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This week on Our World: Engineers assess the Haiti earthquake damage and the rebuilding challenge ahead ... the potentially life-or-death choice in how much salt to eat ... and making manufacturers responsible for recycling their own products.

KOEGLER: "If you are responsible for the recycling, that means you will try to design a car to make your life as a recycler as easy as possible."

Those stories, Hillary Clinton on Internet freedom, and more...



Engineers Cite Faulty Design, Construction in Haiti Building Failures

The January 12 Haiti earthquake and its aftershocks killed or injured hundreds of thousands of people on the Caribbean island nation, mostly as a result of what engineers call structural failure — buildings collapsing, roofs falling in, that sort of thing.

Although a fault line goes pretty much right through Haiti's capital city, Port-au-Prince, the natural disaster most Haitians worried about was hurricane. The destructive storms rake through the region every summer, and Haiti, a very poor country, was still cleaning up from a succession of severe hurricanes over the past two years. The last big earthquake was in the 19th century. So it's not surprising that many buildings were not designed or built to withstand the shock.

Experts we talked to — who haven't seen the damage first-hand — agreed that an earthquake so close to the city, and so close to the surface, was bound to be destructive, but they say substandard buildings also explain much of the damage.

Civil engineering professor Anne Kiremidjian of Stanford University has been studying pictures from the earthquake zone, where she says masonry, concrete frame, and adobe construction dominates.

KIREMIDJIAN: "All three types of construction can be extremely vulnerable to earthquakes."

For example, she says masonry buildings — made of brick or concrete block — have to be properly reinforced.

KIREMIDJIAN: "Just looking at the collapsed buildings that were built in masonry, I had to strain my eyes to see maybe one or two pieces of reinforcement, which is highly inadequate."

Engineers normally plan buildings mainly for what they call the static load — the weight of the building and its contents, just sitting there. But an earthquake adds additional forces — back and forth shaking — and the building has to be designed to withstand it.

The building materials and techniques used in Haiti are not necessarily prone to failure, says structural engineering professor Clay Naito of Lehigh University in Pennsylvania. But it has to be done right.

NAITO: "Reinforced concrete is an excellent material for earthquakes. You can design structures out of reinforced concrete that work very well under very high earthquake demands. The problem is when you leave out the details."

Details such as matching the strength of columns to the mass of the floors they're supporting.

International engineering teams will be traveling to Haiti to assess why the damage was so severe and widespread. Brady Cox is a civil engineering professor at the University of Arkansas. He has visited Japan and Peru after recent earthquakes there, and he'll be doing the same thing in Haiti.

COX: "After every major earthquake we learn lessons that we use to refine our designs and building codes. And it's amazing — earthquakes continue to surprise you. After each one they all seem to have a signature and hopefully you can learn something new from each of them that will benefit future designs and future generations."

Engineers stress the importance of adopting a building code that would require features to make buildings less prone to earthquake damage. Architecture professor Mary Comerio of the University of California at Berkeley notes that the costs of reconstruction in Haiti under much stricter building codes would be "astronomical."

COMERIO: "If you think about a simple house costing maybe $10- or $20,000 in island terms, and then multiply that by a million, you're going to get some pretty big numbers very quickly. And that isn't counting all of the infrastructure, the public buildings, etc."

But even modest changes in construction can significantly improve survivability. Clay Naito, the Lehigh engineer, says in earthquake-prone Japan, small changes were made in traditional building techniques with costs in mind.

NAITO: "What they did to address that issue is come up with some standard designs which can be used in their current construction methods that could enhance them against earthquakes. And I think a similar type of approach could be done in Haiti."

It's too soon to know whether, in the rush to rebuild the ruined Haitian capital, attention will be paid to the need to reduce the vulnerability of a city built on a fault line.




Fast Response Key to Treating Potentially Deadly Sepsis

Every day, 1,400 people die from a condition known as sepsis — the body's response to a severe infection.

A six-year, international effort called the Surviving Sepsis Campaign aims to improve treatment of what the group itself refers to as a "hidden" disease.

But a new study has confirmed the effectiveness of a set of practices endorsed by the campaign, including some inexpensive and low-tech strategies to help people avoid or survive potentially deadly sepsis. Jim Hawk has the story:

HAWK: It used to be called "blood poisoning", but now it's known as sepsis. In its most-deadly form, it's called septic shock. Dr. Mitchell Levy, professor of medicine at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, says the condition is more common than people think:

LEVY: "More people die from sepsis and septic shock each year than from lung cancer, breast cancer, and colon cancer combined."

HAWK: With a mortality rate of nearly one in three, sepsis remains a stubborn enemy.

Levy was the lead author of a report summarizing a two-year study of a revised set of practices to treat sepsis patients that emphasizes a rapid response.

LEVY: "We now talk about sepsis in the same way we talk about heart attacks and stroke and trauma. The key is not so much using expensive interventions, it's using commonly available interventions like fluids and antibiotics — but using them early and aggressively."

HAWK: The study… found a seven percent reduction in fatalities with early, aggressive treatment. Besides a rapid response, paying close attention to simple, basic protocols like hand washing and the safe insertion of intravenous lines had a major impact on survival.

Levy's report appears in the February issues of Critical Care Medicine and Intensive Care Medicine. I'm Jim Hawk.



New Genetic Clues to Origins of Drug Resistant MRSA Infection May Lead to Better Treatment

A study published this week sheds some new light on a drug-resistant infection that often affects hospital patients.

The resarch may lead to new strategies to fight the infections of the staph bacteria known as MRSA [methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus].

MRSA is a leading cause of hospital infections. The United States alone has more than a quarter-millin cases annually, and the rate has doubled in just six years.

The usual way of tracking bacterial infections is genetic identification through a process called Multi-locus sequence typing, or MLST. But MLST only looks at a handful of important genes out of the thousands in the staph bacteria.

So researchers at the Sanger Institute in Britain used a more sophisticated DNA sequencing procedure.

Sanger's Simon Harris says they used the new technique on a collection of specimens, all of which were previously catalogued as type ST 239.

HARRIS: "According to MLST, all of these samples are identical. You can't tell the difference at all. Whereas using our new method, it turned out that no two of these samples were identical. You could tell the difference between all of them."

MRSA is dangerous because it is constantly mutating to gain resistance to each generation of antibiotics used to kill it. Simon Harris says their new genetic sequencing technique can track mutations in MRSA samples collected over time.

HARRIS: "Mutations in this type of MRSA occur far faster than was previously thought — in the region of about one mutation every six weeks. This would date the emergence of this type of MRSA to the mid- to late-1960s."

Which is about when antibiotics started to be widely used.

Co-author Sharon Peacock of the University of Cambridge said the new technique could help hospital improve protection of patients against MRSA infection since it shows that only some patients are being infected by other patients.

PEACOCK: "The other patients appear to be picking up their strain of ST 239 from settings perhaps outside of the hospital, and so infection control procedures in a ward would have no impact on that. That implies that you would have to actually have a different perspective on where you're going to apply your infection control procedures and strategies."

Stephen Bentley of the Sanger Institute is the lead author of the paper describing it in the journal Science.

BENTLEY: "This is a significant advance in the scale of genome sequencing that's possible. And I believe that it's going to require scientists to do some real innovative thinking to fully exploit the potential of this technology."

For example, co-author Simon Harris says they've developed a sort-of family tree, mapping the spread of the drug resistant MRSA bacteria.

HARRIS: "So the South American samples cluster tightly within a highly distinct group. And similarly, the Asian samples form a single, but more diverse group. And the European samples are clustered generally toward the base of the tree, which we think is consistent with a possible European origin of ST239."

The sophisticated DNA testing they used is more expensive and time-consuming than the usual method, so experts say it may be more useful in the research lab than at the patient's bedside. But that research could pave the way for a more effective treatment for a serious infection that current drugs have a hard time treating.





Modest Salt Reduction Lowers Heart Disease, Health Costs, Study Says

A new study indicates that just a small reduction in the amount of salt we eat can noticeably reduce the risk of heart attack and stroke while at the same time significantly lowering health care costs. VOA health reporter Jessica Berman has the details.


BERMAN: The U.S. government recommends that Americans limit their salt intake no more than 5.8 grams per day to reduce their likelihood of developing high blood pressure, a risk factor cardiovascular disease.

Investigators, led by Kirsten Bibbens-Domingo of the University of California — San Francisco, used a model to calculate what the health and economic impact would be if Americans reduced their salt intake by three grams per day or approximately one third of a teaspoon.

Researchers found the results from a modest reduction in salt consumption were striking.

BIBBINS-DOMINGO: "About 100,000 fewer heart attacks each year, about 92,000 fewer deaths each year; 66,000 fewer strokes each year."

BERMAN: Researchers concluded that a population-wide reduction in salt would reduce health care costs each year in the U.S. by between $10 and $24 billion.

Investigators say even a modest one gram reduction of salt each day per person in the U.S. between now and 2019 would be more cost-effective than the use of medications to lower the blood pressure of all people with hypertension.

The study by Bibbins-Domingo and colleagues on the health and economic benefits of less dietary salt in the U.S. is published this week in the New England Journal of Medicine.



Scitable Website Mixes Genetics Education with Social Networking

Time again for our Website of the Week, when we showcase interesting and innovative online destinations.

This time it's an educational site where you can learn about one of the most fascinating areas of science today — genetics. It's designed for students, for people learning on their own, and it's got tools for making education a collaborative experience.

SAVKAR: "Scitable is a home for anyone who wants to truly understand the science that they read about in the headlines. But it also pulls together into a single, global classroom all of the people around the world who are interested in learning science, so that they can collaborate with each other, they can teach each other, they can learn from each other. It's 21st century learning space."

Vikram Savkar heads the editorial team at Nature.com/Scitable — spelled s-c-i-t-a-b-l-e. Scitable is a new project of the Nature Publishing Group, which of course is the parent company of Nature and other leading scientific journals.

Scitable, which launched last year, can serve as a supplement for students, whose textbooks often can't keep up with the latest science. But Savkar stresses that it's also a great tool for students who have limited resources.

SAVKAR: "In many parts of the world, there aren't textbooks. Students don't have access to basic materials. And our goal there is to use the power of the Internet to put world class science education into their hands in a way they've never had access to before."

One big strength of Scitable is the ability to form groups — the members of one high school biology class or perhaps older adults — "lifelong learners" — whose only connection with each other is through the website.

SAVKAR: "We've taken the social networking tools that we all know from Facebook and My Space and are designed for entertainment and brought them in to Scitable to achieve a very serious purpose — connecting people who know things and want to share them with people who don't know things but do want to."

For now, Scitable is limited to genetics, though Vikram Savkar says they plan to expand to other disciplines.

Online learning about genetics from Nature.com/scitable, or get the link from our site, VOAnews.com.

MUSIC: Béla Fleck — "Reading in the Dark"

You're listening to Our World, the weekly science and technology magazine from VOA News. I'm Art Chimes in Washington.



US Calls for Internet Freedom Worldwide

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Thursday called for free and unrestricted Internet access and leveled new criticisms at China, which, as we reported here last week, is suspected of hacking into Google's servers and compromising email accounts of human rights activists.

In a speech, Clinton said there has been a "spike" in threats to the free flow of information over the past year.

CLINTON: "China, Tunisia, and Uzbekistan have stepped up their censorship of the Internet. In Vietnam, access to popular social networking sites has suddenly disappeared. And last Friday in Egypt, 30 bloggers and activists were detained. So while it is clear that the spread of these technologies is transforming our world, it is still unclear how that transformation will affect the human rights and the human welfare of the world's population."

She spoke at the Newseum, a Washington museum devoted to journalism, whose exhibits include a segment of the Berlin Wall. As an icon of the age, she said the Wall has been replaced by the Internet, division supplanted by connection.

But in an apparent reference to China, she spoke of nations erecting virtual walls in the Internet age.

CLINTON: "Some countries have erected electronic barriers that prevent their people from accessing portions of the world's networks. They've expunged words, names, and phrases from search engine results. They have violated the privacy of citizens who engage in non-violent political speech."

Later, naming China, she said Washington and Beijing have what she called "different views on this issue" of Internet freedom, but she said she expects China to launch a "transparent" investigation of the reported hacking of Google's servers, including email accounts of human rights activists.




Requiring Manufacturers to Take Back Products for Recycling

A few months ago here on Our World we reported on a study highlighting all the toxic materials, such as heavy metals, that pollute landfills when electronic products are thrown away.

Electronic products can be recycled, but it's often a difficult process because there are so many different kinds of materials that go into a computer printer or a mobile phone or a TV set.

But because of the pollution threat ... and the valuable commodities that many products contain ... recycling of e-waste is picking up.

The European Union has been promoting recycling of electronics products since 2003. Here in the U.S., businesses are being required to take responsibility for their products in new ways. Liam Moriarty reports on how it's working in the Pacific coast state of Washington.

MORIARTY: In a huge industrial building in Seattle, forklift-loads of TVs and computer monitors are heaved onto conveyor belts. Workers go at them with screw guns and hammers.

LORCH: "They're pulling the plastic covers off of devices, they're pulling the picture tubes out of them. They're basically dismantling it to component parts."

MORIARTY: Craig Lorch is co-owner here at Total Reclaim. His company is certified to recycle electronic waste under Washington's e-waste law.

The law requires that these old machines don't end up being dumped, where their toxic chemicals can poison humans and the environment.

Recycling old electronics has been happening for years. John Friedrick explains what's new about Washington's e-waste law.

FRIEDRICK: "It's a producer responsibility law, which takes the burden of all of this off of the taxpayer."

MORIARTY: Friedrick runs the state-wide recycling program that's fully paid for by electronics manufacturers. It started just a year ago, and already it's collected more than 38 million pounds [17 million kgs.] of e-junk, costing producers nearly $10 million. Basically, it requires electronics companies to cover the end-of-life costs of the products they sell.

That concept — called "extended producer responsibility" — is new in the U.S. When Washington's e-waste law was passed three years ago, it was the first to put full responsibility on manufacturers. But this isn't a new idea in Europe.

Klaus Koegler is with the European Commission's Directorate General for the Environment in Brussels. He tells me about a keystone of EU environmental policy — what's called the "Polluter Pays" principle.

KOEGLER: "That simply means whoever causes damage to the environment is responsible, also in financial terms, to repair it or to minimize it right from the beginning."

MORIARTY: Koegler says that gives regulators the muscle for a range of laws. One example: any car sold in the EU has to be 85 percent recyclable.

Koegler says that creates an incentive.

KOEGLER: "If you are responsible for the recycling, that means you will try to design a car to make your life as a recycler as easy as possible."

MORIARTY: And a product that's easy and cheap to recycle is likely to be easier on the planet, too. Europeans also see making manufacturers take back and recycle their old products as a way to reclaim resources. For instance, nickel and other metals are becoming more scarce and expensive.

KOEGLER: "So in keeping the waste here, recycling it here, and recovering these metals, we are protecting the environment. At the same time, we are helping to secure supply for our industries."

MORIARTY: So, the EU is moving toward setting even more ambitious goals for recycling.

In the US, Wisconsin recently became the 20th state to pass a take-back law for electronics. States are also extending producer responsibility to other products — including batteries, fluorescent lamps and paint.

Now, the electronics industry is pushing back. Two major industry groups have filed a lawsuit against the e-waste law in New York City. They say it's unconstitutional. Environmental activists see the suit as an attack on the whole concept of producer responsibility.

But Rick Goss with the Information Technology Industry Council insists it's not.

GOSS: "We support producer responsibility. We understand and recognize that as manufacturers, we have a role to play in offering our consumers options and solutions for used products here. But we don't have the only role to play."

MORIARTY: Still, the suit makes constitutional arguments that could be used to challenge the right of states to impose recycling requirements on manufacturers.

For The Environment Report, I'm Liam Moriarty.

Support for the Environment Report comes from the Park Foundation, and the Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation. You can hear more stories and subscribe to the daily podcast at EnvironmentReport.org.






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