If You Plan to Grow Flax

Last year Iowa farmers grew 40,000 acres of flax, the most in many years. They will probably grow a still larger acreage in 1940 because of the yield and price of the 1939 crop, and as in 1939, they may grow and harvest flax under the 1940 AAA program without having it count as a soil-depleting crop providing it is used as a nurse crop for clover, alfalfa or grass seeding

Barley in Iowa

Barley yields in Iowa are higher than those for oats, but in spite of this 15 times more acres are sown to oats than to barley. During the 10 year period, 1925-34, the farms of Iowa produced average acre yields of 1,007 pounds of oats on 6,000,000 acres and 1,238 pounds of barley on 460,000 acres. Figure 1, presenting data from the Iowa Year Book of Agriculture, shows the relative acreage and acre yields of the two crops from 1900 to 1934. In order that a direct comparison may readily be made, the yields of barley have been converted into units of 32 pounds, corresponding to a standard bushel of oats. These data indicate that while the spread between the yields of the two crops was somewhat greater during the 10 year period, 1920-29, than during the preceding decade, the same general relation, in both yield and acreage, has existed for more than 30 years

Flax as an Iowa crop

Among the grain crops in the United States, seed flax is exceeded in value by corn, wheat, oats and barley. It has approximately the same value as rye, rice and sorghums. As a crop for new land, the flax seed acreage reached a peak (3,700,000 acres) in 1902, but gradually declined to little more than a million acres by 1922. As a crop for old land, taking its place in rotations, flax acreage reached a second peak equal to the first in 1930. Consumption of flax in the United States surpassed production in 1909 and for the past two and a half decades it has been necessary to buy a quantity from other countries about equal to that produced here. In Iowa the maximum acreage, somewhat over 322,000, was reported for 1885. As the new land disappeared the Iowa flax acreage gradually dwindled to less than 6,000 acres in 1922

Enhanced infection prophylaxis reduces mortality in severely immunosuppressed HIV-infected adults and older children initiating antiretroviral therapy in Kenya, Malawi, Uganda and Zimbabwe: the REALITY trial

Meeting abstract FRAB0101LB from 21st International AIDS Conference 18–22 July 2016, Durban, South Africa. Introduction: Mortality from infections is high in the first 6 months of antiretroviral therapy (ART) among HIV‐infected adults and children with advanced disease in sub‐Saharan Africa. Whether an enhanced package of infection prophylaxis at ART initiation would reduce mortality is unknown. Methods: The REALITY 2×2×2 factorial open‐label trial (ISRCTN43622374) randomized ART‐naïve HIV‐infected adults and children >5 years with CD4 <100 cells/mm3. This randomization compared initiating ART with enhanced prophylaxis (continuous cotrimoxazole plus 12 weeks isoniazid/pyridoxine (anti‐tuberculosis) and fluconazole (anti‐cryptococcal/candida), 5 days azithromycin (anti‐bacterial/protozoal) and single‐dose albendazole (anti‐helminth)), versus standard‐of‐care cotrimoxazole. Isoniazid/pyridoxine/cotrimoxazole was formulated as a scored fixed‐dose combination. Two other randomizations investigated 12‐week adjunctive raltegravir or supplementary food. The primary endpoint was 24‐week mortality. Results: 1805 eligible adults (n = 1733; 96.0%) and children/adolescents (n = 72; 4.0%) (median 36 years; 53.2% male) were randomized to enhanced (n = 906) or standard prophylaxis (n = 899) and followed for 48 weeks (3.8% loss‐to‐follow‐up). Median baseline CD4 was 36 cells/mm3 (IQR: 16–62) but 47.3% were WHO Stage 1/2. 80 (8.9%) enhanced versus 108(12.2%) standard prophylaxis died before 24 weeks (adjusted hazard ratio (aHR) = 0.73 (95% CI: 0.54–0.97) p = 0.03; Figure 1) and 98(11.0%) versus 127(14.4%) respectively died before 48 weeks (aHR = 0.75 (0.58–0.98) p = 0.04), with no evidence of interaction with the two other randomizations (p > 0.8). Enhanced prophylaxis significantly reduced incidence of tuberculosis (p = 0.02), cryptococcal disease (p = 0.01), oral/oesophageal candidiasis (p = 0.02), deaths of unknown cause (p = 0.02) and (marginally) hospitalisations (p = 0.06) but not presumed severe bacterial infections (p = 0.38). Serious and grade 4 adverse events were marginally less common with enhanced prophylaxis (p = 0.06). CD4 increases and VL suppression were similar between groups (p > 0.2). Conclusions: Enhanced infection prophylaxis at ART initiation reduces early mortality by 25% among HIV‐infected adults and children with advanced disease. The pill burden did not adversely affect VL suppression. Policy makers should consider adopting and implementing this low‐cost broad infection prevention package which could save 3.3 lives for every 100 individuals treated