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Dentists invited to donate services to veterans
Tammy Hinojos Oral & Dental HealthcareThere is more than one way to serve your country. If you’re a dental professional, you have the opportunity to use your unique skills and training to serve those who served our country. In honor of the Memorial Day holiday, an organization called Dental Lifeline Network announced on May 14 that it is launching a volunteer recruitment campaign encouraging dentists to provide dental care to veterans, specifically those with special needs.
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Ford adds to auto layoffs, manufacturing turmoil
Michelle R. Matisons ManufacturingAuto manufacturing layoffs are not a new development. The last round of General Motors layoffs, announced in November, triggered a domino effect of panic and speculation that continues amidst Brexit negotiations, Green New Deal debates, and ongoing presidential campaigning. As American as apple pie, the auto manufacturing sector is a good litmus test for what ails the U.S. economy. By this logic, as goes Detroit so goes the nation. One problem is that no one can decide if we must throw the baby of cleaner energy out with the bathwater of old manufacturing chains.
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Newly approved device to help increase access to suitable lungs for transplant
Lynn Hetzler Medical & Allied HealthcareOn April 26, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved a new device that may increase access to more lungs for transplant. The new Xvivo Perfusion System (XPS) is a type of ex vivo lung perfusion (EVLP) therapy, which can temporarily ventilate and pump preservation solution through lungs. The process can increase the percentage of lung transplants by allowing transplant teams to identify better quality lung grafts that would have been otherwise rejected for transplantation in the past.
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Online grocery delivery in the works for food stamp recipients
Bambi Majumdar Food & BeverageLast month, the USDA announced the launch of a two-year online purchasing pilot for food stamp recipients. Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) participants will now be able to buy groceries online in New York state. The pilot will be monitored to see whether non-SNAP and SNAP recipients are receiving the same shopping options. In this phase, SNAP participants may use their benefits to purchase eligible food items, but not pay for service or delivery charges. Initial retail partners include Amazon, ShopRite, and Walmart. Eventually, the program plans to expand to other states.
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Mefloquine: A personal perspective
Roy Phillips Law Enforcement, Defense & SecurityIf you’ve deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, especially in the early days of Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom, you were probably prescribed mefloquine. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the drug, it is an anti-malarial with some odd and obvious side effects. The drug, a white pill, was to be ingested every Monday morning for the duration of the deployment, followed by a two-week-long daily dose of primaquine. Earlier this year, the VA established a committee to study the long-term effects of mefloquine toxicity.
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American consumers, businesses set to suffer as trade war escalates
Seth Sandronsky Civil & GovernmentIt took three days for the Chinese government to retaliate against President Trump imposing new import tariffs from 10% to 25% on $200 billion of goods earlier this month. U.S. imports in China will face retaliatory tariffs, according to China’s Finance Ministry, rising from 10% to 20 or 25% on thousands of goods, from alcoholic beverages to apparel. What does this latest move in the two nations’ escalating trade war mean for American businesses and consumers?
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New York-area pipeline halted, Keystone XL persists
Michelle R. Matisons Waste Management & EnvironmentalPipelines have become one of the biggest issues in U.S. environmental politics since the 2016 Standing Rock protests against Energy Transfer's Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL). The main issues opponents raise are groundwater contamination and spills. These concerns can be found across the country, as pipeline opponents in the Northeast recently defeated a 37-mile, $1 billion natural gas project, the Williams Companies’ proposed Northeast Supply Enhancement (NESE) Pipeline. Intended to connect natural gas fields from Pennsylvania through New Jersey to New York, the pipeline application has been rejected on a technicality, citing potential copper and mercury contamination in water.
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Security cameras in classrooms: The debate continues
Brian Stack EducationMy suburban New Hampshire high school, home to some 800 students and staff, is not unlike many a high school from coast to coast that has received a variety of security upgrades, including the expansion of our video surveillance network. What once was a limited system with just 10 cameras pointed in the most high-traffic parts of the campus is now a system approaching 100 individual cameras that record and save footage for nearly two months. As expansive as our security camera network is, we have drawn a line in the sand in terms of what footage we record.
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HHS finalizes rule requiring drug prices in TV ads
Scott E. Rupp PharmaceuticalFrustrated viewers of nearly every television program barraged by advertisements of drug commercials that feature all the medicine’s benefits, the litany of potential side effects, etc. — but who receive no pricing information — are getting a little reprieve. Those ads will soon change slightly, according to the Trump administration, which has finalized a rule that will require pharmaceutical companies to disclose the price of their products in television advertising as soon as summer 2019.
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How will US manufacturing be affected by the trade war with China?
Michelle R. Matisons ManufacturingThe U.S. trade war with China has heated up, and now there is much speculation about daily life for American manufacturers and their employees. The logic is that higher tariffs on Chinese goods will increase trading with non-tariffed countries, and even better is Trump’s "best idea" of higher tariffs resulting in a logical move to buy American. We are quickly reminded that it’s not so simple to do that. Why not? For one, it’s difficult to find products made with solely U.S. parts.
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