Slippage Effects of the Conservation Reserve Program: New Evidence from Satellite Imagery

The Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) is the largest land retirement program ever operated in the US. Since its inception in 1985, many researchers have studied the impacts of this program; however, only a few have analyzed how the CRP affects surrounding non–enrolled parcels. In this research I examine how the CRP may affect the conversion of non–cropped land to agriculture, a phenomenon referred to as “slippage” in the literature, and specifically addressed by Wu (2000) and Roberts and Bucholtz (2005). Building on these earlier studies, I empirically model slippage using data derived from satellite imagery that provides information on land cover changes between 1992 and 2001. The study area consists of 1,053 counties located in the Northern Plains, Corn Belt and Lake States regions. Results support the existence of slippage effects from the CRP, but they are more conservative than the ones found by Wu (2000). The evidence of slippage provided here is important information for planners, given that whether and how the CRP affects land use decisions in surrounding areas is key information for implementing conservation efforts more efficiently.CRP, Land use change, Satellite imagery, Slippage effect, Agricultural and Food Policy, Land Economics/Use, Q15, Q24,

Ethical Issues: Assisted Suicide Upheld

EssayThe ethical controversy invited by legally allowing physician assisted suicide is a familiar and complex one in which personal rights, states' rights, professional obligation, and the federal government's sense of global obligation to protect human life come into conflict

Organizational Ethics Committees

EssayThe first official healthcare ethics committee convened in 1971. But the origin of such committees came years earlier in response to a rising tide of moral concern in health care. “Committees for the Discussion of Morals in Medicine” were formed by U.S. Catholic Hospitals in the 1960s in response to increasing social awareness of personal rights and the new dilemmas created by evolving life saving medical technology

Ethical Issues: Communication

EssayNothing is more important to the welfare of patients, providers, and health care systems than effective patient centered communication. This occurs by having the knowledge, attitudes, skills, and organizational infrastructure to foster the comprehension and application of often-vast amounts of information. The first step in fostering patient centered communication is to encourage providers to understand their own health-related values and beliefs, recognizing that everyone may not share in those beliefs. Conflict may occur between providers and patients when difficult decisions are required at times of severe illness or at the end of life when there is miscommunication

Ethical Issues: DNR Revisited

EssayIn most cultures, when making treatment decisions for adults, children, and neonates with end stage illness, there tends to be universal agreement that overly aggressive treatment should be discouraged when death is near and further intervention is felt to be futile. This includes the use of CPR, artificial hydration and nutrition, unnecessary diagnostic procedures, and interventions that may sustain life but not necessarily provide optimal patient comfort

Ethical Issues: Treating Patients Without Permission

EssayMedical ethics is grounded by the notion that we must always respect the patient's right of self determination, which means that we should inform patients about what needs to be done and seek permission before doing it to them. But, what about those situations when consent is unobtainable, or when the patient wants something done that may be unnecessary or unreasonably harmful to them or to others? The tenets of medicine inform us that if action is needed but consent cannot be obtained, such as in an emergency, there is a presumption that the patient or victim would want us to treat them as long as the intervention is rational and not unduly risky

Ethical Issues: A Good Death

EssayFor elderly patients, especially those in long term facilities, the risk of death is obviously high. The challenge, therefore, as health care providers is knowing when to employ our healing powers to enable a “good death” when it is clear that further aggressive intervention is medically futile, will be overly burdensome, or will not reasonably offer benefit to the patient

Ethical Issues: The Pope and Terri's Tube

EssayOn March 20, 2004, in a papal allocution delivered at the Vatican, Pope John Paul II made statements regarding the feeding of patients diagnosed as being in a persistent vegetative state. These statements have rekindled the longstanding ethical debate about futility and the patient's right to choose or refuse “artificial nutrition and hydration” as a form of artificial life support

Ethical Issues: Malpractice Crisis

EssayMedicine is in crisis. Doctors, especially those in high-risk specialties like obstetrics and neurosurgery, are leaving their practices in response to ballooning malpractice costs. Malpractice rates for physicians are skyrocketing, and physicians are reacting—some by speaking out, and others by just leaving

Ethical Issues: Access in Missouri

Medicaid spending in Missouri has been growing at double-digit rates since 1998, expanding to cover almost one in five citizens and contributing to the state's growing budgetary problems. Medicaid expenditures increased by almost 50 percent between 2001 and 2005 (from $4.2 billion to$6.3 billion), predominantly due to increases in enrollment, as well as changes in case mix. In an attempt to curb this growing financial burden 90,000 enrollees were cut from the Medicaid roles in 2005 resulting in a fierce debate as to the morality of eliminating health care access for many of the most vulnerable citizens, such as the elderly, dying, and disabled