http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33325729/ns/health-heart_health/
updated 11:12 a.m. ET, Thurs., Oct . 15, 2009
WASHINGTON - A major report confirms what health officials have long believed: Bans on smoking in restaurants, bars and other gathering spots reduce the risk of heart attacks among nonsmokers.
More than 126 million nonsmoking Americans are regularly exposed to someone else's tobacco smoke. The surgeon general in 2006 cited "overwhelming scientific evidence" that tens of thousands die each year as a result, from heart disease, lung cancer and a list of other illnesses.
Yet smoking bans have remained a hard sell, as lawmakers and business owners debate whether such prohibitions are worth the anger of smoking customers or employees.
Thursday's hard-hitting report from the Institute of Medicine promises to influence that debate here and abroad.
"The evidence is clear," said Dr. Thomas Frieden, head of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which requested the study. "Smoke-free laws don't hurt business ... but they prevent heart attacks in nonsmokers."
Among the IOM report's conclusions: While heavier exposure to secondhand smoke is worse, there's no safe level. And it cited "compelling" if circumstantial evidence that even less than an hour's exposure might be enough to push someone already at risk of a heart attack over the edge — as the smoke's pollution-like small particles and other substances can quickly affect blood vessels.
"There is no question that smoking bans have a positive health effect," said Dr. Lynn Goldman, an environmental health specialist at Johns Hopkins University who chaired the IOM committee.
Since New York led the way in 2003, 21 states plus the District of Columbia now have what the CDC calls comprehensive statewide laws banning smoking in both public and private workplaces, restaurants and bars — with no exception for ventilated smoking areas. Some other states have less restrictive laws.
That means 41 percent of Americans are as protected in public from secondhand smoke as possible, Frieden said. The IOM report found just 5 percent of the world's population was covered by comprehensive smoke-free laws.
While the public mostly connects smoking with lung cancer, heart disease is a more immediate consequence. About a third of all heart attacks in the U.S. are related to smoking, Frieden said. Both actively smoking and breathing others' smoke can damage blood vessels and increase heart attack-causing blood clots.
How much do bans help? That depends on how existing bans were studied and how much secondhand smoke exposure different populations have. Some heavily exposed nonsmokers have the same risk of heart damage as people who smoke up to nine cigarettes a day, Goldman said.
Her committee reviewed 11 key studies of smoking bans in parts of the U.S., Canada, Italy and Scotland, and found drops in the number of heart attacks that ranged from 6 percent to 47 percent.
The impact can be quick: Helena, Mont., for example, recorded 16 percent fewer heart attack hospitalizations in the six months after its ban went into effect than in the same months during previous years, while nearby areas that had no smoking ban saw heart attacks rise. More dramatically, heart attack hospitalizations dropped 41 percent in the three years after Pueblo, Col., banned workplace smoking.
The Institute of Medicine is part of the National Academies, an independent organization chartered by Congress to advise the government on scientific matters.
Friday, October 16, 2009
Insurance company executive refers to high-cost patients as ‘dogs.’
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/10/15/insurance-company-patients-dogs/
In the state of New York, insurers are legally prohibited from discriminating against individuals who submit large claims. So when Guardian, a major insurance company, was faced with the high-cost claims of 37 year-old muscular dystrophy patient Ian Pearl, it decided to cancel its entire line of coverage in the state of New York rather than pay for Pearl’s claims. In an e-mail obtained by The Washington Times, it was revealed that one executive at the company refers to patients like Pearl as “dogs” that the company can simply “get rid of”:
Legally barred from discriminating against individuals who submit large claims, the New York-based insurer simply canceled lines of coverage altogether in entire states to avoid paying high-cost claims like Mr. Pearl’s. In an e-mail, one Guardian Life Insurance Co. executive called high-cost patients such as Mr. Pearl “dogs” that the company could “get rid of.”
A federal court quickly ruled that the company’s actions were legal, so on Dec. 1, barring an order by the federal Department of Health and Human Services, Mr. Pearl will lose his benefits.
The cost of Pearl’s annual treatment is approximately $1 million a year. The Pearl family is unable to receive the quality health care that Ian needs. “One-on-one skilled nursing is essential,” Mrs. Pearl said.
In the state of New York, insurers are legally prohibited from discriminating against individuals who submit large claims. So when Guardian, a major insurance company, was faced with the high-cost claims of 37 year-old muscular dystrophy patient Ian Pearl, it decided to cancel its entire line of coverage in the state of New York rather than pay for Pearl’s claims. In an e-mail obtained by The Washington Times, it was revealed that one executive at the company refers to patients like Pearl as “dogs” that the company can simply “get rid of”:
Legally barred from discriminating against individuals who submit large claims, the New York-based insurer simply canceled lines of coverage altogether in entire states to avoid paying high-cost claims like Mr. Pearl’s. In an e-mail, one Guardian Life Insurance Co. executive called high-cost patients such as Mr. Pearl “dogs” that the company could “get rid of.”
A federal court quickly ruled that the company’s actions were legal, so on Dec. 1, barring an order by the federal Department of Health and Human Services, Mr. Pearl will lose his benefits.
The cost of Pearl’s annual treatment is approximately $1 million a year. The Pearl family is unable to receive the quality health care that Ian needs. “One-on-one skilled nursing is essential,” Mrs. Pearl said.
Hidden Costs of Medicare Advantage Plans
http://liberalvaluesblog.com/?p=10594
Hidden Costs of Medicare Advantage Plans
October 15, 2009 — Ron Chusid
The Medicare Advantage plans were set up by George Bush to reward the insurance companies for their contributions. The plans pay large subsidies to care for Medicare patients. As a result, it takes from 13 percent to 19 percent more to care for patients in Medicare Advantage plans than in the government Medicare program. Most of this extra money goes to increase profits for the insurance companies. Some plans use a portion of the money to provide benefits such as health club memberships.
These extra benefits often don’t turn out to be a good deal for patients. Many don’t use the exercise programs, and often patients in Medicare plans do have access to exercise facilities. I’ve had patients who signed up for Medicare Advantage plans which promised dental benefits only to find that there weren’t any dentists in the area who actually accepted the plan.
Health insurance plans should be judged primarily on their health care benefits, but often the extra benefits are offset by higher out of pocket expenses for routine health care. For example, Medicare patients who do not have a secondary insurance pay 20 percent of Medicare allowed amounts for office calls. Many Medicare Advantage plans have copays of $15 to $30 which exceed the 20 percent Medicare copay. There is no copay for laboratory testing in the government Medicare program but some Medicare Advantage plans do have a copy for lab work.
The Washington Post has an article on the hidden costs of the “free” perks from Medicare Advantage plans:
-----
See the article for additional interesting info.
Hidden Costs of Medicare Advantage Plans
October 15, 2009 — Ron Chusid
The Medicare Advantage plans were set up by George Bush to reward the insurance companies for their contributions. The plans pay large subsidies to care for Medicare patients. As a result, it takes from 13 percent to 19 percent more to care for patients in Medicare Advantage plans than in the government Medicare program. Most of this extra money goes to increase profits for the insurance companies. Some plans use a portion of the money to provide benefits such as health club memberships.
These extra benefits often don’t turn out to be a good deal for patients. Many don’t use the exercise programs, and often patients in Medicare plans do have access to exercise facilities. I’ve had patients who signed up for Medicare Advantage plans which promised dental benefits only to find that there weren’t any dentists in the area who actually accepted the plan.
Health insurance plans should be judged primarily on their health care benefits, but often the extra benefits are offset by higher out of pocket expenses for routine health care. For example, Medicare patients who do not have a secondary insurance pay 20 percent of Medicare allowed amounts for office calls. Many Medicare Advantage plans have copays of $15 to $30 which exceed the 20 percent Medicare copay. There is no copay for laboratory testing in the government Medicare program but some Medicare Advantage plans do have a copy for lab work.
The Washington Post has an article on the hidden costs of the “free” perks from Medicare Advantage plans:
-----
See the article for additional interesting info.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Do we have best health care?
http://pewresearch.org/databank/dailynumber/?NumberID=825
October 15, 2009
According to Americans the United States does not have the best health care in the world. Most see our health care as average (32%) or below average (27%) when compared with health care in other industrialized countries. Only 15% support the often-used political talking point that America has the best health care in the world; 23% say it is above average. Republicans (28%) are far more likely than Democrats (9%) or independents (12%) to say American health care is the best in the world, and conservative Republicans are even more pro American health care (66% say it is the best in the world or above average). More wealthy Americans are also more supportive of American health care. While 50% of those earning an income of $100,000 or more say American health care is above average or the best in the world, more than six-in-ten in the three income groups earning less than $75,000 say it is average or below average.
http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1293/health-care-public-gives-lukewarm-rating-to-american-system
July 24, 2009
Most Americans rate the nation's health care as no better than average when compared with health care in other industrialized countries. Just 15% say health care in this country is the "best in the world," while 23% rate it as "above average"; about six-in-ten (59%) view U.S. health care as either "average" (32%) or "below average" (27%).
The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press' May 2009 study found that health care receives relatively poor ratings compared with other major U.S. institutions and systems. About eight in-ten (82%) say either that the U.S. military is the best in the world (42%) or that it is above average (39%). Majorities also rate the nation's scientific achievements (65%) and standard of living (63%) as either the best in the world or above average, while half (50%) say this about the U.S. political system.
The economy is the only item on the survey that receives a rating lower than health care. Only about a third (34%) say the U.S. economy rates as the best in the world (12%) or above average (22%) when compared with the economies of other industrialized nations.
-----
October 15, 2009
According to Americans the United States does not have the best health care in the world. Most see our health care as average (32%) or below average (27%) when compared with health care in other industrialized countries. Only 15% support the often-used political talking point that America has the best health care in the world; 23% say it is above average. Republicans (28%) are far more likely than Democrats (9%) or independents (12%) to say American health care is the best in the world, and conservative Republicans are even more pro American health care (66% say it is the best in the world or above average). More wealthy Americans are also more supportive of American health care. While 50% of those earning an income of $100,000 or more say American health care is above average or the best in the world, more than six-in-ten in the three income groups earning less than $75,000 say it is average or below average.
http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1293/health-care-public-gives-lukewarm-rating-to-american-system
July 24, 2009
Most Americans rate the nation's health care as no better than average when compared with health care in other industrialized countries. Just 15% say health care in this country is the "best in the world," while 23% rate it as "above average"; about six-in-ten (59%) view U.S. health care as either "average" (32%) or "below average" (27%).
The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press' May 2009 study found that health care receives relatively poor ratings compared with other major U.S. institutions and systems. About eight in-ten (82%) say either that the U.S. military is the best in the world (42%) or that it is above average (39%). Majorities also rate the nation's scientific achievements (65%) and standard of living (63%) as either the best in the world or above average, while half (50%) say this about the U.S. political system.
The economy is the only item on the survey that receives a rating lower than health care. Only about a third (34%) say the U.S. economy rates as the best in the world (12%) or above average (22%) when compared with the economies of other industrialized nations.
-----
Schools And Students React To Surge Of Homelessness
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/14/schools-and-students-reac_n_321195.html
Julian Hattem
Posted: 10-14-09 05:00 PM
-----
In Anchorage, the number of homeless students has grown by 38 percent over the past year, reports Chrstine Kim of NBC affiliate KTUU. Half of all homeless in Anchorage are students in Kindergarten through 12th grade, and the numbers keep getting bigger. The school district has been tracking these students, offering free or discounted meals, transportation, and parenting classes to families burdened with the uncertainty of not knowing where they will be sleeping.
"Most of our parents are working parents and they just fell into hard times," said Marcus Wilson, principal of the North Star Elementary School. "Most of them say, 'Hey, we're just one paycheck away from being in a homeless situation,'" he continued, "and when it actually does happens, that's just the way the world is now. Unfortunately we're starting to see that a lot more, and it's just your everyday working families that are falling into situations like this."
Click here to find out more!
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Schools And Students React To Surge Of Homelessness
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The Huffington Post | Julian Hattem
Posted: 10-14-09 05:00 PM
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Read More: Bearing Witness, Bearing Witness 2.0, Beauregard Parish, Clarence Banks, Crystal Dreams Foundation, Good Will-Hinckley Home For Boys & Girls, Griffin Ringle, Homeless Children, Homeless Students, Business News
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As part of its Bearing Witness 2.0 project, the Huffington Post is rounding up a few of the best local stories of the day.
Clarence Banks grew up homeless, sleeping on floors of motel rooms and bouncing from apartment to apartment. Now, at 20, he's attending college, reports Scott Martindale of the Orange County Register, and was awarded a $2,000 scholarship last week by the Crystal Dreams Foundation, a nonprofit that helps underprivileged youth get to college. In an interview, Banks described how he struggled to maintain focus in high school and eventually made the difficult decision to leave his family to move in with his grandparents so that he could have the stability to focus on college:
I was working part time at Smart & Final in Long Beach and helping to pay the rent for the motels we were staying at. I remember one day I came home from work, and I felt empty. I knew I was helping my mom, watching my brothers, but I wasn't doing anything for myself. That's why I made the decision to move back to my grandparents' house to finish my schooling.
******
Griffin Ringle was one of the final graduates of the Good Will-Hinckley Home for Boys & Girls, a residential school for students with social and behavioral difficulties in Maine. The school ended its core residential and academic programs over the summer, reports Scott Monroe of the Morning Sentinel. After he graduated, Ringle was hoping to live at the school for a while to help him find a job, a place to live and think about college. Instead, because of state-wide budget redirecting, he got to spend two weeks in the school before they pushed him out into the world with a month's worth of rent money.
The money ran out quickly, and Ringle could not get a job despite filling out over 50 applications. He lived with a friend for a week before settling into a homeless shelter. Then, in July, Ringle was hit by a car in a hit-and-run, fracturing his ribs and splitting his shoulder. "It's kind of depressing when you feel like your bowl is glued back together and you have the last piece back in there, and then all of sudden it shatters into dust," he said. Ringle has since enrolled at Kennebec Valley Community College, with help from scholarships and grants, but admitted that his lack of a permanent home would make things tough: "If I don't have a stable place to live, I won't do well in school."
******
In Anchorage, the number of homeless students has grown by 38 percent over the past year, reports Chrstine Kim of NBC affiliate KTUU. Half of all homeless in Anchorage are students in Kindergarten through 12th grade, and the numbers keep getting bigger. The school district has been tracking these students, offering free or discounted meals, transportation, and parenting classes to families burdened with the uncertainty of not knowing where they will be sleeping.
"Most of our parents are working parents and they just fell into hard times," said Marcus Wilson, principal of the North Star Elementary School. "Most of them say, 'Hey, we're just one paycheck away from being in a homeless situation,'" he continued, "and when it actually does happens, that's just the way the world is now. Unfortunately we're starting to see that a lot more, and it's just your everyday working families that are falling into situations like this."
******
Like many school districts forced to respond to the upswing of foreclosure cases and homelessness, the Beauregard Parish School Board, in Louisiana, is adding a new position to better serve its homeless students, reports Billie Ho Rassat of the Beauregard Daily News. The foreclosure crisis, which has forced many families into homelessness, has urged a number of schools to approve similar positions to identify homeless students and help them concentrate of their schoolwork. In Beauregard Parish there are 80 children officially homeless, and the administration wants to make sure they stay in the system.
******
The school board in Muscatine, Iowa, voted on Monday to unanimously approve spending $23,000 from the America Recovery and Reinvestment Act for the hiring of four tutors to work with homeless families, reports Cynthia Beaudette for the Muscatine Journal. The small-town school district has over 150 homeless students, and the new tutors will hold sessions designed to let those kids concentrate on their homework. The tutoring sessions will feature healthy snacks, child care for younger siblings, and encourages parents to attend and get involved in their children's education.
Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tag/homeless-children
Julian Hattem
Posted: 10-14-09 05:00 PM
-----
In Anchorage, the number of homeless students has grown by 38 percent over the past year, reports Chrstine Kim of NBC affiliate KTUU. Half of all homeless in Anchorage are students in Kindergarten through 12th grade, and the numbers keep getting bigger. The school district has been tracking these students, offering free or discounted meals, transportation, and parenting classes to families burdened with the uncertainty of not knowing where they will be sleeping.
"Most of our parents are working parents and they just fell into hard times," said Marcus Wilson, principal of the North Star Elementary School. "Most of them say, 'Hey, we're just one paycheck away from being in a homeless situation,'" he continued, "and when it actually does happens, that's just the way the world is now. Unfortunately we're starting to see that a lot more, and it's just your everyday working families that are falling into situations like this."
Click here to find out more!
Your request is being processed...
Schools And Students React To Surge Of Homelessness
digg Share this on Facebook Huffpost - Schools And Students React To Surge Of Homelessness stumble reddit del.ico.us ShareThis RSS
The Huffington Post | Julian Hattem
Posted: 10-14-09 05:00 PM
What's Your Reaction?
Amazing
Inspiring
Funny
Scary
Hot
Crazy
Important
Weird
Read More: Bearing Witness, Bearing Witness 2.0, Beauregard Parish, Clarence Banks, Crystal Dreams Foundation, Good Will-Hinckley Home For Boys & Girls, Griffin Ringle, Homeless Children, Homeless Students, Business News
1
voteBuzz up!
Meltdown Homeless Students
File Photo
Get Breaking News Alerts
never spam
*
Share
*
*
Comments
As part of its Bearing Witness 2.0 project, the Huffington Post is rounding up a few of the best local stories of the day.
Clarence Banks grew up homeless, sleeping on floors of motel rooms and bouncing from apartment to apartment. Now, at 20, he's attending college, reports Scott Martindale of the Orange County Register, and was awarded a $2,000 scholarship last week by the Crystal Dreams Foundation, a nonprofit that helps underprivileged youth get to college. In an interview, Banks described how he struggled to maintain focus in high school and eventually made the difficult decision to leave his family to move in with his grandparents so that he could have the stability to focus on college:
I was working part time at Smart & Final in Long Beach and helping to pay the rent for the motels we were staying at. I remember one day I came home from work, and I felt empty. I knew I was helping my mom, watching my brothers, but I wasn't doing anything for myself. That's why I made the decision to move back to my grandparents' house to finish my schooling.
******
Griffin Ringle was one of the final graduates of the Good Will-Hinckley Home for Boys & Girls, a residential school for students with social and behavioral difficulties in Maine. The school ended its core residential and academic programs over the summer, reports Scott Monroe of the Morning Sentinel. After he graduated, Ringle was hoping to live at the school for a while to help him find a job, a place to live and think about college. Instead, because of state-wide budget redirecting, he got to spend two weeks in the school before they pushed him out into the world with a month's worth of rent money.
The money ran out quickly, and Ringle could not get a job despite filling out over 50 applications. He lived with a friend for a week before settling into a homeless shelter. Then, in July, Ringle was hit by a car in a hit-and-run, fracturing his ribs and splitting his shoulder. "It's kind of depressing when you feel like your bowl is glued back together and you have the last piece back in there, and then all of sudden it shatters into dust," he said. Ringle has since enrolled at Kennebec Valley Community College, with help from scholarships and grants, but admitted that his lack of a permanent home would make things tough: "If I don't have a stable place to live, I won't do well in school."
******
In Anchorage, the number of homeless students has grown by 38 percent over the past year, reports Chrstine Kim of NBC affiliate KTUU. Half of all homeless in Anchorage are students in Kindergarten through 12th grade, and the numbers keep getting bigger. The school district has been tracking these students, offering free or discounted meals, transportation, and parenting classes to families burdened with the uncertainty of not knowing where they will be sleeping.
"Most of our parents are working parents and they just fell into hard times," said Marcus Wilson, principal of the North Star Elementary School. "Most of them say, 'Hey, we're just one paycheck away from being in a homeless situation,'" he continued, "and when it actually does happens, that's just the way the world is now. Unfortunately we're starting to see that a lot more, and it's just your everyday working families that are falling into situations like this."
******
Like many school districts forced to respond to the upswing of foreclosure cases and homelessness, the Beauregard Parish School Board, in Louisiana, is adding a new position to better serve its homeless students, reports Billie Ho Rassat of the Beauregard Daily News. The foreclosure crisis, which has forced many families into homelessness, has urged a number of schools to approve similar positions to identify homeless students and help them concentrate of their schoolwork. In Beauregard Parish there are 80 children officially homeless, and the administration wants to make sure they stay in the system.
******
The school board in Muscatine, Iowa, voted on Monday to unanimously approve spending $23,000 from the America Recovery and Reinvestment Act for the hiring of four tutors to work with homeless families, reports Cynthia Beaudette for the Muscatine Journal. The small-town school district has over 150 homeless students, and the new tutors will hold sessions designed to let those kids concentrate on their homework. The tutoring sessions will feature healthy snacks, child care for younger siblings, and encourages parents to attend and get involved in their children's education.
Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tag/homeless-children
The Best Media the Health Insurance Industry Can Pay For
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/10/15/castellanos-ahip-gop/
CNN’s Castellanos Problem: On-Air Contributor Revealed To Be Paid By GOP, Insurance Industry
The Plum Line’s Greg Sargent has confirmed that CNN contributor Alex Castellanos’ political consulting firm, National Media, is the ad buyer for the insurance industry group America’s Health Insurance Plan’s (AHIP) new ad blitz attacking Democratic health reform plans.
Not only does he fashion himself as the “father of the modern attack ad,” but Castellanos is also the father of the Republican approach to health reform. In July, Castellanos wrote a memo for the GOP leadership on how to kill health reform. The memo emphasized the use of buzzwords to characterize Democratic plans — like “risky” and “experiment” — but most importantly defined the ultimate goal: “If we slow this sausage-making process down, we can defeat it.” Additionally, according to the FEC website, the Republican Party has been paying Castellanos’ firm for media work. Starting on July 23rd, Castellanos received four payments totaling $434,336 from the Republican National Committee.
Since Castellanos is being paid by both the private health insurance industry and the Republican Party, why has the network given him a platform to attack President Obama’s plans to overhaul the healthcare system?
CNN’s Castellanos Problem: On-Air Contributor Revealed To Be Paid By GOP, Insurance Industry
The Plum Line’s Greg Sargent has confirmed that CNN contributor Alex Castellanos’ political consulting firm, National Media, is the ad buyer for the insurance industry group America’s Health Insurance Plan’s (AHIP) new ad blitz attacking Democratic health reform plans.
Not only does he fashion himself as the “father of the modern attack ad,” but Castellanos is also the father of the Republican approach to health reform. In July, Castellanos wrote a memo for the GOP leadership on how to kill health reform. The memo emphasized the use of buzzwords to characterize Democratic plans — like “risky” and “experiment” — but most importantly defined the ultimate goal: “If we slow this sausage-making process down, we can defeat it.” Additionally, according to the FEC website, the Republican Party has been paying Castellanos’ firm for media work. Starting on July 23rd, Castellanos received four payments totaling $434,336 from the Republican National Committee.
Since Castellanos is being paid by both the private health insurance industry and the Republican Party, why has the network given him a platform to attack President Obama’s plans to overhaul the healthcare system?
Corporate Hostage Taking
http://www.openleft.com/diary/15493/stopping-the-great-american-jobs-scam
Stopping The Great American Jobs Scam
by: David Sirota
Thu Oct 15, 2009 at 11:15
For the last month on my morning drive-time radio show on AM760, we have been discussing the Frontier Airline situation, and how it serves as an important microcosm of all the debates about jobs, the economy, public policy, and corporate welfare inherent in Greg LeRoy's terrific book called The Great American Jobs Scam - a scam that afflicts almost every community across the country.
The basics of the story are this: Frontier declared bankruptcy on April 10, 2008, ultimately got bought by Republic Airways in August of 2009, and has been reporting operating profit for 10 straight months (probably a big reason that Republic bought it, and Southwest tried to).
In recent weeks, however, Republic Airways has been threatening to slash Frontier jobs in Denver (the airline's hometown) unless Denver and Colorado governments hand the company a series of special tax breaks. This is exactly what the Great American Jobs Scam is: a corporation using a threat to extract special giveaways.
This particularly ugly threat comes, of course, just as the city and state's massive budget deficits are causing huge cuts to the most basic social services for the most vulnerable populations (the homeless, the indigent, the mentally ill, etc.). The question we've been discussing on the radio is whether Denver and Colorado should give in or not?
Clearly, Republic is effectively trying to get in on the Great American Jobs scam by holding a gun to our elected officials' heads: Either hand over the taxpayer cash, the airline is saying to the pols, or we'll slash jobs in a high-profile way, hurt your economy, and embarrass you. The standard reaction from politicians in this situation is to do what Denver and Colorado officials initially did by seeming to promise capitulation. What usually happens is that after a period of "deliberation," these officials do exactly as they are told, selling the capitulation to the taxpayers as a way to supposedly preserve tax revenue (if we keep the jobs, we keep the income, which is taxed, which preserves our tax base...).
Of course, it rarely works out that way - what most often ends up happening is that the capitulation destroys tax revenue (see this latest example here in Colorado) and - worst of all - the jobs that the tax breaks were chasing end up leaving anyway.
This is how corporate welfare works in America - and it speaks to why we need federal tax/regulatory reforms to prevent this kind of situation whereby a corporation effectively plays different states off against each other with a game of economic Russian roulette.
Short of that federal reform, though, communities can themselves try to change the paradigm - which is exactly what Denver seems to be trying to do.
-----
The real question on issues of corporate welfare is simple: Don't taxpayers have a right to be treated like a business party in a normal contract negotiation? I mean, in what business transaction other than one with city/state government is one party allowed to simply renege on a deal and still get all the benefits of that deal? There are none and that's why the Great American Jobs Scam has been so devastating.
-----
Stopping The Great American Jobs Scam
by: David Sirota
Thu Oct 15, 2009 at 11:15
For the last month on my morning drive-time radio show on AM760, we have been discussing the Frontier Airline situation, and how it serves as an important microcosm of all the debates about jobs, the economy, public policy, and corporate welfare inherent in Greg LeRoy's terrific book called The Great American Jobs Scam - a scam that afflicts almost every community across the country.
The basics of the story are this: Frontier declared bankruptcy on April 10, 2008, ultimately got bought by Republic Airways in August of 2009, and has been reporting operating profit for 10 straight months (probably a big reason that Republic bought it, and Southwest tried to).
In recent weeks, however, Republic Airways has been threatening to slash Frontier jobs in Denver (the airline's hometown) unless Denver and Colorado governments hand the company a series of special tax breaks. This is exactly what the Great American Jobs Scam is: a corporation using a threat to extract special giveaways.
This particularly ugly threat comes, of course, just as the city and state's massive budget deficits are causing huge cuts to the most basic social services for the most vulnerable populations (the homeless, the indigent, the mentally ill, etc.). The question we've been discussing on the radio is whether Denver and Colorado should give in or not?
Clearly, Republic is effectively trying to get in on the Great American Jobs scam by holding a gun to our elected officials' heads: Either hand over the taxpayer cash, the airline is saying to the pols, or we'll slash jobs in a high-profile way, hurt your economy, and embarrass you. The standard reaction from politicians in this situation is to do what Denver and Colorado officials initially did by seeming to promise capitulation. What usually happens is that after a period of "deliberation," these officials do exactly as they are told, selling the capitulation to the taxpayers as a way to supposedly preserve tax revenue (if we keep the jobs, we keep the income, which is taxed, which preserves our tax base...).
Of course, it rarely works out that way - what most often ends up happening is that the capitulation destroys tax revenue (see this latest example here in Colorado) and - worst of all - the jobs that the tax breaks were chasing end up leaving anyway.
This is how corporate welfare works in America - and it speaks to why we need federal tax/regulatory reforms to prevent this kind of situation whereby a corporation effectively plays different states off against each other with a game of economic Russian roulette.
Short of that federal reform, though, communities can themselves try to change the paradigm - which is exactly what Denver seems to be trying to do.
-----
The real question on issues of corporate welfare is simple: Don't taxpayers have a right to be treated like a business party in a normal contract negotiation? I mean, in what business transaction other than one with city/state government is one party allowed to simply renege on a deal and still get all the benefits of that deal? There are none and that's why the Great American Jobs Scam has been so devastating.
-----
Many nursing home elderly get futile care
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33317547/ns/health-health_care/
updated 6:41 p.m. ET, Wed., Oct . 14, 2009
LOS ANGELES - A surprising number of frail, elderly Americans in nursing homes are suffering from futile care at the end of their lives, two new federally funded studies reveal.
One found that putting nursing home residents with failing kidneys on dialysis didn't improve their quality of life and may even push them into further decline. The other showed many with advanced dementia will die within six months and perhaps should have hospice care instead of aggressive treatment.
Medical experts say the new research emphasizes the need for doctors, caregivers and families to consider making the feeble elderly who are near death comfortable rather than treating them as if a cure were possible — more like the palliative care given to terminally ill cancer patients.
"We probably need to be offering a palliative care option to many more patients to make the last days of their lives as comfortable as possible," said Dr. Mark Zeidel of the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, who was not involved in the studies.
Palliative care focuses on managing symptoms of a disease and a main goal is to relieve pain at the end of life.
-----
In one study, doctors looked at health records of 3,702 nursing home residents nationwide who started dialysis between 1998 and 2000. The average age was 73 and many had other health problems, including diabetes, heart disease and cancer.
Within the first year, 58 percent died and another 29 percent declined in their ability to do simple tasks such as walking, bathing and getting dressed.
Kidney dialysis helps remove waste from blood, and the vast majority of patients with kidney failure benefit. However, in the case of seniors with failing kidneys, it is less clear whether the benefit outweighs the burden.
The findings call into question the common practice of transporting dialysis patients near the end of life to dialysis centers several times a week and hooking them up to a machine for hours at a time.
"We may be overestimating the benefits of dialysis in some of these patients and downplaying the burdens," said lead author Dr. Manjula Kurella Tamura, a Stanford University kidney specialist.
The study did not include a comparison group of patients who didn't get dialysis, so it's unknown if more elderly are dying after starting dialysis than not. Kurella Tamura said there's no one-size-fits-all recommendation for which nursing home residents should go on dialysis, and she suggests patients talk with their doctors about realistic expectations.
The second study followed 323 people with advanced dementia from Boston-area nursing homes. Their average age was 85 and they could not recognize loved ones and were unable to talk or walk.
One out of four died within six months and half died during the 18 months they were followed. Nursing home residents with advanced dementia were more likely to die of pneumonia, fever and eating problems related to their dementia than from strokes or heart attacks.
During their final three months, 41 percent received aggressive care including being hospitalized and tube feeding. However, if the person making their medical decisions was aware of their poor prognosis, they were less likely to receive aggressive care near the end of life, the research found.
"We often temporarily inflict discomfort or pain on patients. We try to minimize it, but we accept it because we think the trade-off is curing or healing," said Dr. Greg Sachs of Indiana University School of Medicine.
==========================
I had a friend who was in his 20's or 30's who had diabetes, and as a result was blind and on kidney dialysis. He kept ending up in the hospital from severe diabetic problems, finally ended up in a nursing home, where he had little control of his own life. He felt lousy most of the time, either from the kidney failure or from the aftermath of the dialysis itself. He was unhappy and self-destructive. When he died, I felt sad that he had been so miserable.
My great-Aunt had dementia, maybe Alzheimer's. She was in a nursing home for several years. She was miserable. She didn't want to be there, but could not take care of herself, didn't recognize her family. When she died, we were sad to lose her, but relieved she was out of her misery.
updated 6:41 p.m. ET, Wed., Oct . 14, 2009
LOS ANGELES - A surprising number of frail, elderly Americans in nursing homes are suffering from futile care at the end of their lives, two new federally funded studies reveal.
One found that putting nursing home residents with failing kidneys on dialysis didn't improve their quality of life and may even push them into further decline. The other showed many with advanced dementia will die within six months and perhaps should have hospice care instead of aggressive treatment.
Medical experts say the new research emphasizes the need for doctors, caregivers and families to consider making the feeble elderly who are near death comfortable rather than treating them as if a cure were possible — more like the palliative care given to terminally ill cancer patients.
"We probably need to be offering a palliative care option to many more patients to make the last days of their lives as comfortable as possible," said Dr. Mark Zeidel of the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, who was not involved in the studies.
Palliative care focuses on managing symptoms of a disease and a main goal is to relieve pain at the end of life.
-----
In one study, doctors looked at health records of 3,702 nursing home residents nationwide who started dialysis between 1998 and 2000. The average age was 73 and many had other health problems, including diabetes, heart disease and cancer.
Within the first year, 58 percent died and another 29 percent declined in their ability to do simple tasks such as walking, bathing and getting dressed.
Kidney dialysis helps remove waste from blood, and the vast majority of patients with kidney failure benefit. However, in the case of seniors with failing kidneys, it is less clear whether the benefit outweighs the burden.
The findings call into question the common practice of transporting dialysis patients near the end of life to dialysis centers several times a week and hooking them up to a machine for hours at a time.
"We may be overestimating the benefits of dialysis in some of these patients and downplaying the burdens," said lead author Dr. Manjula Kurella Tamura, a Stanford University kidney specialist.
The study did not include a comparison group of patients who didn't get dialysis, so it's unknown if more elderly are dying after starting dialysis than not. Kurella Tamura said there's no one-size-fits-all recommendation for which nursing home residents should go on dialysis, and she suggests patients talk with their doctors about realistic expectations.
The second study followed 323 people with advanced dementia from Boston-area nursing homes. Their average age was 85 and they could not recognize loved ones and were unable to talk or walk.
One out of four died within six months and half died during the 18 months they were followed. Nursing home residents with advanced dementia were more likely to die of pneumonia, fever and eating problems related to their dementia than from strokes or heart attacks.
During their final three months, 41 percent received aggressive care including being hospitalized and tube feeding. However, if the person making their medical decisions was aware of their poor prognosis, they were less likely to receive aggressive care near the end of life, the research found.
"We often temporarily inflict discomfort or pain on patients. We try to minimize it, but we accept it because we think the trade-off is curing or healing," said Dr. Greg Sachs of Indiana University School of Medicine.
==========================
I had a friend who was in his 20's or 30's who had diabetes, and as a result was blind and on kidney dialysis. He kept ending up in the hospital from severe diabetic problems, finally ended up in a nursing home, where he had little control of his own life. He felt lousy most of the time, either from the kidney failure or from the aftermath of the dialysis itself. He was unhappy and self-destructive. When he died, I felt sad that he had been so miserable.
My great-Aunt had dementia, maybe Alzheimer's. She was in a nursing home for several years. She was miserable. She didn't want to be there, but could not take care of herself, didn't recognize her family. When she died, we were sad to lose her, but relieved she was out of her misery.
What is it they don't want the American people to see
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33318534/ns/politics-capitol_hill/
updated 9:10 p.m. ET, Wed., Oct . 14, 2009
WASHINGTON - The Senate ground to a halt Wednesday in a display of what an individual senator can do to protest his treatment by some of Capitol Hill's most powerful barons.
Instead of passing a $33.5 billion measure funding energy and water projects and then moving on to other business, the chamber slogged through a 30-hour protest by Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., who halted further legislative business after one of his pet ideas was dropped from the bill.
At issue is one of Coburn's top issues — greater transparency in government — as well as his sworn enemy, the powerful Appropriations Committee. Coburn had added to the energy and water bill a provision requiring reports that agencies are required to send to the appropriations panels be made available to other lawmakers and to the public. It's part of his drive for greater transparency in government.
Coburn's amendment won routine Senate approval in July but was dropped during House-Senate talks last month. Under Coburn's plan, reports such as one on the Energy Department's financial balances and a Nuclear Regulatory Commission report on barriers to building new nuclear power plants would have to be posted online right away. He's added similar language to several other bills.
"What is it we don't want the American people to see," Coburn said.
=====
Does anybody know anything about that NRC report?
updated 9:10 p.m. ET, Wed., Oct . 14, 2009
WASHINGTON - The Senate ground to a halt Wednesday in a display of what an individual senator can do to protest his treatment by some of Capitol Hill's most powerful barons.
Instead of passing a $33.5 billion measure funding energy and water projects and then moving on to other business, the chamber slogged through a 30-hour protest by Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., who halted further legislative business after one of his pet ideas was dropped from the bill.
At issue is one of Coburn's top issues — greater transparency in government — as well as his sworn enemy, the powerful Appropriations Committee. Coburn had added to the energy and water bill a provision requiring reports that agencies are required to send to the appropriations panels be made available to other lawmakers and to the public. It's part of his drive for greater transparency in government.
Coburn's amendment won routine Senate approval in July but was dropped during House-Senate talks last month. Under Coburn's plan, reports such as one on the Energy Department's financial balances and a Nuclear Regulatory Commission report on barriers to building new nuclear power plants would have to be posted online right away. He's added similar language to several other bills.
"What is it we don't want the American people to see," Coburn said.
=====
Does anybody know anything about that NRC report?
Charlie Brown and Lucy
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33308113/ns/politics-health_care_reform/
updated 1:23 p.m. ET, Wed., Oct . 14, 2009
WASHINGTON - A second Republican senator signaled Wednesday she's open to voting for sweeping health care legislation this year, putting President Barack Obama closer to a historic achievement that has eluded generations of Democratic leaders.
But Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, told The Associated Press that the bill approved Tuesday by the Finance Committee needs substantial improvements to make coverage more affordable, contain costs, and protect Medicare. Nevertheless, she joined her Maine GOP colleague Sen. Olympia Snowe in endorsing the goal of far-reaching changes.
-----
Wednesday, Snowe tackled the most divisive issue still on the table: creation of a government insurance plan that would compete with private ones.
While emphasizing that she still opposes the so-called public option, Snowe said in a nationally broadcast interview that she could foresee a government-run plan that would "kick in" if private insurers failed to live up to expectations that they keep premiums in check.
=======
updated 1:23 p.m. ET, Wed., Oct . 14, 2009
WASHINGTON - A second Republican senator signaled Wednesday she's open to voting for sweeping health care legislation this year, putting President Barack Obama closer to a historic achievement that has eluded generations of Democratic leaders.
But Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, told The Associated Press that the bill approved Tuesday by the Finance Committee needs substantial improvements to make coverage more affordable, contain costs, and protect Medicare. Nevertheless, she joined her Maine GOP colleague Sen. Olympia Snowe in endorsing the goal of far-reaching changes.
-----
Wednesday, Snowe tackled the most divisive issue still on the table: creation of a government insurance plan that would compete with private ones.
While emphasizing that she still opposes the so-called public option, Snowe said in a nationally broadcast interview that she could foresee a government-run plan that would "kick in" if private insurers failed to live up to expectations that they keep premiums in check.
=======
When has business ever lived up to promises like this? This is like when Lucy holds the football for Charlie Brown and promises that this time she pull it away. He always thinks this time will be different, and he's always wrong. This attitude is especially crazy when we currently have the example of financial institutions, bailed out by taxpayer money so they could keep loans available to other businesses, giving big bonuses to their executives who caused the financial meltdown, while resuing loans to small businesses.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
U.N.: ‘Unprecedented’ 1 billion hungry
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33307380/ns/health-diet_and_nutrition/
updated 8:51 a.m. ET, Wed., Oct . 14, 2009
ROME - Even before the economic crisis pushed the ranks of the world's hungry to a record 1 billion, declining aid and investment in agriculture had been steadily increasing the number of undernourished people for more than a decade, a U.N. food agency said Wednesday.
Unless these trends are reversed, ambitious goals set by the international community to slash the number of hungry people by 2015 will not be met, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization warned in a report.
After gains in the fight against hunger in the 1980s and early 1990s, the number of undernourished people started climbing in 1995, reaching 1.02 billion this year under the combined effect of high food prices and the global financial meltdown, the agency said. The figure topped the 1 billion mark in June, and was 963 million a year ago.
The blame for the long-term trend rests largely on the reduced share of aid and private investments earmarked for agriculture over recent years, the Rome-based agency said in its State of Food Insecurity report for 2009.
"In the fight against hunger the focus should be on increasing food production," FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf said. "It's common sense ... that agriculture would be given the priority, but the opposite has happened."
In 1980, 17 percent of aid contributed by donor countries went to agriculture. That share was down to 3.8 percent in 2006 and only slightly improved in the last three years, Diouf said in an interview with AP Television News.
The decline may have been caused by low food prices that discouraged investment in agriculture and competition for funds from other aid fields including emergency relief, debt reduction and population control, said FAO economist David Dawe.
Against the backdrop of this trend, the world's hungry were hit with a double blow recently. First, soaring prices for food staples in 2007 and 2008 forced poor families to sell their meager assets and cut down on meals, health and education spending.
Although the inflated prices — which caused riots across the globe last year — have stabilized, they remain comparatively high, especially in the developing world, Diouf told APTN.
In the meantime, the world economic crisis is increasing unemployment, reducing remittances that immigrants send back home and making it difficult for poor countries to get credit lines to buy food on the market, Diouf said.
Thirty countries now require emergency food assistance, including 20 in Africa. FAO announced in June that the number of hungry people had reached 1 billion, or one in six of the world's population. The world's most populous region, Asia and the Pacific, has the largest number of hungry people — 642 million — followed by Sub-Saharan Africa with 265 million.
"The current crisis is historically unprecedented" said the new report. "With developing countries today more financially and commercially integrated into the world economy than they were 20 years ago, they are far more exposed to shocks in international markets."
Diouf said world leaders are starting to understand that investment in agriculture must be increased. He cited the goal set by July's Group of Eight summit in L'Aquila, Italy, to raise $20 billion to help farmers in poor countries produce more — a shift from previous emphasis on delivering food aid.
However, more investments will be needed to fulfill pledges like the U.N. Millennium Development Goals, which aim to halve of the number of those living in hunger and poverty by 2015, the report said.
FAO, which will host a world food summit next month, says global food output will have to increase by 70 percent to feed a projected population of 9.1 billion in 2050.
To achieve that, poor countries will need $44 billion yearly of aid to agriculture, compared with the current $7.9 billion, to increase access to irrigation systems, modern machinery, as well as to build roads and train farmers.
updated 8:51 a.m. ET, Wed., Oct . 14, 2009
ROME - Even before the economic crisis pushed the ranks of the world's hungry to a record 1 billion, declining aid and investment in agriculture had been steadily increasing the number of undernourished people for more than a decade, a U.N. food agency said Wednesday.
Unless these trends are reversed, ambitious goals set by the international community to slash the number of hungry people by 2015 will not be met, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization warned in a report.
After gains in the fight against hunger in the 1980s and early 1990s, the number of undernourished people started climbing in 1995, reaching 1.02 billion this year under the combined effect of high food prices and the global financial meltdown, the agency said. The figure topped the 1 billion mark in June, and was 963 million a year ago.
The blame for the long-term trend rests largely on the reduced share of aid and private investments earmarked for agriculture over recent years, the Rome-based agency said in its State of Food Insecurity report for 2009.
"In the fight against hunger the focus should be on increasing food production," FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf said. "It's common sense ... that agriculture would be given the priority, but the opposite has happened."
In 1980, 17 percent of aid contributed by donor countries went to agriculture. That share was down to 3.8 percent in 2006 and only slightly improved in the last three years, Diouf said in an interview with AP Television News.
The decline may have been caused by low food prices that discouraged investment in agriculture and competition for funds from other aid fields including emergency relief, debt reduction and population control, said FAO economist David Dawe.
Against the backdrop of this trend, the world's hungry were hit with a double blow recently. First, soaring prices for food staples in 2007 and 2008 forced poor families to sell their meager assets and cut down on meals, health and education spending.
Although the inflated prices — which caused riots across the globe last year — have stabilized, they remain comparatively high, especially in the developing world, Diouf told APTN.
In the meantime, the world economic crisis is increasing unemployment, reducing remittances that immigrants send back home and making it difficult for poor countries to get credit lines to buy food on the market, Diouf said.
Thirty countries now require emergency food assistance, including 20 in Africa. FAO announced in June that the number of hungry people had reached 1 billion, or one in six of the world's population. The world's most populous region, Asia and the Pacific, has the largest number of hungry people — 642 million — followed by Sub-Saharan Africa with 265 million.
"The current crisis is historically unprecedented" said the new report. "With developing countries today more financially and commercially integrated into the world economy than they were 20 years ago, they are far more exposed to shocks in international markets."
Diouf said world leaders are starting to understand that investment in agriculture must be increased. He cited the goal set by July's Group of Eight summit in L'Aquila, Italy, to raise $20 billion to help farmers in poor countries produce more — a shift from previous emphasis on delivering food aid.
However, more investments will be needed to fulfill pledges like the U.N. Millennium Development Goals, which aim to halve of the number of those living in hunger and poverty by 2015, the report said.
FAO, which will host a world food summit next month, says global food output will have to increase by 70 percent to feed a projected population of 9.1 billion in 2050.
To achieve that, poor countries will need $44 billion yearly of aid to agriculture, compared with the current $7.9 billion, to increase access to irrigation systems, modern machinery, as well as to build roads and train farmers.
Looking at nature makes you nicer
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33243959/ns/health-behavior/
By Diane Mapes
msnbc.com contributor
updated 8:34 a.m. ET, Wed., Oct . 14, 2009
“If it weren’t for Central Park, all us New Yorkers would kill each other,” says Ruta Fox, a 50-something jewelry entrepreneur from Manhattan. “It’s the saving grace of this city.”
As extreme as that sounds, Fox may be on to something. In a set of recent experiments, researchers at the University of Rochester in New York monitored the effects of natural versus artificial environments — and found that nature actually makes us nicer.
“Previous studies have shown the health benefits of nature range from more rapid healing to stress reduction to improved mental performance and vitality,” says Richard Ryan, a professor of psychology, psychiatry and education at the University of Rochester and co-author of the study, published in the journal Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.
“Now we’ve found nature brings out more social feelings, more value for community and close relationships. People are more caring when they’re around nature,” he says.
Fox, who lives three blocks from Central Park, says she’s definitely noticed the effect the 843 acres of woodlands, water bodies and rolling lawns has on the city’s overcrowded, overworked inhabitants.
“People in the park are happier,” she says. “They’re playing with their kids, running with their dogs, having picnics with their girlfriends or boyfriends. Their attitudes are better than in most circumstances of interaction in the city. It’s friendlier.”
Will all this change as fall and winter descend and we begin to spend more time indoors?
Not necessarily, say researchers, who point out the “naturally nice” effect doesn’t so much hinge on daily hikes through the woods as it does paying attention to the natural elements we encounter each day.
“It’s about stopping and smelling the roses as opposed to passing them by while thinking of your next meeting,” Ryan says.
Nature’s psychological power is so profound, in fact, that even paying attention to a painting of roses or a potted fern can make a difference in a person’s attitude. In three of the experiments, people were shown images on a 19-inch computer screen, with half viewing buildings, roads and cityscapes and the other half viewing landscapes, lakes and deserts.
In a fourth study, participants worked in a room with or without a few houseplants. In all cases, those who were exposed to natural elements — digital or otherwise — rated close relationships and community as more important than they had before the study.
The more attention participants paid to natural elements, the “nicer” they got. Conversely, the more they focused on artificial elements, the higher they rated selfish goals, such as wealth and fame.
“There was a change toward the social direction for people who were around plants and a movement away from that for people who didn’t have plants,” Ryan explains. “Human artifacts like city scenes led people to be less social. And being in the room with no natural elements had the same effect.”
Ryan says he hopes his research, which involved 370 participants, will make a difference when it comes to city planning, health care settings and work place environments.
“There’s a real value to having green space,” he says. “It serves the community.”
-----
The publisher, who spent five years in the rain forests of Central America, says he’s also seen a distinct difference between those who live in the city and those who don't.
“In Belize, people were much more community and family-oriented,” he says. “More open to sharing, not only material things, but their time. Here, so much of our time is spent trying to get some kind of deal. There’s always a motive, an agenda, in big cities.”
Sharing the green
Interestingly enough, Free’s observations are backed by Ryan’s research, which found that nature not only makes us more social, it makes us more generous.
“In two of the studies, we gave people the opportunity to share money with another person and they were more generous when they were in a context where there were natural elements,” he says. “If I had a nonprofit, when the donors came in, I’d want them in a room with natural elements.”
-----
By Diane Mapes
msnbc.com contributor
updated 8:34 a.m. ET, Wed., Oct . 14, 2009
“If it weren’t for Central Park, all us New Yorkers would kill each other,” says Ruta Fox, a 50-something jewelry entrepreneur from Manhattan. “It’s the saving grace of this city.”
As extreme as that sounds, Fox may be on to something. In a set of recent experiments, researchers at the University of Rochester in New York monitored the effects of natural versus artificial environments — and found that nature actually makes us nicer.
“Previous studies have shown the health benefits of nature range from more rapid healing to stress reduction to improved mental performance and vitality,” says Richard Ryan, a professor of psychology, psychiatry and education at the University of Rochester and co-author of the study, published in the journal Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.
“Now we’ve found nature brings out more social feelings, more value for community and close relationships. People are more caring when they’re around nature,” he says.
Fox, who lives three blocks from Central Park, says she’s definitely noticed the effect the 843 acres of woodlands, water bodies and rolling lawns has on the city’s overcrowded, overworked inhabitants.
“People in the park are happier,” she says. “They’re playing with their kids, running with their dogs, having picnics with their girlfriends or boyfriends. Their attitudes are better than in most circumstances of interaction in the city. It’s friendlier.”
Will all this change as fall and winter descend and we begin to spend more time indoors?
Not necessarily, say researchers, who point out the “naturally nice” effect doesn’t so much hinge on daily hikes through the woods as it does paying attention to the natural elements we encounter each day.
“It’s about stopping and smelling the roses as opposed to passing them by while thinking of your next meeting,” Ryan says.
Nature’s psychological power is so profound, in fact, that even paying attention to a painting of roses or a potted fern can make a difference in a person’s attitude. In three of the experiments, people were shown images on a 19-inch computer screen, with half viewing buildings, roads and cityscapes and the other half viewing landscapes, lakes and deserts.
In a fourth study, participants worked in a room with or without a few houseplants. In all cases, those who were exposed to natural elements — digital or otherwise — rated close relationships and community as more important than they had before the study.
The more attention participants paid to natural elements, the “nicer” they got. Conversely, the more they focused on artificial elements, the higher they rated selfish goals, such as wealth and fame.
“There was a change toward the social direction for people who were around plants and a movement away from that for people who didn’t have plants,” Ryan explains. “Human artifacts like city scenes led people to be less social. And being in the room with no natural elements had the same effect.”
Ryan says he hopes his research, which involved 370 participants, will make a difference when it comes to city planning, health care settings and work place environments.
“There’s a real value to having green space,” he says. “It serves the community.”
-----
The publisher, who spent five years in the rain forests of Central America, says he’s also seen a distinct difference between those who live in the city and those who don't.
“In Belize, people were much more community and family-oriented,” he says. “More open to sharing, not only material things, but their time. Here, so much of our time is spent trying to get some kind of deal. There’s always a motive, an agenda, in big cities.”
Sharing the green
Interestingly enough, Free’s observations are backed by Ryan’s research, which found that nature not only makes us more social, it makes us more generous.
“In two of the studies, we gave people the opportunity to share money with another person and they were more generous when they were in a context where there were natural elements,” he says. “If I had a nonprofit, when the donors came in, I’d want them in a room with natural elements.”
-----
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Phil Gingrey’s Stimulus Hypocrisy: Votes Against Recovery Act In DC, But Hands Out Giant Stimulus Check In Georgia
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/10/13/gingrey-hands-out-stimulus/
By Zaid Jilani at 3:15 pm
Earlier this year, Congress passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) — commonly referred to as the stimulus — without a single Republican vote in the House of Representatives. Since then, a whole host of legislators who opposed the stimulus have jumped on the chance to personally deliver stimulus funds to their cash-strapped districts.
The latest member of Congress to engage in this hypocrisy is Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-GA). Earlier this month, Gingrey appeared in the city of Cedartown, Georgia, to present a giant check of $625,000 in stimulus funds to the city commission to help fund the the city’s Streetscape project, which will install new sidewalks and infrastructure:
The money comes from federal stimulus funds and will fund the second phase of Cedartown’s Streetscape project, with new sidewalks, landscaping and other improvements to the downtown area. [...]
Believing that the project qualified for federal stimulus funds as a “shovel-ready” project, Gingrey presented the proposal at the federal level, his spokesperson, Linda Liles, explained. [..]
“These federal dollars will allow us to work both phases together and complete Streetscape by mid-2010,” [City Commissioner Scott] Tillery said. “This will be a big boost for the historic downtown area and for the whole city.
The Cedartown Standard snapped a picture of the congressman presenting stimulus funds which he once decried as the “trillion dollar debt” bill:
Gingrey joins numerous other conservatives in opposing the stimulus while touting its benefits and exploiting its funds. For example, following their votes against the stimulus, Sens. Johnny Isakson and Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) asked Defense Secretary Robert Gates to steer $50 million in stimulus funding into a bio-energy project they supported. Rep. Joseph Cao (R-LA) boasted about securing funds for streetcar expansions that came from ARRA funds. And perhaps the biggest hypocrite of all, Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-LA), toured his state handing out jumbo-sized checks that were funded by the stimulus, despite his pledge that if he was still a member of Congress, he would’ve voted against the Recovery Act.
By Zaid Jilani at 3:15 pm
Earlier this year, Congress passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) — commonly referred to as the stimulus — without a single Republican vote in the House of Representatives. Since then, a whole host of legislators who opposed the stimulus have jumped on the chance to personally deliver stimulus funds to their cash-strapped districts.
The latest member of Congress to engage in this hypocrisy is Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-GA). Earlier this month, Gingrey appeared in the city of Cedartown, Georgia, to present a giant check of $625,000 in stimulus funds to the city commission to help fund the the city’s Streetscape project, which will install new sidewalks and infrastructure:
The money comes from federal stimulus funds and will fund the second phase of Cedartown’s Streetscape project, with new sidewalks, landscaping and other improvements to the downtown area. [...]
Believing that the project qualified for federal stimulus funds as a “shovel-ready” project, Gingrey presented the proposal at the federal level, his spokesperson, Linda Liles, explained. [..]
“These federal dollars will allow us to work both phases together and complete Streetscape by mid-2010,” [City Commissioner Scott] Tillery said. “This will be a big boost for the historic downtown area and for the whole city.
The Cedartown Standard snapped a picture of the congressman presenting stimulus funds which he once decried as the “trillion dollar debt” bill:
Gingrey joins numerous other conservatives in opposing the stimulus while touting its benefits and exploiting its funds. For example, following their votes against the stimulus, Sens. Johnny Isakson and Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) asked Defense Secretary Robert Gates to steer $50 million in stimulus funding into a bio-energy project they supported. Rep. Joseph Cao (R-LA) boasted about securing funds for streetcar expansions that came from ARRA funds. And perhaps the biggest hypocrite of all, Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-LA), toured his state handing out jumbo-sized checks that were funded by the stimulus, despite his pledge that if he was still a member of Congress, he would’ve voted against the Recovery Act.
The Amazing Shrinking Labor Force
http://www.economicpopulist.org/content/amazing-shrinking-labor-force
Tue, 10/13/2009 - 14:05
About a week ago, Econompic posted some nice charts about recent shrinkage in the labor force. As they noted, without labor force shrinkage, the unemployment situation would look a lot more dire, rising above 10% for the nation as a whole.
In the period between March and August of this year, 837,200 persons left the labor force. This has had the ironic effect of driving down the unemployment rate in many states. Basically, unemployment is still up, but not up as much as it would be if people hadn't exited the labor force. The "economic recovery" at hand is thus largely a function of people who have lost all hope and stopped even looking for work.
This phenomenon has not been equally distributed across the country. This is to say that while some states have seen virtually no change in their labor force others have seen their labor forces shrink considerably. I've created a graphic to show this, which I've posted below.
-----
All this has significant implications for unemployment. Remember that these numbers represent people who have at one point either had a job, or were looking for one, and have given up. If we hold the labor force steady from March of this year and count those who have exited the labor force among the unemployed, the rate in many states skyrockets.
Tue, 10/13/2009 - 14:05
About a week ago, Econompic posted some nice charts about recent shrinkage in the labor force. As they noted, without labor force shrinkage, the unemployment situation would look a lot more dire, rising above 10% for the nation as a whole.
In the period between March and August of this year, 837,200 persons left the labor force. This has had the ironic effect of driving down the unemployment rate in many states. Basically, unemployment is still up, but not up as much as it would be if people hadn't exited the labor force. The "economic recovery" at hand is thus largely a function of people who have lost all hope and stopped even looking for work.
This phenomenon has not been equally distributed across the country. This is to say that while some states have seen virtually no change in their labor force others have seen their labor forces shrink considerably. I've created a graphic to show this, which I've posted below.
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All this has significant implications for unemployment. Remember that these numbers represent people who have at one point either had a job, or were looking for one, and have given up. If we hold the labor force steady from March of this year and count those who have exited the labor force among the unemployed, the rate in many states skyrockets.
Key new ingredient in climate model refines global predictions
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-10/drnl-kni100909.php
Public release date: 9-Oct-2009
Contact: Ron Walli
DOE/Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Key new ingredient in climate model refines global predictions
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Oct. 9, 2009 -- For the first time, climate scientists from across the country have successfully incorporated the nitrogen cycle into global simulations for climate change, questioning previous assumptions regarding carbon feedback and potentially helping to refine model forecasts about global warming.
The results of the experiment at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory and at the National Center for Atmospheric Research are published in the current issue of Biogeosciences. They illustrate the complexity of climate modeling by demonstrating how natural processes still have a strong effect on the carbon cycle and climate simulations. In this case, scientists found that the rate of climate change over the next century could be higher than previously anticipated when the requirement of plant nutrients are included in the climate model.
ORNL's Peter Thornton, lead author of the paper, describes the inclusion of these processes as a necessary step to improve the accuracy of climate change assessments.
"We've shown that if all of the global modeling groups were to include some kind of nutrient dynamics, the range of model predictions would shrink because of the constraining effects of the carbon nutrient limitations, even though it's a more complex model."
To date, climate models ignored the nutrient requirements for new vegetation growth, assuming that all plants on earth had access to as much "plant food" as they needed. But by taking the natural demand for nutrients into account, the authors have shown that the stimulation of plant growth over the coming century may be two to three times smaller than previously predicted. Since less growth implies less CO2 absorbed by vegetation, the CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere are expected to increase.
However, this reduction in growth is partially offset by another effect on the nitrogen cycle: an increase in the availability of nutrients resulting from an accelerated rate of decomposition – the rotting of dead plants and other organic matter – that occurs with a rise in temperature.
Combining these two effects, the authors discovered that the increased availability of nutrients from more rapid decomposition did not counterbalance the reduced level of plant growth calculated by natural nutrient limitations; therefore less new growth and higher atmospheric CO¬2 concentrations are expected.
The study's author list, which consists of scientists from eight different institutions around the U.S. including ORNL, the National Center for Atmospheric Research, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Earth System Research Laboratory, and several research universities, exemplifies the broad expertise required to engage in the multidisciplinary field that is global climate modeling.
"In order to do these experiments in the climate system model, expertise is needed in the nitrogen cycle, but there is also a need for climate modeling expertise, the ocean has to be involved properly, the atmospheric chemistry . . . and then there are a lot of observations that have been used to parameterize the model," said Thornton, who works in ORNL's Environmental Sciences Division.
"The biggest challenge has been bridging this multidisciplinary gap and demonstrating to the very broad range of climate scientists who range everywhere from cloud dynamicists to deep ocean circulation specialists that [incorporating the nitrogen cycle] is a worthwhile and useful approach."
The ability to handle the increase in complexities of these models was facilitated by the capabilities of ORNL's Leadership Computing Facility, which currently houses the world's fastest supercomputer for civilian research. Jim Hack, director of the National Center for Computational Sciences, emphasizes that Thornton and his team were not limited by computational resources in the construction of his model. "It's one of the laboratory competencies, so we want to make sure we enable leadership science," he said.
This breakthrough is one more step toward a more realistic prediction for the future of the earth's climate. Nevertheless, potentially significant processes and dynamics are still missing from the simulations. Thornton also stresses the importance of long-term observation so scientists can better understand and model these processes.
A 15-year study of the role nitrogen plays in plant nutrition at Harvard Forest was an important observational source used to test their mathematical representation of the nitrogen cycle--a long experiment by any standards, but still an experiment that, according to Thornton, could improve the accuracy of the simulation if conducted even longer.
Other shortcomings of climate simulations include the disregard of changing vegetation patterns due to human land use and potential shifts in types of vegetation that might occur under a changing climate, although both topics are the focus of ongoing studies.
Public release date: 9-Oct-2009
Contact: Ron Walli
DOE/Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Key new ingredient in climate model refines global predictions
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Oct. 9, 2009 -- For the first time, climate scientists from across the country have successfully incorporated the nitrogen cycle into global simulations for climate change, questioning previous assumptions regarding carbon feedback and potentially helping to refine model forecasts about global warming.
The results of the experiment at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory and at the National Center for Atmospheric Research are published in the current issue of Biogeosciences. They illustrate the complexity of climate modeling by demonstrating how natural processes still have a strong effect on the carbon cycle and climate simulations. In this case, scientists found that the rate of climate change over the next century could be higher than previously anticipated when the requirement of plant nutrients are included in the climate model.
ORNL's Peter Thornton, lead author of the paper, describes the inclusion of these processes as a necessary step to improve the accuracy of climate change assessments.
"We've shown that if all of the global modeling groups were to include some kind of nutrient dynamics, the range of model predictions would shrink because of the constraining effects of the carbon nutrient limitations, even though it's a more complex model."
To date, climate models ignored the nutrient requirements for new vegetation growth, assuming that all plants on earth had access to as much "plant food" as they needed. But by taking the natural demand for nutrients into account, the authors have shown that the stimulation of plant growth over the coming century may be two to three times smaller than previously predicted. Since less growth implies less CO2 absorbed by vegetation, the CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere are expected to increase.
However, this reduction in growth is partially offset by another effect on the nitrogen cycle: an increase in the availability of nutrients resulting from an accelerated rate of decomposition – the rotting of dead plants and other organic matter – that occurs with a rise in temperature.
Combining these two effects, the authors discovered that the increased availability of nutrients from more rapid decomposition did not counterbalance the reduced level of plant growth calculated by natural nutrient limitations; therefore less new growth and higher atmospheric CO¬2 concentrations are expected.
The study's author list, which consists of scientists from eight different institutions around the U.S. including ORNL, the National Center for Atmospheric Research, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Earth System Research Laboratory, and several research universities, exemplifies the broad expertise required to engage in the multidisciplinary field that is global climate modeling.
"In order to do these experiments in the climate system model, expertise is needed in the nitrogen cycle, but there is also a need for climate modeling expertise, the ocean has to be involved properly, the atmospheric chemistry . . . and then there are a lot of observations that have been used to parameterize the model," said Thornton, who works in ORNL's Environmental Sciences Division.
"The biggest challenge has been bridging this multidisciplinary gap and demonstrating to the very broad range of climate scientists who range everywhere from cloud dynamicists to deep ocean circulation specialists that [incorporating the nitrogen cycle] is a worthwhile and useful approach."
The ability to handle the increase in complexities of these models was facilitated by the capabilities of ORNL's Leadership Computing Facility, which currently houses the world's fastest supercomputer for civilian research. Jim Hack, director of the National Center for Computational Sciences, emphasizes that Thornton and his team were not limited by computational resources in the construction of his model. "It's one of the laboratory competencies, so we want to make sure we enable leadership science," he said.
This breakthrough is one more step toward a more realistic prediction for the future of the earth's climate. Nevertheless, potentially significant processes and dynamics are still missing from the simulations. Thornton also stresses the importance of long-term observation so scientists can better understand and model these processes.
A 15-year study of the role nitrogen plays in plant nutrition at Harvard Forest was an important observational source used to test their mathematical representation of the nitrogen cycle--a long experiment by any standards, but still an experiment that, according to Thornton, could improve the accuracy of the simulation if conducted even longer.
Other shortcomings of climate simulations include the disregard of changing vegetation patterns due to human land use and potential shifts in types of vegetation that might occur under a changing climate, although both topics are the focus of ongoing studies.
Study finds partner abuse leads to wide range of health problems
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-10/osu-sfp100509.php
Public release date: 12-Oct-2009
Contact: Amy Bonomi
Ohio State University
Study finds partner abuse leads to wide range of health problems
COLUMBUS, Ohio – Women abused by intimate partners suffer higher rates of a wide variety of doctor-diagnosed medical maladies compared to women who were never abused, according to a new study of more than 3,000 women.
Many of these health problems are not commonly understood as being associated with violence, such as abdominal pain, chest pain, headaches, acid reflux, urinary tract infections, and menstrual disorders.
"Roughly half of the diagnoses we examined were more common in abused women than in other women," said Amy Bonomi, lead author of the study and associate professor of human development and family science at Ohio State University.
"Abuse is associated with much more than cuts and bruises."
Compared with never-abused women, victims had an almost six-fold increase in clinically identified substance abuse, a more than three-fold increase in receiving a depression diagnosis, a three-fold increase in sexually transmitted diseases and a two-fold increase in lacerations.
Public release date: 12-Oct-2009
Contact: Amy Bonomi
Ohio State University
Study finds partner abuse leads to wide range of health problems
COLUMBUS, Ohio – Women abused by intimate partners suffer higher rates of a wide variety of doctor-diagnosed medical maladies compared to women who were never abused, according to a new study of more than 3,000 women.
Many of these health problems are not commonly understood as being associated with violence, such as abdominal pain, chest pain, headaches, acid reflux, urinary tract infections, and menstrual disorders.
"Roughly half of the diagnoses we examined were more common in abused women than in other women," said Amy Bonomi, lead author of the study and associate professor of human development and family science at Ohio State University.
"Abuse is associated with much more than cuts and bruises."
Compared with never-abused women, victims had an almost six-fold increase in clinically identified substance abuse, a more than three-fold increase in receiving a depression diagnosis, a three-fold increase in sexually transmitted diseases and a two-fold increase in lacerations.
Proactive, personalized telephone counseling can help teen smokers to quit
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-10/jotn-ppt100809.php
Public release date: 12-Oct-2009
Contact: Steve Graff
Journal of the National Cancer Institute
Proactive, personalized telephone counseling can help teen smokers to quit
Personalized, proactive telephone counseling centered on motivational interviewing and cognitive behavioral skills training has been found to favorably impact quit rates among teen smokers, according to a pair of studies published online October 12 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
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This is the first adolescent smoking cessation trial to report a statistically significant intervention impact on 6-month prolonged abstinence, as measured one year post-intervention, in a large, general population of teens.
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Public release date: 12-Oct-2009
Contact: Steve Graff
Journal of the National Cancer Institute
Proactive, personalized telephone counseling can help teen smokers to quit
Personalized, proactive telephone counseling centered on motivational interviewing and cognitive behavioral skills training has been found to favorably impact quit rates among teen smokers, according to a pair of studies published online October 12 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
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This is the first adolescent smoking cessation trial to report a statistically significant intervention impact on 6-month prolonged abstinence, as measured one year post-intervention, in a large, general population of teens.
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Healthy neighborhoods may be associated with lower diabetes risk
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-10/jaaj-hnm100809.php
Public release date: 12-Oct-2009
Contact: Niki Gianakaris
JAMA and Archives Journals
Healthy neighborhoods may be associated with lower diabetes risk
Individuals living in neighborhoods conducive to physical activity and providing access to healthy foods may have a lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes in a five-year period, according to a report in the October 12 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
"The worldwide epidemic of type 2 diabetes mellitus is largely driven by the combined rise in obesity, intake of energy-dense or nutrient-poor foods and physical inactivity," the authors write as background information in the article. Interventions to reduce risk on the individual level—including surgery, medication and behavior change—have had mixed results. Large-scale behavior change may be necessary to reverse the diabetes epidemic, but such a change is difficult to achieve and may be unsustainable if the surrounding environment is not supportive.
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Note that the eating a lot of "nutrient-poor foods" can cause one to crave more food, because of the bodies attempt to gain enough nutrients
Public release date: 12-Oct-2009
Contact: Niki Gianakaris
JAMA and Archives Journals
Healthy neighborhoods may be associated with lower diabetes risk
Individuals living in neighborhoods conducive to physical activity and providing access to healthy foods may have a lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes in a five-year period, according to a report in the October 12 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
"The worldwide epidemic of type 2 diabetes mellitus is largely driven by the combined rise in obesity, intake of energy-dense or nutrient-poor foods and physical inactivity," the authors write as background information in the article. Interventions to reduce risk on the individual level—including surgery, medication and behavior change—have had mixed results. Large-scale behavior change may be necessary to reverse the diabetes epidemic, but such a change is difficult to achieve and may be unsustainable if the surrounding environment is not supportive.
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Note that the eating a lot of "nutrient-poor foods" can cause one to crave more food, because of the bodies attempt to gain enough nutrients
Investigation of contaminated heparin syringes highlights medication safety issues
"Company X"? "Imported heparin". Why is the U.S. public not allowed to know what company is involved, and what country the contaminated heparin was imported from?
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-10/jaaj-ioc100809.php
Public release date: 12-Oct-2009
Contact: Lola Russell
lrussell@cdc.gov
404-639-7916
JAMA and Archives Journals
Investigation of contaminated heparin syringes highlights medication safety issues
An outbreak of bloodstream infections appears to have been caused by the contamination of pre-filled heparin and saline syringes made by a single company, according to a report in the October 12 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. The subsequent investigation revealed that the company was not in compliance with safety regulations and identified challenges and areas for improvement in medication monitoring systems.
Between October 2007 and February 2008, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) received reports of clusters of bloodstream infections caused by the bacteria Serratia marcescens at health care facilities in several states, according to background information in the article. Based on initial information from facilities in Texas and Illinois, the investigation into the cause of the outbreak focused on syringes pre-filled with the blood thinner heparin and saline from one company (company X).
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A total of 162 S. marcescens bloodstream infections in nine states were reported among patients at facilities using syringes from the same company. Cultures of unopened pre-filled heparin and saline syringes manufactured by this company grew S. marcescens. Of 83 blood samples that contained S. marcescens submitted to the CDC from seven states, 70 (84 percent) contained bacteria genetically related to that grown from the pre-filled syringes.
"To ensure the sterility of manufactured medical products, companies must adhere to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's Good Manufacturing Practices [GMPs], a comprehensive body of regulations that govern all aspects of production," the authors write. "An onsite inspection of the manufacturer by the FDA revealed poor compliance with the FDA's GMPs and quality system regulations. Within days of this inspection, company X discontinued production of all medical products." The company also issued a voluntary national recall of the pre-filled syringes.
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Editorial: FDA Must Be Given Tools to Ensure Drug Safety
"The analysis accompanying this commentary describes a serious contamination of heparin marketed in pre-filled syringes," writes William K. Hubbard, B.A., M.A., former FDA associate commissioner, in an accompanying editorial. "Subsequent FDA investigation determined that the manufacturer had failed to adhere to the agency's quality control requirements. But an even more notorious recent case of a drug manufacturing problem was that of imported heparin believed to have contributed to dozens of deaths and an unknown number of injuries."
"We simply must, as a nation, recognize that we cannot reverse this trend toward globalization, that the solution to a safe drug supply is a strong FDA, not reliance on foreign governments," Mr. Hubbard concludes. "Throughout the 20th century, the FDA was a major contributor to our overall societal 'safety net' and came through for us many times when challenged with threats to our food and drug supply. Now, when we need them more than ever, we must be there to help the FDA," through measures such as increased funding and staffing.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-10/jaaj-ioc100809.php
Public release date: 12-Oct-2009
Contact: Lola Russell
lrussell@cdc.gov
404-639-7916
JAMA and Archives Journals
Investigation of contaminated heparin syringes highlights medication safety issues
An outbreak of bloodstream infections appears to have been caused by the contamination of pre-filled heparin and saline syringes made by a single company, according to a report in the October 12 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. The subsequent investigation revealed that the company was not in compliance with safety regulations and identified challenges and areas for improvement in medication monitoring systems.
Between October 2007 and February 2008, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) received reports of clusters of bloodstream infections caused by the bacteria Serratia marcescens at health care facilities in several states, according to background information in the article. Based on initial information from facilities in Texas and Illinois, the investigation into the cause of the outbreak focused on syringes pre-filled with the blood thinner heparin and saline from one company (company X).
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A total of 162 S. marcescens bloodstream infections in nine states were reported among patients at facilities using syringes from the same company. Cultures of unopened pre-filled heparin and saline syringes manufactured by this company grew S. marcescens. Of 83 blood samples that contained S. marcescens submitted to the CDC from seven states, 70 (84 percent) contained bacteria genetically related to that grown from the pre-filled syringes.
"To ensure the sterility of manufactured medical products, companies must adhere to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's Good Manufacturing Practices [GMPs], a comprehensive body of regulations that govern all aspects of production," the authors write. "An onsite inspection of the manufacturer by the FDA revealed poor compliance with the FDA's GMPs and quality system regulations. Within days of this inspection, company X discontinued production of all medical products." The company also issued a voluntary national recall of the pre-filled syringes.
-----
Editorial: FDA Must Be Given Tools to Ensure Drug Safety
"The analysis accompanying this commentary describes a serious contamination of heparin marketed in pre-filled syringes," writes William K. Hubbard, B.A., M.A., former FDA associate commissioner, in an accompanying editorial. "Subsequent FDA investigation determined that the manufacturer had failed to adhere to the agency's quality control requirements. But an even more notorious recent case of a drug manufacturing problem was that of imported heparin believed to have contributed to dozens of deaths and an unknown number of injuries."
"We simply must, as a nation, recognize that we cannot reverse this trend toward globalization, that the solution to a safe drug supply is a strong FDA, not reliance on foreign governments," Mr. Hubbard concludes. "Throughout the 20th century, the FDA was a major contributor to our overall societal 'safety net' and came through for us many times when challenged with threats to our food and drug supply. Now, when we need them more than ever, we must be there to help the FDA," through measures such as increased funding and staffing.
Study supports possible role of urate in slowing Parkinson's disease progression
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-10/mgh-ssp100909.php
Public release date: 12-Oct-2009
Contact: Sue McGreevey
Massachusetts General Hospital
Study supports possible role of urate in slowing Parkinson's disease progression
Results confirm those of 2008 study, clinical trial is underway
By examining data from a 20-year-old clinical trial, a research team based at the MassGeneral Institute for Neurodegenerative Diseases (MGH-MIND) and Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH), has found evidence supporting the findings of their 2008 study – that elevated levels of the antioxidant urate may slow the progression of Parkinson's disease. The report – which will appear in the December 2009 Archives of Neurology and has been released online – analyzed blood and cerebrospinal fluid samples from participants in a 1980s trail of potential Parkinson's medications, confirming the previous study's findings in a totally different group of patients.
"These results were critically important. Only now we can be reasonably sure that the slower rate of progression in patients with higher concentrations of urate is real and not a chance occurrence," says Alberto Ascherio, MD, DrPh, of HSPH, the new study's lead author.
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Public release date: 12-Oct-2009
Contact: Sue McGreevey
Massachusetts General Hospital
Study supports possible role of urate in slowing Parkinson's disease progression
Results confirm those of 2008 study, clinical trial is underway
By examining data from a 20-year-old clinical trial, a research team based at the MassGeneral Institute for Neurodegenerative Diseases (MGH-MIND) and Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH), has found evidence supporting the findings of their 2008 study – that elevated levels of the antioxidant urate may slow the progression of Parkinson's disease. The report – which will appear in the December 2009 Archives of Neurology and has been released online – analyzed blood and cerebrospinal fluid samples from participants in a 1980s trail of potential Parkinson's medications, confirming the previous study's findings in a totally different group of patients.
"These results were critically important. Only now we can be reasonably sure that the slower rate of progression in patients with higher concentrations of urate is real and not a chance occurrence," says Alberto Ascherio, MD, DrPh, of HSPH, the new study's lead author.
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Self-sacrifice among strangers has more to do with nurture than nature
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-10/nsf-sas100909.php
Public release date: 12-Oct-2009
Contact: Maria C. Zacharias
National Science Foundation
Self-sacrifice among strangers has more to do with nurture than nature
Culture is more important than genes to altruistic behavior in large-scale societies
Socially learned behavior and belief are much better candidates than genetics to explain the self-sacrificing behavior we see among strangers in societies, from soldiers to blood donors to those who contribute to food banks. This is the conclusion of a study by Adrian V. Bell and colleagues from the University of California Davis in the Oct. 12 edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Altruism has long been a subject of interest to evolutionary social scientists. Altruism presents them with a difficult line to argue: behaviors that help unrelated people while being costly to the individual and creating a risk for genetic descendants could not likely be favored by evolution: at least by common evolutionary arguments.
The researchers used a mathematical equation, called the Price equation, that describes the conditions for altruism to evolve. This equation motivated the researchers to compare the genetic and the cultural differentiation between neighboring social groups. Using previously calculated estimates of genetic differences, they used the World Values Survey (whose questions are likely to be heavily influenced by culture in a large number of countries) as a source of data to compute the cultural differentiation between the same neighboring groups. When compared they found that the role of culture had a much greater scope for explaining our pro-social behavior than genetics.
In applying their results to ancestral populations, the World Values Survey was less useful. But ancient cultural practices, such as exclusion from the marriage market, denial of the fruits of cooperative activities, banishment and execution happen now as they did then. These activities would have exerted strong selection against genes tending toward antisocial behavior, and presumably in favor of genes that predisposed individuals toward being pro-social rather than anti-social. This would result in the gene-culture coevolution of human prosocial propensities.
Public release date: 12-Oct-2009
Contact: Maria C. Zacharias
National Science Foundation
Self-sacrifice among strangers has more to do with nurture than nature
Culture is more important than genes to altruistic behavior in large-scale societies
Socially learned behavior and belief are much better candidates than genetics to explain the self-sacrificing behavior we see among strangers in societies, from soldiers to blood donors to those who contribute to food banks. This is the conclusion of a study by Adrian V. Bell and colleagues from the University of California Davis in the Oct. 12 edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Altruism has long been a subject of interest to evolutionary social scientists. Altruism presents them with a difficult line to argue: behaviors that help unrelated people while being costly to the individual and creating a risk for genetic descendants could not likely be favored by evolution: at least by common evolutionary arguments.
The researchers used a mathematical equation, called the Price equation, that describes the conditions for altruism to evolve. This equation motivated the researchers to compare the genetic and the cultural differentiation between neighboring social groups. Using previously calculated estimates of genetic differences, they used the World Values Survey (whose questions are likely to be heavily influenced by culture in a large number of countries) as a source of data to compute the cultural differentiation between the same neighboring groups. When compared they found that the role of culture had a much greater scope for explaining our pro-social behavior than genetics.
In applying their results to ancestral populations, the World Values Survey was less useful. But ancient cultural practices, such as exclusion from the marriage market, denial of the fruits of cooperative activities, banishment and execution happen now as they did then. These activities would have exerted strong selection against genes tending toward antisocial behavior, and presumably in favor of genes that predisposed individuals toward being pro-social rather than anti-social. This would result in the gene-culture coevolution of human prosocial propensities.
A high fat diet during pregnancy can lead to severe liver disease in offspring
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-10/uos-ahf101209.php
Public release date: 12-Oct-2009
Contact: Sophie Docker
University of Southampton
A high fat diet during pregnancy can lead to severe liver disease in offspring
Scientists have discovered a previously unknown link between a mother's diet in pregnancy and a severe form of liver disease in her child.
In a study, published in the journal Hepatology today, researchers at the University of Southampton found that a high fat diet during a woman's pregnancy makes her offspring more likely to develop a severe form of fatty liver disease when they reach adulthood. The findings are another piece in the jigsaw for scientists who believe diets containing too high levels of saturated fat may have an adverse effect on our health.
Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is a condition associated with obesity and caused by the build up of fat in the liver. The condition advances in some people and it is important to understand the factors that contribute to disease progression. Until recently, NAFLD was considered rare and relatively harmless but now it is one of the most common forms of liver disease that may progress to cirrhosis a serious life threatening chronic liver disease.
Professor Christopher Byrne, with colleagues Dr Felino Cagampang and Dr Kim Bruce, of the University's School of Medicine and researchers at King's College London, conducted the study, funded by the BBSRC. Prof Byrne explained: "This research shows that too much saturated fat in a mother's diet can affect the developing liver of a fetus, making it more susceptible to developing fatty liver disease later in life. An unhealthy saturated fat-enriched diet in the child and young adult compounds the problem further causing a severe form of the fatty liver disease later in adult life."
Public release date: 12-Oct-2009
Contact: Sophie Docker
University of Southampton
A high fat diet during pregnancy can lead to severe liver disease in offspring
Scientists have discovered a previously unknown link between a mother's diet in pregnancy and a severe form of liver disease in her child.
In a study, published in the journal Hepatology today, researchers at the University of Southampton found that a high fat diet during a woman's pregnancy makes her offspring more likely to develop a severe form of fatty liver disease when they reach adulthood. The findings are another piece in the jigsaw for scientists who believe diets containing too high levels of saturated fat may have an adverse effect on our health.
Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is a condition associated with obesity and caused by the build up of fat in the liver. The condition advances in some people and it is important to understand the factors that contribute to disease progression. Until recently, NAFLD was considered rare and relatively harmless but now it is one of the most common forms of liver disease that may progress to cirrhosis a serious life threatening chronic liver disease.
Professor Christopher Byrne, with colleagues Dr Felino Cagampang and Dr Kim Bruce, of the University's School of Medicine and researchers at King's College London, conducted the study, funded by the BBSRC. Prof Byrne explained: "This research shows that too much saturated fat in a mother's diet can affect the developing liver of a fetus, making it more susceptible to developing fatty liver disease later in life. An unhealthy saturated fat-enriched diet in the child and young adult compounds the problem further causing a severe form of the fatty liver disease later in adult life."
Confidence may not be convincing when recommending products or services
Interesting. My own experience is that people who are always sure they know everything about everything are generally not accurate.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-10/uocp-cmn101309.php
Public release date: 13-Oct-2009
Contact: Mary-Ann Twist
University of Chicago Press Journals
Confidence may not be convincing when recommending products or services
Sometimes people can gain influence by expressing uncertainty, according to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research.
"These days, you can easily find recommendations from experts or even other consumers about any product or service you might be interested in," write authors Uma R. Karmarkar and Zakary L. Tormala (Stanford University). "But what are the factors that can make these people's recommendations more or less influential?"
Across three experiments, the researchers presented participants with a restaurant review from either a novice or an expert, and looked at how that source's expressed certainty or uncertainty about his or her review influenced the effects of the message. "We predicted that mismatches between the source's level of expertise and the level of expressed certainty, or confidence, would lead people to be more persuaded by a good and compelling review," the authors explain. "In other words, a novice would be more persuasive when he expressed certainty about his opinions, whereas an expert would be more persuasive when he expressed uncertainty."
The study confirmed the researchers' predictions. "Participants found the restaurant review more surprising and unexpected when a novice reviewer expressed certainty, or when an expert reviewer expressed uncertainty," the authors write. "Investigating further, we found that when the level of certainty expressed was incongruent with the source's expertise, it increased involvement with the restaurant review."
"In the context of product or service reviews, being confident in your opinion does not necessarily mean that you'll be perceived as more convincing," the authors write. "Paradoxically, an expert or "gold star" reviewer on a website could draw more people in to his review if he was willing to be modest or admit uncertainty about his views. But for all that attention to pay off, he'd have to ensure he had good strong reasons supporting his opinion."
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-10/uocp-cmn101309.php
Public release date: 13-Oct-2009
Contact: Mary-Ann Twist
University of Chicago Press Journals
Confidence may not be convincing when recommending products or services
Sometimes people can gain influence by expressing uncertainty, according to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research.
"These days, you can easily find recommendations from experts or even other consumers about any product or service you might be interested in," write authors Uma R. Karmarkar and Zakary L. Tormala (Stanford University). "But what are the factors that can make these people's recommendations more or less influential?"
Across three experiments, the researchers presented participants with a restaurant review from either a novice or an expert, and looked at how that source's expressed certainty or uncertainty about his or her review influenced the effects of the message. "We predicted that mismatches between the source's level of expertise and the level of expressed certainty, or confidence, would lead people to be more persuaded by a good and compelling review," the authors explain. "In other words, a novice would be more persuasive when he expressed certainty about his opinions, whereas an expert would be more persuasive when he expressed uncertainty."
The study confirmed the researchers' predictions. "Participants found the restaurant review more surprising and unexpected when a novice reviewer expressed certainty, or when an expert reviewer expressed uncertainty," the authors write. "Investigating further, we found that when the level of certainty expressed was incongruent with the source's expertise, it increased involvement with the restaurant review."
"In the context of product or service reviews, being confident in your opinion does not necessarily mean that you'll be perceived as more convincing," the authors write. "Paradoxically, an expert or "gold star" reviewer on a website could draw more people in to his review if he was willing to be modest or admit uncertainty about his views. But for all that attention to pay off, he'd have to ensure he had good strong reasons supporting his opinion."
Crush of cancer, medical bills snares family
http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/10/13/cancer.insurance.finances/index.html
By Stephanie Smith
CNN Medical Producer
Decrease font Decrease font
Enlarge font Enlarge font
WEST PALM BEACH, Florida (CNN) -- Leslie Elder's eyelids fluttered open, and through the fog of pain medication, she saw the emergency room doctors pull back the curtain in her room.
She could tell that the news was bad.
"They didn't have to say a word. I knew from their faces that something wasn't right," said Elder, 60, who hours earlier had stumbled into the ER with a stabbing pain in her abdomen. "Then one doctor said, 'Your right kidney ... it's breaking apart. You have a tumor ... and you also have a tumor in your left kidney.' "
The words "You have a tumor" were not new to Elder; her grim financial situation was.
Elder had cancer twice before -- in 1988, doctors found a tumor in her right breast, and in 2001, they found one in her left breast -- except back then, she was insured. By the time she learned that she had kidney cancer in September 2005, she was uninsured.
"All I could think of was 'Oh, my god, I'm going to go broke. We'll be living in a cardboard house,' " Elder said. " 'How am I going to do this?' It was the most honest feeling of powerlessness."
Insurance conflict
Elder and her husband, Jim, say their health insurance carrier, Nationwide Insurance, forced them into an impossible situation by raising the rates on their policy over several years. Eventually, they were forced to cancel.
"Nationwide denies any inference that the company inappropriately raised rates for the coverage that was provided from 1987 until the time the Elders canceled the policy," spokeswoman Liz Christopher said in a statement.
The Elders are broke and on the cusp of bankruptcy because of medical bills, and they're not alone. A study published in the June issue of the American Journal of Medicine found that in 2007, 62 percent of personal bankruptcies were because of medical debts. The same study indicated that in 1981, only 8 percent of bankruptcy filings could be traced to medical bills.
"Health insurance premiums track directly with the underlying cost of medical care," said Robert Zirkelbach, a spokesman for America's Health Insurance Plans, which represents 1,300 health insurance carriers in the United States. "As the cost of providing care increases, premiums increase accordingly."
The Elders boil it down to health insurance companies putting profits ahead of human life. Video Watch more on the Elders' struggle »
"The insurance companies are choosing who will live and who will die," Leslie Elder said.
Nationwide Insurance says it did not break any law by increasing the Elders' insurance premium.
"Health insurance rates were and are highly regulated by various state insurance departments, and any premium increases for the Elders and other policyholders would have been made in full compliance with state laws in effect at that time," Christopher said.
The Florida Department of Insurance Regulation, which oversees companies like Nationwide, said in a statement, "There is no law that limits the amount of rate requested by an insurer." Insurance officials add that their office reviews all rate requests, ensuring that the requests are not excessive or discriminatory.
The Elders bristle at the notion that their experience could be cast as anything but "excessive" and "discriminatory."
Health care bills before the Senate and House are designed, in part, to rid the market of health care discrimination, especially as it relates to pre-existing conditions like Elder's cancer.
Zirkelbach says the industry agrees with removing pre-existing conditions from consideration for pricing policies but stresses that reform should not come by way of raising taxes or cutting benefits for other programs like Medicare.
The Obama administration has said repeatedly that health care reform would not cut benefits or raise taxes.
The Elders are not hopeful that health care reform -- even if it excludes pre-existing condition clauses from health insurance policies -- will help them any time soon.
According to the bill currently before the House, it will be 2014 before self-employed families like them will actually have access to health insurance. By then, Elder will be near eligibility for Medicare.
While the debate in Congress continues, Elder says she is waiting anxiously -- waiting for reform, and for her cancer to come back.
The Elders did not always have such a contentious relationship with their health insurance carrier, and they were not always broke. In fact, before their insurance troubles, they were solidly middle-class business owners.
However, in 1988, things began changing. It was the year of Elder's first breast cancer diagnosis. When the family's plan required payment of a $250 deductible and a 20 percent share of the costs of medical care, the Elders could afford it.
Years after that first diagnosis, things started getting shaky. Jim Elder says the premiums crept up slowly at first and then more dramatically.
"You do ask why, why, why," Jim Elder said. "Why are we stuck with all these huge bills when we're supposedly covered?"
A recent Kaiser Family Foundation study examining U.S. health insurance policies generally found that from 1999 to 2009, the average family premium more than doubled. The Elders say that over the life of their Nationwide Insurance policy, their premiums nearly quadrupled.
The Elders believe that their health insurance premiums soared higher than those of the average family because of Leslie's previous cancer diagnosis.
"What is the message here? Survive cancer but then go drop dead because we can't make any money off you anymore?" Leslie Elder asked. "[The insurance companies] figure, 'You're useless. Get lost.' "
Nationwide says, "While we're empathetic to the Elders' situation, we stand by the policy coverages provided to the Elders while they were customers."
To cope with high premiums, the Elders played a precarious, yet common, game. They increased their deductible to offset the high premiums. By the time Leslie Elder got breast cancer for a second time, in 2001, the family's deductible was up to $5,000.
What happened next would send shock waves through the Elder household.
"As I'm recuperating, I receive $21,000 of bills that I was responsible for," Leslie Elder said. Under the Elders' policy with Nationwide they did, in fact, owe so much, in part because of rising health care costs, and in part because their deductible was now so high.
She was stunned and confused -- not just about the bills but about how they were going to pay. What still confounds Leslie and Jim Elder: How the cost of medical care, and medical insurance, went sky high in just over a decade.
Late in 2001, the Elders were scrambling for affordable coverage. They dropped their policy with Nationwide Insurance and signed up for a more affordable policy with Aetna, by starting a group policy including employees in a small business they were running at the time. Eventually, Aetna would increase the Elders' premium to nearly $1,000 per month. It was too much. In 2005, the Elders dropped their health insurance policy for the second time.
"I sat down and seriously thought about it for a long time and said, 'I'm not going to do this,' " Leslie Elder said. "I am not going to pay. Never mind 'I'm not going to'; there was no way I could."
In a statement, Aetna said that Leslie Elder's previous cancer diagnoses were not the culprit for the rate increase.
Although the company did not cite a specific reason for the increased rate, Cynthia Michener, an Aetna spokeswoman said: "There can be other contributing factors to rate increases for small business policies, including, for example, the aggregate cost of the entire pool of small business policies in the state."
Zirkelbach said, "Everybody who has health care coverage should have the peace of mind that their coverage is going to be there when they need it. We have proposed to eliminate pre-existing condition exclusions entirely so that everybody has peace of mind that coverage will be there, that they won't be paying based on their health status."
Through it all, there was one bright spot: A generous family member paid the more than $80,000 in hospital bills stacked up during Leslie Elder's 2005 kidney cancer treatment. Still, the family is struggling to pay down the bill of more than $21,000 from 2001.
Leslie Elder says that even if she could afford it, because of her pre-existing condition, she is "uninsurable." Without coverage, she cannot afford follow-up exams for cancer, so Elder has no idea whether her cancer has come back. In a strange way, she says, not knowing is better.
"I don't think I could bear to listen to those words again. ... 'You have cancer,' " Elder said. "I've said to my husband, if I start to get sick, just set me up with a nice pill cocktail on a beach, because nobody cares. That's the message you hear every day from insurance companies."
By Stephanie Smith
CNN Medical Producer
Decrease font Decrease font
Enlarge font Enlarge font
WEST PALM BEACH, Florida (CNN) -- Leslie Elder's eyelids fluttered open, and through the fog of pain medication, she saw the emergency room doctors pull back the curtain in her room.
She could tell that the news was bad.
"They didn't have to say a word. I knew from their faces that something wasn't right," said Elder, 60, who hours earlier had stumbled into the ER with a stabbing pain in her abdomen. "Then one doctor said, 'Your right kidney ... it's breaking apart. You have a tumor ... and you also have a tumor in your left kidney.' "
The words "You have a tumor" were not new to Elder; her grim financial situation was.
Elder had cancer twice before -- in 1988, doctors found a tumor in her right breast, and in 2001, they found one in her left breast -- except back then, she was insured. By the time she learned that she had kidney cancer in September 2005, she was uninsured.
"All I could think of was 'Oh, my god, I'm going to go broke. We'll be living in a cardboard house,' " Elder said. " 'How am I going to do this?' It was the most honest feeling of powerlessness."
Insurance conflict
Elder and her husband, Jim, say their health insurance carrier, Nationwide Insurance, forced them into an impossible situation by raising the rates on their policy over several years. Eventually, they were forced to cancel.
"Nationwide denies any inference that the company inappropriately raised rates for the coverage that was provided from 1987 until the time the Elders canceled the policy," spokeswoman Liz Christopher said in a statement.
The Elders are broke and on the cusp of bankruptcy because of medical bills, and they're not alone. A study published in the June issue of the American Journal of Medicine found that in 2007, 62 percent of personal bankruptcies were because of medical debts. The same study indicated that in 1981, only 8 percent of bankruptcy filings could be traced to medical bills.
"Health insurance premiums track directly with the underlying cost of medical care," said Robert Zirkelbach, a spokesman for America's Health Insurance Plans, which represents 1,300 health insurance carriers in the United States. "As the cost of providing care increases, premiums increase accordingly."
The Elders boil it down to health insurance companies putting profits ahead of human life. Video Watch more on the Elders' struggle »
"The insurance companies are choosing who will live and who will die," Leslie Elder said.
Nationwide Insurance says it did not break any law by increasing the Elders' insurance premium.
"Health insurance rates were and are highly regulated by various state insurance departments, and any premium increases for the Elders and other policyholders would have been made in full compliance with state laws in effect at that time," Christopher said.
The Florida Department of Insurance Regulation, which oversees companies like Nationwide, said in a statement, "There is no law that limits the amount of rate requested by an insurer." Insurance officials add that their office reviews all rate requests, ensuring that the requests are not excessive or discriminatory.
The Elders bristle at the notion that their experience could be cast as anything but "excessive" and "discriminatory."
Health care bills before the Senate and House are designed, in part, to rid the market of health care discrimination, especially as it relates to pre-existing conditions like Elder's cancer.
Zirkelbach says the industry agrees with removing pre-existing conditions from consideration for pricing policies but stresses that reform should not come by way of raising taxes or cutting benefits for other programs like Medicare.
The Obama administration has said repeatedly that health care reform would not cut benefits or raise taxes.
The Elders are not hopeful that health care reform -- even if it excludes pre-existing condition clauses from health insurance policies -- will help them any time soon.
According to the bill currently before the House, it will be 2014 before self-employed families like them will actually have access to health insurance. By then, Elder will be near eligibility for Medicare.
While the debate in Congress continues, Elder says she is waiting anxiously -- waiting for reform, and for her cancer to come back.
The Elders did not always have such a contentious relationship with their health insurance carrier, and they were not always broke. In fact, before their insurance troubles, they were solidly middle-class business owners.
However, in 1988, things began changing. It was the year of Elder's first breast cancer diagnosis. When the family's plan required payment of a $250 deductible and a 20 percent share of the costs of medical care, the Elders could afford it.
Years after that first diagnosis, things started getting shaky. Jim Elder says the premiums crept up slowly at first and then more dramatically.
"You do ask why, why, why," Jim Elder said. "Why are we stuck with all these huge bills when we're supposedly covered?"
A recent Kaiser Family Foundation study examining U.S. health insurance policies generally found that from 1999 to 2009, the average family premium more than doubled. The Elders say that over the life of their Nationwide Insurance policy, their premiums nearly quadrupled.
The Elders believe that their health insurance premiums soared higher than those of the average family because of Leslie's previous cancer diagnosis.
"What is the message here? Survive cancer but then go drop dead because we can't make any money off you anymore?" Leslie Elder asked. "[The insurance companies] figure, 'You're useless. Get lost.' "
Nationwide says, "While we're empathetic to the Elders' situation, we stand by the policy coverages provided to the Elders while they were customers."
To cope with high premiums, the Elders played a precarious, yet common, game. They increased their deductible to offset the high premiums. By the time Leslie Elder got breast cancer for a second time, in 2001, the family's deductible was up to $5,000.
What happened next would send shock waves through the Elder household.
"As I'm recuperating, I receive $21,000 of bills that I was responsible for," Leslie Elder said. Under the Elders' policy with Nationwide they did, in fact, owe so much, in part because of rising health care costs, and in part because their deductible was now so high.
She was stunned and confused -- not just about the bills but about how they were going to pay. What still confounds Leslie and Jim Elder: How the cost of medical care, and medical insurance, went sky high in just over a decade.
Late in 2001, the Elders were scrambling for affordable coverage. They dropped their policy with Nationwide Insurance and signed up for a more affordable policy with Aetna, by starting a group policy including employees in a small business they were running at the time. Eventually, Aetna would increase the Elders' premium to nearly $1,000 per month. It was too much. In 2005, the Elders dropped their health insurance policy for the second time.
"I sat down and seriously thought about it for a long time and said, 'I'm not going to do this,' " Leslie Elder said. "I am not going to pay. Never mind 'I'm not going to'; there was no way I could."
In a statement, Aetna said that Leslie Elder's previous cancer diagnoses were not the culprit for the rate increase.
Although the company did not cite a specific reason for the increased rate, Cynthia Michener, an Aetna spokeswoman said: "There can be other contributing factors to rate increases for small business policies, including, for example, the aggregate cost of the entire pool of small business policies in the state."
Zirkelbach said, "Everybody who has health care coverage should have the peace of mind that their coverage is going to be there when they need it. We have proposed to eliminate pre-existing condition exclusions entirely so that everybody has peace of mind that coverage will be there, that they won't be paying based on their health status."
Through it all, there was one bright spot: A generous family member paid the more than $80,000 in hospital bills stacked up during Leslie Elder's 2005 kidney cancer treatment. Still, the family is struggling to pay down the bill of more than $21,000 from 2001.
Leslie Elder says that even if she could afford it, because of her pre-existing condition, she is "uninsurable." Without coverage, she cannot afford follow-up exams for cancer, so Elder has no idea whether her cancer has come back. In a strange way, she says, not knowing is better.
"I don't think I could bear to listen to those words again. ... 'You have cancer,' " Elder said. "I've said to my husband, if I start to get sick, just set me up with a nice pill cocktail on a beach, because nobody cares. That's the message you hear every day from insurance companies."
Experts warn glaciers in Indian Kashmir melting
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091013/ap_on_re_as/as_kashmir_melting_glaciers;_ylt=AhFeZ9Xj7v9.OO9v4QJPCxSs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTFlcGJiMG1tBHBvcwMxMTUEc2VjA2FjY29yZGlvbl9zY2llbmNlBHNsawNleHBlcnRzd2Fybmc-
By AIJAZ HUSSAIN, Associated Press Writer Aijaz Hussain, Associated Press Writer – Tue Oct 13, 6:54 am ET
SRINAGAR, India – Indian Kashmir's glaciers are melting fast because of rising temperatures, threatening the water supply of millions of people in the Himalayan region, a new study by Indian scientists says.
The study by Kashmir University's geology and geophysics department blamed the effect on climate change, and said it endangered the livelihoods of two-thirds of the region's nearly 10 million people engaged in agriculture, horticulture, livestock rearing and forestry.
The Kolahoi glacier, the biggest in the Indian portion of divided Kashmir, has shrunk to about 4.44 square miles (11.5 square kilometers) from about five square miles (13 square kilometers) in the past 40 years, the study found.
Shakil Romshoo, an associate professor in the department who led to three-year study, described the rate of melting as "alarming." He said Tuesday that Kolahoi had shrunk by 18 percent, and over the same period, other glaciers in the region had shrunk by 16 percent.
The Kolahoi feeds Kashmir's lifeline Jhelum River, which is also vital for agriculture in Pakistan's most populous province of Punjab.
The study was released Monday at a workshop on the impact of shrinking glaciers held in Srinagar, the capital of Indian Kashmir.
Last year, international charity ActionAid also warned that the glaciers in most areas of Kashmir have shrunk. The group said that climate change was affecting rain and snowfall patterns, which was lowering food production.
Prof. Syeed Iqbal Hasnain, head glaciologist at New Delhi-based the Energy and Resources Institute, said the findings show again that "warming of the climate system was unequivocal."
Rajeev Upadhay, an Indian geologist who has studied glaciers since 1995, said the new study was in line with previous ones.
"The study confirms the general trend that about 90 percent of all Himalayan glaciers are receding. Some glaciers are receding at an alarming rate of 44-45 meters (yards) per year," said Upadhay, who was not involved in the Kashmir University study.
He also said the Siachen glacier, where rival Indian and Pakistani troops have been entrenched for 25 years, has melted to half its earlier size.
"The unusual climate change clubbed with other activities at the Siachen Glacier has reduced it to 46 miles (74 kilometers) from 93 miles (150 kilometers) in length," he said.
-----
By AIJAZ HUSSAIN, Associated Press Writer Aijaz Hussain, Associated Press Writer – Tue Oct 13, 6:54 am ET
SRINAGAR, India – Indian Kashmir's glaciers are melting fast because of rising temperatures, threatening the water supply of millions of people in the Himalayan region, a new study by Indian scientists says.
The study by Kashmir University's geology and geophysics department blamed the effect on climate change, and said it endangered the livelihoods of two-thirds of the region's nearly 10 million people engaged in agriculture, horticulture, livestock rearing and forestry.
The Kolahoi glacier, the biggest in the Indian portion of divided Kashmir, has shrunk to about 4.44 square miles (11.5 square kilometers) from about five square miles (13 square kilometers) in the past 40 years, the study found.
Shakil Romshoo, an associate professor in the department who led to three-year study, described the rate of melting as "alarming." He said Tuesday that Kolahoi had shrunk by 18 percent, and over the same period, other glaciers in the region had shrunk by 16 percent.
The Kolahoi feeds Kashmir's lifeline Jhelum River, which is also vital for agriculture in Pakistan's most populous province of Punjab.
The study was released Monday at a workshop on the impact of shrinking glaciers held in Srinagar, the capital of Indian Kashmir.
Last year, international charity ActionAid also warned that the glaciers in most areas of Kashmir have shrunk. The group said that climate change was affecting rain and snowfall patterns, which was lowering food production.
Prof. Syeed Iqbal Hasnain, head glaciologist at New Delhi-based the Energy and Resources Institute, said the findings show again that "warming of the climate system was unequivocal."
Rajeev Upadhay, an Indian geologist who has studied glaciers since 1995, said the new study was in line with previous ones.
"The study confirms the general trend that about 90 percent of all Himalayan glaciers are receding. Some glaciers are receding at an alarming rate of 44-45 meters (yards) per year," said Upadhay, who was not involved in the Kashmir University study.
He also said the Siachen glacier, where rival Indian and Pakistani troops have been entrenched for 25 years, has melted to half its earlier size.
"The unusual climate change clubbed with other activities at the Siachen Glacier has reduced it to 46 miles (74 kilometers) from 93 miles (150 kilometers) in length," he said.
-----
Vegetarian Spider
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33281411/ns/technology_and_science-science/
By Jeanna Bryner
updated 3:27 p.m. ET, Mon., Oct . 12, 2009
In a possible affront to its fierce meat-eating relatives, one jumping spider prefers to dine vegetarian, munching on specialized leaf-tips of acacia shrubs, finds a new study.
The eight-legged vegetarian, called Bagheera kiplingi, lives in Central America, and is now considered a rarity among the world's 40,000 or so spider species, most of which are strictly predators, feeding on insects and other animals. B. kiplingi is about the size of a person's pinky nail.
"This is really the first spider known to specifically 'hunt' plants; it is also the first known to go after plants as a primary food source," said study researcher Christopher Meehan of Villanova University in Pennsylvania. (Co-author Eric Olson of Brandeis University independently observed the same behaviors in another population of this spider in Costa Rica.)
Essentially, the spider employs hunting strategies to get past guard ants that keep the acacias safe from other herbivores. In return, the ants get a comfy place to live — the plant's hollow spines — and food in the form of acacia nectar and the shrub's leaf-tips.
B. kiplingi spends its entire life on the acacia shrubs, and so must avoid the ants at all times. When hunting, they actively avoid the ants by changing targets when approached by a guard, and using silk droplines as retreat ladders. The spiders also nest primarily on the ends of older acacia leaves, spots the researchers found were least patrolled by ants.
"Most of the big spider textbooks almost outright claimed there are no herbivorous spiders," Meehan told LiveScience. "It's on par with the flying pig in terms of novelty."
The strategy seems to be successful. Direct observation, video recordings and chemical analyses of such spiders in Mexico and Costa Rica suggest the animals get most of their food from such plants. In the Mexican population, about 90 percent of the spiders' diet came from plant tissue, with the rest made up of ant larvae, nectar and other items. In Costa Rica, the spiders got about 60 percent of their diet from acacia plant tissues.
When the spiders do hunt ant larvae, they mimic the ants' behaviors, for instance by making jerky movements.
The research will be published in the Oct. 13 issue of the journal Current Biology.
By Jeanna Bryner
updated 3:27 p.m. ET, Mon., Oct . 12, 2009
In a possible affront to its fierce meat-eating relatives, one jumping spider prefers to dine vegetarian, munching on specialized leaf-tips of acacia shrubs, finds a new study.
The eight-legged vegetarian, called Bagheera kiplingi, lives in Central America, and is now considered a rarity among the world's 40,000 or so spider species, most of which are strictly predators, feeding on insects and other animals. B. kiplingi is about the size of a person's pinky nail.
"This is really the first spider known to specifically 'hunt' plants; it is also the first known to go after plants as a primary food source," said study researcher Christopher Meehan of Villanova University in Pennsylvania. (Co-author Eric Olson of Brandeis University independently observed the same behaviors in another population of this spider in Costa Rica.)
Essentially, the spider employs hunting strategies to get past guard ants that keep the acacias safe from other herbivores. In return, the ants get a comfy place to live — the plant's hollow spines — and food in the form of acacia nectar and the shrub's leaf-tips.
B. kiplingi spends its entire life on the acacia shrubs, and so must avoid the ants at all times. When hunting, they actively avoid the ants by changing targets when approached by a guard, and using silk droplines as retreat ladders. The spiders also nest primarily on the ends of older acacia leaves, spots the researchers found were least patrolled by ants.
"Most of the big spider textbooks almost outright claimed there are no herbivorous spiders," Meehan told LiveScience. "It's on par with the flying pig in terms of novelty."
The strategy seems to be successful. Direct observation, video recordings and chemical analyses of such spiders in Mexico and Costa Rica suggest the animals get most of their food from such plants. In the Mexican population, about 90 percent of the spiders' diet came from plant tissue, with the rest made up of ant larvae, nectar and other items. In Costa Rica, the spiders got about 60 percent of their diet from acacia plant tissues.
When the spiders do hunt ant larvae, they mimic the ants' behaviors, for instance by making jerky movements.
The research will be published in the Oct. 13 issue of the journal Current Biology.
Monday, October 12, 2009
Profits for Buyout Firms as Company Debt Soared
I recommend reading the whole article
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/05/business/economy/05simmons.html
By JULIE CRESWELL
Published: October 4, 2009
For most of the 133 years since its founding in a small city in Wisconsin, the Simmons Bedding Company enjoyed an illustrious history.
Presidents have slumbered on its mattresses aboard Air Force One. Dignitaries have slept on them in the Lincoln Bedroom. Its advertisements have featured Henry Ford and H. G. Wells. Eleanor Roosevelt extolled the virtues of the Simmons Beautyrest mattress, and the brand was immortalized on Broadway in Cole Porter’s song “Anything Goes.”
Its recent history has been notable, too, but for a different reason.
Simmons says it will soon file for bankruptcy protection, as part of an agreement by its current owners to sell the company — the seventh time it has been sold in a little more than two decades — all after being owned for short periods by a parade of different investment groups, known as private equity firms, which try to buy undervalued companies, mostly with borrowed money.
For many of the company’s investors, the sale will be a disaster. Its bondholders alone stand to lose more than $575 million. The company’s downfall has also devastated employees like Noble Rogers, who worked for 22 years at Simmons, most of that time at a factory outside Atlanta. He is one of 1,000 employees — more than one-quarter of the work force — laid off last year.
But Thomas H. Lee Partners of Boston has not only escaped unscathed, it has made a profit. The investment firm, which bought Simmons in 2003, has pocketed around $77 million in profit, even as the company’s fortunes have declined. THL collected hundreds of millions of dollars from the company in the form of special dividends. It also paid itself millions more in fees, first for buying the company, then for helping run it. Last year, the firm even gave itself a small raise.
Wall Street investment banks also cashed in. They collected millions for helping to arrange the takeovers and for selling the bonds that made those deals possible. All told, the various private equity owners have made around $750 million in profits from Simmons over the years.
How so many people could make so much money on a company that has been driven into bankruptcy is a tale of these financial times and an example of a growing phenomenon in corporate America.
Every step along the way, the buyers put Simmons deeper into debt. The financiers borrowed more and more money to pay ever higher prices for the company, enabling each previous owner to cash out profitably.
But the load weighed down an otherwise healthy company. Today, Simmons owes $1.3 billion, compared with just $164 million in 1991, when it began to become a Wall Street version of “Flip This House.”
-----
These private investors were able to buy companies like Simmons with borrowed money and put down relatively little of their own cash. Then, not long after, they often borrowed even more money, using the company’s assets as collateral — just like home buyers who took out home equity loans on top of their first mortgages. For the financiers, the rewards were enormous.
Twice after buying Simmons, THL borrowed more. It used $375 million of that money to pay itself a dividend, thus recouping all of the cash it put down, and then some.
A result: THL was guaranteed a profit regardless of how Simmons performed. It did not matter that the company was left owing far more than it was worth, just as many people profited from the mortgage business while many homeowners found themselves underwater.
Investors who bought that debt are getting virtually nothing in the new deal.
“From my experience, none of the private equity firms were building a brand for the future,” said Robert Hellyer, Simmons’s former president, who worked for several of the private equity buyers before being asked to leave the company in 2005. “Plus, the mind-set was, since the money was practically free, why not leverage the company to the maximum?”
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A disproportionate number of the companies that were acquired during that frenzy are now struggling with the enormous debts. More than half the roughly 220 companies that have defaulted on their debt in some form this year were either owned at one time or are still controlled by private equity firms, according to analysts at Standard & Poor’s. Among them are household names like Harrah’s Entertainment and Six Flags, the theme park operator.
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Over the years, as Simmons passed from one private equity firm to another, and as Mr. Rogers became president of the local union at the plant, he saw little difference on the plant floor. Then, in the spring of 2008, when the slowing economy had begun to hurt sales, Simmons laid off the night shift at the Mableton plant. And on Sept. 18 that year, it gathered employees in the cafeteria to say that the plant was closing.
“So many people were hurt because they thought this was a great company to work for and they planned on spending the rest of their lives here. Their families were here. They bought houses and cars here,” Mr. Rogers recalled. “After this happened, people were really struggling.”
Between the closings and other cuts, Simmons let go of more than a quarter of its work force last year, said its chief financial officer, William S. Creekmuir.
Mr. Rogers, who received his union-negotiated severance package of two months’ pay, said he and other union representatives had tried to get a little more for workers, particularly those who would have been eligible for retirement. Simmons had a long history of giving retiring employees a bonus of $20 for each year worked and a free mattress set, Mr. Rogers said.
“They wouldn’t give us anything,” he said.
In the months after he lost his job, Mr. Rogers nearly lost his home to foreclosure and struggled to pay his family’s bills. Mr. Rogers, who eventually landed a job at an air filter company and picked up part-time work doing maintenance at an apartment complex, said Simmons bore little resemblance to the company he once loved.
“They stopped the picnics. They stopped the Christmas parties. They stopped the retirement parties,” he recalled. “That showed you the type of people I was working for. I just didn’t realize it until the hard times came like they did.”
-----
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/05/business/economy/05simmons.html
By JULIE CRESWELL
Published: October 4, 2009
For most of the 133 years since its founding in a small city in Wisconsin, the Simmons Bedding Company enjoyed an illustrious history.
Presidents have slumbered on its mattresses aboard Air Force One. Dignitaries have slept on them in the Lincoln Bedroom. Its advertisements have featured Henry Ford and H. G. Wells. Eleanor Roosevelt extolled the virtues of the Simmons Beautyrest mattress, and the brand was immortalized on Broadway in Cole Porter’s song “Anything Goes.”
Its recent history has been notable, too, but for a different reason.
Simmons says it will soon file for bankruptcy protection, as part of an agreement by its current owners to sell the company — the seventh time it has been sold in a little more than two decades — all after being owned for short periods by a parade of different investment groups, known as private equity firms, which try to buy undervalued companies, mostly with borrowed money.
For many of the company’s investors, the sale will be a disaster. Its bondholders alone stand to lose more than $575 million. The company’s downfall has also devastated employees like Noble Rogers, who worked for 22 years at Simmons, most of that time at a factory outside Atlanta. He is one of 1,000 employees — more than one-quarter of the work force — laid off last year.
But Thomas H. Lee Partners of Boston has not only escaped unscathed, it has made a profit. The investment firm, which bought Simmons in 2003, has pocketed around $77 million in profit, even as the company’s fortunes have declined. THL collected hundreds of millions of dollars from the company in the form of special dividends. It also paid itself millions more in fees, first for buying the company, then for helping run it. Last year, the firm even gave itself a small raise.
Wall Street investment banks also cashed in. They collected millions for helping to arrange the takeovers and for selling the bonds that made those deals possible. All told, the various private equity owners have made around $750 million in profits from Simmons over the years.
How so many people could make so much money on a company that has been driven into bankruptcy is a tale of these financial times and an example of a growing phenomenon in corporate America.
Every step along the way, the buyers put Simmons deeper into debt. The financiers borrowed more and more money to pay ever higher prices for the company, enabling each previous owner to cash out profitably.
But the load weighed down an otherwise healthy company. Today, Simmons owes $1.3 billion, compared with just $164 million in 1991, when it began to become a Wall Street version of “Flip This House.”
-----
These private investors were able to buy companies like Simmons with borrowed money and put down relatively little of their own cash. Then, not long after, they often borrowed even more money, using the company’s assets as collateral — just like home buyers who took out home equity loans on top of their first mortgages. For the financiers, the rewards were enormous.
Twice after buying Simmons, THL borrowed more. It used $375 million of that money to pay itself a dividend, thus recouping all of the cash it put down, and then some.
A result: THL was guaranteed a profit regardless of how Simmons performed. It did not matter that the company was left owing far more than it was worth, just as many people profited from the mortgage business while many homeowners found themselves underwater.
Investors who bought that debt are getting virtually nothing in the new deal.
“From my experience, none of the private equity firms were building a brand for the future,” said Robert Hellyer, Simmons’s former president, who worked for several of the private equity buyers before being asked to leave the company in 2005. “Plus, the mind-set was, since the money was practically free, why not leverage the company to the maximum?”
-----
A disproportionate number of the companies that were acquired during that frenzy are now struggling with the enormous debts. More than half the roughly 220 companies that have defaulted on their debt in some form this year were either owned at one time or are still controlled by private equity firms, according to analysts at Standard & Poor’s. Among them are household names like Harrah’s Entertainment and Six Flags, the theme park operator.
-----
Over the years, as Simmons passed from one private equity firm to another, and as Mr. Rogers became president of the local union at the plant, he saw little difference on the plant floor. Then, in the spring of 2008, when the slowing economy had begun to hurt sales, Simmons laid off the night shift at the Mableton plant. And on Sept. 18 that year, it gathered employees in the cafeteria to say that the plant was closing.
“So many people were hurt because they thought this was a great company to work for and they planned on spending the rest of their lives here. Their families were here. They bought houses and cars here,” Mr. Rogers recalled. “After this happened, people were really struggling.”
Between the closings and other cuts, Simmons let go of more than a quarter of its work force last year, said its chief financial officer, William S. Creekmuir.
Mr. Rogers, who received his union-negotiated severance package of two months’ pay, said he and other union representatives had tried to get a little more for workers, particularly those who would have been eligible for retirement. Simmons had a long history of giving retiring employees a bonus of $20 for each year worked and a free mattress set, Mr. Rogers said.
“They wouldn’t give us anything,” he said.
In the months after he lost his job, Mr. Rogers nearly lost his home to foreclosure and struggled to pay his family’s bills. Mr. Rogers, who eventually landed a job at an air filter company and picked up part-time work doing maintenance at an apartment complex, said Simmons bore little resemblance to the company he once loved.
“They stopped the picnics. They stopped the Christmas parties. They stopped the retirement parties,” he recalled. “That showed you the type of people I was working for. I just didn’t realize it until the hard times came like they did.”
-----
Rewarding Failure
The disgusting thing is that people like this claim they deserve such huge pay because they are so competent, and are so valuable.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/05/business/economy/05simmons-side.html?_r=1
By JULIE CRESWELL
Published: October 4, 2009
New employees at the headquarters of the Simmons Bedding Company got a little b
Saying No. 1: “In order to create a viable vision you must answer one very fundamental question, ‘What do you really want?’ ”
Mr. Eitel, former colleagues said, really wanted to bring some sizzle to the ho-hum mattress business. He was paid millions of dollars to run Simmons for several private equity investment companies, first Fenway, then Thomas H. Lee Partners. Like those firms, he fared well, even though Simmons plans to file for bankruptcy.
-----
But while Simmons now faces an uncertain future, Mr. Eitel was a winner in The Great Game of Life. As chief executive, he enjoyed country club memberships, personal use of the corporate jet and thousands of dollars a year in free mattresses. Before stepping down last fall, he earned more than $40 million in compensation, bonuses and perks, according to an analysis by Brian Foley, an independent compensation consultant in White Plains. He earned the bulk of his money when Simmons was sold to Thomas H. Lee Partners.
Mr. Eitel ran Simmons as if it were his fief, several former executives said. His son joined Simmons’s sales force and a son-in-law landed in the company’s marketing department. A daughter often sang at corporate functions and even wrote and recorded a series of songs that were pressed into CDs and distributed at a sales meeting in Las Vegas.
Mr. Eitel declined several requests to speak for this article. But many former Simmons executives said that he ruled from afar — that he rarely appeared at the Atlanta headquarters. Instead, he spent much of his time in Naples, Fla., where he and his wife built an opulent home with a 1,000-bottle wine room and a multitier cascading pool featuring glass mosaic tiles. The home was listed this spring for $16 million.
Mr. Eitel also spent a great deal of time wooing clients from his 80-foot yacht, Eitel Time. With his boat, which had 11 televisions, a hot tub on the flybridge and a sunken granite-topped bar in the salon, Mr. Eitel took customers out for cocktail cruises and junkets to Martha’s Vineyard.
Drinks were always frosty, thanks to the on-board ice machine, which could churn out 600 pounds of ice a day.
The private equity firms that owned Simmons during Mr. Eitel’s tenure appeared to embrace Mr. Eitel’s lifestyle. The first year that Thomas H. Lee Partners owned Simmons, the mattress company even paid the $92,000 salary and benefits for the captain of his yacht.
Executives at Thomas H. Lee, which have agreed to sell the struggling company, defended Mr. Eitel’s pay package.
“The nature of the business includes spending a lot of time with customers. We expected and wanted Charlie to be in the field spending time with customers,” said Scott Schoen, a co-president of the firm who sat on Simmons’s board. He said that in the five years that Mr. Eitel was chief executive, there was not “a single time in the hundreds of times” that he “couldn’t find him very quickly.”
As for Mr. Eitel’s compensation and perquisites, Mr. Schoen said Thomas H. Lee quickly ended the practice of paying for the captain of Eitel Time. Aside from the payment for the captain, Mr. Schoen said, Mr. Eitel’s pay was “in line with industry norms and other companies we’re involved with.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/05/business/economy/05simmons-side.html?_r=1
By JULIE CRESWELL
Published: October 4, 2009
New employees at the headquarters of the Simmons Bedding Company got a little b
Saying No. 1: “In order to create a viable vision you must answer one very fundamental question, ‘What do you really want?’ ”
Mr. Eitel, former colleagues said, really wanted to bring some sizzle to the ho-hum mattress business. He was paid millions of dollars to run Simmons for several private equity investment companies, first Fenway, then Thomas H. Lee Partners. Like those firms, he fared well, even though Simmons plans to file for bankruptcy.
-----
But while Simmons now faces an uncertain future, Mr. Eitel was a winner in The Great Game of Life. As chief executive, he enjoyed country club memberships, personal use of the corporate jet and thousands of dollars a year in free mattresses. Before stepping down last fall, he earned more than $40 million in compensation, bonuses and perks, according to an analysis by Brian Foley, an independent compensation consultant in White Plains. He earned the bulk of his money when Simmons was sold to Thomas H. Lee Partners.
Mr. Eitel ran Simmons as if it were his fief, several former executives said. His son joined Simmons’s sales force and a son-in-law landed in the company’s marketing department. A daughter often sang at corporate functions and even wrote and recorded a series of songs that were pressed into CDs and distributed at a sales meeting in Las Vegas.
Mr. Eitel declined several requests to speak for this article. But many former Simmons executives said that he ruled from afar — that he rarely appeared at the Atlanta headquarters. Instead, he spent much of his time in Naples, Fla., where he and his wife built an opulent home with a 1,000-bottle wine room and a multitier cascading pool featuring glass mosaic tiles. The home was listed this spring for $16 million.
Mr. Eitel also spent a great deal of time wooing clients from his 80-foot yacht, Eitel Time. With his boat, which had 11 televisions, a hot tub on the flybridge and a sunken granite-topped bar in the salon, Mr. Eitel took customers out for cocktail cruises and junkets to Martha’s Vineyard.
Drinks were always frosty, thanks to the on-board ice machine, which could churn out 600 pounds of ice a day.
The private equity firms that owned Simmons during Mr. Eitel’s tenure appeared to embrace Mr. Eitel’s lifestyle. The first year that Thomas H. Lee Partners owned Simmons, the mattress company even paid the $92,000 salary and benefits for the captain of his yacht.
Executives at Thomas H. Lee, which have agreed to sell the struggling company, defended Mr. Eitel’s pay package.
“The nature of the business includes spending a lot of time with customers. We expected and wanted Charlie to be in the field spending time with customers,” said Scott Schoen, a co-president of the firm who sat on Simmons’s board. He said that in the five years that Mr. Eitel was chief executive, there was not “a single time in the hundreds of times” that he “couldn’t find him very quickly.”
As for Mr. Eitel’s compensation and perquisites, Mr. Schoen said Thomas H. Lee quickly ended the practice of paying for the captain of Eitel Time. Aside from the payment for the captain, Mr. Schoen said, Mr. Eitel’s pay was “in line with industry norms and other companies we’re involved with.”
Are the rich paying their fair share?
This specific analysis is for California, but applies to any state which has relies heavily on sales and property taxes, such as Alabama and Georgia.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hiltzik12-2009oct12,0,4419598.column?track=rss
Are the rich paying their fair share?
By Michael Hiltzik
October 12, 2009
When it comes to the state budget and state taxes, everybody knows the following facts:
People earning $75,000 or less pay little or no taxes now.
The same people use 99.9% of state social programs.
Ergo, millions of residents of this state are getting something for nothing, and the rest pay for their freeloading.
Of course I'm kidding. These are popular myths (I owe the formulation above to a reader's e-mail), not facts. Yet, like a cracked windshield, they have the power to distort almost everything we see when we turn our attention to state spending and taxation.
We can quickly dispose of the notion that low-income residents pay little or no state taxes. They get an income tax exemption, it's true, but they pay, proportionally, a greater share of their earnings on sales taxes. And many also pay property taxes even if they don't own a home -- a portion of their rent goes to cover the taxes their landlord pays.
In 2007, the nonpartisan California Budget Project observed, the bottom fifth of taxpayers -- those earning less than about $18,000 -- paid about 11.7% of family income in state and local taxes. By contrast, the top 1%, earning $430,000 or more, paid only about 7.1% on average, counting the deduction of state and local taxes many could take from their federal tax bill.
The popular view of state government is that it does little beyond spooning out welfare payments and free healthcare to the poor. For the wealthy, this is a useful burlesque of the truth, for it rationalizes "flattening" state taxes, giving them a tax cut and everyone else an increase -- as was proposed by the recent state tax reform commission.
It's rare that anyone examines the assumptions about who really benefits from state government and by how much, even though the exercise might help us judge whether the wealthy really are taxed more than their fair share, as is so often claimed. Who knows? Maybe they're the freeloaders.
Indeed, the evidence is that everybody benefits from state services, and the wealthier you are the more you profit. In that light, shifting the tax burden down the income scale looks more unfair, dishonest, even -- dare we say it? -- immoral.
-----
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hiltzik12-2009oct12,0,4419598.column?track=rss
Are the rich paying their fair share?
By Michael Hiltzik
October 12, 2009
When it comes to the state budget and state taxes, everybody knows the following facts:
People earning $75,000 or less pay little or no taxes now.
The same people use 99.9% of state social programs.
Ergo, millions of residents of this state are getting something for nothing, and the rest pay for their freeloading.
Of course I'm kidding. These are popular myths (I owe the formulation above to a reader's e-mail), not facts. Yet, like a cracked windshield, they have the power to distort almost everything we see when we turn our attention to state spending and taxation.
We can quickly dispose of the notion that low-income residents pay little or no state taxes. They get an income tax exemption, it's true, but they pay, proportionally, a greater share of their earnings on sales taxes. And many also pay property taxes even if they don't own a home -- a portion of their rent goes to cover the taxes their landlord pays.
In 2007, the nonpartisan California Budget Project observed, the bottom fifth of taxpayers -- those earning less than about $18,000 -- paid about 11.7% of family income in state and local taxes. By contrast, the top 1%, earning $430,000 or more, paid only about 7.1% on average, counting the deduction of state and local taxes many could take from their federal tax bill.
The popular view of state government is that it does little beyond spooning out welfare payments and free healthcare to the poor. For the wealthy, this is a useful burlesque of the truth, for it rationalizes "flattening" state taxes, giving them a tax cut and everyone else an increase -- as was proposed by the recent state tax reform commission.
It's rare that anyone examines the assumptions about who really benefits from state government and by how much, even though the exercise might help us judge whether the wealthy really are taxed more than their fair share, as is so often claimed. Who knows? Maybe they're the freeloaders.
Indeed, the evidence is that everybody benefits from state services, and the wealthier you are the more you profit. In that light, shifting the tax burden down the income scale looks more unfair, dishonest, even -- dare we say it? -- immoral.
-----
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Air quality improvements over the last decade may be a factor in fewer ear infections
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-10/aaoo-aqi092809.php
Public release date: 7-Oct-2009
Contact: Matt Daigle
American Academy of Otolaryngology -- Head and Neck Surgery
Air quality improvements over the last decade may be a factor in fewer ear infections
New research released at world's largest ENT meeting
San Diego, CA – Strides in improving the nation's air quality over the past ten years may be a factor in fewer cases of ear infections (otitis media) in children. These results are according to new research presented at the 2009 American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery Foundation (AAO-HNSF) Annual Meeting & OTO EXPO, in San Diego, CA.
-----
Public release date: 7-Oct-2009
Contact: Matt Daigle
American Academy of Otolaryngology -- Head and Neck Surgery
Air quality improvements over the last decade may be a factor in fewer ear infections
New research released at world's largest ENT meeting
San Diego, CA – Strides in improving the nation's air quality over the past ten years may be a factor in fewer cases of ear infections (otitis media) in children. These results are according to new research presented at the 2009 American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery Foundation (AAO-HNSF) Annual Meeting & OTO EXPO, in San Diego, CA.
-----
Physical activity in adolescence associated with decreased risk of brain cancer in adulthood
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-10/aafc-pai093009.php
Public release date: 6-Oct-2009
Contact: Tara Yates
American Association for Cancer Research
Physical activity in adolescence associated with decreased risk of brain cancer in adulthood
PHILADELPHIA – While little is known about the causes of glioma, researchers at the National Cancer Institute have found that this rare but often deadly form of brain cancer may be linked to early life physical activity and height.
"Our findings suggest that biological factors related to energy expenditure and growth during childhood may play a role in glioma etiology. This clue could help researchers better understand important features of glioma biology and the potentially modifiable lifestyle factors that could be important in preventing this disease," said Steven C. Moore, Ph.D., research fellow in the Nutritional Epidemiology Branch, NCI. Moore also added that "engaging in regular physical activity throughout the lifespan conveys many benefits." Results of this prospective study are published online first in Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.
Gliomas are the most common type of brain cancer, accounting for nearly 80 percent of brain and central nervous system cancers. Though little is known about the causes of glioma, some evidence suggests that early life exposures may play a role in disease etiology. Because the brain develops rapidly during childhood and adolescence, it may be more susceptible to environmental influences during this time.
Moore and colleagues examined whether markers of early life energy expenditure and intake (physical activity, body mass index and height) are related to glioma risk. Between 1995 and 1996, researchers distributed a baseline questionnaire about dietary intake and other lifestyle exposures to participants in the National Institutes of Health-AARP Diet and Health Study. Nearly 500,000 men and women answered questions about physical activity, body weight and height. The researchers then followed study participants for eight years, during which time 480 glioma cases occurred.
Participants who were physically active during adolescence had a decreased risk of glioma; their risk was about 36 percent lower than those who were inactive, according to the study. The researchers also found that those who were obese during adolescence had an increased risk of glioma; their risk was approximately three to four times that of individuals who were normal weight during adolescence. However, Moore cautioned that "we did not have many people in the study who were obese during adolescence." Moore and colleagues additionally confirmed results of previous studies linking height to increased glioma risk; risk among taller participants was twice that of those considered shorter.
"Aside from our finding for height, which had been previously reported, these results were surprising," he said. "But, to our knowledge, no one has looked at glioma risk as related to energy balance in childhood and adolescence before."
The researchers found that the association between physical activity and glioma risk was not consistent across the lifespan. Neither physical activity nor obesity in adulthood were associated with glioma risk. Since the data were collected before the participants were diagnosed with cancer, it is unlikely that the participants would respond to the questionnaire differently because of their diagnosis, according to Christine B. Ambrosone, Ph.D., professor of oncology and chair of the Department of Cancer Prevention and Control at Roswell Park Cancer Institute. However, both Ambrosone and Moore commented that additional prospective studies are needed to confirm these findings, especially the association with obesity, which was in small numbers.
Public release date: 6-Oct-2009
Contact: Tara Yates
American Association for Cancer Research
Physical activity in adolescence associated with decreased risk of brain cancer in adulthood
PHILADELPHIA – While little is known about the causes of glioma, researchers at the National Cancer Institute have found that this rare but often deadly form of brain cancer may be linked to early life physical activity and height.
"Our findings suggest that biological factors related to energy expenditure and growth during childhood may play a role in glioma etiology. This clue could help researchers better understand important features of glioma biology and the potentially modifiable lifestyle factors that could be important in preventing this disease," said Steven C. Moore, Ph.D., research fellow in the Nutritional Epidemiology Branch, NCI. Moore also added that "engaging in regular physical activity throughout the lifespan conveys many benefits." Results of this prospective study are published online first in Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.
Gliomas are the most common type of brain cancer, accounting for nearly 80 percent of brain and central nervous system cancers. Though little is known about the causes of glioma, some evidence suggests that early life exposures may play a role in disease etiology. Because the brain develops rapidly during childhood and adolescence, it may be more susceptible to environmental influences during this time.
Moore and colleagues examined whether markers of early life energy expenditure and intake (physical activity, body mass index and height) are related to glioma risk. Between 1995 and 1996, researchers distributed a baseline questionnaire about dietary intake and other lifestyle exposures to participants in the National Institutes of Health-AARP Diet and Health Study. Nearly 500,000 men and women answered questions about physical activity, body weight and height. The researchers then followed study participants for eight years, during which time 480 glioma cases occurred.
Participants who were physically active during adolescence had a decreased risk of glioma; their risk was about 36 percent lower than those who were inactive, according to the study. The researchers also found that those who were obese during adolescence had an increased risk of glioma; their risk was approximately three to four times that of individuals who were normal weight during adolescence. However, Moore cautioned that "we did not have many people in the study who were obese during adolescence." Moore and colleagues additionally confirmed results of previous studies linking height to increased glioma risk; risk among taller participants was twice that of those considered shorter.
"Aside from our finding for height, which had been previously reported, these results were surprising," he said. "But, to our knowledge, no one has looked at glioma risk as related to energy balance in childhood and adolescence before."
The researchers found that the association between physical activity and glioma risk was not consistent across the lifespan. Neither physical activity nor obesity in adulthood were associated with glioma risk. Since the data were collected before the participants were diagnosed with cancer, it is unlikely that the participants would respond to the questionnaire differently because of their diagnosis, according to Christine B. Ambrosone, Ph.D., professor of oncology and chair of the Department of Cancer Prevention and Control at Roswell Park Cancer Institute. However, both Ambrosone and Moore commented that additional prospective studies are needed to confirm these findings, especially the association with obesity, which was in small numbers.
Man-Made Activities Affect Blue Haze
http://dmc-news.tamu.edu/templates/?a=8085&z=15
Man-Made Activities Affect Blue Haze
Monday, October 05, 2009
“Blue haze,” a common occurrence that appears over heavily forested areas around the world, is formed by natural emissions of chemicals, but human activities can worsen it to the point of affecting the world’s weather and even cause potential climate problems, according to a study led by a Texas A&M University researcher.
-----
Zhang says man-made activities, mainly large power plants that emit huge amounts of particles into the air, can worsen blue haze and cause previously unforeseen problems.
“The study shows that the natural way of blue haze formation is rather inefficient and that human activities make blue haze conditions worse,” he confirms.
“What happens is that a mix of natural and man-made chemicals speeds up the formation of these particles in the Earth’s atmosphere, and there, they reflect sunlight back into space. The results can affect cloud formations and ultimately, much of the world’s climate.”
-----
Man-Made Activities Affect Blue Haze
Monday, October 05, 2009
“Blue haze,” a common occurrence that appears over heavily forested areas around the world, is formed by natural emissions of chemicals, but human activities can worsen it to the point of affecting the world’s weather and even cause potential climate problems, according to a study led by a Texas A&M University researcher.
-----
Zhang says man-made activities, mainly large power plants that emit huge amounts of particles into the air, can worsen blue haze and cause previously unforeseen problems.
“The study shows that the natural way of blue haze formation is rather inefficient and that human activities make blue haze conditions worse,” he confirms.
“What happens is that a mix of natural and man-made chemicals speeds up the formation of these particles in the Earth’s atmosphere, and there, they reflect sunlight back into space. The results can affect cloud formations and ultimately, much of the world’s climate.”
-----
Arctic Sea ice extent is third lowest on record
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-10/nsfc-asi100609.php
Public release date: 6-Oct-2009
Contact: Sarah DeWitt
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center
Arctic Sea ice extent is third lowest on record
U.S. satellite measurements show Arctic sea ice extent in 2009 – the area of the Arctic Ocean covered by floating ice – was the third lowest since satellite measurements were first made in 1979. The ice area at minimum was an increase from the past two years, but still well below the average for the past 30 years.
Arctic sea ice reached its minimum extent around September 12, as shown in the image and video below/above. According to scientists affiliated with the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), sea ice coverage dropped to 5.10 million square kilometers (1.97 million square miles) at its minimum. The ice cover was 970,000 square kilometers (370,000 square miles) greater than the record low of 2007 and 580,000 square kilometers (220,000 square miles) greater than 2008.
NSIDC is sponsored by several U.S. government agencies, including NASA. Ice data are derived from measurements made by U.S. Department of Defense and NASA satellites, with key work in interpreting the data and developing the 30-year history done by scientists at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.
"The changes from year to year are interesting since there has been large variability," said Josefino Comiso, a sea ice expert at NASA Goddard. "But we need to look at several years of data to examine the long-term trends."
"Our three decades of continuous satellite measurements show a rapid decline of about 11.6 percent per decade," Comiso said. Arctic sea ice has declined about 34 percent since measurements were first made in the late 1970s.
The four lowest ice extents on record have occurred between 2005 and 2009, with the record minimum reached during a dramatic drop in ice cover in 2007 that was exacerbated by unusual polar winds.
Several recent studies based on data from NASA's ICESat and QuikScat satellites have shown that, in addition to shrinking geographic ice coverage, the amount of multi-year ice cover – thicker ice that survives more than one summer -- has been declining in recent years.
"The oceans are crucial to Earth's climate system, since they store huge amounts of heat," said Comiso. "Changes in sea ice cover can lead to circulation changes not just in the Arctic Ocean, but also in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. If you change ocean circulation, you change the world's climate."
Changes in the Arctic ice cover could also mean a new paradigm for life in the sea. "The waters at high latitudes are some of the most biologically productive in the world because of the presence of sea ice," Comiso added. "Many of our ri
Public release date: 6-Oct-2009
Contact: Sarah DeWitt
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center
Arctic Sea ice extent is third lowest on record
U.S. satellite measurements show Arctic sea ice extent in 2009 – the area of the Arctic Ocean covered by floating ice – was the third lowest since satellite measurements were first made in 1979. The ice area at minimum was an increase from the past two years, but still well below the average for the past 30 years.
Arctic sea ice reached its minimum extent around September 12, as shown in the image and video below/above. According to scientists affiliated with the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), sea ice coverage dropped to 5.10 million square kilometers (1.97 million square miles) at its minimum. The ice cover was 970,000 square kilometers (370,000 square miles) greater than the record low of 2007 and 580,000 square kilometers (220,000 square miles) greater than 2008.
NSIDC is sponsored by several U.S. government agencies, including NASA. Ice data are derived from measurements made by U.S. Department of Defense and NASA satellites, with key work in interpreting the data and developing the 30-year history done by scientists at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.
"The changes from year to year are interesting since there has been large variability," said Josefino Comiso, a sea ice expert at NASA Goddard. "But we need to look at several years of data to examine the long-term trends."
"Our three decades of continuous satellite measurements show a rapid decline of about 11.6 percent per decade," Comiso said. Arctic sea ice has declined about 34 percent since measurements were first made in the late 1970s.
The four lowest ice extents on record have occurred between 2005 and 2009, with the record minimum reached during a dramatic drop in ice cover in 2007 that was exacerbated by unusual polar winds.
Several recent studies based on data from NASA's ICESat and QuikScat satellites have shown that, in addition to shrinking geographic ice coverage, the amount of multi-year ice cover – thicker ice that survives more than one summer -- has been declining in recent years.
"The oceans are crucial to Earth's climate system, since they store huge amounts of heat," said Comiso. "Changes in sea ice cover can lead to circulation changes not just in the Arctic Ocean, but also in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. If you change ocean circulation, you change the world's climate."
Changes in the Arctic ice cover could also mean a new paradigm for life in the sea. "The waters at high latitudes are some of the most biologically productive in the world because of the presence of sea ice," Comiso added. "Many of our ri
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Climate change triggered dwarfism in creatures of the past
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-10/nsf-cct100609.php
Public release date: 6-Oct-2009
Contact: Cheryl Dybas
National Science Foundation
Climate change triggered dwarfism in soil-dwelling creatures of the past
Ancient soil biota decreased in size by up to 46 percent during period 55 million years ago
Ancient soil-inhabiting creatures decreased in body size by nearly half in response to a period of boosted carbon dioxide levels and higher temperatures, scientists have discovered.
-----
The PETM was a short interval 55 million years ago marked by a spike in the atmosphere's carbon dioxide levels and global temperatures, conditions being repeated on Earth now.
The study is the first to establish that soil biota experienced a loss in size similar to mammals, which were reduced in size by as much as 50 percent during the PETM.
-----
The researchers attribute dwarfism in soil-dwelling creatures to faster rates of development in individuals, along with decreasing life spans.
-----
Public release date: 6-Oct-2009
Contact: Cheryl Dybas
National Science Foundation
Climate change triggered dwarfism in soil-dwelling creatures of the past
Ancient soil biota decreased in size by up to 46 percent during period 55 million years ago
Ancient soil-inhabiting creatures decreased in body size by nearly half in response to a period of boosted carbon dioxide levels and higher temperatures, scientists have discovered.
-----
The PETM was a short interval 55 million years ago marked by a spike in the atmosphere's carbon dioxide levels and global temperatures, conditions being repeated on Earth now.
The study is the first to establish that soil biota experienced a loss in size similar to mammals, which were reduced in size by as much as 50 percent during the PETM.
-----
The researchers attribute dwarfism in soil-dwelling creatures to faster rates of development in individuals, along with decreasing life spans.
-----
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