients with gunshot wounds puts those in the medical profession on the front lines of dealing with gun violence. That’s contrary to the National Rifle Association’s position. (dolgachov/BigStock)

Nina Feldman reports for WHYY News:
As the director of orthopedic trauma at Penn Medicine, Dr. Samir Mehta treats a lot of gunshot victims. He doesn’t always see them in a crisis setting, like an ER doctor would, but he’s dealing with the long-term impacts. One of his patients, who was shot trying to break up a dispute over traffic, suffered a spinal cord injury and paralysis. He will likely enter hospice care soon.
Along with thousands of doctors across the country, Mehta said caring for patients like these puts those in the medical profession on the front lines of dealing with gun violence.
To assert that position, doctors have taken to social media recently in response to a tweet from the National Rifle Association that demanded doctors stop speaking out about gun control and “stay in their lane.”
Thousands of doctors reacted to the tweet, describing their experiences treating patients with gunshot injuries, and maintaining that the topic is, in fact, very much in their lane. Now, the Philadelphia-based American College of Physicians has issued a statement affirming the role of doctors in treating gun violence as a public health crisis.
Mehta says that, if his patient’s injury had been caused by say, bacteria, the public would demand that doctors know how such an illness could have been prevented.
“We could have given him an antibiotic, or we could’ve prevented disease, or we could’ve given a vaccination,” Mehta hypothesized. “But when we say that about guns, then it’s a different conversation.”

A dearth of research

The debate between doctors and the NRA unfolded online in the interim between the shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh and the subsequent shooting at the Thousand Oaks bar. The timing inevitably  politicized the debate and framed it as a Second Amendment issue, but Mehta and the American College of Physicians both say that their principal concern is supporting research that will lead to evidence-based practices for doctors to help prevent gunshot injury.
“We’re not anti-gun, we’re anti gun injury,” said Dr. Christine Laine, an internist at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital and the co-author of the ACP editorial.

Read the full story

Like this? Click to receive free updates

Philly doctors join national NRA debate over gun safety Read More »

NYDEC awards $2.24 M in Urban Forestry Grants

Funding Supports Tree Plantings and Projects to Protect Air Quality, Water Quality, and Natural Resources

New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) Commissioner Basil Seggos today announced $2.24 million in grants for urban forestry projects to protect air quality, water quality and natural resources across the state. 
The grants are part of DEC’s Urban and Community Forestry Program, which helps communities develop and implement comprehensive tree planting, management, maintenance, and education to create healthy forests while enhancing the quality of life for residents.
“Continued investments in New York’s urban forestry programs promote clean air, clean water, energy savings, and habitat creation,” said Commissioner Seggos.“Thanks to Governor Cuomo, funding for these grants was made available through the State’s Environmental Protection Fund, providing crucial assistance for communities to manage their forests, particularly trees lost to the invasive emerald ash borer.”
The 54 projects to receive funding were selected from a total of 115 applications, ranked by cost-effectiveness, lasting benefits, use of partnerships, and support from local stakeholders. The urban forestry grants complement DEC’s ongoing initiatives to address invasive species, climate change, environmental degradation, environmental justice, and urban sprawl. Over the last seven years, New York State has funded more than $9.2 million in grants to support projects with a total value of more than $16 million.

NYDEC awards $2.24 M in Urban Forestry Grants Read More »

NJ paint stewardship, enviro-funding in committee Nov. 26

The New Jersey Senate Environment and Energy Committee will meet at 10 a.m. on Monday, Nov. 26, 2018, to take up the following bills:


S2815 – Requires paint producers to implement or participate in paint stewardship program.

S3049 – Appropriates $28,883,557 in 2003 and 1992 bond act monies for loans for dam restoration and repair projects and inland waters projects.

S3110 – Makes supplemental appropriation of $50 million from General Fund to DEP and adds language provisions concerning the use of certain environmental settlement monies for natural resource restoration projects.

SCR118 – Urges President and Congress to require interstate natural gas pipelines constructed in N.J. to conform with N.J. regulations for intrastate natural gas pipelines.


Like this? Click to receive free updates

NJ paint stewardship, enviro-funding in committee Nov. 26 Read More »

NJ sportsmen lose a round in continuing bear-hunt battle

Murphy administration’s prohibition holds for now. Sporting groups pledge to continue their fight to overturn it

Tom Johnson reports for NJ Spotlight:

A state appeals court has denied a bid by three sporting groups to open state lands to next month’s scheduled black bear hunt.

A state appeals court has denied a bid by three sporting groups to open state lands to next month’s scheduled black bear hunt.
In a 41-page decision issued Friday, the court rejected a challenge by the New Jersey Outdoor Alliance, Safari Club International, and Sportsmen’s Alliance Foundation to the Murphy administration’s ban on hunting of bears on state-controlled lands.
In the decision, the latest chapter of recurring controversy and litigation overhunting of black bears, the three-judge panel dismissed arguments by the pro-hunting groups that the closure was impermissibly based on a political campaign promise made by Gov. Phil Murphy.
“The merit (or even the probability of success) of appellants’ claim of public necessity for a hunt to take place on state lands has yet to be established,’’ the court said, noting bear hunters will still have access to other lands and the hunt may be extended if the harvest falls below specified targets.
In August, the governor issued an executive order preventing the hunting of bears on state lands but stopped short of ending the hunt altogether, saying he lacked legal authority to do so. Murphy campaigned on a promise to end the bear hunt, a policy long advocated by animal rights groups and some environmental organizations but opposed by the New Jersey Fish and Game Council.

Increase in black bear population

New Jersey held its first bear hunt since 1970 back in 2003 after a growth in the black bear population led to increased encounters with the public in backyards and outdoors, particularly in northern New Jersey. Despite an outcry from critics, the state has held a bear hunt the past eight years.


Read the full story
Like this? Click to receive free updates

NJ sportsmen lose a round in continuing bear-hunt battle Read More »

Crab fishers sue fossil fuel industry over climate damage

The lawsuit by the largest West Coast commercial fishing association seeks to hold 30 companies accountable for harming shellfish and livelihoods as the ocean warms.

David Hasemyer reports for Inside Climate News:

Crab fishermen bring in a haul of Dungeness crab in 2006. Warming ocean water has forced fishery closures over the past four seasons that have hurt the industry. Credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
Crab fishing on the West Coast has become so threatened by warming oceans that a coalition of commercial fishers has now joined the climate litigation fray with a lawsuit filed Wednesday to hold 30 fossil fuel companies accountable for losses caused by climate change.
The lawsuit, filed in San Francisco County Superior Court by the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations, seeks damages on behalf of crab fishers, their businesses and families, and local communities in California and Oregon.
It describes losses caused by the closing of crab fishing waters over the past four years because of algae blooms in the warming Pacific waters, and warns that these closures will keep happening as warming continues.
“These changes threaten both the productivity of commercial fisheries and safety of commercially harvested seafood products,” the lawsuit says. “In so doing, they also threaten those that rely on ocean fisheries and ecosystems for their livelihoods, by rendering it at times impossible to ply their trade.”
At the heart of the 91-page lawsuit are claims similar to those being used by several California cities that are suing the fossil fuel industry over sea level rise. It accuses some of the world’s largest oil and gas producers, including ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell and BP, of negligence, defective-product liability, creating a nuisance, and failing to warn about the dangers of fossil fuel products that the companies knew would result in warming of the oceans and atmosphere.
But this case is unusual in pitting one industry against another.
Because of the ocean warming brought on by greenhouse gas emissions, the crab fishing industry has been deprived of fishing opportunities, and consequently suffered severe financial hardships, the lawsuit says. “These injuries derive from rising ocean temperatures in the eastern Pacific Ocean generally and periodic extreme marine heat waves—the results of anthropogenic ocean warming caused by the foreseeable and intended use of defendants’ products,” the suit says.
Significant portions of the Dungeness crab fishing region along the Pacific Coast have been closed repeatedly since 2015, including parts along the West Coast this year, according to the lawsuit.
Warming water can generate algae blooms that can cause a buildup in shellfish of domoic acid, a potent neurotoxin that is a health threat to people and an economic threat to the entire crab fishery. Earlier this month, the California Department of Public Health issued a warning not to eat the internal organs of Dungeness crab from the Bodega Bay or Russian River areas because of high levels of domoic acid.

Crab fishers sue fossil fuel industry over climate damage Read More »

Forecasters Blew It, Rutgers Climatologist Says










Tom Haydon reports in TapIntoBayonne:
Thursday’s autumn snowstorm hit much harder than weather forecasts predicted, the worst of it when most people would be on the roads for the evening rush hour, said Rutgers University professor and state climatologist David Robinson.
“The weather forecast was incorrect. I’m not a forecaster and I don’t like to throw darts, but it was a blown forecast,” Robinson said.
Contributing to the problem was the colder than expected air temperatures. Warmer air was expected to change the snow to rain, Robinson said.
Snow came down fast, an inch to two inches an hour at times during the storm, and it occurred “at the absolute worst time,” he said.
“Everything had to align just right, and unfortunately it did,” Robinson said. Had the storm hit after the evening commute home, plows could have cleared city streets overnight, he said.

Forecasters Blew It, Rutgers Climatologist Says Read More »