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Fight the microscopic hitchhiker

September 2, 2009 By

When the conservation department tells people not to move a mussel during the upcoming holiday weekend, it’s not saying "kick back and relax." This is an M-U-S-S-E-L not an M-U-S-C-L-E, as in Zebra Mussel.

The conservation department is fighting the spread of these fingernail-sized creatures that can change the food chain in waterways, replacing native creatures and ruining sport fishing. The department’s Invasive Species Coordinator, Tim Banek warns boaters to make sure they don’t carry these things from one lake to another this weekend.

Banek says the Zebra Mussels in their larval stage are microscopic and are sometimes carried in residual water left in boats while the adults attach themselves to the bottoms of boats and feel like sandpaper to the touch.

Some recently showed up at Pomme de Terre Lake although Banek says they haven’t shown up in other southern Missouri lakes.

The best thing to do to get rid of the little hitchhikers is to run the boat through a car wash or pressure wash it with hot water outside. A two-percent bleach concentration in residual water in live wells, pumps, and the bilge after taking the boat out of one body of water and before putting it in another one.

The zebra mussel is one of several invasive species the department worries about. We have a link to the department’s webpage about them with this story on missourinet.com.

Link to the page at invasivespeciesinfo.gov/aquatics/main.shtml

 

Upload BP’s interview with Tim Banek (5:46 mp3)

Filed Under: Environment & Conservation

Royals lose game and two players

September 2, 2009 By

The Royals lost the rubber game Wednesday afternoon in Oakland falling 10-4.  In the process, starting pitcher Brian Bannister had to leave in the second inning and Jose Guillen, just back in the lineup left in the sixth.

Bannister was experience right shoulder fatigue, and Guillen, back in the lineup for the first time since suffering a right knee injury, left with tendon soreness in his right hamstring. Unbelievable.

Bannister gave up four straight hits and three runs in the first inning.  He was pulled after one out in the second giving way to Yasuhiko Yabuta who fought his way back to the majors only to get shelled for five runs in two thirds of an inning.  The A’s piled on two more runs in the third off Bruce Chen. 

Prior to that, the Royals made it 8-3 to in the top half of the third.  Mike Jacobs hit a solo homer off A’s starter Trevor Cahill.  The Royals are off Thursday before hosting the Angels this weekend.

Filed Under: Sports Tagged With: ,

Montee to conduct review of Ag Department’s Grain Regulatory Services program

September 2, 2009 By

The State Auditor’s Office has begun an audit of the Department of Agriculture’s Grain Regulatory Services program. State Auditor Susan Montee says the request for the advisory review came from Agriculture Director Jon Hagler in the wake of a grain elevator failure in Gallatin and a fraud case in Martinsburg.

Montee sees this as an effort to review current practices and to come up with ideas for making improvements in the future.

“We’re going to take look at the laws that are in place and see if they’re outdated or if there’s ways that the Legislature should look at changing things,” said Montee in an interview with the Missourinet. “We’re also going to look at other states and see what other people are doing and just come up with some new ideas that might prevent something like this from happening in the future.”

Agriculture Director Hagler agrees it makes sense to borrow good practices from other states.

“In order to be protecting Missouri farm families we need to be on top of our game,” hagler told the Missourinet. “That requires taking a look at ourselves and taking a look at other states and finding out what tools we can put in the tool box.”

Montee insists the purpose of the audit is not to heap criticism on the Department of Agriculture.

“We know that it isn’t something that, with the current structure, the Department of Agriculture could have prevented,” insisted Montee. “They were doing everything that was required of them.”

First and foremost, this will be a cooperative effort.

“There’s always some ways to improve it (current practices regarding grain elevators),” said Montee. “So we’re just going to take a look at that with them and we’ll be working together on trying to come up with some new ideas and a new way of doing things.”

Preliminary meetings have already been held and the actual field work should begin soon.

Download/Listen: Steve Walsh report (:60 MP3)

Filed Under: Agriculture Tagged With: ,

AG Koster announces additional $22 million recovery from Pfizer today

September 2, 2009 By

"All-time high in Missouri’s Medicaid fraud recovery"

Attorney General Chris Koster announced today that Missouri will receive $22 million as part of the largest nationwide Medicaid fraud settlement in history. This recovery adds to Missouri’s record-breaking year for Medicaid fraud recovery, Koster says. The Attorney General’s Medicaid fraud unit has collected more than $75 million since Jan. 1 on behalf of Missouri’s Medicaid system. (The previous high total was more than $33.5 million in calendar year 2008.)

Today’s nationwide settlement is with the pharmaceutical company, Pfizer, and its subsidiaries. Missouri, in conjunction with the United States Justice Department and other Attorneys General, alleged that Pfizer and its subsidiaries paid kickbacks and engaged in off-labeling marketing campaigns that improperly promoted numerous drugs that Pfizer manufactures.

"Pharmaceutical companies are a critical player in Missouri’s health-care system, and like every other part of the system these companies must play by the rules," Koster says.

Pfizer will pay the states and the federal government a total of $1 billion in civil damages and penalties to compensate Medicaid, Medicare, and various federal healthcare programs for harm suffered as a result of its conduct.

In addition, Pharmacia & Upjohn Company, Inc., a Pfizer subsidiary, has agreed to plead guilty to a felony violation of the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act and to pay a criminal fine and forfeiture of $1.3 billion. The criminal component of the agreement centers on the illegal marketing and promotion of Bextra, an anti-inflammatory drug that Pfizer pulled from the market in 2005. Because of the illegal promotion, Pharmacia & Upjohn Company, Inc. has agreed to plead guilty to a felony violation of the FDCA for misbranding the drug with the intent to defraud or mislead.

The states and federal government alleged that Pfizer, the largest pharmaceutical manufacturer in the world, engaged in a pattern of unlawful marketing activity to promote multiple drugs for certain uses which the Food and Drug Administration had not approved. While it is not illegal for a physician to prescribe a drug for an unapproved use, federal law prohibits a manufacturer from promoting a drug for uses not approved by the FDA. This promotional activity by Pfizer included:

– Marketing Bextra for conditions and dosages other than those for which it was approved;

– Promoting the use of the antipsychotic drug Geodon for a variety of off-label conditions such as attention deficit disorder, autism, dementia and depression for patients that included children and adolescents;

– Selling the pain medication Lyrica for unapproved conditions;

– Making false representations about the safety and efficacy of Zyvox, an antibiotic only approved to treat certain drug resistant infections.

In addition, Pfizer is alleged to have paid illegal remuneration to health care professionals to induce them to promote and prescribe Bextra, Geodon, Lyrica, Zyvox, Aricept, Celebrex, Lipitor, Norvasc, Relpax, Viagra, Zithromax, Zoloft and Zyrtec. These payments allegedly took many forms, including entertainment, cash, travel and meals. Federal law prohibits payment of anything of value in exchange for the prescribing of a product paid for by a federal health care program.

As a condition of the settlement, Pfizer will enter into a Corporate Integrity Agreement with the United States Department of Health and Human Services, Office of the Inspector General, which will closely monitor the company’s future marketing and sales practices.

Listen to interview with Joe Dandurand, assistant to Attorney General Koster, below.


Jessica Machetta interviews Joe Dandurand, assistant Attorney General [Download/listen MP3 - 8 min.]

Filed Under: Health & Medicine Tagged With: ,

Senate leader pleased, not surprised by court ruling

September 2, 2009 By

A legislative leader is relieved, but not surprised by the State Supreme Court ruling that upheld the school funding formula.

Senate President Pro Tem Charlie Shields , a Republican from St. Joseph, was instrumental in writing the new school funding formula approved by the legislature in 2005. He chaired the joint legislative committee that reviewed the old formula and considered changes. The committee reviewed what the top 113 school districts in the state spent to educate their students.

Missouri has 523 school districts. Funding varies greatly among them. The State Supreme Court ruling highlighted the disparity in spending per pupil, noting in the ruling written by Judge Mary Russell that the Diamond R-IV School District in southwest Missouri’s Newton County spent $4,704.11 per pupil in the 2004-2005 school year while the Gorin R-III in northeast Missouri’s Scotland County spent $15,251.28 per pupil. Tax bases among Missouri school districts vary widely as well, ranging in the 2004-2005 school year from $19,605 in assessed valuation per pupil in the Cooter R-IV School District, in southeast Missouri’s Pemiscot County, to $416,679 in the Clayton School District of St. Louis County.

The legislature based the old school funding formula on the tax base, with an emphasis on enticing school districts to raise their local levies to receive increased state funding. The interim committee focused on what those top school districts spent and settled on an average of approximately $6,300 per pupil. The legislature adopted the interim committee’s findings and approved a new funding formula with a seven-year phase in. The state is in the fourth year of that phase in.

More than 250 school districts had filed a lawsuit against the state, charging that the old formula violated the state constitution. A few districts dropped out of the lawsuit when the legislature approved the new formula. More than 200 continued to press their case, charging that the new formula provided inadequate funding and distributed it inequitably.

The State Supreme Court rejected the claim and ruled the legislature acted within its constitutional authority in approving the new school funding formula.

House Minority Leader Paul LeVota , a Democrat from Independence, issued a statement within a half hour of the ruling’s hand down, claiming that the ruling didn’t mean that the state was doing all it can to improve the quality of public education.

"Although the bare minimum may be sufficient to comply with the state constitution, Missouri children deserve an educational system that provides much more than the bare minimum," LeVota said in the written statement.

Shields dismissed the criticism.

"Clearly, in these tough economic times, we are doing a great deal for elementary and second education," Shields told the Missourinet. "My challenge to Rep. LeVota, if he wants to do more for education, tell me which part of mental health he’s not going to fund, tell me which part of public safety he’s not going to fund, tell me which part of MO Health Net, our safety net for low-income health care, that he’s not going to fund so he can put more money into K through 12."

LeVota took a direct slap at Republicans in his response, stating that the Republican-controlled legislature, along with a Republican governor, replaced an outdated public school funding formula with a new system this is just as inadequate and perhaps even more unfair.

Shields points out that the new formula will drive close to a billion dollars in more state money to public schools over its seven-year phase in. And Shields insists that the funding will be more fair and consistent.

"We’re going to fund schools based on what it actually takes them to educate a child," Shields says.

Shields says he wasn’t surprised by the ruling, because he expected the formula to be upheld by the courts.

Download/listen Brent Martin reports (1:20 MP3)

Filed Under: Education, Politics & Government Tagged With: , , ,
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