Japan has long been a leader among nations in disaster planning and preparedness. But the devastating earthquake and tsunami that struck on March 11, 2011, demonstrated how a complex disaster can overwhelm even the best of planning.
Irwin Redlener, MD, director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness and author of the recent book, Americans at Risk: Why We Are Not Prepared for Megadisasters and What We Can Do Now, is an authority on disaster planning.
Dr. Redlener, a faculty member at the Mailman Schoo of Public Health at Columbia University Medical Center, shared his thoughts on the unfolding catastrophe in Japan and the state of U.S. disaster preparedness.
What can we learn from the devastation in Japan?
This catastrophe is a very complex disaster – there was an earthquake, followed by a tsunami followed by hundreds of aftershocks followed by significant threats to the country’s nuclear power plants. The management of this situation is extremely challenging. It’s extraordinarily difficult to get everything right when a disaster is unfolding – but with a complex disaster, the challenges can be literally overwhelming.
Japan has been recognized as having the most robust disaster planning of any nation on earth, particularly when it comes to earthquakes and tsunamis. But what we’ve seen is a good system that is far from perfect. There will be extraordinarily high fatalities. Part of it due to failure to get search and rescue equipment in as early as possible to the places most severely affected and partly due to the fact that a disaster of this magnitude and nature is impossible to manage. There simply isn’t enough warning time for people in some areas to escape an oncoming tsunami.
We’re beginning to see lots issues like children separated from their families and we’re already seeing problems with food and water getting to affected areas and so forth. There are many lessons for us observing here in the U.S., but the fact remains that the U.S. is far less prepared than Japan is for this kind of disaster.
Five years after Katrina, why isn’t the United States better prepared for a disaster of this magnitude?
There are many issues that have undermined our ability to get as prepared as we want to or need to be. Even after the 9/11 attacks and Hurricane Katrina we have not been able to muster sufficient resources and coordination to develop a cohesive and effective plan to respond to future disasters. Part of it has to do with the multiplicity of agencies that have responsibility for different aspects of disaster planning, part of it is too few resources and unfortunately, there are some major systemic barriers in government itself. For instance, while the federal government can issue guidelines and guidance for specific grants, it’s really up to states and local governments to do what they think is best in terms of disaster preparedness policies. This has resulted in a patchwork of random preparedness activities that, together, do not amount to a significantly robust national state of readiness.
What should be the government’s priorities? Is it first dealing with these systemic issues?
If I were designing a better system to oversee nationally significant megadisaster planning, I would empower a single individual or agency to develop a national plan that has explicit authority and sufficient resources. Money that goes to states or local governments for public health preparedness should come with very explicit strings attached specifying what states and localities would be required to do towards the goal of getting the whole country prepared.
This would take into account that certain regions have different priorities (earthquakes versus floods), so state plans would have to be customized to some extent to meet local and regional needs. But at the end of the day we’re going to need much greater attention to ensuring that the basics are covered, for instance, that, as a nation we have sufficient training of public health officials in how to respond to disasters, and make sure that we have adequate surge capacity in hospitals to respond to pandemics and other large scale emergencies.
I also want to add that if you don’t plan thoroughly in advance for how to handle vulnerable populations – children, elderly – these individuals will suffer disproportionately - and will also consume significant resources to protect them during a major crisis.
March 14, 2011
Paul Mabray of Vintank published a second blog post this afternoon questioning the origin of some of Snooth.com’s data. Mabray says there have been rumors of data being used from CellarTracker without permission to power Snooth and that from an analysis, “it looks like Snooth is scraping data, reorganizing it as their own, and using it to grow their business.”
Snooth was started in 2007 and is a site where users can “compare prices and shop from over 10,000 wine merchants worldwide as well as review the wine and their buying experience to help others in the future.” The company bills itself as “the world's largest and most comprehensive online wine destination, featuring millions of reviews and hundreds of thousands of wines.”
I sent an email to Snooth founder Philip James after the first post and he replied that he'd be writing a response.
I spoke with Eric LeVine, the founder of Cellartracker. "If that’s the case, I’ll probably have to follow up legally,” he said. “At the end of the day, the data on my site is my site’s data and my user’s data.”
“There are plenty of people in the industry that I partner with,” LeVine said. “I don’t have any agreement with the Snooth.”
Cellartracker is a cellar management system started in April 2004 and has about 130,000 users that, according to founder LeVine, have collectively generated just over 1.7 million wine reviews.
Cellartracker’s database includes about a million wines, reflecting what people have tasted or have in their collections. Registered users catalog their collections and post tasting notes. They’ve consumed more than 22.3 million bottles of about one million different wines.
Roughly 2,000 wine reviews, or tasting notes, are generated via Cellartracker every day, and Cellartracker has content partnerships, including channels with bloggers and professional wine critics involving another 300,000 professional reviews that are integrated into the cellar management system but shown only to subscribers of the various publications.
For more on this, also see the responses to the first post.
Please spread the word about what looks as if it is egregious misappropriation of CellarTracker.com's tasting notes and other data by Snooth.com. If it's true, Snooth should be shunned by all.
Quoting your self-righteous, indignant material...if what you said actually happened, I would agree. But read the story again: the author is quoting Ronald Reagan, NOT Sarah Palin. The author is pointing out that Reagan was talking about social contexts, and Palin was talking about individual acts of violence. I can't find your straw-man accusations in the actual article. Wow, it's so easy to make the opponent look bad, when you don't bother to quote what they said.
I mean it's just insane to say that blacks and other minorities commit crimes in disproportionate numbers and then claim that you speak without regard to race or social-status. These comments come straight out of fear of minorities. If you aren't willing to accept any responsibility for the actions of criminals, and you think that minorities are disproportionately-criminal than how can you claim to be blind to race? It's inherent in your comment! You're a walking talking racist who then wants to deny any responsibility for minority crime.
That is the very problem with crime, it's a self-perpetuating cycle. Sure some criminals don't choose their victims based on their race and social status but surely some do if not most. And it is their very socioeconomic status combined with the prejudice of other ethnic groups towards that socioeconomic status that *keeps* them in that socioeconomic status and that makes them such a risk to those groups.
This is utter nonsense...and she's saying it like it makes perfect sense. What does she want us to believe, that whites are afraid of minorities, are prejudiced towards minorities, shun minorities, simply because they are **Minorities**, and not because to whites minorities represent a high risk of criminal activity? LOL!
I don't see how she can talk her way out of this. Prejudice exists in this country, there's no doubt about it. It is either an irrational fear of minorities simply because they are different or a rational fear simply because of the risk they represent. But the end result is the same: minorities do not get the same chance to succeed in this country that whites get, therefore they are under more economic pressure, and therefore more of them turn to crime, more often. It's a self-perpetuating cycle...were this not the case, whites would not have a rational leg to stand on for being prejudiced at all.
It's not going to be hard for the average white person to take a hard look at what she is saying and see the inherent contradiction. Now it is right there on the table for all to see. If you want to blame the individual and not society then you have to admit that the individuals are characterized by race and socioeconomic status. If you feel prejudiced at all towards them as a result then what more is there to say? There is absolutely no defense here.
Honestly she should have shut up while she was only so far behind. Now she's clearly a blatant racist as well as delusional.
Posted by: tokenwhitemale | January 12, 2011 1:30 PM
The recall announced in the news release from the Department of Agriculture below may be a low health risk, but it shows how easily someone with impure intentions can introduce products of questionable quality into the U.S. food chain. In this case, a company that makes bulk supplies of frozen pre-formed hamburger patties was found to have repackaged meat that had been returned. The problem was discovered after institutions that had received some of the bad meat complained about off-odors and discoloration. More details below or at www.fsis.usda.gov.
Personally, I'm going to stick to buying meat directly from farmers or from a local butcher I can trust. In the San Francisco area, my favorite is Woodland's Market in Kentfield, whose owner has been in the meat business most of his life. John can tell you everything you might want to know about any of the meats in his store. In San Francisco, Dave the Butcher at the Marina Market, Avedano's, and Prather Ranch are good picks. Also, Marin Sun Farms meats are sold at farmers markets in SF and Marin. In New York, I have been buying meat from an Amish farmer who sells at the Thursday Greenmarket in Morningside Heights (115th and Broadway) and from Fresh Direct. I would welcome other suggestions.
Also worth noting that even if the burgers from One Great Burger were fresh, I would not want to eat them. These quarter-pound patties have 27% fat. Although some of the flavor of a burger comes from the fat, ground meat with 15% fat or less tastes just fine - and is considerably healthier.
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I do not question Sarah Palin's sincerity when she says that she and her husband pray for the victims of Saturday's horrible shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and others in Tucson. However, I think she needs to look in the mirror and think hard about whether her tone and language either directly or indirectly gives extremists the idea that violence is somehow ok. The map showing 20 Congressional districts in a rifle's crosshairs that Palin used leading up to the 2010 election remains on her Facebook page. Just as I believed when the ad was first published, this is appalling. There are so many ways to indicate political targets. Why use a gunsight as the marker if you are encouraging peaceful discourse and democracy in action?
Here's Palin's Facebook page as of about 12:05 AM Sunday - the crosshairs, including the ones on Rep. Giffords' district, are below the first long post. Read the comments for some very disturbing exchanges. We have a lot of work to do to make this a more perfect union. How about starting now?
t
The beers are traditional, and to me, they feel quite British. Nothing wrong with that. The pale ale has a soft finish and balanced hoppiness. The ESB has a tinge of coffee almost like a stout but retains some of the mellowness of a typical bitter. I am also enjoying the "Brewer's Mix," a glass filled half with kolsch and half with pale ale.
Thanks to my friend Lil for bringing me to this great spot. I'm fairly certain I'm the only tourist here tonight.
Lesson No. 1: I need to trust my own reading of a map more than the tourist info people at the airport.
Lesson No. 2: I have to realize that I have been to a lot of places. A "huge" attraction in one country may seem almost insignificant in another - and vice versa.
I don't mean to knock Sydney, but my trip from the airport to my hotel was a bumpy, slow 75 minutes in a crowded minibus because the info desk at the airport told me finding my hotel from where the 15-minute train stopped would be difficult. Right. The train station is one block from my hotel.
My other transportation snafu was when I asked the hotel concierge how to get to the Sydney Fishmarket. He said I should take a taxi. I asked about public transit. He said there was no way to get there by public transit. Imagine my surprise when I got to the Fishmarket, and the $20 taxi left me off adjacent to the Fishmarket light rail stop. At least the ride back toward downtown was easy. (I returned fairly quickly because the Fishmarket was somewhat disappointing. The wholesale activity is mostly behind the scenes, and although the retail fish looked great, it was nothing even remotely approaching the frenzy of Tsukiji market in Tokyo - or even the Fulton Fish Market in New York when I was little.)
Lots more sights, sounds and sensations to experience. Will share more when I can.
Subject: Yet another egg recall
Calhttp://www.fda.gov/Safety/Recalls/ucm232988.htm">-Maine Foods, Inc. Conducts Voluntary Egg RecallSun, 07 Nov 2010 19:23:00 -0600
JACKSON, Miss. (November 5, 2010) ? Cal-Maine Foods, Inc. (NASDAQ: CALM) today was notified by the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) that one of the Company’s suppliers, Ohio Fresh Eggs, LLC, Croton, Ohio, had a routine environmental study sample which tested positive for Salmonella Enteritidis (SE). Cal-Maine purchased approximately 24,000 dozen unprocessed eggs from Ohio Fresh which were processed and re-packaged by the Company’s Green Forest, Arkansas, facility between October 9 and 12, 2010, yet the Company was only notified today.
- Products: Sunny Meadow, Springfield Grocer, Sun Valley, and James Farm eggs (http://www.fda.gov/Safety/Recalls/ucm232988.htm">see recall notice for specific dates and plant numbers)
- Distributed: To food wholesalers and retailers in Arkansas, California, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma and Texas.
- Why: Possible Salmonella
- Illnesses reported: None
- For more information: Contact Cal-Maine’s corporate office at 1-866-276-6299 between 8:00 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. CDT.
Calhttp://www.fda.gov/Safety/Recalls/ucm232988.htm">-Maine Foods, Inc. Conducts Voluntary Egg Recall
Sun, 07 Nov 2010 19:23:00 -0600
JACKSON, Miss. (November 5, 2010) ? Cal-Maine Foods, Inc. (NASDAQ: CALM) today was notified by the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) that one of the Company’s suppliers, Ohio Fresh Eggs, LLC, Croton, Ohio, had a routine environmental study sample which tested positive for Salmonella Enteritidis (SE). Cal-Maine purchased approximately 24,000 dozen unprocessed eggs from Ohio Fresh which were processed and re-packaged by the Company’s Green Forest, Arkansas, facility between October 9 and 12, 2010, yet the Company was only notified today.
- Products: Sunny Meadow, Springfield Grocer, Sun Valley, and James Farm eggs (http://www.fda.gov/Safety/Recalls/ucm232988.htm">see recall notice for specific dates and plant numbers)
- Distributed: To food wholesalers and retailers in Arkansas, California, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma and Texas.
- Why: Possible Salmonella
- Illnesses reported: None
- For more information: Contact Cal-Maine’s corporate office at 1-866-276-6299 between 8:00 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. CDT.
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http://www.fda.gov/Safety/Recalls/ucm234699.htm">Artisan Confections Recalls Dagoba new moon™ Rich Dark Chocolate 74% Cacao 0.32-Ounce Squares Due to Possible Health Risk
Wed, 24 Nov 2010 07:58:00 -0600Artisan Confections Company is voluntarily recalling a limited quantity of its Dagoba Organic Chocolate new moon Rich Dark Chocolate 74% cacao 0.32 ounce squares because they may contain Salmonella. No other sizes or Dagoba items are involved in this recall.
- Product: Dagoba Organic Chocolate new moon Rich Dark Chocolate (74% cacao) sold in 0.32 ounce squares
- Distributed: Sold nationwide online and through natural/specialty food retail outlets
- Why: Possible Salmonella
- Illnesses reported: None
- For more information: Contact Artisan Confections Consumer Relations at 866-608-6944. (9 a.m to 4 p.m. EST)
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A few days ago I had a guest visiting and I made dinner as best as I could in my temporary apartment in uptown New York City. The menu included two small, beautiful grass-fed sirloin steaks, seared then broiled to mid-rare; baked acorn squash with honey and olive oil glaze; salad of field greens, pear and local blue cheese; and, mashed cauliflower.
Yes, there were no potatoes. After boiling the cauliflower until soft, I put it in the blender with a little milk, salt and pepper. I added more as the mixture approached a mashed consistency so that there would be some small but noticeable chunks of cauliflower. Then I popped the mixture into the oven with a little Vermont cheddar on top. Who needs potatoes when you can make something like this? My version was not low-calorie or low-fat, but you could easily reduce the milk or cheese and still have a pretty nice side dish.
For an even more creative way to use cauliflower in otherwise gluttonous dishes, try this recipe from Mark Bittman:
Creamy Cauliflower Mac
Makes: 4 servingsVegetables are comfort food too, as proved by this recipe, which is sure to please anyone who loves mac-and-cheese. The "secret" is cauliflower's miraculous ability to turn creamy when puréed. If you don't want to wash out a blender or food processor (and don't mind some lumps), use a potato masher to purée the cauliflower in the same pot you cooked it in.
2 tablespoons olive oil, plus more for greasing the baking dish
Salt
2 1⁄2 cups vegetable or chicken stock or water
2 bay leaves
1 cauliflower, cored and separated into large pieces
8 ounces elbow, shell, ziti, or other cut pasta, preferably whole wheat
1⁄2 cup grated cheese (like sharp cheddar, Gruyère, or Emmental or a combination)
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard, or to taste
1⁄8 teaspoon nutmeg, or to taste
Black pepper
1⁄4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1⁄2 cup or more bread crumbs, preferably whole grain and homemade, optional
1. Heat the oven to 400°F. Grease a 9-inch square baking dish with a little oil. Bring a large pot of water to a boil and salt it. Put the stock with the bay leaves in a small saucepan over medium-low heat. When small bubbles appear along the sides, about 5 minutes later, turn off the heat and let stand.
2. Cook the cauliflower in the boiling water until very tender, 20 to 25 minutes. Scoop the cauliflower out of the water with a slotted spoon and transfer it to a blender or food processor. Add the pasta to the boiling water and cook until still somewhat chalky inside and not yet edible, about 5 minutes. Drain it, rinse it quickly to stop the cooking, and put it in the prepared baking dish.
3. Remove the bay leaves from the stock. Carefully process the cauliflower with 2 cups of the stock, the 2 tablespoons oil, the cheese, mustard, nutmeg, and a sprinkling of salt and pepper. (You may have to work in batches.) If the sauce seems too thick, add the remaining 1⁄2 cup stock. Taste and adjust the seasoning. Pour the sauce over the pasta, toss, and spread the mixture evenly in the dish. (You can make the dish to this point, cover, and refrigerate for up to a day; return to room temperature before proceeding.)
4. Sprinkle the top with the Parmesan and bread crumbs if you're using them. Bake until the pasta is bubbling and the crumbs turn brown, 15 to 20 minutes. Serve hot.
Recipe by Mark Bittman, published in The Food Matters Cookbook. Used with permission. For more information, visit markbittman.com.
This post was originally published on Doug Levy's other blog, http://wineandfoodworld.com.
