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Sea Life Said Threatened by Noise
LOS ANGELES (June 28) - The deep is far from silent these days.
And in some undersea places, it's too downright noisy, an
environmental group warns.
The Natural Resources Defense Council says underwater noise from
supertankers and military sonar can scramble signals that sea
creatures use to communicate, affecting migration routes and
breeding patterns.
''We're playing Russian roulette with our oceans,'' said Joel
Reynolds, senior attorney with the council. ''We can't afford to
do that.''
Scheduled to be released today, the study calls for a harder look
at how man-made noise affects sea creatures. It also urges
stiffer regulations to protect aquatic life.
''It is a serious problem. The problem is, we don't know how
serious it is,'' said Roger Gentry, acoustics team coordinator
for the National Marine Fisheries Service, which oversees most
marine life in U.S. waters.
The report was ''a pretty fair summary'' of the issues that
acoustics experts in government, the military, academia and the
environmental movement struggle with, Gentry said.
Ocean noise is similar to the visual affect that strip malls and
utility lines have on dry land, according to Cornell University
bioacoustics expert Christopher W. Clark.
''If you just went out and listened in the Channel Islands, you'd
be appalled,'' Clark said. ''Those places off San Francisco, off
Los Angeles - you're just in the middle of an acoustics traffic
jam.''
The study says those three sites, as well as Monterey and San
Diego bays, have abundant sea life - and high levels of
underwater noise. Environmentalists want special efforts to turn
down the volume.
In dark sea waters, mammals such as whales and dolphins appear to
use their hearing - much as humans use sight - to seek food, find
mates, guard their young and avoid predators.
Man-made noise may harm those animals because sound travels
faster through water than air. Whales sometimes abandon
traditional breeding grounds and change direction during
migration to avoid noise, scientists say.
Research is too new to say definitively whether these behavioral
changes do long-term damage to mammal populations, Clark and
Gentry said.
International shipping generates the most noise pollution, but
faces few noise regulations, the report said.
Agencies should have the authority to regulate the acoustic
output of ships and other sources of noise, the NRDC says. Laws
should take a cue from the Clean Air Act, setting targets of
practicable emissions and holding polluters to them, the report
recommends.
It also calls for setting aside marine reserves to protect
animals from noise, additional research and international
standards.
Study: Little Value in Kids' TV
WASHINGTON (June 28) - The television industry is providing more
shows for young people, but the educational value of some of the
programs are questionable, a research group reported today.
The Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of
Pennsylvania said the number of shows available for children rose
12 percent in the 1998-99 season, but it deemed 21.1 percent of
the total programming ''minimally educational.''
''There is still substantial confusion about what constitutes
educational programming,'' said Annenberg research fellow Kelly
L. Schmitt. ''Shows such as 'Duck Tales' and 'Hercules' were
offered by stations to satisfy the educational needs of children,
even though syndicators and networks claimed they were not
designed for that purpose.''
The studies evaluated the quality and quantity of children's
television in 1998, as well as parents' and children's opinions
and behavior. Similar reports have been issued since 1996.
Researchers said the increase in the number of children's
programs is due mostly to a Federal Communication Commission rule
that helps broadcasters speed their license renewal by airing a
minimum of three hours a week of educational and informational
television for children.
Shows such as ''NBA Inside Stuff'' and ''Peer Pressure'' continue
to receive the educational and informational label even though
they contain minimal educational content, the report said.
But there was some improvement: Researchers judged 26 percent of
the 1998 shows to be ''low quality,'' down from 36 percent in
1997.
Among the other findings:
-One-third of the shows classified educational under FCC
guidelines were ''highly educational,'' 45.5 percent were judged
''moderately educational,'' and 21.2 percent were ''minimally
educational.''
-28 percent of children's shows contained four or more acts of
violence, and 75 percent of these high-violence programs did not
carry the FV, or fantasy violence, content rating for children's
programs.
-45 percent of children's programs contained one or more
instances of problematic language and 12 percent of programs had
one or more instances of sexual innuendo.
-27 percent of local educational productions reported to the FCC
in 1997 and 1998 no longer are on the air.
-84.1 percent of parents ''strongly'' or ''somewhat'' favor the
V-chip technology, which allows them to block certain shows from
TV sets. Also, 51.4 percent of parents say they would use the
V-chip ''often'' if they had one.
-Parents report their children spend, on average, 3.25 hours per
day watching television or videos and 48.2 percent of the
children have television sets in their bedrooms.
The national survey covered 1,269 parents of 2- to 17-year-olds
and 303 of their children, ages 10 to 17. The margin of error was
plus or minus 2.9 percent for the parent's survey and 5.7 percent
for the children's survey.
U.S. to curb use of restraints in
mental patients
WASHINGTON - U.S. health officials announced Friday that they
will restrict the use of restraints such as straitjackets and
sedatives on mental patients after they were linked to more than
140 deaths in the past 10 years.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services regulations
prohibit the inappropriate use of restraints on patients in the
federal Medicare program, which serves the elderly and some
disabled people. Officials also are studying how to extend it to
the Medicaid program for the poor.
The regulations were announced at the Capitol by health
department officials, members of Congress and Tipper Gore, the
wife of Vice President Al Gore.
``In too many incidents, people are subjected to inappropriate
and harmful physical and chemical restraints,'' said Mrs. Gore, a
long-time mental health advocate who recently went public with
her personal bout with clinical depression.
``These new regulations will save lives,'' she said.
At least 142 deaths in 30 states have been linked to
inappropriate use of restraints during a 10-year period.
More than a quarter of the deaths were caused by suffocation. In
at least one case an unruly patient suffocated after being rolled
up in a mattress and another died when a worker sat on the
patient's chest.
The new regulations will prohibit the inappropriate use of
physical restraints such as straitjackets, handcuffs and
harnesses or chemical sedative restraints in Medicare patients.
Physicians could order their use only if patients are in danger
or are endangering the health and safety of others.
