From left, Councilwoman Valerie Cartright (D-Port Jefferson Station); Supervisor Ed Romaine (R); Scott Meiselbach, owner of Sunrise Construction; Councilmen Kevin Lavalle (R-Selden), Michael Loguercio (R-Ridge), Dan Panico (R-Manorville) and Neil Foley (R-Blue Point); and Town Clerk Donna Lent (R).
Photo from Town of Brookhaven
Town of Brookhaven honors Business of the Month
At the March 2 Town of Brookhaven board meeting, Councilman Kevin LaValle honored Sunrise Construction in Farmingville as Business of the Month for March in Council District 3. The award is given to a business deserving special recognition for the positive impact it has on the community. Owned by Scott Meiselbach, Sunrise Construction has been an outstanding community partner for many years, providing jobs for local residents. He also helped repair numerous homes in the area after Hurricane Sandy. Councilman LaValle said, “Scott has been an outstanding leader in the Farmingville community for many years and he’s always ready to help when needed. I am happy to recognize him and Sunrise Construction as the CD 3 March Business of the Month. It’s a well-deserved honor.”
From left, Sean Doyle, Planet Fitness contractor; Rob Trotta; Cara Pagan, regional manager; John Mahoney, Planet Fitness owner; Pat Vecchio; and Eric Apicella, club manager. Photo from Leg. Trotta’s office
RIBBON CUTTING Suffolk County Legislator Rob Trotta (R-Fort Salonga) and Smithtown Town Supervisor Pat Vecchio (R) joined Fort Salonga resident John Mahoney and his staff in officially opening his sixth Planet Fitness at 240 Motor Parkway in Hauppauge with a ribbon cutting ceremony on March 6, joining locations in Hampton Bays, Riverhead, Medford, Rocky Point and Port Jefferson. The gym offers state-of-the-art equipment, circuit training, free weights, abs/core, tanning, Hydromassage and massage chairs. It is open Monday to Friday 24 hours and from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on weekends. “I think that this Planet Fitness is an excellent fit for the Hauppauge Industrial Park,” said Trotta
Suffolk County Community College’s Ammerman campus, 533 College Road, Selden will hold its 29th annual Health Fair on Wednesday, March 29 in the Babylon Student Center from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Visit the many college resource tables including Nursing, Paramedic/EMT and Dietetic Technician, enjoy massage therapy and reiki, sample healthy snacks, take advantage of free screenings of body fat to muscle ratio, measure cholesterol, blood pressure and more. Free and open to the public. Call 631-451-4110 for additional information.
A view of the main page of a piece of Reclaim NY’s Transparency Project. Image from ReclaimNY website
Transparency and honesty play a major role in healthy democracies, and now New York State municipalities will have a watchdog tracking their effectiveness, providing feedback publicly to concerned citizens, by concerned citizens.
Last week, Reclaim New York, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization established to “educate New Yorkers on issues like affordability, transparency and education,” launched a website designed to rate government accessibility and transparency based on an index of recommendations.
The site is part of the group’s New York Transparency Project, an initiative launched in 2016, which kicked off with 2,500 Freedom of Information Law requests for basic expenditure information to county, town and village governments, as well as school districts across Long Island and the state.
“This is an accountability tool,” Reclaim New York Communications Director Doug Kellogg said. “Anybody who wants to help do something to make government more accessible and accountable, go spend 30 minutes and input ratings.”
The new system allows citizens to grade local governments based on 29 indicators, including whether contracts are posted on the internet, there’s access to expenditure records, notices of meetings and the minutes to the meetings are available and contact information is listed for elected officials. The municipalities will receive an overall, objective grade. The grade will indicate which are transparent and law-abiding, as budget information and records access officers need to be publicly available.
“Anybody who wants to help do something to make government more accessible and accountable, go spend 30 minutes and input ratings.”
— Doug Kellogg
“Citizens can hold their governments accountable at every level if they have the right tools for the job,” executive director for the organization Brandon Muir said in a statement. “This is a truly unprecedented moment for New Yorkers who want to reclaim ownership of their government. Working with this new site they can make proactive transparency a reality.”
To input data, users must register with an email address. When data is put into the system, it is vetted and sited prior to going live to avoid a “wild west” feel, according to Kellogg. The process of imputing data to extract a rating for municipalities has only just begun. Kellogg said it will take time to have an all-encompassing collection of information.
In May 2016, Port Jefferson Village and Commack school district failed to comply with FOIL requests as part of the organization’s Transparency Project.
New York’s FOIL requires governments and school districts respond to records requests within five business days, whether with the information requested, a denial or an acknowledgement of the request. The response needs to include an estimated date when one of the latter two will occur. Denials can be appealed butnot allowed “on the basis that the request is voluminous or that locating or reviewing the requested records or providing the requested copies is burdensome, because the agency lacks sufficient staffing.”
As part of a project it dubbed the New York Transparency Project, Reclaim New York sent 253 Freedom of Information requests to school districts and municipalities on Long Island. It reported on its findings, saying that while many entities complied with state guidelines on processing such public records requests, and after the findings were released, Port Jefferson Village and Commack school district eventually complied with the requests.
Entities that it said complied included Suffolk County; Brookhaven, Smithtown and Huntington towns; Belle Terre and Lake Grove villages; and the Port Jefferson, Kings Park, Huntington, Smithtown, Mount Sinai, Miller Place and Rocky Point school districts, among others.
To become an evaluator for the website or to view data, visit www.reclaimnewyork.org and click on the Transparency tab.
Suffolk County’s Department of Health encourages residents to take advantage of Narcan training classes at Comsewogue High School, 565 Bicycle Path, Port Jefferson Station on March 27 at 7 p.m. and Longwood Middle School, 41 Yaphank Middle Island Road, Middle Island on March 29 at 7 p.m. The training will enable participants to recognize an opioid overdose, administer intranasal Narcan and take additional steps until EMS arrives. Participants will receive a certificate of completion and an emergency resuscitation kit that includes nasal Narcan. For more information, call 631-852-6109.
Can’t make it on those dates? Hope House Ministries will host a free Narcan Training Workshop on Thursday, March 30 from 10 to 11:30 a.m. at its Human Service Center, 1313 Main St., Port Jefferson in the Sister Aimee Room. Participants will learn the essentials of opioid overdose prevention and receive certification as Trained Overdose Responders as well as an overdose response kit that includes naloxone (Narcan). For more information or to register, please call 631-928-2377 or 631-473-0553.
Does your child love trains? The Smithtown Historical Society will host a Model Train Show fundraiser at the Frank Brush Barn, 211 E. Main St., Smithtown on Saturday, March 25 from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Featuring an HO Scale layout from Long Island HOTrack, O Gauge Trolleys from the Long Island Traction Society and an N Scale layout courtesy of Trainville Hobby Depot.
Proceeds from this event will go toward the historical society’s restoration of farm buildings and caring for the farm animals. Admission is $5 for adults, $3 for children ages 12 and under. For information, call Vinnie at 631-524-0529.
'A trip to the American Museum of Natural History was my idea of being in heaven.' - Elof Carlson
By Elof Axel Carlson
The life sciences are vast in the number of specialties that exist for those pursuing a career as a biologist. A majority of college biology majors are premedical or seek some sort of health-related field. As much as possible they hope the biology they learn will find its way into the health field they seek to enter. Persons who want to be scholars in biology are often motivated by a desire to know as much about life as they can. I was one of those from early childhood when a trip to the American Museum of Natural History was my idea of being in heaven.
Elof Axel Carlson
I loved learning about evolution and the diversity of life. I knew I wanted to be a geneticist when I was in ninth grade and learned about Paul Müller’s Nobel Prize work on inducing mutations. Like a duckling, I felt imprinted and wanted to work with Müller someday.
Graduate work was different. As a teaching assistant I got to see about 90 different specimens each week for the various organ systems displayed by students. Unlike the textbook perfect illustrations, veins and arteries could be slightly off in the specimens I looked at. Their colors differed. Their texture differed.
I also learned how much we didn’t know about life. For my specialty of genetics (with Müller, as I had hoped) I felt steeped in experimental design, techniques and ways of thinking. Doing a Ph.D. allowed me to examine a gene using the tools of X-raying to produce mutations of a particular gene and subtle genetic design to combine pieces of a gene — taking it apart and combining pieces that were slightly different. It gave me an insight into that gene (dumpy, in fruit flies) that for a short time (until I published my work) I was the only person in the world that knew its structure.
In my career I have taught biology for majors, biology for nonscience majors, genetics, human genetics and the history of genetics. I have taught lower division and upper division courses, graduate courses and first-year medical classes. I learned that sharing new knowledge with students excited their imaginations. I learned that the human disorders I discussed led to office visits; and if I didn’t know the information they sought, I went with them to the medical library and we looked up articles in the Index Medicus and discussed their significance.
Often that student was married and had a child with a birth defect (born without a thyroid, having a family trait that might appear like cystic fibrosis). I would prepare a genetic pedigree and give it to the student to stick in a family bible for future generations to read. I also delighted in going to meetings to discuss genetics with colleagues whose work I had read.
I was pleased that I shared a body plan with other mammals. I liked comparative anatomy, which taught me how other body plans work (mollusks, arthropods, worms, coelenterates, echinoderms). As a graduate student taking a vertebrate biology course, I went into a cave and plucked hibernating bats from a ceiling.
The world under a microscope is very different. To see amoebas, ciliated protozoans, rotifers and other organisms invisible to the naked eye or as mere dust-like specks is a thrill. I can go back in time and imagine myself as a toddler, a newborn, an embryo in my mother’s uterus or an implanting blastocyst rolling out of her fallopian tube. I can imagine myself as a zygote, beginning my journey as a one-celled potential organism typing this article into a computer. I can go back in time to my prehistoric ancestors and trace my evolution back to the first cellular organism (bacteria-like) more than 3 billion years ago.
I learned, too, that I contain multitudes of ancestors who gave me one or more of their genes for the 20,000 I got from my father’s sperm and the matching 20,000 genes in my mother’s egg nucleus. I contain some 37 trillion (that is, 37,000,000,000,000) cells or 2 to the 45th power, which means some 45 mitotic cell divisions since I was a zygote. I know that the warmth of my body is largely a product of the mitochondrial organelles in my cells that using the oxygen from the air I breathe and converting small molecules of digested food to provide energy that runs the metabolism of my body and disposes carbon dioxide that eventually is expelled from my lungs. This knowledge makes me aware of my vulnerability at the cellular level, the chromosome level and the genetic level of my DNA to the agents around me that can lead to birth defects cancers, and a premature aging.
Knowing my biology allows me to know my risks as well as new ways to celebrate my life.
Elof Axel Carlson is a distinguished teaching professor emeritus in the Department of Biochemistry and Cell Biology at Stony Brook University.
Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is much more common than you think. Those at highest risk for CKD include patients with diabetes, hypertension (high blood pressure) and those with first-degree relatives who have advanced disease. But those are only the ones at highest risk. This brings me to my first question.
Why is chronic kidney disease (CKD) a tricky disease?
Unfortunately, similar to high blood pressure and dyslipidemia (high cholesterol), the disease tends to be asymptomatic, at least initially. Only in the advanced stages do symptoms become distinct, though there can be vague symptoms such as fatigue, malaise and loss of appetite in moderate stages.
What are the stages?
CKD is classified into five stages based on the estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR), a way to determine kidney function. Stages 1 and 2 are the early stages, while stages 3a and 3b are the moderate stages, and finally stages 4 and 5 are the advanced stages. This demarcation is based on an eGFR of >60 ml/min for early, 30-59 ml/min for moderate and <30 ml/min for advanced. Stage 5 is end-stage kidney disease or failure.
March is National Kidney Month
Why is CKD important?
The prevalence of the disease is predicted to grow by leaps and bounds in the next 15 years. Presently, approximately 13 percent of those over age 30 in the U.S. population are affected by CKD. In a simulation model, it is expected to reach 16.7 percent prevalence in the year 2030. Currently, those who are ages 30 to 49 have a 54 percent chance of having CKD in their lifetimes; those 50 to 64 years of age, a slightly lower risk of 52 percent; and those 65 years and older, a 42 percent risk (1). Thus, a broad spectrum of people are affected. Another study’s results corroborate these numbers, suggesting almost a 60 percent lifetime risk of at least moderate stage 3a to advanced stage 5 CKD (2). If these numbers are correct, they are impressive, and the disease needs to be addressed. We need to take precautions to prevent the disease and its progression.
Who should be screened?
According to the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, screening for CKD may not be warranted in the asymptomatic “healthy” population (3). This means people without chronic diseases. The studies are inconclusive in terms of benefits and harms. In order to qualify as CKD, there has to be a minimum of three months of decreased kidney function. This appears to be a paradox: Remember, CKD is asymptomatic generally until the advanced stages. However, there are a number of caveats in the report.
Those who are at highest risk should be screened, including, as I mentioned above, patients with diabetes or hypertension. In an interview on www.Medscape.com entitled “Proteinuria: A Cheaper and Better Cholesterol?” two high-ranking nephrologists suggest that first-degree relatives of advanced CKD patients should also be screened and that those with vague symptoms of fatigue, malaise and/or decreased appetite may also be potential candidates (4). This broadens the asymptomatic population that may benefit from screening.
The fix!
Fortunately, there are several options available, ranging from preventing CKD with specific exercise to slowing the progression with lifestyle changes and medications.
Why exercise?
Here we go again, preaching the benefits of exercise. But what if you don’t really like exercise? It turns out that the results of a study show that walking reduces the risk of death and the need for dialysis by 33 percent and 21 percent, respectively (5). And although some don’t like formal exercise programs, most people agree that walking is enticing.
The most prevalent form of exercise in this study was walking. The results are even more intriguing; they are based on a dose-response curve. In other words, those who walk more often see greater results. So, the participants who walked one to two times per week had a significant 17 percent reduction in death and a 19 percent reduction in kidney replacement therapy, whereas those who walked at least seven times per week experienced a more impressive 59 percent reduction in death and a 44 percent reduction in the risk of dialysis. Those who were in between saw a graded response. There were 6,363 participants for an average duration of 1.3 years.
Protein is important, right?
Yes, protein is important for tissue and muscle health. But when it comes to CKD, more is not necessarily better, and may even be harmful. In a meta-analysis (a group of 10 randomized controlled trials, the gold standard of studies), results showed that the risk of death or treatment with dialysis or kidney transplant was reduced by 32 percent in those who consumed less protein compared to unrestricted protein (6). This meta-analysis used the Cochrane database to search for studies. According to the authors, as few as two patients would need to be treated for a year in order to prevent one from either dying or reaching the need for dialysis or transplant. Unfortunately, the specific quantity of protein consumption that is ideal in CKD patients could not be ascertained since the study was a meta-analysis.
Sodium: How much?
The debate roils on: How much do we need to reduce sodium in order to see an effect? Well, the good news is that in a study, results showed that a modest sodium reduction in our diet may be sufficient to help prevent proteinuria (protein in the urine) (7). Different guidelines recommend sodium intake ranging from fewer than 1500 mg to 2300 mg daily. This particular study says that less than 2000 mg is beneficial, something all of us can achieve.
Of course medications have a place
We routinely give certain medications, ACE inhibitors or ARBs, to patients who have diabetes to protect their kidneys. What about patients who do not have diabetes? ACEs and ARBs are two classes of anti-hypertensives — high blood pressure medications — that work on the RAAS system of the kidneys, responsible for blood pressure and water balance (8).
Results of a study show that these medications reduced the risk of death significantly in patients with moderate CKD. Most of the patients were considered hypertensive. However, there was a high discontinuation rate among those taking the medication. If you include the discontinuations and regard them as failures, then all who participated showed a 19 percent reduction in risk of death, which was significant. However, if you exclude discontinuations, the results are much more robust with a 63 percent reduction. To get a more realistic picture, the intention-to-treat result (those that include both participants and dropouts) is probably the response that will occur in clinical practice unless the physician is a really good motivator or has very highly motivated patients.
While these two classes of medications, ACE inhibitors and ARBs, are good potential options for protecting the kidneys, they are not the only options. You don’t necessarily have to rely on drug therapies, and there is no downside to lifestyle modifications. Lowering sodium modestly, walking frequently, and lowering your protein consumption may all be viable options, with or without medication, since medication compliance was woeful. Screening for asymptomatic, moderate CKD may lack conclusive studies, but screening should occur in high-risk patients and possibly be on the radar for those with vague symptoms of lethargy as well as aches and pains. Of course, this is a discussion to have with your physician.
References: (1) Am J Kidney Dis. 2015;65(3):403-411. (2) Am J Kidney Dis. 2013;62(2):245-252. (3) Ann Int. Med. 2012;157(8):567-570. (4) www.Medscape.com. (5) Clin J Am Soc Nephrol. 2014;9(7):1183-1189. (6) Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2009;(3):CD001892. (7) Curr Opin Nephrol Hypertens. 2014;23(6):533-540. (8) J Am Coll Cardiol. 2014;63(7):650-658.
Dr. Dunaief is a speaker, author and local lifestyle medicine physician focusing on the integration of medicine, nutrition, fitness and stress management. For further information, visit www.medicalcompassmd.com or consult your personal physician.
Heirloom tomatoes are grown from the seed of the previous generation. Photo by Ellen Barcel
By Ellen Barcel
Sometimes when we buy seeds or plants there will be terms listed on the label or packaging that tell us that plants are raised in a certain way or have certain characteristics. Many gardeners will seek out special types of plants, such as heirloom or hybrid. What do these terms mean and how can the gardener use them to his or her best advantage?
Heirloom plants
Virtually all veggies are available in the form of heirloom seeds including green beans. Photo by Ellen Barcel
Each autumn when I was a kid, my father used to select the best tomatoes he had grown the past summer and save the seeds. He’d remove them from the tomato and dry them on a paper towel. Come spring, he’d plant the seeds to get the new generation of tomatoes. He didn’t use the term then, but they were what was known as heirloom plants. Heirloom plants are ones grown from seed openly pollinated and produced by the parent plant. In general, heirloom plants breed true to the parent. We generally think of heirloom plants in terms of tomatoes, but the term refers to any older varieties of plants, generally passed down through the generations.
Hybrids
Hybrids are crosses between two different varieties of a plant in an attempt to get the best qualities of both. Seeds from hybrid plants do not breed true, so saving them for future generations is not really an option. Gardeners therefore must buy the hybrid seeds (or plants grown from them by plant breeders) each year.
Sports
Sports are unexpected mutations of a plant. Saving the seeds from sports is iffy at best. The seeds might not be viable, could produce the new characteristics or could produce the original plant. Generally, if a sport has desirable qualities, like an apple tree with a branch that produces larger, sweeter apples, the plant is reproduced vegetatively by cuttings since cuttings will breed true.
GMOs
GMOs are genetically modified organisms. A scientist in a laboratory has taken genes from one organism and added it to another. The foreign genes could come from any type of organism, other plants or even animals. Supporters of GMOs say that the resulting product is safe and has superior qualities, such as it may be more disease resistant, have a longer shelf life or the plant may produce a heavier crop. Opponents are concerned about unexpected consequences — is the product safe? What are the long-term results? You may see products in the supermarket marked non-GMO because of these concerns. Legislation passed last summer in the U.S. will require foods with GMOs to be labeled. Some foods that have been genetically modified include soybeans, corn and tomatoes.
Organic gardening
Organic gardening refers to any plant — heirloom, hybrid, sport or GMO — raised without the use of chemical pesticides and fertilizers. Organic gardeners use compost or other nonchemical fertilizers like compost tea, bone meal, holly tone, etc. To avoid pesticides, organic gardeners will sometimes hand pick pests like slugs, encourage birds to nest in the garden (to eat insects) and use companion planting, for example, surround tulips with daffodils, to keep the squirrels away. For farms to be certified organic, chemical pesticides and fertilizers cannot be used on the land for a number of years before the beginning of organic gardening.
Ellen Barcel is a freelance writer and master gardener. To reach Cornell Cooperative Extension and its Master Gardener program, call 631-727-7850.
Sophomores Declan Beran and Emma Kirkpatrick successfully convinced the district’s board of education to let them head Shoreham-Wading River’s first debate club. Photo from Shoreham-Wading River school district
A love of law and political science, combined with the impact of recent presidential debates, sparked the idea for two Shoreham-Wading River sophomores to push for a debate team.
Thanks to the efforts of Declan Beran and Emma Kirkpatrick, the board of education saw no argument against the idea, and unanimously approved the newfound club, which will begin the 2017-18 school year.
In their PowerPoint presentation during a board meeting a month prior to approval, Beran and Kirkpatrick, who will serve as co-captains of the club, said the first year will serve as their “pilot year” in which they’ll assemble the team, hold weekly meetings with an advisor, compete in practice debates and sharpen their skills to prepare for competition with other schools, which they hope to do by their senior year.
In convincing the board, the two students are already well on their way to being successful debaters, said 10th and 11th grade English teacher Brenna Gilroy, who will serve as the club adviser.
“I just gave them some guidance — they approached me about starting the club and legitimately did most of the work,” Gilroy said. “I think [the board agrees] it’s important for students to be able to communicate well and effectively, but in a respectful, researched and knowledgeable way.”
“I think [the board agrees] it’s important for students to be able to communicate well and effectively, but in a respectful, researched and knowledgeable way.”
— Brenna Gilroy
Beran, a lacrosse player and vice president of his class, said he “prides himself in being an eloquent speaker.” He has wanted to form a debate club since his freshman year, in the hopes the skills acquired could help him, and others with similar interests, in future career endeavors. Beran plans to be a political science major in college, to work on becoming a corporate lawyer.
When Kirkpatrick, an honor roll student with similar career aspirations, also realized the school had no clubs catered to students with interests in political science or law, her next step was to make one. After speaking to Gilroy about moving forward with the idea, her teacher recommended she speak with Beran.
Upon meeting Kirkpatrick, Beran said “we knew this was the time to act.”
The two students, who were deeply invested in the atmosphere of politics last year, pointed to the coverage of the 2016 presidential debates as a catalyst in creating the club, wanting to use it as their template.
“Mrs. Gilroy, Declan and I met after school weekly, collaborating on our ideas for the club and putting together a presentation for the board,” Kirkpatrick said. “Through this process of creating the club, many students have approached me asking me about it and when they can join.”
Similar to the foundations of a debate, the sophomores told board members that students in high school are usually timed and limited by topic when writing argumentative essays, adding that the club could help students taking Regents and AP exams.
Skills acquired will help students not only in high school, but in college and the workplace as well, when doing things like formulating an argument, presenting it in a clear and cohesive manner, building self-confidence with public speaking and deepening research and analysis skills.
“We’ve found that as the students benefit from the debate team, the school will prosper,” Beran said, adding that he thinks the team will be made up of about 20 students overall.
High school principal Dan Holtzman said the required teamwork and collaboration within the club will be a tremendous asset to the students. As for the work of Beran and Kirkpatrick, he couldn’t be prouder.
“I’m a staunch supporter of students advocating for themselves,” Holtzman said. “The fact that Emma and Declan invested a great deal of time and effort into the presentation, it speaks volumes about their passion and commitment.”
Does your child love trains? The Smithtown Historical Society will host a Model Train Show fundraiser at the Frank Brush Barn, 211 E. Main St., Smithtown on Saturday, March 25 from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Featuring an HO Scale layout from Long Island HOTrack, O Gauge Trolleys from the Long Island Traction Society and an N Scale layout courtesy of Trainville Hobby Depot.
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