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ByRicardoAlonso- Zaldivar The Associated Press WASHINGTON Agiantfood service company unexpect- edly reversed course Thurs- day after bumping thou- sands of college cafeteria workers from its health plan earlier this year and pointing a finger at Presi- dent Barack Obama's over- haul. Sodexo's experience could serve as a caution- ary tale for other employers trying to pin benefit reduc- tions on "Obamacare." The company's cutbacks fueled a union organizing drive and campus protests. Julie Peterson, Sodexo's vice president for benefits, said the company will make changes for next year to re- store eligibility for many of those affected. "We think that overall this is going to result in about the same number of employees being eligible as in the past," Peterson said. The latest shift grew out of a regular review of com- pany policy, she added. "We've realized we can change the way we are de- termining eligibility and still remain competitive in the market," Peterson ex- plained. Among those who lost their coverage through Sodexo this year was Ju- lie Pemberton, a cashier at Curry College, a liberal arts institution near Boston. Pemberton puts in more than 40 hours a week dur- ing the academic year. She's paying over $200 a month more in premiums since she switched to a plan from the Massachusetts health in- surance exchange. "I'm actually looking for a new apartment because this is just draining any sav- ings I have," said Pember- ton. "I can't just keep pay- ing and paying and paying." UNITE HERE, a labor union trying to organize So- dexo workers, said the com- pany's initial cutback was facilitated by what it calls a loophole in federal reg- ulations carrying out the health law's employer cov- erage requirement. The Obama administra- tion responds that the em- ployer, not the health care law, was to blame. French-owned Sodexo is a multinational service company with U.S. head- quarters in Maryland. It operates many college caf- eterias and also provides other campus services. In January, Sodexo reclassi- fied some of its workers as part-time by averaging their hours over a 52-week calendar year. That affected about 5,000 of its 133,000 U.S. employees. Sodexo said it was act- ing to align itself with the health care law, which re- quires that employers with 50 or more workers offer coverage to those averaging at least 30 hours per week, or face fines. Company official Peter- son said Thursday that for benefits purposes, the com- pany will now credit cam- pus employees during the summer break with the hours they would have worked during the aca- demic year. The UNITE HERE union says federal rules require colleges and universities to essentially do the same thing for their faculty em- ployees. But those rules don't apply to contractor employees in cafeterias. "There is nothing in there that says contract workers are protected," said union spokesman Ethan Snow. At least one college that examined the issue agreed with the cafeteria workers. Earlham College in Rich- mond, Indiana, recently amended its contract with Sodexo to require that the employees be offered cov- erage. "Sodexo's classification system was not consistent with the practices of other vendors, or with Earlham's policies," said Sena Landey, vice president for finance at the Quaker-founded liberal arts institution. Landey said it looks like a slip-up on the part of fed- eral regulators. "I just don't understand why you would benefit fac- ulty and not those on the lower end of the pay scale," Landey said. "I don't see the logic in it." The Treasury Depart- ment, which enforces the health law's employer cov- erage requirement, declined requests for an interview. Spokeswoman Erin Donar said in a statement: "Nothing in the Afford- able Care Act requires an employer to eliminate health coverage for any em- ployees or penalizes an em- ployer for offering health coverage to all employees. An employer that elimi- nates health coverage is do- ing so by choice, not by re- quirement." The mandate that larger employers provide health coverage is one of the most complicated parts of the health care law. Lawmakers intended it mainly as a safe- guard against companies shifting their traditional responsibility for health in- surance to taxpayers. But employers across a range of industries have cited the mandate as justi- fication for everything from limiting workers' hours to scaling back coverage for spouses. Supporters of the law saw the requirement will have a negligible im- pact, since more than 90 percent of larger employers already provide coverage. Originally scheduled to take effect this year, the mandate has been delayed twice. Companies with 100 or more workers must com- ply starting next year, while businesses with 50 to 99 employees have until 2016. Smaller companies are ex- empt. The law also requires in- dividuals to carry insur- ance or risk fines, and that provision took effect this year. On another issue, Sodexo and the White House are al- lies. This spring, the com- pany earned official recog- nition by pledging to add more nutritious options to its vending and K-12 lunch- room programs in sup- port of first lady Michelle Obama's campaign to re- duce childhood obesity. HEALTH CARE Sodexo cafeteria workers regain health plans STEPHANSAVOIA—THEASSOCIATEDPRESS Julie Pemberton leans against a counter top between the living room and kitchen of her apartment in Weymouth, Mass. Pemberton works more than 40hours a week during the academic year. That gave her access to health care on the job until her employer changed the rules ahead of new coverage requirements under President Barack Obama's health care law. By Matthew Perrone The Associated Press WASHINGTON Imagine a low-cost treatment for a life-threatening infec- tion that could cure up to 90 percent of patients with minimal side effects, often in a few days. It may sound like a mir- acle drug, but this cut- ting-edge treatment is pro- foundly simple — though somewhat icky: take the stool of healthy patients to cure those with hard-to- treat intestinal infections. A small but growing num- ber of physicians have be- gun using these so-called fecal transplants to treat Clostridium difficile, com- monly referred to as C-diff, a bacterial infection that causes nausea, cramping and diarrhea. The germ af- flicts a half-million Amer- icans annually and kills about 15,000 of them. But fecal transplants pose a challenge for the Food and Drug Adminis- tration, which has decided to regulate the treatment as an experimental drug. Stool transplants don't fit neatly into the agency's standard framework. And while reg- ulators have shown flexibil- ity in their approach, some critics say the mere pres- ence of government over- sight is discouraging many doctors from offering trans- plants. That's led some pa- tients to seek out question- able "do-it-yourself" web- sites, forums and videos. Most researchers agree that the FDA's concerns are warranted. Patients can contract HIV, hepatitis and other viruses and parasites from fecal matter that is not properly screened. Ad- ditionally, there are no long- term studies on potential side effects of stool trans- plantation. FDA officials declined to be interviewed for this story, but said in a writ- ten response that the fe- cal transplantation "shows promise in treating C. diffi- cile infection that has not been responsive to other therapies." Indeed, with many pa- tients no longer respond- ing to potent antibiot- ics, fecal transplants have emerged as an effective therapy against drug-re- sistant strains of the C-diff superbug. The procedure works because the healthy bacteria found in donors' fe- ces can help fight off foreign infections. "We're dealing with something that is pretty close to miraculous," says Dr. Lawrence Brandt of New York's Montefiore Medical Center, who has performed over 200 fecal transplants. Most products reviewed by the FDA spend years in testing before they are sub- mitted to the agency, usu- ally by large drug or medi- cal device developers. Fecal transplants have followed a different path. In recent years, a handful of doctors have published small case studies on their use of stool to treat C-diff, with many reporting cure rates of about 90 percent. In January 2013, the New England Journal of Medi- cine published the first rig- orous, head-to-head study showing that fecal trans- plants were superior to an- tibiotics for patients with recurring C-diff. The FDA announced last May that it would regulate stool transplants as an ex- perimental drug, meaning doctors could only perform transplants under an FDA- approved research applica- tion. The so-called investi- gational new drug applica- tion must include detailed information on the drug to be tested, the study de- sign and safeguards to pro- tect patients. Assembling a single application can take months or years, even for large drugmakers. Doctors pushed back, saying the requirement would force them to turn away desperate patients. "FDA and some others are concerned about the long-term effects," Brandt said. "But my point was these people are getting ready to die now. They are not going to survive long enough to develop the dis- eases you're afraid they're going to get." A few weeks later, the FDA revised its position, saying it would not enforce the requirement for doc- tors treating patients with drug-resistant C-diff — pro- vided donors are properly screened and patients are informed that fecal trans- plants are still experimen- tal. But regulating stool sam- ples as a drug presents other challenges. While it's easy to limit access to experimen- tal drugs, everyone has ac- cess to stool. And with de- tailed instructions available on websites like thepowerof- poop.com, there's nothing to stop patients from trying the procedure at home — es- pecially if they can't find a doctor to perform it. "Some of these patients are very desperate and they're not going to take no for an answer," says Dr. Mi- chael Edmond of Virginia Commonwealth Univer- sity, who has performed fe- cal transplants for patients who travel from as far away as Ohio. HEALTH FD A gr ap pl es w it h ov er si gh t of f ec al t ra ns pl an ts STEVEN SENNE — THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Technical assistant Eliska Didyk wears protective gloves while displaying a bottle containing human fecal solution, frozen to minus 20degrees Celsius for short-term storage, in an OpenBiome laboratory, in Medford, Mass. By Joan Lowy The Associated Press WASHINGTON The gov- ernment wants to dramat- ically reduce the allowable height of potentially thou- sands buildings near air- ports around the country — a proposal that is draw- ing fire from real estate de- velopers and members of Congress who say it will hurt property values. The Federal Aviation Ad- ministration proposal, sup- ported by airports and air- lines, is driven by encroach- ing development that limits safe flight paths for planes that might lose power in an engineduringtakeoff.Planes can fly with only one engine, but they have less power to climb quickly over obstacles. Local business leaders, who see airports as a means to attract development, say they fear office towers and condominium complexes will have to be put on hold until developers and zon- ing boards can figure out what the agency's proposal means for their communi- ties. In Tempe, Arizona, for example, local Chamber of Commerce President Mary Ann Miller said she fears almost any new building in the city's downtown would face new restrictions be- cause the community is lo- cated near the edge of Phoe- nix Sky Harbor's runways. "Coming out of a very long recession, we hate the idea of stopping some growth," she said. But airlines have to plan for the possibility that a plane could lose the use of an engine during takeoff even though that doesn't happen very often. As more buildings, cellphone towers, wind turbines and other tall structures go up near air- ports, there are fewer safe flight paths available. Cur- rent regulations effectively limit building heights based on the amount of clearance needed by planes with two operating engines. Airlines already must sometimes cut down on the number of passengers and the amount of cargo carried by planes taking off from airports in Bur- bank and San Jose in Cal- ifornia, and in Honolulu, Los Angeles, Miami, Phoe- nix, and near Washington, D.C., among others, so they will be light enough to clear obstructions if only one en- gine is available, said Chris Oswald, vice president of the Airports Council Inter- national-North America. The problem is exacer- bated in hot weather when air is less dense and planes require more power during takeoff. 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