Public Health

GLENDALE — Healthcare representatives may add asthma to the list of “high profile” public health indicators for Glendale after a report earlier this year found the number of adults suffering from the respiratory affliction had jumped 105% over the last three years. As 12 subcommittees work to finalize their data sets for the forthcoming Quality of Life Indicators report, Bruce Nelson, community services director for Glendale Adventist Medical Center and chairman of the public health committee, said he would like to see asthma placed in the same category as cardiovascular disease and prenatal care when measuring the community’s health.

Buck Wargo GLENDALE -- Glendale and other area water systems may have a hard time meeting a public health goal for arsenic that could be as much as 200 times lower than the existing state standard. The California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment is expected to announce its public health goal for arsenic in early 2001. David Spath, the drinking water chief for the state Department of Health Services, said he expects a health goal near .25 parts per billion, well below the existing standard of 50 parts per billion.

Anyone who thought our city didn't need some sort of smoking intervention were proven wrong this week when public health officials released 2007 figures that put us near the high-end of reported tobacco use. In 2007, the adult smoking rate was in the 15% to 16% range, according to the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health. It was the last survey before city officials started implementing broad anti-smoking measures meant to limit the public's exposure to second-hand smoke.

Your June 26 editorial about Senate Bill 2070 is irresponsible and misinformed, blindly repeating the tobacco lobbyists' lies. Fire safety standards for cigarettes will substantially reduce residential fire deaths, while costing consumers nothing and the state next to nothing. In addition to preventing hundreds of deaths, fire-safe cigarettes will prevent millions of dollars in property damage, lost productivity and disability. Your assertion that fire-safe cigarettes will cause people indiscriminately to toss their lighted cigarettes out their car windows is as absurd as the claims are equally baseless.

Tim Willert A toxicologist who resigned under protest from a blue-ribbon panel charged with determining the dangers of chromium 6 in drinking water testified Friday that the panel's report should not be used as a basis for establishing public-health standards. Joseph Froines, a professor of toxicology for the UCLA School of Public Health, and the first scientist named to the panel, told a hearing of the Senate Health and Human Services Committee that the state-sponsored study was too limited in its scope and depth and didn't acknowledge the uncertainties of its research.

Alex Coolman GLENDALE -- In a move almost certain to affect Glendale's efforts to deal with chromium 6 contamination, Gov. Gray Davis on Tuesday ordered the Department of Health Services to begin working on a public health standard for the chemical. The order will create a definitive standard for a substance whose health risk is frustratingly unclear. The state only has a health standard for total chromium, a situation that has left cities like Glendale trying to make policy decisions about drinking water with only a general idea of what risk they may be facing.

Re: Glendale Rose Float: I read the letter this morning from Steve Mead of Montrose regarding the Glendale entry in the Rose Parade this year. What is his problem? Bob's Big Boy is part of Glendale history, and Americana. If you continue to use his reasoning, the whole parade is damaging to the environment and the public health. (How dare we cut living plants to decorate fossil-fuel burning vehicles?) Come on, Steve, stop being such a killjoy and let everyone else enjoy themselves.

Vaccination awareness month The Centers for Disease Control and Los Angeles Department of Public Health are urging the public to get flu shots this week during National Influenza Vaccination Month. Though many people associate ?flu season? with the fall months, January marks the peak flu period, public health officials said. Vaccination is available in traditional shot form, as well as a nasal spray, which is available for healthy children and adults between the ages of 2 and 49. In Glendale, vaccinations can be obtained at health clinics in CVS pharmacies.

Buck Wargo GLENDALE -- The state standard for chromium in drinking water should be lowered, but the public should not be concerned about drinking ground water from the San Fernando Basin aquifer before any reduction happens, according to a health expert that will testify today at a public hearing in Burbank. Joseph Landolph, an associate professor at the USC/Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center, called for a federal scientific study to determine appropriate levels of chromium in water.

Robert Chacon Los Angeles County public health officials made a presentation to a handful of business owners in Glendale Friday to continue educating the public about the West Nile virus. Business owners at the presentation vowed to share the information with their customers. "Because of the business I'm in, I need to keep up with this and I should be here in person," said Michael Allison, owner of Med Link, a business that stores people's medical information on identification cards.

Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich today slammed public health officials for “pathetic bureaucratic inertia” in establishing new maximum allowed levels of chromium-6 in public drinking water. The California Department of Public Health and state EPA have been working for years to establish a new “maximum contaminant level” for hexavalent chromium, which is known to cause cancer, but Antonovich said the process has been too slow. Chromium-6 is currently regulated at under the 50-micrograms per liter, but in 2011, a proposal was submitted to reduce that to 0.02- micrograms per liter.

In battling ailments from asthma to alcohol abuse, Glendale Memorial Hospital and Medical Center is looking to give away more than $100,000 to local charities. Since 1999 the hospital has doled out more than $1 million to nonprofit groups seeking to improve public health in the region, hospital spokeswoman Danielle Grossman said. Local groups have until Aug. 20 to submit letters seeking some of the $102,000 the hospital has set aside this year. Past recipients have included the Salvation Army of Glendale, the American Red Cross, the Glendale Community Free Health Clinic and the Armenian American Medical Society Ladies Auxiliary.

Heart disease is leading Glendale killer Coronary heart disease was the leading cause of death among Glendale residents in 2007, according to a Los Angeles County Department of Public Health report released on Tuesday that detailed mortality rates and top causes for premature death. In Glendale, 594 people died from heart disease; coronary heart disease was also the leading cause of death countywide in 2007, according to the report. In Glendale, the second leading cause of death was emphysema and chronic obstruction pulmonary disease, with 125 deaths, followed by stroke with 124, then pneumonia and influenza with 117 and lung cancer with 112. When age was factored in, the second cause of premature death for people younger than 75 was suicide, followed by motor vehicle crashes, lung cancer and then drug overdose, according to the report.

Anyone who thought our city didn't need some sort of smoking intervention were proven wrong this week when public health officials released 2007 figures that put us near the high-end of reported tobacco use. In 2007, the adult smoking rate was in the 15% to 16% range, according to the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health. It was the last survey before city officials started implementing broad anti-smoking measures meant to limit the public's exposure to second-hand smoke.

SOUTH GLENDALE — A 42-year-old local eatery reopened Friday after health inspectors shut it down earlier this week when they found a dead mouse and animal droppings inside, officials said. Los Angeles County health inspectors Wednesday conducted a standard biannual check at Scarantino’s Italian Inn, 1524 E. Colorado St., when they found the vermin infestation, said Ken Murray, chief environmental health specialist at the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health.

GLENDALE — While a recently released city report shows a dramatic drop in the number of Glendale residents without health insurance between 1997 and 2007, health-care experts say the recession has likely pushed that figure back up. The number of uninsured adults dropped from 26% in 1997 to 13.4% in 2007, according to the city’s Quality of Life Indicators Report released last week. The number of children without health insurance also dropped significantly, to 3.5% in 2007, down from 17% in 1997.

GLENDALE ? High school sports coaches canceled practices Wednesday amid a round of air quality advisories from county health officials as a major fire in the Angeles National Forest continued to pour smoke into the valleys below. The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health issued a poor quality air alert as the Morris fire burned to nearly 750-acres as of Wednesday afternoon above Azusa. The odor of smoke lingered throughout surrounding cities, including Glendale for much of the day. Due to the poor visibility and unhealthy air, county health officials advised schools within the affected areas to suspend outdoor sports and physical education.

CITY HALL — With public attention firmly affixed on the rapidly developing swine flu story, city and public health officials have begun actively preparing for what many experts said Wednesday was the inevitable: an infection being confirmed in Los Angeles County. In that event, officials said, alert levels would ramp up as they strove to limit exposure and contact between swine flu victims and the general public. “If and when that threshold is crossed, we will escalate our response in a graduated way that will protect the health of [current]

GLENDALE — Local schools and hospitals took extra precautions Monday by wiping down doorknobs and checking residents for symptoms of swine flu following concerns from top U.S. officials about the spread of the deadly strain of influenza. While no deaths related to the swine flu have been reported in the United States, government officials declared a precautionary public health emergency. Glendale Memorial Hospital and Health Center screened patients who exhibited flu symptoms, but no one had the swine flu, hospital spokeswoman Amy Stricker said.

GLENDALE — Healthcare representatives may add asthma to the list of “high profile” public health indicators for Glendale after a report earlier this year found the number of adults suffering from the respiratory affliction had jumped 105% over the last three years. As 12 subcommittees work to finalize their data sets for the forthcoming Quality of Life Indicators report, Bruce Nelson, community services director for Glendale Adventist Medical Center and chairman of the public health committee, said he would like to see asthma placed in the same category as cardiovascular disease and prenatal care when measuring the community’s health.