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THURSDAY, OCTOBER 2, 2014

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Health workers ID Enterovirus,

on the lookout for Ebola virus
By JOHN MATUSZAK
HP Staff Writer

BENTON HARBOR Berrien County health officials have

learned that one high-profile illness
has arrived in the area, and they
are on the lookout for a potentially
more serious illness.
Dr. Rick Johansen, medical director for the Berrien County
Health Department, reported to
the Board of Health Wednesday
that six cases of Enterovirus D68
were confirmed by the Centers for
Disease Control.
As of Sept. 27, the CDC had

confirmed 277 cases in 40 states of

the virus that causes respiratory
ailments and cold-like symptoms,
mostly in children and teenagers,
Johansen said.
The CDC tested 37 cases of Enterovirus D68 in Michigan, and
confirmed 25, including the six
from Berrien County.
The samples were sent from Berrien County to the CDC labs in
Atlanta after medical professionals
at Lakeland Regional Medical
Center noted a big uptick in the
number of children brought in
with respiratory complaints.
On Sept. 7 the hospital was see-

ing four to five times as many children as is typical, Johansen said.

The numbers are now dropping,
he said.
A backlog of samples from locations all over the country kept the
CDC from responding sooner.
The virus can cause symptoms
including runny noses, coughing
and wheezing. Some people who
are infected may develop severe
symptoms and need to seek medical attention. But most do not require hospitalization.
The vast number of children

First U.S. Ebola patient told

hospital he was from Liberia
By PAUL J. WEBER
and LAURAN NEERGARD
Associated Press

DALLAS The first Ebola

patient diagnosed in the U.S. initially went to a Dallas emergency
room last week but was sent
home, despite telling a nurse that
he had been in disease-ravaged

West Africa, the hospital acknowledged Wednesday.

The decision by Texas Health
Presbyterian Hospital to release
him could have put many others
at risk of exposure to the disease
before he went back to the ER
two days later, after his condition
See EBOLA, page A6

See LOOKOUT, page A6

Goodyear stands
by inspection, tire
Company expert
testifies in
Berrien civil suit
By SCOTT AIKEN
HP Staff Writer

Get an A on Dr. Js bee quiz

Board of Health learns about disappearance of vital honeybees
By JOHN MATUSZAK
HP Staff Writer

BENTON HARBOR There

are some very important agricultural workers whose very existence
is threatened here and around the
world, the Berrien County Board
of Health heard Wednesday.
They are the honeybees that pollinate many of the crops grown in
Southwest Michigan and across
the globe, health department Medical Director Rick Johansen reported.
Those bees are disappearing in
unprecedented numbers due to a
number of factors.
Over the last 20 years, the number of bee colonies in the United
States has been reduced from 3
million to 2.4 million. This has
been labeled Colony Collapse
Disorder in the U.S. and was first
described in 2006.
There always has been periodic
colony collapse, but never at this
level world-wide, Johansen said.
Beekeepers have been able to replace their lost colonies. What
worries them more is the steady
decline of the honeybee population. Annual bee losses were once
around 5 to 10 percent a year, but
are now closer to 30 percent.
Johansen illustrated the importance of the bees with a pop quiz.
What percentage of the food
Americans eat depends on bee pollination?
A) 5 percent
B) 33 percent
C) 50 percent
The answer is 33 percent, and it

Don Campbell / HP staff

Jim Baerwald, owner of His Bee Farms in Eau Claire, checks on honeybees in an
Eau Claire orchard Wednesday. Its a different beekeeping world than it was 30
years ago, he says.

would be 50 percent if we ate the

recommended amounts of fruits
and vegetables, Johansen said.
So which of these Berrien County crops depend on bees?
A) Apples
B) Blueberries
C) Soybeans
D) Strawberries.
The answer is all of the above,
along with a wide range of other
products.
What is causing the die-off ?
A) Parasitic mites
B) Pesticides
C) Overwork
D) Loss of pasture
Again, the answer is all of the
above. Cell phone towers and ge-

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netically modified crops have been

pointed to as possible culprits, but
their is no proof they have affected
bees.
One murderous mite attacking
bees is the Varroa destructor,
which Johansen noted would be a
good name for a superhero villain.
One researcher told Congress
that the mite, which harms a bees
immune system, is a modern honeybee plague.
One type of possibly harmful
pesticides is the neonicotinoids, related to nicotine, Johansen said.
They get into the leaves and flowers of plants, where bees collect
See BEES, page A6

ST. JOSEPH Impact

with an object and not a factory defect caused a tire to
fail prior to a rollover crash
that left a South Bend man
a paraplegic, a mechanical
engineer told a jury Wednesday.
Jay Lawrence, who manages a group of tire analysis
engineers at Goodyear Tire
and Rubber Co., testified in
a trial stemming from Harishkumar Patels lawsuit
against the firm.
Patel, 58, suffered a spinal
injury in a 2012 crash on the
U.S. 31 freeway near Berrien
Springs. He contends that
his Nissan Pathfinder sportutility vehicle went out of
control and rolled when the
tread separated on a defective Goodyear tire.
Patel is confined to a
wheelchair and requires
around-the-clock care, according to earlier testimony
in the trial, which began last
week.
He is seeking money damages, including the cost of
home health care and nursing care expenses, which
alone are projected to cost
more than $2 million over
his lifetime.
Patels lawyers rested the
plaintiffs case on Tuesday
and defense attorneys began
calling witnesses.
The trial in Judge John
Dewanes courtroom was to
continue today.
Lawrence, who has more
than 30 years of experience
in tire development, evaluation and problem analysis at
Akron, Ohio,-based Goodyear, testified that the tire on
Patels SUV met all standards at the time it was
made.
The tire was made at
Goodyears plant in Fayetteville, N.C., in 2005, according to testimony, a plant that
turns out 43,000 tires daily.
The failure of Patels tire,

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Lawrence said, was initiated

by an impact with some object that occurred 1,000
miles or more prior to the
crash.
Hitting the object broke a
belt in the tire from the liner,
and the separation led to the
tires eventual failure, Lawrence said in response to
questions by lead defense attorney Edward Bott.
Lawrence testified about
the steps and material of tire
making, including inspection. The specification information for a tire typically
requires 16-18 pages, he
said.
Many people believe
tires are a simple product,
he said, but in reality they
are a very complex product.
Tires must carry a load,
provide traction, passenger
comfort, steering and handling precision and wear
well, he said.
Lawrence said that, based
on the number of tires produced at the Fayetteville
plant, the number of work
hours and tire inspectors,
each tires inspection lasts
19-30 seconds.
Inspectors are trained to
look for a range of defects,
he said, and take out tires
that do not meet all requirements.
Lawrence testified that the
tire from Patels car, which
lost nearly all of its tread,
was examined at the Goodyear laboratory. The jury
was shown a number of
photos taken through a microscope.
The photos show a split in
the liner, and polishing,
spots that Lawrence said
likely developed when the
belts in the tire separated
and were rubbing against
each other.
The tire examination
showed no evidence of failure of adhesion between the
rubber and belt wires, he
said.
If there were adhesion
problems during manufacture, he said, they would
have shown up not long after the tire went in to
See GOODYEAR, page A6

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