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JUST THE FACTS

Here's one important thing to remember about all medical research. Since 1850, the life expectancy of a white male has increased 37 years and 41 years for a white female, but over half that increase is the result of higher survival rates of those under 30. By the time you reach 70, all the money and effort we have spent on medicine has improved life expectancy by four years. Four white males over 60, life expectancy has gone up five years. Yet a major part of pharma marketing is directed to this audience.

JUNE 2009

WHY DOCTORS DON'T WORK FOR YOU ANYMORE

NEW TWIST IN THE MEDICAL RECORDS SCAM

MAY 2009

WHY OBAMA'S MEDICAL RECORDS LAW IS SO DANGEROUS

MONTHLY INJECTION BLOCKS SPERM

PIG FLU: MORE QUESTIONS ABOUT FACTORY FARMS

AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION NEEDS THERAPY, QUICK

13,000 HAVE ALREADY DIED OF SEASONAL FLU

COULD IT BE FACTORY FARM FLU?

TEN TOP OPPONENTS OF SINGLEPAYER

FLOTSAM& JETSAM: FINDING FUN FLU FACTS

APRIL 2009

NEW QUESTIONS RAISED ABOUT STATINS

BRITISH MEDICAL JOURNAL PUBLISHES WARNING
OF "STAGGERING" CONSEQUENCES OF SHARING MEDICAL RECORDS

MARCH 2009

WHY OBAMA'S MEDICAL RECORDS PLAN THREATENS PATIENTS PRIVACY

MAJOR SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY: WHERE BELLY BUTTON FLUFF COMES FROM

NEW WORRIES ABOUT GARDASIL SAFETY

FEBRUARY 2009

SYNTHETIC CHEMICALS TIED TO INFERTILITY

DIRT IS GOOD FOR YOU

THE SENATOR WHO WANTS TO KILL GOOD HEALTHCARE POLICY

HEALTH INSURANCE COMPANIES SPYING ON PRESCRIPTION RECORDS

AVOIDING SEX ON FIRST DATE GIVES WOMEN BETTER MATES

JANUARY 2009

CHEMICALS SERIOUSLY ENDANGERING MALES OF ALL SPECIES

THE BITTER STRUGGLE FOR DECENT HEALTHCARE

51 PHARMACEUTICALS & OTHER COMPOUNDS FOUND IN DRINKING WATER

NEW LEAD LAW MAY CAUSE CHAOS IN CHILDREN'S LIBRARIES

HOW SERIOUS IS NUT POISONING?

TOP RESEARCH CENTER CALLS FOR REVIEW OF PHTHALATES

STUDY FINDS LOW INCOME YOUNG HAVE DIFFERENT BRAIN FUNCTIONS

DECEMBER 2008

SCIENTISTS ADMIT SELF-CENSORING CONTROVERSIAL RESEARCH

WHERE HAVE ALL THE BOYS GONE?

MOBILE PHONE USE 'RAISES CHILDREN'S RISK OF BRAIN CANCER FIVEFOLD'

VETERANS ADMINISTRATION: ONE IN SEVEN WOMEN PATIENTS REPORT SEXUAL TRAUMA

NOVEMBER 2008

IT'S OKAY TO HAVE ONLY TWO AND A HALF STAGES OF GRIEF

NON PROFIT HOSPITALS BEING SHUT DOWN

OCTOBER 2008

THE IMMEDIATE CAUSE OF DEATH

Jane Gross, NY Times - According to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the leading causes of death among those ages 65 and over are, in descending order, heart disease, cancer, stroke, respiratory disease, Alzheimer's disease, diabetes, influenza, kidney disease, accidents and infection. Maybe so. But that's because people are not allowed to die of old age - at least, old age cannot be listed as the cause of death on the official documents, according to both the C.D.C. and the World Health Organization, repositories of the world's mortality statistics.

Neither should "infirmity" or "senescence" appear as a cause of death, according to the C.D.C. handbook on how properly to fill out a death certificate. Why? These words "have little value for public health or medical research," the agency says. Plus, "Age is recorded elsewhere on the [death] certificate." . . . Instead, every death must be attributed to a single disease, which is the immediate cause of death. A second disease may be cited as the intermediate cause, and a third as the underlying condition. Even in situations "when a number of conditions or multiple organ/system failure resulted in death," the C.D.C. instructs that "the physician, medical examiner or coroner should choose…a clear and distinct etiological sequence," a "chain of morbid events."

It sounds orderly, doesn't it? But 80- and 90-year-olds don't usually die of one thing. Little by little, the wheels fall off the bicycle. The first few times, you patch everything up. But it's never quite the same. Each setback is a little worse than the last. Bad stuff happens more often. Eventually, as with all machines, the human body simply wears out. . .

But being old isn't the same as having a heart attack. Frail, weak, bedridden old people don't get cured, ever. . .

What would it mean to medical science, I wonder, if death certificates did not describe us all as dying of something that could have been treated, and perhaps was, but instead of something inevitable and universally shared?

 

NON PROFIT HOSPITALS BEING SHUT DOWN

Wall Steet Journal - Ascension Health, the country's largest nonprofit hospital system, says its mission is to serve all, "with special attention to those who are poor and vulnerable." But in this city, where one in four people don't have health insurance, it's become harder for the poor and vulnerable to find Ascension. Last year, Ascension's local subsidiary closed [Detroit's] Riverview Hospital, the third hospital it has shut down in Detroit in the past 10 years and the only hospital that remained on the city's blighted east side. Meanwhile, 30 miles away, in a suburb of multimillion-dollar homes, Ascension is opening a new $224 million hospital. Of the 42 hospitals in the city in 1960, fewer than 10 are left. .

Net income at Ascension, which owns 67 hospitals located mostly in the Midwest, South and Northeast, nearly tripled to $1.2 billion between 2004 and 2007 thanks largely to investment gains.
. . Nonprofit hospital systems have shuttered facilities from Los Angeles to Chicago to Newark, N.J., while spending billions on suburban expansions. This all comes as large nonprofit chains have been enjoying some of their most prosperous times ever.

PUBLIC HEALTH BECOMES A RESPECTABLE MAJOR

VEGETARIANS FACE BRAIN SHRINKAGE

WHAT THE MUSIC YOU LIKE SAYS ABOUT YOU

STUDIES LEND SUPPORT TO DANGERS OF CELLPHONES

CHEWING GUM LINKED TO LOWERED STRESS LEVELS

MORE THAN HALF OF COLLEGE STUDENTS REPORT SUICIDAL THOUGHTS

PHARMAS & BIOTECH FIRMS THREATEN TO LEAVE MASSACHUSETTS IF DOCTOR BRIBES ARE BANNED

STUDY FINDS NOSELESS BIKE SADDLES IMPROVE MALE RIDERS' SEX LIVES

COLD FUSION UPDATE

TRANS-FATS BANNED IN CALIFORNIA

SEPTEMBER 2008

GERMS & PUBLIC TOILETS

CNN - Public bathrooms may be teeming with bacteria, but the toilet seat is probably safe for sitting. But the toilet seat is actually the cleanest part of the bathroom, one expert says.

Charles Gerba, a microbiologist at the University of Arizona who has studied restrooms and other germ-infested environments for more than 20 years, says that because of the care people take when they're about to sit, other parts of the bathroom are much more prone to delivering bacterial infections.

"One of the cleanest things in the bathrooms we find are the toilet seats," Gerba said. "I'd put my fanny on it any time -- unless it's wet; then you'd want to wipe it first."

Public bathrooms may contain several kinds of harmful bacteria, including E. coli, salmonella, coliform, rotavirus, cold virus and the potentially deadly form of staph known as MRSA, experts say. But people are more likely to pick up these nasty bugs through touching things in the bathroom with their hands, not their behinds. . .

More concerning, however, is a child who steadies himself or herself on a toilet seat by holding onto it and then leaving without washing hands, she said. Those germs could lead to an infection once the child's hands touch the nose, mouth or eyes.

And don't forget that unwashed hands have handled everything from the door knob to the lock to the flusher. Again, if you touch one of these objects and then rub your eye, nose or mouth, you're apt to transmit that bacteria.

But there is hope. Here are hygiene helpers:

Yes, it's basic. But, in general, washing your hands is the most effective action you can take to prevent bacterial infections from a public bathroom, experts say.

"You can remove all gastrointestinal and respiratory infection bacteria by washing hands," said Judy Daly, clinical microbiologist at the University of Utah and spokesperson for the Clean Hands Campaign. "Seventeen seconds of a little bit of friction, water and soap will really mediate bacteria."

The American Society for Microbiology, which sponsors the Clean Hands Campaign, found in a study last year that about 77 percent of men and women washed their hands in public restrooms, down 6 percent from 2005. The observational study also found that women washed their hands more than men.

"It's such an easy intervention," Daly said. "If you get it to be a habit for a 30-day period, it's something you do automatically."

Recent bathroom additions like automatic hands-free faucets and paper towel dispensers diminish contact between your hands and bathroom items that may bear bacteria.

Gerba's research found that the highest concentration of germs in a public bathroom are on the floor, the outside of the sanitary napkin disposal and the sink and water taps.

When Gerba looked at women's purses, he found that one-third of them had fecal bacteria on the bottom. Make sure you hang your shoulder bag on a hook. If none is available, some people swear by hanging the strap around their necks.

The middle stall of a public restroom usually has the most bacteria because people use it the most. "I guess people like company," Gerba said. The first stall will probably be cleaner.

As a rule, the cleanest toilets are usually in hospitals, because they use disinfectants heavily, but the worst are in airports and airplanes, Gerba said. The small size of airplane bathrooms, including the sinks themselves, make it hard for people to wash their hands -- in fact, Gerba's study found a thin layer of E. coli in an airplane bathroom.

As for the airports themselves, "In the men's room at Chicago O'Hare, I don't think the toilet seat ever gets cold," Gerba said.

Since the Review is better known for its political scoops rather than its scientific ones, excuse us for bragging that the latest issue of the highly regarded Nature Magazine has a cover article about the important but hidden Altenberg meeting on post-Darwinian research and new thoughts about evolution. We ran a piece of Suzan Mazur's ground breaking work on this topic back in March and followed up with another in July. Nature even borrows from Mazur's term "evolutionary Woodstock" to describe the critical meeting. Mazur's work is also found regularly in the great New Zealand journal, Scoop. The scientific establishment has been somewhat scared of dealing rationally and openly with new evolutionary ideas because of its fear of the powerful creationist movement. So for the topic to make the cover of Nature is a notable development.

SCIENCE ON THE STREET

A Nobel Prize winner takes to the street to answer questions about scienc

WHERE HAVE ALL THE BOYS GONE?

Tree Hugger - Martin Mittelstaedt of the Globe and Mail writes about how "Researchers tracking childhood behavioural disorders, sperm counts, testicular cancer and even the shrinking size of male gonads are convinced that something is amiss. The University of Pittsburgh's Devra Davis, in a study issued last year, found that the U.S. and Japan combined had a staggering tally of 262,000 "missing boys" from 1970 to about 2000 because of a decline in the sex ratio at birth. Although it could be a statistical anomaly, she says the figure is "very worrisome." Some think it might be due to endocrine disruptors in the environment. He lists "science's top five worries over the fate of the human male."

1. Lost boys: Studies on births from the U.S., Japan, and Canada have found a drop in the percentage of boys born compared with girls. The reason isn't known.

2. Declining harvest: Men in farm country can be half as prolific when it comes to making sperm as their city counterparts, raising the possibility that pesticides undermine male fertility.

3. Downsizing: It's disputed by chemical companies, but some researchers say they have found an everyday plastic compound - phthalates - that feminizes baby boys, causing penises and other reproductive organs to be smaller.

4. Hormones not so raging: If you're a middle-aged man, you're likely to be less virile than your father because you make less testosterone. In recent decades, the decline has averaged about 1 per cent a year. If it continues over another generation or two, the consequences could be dire.

5. Equipment failure: Rates of testicular cancer, hypospadias and other genital abnormalities have soared over recent decades, rising by more than 50 per cent each.

Mittelstaedt then lists the four chemicals that are causing the biggest concern: Bisphenol A, Phthalates, Polybrominated diphenylethers (PBDE). Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB)

HEAD OF LEADING CANCER INSTITUTE WARNS STAFF ON CELL PHONES

ROCK DRUMMING AS GOOD FOR HEART AS SOCCER

HAS AMERICA GONE MAD?

Bruce E, Levine, Alternet - In The Sane Society, [Erich] Fromm wrote, "Many psychiatrists and psychologists refuse to entertain the idea that society as a whole may be lacking in sanity. They hold that the problem of mental health in a society is only that of the number of 'unadjusted' individuals, and not of a possible unadjustment of the culture itself."

Is American society a healthy one, and are those having difficulties adjusting to it mentally ill? Or is American society an unhealthy one, and are many Americans with emotional difficulties simply alienated rather than ill? For Fromm, "An unhealthy society is one which creates mutual hostility (and) distrust, which transforms man into an instrument of use and exploitation for others, which deprives him of a sense of self, except inasmuch as he submits to others or becomes an automaton." Fromm viewed American society as an increasingly unhealthy one, in which people routinely experience painful alienation that fuels emotional and behavioral difficulties. . .

The essential confrontation for Fromm is not about psychiatric drugs per se (though he would be sad that so many Americans nowadays, especially children, are prescribed psychotropic drugs in order to fit into inhospitable environments). His essential confrontation was directed at all mental health professionals -- including non-prescribers such as psychologists, social workers and counselors -- who merely assist their patients to adjust but neglect to validate their patients' alienation from society.

Those comfortably atop societal hierarchies have difficulty recognizing that many American institutions promote helplessness, passivity, boredom, fear, isolation, alienation and dehumanization for those not at the top. One-size-fits-all schools, the corporate workplace, government bureaucracies and other giant, impersonal institutions routinely promote manipulative relationships rather than respectful ones, machine efficiency rather than human pride, authoritarian hierarchies rather than participatory democracy, disconnectedness rather than community, and helplessness rather than empowerment.

In The Sane Society, Fromm warned, "Today the function of psychiatry, psychology and psychoanalysis threatens to become the tool in the manipulation of man. The specialists in this field tell you what the 'normal' person is, and, correspondingly, what is wrong with you; they devise the methods to help you adjust, be happy, be normal.". . .

It is my experience that psychiatry, Scientology and fundamentalist religions are turnoffs for genuinely critical thinkers. Critical thinkers are not so desperate to adjust and be happy that they ignore adverse affects -- be they physical, psychological, spiritual or societal. Critical thinkers listen to what others have to say while considering their motives, especially financial ones; and they discern how one's motivation may distort one's assumptions.

A critical thinker would certainly not merely accept without analysis Fromm's and my conclusion that American society is insane in terms of healthy human development. . .

A critical thinker would most certainly point out that there have been societies far less sane than the United States -- and Erich Fromm made himself absolutely clear on this point. In the barbaric German society that Fromm fled, disruptive children who couldn't fit into one-size-fits-all schools were not forced to take Adderall and other amphetamines, but instead their parents handed them over to psychiatrists to be euthanized. Fromm, however, knew that just because one could point to societies less sane than the United States, this did not make the United States a sane, humanistic society.

Bruce E. Levine, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist and author of Surviving America's Depression Epidemic: How to Find Morale, Energy, and Community in a World Gone Crazy (Chelsea Green, 2007

VEGETARIANS FACE BRAIN SHRINKAGE

Times of India - Scientists have discovered that going veggie could be bad for your brain-with those on a meat-free diet six times more likely to suffer brain shrinkage.

Vegans and vegetarians are the most likely to be deficient because the best sources of the vitamin are meat, particularly liver, milk and fish. Vitamin B12 deficiency can also cause anaemia and inflammation of the nervous system. Yeast extracts are one of the few vegetarian foods which provide good levels of the vitamin.

The link was discovered by Oxford University scientists who used memory tests, physical checks and brain scans to examine 107 people between the ages of 61 and 87.

When the volunteers were retested five years later the medics found those with the lowest levels of vitamin B12 were also the most likely to have brain shrinkage. It confirms earlier research showing a link between brain atrophy and low levels of B12.

Brain scans of more than 1,800 people found that people who downed 14 drinks or more a week had 1.6% more brain shrinkage than teetotallers. Women in their seventies were the most at risk.

Beer does less damage than wine according to a study in Alcohol and Alcoholism.

And being overweight or obese is linked to brain loss, Swedish researchers discovered. Scans of around 300 women found that those with brain shrink had an average body mass index of 27 And for every one point increase in their BMI the loss rose by 13 to 16%.

EUROPEAN DOCTORS TO INCLUDE WARNINGS WITH STATINS; STUDIES KEPT SECRET

WHEN SCIENCE, POLITICS, RELIGION & JOURNALISM MEET

AUGUST 2008

CHEWING GUM LINKED TO LOWERED STRESS LEVELS

Scientific Blogging - Andrew Scholey, Ph.D., professor of Behavioral and Brain Sciences, Swinburne University in Melbourne, Australia has led a research study on the effects of chewing gum on stress relief and focus and concentration. The study found that chewing gum helped relieve anxiety, improve alertness and reduce stress among individuals in a laboratory setting. . .

The study noted:

- When chewing gum, participants reported lower levels of anxiety.

- Gum chewers showed a reduction in anxiety as compared to non-gum chewers by nearly 17 percent during mild stress and nearly 10 percent in moderate stress.

- Increased Alertness: Participants experienced greater levels of alertness when they chewed gum.

- Gum chewers showed improvement in alertness over non-gum chewers by nearly 19 percent during mild stress and 8 percent in moderate stress.

- Reduced Stress: Stress levels were lower in participants who chewed gum.

- Levels of salivary cortisol (a physiological stress marker) in gum chewers were lower than those of non-gum chewers by 16 percent during mild stress and nearly 12 percent in moderate stress.

- Improved Performance: Chewing gum resulted in a significant improvement in overall performance on multi-tasking activities.

Both gum-chewers and non-chewers showed improvement from their baseline scores; however, chewing gum improved mean performance scores over non-gum chewers by 67 percent during moderate stress and 109 percent in mild stress.

JULY 2008

TOO MUCH TOFU OR SOY MAY CAUSE MEMORY LOSS

HUNGER IN CITIES GROWING

HOW DO YOU GO TO THE BATHROOM IN SPACE?

JUNE 2008

HOSPITAL PROFITS SOARED LAST YEAR

WASHINGTON BUSINESS JOURNAL The country's hospital systems reported robust revenue and profit growth in the survey, a news release said. Hospital system revenue from patient care grew 8.4 percent in 2007 compared to 2006 and revenue from all sources, including patient care, climbed 8.9 percent. Hospital system profits jumped 23.8 percent, according to the survey results.

 CELLPHONE USE SUBJECT OF HEALTH DEBATE

MAY 2008

WHY MOZART RELIEVES THE PAIN OF INTENSIVE CARE PATIENTS

WEIGHT DISCRIMINATION FOUND AS PREVALENT AS ETHNIC & GENDER BIAS

CELL PHONES A RISK DURING PREGNANCY

LOW SALT DIETS ASSOCIATED WITH HEART DISEASE

INCENSE SEEMS TO HAVE ANTI-DEPRESSANT EFFECT

SCIENCE DAILY Religious leaders have contended for millennia that burning incense is good for the soul. Now, biologists have learned that it is good for our brains too. An international team of scientists, including researchers from Johns Hopkins University and the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, describe how burning frankincense (resin from the Boswellia plant) activates poorly understood ion channels in the brain to alleviate anxiety or depression. This suggests that an entirely new class of depression and anxiety drugs might be right under our noses.

"In spite of information stemming from ancient texts, constituents of Bosweilla had not been investigated for psychoactivity," said Raphael Mechoulam, one of the research study's co-authors. "We found that incensole acetate, a Boswellia resin constituent, when tested in mice lowers anxiety and causes antidepressive-like behavior. Apparently, most present day worshipers assume that incense burning has only a symbolic meaning.". . .

"Perhaps Marx wasn't too wrong when he called religion the opium of the people: morphine comes from poppies, cannabinoids from marijuana, and LSD from mushrooms; each of these has been used in one or another religious ceremony." said Gerald Weissmann, M.D., Editor-in-Chief of The FASEB Journal. "Studies of how those psychoactive drugs work have helped us understand modern neurobiology. The discovery of how incensole acetate, purified from frankincense, works on specific targets in the brain should also help us understand diseases of the nervous system. This study also provides a biological explanation for millennia-old spiritual practices that have persisted across time, distance, culture, language, and religion--burning incense really does make you feel warm and tingly all over!"

TEENAGER'S SCIENCE FAIR PROJECT MAY DELIVER US FROM PLASTIC

MOTHER JONES Daniel Burd - [a] 16-year-old from Waterloo, Ontario, as part of a science fair project, figured out a way to break down the polymers in plastic bags-compounds that can last for over 1,000 years-in about three months. Essentially, Burd hypothesized that since the bags eventually do degrade, it must be possible to isolate and augment the degrading agents. . .

Burd combined ground polyethylene plastic bags, sodium chloride, dirt from a landfill (which theoretically contains the microorganisms that ultimately degrade the plastic) and a yeast mixture in shakers for four weeks at a consistent temperature of about 86 degrees. At the end of the month, he took a sample of that mixture and combined it with a new one, with the goal of increasing the overall concentration of microbes. After one more repetition, he put fresh plastic bags in his solution for six weeks. In the end, the plastic degraded nearly 20%. A little more filtering to figure out exactly which microbes were the most effective, and he upped the degradation rate to 32%. He concludes, "The process of polyethylene degradation developed in this project can be used on an industrial scale for biodegradation of plastic bags. As a result, this would save the lives of millions of wildlife species and save space in landfills.". . . Judges at the Canada-Wide Science Fair apparently agree that it's worth pursuing. They sent Burd home with $30,000 in awards and scholarships. You can read his final report here

STUDIES FIND DOCTORS REALLY DON'T KNOW HOW TO WRITE

BRAIN EXPERT SAYS MOBILE PHONES MORE DANGEROUS THAN SMOKING

WE ONLY HAVE A BILLION YEARS TO GET IT RIGHT

WHY SCRATCHING FEELS GOOD

USING CELLPHONE BEFORE BEDTIME DELAYS AND REDUCES SLEEP

U.S. RANKS LAST AMONG INDUSTRIALIZED NATIONS IN DEALING WITH PREVENTABLE DEATHS

AMERICAN STYLE HEALTHCARE: HOSPICES FORCED TO REPAY MEDICARE FOR PATIENTS WHO LIVE TOO LONG

REVISED U.N. FIGURES FIND AIDS DECLINING OVER PAST TEN YEARS

THREE BOOKS ON HOW THE PHARMA INDUSTRY PUSHES PILLS FOR SHYNESS AND SORROW

BRAZIL 'REMARKABLE' SUCCESS WITH AIDS REFLECTS TOUGH STAND WITH PHARMA CORPS

CALORIE CREEP FOUND IN POPULAR FOODS

A DOCTOR TALKS ABOUT THE GOOGLER AS PATIENT

AVERAGE CHILD EXPOSED DAILY TO 27 CHEMICALS NOT FOUND SAFE FOR THEM

CDC STUDY BLOWS HOLES IN WEIGHT MYTH

STUDY: INTERNET PORN MAY HAVE AIDED BIG DROP IN RAPES

WATCHING TV MAY RAISE KIDS' BLOOD PRESSURE, WEIGHT

OREGON'S DEATH WITH DIGNITY POLICY PASSES TEN YEAR MARK

THE HIGH COST OF NOT ENOUGH YOUNG SLEEP

AUSTRALIAN COAL MINERS GIVEN INSTRUCTION IN FOREPLAY AND MENOPAUSE

SCIENCE OF DESIGNATED HITTERS

STUDY: BREAST FEEDING DOESN'T CAUSE SAGGING

CANCER GROWTH UNAFFECTED BY MENTAL ATTITUDE

MINNESOTA SLASHES PHARMA PAYOLA

INSURANCE COMPANIES FOUND TO BE ALREADY RIPPING OFF MEDICARE DRUG PATIENTS

PRIVATIZED MEDICAL INSURANCE SYSTEM RESULTS IN UP TO 18,000 DEATHS A YEAR

STUDY FINDS HEAVIER OLDER PEOPLE ARE HEALTHIER

MATHEMATICAL PROOF OF WHY HANGING OUT IS A GOOD IDEA

WHY PRIVATE INSURANCE BASED HEALTH CARE WON'T WORK

HALF OF AMERICANS, TWO-THIRDS OF DEMOCRATS
TO THE LEFT OF DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATES ON HEALTH CARE

WHY BOOMERS AREN'T THE MAJOR PROBLEM OF MEDICARE

COST OF HEALTH CARE RISING FASTER THAN WAGES

SAVING ON MALPRACTICE INSURANCE MEANS SOMETIMES SAYING YOU'RE SORRY

MYTHS ABOUT GIRLS AND SCIENCE

FEBRUARY 2008

NATIONAL CANCER INSTITUTE IGNORES NATURAL OPTIONS

NATURAL NEWS In an article included in the latest edition of Cancer Monthly's free newsletter CancerWire, researchers analyzed statistics obtained through the National Cancer Institute in order to gain a clearer perspective on what type of cancer research is being undertaken in the country. . .

The authors found that of the 7,080 clinical trials for cancer currently ongoing, over 3,000 are focused on chemotherapy -- a treatment that already has over 50 years of research to its credit with relatively little practical return on investment. Of the remaining trials, over 2,000 were focused on more advanced biological treatments such as anti-angiogenesis drugs, which work to cut off the blood supply to tumors.

In all, only 123 of the trials deal with any type of alternative or complementary treatment. "These 123 represent only 1.7% of the total and included trials of various foods, herbs and modalities such as: soy, ginger, Valerian, Curcumin, acupuncture, Reiki, meditation, garlic, Green tea, and Tai Chi," the authors state.. . .

"The overwhelming majority of these trials examined questions that did not focus on whether these approaches alone improved survivability from cancer," the authors report. What this means is that the treatments were actually being evaluated not as treatments, but as adjunctive therapies to improve the rate and intensity of symptoms among those patients already undergoing conventional therapy.

Of the 7,080 clinical trials for cancer currently underway in the U.S., only three focus on natural alternative methods of treating the disease.

PSYCHIATRIST SAYS WE'RE TOO DOWN ON DEPRESSION

BBC - A leading psychiatrist says that depression is not a human defect at all, but a defense mechanism that in its mild and moderate forms can force a healthy reassessment of personal circumstances.

Dr Paul Keedwell, an expert on mood disorders at the Institute of Psychiatry, argues all people are vulnerable to depression in the face of stress to varying degrees, and always have been.

The fact it has survived so long - and not been eradicated by evolution - indicates it has helped the human race become stronger. . .

Aristotle believed depression to be of great value because of the insights it could bring. There is also an increased empathy in people who have or have had depression, he says, because they become more attuned to other people's suffering. . .

The Banda tribe in Uganda calls it "illness of thought" and those affected are allowed time out from the group, a concession not extended to many with the condition in the UK.

The high and rising incidence in the UK and US - compared to countries like Brazil and Mexico - could be due to the breakdown of family bonds and the fragmentation of society. And compared to past decades, there are increased expectations of success.

Dr Keedwell says his theory does not cover severe depression, which is an illness accompanied by a catatonic lack of energy, cannot be worked through

WE ONLY HAVE A BILLION YEARS TO GET IT RIGHT

SCIENTIFIC BLOGGING - University of Sussex astronomers predict that the Earth will be swallowed up by the Sun unless the Earth's orbit can be altered - but we have about 7.6 billion years to do it. Dr Robert Smith, Emeritus Reader in Astronomy, said his team previously calculated that the Earth would escape ultimate destruction, although be battered and burnt to a cinder, but they did not take into account the effect of the drag caused by the outer atmosphere of the dying Sun. . .

Life on Earth will have disappeared long before 7.6 billion years, however. Scientists have shown that the Sun's slow expansion will cause the temperature at the surface of the Earth to rise. Oceans will evaporate, and the atmosphere will become laden with water vapor, which (like carbon dioxide) is a very effective greenhouse gas. Eventually, the oceans will boil dry and the water vapor will escape into space. In a billion years from now the Earth will be a very hot, dry and uninhabitable ball.

Can anything be done to prevent this fate? Professor Smith points to a remarkable scheme proposed by a team at Santa Cruz University, who suggest harnessing the gravitational effects of a close passage by a large asteroid to "nudge" the Earth's orbit gradually outwards away from the encroaching Sun. A suitable passage every 6000 years or so would be enough to keep the Earth out of trouble and allow life to survive for at least 5 billion years, and possibly even to survive the Sun's red giant phase.

OF MEDICATIONS AND MASSACRES

SAM SMITH - Once again, in the case of the North Illinois University killings, there is a possible link to medications - reportedly anti-depressants. And, once again, media and officials are downplaying it. In this case, the reported situation is that the killer stopped using his meds a few weeks before the massacre, but this statement by a police official does not qualify as serious inquiry. For example, if there was actually some connection, it could have been because:

- Some people have extremely violent reactions when they stop using the drugs. If so, what steps need to be taken to avoid this?

- The drugs had altered the killer's brain in some way that not only contributed to the violence but got him to give up taking the drugs.

Of course, there may be no connection at all, but - as pointed out here in the past - the use of anti-depressants and similar drugs is so prevalent that one need not have more than a miniscule chance of violent reactions to have major consequences.

While there are no answers at present, we do know this: neither medicine nor the media seems to care much.

Medicine is part science and part gambling. That's what all the small print on your prescriptions is about. We need to look at the odds more closely.

ABOUT A QUARTER OF WOMEN, 11% OF MEN REPORT SUFFERING DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

MSNBC - About a quarter of U.S. women suffer domestic violence, U.S. health officials reported, with ongoing health problems that one activist likened to the effects of living in a war zone. Some men also experience domestic violence, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention survey found.

The CDC said 23.6 percent of women and 11.5 percent of men reported being a victim of what it called "intimate partner violence" at some time in their lives.

The CDC defined this as threatened, attempted or completed physical or sexual violence or emotional abuse by a spouse, former spouse, current or former boyfriend or girlfriend or a dating partner. The CDC estimates that 1,200 women are killed and 2 million injured in domestic violence annually. . .

Black women were more likely to report domestic violence than whites or Hispanics, but it was most frequent among multiracial, American Indian and Alaska native women. Women of all income and education levels suffer such abuse, although it was more frequent among the poorest and those who attended but did not graduate from college.

"Perhaps one of the factors at play here is the high prevalence of sexual violence on college campuses, and dating violence," Michele Black, a CDC epidemiologist who helped write the agency's report, said in a telephone interview.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23056009

JANUARY 2008

STUDY: NEARLY A QUARTER OF GENES CONTRIBUTE TO BODY WEIGHT

SCIENTIFIC BLOGGING - Genetics Researchers from the Monell Chemical Senses Center have attempted to count the number of genes that contribute to obesity and body weight - and it isn't a pretty number.

The findings suggest that over 6,000 genes, almost 25 percent of the genome, could help determine an individual's body weight.

"Reports describing the discovery of a new 'obesity gene' have become common in the scientific literature and also the popular press," notes Monell behavioral geneticist Michael G. Tordoff, PhD, an author on the study. "Our results suggest that each newly discovered gene is just one of the many thousands that influence body weight, so a quick fix to the obesity problem is unlikely.". . .

Tordoff comments, "It is interesting that there are 10 times more genes that increase body weight than decrease it, which might help explain why it is easier to gain weight than lose it."

DECEMBER 2007

REPORT DOCUMENTS LINK BETWEEN BOOZING AND UNSAFE SEX, SUGGESTS FREE CONDOMS AT CLUBS AND IN TAXIS

BBC - Free condoms should be given away in pubs, clubs and taxis to reduce the levels of unwanted pregnancies and sex infections, experts say. Research by the University of Southampton found strong links between binge drinking and unsafe sex. The poll of 520 people attending sexual health clinics found 76% said they had unprotected sex due to drinking.

And those with sex infections drank 40% more on average, the International Journal of STD and Aids reported. In total, only a sixth of those quizzed said they always had safe sex with a new partner. . .

Journal editor Professor Wallace Dinsmore said: "The young people interviewed in this study frequently said that better access to condoms at the time and place they were needed would have enabled them to practise safer sex. Young people can get free condoms from their GPs, family planning and GU [sexual health] clinics but it might make more sense to give condoms away in pubs, clubs and taxis."

DRUG DENIAL IN MASS KILLINGS (CONT'D)

OUR PIECE on the possible connection between prescription behavioral drugs and mass slayings stirred up a lot of correspondence pro and con, with the latter missing a key point: we didn't blame the drugs, we blamed officials for not investigating their possible role and the media for ignoring it. As we pointed out, a drug that works for a million people but causes violence or suicide in just one percent means 10,000 people who could kill themselves or others.

Speaking of which. . .

ABC NEWS - It was the first, anguished thought that sprung to the mind of the mother of the Omaha mall sniper Robert Hawkins when she realized her son was the killer. . . Rodriguez said her son's life had been a challenge from the start. She divorced Hawkins' father when the boy was 3-years-old, she said, and by 5 he was taking prescription Ritalin and Zoloft. . .

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=3994022&page=1

MASS KILLINGS AND DRUG DENIAL

ANOTHER TEENAGER, another mass killing, another round of totally predictable reactions: flags at half-mast, outrage, tightened security, a statement from the White House.

And one other thing: virtually no mention by police, media or politicians of the possible role of behavioral drugs in the killing.

This despite the fact that such drugs appear in the background - albeit well hidden by the media - in just about every one of these mass killing stories including the latest.

Why is there this drug denial? A number of reasons, including the fact that blaming it on the guns is a lot easier, a mass brain drain achieved by Big Pharma in public discussions of such matters and the uncomfortable possibility that drugs that have helped millions might also cause a much smaller but significant number of people to do bizarrely violent things.

The pharmaceutical, medical and media industries have trained us to acquiesce to something called "acceptable risk." Yet we should be leery of letting others determine what the acceptable risk of our own death or illness is as they may not have the same vested interest in it as we do.

Let's consider the example of anti-depressants. Let's assume there is only a one percent chance of a violent or otherwise serious adverse reaction. Sounds small, but it means that if one million people are successfully taking the drug, about 10,000 may be potential Omaha shooters or have some other adverse reaction. Ten million prescriptions and you have a population the size of South Bend, Indiana or Cambridge, Massachusetts at risk to themselves or to others.

At present, we are unable to even discuss this anomaly. Admittedly it is confusing, frustrating and contradictory to have a drug that is both a salivation and a major danger, but we do no one a favor by pretending the problem doesn't exist.

NATION, MAY 2001 - While many explanations have been proposed for the epidemic of rampage killings, one that has not been given much attention in the media is the possible involvement of psychotropic medications, particularly selective serotonin-reuptake inhibitors such as fluoxetine (Prozac). Dr. Julian Whitaker, writing in the March 2001 issue of Health and Healing, calls attention to the fact that an uncomfortably large proportion of the people who have gone on shooting sprees were all taking Prozac or related drugs. A 42-year-old software tester from Massachusetts was, according to Whitaker, taking Prozac when he killed seven of his coworkers. One of the teenage murderers from Columbine High School, and the man who killed seven people at a Kentucky printing plant, were taking Prozac or similar drugs. And Prozac was found in the car of the Atlanta day-trader who murdered his wife and children and then killed or wounded 22 people at two brokerage firms.

While it could be argued that the deranged psyches that led these people to violent acts preceded their use of SSRIs, it is possible that the side effects of the drugs played a role in their murderous rages. Whitaker cites a study by Dr. David Healy, showing that when people without mental illness were given the SSRI drug sertraline (Zoloft), 20% became suicidal. There has also been a long-held suspicion that Prozac causes some people to become obsessed with killing themselves. The hall-of-fame singer Del Shannon, whose 1961 smash hit Runaway was number one on the charts for eight weeks, shot himself in the head in 1990, 15 days after starting Prozac. According to his wife, Shannon was, at the time, an emotionally healthy individual who had been prescribed the drug to help him through a period of relatively minor stress. Abby Hoffman, the political radical and founder of the Youth International Party, also committed suicide shortly after starting Prozac.

A drug-induced obsession with violence could lead not only to suicide, but, for some personality types, to violence against others. It is noteworthy that certain drugs used to treat obsessive-compulsive disorder also affect serotonin reuptake. It should not, therefore, be surprising if some people develop obsessive thoughts when their serotonin metabolism is "messed with." . . .

NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF MENTAL HEALTH, 2007 - Specific variations in two genes are linked to suicidal thinking that sometimes occurs in people taking the most commonly prescribed class of antidepressants, according to a large study led by scientists at the Institute of Mental Health. Depending on the particular mix inherited, these versions increased the likelihood of such thoughts from 2- to15-fold, the study found. About 1 percent of adult patients were deemed to be at high genetic risk, 41 percent at elevated risk and 58 percent at lower risk.

If confirmed, the findings may hold promise for genetic testing, as more such markers are identified. . . . Overall, about 6 percent of 1,915 patients with depression reported that they started to have suicidal thoughts while taking an antidepressant. This rate soared to 36 percent among the few patients with both of the suspect gene versions; 59 percent of the patients who had suicidal thoughts had at least one of the versions. . .

Earlier studies had shown that about 4 percent of youth treated with antidepressants experience suicidal thinking compared with about 2 percent of those taking placebos.

WIKIPEDIA - Over the years there have been many accusations by patients and their families of SSRIs causing suicidal ideation and aggressive (or homicidal) behavior. The scientific evidence supporting this claim has been criticized by drug advocates, but alternative medicine sites often claim that patients committed suicide or engaged in aggressive and/or criminal acts using SSRIs. Manufacturers of SSRIs historically have vehemently denied any such link and have always blamed the disease rather than the treatment. However, evidence from case studies, epidemiological studies, experimental research, and theory supports the view that SSRIs increase suicide risk for some patients.

In the United States there is a required box warning for suicide risk in children. In the UK, all "antidepressant" medications except Prozac have been banned for people under 18. In late 2004 the first U.S. black box warning was added which applied only to children 12 and under. Recently experts recommended expanding the warning to adults. In general the risk of suicide is twice as great when taking an SSRI regardless of the type of diagnosis or whether the patient was considered a healthy volunteer for trial purposes.

On Dec 13, 2006, a U.S. Food and Drug Administration advisory panel recommended that "black-box" warnings on SSRIs be raised from 18 to 25 years old. The FDA is not obliged to follow the recommendations of its advisory committees but usually does.

THE RISK OF RISK ASSESSMENT

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR - At least since 2003, and especially after hurricane Katrina hit, the White House has broadly attempted to control which climate scientists could speak with reporters, as well as editing scientists' congressional testimony on climate science and key legal opinions, according to a new report by a House committee. "The Bush Administration has engaged in a systematic effort to manipulate climate change science and mislead policy makers and the public about the dangers of global warming," said the report, which is the result of a 16-month probe by the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. "The White House exerted unusual control over the public statements of federal scientists on climate change issues."

ISRAELI STUDY SAYS REGULAR MOBILE USE INCREASES TUMOR RISK

AFP - Regular use of mobile telephones increases the risk of developing tumours, a new scientific study by Israeli researchers and published in the American Journal of Epidemiology revealed. An extract of the report seen by Israel's Yedoit Aharonot newspaper put the risk of developing a parotid gland tumor nearly 50 percent higher for frequent mobile phone users - more than 22 hours a month. The risk was still higher if users clamped the phone to the same ear, did not use hands - free devices or were in rural areas.

NOVEMBER 2007

BRAZIL 'REMARKABLE' SUCCESS WITH AIDS REFLECTS TOUGH STAND WITH PHARMA CORPS

GARY DUFFY, BBC - Bargaining with pharmaceutical firms to bring down the price of Aids drugs and producing cheap generic versions has saved Brazil $1bn, a study has shown. Infection rates in the Latin American country have been kept at a similar level to the US, the report finds. And more than 180,000 Brazilians have access to Aids treatment.

Brazil's achievement is described as "remarkable", in the study published by researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health in the United States. . . In 1996 it became the first developing country to commit to providing free and universal access to Aids drugs. . .

By threatening to produce cheaper generic versions of existing drugs, the government has repeatedly persuaded companies to reduce their prices. Earlier this year Brazil broke the patent on the Aids drug Efavirenz and decided to import a cheaper version from India.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/2/hi/americas/7093809.stm

CALORIE CREEP FOUND IN POPULAR FOODS

FRAN ABRAMS, GUARDIAN, UK - Fast food, fizzy drinks and larger portion sizes have all been blamed for rising levels of obesity. But figures obtained by the Guardian suggest changes to the recipes of many of our favorite foods could be to blame. Of a dozen leading brands for which we were able to compare nutritional information from a decade or more ago with today, nine showed an increase in calories, sugar or saturated fat. Kellogg's Rice Krispies contain 36 more calories per 100g than in 1983 - an increase of about 10% - while Kraft Dairylea Triangles contain 15 more calories per 100g than in 2001, a 7% rise. While cheese used to be their main ingredient, followed by skimmed milk, whey and butter, it now comes third and accounts for just 16%.

Häagen-Dazs Belgian Chocolate ice-cream - always marketed as a dangerous pleasure - contains 16% more calories than in 1994, and 26% more fat. Even products marketed as healthy options are not immune to this "calorie creep". Jordans Original Crunchy bars have 16% more calories than in 1986, and more fat. Experts said the findings, derived from a comparison of current labels with old ones stored in museum archives, fitted a pattern whereby manufacturers remove salt and some types of fat from food for health reasons, only to replace them with sugar and more fat.

CDC STUDY BLOWS HOLES IN WEIGHT MYTH

[This is not new data. Some of it has been noted by the Review. The CDC still, however, continues to use the mathematical illogical BMI as a standard, which assumes that we are two dimensional rather than 3 dimensional creatures. This creates a substantial bias against taller people. The formula also doesn't consider genetic differences, body type, or percentage of fat]

INDEPENDENT, UK - After years of anti-obesity public health advice, a major new study causes an outcry by concluding that the overweight live longer. A startling new study by medical researchers in the United States has caused consternation among public health professionals by suggesting that, contrary to conventional wisdom, being overweight might actually be beneficial for health.

The study, published in the respected Journal of the American Medical Association, runs counter to almost all other advice to consumers by saying that carrying a little extra flab – though not too much – might help people to live longer.

Struggling dieters, used to being told that staying thin is the best prescription for longevity, are likely to be confused this morning if not heartily relieved. While being a bit overweight may indeed increase your chances of dying from diabetes and kidney disease – conditions that are often linked with one another – the same is not true for a host of other ailments including cancer and heart disease, the report suggests.

In fact, scanning the whole gamut of diseases that could curtail your life, being over weight is, on balance, a good thing. The bottom line, the scientists say, is that modestly overweight people demonstrate a lower death rate than their peers who are underweight, obese or – most surprisingly – normal weight.

The findings will be hard to dismiss. They are the result of analysis of decades of data by federal researchers at the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia. This is not a study from a fringe group of scientists or sponsored by a fast-food chain.

Being overweight, the report asserts in its conclusions, "was associated with significantly decreased all-cause mortality overall". . .

That the CDC has even published the report and thus threatened to muffle years of propaganda as to the health benefits of staying slender has enraged some medical experts. . .

The scientists are careful to stress that the benefits they are describing are limited to those people who are merely overweight – which generally means being no more than 30 pounds heavier than is recommended for your height – and certainly do not carry over to those who fall into the category of obese.

OCTOBER 2007

WATCHING TV MAY RAISE KIDS' BLOOD PRESSURE, WEIGHT

DAILY MAIL, UK - Children who watch more than two hours of TV a day are twice as likely to be obese and suffer high blood pressure, say researchers. A U.S. study found those glued to the screen for between two and four hours a day were 2.5 times more likely to have hypertension, which can lead to heart disease and stroke in later life. That increased to 3.3 times the risk for children watching TV for four hours or more each day, says a report today in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. The study also found that children tended to be more seriously overweight the more time they spent watching TV.

SEPTEMBER 2007

THE MATING HABITS OF LADY BUGS

 VIDEO

AUGUST 2007

TOO MANY BEING DIAGNOSED AS DEPRESSED?

SCOTSAMN - Doctors are over-diagnosing depression, resulting in thousands of people wrongly being prescribed drugs to treat it, an expert warns. Professor Gordon Parker says the current threshold for what is considered to be "clinical depression" is too low and he fears that it might lead to the condition becoming less credible. He argues that the problem has been reduced to the "absurd" and we risk medicalizing normal human distress and viewing any expression of depression as necessary of treatment.

Prof Parker, a psychiatrist based at Australia's University of New South Wales, says it is "normal to be depressed" and points to his own cohort study, which followed 242 teachers. After 15 years of research, 79 per cent of respondents had already met the symptom and duration criteria for major, minor or very mild "subsyndromal" depression.

Anti-depressants have a range of side-effects. About 25 per cent of patients have problems when stopping them and studies have found that they can cause a rise in suicidal thoughts and actions. Patients also report a loss of libido.

Prof Parker blames the over-diagnosis of clinical depression on a change in its categorization, in 1980, which saw the condition split into "major" and "minor" disorders. He says that the simplicity and gravitas of "major depression" gave it credit with clinicians, while its descriptive profile set a low threshold.

Criterion A required a person to be in a "dysphoric mood" for two weeks, which included feeling "down in the dumps". Criterion B involved appetite change, sleep disturbance, drop in libido and fatigue.

This model was then extended to include what Prof Parker describes as a seeming subliminal condition, "subsyndromal depression".

Writing in the British Medical Journal, Prof Parker said: "It is normal to feel depressed. A low threshold for diagnosing clinical depression risks treating normal emotional states as illness. . .

A recent study in the United States found that as many as one-quarter of people currently labelled as depressed were reacting normally to stressful events. It suggested that even psychiatrists regularly miss the broad picture. Some experts say that once patients tick enough boxes for symptoms, then they get diagnosed as depressed even though they may just be sad.

http://news.scotsman.com/uk.cfm?id=1300982007

FIRST IN WAR, LAST IN PEACE AND 42ND IN LIFE EXPECTANCY

AP - Americans are living longer than ever, but not as long as people in 41 other countries. For decades, the United States has been slipping in international rankings of life expectancy, as other countries improve health care, nutrition and lifestyles. Countries that surpass the U.S. include Japan and most of Europe, as well as Jordan, Guam and the Cayman Islands. . .

A baby born in the United States in 2004 will live an average of 77.9 years. That life expectancy ranks 42nd, down from 11th two decades earlier, according to international numbers provided by the Census Bureau and domestic numbers from the National Center for Health Statistics.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,,-6843591,00.html

WIDELY USED PLASTIC CHEMICAL MAY BE CAUSING REPRODUCTIVE DISORDERS

MARLA CONE LOS ANGELES TIMES - In an unusual effort targeting a single chemical, several dozen scientists on Thursday issued a strongly worded statement warning that an estrogen-like compound in plastic is likely to be causing an array of serious reproductive disorders in people.

The compound, bisphenol A, is one of the highest-volume chemicals in the world and has found its way into the bodies of most human beings.

Used to make hard plastic, BPA can seep from beverage containers and other materials. It is used in all polycarbonate plastic baby bottles, as well as other rigid plastic items, including large water- cooler containers, sports bottles and microwave-oven dishes, along with canned-food liners and some dental sealants for children.

The scientists, including four from federal health agencies, reviewed about 700 studies before concluding that people are exposed to levels of the chemical exceeding those that harm lab animals. Infants and fetuses are most vulnerable, they said. . . No studies so far have looked for effects in people.

http://tinyurl.com/2e4ygy

OVERWEIGHT CHILDREN STIGMATIZED BY PEERS, TEACHERS, PARENTS

MSNBC - Overweight children are stigmatized by their peers as early as age 3 and even face bias from their parents and teachers, giving them a quality of life comparable to people with cancer, a new analysis concludes.

Youngsters who report teasing, rejection, bullying and other types of abuse because of their weight are two to three times more likely to report suicidal thoughts as well as to suffer from other health issues such as high blood pressure and eating disorders, researchers said.

"The stigmatization directed at obese children by their peers, parents, educators and others is pervasive and often unrelenting," researchers with Yale University and the University of Hawaii at Manatoa wrote in the July issue of Psychological Bulletin. . . .

Children as young as 3 are more likely to consider overweight peers to be mean, stupid, ugly and sloppy.

A growing body of research shows that parents and educators are also biased against heavy children. In a 1999 study of 115 middle and high school teachers, 20 percent said they believed obese people are untidy, less likely to succeed and more emotional.

"Perhaps the most surprising source of weight stigma toward youths is parents," the report says.

Even parents tease Several studies showed that overweight girls got less college financial support from their parents than average weight girls. Other studies showed teasing by parents was common.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19725025/from/ET/

THE ECONOMICS OF GOOD HEALTH

BRYDIE RAGAN, YES! MAGAZINE - In 1967, British epidemiologist Michael Marmot began to study the relationship between poverty and health. He showed that each step up or down the socio-economic ladder correlates with increasing or decreasing health.

Over time, research linking health and wealth became more nuanced. It turns out that "what matters in determining mortality and health in a society is less the overall wealth of that society and more how evenly wealth is distributed. The more equally wealth is distributed, the better the health of that society," according to the editors of the April 20, 1996 issue of the British Medical Journal. In that issue, American epidemiologist George Kaplan and his colleagues showed that the disparity of income in each of the individual U.S. states, rather than the average income per state, predicted the death rate.

"The People's Epidemiologists," an article in the March/April 2006 issue of Harvard Magazine, takes the analysis a step further. Fundamental social forces such as "poverty, discrimination, stressful jobs, marketing-driven global food companies, substandard housing, dangerous neighborhoods and so on" actually cause individuals to become ill, according to the studies cited in the article. Nancy Krieger, the epidemiologist featured in the article, has shown that poverty and other social determinants are as formidable as hostile microbes or personal habits when it comes to making us sick. This may seem obvious, but it is a revolutionary idea: the public generally believes that poor lifestyle choices, faulty genes, infectious agents, and poisons are the major factors that give rise to illness.

Krieger is one of many prominent researchers making connections between health and inequality. Michael Marmot recently explained in his book, The Status Syndrome, that the experience of inequality impacts health, making the perception of our place in the social hierarchy an important factor. According to Harvard's Ichiro Kawachi, the distribution of wealth in the United States has become an "important public health problem." The claims of Kawachi and his colleagues move public health firmly into the political arena, where some people don't think it belongs. But the links between socio-economic status and health are so compelling that public health researchers are beginning to suggest economic and political remedies.

Richard Wilkinson, an epidemiologist at the University of Nottingham, points out that we are not fated to live in stressful dominance hierarchies that make us sick -- we can choose to create more egalitarian societies. In his book, The Impact of Inequality, Wilkinson suggests that employee ownership may provide a path toward greater equality and consequently better health.

http://www.alternet.org/healthwellness/57529/

AMERICAN SCIENCE IS IN TROUBLE

BENNETT GORDON, UTNE - Science in the United States is in trouble. "The numbers indicate that the American scientist population is not healthy," writes Marc Zimmer for Inside Higher Ed, "especially not in comparison to scientists in other countries." Only 13 percent of US graduate degrees are in the sciences, as opposed to 40 percent of degrees in Japan, South Korea, Sweden, and Switzerland. Numbers like these make Zimmer wonder if the American scientist is quickly becoming "an endangered species."

The blame for science's drop in popularity, according to Zimmer, can be squarely placed on a culture that does not respect the "authority and autonomy of science." Creationism and other "pseudosciences" are undermining the institution as a whole, and Americans just don't seem to care. "There are no modern Einsteins," Zimmer points out, "gracing the cover of Rolling Stone.". . .

http://www.utne.com/webwatch/2007_307/news/12653-1.html

JUNE 2007

GREAT MOMENTS IN SCIENCE
BODY MASS OF PLAYBOY CENTERFOLDS
THROUGHOUT HISTORY

MAY 2007

MEDICAL EXPERIMENTS TO BE DONE WITHOUT PATIENT'S CONSENT

ROB STEIN, WASHINGTON POST - The federal government is undertaking the most ambitious set of studies ever mounted under a controversial arrangement that allows researchers to conduct some kinds of medical experiments without first getting the patients' permission. The $50 million, five-year project, which will involve more than 20,000 patients in 11 sites in the United States and Canada, is designed to improve treatment after car accidents, shootings, cardiac arrest and other emergencies.

The three studies, organizers say, offer an unprecedented opportunity to find better ways to resuscitate people whose hearts suddenly stop, to stabilize patients who go into shock and to minimize damage from head injuries. Because such patients are usually unconscious at a time when every minute counts, it is often impossible to get consent from them or their families, the organizers say. . .

Some bioethicists say the new research is more ethical than some of the earlier studies in several ways, including that patients are not being denied highly effective therapies. Most patients who receive the current treatments do not survive. . . But others say that the studies could be done by finding patients or family members who are in a position to provide consent, even though that might make such studies more difficult.

"This just seems like lazy investigators not wanting to try to get informed consent in situations where it is difficult to get it, so they say it is impossible," said George Annas, a Boston University bioethicist. . .

Annas was particularly disturbed that children as young as 15 might be included in the research. "Suppose a 15-year-old child is in the back of a car that is in a terrible accident," Annas said. "The EMTs arrive and say: 'We are doing an experiment with two techniques. We think they are about equal. Is it okay if we flip a coin to see how we treat your son? Or would you rather we just give him the treatment we think is best?' Unless you think all parents would have the EMTs flip a coin, consent here is necessary."

Others are concerned patients may be getting experimental therapies that could turn out to be inferior to standard treatments.

http://chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/nation/4839234.html

ECHOES FROM THE PAST

GINA KOLATA, NY TIMES, 1996 - For the first time in a half century, new Federal regulations allow investigators to enroll patients in some medical research studies without their consent. The Food and Drug Administration regulations, . . . apply only in carefully circumscribed situations. The patients must have a life-threatening condition, like a severe head injury, and must be unable to say whether they want to be part of a study. They would be selected only if it was not feasible to obtain consent from a relative. Furthermore, the community in which the research is done must be notified about the study, and the research design must have been reviewed and approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

Even the most ardent supporters of the new regulations say they understand the seriousness of what they have done. They have repealed a principle that dates back to the Nuremberg trials of Nazi doctors after World War II, when American judges were agonizing over rules that might prevent doctors from ever again using human subjects in horrendous experiments. The judges wrote a code of ethics, the Nuremberg Code, whose first principle was that no one should ever be forced to take part in a medical experiment. "The voluntary consent of the human subject is essential," they wrote. . .

"It's a fateful step," Jay Katz, an ethicist and lawyer at Yale University, said in a telephone interview from Germany, where he was at a conference marking the 50th anniversary of the Nuremberg doctors' trials. "The first sentence of the first principle of the Nuremberg Code," he said, stated that nothing should be done to human beings without their consent. And now, he said, "here we are making exceptions."

US HOLOCAUST MUSEUM - During World War II, a number of German physicians conducted painful and often deadly experiments on thousands of concentration camp prisoners without their consent. Unethical medical experimentation carried out during the Third Reich may be divided into three categories. The first category consists of experiments aimed at facilitating the survival of Axis military personnel. In Dachau, physicians from the German air force and from the German Experimental Institution for Aviation conducted high-altitude experiments, using a low-pressure chamber, to determine the maximum altitude from which crews of damaged aircraft could parachute to safety. Scientists there carried out so-called freezing experiments using prisoners to find an effective treatment for hypothermia. They also used prisoners to test various methods of making seawater potable.

The second category of experimentation aimed at developing and testing pharmaceuticals and treatment methods for injuries and illnesses which German military and occupation personnel encountered in the field. . . The third category of medical experimentation sought to advance the racial and ideological tenets of the Nazi worldview. The most infamous were the experiments of Josef Mengele at Auschwitz. Mengele conducted medical experiments on twins. He also directed serological experiments on Roma (Gypsies), as did Werner Fischer at Sachsenhausen, in order to determine how different "races" withstood various contagious diseases. The research of August Hirt at Strasbourg University also intended to establish "Jewish racial inferiority."

http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10005168

LANCET, 2005 - Patients the world over need adequate protection from overreaching physicians who use patients to test experimental drugs and procedures without their informed consent. Jacques Michel, a retired director of Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem who also heads the hospital ethics committee, triggered an investigation of 39 hospitals by Israel's State comptroller, the government watchdog.

The findings of non-consensual experiments conducted primarily on children, the elderly and psychiatric patients, shocked Israelis. . . The violations were found to be worst in geriatric, rehabilitation, and psychiatric hospitals, where some children had their eardrums deliberately pierced so that a drug could be applied. In another painful procedure, a needle was used to draw urine from the bladder for testing without health ministry approval.". . . "Anyone who performs a medical experiment on someone who doesn't or is unable to give his informed consent should be tried for physical assault."

A striking difference between this and similar research scandals at major US

http://www.ahrp.org/infomail/05/07/26.php

WIKIPEDIA - The Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male. . . became notorious because it was conducted without due care to its subjects, and led to major changes in how patients are protected in clinical studies. Individuals enrolled in the Tuskegee Syphilis Study did not give informed consent and were not informed of their diagnosis; instead they were told they had "bad blood" and could receive free medical treatment, rides to the clinic, meals and burial insurance in case of death in return for participating.

In 1932, when the study started, standard treatments for syphilis were toxic, dangerous, and of questionable effectiveness. Part of the original goal of the study was to determine if patients were better off not being treated with these toxic remedies.

By 1947, penicillin had become the standard treatment for syphilis. Prior to this discovery, syphilis frequently led to a chronic, painful and fatal multisystem disease. Rather than treat all syphilitic subjects with penicillin and close the study, or split off a control group for testing penicillin; the Tuskegee scientists withheld penicillin and information about penicillin, purely to continue to study how the disease spreads and kills. Participants were also prevented from accessing syphilis treatment programs that were available to other people in the area. The study continued until 1972, when a leak to the press resulted in its termination.

SCORES OF COMMON CHEMICALS CAUSE BREAST CANCER IN ANIMALS

MARLA CONE, LA TIMES - More than 200 chemicals - many found in urban air and everyday consumer products - cause breast cancer in animal tests, according to a compilation of scientific reports published today. Writing in a publication of the American Cancer Society, researchers concluded that reducing exposure to the compounds could prevent many women from developing the disease. . . Experts say that family history and genes are responsible for a small percentage of breast cancer cases but that environmental or lifestyle factors such as diet are probably involved in the vast majority.

"Overall, exposure to mammary gland carcinogens is widespread," the researchers wrote in a special supplement to the journal Cancer. "These compounds are widely detected in human tissues and in environments, such as homes, where women spend time.". . .

The researchers named 216 chemicals that induce breast tumors in animals. Of those, people are highly exposed to 97, including industrial solvents, pesticides, dyes, gasoline and diesel exhaust compounds, cosmetics ingredients, hormones, pharmaceuticals, radiation and a chemical in chlorinated drinking water. . .Toxicologists say that other mammals, such as rats and mice, often develop the same tumors as humans do, and that animal tests are efficient means of testing the effects of chemicals. Environmental regulators, however, often want conclusive human data before taking action.. . .

Twenty-nine of the chemicals are produced in volumes exceeding 1 million pounds annually in the United States. Seventy-three are present in consumer products or are food contaminants - 1,4-dioxane in shampoos, for example, or acrylamide in French fries. Thirty-five are common air pollutants, 25 are in workplaces where at least 5,000 women are employed, and 10 are food additives, according to the reports.

NEW DRUG BILL STRENGTHENS BIG PHARMA'S CONTROL OVER FDA

JAMES RIDGEWAY, MOTHER JONES - Last week was a good week for Big Pharma. Wednesday's passage in the Senate, 93 votes to 1, of a bill sponsored by Ted Kennedy has been heralded by some for strengthening the Food and Drug Administration. In fact, it only serves to tighten the drug companies' grip on the FDA by allowing the industry to pay for the testing of its own products, setting up potentially huge conflicts of interest. At the same time, the Senate helped tighten the drug companies' grip on the market, blocking the importation of low-cost drugs from Canada.

It is true that the legislation steps up regulations on advertising and gives the FDA more authority to scrutinize drug safety. It also sets up a surveillance scheme to follow adverse effects of drugs; in theory, this might signal some change in philosophy in the sense that the FDA will now look at a drug over its lifetime, not just in the years before it gets approval. But in practice, the FDA doesn't have the money or the staff to be an effectively regulator. Instead of giving the agency the money to do its job, Kennedy's legislation allows companies to underwrite the paychecks of the regulators after a drug goes to market - just as pharma "user fees" now pay for much of the regulation that goes on before a new drug is approved.

This legislation doesn't even begin to get at what's really going on in the drug business, where the big companies are well along with their program to turn doctors into veritable drug salespeople through an elaborate system of thinly disguised kickbacks. A brand new example comes courtesy of the New York Times, which reports on psychiatrists who have been prescribing an antipsychotic drug called Risperdal in teenagers - including many who were not suffering from psychosis, but entirely unrelated disorders such as eating disorders - while also receiving payments from the drug's maker for speaking engagements.

 

WHY WE GET SO UPSET ABOUT 9/11 AND VIRGINIA TECH

BRUCE SCHNEIER - The Virginia Tech massacre is precisely the sort of event we humans tend to overreact to. Our brains aren't very good at probability and risk analysis, especially when it comes to rare occurrences. We tend to exaggerate spectacular, strange and rare events, and downplay ordinary, familiar and common ones. There's a lot of research in the psychological community about how the brain responds to risk but the gist is this: Our brains are much better at processing the simple risks we've had to deal with throughout most of our species' existence, and much poorer at evaluating the complex risks society forces us face today.

We can see the effects of this all the time. We fear being murdered, kidnapped, raped and assaulted by strangers, when it's far more likely that the perpetrator of such offenses is a relative or a friend. We worry about airplane crashes and rampaging shooters instead of automobile crashes and domestic violence - - both far more common.

In the United States, dogs, snakes, bees and pigs each kill more people per year than sharks. In fact, dogs kill more humans than any animal except for other humans. Sharks are more dangerous than dogs, yes, but we're far more likely to encounter dogs than sharks.

Our greatest recent overreaction to a rare event was our response to the terrorist attacks of 9/11. I remember then - Attorney General John Ashcroft giving a speech in Minnesota in 2003, and claiming that the fact there were no new terrorist attacks since 9/11 was proof that his policies were working. I thought: "There were no terrorist attacks in the two years preceding 9/11, and you didn't have any policies. What does that prove?"

What it proves is that terrorist attacks are very rare, and maybe our reaction wasn't worth the enormous expense, loss of liberty, attacks on our Constitution and damage to our credibility on the world stage. Still, overreacting was the natural thing for us to do. . .

Consider the reaction to another event from last month: professional baseball player Josh Hancock got drunk and died in a car crash. As a result, several baseball teams are banning alcohol in their clubhouses after games. Aside from this being a ridiculous reaction to an incredibly rare event (2,430 baseball games per season, 35 people per clubhouse, two clubhouses per game. And how often has this happened?), it makes no sense as a solution. Hancock didn't get drunk in the clubhouse; he got drunk at a bar. But Major League Baseball needs to be seen as doing something, even if that something doesn't make sense - - even if that something actually increases risk by forcing players to drink at bars instead of at the clubhouse, where there's more control over the practice.

I tell people that if it's in the news, don't worry about it. The very definition of "news" is "something that hardly ever happens." It's when something isn't in the news, when it's so common that it's no longer news - - car crashes, domestic violence - - that you should start worrying.

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/05/rare_risk_and_o.html

APRIL 2007

STUDY: BOOMERS SEEM LESS HEALTHY THAN PRECEDING GENERATIONS

ROB STEIN, WASHINGTON POST - As the first wave of baby boomers edges toward retirement, a growing body of evidence suggests that they may be the first generation to enter their golden years in worse health than their parents. While not definitive, the data sketch a startlingly different picture than the popular image of health-obsessed workout fanatics who know their antioxidants from their trans fats and look 10 years younger than their age.

Boomers are healthier in some important ways -- they are much less likely to smoke, for example -- but large surveys are consistently finding that they tend to describe themselves as less hale and hearty than their forebears did at the same age. They are more likely to report difficulty climbing stairs, getting up from a chair and doing other routine activities, as well as more chronic problems such as high cholesterol, blood pressure and diabetes. . .

Boomers tend to report more stress than earlier generations -- from their jobs, their commutes, taking care of their parents and their kids -- all of which can take a physical toll, which is compounded by having less support from extended families and communities, experts say. "People are working two jobs. They are not sleeping as much. They're experiencing more job insecurity. They have less time to take care of themselves. They are more socially isolated," said Lisa Berkman of the Harvard School of Public Health. . .

When researchers examined the first wave of baby boomers to enter the study -- 5,030 adults born between 1948 and 1953 -- they were shocked to discover that they appeared to report poorer health than groups born between 1936 and 1941, and between 1942 and 1947. . .

It is unclear whether boomers are really sicker or are simply more health-conscious by dint of being better educated and having better access to information. They may also have higher expectations, making them more likely to notice and complain about aches and pains that earlier generations would have accepted as just part of getting older. "As they age, they may be less tolerant of the changes they see -- minor pains, less stamina, muscle loss and strength," Soldo said. "I don't just think they are crybabies or whiners. I think there is a changing definition of what good health means."

But self-reports of health tend to be powerful predictors of risk of death at any given age, Soldo and others say.

THOSE HELPING OTHERS HAPPIEST IN THEIR JOBS

JEANNA BRYNER, LIVE SCIENCE - Firefighters, the clergy and others with professional jobs that involve helping or serving people are more satisfied with their work and overall are happier than those in other professions, according to results from a national survey.

"The most satisfying jobs are mostly professions, especially those involving caring for, teaching and protecting others and creative pursuits," said Tom Smith, director of the General Social Survey at the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago.

Across all occupations, on average 47 percent of those surveyed said they were satisfied with their jobs and 33 percent reported being very happy.

Here are the Top 10 most gratifying jobs and the percentage of subjects who said they were very satisfied with the job:

Clergy 87 percent

Firefighters 80 percent

Physical therapists 78 percent

Authors 74 percent

Special education teachers 70 percent

Teachers 69 percent

Education administrators 68 percent

Painters and sculptors 67 percent

Psychologists 67 percent

Security and financial services salespersons 65 percent

Operating engineers 64 percent

Office supervisors 61 percent

A few common jobs in which about 50 percent of participants reported high satisfaction included: police and detectives, registered nurses, accountants, and editors and reporters. . .

"The least satisfying dozen jobs are mostly low-skill, manual and service occupations, especially involving customer service and food/beverage preparation and serving," Smith said.

AUSTRALIAN STUDY FINDS LAWYERS MOST DEPRESSED

NEWS, AUSTRALIA - Lawyers, insurance brokers and accountants are among the most depressed workers in Australia, according to a wide-ranging study. Nearly 16 per cent of lawyers who responded to the survey displayed "moderate or severe symptoms of depression" with nearly a third of those using alcohol and drugs to deal with the problem.

Patent attorneys and insurance underwriters were the next most likely to suffer from depression, with professional workers overall having higher levels of symptoms than the general population.

The survey also found age to be a factor influencing depression. "The younger professionals have higher rates of depressive symptoms than older professionals," the report by Beyond Blue and Beaton Consulting said.

Nearly 5 per cent of people working at actuarial firms, which have the seventh highest proportion of workers suffering from depression, also used drugs and alcohol to try to combat symptoms.

And about 9 per cent of architects also reported symptoms of depression.

President of the Law Society of NSW Geoff Dunlevy said he wasn't surprised by the results of the study. "For a long time, the Society has receieved anecdotal evidence from solicitors regarding the prevalence of depression," Mr Dunlevy said. "Law, unfortunately, is a high-pressure profession.". . .

More than 17,000 people responded to the survey with more than 7500 of respondents working in the ten professions identified as being worst for depression.

1. Law 2. Patent Attorney 3. Insurance underwriting 4. Accounting 5. IT services 6. Architectural 7. Actuarial Firm 8. Engineering 9. Consulting 10. Insurance brokering

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,21604172-2,00.html

DANCING IN THE STREETS: A HISTORY OF COLLECTIVE JOY

BARBARA EHRENREICH

[Excerpt on the rise of depression]

"Historians of European culture are in substantial agreement," Lionel Trilling wrote in 1972, "that in the late 16th and early 17th centuries, something like a mutation in human nature took place." This change has been called the rise of subjectivity or the discovery of the inner self and since it can be assumed that all people, in all historical periods, have some sense of selfhood and capacity for subjective reflection, we are really talking about an intensification, and a fairly drastic one, of the universal human capacity to face the world as an autonomous "I", separate from, and largely distrustful of, "them". . . .

Historians infer this psychological shift from a number of concrete changes occurring in the early modern period, first and most strikingly among the urban bourgeoisie, or upper middle class. Mirrors in which to examine oneself become popular among those who can afford them, along with self-portraits (Rembrandt painted more than 50 of them) and autobiographies in which to revise and elaborate the image that one has projected to others. In bourgeois homes, public spaces that guests may enter are differentiated, for the first time, from the private spaces - bedrooms, for example - in which one may retire to let down one's guard and truly "be oneself". More decorous forms of entertainment - plays and operas requiring people to remain immobilized, each in his or her separate seat - begin to provide an alternative to the promiscuously interactive and physically engaging pleasures of carnival. . .

The notion of a self hidden behind one's appearance and portable from one situation to another is usually attributed to the new possibility of upward mobility. In medieval culture, you were what you appeared to be - a peasant, a man of commerce or an aristocrat - and any attempt to assume another status would have been regarded as rank deception. But in the late 16th century, upward mobility was beginning to be possible or at least imaginable, making "deception" a widespread way of life. . .

If depression was one result of the new individualism, the usual concomitant of depression - anxiety - was surely another. It takes effort, as well as a great deal of watchfulness, to second-guess other people's reactions and plot one's words and gestures accordingly. . .

Urbanisation and the rise of a competitive, market-based economy favoured a more anxious and isolated sort of person - potentially both prone to depression and distrustful of communal pleasures. Calvinism provided a transcendent rationale for this shift, intensifying the isolation and practically institutionalising depression as a stage in the quest for salvation. At the level of "deep, underlying psychological change", both depression and the destruction of festivities could be described as seemingly inevitable consequences of the broad process known as modernisation. . .

http://books.guardian.co.uk/extracts/story/0,,2048204,00.html

ORDER
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0805057234/progressiverevieA/

MAR 2007

POSSIBLE HEALTH SECRET: COCOA

ROGER HIGHFIELD, TELEGRAPH - The health benefits of one ingredient of cocoa are so striking that it "may rival penicillin and anesthesia in terms of importance to public health". The ingredient - epicatechin - can reduce the risk from diseases such as stroke and heart failure, Norman Hollenberg, professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, told the journal Chemistry & Industry. Prof Hollenberg has spent years studying the benefits of cocoa drinking on the Kuna people on the San Blas islands off the coast of Panama. They drink up to 40 cups of cocoa a week. Among the Kuna, he found that the risk of stroke, heart failure, cancer and diabetes was reduced to less than 10 per cent. Advertisement. "Epicatechin could potentially get rid of four of the five most common diseases in the western world," Prof Hollenberg told the journal. The cocoa that the Kuna drink is homemade and very rich in chemicals called - flavanols, notably epicatechin - which is known to have cardio-vascular benefits. Flavanols are removed from commercial cocoas because they tend to have a bitter taste.

FEBRUARY 2007

AFTER 200 YEARS, AMERICANS NO LONGER TALLEST IN WORLD

MEGAN SVOBODA, DAILY NEBRASKAN - Americans are no longer the tallest people on Earth. That honor now goes to Europeans, including the Dutch, Norwegians, Danish and Germans. According to the Annals of Human Biology, Europe has overtaken the United States in the height department, a distinction the Americans had for the last 200 years.
In the United States, the current average height of an adult man is 5 feet, 9 inches, and for an adult woman, it is 5 feet, 3 inches, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In the Netherlands, though, men average 6 feet tall while the average woman is 5 feet, 7 inches, according to the Leiden University Medical Centre in the Netherlands. Though there are many reasons for the disparity in height, the Annals of Human Biology suggest the shift in growth trends might have something to do with the amount of junk food Americans consume in comparison to Europeans.

http://www.uwire.com/content//topnews022707002.html

STUDY FINDS LONG TV WATCHING ASSOCIATED WITH MANY ILLS

FERGUS SHEPPARD, SCOTSMAN - A new report claims that Britain's love affair with television is causing far more damage - both physically and psychologically - than previously thought. The findings have been compiled by Dr Aric Sigman, a psychologist who has previously written about the effects of television on the viewer. His report, analyzing 35 different scientific studies carried out into television and its effect on the viewer, has identified 15 negative effects he claims can be blamed on watching television.

Among the most disturbing findings are the links he claims to have found between long hours of television viewing and cancer, autism and Alzheimer's. . .

His report, published in the respected Biologist magazine, claims the problem with television lies in the length of time we spend in front of the set. For most people, watching television now takes up more time than any other single activity except work and sleep. . .

Dr Sigman claims the battery of ill effects takes its toll on both body and mind. He claims the effect on the brain is not stimulating, but almost narcotic, numbing the areas of the brain stimulated by, for example, reading.

The influence of modern editing techniques - for example the rapid "jump cuts" - also plays its part. Attention spans fracture while at the same time, according to Dr Sigman, the brain is programmed to reward itself with the neurotransmitter dopamine for being able to cope with an onslaught of novelty on screen.

The litany of bodily ills Dr Sigman links to television makes for equally bleak reading. He associates it not only with obesity, but Alzheimer's, diabetes and even the breakdown of cells capable of healing wounds. Dr Sigman claims a significant body of research now points to television as a key factor in reducing levels of the hormone melatonin, the substance that regulates the body's internal clock and also governs the speed at which puberty develops.

http://news.scotsman.com/scitech.cfm?id=265852007

 

WHY YOU DON'T WANT TO RUSH TO MAKE A VACCINE MANDATORY

REUTERS - The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said it was notifying health-care providers and consumers about reports of some 28 cases of infants suffering a serious bowel condition after receiving Merck & Co's new vaccine against the Rotavirus. The FDA said it was not immediately clear how many of the 28 reported cases were caused by the vaccine. It said the condition, known as intussusception, can occur in the absence of vaccination. Some 3.5 million doses of Merck's Rota Teq have been distributed in the United States since its approval last February, the FDA said.

RISING HEALTH COSTS, IMMIGRATION RULES DRIVING HEALTHCARE UNDERGROUND

VIJI SUNDARAM, NEW AMERICA MEDIA - Rising health care costs and crackdowns on undocumented immigrants are making many U.S. residents seek medical care from alternative health practitioners -- some of whom have dubious credentials. . .

"This is the richest country in the world and yet, millions of people here don't have access to health care," lamented Dr. Arshia Arjumand who, until recently, worked at the Tri-City Health Care Center in Fremont, Calif. "There's something worse than a Third World country within the U.S."

Community clinics such as the one where Dr. Arjumand worked are often the only primary health care facilities available to the underinsured and the uninsured. And even though these clinics never ask their clients about their legal status, not every immigrant knows this. Often, fear of being reported "keeps them from going to community clinics," Arjumand said.

With federal officials increasingly cracking down on undocumented workers, immigrant rights activists expect those fears to increase. Last November, under a new federal policy, the automatic entitlement to health insurance through Medicaid was taken away from children born in the United States to illegal immigrants. And under the health care plan Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger unveiled last month, undocumented residents will not be covered. "You can't blame them for being scared," Arjumand said.

Chinese immigrants, and increasingly others, flock to traditional health care practitioners in acupressure and acupuncture clinics, as well as to herbalists.

"The people who come here are mostly uninsured or underinsured," said acupuncturist Pamela Olton, who is a clinic instructor at the American College of Traditional Chinese Medicine on Connecticut Avenue in San Francisco. . .

Some Latino immigrants in the San Francisco Bay Area are drawn to the inexpensive treatments offered by sobadores (massage therapists) and hueseros (chiropractors), some of whom operate out of their homes or small storefronts without the right credentials or licenses. . .

The rising cost of health care has contributed to a rapidly fraying public sector system. Nearly 50 percent of California's hospitals are operating in the red. For the majority of Americans, employer-related insurance is still the main source of coverage.

OVER HALF OF NEW HIV CASES HIT BLACKS

DAHLEEN GLANTON, MORNING CALL - More than 25 years into the AIDS epidemic, HIV continues to spread in the black community, accounting for nearly half of the newly diagnosed infections in the United States in a recent assessment by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. . . Of the roughly 1 million people estimated to be living with HIV in the United States, 47 percent are black, according to CDC statistics for 2005, the most recent year for which numbers are available. Although blacks represent only about 13 percent of the U.S. population, 56 percent of the newly diagnosed cases in 2005 were blacks.

JANUARY 2007

BRITISH MEDICAL JOURNAL DEBATES WHETHER SMOKERS SHOULD BE DENIED TREATMENT

BRITISH MEDICAL JOURNAL - Last year a primary care trust announced it would take smokers off waiting lists for surgery in an attempt to contain costs. In this week's BMJ, two experts go head to head over whether smokers should be refused surgery.

Denying operations is justified for specific conditions, argues Professor Matthew Peters from the Concord Repatriation General Hospital in Australia. Professor Peters says that smoking up to the time of any surgery increases cardiac and pulmonary complications, impairs tissue healing, and is associated with more infections.

These effects increase the costs of care and also mean less opportunity to treat other patients, he writes. In healthcare systems with finite resources, preferring non-smokers over smokers for a limited number of procedures will therefore deliver greater clinical benefit to individuals and the community.

He believes that, as long as everything is done to help patients to stop smoking, it is both responsible and ethical to implement a policy that those unwilling or unable to stop should have low priority for, or be excluded from, certain elective procedures.

But Professor Leonard Glantz from Boston University School of Public Health believes it is unacceptable discrimination. "It is astounding that doctors would question whether they should treat smokers," he says.

"Doctors should certainly inform patients that they might reduce their risks of post-surgical complications if they stop smoking before the procedure. But should the price of not following the doctor's advice be the denial of beneficial surgery?"

Cost arguments are made to support the discriminatory non-treatment of smokers. But why focus our cost saving concerns on smokers? Patients are not required to visit fitness clubs, lose 25 pounds, or take drugs to lower blood pressure before surgery. And many non-smokers cost society large sums of money in health care because of activities they choose to take part in.

Discriminating against smokers has become an acceptable norm, he writes. It is shameful for doctors to be willing to treat everybody but smokers in a society that is supposed to be pluralistic and tolerant. Depriving smokers of surgery that would clearly enhance their wellbeing is not just wrong - it is mean, he concludes.

http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/334/7583/20

HEALTHCARE IS MAKING US SICK

H. GILBERT WELCH, LISA SCHWARTZ AND STEVEN WOLOSHIN, NY TIMES - For most Americans, the biggest health threat is not avian flu, West Nile or mad cow disease. It's our health-care system. You might think this is because doctors make mistakes (we do make mistakes). But you can't be a victim of medical error if you are not in the system. The larger threat posed by American medicine is that more and more of us are being drawn into the system not because of an epidemic of disease, but because of an epidemic of diagnoses. Americans live longer than ever, yet more of us are told we are sick. How can this be? One reason is that we devote more resources to medical care than any other country. Some of this investment is productive, curing disease and alleviating suffering. But it also leads to more diagnoses, a trend that has become an epidemic.

This epidemic is a threat to your health. It has two distinct sources. One is the medicalization of everyday life. Most of us experience physical or emotional sensations we don't like, and in the past, this was considered a part of life. Increasingly, however, such sensations are considered symptoms of disease. Everyday experiences like insomnia, sadness, twitchy legs and impaired sex drive now become diagnoses: sleep disorder, depression, restless leg syndrome and sexual dysfunction.

Perhaps most worrisome is the medicalization of childhood. If children cough after exercising, they have asthma; if they have trouble reading, they are dyslexic; if they are unhappy, they are depressed; and if they alternate between unhappiness and liveliness, they have bipolar disorder. While these diagnoses may benefit the few with severe symptoms, one has to wonder about the effect on the many whose symptoms are mild, intermittent or transient.

The other source is the drive to find disease early. While diagnoses used to be reserved for serious illness, we now diagnose illness in people who have no symptoms at all, those with so-called pre-disease or those "at risk.". . .

As more of us are being told we are sick, fewer of us are being told we are well. People need to think hard about the benefits and risks of increased diagnosis: the fundamental question they face is whether or not to become a patient. And doctors need to remember the value of reassuring people that they are not sick. Perhaps someone should start monitoring a new health metric: the proportion of the population not requiring medical care. And the National Institutes of Health could propose a new goal for medical researchers: reduce the need for medical services, not increase it.

Dr. Welch is the author of "Should I Be Tested for Cancer? Maybe Not and Here's Why" (University of California Press). Dr. Schwartz and Dr. Woloshin are senior research associates at the VA Outcomes Group in White River Junction, Vt.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/02/health/02essa.html

MILWAUKEE STORES PUTTING CONDOMS BEHIND THE COUNTER

MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL - Many convenience stores in Milwaukee have again placed condoms behind the counter to keep shoplifters from pocketing them, and some major pharmacy chains have placed them in locked glass cases along with other frequently stolen goods such as costly replacement razor blades. The difference, some advocates say, is that making it more inconvenient to buy razor blades is not a matter of public health. . .

Brad Clifford, a 27-year-old Milwaukee man, said he was surprised to find condoms locked behind a glass door in the pharmacy at the Jewel-Osco at 1100 E. Garfield Ave. After finally finding a store employee with a key to the case, the employee watched over Clifford's shoulder as he nervously made his selection. "There are a lot of them, and I am trying to figure out what to get and he's just standing there," Clifford said. "I just decided to get the family pack so I wouldn't have to go through that again.". . .

Other stores, such as Walgreens, mostly keep condoms in a highly visible area in the store where thieves would be more concerned about employees catching them in the act of stealing. Several Walgreens that had placed condoms behind their counters have since been instructed to return them to the sales floor, said Carol Hively, corporate spokeswoman for the pharmacy chain, based in Deerfield, Ill. "It's our policy not to lock up condoms," Hively said. "Shrink can vary from store to store, but in general it is in the interest of public good and safety to keep the condoms unlocked."

http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=547996

BLAIR CONSIDERING INTENTIONAL BIAS IN HEALTH CARE

[Not only is obesity far from always 'self-inflicted' and smoking and alcohol often a manifestations of dysfunctional families, all three are closely related to class. Hence the move under consideration would be aimed primarily at the poor]

ANDREW GRICE, INDEPENDENT, UK - Smokers, people with alcohol problems and the obese could be denied priority treatment on the NHS if they do not try to change their lifestyle. The Cabinet is discussing the controversial idea as part of a drive by Tony Blair to secure his domestic political legacy by pushing through a final round of public service reforms before he departs next year.

Ministers will confront a panel of 100 ordinary people with some of the "tough choices" facing the government under a consultation exercise giving the public a direct say in the new policies. One question will be whether people whose lifestyle makes them ill should get the same priority as other patients. This would mean changing NHS guidelines saying that people should not be discriminated against "even if their illnesses are to some extent self-inflicted". . .

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/health_medical/article2103722.ece

QUEEN BEE BOSSES MAY DISCRIMINATE AS MUCH AS MACHO MALES

TIMES, UK - Women bosses are significantly more likely than men to discriminate against female employees, research has suggested. The study found that when presented with applications for promotion, women were more likely than men to assess the female candidate as less qualified than the male one. They were also prone to mark down women's prospects for promotion and to assess them as more controlling than men in their management style.

The findings, based on experiments carried out among more than 700 people, suggest that the "queen bee syndrome" of female rivalry in the workplace may sometimes be as important as sexism in holding back women's careers.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-2524299.html

NOVEMBER 2006

BRITISH BREAST CANCER UP 81% SINCE 1971

INDEPENDENT, UK 0- Breast cancer cases have hit a new record, official figures show, and the increase shows no sign of slowing. A total of 36,939 women were diagnosed in England in 2004, an 81 per cent increase in incidence of the cancer since 1971, after statistical adjustment for the ageing of the population. Over the year, 41,000 cases were diagnosed in the UK. . . The relentless upward trend in breast cancer is driven by increasing prosperity and modern lifestyles, experts say. It accounts for one in three of all newly diagnosed cases of cancer in females. . .

One woman in nine now develops breast cancer but lifestyle factors, including diet, obesity and family size could account for only half of the increase, and exposure to pesticides and other carcinogens in the environment must be investigated, the charity [Breast Cancer UK] said. . .

Professor Sir Richard Peto, Britains foremost cancer epidemiologist, of the University of Oxford, said: "There has been a slow drift upwards since the 1950s, basically due to society becoming more prosperous. Breast cancer is roughly a disease of prosperity. The rise was much more rapid in Spain because their rate of [social] progress was quicker. "Having fewer children before the age of 30, early menarche [first period], late menopause and being obese or overweight after menopause are all factors behind the increase.

"On top of that, there has been the increase due to HRT, though use of HRT has dropped sharply. Women are drinking more and that probably already has an appreciable effect. They are all minor factors but taken together they mean a general trend up."

Better diagnosis through screening and improved recording of cases in local cancer registries had also contributed to the increase, Professor Peto added. He dismissed as "rubbish" suggestions that exposure to pesticides or other chemicals was fuelling the disease. "There isn't any good evidence [for other causes] over and above changes in lifestyle and improvements in diagnosis and registration," he said.

Ruth Yates, head of statistical information at Cancer Research UK, said it was difficult to offer advice to women on how to avoid breast cancer.
"There isn't one thing women can do, such as giving up smoking [to avoid lung cancer]. You can control your weight, eat fresh fruit and vegetables and curb your drinking but it won't make a huge difference, though it will have an impact."

She added: "Where women do have a choice is over breastfeeding. In terms of influencing the reproductive factors, that is the most practical thing they can do. We don't want women to beat themselves up over things they can't do."

RISK FACTORS
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/health_medical/article1771835.ece

NEW MEDICAL STUDY LENDS SUPPORT TO THEORY THAT WE SHOULDN'T BE SO CLEAN

AP - Gritty rats and mice living in sewers and farms seem to have healthier immune systems than their squeaky clean cousins that frolic in cushy antiseptic labs, two studies indicate. The lesson for humans: Clean living may make us sick. The studies give more weight to a 17-year-old theory that the sanitized Western world may be partly to blame for soaring rates of human allergy and asthma cases and some autoimmune diseases, such as Type I diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis. The theory, called the hygiene hypothesis, figures that people's immune systems aren't being challenged by disease and dirt early in life, so the body's natural defenses overreact to small irritants such as pollen.

The new studies, one of which was published Friday in the peer reviewed Scandinavian Journal of Immunology, found significant differences in the immune systems between euthanized wild and lab rodents. When the immune cells in the wild rats are stimulated by researchers, "they just don't do anything they sit there; if you give them same stimulus to the lab rats, they go crazy," said study co-author Dr. William Parker, a Duke University professor of experimental surgery. He compared lab rodents to more than 50 wild rats and mice captured and killed in cities and farms.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2006-06-16-sanitized_x.htm?csp=34

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MEDICAL RESEARCH TAKES MORE U-TURNS: NOW FAT FIGHTS CANCER AND SLOUCHING IS GOOD FOR YOU

PRESS WATCH - Using a new form of magnetic resonance imaging, a team of radiologists has found that sitting up straight puts unnecessary strain on the spine and could cause chronic back pain due to trapped nerves or slipped discs. The study at Woodend Hospital in Aberdeen involved 22 healthy volunteers with no history of back pain or surgery. They adjusted their posture while being scanned by an MRI machine, which indicated that the relaxed posture - one of three sitting positions adopted by the participants - best preserved the spine's natural shape. . .

Women with puppy fat at the age of 18 have a lower breast cancer risk, research has revealed, and girls around one to three stone over their ideal weight reap the most benefits. Researchers at Harvard Medical School in the United States conducted a study involving 110,000 women, the findings of which contradict current medical advice. . .

http://www.presswatch.com/health/

THE DISAPPEARING PUBLIC HOSPITAL

GAUTAM NAIK, WALL STREET JOURNAL - A building boom under way in the U.S. hospital industry is sparking concern about economic and geographic disparities in health care. Much of the construction is occurring in fast-growing suburbs, as hospitals target the most affluent, insured patients who can afford to pay for top care. At the same time, many urban hospitals -- which often treat poorer people -- are struggling financially, and scores have had to shut their doors.

Propelled by low interest rates, the need to replace outdated facilities and the promise of future demand from an aging population, hospitals around the country have embarked on the biggest construction spree in half a century. Between 2000 and 2005, the hospital industry spent $100 billion to build new facilities and expand existing ones, almost double the amount spent in the previous five-year period, according to figures compiled by the U.S. Census Bureau. In 2005 alone, the spending hit $24 billion, a record. A further $200 billion will be invested over the next decade, according to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. . .

Private and public hospitals face growing financial pressures, amid rising numbers of uninsured patients who fill emergency rooms without paying their bills. There were 46.6 million uninsured Americans in 2005, an increase of 1.3 million from 2004, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. . .

A study published last year in the New England Journal of Medicine found that 16% of city-based public hospitals were lost between 1996 and 2002.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB116416523653730402.html

THE CASE FOR A NAP

KURT KLEINER, TORONTO STAR - To be an enthusiastic napper in 21st-century North America is to be out of step with your time and place. In most of the industrialized world, a nap is seen as a sign of weakness, either physical or moral. The very young and the very old nap. Sick people nap. Bums nap. Healthy, productive adults do not nap.

We are a culture that celebrates action, doing, achieving, an attitude that leads to a disdain for sleep in general. We stay up late and get up early. We pull all-nighters. We'll sleep when we're dead, and in the meantime there's always a Starbucks on the corner. . .

A nap distils the sweetness of a whole night's sleep down to a few minutes. . . There's no shortage of important historical nappers, many of them men of industry and action. Napoleon Bonaparte, John D. Rockefeller, Thomas Edison, and Winston Churchill were nappers in the heroic vein. On the literary side, Samuel Pepys, the 17th-century diarist, would sometimes have a nap in his office after a boozy lunch. The world's most famous insomniac, Marcel Proust's alter-ego in In Search of Lost Time, slept poorly at night but always managed to have a little nap before dinner. . .

This daytime siesta became institutionalized in Spain and Latin American countries, with workers closing up shop and going home for a big meal and a nap before heading back to work for a few more hours. However, modern pressures seem to be gradually eliminating the siesta, at least in cities. . .

This year, researchers at Flinders University in Adelaide, Australia, reported that they took test subjects who had had only five hours of sleep the night before and let them have naps of varying durations. They found that even a 10-minute nap made the subjects feel less sleepy and more vigorous, and led to improved cognitive performance.

Nevertheless, mainstream sleep researchers are only grudging boosters of the nap. They tend to see it as second-best, necessary only for people who haven't gotten enough sleep the night before. . .

In fact, the emphasis on productivity threatens to rob the nap of one of its pleasurable qualities - its illicitness. In an anti-sleep culture, taking a nap lets you feel that you've stolen a little piece of the day just for yourself.

Whether you're in your bed, on the couch, or under your desk, a nap is a chance to forget about the clock and tune into your own internal rhythms. When I nap, I accept my own nature, and the nature of the universe that made me. I become a Zen master of sleep.

Unless my wife is right. It could be that I'm just lazy.

IMPORTANT FACT BURIED IN THE RED WINE & LONGEVITY STORY

NY TIMES - The mice were fed a hefty dose of resveratrol, 24 milligrams per kilogram of body weight. Red wine has about 1.5 to 3 milligrams of resveratrol per liter, so a 150-lb person would need to drink 750 to 1,500 bottles of red wine a day to get such a dose.

OCTOBER 2006

HOW DO PORCUPINES MAKE LOVE?

MARC ABRAHAMS, GUARDIAN, UK - How do porcupines make love? Wendy Cooper discovered the answer while poking around the basement of the Australian National University library in Canberra about five years ago. . . Cooper found two studies written (one with co-authors) by Albert Shadle, of the University of Buffalo, New York, in 1946. . . One paper is called The Sex Reactions of Porcupines (erethizon d. dorsatum) Before and After Copulation. The other is Copulation in the Porcupine. . .

The porcupines in the study were part of a colony that Shadle kept at the University of Buffalo. . . Come mating season, the scientists would place a male into a cage that already contained a female. Cooper described the subsequent action. First came courtship: "When the male encountered the female porcupine, he smelled her all over, then reared up on his hind legs ... If she was prepared for mating, she also reared up and faced the male, belly-to-belly. In this position, most males then sprayed the female with a strong stream of urine, soaking her from head to foot. She would 1) object vocally, 2) strike with her front paws, as though boxing, 3) threaten or try to bite, or 4) shake off the urine and run away. If ready for mating, the female did not object strongly to this shower."

Then the porcupines did the business: "The male made sexual contact from behind the female. The spines of both animals were relaxed and lay flat. His thrusts were of the 'usual nature' and were produced by flexing and straightening the knees. Males did not grasp the female in any way. Mating continued until the male was exhausted ... If males refused to co-operate, the female approached a nearby male and acted out the male role in coition with the uninvolved male.". . .

http://education.guardian.co.uk/egweekly/story/0,,1929238,00.html

HUMANS COULD EVOLVE INTO SUBSPECIES SAYS SCIENTIST

MARK HENDERSON, TIMES UK - Humanity could evolve into two sub-species within 100,000 years as social divisions produce a genetic underclass, a scientist said yesterday. The mating preferences of the rich, highly educated and well-nourished could ultimately drive their separation into a genetically distinct group that no longer interbreeds with less fortunate human beings, according to Oliver Curry. Dr Curry, a research associate in the Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social Science of the London School of Economics, speculated that privileged humans might over tens of thousands of years evolve into a "gracile" subspecies, tall, thin, symmetrical, intelligent and creative. The rest would be shorter and stockier, with asymmetric features and lower intelligence, he said.

Dr Curry's vision echoes that of H. G. Wells in The Time Machine. He envisaged a race of frail, privileged beings, the Eloi, living in a ruined city and coexisting uneasily with ape-like Morlocks who toil underground and are descended from the downtrodden workers of today.

Dr Curry also said that today's concept of race would be gone by the year 3000, relationships between people with different skin colors producing a "coffee-color" across all populations. With improvements in nutrition and medicine, people would routinely grow to 6 ft 6 in and live to the age of 120, he said. Genetic modification, cosmetic surgery and sexual selection - whereby mate preferences drive evolution - meant that people would tend to be better-looking than today.

Otherwise, humans will look much as they do now, with one exception: Dr Curry also suggested that increased reliance on processed food would make chewing less important, possibly resulting in less developed jaws and shorter chins. Ten thousand years from today this effect could be compounded as human faces grow more juvenile in appearance. This effect - neotony - is known from domestic animals: dogs resemble young versions of wild relatives such as wolves.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2406821,00.html

U.S. MALE TESTOSTERONE LEVELS ARE FALLING

HEALTH DAY NEWS - The testosterone-fueled American male may be losing his punch. Over the past two decades, levels of the sex hormone in U.S. men have been falling steadily, a new study finds. . . The reasons for this trend are unclear, said researchers at the New England Research Institutes in Waterdown, Mass. They noted that neither aging nor certain other health factors, such as smoking or obesity, can fully explain the decline. . . Testosterone is the primary male sex hormone and plays an important role in maintaining bone and muscle mass. Low testosterone levels have been linked to health problems, including lowered libido and diabetes. It's normal for men's testosterone levels to peak in their late 20s and then start to gradually decline, experts say. But this study found that overall testosterone levels are lower than they were 20 years ago. "In 1988, men who were 50 years and older had higher serum testosterone concentrations than did comparable 50-year-old men in 1996. This suggests that some factor other than age may be contributing to the observed declines in testosterone over time," Travison said.

http://health.yahoo.com/news/168226

FLU SHOTS COULD BE WASTE OF TIME

CELIA HALL, TELEGRAPH, UK - An expert in infectious disease has called into question the usefulness of the multi-million pound annual flu vaccination campaign. . . Dr Tom Jefferson, the coordinator of the vaccines section of the Cochrane Collaboration – an independent group that reviews research and tests its validity – has analyzed the best available evidence that should show the impact of vaccination on the population. In a report in the British Medical Journal Dr Jefferson says most studies were of poor quality and showed evidence of bias.

"I am interested in the gap between evidence and policy," he said yesterday. "I have looked at the facts. All I can say is that I have not found the evidence." Dr Jefferson argues that all campaigns must have targets, such as reducing the number of cases and deaths and keeping people working and in school.

Only among people who suffer bronchitis could he find good evidence that flu vaccination was worthwhile. In infants up to two, vaccination was no better than placebo and in older children there was little evidence of benefit.

Nor could he find enough evidence of benefit among people with chronic chest problems, asthma and cystic fibrosis.

In healthy adults the best evidence was that, on average, flu vaccination of a population would prevent 0.1 per cent of a working day lost.

Combined studies of the elderly showed a variation from no effect to a 60 per cent difference when "all cause mortality" was measured. "These findings are both counter-intuitive and implausible as other causes of death are far more prevalent in older people," he writes.

He says it is hard to know how effective the vaccine is without better data and because the flu virus changes. There was also confusion between flu and flu-like illness in the studies and a lack of "accurate and fast surveillance systems that can tell what viruses are circulating".. . . Dr Jefferson says that an "urgent revaluation" of the flu vaccination programme is needed.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/10/27/nflu27.xml