to pay off those Nassau County backed bonds on the Nassau OTB Race Palace.

Fitch Ratings downgrades $1.5B in Nassau debt

Originally published: June 11, 2013 7:24 PM
Updated: June 11, 2013 9:31 PM
By ROBERT BRODSKY robert.brodsky@newsday.com

A Wall Street rating service downgraded $1.5 billion in long-term Nassau County debt by a notch Tuesday, citing the "lack of significant process" by county officials in reducing its deficit reserve.
Fitch Ratings said it had downgraded Nassau's general obligation bonds from an "A+" to an "A" and was continuing its "negative" outlook for all long-term county debt.
The rating agency, which last year downgraded Nassau's short term bonds, said Tuesday it was concerned about the county's use of one-shot revenue to reduce its debt and the outcome of several ongoing lawsuits, which could cost the county millions of dollars.
Fitch said Nassau faces "potential significant liabilities" from recent court decisions. The rulings could force Nassau to pay more than $230 million in back pay and benefits from a wage freeze imposed by a state fiscal control board, and $80 million stemming from the county's attempt to shift the cost of property tax refunds to school districts and towns. "An adverse decision on appeal for either or both of these cases would further stress the county's already limited financial flexibility," Fitch said.
Credit downgrades typically result in increased borrowing costs.
Brian Nevin, spokesman for County Executive Edward Mangano, said Nassau is borrowing less and at lower interest rates than in recent years. Nevin said, "Mangano's policy of fewer taxes and less borrowing is working as Nassau County leads the state in terms of job growth and is no longer the highest taxed county in the nation."
County Comptroller George Maragos, who has scheduled a news conference Wednesday to announce the results of the 2012 fiscal year, said the downgrade "mainly reflects the litigation risks regarding the wage freeze dispute with labor."
Minority Leader Kevan Abrahams (D-Freeport) said the downgrade was "proof from an objective source that Ed Mangano's mismanagement and reckless borrowing . . . continues to plague Nassau taxpayers."Fitch said the county is projecting a roughly $45 million surplus in 2012 -- slightly ahead of earlier projections -- and that sales tax revenue is approximately $22 million ahead of budget.
Fitch also downgraded $259 million in Nassau Health Care Corporation county-guaranteed bonds and $13.1 million in Nassau Regional Off-Track Betting Corporation bonds.
Last week, Moody's Investor Service, another rating agency, downgraded Suffolk's $1.4 billion in debt, citing the county's failure to make "meaningful spending reductions."

Nassau County could increase revenue by seeing that BCG is available through the Nassau County Medical Center. See eg faustmanlab.org and pubmed.org faustman dl. Upgrade healthcare in Nassau County.

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Abstract

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2012;7(8):e41756. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0041756. Epub 2012 Aug 8.

Proof-of-concept, randomized, controlled clinical trial of Bacillus-Calmette-Guerin for treatment of long-term type 1 diabetes.

Faustman DL, Wang L, Okubo Y, Burger D, Ban L, Man G, Zheng H, Schoenfeld D, Pompei R, Avruch J, Nathan DM.

Source

The Immunobiology Laboratory, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America. faustman@helix.mgh.harvard.edu

Abstract

BACKGROUND:

No targeted immunotherapies reverse type 1 diabetes in humans. However, in a rodent model of type 1 diabetes, Bacillus Calmette-Guerin (BCG) reverses disease by restoring insulin secretion. Specifically, it stimulates innate immunity by inducing the host to produce tumor necrosis factor (TNF), which, in turn, kills disease-causing autoimmune cells and restores pancreatic beta-cell function through regeneration.

METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS:

Translating these findings to humans, we administered BCG, a generic vaccine, in a proof-of-principle, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of adults with long-term type 1 diabetes (mean: 15.3 years) at one clinical center in North America. Six subjects were randomly assigned to BCG or placebo and compared to self, healthy paired controls (n = 6) or reference subjects with (n = 57) or without (n = 16) type 1 diabetes, depending upon the outcome measure. We monitored weekly blood samples for 20 weeks for insulin-autoreactive T cells, regulatory T cells (Tregs), glutamic acid decarboxylase (GAD) and other autoantibodies, and C-peptide, a marker of insulin secretion. BCG-treated patients and one placebo-treated patient who, after enrollment, unexpectedly developed acute Epstein-Barr virus infection, a known TNF inducer, exclusively showed increases in dead insulin-autoreactive T cells and induction of Tregs. C-peptide levels (pmol/L) significantly rose transiently in two BCG-treated subjects (means: 3.49 pmol/L [95% CI 2.95-3.8], 2.57 [95% CI 1.65-3.49]) and the EBV-infected subject (3.16 [95% CI 2.54-3.69]) vs.1.65 [95% CI 1.55-3.2] in reference diabetic subjects. BCG-treated subjects each had more than 50% of their C-peptide values above the 95(th) percentile of the reference subjects. The EBV-infected subject had 18% of C-peptide values above this level.

CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE:

We conclude that BCG treatment or EBV infection transiently modified the autoimmunity that underlies type 1 diabetes by stimulating the host innate immune response. This suggests that BCG or other stimulators of host innate immunity may have value in the treatment of long-term diabetes.

TRIAL REGISTRATION:

ClinicalTrials.gov NCT00607230.

Comment in

Targeting innate immunity to treat long-term type 1 diabetes. [Regen Med. 2012]

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Wednesday, June 12, 2013

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