Ka`u Calendar News Briefs Sunday, May 8, 2016

Ka`u Coffee Festival's inaugural Lobsterpalooza is a week from today on the lawn at Punalu`u Beach House. See more below. Photo from Jim Dahlberg

GOV. DAVID IGE VETOED a bill relating to access to treatment for terminally ill patients. The House of Representatives and the Senate each passed SB2181 unanimously.

The purpose of the bill was to enable terminally ill patients in Hawai`i to obtain from manufacturers investigational drugs and biological products that have not yet been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for general use. The bill also would have shielded practitioners who recommend investigational drugs to their patients from liability and the heirs of patients who receive investigational drugs from claims of responsibility for the costs of those drugs in the event of the patient’s death.

Gov. David Ige

“This bill is objectionable because the FDA’s existing ‘expanded access program’ (also known as the ‘compassionate use program’), which this measure seeks to circumvent, already serves to increase access to investigational drugs for patients under the care of a physician while preserving the approval process, treatment data reporting and other patient-centered safeguards,” Ige said in his veto message. “The regulations associated with this program were amended in 2009 and should be allowed a chance to be fully implemented and further publicized. While admirably seeking to increase access to potentially life-saving drugs, this measure unreasonably compromises the consumer protections provided by the FDA’s expanded access program. The federal system of regulations that govern the sale and distribution of new and investigational drugs is also instrumental in the development of beneficial drug products. Interference with that system will likely have the unintended consequence of delaying development of those potentially life-saving drugs. Additionally, this measure unreasonably intrudes upon a system of federal law in violation of the Supremacy Clause. Since the sale and distribution of new and investigational drugs will remain federally regulated whether or not this measure becomes law, it is also unclear what actual benefits would accrue to patients in Hawai`i.”

“Sadly, the governor chose to ignore the key point of this legislation which about 30 other states have passed – that point being that people want hope,” Ka`u’s state Sen. Josh Green said. “This bill would have allowed people with terminal illness and no other options to pursue medicine that is undergoing the process of approval by the (seriously flawed) FDA.

“It’s time we saw a little more heart from the administration.”
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Women between ages 20 and 34 have more children than those
in younger or older age groups. Graph from U.S. Census

TODAY IS MOTHER’S DAY. Anna Jarvis organized the first Mother’s Day observances in Grafton, West Virginia and Philadelphia on May 10, 1908. As the annual celebration became popular around the country, Jarvis became the driving force behind Mother’s Day and asked members of Congress to set aside a day to honor mothers. She succeeded in 1914, when Congress designated the second Sunday in May as Mother’s Day.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 43.5 million women between the ages of 15 and 50 have children, and these mothers gave birth to 95.8 million children.
For more facts about mothers, see census.gov.

KILAUEA’S EXPLOSIVE NATURE is the topic of Hawaiian Volcano Observatory’s current issue of Volcano Watch.

“You enter Hawai`i Volcanoes National Park and drive past Kilauea Visitor Center, perhaps first stopping for guidance on where to see lava – the reason most people visit the volcano,” the article states. “Eventually, you cross Steaming Flat, drive by Kilauea Military Camp and arrive at the Jaggar Museum parking lot. You park and walk to the viewing platform, hoping that lava is visible in the distant Halema`uma`u Crater.
“As an observant visitor, though, you may have noted something a bit strange. You saw lava flows – cold and solidified, of course – only in cuts where the road drops down to, and then climbs out of, Steaming Flat. Everywhere else, you were traveling on a surface of gravelly or sandy material (hidden by vegetation in many places). Volcanologists call this material tephra, a product of explosive eruptions. The tephra sits on, and mostly hides, the lava flows of Kilauea.
“Before 2008, the year when Crater Rim Drive was closed at Jaggar Museum, your drive into and across the caldera would have been similar. Tephra is everywhere at the ground surface, except where lava flows that were erupted in the late 20th century cross the road. Large blocks and pockets of ash exploded from Halema`uma`u in 1924 litter the surface surrounding the crater.
“Today, you can observe tephra by walking along the section of Crater Rim Drive between the Devastation Trail parking area and Keanakako`i Crater. Thick deposits of pumice and scoria from the 1959 Kilauea Iki lava fountains line much of the hiking route. Near Keanakako`i, layered older explosive deposits are evident, particularly visible in the cut (closed to visitors) just beyond the gate at Keanakako`i.

Layers of explosive deposits erupted from Kilauea Volcano in the 17th
and 18th centuries are visible in a road cut at Keanakako`i Crater.
Photo from USGS/HVO

“By now you’ve found some of the evidence for past explosive eruptions that geologists a century ago recognized. They correctly surmised that many explosions, not just one, had occurred, because they found evidence of erosion between some layers within the deposits. They knew that at least one eruption took place in 1790 but had no way of knowing when the others occurred.

“In the late 1960s, observations of erupting Taal Volcano, Philippines, led to the recognition of base surges, which carry hot volcanic debris across the surface at hurricane velocity. Volcanologists soon discovered that surges can erode the ground surface, scouring channels much like those eroded by water and wind.

“Base-surge deposits were identified at Kilauea in the early 1970s – an important step in understanding its past explosive history. But there was a detour along the way. Surges were the ‘in’ thing then, and they were used to account for all the erosional features found in the explosive deposits. With this thinking, one no longer needed to postulate many explosions, separated by periods of wind and water erosion. Instead, repeated scouring by multiple surges during only one eruption in 1790 became the favored model.
“In the 1990s, a new technique for radiocarbon dating – accelerator mass spectrometry – made it possible to measure the age of only a few milligrams of charcoal resulting from fires set by lava flows and explosive eruptions. That remarkable technological advancement, coupled with a means to adjust the AMS ages to calendar years, opened the door to understanding much of Kilauea’s past few thousand years.
“Application of AMS dating to the explosive deposits found that multiple eruptions of different ages had indeed taken place, and that water and wind erosion was responsible for some of the channels and irregular surfaces found in the deposits. To be sure, surges did some of the erosion, but not all.
“This discovery freed our thinking; no longer was it necessary to cram all the explosive activity into one year. The new ‘relaxed-fit’ approach fits the data better, indicating about 300 years of repeated explosive eruptions at Kilauea’s summit. Detailed field work found more evidence supporting the new interpretation. The story now is internally consistent.
“Your drive from the Park entrance station to Jaggar Museum, and your walk at Keanakako`i Crater, are on deposits of the 1790 eruption, which overlie older deposits going back to about 1500. Other research has found evidence for older periods of explosive activity lasting as long as 1200 years.

“The bottom line: Kilauea is an explosive volcano that will, almost certainly, explode again.”

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SENIOR IDs ARE AVAILABLE tomorrow from 9 a.m. to 10 a.m. at Pahala Housing Center and 11 a.m. to 12 p.m. at Na`alehu Community Center. For ages 60 and over. Call 928-3100 for more information.

Tom Peek discusses and signs his book
at After Dark in the Park.

INSPIRED BY THE ISLAND OF FIRE is the topic at After Dark in the Park Tuesday at 7 p.m. at Kilauea Visitor Center Auditorium in Hawai`i Volcanoes National Park. Hawai`i Island author Tom Peek, a former eruption ranger at the park, presents the story behind the story of his award-winning novel, Daughters of Fire. $2 donations support park programs; park entrance fees apply.

LOBSTERPALOOZA IS A WEEK from today.
A new event for 2016, Ka`u Coffee Festival Lobsterpalooza is a picnic on the lawn of the beach house at Punalu`u Black Sand Beach. Presented in partnership with Hana Hou Restaurant and `O Ka`u Kakou, the event features a choice of surf or turf menu and live entertainment by Larry Dupio Band and special guest Full Tilt Band.
Lobsterpalooza is next Sunday, May 15 from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. Tickets are $75 in advance and are available at brownpapertickets.com, Hana Hou restaurant in Na`alehu and from Lorie Obra in Pahala at 937-3412.
See kaucoffeefest.com for full menu.
For more information, call Chris Manfredi at 929-9550.

SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS AT PAHALAPLANTATIONCOTTAGES.COM AND KAUCOFFEEMILL.COM. KA`U COFFEE MILL IS OPEN SEVEN DAYS A WEEK.