by : lacylit10 Politics

Murky Circumstances…

… of Santa Barbara County’s New Ambulance Contract Should Raise Alarms.

If you haven’t been paying attention to the decisions the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors is making regarding the county’s ambulance contract, I suggest you start looking into it and making your voices heard.

I, for one, do not want to get caught in a situation in which my emergency medical care is hindered because the county Fire Department and American Medical Response are confused by their roles and responsibilities with the new permit system.

Nor do I want to become a victim in the process of learning that the new permit system is ineffective.

Regardless of how the new permit system will work, the power the Board of Supervisors has given itself here baffles me.

The five supervisors have taken the decision of who determines who receives the ambulance contract out of the hands of experts and have given it to themselves — increasing their power over subject matter in which none of them is formally educated or has professional working experience.

What makes them think they know what is best when it comes to our emergency medical care?

When you apply for a job at the most senior level of an organization, there is usually a requirement of an advanced degree and at least 10 years of professional experience.

These are the minimum basic requirements that most companies consider someone to be qualified to make impactful business decisions.

Why would our supervisors take the decision away from people who have these necessary qualifications in health care and emergency services and give it to themselves?

Cottage Health, Lompoc Valley Medical Center, Marian Regional Medical Center and the contract review panel — consisting of a board-certified emergency physician, a hospital executive, a retired metropolitan fire chief, the current public utility ambulance system administrator and a community — member all favored AMR over county fire and expressed concern about the permit system.

Why would the supervisors go against the recommendation of many qualified experts?

There are only two reasons I can think of: power and money.

The vote to take the decision away from experts gives more unjustified (in my opinion) authority to our elected officials. Giving the contract to county fire gives those elected officials more opportunities to divert money away from other necessary resources and reasons to raise taxes.

Do you think raises won’t be given out to everyone in the county who has to take on more work to make the county ambulance system work?

Due to lack of transparency on the issue, I’m inclined to believe there is something to hide.

Andy Caldwell, executive director of the Coalition of Labor, Agriculture & Business, has provided the supervisors with opportunities to defend their decision, in which they have deflected his questioning.

The county buried Caldwell with paperwork to distract him from the fact they did not provide what he asked for under the California Public Records Act in the timeframe it was required, and the more he inquired, the more the players seemingly got defensive.

Whether you agree with Caldwell’s political views or not, these are all suspicious reactive behaviors.

Admittedly, I could be way off base. But perception is reality, and the supervisors are choosing to remain quiet rather than educate us on the reasons for their decisions.

Given the circumstances, if you’ve been paying attention, what else are we supposed to believe? We’re only getting part of the story.

I encourage county fire, county staff or the Board of Supervisors to offer justification for their reasoning. I, and many other concerned health-care consumers throughout the county, are ready and willing to listen.

**Originally published in Noozhawk.

by : lacylit10 Farming

Semmelweis.

Have you ever heard of Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis? Neither have most people, so I included a link. No need to follow it though, cause I’m going to tell you about him anyway. 😊

Dr. Semmelweis was a doctor in the mid-1800s. The mortality rate in the maternity clinic where he practiced was 1 in 10.  At the time, conventional medicine called for separate treatment of each symptom.  So rather than treating a fever, a headache, and trouble breathing with one method, they would use three separate methods.  But still, nothing seemed to work.  The women who contracted the disease which came to be known as ‘childbed fever’ died within days.

Dr. Semmelweis became obsessed with discovering why the mortality rate in his clinic was so much higher than the other.  The only difference between the two clinics is that Dr. Semmelweis’ was attended by doctors, and the other was attended by midwives. So he standardized everything in the effort to minimize outstanding variables.

After Dr. Semmelweis took a 4-month leave to visit another hospital, upon his return, he discovered the death rate had dropped significantly in his absence.  At the time, Vienna General was a research hospital, so many of the doctors split their time between tending to patients and researching on cadavers.  Dr. Semmelweis himself spent far more time doing research on the cadavers than the other doctors, and he realized this was the only significant difference between himself and the doctors that worked for him in his absence.  From these observations, he developed a theory of childbed fever that became the precursor to germ theory.

Dr. Semmelweis concluded that ‘particles’ from the cadavers and other diseased patients were being transferred to healthy patients on the hands of the physicians.  He immediately instituted a policy of hand washing with a chlorine/lime solution before examining a patient.  The death rate fell to 1 in 100.

Upon his discovery, Dr. Semmelweis told the rest of the medical community about his science. But his hypothesis that cleanliness is what mattered most was considered extreme, and he was ridiculed by the medical community. He was so outraged by the indifference to his discovery that he sent angry letters to prominent European doctors calling them irresponsible murderers.

Here’s the thing though:

The doctors were doing the best of what they knew with the science they had at the time.  They weren’t acting with malicious intent. And Dr. Semmelweis’ science wasn’t proven to the extent that these doctors had been educated and trained.

So, why am I telling you this story?

Because, surprisingly, it has a lot to do with farming leafy greens. 🥬

Leafy greens farmers are highly regulated under both FSMA (the Food Safety Modernization Act) and the CA/AZ LGMAs (Leafy Greens Marketing Agreements). Additionally, most farms are GFSI (Global Food Safety Initiative) certified. All of these regulatory compliance agencies base their standards on the best science available, at this time.

Leafy greens farmers aren’t acting with malicious intent. They are not adulterating your food. Most are just following guidance laid out by science and academic experts. But there are some farmers who go above and beyond the regulation. They take regulation comprised by science and academia and cater it to their specific farms. They are the Dr. Semmelweis’ of farming.

And who is to say who is wrong? Dr. Semmelweis and the doctors of the medical community were all doing what they believed was best based on their education, their beliefs, their experience, and all sorts of other things. Just as farmers today are all doing what they believe is best based on their education, their beliefs, their experience, and all sorts of other things, including the best available science at this time.

Dr. Semmelweis made his discovery in 1847, but it wasn’t until the 1980s when (coincidentally) a string of foodborne outbreaks and healthcare-associated infections led the U.S. CDC to identify handwashing as an important step to stop the spread of infection.  

Leafy greens production in California (especially) is probably the most highly regulated crop in the world. We’ve been actively improving our regulation to make leafy greens safer since 2006. Additionally, the CDC didn’t start using whole genome sequencing for foodborne pathogen detection until 2013. So before you make assumptions that industry is not responding to these outbreaks fast enough, I urge you to consider that it took over 100 years for Dr. Semmelweis’ handwashing theory to make it into mainstream medicine.

Lack of science or insufficient regulation is not an excuse for these outbreaks. I’m just simply trying to point out that scientific discoveries take time and so does improving regulation.

But like Dr. Semmelweis trying to convince the medical community, know that there are many farmers out there doing all that they can to prevent contamination from happening. They are going above and beyond the regulation. They are catering the best available science to their specific farms. And they are trying to get the rest of the industry on board.