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Oilsands To Blame For Caribou Decline Says Fecal Study

by on June 22, 2011

Huffington Post…

THE CANADIAN PRESS — Humans, not wolves, are behind declining caribou populations in Alberta’s oilsands region, an analysis of animal feces shows. The same research also found there may be many more caribou in the region than previously thought, meaning there may still be time for industry to change how it does business without resorting to wolf culls to protect the herds. “Nobody is denying that the trend in caribou decline is alarming,” said University of Washington biologist Samuel Wasser, lead author of a paper published Wednesday in Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment. “While we still think we need to do something now, we think that there’s a little bit more time than some people have been advocating.” Caribou in the oilsands are considered a threatened species and have been in decline for decades. Balancing oilsands development and healthy herds has proved to be a tough act for the provincial government, which is still trying to develop a caribou policy for the area. Some scientists have predicted caribou will be gone within 30 years, suggesting the desperate measure of a wolf cull could be the only way to preserve them. Alberta does cull wolves to protect caribou, but not in the oilsands area. In 2006, Wasser and his team were brought in by oilsands leasee North American Oil Sands to look for answers. Their research continued when the lease was sold to Norway-based Statoil, which has so far spent about $500,000 on Wasser’s work. Using dogs trained to sniff out caribou, wolf, moose and deer droppings, scientists eventually found about 2,000 samples and carefully marked when and where each was found. Those samples were carefully analyzed for chemicals that revealed how the animal was feeling at that moment. Animals under stress produce hormones that show up almost right away in their feces. Feces can also reveal how well-nourished an animal is. DNA contained in the material can even identify — and count individual animals. After four winters of sampling, the researchers concluded that there seem to be a lot more caribou than previously thought. Government estimates put the number in the area at about 150; DNA in the feces suggest there were about 330 animals. Nor did that number change during the study period. They also found that about 80 per cent of the wolf diet was deer, with only about 11 per cent from caribou. Wolves even seek out deer in preference to caribou. And once they started analyzing scat for stress hormones, they found what really bugged caribou was people. Stress increased the closer the animals got to busy roads and also during times when humans were nearby. Caribou — unlike moose and deer — are so skittish they’d rather hang out somewhere where the food isn’t as plentiful if it’s further from human impact, Wasser concluded. Previous studies have linked human disturbance and caribou declines before. One study released Monday found that, on average, about 75 per cent of the caribou range in the oilsands area is disrupted either by industry or forest fires. Wasser found, however, that caribou didn’t care so much about the road or the wellsite itself. What they cared about was how close it was and how busy it was. “Psychological stress was highest and nutrition poorest when humans were most active in the landscape, but caribou recovered when oil crews left the area,” the report says. That leaves plenty of avenues for humans to change their ways, said Wasser. Now, crews tend to build roads through open, grassy areas because that’s where it’s easiest. But those areas, which provide a clear view of approaching predators, are places caribou like as well. Wasser said roads could be built to avoid those areas. “It’s not the (industrial) footprint, it’s the use of that footprint,” he said. Hoping to encourage caribou by shooting wolves won’t work — and might even hurt them by boosting deer numbers and forcing them to encroach on caribou habitat. “That is really a bad way to approach the situation,” said Wasser.

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Members of Congress Get Abnormally High Returns From Their Stocks

by on May 24, 2011

Huffington Post…

Members of the House of Representatives considerably outperform the stock market in their personal investments, according to a new academic study. Four university researchers examined 16,000 common stock transactions made by approximately 300 House representatives from 1985 to 2001, and found what they call “significant positive abnormal returns,” with portfolios based on congressional trades beating the market by about 6 percent annually. What’s their secret? The report speculates, but does not conclude, it could have something to do with the ability members of Congress have to trade on non-public information or to vote their own pocketbooks — or both. A study of senators by the same team of researchers five years ago found members of the higher chamber even better at beating the market — outperforming it by about 10 percent, an amount the academics said was “both economically large and statistically significant.” “Being one of 435, as opposed to one of 100, is likely to result in a significant dilution of power relative to members of the Senate,” the researchers wrote. The researchers, Alan J. Ziobrowski of Georgia State University, James W. Boyd of Lindenwood University, Ping Cheng of Florida Atlantic University and Brigitte J. Ziobrowski of Augusta State University, noted that the circumstances are ripe for abuse. “In the course of performing their normal duties, members of Congress have access to non-public information that could have a substantial impact on certain businesses, industries or the economy as a whole. If used as the basis for common stock transactions, such information could yield significant personal trading profits,” they wrote. At the same time, House rules don’t require them to divest themselves of common stocks when they assume office, don’t prevent them from trading freely while in office — and don’t require them to recuse themselves from votes that could affect their own interests. The House ethics manual clearly states that “all Members, officers, and employees are prohibited from improperly using their official positions for personal gain” and members must disclose their holdings annually. But the House’s official position is that demanding that members either divest themselves of potential conflicts or recuse themselves when there is a conflict is “impractical or unreasonable” because it “could result in the disenfranchisement of a Member‘s entire constituency on particular issues.” Ever since 2006, a small coterie of Democrats has been trying to officially prohibit members of Congress and their staffs from using non-public information to enrich their personal portfolios. The Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act was most recently re-introduced in March by Reps. Louise Slaughter (N.Y.) and Tim Walz (Minn.) . It has not been heard from since. The study found some significant difference based on party membership and seniority, with the Democratic sample beating the market by nearly 9% annually, versus only about 2% annually for the Republican sample. And representatives with the least seniority considerably outperformed those with more seniority. Why would that be? The researchers suspect need had something to do with it. “The financial condition of a freshman Congressman is far more precarious” than a senior member’s, they wrote. “House Members with the least seniority may have fewer opportunities to trade on privileged information, but they may be the most highly motivated to do so when the opportunities arise.” The report does not make any firm conclusions on causality, although the researchers explain that their kind of “event analysis” has become a common “method for analyzing whether actors have profited from confidential information in their possession.” * * * * * Dan Froomkin is senior Washington correspondent for The Huffington Post. You can send him an email , bookmark his page ; subscribe to his RSS feed , follow him on Twitter , friend him on Facebook , and/or become a fan and get email alerts when he writes.

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Minimum Wage Boost Wouldn’t Hurt Job Growth: Study

April 25, 2011

Raising the minimum wage wouldn’t cripple job growth and hurt businesses like some conservative groups have argued , according to a new study . To the contrary, it could pump money into the economy and reduce turnover in low-wage positions, the researchers found. The current federal minimum wage is $7.25, or about $15,000 a year for a full-time job. Until 2007, the minimum wage had been set at $5.15 for over 10 years. Seventeen states currently have a minimum wage set higher than the federal standard, and a number of states are considering giving their standards another boost. The food and retail industries often fight such hikes, arguing that higher wages discourage growth, particularly in down economies. Sylvia Allegretto , an economist at the University of California-Berkeley and the study’s lead author, believes those concerns are unfounded. “A lot of people say we can’t increase the minimum wage during recessions because it’ll have this big negative effect,” said Allegretto, whose study was published in the journal Industrial Relations . “We didn’t find that — in general, or when there were recessions.” Researchers, who focused specifically on teen employment, looked at every federal and state minimum-wage raise over the last twenty years, including during the recession from 2007 to 2009, and found that the effects of wage raises on job growth and unemployment didn’t change with the business cycle. Allegretto said a lot of the benefits of higher minimum wages tend to be overlooked — like higher morale and productivity, and less time spent searching for workers and training them. Advocates of a minimum-wage boost often argue that the extra income for workers functions a lot like unemployment benefits or food stamps, in that it’s money pumped immediately back into local businesses. Jen Kern, who runs the minimum wage campaign at the National Employment Law Project, says a wage hike “could provide a boost to families and the economy, putting money into the hands of people who have no choice but to spend it.” According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics , 1.8 million of the country’s 73 million hourly-paid workers were earning the federal minimum wage during 2010, with another 2.5 million earning even less than that. Minimum-wage earners tend to skew young, with workers under age 25 accounting for roughly half of those making the minimum wage or less. Kern says if the minimum wage had kept pace with inflation since it’s peak in the 1970’s it would now be over $10. A survey conducted last year by the Public Religion Research Institute found that roughly two-thirds of Americans supported raising the federal minimum wage to at least $10 per hour.

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SF Fed Blames Business Cycle For High Unemployment

March 21, 2011

(Reuters) – The current high rate of unemployment in the United States is primarily due to cyclical factors, not structural changes in the economy, according to researchers at the San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank. The study runs counter to worries among some top Fed policymakers that undesirable upward pressure on wages, and thus inflation, could kick in even when unemployment remains relatively high — a situation that could have implications for U.S. monetary policy. According to the research, recent college graduates are finding it just as hard to get work as other job seekers. Since college grads are among the best educated and most mobile in the labor force, their difficulty finding jobs suggests that it is labor market weakness as a whole, rather than mismatches between workers’ skills and employees’ needs, that is keeping would-be workers from getting jobs, the researchers said. Recent college grads are also unlikely to be motivated by the extension of unemployment insurance, often cited as a reason for the elevated unemployment rate in the labor force as a whole. “The current unemployment rate trends are reminiscent of the 2001 recession and the subsequent jobless recovery that continued through 2004,” research advisor Bart Hobijn and research associates Colin Gardiner and Theodore Wiles said in the bank’s latest Economic Letter. “This holds for both the overall unemployment rate and for those of recent college graduates, suggesting that structural factors are not quantitatively important in driving the overall unemployment rate, just as they were largely irrelevant after the 2001 recession,” they wrote. Some U.S. central bank officials, including Minneapolis Fed President Narayana Kocherlakota, have suggested that structural shifts in the economy since the Great Recession have pushed up the new “normal” for joblessness. A higher norm for U.S. unemployment means upward pressures on wages could start to build even when the jobless rate is quite high by historical standards. The San Francisco Fed research suggests that such concerns are remote. “Given the current weak labor market, we expect the labor market outcomes of the recent college graduate cohort to remain depressed well into the future,” the researchers said. From the San Francisco Federal Reserve report: (Reporting by Ann Saphir; Editing by Andrew Hay) Copyright 2011 Thomson Reuters. Click for Restrictions .

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Twitter Mood Predicts Stock Market Changes, Study Says

October 18, 2010

In the latest effort to determine how exactly Twitter will help the world , a new study argues that the micro-blogging platform can predict movements in the stock market. The report (pdf) , authored by Johan Bollen, Huina Mao and Xiao-Jun Zeng, says that the degree of “calmness” of the Twitterverse can predict — with 87.6 percent accuracy — how the Dow Jones Industrial Average will move, two to six days before the movements occur (hat tip to the Awl ). To reach this conclusion, the researchers examined two already-existing Twitter “mood tracking tools”: OpinionFinder, which measures positive versus negative mood, and Google-Profile of Mood States, which measures “six dimensions” of mood: alert, sure, vital, kind, happy and calm. After double-checking the accuracy of these tools, they looked at 9.7 million tweets between March and December 2008 and determined that Twitter calmness predicts the behavior of the DJIA. They find it “surprising,” they say in the report, that OpinionFinder’s positive/negative indicators didn’t have more influence, and that it was “calmness” that appeared to anticipate moves in the market. The study’s authors are quick to note that they have no idea why this should be the case. The researchers say their findings “offer no information on the causative mechanisms that may connect public mood states with DJIA values in this manner.” While “calmness” might predict market movements, it doesn’t necessarily cause them. Also perplexing is the fact that the tweets came from around the world, and the researchers don’t know how many of them were conceived in the U.S., where the DJIA is based. And of course, other influences, such as news, can trump the “calmness” factor. As the researchers put it, “The deviation between Calm values and the DJIA … illustrates that unexpected news is not anticipated by the public mood yet remains a significant factor in modeling the stock market.” Still, as Technology Review notes, these potential flaws don’t detract from the fact that the findings could be “hugely influential.” If nothing else, the results suggest the influences on the DJIA extend far beyond the financial community. “One could speculate that the general public is presently as strongly invested in the DJIA as financial experts, and that therefore their mood states will directly affect their investment decisions and thus stock market values, but this too remains an area of future research,” the report says.

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Pfizer’s Celebrex Causes Less Stomach Upset, Bleeding Than Older Medicines

June 17, 2010

By Michelle Fay Cortez June 17 (Bloomberg) — Pfizer Inc. ’s painkiller Celebrex causes less bleeding and fewer ulcers in the gastrointestinal tract than a combination of generic pain pills and heartburn drugs, a company-funded study found. Arthritis patients taking Celebrex were four times less likely to start bleeding anywhere from the stomach to the colon than those given the generic pain drug diclofenac and AstraZeneca Plc’s Prilosec, a heartburn medicine that reduces acid production. The six-month study was presented today at the Congress of the European League Against Rheumatism in Rome and published in The Lancet . Because chronic use of traditional painkillers is linked to ulcers, doctors recommend either Celebrex or combination treatment for arthritis patients who need regular treatment. While previous studies showed they have similar effects on the stomach, this is the first to examine the entire digestive tract. The findings should be taken into account when prescribing pain treatment for arthritis sufferers, the researchers said. The study “has provided new data relevant to patients requiring anti-inflammatory therapy,” said the researchers, led by Francis K.L. Chan from the department of medicine at Prince of Wales Hospital in Hong Kong. The results come from one of two studies New York-based Pfizer is counting on to boost sales of Celebrex. The drug never fully recovered after the product’s main rival, Merck & Co.’s Vioxx, was pulled off the market because of its ties to heart attacks in 2004. Celebrex sales peaked at $3.3 billion that year. The drug generated $2.4 billion in 2009. Too Short The scientists tracked 4,484 patients with osteoarthritis or rheumatoid arthritis who were at risk for developing ulcers or other gastrointestinal problems. After six months, 0.9 percent on Celebrex and 3.8 percent given the pain and heartburn combination developed bleeding, ulcers or anemia. More patients getting the combination dropped out of the study because of side effects. The short duration of the study limits its usefulness, since arthritis patients tend to take the drugs for years, Elham Rahme and Sasha Bernatsky from McGill University Health Center in Montreal, wrote in a Lancet editorial. To contact the reporter on this story: Michelle Fay Cortez in London at mcortez@bloomberg.net

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Autism’s Genetic Ties May Lead to Early Detection, Treatment

June 9, 2010

By Michelle Fay Cortez June 9 (Bloomberg) — Researchers uncovered an array of genetic variations linked to the development of autism , with similarities that may allow doctors to diagnose it earlier and spur treatments. A comprehensive genetic analysis of 996 children with autism, as well as their parents and a comparison group of 1,287 people without the condition, found sections of DNA are either duplicated or missing more often in people with autism. Autistic children inherited some changes from their parents, while other variations were new, according to findings published today in the journal Nature . The results of the international trial indicate a shift in understanding the causes of autism, said Stephen Scherer, the lead researcher from the Hospital for Sick Children , in Toronto, in a conference call. While studies suggest as many as 90 percent of cases of autism spectrum disorder are genetic, the genes responsible were widely sought and hard to find. “Most people in the field believe autistic individuals share common genetic variations in perhaps just a few genes,” Scherer said. “The genetic variations we discovered are actually rare in frequency, meaning most individuals with autism are probably genetically quite unique, each having their own genetic form of autism.” The researchers identified dozens of genes that appear to raise the risk of autism, including many that may speed diagnosis, Scherer said. They were also able to tie the varied genetic findings to common biological pathways and networks, most of which help control the way the brain functions, he said. Range of Behaviors About 1 in 150 U.S. children is diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder , a range of behaviors, including autism. With each variation uncovered, the researchers were able to explain more of the cases, Scherer said. The findings confirm genetically what doctors have long suspected. Autism is a complex condition that manifests in a variety of ways, ranging from mild to severe, the researchers said. It has three main symptoms: problems with social interaction, communication and repetitive behaviors, according to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke . While each child has a unique form of autism, the biochemical pathways and targets the researchers identified may be used to develop medicines for the condition, said Geraldine Dawson, chief science officer of Autism Speaks , a New York-based advocacy group. “What is critical now is to translate these basic biological findings into tools for early detection and treatment,” Dawson said in a conference call. “Families want to understand what causes autism, and more important, how we can effectively treat this challenging condition.” Treatment Strategies Most of the genetic variants the researchers uncovered predispose people to autism or a related disorder, rather than directly causing it, said Louise Gallagher, a researcher from Trinity College in Dublin. Identifying young children at risk may help diagnose them and design treatment strategies that can help them cope with the condition, she said. “Currently autism diagnosis is entirely behavioral and lengthy, and parents are subjected to a long process where their child is being assessed,” Gallagher said. “Some children aren’t getting a diagnosis until as late as five years old.” The results may lead to better genetic counseling for families and help determine the risks of autism for other children, said Tony Monaco, from the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics , at the University of Oxford in the U.K. It is too soon to recommend prenatal testing, as not all people are affected the same way by the variations, the researchers said. “Just knowing about these genetic changes can help the families involved come to terms with why their child has autism, but it can also be important where there are siblings too in determining future risk,” Monaco said. The findings don’t provide any immediate insight into other things, including environmental factors, that may play a role in the development of autism, Dawson said. Additional work is under way to see how the environment interacts with a genetic susceptibility, she said. To contact the reporter on this story: Michelle Fay Cortez in London at mcortez@bloomberg.net

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Teenage Boys’ Fear of Getting Girls Pregnant Drops, CDC Says

June 2, 2010

By Ellen Gibson June 2 (Bloomberg) — Teenage boys are becoming less worried about getting a girl pregnant, with a quarter saying they would be pleased if it happened. A higher percentage of boys ages 15 to 19 also agreed that it’s acceptable for unmarried girls to have babies, according to a report released today by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that compared teens’ attitudes toward sex in 2006 to 2008 to those in a survey six years earlier. The report also showed an increase in the number of teens using the unreliable “ rhythm method ,” which leads a quarter of users to get pregnant within a year. The boys’ attitudes and the increased use of risky ways to avoid pregnancies contrasts with the trend observed between 1988 and 2002, when the researchers saw a steady decline in so-called “sexual risk behaviors,” the report said. Overall, the number of teens having sex and their use of contraceptives was unchanged from the earlier survey, according to the data. “Anytime you see a loss of momentum compared to the straightforward improvements of the past, you think that efforts to motivate teens to use contraception need to be redoubled,” said Joyce Abma , a social scientist at the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics and the paper’s lead author. “On the other hand, there could be a point at which you’ve reached a lot of teens and the ones left are the hardest to reach.” National Survey The data in the report, known as the National Survey of Family Growth, was collected through in-person interviews with 2,767 teenagers ages 15 to 19. The survey is taken every six to seven years. Among never-married females, 42 percent reported having sex at least once. The proportion of males in that age group who have had sex was 43 percent. Among those who abstained, the most common reason they cited was that sex was “against religion or morals.” The number of boys who chose “don’t want to get female pregnant” as the reason for avoiding sex fell by half to 12 percent from the last survey. Childbearing outside of marriage was acceptable to 64 percent of males in the current survey, up 14 percent from 2002, the Atlanta-based agency said. Those attitudes show boys are less worried about an unwanted pregnancy, Abma said in a telephone interview. The current study showed a handful of improvements in teens’ sex behavior since 2002. The use of more than one form of birth control — in most cases, the condom and the pill — increased 73 percent. Females also experimented with a wider variety of contraceptive methods: 11 percent said they’d tried patches such as Johnson & Johnson ’s Ortho Evra, while 7 percent had used vaginal rings such as Merck & Co. ’s NuvaRing. In addition, the percentage of unmarried males who reported using a condom during their first sexual experience rose to 82 percent in the latest study from 71 percent in 2002. The higher use may have more to do with increased awareness of sexually- transmitted diseases than pregnancy prevention, the CDC said. To contact the reporters on this story: Ellen Gibson in New York at egibson9@bloomberg.net ;

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Study: Older, Unmarried, Educated Moms On Rise

May 6, 2010

New mothers in the U.S. are increasingly older and better educated than they were two decades ago, according to a study on the state of American motherhood released Thursday by the Pew Research Center. But that doesn’t mean women are waiting for the right moment: The study also found that half of mothers surveyed said parenthood “just happened.” While most women giving birth are doing it within the context of marriage, researchers said a record 41 percent of births were to unmarried women in 2008. That’s up from 28 percent in 1990, according to the study, “The New Demography of American Motherhood.” The trend crossed major racial and ethnic groups. Nearly 14 percent of mothers of newborns were 35 or older two years ago – and only about 10 percent were in their teens. The age trend was reversed in 1990, when teens had a 13 percent share of births. “I think everyone will welcome a decline in births to teens,” said D’Vera Cohn, a senior writer on the study. “It’s notable that the population of teens is larger than it used to be, so there were more who could have become teen mothers.” Today, one in seven babies is born to a mother at least 35 years old. In 1990, one in 11 had a mother in that age group. Most mothers of newborns (54 percent) had at least some college education in 2008, an increase from 41 percent in 1990. Among mothers 35 or older, 71 percent had at least some college education. Improvements in medical care and fertility treatment, along with marriage and childbearing postponed to seek additional education, all factor into the shifts. “The rise in women’s education levels has changed the profile of the typical mother of a newborn baby,” the report said. Cohn added that a lower share of mothers ended their education after high school, “so some of those mothers who would have been high school graduates in 1990 have some college education today.” The report is based on data from the National Center for Health Statistics and the U.S. Census Bureau, along with a telephone survey in April 2009 of about 1,000 parents, likely parents and other adults of both genders. Overall, there were 4.3 million births in the U.S. in 2008, compared with 4.2 million in 1990. The number had risen each year from 2003 to 2007, then dipped in an apparent link to the economic downturn, the researchers said. When American parents are asked why they decided to have a child, most cite “The joy of having children,” the study said. For nearly half of parents, though, an important explanation is: “It wasn’t a decision; it just happened.” Women surveyed were more likely than men to cite “it just happened” as somewhat or very important in their decision to give birth the first time. Stephanie Coontz, director of research and public education for the nonprofit Council on Contemporary Families and a writer who teaches history and family studies at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash., said the rise of single motherhood is significant. “It’s yet another nail in the coffin in the hope that we can solve the challenges facing us today by shoehorning everyone back into marriages,” she said. “One of the big problems with that at this point is very often kids do worse if their mother rushes into a marriage that may be unstable.” Multiple births associated with the trend toward older motherhood were up sharply, including a 70 percent increase in the twin birth rate from 1980 to 2004. “Not only are women in their 30s more likely than younger women to conceive multiples on their own, they also are more likely to undergo fertility treatments, which are linked to births of multiples,” the researchers said.

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College Graduates’ Debt Levels May Outstrip Ability to Repay, Study Finds

April 26, 2010

By Janet Lorin April 26 (Bloomberg) — Students, especially at for-profit universities, are leaving college in the U.S. with a debt load large enough to raise questions about the ability of many to repay loans, a study found. At for-profit colleges, 53 percent of the degree recipients in 2008 had education-related debt of $30,500 or more, compared with 24 percent at private nonprofit colleges and 12 percent at public schools, the New York-based College Board said in a report released today. Students graduating in 2008 faced jobs prospects reduced by the financial crisis and subsequent recession, the worst since the 1930s. Whether the students can earn enough to repay their loans is unclear, according to the study. “Too many students are borrowing more than they are likely to be able to manage,” wrote Sandy Baum and Patricia Steele, the study authors, who are policy analysts for the nonprofit College Board. About a third of all bachelor’s degree recipients didn’t borrow any money for college, according to the study. The report was based on the 2007-2008 academic year, which is the latest available government data . Seventeen percent of bachelor’s degree recipients had loans of at least $30,500, enough to put them in the upper quarter of borrowers in terms of debt load. Of black bachelor-degree recipients, 27 percent had debt of $30,500 or more, the researchers said. That compared with 16 percent of whites, 14 percent of Hispanics and 9 percent for Asians. “There is an urgent need for strengthening postsecondary financing policies and for better guidance and improved financial literacy for students before they borrow to finance their postsecondary education,” the study authors wrote. Repayment Terms While new repayment options on federal loans promise to help students cope with their debt, these choices don’t apply to private loans “taken by many students with high debt levels,” according to the report. The U.S. Department of Education’s income-based repayment plan limits the amount students are required to pay to no more than 15 percent of discretionary income, Baum said. The monthly payment is capped at an amount “intended to be affordable based on income and family size,” according to the department’s Web site. The payment will be lowered to no more than 10 percent in 2014 for new borrowers. To contact the reporter on this story: Janet Lorin in New York jlorin@bloomberg.net .

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College Tanning Addicts Drink More Alcohol, Smoke More Pot, Study Finds

April 19, 2010

By Tom Randall April 19 (Bloomberg) — About one-third of college students who tried indoor tanning facilities were addicted to the artificial rays, and the addicts drank more alcohol and smoked more marijuana than other students, researchers found. The compulsive tanners met psychological criteria for addiction gauged by two different measurers, according to the study published today by the medical journal, Archives of Dermatology . About 42 percent of tanning addicts reported using more than one drug in the previous month, twice the rate of casual tanners. Indoor tanning can cause skin cancer, premature skin aging and eye damage, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration . The health overhaul signed by President Barack Obama last month will charge customers a 10 percent tax effective in July. Curbing the habits of sun-starved undergraduates may prove more difficult than previously thought, researchers wrote in today’s study. “Results suggest that treating an underlying mood disorder may be a necessary step in reducing cancer risk among those who frequently tan indoors,” wrote the researchers from Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York and the State University of New York, Albany. “Individuals who use drugs may be more likely to develop dependence on indoor tanning because of a similar addictive process.” The study evaluated 421 college students in 2006. The students answered surveys designed to evaluate drug addiction. The surveys were modified to measure tanning addiction. Questions included: “Do you ever feel guilty that you are using tanning beds or booths too much?” and “Do you try other non-tanning-related activities but find you really still like spending time in tanning beds or booths best of all?” To contact the reporter on this story: Tom Randall in New York at trandall6@bloomberg.net .

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U.K. Economic Growth Forecast for 2011 Raised to 2.7%, Item Club Will Say

April 17, 2010

By Jennifer Ryan April 18 (Bloomberg) — Ernst & Young LLP’s Item Club will say tomorrow it raised its forecast for U.K. economic growth next year, predicting that the weakness of the pound will fuel exports. Gross domestic product will rise 2.7 percent next year, up from an estimate in January for 2.5 percent, the researchers, who use the same model as the U.K. Treasury, will say according to an e-mailed statement. The economy “will struggle” to expand 1 percent this year, the same amount predicted earlier, the group will say. The pound has dropped about 25 percent on a trade-weighted basis since the start of 2007, and U.K. businesses should take advantage of that, the group will say. Prime Minister Gordon Brown is trying to narrow the opposition Conservatives’ lead in voter opinion polls ahead of the May 6 election by claiming his decisions will prevent a return to recession. “The immediate prospects for the economy remain dismal,” Peter Spencer , chief economic adviser to the ITEM Club and a former U.K. Treasury official, will say in a statement. “Exports provide an opportunity to steer our way out of this situation, but ultimately business must put its shoulder to the wheel.” The economy probably extended its recovery from the recession in the first quarter. Gross domestic product rose 0.4 percent, the same pace as in the final three months of 2009, according to the median forecast of 31 economists in a Bloomberg News survey. The Office for National Statistics will release those data on April 23 at 9:30 a.m. in London. To contact the reporter on this story: Jennifer Ryan in London at jryan13@bloomberg.net

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Sex Life Ends at 70 for Most Americans Due to Poor Health, Researchers Say

March 10, 2010

By Andrea Gerlin March 10 (Bloomberg) — The average person’s sex life ends by the age of 70, according to a report published today in the British Medical Journal . Men age 30 have an average of 35 years of sexually active life remaining, compared with 31 years for women, researchers at the University of Chicago ’s department of obstetrics and gynecology estimated in the study. By 55, men have an average sexual life expectancy of 15 years and women can expect 10 more years, they found, based on data from two separate surveys. People in very good or excellent health were almost twice as likely to be interested in sex as people in poorer health, according to the study. Men lost more years of sexual activity as a result of poor health than women, the researchers said. That may motivate men to pursue healthier lifestyles, they said. “Translation of expectations about the duration and quality of sexually active life may, at the individual level, influence important health behaviors to promote or prolong sexual functioning, such as adherence to medical treatment or maintenance of a healthy lifestyle,” the researchers wrote. The team, led by Stacy Tessler Lindau, used data from a 1995-1996 survey of 3,000 men and women between ages 25 and 74 and a 2005-2006 survey of 3,000 men and women between 57 and 85. Men were more likely than women to be sexually active, report a having a good quality sex life and be interested in sex, according to the study. The gap was largest among 75- to 85-year-olds. About 40 percent of men in that group were sexually active, compared to 17 percent of women, the researchers found. The study was funded by the University of Chicago and the U.S. National Institutes of Health . To contact the reporter responsible for this story: Andrea Gerlin in London at agerlin@bloomberg.net

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Swine Flu May Have Infected Every Second Schoolchild in U.S., Study Finds

February 22, 2010

By Jason Gale Feb. 22 (Bloomberg) — Swine flu may have infected at least 63 million people in the U.S. last year, according to a study in Pittsburgh, where almost every second schoolchild probably caught the pandemic virus. Blood tests on Pittsburgh residents found 45 percent of people aged 10 to 19 years had antibodies against the new H1N1 flu strain . About 22 percent of people across all groups developed immunity to the virus by early December and a quarter of those born in the 1920s may have already had protective antibodies before the pandemic resulting from prior flu infection, researchers at the University of Pittsburgh found. The findings, reported online yesterday in the Public Library of Science , suggest a fresh wave of swine flu infections isn’t likely unless the virus mutates or people become more susceptible to infection. A World Health Organization advisory panel is holding a teleconference tomorrow to discuss whether the first influenza pandemic in 41 years has peaked. “With current estimates of seroprevalence and continued increases in population due to vaccination, a significant change in viral antigens or a change in population immunity would be required for further disease spread,” Ted Ross, associate professor of microbiology at the university, and colleagues wrote. “We cannot rule out the possibility that geographical pockets of limited immunity may be present in which a third wave may yet occur.” Symptom-Free Cases At least 15,921 people have died from swine flu as the fast-moving pandemic spread to 212 countries and territories since its discovery in North America in April, the WHO said in a Feb. 19 statement . The global tally underestimates the actual number as many deaths are never tested or recognized as influenza related, the Geneva-based agency said. In yesterday’s study, researchers looked for infection- fighting antibodies against the 2009 pandemic flu strain in 846 anonymous blood samples collected in November and early December from people in southwestern Pennsylvania’s Allegheny County ages 1 month to 90 years. The tests identified people who caught the virus, including those who didn’t develop a fever, cough or other flu-like symptoms. The researchers compared the results against tests on blood samples collected in 2008, of which 6 percent contained antibodies that protected against swine flu, probably as a result of infection from a related influenza strain. Children and adolescents in the 10- to 19-year age group had the highest prevalence of swine flu antibodies, while 29 percent of blood samples from children younger than 9 years tested positive. Residents in the 70- to 79-year age group had the lowest prevalence rate of 5 percent. When the researchers extrapolated their findings across the county’s 1.2 million residents, they found swine flu antibodies in 21.5 percent of people, including more than 70,000 school-age children. “Extrapolating these results further to the entire US population, we estimate that 63 million persons became infected in 2009,” the authors wrote. To contact the reporter on this story: Jason Gale in Singapore at j.gale@bloomberg.net

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Swine Flu May Have Infected Every Second Schoolchild in U.S., Study Finds

February 22, 2010

By Jason Gale Feb. 22 (Bloomberg) — Swine flu may have infected at least 63 million people in the U.S. last year, according to a study in Pittsburgh, where almost every second schoolchild probably caught the pandemic virus. Blood tests on Pittsburgh residents found 45 percent of people aged 10 to 19 years had antibodies against the new H1N1 flu strain . About 22 percent of people across all groups developed immunity to the virus by early December and a quarter of those born in the 1920s may have already had protective antibodies before the pandemic resulting from prior flu infection, researchers at the University of Pittsburgh found. The findings, reported online yesterday in the Public Library of Science , suggest a fresh wave of swine flu infections isn’t likely unless the virus mutates or people become more susceptible to infection. A World Health Organization advisory panel is holding a teleconference tomorrow to discuss whether the first influenza pandemic in 41 years has peaked. “With current estimates of seroprevalence and continued increases in population due to vaccination, a significant change in viral antigens or a change in population immunity would be required for further disease spread,” Ted Ross, associate professor of microbiology at the university, and colleagues wrote. “We cannot rule out the possibility that geographical pockets of limited immunity may be present in which a third wave may yet occur.” Symptom-Free Cases At least 15,921 people have died from swine flu as the fast-moving pandemic spread to 212 countries and territories since its discovery in North America in April, the WHO said in a Feb. 19 statement . The global tally underestimates the actual number as many deaths are never tested or recognized as influenza related, the Geneva-based agency said. In yesterday’s study, researchers looked for infection- fighting antibodies against the 2009 pandemic flu strain in 846 anonymous blood samples collected in November and early December from people in southwestern Pennsylvania’s Allegheny County ages 1 month to 90 years. The tests identified people who caught the virus, including those who didn’t develop a fever, cough or other flu-like symptoms. The researchers compared the results against tests on blood samples collected in 2008, of which 6 percent contained antibodies that protected against swine flu, probably as a result of infection from a related influenza strain. Children and adolescents in the 10- to 19-year age group had the highest prevalence of swine flu antibodies, while 29 percent of blood samples from children younger than 9 years tested positive. Residents in the 70- to 79-year age group had the lowest prevalence rate of 5 percent. When the researchers extrapolated their findings across the county’s 1.2 million residents, they found swine flu antibodies in 21.5 percent of people, including more than 70,000 school-age children. “Extrapolating these results further to the entire US population, we estimate that 63 million persons became infected in 2009,” the authors wrote. To contact the reporter on this story: Jason Gale in Singapore at j.gale@bloomberg.net

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Brain-Damaged Patient Reaches Outside Vegetative World by Mapping Thoughts

February 3, 2010

By Andrea Gerlin Feb. 3 (Bloomberg) — A man in Belgium, presumed for five years to be in a vegetative state, communicated with doctors through a brain scan that mapped his thoughts, a tool that may offer some people who cannot move or speak a line to the outside world. The patient effectively answered “yes” or “no” to questions posed by researchers using a technique known as functional magnetic resonance imaging, according to a report in today’s New England Journal of Medicine . The 29-year-old, who had suffered a head injury in a road accident in 2003, showed activity in one of two specific regions of his brain on five of six autobiographical questions put to him. He was one of 54 patients with little or no consciousness in the study. Five showed some activity in one or two regions of the brain when asked to imagine specific tasks; 49 didn’t show any activity when asked to think of the same tasks. “Some patients who appear behaviorally to be vegetative may not be,” said Adrian Owen , one of the report’s authors and a professor at the Medical Research Council Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit in Cambridge, England, in a telephone interview. “They may be able to give yes-or-no responses.” About four in 10 patients who are classified as having consciousness disorders — vegetative and minimally conscious states being two of these — are misdiagnosed, according to the paper. The technique the researchers used may enable doctors to better define their levels of awareness and to establish basic communication. Quality of Life Smaller, less expensive bedside imaging machines may allow some patients diagnosed with limited consciousness to engage in minimal communication, improving their quality of life, Owen said. The information they communicate could enable doctors and nurses to know if they are in pain and need painkillers or relatives to better interpret the extent of their awareness. Twenty-three of the study patients were diagnosed as being in a vegetative state and 31 were in a minimally conscious state. Patients in a vegetative state can’t respond to stimuli after emerging from a coma and opening their eyes. Minimally conscious patients show limited and erratic verbal responses and movement. Functional MRI enables doctors to see inside the body without using radiation and measures brain activity by mapping blood flow, or oxygen use, in different parts of the organ. In the study, conducted in Cambridge and Liege, Belgium, the patients were asked to imagine playing tennis or walking through familiar streets or from room to room at home. Tennis Game In a separate group of healthy patients, imagining a tennis game activated a part of the brain called the pre-motor cortex and imagining walking the streets or through a house activated another structure called the parahippocampal gyrus. The five brain-injured patients who responded to the test had activity in one or both areas when asked questions, the researchers said. The road accident victim correctly answered all but the last of six additional autobiographical questions, including one referring to his father’s name, the researchers reported. No activity was detected when he was asked the final question. In an accompanying editorial, neurologist Allan H. Ropper of Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston said the study’s results would make it difficult for doctors to tell families that their unresponsive relatives are not “in there somewhere.” The new data suggest that functional MRI should be added to traditional methods of diagnosing patients with consciousness disorders, Ropper wrote. Life Support In words of caution, Ropper said brain activity was detected in a small number of patients in the study, only in some patients whose brain injuries were from trauma, and in none who had suffered strokes or oxygen deprivation. The activity didn’t prove the presence of more complex thought processes, he said. “Persons who look to this study to justify continued and unqualified life support in all unresponsive patients are missing the focus of the findings,” Ropper wrote. To contact the reporter responsible for this story: Andrea Gerlin in London at agerlin@bloomberg.net

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Diarrhea May Act as a Source of Infection for Influenza, Researchers Find

January 8, 2010

By Jason Gale Jan. 8 (Bloomberg) — Diarrhea in flu-infected children may harbor the virus, scientists found, pointing to a previously unrecognized source of infection. Tests on 733 children with influenza-like illness and an upset tummy found a minority of patients had seasonal strains in their stool and live viral particles were retrieved from one case. The finding, published yesterday in the journal BioMed Central , suggests that flu may invade the gastrointestinal tract, potentially acting as a mode of transmission. The research may help explain why gastric symptoms, including diarrhea and vomiting , afflicts about one in five people with swine flu, the H1N1 strain that emerged last year and touched off the first influenza pandemic in 41 years. The study is believed to be the largest to investigate flu virus detected in the gastrointestinal tract of children with flu-like illness and diarrhea, the authors wrote. “To date, limited autopsy data have not indicated detection of 2009 H1N1 virus outside the respiratory tract in humans, but further studies are needed,” said Tim Uyeki , a study author and flu epidemiologist at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. The presence of viable virus particles in the gut “has implications for transmission and infection control,” he said in an e-mail today. Uyeki and colleagues at Indonesia’s National Institute of Health Research and Development and the U.S. Naval Medical Research Unit No. 2 in Jakarta tested the children, who were all younger than 6 years. Genetic material from the flu virus was found in 12 percent of nose and throat swabs and 3 percent of stool samples, the authors wrote in the open-access publication. Live Virus Viable type-B flu particles were recovered in the stool of one child, a finding possibly explained by active infection in the gastrointestinal tract, the researchers said. The patient could also have swallowed the virus from an infection in the nose or throat, they said. It’s possible flu might infect and actively replicate within cells in the gastrointestinal tract similar to the way in which influenza viruses replicate in bird species, they said. “It has been known for quite a long time that young children with seasonal influenza experience diarrhea more frequently than adult patients, especially with influenza B virus infection,” Uyeki said. To contact the reporter on this story: Jason Gale in Singapore at j.gale@bloomberg.net .

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Teen Suicidal Thoughts, Depression May Be Due to Late Nights, Study Says

January 3, 2010

By Simeon Bennett Jan. 1 (Bloomberg) — Late nights may make teenagers more prone to depression and suicidal thoughts by depriving them of sleep, according to a study by researchers at Columbia University. Teens whose parents let them go to bed past midnight were 24 percent more likely to be depressed and 20 percent more likely to have contemplated suicide than peers whose parents set bedtimes at or before 10 p.m., the researchers said today in the journal Sleep . Earlier set bedtimes may be protective because they increase the likelihood of getting enough sleep, they said. The study is the first to show that sleep deprivation may cause depression and suicidal thoughts in adolescents. Previous research has shown a link, though the relationship wasn’t clear because insomnia can be a symptom of depression. “Our results strengthen the argument that lack of sleep can cause depression as opposed to simply being a symptom of depression,” James Gangwisch , the study’s lead author and an assistant professor at the university’s medical center, said in an e-mail. “Adequate quality sleep could therefore be a preventative measure against depression and a treatment for depression.” About 4,400 Americans between the ages of 10 and 24 commit suicide each year, making it the third-most common cause of death in the age group, according to the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Gangwisch and colleagues studied data from 15,659 U.S. students, who were in grades seven to 12 between 1994 and 1996, and their parents. Seven percent of the teens were found to have depression and 13 percent said they seriously contemplated suicide during the preceding 12 months. The association was stronger for girls and older children, according to the study. More Shuteye Teenagers whose parents said they should go to bed at 10 p.m. or earlier slept for 8 hours 10 minutes on average, 40 minutes more than those with bedtimes set at midnight or later, the researchers found. That’s less than the nine or more hours of sleep for adolescents recommended by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine , a joint publisher of the journal. Those who typically slept for five hours or less each night were 71 percent more likely to have depression and 48 percent more likely to have thought about taking their own lives than those who got eight hours of sleep, according to the study funded by Columbia University. Lack of sleep may affect brain responses to negative stimuli, hinder a person’s ability to cope with stress and impair relationships with peers and adults, the researchers said. It may also affect judgment, concentration and impulse control. Almost 70 percent of teenagers reported going to bed at the time set by their parents, and two-thirds of the rest said they usually went to bed within an hour after the limit, the study found. More than half of parents surveyed said they sent their children to bed by 10 p.m. or earlier on weeknights, and 25 percent said they allowed their kids to stay up until midnight or later. To contact the reporter on this story: Simeon Bennett in Singapore at sbennett9@bloomberg.net .

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Erectile Dysfunction Linked to Restless-Leg Disorder, Harvard Study Finds

January 3, 2010

By Simeon Bennett Jan. 1 (Bloomberg) — Erection problems are more common among men with a disorder that causes sufferers to have an irresistible urge to move their legs than those without the condition, a Harvard Medical School study found. Erectile dysfunction was 78 percent more likely in men with symptoms of restless legs syndrome than those without them, and was most common in sufferers with the most severe symptoms, the researchers said today in the journal Sleep . It’s likely both disorders are caused by a common mechanism, they said. The study is the first to probe the connection between erectile dysfunction and restless legs syndrome, or RLS, two conditions that have been linked to abnormally low levels of dopamine, a chemical that relays signals in the brain. RLS, a brain disorder that afflicts about 10 percent of Americans, can cause problems falling or staying asleep, according to the Rochester, Minnesota-based Restless Legs Syndrome Foundation . “This finding indirectly supports a role of dopamine” in restless legs syndrome, Xiang Gao , a research scientist at the Boston-based Harvard School of Public Health, said in the study. More research is needed to clarify the relationship between the disorder and erection problems, and explore the biological mechanisms of the association, he said. Erectile dysfunction affects as many as 30 million men in the U.S., according to the National Institutes of Health, which funded the study. Gao and colleagues studied data from 23,119 men between 56 and 91 years old. About 4 percent had restless legs syndrome and 41 percent had erectile dysfunction. Those who had symptoms of RLS between 5 and 14 times a month were 16 percent more likely to have erectile dysfunction. The men with symptoms occurring more than 15 times a month were 78 percent more likely to have the condition, the study showed. To contact the reporter on this story: Simeon Bennett in Singapore at sbennett9@bloomberg.net

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AIDS Vaccine’s Benefit May Wane After First Year, Study Shows

October 20, 2009

By Simeon Bennett and Michelle Fay Cortez Oct. 20 (Bloomberg) — The experimental AIDS vaccine that showed promise for the first time in a study released last month may have worked best in the first year. Those who benefited from the shots appear to have done so in the first 12 months and they tended to be heterosexual patients at lower risk of contracting HIV, according to details of the trial published today in the New England Journal of Medicine and released at a Paris conference. The findings may help researchers understand what provided the protection by giving them a time frame and a group of patients to focus on. Scientists are still mystified as to how two unproven vaccines, when combined and given to more than 16,000 volunteers in Thailand, appeared to cut HIV infections after three years. The study’s credibility was called into question after the journal Science said a second set of data showed the result may have been a fluke. “The trial raises more questions than it answers,” Alan Bernstein from the Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise, said in an interview in Paris. “The initial protective effect after the first year looked like it was 60 percent and it dropped off with time. The most important thing with vaccines is memory. Your body remembers it’s vaccinated so when you encounter the real bug you are prepared. We need to explore what’s going on there and extend that benefit.” ‘Weak Signal’ Researchers from Thailand’s health ministry and the U.S. Military HIV Research Program hailed the findings as a breakthrough when they announced early results last month. The vaccine, comprising shots developed by Sanofi-Aventis SA and VaxGen Inc., appeared to reduce infections by 31 percent compared with volunteers who got a placebo, according to one analysis of the data. Two other sets of data presented today fell short of the statistical threshold above which scientists consider a study trustworthy. “This is a weak signal, but a signal that has enough relevance that we need to pursue it,” Anthony Fauci , director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, in Bethesda, Maryland, said in an interview. The modest effect of the immunization, with a difference of only 23 infections between those who got the vaccine and those given a placebo, makes it more difficult to tease out the differences among people who responded, said Seth Berkley , chief executive officer of the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative, in an interview. Different Protection There are six other vaccine approaches now in development for AIDS, which killed 2 million people in 2007, making it the world’s deadliest infectious disease. As scientists try to pinpoint the immune response in people who benefited from the vaccine, they can examine alternative approaches to see which will create the same or better results, according to Berkley. “If we can learn something that will help us prioritize other vaccines, it will be invaluable,” he said. “We’re unlikely to learn anything immediately.” The study showed the vaccine was better at preventing HIV infection in those with a low risk of contracting the virus, such as heterosexuals, the researchers said. Among those considered low risk, there were 40 percent fewer infections. There was no benefit in the people considered at high risk, such as men who had sex with other men and prostitutes as well as intravenous-drug users. Waste of Time? “Perhaps the requirements for protection against transmission in low-risk, heterosexual persons are considerably different or less stringent than those in high-risk subjects,” Raphael Dolin , a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, wrote in an editorial accompanying the study. The results of the $105 million Thai study surprised scientists last month because neither vaccine in the combination had proven effective on its own. One is ALVAC, made by Paris- based Sanofi. The other is AIDSVAX, originally from Genentech Inc. and VaxGen, both of South San Francisco, California. That vaccine was later licensed to Global Solutions for Infectious Diseases, a non-profit group also based in South San Francisco. The study was controversial from the outset. In 2004, a group of U.S. scientists wrote in a letter in Science that the trial would be a waste of time and money, and shouldn’t be allowed to proceed because of the failure of earlier research on the shots. The study’s findings “open new doors that were not part of our thinking a month ago,” said Merlin Robb, one of the researchers from the U.S. Military HIV Research Program at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in Rockville, Maryland. “It is a scientific step forward in what will be a long, long journey.” To contact the reporter on this story: Simeon Bennett in Singapore at sbennett9@bloomberg.net To contact the reporter on this story: Michelle Fay Cortez in London at mcortez@bloomberg.net

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U.K. Economy Will Grow Twice as Much as Forecast in 2010, Item Club to Say

October 17, 2009

By Brian Swint Oct. 18 (Bloomberg) — The U.K. economy will grow twice as fast as previously expected next year as the country pulls out of the worst recession in a generation, Ernst & Young LLP’s Item Club will say tomorrow. Gross domestic product will increase 1 percent in 2010, compared with a 0.5 percent forecast in July, the researchers, who use the same model as the U.K. Treasury, will say in London. The estimate for 2009 will be lowered to a 4.5 percent contraction from a 4.4 percent drop. The Bank of England will assess the progress of its 175 billion-pound ($286 billion) program to buy bonds with newly created money as the interest rate -setting panel produces economic forecasts in November. Britain probably escaped recession in the third quarter after five quarters of contraction, a Bloomberg News survey shows. “The outlook for the next 12 months is certainly looking more positive than the last year but it is going to be a bumpy ride,” Peter Spencer , chief economist at the Item Club and a former Treasury official, will say. “There could still be substantial pain.” Gross domestic product rose 0.2 percent in the July- September period, the first increase in six quarters, according to the median of 33 forecasts in a Bloomberg News survey. From a year earlier, output dropped 4.6 percent, the survey showed. The Office for National Statistics will release the data on Oct. 23. To contact the reporter on this story: Brian Swint in London at bswint@bloomberg.net .

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Swine Flu Fueled 15-Fold Rise in Intensive Care Lung Cases in Australia

October 8, 2009

By Tom Randall Oct. 8 (Bloomberg) — Swine flu was found responsible for a 15-fold increase in intensive care unit admissions for lung inflammation in Australia and New Zealand, in the first detailed study of how the virus strikes in winter. During the peak of severe illness, swine flu patients filled 8.9 percent to 19 percent of all intensive-care hospital beds in each state of Australia and Zealand, according to the study published today in the New England Journal of Medicine . Almost 65 percent of intensive-care patients required mechanical ventilation. The Southern Hemisphere’s winter flu season, studied from June 1 to Aug. 31, may give health officials in the U.S. and Europe an early indication of what to expect in coming months, the researchers said today. The pandemic filled all available beds in some units and prompted doctors to postpone nonessential surgery, New Zealand’s health ministry said in July. “Our data indicate that the greatest effect on ICU resources in a given region occurs approximately 5 to 6 weeks after the first confirmed winter admission,” wrote the researchers from the Australian and New Zealand Intensive Care Society. “The 2009 H1N1 virus had a substantial effect.” H1N1 rates have subsided in the Southern Hemisphere, and the virus is now spreading widely in most U.S. states, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The official winter flu season started in the U.S. on Oct. 4, and U.S. doctors began administering vaccines this week in the country’s largest flu vaccination program. Patients most at risk for severe complications in the study included infants under 1 year old, adults ages 26 to 64, pregnant women, the obese, and indigenous populations, according to the researchers. More than 16 percent of patients admitted to hospitals died, and a third of severely ill people had no underlying condition that would elevate their risk, according to the study. To contact the reporters on this story: Tom Randall in New York at trandall6@bloomberg.net

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Seasonal Flu Shot May Boost Defenses Against H1N1 Virus, Researchers Say

October 7, 2009

By Carey Sargent Oct. 7 (Bloomberg) — Vaccine prepared for the 2008-2009 flu season may provide some protection against the pandemic H1N1 virus and help fend off the most severe forms of the disease, research published in the British Medical Journal found. Of the 179 unvaccinated people in the Mexican study, 29 percent became infected with pandemic H1N1 virus, compared with just 13 percent of vaccinated patients. None of the swine flu patients who received the shot died, compared with 30 percent of those who were unvaccinated, the researchers found. Vaccines prepared for the seasonal flu include an H1N1 strain. The shot may provide some protection against swine flu because people who have been previously exposed to a similar virus have a heightened antibody response, said researchers led by Jose Luis Valdespino at the Laboratorios de Biologicos y Reactivos de Mexico. The study was limited by the number of patients and more research is needed, they said. “The results are to be considered cautiously and in no way indicate that seasonal vaccine should replace vaccination against pandemic influenza A/H1N1 2009,” Valdespino said in the study. A study published in the journal Eurosurveillance in August looked at patients who tested positive for swine flu and their vaccination history and found no evidence of “significant protection” from the seasonal shot in any age group. Valdespino’s team studied 60 patients diagnosed with swine flu and 180 uninfected people. They found that those without the disease were significantly more likely to have been vaccinated. ‘Restricted Protection’ There may be some biases with the study because it was retrospective and involved only 240 people, said Menno de Jong, head of microbiology at the University of Amsterdam’s Academic Medical Center, who wrote an accompanying editorial on pandemic vaccination. “It suggests that if you were vaccinated, it might mitigate the disease” by boosting the immune response, de Jong said in a telephone interview. “It’s a restricted level of protection, though, and highlights the need for a specific vaccine against the novel H1N1 virus.” Companies including Novartis AG and Sanofi-Aventis SA have produced flu vaccine to specifically target the new H1N1 strain. H1N1 has infected at least 340,000 people and killed at least 4,100 globally as of Sept. 27, the World Health Organization said last week. The figures are based on laboratory-confirmed cases reported to the Geneva-based United Nations agency. The researchers received funding from the Mexican Ministry of Health. To contact the reporter on this story: Carey Sargent in Geneva at Csargent3@bloomberg.net

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Most Babies Born Today in Rich Nations Will Live 100 Years, Scientists Say

October 1, 2009

By Kristen Hallam Oct. 2 (Bloomberg) — More than half of babies born today in rich nations will live for 100 years as earlier diagnoses and better treatment of illnesses such as heart disease extend lives, scientists estimate. Life expectancy increased by three decades or more over the 20th century in countries such as the U.S., U.K., France, Germany, Canada and Japan, and that trend will continue, according to a review published today in The Lancet medical journal. Without any further improvement in longevity, three- quarters of babies will mark their 75th birthdays, the Danish and German researchers wrote. “The linear increase in record life expectancy for more than 165 years does not suggest a looming limit to human lifespan,” wrote lead researcher Kaare Christensen, a professor at the University of Southern Denmark’s Danish Ageing Research Centre , in the review. Better health care for the elderly, particularly in the U.S., has extended lives by making illnesses like heart disease manageable over time and allowing earlier detection and intervention, the authors said. Public health campaigns against smoking have also aided longevity, they said. People are also living longer without becoming severely disabled, the scientists said, citing four health surveys in France. The aging of society has left nations struggling with how to fund programs for older citizens, the reviewers said. In Germany, the number of elderly for every 100 working-age people has risen from 16 in 1956 to 29 in 2006, and is forecast to reach 60 by 2056, the researchers said. Shorter Work Weeks Shortened work weeks over longer working lives may further extend longevity, they wrote. “If people in their 60s and early 70s worked much more than they do nowadays, then most people could work fewer hours per week than is currently common,” the researchers said. Such a redistribution of employment might help countries cope with the economic demands of an aging society, though it won’t be enough to meet those demands, they said. Christensen and colleagues from the University of Rostock and the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, both in Germany, based their review on data available since 2004. The research was funded by a grant from the U.S. National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. The Danish Ageing Research Centre gets support from the Velux Foundation , based in Switzerland. To contact the reporter on this story: Kristen Hallam in London at khallam@bloomberg.net

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Smoking, Fatty Diet Cuts 10 Years Off Men’s Lives After Age 50, Study Says

September 19, 2009

By Marthe Fourcade Sept. 18 (Bloomberg) — Men who smoke and let fat clog their arteries die a decade earlier than those who don’t. Scientists looking for a connection between life expectancy and cardiovascular risk factors combed through the Whitehall study , a survey of 19,019 male civil servants that started in London in the late 1960s. They found that those who had high blood pressure, high cholesterol and smoked in middle age died about 10 years earlier than the others after reaching age 50. The findings are published in the latest edition of the British Medical Journal . The reduction in life expectancy was even greater when the researchers factored in body mass index and diabetes. “Our results provide support for the public health policies aimed at achieving modest changes in major risk factors throughout the population to achieve improvements in life expectancy,” wrote the authors, led by Robert Clarke of the University of Oxford. In the study, the researchers found smoking shortened life by about six years and married men tended to live about two years longer. To contact the reporter on this story: Marthe Fourcade at mfourcade@bloomberg.net

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Drug Compound That Targets, Kills Cancer Stem Cells Is Identified in Study

August 13, 2009

By Rob Waters Aug. 13 (Bloomberg) — A drug that can selectively target and kill the stem cells that drive the growth of tumors has been identified for the first time by researchers who searched more than 16,000 compounds to find it. The drug, salinomycin, cut the number of breast cancer stem cells more than 100 times more than did Bristol-Myers Squibb Co.’s Taxol, a common chemotherapy medicine, according to a report on the findings published today in the journal Cell. Researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Broad Institute grew cancer cells from breast tumors in a way that increased the number of stem cells. They then used rapid screening techniques to find compounds that could kill the stem cells and not other cancer cells. “It wasn’t clear it would be possible to find compounds that selectively kill cancer stem cells,” said Piyush Gupta, one of the researchers involved in the study, in a statement from the journal. “We’ve shown it can be done.” The research was funded partly by the National Cancer Institute . To contact the reporter on this story: Rob Waters in San Francisco at rwaters5@bloomberg.net .

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Milk Lovers May Live Longer Because of Lower Heart Disease, Stroke Risk

July 22, 2009

By Albertina Torsoli July 22 (Bloomberg) — The secret to a longer life may be this simple — milk. Drinking milk can lessen the chances of dying from illnesses such as heart disease and stroke by as much as 20 percent, researchers led by Peter Elwood at Cardiff University and Ian Givens from the University of Reading said today in a statement distributed by the AlphaGalileo Web site.

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