by Shufei Fu, Junhua Zhang, Francesca Menniti-Ippolito, Xiumei Gao, Francesca Galeotti, Marco Massari, Limin Hu, Boli Zhang, Rita Ferrelli, Alice Fauci, Fabio Firenzuoli, Hongcai Shang, Ranieri Guerra, Roberto Raschetti

Background

Chronic heart failure (CHF) is a global public health problem. Therefore, novel and effective drugs that show few side-effects are needed. Early literature studies indicated that Huangqi injection is one of the most commonly used traditional Chinese patent medicines for CHF in China. As a large number of clinical studies has been carried out and published, it is essential to evaluate the effectiveness and safety of Huangqi injection. Therefore, we carried out this systematic review under the support of the framework of the Joint Sino-Italian Laboratory (JoSIL).

Objectives

To evaluate the efficacy and safety of Huangqi injection for CHF according to the available scientific knowledge.

Methods

An extensive search including PubMed, EMBASE, CBM, the Cochrane Library and Chinese literature databases was performed up to July 2008. Clinical trials regarding Huangqi injection for the treatment of CHF were searched for, irrespective of languages. The quality of each trial was assessed according to the Cochrane Reviewers' Handbook 5.0, and RevMan 5.0 provided by the Cochrane Collaboration and STATA 9.2 were used for data analysis.

Results

After selection of 1,205 articles, 62 RCTs and quasi-RCTs conducted in China and published in Chinese journals were included in the review. The methodological quality of the trials was low. In most trials inclusion and exclusion criteria were not specified. Furthermore, only one study evaluated the outcomes for drug efficacy after an adequate period of time. For these reasons and because of the different baseline characteristics we did not conduct a meta-analysis.

Conclusions

Although available studies are not adequate to draw a conclusion on the efficacy and safety of Huangqi injection (a traditional Chinese patent medicine), we hope that our work could provide useful experience on further studies on Huangqi injections. The overall level of TCM clinical research needs to be improved so that the efficacy of TCM can be evaluated by the international community and possibly some TCM can enter into the international market.

Heart doctors at the University of California, San Francisco, said many safety studies on Taser electric stun guns could be biased because of links to the company that makes them. A UCSF study published Friday said studies paid for by Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Taser International Inc., or ones with authors connected to the company, were 75 percent more likely to say the stun guns are safe than independent studies. Peyman Azadani, M.D., and Byron Lee, M.D., looked at 50 safety studies of Tasers, with 23 of those tests paid for by Taser International (NASDAQ: TASR) or written by someone affiliated with the...

Heart doctors at the University of California, San Francisco, said many safety studies on Taser electric stun guns could be biased because of links to the company that makes them. A UCSF study published Friday said studies paid for by Scottsdale-based Taser International Inc., or ones with authors connected to the company, were 75 percent more likely to say the stun guns are safe than independent studies. Peyman Azadani, M.D., and Byron Lee, M.D., looked at 50 safety studies of Tasers, with 23 of those tests paid for by Taser International (NASDAQ: TASR) or written by someone affiliated with the...

by Joaquin Sapien

The Army Criminal Investigation Command announced this week that it hasn't been able to determine what has caused the deaths of 10 infants at Fort Bragg, N.C. since 2007. According to medical examiners the deaths were due to "undetermined" causes. The investigators found no evidence that the deaths were related to any exposure to environmental contamination or to any type of criminal activity.

The announcement doesn't include details about the methods used to reach that conclusion.

CID began its investigation after three infants died in the same home between 2007 and 2009. After an eighth child died on base in 2009, CID began to suspect that sulfur gasses from the drywall used in the homes could have something to do with the deaths.

Early tests commissioned by CID showed that the drywall was indeed problematic, but later tests done using a different method showed the drywall was fine. CID also tested the homes for pesticides, but announced in March that the levels weren't high enough to cause health problems.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission, the lead agency in the federal government's two-year investigation of tainted drywall, has also examined the infant deaths and ruled out environmental causes. Testing done by the CPSC on Ft. Bragg came under fire from drywall experts, who said that more advanced testing methods should have been used.

At a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing in March, Army Secretary John McHugh said he had assigned a team from the Army's Public Health Command to pursue its own study of the infant deaths. That study is still underway, according to a spokesperson for Ft. Bragg.

Two more deaths have occurred since the investigation began, bringing the current tally to 12. The most recent deaths are still being investigated.

A new seven-member study group has been tasked by Secretary of Energy Steven Chu to investigate the environmental impact of fracking. As the New York Times reports, the panel has 90 days to come up with recommendations to improve the safety of fracking , and within six months come up with advice for state and federal regulators on health ... Read the full story on TreeHugger

A new seven-member study group has been tasked by Secretary of Energy Steven Chu to investigate the environmental impact of fracking. As the New York Times reports, the panel has 90 days to come up with recommendations to improve the safety of fracking, and within six months come up with advice for state and federal regulators on health ...Read the full story on TreeHugger

Daily Mail

Transportation Tax Transparency Seattle Post Intelligencer (blog) WASHINGTON, May 5 (UPI) — The Obama administration is considering a plan that would require the study and execution of a plan to tax US drivers based on the amount of miles they drive. The plan is included in the administration's Transportation ... <strong>White House Wants to Track and Tax Your Mileage</strong>NewsMax.com Leaked draft bill reveals administration's new auto safety proposalsThe Detroit News Big Brother Wants to Track and Tax YouThe Stir msnbc.com -Newsroom America -Daily Mail all 44 news articles »

AFN Launches First Nations Food, Nutrition, and Environment Study in Ontario Canada NewsWire (press release) OTTAWA, May 6 /CNW/ - The Assembly of First Nations announced today that an ongoing study of nutrition and food and water safety will be brought to First Nations communities in Ontario. The First Nations Food, Nutrition, and Environment Study (FNFNES) ... and more »

The cockpit voice recorder from Air France 447, as it was found at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.

Last weekend, investigators announced that they had recovered the flight data recorder from the wreckage of Air France 447—a jetliner that crashed in the deep Atlantic two years ago. But, while the discovery of the data recorder is recent, the story of how Flight 447 was found goes back a month.

This year's search was the fourth attempt to find the wreckage of Flight 447, and it probably would have been the last, even if the plane hadn't been found. Previous searches had been done by boat, mini-sub, and—back when there was still a chance of catching the audio signal from the plane's black boxes—underwater acoustic sensors. In 2010, scientists from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute were brought in to search for the crash site using autonomous robot subs. Still nothing had been found.

On March 22, 2011, the Woods Hole team set out from Brazil to try again. They'd barely been at the search location for a week when they found what they were looking for. On April 3, researchers spotted the plane's debris field, 13,000 feet down, smack in the middle of a massive underwater mountain range.

The success was astounding, but I wanted to know ... what made this search different from the others? What could the team from Woods Hole do that other groups could not, and how did their system work? To find out, I spoke with Mike Purcell, senior engineer with Woods Hole, and the chief of sea search operations for the mission.

Maggie Koerth-Baker: Your team found Flight 447 with the help of an autonomous submarine called the Remus 6000. Can you tell me a little about the history of that sub? What could the Remus 6000 do that previous systems couldn't?

Mike Purcell: The first one was developed in 2001. Really, they have a greater depth limit. There are no other deep water subs that can go to 6000 meters. That's one way it's unique. Also, between the six Remus 6000's that exist out in the world right now, there's probably been more missions done with a Remus 6000 than any other deep water AUV.

To do a search, the Remus 6000 gets a mission program, a track line to swim. It goes into the water and uses various naviagtion techniques to swim the track line. There isn't anybody actively controlling it. But it's also not as smart as you might thing. It's not making decisions based on terrain, other than staying some fixed altitutude off the bottom. It can't go around things or avoid stuff that might be in front of it. It does go up over mountain ridges, but the Remus 6000s do sometimes run into things, too. They don't have the full sensor capacity and independent thinking to make decisions that some totally autonamous robot might. One reason that's the case—it's just harder to do that in the water than in the air. We're really limited to one kind of sensor, acoustic sensors, underwater.

MKB: What kind of research do Remus 6000 subs normally work on? Was this search different in any way, from a technological or logistics perspective?

MP: Our lab ... we've been involved in the development of AUVs. We've been making the newer and better ones over the last 15 years. It was only in about 2008 that we started getting involved in operations. We purchased a couple Remus 6000s and we're the operators. They were involved in search for Amelia Earhart's airplane. We did some localization of deep corals in Gulf Stream off of Florida. We mapped the Titanic site with AUV's last year. And then we've now worked on the Air France survey twice, once in 2010 and once in 2011.

Even when we've done these searches for the airplanes there's been a tremendous amount of data collected, and that's been made available, or will be made available in the future, to the science community. What kinds of things can people do with seafloor data? I'm not a geologist, so I'm not totally sure what they might do. But a lot of the seafloor is totally unexplored. We've got about 1500 square miles mapped. And I think there's a lot of interesting geography there in the Mid-Atlantic Ridge where we did this search.

MKB: How many people involved in running one of these searches, and what do they do?

MP: We had three vehicles out there. When we're running three vehicles we have 12 people, working in two 12-hour shifts. There's six people on each shift. And they're doing things like getting the vehicles in and out of the water. Reprogramming the vehicles. Tracking the vehicles. There's usually two AUVs in the water at all times. And there's a guy who is dedicated to processing the data.

MKB: The Remus 6000s had previously been involved in the search for Air France 447, but hadn't found it before. Was there a major location change, or some other shift in how the search was done this time around? Were you involved in deciding where the search would happen?

MP: We were out there first in 2010, and there'd been a pretty big modeling study that guided the search then. Of the entire area, which is 17,000 square kilometers, 7,000 had been what we were search going into this year. The plan was to search it all. There was one difference, we just decided to start close to the last known position of the plane, instead of further away from it. The BEA [Ed: Bureau d'Enquêtes et d'Analyses, the French air safety investigators] identified three search zones, big areas that they wanted us to do in order, and then, from there, we sort of had the freedom to decide where we start in those areas. So we started out based on where we left off last year.

MKB: The mid-ocean ridge, where the search was conducted, has been described as something like an underwater Himalayan mountain range. A lot of reports I've read on it made it sound very foreboding and not like a place where it would be possible to find anything. But WHOI has been doing research on the mid-ocean ridge for decades. Is the scary reputation deserved? What challenges do you face doing research in that location, as an organization that has experience with it?

MP: So, I think this mission was different for us in that we were trying to search such a huge area. We needed our vehicles to swim up and down those mountains. The water out there was 4000 meters meters deep at the deepest spot and very close to that was where we found the wreckage. But just a few miles away it was only 2000 meters meters deep. There are some very steep mountains.

We had a pretty good contour map of the seafloor, but you always learn some new things when you put the vehicle down there. Occasionally it would run into a mountain or cliff. Sometimes, when that happens, it stops the mission. We have a drop weight on the vehicle and it will float back to the surface. Other times a crash leads to problems a couple of missions later&mash;the AUV will suddenly develop an electrical problem. Sometimes, the cliffs fall away so fast that we can't swim down the slope as fast as its falling off, so we don't get good data and have to go back and do it again swimming up the slope. Compared to past experience here, the fact that we were trying to cover so much area was the new challenge.

We can do 100 square kilometers in a day with two vehicles ... but that really depends on geography. If the bottom is flat we can do more. We've done 180 square kilometers in a day with really flat terrain.

MKB: How does a search with the Remus 6000 work, before the point where you know you've found what you're looking for? Are you back on the boat watching live video from the sub, or is it a bit more "blind" than that, so to speak?

MP: Fairly more blind. There's no data transmission back to the ship while the vehicles are in the water. We get status messages—acoustic messages that come in periodically and tell us how deep it is, latitude and longitude, just a status check to tell us whether there's problems. When the AUV gets back, it takes 45 minutes to download the data and then another half hour to process and get a good look at it. During that time the other team is switching out the battery and getting the vehicle ready to go back in. The ideal is that a vehicle is only out of the water for three hours, while somebody is looking at the data to decide where we go from here and are there things we want to look at again. When we're running three vehicles we get a data dump three times a day.

What we get is images of the acoustic data. The vehicle sends out an acoustic ping every second, it goes out 700 meters on every side of the vehicle. That gets logged and turned into an image. It'll do that for about 20 hours at a stretch.

MKB: When your crew first saw what turned out to be the wreckage, what would they have been looking at? Does the image look anything like a wrecked plane, or is this a much more abstract sort of thing?

MP: It's a lot more abstract. It just looks like a bunch of bright returns on an area of no return. We're looking at a 24 inch monitor and we've 1400 meters of space that is being imaged on that monitor. Basically we were looking for a lot of small returns over a big area.

I think it takes a considerable amount of time to get to be good at identifying the data. Lots of people can look at a flat seafloor and see what sticks out. But once you have to start dealing with terrain changes, being able to pick wreckage out of that takes a lot more experience. It's good to have an experienced person looking at this stuff. Our guys probably had 15 years.

Bright spots on a dark field. How the wreckage looked to Woods Hole data processors.

MKB: How do you tell the difference between stuff that's supposed to be on the sea floor and what you're looking for?

MP: Sometimes it's the strength of the return. Sometimes ... you might have a ridge line that's mostly sediment but some exposed rocks. So you see there's six bright spots coming out of the ridge, but you can also tell there's a ridge there. So you figure it's probably natural. You get a feel for what's natural and what's not natural. Metal tends to have sharp or square edges, That sends back a stronger signal than rounded rocks that have been down there for a million years or more. In this case, the airplane was out in the middle of a very flat area with no natural camoflauge that would make it hard to find.

MKB: Did the capabilities of your machinery make the most difference, or did it have more to do with the experience that your operators have conducting this kind of seafloor search?

MP: A lot of people would have found the wreckage where it was, with other vehicles or even towed systems. But when you look at the big picture, the whole area that had to be searched, the Remus vehicles were the best tool able to work in that terrain. And the fact that we had three of them working around the clock. That just increases our search rate. That factor there is both a vehicle thing and it's also the people out there doing the operating.

MKB: During the search you sent progress reports back to victim's families. How do you write a progress report like that? How much different is it from the way you frame findings, and wording you use if you're writing a progress report for something less emotionally charged?

MP: I sort of lucked out. I never had to send a progress report. It was supposed to go out every Tuesday. They gave us a waiver on the first Tuesday because we'd just gotten to the site, and then we found the wreckage on Sunday. We had a BEA representative on board and I talked with him every day. A lot of people had a lot at stake in that search. They've been working at it for a long time. That was more of a factor than the fact that it was a crashed airplane. That sort of changes the attitude. People were serious about the job. They took it seriously and wanted to complete it.

Images: BEA, via Reuters

New page: ==<center>Free Baby Shower Invirtations</center>== . . . . ==<center>[http://detailedlook.com/forum/index.php?topic=of3MjE3fHwxMzA0NjI4ODk1fHwxOTUyfHwoRU5HSU5FKSBNZWRpYVdpa2k%3D&s=Free...

New page

Union urges meeting with London Underground after one of two drivers whose sacking sparked planned strikes wins tribunal

Tube union chiefs have demanded a meeting with London Underground in an effort to avert strike action after one of two drivers at the centre of an employment row won his claim of unfair dismissal.

Eamonn Lynch, a Bakerloo line driver sacked for breaking safety rules, took his case to an employment tribunal, claiming his dismissal was based on his trade union activities.

London Underground said on Friday that a meeting with the Rail Maritime and Transport (RMT) union could not be held before the tribunal released its ruling on whether Lynch should be reinstated, expected on 3 June.

The first of six planned walkouts, which threaten travel chaos for millions of passengers, is scheduled for 16 May.

The RMT has backed the case of the second sacked driver, Arwyn Thomas, who is claiming unfair dismissal after being sacked for "unacceptable and abusive behaviour" towards colleagues. His tribunal result is expected later this month.

Bob Crow, general secretary of the RMT, said: "We welcome Eamonn's victory in the tribunal and we are calling for an immediate meeting with London Underground in the light of the ruling that he was unfairly dismissed for his trade union activities.

"With the clear parallel with Arywn Thomas's case, there is now an urgent need for London Underground to meet with the RMT to set out a plan for a return to work that can avoid plunging London into two blocks of strike action that everyone knows will lead to massive disruption.

"The tribunal has found in favour of the RMT, justice has been done and now we need to meet with the company to finalise arrangements that can enable us to move forwards as quickly as possible."

An RMT spokesman said: "London Underground has no excuse not to reinstate these two drivers. It will ultimately be a decision for our executive, but if we can get these guys back to work we can move on with looking again at these dates for industrial action."

London Underground said it would study the outcome of the employment tribunal judgment and "carefully consider our next steps".

It added in a statement: "Whilst the tribunal has made a finding of unfair dismissal, it has also found that on 9 August 2010 Mr Lynch breached an established and significant safety rule and was in part culpable or blameworthy for his actions."

London Underground urged the RMT to call off the threatened strikes. Its managing director, Mike Brown, said: "As we have always said, disputes involving individuals should be dealt with through the mechanisms established for that purpose.

"While that process takes its course, there remains no reason whatsoever for the RMT leadership to seek to disrupt Londoners by threatening strike action."

The first set of strike dates are:

• 9.01pm on Monday 16 May to 11.59am on Tuesday 17 May

• 12 noon on Wednesday 18 May to 11.59am on Thursday 19 May

• 12 noon to 9pm on Friday 20 May

The second set of dates are:

• 9.01pm on Monday 13 June to 11.59am on Tuesday 14 June

• 12 noon on Wednesday 15 June to 11.59am on Thursday 16 June

• 12 noon to 9pm on Friday 17 June

The move follows a 2-1 vote in favour of industrial action over the sackings by RMT members.

They held a 24-hour strike in January over their dismissals and several other stoppages have taken place in recent months.

Lynch is the RMT's health and safety representative for Bakerloo line drivers and Thomas is a longstanding RMT activist.

Transport for London (TfL) alleged Lynch breached safety rules while Thomas was abusive towards colleagues. The RMT said Lynch had an "unblemished" 15-year service record while Thomas had been an RMT member for 29 years and both were "clearcut cases of victimisation on the grounds of trade union activity".

Brown said on Wednesday that only 29% of the 1,300 drivers balloted had voted in favour of strike action. "The RMT leadership seems determined to disrupt London and its economy over several days. As ever, London Underground and TfL will work to keep London moving if the strikes go ahead," he said.

Meanwhile, the threat of further disruption to tube travellers grew on Friday when the RMT said it would ballot Jubilee line drivers for industrial action over changes to safety procedures.

AGA presents cutting-edge research during DDW
Advances highlight progress being made in the treatment and research of GI disorders

Clinicians, researchers and scientists from around the world will gather for Digestive Disease Week^® (DDW) 2011, the largest and most prestigious gastroenterology meeting, from May 7-10, 2011, at McCormick Place, Chicago, IL. DDW, which is jointly sponsored by the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases, the American Gastroenterological Association (AGA) Institute, the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy and the Society for Surgery of the Alimentary Tract, is the annual meeting of the AGA Institute. American Gastroenterological Association

AGA researchers will present exciting, cutting-edge data during the meeting that will help change the way physicians diagnose and treat GI disorders. All data presented during DDW is embargoed until the beginning of the presentation or an official DDW press conference, whichever occurs first. A list of press conferences is available at www.ddw.org/press.

Late-Breaking Session
On May 10, 8:30 a.m. CT, Room S406B*, the AGA will feature its late-breaking clinical abstracts, which include exciting data on:

• Effects of A3309, an Ileal Bile Acid Transporter Inhibitor, on Colonic Transit and Symptoms in Patients with Functional Constipation (Abstract #908). B. S. Wong et al.
• High Sustained Virologic Response (SVR) Among Genotype 1 Previous Non-Responders and Relapsers to Peginterferon/Ribavirin When Re-treated with Boceprevir (BOC) Plus Peginterferon Alfa-2A/Ribavirin (Abstract #903). S. L. Flamm et al.
• Increased Risk of New or Missed Colorectal Cancers After Flexible Sigmoidoscopy Compared with Colonoscopy among Older Patients in the United States: A Population-Based Analysis of the SEER-Medicare Linked Database, 1998-2005 (Abstract #906). Y. R. Wang et al.
• Obtaining SVR to Antiviral Therapy Highly Protects Patients with HCV Recurrence on the Graft after Liver Transplantation from Liver Related Death: Insights from the AISF-RECOLT-C Group (Abstract #905). M. Rendina et al.
• Telaprevir-Based Regimens Substantially Improved SVR Rates Across All IL28B Genotypes in the ADVANCE Trial (Abstract #904). I. M. Jacobson et al.
• Teduglutide, a Novel Analogue of Glucagon-like Peptide 2 (GLP-2), Is Effective and Safe in Reducing Parenteral Support Volume in Short Bowel Syndrome-Intestinal Failure Subjects: Results From a 24-Week, Placebo-Controlled Phase 3 Trial (STEPS) (Abstract #907). P. B. Jeppesen et al.

Plenary Sessions
During the Presidential Plenary Session, AGA Institute President, Ian L. Taylor, MD, PhD, AGAF, will focus on the latest research and clinical advances in the field of gastroenterology. Two additional plenary sessions feature noteworthy clinical and basic science research presented at DDW.
The Presidential Plenary Session presentations (May 9, 10 a.m. CT, Room S100AB) include:

• Colon Cancer Screening. D. Provenzale.
• Hepatitis C in Minority Populations. A. E. Reid.
• Inflammatory Bowel Disease. S. R. Targan.
• Endoscopic Ultrasound. R. H. Hawes.
• The Brain-Gut Axis in Chronic GI Disease. E. A. Mayer.
• The Role of Inflammation in the Causation of GI Cancers. S. E. Crowe.
• Type II Diabetes Is a GI Disease and Should be Treated by Gastroenterologists. I. L. Taylor.
• Impact of Health Reform on GI. J. V. Brill.
• Towards Digestivism. P. B. Cotton.

The Basic Science Plenary Session presentations (May 8, 2:15 p.m. CT, Room S404) include:

• Regeneration of Damaged Colonic Tissue by Transplantation of Colonic Epithelial Stem Cells Maintained and Expanded in Vitro (Abstract #534). S. Yui et al.
• Neurotensin (NT) Receptor 1 (NTR1)-MicroRNA Networks in Human Colon Epithelial Cells. Characterization of Novel Pathways Connecting Neurotensin and Tumor Growth (Abstract #535). K. Bakirtzi et al.
• Stem Cells, Growth Factor Signaling Pathways and Colon Cancer. R. J. Coffey.
• A Chimeric Vaccine Prevents Primary and Recurrent Clostridium Difficile Infection (Abstract #536). H. Feng et al.
• Restoration of Adult-Like Colonic Motility in Aged Transgenic Mice Expressing Phosphomimic HSP27 (Abstract #537). S. Somara et al.

The Clinical Plenary Session presentations (May 9, 8:30 CT, Room S105) include:

• A Prospective Clinical Trial Shows that Intravenous N-acetylcysteine (NAC) Does Not Improve Survival in Pediatric Patients with Non-Acetaminophen Acute Liver Failure (Abstract #622). R. Squires et al.
• Functional Disability and Informal Caregiving Among Older Patients with Decompensated Cirrhosis: An Analysis of the Health and Retirement Study (Abstract #623). M. O. Rakoski et al.
• Abnormal Cerebral Hemodynamics in Hepatic Cirrhosis and Encephalopathy (Abstract #624). M. Green et al.
• Telaprevir-Based Regimen in Genotype 1 Hepatitis C Virus-Infected Patients with Prior Null Response, Partial Response or Relapse to Peginterferon/Ribavirin: REALIZE Trial Final Results (Abstract #625). P. Pockros et al.
• Anemia Had No Effect on Efficacy Outcomes in Treatment-Naïve Patients Who Received Telaprevir-Based Regimen in the ADVANCE and ILLUMINATE Phase 3 Studies (Abstract #626). F. Poordad et al.
• Antiviral Treatment for Hepatitis C Virus Is Associated with a Reduced Risk of Hepatocellular Carcinoma in a National Cohort of U.S. Veterans (Abstract #627). J. R. Kramer et al.

Other exciting data will be presented during DDW, including 31 clinical symposia, 20 translational symposia, 11 research symposia and seven state-of-the-art lectures on a range of GI topics. Additionally, the AGA Institute will sponsor four curbside consultant sessions. A total of 11 focused research roundtables and focused clinical updates — breakfast sessions designed to help participants choose the must-see basic science and clinical research abstracts presented during DDW — will occur throughout the meeting.
Foreign Language SessionsWe are excited to announce that this year, the AGA will offer sessions at DDW entirely in Spanish and Japanese. At The Best of AGA at DDW: En Español, presenters will highlight clinical advances from 2010 to 2011 and at DDW in inflammatory bowel disease, liver and pancreatic diseases, and endoscopic therapies, in Spanish (May 10, 2:15 p.m. CT, Room S405). Topics include hepatitis, pancreatitis and pancreatic cancer, intestinal inflammatory illness, new developments in endoscopy, and esophageal disease.
The Japanese language program will showcase some of the best abstracts submitted to DDW 2011 from Japan (May 10, 2:15 p.m. CT, Room S402), including:

• Regeneration of Damaged Colonic Tissue by Transplantation of Colonic Epithelial Stem Cells Maintained and Expanded in Vitro (Abstract #534r). S. Yui et al.
• Intestinal Epithelial Cells with Impaired Autophagy Lose their Adhesive Capacity in the Presence of TNF-α (Abstract #422r). M. Saito et al.
• Suppressive Effects of Pioglitazone, A PPAR Gamma Ligand, on Colorectal Carcinogenesis Induced in Obese KK-Ay Mice by Azoxymethane (Abstract #410r). A. Yanaka et al.
• Efficacy and Safety of Acotiamide (Z-338) Administered Orally for Four Weeks in Patients with Functional Dyspepsia: Results From a Randomized, Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled Phase III Trial in Japan (Abstract #122r). K. Matsueda et al.
• Oral Intake Oligosaccharide Synthase Decrease HbA1c in Diabetes Patients, Randomized Double Blind Placebo Control Trial-Intestinal Flora and Effect Forecast (Abstract #124r). M. Sasaki et al.
• A Study of the Efficacy of Proton Pump Inhibitors in Treating Upper Abdominal Symptoms (Abstract #374r). T. Kamada et al.

Trainee and Young GI TrackTo address the needs of physicians new to the field, the AGA is introducing a trainee and young GI track at DDW. The track consists of exciting new sessions that provide the necessary tools and information for a successful clinical practice career:

• Mentor and Advisor Networking Reception (May 7, 5:45 p.m. CT, CC11A, Hyatt Regency McCormick) — presents an opportunity for attendees to network and interact with peers and colleagues.
• Board Review Session (May 8, 1:45 p.m. CT, Room E451B) — will prepare attendees for the board certification exam using AGA's popular Digestive Diseases Self-Education Program^® (DDSEP) 6. DDSEP editors and authors will cover select questions, answers and critiques from the book.
• Career- and Professional-Related Issues (May 8, 5:45 p.m. CT, Room E451B) — provides practical advice on how to address common career and professional issues. Topics include choosing a practice type and location, developing an effective CV, learning how to interview successfully, negotiating contracts, and maintaining a healthy work-life balance.
• Immediate Advancement in Skills for Teaching (May 10, 8:30 a.m. CT, Room S505) — offers expert insight on how to successfully pursue a teacher/clinician educator career path; uses questions and vignettes to engage attendees in discussions about how to deliver effective presentations, use team-building learning techniques and manage small-group dynamics.
• Advance Your Leadership Skills: How to Rise to a Position of Leadership in Gastroenterology or Hepatology (May 10, 10:30 a.m. CT, Room S505) — helps participants develop a leadership growth plan, learn how to recognize steps for success and avoid issues, improve interpersonal communication skills, practice challenging decision-making, and more.
• Immediate Advancement in Skills for Clinical Practice (May 10, 2:15 p.m. CT, Room S505) — presents essential skills, including practice management and managerial skills, for building a successful clinical practice career. Topics cover how to deal with support staff, understanding the financial stresses and benefits of clinical practice, and more.

Rome Foundation-AGA Institute Lectureship Tarique Perera, MD, assistant professor in clinical psychiatry, will join Michael D. Gershon, MD, professor of pathology and cell biology, to bring their unique perspectives to a discussion that will include a look at the possibility of reversing functional GI disorders with serotonin agents. Both internationally renowned experts teach at Columbia University in New York. During Sunday's fifth annual Rome Foundation-AGA Institute Lectureship (May 8, 10:30 a.m. CT, Room E451A), these experts will provide a comprehensive overview of The Role of Neurogenesis in the Brain and Gut and its Implications for Functional GI and Motility Disorders. Co-chairs Lin Chang, MD, AGAF, and Douglas A. Drossman, MD, AGAF, agreed that bringing these experts together is a way to harmonize the knowledge from investigators in two different areas but on the same process. "This lecture will provide cutting-edge science with many potential practical and clinical implications," said Dr. Drossman.


*All sessions will be held in McCormick Place unless otherwise noted.
About the AGA Institute The American Gastroenterological Association is the trusted voice of the GI community. Founded in 1897, the AGA has grown to include 17,000 members from around the globe who are involved in all aspects of the science, practice and advancement of gastroenterology. The AGA Institute administers the practice, research and educational programs of the organization. http://www.gastro.org/.
Become an AGA fan on Facebook.
Join our LinkedIn group.
Follow us on Twitter @AmerGastroAssn.
Check out our videos on YouTube.

About DDW DDW is the largest international gathering of physicians, researchers and academics in the fields of gastroenterology, hepatology, endoscopy and gastrointestinal surgery. Jointly sponsored by the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases, the American Gastroenterological Association Institute, the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy and the Society for Surgery of the Alimentary Tract, DDW takes place May 7-10, 2011, at McCormick Place, Chicago, IL. The meeting showcases approximately 5,000 abstracts and hundreds of lectures on the latest advances in GI research, medicine and technology. For more information, visit http://www.ddw.org/.
Follow us on Twitter @DDWMeeting; hashtag #DDW11. Become a fan of DDW on Facebook.

Rexahn Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NYSE Amex: RNN), a clinical stage pharmaceutical company developing and commercializing potential best in class oncology and CNS therapeutics, today announced that it has enrolled two-thirds of the total patients needed for its Phase IIb clinical trial to study the safety and efficacy of Serdaxin® to treat major depressive disorder (MDD)...

Scott Rose, friend of the Blend who blogs at PoliticusUSA, does an incredible job of digging deeper into the case in the Lone Star State of H.S., who when she was 16, suffered a sexual assault by three Silsbee High School jocks. A jury indicted two of her assailants for sexual assault of a child. Star player Rahkeem Bolton pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor assault charge, allowing him to not only return to school, but to rejoin the team. But the story of humiliation and debasement only got worse.:

The United States Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear a review of the case brought by the woman, who is known only as HS. Lower courts had ruled that she was speaking for the school, rather than for herself, when serving on a cheerleading squad - meaning that she had no right to stay silent when coaches told her to applaud.

....As a cheerleader, HS served as a mouthpiece through which [the school district] could disseminate speech - namely, support for its athletic teams," the appeals court decision says. "This act constituted substantial interference with the work of the school because, as a cheerleader, HS was at the basketball game for the purpose of cheering, a position she undertook voluntarily."

Scott took a look at the climate in Silsbee that produced this tragedy (including the victim being charged with filing a "frivilous" lawsuit and fined $45K), both at the school and in city government that will curl your hair. From the must-read "Texas Cheerleader Who Was Assaulted Never Had A Chance":

I want the reader to have some idea of how important football is to Silsbee, Texas and then how important Rahkeem Bolton was to Silsbee, Texas high school football. The Silsbee Tigers play in Tiger Stadium. With its latest seating expansion, that stadium fits 10,000 spectators. Tickets, sold onsite or in the school administration building, are $5 for adults, $3 for students ahead of time but $5 at the door. On a good day, the box office could be $35,000, maybe $40K or more.

...The victim was told that preliminary results from the rape kit showed some DNA evidence that could inculpate the defendants. Yet the victim kept hearing that due to case backlogs, the full rape kit analysis results wouldn't be ready for four months, five months, one year - depends which report you read. There is an appearance that the can kept getting kicked down the road for the date the victim was being given for when the rape kit results would be ready. The victim now says she wants to study forensic science, motivated in part by the delay in the processing of her rape kit.

Does it sound right, that a community taking in $35K, $40K per home game football match can't get a rape kit processed any faster than that? I called the public information department of the Texas Department of Public Safety Crime Laboratory DNA Section. I asked "Is it possible for somebody to get expedited rape kit results from the DNA Section of your Crime Lab?" They told me "Yes. If a prosecutor or investigator says they have a case coming up and need results promptly, we can have the complete rape kit results for them within three weeks."

The treatment of this teen girl by the justice system was beyond heinous. And since this is Texas, you know bible-beating hypocrisy -- and add in conflict of instance -- had to fit into this story at some point.

With persistence, the family by June, 2009 got the criminal justice system to convene a second grand jury. Attorney David Barlow was named special prosecutor. The jury indicted Rakheem Bolton on a charge of sexual assault of a child. A second football player, Christian Rountree was indicted as well. A third football player originally charged in the case was left out on the second go-round. Barlow said that the grand jury didn't have jurisdiction over him.

Reverend Billy Ray Robinson, President of the Jasper, Texas branch of the NAACP, protested the indictment in the NAACP's name. Reverend Robinson is, according to one local source, Rakheem Bolton's great uncle. The video of the Reverend's criticism of the indictment ends with appeals to God and Jesus.

Please click over to PoliticusUSA to read the whole sordid tale. It's hard not to boil over with anger. This story needs wide circulation.

James Lasdun on the conclusion of a terrifying, spectacularly entertaining saga

I don't suppose Philip Larkin had rape and torture in mind when he wrote "They fuck you up, your mum and dad", but when a character in one of Edward St Aubyn's Melrose novels recalls the poem's more forgiving next line – "They may not mean to, but they do" – Patrick Melrose has good reason to scoff, having been both raped and tortured by his own father. "Who says they don't mean to?" he snarls.

The first three books, a kind of blackly comic Anglo-Saxon Oresteia, staged, respectively, the original violation on the family estate in the south of France, a fury-lashed drug binge in New York where the adult Patrick flies in to pick up his father's ashes, and a tentative catharsis at an English country house party (complete with Princess Margaret), where Patrick's determination to see past his own rage and hatred yields at least the hope of a way forward. The slashing intelligence of Patrick's analysis of himself and his upper-crust world, combined with the epigrammatic wit of the dialogue (sometimes compared to Martin Amis, though Stoppard seems a closer match), gave what might have been a narrow confessional exercise the reach and resonance of tragedy. That the books also happened to be a smouldering portrait of a class largely banished from fiction in recent decades, despite being as divertingly grotesque as ever, was an added bonus.

The ending, it appears, was a false ending. As in Beowulf, our hero turned out to have a second monster to face: his mother. Mother's Milk, shortlisted for the 2006 Booker, confronts a shakily married Patrick with a new round of torment, this time in the form of disinheritance, as his ailing, spiritually inclined, indomitably narcissistic mother makes arrangements to hand over the estate in France – the family's last asset – to a new age hustler and his "Transpersonal Foundation".

Disinheritance being a relatively mild form of parental cruelty (at least on Patrick's scale), the comedy of Mother's Milk was fractionally more genial than that of its predecessors, with the softer targets of new age charlatanism and self-serving philanthropy replacing the trilogy's lethal nexus of snobbery, sycophancy and sadism. The book also broke from the single-event structure of each of the earlier novels, spreading its action across several years so as to allow, among other things, a tenderly observed study of Patrick's two sons growing from infancy to childhood under the shadow of their father's resurgent demons.

At Last is the final instalment of (dare we call it?) the Melrosiad. Having given her son the poisonously alluring task of organising her assisted suicide in Mother's Milk, only to decide to go on making everyone's life miserable instead, Eleanor Melrose has finally died. The novel, returning to the classical unities of the earlier books, takes place at her funeral and the gathering that follows. Patrick, now semi-separated from his redoubtable wife Mary, is fresh out of detox in the depression wing of the Priory, where he has heroically (for him) resisted the tempting catastrophe of 20-year-old Becky – "beautiful, available and mentally ill" – and is trying very hard to stay on the straight and narrow.

In reassembling what remains of the Melrose clan and their hangers-on, the funeral provides Patrick with an opportunity to circle back over the events that have made him what he is, and to subject the murky turbulence of his life to the clarifying rigour of his intellect for one last, mighty and – if he can get past the various false consolations that offer themselves along the way – redemptive effort of self-scrutiny.

Halfway through the book we discover that, between detox and the funeral, Patrick has learned of an unexpected legacy held in trust for him until his mother's death and worth over $2m. This seems an odd move, at first, in a story partly about the trauma of being disinherited. But it's actually characteristic of the novel's casually subtle skill. In muffling the blow of the disinheritance, it forces Patrick to turn his attention to the graver harm inflicted on him by his mother: her abandonment of him as a child ("She left with relief but without Patrick", goes one of the more chillingly elegant phrases describing her escape from her awful marriage) and, graver still, her earlier complicity in her husband's maniacal sadism.

"How could Eleanor not have known?" Patrick is compelled to wonder as his adult mind stalks back through the scream-filled corridors of his childhood. All his life he has clung to his frailly comforting view of his mother as "the co-victim of David's tempestuous malice". But now it is necessary for him to acknowledge the evidence of her collusion (there are letters from an au pair who realised what was going on, and from one of the many childhood friends who were also abused while visiting), and to confront the unpleasant truth that he had been "a toy in the sadomasochistic relationship between his parents". Necessary, because without probing to the core of the original crime – the "miasma", as the Greeks put it – there can be no hope of cleansing himself of the spreading toxicity of its effects.

This act of investigative self-repair has all along been the underlying project of these extraordinary novels. It is the source of their urgent emotional intensity, and the determining principle of their construction. Not much gets into these books that doesn't bear directly on Patrick's predicament. Exposition is kept to a minimum; there are few descriptive passages, no digressions. For all their brilliant social satire, they are closer to the tight, ritualistic poetic drama of another era than the expansive comic fiction of our own.

After a somewhat bumpy start (it has to be said that both the comedy and the spleen in the opening sections feel a little routine), At Last lifts off into the same crackling atmosphere of psychological emergency as its predecessors. Like them it becomes something one experiences increasingly as a kind of drastic masque or rite, rather than simply a piece of polished storytelling. The supporting characters have their own brightly sketched autonomy (an old aunt "looking exhausted by her own haughtiness"; a Spanish chauffeur "with the merry laugh of a man who is used to being exotically insulted by his employer several times a day"), but they also function as unashamedly emblematic presences in Patrick's intricate internal ceremony, each bringing some system of thought or set of reflexes into play as the afternoon progresses.

There are a philosopher and a shrink to light Patrick down the paths of intellectual and psychoanalytic inquiry. There are his wife, ex-lover and a pretty waitress to keep the puzzle of love and sex firmly before him, with his boys arriving later to remind him of the stakes. There is the coffin containing his mother to concentrate his thoughts on the need to mourn "not the end of closeness but the end of the longing for closeness". And there is also, in the psychological space he describes as "the long gallery of substitutes substituting for substitutes", a stand-in for his father, in the person of his father's old friend and sycophant, Nicholas Pratt, who reprises the fiendish snobbery of the old order and is satisfyingly, symbolically and amusingly felled by an encounter with a member of the lower orders, a stray madwoman whose immunity to his put-downs brings on an apoplexy.

Even the new agers from the Transpersonal Foundation, represented by the dim-witted but well-meaning Annette, have a part to play; their gobbledegook about vision quests and shamanic healing rituals acting as both foil and stimulant to Patrick's quest for real insight and lasting recovery. (There's a fascinating relationship between the whole new age business and his trajectory through these books. A few pages after mocking his mother's talk of "power animals", for instance, Patrick remembers his own rather crucial act of animal magic as he looked out through the window during the rape, at "the gecko that had taken custody of his soul in a moment of crisis and dashed out onto the roof, to safety and to exile".)

Much of the pleasure of At Last comes from the clash of these different perspectives as they shift and collide in Patrick's mercilessly lucid mind. How close they bring him to what he seems to be seeking (namely an accommodation with the second part of Larkin's syllogism: "But they were fucked up in their turn"), I'm not sure. His state of grace at the end seems volatile, to say the least. But it's probably the nearest thing to "closure" (as Annette would no doubt call it) that you could hope to reach in this terrifying, spectacularly entertaining saga.

James Lasdun's It's Beginning to Hurt is published by Vintage.

A Microsoft-sponsored survey in conjunction with the National Cyber Security Alliance says the nation's school administrators think they are doing a good job teaching children about online safety, but 36 percent of their teachers receive no training in cybersecurity issues.

"America's K-12 teachers are ill-prepared to educate students on the basics of online safety, security and ethics, and more than a third of teachers receive no training in cybersecurity issues, according to a coalition of government and private technology experts that released a study today. A survey by the National Cyber Security Alliance, a non-profit group that works with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to promote computer security awareness, found that the nation's school administrators overwhelmingly (81 percent) say they are doing a good job teaching children about online safety. But 36 percent of their teachers receive no training in the issue, the study found...."

By Donna Deedy, special to ProPublica with Michael Grabell, ProPublica

In the late 1990s, U.S. policymakers approved a plan to turn plutonium from nuclear weapons into fuel for commercial reactors. The first-of-its kind plant, now being built in South Carolina, was intended to reduce the Cold War stockpile and the threat of nuclear material theft while supplying the country’s energy needs.

More than a decade later, the mixed oxide fuel (MOX) plant is running into mounting troubles, including long delays, soaring costs and the lack of utilities committed to use the new fuel in their reactors.

But there’s another aspect of the story that has received little attention. Two of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s safety reviewers for the project say the NRC has taken shortcuts on safety to avoid delaying the construction. Work on the facility was allowed to begin, they say, before some of the most essential questions were fully answered. They have been particularly concerned about the danger of chemical explosions, the adequacy of the ventilation and radioactive waste disposal systems and the way the plutonium will be tracked as it is processed.

Alex Murray, the lead chemical process engineer on the NRC review team, has said in public documents that he was removed from the project in 2007, after he repeatedly warned that safety plans to prevent a chemical explosion risk specific to this type of plant were inadequate and could lead to a significant release of radioactive material.

After Murray was reassigned, the NRC hired Dan Tedder, a chemical engineering professor from the Georgia Institute of Technology who had participated in technical reviews for the Department of Energy since 1979. Tedder said he resigned less than a year later because he believed that the plant’s chemical engineering plans were incomplete and felt that his concerns were brushed aside.

“I really don’t feel that the NRC is doing the thorough type of analyses that I believe are appropriate,” he said. “Their primary focus is staying on schedule and not doing anything to delay the applicant, rather than identifying dominant risks and safety issues.”

The NRC said the reviewers’ objections were considered and all outstanding issues resolved as part of the safety evaluation, which was finalized in December. Studying dissenting opinions is a built-in part of the licensing review and there was no pressure to speed up the process, the agency said.

“We wouldn’t allow or license a facility or a fuel if we didn’t think it was safe,” said NRC spokesman David McIntyre.

The MOX plant is the first new construction authorized by the NRC since the Three Mile Island accident in 1979. It is located at the federal Savannah River Site, an old bomb-making complex near Aiken, S.C. Originally estimated at $1.4 billion, it is now expected to cost taxpayers nearly $5 billion. It won’t begin producing fuel until 2016 at the earliest, about a decade behind schedule.

The idea of using weapons-grade plutonium to fuel nuclear power plants surfaced after the end of the Cold War when the United States and Russia each agreed to dispose of 34 metric tons of plutonium, the core material of some atomic bombs.

Lawmakers, the nuclear industry and some scientists pushed the United States to follow a technique being used in Europe – the reprocessing of spent fuel to make MOX. France and Belgium have successfully operated MOX manufacturing plants since the 1970s using plutonium from commercial reactor waste. But the U.S. MOX plant will be the first to mass-produce fuel using weapons-grade plutonium.

The NRC and some experts say operations can be adjusted to accommodate the different characteristics of the weapons-grade material. But others note that there has been a history of accidents in the United States when similar methods were used to process plutonium for military purposes.

At Savannah River, workers in a separate facility will extract plutonium from the weapons’ cores. The plutonium will then be transferred to the MOX plant where it will be purified, chemically processed, blended with uranium and turned into pellets. The pellets will be loaded into fuel rods for commercial reactors.

The plant is being built and will be operated by Shaw Areva MOX Services, a partnership of the Shaw Group, a large engineering firm based in Louisiana, and Areva, a company primarily owned by the French government that has worldwide interests in all phases of the nuclear industry.

In a blog post last month, Areva Inc. CEO Jacques Besnainou criticized the news media for sensationalizing the dangers of MOX, saying the fuel is safe and has been rigorously tested. He said the company values transparency and encouraged readers to “learn the facts of this issue.”

But Areva declined to answer ProPublica’s questions about the plant, as did Shaw and a spokesman for their partnership. Instead, they referred questions to the U.S. Department of Energy, which declined requests to interview officials in charge of the program. A department spokesman sent a statement saying the DOE will review “all aspects of the safety of nuclear technology” in light of the crisis at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi plant and that the MOX facility will comply with all requirements before going into operation.

The NRC set up a two-step licensing process for the Savannah River MOX plant. Construction would be authorized after it was determined that Shaw Areva’s design and safety plans provided reasonable protection against natural disasters and catastrophic accidents. The NRC would then verify that the plant was properly built before issuing an operating license.

But the NRC was under pressure from some lawmakers and the industry to streamline the regulatory process. It decided to defer some of the safety decisions until the operating phase. Both Murray and Tedder were troubled by that approach.

The MOX plant’s licensing process has also been criticized by a judge for the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board, which settles disputes for the NRC. In a 2008 hearing involving a separate but related matter, Judge Michael Farrar, the panel’s chairman, questioned whether “the constant pressure … to ‘do it faster’ ” could have a “substantive impact” on the NRC’s review and its safety culture.

“In my judgment, this proceeding has exposed matters that might indicate that that culture is being undermined,” he wrote at one point in the case.

As far back as 2000, the Nuclear Energy Institute, which represents the nuclear industry, had submitted comments saying the rules for the MOX plant safety review were “overly prescriptive.” Steven Kerekes, an institute spokesman, said in a phone interview that the industry was only encouraging the NRC to make its requirements more flexible.

Murray, the son of a prominent nuclear scientist, has worked at the NRC since 1997 and has a background in nuclear fuel reprocessing. He has been particularly concerned about the possibility of “red oil” explosions, an inherent risk in nuclear reprocessing. Red oil forms during chemical processes when an organic solution comes into contact with nitric acid. At high temperatures and concentrations, it can lead to runaway reactions and explosions.

Red oil incidents happened at the Savannah River bomb site and at the Hanford nuclear reservation in Washington in 1953 and again at Savannah River in 1975. One of the most serious accidents occurred in 1993 at a plant in Tomsk, Russia. A red oil explosion destroyed the building’s walls and sent a radioactive plume into the surrounding communities.

The NRC referred Murray’s concerns to a panel of agency staff and the federally funded Center for Nuclear Waste Regulatory Analyses, which both confirmed in 2007 that the MOX plant’s red oil safety strategies were inadequate. But they added that the matter could be deferred until the operating license review, and the NRC allowed construction to continue.

Murray has said in memos and e-mails to management that he felt his safety concerns were dismissed. After raising them, he noted that he was removed from the MOX project and reassigned against his will to other NRC projects. He was also appointed to an NRC task force charged with reviewing the agency’s safety culture.

“This redirection, isolation and ostracism have given the impression to some staff members that if one raises significant issues, there seems to be a potential for negative consequences,” Murray said in a September 2010 letter to NRC commissioners.

McIntyre of the NRC disputed that. “There has been no retaliation against anyone for raising safety issues,” he said.

Several years after Murray raised his concerns, Shaw Areva modified its red oil safety strategy. An independent analysis of the new plans by Brookhaven National Laboratory concluded in 2009 that red oil explosions would be “highly unlikely.” However, the Brookhaven study didn’t assess what might happen in the event of internal fires and outside events, such as earthquakes or power outages, which led to the crisis in Japan.

While the Savannah River Site is on a fault line, it’s not on the edge of a tectonic plate, as Japan is. Japan has suffered 10 earthquakes of 7.0 or greater magnitude in the past decade, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The last major earthquake to strike South Carolina occurred in 1886 in Charleston, about 110 miles east of the site, and was estimated to measure 7.3 on the Richter scale.

Vinod Mubayi, a nuclear physicist and one of the authors of the Brookhaven study, said in an interview that a red oil explosion would be unlikely even in the event of an earthquake or blackout. The plant has back-up generators and multiple layers of safeguards.

“I think they’ve taken a lot of precautions in making sure that the lessons have been learned” from previous accidents at other processing facilities, he said.

After Murray was reassigned in 2007, the NRC hired Tedder as a senior technical reviewer. A former researcher at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Tedder had expertise in plutonium chemistry and fuel reprocessing.

The first step in safely designing any chemical project, Tedder said, is establishing the quantity, rate and flow of material as it is being processed. Those calculations determine the size of equipment and serve as the basis for the plant’s configuration. The figures also are used for tracking plutonium. But Tedder said Shaw Areva hadn’t fully developed that formula when construction began. He said he was told it would cost too much money.

The NRC said that information has since been provided and that it meets regulatory requirements.

Three local groups that oppose the plant have also challenged Shaw Areva’s tracking plans for plutonium, and judges for the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board have agreed to hear their complaints.

In September 2008, Tedder’s allegations turned up in tce, a British trade journal for chemical engineers. The article quoted him as saying that he was shocked when he began work and discovered that basic design information was incomplete.

“The NRC didn’t want me to criticize the applicant and refused to forward my questions or request more information,” he told tce. “They harassed me about my reports and wanted me to water them down.”

The trade journal article led to an investigation by the NRC inspector general, who found no indication that agency management had “ignored” Tedder’s concerns. The report said a chemical engineering review team found that some of Tedder’s concerns weren’t relevant to the NRC’s safety evaluation. Other issues he raised were sent to other reviewers for analysis. The inspector general made no recommendations for corrective actions.

Tedder told ProPublica that when he met with the inspectors at a Starbucks near his home, they told him they would be investigating only whether the NRC was following its procedures, not the merit of his concerns.

The NRC’s jurisdiction, he noted, is narrow. The agency regulates hazardous chemicals produced from radioactive materials. But it does not identify and protect against all chemical hazards.

For instance, the chemical mixing and storage building that adjoins the MOX plant is regulated by the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration. The NRC says it’s responsible for any event that could affect the MOX plant, but safety reviewers said that dual setup could leave workers vulnerable if an accident occurred.

He said it’s also unclear how all the radioactive waste from the plant will be tracked and stored. Waste issues fall under the jurisdiction of the Energy Department, which is building a new plant where liquid waste will be treated, mixed into cement and packed into 55-gallon drums. But it has not been decided yet where the waste will ultimately be disposed of.

Although the plant’s operating license is still pending, the NRC finalized its safety assessment in December. Shaw Areva said it had spent $80 million developing safety analyses. The NRC said it had held 70 meetings, conducted 100 in-office reviews and submitted more than 600 questions to Shaw Areva for revised or more detailed safety strategies. The plant, both say, will operate safely.

Tedder and Murray are less confident.

“We need congressional hearings on this,” Tedder said. “The NRC review of MOX is not comprehensive. As a professional engineer, I find this position unacceptable and inconsistent with accepted engineering practices.”

Incremental improvements to agriculture have been which have included adoption of two-year crop rotations, precision agriculture technologies, classically bred and genetically engineered crops, and reduced- or no-tillage management systems.

US David researchers are recommending innovative agricultural systems such as organic farming, grass-fed and other alternative livestock production systems, mixed crop and livestock systems, and perennial grains. And it would require significant changes in market structures, policy incentives and public funding for agricultural science, according to the report.

Toward Sustainable Agricultural Systems in the 21st Century (570 pages)

Modern American agriculture has had an impressive history of increasing productivity that has resulted in affordable food, feed, fiber, and more recently, biofuel crops for domestic purposes and agricultural exports. Although the U.S. domestic and international markets are much larger than they were in the 1900s, farmers of the 21st century produce enough agricultural products to meet the current demands of both markets on the same acreage as a century ago. In addition, the average percentage of disposable income spent by U.S. consumers on food has declined from about 21 percent in 1950 to 9.4 percent in 2004.

Although small and medium-sized farms represent more than 90 percent of total farm numbers and manage about half of U.S. farmland and other farm assets, U.S. agriculture has become increasingly dependent on large-scale, high-input farms that specialize in a few crops and concentrated animal production practices for most U.S farm products. In 2007, the largest 2 percent of U.S. farms were responsible for 59 percent of total farm sales. Large farms have rapidly increased their share of total U.S. farm production value, while midsized commercial family farms that are important to rural community social and economic life are declining in number and importance. These trends can be partly attributed to technical innovations, economies of scale, and the increasing consolidation of food processing, distribution, and retailing sectors.

Many modern agricultural practices have unintended negative consequences, or externalized costs of production, that are mostly unaccounted for in agricultural productivity measurements or by farm enterprise budgets. Loss of water quality through nitrogen and phosphorus loadings in rivers, streams, and ground water contributes to dramatic shifts in aquatic ecosystems and hypoxic zones. Agricultural pesticides can contaminate streams, ground water, and wells. Excessive use of certain pesticides could be harmful to agricultural workers and might pose food safety risks. The nutrient density of 43 garden crops (mostly vegetables) has been shown to have declined between 1950 and 1999 in the United States, suggesting possible tradeoffs between yield and nutrient content. Agriculture contributes to total greenhouse-gas emissions, particularly carbon dioxide (CO2) from synthetic agrichemical production, nitrous oxide (N2O) from soil management activities, and methane (CH4) from enteric fermentation. Some modern agricultural practices adversely affect soil quality by affecting soil physical, chemical, and biological factors through erosion, compaction, acidification, and salinization. They also reduce biological activity as a result of pesticide applications, excessive fertilization, and loss of organic matter. Industrial confinement of livestock systems is associated with the decline in a number of minor breeds and the accelerated development of genetically similar hogs, poultry, and beef and dairy cattle. Concerns have been raised about the welfare of animals that are kept in large-scale confinement operations. Although on-farm productivity has been increasing, the aggregate value of net farm income received by farmers has not changed dramatically over the last 40 years, primarily due to rising prices of external inputs, including cost of hybrid and genetically engineered (GE) seeds, fuel, and synthetic fertilizers. More than half of U.S. farm operators work off-farm to supplement their income and to obtain health care and retirement benefit plans. The profitability of many U.S. farms, especially large grain producers, is partly determined by federal government commodity support programs.

Sustainable Agriculture

Sustainability has been described as the ability to provide for core societal needs in a way that can be readily continued into the indefinite future without significant negative effects. Accordingly, measuring progress toward sustainability will be inherently subjective if different groups in society have different goals and objectives for agriculture. Even with broad agreement for certain goals, the relative importance assigned to one goal over another will be highly contested. Developing a widely accepted vision of what agricultural sustainability should be is beyond the scope of this report. However, four generally agreed-upon goals help define a sustainable agriculture:

Satisfy human food, feed, and fiber needs, and contribute to biofuel needs.

Enhance environmental quality and the resource base.

Sustain the economic viability of agriculture.

Enhance the quality of life for farmers, farm workers, and society as a whole.

The committee concluded that if U.S. agricultural production is to meet the challenge of maintaining long-term adequacy of food, fiber, feed, and biofuels under scarce or declining resources and under challenges posed by climate change and to minimize negative outcomes, agricultural production will have to substantially accelerate progress toward the four sustainability goals. Such acceleration needs to be undergirded by research and policy evolution that are designed to reduce tradeoffs and enhance synergies between the four goals and to manage risks and uncertainties associated with their pursuit.
Measuring Progress Toward Sustainability

Sustainability is best evaluated not as a particular end state, but rather as a process that moves farming systems along a trajectory toward greater sustainability on each of the four goals. For this report, the committee’s definition of sustainable agriculture does not make a sharp dichotomy between conventional and sustainable farming systems, not only because farming enterprises reflect many combinations of farming practices, organization forms, and management strategies, but also because most types of farming systems can potentially contribute to achieving various sustainability goals and objectives. Pursuit of sustainability is not a matter of defining sustainable or unsustainable agriculture, but rather of assessing whether choices of farming practices and farming systems would lead to a more or less sustainable system as measured by the four goals.

Finding ways to measure progress along a sustainability trajectory is an important part of the experimentation and adaptive management process.

If U.S. agriculture is to address the challenges both incremental and transformative changes will be necessary. Therefore, the committee proposes two parallel and overlapping efforts to ensure continuous improvement in the sustainability performance of U.S. agriculture: incremental and transformative. The incremental approach is an expansion and enhancement of many ongoing efforts that would be directed toward improving the sustainability performance of all farms, irrespective of size or farming systems type, through development and implementation of specific sustainability-focused practices, many of which are the focus of ongoing research and with varying levels of adoption. The transformative approach aims for major improvement in sustainability performance by approaching 21st century agriculture from a systems perspective that considers a multiplicity of interacting factors. The transformative approach would involve:

Developing collaborative efforts between disciplinary experts and civil society to construct a collective and integrated vision for a future of U.S. agriculture that balances and enhances the four sustainability goals.

Encouraging and accelerating the development of new markets and legal frameworks that embody and pursue the collective vision of the sustainable future of U.S. agriculture.

Pursuing research and extension that integrate multiple disciplines relevant to all four goals of agricultural sustainability.

Identifying and researching the potential of new forms of production systems that represent a dramatic departure from (rather than incremental improvement of) the dominant systems of present-day American agriculture.

Identifying and researching system characteristics that increase resilience and adaptability in the face of changing conditions.

Adjusting the mix of farming system types and the practices used in them at the landscape level to address major regional problems such as water overdraft and environmental contamination.

Soil and plant tissue tests, nutrient management plans, and precision agriculture technologies help farmers increase productivity, input-use efficiency, and economic returns, by reducing unnecessary use of agricultural fertilizers, pesticides, or water. Experimental and long-term field studies suggest that the impacts and economic benefits of those practices and tools can be variable across time and space.

Manure, compost, and green manure, as often used in organic systems, can reduce the need for synthetic fertilizer and hence reduce the energy used for fertilizer production. Many farms featured as case studies in this report make successful use of on-farm inputs for soil fertility (for example, animal and green manure), which insulates them from fluctuations in costs of synthetic fertilizer. Published studies, however, show variable results as to whether systems using commercial fertilizers or systems using cover crop-based or animal manure-based nutrient management have higher profits. Those studies often do not include environmental costs and benefits. Because the release of nutrients from manure, compost, and green manure depends on various factors, including temperature, soil properties, and microbial activities in soil, their application has to be timed appropriately to maximize nutrient uptake by plants, and hence productivity and net economic return.

Integrated pest management (IPM) research has identified promising options for improving soil suppressiveness and inducing crop resistance to some diseases and pests in addition to classical biological and ecological pest management. The need to study weeds, diseases, pests, and crops as an interacting complex has been recognized. Adoption of IPM has been reasonable on some crops, but overall IPM use is lagging despite its potential for reducing chemical use.

Livestock genetic improvement can contribute to improving sustainability by increasing feed-use efficiency and by selecting traits to improve animal health and welfare. Improvements in feed conversion through genetics, nutrition, and management have reduced manure and nutrient excretion per unit animal product produced and reduced land required for production.

Business and Marketing Strategies

Diversification of farm enterprises can provide multiple income streams for farming operations. Producing a range of farm crops and animal products can enhance the stability and resilience of farm businesses and can decrease the volatility of farm income. Studies that document the economic effects of modern strategies for enterprise diversification are sparse.

In addition to using production strategies that reduce costs, farmers can increase their farm-level income by increasing the value of their products through sales to niche markets (such as organic or health-food markets) or by selling their products directly to consumers (direct sales) to obtain a larger proportion of the consumers’ dollar spent on the product and to gain control over the prices they get for their products.

Practices for Improving Community Well-being

Diverse farm systems, diversified landscapes (for example, inclusion of non-crop vegetation), and farming practices that improve water and air quality can contribute to community and social well-being. Some direct marketing strategies, such as direct sales at farmers’ markets, community supported agriculture, farm-to-school programs, and agritourism, connect farmers to the community and can contribute to community economic security, but lack underpinning research and extension.


If you liked this article, please give it a quick review on ycombinator or StumbleUpon. Thanks

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, Congresswoman Doris Matsui (D-CA) introduced the Safe and Complete Streets Act of 2011, legislation that would require each state’s department of transportation and metropolitan planning organization to put in place a Complete Streets policy that ensures all Federally-funded transportation projects accommodate the safety and convenience of all users. Complete Streets policies ensures roadways are built with all users in mind – including bicyclists, public transportation vehicles and riders, motorists, freight vehicles, and pedestrians of all ages and abilities. This bipartisan legislation is cosponsored by Congresman Steven LaTourette (R-OH).

“Complete Streets policies are a win-win for local communities: they save lives and create forward-looking projects that provide lasting value,” Matsui said. “I have seen firsthand the interest in Complete Streets on the local level, and a Federal Complete Streets standard will ensure a consistent approach for all of our transportation investments.”

“We are so pleased to have Congressional champions who are committed to creating safer streets,” said Barbara McCann, Executive Director of the National Complete Streets Coalition. “Representatives Matsui and LaTourette are being responsive to communities across the country that are adopting state and local Complete Streets policies and want to see a consistent commitment to safety reflected in federal transportation investments as well.”

The Urban Land Institute has estimated that carbon emissions from transportation would be 41 percent above today’s levels in 2030 if driving is not curbed, and a recent study by the Texas Transportation Institute found that providing more travel options, including public transportation, bicycling and walking, is an important element in reducing traffic congestion. The study concluded that congestion was responsible for an annual $78 billion loss in fuel during traffic jams in 2007, an increase from $57.6 billion in 2000.

“Especially at a time when gas prices are putting enormous pressure on the pocketbooks of American consumers, more and more people are looking for alternatives to driving,” added Matsui. “However, far too often, our roads are designed with one thing in mind – trying to move vehicle traffic as quickly as possible. The risks of such design are apparent in the number of pedestrian and bicyclist deaths and injuries we see every year, and often discourage more people from considering other transportation methods. By completing our streets, we can open up our roadways to pedestrians and cyclists – helping to ease congestion and providing an alternative to gas powered vehicles. In doing so, we take strides to fight air pollution and global warming and improve our public health and safety.”

In 2008 alone, over 5,000 pedestrians and bicyclists died on U.S. roads and more than 120,000 were injured. One study found that designing roads for pedestrian travel by installing raised medians and redesigning sidewalks and intersections reduced pedestrian risk by 28%. That means that seniors walking to the grocery store or church and children walking to school are put at unnecessary risk.

Congresswoman Matsui’s home state of California was one of the first states to put a Complete Streets policy in place, and the Sacramento region’s Blueprint for growth has been a model for other metropolitan areas. The Blueprint incorporates Complete Streets polices on the local level, and the Safe and Complete Streets Act would do so on a national level.

“Complete Streets polices are designed to ensure streets, intersections and trails are designed to make them easier to use and maximize their safety," said Mike McKeever, Executive Director of SACOG. "This legislation will encourage Americans to live more active and healthy lifestyles, while also providing more travel options, and cutting down on traffic congestion. SACOG applauds Congresswoman Matsui’s leadership in helping to implement our region’s Blueprint policies on a national level.”

Terry Preston, Complete Streets Coordinator fo WALKSacramento, added, "WALKSacramento applauds Rep Matsui for her strong leadership in support of Safe and Complete Streets in our communities. The Complete Streets Act (add correct name) will provide needed direction and guidelines for federally supported road design and construction. Pedestrians are consistently overrepresented in traffic injury and death statistics due to poor road design. Yet, our need for sustainable communities calls on us to support more walking trips to the park, the bus, our childrens’ school and elsewhere. We need safer, healthier and more complete streets. WALKSacramento looks forward to working with Rep Matsui on developing and enacting a federal transportation measure that will complete our streets and meet the needs of all users regardless of age, race, income or disability. Our roads belong to all of us."

A copy of the Safe and Complete Streets Act of 2011 is available HERE. A copy of a Dear Colleague letter being circulated in support of the legislation is available HERE

 

Mara Lee is the Communications Director for Congresswoman Doris Matsui.
 

The Motorola Solutions Foundation, the charitable arm of Motorola Solutions, Inc. (NYSE: MSI), congratulates three of its sponsored FIRST teams for their outstanding performance at the 2011 National Championship in St. Louis. FIRST, which stands for "For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology," engages students in hands-on science and leadership activities through student-built robotic competitions. Motorola Solutions has been an avid supporter of FIRST for 20 years. "A study by Brandeis University reinforces why it is so important to support competitions like FIRST by highlighting that students who compete with FIRST are more than twice as likely to pursue a career in science and technology, and more than four times as likely to pursue engineering specifically," said Karen Tandy, senior vice president of public affairs at Motorola Solutions. "These students inspire us all with their creativity and imagination, and Motorola Solutions is proud to work with FIRST to help students realize their passion for discovery and innovation and to help cultivate and nurture a deep interest in science and technology." KEY FACTS

• After three rigorous days of competition among 352 teams, Motorola Solutions-sponsored Wildstang (Rolling Meadows, Ill.) won the overall FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC®), one program in the FIRST Championship. Wildstang is the largest FRC team in the United States and is mentored by several Motorola Solutions employee volunteers.
• The Motorola Solutions-sponsored FRC team Raiders (Patchogue, N.Y.) won the Spirit Award for its community service in Haiti. Using the engineering skills learned in FIRST, the team developed five water filtration systems that delivered a total of 40,000 liters of safe water to the people of Haiti.
• The Motorola Solutions-sponsored Girl Scout FIRST LEGO© League (FLL®) Team Genius (Atlanta) received the "Making a Difference" Award for its development of a wheelchair back-up camera. Using skills developed in FIRST, the team created a back-up camera to allow disabled individuals to safely maneuver their wheelchairs in reverse.
• Motorola Solutions and the Motorola Solutions Foundation have supported FIRST for 20 years. This past year, the Motorola Solutions Foundation provided $820,000 in grants to support 323 FIRST teams. In addition, 40 Motorola Solutions employees volunteered as mentors to FIRST teams.
• Many Motorola Solutions employees have volunteered with FIRST for more than 10 years. Some employees, such as Celestino Alem from the Raiders team, were previous FIRST participants themselves. Alem was a member of the Raiders in high school and returned to volunteer as a mentor while he finished college. Using the skills he learned from FIRST, Alem starts his career as an engineer at Motorola Solutions this summer.
• FIRST engages students in hands-on science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) through mentor-led teams. Each FRC team has six weeks to design and build a robot that can perform competitive functions. This year, the FRC robots used mechanical arms to place inflatable tubes on metal pegs to form the FIRST logo. From more than 2,000 teams around the globe, 590 teams were selected to compete at the national competition in St. Louis. Nine of those teams were sponsored by Motorola Solutions.
• FIRST was founded in 1989 to inspire students to be STEM leaders. Through four programming levels, including Junior FIRST LEGO League (JFLL®), FIRST LEGO League (FLL), FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) and FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC®), the organization engages 6- to 18-year-olds in mentor-based programs that build STEM skills, while fostering life skills such as self-confidence, communication and leadership. Today, more than 250,000 students worldwide benefit from FIRST programs every year.

SUPPORTING QUOTES Matt Blakely, director, Motorola Solutions Foundation "We salute all of our FIRST teams around the world for their creativity and commitment to solving difficult challenges with dependable solutions. Through FIRST, science and engineering come alive. We are thrilled to see many of our teams recognized on the national level for their commitment to engineering principles and community service." SUPPORTING RESOURCES Motorola Solutions Foundation website: www.motorolasolutions.com/giving Facebook: www.facebook.com/msifoundation Twitter: @MSIFoundation Video: Motorola Solutions at the 2011 FIRST© Championship About Motorola Solutions Foundation The Motorola Solutions Foundation is the charitable and philanthropic arm of Motorola Solutions. With employees located around the globe, Motorola Solutions seeks to benefit the communities where it operates. The company achieves this by making strategic grants, forging strong community partnerships and fostering innovation. The Motorola Solutions Foundation focuses its funding on public safety, disaster relief, employee programs and education, especially science, technology, engineering and math programming. For more information on Motorola Solutions Corporate and Foundation giving, visit www.motorolasolutions.com/giving. About Motorola Solutions Motorola Solutions is a leading provider of mission-critical communication products and services for enterprise and government customers. Through leading-edge innovation and communications technology, it is a global leader that enables its customers to be their best in the moments that matter. Motorola Solutions trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker "MSI." To learn more, visit www.motorolasolutions.com. For ongoing news, please visit our media center or subscribe to our news feed. MOTOROLA, MOTOROLA SOLUTIONS and the Stylized M Logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Motorola Trademark Holdings, LLC and are used under license. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. ©2011 Motorola Solutions, Inc. All rights reserved.

The data from Roche's Lucentis-Avastin study is out, and as promised, it shows that using the cancer drug to treat macular degeneration is riskier than using Lucentis for the same purpose. The company-funded analysis of 78,000 Medicare patients found an 11 percent greater risk of death among Avastin patients and a 57 percent higher risk of stroke.

Presented at an ophthalmology conference, the data comes on the heels of results from a U.S. government-funded clinical trial comparing Avastin and Lucentis in patients with macular degeneration. In that study, Avastin proved as effective as the pricier Lucentis, but Avastin patients were more likely to be hospitalized.

Lucentis was developed specifically for use in the eye, but doctors often use Avastin off-label to treat AMD. Repackaged at eye-sized doses, Avastin costs about $50 per injection, compared with the $2,000 or so for Lucentis.

Roche and Novartis, which markets Lucentis in Europe, have been touting the company-funded study. The new data "underscore the importance of drug design with the patient in mind--aiming for an appropriate balance of efficacy and safety for a given indication and patient population," Novartis' global development chief Trevor Mundel said in a statement. "Now more than ever it is clear that Lucentis and Avastin are different, and Novartis believes Lucentis is the best treatment option for patients with wet AMD."

When the U.S. government study data was released a few days ago, the American Academy of Ophthalmology said that both Lucentis and Avastin should be available for AMD treatment. The government data is "critical information that further empowers ophthalmologists to make evidenced-based decisions," the group said.

After this latest study, the AMD Alliance International said "full disclosure" and "informed consent" were important to the group. "The Johns Hopkins' data gives us valuable additional information that patients and physicians need to consider and discuss," the group said (as quoted by Dow Jones).

- see the story in the Financial Times
- get more from Bloomberg
- read the Academy's statement
- check out the Dow Jones coverage

Related Articles:
NEJM data shows Avastin as effective as Lucentis
Genentech lobbies for Lucentis as eye study looms
Results of Avastin-Lucentis match-up due May 1
NICE blow highlights ongoing Lucentis-Avastin debate

New York is "hailing" a new era of urban mobility today, as the city with the nation's largest taxi fleet has selected Nissan to design and supply the next-generation "Taxi of Tomorrow." The announcements were made today during a City Hall press briefing that included Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Nissan Americas Chairman Carlos Tavares.

 

The New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission (TLC) selected the Nissan NV200 as the exclusive taxi of New York City beginning in late 2013. The award comes after a rigorous selection process that occurred over more than two years. The competition built upon more than a century of taxi industry heritage to drive the design and creation of a purpose-built vehicle, tuned to the city's streets. The other two finalists included Ford Motor Co. and Karsan, a Turkish vehicle manufacturer.

 

"Nissan is proud to provide the next generation of taxis for the City of New York," said Tavares. "The NV200 taxi will give Nissan the opportunity to showcase our dedication to vehicle quality and urban mobility to more than 600,000 passengers every day."

 

The Nissan NV200 taxi will be produced in North America at Nissan's facility in Cuernavaca, Mexico. The Nissan NV200 taxi will be a modified version of the compact commercial vehicle currently available in global markets including Japan, Europe and China. Total manufacturer suggested retail price (MSRP) of the vehicle, with all planned standard features, will be around $29,000.

 

As part of the program, Nissan also will work with the City and taxi owners on a pilot program to study the use of zero-emission, electric vehicles as taxis. Nissan will provide up to six 100-percent electric Nissan LEAFs to taxi owners for testing in 2012 as well as the charging stations to support their use.

 

"The city's Taxi of Tomorrow is the Nissan NV200 - and it's going to be the safest, most comfortable and most convenient cab the city has ever had," said Mayor Bloomberg. "We started this process to leverage our taxi industry's purchasing power to get the highest quality taxi, one that that can expand and redefine the legendary image of New York City taxicabs. The new taxis will be custom-designed to meet the specific demands of carrying 600,000 passengers a day in New York City traffic and the vehicle meets the top priorities identified by the public in our on-line survey."

 

Planned innovations, which respond to direct input from drivers, owners and passengers, include:

- 2.0L 4-cylinder powertrain, engineered to enhance the emission performance and fuel efficiency of the taxi fleet;
- Ample room for four passengers and their luggage, substantially improved over current taxi models;
- A low-annoyance horn with exterior lights that indicate when the vehicle is honking, helping reduce noise pollution;
- Sliding doors with entry step and grab handles, providing easy entry and exit;
- Transparent roof panel (with shade) that will provide unique views of the city;
- Independently controlled rear air conditioning with a grape phenol-coated air filter to improve cabin air quality;
- Attractive, breathable, antimicrobial, environmentally friendly and easy-to-clean seat fabric that simulates the look and feel of leather;
- Overhead reading lights for passengers and floor lighting to help locate belongings;
- A mobile charging station for passengers that includes a 12V electrical outlet and two USB plugs;
- A six-way adjustable driver's seat that features both recline and lumbar adjustments, even with a partition installed;
- Standard driver's navigation and telematics systems.

 

Nissan also focused on passenger safety when designing the NV200 taxi. Key safety features include:

- Front and rear-seat occupant curtain airbags, as well as seat-mounted airbags for the front row;
- Standard traction control and Vehicle Dynamic Control (VDC);
- Sliding doors to reduce the risk of pedestrians, cyclists and other motorists getting struck by doors opening unexpectedly;
- Lights that alert other road users that taxi doors are opening.

 

With more than 13,000 taxis traveling a cumulative 500 million miles per year, durability was a key factor in the "Taxi of Tomorrow" selection process. Nissan will train taxi fleet operators to conduct routine in-house service and repairs, and Nissan Commercial Vehicle dealers will provide prompt service by providing the first available service bay to taxi operators needing service.

 

Source: Nissan

Individuals with allergy to peanuts, tree nuts, sesame, fish, or shellfish are needed for a phase 2 clinical trial of the Chinese herbal formula FAHF-2. As of April 2011, the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, New York and the University of Arkansas in Little Rock, Arkansas are recruiting participants age 12 to 45 years.

Dr. Julie Wang and collaborators at Mount Sinai School of Medicine reported successful results for the phase 1 trial that evaluated safety and tolerability. FAHF-2 stands for food allergy herbal formula 2, and consists of nine herbs chosen from the traditional formulations of Wu Mei Wan and Ling-Zhi, which have a long history of use in China. Wang's group was the first to obtain United States Food and Drug Administration approval to investigate a botanical product to treat food allergy.

The only adverse event in the phase 1 trial was minor gastrointestinal discomfort. However, symptoms were reported equally by patients in the placebo group and in the active botanical group, so the formula appears to be very well tolerated. Participants took up to 6.6 grams (12 tablets) three times a day for seven days.

Preclinical studies indicate that FAHF-2 is effective in preventing anaphylactic reactions in mice with peanut allergy. Dr. Ying Song and collaborators reported that the mechanism is based on inhibition of mast cells and basophils.

An estimated 6 percent of children and 4 percent of adults in the United States are affected by food allergies, according to Wang. These allergies can be life-threatening, and are now the leading cause of anaphylactic reactions treated in hospital emergency rooms. Strict avoidance of the allergenic food is the primary treatment, but this does not always work because allergens can be found as ingredients in unexpected foods. Patients must carry rescue medication and live with fear of consuming something dangerous at any time. An effective therapy could greatly improve their quality of life.

To participate in the FAHF-2 trial, ask your doctor or check the Clinical Trials website at http://clinicaltrials.gov.

References:

1. Wang J et al, “Safety, tolerability, and immunologic effects of a food allergy herbal formula in food allergic individuals: a randomized, double-blinded, placebo-controlled, dose escalation, phase 1 study”, Ann Allergy Asthma Immunol. 2010 July; 105(1): 75-84.

2. Song Y et al, “Food allergy herbal formula 2 protection against peanut anaphylactic reaction is via inhibition of mast cells and basophils”, J Allergy Clin Immunol. 2010 Dec; 126(6): 1208-17.

Linda Fugate is a scientist and writer in Austin, Texas. She has a Ph.D. in Physics and an M.S. in Macromolecular Science and Engineering. Her background includes academic and industrial research in materials science. She currently writes song lyrics and health articles.

Since Seattle-based Virginia Mason Medical Center began using Toyota's lean management style 10 years ago, the hospital has risen to the top 1 percent in safety and efficiency nationwide, reports Voice of America.

The hospital also has successfully streamlined cancer patients' visits. By tracing the steps associated with administering chemotherapy treatments, Virginia Mason staff reduced the process by 50 percent. "Time is absolutely the most precious thing in [these patients'] lives, and [staff] were wasting huge amounts of it," says efficiency expert Charles Kenney, author of Transforming Healthcare, Virginia Mason Medical Center's Pursuit of the Perfect Patient Experience.

Lean changes have also enabled nurses to spend 90 percent of their time providing direct care to patients, up from just 35 percent, notes HealthLeaders Media. Patient wait times for lab test results also dropped by more than 85 percent, while professional liability insurance fell 52 percent.

The lean techniques also enhanced the hospital's bottom line. "By continuously taking out waste over these 10 years, and getting better and better at improving our quality, we've lowered our cost position. Our cost per dollar of revenue continues to decline," Virginia Mason's chairman and CEO Dr. Gary Kaplan tells HealthLeaders Media.

For more:
- read the Voice of America article
- check out this HealthLeaders Media article

Related Articles:
Toyota leads trend of employers bringing healthcare onsite
Case study: Hospital takes lessons from Toyota
Update: Washington hospital cuts costs with Toyota model

Jay Baer, social media strategist, speaker and author , joins us for another exciting episode of Inbound Now, HubSpot's Social Media and Inbound Marketing Podcast!
Jay is a tequila-loving social media strategist, a speaker, and President of his own agency, Convince & Convert and recently launched his first book, The NOW Revolution: 7 Shifts to Make Your Business Faster, Smarter and More Social.

In this episode we chat about:

• How to foster a social environment within a company
• How to keep it real when engaging in social media
• How to scale social media efforts
• The importance of empowering employees when it comes to social media
• How social media affects a brand and brand perception
• How to get people to care about your social media presence
• How boring/unsexy companies can utilize social media
• The concept of "The Social Telephone"
• How to listen to the social conversation
• What companies should be measuring
• The future of the social web

Fostering a Social Environment within a Company

"If you look at the companies that we consider to be good at social media, typically they are companies that have two things in common. One, they genuinely really care about their customers, and they're willing to go the extra mile. Two, they operate with, what we call in the book, one head and one heart."

A company needs to have a clear cultural mission within the organization, know what they're about and where they're going, and operate as one organism.

Companies need to hire for passion (find people who love the business) and then train for skills (teach them what to do). It's important that the people on the team are excited to be there.

How to Keep it Real

"The reality is that social media is both the fastest thing ever and the slowest thing ever. Right? Because you're winning hearts and minds one at a time or a few at a time instead of lots and lots at a time."

Focus on genuine one-on-one interactions, and leave the sales pitch out of it.

Scaling Social Media Efforts

"Everybody in your company is a marketer or a customer service person or a first responder. You just have to give them the tools and the training to do that. Everybody in your company can be somebody who's out there engaging in social media from time to time and winning hearts and minds when it's appropriate."

Social media is just a different type of expensive when it comes to marketing costs. You're paying labor costs instead of media costs. But often times, more hiring isn't needed.

Utilizing existing employees and making social media a part of everyone's job description is a good place to start.

Social Media Training

"The other thing about training is that it has to be ongoing. A lot of companies are now at the point where they're saying, 'Yeah, we did social media training for all of our employees last year.' Interesting. Social media has changed an awful lot in one year."

It's important to teach employees the basics of the culture of social media. It's also key to teach triage and create a flowchart of what happens in certain circumstances, who handles what, and how issues get resolved.

Training needs to be ongoing and relevant to a specific company's situations. A case study about JetBlue's social media usage isn't going to help out a little bakery down the road.

Empowering Employees

"You can't call a committee meeting every time somebody sends a tweet about your company and say, 'What should we do about this? How should we handle this?' Because by the time you send out the meeting request, it's over."  

If training is done well, you can trust employees to make the right decision right now.

Social Media and Branding

"We do business with people that we know, people that we like, and people that we trust. Social media allows companies to act more like people, and that drives a lot of how we perceive them as brands."  

Doing customer service in social media changes the way people think about that business. It impacts the business' brand and brand perception.

Getting People to Care About Your Social Presence

"Just showing up to the party isn't enough. Having a Facebook page or having a Twitter account doesn't give you anything. It just means that you happen to exist."

It's all about the why ("Why do I care about your Twitter account?"). The answer has to be about soul and about something that makes you special, whether it's your people, your history, the fact that you go the extra mile, etc.  

Every company needs to figure out what makes them special (not products, services, features, or benefits), and build a social program around that.

But What About Boring/Unsexy Companies?

"Apple is in the innovation business. Volvo is in the safety business. Disney is in the magic business. You have to figure out what business you're really in, and that's not easy."

Every company has a story to tell. Dig deep. A good example is Red Wing Shoes and the videos they've created highlighting their special factor - heritage.

The Social Telephone

"It's this idea that people are always out there using the social web as a communications platform, and you can listen at the point of need."

Take the opportunity to help someone, without offering a sales pitch. With social media, you earn the right to promote by being helpful first. Reach out to people, direct them to resources, and establish a good relationship.

When it comes to promoting your products or services, "let people draw their own conclusions once you answer the social telephone."

Listening to the Social Conversation

"I work with a lot of companies and they say, 'Sure, we're listening. We are listening to the social conversation.' And what that means a lot of times is that they have a Google Alert set up for their brand name. That's the sum total of their listening."

You should be listening for your company name, product names, employee names, competitor names, their product names, their employee names, and search terms related to your industry. Any search term that delivers more than three to five visits to your website a month should be listened for.

What Should Companies Be Measuring and Focusing On?

"You have to decide whether social media is helping you achieve awareness or sales or customer loyalty."

First and foremost, companies need to know why they're utilizing social media, how it fits into the company's business objectives, and what behaviors can be measured to see if that's true.

It's important to measure behaviors that generate income (white paper downloads, engaged fans, etc), instead of things that measure aggregation (total Twitter followers, total Facebook Fans, etc).

The Future of the Social Web

"I think we are very much entering an era where the question changes from 'should we do social media?' to 'how do we do social media better?'"

A huge trend going forward is likely to be "social media science" (the kinds of things that Dan Zarrella does) - tools, platforms, and add-ons that allow companies to more scientifically optimize their social media presence.

Video will continue to explode, and video is where companies should consider going.

Lastly, there will be a move towards social becoming a skill, versus a job, where every employee plays a role (instead of just a social media manager).

Connect with Jay Online

You can follow Jay on Twitter @jaybaer and connect with him on his blog, and don't forget to check out more about his book, The NOW Revolution.

Subscribe to Inbound Now via RSS

Subscribe to Inbound Now via Email

 Subscribe via iTunes

Watch Past Episodes

• Inbound Now #18 – Facebook Marketing Best Practices with Mari Smith
• Inbound Now #17 – How to Leverage Online Video for your Company with Steve Garfield
• Inbound Now #16 – Content Marketing Best Practices & Tips with Joe Pulizzi (@JuntaJoe)
• Inbound Now #15 – Poking the Box and Transforming your Marketing with Seth Godin
• Inbound Now #14 – How to use Content Marketing & Curation for Business with CC Chapman
• Inbound Now #13 – Leveraging PPC and Remarketing for your Business with Joanna Lord
• Inbound Now #12 – Business to Business (B2B) Marketing Best Practices with Mike Volpe

Connect with HubSpot:

 

 

Marking a sharp change in strategic direction, the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine has pumped $25 million into Geron to support its clinical trial work on a pioneering embryonic stem cell therapy for spinal cord damage. Up until now the $3 billion state program has been focused on a burst of stem cell science projects; basic research needed to identify potential treatments in the lab. But this new funding reflects its decision to start funding actual trial development of therapies as it helps advance potential cures toward approval.

"Supporting the Geron trial is a landmark step for CIRM," said Robert Klein, the agency's chairman.

Geron attracted worldwide attention when it launched its Phase I ESC study last fall after a lengthy delay. Researchers are testing the safety and tolerability of GRNOPC1 in patients after reporting success with animal studies. This early-stage development work is fraught with risk, though. And CIRM's new commitment to helping escort developers through the Valley of Death and on to the point where they have solid proof-of-concept data in hand will provide some badly needed financial support at a point when it is often the hardest to come by.

"It could provide cures. That's what everyone wants," said consumer advocate John M. Simpson. "I'm watching it with interest." CIRM hasn't stopped funding basic science. The organization also announced $37.7 million in new grants for science research.

- see the report from the San Diego Union-Tribune
- check out the Los Angeles Times story

Related Articles:
History or hype? World's first ESC trial gets under way
Geron stem cell therapy promising in the lab
Geron's pioneering ESC trial put on hold (again)
Geron offers reassurance on its ESC safety record

File this under Cars R Coffins: A new study adds to the body of evidence that exposure to air pollutants from vehicle exhaust makes people stupid. Consider the evidence so far: Low cognitive function in older women is associated with proximity to car traffic (Ranft et al. 2009) In middle aged adults, lower cognitive performance [...] Related posts:

1. Dooring kills
2. Middle School Traffic Safety
3. Traffic safety: If you can’t see, the speed limit is zero

/PRNewswire/ - More Americans are involved with supporting our troops and feeding the hungry than any other causes or social issues today, according to the new Dynamics of Cause Engagement study released by Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide and Georgetown University's Center for Social Impact Communication. The study, conducted among American adults age 18 and older in late 2010, showcases trends in the types of causes Americans support and how they learn about and choose to support those causes. "For us, this study really validates that what's going on in the media and in Washington is reflected in what Americans are thinking and talking about," said Denise Keyes, Executive Director of the Center for Social Impact Communication. "But the question that remains is how this will translate to action." Timely Cause Concerns Not surprisingly, concerns over the economy, joblessness and poverty abound among Americans. When asked what comes to mind when thinking about important social issues or causes, Americans reported unemployment and low wages, economic concerns, healthcare reform and poverty/hunger tops among a broad range of issues. Over four in ten Americans (45%) are involved in supporting social issues and causes, with the greatest involvement in found in health, education, spiritual and environment-related causes. Which specific causes and issues are Americans most involved with? Supporting our troops and feeding the hungry, according to the survey. Health-related issues, such as breast cancer, diabetes and heart disease, are also near the top of the list. Overall, Americans tend to be more personally involved in causes they are knowledgeable about. Looking ahead, Americans expect supporting our troops and feeding the hungry to continue to be the most prominent causes in 2011. Bullying and childhood obesity - both of which have received increasing media attention in the past year - also are expected to be among the top causes of 2011. "We've seen the results of public campaigns around breast cancer, heart disease and drunk driving and what these can do to drive awareness and behavior change," said Jennifer Wayman, Executive Vice President and Director of Social Marketing at Ogilvy Washington. "And now we're beginning to see the same shifts taking place with increased resources being aimed at issues like childhood obesity." Polarizing the Population Almost half of Americans (49%) believe that society is less open to supporting gay marriage, putting it at the top of the list of controversial issues. Interestingly, the Tea Party movement and global warming also appeared high on the list of issues that Americans believe society is less open to supporting, and at the same time ranked among the causes believed to be the most prominent in 2011. This indicates that "fame" is not always translated into widespread support, and that perhaps the controversial nature of these causes contributes to their perceived prominence. More than a Famous Face While celebrity endorsements certainly play a role in garnering attention for causes among Americans, survey respondents identified several factors as being even more important than a famous face. Half of Americans indicated that many people being affected (51%) or a timely event or tragedy (49%) generate the greatest attention for a social issue or cause. About the Survey Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide and Georgetown University's Center for Social Impact Communication developed the study with the objectives of showcasing trends in cause involvement and evaluating the role of a variety of activities in fostering engagement. An online survey was conducted by TNS Global among a nationally representative sample of 2,000 Americans ages 18 and over. The survey was fielded November 30 to December 22, 2010, and has a margin of error of +/-2.2% at the 95% confidence level. About the Center for Social Impact Communication Georgetown University's Center for Social Impact Communication (CSIC) is the nation's leading educational resource on social impact communication. Launched in 2008 and housed in the Master of Professional Studies program in Public Relations and Corporate Communications, CSIC aims to elevate the discipline by pioneering industry standards in responsible communication practices and by educating and inspiring the professionals who lead the way in creating positive social impact through their work. For more information, visit http://csic.georgetown.edu. Twitter: @georgetowncsic Additional key findings will be released in upcoming weeks: May 16 - Cause Involvement by Gender May 30 - Cause Involvement by Ethnicity June 13 - Cause Involvement by Generation June 27 - Cause Involvement and Behavior Change About Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide (Ogilvy PR) is a global, multidisciplinary communications leader operating in more than 80 markets. For more than two decades, Ogilvy PR has been at the forefront of social marketing - advancing personal and public health and safety and broader socially desirable goals via communications initiatives. We have developed numerous social marketing campaigns to successfully raise awareness, educate and prompt action regarding some of today's largest and most complex issues, ranging from cancer to cardiovascular health, substance abuse to homeland security, youth violence prevention to disaster preparedness, and much more. Named Large Agency of the Year by The Holmes Report and PRNews, Ogilvy PR is a unit of Ogilvy & Mather, a WPP company (Nasdaq: WPPGY), one of the world's largest communications services groups. For more information, visit www.ogilvypr.com and smexchange.ogilvypr.com. Twitter: @ogilvypr

"Stop, look and listen" might be a phrase drilled into children every time they cross the road.. but the basic road safety advice is ignored by almost two thirds of adults.A study recently found that almost two thirds (64 per...

If convicted Shrien Dewani may be under threat in prison due to nature of crime and his high profile, says legal expert

The British businessman Shrien Dewani would be seen to have committed a "sissy crime" if convicted and jailed for allegedly ordering his wife's murder on honeymoon in South Africa, a court heard.

South African prosecutors, who want to extradite him over the killing, suggested his high profile would give him protection against violent treatment by other prisoners.

But an expert on the country's penal system said the "white collar" nature of the crime – and the young Briton's wealth and looks – could count against him behind bars.

Giving evidence on the third day of his extradition hearing, Sasha Gear from Johannesburg's Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation said: "In the case of Mr Dewani, I'm positive that there's a potential for [his high profile] not to play such a protective role because of the extent to which it could highlight factors about Mr Dewani that indicate vulnerability.

"For example, the type of crime he is alleged to have committed would be considered a sissy crime in the prison culture; also that he comes from a well-to-do background, what he looks like. These sort of things are magnified with publicity."

Hugo Keith QC, representing the South African authorities, cited the case of another Briton whose high profile had protected him when he was jailed in the country for murder.

The unnamed prisoner was said to have claimed that press reporting of his crime "helped me", adding: "If you're known outside you won't suffer anything."

But because Dewani's alleged victim was a woman and he was not directly involved in any violence meant his high profile would not guarantee his safety, Westminster magistrates, sitting at Woolwich in south-east London, were told.

Anni Dewani, 28, was shot dead in the back of taxi in Cape Town on 13 November after a hijacking alleged to have been staged by Dewani and three other men.

Taxi driver Zola Tongo claimed in a plea bargain that Dewani offered him cash to arrange for two hitmen to ambush his vehicle as they drove through the dangerous Gugulethu township.

Dewani and Tongo were ejected from the cab, while Dewani's Swedish bride was driven off and killed.

The 31-year-old Bristol man denies any wrongdoing and is fighting extradition.

A key argument against extradition is that his human rights would be infringed while he awaited trial in prison and if he was convicted and jailed.

Benefits of bisphosphonates in preventing most fractures outweigh risk, experts say

Source: HealthDay
Related MedlinePlus Pages: Drug Safety, Fractures, Osteoporosis

Many people already use their smart­phones as far more than mere telephones--as gadgets for Web surfing, e-mailing or listening to music. Some scientists are now turning them into handheld tools to diagnose cancer or infectious disease, track treatment progress or check water safety. Given that the handsets are so common, they could bring cutting-edge health care technology to the developing world.

Diagnosing cancer is a challenge because it requires expensive, time-consuming assays. But in a recent study published in Science Translational Medicine , Ralph Weissleder and his colleagues at Harvard Medical School used a cell phone and a lunch box–size machine to diagnose cancer from tiny pieces of tissue, taken via needle from the abdomens of patients with suspected metastatic cancers. Researchers mixed the samples with antibodies that bound to four known cancer-related proteins. The machine analyzed the samples using nuclear magnetic resonance--measuring levels of the antibody-bound proteins based on their magnetic properties. It then sent the results to the smart­­phone, which, using an app that the researchers designed, displayed the data. Because doctors don’t need a laptop or desktop, it would be easier for them to assess patients outside the clinic. In comparison, results from more traditional diagnostic methods are typically not available for three days and require more invasive tissue sampling.

[More]

How do you become the #1 Real Estate Agent in Northern Virginia? It's easy...you learn from someone who's done it.

So what's the secret to becoming a mega real estate agent? It all boils down to systems. (You might want to grab some popcorn... this is not your regular CL ad).

Below is an overview of various "phases" of mega agent advancement.

The BASICS - THE SALES PROCESS
1. Generate Tons of Leads
2. Convert a High Percentage of Leads

INTERMEDIATE - LEVERAGE OTHER PEOPLE
3. Hire Assistant(s)
4. Hire Buyer Agents

ADVANCED - LEVERAGE MORE PEOPLE
5. Hire Inside Sales Reps
6. Hire Listing Agent(s)
7. Hire CEO

So let's start with the first step. Generate Tons of Leads. Sounds easy enough. Here are your choices: 1. Sphere of Influence Marketing and/or 2. Guerilla Marketing.

Sphere of Influence marketing is basically networking. Going to clubs, church, friends, family, events, etc. Networking will only get you so far. You'd have to be an agent for decades to build a large referral base with this methodology. It is IMPOSSIBLE to become a mega agent with just networking (you might make $100K or maybe $150K after several years, but not $500K or more). Sadly, most real estate agents are completely dependent on this method, but it is not the way to generate a ton of leads, and in most cases, not enough to even keep you busy, let alone your team busy.

The next choice of generating a ton of leads is guerilla marketing. We use the term guerilla because it is stealth, under-the-radar-marketing. For example (this is just one out of hundreds of ways we use to generate leads), let's say you have an internet ad that offers free access to search the MLS database. The ad which is placed via google adwords sends the prospect to a landing page. In order to get past the screen to search the MLS database, they will have to register their name, phone number, and email address. We have our landing pages down to a science to the point where we get up to 30% of the visitors to leave their information (we call this lead capture rate - our lead capture rate is at least 5 times more effective than most agent websites). For our direct mail campaigns, we have it tweaked to the point we know exactly what words to use in the letter, the color and size of the envelop, the angle of the stamp, the exact best font to use, and more. It takes years of testing to get it figured out. Our process has become so successful that we generate listings over the phone at 7% commission! As a case study, one of our agents who recently joined us in March, and was previously doing about 1 deal a month prior to joining us, (which is admittedly already pretty decent for not having a system) actually just closed the month of April with 7 new listings using our system (that's well over $60K in commissions in just one month using our system). The secret to his huge increased success was the system. We helped another agent who was about to exit the business altogether and within a month of our training she generated 5 new listings. Talk about a change in attitude.

Before we go onto the next step, let's talk about technology. We use technology not only to generate leads, but if you have a few hundred leads coming in every month, post-it notes on your desk just aren't going to cut it. We have a custom built technology we use to help us manage all of those leads. Think of it as a safety net to make sure you don't drop the ball on one of those clients you are working with. A system to automatically send your prospects messages and reminders for you to contact them.

So let's continue with the next topic: Lead Conversion. Believe it or not, the hard part isn't lead generation. Lead generation is just a process. It all boils down to your budget, whether it is sweat equity of your time or dollar bills. Figure about $10 per lead with no upper limit of how many leads you can receive. So lead conversion is where the craft is. In our system, we have scripts from several years of testing that maximize your conversion rate. Depending on the type of lead, we have it down to a science as to how many clients you should get out of each type of lead.

We can go on and on, but let's digress.

So who are we? Our owner was the #4 agent by number of transactions in Northern Virginia (NVAR) his Rookie Year in 2003 . He did close to 300 transactions and $81M in sales volume that first year and doubled it each of the next two years (after the rookie year, he gave all the clients away to the agents in the office, but would have easily been the #1 Real Estate Agent under a team structure). Since 2003, he has led the team to produce over $2 Billion in sales volume and today is a personal coach to several mega agents across the US (a few are the #1 agent in their respective markets and paying him about $10K/month for his guidance). He has closely guarded his secrets...until now. We are now setting our sights to be the #1 real estate brokerage in Northern Virginia. He is freely sharing all of his secrets to our agents.

If you're sick of the plateau you've hit (or worse, a decline), then you need to do something about it. Learn from someone who is uniquely qualified to take you to the next level.

• Location: Northern Virginia
• Principals only. Recruiters, please don't contact this job poster.
• Please, no phone calls about this job!
• Please do not contact job poster about other services, products or commercial interests.

Vanda Pharmaceuticals Reports First Quarter 2011 Results PR Newswire (press release) "Our first product, Fanapt®, which is marketed in the US for the treatment of schizophrenia has now entered a Phase I study to evaluate the safety and pharmacokinetic profiles of two different long-acting formulations in patients with schizophrenia. ... and more »

As geopolitical and natural crises erupt across the globe - from Japan's nuclear plant meltdown to the revolutions in the Middle East - Dartmouth's Off-Campus Programs Office remains "vigilant" in ensuring the safety of students studying abroad, Off-Campus Programs Executive Director John Tansey said.

Arizona tied for worst gun safety laws in US AZ Central.com 5, 2011 12:00 AM The state joined Utah and Alaska as having the worst gun-safety laws in the nation, according to the Brady Campaign To Prevent Gun Violence. The Washington, DC-based advocacy group has ranked states for four years. ... Illinois the epicenter of national debate about gun controlChicago Daily Herald Florida Wins "Craziest Gun Laws" Award by Brady CampaignWCTV Gun Control: Texas Is A Namby-Pamby Liberal State, New Study ShowsHouston Press (blog) Tulsa World -KOLD-TV -The Virginian-Pilot all 10 news articles »

A clinical trial to test the safety and efficacy of a medication that could help pregnant women stop smoking has begun enrollment at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth). The study targets pregnant women in their second and third trimesters when smoking can be quite harmful to the fetus, said Angela Stotts, Ph.D...

AgentGenius - Real Estate News Unscripted for Realtors & Brokers

Check-in habits studied Bynd.com has just published their creative research regarding the actions versus buzz of early adopters of mobile check-in habits and have uncovered some extremely useful information for the real estate industry as they compare the earliest adopters [...]

Real estate location based apps integrating Facebook most likely to succeed per study

---

Must have safety app for Realtors (Partner)

---

E. coli O157:H7 illnesses, particularly those associated with ground beef products, typically peak in the summer months.  In a January 2011 article, Food Safety News published an article, about a study, that asked why.  The answer given, in a nutshell, was the increased shedding of bacteria in cow feces one, among possibly many, factors, during the summer months.  Read Why Are There More E. coli Infections in Summer?

Whatever the case, the approach of summer undoubtedly has public health and industry on alert.  What kind of summer will it be? 

To date this year, only one company has recalled ground beef products due to E. coli O157:H7 contamination.  That was a 3,170 pound ground beef product recall by American Food Services, from Pico Rivera, California.  No illnesses were reported as a result of the contamination. 

Last year's tally of ground beef E. coli recalls and outbreaks, totalled over 5 million pounds:

• On February 12, 2010, Huntington Meat Packing, Inc., expanded its January 18, 2010 beef recall to include approximately 4.9 million pounds of beef and veal products that it produced in 2009 and the first few days of this year.
• On February 4, West MissourI Beef, LLC, a Rockville, Missouri beef company, recalled 14,000 pounds of boneless beef products due to potential E. coli O157:H7 contamination.
• On January 11, 2010, Adams Farm Slaughterhouse, LLC., an Athol, Mass., stablishment, recalled approximately 2,574 pounds of beef products due to potential E. coli O157:H7 contamination. The recall occurred in the wake of an epidemiological investigation into the E. coli illness of at least one Massachusetts resident.
• On March 2, 2010 Randolph Packing Co. Inc., an Asheboro, N.C. establishment, recalled approximately 96,000 pounds of beef products due to potential E. coli O157:H7 contamination
• In August, 2010, Cargill Meat Solutions Corp., a Wyalusing, Pa. establishment, is recalling approximately 8,500 pounds of ground beef products that may be contaminated with E. coli O26
• In September 2010, Hamilton Corner Meat Market Inc., located at 1 Hamilton Place, New York, New York 10031, recalled all packages of “ground beef” sold from bulk on September 7, 2010, due to the presence of Salmonella.
• In November 2010, Hamilton Corner again had a ground beef recall.  In its 2nd recall of 2010, Hamilton Corner recalled all packages of in-store "ground beef" sold on November 15, 2010, due to the presence of E. coli O157:H7.
• And on December 30, First Class Foods issued a recall of 34,373 pounds of organic ground beef products potentially contaminated with E. coli O157:H7,

Children hospitalized for infections were more likely to spend more time in the hospital and were less likely to receive home healthcare referrals if their parents or main caregivers had difficulty speaking English, a new study reports in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine.

In a nine-year study (between 2000 and 2008), nearly 1,300 children whose parents or caregivers were determined to have limited English proficiency were found to have spent at least 60 percent more time in the hospital when compared to children whose parents/caregivers spoke fluently, said study author Michael Levas, MD, and and his colleagues from Children's Mercy Hospitals and Clinics in Kansas City, Mo.

Overall, most of the parents and caregivers observed by the researchers--nearly 97 percent--were proficient in English. The 3 percent who were not were more likely to be Latino and either uninsured or insured by Medicaid for both comparisons.

The relative length of stay for children whose parents/caretakers were not proficient in English was calculated at 1.6 times that of those whose parents were fluent. The relative length of stay appeared to be higher for those covered by Medicaid rather than private insurance; those without a primary care physician; those who did not receive home healthcare; or those who had a comorbid condition in addition to the infection.

The researchers also found that additional time in the hospital is could be costly: Although no formal calculations were performed, they said the average daily cost for an inpatient bed at their hospital was about $2,500. This means that given that the median stay was about four days, that suggests that parents with poor English proficiency could faced extra costs of about $6,000.

For more information:
- see the Archives abstract
- read the MedPage Today article

Related Articles:
HHS partners with hospitals to improve patient safety
Patient safety 'fluency' requires more than language interpreters

We all know how extensive and confusing coding medical care is today and nobody knows that better than the hospitalist as if something is not coded right the hospital doesn’t get reimbursed so first place to look is “who did that coding” when you were admitted as a patient.  Keep in mind he’s also preoccupied with “taking care of you too” <grin>.  Sometimes it seems like these 2 priorities get changed around just by trying to do one’s job.  If there’s a big problem in coding, then the hospital can get fined too.  New codes arrive and the AMA adds them as needed and also some get dropped, revised and so forth.

To make matters even more confusing, insurance companies and Medicare don’t require exactly the same codes too, so the hospitalist has to be right up on their toes to make sure they don’t confuse those either, and a good example which occurred not too long ago were the consultation codes, insurers still sometimes honor them, Medicare, no.  It would be nice if everyone did the same thing but this of course meant money. 

Medicare Eliminates Consultation Codes in 2010 – Adds Modifier to Distinguish Providers

The hospitalist certainly can’t stand to under code either as that results in less payments dollars to the hospital and if your care as a patient gets worse, then there’s a big issue getting addition procedures, time in the hospital and so forth approved as they “did not code you correctly” at the onset.  This happens by accident too again with being distracted at times with the happenings at the hospital and trying to take care of you. 

Now if you over code, here come the wolves to check for potential fraud and the Medicare contractors to maybe even conduct an audit and all will look right back over at the hospitalist and their coding assistants if they have them.  That is actually a good idea to have someone verify and help the doctors with the coding as it grows more complex.  As mentioned most do not get “coding” training in medical school either and it’s kind of an on the job training situation, although that is starting to change for doctors.  There are plenty of training areas for billers though and have been for a few years now.  There’s also the change of shifts at the hospital where more than one hospitalist is caring for a patient and these too have to coordinate.  The Hospitalists have program they can research and look up coding changes, etc. and this has to rely on judgment calls with patient conditions too.  Some systems “auto code” with medical record systems and the dependency sometimes on this feature can be up in the air, but usually the longer and more experienced a doctor becomes with the software they get better at it.

There’s a really good hospitalist blog out here called “The Happy Hospitalist” and he does a really good job sharing his life experiences as well as coding hints and who better to read than one who’s doing it and he speaks in real life terminology.  He also rants a little and tells you about taking an enormous amount of time to get records from the likes of Walter Reed hospital too, so very good reading. 

If you are a patient at times it’s hard to know if you have been admitted or kept for observation and those are different codes for the hospitalist to be aware of too.  Medicare requires a 3 day inpatient stay, so when patients are not formally admitted, they don’t pay.  The place of service is important too so the codes apply there too as a 22 and a 21 code get interchanged just due to the patient’s condition and prescribed care. 

Patients Have No Way of Knowing If They Have Been Admitted or Not–Setting Patient Status is Confusing with Parameters Set by Software Tools to Meet the Designated Parameters

Here’s on example cited from the Hospitalist Magazine below and as you can see the terms have to be very specific and if you had congestive heart failure and that’s how it gets reports claim denied as the insurance carrier says no, we want cardiac arrest listed and the payment is denied. 

“Medical necessity denials often involve a mismatched or missing diagnosis. For example, a payor might deny a claim for cardiopulmonary resuscitation (92950) that is associated with a diagnosis code of congestive heart failure (428.0), despite this being the underlying condition that prompted the decline in the patient’s condition. The payor might only accept “cardiac arrest” (427.5) as the “medically necessary” diagnosis for cardiopulmonary resuscitation, as this is the direct reason necessitating the procedure. After reviewing the documentation to ensure that the documentation supports the diagnosis, the claim can be resubmitted with a confirmed and corrected diagnosis code.”

Now let’s add on one more element here with claim processing time and how the insurers make interest on claim money and this pertains to Medicare as all the claim contractors are insurance companies who process all of this.

Insurers Made $450 Million with Interest Income by Holding Medicare Funds for Around 46 Days Before Releasing Payment

Medicare Contractors Are Not Getting Their Act Together with Consultation Coding – Are Claims Falling into a “Black Hole”

The reason this happened is that many years ago it was determined to let insurance companies do all the IT infrastructure work and the government never had the opportunity to build it, unlike Social Security that has an IT system and is not reliant on insurance companies to process claims to include disability so in short we got what we paid for at the time, saved money without investing in technology but have a disruptive claim processing situation today as a result.  In short we have the “pay me later deal” and there’s not much we can do but begin at some point with creating IT infrastructure and that’s what the government is doing, a bit at a time. 

Medicare–The Missing IT Infrastructure the US Government Never Got The Chance to Build And A Few Other Housekeeping Issues…

This gets a little more complicated too with mergers and acquisitions over the last 2 years especially as the companies that have acquired others, algorithmically changed business models and so on, are not the same companies today.  When this occurs with insurers processing Medicare claims it gets sticky as one end of the company profits from decisions and processes another division makes and that’s a tight spider web right there.

Little Progress on Fighting Healthcare Fraud – Look At Who’s Getting the Anti-Fraud Contracts

The image above is a Medicare Contractor who of course as you can see lobbies the government and has specific email addresses to facilitate assistance.  I’ll continue to beat this into the ground but the only way lawmakers can do a better job and not be caught with their shorts down all the time is to use better and smarter technology like Wall Street and other businesses do and they would also have more control with knowledge when dealing with lobbyists, this is just a plain simple fact and doesn’t take a brain surgeon to figure out that the more knowledge you have up front the better meetings and negotiations will be conducted without all the crap from the 70s rounded up that has no place today. 

IBM Watson Capabilities Being Pitched to Financial Industry-Congress Must Not Have Felt They Needed This So Further Behind We Fall With Effective Intelligent Lawmaking

There’s much more too this as hospitalists also have to coordinate with family practice doctors as well with coding to ensure that both are corrected assessed and shoot your family practice doctor over the weekend may not have one clue if you have not contacted them to know you have been admitted if the information flow is not there.  In short if a claim is denied or has a problem in addition to running to the hospitalist about your condition they will check their coding, like the Spanish Inquisition at times. 

Again while doing all of the financials of admitting you they are also looking for areas of safety to help make sure you do not get a hospital acquired infection for one example and get you out the door as soon as possible, especially with Medicare as utilization committees sometimes act like Monday morning quarter backs and reassess how every patient case was handled.  Those get tough too as Happy talked about last year in a Peer to Peer meeting.  This was a tough one as nobody on the entire committee could figure out what United Healthcare wanted documented with their managed Medicaid contract and keep in mind they want to get more of these and are making record profits at United as well as their CEO.

Hospitalists, Peer Committees and Utilization Struggle to Comprehend United HealthCare Algorithms

In his case here, we have an active discussion over what is observation (and how it is coded) versus being admitted as an inpatient (and how it is coded).  Reimbursement rates vary for each scenario, so it falls back to a committee, who is also confused on how all of this works.  Contracts change with insurance carriers too.  As Happy mentions, he and his coding people keep seeing claims denied, day in and day out.  We all know what happens when claims are denied, nobody gets paid and some of this rolls back to the patient, doctors, hospital to make it up, everybody loses.  One other item worth a mention here too is that the hospitalists and ER doctors are usually first up to become beta testers on medical software and much of it is related to revenue cycling with patient care algorithmic formulas.  It gets complicated and this is why we are seeing a huge increase in scribes at hospitals today. 

Doctors Have Become One of the Largest Software Beta Testing Groups–”Magpie Healthcare” Unfortunately Still Thrives

So hopefully this helps describe who they come after with coding at the hospital and with the move to empowering patients I satirically ask is this going to be the next plateau that payers shove over to have us ask how we have been “coded” <grin>.  I mention this fact as everyone can’t seem to get this right with educating patients and getting more involvement.  Intuit used to think I didn’t like them with their product that works with PHRs or as a stand alone for keep track of medical expenses until they finally did their own study and found out the reality out there about patients not being tied into software as such and shoot I find doctors and patients who don’t know even what a PHR is all the time so in essence consumers were just not interested and it was beyond where they either wanted or had enough time to explore. 

Intuit Does a Study That Reveals Most American Do Not Understand Medical Bills and and EOBs – Not Big News Here

One more item here worth a quick mention too is that “hospitalist companies” are being bought up by private equity firms too so they are looking to make money on investing in doctors “who can code right” and turn a profit for them so in addition to the hospital they have one level up that is very interested in how profitable they are, shoot do we forget about patient care at this point ?  It’s crappy reality that exists but again keep this in mind. 

Private Equity Firms Buy Hospitalist Company in Atlanta

Anyway the coding nightmare is not going away any time soon and hopefully this gives some awareness here as to the other side that both hospitalists and ER doctors deal with.  Their time is limited and they go as far as they need to go with technology to get paid and the consumer is not much different here either as long as the bills get paid and when payers shift this complicated system back over to doctors and patients it’s a mess to understand and as a patient you get this bill with all kinds of codes that offer no clue as to what went on.  Sometime legitimate mistakes end up making hospitals and doctors look fraudulent too and we come back to the interpretation and use of codes for this and the example quote above is a great example of this complexity. 

Cease and Desist Request for Publishing News and Studies That Report on How “Stupid” Consumers and Patients Are

If you have read this far you may probably understand a bit better as to why I made my post about a cease and desist for calling consumers and doctors “stupid” as those at the top of the helm directing this are in the same boat are are what I label as the “non participants” that lack sufficient Health IT literacy and yet create rules and regulations that are sometimes impossible to comply with.  There is nothing better than “hands on” when it comes to Health IT today as proof of concept a t tool for total reliance is burying a lot of those who don’t “got” it.  BD   

It’s no secret that documenting and coding one’s work is not the average hospitalist’s favorite thing to do. It’s probably not even in the top 10 or 20. In fact, many consider the whole documentation process a “thorn in the side.”

“When I first started working, I couldn’t believe that I could get audited and fined just because I didn’t add ‘10-point’ or ‘12-point’ to my note of ‘review of systems: negative,’ ” says hospitalist Amaka Nweke, MD, assistant director with Hospitalists Management Group (HMG) at Kenosha Medical Center in Kenosha, Wis. “I had a lot of frustration, because I had to repackage and re-present my notes in a manner that makes sense to Medicare but makes no sense to physicians.”

A hospitalist’s documentation is at the heart of accurate coding, whether it’s for the hospital’s DRG reimbursement, quality and performance scores, or for assigning current procedural terminology (CPT) and evaluation and management (E/M) codes for billing for their own professional services. And if hospitalists don’t buy into the coding mindset, they risk decreased reimbursement for their services, monetary losses for the hospital, Medicare audits, compromised quality scores for both the hospital and themselves, and noncompliance.

“If your documentation is not up to par, then the hospital may get fined and lose money, and you can’t prove your worth as a hospitalist,” Dr. Nweke says.

Most hospitalists receive little or no training in documentation and coding during medical school or residency. The lack of education is further complicated because there are several coding sets healthcare providers must master, each with different rules governing assignment of diagnoses and levels of care (see “Coding Sets: Separate but Overlapping,”

The Billing & Coding Bandwagon :: Article - The Hospitalist

A study by the National Cyber Security Alliance released today finds that America’s schools are ill-prepared to teach students the basics of online safety and security. This news comes just as Consumer Reports is about to release its own disturbing...

Filed under: In The News, Health & Safety: Toddlers & Preschoolers, Health & Safety: Big Kids, Health & Safety: Tweens

Your child has one of those creatures from "Aliens" growing inside his innards? You might want to consider surgery. Then again, no need to be hasty. He might grow out of it.

This wait-and-see attitude toward disturbing medical conditions doesn't always pan out. Yet, the Vancouver Sun reports the Canadian government keeps hoping: Researchers found 27 percent of children linger too long on government waiting lists for necessary surgeries.

Researchers banded together for the Canadian Pediatric Surgical Wait Times project, publishing their findings in this week's issue of the Canadian Medical Association Journal.

Government officials in Canada promised seven years ago to cut down the wait time for surgeries, focusing on hip and knee replacement and cataract surgery. However, the Sun reports, they overlooked children.

While Grandma is getting her hip replaced, her grandkids are waiting for heart, brain and eye surgeries, as well as cancer treatments.

"If you're an adult and you have an arthritic hip, it's been declared that you shouldn't wait more than a certain length of time to have your hip replacement," Geoffrey Blair, a pediatric surgeon at B.C. Children's Hospital and a member of the Wait Times project, tells the Sun.

"If you are a 2-year-old with a painful or potentially dangerous condition, then it should apply just as much, if not more," he adds.

Last week, according to the Sun, Blair operated on several children who had been waiting more than a year for hernia surgery. The nationally agreed upon target for hernia treatment is three months.

"Ninety percent of children in our study had their surgery within six months, but when you begin to talk about some of these diagnoses, like cancer surgery, six months doesn't make any sense at all," study co-author Dr. James Wright, surgeon-in-chief at SickKids and lead of the pediatric surgical wait times project, tells the Sun.

"It may be great that you had your surgery within six months, but what you really needed was to have it within three weeks," he adds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Health & Safety: Babies, In The News, Pregnancy Health

Expecting a spring baby? Your child is more likely to suffer from anorexia. Baby coming in the fall? Food allergies could crop up. Summer delivery? Hello, four eyes. Winter birth? Mental health issues are more common.

New research says the season in which children are born could affect their health, LiveScience reports.

"We found an excess of anorexia births in the spring months compared to the general population," study researcher Lahiru Handunnetthi, of the Wellcome Trust Center for Human Genetics, tells the website. "The idea is that there is some sort of risk factor that varies seasonally with anorexia."

LiveScience reports eight out of 100 people born between March and June had anorexia -- a 15 percent increase in risk for spring babies.

Handunnetthi tells LiveScience vitamin D levels could be to blame, citing seasonal infections, nutrition changes and fluctuations in the weather.

More findings, according to LiveScience:

• A 2003 study from the Journal of Nutrition showed African-American babies born in the summer and fall were smaller than those born in the spring and winter.
• Fall babies have a 9.5 percent risk of having food allergies -- compared to a 5 percent risk for June and July babies.
• Babies born in November or December were three times more apt to experience eczema and wheezing, according to a 2010 study published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.
• Moderate and severe nearsightedness, as well as far-sightedness, is highest for summer babies, according to a 2008 report from the journal Ophthalmology.
• A 2010 study published in the journal Nature Neuroscience found mice born in winter months "were less able to adapt to a summer light cycle, which could be related to the increased risk of mental health disorders in humans born in the winter."
• Leukemia has been linked to spring births, peaking in April.
• Austria and Denmark studies have found fall babies live longer than spring babies.

Want to get the latest ParentDish news and advice? Sign up for our newsletter!

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Deskercise: Get out of your seat. You just might improve your health--and increase your productivity.">">Deskercise: Get out of your seat. You just might improve your health--and increase your productivity.'>

Is it possible that the traditional office worker has the most dangerous job in America?

Consider the following studies that found sitting for extended periods is hazardous to your health. In 2007, Dr. Rikke Krogh-Madsen, a post-doctoral fellow at the Centre of Inflammation and Metabolism in Copenhagen, decided to test the effects of a sedentary lifestyle. To do this, the doctor culled together a group of nonsmoking, healthy men in their twenties. Before the study began, Krogh-Madsen split the men into two groups: Those who walked on average 6,000 steps per day and those who averaged around 10,000. Then, over the next two weeks, she forced them all to reduce their walking routines—by sitting more often—to 2,000 steps per day.

The result? Both groups had a 60 percent increase in the amount of insulin circulating in their blood, as well as an increase in heart disease risk factors, including a seven percent average increase in abdominal fat. "It is amazing that only two weeks of reduced stepping can induce numerous metabolic abnormalities," Dr. Rikke Krogh-Madsen told U.S. News & World Report.

Steven Blair, a professor of public health at the University of South Carolina, came to a similar conclusion in another research study in May 2010. He found that "men who reported more than 23 hours a week of sedentary activity had a 64 percent greater risk of dying from heart disease than those who reported less than 11 hours a week of sedentary activity," according to NPR.

Findings like these have several implications for businesses. Healthy employees make for more productive employees, for instance. One Australian study found that "the healthiest employees are nearly three times more productive while at work than the least healthy—140 effective working hours per month versus 45 effective hours worked per month."

Healthy employees can also save you money. If your organization pays for (or subsidizes) healthcare, your business has a financial incentive to keep employees eating right and exercising.

Some even believe that sitting (or "excessive sitting") could be the basis for future Occupational and Safety and Health Administration complaints and even workplace litigation. "Sedentary jobs could become the next biggest wave of health lawsuits since the Occupational Overuse Syndrome and Repetitive Strain Injury lawsuits of the 1990s," wrote Emmanuel Turner, a lecturer in computer graphic design, on his blog. "If this happens then work place computer usage will need to change to be less sedentary."

So what can you do to keep your office workers in shape and active?

Encourage frequent breaks. Even if your employees already break for an hour to go for a walk or exercise at a gym, long, uninterrupted times spent sitting can still prove to be dangerous. One Australian study found that micro-breaks—that is, getting up and moving every 15 minutes—were perhaps more valuable than taking long breaks.

"We found that independent of total sedentary time, moderate-to-vigorous intensity time, and mean intensity of the breaks, more interruptions in sedentary time were beneficially associated with metabolic risk variables, particularly adiposity measures, triglycerides, and 2-h plasma glucose," the study said. "These findings suggest that it is not only the amount of sedentary time that is important, but also the manner in which it is accumulated."

Make your meetings mobile. Why meet around a conference table when you can go for a walk? When it's nice out, grab your tablets and head outdoors. "Walking meetings are a great way to energize your workday while providing essential exercise for yourself," notes the Center for Health Policy. "Walking meetings may be used for brainstorming, creative discussion, and problem solving."

Think treadmill or standing desk. It may sound silly (and look even sillier) but exercising at one's desk is an ideal way to keep active at the office. According to a report released in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, desk exercise is a proven weight-loss mechanism. "If sitting computer-time were replaced by walking-and-working, energy expenditure could increase by 100 kcal/h" the report concludes. "Thus, if obese individuals were to replace time spent sitting at the computer with walking computer time by two to three hours/day, and if other components of energy balance were constant, a weight loss of 20 kg to 30 kg/year could occur."

Start a wellness program. For a small business, creating a wellness program can seem like a daunting (and expensive) task. But with a wellness program, the American Journal of Health Promotion "showed an average 27 percent reduction in sick leave absenteeism, 26 percent reduction in health care costs, and 32 percent reduction in workers' compensation and disability management cost claims" while the University of Michigan Health Management Research Center estimates that an organization saves $350 annually when a low-risk employee remains low risk and $153 when a high-risk employee's health risks are reduced.

For more on starting a wellness program, click here.

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has been pushing for over a decade to get out the message on the risk to at risk-populations of contracting the Listeria bacteria from cold cuts of meat, such as hot dogs and deli meat.  The CDC urges those over the age of 50, and especially those over 65, pregnant, or with compromised immune systems, to avoid eating cold cuts of meat unless they have been heated to at least 165 degrees. 

As reported by food safety writer Elizabeth Weise at USA Today, the risk of listeriosis is very real:

But food-safety officials mean business about the warning. "When it comes to food safety, we're serious: People at risk for listeriosis should not eat hot dogs, luncheon meats or deli meats unless they are reheated until steaming hot. Thoroughly reheating food can help kill any bacteria that might be present. If you cannot reheat these foods, do not eat them," says Neil Gaffney, spokesman for the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety Inspection Service.

The recommendation is because of a food-borne bug by the name of listeria monocytogenes which causes an uncommon but potentially fatal disease called listeriosis. About 85% of cases are linked to cold cuts or deli meats, says Mike Doyle, a professor of food microbiology at the University of Georgia.

And based on FSIS risk-assessment data, meats sliced at the store pose a greater risk than meats pre-sliced at federally inspected establishments, Gaffney says.

The threat from listeria is real and not to be ignored, CDC and USDA emphasize.

"About one of five patients with listeriosis dies," says Benjamin Silk, with CDC's Enteric Diseases Epidemiology Branch. That's why CDC is concerned about it, although the numbers that fall ill are still relatively low. The CDC estimates there are about 1,600 cases of listeriosis and 260 related deaths each year, only half of which are diagnosed and reported — so people are getting sick, but may not know what sickened them.

Just last year, in August, 2010 the Louisiana Department of Agriculture and Forestry announced a recall of 500,000 pounds of Veron Food Inc. meat products, including ready to eat hog head cheese and sausage after as many as 14 Listeria illnesses were linked to the company’s products. In April, 2011 The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced that of those sickened seven had been hospitalized and two had died as a result of their listeriosis infections. Despite its name, hog head cheese is a meat jelly made from swine heads and feet.

It's not just the CDC raising the concern. listeriosis and cold cuts were ranked just last week as the third worst combination of a food and a pathogen in terms of the burden they place on public health, costing $1.1 billion a year in medical costs and lost work days, according to a study by the University of Florida's Emerging Pathogen Institute.

Pregnant women are one of the highest risk groups. About one in six cases of listeriosis occurs in pregnancy and when a pregnant woman gets it, there's a 30% chance of a miscarriage, studies show.

The risk may be small, but the failures are tragic.

Governments routinely warn that immunocompromised people, including expectant mothers and the elderly, should refrain from certain ready-to-eat refrigerated foods like deli meats and smoked salmon because of the risk of listeriosis.

Elizabeth Weise writes in today’s USA Today that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been saying for at least 11 years now that people over 50 and especially those over 65 should avoid hot dogs, lunch meats, cold cuts and other deli meats unless they are reheated to 165 degrees — "steaming hot" in CDC's words.

The government also says you shouldn't keep an open package of sliced deli meat more than five days, all to reduce the risk of infection from a bacteria called listeria. But some question whether the country's been paying attention.

Barbara Resnick, incoming president of the American Geriatrics Society and a professor of nursing at the University of Maryland, knows of no one over that age who heats deli meats to that level and says she's never seen a case of listeriosis in a patient.

Neil Gaffney, spokesman for the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety Inspection Service said, "When it comes to food safety, we're serious: People at risk for listeriosis should not eat hot dogs, luncheon meats or deli meats unless they are reheated until steaming hot. Thoroughly reheating food can help kill any bacteria that might be present. If you cannot reheat these foods, do not eat them."

Mike Doyle, a professor of food microbiology at the University of Georgia said about 85% of listeriosis cases are linked to cold cuts or deli meats, and that today almost all packaged lunch meats contain either added sodium lactate, an acid formed by fermentation, or potassium lactate, fermented from sugar, as antimicrobials. That's what he looks for when he buys cold cuts.

And based on FSIS risk-assessment data, meats sliced at the store pose a greater risk than meats pre-sliced at federally inspected establishments

Listeria and cold cuts were ranked just last week as the third worst combination of a food and a pathogen in terms of the burden they place on public health, costing $1.1 billion a year in medical costs and lost work days, according to a study by the University of Florida's Emerging Pathogen Institute.

Douglas Powell a professor of food safety at Kansas State University, said, "And you can't see, taste or smell that it's there.”

CDC also says don't keep opened packages of lunch meat, or meat sliced at the local deli, for longer than three to five days. That's another one no one pays attention to, says Kansas' Powell.

"Anecdotally, lots of people keep cold cuts in their refrigerator far longer than they should. People keep them for one to two weeks. That's the key message. If you get it from the deli counter, four days max."

What wasn’t included in the story is evidence of listeria-related tragedies in other countries – countries that may not have approved those listeria-restraining additives.

Twenty-three elderly people died in Canada in 2008 after eating listeria-laden cold-cuts from Maple Leaf Foods. Later that year, listeria in soft cheese in Quebec led to 38 hospitalizations, of which 13 were pregnant and gave birth prematurely. Two adults died and there were 13 perinatal deaths.

The New South Wales Food Authority said last month the Authority provides information on listeria to pregnant women to allow them to make an informed food choice regarding the risk and how to minimize it. It is not to say that every piece of deli meat has Listeria on it, but some foods have a higher potential rate of contamination than others, and it is better to avoid them.

The risk of acquiring listeriosis is low. However the consequences for a pregnant woman contracting listeriosis are dire.

While the Authority may be accused of ‘being over the top’, we may also be accused of neglecting pregnant women if we did not provide this information so pregnant women could make informed choices in what they eat.

Over the last 5 years in Australia there have been between 4 and 14 cases of listeriosis diagnosed in pregnant women or their babies each year. These infections have resulted in the deaths of 8 fetuses or newborn babies.

While food scares in China garner the headlines, an A.T. Kearney study finds that fixing the problem can be boiled down to four steps: standards, enforcement, supply chains and private-sector investment. The potential of the Chinese market is well worth the effort.