Navy Fuel & Deadly Fungus Invades

Navy Fuel & Deadly Fungus Invades plus Food Forethought. I'm Greg Martin with today's Northwest Report. Scott Johnson is President of the Montana-based company Sustainable Oils - which provided camelina - biodiesel to the Navy for a test flight last week in Maryland. The test was part of the Navy's initiative on energy security and renewable energy. JOHNSON: The Navy flew an F-18, what they're calling the Green Phantom, because it was flying on biofuel. 50% of the fuel on board was camelina based HRJ5 which is the Navy's jet fuel that we produced under contract for them and everything went very well, they got up to Mach 1.2. The pilots told the Secretary of the Navy that they couldn't tell any difference between the Camelina mixture and regular jet fuel. Health care professionals in Oregon and Washington are being asked to watch out for a deadly new strain of airborne fungus. This new type of fungus is infecting otherwise healthy people. Typically, fungal diseases strike people with weak immune systems, but this strain is different. 21 cases have been reported here in the northwest. The fungus is called Cryptococcus gattii and these recent cases are a new more deadly strain. Out of the 21 cases, 6 of the patients died. The fungus can be treated, but not prevented. Right now there is no vaccine. Symptoms of the fungal disease include a chronic cough, sharp chest pain, shortness of breath, headache, fever and weight loss. Now with today's Food Forethought, here's Lacy Gray. Well, it sounds good, at least there's that. Last week when Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack said "as children learn more about the nutritional value that's available to them they're going to make the smart choice and the wise choice". On the perfect day, at the perfect time, on a perfect world this could very well be the case. On this normal planet we call home it's pretty much just wishful thinking. To insinuate that all parents, teachers, and schools prior to this particular moment in time have failed to inform children about good nutrition and the importance of physical activity for their overall health and well being would be a great injustice. My husband and I, like our parents and their parents before them, did our best when it came to providing our children with healthy food choices. The fact remains, "you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink". Yes, we should still make every effort to provide nutritional school lunches, and inform our children about the health benefits of keeping active. Will this guarantee that they will always make healthy food choices? No, but as every parent can attest, the hope that our children will be wiser and stronger than we were is an ongoing state of mind. Thanks Lacy. That's today's Northwest Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.