Rescue Programs Research Articles

An Evaluation of Current Lunchroom Food Waste and Food Rescue Programs in a Washington State School District

Public schools waste approximately 30% to 50% of edible food and thus provide opportunities to study the problem of food waste and explore food rescue initiatives. This case study evaluates lunch­room waste sorting and food waste diversion prac­tices in a Washington State school district. It pro­vides a comprehensive analysis including descrip­tive characteristics and comparative statistical analyses to determine the types and amount of edible, wasted food and the potential to reduce or recover this wasted food. Waste audits were performed at 18 schools to quantify the amount and type of waste generated at each school. Audits consisted of weighing, sorting, and recording the pre and post-sort weights of all lunchroom com­post, recycling, and trash. Edible, rescuable food items were removed from bags and counted separately. Lunchroom-specific observational data, including lunchroom layout and implementation of food rescue programs, were also recorded. Statistical analysis evaluated the effect of these programs on lunchroom waste sorting. Data revealed significantly higher post-sort compost rates than pre-sort rates and significantly lower post-sort trash rates than pre-sort rates. Pre- and post-sort recycling rates were not significantly different. This suggests that a significant amount of trash could be diverted from landfills with imple­mentation of a lunchroom composting system. Additionally, participation in sustainability initia­tives, such as a county-wide resource conservation program, and use of lunchroom monitors affected waste sorting. Further, audits uncovered a large amount of wasted, edible food. This type of food could potentially be diverted to feeding students or community members experiencing food insecurity by means of food rescue programs, such as lunch­room food share programs or school-to-food-bank donation services. Overall, this study identified potential points for food waste reduction strategies in public school lunchrooms.

At the crossway of ER-stress and proinflammatory responses.

Immune cells detect specific microbes or damage to tissue integrity in order to initiate efficient immune responses. Abnormal accumulation of proteins in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) can be seen as a sign of cellular malfunction and stress that triggers a collection of conserved emergency rescue programs. These different signaling cascades, which favor ER proteostasis and promote cell survival, are collectively known as the unfolded protein response (UPR). In recent years, a synergy between the UPR and inflammatory cytokine production has been unraveled, with different branches of the UPR entering in a cross-talk with specialized microbe sensing pathways, which turns on or amplify inflammatory cytokines production. Complementary to this synergetic activity, UPR induction alone, can itself be seen as a danger signal, and triggers directly or indirectly inflammation in different cellular and pathological models, this independently of the presence of pathogens. Here, we discuss recent advances on the nature of these cross-talks and how innate immunity, metabolism dysregulation, and ER-signaling pathways intersect in specialized immune cells, such as dendritic cells (DCs), and contribute to the pathogenesis of inflammatory diseases.

Seabird mortality induced by land‐based artificial lights

Artificial lights at night cause high mortality of seabirds, one of the most endangered groups of birds globally. Fledglings of burrow-nesting seabirds, and to a lesser extent adults, are attracted to and then grounded (i.e., forced to land) by lights when they fly at night. We reviewed the current state of knowledge of seabird attraction to light to identify information gaps and propose measures to address the problem. Although species in families such as Alcidae and Anatidae can be grounded by artificial light, the most affected seabirds are petrels and shearwaters (Procellariiformes). At least 56 species of Procellariiformes, more than one-third of them (24) threatened, are subject to grounding by lights. Seabirds grounded by lights have been found worldwide, mainly on oceanic islands but also at some continental locations. Petrel breeding grounds confined to formerly uninhabited islands are particularly at risk from light pollution due to tourism and urban sprawl. Where it is impractical to ban external lights, rescue programs of grounded birds offer the most immediate and employed mitigation to reduce the rate of light-induced mortality and save thousands of birds every year. These programs also provide useful information for seabird management. However, these data are typically fragmentary, biased, and uncertain and can lead to inaccurate impact estimates and poor understanding of the phenomenon of seabird attraction to lights. We believe the most urgently needed actions to mitigate and understand light-induced mortality of seabirds are estimation of mortality and effects on populations; determination of threshold light levels and safe distances from light sources; documentation of the fate of rescued birds; improvement of rescue campaigns, particularly in terms of increasing recovery rates and level of care; and research on seabird-friendly lights to reduce attraction.

Debt That Costs Less Than Nothing: Greece's Unique Opportunity

A river of ink and controversy has been spent for the past seven years trying to ascertain and comprehend how the money loaned to Greece through the infamous Eurozone-IMF bailout programs has been used. Research pieces, live debates, and opinion articles aplenty have attempted to clarify things, not always reaching identical conclusions. A particular point of contention is exactly how much of the funds directly reached the pockets of ordinary Greeks (to put it in familiar terminology, how much “austerity” was enhanced or reduced because of the bailouts). Here I endorse a very simple way of appreciating what the bailouts delivered and shall continue to deliver: repayment for a very prolonged number of years of all outstanding debt obligations of the Greek government (at no medium-term cost to the sovereign, and without implying an increase in overall borrowing levels), plus a huge pile of money (to be used, for instance, to make a national investment that happens to save the domestic banking industry, and to pay many a government employee salary, state pension, and social benefit). Clearly, having someone else give you for a long time all the cash you need to avoid default plus a lot of extra cash to spend on nice things sounds like a definitely positive proposition, especially when the terms attached to the loans are incredibly generous and accommodative towards the bailed-out party. In essence, Greece’s liabilities would have been transformed into debt that costs less than nothing (don´t make any debt payment, get a ton of cash). The amounts of the rescue loans, €255 billion so far with €55 billion more in waiting, would be enough to meet all existing debt repayments during 2010-16 and, if all proceeds along, 2010-18 and still have many billions left for non-debt-related austerity-fighting government spending. A key concept here is the idea of “bailouts-enabled money”, which encompasses the very substantial sums of money accruing to Greece on top of the bailout loans that took place because, and only because, the bailouts took place first. That is, the real aid that reached and shall reach Greece since 2010 is larger than the already vast headline bailout figures. This is a side-effect that seems often ignored, and that adds extra fuel to the conclusion that the rescue programs, far from being a drag on Greece, have been a Godsend. A unique multiyear opportunity to get back on its feet and regain financial independence.

Light pollution and seabird fledglings: Targeting efforts in rescue programs

ABSTRACTOne of the most critical phases in the life of petrels (Procellariiformes) is at fledging when young birds pass from parental dependence on land to an independent life at sea. To mitigate mortality at this time, rescue programs are implemented near breeding sites around the world, especially for birds grounded by artificial lights. We evaluated the plumage and body condition of short‐tailed shearwater (Ardenna tenuirostris) fledglings captured at colonies just before departure in comparison to fledglings washed up on beaches and to fledglings attracted by artificial light along roads. We measured abundance of down, body mass, and body condition index as the standardized residuals of a regression of body mass on size, and employed linear models to test differences on body mass and body condition between locations. Beach‐washed birds were underweight and in poor condition, suggesting their future survival probabilities at sea were low. Birds rescued on roads as a consequence of light attraction had lower body weights and condition indices than fledglings captured at the colony. However, more than 50% of light‐attracted birds had attained similar weights to those of adults, suggesting they have higher probabilities of survival than beach‐washed birds. Water‐logged birds being washed onto beaches is a natural process, but birds grounded by lighting along roads is an increasing anthropogenic threat that requires management. Thus, management and conservation efforts should be directed to protect birds in the colonies and reduce light‐induced mortality, ideally through the strategic reduction of light sources and lateral light spillage. When resources for conservation are limited, rescue programs should focus on rescuing birds from roads rather than beach‐washed birds, which have a lower probability of survival. © 2017 The Wildlife Society.

Greek Bailouts: Debunking the 'Foreign Banks' Myth

If there is one indelibly recurring myth surrounding the infamous bailout loans received by Greece for the last seven years it's that the money went overwhelmingly to foreign bankers (who owned allegedly massive Greek government bond portfolios). This ever so popular argument attempts to fan the flames of social discontent by complaining that it was powerful politically-connected big international financiers, and not average vulnerable Greeks, who directly and truly benefited from the rescue programs. In that sense, the gargantuan emergency lending put together by the Eurozone and the IMF would have been a de facto transfer of global taxpayer money to the largest international banks. Foreign speculators got the cash while Greece was left to starve in a sea of untold austerity, would go the story. There is only one problem with this tale: it's not true. Hard cold data, even when suffering from the perils of estimation, dictates that in fact the least amount of bailout money would have gone to private foreign creditors. Much more money went to the Greeks and to the Eurozone-IMF themselves. The truth of the matter is that the bailouts have overwhelmingly been used to assist institutions, people, and the state in Greece. Foreign bankers got some (mostly, initial) value but were left nursing huge losses in the end.

Behavioral and physiological changes in a juvenile Bornean orangutan after a wildlife rescue

We report a case of a juvenile female orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus morio) that remained in a durian tree (Durio zibethinus) for about one month, nearby a road delimiting Danum Valley Conservation Area (DVCA), East Borneo. The juvenile was rescued and brought to Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre (SORC). Before rescue and after release, we recorded the juvenile’s activity and collected fecal samples for the determination of fecal glucocorticoids (fGC). We compared the behavior and stress levels between the two conditions and made comparisons with DVCA juveniles. Additionally, we obtained hematological and biochemical parameters pre and post-quarantine, to monitor her health condition and recovery. The pre-quarantine diagnosis revealed dehydration, malnourishment and slight anemia, but after quarantine her condition stabilized. The juvenile showed abnormal activity in both conditions, with high bark consumption before rescue and a high proportion of resting time after release. fGC levels were higher in comparison to DVCA juveniles, and showed a marked increase after the release. The results suggest that rescue programs help reestablish health parameters, but release processes are stressful for wild orangutans. Early separation from the mother in orangutans may occur more often than reported, particularly in fragmented habitats, and result in poor health that could hasten death.

Do the Troika's financial assistance programs reduce systemic risk? Evidence from Eurozone countries

The European sovereign debt crisis has forced many countries in the Eurozone to request financial assistance from the European Central Bank (ECB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to prevent the contagion of the crisis to national banking systems. In the framework of providing large-scale financial rescue packages, the Troika, a unique institutional construction that consists of the ECB, the IMF and the European Commission (EU), has developed economic policies in combination with economic adjustment programs that aim to reinforce financial stability and reduce systemic risk. Our research focuses on the estimation of systemic risk in the countries that have implemented the Troika's bailout programs. The main objective is the evaluation of systemic risk in Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Cyprus and Spain 'pre' and 'post' the Troika's financial rescue programs to examine whether the Troika's bailout programs reduce systemic risk and financial fragility.

Impact of the global financial crisis on health spending in developed countries

Declines in income, high deficits and debt (caused by the global financial crisis of 2008–2010) forced many countries to take action to contribute to saving and changing socio-economic structure. The study shows the consequences of the downturn for the healthcare sector. The article aims to provide answers to questions concerning the adjustment of health expenditure, in particular the scale and pace of their possible reduction in high-pressure situations on the part of public finances. The article describes evolution of basic economic parameters, then the figures and trends in the different categories of health spending. Also conditions for rescue programs on an international scale are presented.

Disaster spread simulation and rescue time optimization in a resource network

To design and verify disaster rescue programs in cases of disaster spread, this study presents a base application tool for the simulation, assessment and analysis of disaster spread in a complex resource network based on a multi-agent system (MAS). Various yards, warehouses, distribution centers and other storage nodes are typical resource-intensive sites at which catastrophes and disasters, such as fires and chemical leakage, are prone to occur and spread. Resources are stored in block units called resource nodes. Each resource node is represented by an agent in an MAS. A resource network (network of resource storage nodes) is formed from the disaster spread relationships among resource nodes. Disaster spread simulation and rescue time analysis in resource networks are key problems in disaster prevention and relief. Based on the principles of disaster spread in resource networks, a property model of resource nodes is proposed that incorporates the values of the resources, the disastrous energy of each node, the disaster spread path, and the disaster spread characteristics. To study the dynamics of disaster spread, a state diagram is used to construct a microscopic behavior model for the resource nodes by regarding the resource nodes as agents. Then, decision models are gradually constructed to determine the optimal times for disaster rescue and emergency resource preparation. The proposed models are demonstrated using a multi-layer simulation system.

Colonización y estructura de la comunidad de hongos micorrízicos arbusculares en Alsophila firma (Cyatheaceae) en bosque mesófilo de montaña en Veracruz, México

Alsophila firma is a tree fern that is distributed mainly in tropical montane cloud forest (TMCF) and is considered as a threatened species. Arbuscular mycorrrhizal fungi (AMF) have been proposed as an alternative in rescue programs of endangered species. However, our knowledge about diversity of AMF and mycorrhizal status of the species of TMCF is limited. In Mexico TMCF shows different degrees of conservation because of fragmentation and land use change. In this study, we evaluated the level of colonization, richness and abundances of spores of AMF in three fragments with different conservation status: conserved (100 years), secondary vegetation (17 years) and disturbed. For this, soil samples and roots were collected from five individuals of A. firma per site, with at least 100 m away from each other; a total of 100 cm of roots were analysed per site. Root samples showed AMF and occasionally dark septate fungi (DSF) colonizations. For the overall study, 19 species of AMF were recorded: Gigaspora (7), Acaulospora (4), Glomus (4), Funneliformis (2), Sclerocystis (1) and Scutellospora (1). The dominant species in the three sites were Funneliformis geosporum and Acaulospora scrobiculata. The highest diversity (H') and evenness (J') (p < 0.05) were found in the conserved site (H' = 1.7, J' = 0.66), when compared to the secondary vegetation (H' = 1.5, J' = 0.61), and the disturbed site (H' = 0.74, J' = 0.41). Statistical analysis showed that the AMF degree of colonization was significantly higher (p < 0.05) in the conserved site; although, the disturbed site showed low richness and abundances of AMF, the degree of root colonization did not differ statistically (p < 0.05) with the secondary vegetation site. Chao2 (Richness estimation model) showed that the number of analysed samples were sufficient to represent the structure of the AME communities with values > 90%. The present study confirmed that A. firma is a mycorrhizal species that exhibits high levels of colonization even in disturbed sites. We suggest that F. geosporum and A. scrobiculata may have the potential to inoculate the gametophyte and young sporophyte of A. firma, to support restoration programs, because of their abundances and high tolerance to disturbed sites.

An annotated checklist of fishes from Bhutan

Ahmadabad and its surrounding region (Gujarat, India) is an important breeding area for the Critically Endangered White-rumped Vulture Gyps bengalensis, currently with around 60 breeding pairs. The kite flying festival, celebrated on 14 and 15 January, poses a major threat to the vulture. Through rigorous awareness and rescue programs we encountered 108 White-rumped Vultures between January 2009 and August 2012. The vultures were injured due to kite flying (43.9%) and other causes, such as dehydration, visceral gout and illness (56.1%). Considering all encounters, survival rates were higher among vultures with kite string injuries (53.3%) when compared to other causes (36.7%). This was due to a higher proportion of dead-on-arrival encounters in other causes (45.0%) especially when compared to encounters with visceral gout and kite string injuries (2.2%). The survival rates of encounters of live rescued vultures are higher in other causes (66.7%) compared to kite string injuries (54.5%). This is mainly because the majority of live encounters (excluding kite string injuries) are dehydrated fledglings or juveniles which recover well upon administration of intravenous fluids. Encounters of live vultures with kite string injuries involve birds with severe blood loss, incurable infections and stress which result in decreased survival. Most casualties from kite string injuries are due to hypovolumic shock, septic shock and stress.

Impact of kite string injuries and temporal variation in types of injuries and illnesses of White-rumped Vultures of central Gujarat, India

Ahmadabad and its surrounding region (Gujarat, India) is an important breeding area for the Critically Endangered White-rumped Vulture Gyps bengalensis, currently with around 60 breeding pairs. The kite flying festival, celebrated on 14 and 15 January, poses a major threat to the vulture. Through rigorous awareness and rescue programs we encountered 108 White-rumped Vultures between January 2009 and August 2012. The vultures were injured due to kite flying (43.9%) and other causes, such as dehydration, visceral gout and illness (56.1%). Considering all encounters, survival rates were higher among vultures with kite string injuries (53.3%) when compared to other causes (36.7%). This was due to a higher proportion of dead-on-arrival encounters in other causes (45.0%) especially when compared to encounters with visceral gout and kite string injuries (2.2%). The survival rates of encounters of live rescued vultures are higher in other causes (66.7%) compared to kite string injuries (54.5%). This is mainly because the majority of live encounters (excluding kite string injuries) are dehydrated fledglings or juveniles which recover well upon administration of intravenous fluids. Encounters of live vultures with kite string injuries involve birds with severe blood loss, incurable infections and stress which result in decreased survival. Most casualties from kite string injuries are due to hypovolumic shock, septic shock and stress.

Preventing deaths from rising opioid overdose in the US &amp;ndash; the promise of naloxone antidote in community-based naloxone take-home programs

The opioid overdose epidemic is an alarming and serious public health problem in the United States (US) that has been escalating for 11 years. The 2011 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) demonstrated that 1 in 20 persons in the US aged 12 or older reported nonmedical use of prescription painkillers in the past year. Prescription drug overdose is now the leading cause of accidental death in the United States – surpassing motor vehicle accidents. Great efforts have been initiated to curb the overdose crisis. Notable examples of these efforts are (1) the Drug Enforcement Administration’s (DEA) National Take-Back Initiative instituted in 2010; (2) the Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs (PDMPs) implemented in most US states to provide practitioners with point-of-care information regarding a patient’s controlled substance use; (3) the naloxone rescue programs initiated in the community to avert mortality resulting from overdose. The use of naloxone rescue strategies has gained traction as an effective measure to prevent fatal opioid overdose. Many US federal-government agencies are working to make these strategies more accessible to first responders and community participants. This new approach faces many challenges, such as accessibility to naloxone and the equipment and training needed to administer it, but none is more challenging than the fear of legal repercussions. US federal-government agencies, local governments, health care institutions, and community-based organizations have begun to tackle these barriers, and naloxone take-home programs have gained recognition as a feasible and sensible preventive strategy to avoid a fatal result from opioid overdose. Although many challenges still need to be overcome, it is important for federal government research agencies to initiate and support independent and rigorous evaluation of these programs to inform policymakers how effective these programs can be to save lives and curb the opioid overdose public health crisis.

Neoliberalism in New Orleans

Neoliberalism in New Orleans Ruth Salvaggio (bio) A review of Vincanne Adams, Markets of Sorrow, Labors of Faith: New Orleans in the Wake of Katrina. Durham: Duke UP, 2013. “This book is not about Katrina. It is about Americans who have managed to survive a second-order disaster … about the effects of privatizing our most public social services, and about the failure of these services to respond to Americans in need because they are tied to market forces guided by profit” (1). So begins Vincanne Adams’s study of neoliberal policies enacted in the wake of Katrina, policies put into play by the U.S. government’s market-driven response to social welfare programs in general and to disaster recovery in particular. But it is the very particular recovery from Katrina that consumes Adams in this book. She amasses abundant materials that show the inter-workings of government contracts, banking practices, recovery and rescue programs, faith-based initiatives, and charity-for-profit in Katrina’s wake, and she surrounds this data with narratives gained through extensive interviews with citizens of New Orleans who became ensnared in the distinctly entrepreneurial recovery of their city. In some sense, the rebuilding of parts of New Orleans has breathed new life into the city, making for an impressive glossy portrait of its post-Katrina fate. But what Adams sketches out here is not a pretty picture, and it is a picture that shows the fault lines on which profit-driven disaster recovery is likely to proceed anywhere in our increasingly disaster-prone times. The “markets of sorrow” that made booty of human suffering in this particular disaster all stem from market-driven governance policies and their quick implementation in the post-Katrina recovery. These include government dispensation of money and contracts, typically via FEMA and Homeland Security operations, to the likes of Blackwater, Halliburton, and Bechtel for initial rescue and temporary housing (notably the infamous and toxic FEMA Trailers); government subcontracting of the huge federally-funded state-run initiative known as the Road Home Program to the private-sector corporation ICF International; and implementation of the Small Business Administration loan program which forced victims not only to pay for their own long-term recovery, but to pay interest on that self-sustaining venture. In a careful and precise analysis of the workings of these markets, Adams shows how they failed, again and again, to help the people most in need to come even close to rebuilding their homes or renting affordable housing, while they proved remarkably successful as profit-making ventures for the corporations and agencies that used public money for generating private profit. The SBA program alone produced what Adams calls “disaster-induced debt” of the same kind that keeps poor nations perpetually in debt to richer ones, bringing global neoliberal capitalism home to a devastated American city. But there is more. These “markets of sorrow” were variously supported by what Adams calls “labors of faith”—notably the volunteer labor of faith-based groups who descended on the city by the hundreds of thousands, whose good works replaced direct government-funded rebuilding assistance and transformed New Orleans into a veritable missionary outpost. In addition, the more general operations of numerous charity initiatives unfolded through the market’s penetration of humanitarian assistance. This vast “charity economy” continues to extend from the labor of house-gutting and rebuilding by volunteers to the entrepreneurial initiatives of both government and corporations that basically conscript volunteers and the poor into the service of private-sector firms managed by what Adams identifies as “intermediary” organizations—such as the HandsOn Network and Points of Light Institute. Charity is not so much given, but administered—relying on free-market strategies, and blurring any effective distinction between “for profit” and “nonprofit” initiatives. In the case of disasters like Katrina, a particular kind of emotional response that should rightly fuel volunteer action and philanthropic contributions gets channeled through an “affect economy” in which a surplus of emotion serves market agendas. ICF, which made a mess of the Road Home Program, resurfaces as a major investor in faith-based programs, offering its services (for pay) to help such groups organize themselves according to successful...

A Test of the ‘Genetic Rescue’ Technique Using Bottlenecked Donor Populations of Drosophila melanogaster

We produced replicated experimental lines of inbred fruit flies Drosophila melanogaster to test the effects of crossing different bottlenecked populations as a method of ‘genetic rescue’ for endangered species lacking outbred donor populations. Two strains differing in the origin of the founders were maintained as isolated populations in a laboratory environment. After two generations of controlled full-sib matings, the resulting inbred fruit flies had significantly reduced breeding success and survival rates. However, crosses between the two bottlenecked strains reversed the effects of inbreeding and led to increases in breeding success and survival that persisted into the second generation of hybrid offspring. In contrast, crosses within each strain (but between different replicate lines) resulted in only slight improvements in some fitness components, and this positive trend was reversed in the second generation. This experiment highlights the potential value of translocations between different inbred populations of endangered species as a tool to mitigate the negative effects of inbreeding, but this benefit may depend upon the origin of the populations. Our results also confirm the importance of maintaining adequate levels of genetic variation within populations and that severely bottlenecked populations should not be discounted as possible donors in genetic rescue programs for endangered species.

Propuesta de solución de la crisis bancaria y de los deudores

Después de constatar que los programas de rescate bancario hasta ahora instrumentados, no obstante su elevado costo fiscal, no han conseguido resolver el mega problema de las carteras vencidas, ni superar la insolvencia bancaria, ni reducir los onerosos márgenes de intermediación financiera, el autor propone un programa de reordenación integral del sistema bancario que incluye: el saneamiento del sistema bancario, ser realista para los deudores, asequible para las finanzas públicas, traer beneficios para los deudores al corriente y para los demás contribuyentes

Major Histocompatibility Complex (MHC) markers in conservation biology.

Human impacts through habitat destruction, introduction of invasive species and climate change are increasing the number of species threatened with extinction. Decreases in population size simultaneously lead to reductions in genetic diversity, ultimately reducing the ability of populations to adapt to a changing environment. In this way, loss of genetic polymorphism is linked with extinction risk. Recent advances in sequencing technologies mean that obtaining measures of genetic diversity at functionally important genes is within reach for conservation programs. A key region of the genome that should be targeted for population genetic studies is the Major Histocompatibility Complex (MHC). MHC genes, found in all jawed vertebrates, are the most polymorphic genes in vertebrate genomes. They play key roles in immune function via immune-recognition and -surveillance and host-parasite interaction. Therefore, measuring levels of polymorphism at these genes can provide indirect measures of the immunological fitness of populations. The MHC has also been linked with mate-choice and pregnancy outcomes and has application for improving mating success in captive breeding programs. The recent discovery that genetic diversity at MHC genes may protect against the spread of contagious cancers provides an added impetus for managing and protecting MHC diversity in wild populations. Here we review the field and focus on the successful applications of MHC-typing for conservation management. We emphasize the importance of using MHC markers when planning and executing wildlife rescue and conservation programs but stress that this should not be done to the detriment of genome-wide diversity.

Balance-of-Payments Rescue Packages: Can They Work?

This paper generates a typology of balance-of-payments crises under rational expectations, namely liquidity and solvency crises. The ex-post application of official financial rescue packages of sufficient size is a perfect cure for liquidity crises, but amounts to an ineffective and costly bailout of private investors in the case of solvency crises. Rescue program anticipation encourages borrowing, which offsets any solvency improvement. Due to likely imperfections in implementation, actual rescue programs entail official financial losses and may easily be counterproductive due to moral hazard.

Treatment of chytridiomycosis requires urgent clinical trials

Effective and safe treatments of amphibian chytridiomycosis, caused by Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd), are needed to prevent mortality in captive programs, reduce the risk of disease spread, and better manage the disease in threatened wild populations. Bd is susceptible to a range of antifungal agents and low levels of heat (>30 degrees C) when tested in vitro, but there are few proven methods for clearing adult amphibians of Bd, and acute drug toxicity is a problem for tadpoles and juveniles. In postmetamorphic animals, heat (32 and 37 degrees C) is the only well-supported treatment. Antifungal drugs have not undergone rigorous testing--for example, trials were small or lacked controls and thorough post-treatment testing. In addition, pharmacokinetic studies have not been performed so there are no data on blood or tissue levels of antifungal agents. However, itraconazole baths have been widely used in amphibian rescue and conservation programs and anecdotal evidence suggests that they are effective for adults and subadults. In an experimental trial with tadpoles, a low dose of itraconazole cleared Bd but may have been associated with cutaneous depigmentation. Fluconazole appeared safe for tadpoles as it did not cause mortality, and future attempts to find an effective dose may be worthwhile. Palliative restoration of blood sodium and potassium levels by administration of electrolyte solutions appears useful in frogs with clinical chytridiomycosis. Randomised and blinded clinical trials, which include basic pharmacological studies, are urgently needed to provide comparable evidence for the safety and efficacy of treatment options which are likely to vary with amphibian species. Priorities are to validate and optimize the use of heat and itraconazole regimes.