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Ketchikan: Ketchikan Medical Center to Notify Patients of Refund Resulting From Temporary Lapse of Physician Medical License – PeaceHealth Ketchikan Medical Center announced Friday they are in the process of notifying patients who saw a part-time hospital-based internal medicine physician, currently licensed in Alaska and Oregon, regarding an administrative error that caused the physician’s Alaskan medical license to temporarily lapse from December 31, 2018 to March 14, 2019.

PeaceHealth has determined that no quality or safety irregularities were identified as a result of the physician’s patient care. The physician's name was not released.

“We are confident that this inadvertent administrative error did not compromise patient care,” said Ed Freysinger, PeaceHealth Ketchikan Medical Center Chief Administrative Officer.

Freysinger said, “We are notifying patients who saw this particular physician during this period to let them know they are eligible for a refund for any portion of a bill they were personally responsible for that was associated with the physician’s care at PeaceHealth Ketchikan Medical Center or New Horizons Long Term Care Facility.”

When PeaceHealth personnel became aware of the situation, they notified the Alaska Medical Board and the provider’s license was promptly reinstated. Although no longer employed by PeaceHealth, the physician’s Oregon medical license has been and remains active. - More...
Saturday PM - October 12, 2019

Fish Factor: Board of Fisheries' Annual Meeting: Rules and Changing Climate on Agenda By LAINE WELCH -  Hundreds of fishery stakeholders and scientists will gather in Anchorage next week as the state Board of Fisheries (BOF) begins its annual meeting cycle with a two-day work session. 

The seven-member BOF sets the rules for the state’s subsistence, commercial, sport and personal use fisheries. It meets four to six times each year in various communities on a three-year rotation; this year the focus is on Kodiak and Cook Inlet. 

The fish board and the public also will learn the latest on how a changing climate and off kilter ocean chemistry are affecting some of Alaska’s most popular seafood items at an October 23 “talk and Q&A” on ocean acidification (OA) in Alaska. 

And they undoubtedly will be astounded to learn that despite salmon being Alaska’s most iconic fish, only two studies have looked at salmon response to OA, and both were conducted outside of Alaska. 

Most of the research to date has focused specifically on crab and fish stocks, said Bob Foy, director of the Alaska Fisheries Science Center at the NOAA Auke Bay lab in Juneau who will lead the Anchorage presentation.

Ocean acidification is caused when carbon dioxide gas from the atmosphere dissolves in the ocean, lowering the water’s pH level and making it more acidic. The imbalance prevents marine creatures from forming shells and skeletons, among other things. 

“We've found effects on Tanner crab and red king crab in the laboratory. Interestingly, on a positive note, we have found very little effect, if any, in the early life stages of juvenile snow crab. So, there's some hope for that species,” Foy said. “For fish, we’ve found limited if any effects on pollock, but we have found effects on cod and some flatfish species.” 

Most studies to date have focused on direct effects to an animal, Foy said, but future work will take a “bottoms up” approach to learn how ecosystem changes affect their metabolism and body functions. 

“We know more recently from the large changes we've seen in the climate and the increased warming, the heat waves we've seen in Alaska, that the lower trophic levels are dramatically affected by that heat. And those effects have been observed in the larger commercial fish species such as cod,” Foy said, referring to the 80% cod crash last year in the Gulf of Alaska that is blamed on imbalances caused by warmer water.  

The real concern, Foy said, is the speed at which changes are occurring.

“It's difficult to assess, difficult to manage,” he said. “Now we've got important commercial species moving thousands of kilometers over a couple of years in the Bering Sea, Northern Bering Sea and Chukchi Sea. That shows us that these populations will try to adapt, they will move and push the ranges of their physiology and their tolerance. The unknown is whether or not they can adapt at the speed at which everything is changing.”

Early victims of OA already are known to be pteropods, microscopic floating snails that make up a huge portion of the diets of juvenile pink salmon.

Research elsewhere also has shown that acidity affects growth rates of pink salmon and impairs the sense of smell in cohos. 

Evaluating the risks to Alaska salmon will be part of the discussion by Toby Schwoerer, a research associate at the University of Alaska Institute for Social and Economic Research Associate. 

Being forewarned is being forewarmed, said Bob Foy.  

“The importance of providing information and educating ourselves is critical,” he stressed. “Our goal is to get the word out to the commercial industry, coastal communities, to managers and policymakers so we can better understand how these changes in the environment may lead to changes in our economies, in our livelihoods and our ways of life in Alaska.” - More...
Saturday PM - October 12, 2019

Federal Rule Proposed to Protect Pacific Humpback Whale Critical Habitat; Endangered Whales Threatened by Fishing Gear, Vessel Strikes Habitat Impacts
By MARY KAUFFMAN
Photo courtesy NOAA

NOAA Fisheries propose to designate critical habitat for the endangered Western North Pacific distinct population segment (DPS), the endangered Central America DPS, and the threatened Mexico DPS of humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) pursuant to section 4 of the Endangered Species Act (ESA). 

The areas proposed as critical habitat and/or exclusive econimic zones include specific marine areas located off the coasts of California, Oregon, Washington, and Alaska. Based on consideration of national security and economic impacts, the National Marine Fisheries Services proposed to exclude multiple areas from the designation for each DPS. We are soliciting comments on all aspects of the proposed critical habitat designations and will consider information received prior to making final designations.

In Alaska, critical habitats and/or exclusive economic zones are listed in the new rule as Bristol Bay, Lake and Peninsula, Aleutians East, Aleutian West, Kodiak Island, Kenai Peninsula, Valdez- Cordova, Ketchikan Gateway Borough and the unorganized boroughs, Skagway-Hoonah- Angoon, Haines, Juneau, Sitka, Petersburg, and Wrangell.

NOAA is soliciting comments on all aspects of the proposed critical habitat designations and will consider information received prior to making final designations. Comment period closes on December 09, 2019.

According to NOAA, before a moratorium on commercial whaling in 1985, all populations of humpback whales were greatly reduced, some by more than 95 percent. The species is now increasing in abundance in much of its range, but still faces threats from entanglement in fishing gear, vessel strikes, vessel-based harassment, underwater noise, and habitat impacts.

The announcement by the National Marine Fisheries Service follows a court-approved agreement in August 2018 with the Center for Biological Diversity, Turtle Island Restoration Network and Wishtoyo Foundation to issue new protections. The groups had sued the Trump administration for failing to protect two Pacific Ocean humpback populations listed as endangered and a third as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. - More....
Saturday PM - October 12, 2019

Alaska: Alaska again has extremely high per capita rankings for STD rates– The Centers for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC) earlier this week released its 2018 STD Surveillance Report. In this annual snapshot of key trends for sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) in the United States, Alaska again ranks first among states in per capita number of cases for chlamydia and second for gonorrhea. Alaska’s rankings for those STDs remain unchanged from the CDC’s 2017 STD Surveillance Report. 

Acccording to the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services, high STD rates are not unusual news for Alaska, but they are alarming and should serve as a reminder to Alaskans to practice safe sex and get tested. Alaska has consistently ranked among the highest per capita among states for chlamydia since tracking began in 1996. Rates of gonococcal infection (GC - more commonly called gonorrhea) are consistently higher than the national average rates and Alaska has been experiencing a gonorrhea outbreak since October 2017. 

In March 2018, the Division of Public Health noted a syphilis outbreak. Although ranked below the national average, syphilis rates in Alaska have increased considerably. In its report, the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control highlighted a national increase in congenital syphilis, which is when the infection is passed from a mother to a fetus. In Alaska there is an increase in syphilis among women. Screening is an important first step and women should see a doctor if they notice a sore or rash, or if they think they’ve been exposed. Alaska has also recently experienced a cluster of HIV cases in Fairbanks; HIV is not covered in this CDC report. - More...
Saturday PM - October 12, 2019

Alaska: Although decision difficult, Governor vetoes HB48 – Alaska Governor Michael J. Dunleavy announced yesterday that he has vetoed House Bill 48, which is legislation to reclassify state employees in temporary or special positions and which would repeal the authority given to Commissioners and the Governor to authorize higher pay for certain positions. 

The governor said in a prepared statement, “Reaching this decision was difficult. I agree with the original intent of the bill that Representative [Tammi] Wilson [R] brought forward. We both identified it as a change that needed to occur in our Personnel Act; I introduced the same provision in a bill I brought forward this past session."

“What we struggled with, as we had departments look at the bill after passage, was the repeal of the valuable tool that the Executive branch may utilize in unique cases. There are certain positions in departments that require a significant amount of experience and professional qualifications, such as petroleum land managers and commercial analysts in the Department of Natural Resources, the Chief Financial Officer for Retirement and Benefits and the Chief Technology Officer in the Department of Administration, and the Tax Division Director in the Department of Revenue," wrote the governor.

In his prepared statement the governor said, “On one hand, the bill fixed a significant problem. On the other hand, it eliminated a tool that is used to address the State’s ability to recruit and retain employees of the highest level of qualifications and experience. As I am not able to partially veto a bill, I have committed to working with Rep. Wilson in the future to address the use or creation of temporary or special positions.” - More...
Saturday PM - October 12, 2019

Sifting volcano paydirt to help forecast eruptions
By NED ROZELL
Pavlof Volcano on the Alaska Peninsula erupts in March 2016. The photo was taken from a Coast Guard HC-130H based in Kodiak and commanded by Lt. Commander Nahshon Almandmoss.
Photo courtesy of the U.S. Coast Guard

Because people live on the slopes of these volcanoes and thousands more fly through their blast zones each day, scientists want to forecast eruptions with more precision.

For the past 30 years, scientists at the Alaska Volcano Observatory have had their fingers on the pulse of volcanoes, looking for signs of shakiness and sending out alerts when something is going on. On an early October 2019 day, for example, AVO’s webpage showed that Cleveland, Semisopochnoi and Shishaldin volcanoes were all a bit restless.

When an eruption happens, scientists with the observatory use all their information streams to get warnings out. Their tools include seismometers planted into volcano flanks, satellites that send back infrared pixels of hotspots, GPS units that show volcanoes inflating like balloons, gas sensors that tell what is wafting from a crater, microphones on volcanoes that hear explosions, and rocks and ash collected from mountainsides.

That’s a firehose of information, and scientists are happy to have it all. There is so much, though, that researchers rarely get to all of it before another eruption happens.

A team of them will set up four Ph.D. students to dig into that data paydirt, to see if they can find a key to better eruption forecasts. - More...
Saturday PM - October 12, 2019

LEON KOLANKIEWICZ: Greatest Threat to Endangered Species Aren't Trump's New Rules - The Trump administration is about to implement new rules that it claims will "modernize" and "improve" the Endangered Species Act (ESA). All too predictably, certain industries in Trump's favor approve of this imminent overhaul, while environmentalists are in an uproar. 

Yet neither the Trump administration nor its most vociferous environmental critics is willing to address or even acknowledge the major threat to all imperiled wildlife in the United States: massive habitat loss associated with unending U.S. population growth.

Degradation and loss of habitat is far and away the single most important cause of disappearing wildlife, much more than pollution, invasive species or poaching.

Propelled mostly by the largest immigration wave in American history, the number of Americans grew by about 60 million from 1990 to 2010, at a rate of 30 million per decade. Tens of millions more have been added this decade as well, and now there are almost 330 million of us, and counting.

American families have averaged fewer than two children for years, so that future population growth in our country will be almost entirely due to mass immigration.

Each added person - each new American consumer, whether native-born or foreign-born - is, on average, responsible for the loss of about half an acre of natural habitat or farmland. These lands are developed to meet our ever-rising demands for housing, transportation, commercial and office space, warehouses, factories and manufacturing, utilities, educational and government facilities, and so forth.

A 2019 study by Conservation Science Partners identified agriculture, energy, transportation and urban stressors as the major factors in loss and fragmentation of natural habitat in the lower 48 states. Population growth exacerbates each of these. More people require more land to grow more food, more habitat-destroying surface coal mines, wind and solar facilities, and the like. - More...
Saturday PM - October 12, 2019

Political Cartoon: Something Fishy
By Jeff Koterba ©2019, Omaha World Herald, NE
Distributed to paid subscribers for publication by Cagle Cartoons, Inc.