Study investigates if mother’s milk could protect against the coronavirus

DutchNews, April 24, 2020 - By Senay Boztas

Photo: Depositphotos

Researchers at the UMC teaching hospital in Amsterdam are studying whether antibodies in mother’s milk could have a preventative effect against the coronavirus. 

Britt van Keulen, a doctor at its mother’s milk bank is recruiting 30 breastfeeding mothers who have had the coronavirus and who are willing to donate some of their milk for testing. 

‘We know that mother’s milk protects newborns against respiratory infections, because it contains antibodies,’ she said in a press release. ‘By breastfeeding, the mother passes on her own antibodies to her child.’ 

She expects that coronavirus antibodies would also find their way into breastmilk, based on reports of a pregnant woman during the SARS epidemic in 2003. ‘This woman was seriously ill with the SARS virus and gave birth to a healthy baby at 38 weeks,’ she said. ‘Her breastmilk contained antibodies against the SARS virus. The coronavirus is very similar to the SARS virus – it is in the same family – so I think that corona antibodies will also be passed along into mother’s milk.’ 

However, even if enough antibodies are found in the breastmilk of mothers who have developed immunity to the coronavirus, the team will then have to test whether these survive a necessary pasteurisation process. This is a standard process for donor milk which is given to premature babies, for instance. 

She said that if this is the case, the milk could be given as a preventative medicine for vulnerable groups such as newborn babies or even older people. ‘It might be a strange image having old people drink mother’s milk as protection,’ she added. ‘But it is still logical, because antibodies in the milk would protect them against the coronavirus.’ 

She told the Parool that if a newborn baby is given a glass of milk a day, older people might need more to represent their greater body weight. 

‘Why would we joke about this?’ she reportedly added. ‘Milk in the supermarket comes from someone else, namely a cow who walks with muddy udders through a meadow. We have simply accepted this image, so why would milk from a clean mother’s breast be such a crazy notion?’ 

Around 3,500 Dutch women between 25 and 40 are confirmed to have had the coronavirus, reports the Parool, although it is not known how many are breastfeeding. 

DutchNews.nl has contacted the UMC for a comment.

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India's city-dwellers get angrier as society changes

RNW, 26 December 2010

With its religious retreats for meditation and yoga, India has long been sought out by Western visitors eager to escape the rat race and return home better prepared to face life's challenges.

India's city-dwellers get angrier as society changes

Big cities like New Delhi and Mumbai, however, are becoming anything but havens of spiritual calm and inner peace for ordinary Indians, as the country's economy grows and more people leave the rural heartlands in search of prosperity.

Anger has become a feature of daily life, with concerns raised about the harmful side-effects of modern, urban living on the nation's health and well-being.

"There's so much anger. It's everywhere," Yusuf Matcheswalla, a leading Mumbai psychiatrist, told AFP.

"There's anger on the roads, anger in the schools, anger in the workplace, anger in the house, anger in parliament with the politicians... Everyone we meet is getting angry."

Matcheswalla, who runs counselling centres in India's financial capital, said he and colleagues have seen a steady rise in patients coming to them with anger-related issues.

It's not hard to see why tempers might flare in an overcrowded city like Mumbai, where the demands of an estimated 18 million inhabitants stretch outdated infrastructure and the supply of basic services to breaking point.

Badly-maintained, potholed roads are regularly gridlocked, making even the shortest trip a lengthy ordeal of honking horns and choking exhaust fumes from crawling or stationary traffic.

Local trains, which are the fastest and cheapest way to avoid the jams, often carry more than three times their official capacity.

Electricity and water shortages are commonplace, while construction work and ear-splitting celebrations for India's many religious festivals add to high levels of noise pollution.

Urban India is changing fast, with technological innovations and a burgeoning consumer culture catering to a growing middle class with more disposable income, widening the gap between haves and have-nots.

Newer working patterns are also emerging, including more women going to work, and a decline in couples living in the traditional joint family structure, removing support networks and adding childcare pressures.

"When you work in a city like Mumbai you're always very stressed. You get frustrated and angry and lose patience very quickly," said Aryan, a 24-year-old professional.

Matcheswalla says such feelings are common, with the "work hard, play harder" culture in India's "Maximum City" and elsewhere -- plus the often bewildering array of choices in the new consumer economy not helping matters.

A build-up of daily frustrations and the increased use of caffeine, tobacco, alcohol or recreational drugs to cope or unwind are leaving a generation unable to relax and more likely to see red, he added.

"We're not able to deal with any minor provocation. There's a big backlash and micropsychotic episodes. They lose touch with reality and don't see the consequences," he said.

A young girl was recently thrown out of a Mumbai train after an argument over sharing a seat, while "road rage" incidents are regularly documented in India's media.

Doctors point to urban living for the increase in lifestyle diseases in India, including heart disease, which is now the country's number one killer.

Prolonged stress, a rise in smoking, lack of exercise and a diet of high-fat, Western-style junk food often bought as a sign of wealth and status are blamed.

"It's a combination of everything," said Ramakanta Panda, a leading cardiologist from the prestigious Asian Heart Institute in Mumbai, who in 2009 performed bypass surgery on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

"Research has found higher incidences of heart problems in urban areas compared with rural areas and when people from rural areas migrate, again the incidences go up."

Vikram Kalloo is a life coach who runs well-being classes for strung-out city executives and their staff on how to recognise and handle stress, achieve a better work-life balance and deal with anger.

"The crux of it is awareness," he said. "Many people are not willing to accept it. Either they are not well informed or in a state of denial about it."

Kalloo said modern, urban India seemed to be forgetting its traditional, spiritual roots.

"People are running but where are they heading? It's maybe just a stage, like growing pains," he said.

But he said India's authorities needed to address the lack of open spaces in cities while the corporate firms that are driving the country's economic growth had to become more aware of their employees' well-being.

"Stress is growing exponentially. People are getting stressed out, frustrated," he added.

"People say it's part of Western living. But at least in the Western world you have great infrastructure: you have parks, beaches and other public places, a better work-life balance, your own space, which is not the case here.

"Here it's money, money, money."

Aryan, at least, says he has calmed down and regained a perspective through yoga, meditation and concentrating on enjoying the smaller things in life.

"I've learnt how to deal with anger... If it's required then fine but now I think, 'what's the point?'," he said.

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Why Socialism?

Informationclearinghouse, By Albert Einstein

This essay was originally published in the first issue of Monthly Review (May 1949).

Is it advisable for one who is not an expert on economic and social issues to express views on the subject of socialism? I believe for a number of reasons that it is.

Let us first consider the question from the point of view of scientific knowledge. It might appear that there are no essential methodological differences between astronomy and economics: scientists in both fields attempt to discover laws of general acceptability for a circumscribed group of phenomena in order to make the interconnection of these phenomena as clearly understandable as possible. But in reality such methodological differences do exist. The discovery of general laws in the field of economics is made difficult by the circumstance that observed economic phenomena are often affected by many factors which are very hard to evaluate separately. In addition, the experience which has accumulated since the beginning of the so-called civilized period of human history has—as is well known—been largely influenced and limited by causes which are by no means exclusively economic in nature. For example, most of the major states of history owed their existence to conquest. The conquering peoples established themselves, legally and economically, as the privileged class of the conquered country. They seized for themselves a monopoly of the land ownership and appointed a priesthood from among their own ranks. The priests, in control of education, made the class division of society into a permanent institution and created a system of values by which the people were thenceforth, to a large extent unconsciously, guided in their social behavior.

But historic tradition is, so to speak, of yesterday; nowhere have we really overcome what Thorstein Veblen called "the predatory phase" of human development. The observable economic facts belong to that phase and even such laws as we can derive from them are not applicable to other phases. Since the real purpose of socialism is precisely to overcome and advance beyond the predatory phase of human development, economic science in its present state can throw little light on the socialist society of the future.

Second, socialism is directed towards a social-ethical end. Science, however, cannot create ends and, even less, instill them in human beings; science, at most, can supply the means by which to attain certain ends. But the ends themselves are conceived by personalities with lofty ethical ideals and—if these ends are not stillborn, but vital and vigorous—are adopted and carried forward by those many human beings who, half unconsciously, determine the slow evolution of society.

For these reasons, we should be on our guard not to overestimate science and scientific methods when it is a question of human problems; and we should not assume that experts are the only ones who have a right to express themselves on questions affecting the organization of society.

Innumerable voices have been asserting for some time now that human society is passing through a crisis, that its stability has been gravely shattered. It is characteristic of such a situation that individuals feel indifferent or even hostile toward the group, small or large, to which they belong. In order to illustrate my meaning, let me record here a personal experience. I recently discussed with an intelligent and well-disposed man the threat of another war, which in my opinion would seriously endanger the existence of mankind, and I remarked that only a supra-national organization would offer protection from that danger. Thereupon my visitor, very calmly and coolly, said to me: "Why are you so deeply opposed to the disappearance of the human race?"

I am sure that as little as a century ago no one would have so lightly made a statement of this kind. It is the statement of a man who has striven in vain to attain an equilibrium within himself and has more or less lost hope of succeeding. It is the expression of a painful solitude and isolation from which so many people are suffering in these days. What is the cause? Is there a way out?

It is easy to raise such questions, but difficult to answer them with any degree of assurance. I must try, however, as best I can, although I am very conscious of the fact that our feelings and strivings are often contradictory and obscure and that they cannot be expressed in easy and simple formulas.

Man is, at one and the same time, a solitary being and a social being. As a solitary being, he attempts to protect his own existence and that of those who are closest to him, to satisfy his personal desires, and to develop his innate abilities. As a social being, he seeks to gain the recognition and affection of his fellow human beings, to share in their pleasures, to comfort them in their sorrows, and to improve their conditions of life. Only the existence of these varied, frequently conflicting, strivings accounts for the special character of a man, and their specific combination determines the extent to which an individual can achieve an inner equilibrium and can contribute to the well-being of society. It is quite possible that the relative strength of these two drives is, in the main, fixed by inheritance. But the personality that finally emerges is largely formed by the environment in which a man happens to find himself during his development, by the structure of the society in which he grows up, by the tradition of that society, and by its appraisal of particular types of behavior. The abstract concept "society" means to the individual human being the sum total of his direct and indirect relations to his contemporaries and to all the people of earlier generations. The individual is able to think, feel, strive, and work by himself; but he depends so much upon society—in his physical, intellectual, and emotional existence—that it is impossible to think of him, or to understand him, outside the framework of society. It is "society" which provides man with food, clothing, a home, the tools of work, language, the forms of thought, and most of the content of thought; his life is made possible through the labor and the accomplishments of the many millions past and present who are all hidden behind the small word “society.”

It is evident, therefore, that the dependence of the individual upon society is a fact of nature which cannot be abolished—just as in the case of ants and bees. However, while the whole life process of ants and bees is fixed down to the smallest detail by rigid, hereditary instincts, the social pattern and interrelationships of human beings are very variable and susceptible to change. Memory, the capacity to make new combinations, the gift of oral communication have made possible developments among human being which are not dictated by biological necessities. Such developments manifest themselves in traditions, institutions, and organizations; in literature; in scientific and engineering accomplishments; in works of art. This explains how it happens that, in a certain sense, man can influence his life through his own conduct, and that in this process conscious thinking and wanting can play a part.

Man acquires at birth, through heredity, a biological constitution which we must consider fixed and unalterable, including the natural urges which are characteristic of the human species. In addition, during his lifetime, he acquires a cultural constitution which he adopts from society through communication and through many other types of influences. It is this cultural constitution which, with the passage of time, is subject to change and which determines to a very large extent the relationship between the individual and society. Modern anthropology has taught us, through comparative investigation of so-called primitive cultures, that the social behavior of human beings may differ greatly, depending upon prevailing cultural patterns and the types of organization which predominate in society. It is on this that those who are striving to improve the lot of man may ground their hopes: human beings are not condemned, because of their biological constitution, to annihilate each other or to be at the mercy of a cruel, self-inflicted fate.

If we ask ourselves how the structure of society and the cultural attitude of man should be changed in order to make human life as satisfying as possible, we should constantly be conscious of the fact that there are certain conditions which we are unable to modify. As mentioned before, the biological nature of man is, for all practical purposes, not subject to change. Furthermore, technological and demographic developments of the last few centuries have created conditions which are here to stay. In relatively densely settled populations with the goods which are indispensable to their continued existence, an extreme division of labor and a highly-centralized productive apparatus are absolutely necessary. The time—which, looking back, seems so idyllic—is gone forever when individuals or relatively small groups could be completely self-sufficient. It is only a slight exaggeration to say that mankind constitutes even now a planetary community of production and consumption.

I have now reached the point where I may indicate briefly what to me constitutes the essence of the crisis of our time. It concerns the relationship of the individual to society. The individual has become more conscious than ever of his dependence upon society. But he does not experience this dependence as a positive asset, as an organic tie, as a protective force, but rather as a threat to his natural rights, or even to his economic existence. Moreover, his position in society is such that the egotistical drives of his make-up are constantly being accentuated, while his social drives, which are by nature weaker, progressively deteriorate. All human beings, whatever their position in society, are suffering from this process of deterioration. Unknowingly prisoners of their own egotism, they feel insecure, lonely, and deprived of the naive, simple, and unsophisticated enjoyment of life. Man can find meaning in life, short and perilous as it is, only through devoting himself to society.

The economic anarchy of capitalist society as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of the evil. We see before us a huge community of producers the members of which are unceasingly striving to deprive each other of the fruits of their collective labor—not by force, but on the whole in faithful compliance with legally established rules. In this respect, it is important to realize that the means of production—that is to say, the entire productive capacity that is needed for producing consumer goods as well as additional capital goods—may legally be, and for the most part are, the private property of individuals.

For the sake of simplicity, in the discussion that follows I shall call “workers” all those who do not share in the ownership of the means of production—although this does not quite correspond to the customary use of the term. The owner of the means of production is in a position to purchase the labor power of the worker. By using the means of production, the worker produces new goods which become the property of the capitalist. The essential point about this process is the relation between what the worker produces and what he is paid, both measured in terms of real value. Insofar as the labor contract is “free,” what the worker receives is determined not by the real value of the goods he produces, but by his minimum needs and by the capitalists' requirements for labor power in relation to the number of workers competing for jobs. It is important to understand that even in theory the payment of the worker is not determined by the value of his product.

Private capital tends to become concentrated in few hands, partly because of competition among the capitalists, and partly because technological development and the increasing division of labor encourage the formation of larger units of production at the expense of smaller ones. The result of these developments is an oligarchy of private capital the enormous power of which cannot be effectively checked even by a democratically organized political society. This is true since the members of legislative bodies are selected by political parties, largely financed or otherwise influenced by private capitalists who, for all practical purposes, separate the electorate from the legislature. The consequence is that the representatives of the people do not in fact sufficiently protect the interests of the underprivileged sections of the population. Moreover, under existing conditions, private capitalists inevitably control, directly or indirectly, the main sources of information (press, radio, education). It is thus extremely difficult, and indeed in most cases quite impossible, for the individual citizen to come to objective conclusions and to make intelligent use of his political rights.

The situation prevailing in an economy based on the private ownership of capital is thus characterized by two main principles: first, means of production (capital) are privately owned and the owners dispose of them as they see fit; second, the labor contract is free. Of course, there is no such thing as a pure capitalist society in this sense. In particular, it should be noted that the workers, through long and bitter political struggles, have succeeded in securing a somewhat improved form of the “free labor contract” for certain categories of workers. But taken as a whole, the present day economy does not differ much from “pure” capitalism.

Production is carried on for profit, not for use. There is no provision that all those able and willing to work will always be in a position to find employment; an “army of unemployed” almost always exists. The worker is constantly in fear of losing his job. Since unemployed and poorly paid workers do not provide a profitable market, the production of consumers' goods is restricted, and great hardship is the consequence. Technological progress frequently results in more unemployment rather than in an easing of the burden of work for all. The profit motive, in conjunction with competition among capitalists, is responsible for an instability in the accumulation and utilization of capital which leads to increasingly severe depressions. Unlimited competition leads to a huge waste of labor, and to that crippling of the social consciousness of individuals which I mentioned before.

This crippling of individuals I consider the worst evil of capitalism. Our whole educational system suffers from this evil. An exaggerated competitive attitude is inculcated into the student, who is trained to worship acquisitive success as a preparation for his future career.

I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals. In such an economy, the means of production are owned by society itself and are utilized in a planned fashion. A planned economy, which adjusts production to the needs of the community, would distribute the work to be done among all those able to work and would guarantee a livelihood to every man, woman, and child. The education of the individual, in addition to promoting his own innate abilities, would attempt to develop in him a sense of responsibility for his fellow men in place of the glorification of power and success in our present society.

Nevertheless, it is necessary to remember that a planned economy is not yet socialism. A planned economy as such may be accompanied by the complete enslavement of the individual. The achievement of socialism requires the solution of some extremely difficult socio-political problems: how is it possible, in view of the far-reaching centralization of political and economic power, to prevent bureaucracy from becoming all-powerful and overweening? How can the rights of the individual be protected and therewith a democratic counterweight to the power of bureaucracy be assured?

Clarity about the aims and problems of socialism is of greatest significance in our age of transition. Since, under present circumstances, free and unhindered discussion of these problems has come under a powerful taboo, I consider the foundation of this magazine to be an important public service.

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Two French ministers quit in row over perks

Radio Netherlands Worldwide, 4 July 2010 - 7:52pm

Two French ministers resigned Sunday after rows over spending thousands of euros of taxpayers' money on a private jet and cigars at a time when budget cuts are hitting the public.

Development Minister Alain Joyandet and Christian Blanc, a junior minister tasked with overseeing development of a Greater Paris region, both tendered their resignation, President Nicolas Sarkozy's office said.

"The president and the prime minister have accepted their resignations," a statement from the Elysee palace said.

In March, Joyandet was criticised for spending 116,500 euros (157,000 dollars) to hire a private plane to take him to Martinique for an emergency meeting on the earthquake in Haiti.

Blanc came under fire in June after it emerged that he had spent 12,000 euros (14,700 dollars) of taxpayers' money on cigars.

Last month, Joyandet had once again come under fire over claims that he was granted a permit illegally to build an expansion to his house in the chic Riviera resort of Saint Tropez.

Joyandet wrote on his blog that "as a man of honour, I cannot accept being the victim of allegations. After much thought, I have decided to leave the government."

"Not one euro of public money was used toward my personal wealth or toward those of my close ones," he wrote.

The resignations came as Sarkozy's government was struggling to weather a crisis over Labour Minister Eric Woerth's ties to France's richest woman, L'Oreal heiress Liliane Bettencourt.

Woerth's name came up in conversations secretly taped by Bettencourt's butler in which she was allegedly plotting to evade taxes on her fortune at a time when his wife worked for a firm managing the billionaire's estate.

Sarkozy on Monday ordered his prime minister to crack down on government perks by restricting use of official planes and cars, and scrapping parties.

The president cancelled his own traditional Bastille Day garden party on July 14 to set an example.

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Heard the one about Goldman Sachs and the volcano?

Reuters, Ben Berkowitz and Aaron Pressman, AMSTERDAM/BOSTON, Fri Apr 23, 2010 12:07pm EDT

Lava flows from a volcano in Eyjafjallajokul April 17, 2010. (Credit: Reuters/Lucas Jackson)

(Reuters) - Did you hear that Goldman Sachs made the Iceland volcano erupt? It did pretty well shorting airlines.

It's a joke, of course -- Goldman isn't quite that powerful -- and there are plenty of others like it as comedians, traders and the man on the street take potshots at Wall Street's biggest investment bank.

The gag about the volcano, which caused massive global travel disruptions and whacked airline stocks, has been making the rounds on Asian trading desks in recent days.

Ever since U.S. regulators filed fraud charges against the firm on April 16, Goldman has been the butt of just such a series of jokes.

Cartoonists in particular have found a rich vein of comedy with Goldman. One Washington Post panel shows a cop walking up to a couple of fat-cat bankers standing under a Goldman sign. One banker whispers to the other "Tell him we're innocent. And we'll hedge that by betting against our acquittal."

Another cartoon shows a Goldman executive being hauled off in handcuffs: "They say we created a fund that was designed to fail ... and it was indeed a successful failure ... but now we're being punished for our success ... this government's anti-business!"

Multiple Goldman Sachs spokespeople did not respond to requests for comment.

GOLMANIUS AND SACSONIA

The jokes don't stop there, thanks to the Internet and legions of budding comedy writers.

Goldman shorted the Titanic and contributed to its sinking. So goes one story. New historical evidence proves that the Roman Empire was brought down by its founders Golmanius and Sacsonia. And so on.

Facebook features a page -- "liked" by 182 people -- with the title "Vampire Squids are far superior to Goldman Sachs." The name refers to the Rolling Stone magazine article published last summer that described the firm as "a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity."

U.S. late-night TV hosts took their digs too.

David Letterman weighed in with a Top Ten list of Goldman excuses. The highlight, at No. 6, was: "We were framed by evil menswear company Goldman Slacks."

His rival Jay Leno had his own take:

"Just four days after Goldman Sachs cost investors $12 billion by failing to tell them that they're being investigated for fraud, they gave out another $5.4 billion in bonuses. Huh? Even Somali pirates are going, 'Come on!'"

The Daily Show host Jon Stewart lined up this zinger: "For what? $5.4 billion in bonuses to your fraud division?"

Maybe the sharpest dig came from comedian Stephen Colbert. He riffed on Goldman's once strong position in Washington, where many of its former executives have taken on powerful jobs over the years.

"Why are government employees filing a civil suit against Goldman Sachs? That's just going to be embarrassing in a few years when they all go back to work at Goldman Sachs," he asked.

(Reporting by Ben Berkowitz in Amsterdam and Aaron Pressman in Boston. Editing by Robert MacMillan)

Goldman Sachs Chief Executive Officer Lloyd Blankfein attends a speech by U.S. President Barack Obama about Wall Street reform at Cooper Union in New York April 22, 2010. (Credit: Reuters/Natalie Behring)

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SEC staffers watched porn as economy crashed

CNN, April 23, 2010 1:39 a.m. EDT

SEC employees spent hours looking at porn sites on their work computers, according to an internal report.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• SEC investigation: Dozens of employees, contractors surfed porn sites on work computers
• Staffers violated government-wide ethics rules, report finds
• Report: All cases occurred while country was teetering on verge of financial collapse
  
  

(CNN) -- As the country was sinking into its worst financial crisis in more than 70 years, Security and Exchange Commission employees and contractors cruised porn sites and viewed sexually explicit pictures using government computers, an SEC investigation obtained by CNN showed.

"During the past five years, the SEC OIG (Office of Inspector General) substantiated that 33 SEC employees and or contractors violated Commission rules and policies, as well as the government-wide Standards of Ethical Conduct, by viewing pornographic, sexually explicit or sexually suggestive images using government computer resources and official time," said a summary of the investigation by the inspector general's office.

More than half of the workers made between $99,000 and $223,000. All the cases took place over the past five years.

"It is nothing short of disturbing that high-ranking officials within the SEC were spending more time looking at pornography than taking action to help stave off the events that brought our nation's economy to the brink of collapse," said Rep. Darrell Issa. The Republican is a ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

"This stunning report should make everyone question the wisdom of moving forward with plans to give regulators like the SEC even more widespread authority," he said. "Inexplicably, rather than exercise its existing regulatory enforcement authority, SEC officials were preoccupied with other distractions."

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Special Report: Holy bubble! Churches struck down by foreclosures

Reuters, Tom Hals, FORT WASHINGTON, Md, Thu Apr 1, 2010 12:52pm EDT

Churches struck down by foreclosures

(Reuters) - By the time thousands of parishioners stream into the 3,000-seat Ebenezer AME Church on Easter Sunday, church leaders hope to have something else to celebrate: financial revival.

The congregation, one of America's largest, has been scrambling to raise funds to save the arena-sized sanctuary from potential foreclosure. To that end, it has enlisted national leaders, such as the Reverend Jesse Jackson and Harvard Law School's Charles Ogletree, who was President Barack Obama's law professor.

Thanks to its 10,000-member congregation and connections with business and civic leaders, Ebenezer expects to avoid the fate of a growing number of U.S. churches, which are defaulting on loans, facing foreclosure and even declaring bankruptcy at an unprecedented pace.

"It's happening to virtually every church," said the Rev. Grainger Browning, senior pastor of Ebenezer. "At a recent meeting with the 100 top pastors in the country, it was amazing how all of us were facing some sort of challenge with the banks."

Supercheap, few-questions-asked loans were a temptation even churches could not resist, but now they are paying for their sins as the debt crisis enters the house of God.

Long considered among the safest of borrowers, churches gambled on real estate at a time when credit copiously flowed and lenders were startlingly lax.

But places of worship have since been battered by the economic downturn. Donations have dipped, investment returns have plunged and bank credit is still hard to come by.

"You build it and they will come. It really was true through the years," said Brad Hampton, executive pastor at the Faith Center of Rockford, Illinois. "They like newness," he says of younger churchgoers.

Hampton's megachurch was erecting a new sanctuary that could seat almost 2,000 when his lender refused further credit beyond an initial $4.2 million. The Faith Center, which also has a 48,000-square-foot "life center" that operates various ministries, is being foreclosed upon.

"People call and say 'You're not alone'," Hampton said.

FORECLOSURE FILINGS TRIPLE

Getting a complete picture of the financial health of churches across the country is difficult. But a review of filings in the Thomson Reuters Westlaw legal database shows foreclosure proceedings against U.S. churches have nearly tripled since December 2007, when the recession began, compared with the previous seven years, which included the dot.com bust and economic downturn.

Court records also reveal more than 100 churches have declared bankruptcy in the last year, often in a last-ditch attempt to halt a sheriff's sale. That number could rise fast.

An investigation by a Memphis television station found hundreds of churches in the city fighting foreclosure. Jackson estimates thousands of African-American churches nationwide are in danger of foreclosure, with 200 in Atlanta alone.

Ebenezer AME got into trouble when its cash reserves fell below $750,000, tripping a covenant on its loan.

Its lender, Bank of America, initially insisted that the church hire a consultant, at a cost of $5,000 a day, to keep a watch on its finances, and required cuts to pastoral benefits such as a car allowance. The bank eventually dropped those demands, along with a plan to raise the interest rate on the church's $8.5 million mortgage, so long as Ebenezer AME found another lender to take over the loan.

Other lenders have been somewhat less forgiving. Court records show that JPMorgan Chase & Co relied on a private investigator to compile evidence against Hopewell Baptist Church, which operates out of the former B'nai Jeshurun synagogue in Newark, New Jersey, and is the home of "kosher gospel" music.

The private investigator, according to the court documents, photographed the license plates of everyone who drove up, in an apparent attempt to determine if the church was operating and likely to be collecting rent.

The court ended the church's bankruptcy protection and it is slated for sheriff's sale in April.

Of course, things are not uniformly bleak. In the case of Ebenezer, the Maryland megachurch, its prayers may be answered. The church hopes to finalize a deal with a new lender, Industrial Bank of Washington, DC, to take over the loan this week.

NEW LENDING FUELED BUILDING BOOM

Churches emerged from previous economic downturns relatively unscathed, lenders noted. But the recent recession was preceded by an unusual boom in church building.

Spending on construction of religious buildings rose sharply in the late 1990s, climbing 70 percent from 1995 to 1999 to an annual rate of $7.3 billion. New building continued to tick up, eventually reaching an annual rate of nearly $9 billion in 2003 before leveling off, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau.

As was the case in the residential housing market, the church property boom was accompanied by the rise of more specialized lending. Church lending was historically done by community banks, which sometimes have ties through a member of a congregation. Loans were often set at a fixed rate and for a set term.

The emergence of larger congregations and the rush to build venues to accommodate them encouraged specialized lending that grew more aggressive.

Evangelical Christian Credit Union, America's Christian Credit Union and Strongtower Financial began to expand rapidly and compete for new business. Some regional and community banks that were nudged out of residential lending by Wall Street banks also discovered lending to churches as a relatively fragmented and inviting business with a history of low defaults.

"They entered the business with an absolute vengeance," said Phil Myers, president of the American Church Mortgage Co. "Five or six years ago there may have been two or three lenders competing on a deal. Now there were five. Those loans are coming home to roost."

Traditional church lenders such as American Church Mortgage Co and Bank of the West found themselves struggling to compete as competitors stretched lending guidelines and dangled ever larger loans in front of church administrators and pastors.

"We often lost business when offering $8 million and someone else would come in and offer $10 million," said Dan Mikes, who heads church lending for Bank of the West.

Bank of the West has zero nonperforming loans to churches, which the bank attributes to its prudent lending guidelines.

Many of the loans made in recent years contained many of the same features that exacerbated the residential real estate crash, such as low-interest teaser rates, securitized loans and balloon payments.

As a result, bad loans are rising rapidly for those lenders that pushed aggressively into church finance. Delinquent loans at the Evangelical Christian Credit Union, which expanded its loan portfolio from about $225 million to more than $1 billion over the last decade, have risen to 7.4 percent of their loans from 3.6 percent a year ago. Until 2007, the lender did not have a loan in foreclosure.

Ministry Investment Partners Co, which finances evangelical churches and purchases loans from the Evangelical Christian Credit Union, reported 13.3 percent of its loans were nonperforming, up from 1.9 percent a year ago.

And in 2008, the Church Mortgage and Loan Co filed for bankruptcy after a third of its outstanding loans were in foreclosure.

As these lenders struggle or disappear, many churches are finding their lifeline of credit has dried up. What is more, the value of many of the buildings and properties owned by churches has fallen sharply, sometimes even below the mortgage used to finance a project, making refinancing almost impossible.

"It's an unprecedented time," Mikes said.

CUTTING STAFF AND REDUCING PROGRAMS

Even the richest, most established churches have not been immune to this economic downturn. A study by the researcher Barna Group found more than half of U.S. churches said they have been hurt by the recession, with one church in six cutting staff.

The Episcopal Church in the United States, one of the wealthiest U.S. denominations, is feeling the pinch from a $1 billion loss in the combined investment portfolio for 2008, according to Kirk Hadaway, the head of congregational research for the Episcopal Church.

Yet the financial woes appear to be the most severe among nondenominational churches which were also among the fastest growing over the past decade. Many churches attracted younger members and families by offering an array of activities and events, and began building centers with health clubs, meeting rooms, cafes and sports fields.

The new-look houses of worship were often located along busy commercial strips on major thoroughfares, and bear little resemblance to the steepled churches that dot rural New England.

"Churches were trying to fill many roles," said Faith Center's Hampton. "They were trying to fill cultural gaps."

Without the support of a large national organization, some churches felt the need to take on debt to support their growth and building. Now, many are cutting staff, reducing programs and reining in expenses. "Churches have downsized staff, moved from full-time to part-time clergy, because the revenues are not coming in," said Scott Thumma, a sociology of religion professor with the Hartford Institute for Religion Research.

One-time emergency giving campaigns can also fill a short-term gap. Rick Warren, who delivered a prayer at President Barack Obama's inauguration, recently raised more than $2 million during a one-weekend emergency appeal for funding.

And churches have given up immediate plans for building. "They've decided to rent movie theaters or contract with local hotels to have multiple services," rather than build a new building, Thumma said. "They might have a worship service with a live band but the main sermon is from a live feed. That's becoming more common because of the economy."

African American churches in particular appear hard hit. Their congregations have suffered higher unemployment, and often the churches provide more services.

"It's devastating," Reverend Jackson said. "They are closing down services to seniors. They are closing down feeding programs. Demand for services are on the rise and the ability to provide services is decreasing," he said.

Jackson is organizing a campaign against church foreclosures. "It's our largest single institution," he said, "the greatest cash-flow institution."

(Reporting by Tom Hals; Editing by Jeffrey Cane and Jim Impoco and Claudia Parsons)

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