Hey there, Colorado, and welcome to another edition of The Temperature, where this week we are diving deep into parasites and pollution. But, with Thanksgiving now behind us, we also must be mindful of the season that is really bearing down upon us: It’s open enrollment time!
If you are still weighing your Medicare options, a reminder that you have until Dec. 7 to pick a plan. We’ve put together an expert guide on how to navigate your Medicare choices, and if you’d like more, the video from our hourlong panel discussion with Medicare experts is embedded in the story. Click here for all the info.
Meanwhile, if you are looking to purchase insurance on your own, you have until Dec. 15 to select a plan in order to have coverage that starts Jan. 1. And we have you covered there, too. Next Wednesday, Dec. 6 at 6 p.m., we are hosting a live, virtual panel discussion with state Insurance Commissioner Michael Conway, Connect for Health Colorado CEO Kevin Patterson, and health insurance broker Meagan Fearing to help people choose the coverage that is best for them.
The event is free; all you need to do is register for the event link. Go to ColoradoSun.com/events to register. And if you have questions you’d like us to ask the experts, send them to [email protected].
Now, let’s get to the news.
HEALTH
Are your cats trying to kill you? No, probably not, but their parasites might be.
A very good kitty who definitely doesn’t have homicide on its mind. (Michelle Pemberton, The Indianapolis Star via AP)
“It makes it sound like the pathogen is controlling our minds, but it’s kind of a co-evolutionary relationship.”
— University of Colorado professor Christopher Lowry
Let me tell you a horror story.
A single-celled parasite that looks like a tiny spec of orzo pasta infects you. But it doesn’t suck your blood or siphon off some of your food and then be on its way. Instead, it burrows into your muscles and forms cysts that provide a long-term hideout.
Only, that’s not the creepiest thing it does. It also infects your brain and hunkers down in the amygdala, the part of the brain involved in regulating emotions. From that perch, it has the ability to change your behavior in ways that benefit it.
This is the story of Toxoplasma gondii, and the tale above is what happens to rats when infected by it. Studies have shown that rats infected by T. gondii lose their fear of cats, which makes them an easy meal. This is great for hungry cats, but it also works out well for the parasite, which just so happens to reproduce in the digestive tract of cats (without harming them) and is spread through cat poop.
“So there’s a couple of winners,” deadpans University of Colorado professor Christopher Lowry.
“It makes it sound like the pathogen is controlling our minds, but it’s kind of a co-evolutionary relationship.”
Neat?
The potential problem for us is that we can be collateral damage in this transmission cycle. Humans can also be infected by T. gondii and not just through contact with cat poop. Eating unwashed vegetables or undercooked pork or lamb — pigs and sheep can also be infected — can also result in an infection, though it generally doesn’t make you acutely sick or require hospital treatment.
And it turns out that this infection is shockingly common. Lowry, a professor of integrative physiology who studies the link between neural function and emotional behavior, said approximately 10% to 15% of people in the United States show evidence of a previous T. gondii infection. In other countries, it may be much higher — Lowry recently worked on a study looking at people over the age of 65 in Spain and Portugal that found past infection rates of 67%.
So that potentially makes T. gondii a major player in human health. But what does it do to us?
For starters, there’s some evidence that it does impact human behavior and possibly make people less risk-averse. One study concluded that people who had been infected by T. gondii are more likely to cause car accidents. Another says people with an infection are more entrepreneurial. (Lowry cautions that these findings are relative to all sorts of personality factors — it’s not like everyone with an infection is racing down I-25 like it’s a Formula One course.)
But Lowry and some colleagues wanted to learn about other potential consequences, which brings us back to that study on people from Spain and Portugal. Lowry and his co-authors from CU, the University of Maryland and various universities in Europe looked at measures of frailty in older people and examined whether there was a connection to a T. gondii infection.
They found — deep exhale — that there isn’t. Just looking at what is called seropositivity, which is whether someone has ever been infected, there was no correlation between an infection and frailty later in life.
But they did find an association between frailty and what is called serointensity. In other words, T. gondii may be linked with frailty in people who have been infected a lot.
Lowry said this may have to do with inflammation caused by the parasite, especially certain strains of it.
“The more often you’ve been infected, the more often you may have been exposed to a strain that produces a stronger inflammatory response,” he said.
Overall, Lowry said the takeaway from the study, which was published earlier this month in The Journals of Gerontology, is more of a be-aware kind of message than a be-afraid kind of message.
“From a very big-picture perspective, being infected is not a terrible thing, with one exception,” he said. “If infants acquire the parasite from their mothers, that can have really detrimental effects. So that’s why it’s always advised that pregnant mothers don’t change the kitty litter during pregnancy.”
Even if you are not gestating new life, you can protect yourself by changing the litter box daily and washing your hands well afterward, by avoiding stray cats and the areas they hang out, by thoroughly cooking meat, and by rinsing fruits and vegetables before eating.
MORE HEALTH NEWS
Two Colorado mental health centers merged, creating the largest behavioral health center in the state. >> For years, WellPower provided mental health services and homeless outreach in Denver, while the Jefferson Center served as the safety-net mental health organization for Jefferson, Clear Creek and Gilpin counties. Now, the two organizations have decided to merge, creating a system with nearly 2,000 employees serving roughly 48,000 people per year. As Jennifer Brown reports, the merger comes at a time when regional mental health centers are under increased scrutiny and the state is revamping its behavior health payment structures. >> The Colorado Sun Why it’s so tough to reduce unnecessary medical care. >> Colorado spent $134 million last year on what is called low-value care, according to a report by the Denver-based Center for Improving Value in Health Care. These include tests and treatments where the associated risks and costs exceed the benefits. But, as Markian Hawryluk reports, it turns out that getting the health care system to stop doing (and billing for) these low-value services is harder than it appears. >> KFF Health NewsENVIRONMENT
New demands for watchdogging Suncor arrive with new reports of pollution releases
Lucy Molina sets up a air particle and quality monitoring device provided by Boulder AIR on Feb. 17 in Commerce City. (Olivia Sun, The Colorado Sun via Report for America)
The Suncor Refinery keeps extending its record of accidental toxic air releases into the air above its Commerce City neighborhood. And an environmental group focused on air pollution cites the most recent incidents as yet more reasons to pursue a new lawsuit against the EPA for greenlighting Suncor operations.
The Center for Biological Diversity sued the EPA on Nov. 17 in the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, saying the agency should have rejected Colorado’s operating permit renewal for the eastern portion of Suncor, called Plant 2. After demanding changes from state health regulators, the EPA approved most of the Plant 2 permit and continued its objections only on a portion of environmental groups’ petitions regarding open records.
Allowing the rest of the permit to stay in effect will worsen Front Range air pollution as Suncor dirties the air at rates above the EPA’s own limits, the lawsuit claims.
“Our expert modeling and the state’s modeling showed the permit allows violations” of EPA ambient air standards, said Ryan Maher, a CBD staff attorney. The permit allows Suncor to “approximate” emissions rather than measuring actual pollution and starting to cut it, worsening air quality for the neighborhood that already suffers disproportionate environmental impacts, Maher said.
“This is especially egregious given the long history of noncompliance at the facility, and the weak, cost-of-doing-business fines that Suncor has received in those enforcement actions that do move forward,” Maher said. In September, for example, the EPA fined Suncor $161,000 for producing gasoline with too much benzene, while also requiring the company to buy $600,000 in clean lawn equipment for nine metro-Denver counties with excess ozone.
Suncor’s western portion, Plants 1 and 3 that are awaiting a permit renewal from the state, reported air violations from malfunctions on Nov. 19, the center noted. The report says the malfunction caused exceedances of carbon monoxide releases for 14 hours, and for sulfur dioxide from flaring gas for 12 hours.
Suncor sent a statement saying, “The Commerce City North Denver Air Monitoring network of sensors within a 3-mile radius of the refinery did not detect any levels above the acute health reference guidelines during this event. In addition, data from Suncor’s fenceline monitoring system indicates that measured compounds were below detection.”
Company spokesperson Leithan Slade said they could not comment on the lawsuit.
Careful or insomniac Sun readers might recall the EPA is also under attack from the center and from other environmental groups for approving the state of Colorado’s anti-ozone plan. The groups claim the EPA cannot legally approve the plan because it fails to bring the northern Front Range counties into compliance with EPA ozone limits in coming years. That suit was also filed in the 10th Circuit, in July.
Sun readers can hear more about the Suncor lawsuit later this week at ColoradoSun.com.
MORE ENVIRONMENT NEWS
What went wrong for the Colorado River? >> Most of us have heard by now that the Colorado River’s largest reserve buckets nearly dried up in the past two years. But the question remains, beyond drought, why did it happen? Who let it happen? How could we leave 40 million people who depend on the river hanging so precariously on the whims of intermittent snowfall? Jerd Smith explores what policy decisions or bureaucratic inertia contributed to the mess. >> The Colorado Sun Thornton reups its bid for a crucial Larimer County pipeline. >> Thornton is trying again to pry its water rights out of Larimer County through the leverage of a finished pipeline, Michael Booth reports. Rejected the first time around a few years ago, the pipeline is a necessary link between Thornton-owned water on the Cache la Poudre River and the suburb’s water treatment facilities dozens of miles south. Larimer County must approve the first few miles of pipeline, and so far it’s been a hard “no.” Thornton has filed a new application for a permit, in one of Colorado’s strangest and most complex water stories. >> The Colorado Sun A deal for an obscure hydro plant’s extra water. >> It’s not the biggest dam in Colorado or a vast amount of water, but in a dry Western state, almost everybody could use the water rights associated with the Shoshone hydro complex on the Western Slope. Shannon Mullane reports on a new agreement to better use the associated water flows at the times of year when the river and its multiple users might benefit most. >> The Colorado Sun Hiking in Colorado may be wild, but it sure ain’t free. >> As part of our ongoing High Cost of Colorado series, Olivia Prentzel offers a personal diary of what she’s spent to outfit and complete a 14er climb. New trail parking fees, higher candy bar costs, clothing inflation. … It all adds up. Did she earn that vegan burger? Absolutely. >> The Colorado Sun
Click the image to go to the full report. (Graphic by the Kaiser Family Foundation)
Colorado’s COVID season is still raging on — last week saw the second-highest number of people hospitalized with the virus in the state this year — but the public’s will to do something about it isn’t bringing the same intensity.
In a new poll, the latest in its series tracking public attitudes about COVID-19 and the vaccines designed to thwart it, the Kaiser Family Foundation found that half of U.S. adults aren’t taking any precautions this year to guard against infection or transmission. That means no masks, no testing and no avoiding large gatherings.
Only 20% of people polled said they had received the updated vaccine booster shot, while another roughly 28% said they definitely or probably would get the shot. That leaves the majority saying they probably or definitely won’t get the vaccine booster.
Last week, there were 280 people in Colorado who were in the hospital for a case of COVID. For reference, last year’s fall wave peaked in the last week of November at 440 cases. The state’s all-time peak for hospitalizations came in the first week of December 2021, when there were 1,847 people hospitalized.
You can read the full report on the KFF poll here.
CLIMATE
Dust in the desert and a dastardly disease >> Fungus increased by drought and hot winds increasingly plagues Southern California, and may spread. >> WaPo🔑 A new climate change report gets specific about U.S. impacts, successes. >> Rising temperatures are causing damage, but new policies show promise. >> Inside Climate News Amid fears of a slowdown, EV models dominate awards. >> Especially in the SUV category, some tantalizing EVs win auto world prestige. >> Axios But it’s not the EVs, it’s the e-bikes. >> Electric two-wheelers may do a lot more for the environment than four-wheelers. >> The Conversation
HEALTH
How to use Colorado’s new paid family leave program. >> The Family and Medical Leave Insurance program won’t launch until Jan. 1, but its online portal has just gone live. >> CPR When it’s an honor to be chopped liver. >> Enough healthy people have agreed to donate portions of their own livers to kids on Children’s Hospital Colorado’s transplant list that every kid who needs a transplant this year is expected to get one. >> The Denver Post🔑 Can Intermountain Health upend how health care is paid for? >> The Utah-based health system, which operates hospitals in Colorado that were previously under the SCL Health banner, wants to try a “prepaid” care model. >> Becker’s Why omicron is the ultimate COVID variant survivor. >> Well, for one, the sonofabitch keeps mutating. >> The New York Times🔑Hey, you made it to the end of another Temperature! Since we took last week off, we are late to saying that we are thankful for YOU and your support of local journalism. May your celebrations be merry and your impulse control be unaffected by brain-burrowing parasites this holiday season.
We’ll see you back here next week.
— John & Michael
English (United States) ·