Analysis: Republicans start new Congress bruised and divided

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – In the wake of bruising fights in their own ranks over the “fiscal cliff” and aid for victims of superstorm Sandy – Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives open a new Congress on Thursday more divided than ever.

While their leader, Speaker John Boehner, seems in no danger of losing his position because of the divisions, his ability to speak for his membership in the House appears greatly diminished.

That could not come at a worse time for Republicans as they prepare for their next attempt to get more spending cuts out of President Barack Obama. They will try to use the debt ceiling – and Obama’s request to raise it – as leverage, as they did in 2011.

But if the final days of this Congress were indicative of things to come, Republicans will have a rough time effectively using their majority in the House against Obama, who even Republicans acknowledge is at the top of his game following the Democrat’s re-election in November.

The fiscal cliff battle to avert steep tax hikes and spending cuts that were due to kick in at the start of this year proved gut-wrenching for Republicans.

Obama’s demand for a tax hike on the rich challenged a core principle that has guided Republicans for decades: No new taxes. Ever.

Yet, late on New Year’s night, 85 Republicans in the House did just that, voting to raise income taxes on household income of more than $ 450,000 a year.

Some of the Republican Party’s biggest stars were among the 85 – including Boehner and Paul Ryan, the 2012 Republican vice presidential candidate, who is seen as a conservative anchor.

But 151 House Republicans stood in defiance, leaving Boehner in the unenviable position of having to rely on opposition Democrats to pass major legislation.

Earlier in the fiscal cliff fight, Boehner suffered a humiliating defeat when his “Plan B” solution – which would have limited the tax hikes to income of $ 1 million a year or more, got so little support he had to cancel the vote.

No sooner had the fiscal cliff battle ended than Boehner found himself in trouble with other Republicans over aid for victims of Sandy, the second costliest storm in U.S. history, which smashed New York and New Jersey coastal communities in late October.

Legislation providing disaster relief to New York, New Jersey and other East Coast states was delayed. A House Republican aide said that given Republicans’ frustration with the fiscal cliff bill and its lack of significant spending cuts, “it was not a good time to immediately vote on $ 60 billion in new spending.”

“I don’t enjoy saying this. I consider myself a personal friend of John Boehner’s,” said Republican Representative Peter King of New York. “It pains me to say this, but the fact is that the dismissive attitude that was shown … toward New York, New Jersey and Connecticut typifies, I believe, a strain in the Republican Party.”

Earlier, King had condemned House inaction on Sandy as a “knife in the back.”

Republican Representative Michael Grimm, also of New York, said of Boehner’s refusal to bring the disaster bill to a vote: “There was a betrayal. There was an arrogant judgment that is going to cost I think the trust of the American people.”

Ironically, Grimm first won his seat in Congress in 2010 with the help of conservative Tea Party activists who sometimes show displeasure with disaster aid spending.

By midday on Wednesday, Boehner had changed course, promising a House vote by week’s end on a $ 9 billion down payment in storm assistance, with a second bill providing $ 51 billion to be voted on January 15.

TEA PARTY EFFECT

Paul Light, a New York University professor and a specialist on Congress, said the vote on the fiscal cliff bill could mark the start of a “major realignment” in the run-up to the 2014 congressional elections and the 2016 presidential race.

Republicans who voted for the legislation “are going to have to find a home. They’re not going to find it with the Tea Party,” Light said.

He said that Republicans who were uncomfortable with the Tea Party could begin aligning themselves more closely with a dwindling band of centrist Democrats.

Congressional Republicans, especially in the House, have been buffeted for two years by the Tea Party, which helped them win control of the House in 2010.

Boehner had to navigate Tea Party demands throughout the 2011 fight over raising U.S. borrowing authority or risking a historic government default.

In rapid succession, Tea Party-fueled battles were waged over infrastructure investments, farm subsidies, payroll tax cuts and the fiscal cliff.

At the core of the disputes was whether the government should be made smaller, forcing Boehner to balance that demand with the need to govern and keep the federal government operating in an orderly way.

For all the heartache over the past several weeks as Republicans fought with one another over whether to let taxes on the rich go up, many see better days ahead.

“By and large, people are probably happy to have it behind them. This was obviously the worst part of the fiscal debate,” said one House Republican staffer, referring to the tax hikes.

The staffer added, “Republicans get to point out that we still have a $ 1 trillion deficit and ask Democrats what kind of spending cuts, entitlement reforms they are willing to do to fix it.”

Republicans feel that will be an easier lift for them – one that they can sell to the American public as they move on to the fight over the debt ceiling.

(Editing by Fred Barbash and Peter Cooney)

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“Fiscal cliff” crisis heads to resolution in Congress

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A months-long battle over the U.S. “fiscal cliff” headed to a close on Tuesday as the House of Representatives moved toward final approval of a bipartisan deal meant to prevent Washington from pushing the world’s biggest economy into recession.

The Republican-controlled House was expected to back a tax hike on the top U.S. earners shortly before midnight on Tuesday, ending weeks of high-stakes budget brinkmanship that threatened to spook consumers and throw financial markets into turmoil.

Approval of the bill would be a victory for President Barack Obama, who campaigned for re-election last November on a promise to raise taxes on the wealthiest but faced stiff opposition from congressional Republicans.

Republicans had earlier considered adding hundreds of billions of dollars in spending cuts after the bill had already passed the Senate with strong bipartisan support. That would have triggered further partisan warfare and pushed the crisis well past a self-imposed January 1 deadline.

But party leaders abandoned the effort after determining they lacked the votes.

“We’ve gone as far as we can go and I think people are ready to bring it to a conclusion,” Republican Representative Jack Kingston of Georgia said. “We fought the fight.”

Rules Committee Chairman David Dreier, a Republican, predicted the House would back the Senate bill, which also postpones for two months $ 109 billion in spending cuts on military and domestic programs set for 2013.

The bill easily cleared a procedural hurdle by a bipartisan vote of 408 to 10.

Lawmakers have struggled to find a way to head off across-the-board tax hikes and spending cuts that began to take effect at midnight, a legacy of earlier failed budget deals that is known as the fiscal cliff.

Strictly speaking, the United States went over the cliff in the first minutes of the New Year because Congress failed to produce legislation to halt $ 600 billion of tax hikes and spending cuts scheduled for this year.

TAX HIKES FOR WEALTHIEST

While many Republicans were uneasy with the tax hikes and wanted more spending cuts in the bill, they seemed to realize that the fiscal cliff would begin to damage the economy once financial markets and federal government offices returned to work on Wednesday. Opinion polls show the public would blame Republicans if a deal were to fall apart.

House Republicans had earlier considered adding $ 330 billion in spending cuts over 10 years to the Senate bill, which raises taxes on the wealthiest U.S. households by $ 620 billion over the same period.

But Senate Democrats refused to consider any changes to their bill, which passed 89 to 8 in a rare display of unity early Tuesday.

That measure, which passed the Senate at around 2 a.m., would raise income taxes on families earning more than $ 450,000 per year and limit the amount of deductions they can take to lower their tax bill.

Low temporary rates that have been in place for the past decade would be made permanent for less-affluent taxpayers, along with a range of targeted tax breaks put in place to fight the 2009 economic downturn.

However, workers would see up to $ 2,000 more taken out of their paychecks annually with the expiration of a temporary payroll tax cut.

The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office said the Senate bill would increase budget deficits by nearly $ 4 trillion over the coming 10 years, compared to the budget savings that would occur if the extreme measures of the cliff were to kick in.

But the bill would actually save $ 650 billion during that time period when measured against the tax and spending policies that were in effect on Monday, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, an independent group that has pushed for more aggressive deficit savings.

(Additional reporting by Rachelle Younglai, Thomas Ferraro and David Lawder; Writing by Andy Sullivan; Editing by Alistair Bell and Eric Beech)

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FDA new drug approvals hit 16-year high in 2012

LONDON/NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. regulators approved 39 new drugs in 2012, the most in 16 years, suggesting that pharmaceutical makers are poised for growth after losing billions of dollars in recent years to generic drug makers because of patent expirations.

There were eight approvals in December alone, including a new treatment from Johnson & Johnson called Sirturo for drug-resistant tuberculosis approved on Monday, the first new TB drug in decades.

The pharmaceutical sector badly needs a pick-up in productivity as companies try to refill their medicine chests after heavy losses to generic manufacturers, which have benefited from a string of patent expirations that peaked in 2012. When generics go on the market at a lower cost, sales of name brand drugs plummet.

The tally of 39 new drugs and biological products approved by the Food and Drug Administration compares with 30 in 2011 and just 21 in 2010. At least 10 of the drugs had fast track status in 2012, which enabled them to be reviewed more quickly.

It is the highest number since 1996, when 53 so-called new molecular entities won a green light. For a graphic on new drugs approvals see: http://link.reuters.com/nuz84t

The FDA has met and exceeded its drug review goals under the Prescription Drug User Fee Act, in which drug companies help fund the drug approval process in return for an agreement by the Food and Drug Administration to meet regulatory deadlines, FDA spokeswoman Sandy Walsh said in an e-mailed statement.

She said the “pipeline of new drugs under development remains strong and is growing.”

Major U.S. drug companies have lost about $ 21 billion in revenue this year from lucrative medicines coming off patent, while the hit for European businesses is about $ 10 billion, according to ratings agency Standard & Poor’s.

This year’s expirations have included Plavix, a heart drug made by Sanofi and Bristol-Myers Squibb, and Seroquel, an antipsychotic made by AstraZeneca.

Winning approval from regulators, however, is only part of the battle for drugmakers.

Investors will also be watching closely to see how the new drugs perform commercially once they reach the market, since securing payment for innovative medicines is an increasingly tough fight.

“The patent exposure will be less going forward, but where there is still a little bit of uncertainty is how much better the pipelines have become and how strong the recently approved products are,” said Damien Conover, the director of pharmaceutical research at research firm Morningstar Inc.

The 2012 approvals included some medicines that are forecast by analysts to become multibillion-dollar sellers, such as Eliquis for reducing stroke risk in patients with irregular heartbeats from Bristol Myers-Squibb and Pfizer Inc.

But many others are for rare diseases, underscoring the drug industry’s increased focus on specialized, niche products.

They include treatments such as a Kalydeco from Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc for a rare form of the lung disorder cystic fibrosis and Signifor from Novartis AG for Cushing’s disease, caused by over-production of the hormone cortisol.

The last drug approval of the year on Monday afternoon was for a drug to relieve symptoms of diarrhea in patients with HIV and AIDS made by Salix Pharmaceuticals Ltd.

There are also encouraging signs that the pick-up in new drug approvals could continue in 2013. The European Medicines Agency said on December 18 that it expected 54 new drug applications in 2013, up from 52 in 2012, 48 in 2011 and 34 in 2010.

(Editing by Jilian Mincer and Steve Orlofsky)

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Pediatricians say kids need recess during school

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – A group of American pediatricians is telling school districts that children need recess and free time during the school day, and it should not even be taken away as punishment.

“We consider it essentially the child’s personal time and don’t feel it should be taken away for academic or punitive reasons,” said Dr. Robert Murray, who co-authored the new policy statement for the American Academy of Pediatrics.

The statement, published Monday in the journal Pediatrics, says recess is a “crucial and necessary component of a child’s development.”

Recess helps students develop communication skills, such as cooperation and sharing, and helps counteract the time they spend sitting in class, according to the statement.

“The cognitive literature indicates that children are exactly as we are as adults. Whenever they’re performing a complicated or complex task, they need time to process the information,” said Murray, a professor at Ohio State University in Columbus.

“Kids have to have that time scheduled. They’re not given the opportunity to just get up and walk around for a few minutes,” he added.

Previous research, according to the statement’s authors, found children pay closer attention and perform better mentally after recess.

Last January, a review of 14 studies found kids who get more exercise from – among other things – recess and playing on sports teams tend to do better in school (see Reuters Health story of January 3, 2012 here:.)

But a 2011 survey of 1,800 elementary schools found about a third were not offering recess to their third grade classes (see Reuters Health story of December 5, 2011 here:.)

Murray told Reuters Health that schools in Japan offer children about 10 minutes of free time after every 50 minutes of class, which he said makes sense.

“I think you can feel it if you go to a lecture that after 40 to 50 minutes of a concentrated activity you need to take a break,” he said.

Currently, the American Heart Association calls for at least 20 minutes of recess every day, but Murray said recess needs depend on the child.

“Most schools – on average – are working on the framework of 15 to 30 minute bursts of recess once or twice a day,” he said.

There is, however, consensus on when in the day children’s recess should take place.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.S. Department of Agriculture both recommend schools schedule recess before lunch.

Previous studies have found that children waste less food and behave better for the rest of the day when their recess is before their scheduled lunch, the pediatricians‘ statement notes.

The statement also says schools should not substitute physical education classes for recess.

“Those are completely different things and they offer completely different outcomes,” said Murray. “(Physical education teachers are) trying to teach motor skills and the ability of those children to use those skills in a bunch of different scenarios. Recess is a child’s free time.”

The pediatricians also warn against a recess that is too structured, such as having games led by adults.

“I think it becomes structured to the point where you lose some of those developmental and social emotion benefits of free play,” said Murray.

“This is a very important and overlooked time of day for the child and we should not lose sight of the fact that it has very important benefits,” he added.

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/HjQ8dI Pediatrics, online December 31, 2012.

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Body of India rape victim arrives home in New Delhi

NEW DELHI (Reuters) – The body of a woman whose gang rape provoked protests and rare national debate about violence against women in India arrived back in New Delhi early on Sunday.

The unidentified 23-year-old medical student died from her injuries on Saturday, prompting promises of action from a government that has struggled to respond to public outrage.

She had suffered brain injuries and massive internal damage in the attack on December 16, and died in hospital in Singapore where she had been taken for treatment.

She and a male friend had been returning home from the cinema, media reports say, when six men on a bus beat them with metal rods and repeatedly raped the woman. The friend survived.

Six suspects were charged with murder after her death.

A Reuters correspondent saw family members who had been with her in Singapore take her body back to their Delhi home in an ambulance with a police escort.

Ruling party leader Sonia Gandhi was seen arriving at the airport when the plane landed and Prime Minister Mannmohan Singh‘s convoy was also there, the witness said.

The body was later taken to a crematorium and cremated, news channels reported. Media were kept away but a Reuters witness saw the woman’s family, New Delhi’s chief minister, Sheila Dikshit, and the junior home minister, R P N Singh, coming out of the crematorium.

The outcry over the attack caught the government off-guard. It took a week for Singh to make a statement, infuriating many protesters.

PROTESTS

Issues such as rape, dowry-related deaths and female infanticide rarely enter mainstream political discourse in India.

Analysts say the death of the woman dubbed “Amanat”, an Urdu word meaning “treasure”, by some Indian media could change that, although it is too early to say whether the protesters calling for government action to better safeguard women can sustain their momentum through to national elections due in 2014.

Protesters have staged peaceful demonstrations in the capital New Delhi and in cities across India in the last few days to keep the pressure on Singh’s government to get tougher on crime against women. Last weekend, protesters fought pitched battles with police.

Authorities, worried about the reaction to the news of her death on Saturday, deployed thousands of policemen, closed 10 metro stations and banned vehicles from some main roads in central New Delhi.

Most sex crimes in India go unreported, many offenders go unpunished, and the wheels of justice turn slowly, according to social activists, who say that successive governments have done little to ensure the safety of women.

Commentators and sociologists say the rape has tapped into a deep well of frustration many Indians feel over what they see as weak governance and poor leadership on social issues.

New Delhi has the highest number of sex crimes among India’s major cities, with a rape reported on average every 18 hours, according to police figures. Government data show the number of reported rape cases in India rose by nearly 17 percent between 2007 and 2011.

For a link to the poll, click

(Additional reporting by Devidutta Tripathy; Writing by Louise Ireland; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

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India gang rape victim dies in Singapore hospital

SINGAPORE/NEW DELHI (Reuters) – An Indian woman whose gang rape in New Delhi triggered violent protests died of her injuries on Saturday in a Singapore hospital, bringing a security lockdown in Delhi and recognition from India‘s prime minister that social change is needed.

The Indian capital braced for a new wave of protests, closing metro stations and banning vehicles from the city centre district where young activists had converged to demand improved women’s rights. The news came in the early hours of the morning in India and there were no signs of protests as morning broke.

The 23-year-old medical student, severely beaten, raped and thrown out of a moving bus in New Delhi two weeks ago, had been flown to Singapore in a critical condition by the Indian government on Thursday for specialist treatment.

“We are very sad to report that the patient passed away peacefully at 4:45 a.m. on Dec 29, 2012 (2045 GMT Friday). Her family and officials from the High Commission (embassy) of India were by her side,” Mount Elizabeth Hospital Chief Executive Officer Kelvin Loh said in a statement.

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said in a statement he was deeply saddened by the death and described the emotions associated with her case as “perfectly understandable reactions from a young India and an India that genuinely desires change.

“It would be a true homage to her memory if we are able to channelize these emotions and energies into a constructive course of action.”

Delhi‘s Chief Minister, Sheila Dikshit, expressed revulsion.

“It is a shameful moment for me not just as a chief minister but also as a citizen of this country,” she said.

The woman, who has not been identified, and a male friend were returning home from the cinema by bus on the evening of December 16 when, media reports say, six men on the bus beat them with metal rods and repeatedly raped the woman. The reports say a rod was used in the rape, causing internal injuries. Both were thrown from the bus. The male friend survived the attack.

Singh’s government has been battling criticism that it was tone-deaf to the outcry that followed the attack and was heavy handed in its response to the protests in the Indian capital.

Most rapes and other sex crimes in India go unreported and offenders are rarely punished, women’s rights activists say. But the brutality of the December 16 assault sparked public outrage and calls for better policing and harsher punishment for rapists.

VEHICLES BARRED FROM DELHI CITY CENTRE

T.C.A. Raghavan, the Indian High Commissioner to Singapore, told reporters hours after the woman’s death that a chartered aircraft would fly her body back to India on Saturday, along with members of her family. The woman’s body had earlier been loaded into a van at the hospital and driven away.

In New Delhi, the Joint Commissioner of Traffic Police, Satyendra Garg, told NDTV news channel that residents and commuters were advised to avoid the city centre.

The case has received blanket coverage on cable television news channels. Some Indian media have called the woman “Amanat”, an Urdu word meaning “treasure”.

Talking to reporters earlier on Saturday, Raghavan declined to comment on Indian media reports accusing the government of sending her to Singapore to minimize the possible backlash in the event of her death.

Some Indian medical experts had questioned the decision to airlift the woman to Singapore, calling it a risky maneuver given the seriousness of her injuries. They had said she was already receiving the best possible care in India.

But Dr B.D. Athani, medical superintendent of the New Delhi hospital where she had initially been treated, told Indian television the intention was to give the victim the best chance of surviving in what he described as “an extreme case”.

“Her condition was very critical from day one. We had managed what best we could do at our end … she had to be shifted to a centre with much better facilities.”

On Friday, the Singapore hospital had said the woman’s condition had taken a turn for the worse. It said she had suffered “significant brain injury”. She had already undergone three abdominal operations before arriving in Singapore.

The suspects in the rape – five men aged between 20 and 40, and a juvenile – were arrested within hours of the attack and are in custody. Media reports say they are likely to be formally charged with murder next week.

Commentators and sociologists say the rape tapped into a deep well of frustration many Indians feel over what they see as weak governance and poor leadership on social and economic issues.

Many protesters have complained that Singh’s government has done little to curb the abuse of women in the country of 1.2 billion. A global poll by the Thomson Reuters Foundation in June found that India was the worst place to be a woman because of high rates of infanticide, child marriage and slavery.

New Delhi has the highest number of sex crimes among India’s major cities, with a rape reported on average every 18 hours, according to police figures. Government data show the number of reported rape cases in the country rose by nearly 17 percent between 2007 and 2011.

(Additional reporting by Ross Colvin and Devidutta Tripathy in New Delhi; Saeed Azhar, Edgar Su and Sanjeev Miglani in Singapore; Editing by Michael Roddy, Ron Popeski and Mark Bendeich)

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Former President George H.W. Bush remains in intensive care

AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) – Former President George H.W. Bush remained in the intensive care unit of a Houston hospital on Thursday, but his longtime chief of staff issued a reassuring message, urging the media and the public to “put the harps back in the closet.”

Bush, 88, a Republican who during his one term in office led a coalition of nations that ejected Iraqi forces from Kuwait in 1991, was admitted to Methodist Hospital November 23 for bronchitis.

He was transferred to intensive care on Sunday after setbacks including a persistent fever, family spokesman Jim McGrath has said.

“I don’t have any guidance so far today except to say no news is good news,” McGrath said on Thursday. Hospital spokesman George Kovacik added that the former president remained in intensive care on Thursday.

But in a statement addressed to the “national media” on Bush’s condition on Thursday, chief of staff Jean Becker sought to strike an upbeat tone.

“Yes, President Bush is in ICU where he is getting the best medical care in the world,” she wrote. “Is he sick? Yes. Does he plan on going anywhere soon? No. He has every intention of staying put.

“He would ask me to tell you to please ‘put the harps back in the closet,’” she said.

On a more serious note, Becker said her boss was expected to remain in the hospital for “a while,” adding, “He is 88 years old, he had a terrible case of bronchitis which then triggered a series of complications.” She did not elaborate.

McGrath on Wednesday described Bush as alert and talking to medical staff.

On Thursday evening, McGrath released a statement from Bush mourning the death of retired Army General Norman Schwarzkopf, commander of the U.S. and allied forces that routed Iraqi ruler Saddam Hussein’s military from Kuwait during a six-week war in 1991.

He said the four-star general, who died at age 78, “epitomized the ‘duty, service, country’ creed that has defended our freedom and seen this great nation through our most trying international crises.”

Bush has lower-body parkinsonism, which causes a loss of balance, and has used wheelchairs for more than a year.

The 41st U.S. president and father of former President George W. Bush, he served as a congressman, ambassador to the United Nations, envoy to China, CIA director and vice president for two terms under Ronald Reagan during a political career spanning four decades.

(Reporting by Corrie MacLaggan; Writing by Steve Gorman; Editing by Paul Thomasch, Phil Berlowitz and Paul Simao)

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Meningitis, West Nile occupy U.S. health officials in 2012

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The year started in the United States with a mild flu season but ended up being marked by deadly outbreaks of fungal meningitis, West Nile virus and Hantavirus.

Tainted steroid medication has been cited as the cause of the meningitis outbreak that killed 39 people.

Weather contributed to the worst outbreak of West Nile virus since 2003 and an unusual outbreak of Hantavirus in California’s Yosemite National Park.

Transmitted by infected mice, Hantavirus is a severe, sometimes fatal syndrome that affects the lungs. West Nile can cause encephalitis or meningitis, infection of the brain and spinal cord or their protective covering.

As of December 11, 5,387 cases of West Nile virus had been reported in 48 states, resulting in 243 deaths, the CDC said in its final 2012 update on the outbreak. The 2003 outbreak left 264 dead from among nearly 10,000 reported cases.

A large number of cases this year occurred in Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi where there are large mosquito populations.

CDC and state officials have said that rainfall in the spring and record high summer temperatures contributed to the severity of the outbreak by affecting mosquito populations, which transmit the disease by biting humans and animals.

Health officials said that only a small percentage of cases of West Nile virus are reported because most people have no symptoms and about 20 percent have mild symptoms such as aches and fever. One in 150 people with West Nile virus develop other illnesses such as meningitis and encephalitis.

The biggest outbreak in nearly two decades of Hantavirus, which emerges in dry and dusty environments, cropped up during the summer in 1,200-square-mile (3,100-square-km) Yosemite National Park, killing three of 10 infected visitors.

The National Park issued warnings to 22,000 people who may have been exposed to the rare disease, and 91 Curry Village cabins in the park were closed in late August.

In early September, a 78-year-old judge named Eddie Lovelace was rushed to a hospital in Nashville, Tennessee. Thought to have had a stroke, he died a few days later.

After a large outbreak of fungal meningitis was linked to tainted steroid injections, Lovelace’s cause of death was revised. He became the first documented death in a meningitis outbreak that has infected 620 people and killed 39 in 19 states.

The New England Compounding Center in Framingham, Massachusetts, was closed after investigators found that it had shipped thousands of fungus-tainted vials of methylprednisolone acetate to medical facilities around the United States. The steroid was typically used to ease back pain.

More than 14,000 people were warned that they may have had an injection of the tainted steroid. Doctors continue to see new cases of spinal infections related to the steroid, and cases of achnoiditis, an inflammation of nerve roots in the spine.

The outbreak led two Democratic lawmakers in the U.S. House of representatives to introduce legislation to increase government oversight of compounded drugs.

And what lies ahead in 2013?

“While there are some trends we can predict, the most reliable trend is that the next threat will be unpredictable,” said Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Thomas Frieden.

(This refile corrects paragraph two to 39 instead of 243)

(Reporting by Adam Kerlin; Editing by Paul Thomasch)

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Early Childhood Obesity Rates Might Be Slowing Nation-Wide

About one in three children in the U.S. are now overweight, and since the 1980s the number of children who are obese has more than tripled. But a new study of 26.7 million young children from low-income families shows that in this group of kids, the tidal wave of obesity might finally be receding.Being obese as a child not only increases the risk of early-life health problems, such as joint problems, pre-diabetes and social stigmatization, but it also dramatically increases the likelihood of being obese later in life, which can lead to chronic diseases, including cancer, type 2 diabetes and heart disease. Children as young as 2 years of age can be obese–and even extremely obese. Early childhood obesity rates, which bring higher health care costs throughout a kid’s life, have been especially high among lower-income families.”This is the first national study to show that the prevalence of obesity and extreme obesity among young U.S. children may have begun to decline,” the researchers noted in a brief report published online December 25 in JAMA, The Journal of the American Medical Association. (Reports earlier this year suggested that childhood obesity rates were dropping in several U.S. cities.)The study examined rates of obesity (body mass index calculated by age and gender to be in the 95th percentile or higher–for example, a BMI above 20 for a 2-year-old male–compared with reference growth charts) and extreme obesity (BMI of more than 120 percent above that of the 95th percentile of the reference populations) in children ages 2 to 4 in 30 states and the District of Columbia. The researchers, led by Liping Pan, of the Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity and Obesity at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, combed through 12 years of data (1998 to 2010) from the Pediatric Nutritional Surveillance System, which includes information on roughly half of all children on the U.S. who are eligible for federal health care and nutrition assistance.A subtle but important shift in early childhood obesity rates in this low-income population seems to have begun in 2003. Obesity rates increased from 13.05 percent in 1998 to 15.21 percent in 2003. Soon, however, obesity rates began decreasing, reaching 14.94 percent by 2010. Extreme obesity followed a similar pattern, increasing from 1.75 percent to 2.22 percent from 1998 to 2003, but declining to 2.07 percent by 2010.Although these changes might seem small, the number of children involved makes for huge health implications. For example, each drop of just one tenth of a percentage point represents some 26,700 children in the study population alone who are no longer obese or extremely obese. And if these trends are occurring in the rest of the population, the long-term health and cost implications are massive.Public health agencies and the Obama Administration have made battling childhood obesity a priority, although these findings suggest that early childhood obesity rates, at least, were already beginning to decline nearly a decade ago. Some popular prevention strategies include encouraging healthier eating (by reducing intake of highly processed and high-sugar foods and increasing fruit and vegetable consumption) and increased physical activity (both at school and at home).The newly revealed trends “indicate modest recent progress of obesity prevention among young children,” the authors noted. “These finding may have important health implications because of the lifelong health risks of obesity and extreme obesity in early childhood.”

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Lawmakers play waiting game with ‘fiscal cliff’ deadline in sight

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – With only a week left before a deadline for the United States to go over a “fiscal cliff,” lawmakers played a waiting game on Monday in the hope that someone will produce a plan to avoid harsh budget cuts and higher taxes for most Americans from New Year’s Day.

Though Republicans and Democrats have spent the better part of a year describing a plunge off the cliff as a looming catastrophe, the nation’s capital showed no outward signs of worry, let alone impending calamity.

The White House has set up shop in Hawaii, where President Barack Obama is vacationing.

The Capitol was deserted and the Treasury Department – which would have to do a lot of last-minute number-crunching with or without a deal – was closed.

So were all other federal government offices, with Obama having followed a tradition of declaring the Monday before a Tuesday Christmas a holiday for government employees, notwithstanding the approaching fiscal cliff.

Expectations for some 11th-hour rescue focused largely on Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican, in part because he has performed the role of legislative wizard in previous stalemates.

But McConnell, who is up for re-election in 2014, was shunning the role this year, his spokesman saying that it was now up to the Democrats in the Senate to make the next move.

“We don’t yet know what Senator Reid will bring to the floor. He is not negotiating with us and the president is out of town,” said McConnell’s spokesman, referring to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat. “So I just don’t know what they’re going to do over there,” he said.

Two-day-old tweets on leadership websites told the story insofar as it was visible to the public.

House Speaker John Boehner‘s referred everyone to McConnell. McConnell’s tweet passed the responsibility along to Obama, saying it was a “moment that calls for presidential leadership.”

Reid’s tweet said: “There will be very serious consequences for millions of families if Congress fails to act” on the cliff.

The next session of the Senate is set for Thursday, but the issues presented by across-the-board tax hikes and indiscriminate reductions in government spending, were not on the calendar.

The House has nothing on its schedule for the week, but members have been told they could be called back at 48 hours notice, making a Thursday return a theoretical possibility.

However, aides to the Republican leaders in Congress said there were no talks with Democrats on Monday and none scheduled after negotiations fell off track last week when Boehner failed to persuade House Republicans to accept tax increases on incomes of more than $ 1 million a year.

“Nothing new, Merry Christmas,” an aide to Boehner responded when asked if there was any movement on the fiscal cliff.

But a senior Obama administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said White House aides were talking with Senate Democratic staffers about the situation.

SCALED-BACK EXPECTATIONS

If there is some last-minute legislation, Republicans and Democrats agreed on Sunday news shows that it will not be any sort of “grand bargain” encompassing taxes and spending cuts, but most likely a short-term deal putting everything off for a few weeks or months, thereby risking a negative market reaction.

A limited agreement would still need bipartisan support, as Obama has said he would veto a bill that does not raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans.

On Monday, Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison urged fellow Republicans to be flexible.

“We’re now at a point where we’re not going to get what we think is right for our economy and our country because we don’t control government. So we’ve got to work within the system we have,” she told MSNBC.

Two bills in Congress could conceivably form the basis for a last-minute stopgap measure.

Last spring, Republicans in the House passed a measure that would extend Bush-era tax cuts for everyone, reflecting the party’s deep reluctance to increase taxes.

The Democratic-controlled Senate passed a bill in August, extending lower tax rates for everyone except the wealthiest Americans – a group defined at that point as households with a net income of $ 250,000 or above. Obama has since increased that to $ 400,000 a year, in an effort to win Republican support.

Analysts say Democrats might be able to get the backing of enough Republicans in both the House and Senate, especially if they are willing to raise the number to $ 500,000.

Under that scenario, lawmakers might also put off spending cuts of $ 109 billion that would take effect from January and agree to Republican demands for cuts in entitlement programs such as Medicare and Medicaid, the government-run health insurance plans for seniors and the poor.

However, with only a few work days left in Congress after Christmas, there is a good chance that no deal can be worked out and tax rates would then go up, at least briefly, until an agreement is reached in Washington.

“We may go off the cliff on January 1, but we would correct that very quickly thereafter,” Democratic Representative John Yarmuth told MSNBC.

The prospects of the United States going over the fiscal cliff dampened enthusiasm on Wall Street for a “Santa rally” in the holiday season, when stocks traditionally rise.

The Dow Jones industrial average dropped 51.76 points, or 0.39 percent, in Monday’s shortened holiday session.

Failure to work out tax rates in the coming days would cause chaos at the Internal Revenue Service, said analyst Chris Krueger of Guggenheim Securities.

“Next weekend is going to be a total, total debacle,” he said. The IRS is unlikely to have enough time to revise its tables for withholding taxes.

“The withholding tables are sort of like an aircraft carrier, you can’t turn the thing on a dime.” he said.

(Additonal reporting by Alina Selyukh, Patrick Temple-West and David Lawder and Mark Felsenthal in Honolulu; Editing by Alistair Bell, Fred Barbash, David Brunnstrom and Paul Simao)

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Few tests done at toxic sites after superstorm

OLD BRIDGE, N.J. (AP) — For more than a month, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has said that the recent superstorm didn’t cause significant problems at any of the 247 Superfund toxic waste sites it’s monitoring in New York and New Jersey.

But in many cases, no actual tests of soil or water are being conducted, just visual inspections.

The EPA conducted a handful of tests right after the storm, but couldn’t provide details or locations of any recent testing when asked last week. New Jersey officials point out that federally designated Superfund sites are EPA’s responsibility.

The 1980 Superfund law gave EPA the power to order cleanups of abandoned, spilled and illegally dumped hazardous wastes that threaten human health or the environment. The sites can involve long-term or short-term cleanups.

Jeff Tittel, executive director of the Sierra Club in New Jersey, says officials haven’t done enough to ensure there is no contamination from Superfund sites. He’s worried toxins could leach into groundwater and the ocean.

“It’s really serious and I think the EPA and the state of New Jersey have not done due diligence to make sure these sites have not created problems,” Tittel said.

The EPA said last month that none of the Superfund sites it monitors in New York or New Jersey sustained significant damage, but that it has done follow-up sampling at the Gowanus Canal site in Brooklyn, the Newtown Creek site on the border of Queens and Brooklyn, and the Raritan Bay Slag site, all of which flooded during the storm.

But last week, EPA spokeswoman Stacy Kika didn’t respond to questions about whether any soil or water tests have been done at the other 243 Superfund sites. The agency hasn’t said exactly how many of the sites flooded.

“Currently, we do not believe that any sites were impacted in ways that would pose a threat to nearby communities,” EPA said in a statement.

Politicians have been asking similar questions, too. On Nov. 29, U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., wrote to the EPA to ask for “an additional assessment” of Sandy’s impact on Superfund sites in the state.

Elevated levels of lead, antimony, arsenic and copper have been found at the Raritan Bay Slag site, a Superfund site since 2009. Blast furnaces dumped lead at the site in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and lead slag was also used there to construct a seawall and jetty.

The EPA found lead levels as high as 142,000 parts per million were found at Raritan Bay in 2007. Natural soil levels for lead range from 50 to 400 parts per million.

The EPA took four samples from the site after Superstorm Sandy: two from a fenced-off beach area and two from a nearby public playground. One of the beach samples tested above the recreational limit for lead. In early November, the EPA said it was taking additional samples “to get a more detailed picture of how the material might have shifted” and will “take appropriate steps to prevent public exposure” at the site, according to a bulletin posted on its website. But six weeks later, the agency couldn’t provide more details of what has been found.

The Newtown Creek site, with pesticides, metals, PCBs and volatile organic compounds, and the Gowanus Canal site, heavily contaminated with PCBs, heavy metals, volatile organics and coal tar wastes, were added to the Superfund list in 2010.

Some say the lead at the Raritan Bay site can disperse easily.

Gabriel Fillippeli, director of the Center for Urban Health at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, said lead tends to stay in the soil once it is deposited but can be moved around by stormwaters or winds. Arsenic, which has been found in the surface water at the site, can leach into the water table, Fillippeli said.

“My concern is twofold. One is, a storm like that surely moved some of that material physically to other places, I would think,” Fillippeli said. “If they don’t cap that or seal it or clean it up, arsenic will continue to make its way slowly into groundwater and lead will be distributed around the neighborhood.”

The lack of testing has left some residents with lingering worries.

The Raritan Bay Slag site sits on the beach overlooking a placid harbor with a view of Staten Island. On a recent foggy morning, workers were hauling out debris, and some nearby residents wondered whether the superstorm increased or spread the amount of pollution at the site.

“I think it brought a lot of crud in from what’s out there,” said Elise Pelletier, whose small bungalow sits on a hill overlooking the Raritan Bay Slag site. “You don’t know what came in from the water.” Her street did not flood because it is up high, but she worries about a park below where people go fishing and walk their dogs. She would like to see more testing done.

Thomas Burke, an associate dean at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, says both federal and state officials generally have a good handle on the major Superfund sites, which often use caps and walls to contain pollution.

“They are designed to hold up,” Burke said of such structures, but added that “you always have to be concerned that an unusual event can spread things around in the environment.” Burke noted that the storm brought in a “tremendous amount” of water, raising the possibility that groundwater plumes could have changed.

“There really have to be evaluations” of communities near the Superfund sites, he said. “It’s important to take a look.”

Officials in both New York and New Jersey note they’ve also been monitoring less toxic sites known as brownfields and haven’t found major problems. The New York DEC said in a statement that brownfields in that state “were not significantly impacted” and that they don’t plan further tests for storm impacts.

Larry Ragonese, a spokesman for the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, said the agency has done visual inspections of major brownfield sites and also alerted towns and cities to be on the lookout for problems. Ragonese said they just aren’t getting calls voicing such concerns.

Back at the Raritan Bay slag site, some residents want more information. And they want the toxic soil, which has sat here for years, out.

Pat Churchill, who was walking her dog in the park along the water, said she’s still worried.

“There are unanswered questions. You can’t tell me this is all contained. It has to move around,” Churchill said.

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Violence, fear & suspicion imperil Pakistan’s war on polio

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (Reuters) – Pakistani health worker Bushra Bibi spent eight years trekking to remote villages, carefully dripping polio vaccine into toddlers’ pursed mouths to protect them from the crippling disease.

Now the 35-year-old mother is too scared to go to work after masked men on motorbikes gunned down nine of her fellow health workers in a string of attacks this week.

“I have seen so much pain in the eyes of mothers whose children have been infected. So I have never seen this as just a job. It is my passion,” she said. “But I also have a family to look after … Things have never been this bad.”

After the deaths, the United Nations put its workers on lockdown. Immunizations by the Pakistani government continued in parts of the country. But the violence raised fresh questions over stability in the South Asian nation.

Pakistan’s Taliban insurgency, convinced that the anti-polio drive is just another Western plot against Muslims, has long threatened action against anyone taking part in it.

The militant group’s hostility deepened after it emerged that the CIA – with the help of a Pakistani doctor – had used a vaccination campaign to spy on Osama bin Laden’s compound before he was killed by U.S. special forces in a Pakistan town last year.

Critics say the attacks on the health workers are a prime example of the government’s failure to formulate a decisive policy on tackling militancy, despite pressure from key ally the United States, the source of billions of dollars in aid.

For years, authorities were aware that Taliban commanders had broadcast claims that the vaccination drive was actually a plot to sterilize Muslims.

That may seem absurd to the West, but in Pakistan such assertions are plausible to some. Years of secrecy during military dictatorships, frequent political upheaval during civilian rule and a poor public education system mean conspiracy theories run wild.

“Ever since they began to give these polio drops, children are reaching maturity a lot earlier, especially girls. Now 12 to 13-year-old girls are becoming women. This causes indecency in society,” said 45-year-old Mir Alam Khan, a carpet seller in the northern town of Dera Ismail Khan.

The father of four didn’t allow any of his children to receive vaccinations.

“Why doesn’t the United States give free cures for other illnesses? Why only polio? There has to be an agenda,” he said.

While health workers risk attacks by militants, growing suspicions from ordinary Pakistanis are lowering their morale. Fatima, a health worker in the northwestern city of Peshawar, said that reaction to news of the CIA polio campaign was so severe that many of her colleagues quit.

“People’s attitudes have changed. You will not believe how even the most educated and well-to-do people will turn us away, calling us U.S. spies and un-Islamic,” said the 25-year-old who did not give her last name for fear of reprisals.

“Boys call us names, they say we are ‘indecent women’.”

Pakistan’s government has tried to shatter the myths that can undermine even the best-intentioned health projects by turning to moderate clerics and urging them to issue religious rulings supporting the anti-polio efforts.

Tahir Ashrafi, head of the All Pakistan Ulema Council, said the alliance of clerics had done its part, and it was up to the government to come to the rescue of aid workers.

“Clerics can only give fatwas and will continue to come together and condemn such acts,” he said. “What good are fatwas if the government doesn’t provide security?”

RISK OF POLIO RETURNING

That may be a tall order in Pakistan, where critics allege government officials are too busy lining their pockets or locked in power struggles to protect its citizens, even children vulnerable to diseases that can cripple or disfigure them.

Pakistani leaders deny such accusations.

Politicians also have a questionable track record when it comes to dealing with all the other troubles afflicting nuclear-armed Pakistan.

The villages where health workers once spent time tending to children often lack basic services, clinics, clean water and jobs. Industries that could strengthen the fragile economy are hobbled by chronic power cuts.

Deepening frustrations with those issues often encourage Pakistanis to give up on the state and join the Taliban.

So far it’s unclear who is behind the shootings. The main Taliban spokesman said they were opposed to the vaccination scheme but the group distanced itself from the attacks.

But another Taliban spokesman in South Waziristan said their fighters were behind an attack on a polio team in the northwestern town of Lakki Marwat on Monday. “The vaccinations were part of “a secret Jewish-American agenda to poison Pakistanis”, he said.

What is clear is the stakes are high.

Any gaps in the program endanger hard-won gains against a disease that can cause death or paralysis within hours.

A global effort costing billions of dollars eradicated polio from every country except Nigeria, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Vaccinations cut Pakistan‘s polio cases from 20,000 in 1994 to 56 in 2012 and the disease seemed isolated in a pocket in the north. But polio is spread person-to-person, so any outbreak risks re-infecting communities cleared of the disease.

Last year, a strain from Pakistan spread northeast and caused the first outbreak in neighboring China since 1999.

Oliver Rosenbauer, a spokesman for the World Health Organization, said the group had been coming closer to eradicating the disease.

“For the first time, the virus had been geographically cornered,” he said. “We don’t want to lose the gains that had been made … Any suspension of activities gives the virus a new foothold and the potential to come roaring back and paralyze more children.”

MOURNING FAMILIES

Condemnation of the killings has been nearly universal. Clerics called for demonstrations to support health workers, the government has promised compensation for the deaths and police have vowed to provide more protection.

For women like Fehmida Shah, it’s already too late. The 44-year-old health worker lived with her family in a two-room house before gunmen shot her on Tuesday.

Her husband, Syed Riaz Shah, said she spent her tiny salary – the equivalent of just $ 2 a day – on presents for their four daughters. Even though the family was struggling, she always found some spare money for any neighbor in need.

“She was very kind and big hearted. All the women in our lane knew her,” he said.

“The entire neighborhood is in shock. Pray for my daughters. I will get through this. But I don’t know how they will.”

(Additional reporting by Imtiaz Shah in Karachi, Jibran Ahmad in Peshawar, Saud Mehsud in Dera Ismail Khan and Katharine Houreld in Islamabad; Editing by Michael Georgy and Sanjeev Miglani)

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Spectrum Pharma’s blood cancer drug meets trial goal

(Reuters) – Spectrum Pharmaceuticals Inc said a mid-stage trial of its experimental blood cancer drug met the main goal of reducing the size of tumors.

The biotechnology company‘s shares, which have fallen about 22 percent over the past 12 months, were up about 3 percent at $ 11.60 in morning trade on the Nasdaq and touched a high of $ 11.75 .

The drug, belinostat, was tested in patients with relapsed or refractory peripheral T-Cell lymphoma (PTCL), and who had failed to respond to at least one therapy.

The company said it expects to file a marketing application with U.S. health regulators by mid-2013, and expects a review date in 2014.

The trial was conducted under a special protocol assessment that provides a company with a written agreement that the design of the study and analysis of the data are adequate to support a marketing application with the U.S. health regulator.

Spectrum markets another drug to treat PTCL, named Folotyn, which it obtained as part of its acquisition of cancer drugmaker Allos Therapeutics earlier this year.

MLV & Co analyst George Zavoico said Folotyn and belinostat have different mechanisms of action, and having two drugs for the same indication could be useful in cases of relapsed patients who develop resistance to one of them.

PTCL consists of a group of aggressive blood cancers that develop from T-cells, a class of white blood cells.

(Reporting By Vrinda Manocha in Bangalore; Editing by Don Sebastian and Sreejiraj Eluvangal)

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Women’s Excellence in Endometriosis: Introducing a Specialized Center Treating Pelvic Pain, Painful Intercourse, and Painful Menstrual Periods in Oakland County, MI

Endometriosis is a painful, sometimes disabling disease that attacks a woman’s reproductive tract and other pelvic organs and can ultimately lead to infertility and chronic pelvic pain (CPP). Women’s Excellence in Endometriosis is a one-of-a-kind, specialty center for woman suffering with the disease and its painful sequelae.

Oakland County, MI (PRWEB) December 20, 2012

Women with chronic pelvic pain (CPP) may likely have a condition called “Endometriosis.” Endometriosis is a disease affecting the female reproductive tract in which the endometrial lining of the uterus spreads into the pelvic cavity, implanting itself on the pelvic structures, causing inflammation and pain. Symptoms of endometriosis include painful menstrual periods (dysmenorrhea) which cannot be relieved with typical over-the-counter pain medications such as acetaminophen or ibuprofen, irregular periods, pelvic pain, painful sexual intercourse, and/or difficulty conceiving a pregnancy. Untreated, endometriosis can lead to chronic pelvic pain (CPP), infertility, and disability in women.

Women’s Excellence in Endometriosis is a specialty center designed to treat women with this chronic condition in a multidisciplinary fashion. Dr. Jonathan Zaidan has established himself as an expert in diagnosing and treating endometriosis. Dr. Zaidan is trained and credentialed in minimally invasive robotic surgery to treat endometriosis. Working primarily out of McLaren Oakland hospital in Pontiac, MI, Dr. Zaidan can remove most and sometimes all disease through this procedure. According to Dr. Zaidan, “Robotic resection of endometriosis is the most advanced treatment for the disease and can even provide a surgical cure for some individuals. The procedure is minimally invasive, which means no large incisions, patient goes home the same day in most cases, and recovery is much easier and faster”.

Endometriosis can only be definitively diagnosed with laparoscopy, which is a minimally invasive surgical procedure that allows the surgeon to view the pelvic cavity with a small scope and visualize the disease. “Once diagnosis has been confirmed, in most cases we start the patient on a six-month regimen of Lupron or Zoladex therapy. A monthly dose of either of these medications halts the production of estrogen and puts the patient into a temporary medical menopause, which gives the body’s natural immune system a chance clear as much of the endometriosis as possible, before going back into surgery for the robotic resection”, states Debbie Henry, NP-C, nurse practitioner at Women’s Excellence in Endometriosis. “We have found this protocol to be highly successful for most patients, especially since endometriosis appears to be an estrogen dependent disease”, adds Henry. After the robotic resection of endometriosis, hormonal suppression of estrogen is prescribed, usually in the form of a birth control option such as Depo Provera or a combined oral contraceptive pill (COCPS), in order to retard a resurgence of the disease.

“Women with endometriosis are dealing with a chronic illness and need specialized care. We just felt that we could not give these patients adequate time and the quality of care that they really needed in a busy OB/GYN setting, sandwiched between routine OB visits and annual exams”, states Zaidan. “We provide an inviting, calming atmosphere here at Women’s Excellence in Endometriosis; these patients are dealing with a stressful, chronic condition and the last thing they need is a long wait or a quick visit. We are able to provide longer patient visits at this center. Our patients really become like family to us”, Henry offered.

For women who are knowingly dealing with endometriosis or dealing with chronic symptoms that could likely be endometriosis, Women’s Excellence in Endometriosis offers a comprehensive, specialized treatment with a compassionate touch. From the reception staff, to the medical assistants, to the providers, Women’s Excellence in Endometriosis’ mission is to provide timely, evidenced-based care, in a compassionate way. “We have helped hundreds of patients are we are eager to help hundreds more”, concludes Henry.

Founded by Dr. Jonathan Zaidan, Women’s Excellence in Endometriosis is a comprehensive center for women that have either been diagnosed with endometriosis or have the symptoms of endometriosis. Women’s Excellence in Endometriosis utilizes the latest and best treatment protocols to effectively treat the symptoms and sequelae of endometriosis. Whether a woman has known endometriosis or seeking a diagnosis for symptoms of painful sexual intercourse, painful periods, chronic pelvic pain or irregular bleeding, Women’s Excellence in Endometriosis is designed to diagnose, treat and improve the symptoms of endometriosis and chronic pelvic pain (CPP). Women’s Excellence in Endometriosis treats all women with these symptoms including those women in the teenage years, women who are desiring to conceive a pregnancy, as well as women who are done childbearing. The knowledgeable, well trained, compassionate physicians and healthcare providers of Women’s Excellence in Endometriosis are now accepting new patients. Call for an appointment today (248) 693-1630 or visit http://www.centerofendometriosis.com.

Jonathan Zaidan, MD
Women’s Excellence in Endometriosis
248 693 1630
Email Information

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HIV cases decline for black women, increase for gay men: CDC

ATLANTA (Reuters) – Fewer black women in the United States are being infected with HIV, but the number of young gay and bisexual men infected is rising, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Wednesday.

Between 2008 and 2010, the number of newly infected black women dropped 21 percent, according to the CDC report. Yet despite the decline, they still accounted for 70 percent of all new HIV cases among women, the federal health agency said.

The rate of new infections for black women was 20 times higher than the rate for white women, the CDC said.

The number of new infections among young gay and bisexual men increased by 22 percent during that same two-year period, the CDC said.

The number of new HIV infections diagnosed annually in the overall U.S. population remained unchanged between 2008 and 2010 at about 47,500, according to health officials.

Public information campaigns on HIV prevention and testing seem to be working in lowering the number of new infections among African-American women, said Joseph Prejean, chief of the Behavioral and Clinical Surveillance Branch in the CDC’s division of HIV/AIDS Prevention in Atlanta.

“We are encouraged to see some declines among African-American women,” Prejean told Reuters. “They’ve been one of the most severely affected populations. We’re cautiously optimistic that this could be part of a longer-term trend.”

Among young gay and bisexual men, efforts to fight HIV have not been as effective, possibly because of advances in treatment for AIDS, the immune disorder caused by HIV, Prejean said.

“We do realize that many men who have sex with men do probably underestimate their personal risk and believe that treatment advances minimize the health threat,” Prejean said.

Even though treatment can prolong the life of an AIDS patient, Prejean cautioned that “their life really does change. They then begin to take medication and will take medication for the rest of their lives,” he said.

HIV is an incurable infection that costs $ 400,000 to treat over a lifetime, CDC Director Dr. Thomas Frieden said last month after another government report showed more than half of young Americans infected with HIV were not aware they had it.

Young people ages 13 to 24 account for 26 percent of all new HIV infections in the United States, the earlier CDC report said.

The report released on Wednesday said nearly two-thirds of new HIV infections in 2010 resulted from men having sex with other men. Young black men who have sex with men account for more new infections than any other subgroup, government health officials said.

“Because gay men account for 66 percent of all new infections, we must increase the focus of our prevention programs for gay men, particularly young and black gay men,” said Michael Ruppal, executive director of The AIDS Institute.

(Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Dan Grebler)

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Intensive Weight Loss Programs Might Help Reverse Diabetes

Type 2 diabetes has long been thought of as a chronic, irreversible disease. Some 25 million Americans are afflicted with the illness, which is associated with obesity and a sedentary lifestyle, as well as high blood pressure. Recent research demonstrated that gastric bypass surgery–a form of bariatric surgery that reduces the size of the stomach–can lead to at least temporary remission of type 2 diabetes in up to 62 percent of extremely obese adults. But can less drastic measures also help some people fight back the progressive disease?A new randomized controlled trial found that intensive weight loss programs can also increase the odds that overweight adults with type 2 diabetes will see at least partial remission. The findings were published online December 18 in JAMA, The Journal of the American Medical Association. “The increasing worldwide prevalence of type 2 diabetes, along with its wide-ranging complications, has led to hopes that the disease can be reversed or prevented,” wrote the authors of the new paper, led by Edward Gregg of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.The study tracked 4,503 overweight adults with type 2 diabetes for four years. About half of the subjects received basic diabetes support and education (including three sessions per year that covered diet, physical activity and support). The other half received more intensive lifestyle-intervention assistance. This second group received weekly individual and group counseling for six months, followed by three-sessions each month for the next six months, and refresher group sessions and individual contact for the subsequent three years. The interventions aimed to help individuals limit daily calories to 1,200 to 1,800–in particular by reducing saturated fat intake–and to help them get the recommended 175 minutes per week of physical activity.After two years about one in 11 adults in the intervention group experienced at least partial remission of their diabetes, meaning that a patient’s blood sugar levels reverted to below diabetes diagnosis levels without medication. Only about one in 60 in the control group, which received only basic support and education, saw any remission after two years. The findings suggest that “partial remission, defined by a transition to prediabetic or normal glucose levels without drug treatment for a specific period, is an obtainable goal for some patients with type 2 diabetes,” the researchers noted.The improvement, however, was not indefinite for everyone. After four years, only about one in 30 people in the intervention group were still seeing an improvement in their condition. Researchers think that regaining weight and falling behind on diet and physical activity goals increase the risk that people will return to a diabetic state.About one in 75 in the intervention group saw complete remission of their diabetes, in which glucose levels returned to normal without medication.The study did not find, however, that individuals in the lifestyle intervention group had lower risks for heart trouble, stroke or death than did those in the control group. “This recently led the National Institutes of Health to halt the [trial],” noted David Arterburn, of Group Health Research Institute in Seattle, and Patrick O’Connor, of HealthPartners Institute for Education and Research in Minneapolis, in an essay in the same issue of JAMA. Similar results have come out of studies looking at more intensive medical treatment of diabetes. “A more potent intervention–bariatric surgery–already appears to achieve what intensive medical and lifestyle interventions cannot: reducing cardiovascular events and mortality rates among severely obese patients with type 2 diabetes,” they noted.As with any disease, however, prevention is the best strategy. “The disappointing results of recent trials of intensive lifestyle and medical management in patients with existing type 2 diabetes also underscore the need to more aggressively pursue primary prevention of diabetes,” Arterburn and O’Connor noted. One recent study found that compared with no treatment at all, lifestyle interventions reduced the onset of type 2 diabetes by 58 percent in people with pre-diabetes (and the medication metformin reduced the onset rate by 31 percent). Bariatric surgery seemed to reduce the onset of diabetes in obese patients by 83 percent, Arterburn and O’Connor pointed out in their essay.For people who already have diabetes, however, those who are still in the early stages and those with the biggest weight loss and/or fitness improvement had the best odds for beating the disease. And even if lifestyle interventions aren’t capable of dialing back the disease entirely, any reduction–whether through lifestyle or other changes-in the need for medication and in medical complications due to diabetes can be considered an improvement in managing the disease, which already costs the U.S. health system $ 116 billion each year and is estimated to affect 50 million Americans by 2050.

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Asocian la cobertura oftalmológica con una mejor salud visual

17 dic (Reuters) – Las personas de entre 40 y 65 años con

cobertura de atención oftalmológica eran dos veces más propensas

a haber concurrido a un oculista durante los 12 meses previos y

tenían mejor capacidad para leer materiales impresos, señalan

investigadores.

“El estudio demuestra que la cobertura oftalmológica aumenta

la posibilidad de consultar a un oculista y que una consulta el

año anterior está asociada con un mejor estado de salud visual”,

resumen los autores en la revista Archives of Ophthalmology.

El equipo de Yi-Jhen Li, de University of South Carolina,

Columbia, recuerda que se estima que para 2020 habrá más de 5,6

millones de estadounidenses con una enfermedad ocular asociada

con la edad que puede causar ceguera.

Pero agrega que la disminución visual permanente por alguna

de esas causas, como el glaucoma y las cataratas, se puede

demorar con detección temprana y tratamiento.

“Los queremos de este lado de la puerta. Si eso ocurre,

ellos recibirán lo que necesitan”, dijo John Crews, investigador

de los CDC, Atlanta, y que no participó del estudio. “El

problema desde la salud pública es ‘¿qué le impide a la

población acceder a la atención?’”.

El equipo de Li utilizó los resultados de una encuesta del

2008 a 27.152 personas de ocho estados de Estados Unidos; 11.541

(43 por ciento) de ellas no tenía cobertura oftalmológica.

El 64 por ciento de las 15.611 personas con cobertura había

consultado a un oftalmólogo el año anterior, comparado con el 45

por ciento de los encuestados sin cobertura.

Tras considerar ciertos factores (edad, sexo y etnia), los

autores observaron que los participantes con buena salud que

tenían cobertura oftalmológica eran un 24 por ciento más

propensos a decir que podían reconocer a sus amigos en la vereda

de enfrente y que eran un 34 por ciento más propensos a decir

que podían leer material impreso sin inconvenientes, que

aquellos sin cobertura.

La diferencia fue aún mayor en un subgrupo con enfermedades

oculares comunes (glaucoma, cataratas o degeneración macular

asociada con la edad): aquellos con cobertura oftalmológica eran

un 37 por ciento más propensos a poder leer y un 45 por ciento

más propensos a reconocer a un amigo de lejos.

Tanto en la población general como en la población con

enfermedades oculares, los que habían consultado a un médico

durante el año anterior eran más propensos a tener mejor visión.

El equipo, que no estuvo disponible para esta nota, escribe

que el grupo etario en el que se concentró es muy joven para

recibir cobertura de Medicare, pero tiene “alto riesgo de

padecer enfermedades oculares que producen una disminución

visual gradual que se puede prevenir”.

Agrega que éste es el primer estudio del equipo sobre cómo

la cobertura oftalmológica versus la cobertura general influye

en la frecuencia de la consulta oftalmológica de este segmento

etario.

Mientras que el 85 por ciento de la muestra estudiada tenía

cobertura de salud, sólo el 68 por ciento de ese subgrupo tenía

cobertura oftalmológica. Para el equipo, el estudio indica que

la cobertura oftalmológica, y no el seguro de salud general, es

lo que determina no sólo si la población concurre al oculista,

sino también la calidad visual percibida.

La Academia Estadounidense de Oftalmología considera que los

adultos deben concurrir al oftalmólogo cada dos o cuatro años y

recomienda que los mayores de 65 lo hagan cada uno o dos años.

FUENTE: Archives of Ophthalmology, online 10 de diciembre

del 2012.

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