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Want to Fight Food Waste? Get with the Food System

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Above: Students working in the Field and Fork Student Gardens at the University of Florida. Part of creating a sustainable food culture is appreciating the labor and resources that go into food production. UF/IFAS Photo by Amy Stuart

At the University of Florida's Innovation Academy, students are challenged to come up with creative, inventive solutions to some of our toughest problems.

This year, the freshman class was tasked with developing a business concept or invention that responded to the issue of food waste. As the campus food system coordinator and part of the UF Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, I was invited to talk to some of these students about their ideas and probe their thinking.

Needless to say, this was a group of very smart, very talented young people. But as I listened to them talk about their ideas, I began to notice a trend that worried me.

It's not that their ideas were unrealistic. For example, one student proposed a composting device people could install in their homes and use like any other appliance, an approach I thought was both clever and practical.

The problem was that they all assumed that waste was inevitable and that all we can do is figure out what to do with it. They weren't asking themselves how they could reduce the amount of waste produced in the first place.

When I pointed this out, some of the students got excited. Others looked daunted, struggling to imagine a world in which food waste wasn't a given.

This isn't to say that composting or participating in food drives are bad things to do. These efforts are a great step toward sustainability and food security. In our campus food program, Field and Fork, we embrace composting in our student garden, and we ask our community to donate extra food to our on-campus food pantry.

But these efforts are a response to food waste and don't necessarily stop it from happening.

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Above: Student volunteers learn not only how to grow their own food, but also how to manage the gardens' operations. UF/IFAS Photo by Tyler Jones

I encouraged the students to think about how food is often wasted as a result of our preference for beauty and abundance. I asked the students to visualize how fresh fruits and vegetables, for instance, apples, are typically displayed in stores--hundreds of shiny apples, all the same color, size and shape.

The store may not sell all those apples, and the ones not sold may be thrown out. But a mountain of fruit conveys abundance, and we're attracted to abundance. A display of only a few dozen apples is underwhelming, even suspicious. If given the choice, we'd likely choose an apple from the big pile over one from the small pile, even if the apples themselves were identical.

As a class time drew to a close, the students and I thought about how we could tap into this preference for abundance in a way that doesn't lead to wasted food.

One way to reduce food waste may be to offer people, particularly young people, a chance to be part of food production.

As consumers buying broccoli at the store, we only know the end product--we may not even know what a broccoli plant looks like. But when a student at the Field and Fork Student Gardens grows a broccoli plant from seed, she not only understands where her food comes from but also gains an appreciation for all the resources--energy, labor, time, water--that go into producing it.

Understanding how an apple or a head of broccoli is produced may be one way to recognize the vast abundance already embedded in our food.

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Get Thee to a Hospital

This story originally appeared on the Conversation and is reproduced here with permission.

A report published in May from researchers at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine claims that medical errors are the third leading cause of death in the U.S., behind only heart disease and cancer.

According to the researchers, medical errors account for 251,454 U.S. deaths each year—and they regard this figure as an underestimate.

That's the sort of finding that makes headlines. Indeed, you might have read about this report in the newspaper or even seen it reported on the evening news.

But as we'll argue, the methods the researchers used to draw this conclusion are flawed, and that means the conclusion that medical error is the third leading cause of death is highly questionable.

When a report like this gets broad media coverage, it can foster unwarranted mistrust of medicine, which could prevent people from seeking needed care—a concern for everyone who takes care of patients.

A medical error can be defined as a decision or action that results in patient harm, one that experts agree should have been made differently given the information available at the time. But applying such a definition in reviewing patient records is fraught with difficulty.

The study's authors argue that death certificates should be redesigned to recognize that more deaths are attributable to medical error. That's a reasonable suggestion. But the implication of many media reports that these findings prove hundreds of thousands of people are dying each year due to medical errors is highly problematic.

First, the authors of the Johns Hopkins report did not collect any new data. Instead, they based their conclusions on studies performed by other authors. There is nothing wrong with that, in principle.

But in this case, the results are highly misleading because they are based on large extrapolations from very small data sets: The authors based their conclusions on four studies that included a total of only 35 deaths attributable to medical error—out of nearly 4,000 hospital admissions. Extrapolating from 35 deaths to a population of 320 million is quite a leap.

In addition, these studies frequently do a poor job of distinguishing between adverse events and errors. They are not the same thing.

An adverse event is defined as any undesirable outcome after a drug or treatment is administered to a patient. Every medical test and therapy, from antibiotics to surgery, is associated with some risk of an adverse outcome. Adverse events can include death, although that is rare. While every adverse outcome is regrettable, it does not prove that an error was made—that based on what was known at the time, a medical professional should have made a different decision or acted in a different way.

Physicians typically cannot know in advance which patients will experience such reactions, so attributing such deaths to error is misleading.

There is another problem with the Hopkins report: Two of the four studies it draws on use Medicare data, which generally include patients advanced in years, in relatively poor health, and being treated in the hospital. Sad to say, many such patients are at substantially increased risk of death to begin with. Many will die during their hospitalization no matter how well they are cared for. To attribute such deaths to error is to fail to account for the inevitability of death.

In fact, one of the studies on which the Hopkins report is based even includes a prominent correction factor. The author estimates the number of deaths due to medical error at 210,000. Then, based on the fact that the tools used to identify errors are imperfect, the author chooses to double his estimate of the number of deaths due to error to 420,000.

The sort of medical chart review used in these studies is radically different from caring for patients. The uncertainty and stress associated with caring for the very sickest patients are often invisible to hindsight. Seriously adverse patient outcomes are associated with a greater tendency to blame someone. When a patient has died, we want someone to be responsible even if every action taken appeared justifiable at the time.

This isn't the first study to try to assess how often medical errors can lead to death. Other studies paint a very different picture of the number of deaths attributable to error.

In one study responding to claims of very high death rates due to medical error, physicians reviewed 111 deaths in Department of Veterans Affairs hospitals by attempting to determine whether such deaths were preventable with “optimal care.” VA patients are generally older and sicker than the U.S. population, and thus somewhat comparable to studies based on Medicare data. Also, by using “optimal care,” the study may catch even more deaths than the “medical error” standards, resulting in a tendency to overestimate the number of deaths due to error.

At first, the researchers estimated that 23 percent of deaths could have been prevented. But when they were asked whether patients could have left the hospital alive, this number dropped to 6 percent. Finally, when the additional criterion of “3 months of good cognitive health after discharge” was added, the number dropped to 0.5 percent. Preventable deaths should be viewed in context, and there is a big difference between preventing death and restoring good health.

Applying the rates from the VA study to U.S. hospital admission data, medical error would drop down to No. 7 of the top 10 causes of death in the United States. Applying the additional criterion of three months of good cognitive health, medical error would not even rank in the top 20. Of course, doing so runs the same risks as the Johns Hopkins study; namely, extrapolating from a small study to the entire U.S. population.

To produce a truly balanced account of medicine's role in causing death, it would be necessary to account not only for the risks but also the benefits of medical care. Many patients with heart disease, cancer ,and diabetes whose deaths such studies attribute to medical error would not even be alive in the first place without medical treatment, where its benefits vastly outweigh its risks.

Looking at medicine from this point of view, we are fortunate to be living in an era of unsurpassed medical capabilities, when the profession is doing more to promote health and prolong life than at any time in the past.

Perhaps the strongest evidence that such studies overestimate the role of medical error is that the fact that, when causes of death are ranked by authoritative organizations such as the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, medical error is not even included in the top 10. Would adding medical error to death certificates change this? We doubt it.

There is no doubt that mistakes occur in medicine every day, and if we take appropriate steps, error rates can be reduced. But inflated estimates of the number of deaths associated with error do nothing to advance understanding and may in fact make many patients more reluctant to seek care when they need it. A blinkered focus on error without corresponding accounts of medicine's benefits contributes to a distorted understanding of medicine's role in health and disease.

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The Climate Post: New York Joins Handful of Other States with Ambitious Clean Energy Targets
By 2030, half of the energy produced in the state of New York will come from renewables, according to a new policy adopted Monday by the state's public service commission. The move is expected to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent from 1990 levels (80 percent by 2050) and to attract billions in clean energy investment.

"New York has taken bold action to become a national leader in the clean energy economy and is taking concrete, cost-effective steps today to safeguard this state's environment for decades to come," said New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. "This Clean Energy Standard shows you can generate the power necessary for supporting the modern economy while combatting climate change. Make no mistake, this is a very real threat that continues to grow by the day and I urge all other states to join us in this fight for our very future."

The plan calls for New York to retain its nuclear reactors--though The Washington Post reports that those facilities don't count as part of the 50 percent renewables target. According to New York regulators, doing so might cost $965 million over two years but could lead to net benefits of $4 billion due to avoided carbon dioxide emissions and air pollution. While supporters of this provision applaud New York's effort to retain its emissions-free nuclear generation, opponents are likely to challenge the nuclear subsidies on the grounds they are discriminatory, hurt markets, and intrude on federal authority.

New York is not the first state to announce an ambitious greenhouse gas reduction target. In April 2015, California announced it planned to cut those emissions by 40 percent below 1990 levels in the same time frame with renewables increases. Like California, New York plans to phase in its renewables increase; 31 percent of its energy is to come from renewables by 2021 and 50 percent by 2030. Those targets are meant to give utilities and clean energy companies time to develop their business models.

The only states with higher renewables standards are Vermont, which set a target of 75 percent renewable power by 2032, and Hawaii, which set a target of 100 percent renewable power by 2045.

White House to Federal Agencies: Consider Climate Change Impacts

In an action with broad implications for thousands of projects, including energy and mineral development on public lands, natural gas import and export facilities, and transportation projects, the Obama administration issued final guidance on how federal agencies should consider greenhouse gas emissions and climate change impacts when conducting reviews under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) (subscription).

"Focused and effective consideration of climate change in NEPA reviews will allow agencies to improve the quality of their decisions," the guidance states. "Identifying important interactions between a changing climate and the environmental impacts from a proposed action can help Federal agencies and other decision makers identify practicable opportunities to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, improve environmental outcomes, and contribute to safeguarding communities and their infrastructure against the effects of extreme weather events and other climate-related impacts."

The guidance, the product of a six-year effort by the White House Council on Environmental Quality, advises agencies to quantify projected greenhouse gas emissions of proposed federal actions whenever the necessary methodologies and data are available. It also encourages them to draw on their experience and expertise to determine the appropriate level and extent of quantitative or qualitative analysis required to comply with NEPA and to consider alternatives that would increase the climate-change resilience of the action and affected communities.

"From the public standpoint, we are now going to know what all of our decisions add up to in terms of impacting climate change," said Christy Goldfuss, managing director of the Council on Environmental Quality. "You can think of all the different federal decisions, and how they all add up. We have numbers where we can actually say, 'this is a huge decision, given the amount of greenhouse gases coming out of it.' And that gives the public a chance to really weigh in on decision-making."

Several media outlets pointed out that because the White House guidance is not a regulation, agencies are not legally bound to follow it.

Clean Power Plan Analysis: National Costs Low, State Costs Varied

Wednesday marked one year since the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency formally rolled out the Clean Power Plan, which aims to reduce carbon emissions from power plants. Even with the February stay by the U.S. Supreme Court, which halted implementation of the plan pending resolution of legal challenges, some say the plan is having an impact while others are finding more reason to explore the legality of the rule (subscription).

Should the rule survive judicial review, a new paper by the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions uses the Nicholas Institute's Dynamic Integrated Economy/Energy/Emissions Model to evaluate Clean Power Plan impacts on the U.S. generation mix, emissions, and industry costs. It indicates that industry trends are likely to make Clean Power Plan compliance relatively inexpensive, with cost increases of 0.1 to 1.0 percent. But policy costs can vary across states, which might lead to a patchwork of policies that, although in their own best interests, could impose additional costs nationally.

"The answer is not the same for everyone in terms of what's going to be the least-cost way for a particular state to approach this policy," said lead author and Nicholas Institute Senior Economist Martin Ross. "Nationally, it would make the most sense to have a broadly coordinated policy where you can take advantage of the usual economic [tools] to spread the cost reductions around and pick up the most cost-effective sources for reducing emissions."

Similar findings were presented at a conference of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners. Because of lower-than-expected natural gas prices, renewable power, and extended federal tax credits for that power, the country as a whole is set to meet the Clean Power Plan's early goals, reports ClimateWire.

The Climate Post offers a rundown of the week in climate and energy news. It is produced each Thursday by Duke University's Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions.

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Regardless of Fierce Opposition, Rooftop Solar Is Unstoppable
As the Spanish saying goes, the sun is the poor man's blanket. And thanks to technology, it's also our heating system, air conditioner, refrigerator and a shinning spot that lights up our clean energy future.

The solar industry is the fastest growing sector of the US economy. It currently employs more than 200,000 workers, thousands of them Latinos, and double that of the coal mining industry. And for us Latinos, solar energy is a three-fold blessing.

"Since I had my rooftop solar panels installed last year, I spend less than half of what I used to pay for dirty energy," says Oscar Medina, a client of Solar City in Tucson, AZ. "It not only keeps my home cool in the Arizona desert, it also allows me to avoid using power from dirty coal."

And one of those thousands of Latino solar workers is Roberto "Bobby" Rosthenhousler, another Tucson resident, whose mother is from Los Mochis, Mexico. He enthusiastically supports solar.

"If you are Latino, this is a good choice," says Bobby, who installs panels for Net Zero Solar. "As long as the sun is there, we are going to have a job. I want to be a pioneer because there is only room to improve in this industry."

But dark clouds loom over solar --the backlash of public utilities. In the last four years, the explosive growth of rooftop solar has turned it into a severe threat to an archaic system based on a monopolistic model that heavily depends on dirty energy.

Take Arizona utility Tucson Electric Power (TEP), which owns, at least partly, four coal-burning plants, including the San Juan Generating Station in Northern New Mexico.

TEP is due to review its energy plan for the next few years, which presents it with the opportunity to drop at least a large part of its coal fleet and expand its clean, renewable energy portfolio. Alas, TEP plans to stick with the dirty coal plant, hike rates for its customers and damage Arizona's growing rooftop solar industry with new fees on solar customers such as Oscar.

Utilities across the country justify these rate hikes by arguing that rooftop solar clients continue relying on the electric grid without contributing their fair share to its maintenance. Study after study, however, indicates that rooftop solar reduces the stress and wear of the grid by using it less often. Furthermore, it limits the construction of expensive, dirty plants, thus substantially reducing coal pollution and the climate change it triggers.

These abusive practices may paint a bleak future for the rooftop solar industry. The clean energy progress, however, is unstoppable. A Cambridge University study indicates that photovoltaic solar panels will soon be more competitive than any fossil fuel energy. And this scares the living lights out of the energy dinosaurs.

"They need to let other environmentally friendly companies come in and provide a service that would especially benefit working-class families," says Oscar. "It's clear that utilities need to stop the pollution that makes people sick, especially us Latinos."

"My four-year-old is autistic," says Bobby. "And that's one other reason I went into clean energy. I worry about all those chemicals in the air affect my child. This is something I can give back to him."

No matter how hard the utilities try, you can't block the sun with an umbrella.

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How I Fell In Love With Ugly Food

While grocery shopping one day, I realized I'd spent close to 30 minutes just in the produce section, meticulously choosing the best-looking apples, bananas that were ripe, but not spotted, ears of corn with perfectly aligned kernels. I admit, I'm picky about my produce. But I bet I'm not the only one that rejects the slightest bruise, blemish or mark on my fruits and veggies.

How did we get this way? Could it be because we are living in a society where everything is filtered, where beauty is rewarded, where supermarkets reject foods that don't adhere to a certain standard, where everything is shiny and bright?

I've also seen how my pursuit of perfect produce has impacted my kids. When I pack their lunches, I make sure to include the plumpest tomatoes, crispest blueberries, cucumbers without any dents or scratches. But one day when my daughter refused to eat an avocado that was turning slightly brown, I knew I had to change my ways. I realized I was unconsciously raising my children to accept society's norms of perfection and that these perceptions can have a devastating impact on our environment.

In the U.S, up to 40 percent of food produced is wasted every year. Most of this waste ends up in landfills that create dangerous greenhouse gases. Around 20 percent of food waste is produced directly at the farm because this so-called ugly food may not meet certain cosmetic standards set by grocery stores, yet are still perfectly consumable. Meanwhile, 48 million Americans live in food-insecure households.

On a recent night in San Francisco, I attended a dinner party to raise awareness about this growing problem. The event was called the Salvage Supperclub and it is the brainchild of food waste activist Josh Treuhaft, who decided to create a unique, immersive experience as a conversation starter around food waste. It was an intimate gathering of 16 people dining on a table made from reclaimed wood, all within a cleared-out dumpster. The chef, Pesha Perlsweig, prepared a six course meal with food that would have otherwise gone to waste.

Perlsweig sourced some of the evening's ingredients from Imperfect Produce, a delivery subscription service that specifically sells “ugly” fruits and vegetables. Boxes of produce might contain organic crooked carrots or knobbly sweet potatoes for 30 to 50 percent of the price that one might pay at a traditional market.

I was blown away by Perlsweig's creative dishes made from food the industry considers trash including stuffed wilted kale, ugly eggplant and squash ratatouille, and a delectable banana doughnut made from the actual peel of a banana. Before each course, Perlsweig offered guests tidbits and tips about how we can reduce our food waste. Did you know that if you cut off the end of a limp carrot or celery stalk and place it in water it will become firm again?

After the evening's dinner, I became inspired to rethink the way I shop for and consume food, to embrace the imperfect, the ugly, the unique. My actions have inspired my daughter to think differently as well. One morning, while she was helping prepare her school lunch, I noticed her choosing a handful of cherry tomatoes with slight blemishes. “They're special,” she said.

Here's hoping these small changes in our perception might make a big impact on our world.

Watch more of Laura Ling's reports on Seeker. Follow her on Twitter @lauraling.

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The Current State of Manufacturing Human Organs
Thirteen. The number of people that die each day waiting for a life-saving kidney transplant.

$5 billion. The cost to create a new drug.

$3 billion plus. The amount invested in engineered tissue and organ research by the Federal government in a three year period.

Zero. The number of organs currently being manufactured by US industries for transplant.

322,762,018. The number of Americans in 2016 that could benefit from the Department of Defense's new Advanced Tissue Biofabrication Manufacturing Innovation Institute (ATB-MII).

The Department of Defense has been interested in engineering organs, tissues and limbs for decades as a means of treating its wounded soldiers. The number of veterans in need of tissue repair and limb replacement has skyrocketed in the 21st century, due primarily to the recent and pervasive use of improvised explosive devices, coupled with dramatic improvements in body armor that save lives but not without sacrifice. Meanwhile, the need is equally as strong in the civilian world, where hundreds of thousands of Americans wait on organ transplant lists living day-by-day in fear of what the future holds.

Many wonder: "Why can't we manufacture organs TODAY?" The charge is not new, nor will it fade in the coming years. It rises from the halls of Congress. It mingles with tears in homes across our nation. It echoes down hospital hallways and lingers in operating rooms. As a DoD scientist working in the field of biofabrication and tissue engineering for over 15 years, I wake up every morning trying to answer that same question; trying to explain to my children, my colleagues, my friend whose husband is on his second and final kidney transplant--why can't we make faster and more substantive progress?

The answer, as is often the case in the world of science, is not so simple. The world is full of promising technologies. Stem cells. Bioprinters. Gels that simulate the biological and structural properties of human tissue. Sophisticated imaging and computer-aided design technologies. Why, then, do we not have manufacturing plants that churn out organs? We should be able to use these starting materials just as Henry Ford used steel, rubber, and assembly lines to create the first automobiles, right? Answers like "Biology is really complicated" and "Soft, living materials are just more difficult to build than computer chips and iPhones", don't resonate too well, especially when the need is so high.

Despite these challenges, progress is being made on all fronts. After decades of research, these technologies are maturing to the point where manufactured tissue is almost within reach. All that is needed is one big push.

Enter the Government's most recent investment, bringing at least $160 million to the table to accelerate tissue and organ development: the Advanced Tissue Biofabrication Manufacturing Innovation Institute, or the ATB-MII for short, sponsored by the Manufacturing Technology Program within the Office of the Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics. The ATB-MII will pull emerging technologies into the industrial world--the world of manufacturing, automation and standardization. It will convene the best and brightest minds in the country across universities, small and large businesses, as well as local, state and federal governments, to identify, elevate, and synergize technologies. It will enable disruptive biofabrication tools, currently isolated in specialized laboratories across the country, to be inserted into manufacturing processes throughout diverse biotechnology sectors. It will enable biological starting materials and biofabrication tools to be standardized to the small- and mid-sized companies looking for a competitive edge. Ultimately, the ATB-MII will evolve into an enduring ecosystem that will accelerate the development to manufacture tissues, organs, and organ-based products.

Short-term products will emerge from the institute such as miniature tissues or organs, coined "organs-on-a-chip," that can be used to eliminate poorly performing drug candidates before they enter costly animal and human trials. These organs-on-a-chip will translate test results into the world of personalized medicine, helping speed up decision-making by clinicians looking to determine the most effective and least dangerous treatments for critically-ill patients.The industry is poised to revolutionize the way new drugs are discovered, as well as the way we engineer tissues and organs.

The ATB-MII is the path to create definable tools, products and standards that will have tangible

Dr. Ringeisen will serve as the DoD's Chief Technology Officer for the Advanced Tissue Biofabrication MII, which is currently under solicitation. He also serves as the Head of the Bioenergy and Biofabrication Section at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, DC.

This post is part of a series produced by The Huffington Post and ORGANIZE, a non-profit looking to end the organ donation crisis by identifying and building on opportunities for improvement through technology, advocacy, and policy. Learn more at ORGANIZE.org.

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A Closer Scientific Look at Antibacterial Soap Unearths Some Problems
Do antibacterial soaps do more harm than good? originally appeared on Quora - the knowledge sharing network where compelling questions are answered by people with unique insights.

Answer by Tirumalai Kamala, Immunologist, Ph.D., Mycobacteriology, on Quora:

Over the years, the consensus that the harm caused by antibacterial soaps outweighs the benefits has indeed coalesced. But to understand how antibacterial soaps could harm, we first need to understand how they differ from regular soaps. Also referred to as antimicrobial or antiseptic soaps, they contain chemicals that regular soaps don't.

Many liquid soaps labeled antibacterial contain triclosan, a synthetic compound, specifically a phenylether or chlorinated bisphenol. While the US FDA classifies it as a Class III drug, i.e., a compound with high solubility and low permeability, triclosan is also a pesticide. Triclocarban is another common chemical found in antibacterial soaps. Many of the concerns about triclosan also apply to triclocarban (1).

Since it appeared on the scene in 1972, triclosan has steadily permeated through the consumer landscape such that it's practically ubiquitous today (see lists below from 1 and 2).

"Screen

Triclosan is so ubiquitous it's even found embedded in medical devices such as catheters and sutures to prevent infections (3).

As for its beneficial effects, a 2015 study compared the bactericidal effects of plain versus triclosan-containing soaps in conditions that mimic hand washing, and found no difference in their ability to reduce bacterial numbers during a 20-second exposure (4). In other words, dubious benefit when used for routine hand washing under normal circumstances, i.e., only washing hands for a few seconds. After all, most of us don't scrub as though preparing to do surgery every time we wash our hands.

How Triclosan Inhibits/Kills Microbes

In vitro studies show triclosan can stop bacteria growing at low concentrations (bacteriostatic), and kill them at high concentrations (bactericidal). It also has some activity against some fungi (5) and even parasites such as those that cause malaria, Plasmodium falciparum, and toxoplasmosis, Toxoplasma gondii (6).

Triclosan is able to target many different types of bacteria by blocking the active site for an enzyme essential for bacterial fatty acid biosynthesis (7, 8). Blocking the enzyme enoyl-acyl carrier protein reductase, triclosan prevents bacteria from synthesizing fatty acids, which they need for their cell membranes and for reproduction.

Problems With Triclosan

I. Triclosan selects for antibiotic resistance

As widespread triclosan use increased, labs increasingly started finding cross-resistance to antibiotics. Under selection pressure from triclosan, bacteria mutate to develop resistance mechanisms to it, which end up bestowing antibiotic resistance as well. In other words, studies show triclosan selects for antibiotic resistance (see table below from 9).

"Screen

II. Discharged widely into the environment, triclosan can affect biomass such as algae and bacterial communities

Since it's widely used in such a diverse array of products, triclosan ends up in soil, ground water, and municipal wastewater treatment plants. Such plants require proper functioning of microbes to break down sewage. Triclosan can inhibit methane production in wastewater plant anaerobic digesters as well as select for multi-drug resistance in such bacterial communities (10). Triclosan's effects persist even beyond because it's discharged from wastewater treatment plants as effluent. Certain algae species in the vicinity of such plants have been found to be very sensitive to triclosan (11, 12). Triclosan also affects bacterial communities in rivers (13). Potential environmental risk of triclosan becomes even more relevant in areas of water scarcity where it doesn't get sufficiently diluted.

III. Triclosan can alter gut microbiota in fishes and rodents, potentially alter human microbiota, and even promote tumors in rodents

Triclosan could profoundly (14) and stably (12) alter fish gut microbiota as well as those of baby rats (15).
While so far triclosan doesn't appear to affect human gut microbiome, the data are far from conclusive, being based on just one study with 7 volunteers (16). On the other hand, a study on nasal secretions from 90 healthy adults found a positive correlation between presence of triclosan in nasal secretions and nasal colonization by Staphylococcus aureus (17). This suggests triclosan indeed has the potential to influence and even alter human microbiota.
One mouse model even found triclosan capable of promoting liver tumors (18).

IV. Triclosan can disrupt hormonal function

Triclosan was found to disrupt thyroid hormone-associated gene expression and altered the rate of frog metamorphosis (19). It could also disrupt thyroid (20, 21), estrogen (22), and testosterone (23) function in rats.

V. Triclosan bans

Given the increasing litany of concerns about triclosan's deleterious effects on the physiology of a wide variety of species, which may also increasingly include humans, several governments are either considering banning it or have already done so.

In March 2010, the European Union banned triclosan from any products that may come into contact with food (2).
On 16 May, 2014, the US state of Minnesota banned the sale of triclosan-containing cleaning products (soaps), giving manufacturers time until early 2017 to phase them out (24).
As of 2015, Health Canada was considering banning triclosan. It's estimated that ~1730 products, including cosmetics, health, and personal care products containing triclosan were available in Canada in 2011 (1).
The US FDA is mulling its regulation (25), with a report due in September 2016.

Bibliography

1. Dhillon, Gurpreet Singh, et al. "Triclosan: current status, occurrence, environmental risks and bioaccumulation potential." International journal of environmental research and public health 12.5 (2015): 5657-5684. Triclosan: Current Status, Occurrence, Environmental Risks and Bioaccumulation Potential

2. Alliance for the Prudent Use of Antibiotics. "Triclosan." White Paper prepared by the Alliance for the Prudent Use of Antibiotics (APUA) (2011). http://emerald.tufts.edu/med/apu...

3. Stickler, David James, G. Ll Jones, and Allan Denver Russell. "Control of encrustation and blockage of Foley catheters." The Lancet 361.9367 (2003): 1435-1437. http://carambola.usc.edu/Biofilm...

4. Kim, S. A., et al. "Bactericidal effects of triclosan in soap both in vitro and in vivo." Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy (2015): dkv275.

5. Vischer, W. A., and J. Regös. "Antimicrobial spectrum of Triclosan, a broad-spectrum antimicrobial agent for topical application." Zentralblatt für Bakteriologie, Parasitenkunde, Infektionskrankheiten und Hygiene. Erste Abteilung Originale. Reihe A: Medizinische Mikrobiologie und Parasitologie 226.3 (1974): 376.

6. McLeod, Rima, et al. "Triclosan inhibits the growth of Plasmodium falciparum and Toxoplasma gondii by inhibition of Apicomplexan Fab I." International journal for parasitology 31.2 (2001): 109-113. https://www.researchgate.net/pro...

7. McMurry, Laura M., Margret Oethinger, and Stuart B. Levy. "Triclosan targets lipid synthesis." Nature 394.6693 (1998): 531-532.

8. Levy, Colin W., et al. "Molecular basis of triclosan activity." Nature 398.6726 (1999): 383-384.

9. Schweizer, Herbert P. "Triclosan: a widely used biocide and its link to antibiotics." FEMS microbiology letters 202.1 (2001): 1-7. http://femsle.oxfordjournals.org...

10. McNamara, Patrick J., Timothy M. LaPara, and Paige J. Novak. "The impacts of triclosan on anaerobic community structures, function, and antimicrobial resistance." Environmental science & technology 48.13 (2014): 7393-7400. https://www.researchgate.net/pro...

11. Reiss, Richard, et al. "An ecological risk assessment for triclosan in lotic systems following discharge from wastewater treatment plants in the United States." Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry 21.11 (2002): 2483-2492.

12. Lawrence, J. R., et al. "Resilience and recovery: The effect of triclosan exposure timing during development, on the structure and function of river biofilm communities." Aquatic Toxicology 161 (2015): 253-266. https://www.researchgate.net/pro...

13. Ricart, Marta, et al. "Triclosan persistence through wastewater treatment plants and its potential toxic effects on river biofilms." Aquatic Toxicology 100.4 (2010): http://www.clipmedia.net/galera/...

14. Narrowe, Adrienne B., et al. "Perturbation and restoration of the fathead minnow gut microbiome after low-level triclosan exposure." Microbiome 3.1 (2015): 1. Microbiome

15. Hu, Jianzhong, et al. "Effect of postnatal low-dose exposure to environmental chemicals on the gut microbiome in a rodent model." Microbiome 4.1 (2016): 1. Microbiome

16. Poole, Angela C., et al. "Crossover Control Study of the Effect of Personal Care Products Containing Triclosan on the Microbiome." mSphere 1.3 (2016): e00056-15. http://msphere.asm.org/content/m...

17. Syed, Adnan K., et al. "Triclosan promotes Staphylococcus aureus nasal colonization." MBio 5.2 (2014): e01015-13. Triclosan Promotes Staphylococcus aureus Nasal Colonization

18. Yueh, Mei-Fei, et al. "The commonly used antimicrobial additive triclosan is a liver tumor promoter." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 111.48 (2014): 17200-17205. http://www.pnas.org/content/111/...

19. Veldhoen, Nik, et al. "The bactericidal agent triclosan modulates thyroid hormone-associated gene expression and disrupts postembryonic anuran development." Aquatic Toxicology 80.3 (2006): 217-227. https://www.researchgate.net/pro...

20. Crofton, Kevin M., et al. "Short-term in vivo exposure to the water contaminant triclosan: evidence for disruption of thyroxine." Environmental Toxicology and Pharmacology 24.2 (2007): 194-197. https://www.researchgate.net/pro...

21. Zorrilla, Leah M., et al. "The effects of triclosan on puberty and thyroid hormones in male Wistar rats." Toxicological Sciences 107.1 (2009): 56-64. The Effects of Triclosan on Puberty and Thyroid Hormones in Male Wistar Rats

22. Stoker, Tammy E., Emily K. Gibson, and Leah M. Zorrilla. "Triclosan exposure modulates estrogen-dependent responses in the female wistar rat." Toxicological Sciences (2010): kfq180. Triclosan exposure modulates estrogen-dependent responses in the female Wistar rat

23. Kumar, Vikas, et al. "Alteration of testicular steroidogenesis and histopathology of reproductive system in male rats treated with triclosan." Reproductive Toxicology 27.2 (2009): 177-185.

24. SF 2192 Status in the Senate for the 88th Legislature (2013

25. Kuehn, Bridget M. "FDA pushes makers of antimicrobial soap to prove safety and effectiveness." JAMA 311.3 (2014): 234-234.

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Why We Usually Have No Idea We're Getting a Sunburn
Why is it so hard to tell you're getting a sunburn? originally appeared on Quora - the knowledge sharing network where compelling questions are answered by people with unique insights.

Answer by Joshua Engel on Quora:

The reddening of sunburn isn't caused by the sun itself, but by red blood rushing in to heal the damage. Blood vessels swell in response to the damage, a bit like a bruise. That extra blood causes the skin to appear red.

It also causes the skin to feel hot to the touch. Ordinarily, the skin is a few degrees cooler than your internal body temperature, because it's on the surface radiating heat, and evaporation from sweat cools the skin. The extra blood (heated to fully 37 degrees C in the core of the body) warms the skin up, making it feel hot.

Like a bruise, it doesn't appear immediately. The damage is done, but it takes the body's systems a while to react to it. Thus, you get redder over the course of hours or even a day.

Turning brown is another effect, as the melanocytes react to the damage by producing more melanin. This happens slowly, and takes a couple of days to produce noticeable browning. The red isn't really "fading to brown:" as the damage heals, the swelling shrinks, and the reddening decreases, around the same time as the melanin has accumulated to the point that you can see it.

You can't feel the damage as it's being done because it's very slow, and it doesn't trigger the pain nerves. The energy is being accumulated in the cells, but it's not making you all that much warmer. You will feel warm, but you'll just attribute it to the overall warmth of the day. (If you manage to be out on a glacier, you may well notice that your skin feels warmer than expected. That's a warning, one that I've ignored to my peril.)

The damage is the same as caused by a regular burn from a fire, but it happens over hours rather than seconds. You need to be aware of the sun (which can cause burns even when the temperature is cold) and not depend on your body to warn you.

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