Quarantine

It is quite regrettable that "Caught in Cross-Fire of Pacific Apple War" (July 22) mixes facts and hearsay and conveys a harmful and misleading message about Japan, in particular Japan's plant quarantine procedures. The article asserts that even though fire blight exists in Japan, Japan has continued to deny the fact and has been using fear of the spread of fire blight as a cornerstone of a trade policy that effectively barred apples imported from the U.S. However, while the American and European fire blight infects a wide range of plants including pears and apples, the disease called bacterial shoot blight of pear, which occurs in a very limited area of Japan, infects only pears grown under natural conditions.

To the bear known as Meatball, taste matters. After almost two weeks in a quarantine cage, his discriminating palate is back on display at his temporary home in Alpine, Calif. "He's doing OK," said Bobbi Brink, director of the Lions, Tigers & Bears sanctuary, where Meatball was taken by wildlife officials Aug. 29. "He's eating a lot of grapes. He's just randomly picking through what he wants. He loves avocados. Avocados and grapes. He probably wishes for a glass of wine. " PHOTOS: The Glendale bear captured for good?

I used to think that Long Beach had its own share of Chicken Littles. But now I read that Lynwood is a center for those hysterical fowls, all ready to scream that the sky is falling! How unthinking and insensitive can a public servant be without looking at the facts? It could be foolish chaos. And that is what happened recently when a Lynwood councilman called for an outright quarantine of AIDS victims. My, we haven't come that far from those days in 1942 when Japanese were rounded up. Back to the biblical days of caves for the lepers.

If only the Glendale bear could hire a lawyer. The 400-pound black bear, affectionately known as Meatball as well as Glen Bearian, remained in a quarantine cage at a California sanctuary Wednesday night as officials grappled with a Colorado regulation that puts on hold any transfer to the Rocky Mountain state. The meatball-loving bear, whose popularity exploded after multiple friendly visits to neighborhoods in the foothills north of downtown Los Angeles, gave in to temptation last week, lured by French fries and bacon straight into a culvert trap.

Nearly 500 people were in quarantine in Beijing and the eastern Chinese province of Anhui as authorities raced to contain a small eruption of SARS before May Day put millions of travelers on the road. Two confirmed cases of severe acute respiratory syndrome and six suspected ones have been announced in the last week, all linked to a SARS lab in Beijing.

Declaring a local state of emergency in the wake of the discovery of 43 Medflies in Ventura County, Sheriff Larry Carpenter on Tuesday appealed on behalf of the county for state and federal disaster relief money for potential crop and sales losses. Gov. Pete Wilson was expected to declare a state of emergency in the county as early as today, county disaster officials said.

State agriculture officials have established a 9-square-mile quarantine area for plants and fruit after the discovery of 16 light brown apple moths. The quarantine covers a large swath of central and east Long Beach, running roughly from downtown east to the Orange County line, and south of Pacific Coast Highway. Residents in those areas are prohibited from moving cut flowers, nursery stock, fruits and vegetables out of the area. The quarantine applies to residential and public properties as well as plant nurseries, farms and other commercial enterprises, according to the state Department of Food and Agriculture.

Entertainer Liza Minnelli has been fined $2,000 for taking her pet dog, Lilly, into Sweden in April in violation of quarantine regulations. Lilly slipped into Sweden unnoticed with Minnelli's entourage.

Peter H. King's March 26 column, "Saroyan's Literary Quarantine," was, in part, a charmer that William Saroyan himself would have approved, except for the inaccuracies: specifically, that Saroyan today is held under book-land quarantine, that few of his titles are in print and that he is barely taught in the schools. Since Saroyan's death, there has never been a "quarantine," and over 450 permission grants and publications have occurred, many of which are in use in high schools and colleges throughout America and the world.

The state has placed a plant-movement quarantine on Los Angeles County to slow the spread of an invasive pest that can carry a deadly citrus bacteria. California's Department of Food and Agriculture announced the quarantine one week after discovering several dozen Asian citrus psyllids in Los Angeles. All citrus must now be commercially washed and packed before leaving the county. Psyllids are a carrier of huanlongbing, a deadly bacteria that has devastated citrus industries across China, Brazil and Florida.

ELMONT, N.Y. — If racing had its way, the news of the day here Wednesday would have been which horse drew which post position for Saturday's 144th Belmont Stakes. More specifically, which post was drawn by I'll Have Another, who will try to complete a coveted Triple Crown. Post-position draws at the Belmont don't matter much. The race is a mile and a half, plenty of time to recover from mishaps at the start. For the record, I'll Have Another drew the 11th starting spot in a field of 12. He started 19th in the 20-horse cavalry charge, also known as the Kentucky Derby, and still won. The actual news of the day was related to the news of every other day since I'll Have Another won the Preakness and got the attention of so many clueless people who think a filly is a cheese steak from the city with a crack in its Liberty Bell.

SACRAMENTO -- State agriculture officials have lifted a ban on sales of raw milk by Organic Pastures, a Fresno dairy. The California Department of Food and Agriculture imposed the quarantine May 10 after inspections found harmful bacteria in samples of butter, cream and cow manure from the dairy's herd. The prohibition ended Friday morning after the facility was certified as meeting all state food safety and sanitation requirements. Organic Pastures' website immediately announced that it would soon restart distribution to stores and told customers that they could come to the dairy to buy milk immediately.

State agricultural inspectors have enacted a quarantine and are going door-to-door in a Hacienda Heights neighborhood in an effort to help save the state's $2-billion citrus industry and beloved backyard fruit trees from a disease that has wreaked havoc in Florida and Brazil. The sale of citrus trees is banned in a five-mile radius around the Los Angeles County neighborhood where Huanglongbing, or yellow dragon disease, was first detected last week, according to the California Department of Food and Agriculture.

An outbreak of a deadly virus has horse trainers and owners in Riverside and Orange counties fearful for the health of their animals. On Tuesday, a horse at the Empire Polo Club in Indio was euthanized because of complications from equine herpes virus-1. At Rancho Sierra Vista in San Juan Capistrano, 16 cases of the disease have been identified since Jan. 11 and one horse had to be euthanized. Both sites have been placed under quarantine by state veterinarians. No horses are allowed to leave or enter, and caretakers must take sanitary precautions.

Linda Cree and her husband haven't dared to go outside to sit by their pool in the two months since furry black bats began invading their Moorpark backyard. They found three drowned in the pool, she said. Some flopped around on the ground in a pitiful death dance before growing still. She found one clinging to her screen door when she went out to get the morning paper, said Cree, 65, a homemaker. Of the eight bats she reported to Animal Control, seven tested positive for rabies.

Steve Spence knew he was done for when he took the trash out — barefoot — to the curb of his Moorpark home Sunday night. He looked down, and on his foot was a furry bat with black wings. It was exactly like the hundreds that migrate to his neighborhood, and especially his house, every spring and leave every August. He shook the bat off. Then Spence, 54, looked closer, and on his foot was a red bite mark. "I immediately thought 'I'm screwed,'" said Spence, a case manager for a nonprofit that serves the homeless and mentally ill. The bat was rabid and had infected Spence.

As shoppers arrive at the Santa Monica farmers market this morning, usually the busiest market of the year, they may be surprised to see much of the produce swathed in netting, the most visible evidence of a quarantine that was declared last week by the California Department of Food and Agriculture, after the discovery of Mediterranean fruit flies at a location in eastern Santa Monica. To comply with the new regulations, which affect 17 farmers markets on the Westside, growers have to cover host produce with insect-proof netting, which must be suspended above the display so that the bugs can't lay eggs in the fruits.

I agree that it's a very good idea to take along fresh fruit to eat on a long flight ("Feel-Good Ideas for Long Flights," Aug. 9). But every time I've tried it, the fruit was taken away from me, either at security or by the airline personnel. I don't understand the interstate or international quarantine laws or is it simply that the airlines have their own rules? SAMUEL J. LOSH Pasadena Kathy Doheny responds: Taking fruit on board domestic or foreign-bound flights is allowed except for travelers departing from special quarantine areas, such as those specified for Medflies, according to several major airlines and the U.S. Customs office.

A Southern California pharmaceutical firm engaged in fierce competition to develop a generic version of a big-selling blood thinner sued the Food and Drug Administration on Monday, accusing the agency of illegally seizing an ingredient the company needed to pursue its application for the anticoagulant. The suit, by Amphastar Pharmaceuticals Inc. of Rancho Cucamonga, alleges the FDA did not have the authority to quarantine two shipments of Chinese-manufactured heparin last summer, because they were being transferred between subsidiaries of the same company and were intended for research, not for treating humans.

There's no question that John Erick Dowdle and Drew Dowdle's new film "Devil" is an anomaly in today's Hollywood. A $21-million supernatural thriller about five strangers trapped in an elevator and the evil lurking among them, it's not based on a graphic novel, nor is it a remake or a reboot of a television series from the 1970s or '80s. The ensemble cast includes no instantly recognizable faces. Instead, "Devil" marks the first installment in M. Night Shyamalan's "Night Chronicles," a planned trilogy of original stories conceived by the Philadelphia-based filmmaker but turned over to others to execute.