Lifesaving cancer drugs may put workers' lives at risk

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38114586/ns/health-cancer/

by Carol Smith
InvestigateWest
updated 7/11/2010 12:44:32 PM ET

Sue Crump braced as the chemo drugs dripped into her body. She knew treatment would be rough. She had seen its signature countless times in the ravaged bodies and hopeful faces of cancer patients in hospitals where she had spent 23 years mixing chemo as a pharmacist.

Now she hoped those same medicines would kill the tumor cells lurking in her belly. At the same time, though, she wondered whether those same drugs may have caused her cancer to begin with.

Harnessing toxic agents to save a life demands a delicate balance. Chemo is poison, by design. Descended from deadly mustard gas first used against soldiers in World War I, now it’s deployed to stop the advance of cancer.

Crump knew she had her own war on her hands. And she wanted young pharmacists and nurses to pay attention to her story.

Little workplace regulation
The same powerful chemotherapy drugs that have saved hundreds of thousands of patients’ lives for decades have at the same time potentially taken a deadly toll on the hospital and clinic workers who handled them.

Crump, who died of pancreatic cancer last September at age 55, was one of thousands of health care workers who were chronically exposed to chemotherapy agents on the job for years before there were any safety guidelines in place.

Now, some of those workers, like Crump, are being diagnosed with cancers that occupational health specialists say could be linked to that exposure.

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A just-completed study from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, 10 years in the making and the largest to date, confirms that chemo continues to contaminate the workspaces where it’s used, and in some cases is still being found in the urine of those who handle it, despite knowledge of safety precautions.

"There is no other occupation population (that handles) so many known human carcinogens,” said Thomas Connor, a research biologist with the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. Connor has spent 40 years studying the effect of chemo agents on workers, and is one of the lead authors on the latest study.

Chemo agents have been classified as “hazardous drugs” by the Occupational Safety and Health Association (OSHA

.) Hazardous drugs are those known, or suspected to cause cancer, miscarriages, birth defects, or other serious health consequences.
Paul Joseph Brown / Paul Joseph Brown Photography
Patty Allen, a long-time friend, holds Sue Crump's hand during a visit to say goodbye to her in hospice care in Kirkland, Wash.

But an InvestigateWest investigation has found that OSHA does not regulate exposure to these toxic substances in the workplace, despite evidence of ongoing contamination and exposures.

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Danish epidemiologists used cancer registry data from the 1940s through the late 1980s to report a significantly increased risk of leukemia among oncology nurses and physicians. Last year, another Danish study of more than 92,000 nurses found an elevated risk for breast, thyroid, nervous system and brain cancers in the nursing population.

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a number of studies have shown an association between exposure to chemo agents and reproductive issues including miscarriage, birth defects and low birth weights. A 2005 survey found significant associations with infertility and miscarriage in nurses who handled chemo before the age of 25. Nurses who administered nine or more doses of chemo a day had a greater chance of pre-term labor, or having children with learning disabilities.

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Green tech lights the way in Haiti

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38206058/ns/technology_and_science-science/#headline

This week, an unexpected store opened in rural Haiti. Inside, the items for sale include solar panels, solar-powered lamps, and ultra-efficient stoves. In a country where nearly 70 percent of the people lived without reliable electricity before the earthquake struck, a little sustainable technology can go a long way. American social entrepreneur Dan Schnitzer is determined to make this tech a realistic alternative to kerosene, candles and darkness.

His path to Haiti started when he was a senior at the University of Chicago in 2007. Schnitzer and his friends got a $1,000 grant to build a wind turbine from scratch. They chronicled the project online and one day in early 2008, Schnitzer got an email from a Haitian man living in the United States who asked whether their turbine could power streetlights in his hometown, Les Anglais, a town on the southern peninsula that's several hundred miles from Port-au-Prince.

The turbine was too small for the job, but Schnitzer learned that turbine size wasn't the problem. The town didn't have streetlights, and after doing some research, Schnitzer found that installing them would cost millions. He wondered if the town even wanted streetlights, thinking they might have more pressing technological needs, so he set out to ask them.

Working with the local Haitian organization COREA, he completed 260 surveys by the end of 2008. What he learned became the impetus for EarthSpark International, the nonprofit he co-founded that year.

Schnitzer discovered that, when given a long list of different kinds of energy to choose from, the locals most wanted solar-powered lighting, which they could carry around or use their homes. The more time he spent in the country, the more he realized that he wasn't seeing a technology problem. He was seeing a business problem.

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Schnitzer had just returned to the United States from an extended stay in Haiti when the earthquake struck.

"It was devastating," he says. "Soon after the earthquake, someone brought to our attention the impact on women. There was a rise in violence against women, and rape in the camps in some of these communities."

Lighting and security in the washing areas women used was nearly nonexistent. Compounding matters, gangs had horded aid and were demanding high prices for it.

EarthSpark raised funds and used its knowledge of solar lighting technology to get solar flashlights to women. As a member of the Clinton Global Initiative, the nonprofit worked with Haitian research initiative INURED, Paul Farmer's Partners In Health, and the Haitian government's ministry of women's affairs to get 3,000 SunNight Solar BoGo flashlights distributed.

"Women weren't just using them to light their tents, or as a flashlight. They were clipping them outside of the tents to provide public lighting. They created patrols at night," Schnitzer says. "They were using them as public goods."

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Cat burglar takes shine to washing-line underwear

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100708/od_nm/us_britain_cat;_ylt=Ah_u11J0NnDuvIEMQZ1jX66s0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTFmZWM2bjdzBHBvcwMyMDQEc2VjA2FjY29yZGlvbl9vZGRfbmV3cwRzbGsDY2F0YnVyZ2xhcnRh

Thu Jul 8, 11:50 am ET

LONDON (Reuters) – A spate of thefts from gardens and washing lines in a southern English town had been puzzling police.

Socks, gloves, ladies underwear -- almost anything left unattended was fair game for the thief, especially the knickers, and the rate of offending was getting worse.

But now the culprit has been unmasked as a kleptomaniac cat with a generous nature.

Eager to please his new owners, Peter and Birgitt Weismantel, 13-year-old Oscar had been bringing home presents to the family home in Portswood, a suburb of the southern coastal town of Southampton.

"He started bringing socks home a few months ago and then gardening gloves which we tracked to our neighbor," his owner Peter Weismantel told the Southern Daily Echo newspaper.

"Then we had a situation in which he brought back young women's underwear," said Peter, 72.

"It began to escalate and I telephoned the police as people must have been missing clothes -- especially with women's underwear being taken."

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"He brings them back as presents," Birgitt told the Echo.

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Environmental Toxins Affect the Body's Hormone Systems

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/07/100701081857.htm

ScienceDaily (July 6, 2010) — Marianne Kraugerud's doctoral research has led to the discovery that individual variants of the environmental pollutants PCB and PFC can affect several of the body's hormone systems in a more complex way than previously supposed. Humans and animals are constantly exposed to these toxins through the food they eat and the air they breathe. Kraugerud concludes that the impact of these pollutants should be taken into account when carrying out risk appraisals of PCB and PFC.

Marianne Kraugerud's thesis studies the effects of different variants of the environmental toxins PCB and PFC on sheep and on cells grown in the laboratory. Her research on sheep is of comparative interest for humans.

Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB) and perfluorinated compounds (PFC) are chemicals that only break down naturally to a very small degree and therefore have a strong tendency to accumulate in the environment. While PCBs are known to be environmental pollutants and have not been legally produced since the 1970s, the use of many PFC variants is rapidly increasing in products such as water-resistant clothing and coatings in saucepans and frying pans.

Marianne Kraugerud's thesis shows the effects of PCB 118 and PCB 153, which are two separate PCB variants with different chemical characteristics. In lambs exposed to these substances while in the womb and via their mother's milk, effects were demonstrated both on the formation of egg cells in the ovaries and on the hormones that control the function of the ovaries in female lambs. Kraugerud also found that sheep foetuses that had been exposed to these PCB variants while in the womb had a diminished ability to produce the vital hormone cortisol.

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Ancient Hunting Weapon Discovered in Melting Ice

http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/ancienthuntingweapondiscoveredinmeltingice;_ylt=ArYCENQHkGjZWRKMz5mR2qas0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTRub2swNGdhBGFzc2V0A2xpdmVzY2llbmNlLzIwMTAwNzA2L2FuY2llbnRodW50aW5nd2VhcG9uZGlzY292ZXJlZGlubWVsdGluZ2ljZQRjY29kZQNtb3N0cG9wdWxhcgRjcG9zAzkEcG9zAzYEcHQDaG9tZV9jb2tlBHNlYwN5bl9oZWFkbGluZV9saXN0BHNsawNhbmNpZW50aHVudGk-

Jeanna Bryner
LiveScience Managing Editor
LiveScience.com jeanna Bryner
livescience Managing Editor
livescience.com – Tue Jul 6, 8:10 am ET

What looked like a small branch that blew off a tree during a storm turned out to be an ancient wooden hunting weapon wielded by Paleo Indians.

The 10,000-year-old atlatl dart was discovered in a melting patch of ice high in the Rocky Mountains close to Yellowstone National Park.

The dart was made from a birch sapling and still carried personal markings from the ancient hunter. When it was shot, the 3-foot-long (0.9 meter) dart had a projectile point on one end, and a cup or dimple on the other that would have attached to a hook on throwing tool called an atlatl.

The Native American hunter would have used the atlatl, a tool about 2 feet long (0.6 m), for leverage to greater velocity, said Craig Lee, of the University of Colorado at Boulder, who discovered the weapon.

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"We didn't realize until the early 2000s that there was a potential to find archaeological materials in association with melting permanent snow and ice in many areas of the globe," said Lee, who is a specialist in an emerging field called ice patch archaeology. "We're not talking about massive glaciers, we're talking about the smaller, more kinetically stable snowbanks that you might see if you go to Rocky Mountain National Park."

Icy revelations

As glaciers and ice fields continue to melt at an unprecedented rate, increasingly older and significant artifacts, along with plant material, animal carcasses and even ancient feces, are being released from the ice that has gripped them for thousands of years, Lee said. In fact, this year scientists reported a treasure trove of ancient hunting tools discovered in the Canadian High Arctic as a result of melting ice patches.

Over the past decade, Lee and his colleagues have compiled biological and physical data on ice fields that may have been used by prehistoric hunters to kill animals seeking refuge from heat and insect swarms in the summer months.

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Is it possible to be an all-American company?

In addition to keeping jobs in the U.S., buying American uses less energy for shipping products. A sad thing is that in order to compete with cheap Chinese labor, U.S. companies such as this have to be heavily automated, reducing the job created. And the costs of Chinese labor are kept artificially low by the Chinese government manipulating currency values.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38025260/ns/business-us_business/#slice-2

by Kari Huus Reporter
msnbc.com
updated 7/6/2010 5:45:42 AM

ONTARIO, Calif. — Anthony Maglica has lived the American Dream – arriving in booming post-war United States as a penniless young man, he made his way to California in a rusty Studebaker, worked hard and saved just enough money to start his own business. He parlayed the humble sum of $125 into a business empire.

Maglica’s company, Mag Instruments, has sold 420 million of its aluminum-encased flashlights since 1979. Its Maglite brand is known worldwide as a high-quality American product.

But the company’s story illustrates just how difficult it is to be all-American. Not only does it face a flood of cheap imports, but Mag is in perpetual legal battle to protect itself from copycats. And, in spite of Herculean efforts to make or source all components domestically, Mag falls just shy of 100 percent — not close enough, under state laws, to be labeled “Made in USA.”

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Mag long proudly sported the “Made in USA” label on its products, but it was recently forced to stop because of two imported components — an O-ring and a light bulb — that Mag says are not produced by anyone in the United States.

The issue is not with the federal regulations, which say that “Made in USA” is OK if the value of a product is “substantially” domestic. But a California law prohibits the Made in USA claim when any part of the product is made outside the United States. That law has been on the books for many years, but a flurry of cases taken up since 2005 has forced companies either to drop the Made in USA claims or create California-specific packaging.

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cansWorking. “But we also have to be realistic.”

For Maglica, the California law is just another example of ways that government is hindering U.S. businesses, and job creation, through heavy-handed regulation and taxation.


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Punishing the Jobless

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/05/opinion/05krugman.html?_r=1

By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: July 4, 2010

There was a time when everyone took it for granted that unemployment insurance, which normally terminates after 26 weeks, would be extended in times of persistent joblessness. It was, most people agreed, the decent thing to do.

But that was then. Today, American workers face the worst job market since the Great Depression, with five job seekers for every job opening, with the average spell of unemployment now at 35 weeks. Yet the Senate went home for the holiday weekend without extending benefits. How was that possible?

The answer is that we’re facing a coalition of the heartless, the clueless and the confused. Nothing can be done about the first group, and probably not much about the second. But maybe it’s possible to clear up some of the confusion.

By the heartless, I mean Republicans who have made the cynical calculation that blocking anything President Obama tries to do — including, or perhaps especially, anything that might alleviate the nation’s economic pain — improves their chances in the midterm elections. Don’t pretend to be shocked: you know they’re out there, and make up a large share of the G.O.P. caucus.

By the clueless I mean people like Sharron Angle, the Republican candidate for senator from Nevada, who has repeatedly insisted that the unemployed are deliberately choosing to stay jobless, so that they can keep collecting benefits. A sample remark: “You can make more money on unemployment than you can going down and getting one of those jobs that is an honest job but it doesn’t pay as much. We’ve put in so much entitlement into our government that we really have spoiled our citizenry.”

I assume they think this because this is what they would do. They have obviously never had to live on unemployment.

Now, I don’t have the impression that unemployed Americans are spoiled; desperate seems more like it. One doubts, however, that any amount of evidence could change Ms. Angle’s view of the world — and there are, unfortunately, a lot of people in our political class just like her.

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Do unemployment benefits reduce the incentive to seek work? Yes: workers receiving unemployment benefits aren’t quite as desperate as workers without benefits, and are likely to be slightly more choosy about accepting new jobs. The operative word here is “slightly”: recent economic research suggests that the effect of unemployment benefits on worker behavior is much weaker than was previously believed. Still, it’s a real effect when the economy is doing well.

But it’s an effect that is completely irrelevant to our current situation. When the economy is booming, and lack of sufficient willing workers is limiting growth, generous unemployment benefits may keep employment lower than it would have been otherwise. But as you may have noticed, right now the economy isn’t booming — again, there are five unemployed workers for every job opening. Cutting off benefits to the unemployed will make them even more desperate for work — but they can’t take jobs that aren’t there.

Wait: there’s more. One main reason there aren’t enough jobs right now is weak consumer demand. Helping the unemployed, by putting money in the pockets of people who badly need it, helps support consumer spending. That’s why the Congressional Budget Office rates aid to the unemployed as a highly cost-effective form of economic stimulus. And unlike, say, large infrastructure projects, aid to the unemployed creates jobs quickly — while allowing that aid to lapse, which is what is happening right now, is a recipe for even weaker job growth, not in the distant future but over the next few months.

But won’t extending unemployment benefits worsen the budget deficit? Yes, slightly — but as I and others have been arguing at length, penny-pinching in the midst of a severely depressed economy is no way to deal with our long-run budget problems. And penny-pinching at the expense of the unemployed is cruel as well as misguided.

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Pseudo-Patriots

Pseudo-Patriots

copyright Patricia M. Shannon 1996

They say that they are patriots because they love to wave the flag,
but they throw their trash along the road, and pour used oil down the drain.
They say that they are patriots because the pledge they love to say,
but they never bother to turn out the lights when they go home for the day.

How can we be patriots and not do all we can
to protect the earth upon which all our lives depend?
How can we be patriots and not help our fellow men?
What else is a country, but its people and its land?

They say that they are patriots because, they will always choose
to vote to build more prisons, while cutting funding for our schools.
They say that they are patriots, Star Spangled Banner they do sing,
but to their big gas-guzzlers they selfishly do cling.

How can we be patriots and not do all we can
to prevent the earth from turning into barren sands?
How can we be patriots and not lend a helping hand?
What else is a country, but its people and its land?

They say that they are patriots, because it fills them with such glee
to send our young folks overseas to be killed by enemies.
They say that they are patriots, but they would never think
to tutor some poor kids to help them stay out of the clink.

A country's not a piece of cloth, or words we say by rote;
a country's not a song we sing before we watch a sport.
And love's not just a feeling, it's something that we do,
every day, in every way, in everything we choose.

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Weather Forecasting

According to the global warming denialists, we shouldn't worry about it because scientists can't predict the outcome with 100% accuracy. According to that "logic", people should take precautions when a hurricane is headed their way, because scientists can't predict the path of the hurricane with 100% accuracy.

But I've also noted the same people will severely criticize those who don't take precautions when a hurricane or wildfire is predicted for their area.

http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=1532

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I hope Alex will give the officials in charge of the BP oil disaster a bit of a wake up call. We've been told that five days are required to shut down operations in the event of tropical storm force winds are forecast for the clean-up region. It is very unrealistic to expect a five day warning, since the average track error in a 5-day forecast is about 300 miles. Furthermore, we have little skill forecasting the formation of tropical storms, and it is often the case that a tropical storm forms just a 1-day journey from the Deepwater Horizon blowout location. If we examine the incidence of tropical storm force winds in that region over the past five years, I suspect that they were successfully predicted five days in advance perhaps 30% of the time.

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Study links bee decline to cell phones

http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/06/30/bee.decline.mobile.phones/index.html?hpt=Sbin

London, England (CNN) -- A new study has suggested that cell phone radiation may be contributing to declines in bee populations in some areas of the world.

Bee populations dropped 17 percent in the UK last year, according to the British Bee Association, and nearly 30 percent in the United States says the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Parasitic mites called varroa, agricultural pesticides and the effects of climate change have all been implicated in what has been dubbed "colony collapse disorder" (CCD).

But researchers in India believe cell phones could also be to blame for some of the losses.

In a study at Panjab University in Chandigarh, northern India, researchers fitted cell phones to a hive and powered them up for two fifteen-minute periods each day.

After three months, they found the bees stopped producing honey, egg production by the queen bee halved, and the size of the hive dramatically reduced.

It's not just the honey that will be lost if populations plummet further. Bees are estimated to pollinate 90 commercial crops worldwide. Their economic value in the UK is estimated to be $290 million per year and around $12 billion in the U.S.

Andrew Goldsworthy, a biologist from the UK's Imperial College, London, has studied the biological effects of electromagnetic fields. He thinks it's possible bees could be affected by cell phone radiation.

The reason, Goldsworthy says, could hinge on a pigment in bees called cryptochrome.

"Animals, including insects, use cryptochrome for navigation," Goldsworthy told CNN.

"They use it to sense the direction of the earth's magnetic field and their ability to do this is compromised by radiation from [cell] phones and their base stations. So basically bees do not find their way back to the hive."

Goldsworthy has written to the UK communications regulator OFCOM suggesting a change of phone frequencies would stop the bees being confused.

"It's possible to modify the signal coming from the [cell] phones and the base station in such a way that it doesn't produce the frequencies that disturb the cryptochrome molecules," Goldsworthy said.

"So they could do this without the signal losing its ability to transmit information."

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=======================================================

There was at least one study a few years ago that pointed to the possibility that cell phones could be implicated in this.

I expect it is a combination of several factors that is causing the die-off in bees.

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17 senators from states with double-digit jobless rates repeatedly vote to filibuster unemployment benefits

http://thinkprogress.org/2010/07/01/filibuster-table/

Since the beginning of the Great Recession, 15 million Americans have lost their jobs. Almost half of them have been out of work for six months or more, and there are currently nearly five workers actively seeking work for every available job. However, the Senate has been unable to extend job benefits because of a Republican filibuster, which has been joined by Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE). On three separate occasions, Democrats tried to break the filibuster but were unsuccessful. And while no senator voting to continue the filibuster should be allowed to escape responsibility, many voting to sustain it are from states that have been hit particularly hard by the unemployment crisis. Here are the 17 senators from states with double-digit unemployment who are willing to leave their constituents without a safety net:

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This list shows why I would like to move away from the south, even though I like the climate. All four Senators from Georgia and Alabama are on the list.

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Money can buy happiness — or at least one kind

Various other studies, as well as personal experience, have shown that, in general, being poor does result in less happiness.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38035160/ns/health-more_health_news/

by Rob Stein

Money, it turns out, really can buy you happiness -- or at least one form of it, according to the biggest study to examine the relationship between income and well-being around the world.

Pulling in the big bucks makes people more likely to say they are happy with their lives overall -- whether they are young or old, male or female, or living in cities or remote villages, the survey of more than 136,000 people in 132 countries found.

But the survey also showed that a key element of what many people consider happiness -- positive feelings -- is much more strongly affected by factors other than cold, hard cash, such as feeling respected, being in control of your life and having friends and family to rely on in a pinch.

"Yes, money makes you happy -- we see the effect of income on life satisfaction is very strong and virtually ubiquitous and universal around the world," said Ed Diener, a professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Illinois who led the study. "But it makes you more satisfied than it makes you feel good. Positive feelings are less affected by money and more affected by the things people are doing day to day."


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Half of Work Force Has Taken a Job-Related Hit

http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1643/recession-reactions-at-30-months-extensive-job-loss-new-frugality-lower-expectations?src=prc-latest&proj=peoplepress

June 30, 2010

More than half (55%) of all adults in the labor force say that since the Great Recession began 30 months ago, they have suffered a spell of unemployment, a cut in pay, a reduction in hours or have become involuntary part-time workers, according to a new survey by the Pew Research Center's Social and Demographic Trends Project.

The survey also finds that the recession has led to a new frugality in Americans' spending and borrowing habits; a diminished set of expectations about their retirements and their children's future; and a concern that it will take several years, at a minimum, for their family finances and house values to recover.

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Paul On Mountaintop Removal

As someone who loves forested mountains, I find this attitude appalling.

http://thinkprogress.org/2010/06/13/rand-paul-mountaintop/

One of the themes of U.S. Senate candidate Rand Paul’s (R-KY) campaign has been that businesses are burdened with overregulation, with Paul even decrying the anti-discrimination provisions imposed on private businesses in the Civil Rights Act.

Now, Crooks and Liars has unearthed an interview Rand Paul gave in 2009 where the candidate aired these strident views with respect to mountaintop removal. When asked about the environmentally disastrous process, Paul told the interviewer that he thinks “whoever owns the property can do with the property as they wish, and if the coal company buys it from a private property owner and they want to do it, fine.” To justify his hands-off approach to environmental regulation, Paul then went on to explain that mountaintop removal isn’t that bad, anyway, saying, “I don’t think anybody’s going to be missing a hill or two here and there”:

INTERVIEWER: What about mountaintop removal?

PAUL: I think whoever owns the property can do with the property as they wish, and if the coal company buys it from a private property owner and they want to do it, fine. The other thing I think is that I think coal gets a bad name, because I think a lot of the land apparently is quite desirable once it’s been flattened out. As I came over here from Harlan, you’ve got quite a few hills. I don’t think anybody’s going to be missing a hill or two here and there.

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U.S. Spends The Most On Health Care, Yet Gets Least

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2010/06/23/128027472/survey-says-u-s-health-system-sicker-than-most-other-nations?ft=1&f=1004&sc=YahooNews

08:55 am June 23, 2010

by Julie Rovner

Pretty much no matter how you measure it, our health care system stinks.

Once again that's the sobering conclusion of the 2010 version of the annual Commonwealth Fund comparison of the U.S. health system with those in other industrialized nations.

This year the competitors were Australia, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. The U.S. finished last.

To come up with the rankings, researchers surveyed both doctors and patients. The criteria comprised quality, access, efficiency, equity, whether people in each country lived long and productive lives, and how much each country spent per person on care. The researchers produced a spiffy interactive graphic to display the results.

But the findings were strikingly similar to those from surveys done in the previous four years. The U.S. spends more — much more — on health care and gets much less value for those dollars.

Overall, the winner in this year's contest was the Netherlands. Interestingly, perhaps, it's a nation that doesn't have a government-run system, but instead achieves universal coverage with an individual insurance mandate, much like the one recently passed by the U.S. Congress. The Dutch were first in access, first in equity, and second in quality of care.

The U.S., by contrast, was last in every category except quality, where it was second to last, squeaking in ahead of Canada. At $7,290 in annual spending per person in 2007, the U.S. also dwarfed second-place Canada at $3,895 and third-place Netherlands at $3,837.

About the only good news for America, said Commonwealth Fund President Karen Davis, who was also the study's lead author, is that the new health law could put the U.S. on a path towards improvement.

"We will begin strengthening primary care and investing in health information technology and quality improvement, ensuring that more and more Americans can obtain access to high quality, efficient health care," Davis said.

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Pre-Emptive Pain Regimen Decreased Opioid Usage in Patients Undergoing Robotic Prostatectomy

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/06/100624104804.htm

ScienceDaily (June 24, 2010) — Reporting in the journal Urology, researchers at Thomas Jefferson University have found that a pre-emptive multimodal pain regimen that included pregabalin (Lyrica) decreased the use of opioid analgesics in patients undergoing robotic-assisted laparoscopic radical prostatectomy.

Opioid usage, which involves narcotic pain medications, was significantly less in patients who received the multimodal regimen compared to patients who received a standard postoperative analgesic regimen. The mean opioid dose, which was measured in "total morphine equivalent dose," was 75.3 mg for patients who received the standard regimen, versus 49.1 mg for patients who received the multimodal regimen.

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The pre-operative treatment included pregabalin, acetaminophen and celecoxib given orally, two hours before the procedure, and continued postoperatively in combination with intravenous ketorolac. The standard postoperative analgesic regimen included intravenous ketorolac, without pregabalin or celecoxib. All patients received oxycodone as needed.

Importantly, in addition to the reduced opioid usage, patients who received the pre-operative regimen did not report any additional side effects.

Although laparoscopic surgical techniques typically are associated with a reduction of postoperative pain, patients still require opioid analgesia. The side effects of opioid analgesics often hinder the benefits of laparoscopic surgery. Side effects include nausea, vomiting, a delay in the return of bowel function, ileus, respiratory depression, pruritus, urinary retention and altered sensorium.

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Many Americans overtreated to death

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37907548/ns/health-cancer/

by MARILYNN MARCHIONE AP Medical Writer
updated 6/28/2010 9:44:18 AM ET

The doctors finally let Rosaria Vandenberg go home.

For the first time in months, she was able to touch her 2-year-old daughter who had been afraid of the tubes and machines in the hospital. The little girl climbed up onto her mother's bed, surrounded by family photos, toys and the comfort of home. They shared one last tender moment together before Vandenberg slipped back into unconsciousness.

Vandenberg, 32, died the next day.

That precious time at home could have come sooner if the family had known how to talk about alternatives to aggressive treatment, said Vandenberg's sister-in-law, Alexandra Drane.

Instead, Vandenberg, a pharmacist in Franklin, Mass., had endured two surgeries, chemotherapy and radiation for an incurable brain tumor before she died in July 2004.

"We would have had a very different discussion about that second surgery and chemotherapy. We might have just taken her home and stuck her in a beautiful chair outside under the sun and let her gorgeous little daughter play around her — not just torture her" in the hospital, Drane said.

Americans increasingly are treated to death, spending more time in hospitals in their final days, trying last-ditch treatments that often buy only weeks of time, and racking up bills that have made medical care a leading cause of bankruptcies.
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More than 80 percent of people who die in the United States have a long, progressive illness such as cancer, heart failure or Alzheimer's disease.

More than 80 percent of such patients say they want to avoid hospitalization and intensive care when they are dying, according to the Dartmouth Atlas Project, which tracks health care trends.

Yet the numbers show that's not what is happening:

* The average time spent in hospice and palliative care, which stresses comfort and quality of life once an illness is incurable, is falling because people are starting it too late. In 2008, one-third of people who received hospice care had it for a week or less, says the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization.
* Hospitalizations during the last six months of life are rising: from 1,302 per 1,000 Medicare recipients in 1996 to 1,441 in 2005, Dartmouth reports. Treating chronic illness in the last two years of life gobbles up nearly one-third of all Medicare dollars.

"People are actually now sicker as they die," and some find that treatments become a greater burden than the illness was, said Dr. Ira Byock, director of palliative care at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center. Families may push for treatment, but "there are worse things than having someone you love die," he said.

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A stunning number of cancer patients get aggressive care in the last days of their lives, she noted. One large study of Medicare records found that nearly 12 percent of cancer patients who died in 1999 received chemo in the last two weeks of life, up from nearly 10 percent in 1993.

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"I've heard a lot of people over the years say what they would do if they had cancer until it is them. And then they will cling to even the smallest glimmer that something will help," she said.

"Cancer that can't be cured is often called daunting but not hopeless. So that's what patients hear. Hope is the last thing to go. People don't give that up easily."

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Stem cells reverse blindness caused by burns

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100623/ap_on_he_me/us_med_stem_cells_blindness;_ylt=Ajl5Zs5LNHaK54YRM6JcQnOs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTFkdnEwbmtjBHBvcwMxNDQEc2VjA2FjY29yZGlvbl9oZWFsdGgEc2xrA3N0ZW1jZWxsc3Jldg--

By ALICIA CHANG, AP Science Writer Alicia Chang, Ap Science Writer – Wed Jun 23, 7:29 pm ET

LOS ANGELES – Dozens of people who were blinded or otherwise suffered severe eye damage when they were splashed with caustic chemicals had their sight restored with transplants of their own stem cells — a stunning success for the burgeoning cell-therapy field, Italian researchers reported Wednesday.

The treatment worked completely in 82 of 107 eyes and partially in 14 others, with benefits lasting up to a decade so far. One man whose eyes were severely damaged more than 60 years ago now has near-normal vision.

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The approach would not help people with damage to the optic nerve or macular degeneration, which involves the retina. Nor would it work in people who are completely blind in both eyes, because doctors need at least some healthy tissue that they can transplant.

In the study, published online by the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers took a small number of stem cells from a patient's healthy eye, multiplied them in the lab and placed them into the burned eye, where they were able to grow new corneal tissue to replace what had been damaged. Since the stem cells are from their own bodies, the patients do not need to take anti-rejection drugs.

Adult stem cells have been used for decades to cure blood cancers such as leukemia and diseases like sickle cell anemia. But fixing a problem like damaged eyes is a relatively new use. Researchers have been studying cell therapy for a host of other diseases, including diabetes and heart failure, with limited success.

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The Italian study involved 106 patients treated between 1998 and 2007. Most had extensive damage in one eye, and some had such limited vision that they could only sense light, count fingers or perceive hand motions. Many had been blind for years and had had unsuccessful operations to restore their vision.

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Solar power done cheap

http://money.cnn.com/2010/06/28/news/economy/solar_city/index.htm?source=cnn_bin&hpt=Sbin

By Steve Hargreaves, Senior writerJune 28, 2010: 4:28 PM ET


LOS ANGELES (CNNMoney.com ) -- In a construction van winding through Los Angeles' crowded streets one hot spring morning, 25-year old Tim Morris laid bare his contribution to changing America's dirty, fossil fuel-based economy.

"I'd like to see America and the world become sustainable," said Morris, a transplant from Flint, Mich., who's been in L.A. just a little over four months. "Solar is the biggest difference I can make with what's on the market."

By Steve Hargreaves, Senior writerJune 28, 2010: 4:28 PM ET


LOS ANGELES (CNNMoney.com ) -- In a construction van winding through Los Angeles' crowded streets one hot spring morning, 25-year old Tim Morris laid bare his contribution to changing America's dirty, fossil fuel-based economy.

"I'd like to see America and the world become sustainable," said Morris, a transplant from Flint, Mich., who's been in L.A. just a little over four months. "Solar is the biggest difference I can make with what's on the market."

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Holder, 44-years old and an electrical engineer with the Los Angeles sanitation department, uses a lot of power.

Between him, his wife and their two kids Holder says the washer and dryer get a constant workout. Plus, the family has a salt water pool the requires the filter to run nearly non-stop.

The result was an electric bill that reached nearly $600 a month last year, said Holder.

That's when he decided to call SolarCity. Now, he says he pays about $300 a month to the utility, and another $180 to SolarCity, with no change in electricity use.

"It was a no-brainier," he said. "and the only thing I have to do is hose off the panels every once in a while."

Other customers do it more for the environment.

On a hillside overlooking nearly all of Los Angeles, Andrea Kreuzhage recently put down $1,000 to install a SolarCity system on her roof.

Kreuzhage, a 47-year old documentary film maker, is not a big user of power. Before her solar system, her monthly electric bill was about $50 a month. Her lease with SolarCity is $55, although her solar panels now actually produce more power than she uses. (Local law doesn't yet allow her to sell that power back to the utility, although people are working to change that.)

But for her, the extra $5 a month is well worth it.

"The idea is to walk the walk, to be active, to do more," she said. And besides, "I'd rather pay a green business instead of a huge utility."

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Job blues for gray-haired workers

http://money.cnn.com/2010/06/28/news/economy/older_workers_unemployment/index.htm?source=cnn_bin&hpt=Sbin

By Chris Isidore, senior writer
June 28, 2010: 4:16 AM ET

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Companies are starting to hire again, but many are turning their backs on older job seekers.

Statistics from the Labor Department show the employment outlook is improving for most workers. The unemployment rate for those in the 25 to 54-year-old age group has fallen from a record high of 9.2% in October to 8.7% in May.

But the nationwide unemployment rate for older workers -- while lower than that of younger workers -- has barely moved since hitting a record high of 7.2% in December. It's currently 7.1%.

"All the gains we've seen from the peak last fall to now, they've gone to people less than 55 years old," said Heidi Shierholz, labor economist with the Economic Policy Institute.

Experts also said the unemployment rate for older workers may be artificially low. Older workers are more likely to become discouraged and stop looking, thus no longer being counted as unemployed in the government figures.

The divergence in job prospects for older and younger workers is new. In past recessions, the unemployment rate for the different age groups generally moved in tandem, said Shierholz.

But the problem for older job seekers could get even worse. That's because they are much more likely to be among the long-term unemployed, which will make it more difficult for them to eventually find a job.

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