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viernes, 24 de junio de 2011

Health review


Money & Policy »

Britain: New Smoking Ban Is Pressed

By BLOOMBERG NEWS
On a vote of 78 to 66, the British House of Commons agreed Wednesday to consider outlawing smoking in private vehicles carrying children in an effort to reduce exposure to second-hand smoke.
Research »
VITAL SIGNS

Hazards: A Pacemaker Is Found to Carry Risk

By RONI CARYN RABIN and NICHOLAS BAKALAR
The implantable device is designed to correct the irregularity in contractions of the heart’s ventricles that sometimes occurs in people with heart failure.
Fitness & Nutrition »
RECIPES FOR HEALTH

Asparagus Rolled in Herb Crêpes

By MARTHA ROSE SHULMAN
These crepes make a wonderful main course for a vegetarian dinner party.

G-20 Officials Agree on Steps to Stabilize Food Prices and Improve Supplies

By MATTHEW SALTMARSH and STEVEN ERLANGER
France's President Nicolas Sarkozy spoke at the G-20 meeting on Wednesday.
Lionel Bonaventure/Reuters
France's President Nicolas Sarkozy spoke at the G-20 meeting on Wednesday.
Initiatives include creating a database on food stocks, a joint international research program on wheat and a “rapid response forum” to address crises.
“So many people have begged me to come forward, and I just thought — well, I have to do this. I owe it to them. I cannot die a coward,” said Marsha M. Linehan, a psychologist at the University of Washington.

Expert on Mental Illness Reveals Her Own Fight

By BENEDICT CAREY
Marsha M. Linehan works with seriously suicidal people, having faced the same struggles when she was younger.

Unusual Traits Blended in Germany E. Coli Strain

By GINA KOLATA
Scientists say that the combination may be what made the outbreak among the deadliest in recent history.

Drug Makers Win Two Supreme Court Decisions

By ADAM LIPTAK
One of the Supreme Court rulings limits suits from people injured by generic drugs and another strikes down a law on prescription data.

Anticlotting Drug Shows Promise To Displace a Longtime Standard

By DUFF WILSON
The proposed medication, from Bristol-Myers Squibb and Pfizer, prevents more strokes with less bleeding risk than existing treatment. It needs F.D.A. approval.
KHIRBET AL-JOUZ JOURNAL
A patient being cared for in a clinic at the Khirbet al-Jouz refugee camp. The poor conditions “really could put people's lives at risk,” Human Rights Watch says.

Need Overwhelms Makeshift Clinic in Syria Camp

By LIAM STACK
Activists say there is an acute need for care in makeshift refugee camps scattered on the Syrian side of the border.
The different images, to be shown on packs of cigarettes beginning in 2012, have been opposed by the tobacco industry.

U.S. Releases Graphic Images to Deter Smokers

By DUFF WILSON
Nine images — one of a corpse and another of a man with a tracheotomy opening in his neck — are to appear on cigarette packages next year.

Senators Seek Information on Side Effects of Medtronic Bone-Growth Product

By DUFF WILSON
Senator Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana, said reports that doctors on Medtronic’s payroll might have hidden side effects were “deeply troubling.”

Britain: New Smoking Ban Is Pressed

By BLOOMBERG NEWS
British lawmakers agreed on Wednesday to consider outlawing smoking in private vehicles carrying children, to reduce exposure to second-hand smoke.
WELL

Keeping Score on How You Take Your Medicine

By TARA PARKER-POPE
The new FICO Medication Adherence Score can predict which patients are at highest risk for skipping or incorrectly using prescription medications, the company says.
RECIPES FOR HEALTH

Asparagus With Gremolata, Lemon and Olive Oil

By MARTHA ROSE SHULMAN
Andrew Scrivani for The New York Times
This dish is an Italian classic from the Lombardy region.
Views
CASES

Stereotyping Patients, and Their Ailments

By DANIELLE OFRI, M.D.
Because his care givers relied too much on assumptions, a drug user who served time in jail spent eight years in treatment for H.I.V. infection, needlessly.

Well

Epilepsy From the Patient’s Point of View

June 23, 2011 7:05 AM ET

Coming Out With Mental Illness

June 23, 2011

To Stretch or Not to Stretch

June 22, 2011

Cholesterol Drugs Linked With Diabetes Risk

June 21, 2011

A New Worry About Tick Bites

June 21, 2011
Go to the Well Blog »
Interactive Feature
The Weekly Health News
In the news: Credit scores, pets and a new tick hazard. Test your knowledge of this week’s health news.
More Columns
PERSONAL HEALTH

Explaining Sunscreen and the New Rules

By JANE E. BRODY
New federal regulations on sunscreen labeling are set to take effect next year, but you shouldn’t wait to do all you can to protect your skin.
REALLY?

Pets Can Raise a Child’s Risk of Developing Allergies

By ANAHAD O'CONNOR
Many parents worry that keeping a dog or cat in the home increases a child's chance of developing pet allergies.

The New Old Age Blog

A Health Care Proxy

June 22, 2011

A Missed Opportunity to Recruit Specialists in Elder Care

June 20, 2011

Ask an Elder Law Attorney: Late-Life Marriage Issues

June 16, 2011
Go to Blog »
Multimedia
Max Mikulak was diagnosed with stage IV, high-risk neuroblastoma in the first grade. He died from the cancer at age 7.Interactive Feature
Patient Voices: Childhood Cancer
An unimaginable diagnosis is followed by worry, fear and tough decisions. Six people speak about how childhood cancer changed their lives.
Exploring the Roots of Sinus Trouble
Experts discuss biofilms and the underlying causes of chronic sinusitis.
From Opinion
EDITORIAL
Drug Marketing and Free Speech
A Supreme Court decision makes it easier for companies to collect data from pharmacies and harder for states to protect consumers’ privacy.

Letters

Publicado por Bibliomanazteca en 4:22 0 comentarios
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Iniciativa antitabaco: No pagues por suicidarte


U.S. Releases Graphic Images to Deter Smokers

The different images, to be shown on packs of cigarettes beginning in 2012, have been opposed by the tobacco industry.
By 
Published: June 21, 2011
Federal health officials released on Tuesday their final selection of nine graphic warning labels to cover the top half of cigarette packages beginning next year, over the opposition of tobacco manufacturers.
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U.S. Food and Drug Administration, via Associated Press
The warnings cover the top half of cigarette packages.

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In the first major change to warning labels in more than a quarter-century, the graphic images will include photos of horribly damaged teeth and lungs and a man exhaling smoke through a tracheotomy opening in his neck. TheDepartment of Health and Human Services selected nine color images among 36 proposed to accompany larger text warnings.
Health advocacy groups praised the government plan in the hope that images would shock and deter new smokers and motivate existing smokers to quit. The images are to cover the upper half of the front and back of cigarette packages produced after September 2012, as well as 20 percent of the space in cigarette advertisements.
“These labels are frank, honest and powerful depictions of the health risks of smoking, and they will help encourage smokers to quit, and prevent children from smoking,” Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human services, said Tuesday in a statement.
The four leading tobacco companies were all threatening legal action, saying the images would unfairly hurt their property and free-speech rights by obscuring their brand names in retail displays, demonizing the companies and stigmatizing smokers.
The government won one case last year in a federal court in Kentucky on its overall ability to require larger warning labels with images; the specific images released Tuesday are likely to stir further legal action. The Kentucky case is before the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.
The new labels were required under landmark antismoking legislation giving the Food and Drug Administration power to regulate, but not ban, tobacco products. The Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act required F.D.A. action on the graphic warning labels by Wednesday, two years after President Obama signed it into law.
The United States was the first nation to require a health warning on cigarette packages 45 years ago. Since then, at least 39 other nations, including Canada and many in Europe, have imposed more eye-catching warnings, including graphic photos.
“This is a critical moment for the United States to move forward in this area,” the F.D.A. commissioner, Dr. Margaret A. Hamburg, said in an interview. “The trends in smoking really support the need for more action now. For four decades, there was a steady decline in smoking, but five to seven years ago we leveled off at about the 20 percent level of adult and youth smoking in this country.” 
Dr. Lawrence R. Deyton, director of the F.D.A.’s Center for Tobacco Products, said the government estimates, based on other countries’ experience, that the new warning labels will prompt an additional 213,000 Americans to quit smoking in 2013, the first full year with the graphic labels.
“We are pleased with the images they picked,” said Nancy Brown, chief executive of the American Heart Association. “They strongly depict the adverse consequences of smoking. They will get people’s attention. And they will certainly be much more memorable than the current warning labels.” 
Gregory N. Connolly, a professor and tobacco expert at the Harvard School of Public Health, also praised the strength of the warnings, but said the F.D.A. needed to take tougher action against cigarettes. “What’s on the pack is important, but if you really want to cut smoking rates, you’ve got to get inside the pack and deal with ingredients likementhol and nicotine,” he said.  
The nine images chosen in the United States include some that are among the most graphic of the 36 draft images. But they also include some of the less vivid, including a cartoon depiction of a baby rather than a photo in the draft set that showed a mother blowing smoke at a baby.
The images, which are to appear on cigarette packs on a rotating basis, also include one of a man proudly wearing a T-shirt that says: “I QUIT.”
All of the packs will also display a toll-free telephone number for smoking cessation services.
The F.D.A. has already proposed nine text warnings to be paired with the images, including: “Warning: Cigarettes cause cancer” and “Warning: Quitting smoking now greatly reduces serious risks to your health.”
The government surveyed 18,000 Americans of all ages to determine which of the 36 proposed labels would be most effective to deter smoking. The F.D.A. can revise the selection of images in the future.
A few smokers surveyed on New York sidewalks were unswayed by the images. Khariton Popilevsky, 46, a pawnbroker, shrugged and said: “Telling me things we already know. I’ll still be smoking.”
Hayley Sapp, 28, a paralegal, said: “There are lots of other high risks out there, you know.Obesity is huge.”
Saiful Islam, 34, a convenience store clerk, said higher prices would cut sales a lot more than the images on cigarette packs.
A submission to the F.D.A. by R.J. Reynolds, Lorillard and Commonwealth Brands, the second, third and fourth largest United States cigarette makers, said the “nonfactual and controversial images” were “intended to elicit loathing, disgust and repulsion” about a legal product.
Those companies and others filed suit in Kentucky in August 2009 over provisions of the law. Judge Joseph H. McKinley Jr. of Federal District Court in Bowling Green, Ky., ruled that the companies could be forced to put graphic warning labels on the packages but said they could not be forced to limit marketing materials to black text on a white background, saying that was too broad an intrusion on commercial free speech.
Gregg Perry, a spokesman for Lorillard Tobacco, said on Tuesday that the company was reviewing the graphics and would not comment at this time. A spokeswoman for R.J. Reynolds repeated its earlier opposition to the graphic labels. The Altria Group, the largest tobacco company in the United States, said it would not comment.
Altria, the parent company of Philip Morris, the only major tobacco company to support the overall F.D.A. legislation, said in a letter this year that the graphic warning provision was an unconstitutional part of the law “added in a last-minute amendment.”
The rate of smoking in America has been cut roughly in half, to about 19 percent, from 42 percent in 1965. Smoking remains the leading cause of preventable death, killing 443,000 Americans a year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Each day, the government says, an estimated 4,000 youths try their first cigarette, and 1,000 a day become regular smokers.
Publicado por Bibliomanazteca en 4:18 0 comentarios
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