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Fish and Wildlife Director Dan Ashe (left) and Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell select confiscated illegal ivory to crush in an effort to halt elephant poaching and ivory trafficking in New York City’s Times Square in June 2015. Bebeto Matthews/AP hide caption
toggle caption Bebeto Matthews/AP
The federal government is moving to ban virtually all sales of items containing African elephant ivory within the U.S. For a long time it’s been illegal to import elephant ivory. This new rule extends the ban to cover ivory that’s already here.
The new regulations come out of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service which says the move will further limit the market for traffickers of illegal ivory. They say the problem is that smugglers currently can evade detection and bring illegal ivory into the U.S. Once here, it’s impossible for people to know whether that billiard cue or pocket knife they’re buying was made with sanctioned or illegal ivory.
Research by wildlife protection groups has found that the U.S. is one of the largest markets for illegal ivory. So under the new system, officials hope that the near-total ban on sales will largely shut down the U.S. as a buyer of the illegal ivory.
Appraisers Fred Oster, left, and David Bonsey, review a 1920 French violin at an Antiques Roadshow event in Los Angeles in 2005. Many stringed instruments throughout history have been made using small amounts of ivory. KIM D. JOHNSON/ASSOCIATED PRESS hide caption
toggle caption KIM D. JOHNSON/ASSOCIATED PRESS
“Today’s bold action underscores the United States’ leadership and commitment to ending the scourge of elephant poaching and the tragic impact it’s having on wild populations,” said Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell.
Of course, any regulation can have unintended consequences. And one group that you might not expect to be worried about this is The League of American Orchestras. It turns out that many professional musicians play stringed instruments that have pieces of ivory used in their construction, for example ivory tuning pegs. Some antique violins and cellos are quite valuable both in terms of their price tags and their value to the musicians who play them. So the orchestra association says it worked with the Obama administration to craft the new regulations in a way that will allow for the sale and interstate transport of such instruments.
There are also some other limited exemptions for bona fide antiques and items with small amounts of ivory that federal regulators say are not “drivers of poaching.”
The move is part of a broader effort by the Obama administration. In 2013, the president issued an executive order on combating wildlife trafficking. The government has the authority to regulate ivory sales under the Endangered Species Act.
The administration is encouraging other nations to follow suit. China is another very large market for illegal ivory. And the new regulations were announced ahead of a trip to China by Secretary of State John Kerry and Treasury Secretary Jack Lew.
The National Rifle Association is opposed to the new regulations. A statement on the NRA website that appears underneath a photo of an antique ivory-handled pistol reads:
“While the NRA supports efforts to stop poaching and the illegal trade of ivory, these proposals would do nothing to protect elephants in Africa and Asia, but would instead make sellers of legal ivory potential criminals overnight, as well as destroy the value of property held by countless gun owners, art collectors, musicians and others.”
Regulators, though, say they have carved out protections for gun owners. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Dan Ashe said in a statement:
“We listened carefully to the legitimate concerns raised by various stakeholder groups and, as a result, are allowing commonsense, narrow exceptions for musicians, musical instrument makers and dealers, gun owners and others to trade items that have minimal amounts of ivory and satisfy other conditions.”
Regulators say they will provide additional implementation guidance on the rule before it goes into effect on July 6 of this year.
Tejay van Garderen says even a small risk from the Zika virus is enough to make him stay home with his wife, who is pregnant. He’s seen here last year ahead of the start of the Tour de France cycling race. Christophe Ena/AP hide caption
toggle caption Christophe Ena/AP
With his wife expecting a baby in October, American road racer Tejay van Garderen has withdrawn from consideration for the Rio Summer Olympics, citing the Zika virus that’s been linked to birth defects.
From a statement released by USA Cycling on van Garderen’s behalf today:
“After thinking long and hard about the Olympic Games in Rio, I have decided to withdraw my name from consideration for selection in the U.S. team. Although the risks associated with the Zika Virus can be minimal and precautions can be taken, my wife Jessica is pregnant, and I don’t want to risk bringing anything back that could potentially have an effect.”
When asked whether van Garderen is the only American athlete to have withdrawn, a U.S. Olympic Committee official said the organization isn’t aware of any similar cases in which an American Olympic hopeful has opted out of competing in Rio.
A two-time winner of the USA Pro Challenge, van Garderen placed fifth in the Tour de France in 2014 and in 2012 — the same year he raced for the U.S. in the London Olympics. And as the highest-ranked American in the UCI’s most recent world rankings of road cyclists, he had been seen as a strong contender for the U.S. team, whose roster will be finalized this month.
In recent years, van Garderen, 27, has made something of a habit out of bringing his daughter onto the podium to help celebrate when he wins a stage race or other competition.
Back in March, the World Health Organization announced that a scientific consensus had determined “the Zika virus is connected with microcephaly — a condition in which babies are born with very small heads and brain damage,” as NPR’s Michaeleen Doucleff reported.
“If circumstances were different I would have loved to be selected again to represent the USA,” van Garderen said, “but my family takes priority and it’s a decision that I’m completely comfortable with. I hope that I’ll be in the position to race at the 2020 Olympic Games.”
Last month, WHO issued tips for athletes and visitors to Rio. The list ranges from protecting against mosquito bites to using condoms or abstaining from sex during and for eight weeks after a visit.
WHO also said, “Pregnant women continue to be advised not to travel to areas with ongoing Zika virus transmission. This includes Rio de Janeiro.”
But the agency also noted that the Rio Olympics will be held in August, during Brazil’s winter, meaning that the number of mosquitoes will be relatively low, reducing the risk of being bitten.
That fact was also touted Thursday by leaders of Rio’s Olympics effort who sought to reassure international visitors that it’ll be safe to visit Brazil for the games.
At a news conference, Rio 2016 Organizing Committee President Carlos Nuzman told reporters “there is not a public health risk with Zika,” according to the Around the Rings website.
Music Of Morocco features recordings of classical Moroccan musicians. Courtesy Dust-to-Digital / Library of Congress hide caption
toggle caption Courtesy Dust-to-Digital / Library of Congress
Composer and author Paul Bowles first went to Morocco in 1931. He fell in love with the country, returning often and eventually moving to Tangier, where he lived from 1947 until his death in 1999. Among the things Bowles valued most about Morocco was its varieties of music.
During an intensive five-month period in 1959, Paul Bowles made a series of recordings of Moroccan music for the Library of Congress. Now, they have been released as a four-CD box set called Music Of Morocco. These vivid recordings tell us almost as much about Bowles as they do about Morocco a half-century ago.
To record this music, Bowles traveled far and wide by Volkswagen Beetle with a large reel-to-reel tape recorder. Often, musicians had to come to locations where there was electricity, and Bowles would do his best to arrange them around his microphone to get the sound he desired. In the northern city of Fez, he recorded an entire Andalusian orchestra, music with ties to medieval Moorish Spain.
Bowles was not a scholar, out to study and survey; this was a labor of love. These CDs come with a 120-page booklet, full of Bowles’ colorful field notes and commentary complied by ethnomusicologist Philip Schuyler. Schuyler points out that Bowles was willing to resort to surprising, even questionable, tactics to get what he wanted. When one flute player insisted his instrument had to be accompanied by a drum, Bowles demanded that he play it alone, proclaiming “the American government wished it.”
There’s a fascinating contradiction here. Bowles always wanted to record the most authentic, archaic, traditional version of everything — except when something about the sound offended him personally. For instance, when he heard the buzz on a traditional bass lute as distortion, he made the musician remove the resonator and record again without it.
To listen through these diverse recordings and read Bowles’ urgent, revelatory notes is to enter a realm of his psyche. Bowles does not render these sometimes strident sounds safe or friendly. But, he makes them his. This collection has the power to lure us into his own deep hypnosis, his gut-level obsession with a North African land he has chosen to call home.
Children who get more sleep while in the hospital need less sedation and anesthesia, researchers have found. Sebastian Rose/Getty Images hide caption
toggle caption Sebastian Rose/Getty Images
At home, parents try to keep their children on a regular sleep schedule, with the evening bedtime transition marked by rituals like reading stories, flipping on night lights and getting tucked in with favorite stuffed animals.
But the difference between night and day blurs in hospitals, making it more difficult for young patients to rest when they need it the most.
Between the fluorescent lights, the chatter of on-duty doctors and nurses, and being roused for baths and vitals checks, getting eight hours of shut-eye is challenging. So now, with research increasingly highlighting the link between sleep and good health, children’s hospitals are rethinking just how they work at night.
“If we’re going to try to heal kids, we need to try to have them do the one thing that’s so important for their brain development. And that’s optimizing their sleep,” said Dr. Sapna Kudchadkar, an assistant professor of anesthesiology, critical care and pediatrics at Johns Hopkins Children’s Center in Baltimore. She launched an initiative to improve sleep in the hospital’s pediatric intensive care unit a year ago.
Children’s hospitals are now adopting some of the strategies used to foster better sleep at hospitals serving adults. For example, some are enforcing quiet hours after dark, clustering things like overnight blood draws and medication doses to minimize interruptions, and bringing in white noise machines to promote a soothing environment.
Activities such as bathing children are shifted to daylight hours. Also, playtime is promoted in the afternoon to help maintain a sense of normalcy and contrast nighttime rest. The hope is that children will sleep better and heal faster.
Physicians and hospital administrators are starting to recognize that “we’re doing some stuff in our hospitals that doesn’t really reflect what we’re telling people to do at home,” said Dr. Jennifer Jewell, a pediatric hospitalist at the Barbara Bush Children’s Hospital in Portland, Maine, who chairs the American Academy of Pediatrics’ Committee on Hospital Care.
Children’s hospitals aren’t yet held to the same patient satisfaction standards as other facilities. But there is growing interest in better catering to both children and their parents, doctors said. There’s the competitive element, noted Heather Walsh, a registered nurse who coordinates some of the quality improvement training for clinical staff at Children’s National Health System in Washington, D.C. If families don’t like the care they get, they can go elsewhere.
And doctors are starting to realize that poor sleep isn’t just inconvenient. It can make children sicker.
In the intensive care unit, for instance, children who aren’t disturbed at night don’t need as much sedation or anesthesia, Kudchadkar said. That matters, she noted, since some of those drugs — benzodiazepines and prescription opioids — can be more dangerous for young patients to take. Kids who rest well at night are also more likely to get up and move around in the daytime.
In addition, because many children’s hospitals encourage parents to spend the night in their child’s room, late-night interruptions — whether a temperature check or the cleaning machine in the hallway — wake them, too. As a result, parents aren’t rested when getting instructions for kids’ follow-up care. It’s easier to mishear or misremember a complicated medication instruction, said Lisa Meltzer, associate professor of pediatrics at National Jewish Health in Denver. Meltzer has also researched sleep quality in children’s hospitals.
“There’s more evidence really showing a direct link between insufficient and poor quality sleep and negative outcomes,” she said.
The changes can seem small. At Hopkins, blinds are typically lowered between 8 p.m. and 8 a.m., though nurses might adjust that based on a particular family’s needs and habits.
Parents are asked about their children’s favorite music to sleep to. The ICU’s child life staff will find those songs to play on portable radios. One teenager requested Tupac, while some patients might bring in the soundtracks from their favorite video games. In a number of rooms, many alerts no longer trigger loud beeps blasted from overhead speakers. Instead, they’re sent straight to the relevant nurse’s phone. He or she can see to the child’s need, but the noise doesn’t disturb the whole unit.
Finding a balance can be tough. With very sick children, doctors and nurses do need to wake them more often at night. Some tests and medications can’t wait, especially in the ICU, said Patricia Hickey, vice president of cardiovascular and critical care services at Boston Children’s Hospital.
Plus it’s hard to accommodate what patients need at different ages. Think of the habits of a 2-year-old versus a teenager. One goes to sleep and wakes early. The other may be unable to sleep before 11 p.m. Hospitals need to accommodate both.
The jury’s still out on how effective these strategies are. It’s difficult to prove reduced chatter leads to shorter hospital stays for kids. But there’s anecdotal support. At Boston Children’s, which launched its sleep-promotion campaign last summer, hallways are markedly quieter, and families have said they appreciate the attention, Hickey said. The hospital’s conducting a survey this fall to better assess that, she added.
But challenges remain. Foremost is teaching doctors and nurses to be quiet and considerate.
“For some people, the night is no different than the day — that’s when they work,” said Myke Federman, a critical care pediatrician who started a sleep initiative at Mattel Children’s Hospital UCLA in Los Angeles.
Curbing the nighttime ruckus requires continued attention, she said. Mattel, which launched its program in 2015, is trying to bring its noise levels down. So far, they haven’t budged significantly from 50 decibels at night. That’s north of their goal: 30 to 40 decibels, the sound of a quiet library.
Many nighttime interruptions — like bathing a child at 3 a.m. — happen because they suit the staff’s schedule, Hopkins’ Kudchadkar said. Getting away from that required a major recalibration of the ICU’s workflow and culture. At Hopkins, it took about a year, she added. The ICU used to be as loud as an emergency department. Now, the staff speaks in hushed whispers, even by day.
Changes haven’t been easy but they are taking root.
“The bottom line is, ‘How do you create a peaceful, healing environment?'” she said. “We’re getting there.”
Kaiser Health News is an editorially independent news service that is part of the nonpartisan Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. You can follow Shefali Luthra on Twitter:@shefalil.
