Saturday, May 30, 2009

Lasers are making solar cells competitive

http://www.fraunhofer.de/EN/press/pi/2009/05/PressRelease29052009.jsp

Press Release 29/05/2009 [Note this is the European style of writing dates. We would write it as 05/29/2009]

Solar electricity has a future: It is renewable and available in unlimited quantities, and it does not produce any gases detrimental to the climate. Its only drawback right now is the price: the electric power currently being produced by solar cells in northern Europe must be subsidized if it is to compete against the household electricity generated by traditional power plants. At "Laser 2009" in Munich, June 15 to 18, Fraunhofer researchers will be demonstrating how laser technology can contribute to optimizing the manufacturing costs and efficiency of solar cells.
...
“Rising energy prices are making alternative energy sources increasingly cost-effective. Sometime in the coming years, renewable energy sources, such as solar energy, will be competitive, even without subsidization,” explains Dr. Arnold Gillner, head of the microtechnology department at the Fraunhofer Institute for Laser Technology in Aachen, Germany. “Experts predict that grid parity will be achieved in a few years. This means that the costs and opportunities in the grid will be equal for solar electricity and conventionally generated household electricity.” Together with his team at the Fraunhofer Institute for Laser Technology ILT in Aachen, this researcher is developing technologies now that will allow faster, better, and cheaper production of solar cells in the future. “Lasers work quickly, precisely, and without contact. In other words, they are an ideal tool for manufacturing fragile solar cells. In fact, lasers are already being used in production today, but there is still considerable room for process optimization.” In addition to gradually improving the manufacturing technology, the physicists and engineers in Aachen are working with solar cell developers - for example, at the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE in Freiburg - on new engineering and design alternatives.

New production technologies allow new design alternatives

At “Laser 2009” in Munich, the researchers will be demonstrating how lasers can drill holes into silicon cells at breathtaking speed: The ILT laser system drills more than 3,000 holes within one second. Because it is not possible to move the laser source at this speed, the experts have developed optimized manufacturing systems which guide and focuses the light beam at the required points. “We are currently experimenting with various laser sources and optical systems,” Gillner explains. “Our goal is to increase the performance to 10,000 holes a second. This is the speed that must be reached in order to drill 10,000 to 20,000 holes into a wafer within the cycle time of the production machines.”

The tiny holes in the wafer - their diameter is only 50 micrometers – open up undreamt-of possibilities for the solar cell developers. “Previously, the electrical contacts were arranged on the top of the cells. The holes make it possible to move the contacts to the back, with the advantage that the electrodes, which currently act as a dark grid to absorb light, disappear. And so the energy yield increases. The goal is a degree of efficiency of 20 percent% in industrially-produced emitter wrap-through (EWT) cells, with a yield of one-third more than classic silicon cells,” Gillner explains. The design principle itself remains unchanged: In the semi-conductor layer, light particles, or photons, produce negative electrons and positive holes, each of which then wanders to the oppositely poled electrodes. The contacts for anodes and cathodes in the EWT cells are all on the back, there is no shading caused by the electrodes, and the degree of efficiency increases. With this technique, it may one day be possible to use unpurified “dirty” silicon to manufacture solar cells that have poorer electrical properties, but that are cheaper.
...

Regular Light Bulbs Made Super-Efficient with Ultra-Fast Laser

That would be great. I bought some fluorescents, but I'm worried about disposing of them when they wear out, because of the mercury.

http://www.rochester.edu/news/show.php?id=3385

May 29, 2009
An ultra-powerful laser can turn regular incandescent light bulbs into power-sippers, say optics researchers at the University of Rochester. The process could make a light as bright as a 100-watt bulb consume less electricity than a 60-watt bulb while remaining far cheaper and radiating a more pleasant light than a fluorescent bulb can.

The laser process creates a unique array of nano- and micro-scale structures on the surface of a regular tungsten filament—the tiny wire inside a light bulb—and theses structures make the tungsten become far more effective at radiating light.

The findings will be published in an upcoming issue of the journal Physical Review Letters.

Individual Stress Linked To Adolescent Obesity

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/05/090514125200.htm

ScienceDaily (May 16, 2009) — Stress may indeed be a direct contributor to childhood obesity. That's according to a new Iowa State University study finding that increased levels of stress in adolescents are associated with a greater likelihood of them being overweight or obese.

The study of 1,011 adolescents (aged 10-15) and their mothers from low income families living in three cities -- Boston, Chicago and San Antonio -- was posted on the Web site of the Journal of Adolescent Health, which will publish it in the August issue. Forty-seven percent of the teens in the sample were overweight or obese, but that percentage increased to 56.2 percent among those who were impacted by four or more stressors.

"We found that an adolescent or youth who's more stressed -- caused by such things as having poor grades, mental health problems, more aggressive behavior, or doing more drugs and alcohol -- is also more likely to be overweight or obese," said lead author Brenda Lohman, an Iowa State assistant professor of human development and family studies (HDFS).
...
The five factors used to determine the individual stressor index for the adolescents were:

* Academic problems
* Consumption of drugs and alcohol
* Depression or poor mental health levels
* Acting out or aggressive behaviors
* Lack of future orientation

The researchers wrote that the adolescents' relationship with stress and becoming overweight may be a result of biological (perturbed hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal glands) as well as behavioral responses to stress, such as overeating and lack of exercise.

"It could possibly be that the obesity is leading to these stressors too," Lohman said. "And so the work that we're doing right now looks at which one of these is really coming first: the stressors or the obesity. We know that it is cyclical and that all of these factors just compound on each other."

The study also found that a mother's stress, coupled with food insecurity in the household -- a situation in which an individual cannot access enough food to sustain active, healthy living -- contributes to a child's chances of becoming overweight or obese.

"In our past research, we did not find this association for older youth (ages 11-17), we only found it for young children (ages 3-10) who were in a house that had enough food or were food-secure," Lohman said. "But it may be that the adolescents are more cognitively aware of what's going on in the household and they take on their mothers' stress as well. This may be exacerbated in houses where there's not enough food."

While this study singles out mothers, fathers aren't immune to their child's weight status either.

"My own research focuses on fathers and shows that fathers, too, have an effect on children's eating habits and obesity," said Stewart, author of the book "Brave New Stepfamilies," who had another study posted by the Journal of Adolescent Health last month on nonresident father involvement and adolescent eating patterns.

"In our latest study, we found that kids who are involved with nonresident dads eat better -- more vegetables, less fast food," she said. "However, similar to the Lohman study, living with a single mom was associated with worse eating habits."

Friday, May 29, 2009

Tying education to future goals may boost grades more than helping with homework

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-05/apa-tet051909.php

Public release date: 19-May-2009
Contact: Pam Willenz
American Psychological Association

WASHINGTON – Helping middle school students with their homework may not be the best way to get them on the honor roll. But telling them how important academic performance is to their future job prospects and providing specific strategies to study and learn might clinch the grades, according to a research review.

"Instilling the value of education and linking school work to future goals is what this age group needs to excel in school, more than parents' helping with homework or showing up at school," said lead researcher Nancy E. Hill, PhD, of Harvard University. She examined 50 studies with more than 50,000 students over a 26-year period looking at what kinds of parent involvement helped children's academic achievement.

These findings are reported in the May issue of Developmental Psychology, published by the American Psychological Association.

"Middle school is the time when grades and interest in school decline," said Hill. "Entering puberty, hanging out with friends, wanting distance from parents and longing to make one's own decisions win over listening to parents and studying."

But adolescence is also a time when analytic thinking, problem-solving, planning and decision-making skills start to increase, Hill said. At this age, "teens are starting to internalize goals, beliefs and motivations and use these to make decisions. Although they may want to make their own decisions, they need guidance from parents to help provide the link between school and their aspirations for future work."

This type of parental involvement works for middle school students because it is not dependent on teacher relationships, like in elementary school. Middle school students have different teachers for each subject so it is much more difficult for parents to develop relationships with teachers and to influence their teenagers through their teachers, Hill said.

Parents' involvement in school events still had a positive effect on adolescents' achievement, Hill said, but not as much as parents' conveying the importance of academic performance, relating educational goals to occupational aspirations and discussing learning strategies.

Helping with homework had mixed results. Some students felt that parents were interfering with their independence or putting too much pressure on them. Some found that their parents' help was confusing because they didn't use the same strategies as their teachers. Still others felt that parents helped them complete or understand their homework, said Hill and co-author Diana F. Tyson, PhD, of Duke University.

Another possible explanation for the negative return on homework, said Hill, "was that those students who needed help with their homework were already doing poorly in school and this showed up as being associated with lower levels of achievement."

The review did not rule out ethnic and socioeconomic influences. Findings showed no difference between whites and blacks in which types of parental involvements influenced achievement but the same interventions did not necessarily produce the same results for Hispanics and Asian-Americans. Some of the studies showed that parental involvement had different meanings across different ethnic groups, which could be the result of differences in economic resources.

"Lack of guidance is the chief reason that academically able students do not go to college," said Hill. "So communicating the value of education and offering curriculum advice about what to focus on helps these students plan their long-term goals."

Japan, San Marino top life-expectancy list

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090521/ap_on_he_me/un_un_life_expectancy;_ylt=AhSoOXz3asPj_FXgFGdAh8.s0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTJudmN0Y2IyBGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMDkwNTIxL3VuX3VuX2xpZmVfZXhwZWN0YW5jeQRjcG9zAzkEcG9zAzE4BHNlYwN5bl90b3Bfc3RvcnkEc2xrA3dob2phcGFuc2FubQ--


By FRANK JORDANS, Associated Press Writer Frank Jordans, Associated Press Writer – Thu May 21, 1:21 pm ET

GENEVA – Girls born in Japan today are likely to live until the year 2095, some with a good chance of seeing the dawn of the next century thanks to the world's longest life expectancy.

Japan's child mortality rates are also among the world's lowest, according to statistics published Thursday by the World Health Organization.

For every 1,000 babies of both sexes born in Japan, 996 will make it past their fifth birthday — a key indicator of the health of a nation. Most European countries fare equally well on child mortality, while the United States limps behind both in child mortality and life expectancy.

The tiny nation of San Marino, which is surrounded by Italy, has the world's lowest child mortality and boasts the longest average life span for men anywhere, at 81 years.

Children in the West African country of Sierra Leone and Afghanistan are at the other end of the scale. About a quarter will die before the age of five, and overall life expectancy is short.

Men in Sierra Leone live on average just 39 years, while women live to 43. In Afghanistan both sexes fare badly, with men and women living to 41 and 42, respectively.

The figures for 2007 are the latest available.

The data showed that some countries have made remarkable progress in increasing life expectancy since 1990 — partly by ending wars, partly through successful health initiatives, and child mortality rates have been key.

"The decline in the death toll of children under five illustrates what can be achieved," said WHO's director of statistics, Ties Boerma.

The increased use of insecticide-treated mosquito nets for malaria, oral rehydration therapy for diarrhea, better access to vaccines and improved water and sanitation in developing countries are proving particularly effective, he said.

"The signs are really encouraging for many countries, and they weren't encouraging in the 1990s," said WHO's director of statistics, Ties Boerma.

Some 9 million children under 5 years old died in 2007, compared to 12.5 million in 1990.

Eritrea in East Africa increased its average life expectancy during that period by 33 years to 61 for men, and by 12 years to 65 for women. On the other side of the continent, in Liberia, the figure for men jumped 29 years to 54, and rose 13 years to 58 for women. Angola, Bangladesh, Maldives, Niger and East Timor also increased their average life expectancies for both men and women by full 10 years.

In the United States, life expectancy was on the rise for both sexes, but not so dramatically: up to 76 from 72 years for men, and to 81 from 79 for women.

The U.S., which spends the highest amount of money per person on health care — $6,719, also still lags on child mortality compared to other advanced nations. About eight in 1,000 children will die before the age of 5 — an improvement from 11 per 1,000 in 1990 but still twice as many as in Japan.

When our lousy record on infant mortality came to light, it was found to be caused by higher rates of premature birth, caused by poorer health of mothers and less pre-natal care. As the figures show, we improved on infant mortality statistics some, but it wasn't by producing healthier babies, it was by developing ways of keeping more premature babies alive. Often, they have permanent disabilities.


Other countries, meanwhile, showed a sharp decline since that time, especially in Africa, where AIDS and weak health systems take a heavy toll.

In Zimbabwe, a yearslong economic crisis and rampant inflation have created serious shortages of food and medicine and forced medical workers to flee the country. Those factors are among the reasons that women's life expectancy fell by 19 years to 44 and the men's average fell 12 years to 45.

The southern African nation of Lesotho recorded a 16-year drop for both men and women to 43 and 47 respectively. In the nearby kingdom of Swaziland, women live to 49 year on average, a drop of 14 years, while men's life expectancy declined by 12 years to 47.

Botswana, Congo, Kenya, South Africa and Zambia also reported significant drops in life expectancy for both sexes.

In Russia, the average life expectancy for men dropped to 60 from 64 years since the time of the Soviet Union. For women the drop was less marked, to 73 from 74 years.

The figures are only one of over 100 health indicators that WHO tracks in its 193 member states. Others include mother and child mortality; prevalence of diseases such as HIV, malaria and tuberculosis; access to doctors and medical facilities; and health expenditure per person.

Chummy chickens are allowed to keep their beaks

I couldn't share any more of this article because I don't have a subscription. However, I did see a recent study, which I have misplaced, on this subject. When breeders selected for the individual chickens that lay the most eggs, after a few generations they end up with fewer eggs, because they chickens peck each other so much. Those birds that laid the most eggs turned out to be the most aggressive, and better at keeping other chickens out of the food. When they selected for the group that laid the most eggs, they were successful, because they got chickens which got along, and didn't peck each others feathers out, so they were all healthier.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg14219261.100-chummy-chickens-are-allowed-to-keep-their-beaks.html

21 May 1994
Magazine issue 1926

If chicken breeders change the way they choose their parent birds, life on the poultry farm would be friendlier and healthier. Breeders can produce more affable birds, says a researcher from Indiana, eliminating the need to 'de-beak' birds to stop them pecking each other to death.

William Muir of Purdue University has developed an alternative to the breeding strategy used by the five major chicken breeders that produce laying hens for most of the world. His argument is simple: breeders should look for birds that get along together rather than selecting their stock purely on egg-laying prowess.

Today, breeding birds are kept in individual cages while they are assessed, whereas poultry farmers force as many as nine chickens to share a single cage. The breeding system does nothing to eliminate the violence that emerges when chickens are grouped together, says Muir. 'If the breeders are housing the birds in single ...

Thursday, May 28, 2009

Is Vitamin D Deficiency Linked To Alzheimer's Disease And Vascular Dementia?

I consider this possibility good news, because it's easily correctable. Even thought it has not been tested, we already know enough about effects of low vitamin D in other areas that I thought it worth-while to post it.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/05/090526140747.htm

ScienceDaily (May 27, 2009) — There are several risk factors for the development of Alzheimer's disease and vascular dementia. Based on an increasing number of studies linking these risk factors with Vitamin D deficiency, an article in the current issue of the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease (May 2009) by William B. Grant, PhD of the Sunlight, Nutrition, and Health Research Center (SUNARC) suggests that further investigation of possible direct or indirect linkages between Vitamin D and these dementias is needed.

Low serum levels of 25-hydroxyvitamin D [25(OH)D] have been associated with increased risk for cardiovascular diseases, diabetes mellitus, depression, dental caries, osteoporosis, and periodontal disease, all of which are either considered risk factors for dementia or have preceded incidence of dementia. In 2008, a number of studies reported that those with higher serum 25(OH)D levels had greatly reduced risk of incidence or death from cardiovascular diseases.

Several studies have correlated tooth loss with development of cognitive impairment and Alzheimer's disease or vascular dementia. There are two primary ways that people lose teeth: dental caries and periodontal disease. Both conditions are linked to low vitamin D levels, with induction of human cathelicidin by 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D being the mechanism.

There is also laboratory evidence for the role of vitamin D in neuroprotection and reducing inflammation, and ample biological evidence to suggest an important role for vitamin D in brain development and function.

Given these supportive lines of evidence, Dr. Grant suggests that studies of incidence of dementia with respect to prediagnostic serum 25(OH)D or vitamin D supplementation are warranted. In addition, since the elderly are generally vitamin D deficient and since vitamin D has so many health benefits, those over the age of 60 years should consider having their serum 25(OH)D tested, looking for a level of at least 30 ng/mL but preferably over 40 ng/mL, and supplementing with 1000-2000 IU/day of vitamin D3 or increased time in the sun spring, summer, and fall if below those values.

Ill. man gets new trial after 18 years in prison

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30893808/

updated 8:20 p.m. ET, Fri., May 22, 2009

CHICAGO - An inmate who claimed police tortured him into confessing to two murders he didn't commit was granted a new trial Friday after 18 years behind bars.

Circuit Judge Clayton Crane granted the request from Victor Safforld, 38, following a hearing this week that included evidence Safforld was tortured. Based on his confession, Safforld was sentenced to death for murder. The sentence was later commuted to life.

Safforld, who was listed in police records under his alias Cortez Brown, said he was tortured by Chicago detectives working under Commander Jon Burge. Burge, 60, has pleaded not guilty to federal charges of lying under oath about the torture of African-American suspects by his police unit during the 1970s and 80s.
...
Safforld was convicted of two gang-related shootings in May and August 1990. He said he signed a confession only after three detectives assigned to Burge's unit beat him, deprived him of food and ignored his requests to see a lawyer.

85 percent of oyster reefs gone

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30872501/

updated 4:41 p.m. ET, Thurs., May 21, 2009

BANGKOK - Granted, oysters don't look very helpful, but nature's way of filtering water of pollutants is in crisis: Overfishing and unchecked coastal development have resulted in the disappearance of 85 percent of all oyster reefs, making them the most severely affected marine ecosystem in the world, according to a report released Thursday.

"Reefs are functionally extinct in many areas, particularly in North America, Australia and Europe, and no are no longer able to provide any of the ecosystem services that benefit people," The Nature Conservancy said in releasing the report.

It found that several reefs in China have also seen drastic declines over the past 30 years. Half of the shellfish populations in South America are under threat, while flat oysters have been virtually wiped out in Australia.

Native oyster reefs — essentially mountains of the bivalves cemented together — were once dominant features of many temperate estuaries around the world. Much as coral reefs are critical to marine habitats, the bivalve shellfish are vital to bays and estuaries, creating habitats for a variety of plants and animals, the report said.

Nature's filters
Oyster reefs provide important benefits by filtering water, providing food and habitat for fish, crabs and birds, and serving as natural coastal buffers from boat wakes, sea level rise and storms.

If you're sucking down a wild oyster, it most likely came from one of only five regions on the east coast of North America, and in most of these regions, oyster reefs are in poor condition, the report said.

"Centuries of intensive fisheries extraction exacerbated by more recent coastal degradation have put oyster reefs near or past the point of functional extinction worldwide," according to the report.

Mary Seddon, chair of the International Union for Conservation of Nature's Species Survival Commission Mollusk Specialist Group, said the demise of the oyster goes back centuries, so the study's findings were not unexpected.

"Certainly, 85 percent of areas that have oysters have had major degradation," said Seddon, who did not participate in the report.

Child dies while mother prays

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30890934/

updated 6:13 p.m. ET, Fri., May 22, 2009

WAUSAU, Wis. - A mother accused of praying instead of seeking medical help for her dying 11-year-old daughter was found guilty Friday of second-degree reckless homicide.

A Marathon County jury deliberated for about four hours before convicting Leilani Neumann, 41, of rural Weston, of second-degree reckless homicide. The crime is punishable by up to 25 years in prison. No sentencing date was set and Neumann remained free on bond.
...
Her daughter, Madeline Neumann, died of untreated diabetes March 23, 2008, surrounded by people praying for her. When she suddenly stopped breathing, her parents' business and Bible study partners finally called 911.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30811786/

updated 4:07 p.m. ET, Mon., May 18, 2009

WAUSAU, Wis. - A mother accused of homicide for only praying while her 11-year-old daughter died of untreated diabetes knew the girl was gravely ill at least a day before, a sister-in-law testified Monday.
...
Susan Neumann said Leilani Neumann told her that she came home from work at the family's coffee shop March 22 and "felt the spirit of death" when she reached for the knob to open the door to the house.

"She was afraid," the sister-in-law said. "She ran upstairs to Kara (Madeline's nickname) and felt her and was relieved to feel warmth in her arm. Then she said they started praying and praying and praying and didn't stop praying until supper time."
...
Ariel Neff, 18, of Ripon, Calif., testified that she made three calls from California to police in Marathon County trying to get someone to check on Madeline the day she died. Neff had married Leilani Neumann's brother two days earlier and knew the mother believed in "faith and not in doctors."

Neff, who is separated from her husband, said she had learned from her new family that Madeline was likely in a coma and that someone was trying to give the girl fluids with a syringe, which she believed could drown the girl.

Neff's three calls to police came roughly 40 minutes before someone in the Neumann home called 911 to report that Madeline was no longer breathing.

Neff cried when asked why she didn't give up trying to get the girl help.

"I knew that if nothing was done, that little girl was going to die," Neff said. "I knew that she hadn't gotten food for a couple of days. I could not let the little girl just sit there and die."
...
Everest Metro Policeman Scott Marten was the first officer at the Neumann home March 23. He found the girl on a mattress and chaos throughout the household as the father pushed on her chest trying to get her to breathe.

Madeline looked malnourished, the officer told the jury. "She was skinny and just appeared to be frail."

The Neumann family followed the ambulance to the hospital and at one point went into a trauma room where the girl was taken, Marten testified.

"They were walking in circles around her bed and they seemed to be praying for quite some time," he said.

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Cancer Drug Causes Patient To Lose Fingerprints And Be Detained By US Immigration

I didn't choose "humor" as a label, because cancer is not humorous, and I didn't want to wound someone who might be sensitive to this. I usually don't consider something that happens to someone else to be humorous unless it happens to me, and this is a situation I am sure I would have found humor in, as well as frustration. I say that because I have found humor in situations where I was miserable, because of some aspect of the situation. Sometimes just because one thing after another kept happening, to the point that just the piling up of so many negative events was just ridiculous.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/05/090526202730.htm

ScienceDaily (May 27, 2009) — Immigration officials held a cancer patient for four hours before they allowed him to enter the USA because one of his cancer drugs caused his fingerprints to disappear. His oncologist is now advising all cancer patients who are being treated with the commonly used drug, capecitabine, to carry a doctor's letter with them if they want to travel to the USA.

The incident is highlighted in a letter to the cancer journal, Annals of Oncology. According to the oncologist, several other cancer patients have reported loss of fingerprints on their blog sites, and some have also commented on similar problems entering the USA.

Dr Eng-Huat Tan, a senior consultant in the medical oncology department at the National Cancer Centre, Singapore, described how his patient, a 62-year-old man, had head and neck cancer that had spread (metastatic nasopharyngeal carcinoma), but which had responded well to chemotherapy. To help prevent a recurrence of the cancer the patient was put on a maintenance dose of capecitabine, an anti-metabolite drug.

Capecitabine is a common anti-cancer drug used in the treatment of a number of cancers such as head and neck cancers, breast, stomach and colorectal cancers. One of its adverse side-effects can be hand-foot syndrome; this is chronic inflammation of the palms or soles of the feet and the skin can peel, bleed and develop ulcers or blisters. "This can give rise to eradication of finger prints with time," said Dr Tan.

The patient, Mr S*, developed a mild case of hand-foot syndrome, and because it was not affecting his daily life he was kept on a low dose of the drug.

"In December 2008, after more than three years of capecitabine, he went to the United States to visit his relatives," wrote Dr Tan. "He was detained at the airport customs for four hours because the immigration officers could not detect his fingerprints. He was allowed to enter after the custom officers were satisfied that he was not a security threat. He was advised to travel with a letter from his oncologist stating his condition and the treatment he was receiving to account for his lack of fingerprints to facilitate his entry in future."

Foreign visitors have been asked to provide fingerprints at USA airports for several years now, and the images are matched with millions of visa holders to detect whether the new visa applicant has a visa under a different name. "These fingerprints are also matched to a list of suspected criminals," wrote Dr Tan.

Mr S was not aware that he had lost his fingerprints before he travelled.

Dr Tan concludes: "In summary, patients taking long-term capecitabine may have problems with regards to fingerprint identification when they enter United States' ports or other countries that require fingerprint identification and should be warned about this. It is uncertain when the onset of fingerprint loss will take place in susceptible patients who are taking capecitabine. However, it is possible that there may be a growing number of such patients as Mr S who may benefit from maintenance capecitabine for disseminated malignancy. These patients should prepare adequately before travelling to avert the inconvenience that Mr S was put through."

Dr Tan said that he would recommend patients on capecitabine to carry a doctor's letter with them. "My patient subsequently travelled again with a letter from us and he had fewer problems getting through."

*Note: Due to patient confidentiality it is not possible to identify Mr S.

Nearly 1 million Californians seek medical care in Mexico annually

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/05/090526140844.htm

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-05/uoc--n1m052609.php

ScienceDaily (May 27, 2009) — Driven by rising health care costs at home, nearly 1 million Californians cross the border each year to seek medical care in Mexico, according a new paper by UCLA researchers and colleagues published today in the journal Medical Care.

An estimated 952,000 California adults sought medical, dental or prescription services in Mexico annually, and of these, 488,000 were Mexican immigrants, according to the research paper, "Heading South: Why Mexican Immigrants in California Seek Health Services in Mexico."

So 464,000 (48.7%) were not Mexican immigrants


The paper is the first large-scale population-based research ever published on U.S. residents who travel to Mexico for health services. It is based on an analysis of 2001 data from the California Health Interview Survey (CHIS), the nation's largest state health survey.

"What the research shows is that many Californians, especially Mexican immigrants, go to Mexico for health services," said lead author Steven P. Wallace, associate director of the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research, which conducts CHIS. "We already know that immigrants use less health care overall than people born in the U.S. Heading south of the border further reduces the demand on U.S. facilities."

Cost and lack of insurance were primary reasons both Mexican and non-Mexican U.S. residents sought health services across the border.

Both "long-stay" Mexican immigrants (those in the U.S. for more than 15 years) and "short-stay" immigrants (less than 15 years) have high rates of uninsurance: 51.5 percent of short-stay immigrants and 29 percent of long-stay immigrants do not have medical insurance.

"This points to the importance of expanding work-based insurance in health care reform, since virtually all Mexican immigrants are in working families," said co-author Xochitl Casteñada, director of the Health Initiative of the Americas at the University of California, Berkeley.

Both short-stay and long-stay immigrants have even higher rates of uninsurance for dental care: 77.6 percent and 51.6 percent, respectively.

Not surprisingly, dental care was the most common service obtained by immigrants.

Among non-Latino whites, prescription drugs were the most common medical service obtained in Mexico.

Long-stay immigrants used Mexican health services the most, with 15 percent reporting crossing the border during a year's time for health services. Half of these long-stay immigrants lived far — more than 120 miles — from the border.

Long-stay immigrants are more likely to be documented than short-stay immigrants, Wallace noted, which makes it easier for them to travel back and forth to Mexico.

Short-stay immigrants — those most likely to be undocumented — were also the least likely to need medical care in all areas, with one exception: mental health.

"Undocumented immigrants tend to be younger, stronger and consequently healthier," Wallace said. "But they are also the most stressed out, as many are struggling economically, culturally and linguistically."

Short-stay immigrants who sought treatment in Mexico were more often women and were more likely to tell their doctor they were feeling "sad or down."

Other findings:

* Immigrants who travel to Mexico for health services are not necessarily the poorest. One explanation: The cost of travel may offset any financial savings, creating a disincentive for the very poor to travel.
* Although cost was the primary factor in seeking health services, cultural and linguistic barriers and immigration factors were also important motivators.

How often immigrants cross the border to Mexico for health services is particularly relevant to efforts to create and expand binational health insurance plans, Wallace said.

Since 2000, several private insurance companies and at least one employer group have developed such plans, which cover an estimated 150,000 California workers who use Mexican medical facilities near the border.

These plans may be both more cost-effective for employers and more culturally relevant for participants, Wallace said.

"To the extent that binational plans encourage more people to access preventative and other health care, they should be encouraged," he said.

Music is social communication between individuals

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/05/090526093925.htm

ScienceDaily (May 27, 2009) — Music is social communication between individuals -- humming of lullabies attach infant to parent and singing or playing music adds croup cohesion. The neurobiology of music perception and production is likely to be related to the pathways affecting intrinsic attachment behavior, suggests a recent Finnish study. The study gives new information about genetic background of musical aptitude.

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

BPA, Chemical Used To Make Plastics, Found To Leach From Polycarbonate Drinking Bottles Into Humans

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/05/090521141208.htm

ScienceDaily (May 22, 2009) — A new study from Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) researchers found that participants who drank for a week from polycarbonate bottles -- the popular, hard-plastic drinking bottles and baby bottles -- showed a two-thirds increase in their urine of the chemical bisphenol A (BPA). Exposure to BPA, used in the manufacture of polycarbonate and other plastics, has been shown to interfere with reproductive development in animals and has been linked with cardiovascular disease and diabetes in humans.

The study is the first to show that drinking from polycarbonate bottles increased the level of urinary BPA, and thus suggests that drinking containers made with BPA release the chemical into the liquid that people drink in sufficient amounts to increase the level of BPA excreted in human urine.

In addition to polycarbonate bottles, which are refillable and a popular container among students, campers and others and are also used as baby bottles, BPA is also found in dentistry composites and sealants and in the lining of aluminum food and beverage cans. (In bottles, polycarbonate can be identified by the recycling number 7.) Numerous studies have shown that it acts as an endocrine-disruptor in animals, including early onset of sexual maturation, altered development and tissue organization of the mammary gland and decreased sperm production in offspring. It may be most harmful in the stages of early development.

"We found that drinking cold liquids from polycarbonate bottles for just one week increased urinary BPA levels by more than two-thirds. If you heat those bottles, as is the case with baby bottles, we would expect the levels to be considerably higher. This would be of concern since infants may be particularly susceptible to BPA's endocrine-disrupting potential," said Karin B. Michels, associate professor of epidemiology at HSPH and Harvard Medical School and senior author of the study.
...
Canada banned the use of BPA in polycarbonate baby bottles in 2008 and some polycarbonate bottle manufacturers have voluntarily eliminated BPA from their products. With increasing evidence of the potential harmful effects of BPA in humans, the authors believe further research is needed on the effect of BPA on infants and on reproductive disorders and on breast cancer in adults.

"This study is coming at an important time because many states are deciding whether to ban the use of BPA in baby bottles and sippy cups. While previous studies have demonstrated that BPA is linked to adverse health effects, this study fills in a missing piece of the puzzle—whether or not polycarbonate plastic bottles are an important contributor to the amount of BPA in the body," said Carwile.

People By Nature Are Universally Optimistic, Study Shows

I see good and bad aspects to this. Too much optimism means we don't address problems before they become a crisis because we don't perceive them. Too little optimism can lead to not trying to fix problems because we don't see the point.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/05/090524122539.htm

ScienceDaily (May 25, 2009) — Despite calamities from economic recessions, wars and famine to a flu epidemic afflicting the Earth, a new study from the University of Kansas and Gallup indicates that humans are by nature optimistic.

The study, to be presented May 24, 2009, at the annual meeting of the Association for Psychological Science in San Francisco, found optimism to be universal and borderless.

Data from the Gallup World Poll drove the findings, with adults in more than 140 countries providing a representative sample of 95 percent of the world's population. The sample included more than 150,000 adults.

Eighty-nine percent of individuals worldwide expect the next five years to be as good or better than their current life, and 95 percent of individuals expected their life in five years to be as good or better than their life was five years ago.

"These results provide compelling evidence that optimism is a universal phenomenon," said Matthew Gallagher, a psychology doctoral candidate at the University of Kansas and lead researcher of the study.

At the country level, optimism is highest in Ireland, Brazil, Denmark, and New Zealand and lowest in Zimbabwe, Egypt, Haiti and Bulgaria. The United States ranks number 10 on the list of optimistic countries.

Demographic factors (age and household income) appear to have only modest effects on individual levels of optimism.

Texas riddle

What do you call the cabs lined up at the Dallas airport?

The yellow rows of taxis.

Excessive cola consumption can lead to super-sized muscle problems warn doctors

Luckily, I don't like soda.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-05/w-ecc051909.php

Public release date: 19-May-2009
Contact: Annette Whibley
Wiley-Blackwell

Doctors have issued a warning about excessive cola consumption after noticing an increase in the number of patients suffering from muscle problems, according to the June issue of IJCP, the International Journal of Clinical Practice.

"We are consuming more soft drinks than ever before and a number of health issues have already been identified including tooth problems, bone demineralisation and the development of metabolic syndrome and diabetes" says Dr Moses Elisaf from the Department of Internal Medicine at the University of Ioannina, Greece.

"Evidence is increasing to suggest that excessive cola consumption can also lead to hypokalaemia, in which the blood potassium levels fall, causing an adverse effect on vital muscle functions."

A research review carried out by Dr Elisaf and his colleagues has shown that symptoms can range from mild weakness to profound paralysis. Luckily all the patients studied made a rapid and full recovery after they stopped drinking cola and took oral or intravenous potassium.

The case studies looked at patients whose consumption ranged from two to nine litres of cola a day.

They included two pregnant women who were admitted with low potassium levels.

The first, a 21 year-old woman, was consuming up to three litres of cola a day and complained of fatigue, appetite loss and persistent vomiting. An electrocardiagram also revealed she had a heart blockage, while blood tests showed she had low potassium levels.

The second also had low potassium levels and was suffering from increasing muscular weakness. It turned out she had been drinking up to seven litres of cola a day for the last 10 months.

In a commentary on the paper, Dr Clifford Packer from the Louis Stokes Cleveland VA Medical Centre in Ohio relates the strange case of the ostrich farmer who returned from the Australian outback with muscle weakness. He had been drinking four litres of cola a day for the last three years and drank up to 10 litres a day when he was in the outback, causing a rapid reduction in his potassium levels.

He also relates a puzzling case he saw in his own clinical practice, which was solved when the patient turned up at his office with a two-litre bottle of cola in the basket of his electric scooter. It turned out he routinely drank up to four litres a day. He refused to stop drinking cola, but halved his consumption and the muscle weakness he had been complaining of improved.

In 2007 the worldwide annual consumption of soft drinks reached 552 billion litres, the equivalent of just under 83 litres per person per year, and this is projected to increase to 95 litres per person per year by 2012. However the figure has already reached an average of 212 litres per person per year in the United States.

It appears that hypokalaemia can be caused by excessive consumption of three of the most common ingredients in cola drinks – glucose, fructose and caffeine.

"The individual role of each of these ingredients in the pathophysiology of cola-induced hypokalaemia has not been determined and may vary in different patients" says Dr Elisaf.

"However in most of the cases we looked at for our review, caffeine intoxication was thought to play the most important role. This has been borne out by case studies that focus on other products that contain high levels of caffeine but no glucose or fructose.

"Despite this, caffeine free cola products can also cause hypokalaemia because the fructose they contain can cause diarrhoea."

The authors argue that in an era when portion sizes are becoming bigger and bigger, the excessive consumption of cola products has real public health implications.

"Although most patients recover when they stop drinking cola and take potassium supplements, cola-induced chronic hypokalaemia can make them more susceptible to potentially fatal complications, such as an irregular heartbeat" says Dr Elisaf.

"In addition, excessive consumption of any kind of cola can lead to a range of health problems including fatigue, loss of productivity and muscular symptoms that vary from mild weakness to profound paralysis.

"We believe that further studies are needed to establish how much is too much when it comes to the daily consumption of cola drinks."

Dr Packer agrees that the problem needs to be addressed.

"Cola drinks need to be added to the physician's checklist of drugs and substances that can cause hypokalaemia" he says.

"And the soft drink industry needs to promote safe and moderate use of its products for all age groups, reduce serving sizes and pay heed to the rising call for healthier drinks."

Monday, May 25, 2009

Study: diabetes drug lowers amputation risk

http://www.ajc.com/health/content/health/stories/2009/05/22/diabetes_drugs_amputation.html

By MARIA CHENG

Associated Press

Friday, May 22, 2009

LONDON — Doctors who gave diabetics a drug originally intended to lower patients’ cholesterol found it reduced their risk of so-called minor amputation by 36 percent, a new analysis of research says.

Researchers in Australia, Finland and New Zealand studied almost 10,000 patients aged 50 to 75 with type 2 diabetes, the kind linked to obesity. About half of the patients were given fenofibrate, a drug available generically and sold as Antara, Fenoglide, Lipofen and others. The other half got fake pills. After five years, 115 patients had at least one lower limb amputation because of diabetes.

Diabetes can damage nerves and blood vessels. In severe cases, this leads to amputation. About one diabetes patient in 10 loses part of a leg.

The study, first published in 2005, aimed to see if fenofibrate prevented heart disease. It didn’t.

But in this new analysis, experts found patients on fenofibrate had a 36 percent lower risk of a first amputation than those on placebo.

Patients who lost part of their legs were more likely to have heart disease, smoking, skin ulcers or previous amputations. Amputations were labeled minor if they were below the ankle and major if they were above the ankle.

The risk of minor amputations in patients without large vessel disease, the narrowing of blood vessels, was nearly 50 percent lower in the group taking fenofibrates. The risk of a major amputation was not substantially different between the two groups. Taller people were also more likely to suffer amputations.

The results were published Friday in the medical journal Lancet. The study was paid for by Laboratoires Fournier SA, now part of Solvay Pharmaceuticals, which makes fenofibrates, and the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia.

Early Childhood Health Interventions Could Save Billions In Health Costs Later In Life

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/05/090515120747.htm

ScienceDaily (May 18, 2009) — Promoting the health of young children, before five years of age, could save society up to $65 billion in future health care costs, according to an examination of childhood health conducted by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

"Our review found convincing evidence that the four health problems we studied—early life tobacco exposure, unintentional injury, obesity and mental health—constitute significant burdens on the health of preschool-age children and are antecedents of health problems across the life span," said Bernard Guyer, MD, lead author of the study and the Zanvyl Kreiger Professor of Children's Health with the Bloomberg School's Department of Population, Family and Reproductive Health. "These health problems affect approximately one-third to one-half of children born in the U.S., and we estimated that total lifetime societal cost could be about $50,000 per child—which translates to $65—100 billion for the entire birth cohort of children. The currently available research justifies targeted investments in early childhood health promotion as a means to averting future health costs and improving overall health during their life span."

Sunday, May 24, 2009

Atlanta Driving

Atlanta Driving
copyright Patricia M. Shannon 2000

(chorus)
Driving on Atlanta's Highways
can make me feel I've gone to hell;
well, the reason is not hard to tell you,
pollutions killed off their brain cells.

When I'm driving the speed limit
the car behind me will pass and pull in front,
right away he'll start to slow down
because to turn is what he wants.

But if I signal, then I slow down
because a turn I have to make,
if he's behind me he will hold his horn down,
he thinks the world was only made for his own sake.

(chorus)

When I exit from the freeway,
the lane I choose has a straight exit on the road,
but when I get down to the intersection,
this lane will only turn the way that I don't want to go.

(spoken)
I can't believe it costs so much more
to paint a bent arrow than a straight one.
Sounds like a relationship with a man! :)
But then, the roads are built by men.
Men who apparently have financial investments in things like
ambulances and tow trucks a neck braces and gas stations.

(sung)
For many miles I've been in a straight-ahead lane,
with many miles before I get to my next turn,
when suddenly this lane is now an exit,
with no warning that I can discern.

(chorus)

When my road, merging with another,
puts me in the left lane, where I don't want to be,
the car behind will tailgate 'til a space comes,
then cut me off, so he can get in front of me.

(spoken)
What gets me, is that if he had let me take that space instead,
he would have got there a little sooner,
as well as saved a little gas
and created less air pollution.
Talking about cutting off your noise to spite your face!

(sung)
When I wait for a pededstrian,
or stop for a traffic light that's just turned red,
the car behind will start to honking,
are these people really so inbred?

(chorus)

Georgia drivers among nation’s worst

Definitely not a shock. On top of that, they're rude, stupid, and crazy. When I tell people I wasn't as upset by 9/11 as I might have been, because I was used to being terrorized by Atlanta drivers, I'm not joking.

http://www.ajc.com/news/content/metro/stories/2009/05/22/georgia_bad_drivers.html?cxntlid=homepage_tab_newstab

By ALEXIS STEVENS
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Friday, May 22, 2009

This won’t come as a shock to anyone who isn’t native to the Peach State. Georgia drivers aren’t very smart.

In fact, Georgia drivers rank 47th in the nation in their knowledge of road rules, according to survey results released this week — just in time for the Memorial Day weekend.

More than 5,000 drivers in all 50 states and the District of Columbia were asked 20 questions from department of motor vehicle driving tests in the GMAC Insurance survey.

Georgia drivers had an average score of 72.7 percent on the exam, with 70 percent being the passing cutoff. More than a third of Georgians surveyed — 34.5 percent — failed the test.

Nationwide, the survey found that 20.1 percent of all licensed Americans wouldn’t pass the writing portion of the driver’s test if they had to take it. Questions on yellow lights and safe following distances apparently gave drivers the most trouble.

And no, men didn’t score that much better than women.

So where are the nation’s best drivers? Drivers in Idaho and Wisconsin tied for first place.

Don’t feel too ashamed, Georgia drivers. Four states have dumber drivers: California, Hawaii, New Jersey and New York.

Cheney's speech ignored some inconvenient truths

It boggles my mind that anyone still believes anybody from the Bush administration, especially Cheney.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/226/story/68643.html?storylink=omni_popular

Posted on Thursday, May 21, 2009
By Jonathan S. Landay and Warren P. Strobel | McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — Former Vice President Dick Cheney's defense Thursday of the Bush administration's policies for interrogating suspected terrorists contained omissions, exaggerations and misstatements.

In his address to the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative policy organization in Washington, Cheney said that the techniques the Bush administration approved, including waterboarding — simulated drowning that's considered a form of torture — forced nakedness and sleep deprivation, were "legal" and produced information that "prevented the violent death of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of innocent people."

He quoted the Director of National Intelligence, Adm. Dennis Blair, as saying that the information gave U.S. officials a "deeper understanding of the al Qaida organization that was attacking this country."

In a statement April 21, however, Blair said the information "was valuable in some instances" but that "there is no way of knowing whether the same information could have been obtained through other means. The bottom line is that these techniques hurt our image around the world, the damage they have done to our interests far outweighed whatever benefit they gave us and they are not essential to our national security."

A top-secret 2004 CIA inspector general's investigation found no conclusive proof that information gained from aggressive interrogations helped thwart any "specific imminent attacks," according to one of four top-secret Bush-era memos that the Justice Department released last month.

FBI Director Robert Mueller told Vanity Fair magazine in December that he didn't think that the techniques disrupted any attacks.

_ Cheney said that President Barack Obama's decision to release the four top-secret Bush administration memos on the interrogation techniques was "flatly contrary" to U.S. national security, and would help al Qaida train terrorists in how to resist U.S. interrogations.

However, Blair, who oversees all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies, said in his statement that he recommended the release of the memos, "strongly supported" Obama's decision to prohibit using the controversial methods and that "we do not need these techniques to keep America safe."

_ Cheney said that the Bush administration "moved decisively against the terrorists in their hideouts and their sanctuaries, and committed to using every asset to take down their networks."

The former vice president didn't point out that Osama bin Laden and his chief lieutenant, Ayman al Zawahri, remain at large nearly eight years after 9-11 and that the Bush administration began diverting U.S. forces, intelligence assets, time and money to planning an invasion of Iraq before it finished the war in Afghanistan against al Qaida and the Taliban.

There are now 49,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan fighting to contain the bloodiest surge in Taliban violence since the 2001 U.S.-led intervention, and Islamic extremists also have launched their most concerted attack yet on neighboring, nuclear-armed Pakistan.

_ Cheney denied that there was any connection between the Bush administration's interrogation policies and the abuse of detainee at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, which he blamed on "a few sadistic guards . . . in violation of American law, military regulations and simple decency."

However, a bipartisan Senate Armed Services Committee report in December traced the abuses at Abu Ghraib to the approval of the techniques by senior Bush administration officials, including former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.

"The abuse of detainees in U.S. custody cannot simply be attributed to the actions of 'a few bad apples' acting on their own," said the report issued by Sens. Carl Levin, D-Mich., and John McCain, R-Ariz. "The fact is that senior officials in the United States government solicited information on how to use aggressive techniques, redefined the law to create the appearance of their legality and authorized their use against detainees."

_ Cheney said that "only detainees of the highest intelligence value" were subjected to the harsh interrogation techniques, and he cited Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, the alleged mastermind of the 9-11 attacks.

He didn't mention Abu Zubaydah, the first senior al Qaida operative to be captured after 9-11. Former FBI special agent Ali Soufan told a Senate subcommittee last week that his interrogation of Zubaydah using traditional methods elicited crucial information, including Mohammed's alleged role in 9-11.

The decision to use the harsh interrogation methods "was one of the worst and most harmful decisions made in our efforts against al Qaida," Soufan said. Former State Department official Philip Zelikow, who in 2005 was then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's point man in an internal fight to overhaul the Bush administration's detention policies, joined Soufan in his criticism.

_ Cheney said that "the key to any strategy is accurate intelligence," but the Bush administration ignored warnings from experts in the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the State Department, the Department of Energy and other agencies, and used false or exaggerated intelligence supplied by Iraqi exile groups and others to help make its case for the 2003 invasion.

Cheney made no mention of al Qaida operative Ali Mohamed al Fakheri, who's known as Ibn Sheikh al Libi, whom the Bush administration secretly turned over to Egypt for interrogation in January 2002. While allegedly being tortured by Egyptian authorities, Libi provided false information about Iraq's links with al Qaida, which the Bush administration used despite doubts expressed by the DIA.

A state-run Libyan newspaper said Libi committed suicide recently in a Libyan jail.

_ Cheney accused Obama of "the selective release" of documents on Bush administration detainee policies, charging that Obama withheld records that Cheney claimed prove that information gained from the harsh interrogation methods prevented terrorist attacks.

"I've formally asked that (the information) be declassified so the American people can see the intelligence we obtained," Cheney said. "Last week, that request was formally rejected."

However, the decision to withhold the documents was announced by the CIA, which said that it was obliged to do so by a 2003 executive order issued by former President George W. Bush prohibiting the release of materials that are the subject of lawsuits.

_ Cheney said that only "ruthless enemies of this country" were detained by U.S. operatives overseas and taken to secret U.S. prisons.

A 2008 McClatchy investigation, however, found that the vast majority of Guantanamo detainees captured in 2001 and 2002 in Afghanistan and Pakistan were innocent citizens or low-level fighters of little intelligence value who were turned over to American officials for money or because of personal or political rivalries.

In addition, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Oct. 5, 2005, that the Bush administration had admitted to her that it had mistakenly abducted a German citizen, Khaled Masri, from Macedonia in January 2004.

Masri reportedly was flown to a secret prison in Afghanistan, where he allegedly was abused while being interrogated. He was released in May 2004 and dumped on a remote road in Albania.

In January 2007, the German government issued arrest warrants for 13 alleged CIA operatives on charges of kidnapping Masri.

_ Cheney slammed Obama's decision to close the Guantanamo Bay prison camp and criticized his effort to persuade other countries to accept some of the detainees.

The effort to shut down the facility, however, began during Bush's second term, promoted by Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

"One of the things that would help a lot is, in the discussions that we have with the states of which they (detainees) are nationals, if we could get some of those countries to take them back," Rice said in a Dec. 12, 2007, interview with the British Broadcasting Corp. "So we need help in closing Guantanamo."

_ Cheney said that, in assessing the security environment after 9-11, the Bush team had to take into account "dictators like Saddam Hussein with known ties to Mideast terrorists."

Cheney didn't explicitly repeat the contention he made repeatedly in office: that Saddam cooperated with al Qaida, a linkage that U.S. intelligence officials and numerous official inquiries have rebutted repeatedly.

The late Iraqi dictator's association with terrorists vacillated and was mostly aimed at quashing opponents and critics at home and abroad.

The last State Department report on international terrorism to be released before 9-11 said that Saddam's regime "has not attempted an anti-Western terrorist attack since its failed plot to assassinate former President (George H.W.) Bush in 1993 in Kuwait."

A Pentagon study released last year, based on a review of 600,000 Iraqi documents captured after the U.S.-led invasion, concluded that while Saddam supported militant Palestinian groups — the late terrorist Abu Nidal found refuge in Baghdad, at least until Saddam had him killed — the Iraqi security services had no "direct operational link" with al Qaida.

'Super-recognizers,' with extraordinary face recognition ability, never forget a face

I'm in the face-blind category. I took the test at faceblind.com, and couldn't see a difference between all those faces. Nothing I didn't already know, of course. And I don't remember names either. But I do remember people's stories, and their voices.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-05/hu-we051909.php

Public release date: 19-May-2009
Contact: Amy Lavoie
Harvard University

Research suggests that face recognition may vary more than previously understood

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., May 19, 2009 – Some people say they never forget a face, a claim now bolstered by psychologists at Harvard University who've discovered a group they call "super-recognizers": those who can easily recognize someone they met in passing, even many years later.

The new study suggests that skill in facial recognition might vary widely among humans. Previous research has identified as much as 2 percent of the population as having "face-blindness," or prosopagnosia, a condition characterized by great difficulty in recognizing faces. For the first time, this new research shows that others excel in face recognition, indicating that the trait could be on a spectrum, with prosopagnosics on the low end and super-recognizers at the high end.

Saturday, May 23, 2009

Tips for raising generous children

This verifies why I have always disagreed with the adage about doing good in secret. We are all role models for each other, especially for children. (Of course, I don't think we should refrain from doing good unless someone knows about it.)

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/328/story/68455.html?storylink=omni_popular

Posted on Tuesday, May 19, 2009
By Frank Greve | McClatchy Newspapers

If parents want to raise generous children, what works? Years of looking into which youth experiences best predict giving by adults offer some clues.

Independent Sector, a group of major nonprofit organizations, found the activities below the most closely linked to adult generosity. They're in only rough rank order because respondents could name multiple activities.

* Seeing an admired person who isn't a family member help others.

* Seeing a family member help others.

* Doing volunteer work.

* Raising money door to door.

* Being active in student government.

* Belonging to a youth group, such as the Boy Scouts.

* Being active in a religious organization.

* Being helped by others.

The biggest deterrent to generosity: not seeing a family member help others.

Insurers make big profits from college students, but some families are left with huge bills

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_20/b4084041498815.htm

May 8, 2008, 5:00PM EST
by Ben Elgin and Jessica Silver-Greenberg
This Issue
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* Student Health: What You Need to Know

The Giuntas were stunned by how little their insurance covered Brian Smith
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In fall 2006, Ralph Giunta Sr. decided to buy his son Ralph Jr. a practical birthday gift: health insurance. The father, who owns a small financial-services company that lacks an insurance plan, phoned Palm Beach Community College, where his son was on the dean's list. The Lake Worth (Fla.) school recommended a policy provided by MEGA Life and Health Insurance, whose student business was acquired in late 2006 by giant UnitedHealthcare. Giunta wrote a check for $1,044 for one year. "They assured me he was well covered," he says.

Six out of 10 colleges and universities now recommend specific health insurance plans for their students, and three of 10 require them. But as the Giuntas discovered, many of the policies turn out to be scanty at best, and inferior to comparably priced alternatives. This can leave families exposed to crippling medical bills they thought they'd protected against. Insurers, meanwhile, have found that the student market can be quite profitable.

Ralph Giunta Jr. knew something was wrong in March, 2007, when the photography major and avid skateboarder felt pain in his legs and feet. Then 19, he lost all feeling in his lower extremities and was rushed to the hospital. The diagnosis: Guillain-Barré's syndrome, a rare disease of the nervous system that typically causes temporary paralysis. His father's anxiety was compounded upon learning more about the insurance he had purchased. Even with "major medical" coverage, the plan reimbursed only $22,800 of the $206,325 bill for 19 days of intensive care.

In the end, Ralph Jr. recovered, but the Giuntas owed $265,000 in hospital and doctor bills. As he juggles maxed-out credit cards and loans from friends to make minimum payments on medical debts, Ralph Sr. admits he didn't read the UnitedHealthcare plan closely. "I thought, well, the college is offering it," he says. "Why would it be a bad plan?"
...
Schools often arrange for a standard student plan, and some even bill for it automatically unless students or their families opt out. But the administrators negotiating multimillion-dollar insurance packages frequently aren't sophisticated or diligent enough to obtain the best deals in the marketplace, says Mark Rukavina, executive director of the Access Project, a nonprofit health advocacy group in Boston. "Unfortunately, most schools don't know how to secure the best coverage for students, and so what results is simply the illusion of coverage." Students and parents, for their part, often don't take the time to study the fine print.

If college administrators "aren't sophisticated or diligent enough to obtain the best deals in the marketplace", why put down Students and parents by the remark that they "often don't take the time to study the fine print". It is not very efficient to expect thousands of people to spend time reading something that is deliberately written with an intention to obscure, when it is offered by an institution that has more resources to determine the facts.


In some cases, universities have comfortable relationships with carriers that reimburse the schools a small percentage of student premiums to cover administrative expenses. This raises questions about whether schools ought to serve as what amounts to a broker. The University of Alaska system receives 5% of premiums collected through its plan. With $2.3 million in premiums expected this academic year, the payment would come to about $115,000, according to a copy of the contract provided by the system. The Kansas Board of Regents receives 1.5% of its students' premiums to cover costs of administering the plan "or other uses as determined by the Board," according to its contract. That could mean a reimbursement of about $100,000 for 2007-08.

UnitedHeathcare's plan with a 10% medical loss ratio

http://www.pnhp.org/news/2008/may/unitedheathcares_pl.php

Insurers make big profits from college students, but some families are left with huge bills

by Ben Elgin and Jessica Silver-Greenberg
BusinessWeek
May 8, 2008

Six out of 10 colleges and universities now recommend specific health insurance plans for their students, and three of 10 require them. But… many of the policies turn out to be scanty at best, and inferior to comparably priced alternatives. This can leave families exposed to crippling medical bills they thought they’d be protected against. Insurers, meanwhile, have found that the student market can be quite profitable.

More than half of the insurance plans recommended by colleges offer benefits of $30,000 or less, according to a survey published in March by the General Accounting Office, an arm of Congress. Many plans have further limits that prevent payout of even modest maximums.

Apart from low maximums, insurers can contain payouts by imposing “interior caps” on coverage for particular types of treatment. Sean Marquis discovered the hard way how this works. After turning 26, Marquis, a medical student at Ross University in Edison, N.J., was bumped from his parents’ plan. He signed up for the school-sponsored plan with UnitedHealthcare, comforted by its $100,000 overall maximum.

Last spring, Marquis became dizzy during class. He stepped into the hallway and collapsed, fracturing a bone near his jaw. He stayed in the hospital for 48 hours, and left owing $24,098. UnitedHealthcare covered only $6,260, because Marquis had hit the $2,500-per-day cap for room, board, and miscellaneous expenses.
...
On a number of campuses, students feel pressure to purchase threadbare policies because those are the only ones the school will process. Unless students or their parents take the initiative to shop independently, Connecticut College, a private liberal arts school in New London, signs them up for a plan sold by Chickering Group, a subsidiary of Aetna, offering just $10,000 in maximum benefits for an illness.

The vigorous health of most college students helps make insuring them a lucrative niche, according to industry consultants. Most insurance companies, even if publicly traded, don’t break out separate financial results for their student-oriented policies. But some schools disclose an indication of the profitability of policies sold to their students: the so-called benefits ratio. This shows the percentage of premiums returned to customers in the form of benefit payouts. Large health insurers typically have overall ratios of about 80%, meaning 20% of premiums goes to profits and administrative costs.

In several cases where BusinessWeek was able to obtain benefits ratios from colleges or universities, the percentage was well below 70%.

At Palm Beach Community College, the benefits ratio for the spring semester of 2008 was 42.6%, according to reports provided to the school by UnitedHealthcare.

In previous semesters the benefits ratios dipped as low as 10.2% and 13.8%. This means the college’s plan has been a veritable gold mine for UnitedHealthcare. At the University of South Florida in Tampa, which offers a plan from American Fidelity Assurance, the ratio this academic year is 35%, down from 71% and 61% the previous two years, respectively.

Health Care Misinformation

I can't be fooled by their lies, because I haven't had medical insurance most of the time since 1990. When you can't afford to see a doctor in the first place, being able to "choose" you doctor is a meaningless concept has no meaning.

http://thinkprogress.org/2009/05/23/kyl-health-care-deception/

Sen. Kyl: We support ‘free market’ health care, but we won’t talk about it because it’s not ‘persuasive.’

In an interview posted online by the National Review, Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) candidly explained how his party would try to deceive the public during the coming health care debate. Kyl said that although Republicans believe in a “free market” approach to health care, to describe it honestly to the “people we have to convince” would not be “persuasive.” Instead, Kyl boasts that he and his colleagues will use the “hollow buzzwords” prescribed by GOP language consultant Frank Luntz

Fewer patient visits for doctors a sign of ill economy

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/256/story/68538.html

Posted on Wednesday, May 20, 2009
By Diane Stafford | Kansas City Star

Doctors aren’t seeing as many patients these days. That doesn’t mean we’re healthier. It’s just another example of how hard economic times are blocking the door to health care for many.

The American Academy of Family Physicians said Tuesday that doctors report more canceled appointments and fewer preventive-care visits than before the recession began.

More than half of the 505 physicians who completed an online survey for the academy said their total patient count had dropped since January 2008.

“Patients are canceling or deferring important preventive screening such as Pap smears, mammograms and colonoscopies,” said Ted Epperly, president of the Leawood-based physicians’ organization. “They’re also failing to return for recommended follow-up visits or refill medications that are vital to managing their chronic conditions.”

When the pocketbook choice is between food and housing or health care, food and housing usually win, Epperly said.

FDA: Pistachio plant knew nuts were tainted

Something I notice about this news article is it refers to the "California plant" and "Setton" (the name of the company) as making decisions. No, it was one or more human beings who made this decision.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30892922/

updated 5:36 p.m. ET, Fri., May 22, 2009

FRESNO, Calif. - Food safety inspectors say a California plant at the center of a salmonella scare knew some of its pistachios were tainted but continued shipping nuts for another six months.

The Food and Drug Administration issued a sweeping national warning in March for consumers to avoid eating pistachios after concerns surfaced about nuts from Setton Pistachio of Terra Bella, Inc.

In an inspection report released this week, FDA officials said Setton first got results in October showing some of its roasted nuts tested positive for salmonella. But, officials say, it didn't make proper adjustments to its processing procedures and kept shipping out nuts.

Friday, May 22, 2009

43 stun-gunned at prisons' Take Your Kids to Work Day

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/256/story/68310.html

Posted on Friday, May 15, 2009
By Marc Caputo | Miami Herald

A total of 43 children were directly and indirectly shocked by electric stun guns during simultaneous ''Take Your Sons and Daughters to Work Day'' events gone wrong at three state prisons, according to new information provided Friday by the Florida Department of Corrections.

Also, a group of kids was exposed to tear gas during a demonstration at another lockup.

Three prison guards have been fired, two have resigned and 16 more employees -- from corrections officers to a warden -- will be disciplined due to the incidents that unfolded April 23, said DOC Secretary Walt McNeil. An investigation is ongoing.

None of the children in any of the incidents required medical attention or was notably harmed, McNeil said. He said the children, who ranged in age from 5 to 17, were all children of prison officials.

In nearly every case, the guards had permission from parents or grandparents to administer the ''electronic immobilization devices,'' McNeil said.

''I can't imagine what these officers were thinking to administer this device to children, nor can I imagine why any parent would allow them to do so,'' McNeil said. ``This must not happen again.''

McNeil called the episode ''embarrassing'' for the nation's fourth-largest prison system. It has been rocked by far more serious scandal.

Thursday, May 21, 2009

The right's Social Security scare tactics

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2009/05/19/lind/

By Michael Lind
May 19, 2009 | Last Tuesday, just before the release of the annual Social Security trustees report, I predicted that no matter what the report contained the perennial enemies of America's most effective and efficient universal social insurance program would cite it as proof that Social Security needs to be means-tested, privatized or both. The report is in, and its contents are far from dramatic. The (dubiously) estimated date at which, absent changes, the trust fund dries up and Social Security shifts to a pay-as-you-go program paying most, but not all, promised benefits has moved up slightly from 2041 to 2037. But to listen to the critics of Social Security on the right you would think that Godzilla was blocks away from the Fulton Fish Market.

Posting at the libertarian Cato Institute's Cato@Liberty blog, Michael Tanner claims to be alarmed that Social Security's "unfunded liabilities -- the amount it has paid beyond what it can actually pay -- now total $17.5 trillion. Yes, that's trillion with a 'T.' That's $1.7 trillion worse than last year."

Is the government really going to have to come up with $17.5 trillion in the next year or two to pay for Social Security, as more baby boomers retire? Undoubtedly that is what some opponents of Social Security want to frighten their fellow Americans into thinking. What Tanner neglects to tell his readers is that this big, scary number purports to measure Social Security's unfunded liabilities over an infinite time horizon and assumes there are no changes made between now and eternity. Any number of relatively minor changes, from lifting the cap on the Social Security payroll tax to infusing general revenues, could preserve the program in its present form into the 22nd century without insolvency or harm to the U.S. economy.

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

America's poor are its most generous givers




This has been a consistent finding over the years.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/226/story/68456.html?storylink=omni_popular

Posted on Tuesday, May 19, 2009
By Frank Greve | McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — When Jody Richards saw a homeless man begging outside a downtown McDonald's recently, he bought the man a cheeseburger. There's nothing unusual about that, except that Richards is homeless, too, and the 99-cent cheeseburger was an outsized chunk of the $9.50 he'd earned that day from panhandling.

The generosity of poor people isn't so much rare as rarely noticed, however. In fact, America's poor donate more, in percentage terms, than higher-income groups do, surveys of charitable giving show. What's more, their generosity declines less in hard times than the generosity of richer givers does.

"The lowest-income fifth (of the population) always give at more than their capacity," said Virginia Hodgkinson, former vice president for research at Independent Sector, a Washington-based association of major nonprofit agencies. "The next two-fifths give at capacity, and those above that are capable of giving two or three times more than they give."

Indeed, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics' latest survey of consumer expenditure found that the poorest fifth of America's households contributed an average of 4.3 percent of their incomes to charitable organizations in 2007. The richest fifth gave at less than half that rate, 2.1 percent.

The figures probably undercount remittances by legal and illegal immigrants to family and friends back home, a multibillion-dollar outlay to which the poor contribute disproportionally.

None of the middle fifths of America's households, in contrast, gave away as much as 3 percent of their incomes.

"As a rule, people who have money don't know people in need," saId Tanya Davis, 40, a laid-off security guard and single mother.

Certainly, better-off people aren't hit up by friends and kin as often as Davis said she was, having earned a reputation for generosity while she was working.

Now getting by on $110 a week in unemployment insurance and $314 a month in welfare, Davis still fields two or three appeals a week, she said, and lays out $5 or $10 weekly.

To explain her giving, Davis offered the two reasons most commonly heard in three days of conversations with low-income donors:

"I believe that the more I give, the more I receive, and that God loves a cheerful giver," Davis said. "Plus I've been in their position, and someday I might be again."

Herbert Smith, 31, a Seventh-day Adventist who said he tithed his $1,010 monthly disability check — giving away 10 percent of it — thought that poor people give more because, in some ways, they worry less about their money.

"We're not scared of poverty the way rich people are," he said. "We know how to get the lights back on when we can't pay the electric bill."

In terms of income, the poorest fifth seem unlikely benefactors. Their pretax household incomes averaged $10,531 in 2007, according to the BLS survey, compared with $158,388 for the top fifth.

In addition, its members are the least educated fifth of the U.S. population, the oldest, the most religious and the likeliest to rent their homes, according to demographers. They're also the most likely fifth to be on welfare, to drive used cars or rely on public transportation, to be students, minorities, women and recent immigrants.

However, many of these characteristics predict generosity. Women are more generous than men, studies have shown. Older people give more than younger donors with equal incomes. The working poor, disproportionate numbers of which are recent immigrants, are America's most generous group, according to Arthur Brooks, the author of the book "Who Really Cares," an analysis of U.S. generosity.

Faith probably matters most, Brooks — who's the president of the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative Washington policy-research organization — said in an interview. That's partly because above-average numbers of poor people go to church, and church attenders give more money than non-attenders to secular and religious charities, Brooks found.

Moreover, disproportionate numbers of poor people belong to congregations that tithe.

Less-religious givers such as Emel Sweeney, 73, a retired bookkeeper, say that giving lights up their lives.

"Have you ever looked into the face of someone you're being generous to?" Sweeney asked with the trace of a Jamaican lilt.

That brought to mind her encounter with a young woman who was struggling to manage four small, tired children on a bus.

They staggered and straggled at a transfer stop, along with Sweeney, who urged the mother to take a nearby cab the rest of the way. When the mother said she had no money, Sweeney gave her $20, she said. The mother, as she piled her brood into the cab, waved and mouthed a thank-you.

"Those words just rested in my chest," Sweeney said, "and as I rode home I was so happy."

Pastor Coletta Jones, who ministers to a largely low-income tithing congregation in southeast Washington, The Rock Christian Church, thinks that poor people give more because they ask for less for themselves.

"When you have just a little, you're thankful for what you have," Jones said, "but with every step you take up the ladder of success, the money clouds your mind and gets you into a state of never being satisfied."

Brooks offered this statistic as supportive evidence: Fifty-eight percent of noncontributors with above-median incomes say they don't have enough money to give any away.

What makes poor people's generosity even more impressive is that their giving generally isn't tax-deductible, because they don't earn enough to justify itemizing their charitable tax deductions. In effect, giving a dollar to charity costs poor people a dollar while it costs deduction itemizers 65 cents.

In addition, measures of generosity typically exclude informal giving, such as that of Davis' late mother, Helen Coleman. Coleman, a Baltimore hotel housekeeper, provided child care, beds and meals for many of her eight children and 32 grandchildren, Davis said.

Federal surveys don't ask about remittances specifically, so it's hard to know how much the poorest fifth sends back home. Remittances from U.S. immigrants totaled more than $100 billion in 2007, according to Manuel Orozco, a senior researcher at Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington policy institute, who specializes in remittances.

By comparison, individual giving to tax-deductible U.S. charities totaled about $220 billion in 2007.

Much of the money remitted comes from struggling U.S. immigrants such as Zenaida Araviza, 42, a Macy's cosmetics clerk and single mother in suburban Arlington, Va.

Araviza, who earns $1,300 a month, goes carless, cable-less and cell phone-less in order to send an aunt in the Philippines $200 a month to care for Araviza's mother, who has Alzheimer's.

"What can I do?" asked Araviza, an attractive, somber woman. "It's my responsibility."

Carmen De Jesus, the chief financial officer and treasurer of Forex Inc., a remittance agency based in Springfield, Va., said low-income Filipino-Americans such as Araviza were her most generous customers.

"The domestic helpers send very, very frequently," she said. "The doctors, less so."

Why are they so generous? Christie Zerrudo, a cashier who handles Filipino remittances at Manila Oriental, a grocery/restaurant/remittance agency in Arlington, offered this explanation:

"It gives the heart comfort when you sit down at the end of the day, and you know that you did your part," Zerrudo said. "You took care of your family. If you eat here, they eat there, too. It would give you stress if they couldn't. But you love them, they are your family, and your love has had an expression."

Adam Lambert - Wow

I decided to see what all the fuss was about concerning the last two contestants on American Idol, so I listened to them on YouTube last night, and I found out.
Kris Allen is really good. But Adam Lambert is wonderful.

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Climate change odds much worse than thought

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2009/roulette-0519.html

New analysis shows warming could be double previous estimates
David Chandler, MIT News Office
May 19, 2009

The most comprehensive modeling yet carried out on the likelihood of how much hotter the Earth's climate will get in this century shows that without rapid and massive action, the problem will be about twice as severe as previously estimated six years ago - and could be even worse than that.

The new projections, published this month in the American Meteorological Society's Journal of Climate, indicate a median probability of surface warming of 5.2 degrees Celsius by 2100, with a 90% probability range of 3.5 to 7.4 degrees. This can be compared to a median projected increase in the 2003 study of just 2.4 degrees. The difference is caused by several factors rather than any single big change. Among these are improved economic modeling and newer economic data showing less chance of low emissions than had been projected in the earlier scenarios. Other changes include accounting for the past masking of underlying warming by the cooling induced by 20th century volcanoes, and for emissions of soot, which can add to the warming effect. In addition, measurements of deep ocean temperature rises, which enable estimates of how fast heat and carbon dioxide are removed from the atmosphere and transferred to the ocean depths, imply lower transfer rates than previously estimated.

Food Companies Are Placing the Onus for Safety on Consumers

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/15/business/15ingredients.html?_r=1&em=&pagewanted=all

By MICHAEL MOSS
Published: May 14, 2009

The frozen pot pies that sickened an estimated 15,000 people with salmonella in 2007 left federal inspectors mystified. At first they suspected the turkey. Then they considered the peas, carrots and potatoes.

The pie maker, ConAgra Foods, began spot-checking the vegetables for pathogens, but could not find the culprit. It also tried cooking the vegetables at high temperatures, a strategy the industry calls a “kill step,” to wipe out any lingering microbes. But the vegetables turned to mush in the process.

So ConAgra — which sold more than 100 million pot pies last year under its popular Banquet label — decided to make the consumer responsible for the kill step. The “food safety” instructions and four-step diagram on the 69-cent pies offer this guidance: “Internal temperature needs to reach 165° F as measured by a food thermometer in several spots.”

Increasingly, the corporations that supply Americans with processed foods are unable to guarantee the safety of their ingredients. In this case, ConAgra could not pinpoint which of the more than 25 ingredients in its pies was carrying salmonella. Other companies do not even know who is supplying their ingredients, let alone if those suppliers are screening the items for microbes and other potential dangers, interviews and documents show.

Yet the supply chain for ingredients in processed foods — from flavorings to flour to fruits and vegetables — is becoming more complex and global as the drive to keep food costs down intensifies. As a result, almost every element, not just red meat and poultry, is now a potential carrier of pathogens, government and industry officials concede.

In addition to ConAgra, other food giants like Nestlé and the Blackstone Group, a New York firm that acquired the Swanson and Hungry-Man brands two years ago, concede that they cannot ensure the safety of items — from frozen vegetables to pizzas — and that they are shifting the burden to the consumer. General Mills, which recalled about five million frozen pizzas in 2007 after an E. coli outbreak, now advises consumers to avoid microwaves and cook only with conventional ovens. ConAgra has also added food safety instructions to its other frozen meals, including the Healthy Choice brand.
...
The problem is particularly acute with frozen foods, in which unwitting consumers who buy these products for their convenience mistakenly think that their cooking is a matter of taste and not safety.
...
And the ingredient chain for frozen and other processed foods is poised to get more convoluted, industry insiders say. While the global market for ingredients is projected to reach $34 billion next year, the pressure to keep food prices down in a recession is forcing food companies to look for ways to cut costs.

Ensuring the safety of ingredients has been further complicated as food companies subcontract processing work to save money: smaller companies prepare flavor mixes and dough that a big manufacturer then assembles. “There is talk of having passports for ingredients,” said Jamie Rice, the marketing director of RTS Resource, a research firm based in England. “At each stage they are signed off on for quality and safety. That would help companies, if there is a scare, in tracing back.”

But government efforts to impose tougher trace-back requirements for ingredients have met with resistance from food industry groups including the Grocery Manufacturers Association, which complained to the Food and Drug Administration: “This information is not reasonably needed and it is often not practical or possible to provide it.”
...
Research on raw ingredients, the guide notes, has found salmonella in 0.14 percent to 1.3 percent of the wheat flour sampled, and up to 8 percent of the raw spices tested.

ConAgra’s pot pie outbreak began on Feb. 20, 2007, and by the time it trailed off nine months later 401 cases of salmonella infection had been identified in 41 states, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which estimates that for every reported case, an additional 38 are not detected or reported.

It took until June 2007 for health officials to discover the illnesses were connected, and in October they traced the salmonella to Banquet pot pies made at ConAgra’s plant in Marshall, Mo.

While investigators who went to the plant were never able to pinpoint the salmonella source, inspectors for the United States Department of Agriculture focused on the vegetables, a federal inspection document shows.

ConAgra had not been requiring its suppliers to test the vegetables for pathogens, even though some were being shipped from Latin America. Nor was ConAgra conducting its own pathogen tests.

The company says the outbreak and management changes prompted it to undertake a broad range of safety initiatives, including testing for microbes in all of the pie ingredients. ConAgra said it was also trying to apply the kill step to as many ingredients as possible, but had not yet found a way to accomplish it without making the pies “unpalatable.”

Its Banquet pies now have some of the most graphic food safety instructions, complete with a depiction of a thermometer piercing the crust.
...
But attempts by The New York Times to follow the directions on several brands of frozen meals, including ConAgra’s Banquet pot pies, failed to achieve the required 165-degree temperature. Some spots in the pies heated to only 140 degrees even as parts of the crust were burnt.

A ConAgra consumer hotline operator said the claims by microwave-oven manufacturers about their wattage power could not be trusted, and that any pies not heated enough should not be eaten. “We definitely want it to reach that 165-degree temperature,” she said. “It’s a safety issue.”
...
Some frozen food companies are taking different approaches to pathogens. Amy’s Kitchen, a California company that specializes in natural frozen foods, says it precooks its ingredients to kill any potential pathogens before its pot pies and other products leave the factory.

Using a bacteriological testing laboratory, The Times checked several pot pies made by Amy’s and the three leading brands, and while none contained salmonella or E. coli, one pie each of two brands — Banquet, and the Stouffer’s brand made by Nestlé — had significant levels of T. coliform.

These bacteria are common in many foods and are not considered harmful. But their presence in these products include raw ingredients and leave open “a potential for contamination,” said Harvey Klein, the director of Garden State Laboratories in New Jersey.
...
For more than a decade, the U.S.D.A. has also sought to encourage consumers to use food thermometers. But the agency’s statistics on how many Americans do so are discouraging. According to its Web site, not quite half the population has one, and only 3 percent use it when cooking high-risk foods like hamburgers. No data was available on how many people use thermometers on pot pies.