Dialogue

Arts take the stage

Thank you, Mr. Astin ["Staging a Revival," Summer]. As a Homewood freshman in 1965, I saw an excellent Hopkins production of The Threepenny Opera at the Barn and, as a sophomore, Waiting for Godot at Center Stage. Although I was a premed student, these experiences moved me more than Alsoph Corwin's organic chemistry course. I became a physician and, since retiring, have enjoyed a second career acting and directing in a community theater. Best of luck in re-establishing a quality theater tradition at Hopkins.

Charles A. Braslow, A&S '69, Med '73
Christiansted, St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands
Comment from hub.jhu.edu/magazine

Untelling fish tales

Charles Kestenbaum's letter, "Food for Thought," from the Summer issue, contains several uninformed comments about the Aquaponics Project [Wholly Hopkins, "Farming for Urban Tilapia," Winter 2011].

The Aquaponics Project, developed by the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future, is not a backyard project. Rather, the project provides a field lab environment for the serious study of aquaponics in order to help raise awareness of and increase the body of knowledge about aquaponics as an economic, social, and ecologically sustainable avenue for raising edible aquatic animals and plants. Moreover, the project is designed to engage Johns Hopkins students, faculty, and staff members—as well as the general public—to facilitate experiential education, applied research, and job training. Overall, by applying what we learn we aim to drive the field of aquaponics and recirculating aquaculture forward.

As the letter notes, some overseas tilapia production has been associated with unsustainable practices. However, we do not use pesticides, antibiotics, steroids, or growth hormones. Instead, we examine techniques for practical application, such as studying vegetarian and/or algae-based feeds that make tilapia healthier and more environmentally friendly to raise. We are also researching methods for capturing and recycling fish wastewater to raise crops like lettuce, kale, basil, and tomatoes, which act as biofilters to clean the water.

CLF's Aquaponics Project is supported by grants and is in no way a "waste of JHU money," as the letter states, nor does it involve funding support from alumni donations.

For those who would like to learn more about the project or aquaponics in general, please visit our website. We also welcome visitors to the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future Aquaponics Project site located in Baltimore's Cylburn Arboretum.

David Love
Project Director, Public Health and Sustainable Agriculture Project
Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

Learning from animals

I enjoyed "Aping Nature" in the Summer issue. It reminded me that investigators at Johns Hopkins were learning from other species even in the early 1960s. Professor Jack Levin developed an assay for endotoxin (pieces of the wall of gram-negative bacteria) using the blood of the horseshoe crab, called Limulus polyphemus. These bacteria induced clotting of the crab's blood, causing death, and this was the basis for the assay, which led to a standard test used to ensure that vaccines and injected fluids are free of bacterial contamination. Of course, the fact that the horseshoe crab is a near neighbor to Johns Hopkins, coming ashore at the mouth of the Delaware River to lay eggs, makes this relationship even more special.

Peter Zauber, A&S '68, Med '71, HS '76
South Orange, New Jersey

To swim, or not to swim?

In "Troubled Waters" [Spring], concerning the drowning epidemic among children in Asia, Adnan Hyder states that although he thinks teaching kids to swim is a good idea in general, he has not seen scientific evidence proving that swim lessons reduce rates of drowning.

Data collected by the Bangladesh Health and Injury Survey shows that children unable to swim have a much higher chance of drowning than those who are able to swim. Additionally, research by the Centre for Injury Prevention and Research, Bangladesh, strongly suggests that learning to swim reduces a child's risk of drowning. The data was presented at the World Conference on Drowning Prevention in Vietnam.

However, some argue that if children learn to swim, they will become overconfident and put themselves at higher risk of drowning. This argument is out of context and hampers efforts to coordinate a national swim program. The BHIS suggests that each year, 17,000 children die of drowning in Bangladesh. Water in Bangladesh is mainly used for necessary daily activities—washing, cooking, cleaning—where there is a high risk of involuntary entry. For a child who is unable to swim, simply slipping while doing the washing could result in a drowning fatality. Even if a very small proportion of children began swimming for recreational purposes, the protective benefit would far outweigh any risks associated with recreational swimming.

Tom Mecrow
Dhaka, Bangladesh
Comment from hub.jhu.edu/magazine

Adnan Hyder responds:
We appreciate the letter from Tom Mecrow and agree that all efforts should be made to prevent drowning in children, especially in countries like Bangladesh. However, please note that for children 1 to 4 years old, interventions have to be barrier- or parent-based. For children 5 and up, swimming is both intuitive and potentially important—there is some data from high-income countries (like the United States)—but the work in Bangladesh mentioned in the letter has not been scientifically published or peer-reviewed; we look forward to that evidence informing our work in the future. Finally, we are starting a series of studies as well and hope to report on our work in the coming years.

Adnan A. Hyder, SPH '93, '98 (PhD)
Professor, International Health
Director, International Injury Research Unit
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health