Local
Telephone scam targeting veterinary clinics
The Anoka County Sheriff’s Office released an alert warning people of a current telephone scam that has been calling a number of veterinary clinics in the Twin Cities over the past 10 days. The caller will impersonate a member of the Anoka County Sheriff’s Office and/or Anoka County Attorney’s Office.
The caller will usually state that the recipient has failed to appear for jury duty, and there is a warrant out for their arrest. This is then followed by the recipient being told to give their cell phone number and report to the Anoka County Sheriff’s Office.
Anoka County Sheriff’s Office is unclear of the motive behind the calls and states that no warrants have been issued and there is no reason to believe anyone is in danger. They recommend if anyone received one of these calls to immediately contact the Anoka County Sheriff’s Office before returning any calls to any numbers left by the caller.
National
California lettuce recall continues
The California farm suspected in recent Romaine lettuce outbreaks has recalled other products. Adam Bros. Farming Inc. of Santa Maria, California, has additionally recalled red leaf lettuce, green leaf lettuce, and cauliflower harvested between November 27 and November 30.
Red leaf lettuce, Green leaf lettuce, and cauliflower are suspected to possibly be contaminated with E.coli O157:H7. The recall was initiated after sediment from a reservoir near to where these products grow tested positive for E.coli O157:H7. Adams Bros. say that none of the recalled product has tested positive for E.coli O157:H7 and no associated cases of illness have been reported.
The California growers decided to recall the product in cooperation with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Adams Bros. Farming Inc. has notified its affected customers of the recalled product and has asked that the product is not eaten, sold, or transferred.
International
Climate negotiations keep Paris agreement alive
After much debate, diplomats from nearly 200 countries reached a deal on Saturday, December 15th in Katowice, Poland, to keep the Paris climate agreement alive by adopting a new set of rules. The new agreement will require every country in the world to follow a uniform set of standards for measuring their planet-warming emissions and tracking their climate policies, as well as step up their plans to slash emissions before the next round of talks in 2020.
Despite President Trump’s dislike for the 2015 Paris climate agreement, the United States has agreed to the deal preventing formal withdrawal at least until 2020. Not all attendees at the UN Climate Talks were excited, though, expressing disappointment that the deal is half-measured in the face of a mounting climate crisis.
The 2015 Paris agreement states that countries would like to try and limit the rise in global temperature to roughly 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels to avoid climate related disasters. However, with global fossil-fuel emissions still rising each year, we are quite likely to cross that threshold within 35 years. Concluding these agreements, the real test starts when countries go home. Important topics in individual nations such as Brexit in the UK add uncertainty to the table. Emphasis was made that climate change is not going to be solved by governments alone.
Gus Brihn
Gus completed his undergraduate degree at the U of M in Global Studies, and has spent much of his time abroad, including time in France and Namibia. Gus became interested in emergency medicine from becoming a Wilderness First Responder and NR-EMT. He completed his veterinary degree at the University of Glasgow in Scotland. Gus is interested in zoonotic disease outbreak investigation, prevention, and epidemiology. Outside of work, Gus enjoys rock climbing and doing Brazilian Jiu jitsu. He has an 11 year-old Staffordshire terrier mix breed dog named Sweet Pea.