C M Y K E1
HEALTH 03-02-10 DM EE E1 CMYK
ABCDE
HEALTH SCIENCE
E
&
tuesday, march 2, 2010 DM VA
IN THE NEWS
THE GREEN
BREAST CANCER
Zzzs make A’s
LANTERN
Patented gene Lawsuit challenges the only company that tests for the BRCA mutation. E6
Research shows
Is it meat?
that a midday nap
Thinking about
helps people learn
planet-conscious
better. E3
pet food. E3
124,000
Number of leg-cramp sufferers who got off-label prescriptions
for quinine in the first half of 2008. Consumer Reports, E2
WINTER SUMMER
No matter what climate chaos occurs
32° 90°
aboveground in the Washington area, the
temperature a few feet below the surface is
always in the mid- to upper 50s.
55°
Geothermal heating and cooling saves
energy by tapping that constant temperature
No matter what
to warm a house in winter and cool it in summer.
the temperature
aboveground . . .
How geothermal heating works
Heat
Air duct
. . . the temperature
pump
below ground stays
Basement
a constant
55°-58°
1 2 3
Fluid (usually Fluid enters the electric
Gas
A conventional l
water and geothermal heat forced-air or
BY SUSAN BIDDLE FOR THE WASHINGTON POST antifreeze) pump inside the radiator-
Return
Thanks to a new federal law, Denise Camp no longer has to pay more
circulates house. Refrigerant Compressor type system to ground
to treat her depression than to have her other health-care needs met.
through absorbs heat from then sends the
underground the fluid and desired amount of
pipes. There it evaporates into a heat through the
warms or cools gas. A compressor
Heat
Air
house.
Parity law expands
to the ground concentrates the
From
This system uses
temperature of heat, which raises its ground
25 to 50 percent
about 55 temperature to well
Geothermal loop less electricity
mental health access
degrees. over 100 degrees. The
than a conventional
process is reversed for
HVAC system.
cooling.
Refrigerant
loop
an antibiotic.
Business and insurance
But recently, Camp’s insurance
coverage changed — for the bet-
groups call new rules ter. The 50-year-old Baltimore
overly expansive
resident, who now runs a drop-in
center for recovering psychiatric
patients, is paying the same
by Sandra G. Boodman charge for physical and mental
Kaiser Health News health treatments: a co-pay of
$10 per visit and $25 for each pre- Looks like
Denise Camp was resigned to scription.
the double standard that had “I have to use mental health
long applied to her medical bills, benefits no matter what,” said
forcing her to skimp on other ex- Camp, who is insured through
penses so she could pay for men- her employer. “This is going to
tal health treatment. make it more affordable for me.”
While visits to her internist for Camp is among an estimated a hot deal
physical problems required a $20 140 million Americans, most of
co-pay, her weekly therapy ses- them covered by group insurance
sions with a social worker cost plans provided by employers,
$50 and trips to the psychiatrist who are the beneficiaries of a By digging deep into tax breaks and the
who prescribed her medication sweeping new federal law de-
were $75. A similar disparity ap- signed to guarantee parity in in-
front yard, we unearthed cheap energy
plied to medicines: Drugs to treat surance coverage.
the crippling depression that The law, which took effect for
ended her engineering career
by Christopher J. Gearon
cost her twice what she paid for parity continued on E4
Special to The Washington Post
ust before Thanksgiving, my family swore off fossil fuels to heat
HOW AND WHY
Curt Suplee
J
and cool our 4,400-square-foot suburban home. Instead, we’re
relying on the Earth itself: We’ve converted to geothermal en-
ergy, which taps the constant temperature of the ground below
our house. ¶ The project took us into completely unknown territory
Gizmos sniff
— before this started, my knowledge of our forced-air heating sys-
tem was pretty much limited to cleaning the electronic filter — and it
out a breath
required a harrowing period of construction that included drilling
of fresh data
two 375-foot holes in our yard in Derwood, not far from Rockville.
geothermal continued on E5
L
ocal boozers were
breathing a bit easier
yesterday following news
reports that an audit by the
Types of geothermal systems
Washington Metropolitan Police
Vertical closed loop: This type requires digging deep
Department found some 80
The Gearons’
1 holes (100-400 feet) in a relatively small area and
percent of its “breathalyzer”
system has works for people who don’t have a lot of land.
alcohol monitors may have been
ALAMY
two 375-foot
giving faulty readings. The portable breath analyzer
holes, each
The impact on current and may soon seem primitive.
containing two
2
Horizontal closed
past DUI cases is uncertain. But
connected
loop: Pipes, straight or
one thing is for sure: Breath microsensor science. In the
polyethylene
coiled, are buried in
analysis devices are society’s fast-growing, fast-shrinking
pipes that loop
trenches at least four
front-line weapon against field of single-molecule
into their
feet deep over a large
drunken driving, and they need detection, some gizmos are now
to be unassailably accurate. able to spot substances in the
house.
space. Don’t consider this
unless you have a lot of space
Many well-calibrated units are, parts-per-trillion range. Sensors
For comparison,
and budget for landscaping.
and the technology has known as “e-noses” function as
the Capitol is
improved dramatically since the artificial snouts that can identify
288 ft. tall.
original “drunkometer” made its the barest trace of compounds 3
Pond closed loop:
highway debut in 1938. in the air, while microfluidic
The number
If you happen to
But even today’s most “lab on a chip” sensors can flag
and depth of
have a large enough
impressive devices may soon individual DNA strands and
holes
body of water nearby,
seem downright primitive,
required
pipes can be submerged
thanks to relentless progress in sensors continued on E3
depends on
there, at least eight feet
factors such
under the surface to
as house size,
prevent freezing.
lot space
available, soil
Open loop:
conditions and
4
If groundwater is
geology of the
plentiful and clean,
Discharge
area — not to
it can be used
My Time:
mention the
directly from a well (with no Intake
homeowner’s
antifreeze) and be dischargged ed
budget.
back into the aquifer after it has t has
Julie
circulated through the pipes. Ts. This
a
ter
type may bump up against local codes.local codes.
Groundw
& Julia, The Gearons’ net cost’ net cost (no(not including a separatt including a separatee wat water heater and landscapingcaping)
Louisette
$23,950 Total cost of geothermal heating and cooling installation
–7,185 30% federal tax credit
–2,000 from Maryland grant program
Estimates to replace oil-burning
& me. E2
–5,000 Montgomery County tax credit
system with another conventional
$9,765 net cost
HVAC system: $9,500 to $11,000
BY BONNIE BERKOWITZ AND LAURA STANTON — THE WASHINGTON POST
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