One woman who fought anorexia for ten years and eventually beat it shared her story with Southwest Floridians last night. Johanna Kandell first battled the eating disorder as a sixth-grader when she was a ballet dancer. Over the years, she hid it from parents and others. Now, Kandel is executive director of the ‘Alliance for Eating Disorders Awareness’ ... an organization she founded.

“And it really wasn’t until I was about 21 years old. And one night I was looking in the mirror and I just...I didn’t know who I was anymore. I had to stop dancing because they basically said that if I continued to dance, it would kill me. And it was just a very, very, very hard moment in my life. But I knew that somewhere inside of me, deep down, I had the will to get better. And I wanted to get better.”

Kandel made the comments on W-G-C-U’s Gulf Coast Live. She was a featured speaker last night in Fort Myers at the second annual conference on ‘Eating Disorders’.

Several beaches on Sanibel and Captiva remain closed because of an increase in bacteria. Lee County Health officials say the bacteria may have come from animal droppings and human waste carried to the Gulf of Mexico in storm water runoff. Advisories are posted saying the area is unsafe for swimmers. Health officials say the bacteria could cause skin infections, abdominal pain and diarrhea. The Lee County Visitor and Convention Bureau’s Nancy Hamilton says she’s not hearing many complaints.

“I’m sure some of our guests are disappointed. I know that hoteliers are sort of pointing out other options to people, which are move to some of the other beaches or of course most of the resorts have swimming pools and kids love to play in those too.”

Workers discovered the high levels during testing at Blind Pass
Beach on Captiva and Bowman's Beach and Tarpon Bay Park Beach on Sanibel. Poor conditions also exist at the Cape Coral Yacht Club and at Lynn Hall Park on Fort Myers Beach. Testing will be done again this week.

Researchers at Mote Marine Laboratory in Sarasota can continue studying the effects of red tide – thanks to the renewal of a seven and a half million dollar federal grant. Mote will share the money – awarded by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences – with seven other organizations, including the Florida Department of Health & the U-S Centers for Disease Control & Prevention.
The ongoing effort seeks to discover how humans are affected by red tide toxins to develop a treatment. Mote Senior Scientist - Barbara Kirkpatrick – says the study’s next phase takes place this weekend on Sarasota’s beaches.

“We’re going to be running another red tide exposure study with the asthmatic group we’ve been following for the last 3 years to identify the response asthmatics have after a one hour beach exposure to the Florida red tide aerosols.”

Kirkpatrick says the grant is worth a-quarter-million-dollars annually over the next five years to Mote – but more money than that will be spent here in southwest Florida…because it’s such a good place to study red tide.

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The next round of field studies on red tide gets underway today in Sarasota…thanks to the renewal of a 7-million-dollar federal grant.
Researchers at Mote Marine Laboratory are conducting the local study. It’s part of a broader effort into red tide’s human impact – and ways to reduce its effects. Mote Senior Scientist - Barbara Kirkpatrick – says there’s still much debate over the human impact on red tide.

“It is part of the natural environment…I think the big question is are things we’re doing along our coastline making these natural blooms last longer and/or become more intense.”

This weekend’s Sarasota study involves bringing a group of asthmatics to the beach for one hour where red tide is present - to see what effect, if any, it has on them. Kirkpatrick doesn’t expect science will ever get rid of red tide – she’s hopeful the day will come when it can be managed… almost like an allergy.

The Florida Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association wrapped up its annual conference yesterday in Naples. As W-G-C-U’s Valerie Alker reports the industry is preparing a new marketing campaign.

It’s called “Fruits and Veggies, More Matters” and the campaign targets Generation X Moms. Ray Gilmer of the Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association says parents already know they’re an important part of a healthy diet. The ad campaign serves up strategies for getting the healthy foods on the daily menu.

“Fruits and vegetables in their fresh form certainly is the first choice, but all forms matter, fresh frozen canned even juice can be an excellent way of reaching those recommended goals of eating more fruits and vegetables every day”.

The marketing campaign will be launched in March. While in Naples the fruit and vegetable growers also talked about how to make the Federal Farm Bill friendlier to Florida Agriculture and how to deal with a looming labor shortage.

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Florida is NOT one of the states that has confirmed cases of E-coli from bagged spinach. And the outbreak poses no immediate problem to the state’s growers. But it was a topic of conversation at the week’s annual meeting of the Florida Fruit and Vegetable growers association in Naples. Roy Gilmer is the Association’s director. He says right now there’s no harvesting going on.

“We don’t have any product. but we’re working with the fda to make sure what ever systems they say may see necessary to keep this from happening again can be put into place.”

Most of the bagged spinach comes from California, but Gilmer says during the winter season the Belle Glade area in South Florida is also a producer. Florida leads the nation in citrus production. It’s also a leading grower of tomatoes, green peppers, snap beans, potatoes and sweet corn.

Wildlife officials say a sick loggerhead turtle rescued by Pasco County Sheriff’s marine officers Wednesday is likely a victim of Southwest Florida’s spreading red tide. There have been reports of fish kills along the beaches of Pinellas County in recent days. Bill Richardson – a red tide researcher with the Florida fish and wildlife conservation commission says the persistent algal bloom is shifting to the north.


“It was first sighted in mid June down near the Caloosahatchee area – San Carlos bay - and it’s patchy in its distribution but I’ts been along the coast of Charlotte and Sarasota and then more recently has come up across the mouth of Tampa Bay near the Sky Way fishing pier.”

Richardson says there’s no way to predict when the red tide bloom will dissipate. He says if there’s lots of rainfall and then lots of fresh water flowing into Tampa Bay ‘that’ could impede its progress. The red tide organism that occurs in southwest Florida is stopped or slowed down when salinity decreases.

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Tropical Storm Florence is getting better organized but still poses no threat to Florida. But while tropical systems can do great harm, they can also do some good. Rainfall from the massive storms can relieve droughts. And as red-tide researchers have discovered tropical systems can also move the harmful algal blooms away from beaches, bays and inlets. Bill Richardson is a red tide researcher with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission in St. Petersburg.

”If a hurricane came and its path was such that large volumes of water are transported offshore – say south away from the coast and there was a current red tide in those waters – the red tide would be transported out of that region and that’s one way red tide can dissipate”.

Researchers had predicted that Tropical Storm Ernesto last week might move Southwest Florida’s persistent red tide far away – but the storm lost its punch and the red tide remains. The good news? No hurricane clean-up. The bad news? Cleaning up dead fish.

A Bird Flu scenario will be played out tomorrow in Lee County. The Lee County Health Department is the lead agency in the exercise that will measure response to the impending presence of bird flu in the community. Law enforcement, hospital staff, fire and rescue and other private and public agencies will also take part. The Lee County Emergency Operations Center will be the command post. Steven Fetner is Disaster Preparedness Coordinator for the Health Department.

“What we’re doing is testing our ability to communicate with each other to integrate our services and to sort of be on the same page as to how we would gear up to respond to an event like this“

Officials with the World Health Organization have warned it may only be a matter of time before there is a deadly bird flu pandemic. Other municipalities around the country are going through similar exercises to prepare for that possibility. Collier County has already staged one drill. Charlotte County will hold one in January. Valerie Alker, W-G-C-U News.
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An exercise to test the handling of a bird flu alert will be played out tomorrow in Lee County. World Health Officials fear bird – or avian – flu could become a pandemic. To prepare for that possibility, healthcare workers and others will be tested on their response to an unrehearsed scenario. Steve Fetner of the Lee County Health Department says the purpose is to facilitate a smooth response to the real thing.

“What they will do is sort of run through a rolling scenario that brings it here to lee county and injects all kinds of situations – what would you do if? Hospitals what are you going to do if you run out of bed space, things of that nature. We want people to react as if it were a real situation so they have no preconceived ideas about what they would do.”

If the worst-case scenario plays out and bird flu becomes a pandemic – one quarter of people living in the U-S might become infected. Collier County has already had a bird flu exercise – Charlotte plans one for January.

The director of the Glades Health Initiative in Belle Glade is in Toronto this week at the International Aids Conference. Twenty years ago this rural community in western Palm Beach County had an AIDS infection rate reportedly fifty times greater than the national average. What’s it like today?

At first researchers thought mosquitoes might be spreading AIDS in Belle Glade. That theory was disproved. The culprit was instead a culture of poverty and related drug use combined with a large migrant population and flawed statistics gathering. Today the number of AIDS cases in Belle Glade is close to that in other depressed communities in Florida. Zunilda Jackson is an HIV Counselor at the Glades Health Initiative in Belle Glade.

“the highest hiv population we have unfortunately is among African Americans –and unfortunately it’s a young community – a tender age community – and I attribute to the high number of younger people taking drugs”

But although the number of AIDS cases in Belle Glade is inline with statewide statistics – the overall percentage in Florida is up considerably since 1985.
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Twenty-one years ago scientists from the Centers for Disease Control set up shop in Belle Glade to try to find out why the number of AIDS cases turning up was 50 greater than the national average. They suspected mosquitoes spread the virus – but years of research proved otherwise. Today, as AIDS researchers from around the world meet in Toronto – work continues on the ground in Belle Glade to halt the spread of HIV. Counselor Zunilda Jackson says substance abuse and a culture of poverty are the primary culprits in the disease’s spread.

“a lot of times they get into drugs or alcohol and their mind is totally compromised – to the point where they don’t know what they’re doing and if they’re doing it right or wrong”.

Jackson says flawed statistical gathering in the 1980’s led to the high number of AIDS cases reported in Belle Glade. She says today most new cases are reported among the African-American community – and that many of infected are very young.

Local health departments around Florida are holding workshops with community groups and businesses to educate them about the avian ‘bird’ flu and its potential to become a pandemic. Collier County holds a session today on Marco Island. Health and emergency officials say it’s not a matter of if, but when a pandemic flu will occur. If Avian flu were to become easily passed between humans, a worldwide outbreak would mean the community would need to work together in unprecedented ways. Deb Milsap with the Collier Health Department says preparation is very different than getting ready for a hurricane.

“In the case of a pandemic flu we’re looking at trying to prepare ourselves for six months to a year of people being ill – whether it’s in your own family or at work. It’s expected that 30% of the population might not be at work at any given time. It’s possible the schools could close down and parents would need to stay home with kids.”

Milsap says businesses and families need long term recovery plans.
She says stores may not be able to restock for weeks and pharmacies may not be able to get enough medicine.
The Collier County presentation is this morning at 11:30 at the Marco Island Yacht club. Reservations are required.

(239-389-9931)