Maine news, sports, weather from Portland Press Herald / Maine Sunday Telegram, Portland, Maine

October 8, 2012

Letters to the editor: Inspections, not restaurants, at issue

So it looks like the city of Portland is considering fines and shame to try to encourage city restaurants to meet health standards. Shame on you!

Although in this case I understand some of it is based on complaints and openings, "shoot first and ask questions later" seems to be where the mindset is in this matter.

If a high school or college instructor gives a test and nearly 80 percent of the students fail, something is most certainly wrong, and it is not necessarily the students who took the test. Maybe the city fathers should look to the regulations themselves and most certainly to the inspector who failed the 80 percent.

In addition, you may also want to look into why this one inspector only inspected 49 restaurants in one year's time. I am sure the inspections involved follow-up visits and additional paperwork, but am I the only one who thinks this number is low?

Nobody, least of all me, wants to dine in a restaurant that has a dirty kitchen or a rodent problem, but there seems to be a rush to judgment here.

Jim Brown

Edgecomb

Column on climate change favors ideology over facts

Once again, somebody has to point out that M.D. Harmon is placing ideology over reality. This time, it has to do with his commentary titled "When is a gaffe not a gaffe? When a candidate is right" (Sept. 21).

1. Right now, there are not enough trees and other plants to turn our excessive carbon dioxide emissions into oxygen. Where does the excessive carbon dioxide go? It goes into the atmosphere and into the oceans. It warms both the oceans and atmosphere and creates climate change.

There is nothing benign about climate change. Human beings need to do something about climate change now. We should not make our grandchildren experimental guinea pigs for our ideologies.

2. Right now, German hydrogen-powered attack submarines patrol the entrance to the Mediterranean Sea on behalf of NATO. Those submarines are kept at the NATO naval base in Rota, Spain. NATO nations have tanks, planes, railroad engines, farm tractors, trucks, automobiles and buses all powered by hydrogen. Those nations will no longer purchase those items from us. Our nations will no longer be integrated with the other NATO forces.

3. In a very short time, Europe will be using hydrogen as the catalysis for Bloom Boxes to produce electrical energy. Those nations will be able to decentralize their production of electricity. We still try to maintain an obsolete electric grid.

Sen. Susan Collins absented herself from the vote to allow the armed services to begin the development of alternative fuels. The proposal was defeated. As a result, our armed services are still dependent on foreign oil.

Herbert W. Twiddy

Yarmouth

Limit on addiction treatment overlooks therapy's efficacy

The decision by the state of Maine to limit state funding for the use of Suboxone or methadone to two years for those individuals recovering from addiction to opiates (narcotics) is horrible, but not surprising (Our View, "State policy could make bad drug problem worse," Sept. 29). Politically, it is much easier to remove treatment for drug addicts than it is for those with cancer.

As chief medical officer for the Brattleboro Retreat, a mental health and addictions treatment center in Vermont, neither I nor my institution are directly influenced by this decision.

But as a physician, I can convey the evidence: Approximately 60 percent of individuals who continue with Suboxone maintenance after detoxification from opiates remain clean of drugs for one year, whereas about 5 percent of those who do not use maintenance medicine such as Suboxone or methadone remain clean for at least a year.

(Continued on page 2)

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