Shortly after the fish pedicures began,  public health agencies spoke out against t

An employee at Yvonne's Day Spa in Alexandria, Va. sits for a Fish-y-cure©. Meghann Myers/MEDILL

he practice, prompting California, Florida and several other states to ban the pedicures outright.

On Wednesday the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published a report by the Centre for Environment, Fisheries & Aquaculture Science in the United Kingdom, which studied the kinds of bacteria carried by the Garra rufa, or “doctor fish,” an inch-long silver carp native to Southeast Asia.

“To date there has been only limited information on the types of bacteria associated with these fish,” lead researcher David Verner-Jeffreys said. “Our study identified some of the species of bacteria associated with this fish species, including some that can cause infections in both fish and humans.”

It’s no secret that water provides a fertile breeding ground for all kinds of bacteria. Mix that with bacteria living on fish scales or in their waste and even the tiniest cut from an overzealous doctor fish, and the risk of infection is very real.

Doctor fish are generally imported to salons from Indonesia or Malaysia, which can make it difficult to control the quality of the fish breeding and environment.

Following a 2011 outbreak of strep bacteria in a shipment of the fish, the British government seized five containers from London’s Heathrow Airport to study what kinds of bacteria the fish were carrying.

“The [strep] strain we isolated typically only causes disease in fish,” Verner-Jeffreys said. “We then went on to look at other consignments of apparently healthy imported G. rufa and found some other species of bacteria that can cause disease in humans and fish.”

These bacteria included: Aeromonas, which causes wound infections and gastrointestinal problems in humans; Streptococcus agalactiae, which causes skin and soft tissue infections; and Mycobacteria, which the study reported has been directly responsible for skin infections in some pedicure clients in the U.K.

Furthermore, the researchers found that these bacteria were often multi-drug resistant and therefore difficult to cure.

“To date, there are only a limited number of reports of patients who might have been infected by this exposure route,” the report stated. “However, our study raises some concerns over the extent that these fish, or their transport water, might harbor potential zoonotic disease pathogens of clinical relevance.”

John Ho owns Yvonne’s Day Spa in Alexandria, Va., reportedly the first spa in the United States to offer the Fish-y-cure®. He gets a shipment of about 10,000 fish once a year from one of three suppliers in Malaysia, Singapore or China. Once they’re imported, he stores them in a warehouse.

“You have to keep them like a pet,” Ho said. “You buy a tank, the filtration system, all the chemicals to purify the water. The system is built to be similar to the natural environment.”

At Ho’s salon, customers sit in a massage chair with their feet in a specially designed bowl, covered by a plastic liner, which is filled with water and changed after every use. His staff also watches the fish closely to make sure they appear healthy.

“If you have a sick fish, you will know. They will give you a sign,” Ho said. “It will swim very slowly, might not be working, might drift off by itself. If we see that, we’ll take them out and put them into an isolation area.”

Yvonne Day Spa staffers also take precautions with clients, washing their feet and inspecting them for cuts before beginning the pedicure. If they find an open wound, Ho said, they won’t do the treatment.

They don’t, however, ask clients about any immune system issues. CDC has stated that anyone with an immunodeficiency should stay away from fish pedicures.

“If they have a low immune system, they should have told us,” he said. “We don’t ask anything about medical history. It’s not our responsibility to know.”

Ho also said that in the four years he’s been offering the pedicures, only one or two fish have become sick and no clients have accused his salon of causing an infection.

“It should be emphasized that neither us nor the [British] Health Protection Agency are advising that the practice should be banned,” Verner-Jeffreys said. “Any risks may be reduced by use of disease-free fish reared in controlled facilities under high standards of husbandry and welfare.”

The black-tie gala on May 8 raised approximately $700,000 for the National Park Service to help fund restoration of the National Mall – the country’s busiest national park. Check out highlights from the evening.

Lee Bolinger, David Ensor talk the future of journalism from Medill Washington on Vimeo.

A high-profile panel of journalism experts talk about the craft and its future in a digital world. Moderated by NPR’s Robert Siegel, the group discussed the value of tweets, citizen journalists, Syria, and how the First Amendment changed the world.

The panelists are Lee Bolinger, president of Columbia University; David Ensor, director of Voice of America; Rebecca MacKinnon, senior fellow, New America Foundation, and Chrystia Freeland, editor for Thomson Reuters Digital.

A USDA grant will increase access to farmers markets for low-income Americans. Photo by Natalie Maynor via Flickr

WASHINGTON — Farmers markets are a great way to find reasonably priced fresh produce, but many  only accept cash or checks – a big problem for  low-income shoppers using food stamps. Now USDA is trying to change that.

Agriculture Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan on Wednesday announced a $4 million grant for states to help implement wireless technology that will allow more farmers markets to accept  Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, or food stamps.

Markets need a wireless Internet or telephone landline connection in order to accept Electronic Benefit Transfer payments, which is not always available for outdoor markets in parks or parking lots. And small markets often can’t afford to set up the technology.

“I had to convince my directors that it was going to be worth the additional cost,” said Jeff Dabbelt of Lexington Farmers Market in Kentucky.

Dabbelt set up a point-of-sale machine on his own two years ago in order to accept card payments, which he said brought in $14,000 from EBT cards last year.

“There can be some inherent business that comes to your table just by the machine being there.”

Though he had to go through the bureaucratic channels on his own to set up the machine, he was happy to learn that the federal government will offer some assistance to smaller markets.

“I’m all about it. It’s almost a necessity, if not outright, 100 percent necessary,” Dabbelt said. “That assistance would be invaluable, all across the country. No doubt.”

Health experts say the lack of affordable healthy food in low-income communities is directly related to obesity in that population.

“The retail food environment is not the same in every neighborhood,” Dr. Brian Smedley of the Health Policy Institute at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies said at a Centers for Disease Control obesity summit this week.

“The higher the level of poverty concentration, the more difficult it is to access grocery stores or super markets selling healthy foods. We have a food environment that is overrun with fast food outlets and convenience stores, all selling food that is highly processed.”

According to a federal study released during the CDC’s Weight of the Nation, this lack of access to healthy foods directly contributes to the United States’ high obesity rates.

“As the trends show, people have a very tough time achieving healthy weights when inactive lifestyles are the norm and inexpensive, high-calorie foods and drinks are readily available 24 hours a day,” said former Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman, chair of the report committee.

Some cities have taken the matter of improving food environments for low-income residents into their own hands.

In 2006, while working on zoning laws for community gardens, Cleveland Councilman Joe Cimperman discovered that only half of his city’s farmers markets accepted SNAP benefits.

“I found that to be very sinful. I also found it to be very stupid,” he said. “I say that with a little bit of a hammer, but there’s also a bit of love.”

Cimperman and his colleagues passed legislation mandating that any markets using public land, including sidewalks and streets, must accept EBT payments.

“Today, every single farmers market in the city of Cleveland does,” he said.

Erin Gillespie, a representative for Florida’s Department of Children and Families, the agency responsible for SNAP accounts in that state, pointed out an additional benefit of federal funding for farmers markets.

“Obviously some of these farmers markets are small and probably don’t have a lot of income to spend on technology to accept EBT cards,” Gillespie said. “It will help them stay in business and for people who need the assistance, it would give them access to healthy food that they may not have access to.”

• More than 46 million Americans receive SNAP benefits through the federal government
• There are 7,100 USDA-registered farmers markets.
• 1,500 of those markets accept EBT cards.
• Each state’s portion of the grant is determined by federal formula; Florida, for example, will receive $78,749.
• SNAP benefits use at farmers markets has quadrupled since 2008.
• 100 percent of Cleveland farmers markets accept EBT cards, following legislation requiring all markets using public land to accept them.

Postal Service Chief Operating Officer Megan Brennan speaks to reporters after a press conference at Postal Service headquarters on Wednesday. (Susanna Pak/MEDILL)

WASHINGTON — California Republican Rep. Darrell Issa, who co-sponsored a House bill aimed at saving the U.S. Postal Service, said a proposal announced Wednesday is nowhere near strong enough to rescue the quasi-government agency for good.

The ongoing saga’s latest development, a pitch from the service itself, calls for reducing window service hours at 13,000 rural post offices — instead of closing as many as 3,700 post offices.

“To achieve real savings creating long-term solvency, the Postal Service needs to focus on consolidation in more populated areas where the greatest opportunities for cost reduction exist,” Issa said in a written statement.

He said the Postal Service spends less than $600 million per year to run its 10,000 smallest post offices, a fraction of the $5 billion it spends in operations annually.

The House bill Issa favors would trigger major cuts, including $3 billion in post office and processing facility closures in the first two years. The Postal Service’s new plan would save $1 billion over two years and result in “very few” closures, Chief Operating Officer Megan Brennan announced Wednesday during a news conference at Postal Service headquarters.
SAYS WHO.

Connecticut independent Sen. Joe Lieberman, who co-sponsored a bipartisan Senate postal reform bill, released a statement saying he was “disappointed” that the Postal Service moved to make changes before Congress passed a bill but was “encouraged” to see the changes are in line with the Senate’s own proposals.

Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins, another co-sponsor of the Senate bill, said in a statement that she is “cautiously optimistic” that the postmaster general has found a way to preserve rural service while also cutting costs.

Until the new plan was announced Wednesday, it seemed likely that the Postal Service would fulfill its threat to consider closing up to 3,700 post offices starting on May 15 in order to cut a deficit that runs to $25 million every day.

Now the Postal Service says it will close a post office only if the surrounding community approves.

“We’ve actually had a number of communities tell us that they’re okay if the local post office closes if it means a neighboring post office remains open eight hours a day,” Brennan said.

An Opinion Research Corporation survey found most customers preferred shortened window hours over alternatives like mail delivery by rural carriers, consolidating post offices that are near each other or having local businesses function as village post offices.

The Postal Service claims its proposal will save more money than closing post offices. Annual savings of $500 million would come from reductions in work hours as many full-time positions become part-time. More than 21,000 postmasters would also receive retirement incentives.

All this comes as Congress, which oversees the service, is still wrangling over its own prescriptions. Two weeks ago the Senate approved a plan precluding any rural post office closings for at least a year. The House has yet to consider its own harsher medicine.

The Postal Service plan needs approval from the Postal Regulatory Commission. Changes would then be delayed for another 90 days.

In an emailed statement to The Daily Caller, the commission said it will not comment on the new policy until it has received the plan and has reviewed it fully.

2012 NCAA Men’s Basketball Champions visit the White House from Medill Washington on Vimeo.

President Barack Obama's top counterterrorism adviser, John O. Brennan, addresses the legality and effectiveness of drone strikes against terrorists during an April 30 speech at the Woodrow Wilson International Center. (Andy Matarrese/Medill News Service)

WASHINGTON — U.S. President Barack Obama’s top counter-terrorism adviser publicly acknowledged the administration’s use of drone strikes against suspected terrorist targets and defended them, vociferously, as legal and effective tools to protect the United States.

John O. Brennan, assistant to the president for homeland security and counter-terrorism, said drones “apply with all applicable laws, including the laws of war.”

The American people expect the government to use the latest technology to wage war, he said at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. The president, in turn, has the constitutional duty to protect the country “from any imminent threat of attack.”

Every country has an “inherit right of national self-defense,” he said, and there is no prohibition on the use of drones in warfare.

Hina Shamsi, director of the ACLU National Security Project, rejected Brennan’s claims that the drone program is legal, calling them overly broad.

“We continue to believe, based on the information available, that the program itself is not just unlawful but dangerous,” she said via e-mail. “It is dangerous to give the president the authority to order the extrajudicial killing of any person — including any American — he believes to be a terrorist.”

Brennan acknowledged the growing debate over the drones’ proper use in war and the debate spilled into his appearance when a woman in the crowd stood up, pointing out that civilians are killed in drone strikes.

“You are making us less safe by killing so many innocent people around the world. Shame on you,” she said while police escorted her away.

Brennan argued that the strikes are ethical tools for waging war because they are especially effective at preventing collateral damage and civilian casualties.

“One could argue that never before has there been a weapon that allows us to distinguish more effectively between al-Qaida terrorists and civilians,” he said. “It’s this surgical precision, the ability, with laser-like focus to eliminate the cancerous tumor called an al-Qaida terrorist while limiting damage to the tissue around it that makes this counter-terrorism tool so essential.”

Brenner didn’t specifically speak to the targeting of U.S. citizens who work for terrorist groups but he did express his support for the arguments put forth by the administration to justify the use of drones.

“This is an important statement,” Jameel Jaffer, deputy legal director at the American Civil Liberties Union, said via e-mail. “It includes an unambiguous acknowledgement of the targeted killing program and second because it includes the administration’s clearest explanation thus far of the program’s purported legal basis.”

Brennan’s speech fell short, Jaffer said, in that he provides “legal conclusions, not legal analysis.”

Brennan’s speech came just before the first anniversary of the killing of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, and Brennan’s appearance was part of what he called a greater push by the administration to be more transparent about counter-terrorism strategy.

Tom Donnelly, a national security and defense researcher at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank, said he agrees with the administration’s reasoning behind the legality of drone strikes.

People like Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S.-born militant killed in a drone strike last year are enemy combatants, he said, and are “subject to the law of war, not the law of peace.”

During his speech, Brennan anticipated the criticisms from those who feel the government divulges too much information about counter-terrorism and from those who demand more transparency.

“If both groups feel a little bit unsatisfied,” he said, “I probably struck a right balance.”

Former Astronaut  John Glenn reflected on his first time launching into space as shuttle Discovery makes the National Air and Space Museum’s Udvar-Hazy Center its new home. “How do you think you’d feel if you knew you were on top of 2 million parts built by the lowest bidder on a government contract,” Glenn said. “But it’s much more serious than that.”

Jack Faust (Courtesy Department of Veterans Affairs)

times he’s competed at the National Veterans Golden Age Games. Not a bad haul.

“No, I’ll say not,” he said. “I’ve got them hanging on the wall.”

And he hopes to add a few more to the wall this year, when he competes for the sixth time at this year’s games in late May in St. Louis.

He started competing more or less on a whim. He was never very interested in sports, save some sprinting and jumping in high school and watching football, but when a nurse told him about the games, the idea caught his attention.

The Department of Veterans Affairs puts on the games to promote active lifestyles for older veterans. He insists winning his medals are mostly luck, and the shot at gold isn’t what kept bringing him back each year.

“I just love the camaraderie with everybody,” he said. “I just love the competition those old timers and I had.”

Veterans age 55 and up are divided into multiple age categories and compete in cycling, bowling, checkers, croquet, dominoes, golf, horseshoes, 9-ball, shot put, discus, javelin, air rifle, shuffleboard, table tennis and swimming.

Faust plays shuffleboard and bowls from a wheelchair, and he also competes in the air rifle competition. His success there, he admitted, has been limited, and the competition, stiff.

“We had one Marine sergeant, he had one hole in the center of the target,” he said. “After they looked at it real close, all five shots went through the same hole.”

“But I’m going to give it another try,” he said.

Faust served two tours with the Navy, his first in the Yangtze River Patrol after he turned 16, and his second the day after Pearl Harbor when he returned to join the Seabees.

After his discharge, he settled in California. He’s been living in his Hayward, Calif., apartment for the past 50 years, and has raised more than two dozen grandkids and several some great-great grandkids.

“I’m just so thankful, I say my prayers ever night,” he said, thanking God for another day. “So far my prayers have been answered.”