sábado, 26 de febrero de 2011

Medical Groups Warn Of Climate Change's Potential Impact on Health

More asthma, heat waves and microbial disease could result if greenhouse gases aren't curbed

Posted: February 24, 2011

By Steven Reinberg
HealthDay Reporter

THURSDAY, Feb. 24 (HealthDay News) -- Experts from leading U.S. medical groups gathered Thursday to warn of impending dangers to human health if greenhouse gas emissions continue unchecked, speeding climate change.

They believe the federal government, specifically the Environmental Protection Agency, does have the power to curtail such emissions, however.

"The science is unequivocal that global warming is occurring and human activity is the cause of it," Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association said during a press conference Thursday. "We believe the EPA has the potential to significantly reduce the public health burden of climate change and we are committed to protecting the agency's authority over the full breath of its work."

APHA and other groups worry that if Congress restricts the EPA's authority to regulate greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, health problems will rise.

Last week, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a budget that would cut the EPA's budget by a third, the experts noted. Moreover, a funding resolution passed by the new Republican house would block the agency from enacting a new greenhouse emissions rule, according to speakers at the Thursday press conference.

Not everyone agreed with those experts, however.

Sterling Burnett is a senior fellow at the Dallas-based National Center for Policy Analysis, a nonpartisan, nonprofit think tank focused on free-market approaches to public policy. In an interview, he said the effects of climate change on human health remain in question, as does the wisdom of earmarking EPA funds to fight global warming.

"I don't know if the world is going to be warmer 100 years from now than it is today, but if it is, there are likely to be less deaths from a variety of illnesses overall than more deaths from cardiopulmonary diseases due to the warmth," Burnett said.

Funding the EPA to reduce greenhouse gasses will slow economic growth without improving heath, he added. "If what you are concerned about is public health there are much more efficacious ways of responding to the health threats [of] 100 years from now," he said. "So do we, by making the world poorer in the future, buy the decisions we make now on climate change regulations, do we increase the disease burden overall?"

The experts gathered at Thursday's press conference took a different stance.

The AMA's Benjamin said that climate change is leading to extreme weather events that endanger the elderly and sick. In addition, increased air pollution can increase asthma and other respiratory diseases, he noted. Climate change also increase the prevalence of airborne and water-borne disease.

Benjamin believes that the Clean Air Act, passed in 1970, has already "made significant improvements in the health and well-being of the American public."

Also speaking at Thursday's press conference was Dr. Cecil Wilson, president of the American Medical Association (AMA). He said he believes that extreme weather conditions are behind dangerous travel conditions in winter and extended heat waves in summer, which have increased in the past two decades.

"Approximately 133 million Americans are living with a chronic condition, such as heart disease or diabetes, which are aggravated by heat waves, increasing the risk for serious complications and death," Wilson said.

In the United States, these severe extended heat waves are causing unnecessary deaths, added Kristie L. Ebi, lead author for the human health chapter of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's Fourth Assessment Report. The panel, which receives funding from the federal government, issues reports on climate change around the world.

"No one should die in a heat wave," Ebi said.

Climate change has caused other worrying trends, the experts said, including worrying changes in insect migration. "Many states are facing increases in insect-borne illnesses," Wilson pointed out. "For example dengue fever, a condition that has rarely been seen in this country, has appeared in Florida."

Lyme disease has also increased tenfold in the past 10 years, Wilson added.

And the increase in greenhouse gases has increased air pollution, he said. "Over the past three decades, poor air quality has extended the allergy and asthma season, in this country, by about 20 days. Asthma rates have doubled and other respiratory diseases are also on the rise."

Dr. Perry Sheffield, deputy director of the Pediatric Environmental Health Specialty Unit for EPA Region 2, and an assistant professor in the department of pediatrics and the department of preventive medicine at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City, noted that reducing air pollution can have immediate health benefits.

"When air pollution was reduced during the Atlanta Olympics in 1996, asthma attacks among children dropped by 44 percent," she said during the press conference.

Burnett agreed that the burden of asthma has increased in the United States, but he doesn't think it has anything to do with climate change or greenhouse gases.

"It's not clear to me that you are going to get it from a warmer world," he said.

More information

For more information on health and climate change, visit the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

New children's nutrition law to improve cafeteria meals

Healthier food options at schools, like the fruits given to these students in Palo Alto, Calif., soon will be available to more children nationwide because of the new food nutrition law. [Photo by Paul Sakuma / AP / Wide World Photos]

New children's nutrition law to improve cafeteria meals

The measure, approved by the House this month, makes meals healthier and restricts the sale of junk food in school vending machines.

By CHRIS SILVA, amednews staff. Posted Dec. 20, 2010.

Washington -- President Obama has signed into law legislation that medical organizations and lawmakers believe will help make significant progress toward ending child hunger and obesity. The measure expands access to federal nutrition programs, improves the nutritional value of meals and limits the sale of junk food in schools.

Obama signed the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act on Dec. 13. Under the law, an additional $4.5 billion will be provided during the next 10 years for federal school nutrition programs -- nearly 10 times the amount provided under the previous child nutrition reauthorization and the largest new investment in child nutrition programs since their inception, lawmakers said.

"At a very basic level, this act is about doing what's right for our children," Obama said. "Right now, across the country, too many kids don't have access to school meals. And often, the food that's being offered isn't as healthy or as nutritious as it should be.

"Doctors are now starting to see conditions like high blood pressure, high cholesterol and type 2 diabetes in children -- these are things that they only used to see in adults. And this bill is about reversing that trend and giving our kids the healthy futures that they deserve."

The House passed the bill on Dec. 2, nearly four months after the Senate passed its version of the legislation.

"For too long, we have allowed unchecked junk food in our schools to undermine not just the health of our kids, but also the desires of parents, and our taxpayer investment in school meals," said Tom Harkin (D, Iowa), who, along with Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D, Calif.), has introduced the legislation in every Congress since 2006.

More kids to get school meals

The number of children enrolled in school meals will be increased by using Medicaid data to directly certify eligible children, bill supporters said. In addition to providing higher reimbursement rates to schools for lunches, the act directs the Dept. of Agriculture secretary to provide guidance on allowable charges to school food service accounts and ensures that money meant for healthy school meals is not diverted to subsidizing junk food sold a la carte in cafeterias.

The Agriculture Dept. will come up with nutrition standards for what can and can't be sold through vending and a la carte. Moreover, the measure requires the department to update its nutrition standards for foods sold through vending machines, a la carte lines and elsewhere at schools.

Obesity in children costs the U.S. $14.3 billion each year.

Current standards are 30 years out of date and apply only to the cafeteria during mealtimes, according to the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a nutrition and food safety nonprofit based in Washington, D.C.

"Simultaneously tackling childhood obesity and hunger, this bipartisan bill gets a lot of junk food out of schools and a lot of healthier food into schools," said Margo Wootan, the center's director of nutrition policy.

Several physician and medical associations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American College of Preventive Medicine, the American Diabetes Assn., the American Heart Assn. and the American Cancer Society lauded the new law.

"In addition to reauthorizing federal child nutrition programs, the act will help address childhood obesity by reducing the fat and calorie content of school meals," said AAP President O. Marion Burton, MD. "The legislation also sets strict limits for the nutritional content of foods sold in school vending machines and other settings outside the school lunch and breakfast program -- a major step toward healthier eating habits."

The American Public Health Assn., which includes state Medicaid directors, also supports the measure, noting how it helps provide free or reduced-price breakfasts and lunches to almost 31 million children.

It "is a win-win for the health of our nation's children," said Georges C. Benjamin, MD, FACP, executive director of APHA. "It [will] significantly reduce the burden of child hunger in this country and help combat the childhood obesity epidemic that is growing at an alarming rate."

First lady weighs in

While making its way through Congress, the legislation enjoyed the Obama administration's support. First lady Michelle Obama has spearheaded her "Let's Move" initiative, focused on reducing childhood obesity.

A study the Brookings Institution released Aug. 12 concluded that the total costs of obesity in the U.S. may exceed $215 billion annually. Of that amount, $14.3 billion is attributed to children.

On Sept. 2, the American Medical Association issued a statement of support for National Childhood Obesity Awareness Month.

In addition, the AMA utilizes its "Healthier Life Steps" comprehensive online tool to facilitate greater discussion between patients and physicians about healthy lifestyle choices.

The tool kit includes screening checklists, intervention plans and other components.

The print version of this content appeared in the Dec. 27 issue of American Medical News.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

Fighting hunger, improving nutrition

Supporters of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010, which President Obama signed into law Dec. 13, believe it will dramatically improve children's access to nutritious meals because it will:

Connect about 115,000 new students to the school meals programs.
Boost the federal reimbursement rate for school lunches in districts that comply with federal nutrition standards. The six-cents-per-meal rate increase is the first in more than 30 years.
Help communities establish farm-to-school networks, create school gardens and put more local foods in cafeterias. The measure provides $40 million for those changes.
Modernize the Women, Infants and Children program by transitioning to an electronic benefit program.
Provide an additional 21 million meals annually for at-risk children by allowing the providers under the Child and Adult Care Food Program to be reimbursed for meals provided to low-income children after school.
Support breastfeeding for low-income women by bolstering data collection efforts in the WIC program.

Source: The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 (www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s111-3307)

WEBLINK

AMA on combating obesity and promoting healthy lifestyles (www.ama-assn.org/go/obesity)

Llorar como terapia

sábado 26 de febrero de 2011

Llorar como terapia

Hay ciertos nudos que nuestro corazón solo puede aliviar llorando.

En consulta lo comparto con mis pacientes. No existe pastilla que pueda aliviar cuando el corazón pena. Las lágrimas lo pueden hacer. Nos vuelven humanos, nos vuelven vulnerables, nos liberan del peso.

Y en esas lágrimas nos encontramos todos, pacientes y terapeutas, enfermos y sanos. En esa agua salada, que nos recuerda que llevamos por dentro océanos de vida, imparable, infinita.

Permitámonos llorar esas penas que arrastramos por dentro, y liberar así al corazón de un lastre.

Forensic Science Service: hero or villain?

Forensic Science Service: hero or villain? - February 25, 2011

Britain’s plans to close its respected Forensic Science Service could devastate research in the field, a parliamentary inquiry has been told. But the FSS has also been criticised by those giving evidence for keeping its own research secret.

The UK’s coalition government announced plans last year to wind up the Forensic Science Service, which was turned into a commercial company in 2005. This triggered warnings that the move could be a body blow to UK researchers (see: Fears mount for forensic research).

Many of the leading lights in the field have reiterated those warnings in written evidence to a select committee inquiry on the closure.

“If the proposed closure of the Forensic Science Service (FSS) goes ahead it will severely damage the research and development of scientific methods for the successful investigation of crime and the logical evaluation and interpretation of evidence,” warns the Statistics and Law working group of the Royal Statistical Society in its evidence.

The emergence of new ideas in forensics will be “severely curtailed” by the loss of the FSS, say many of those giving evidence. The developer of DNA forensics, Alec Jeffreys, says that the loss of expertise from its closure and the loss of a focal point for UK forensic science could delay the uptake of new techniques from academia by front-line forensics. It is, he says, “potentially disastrous”.

Not everyone agrees on the eminent reputation of the FSS though.

Director of the Forensic Institute, Allan Jamieson, says, “In our experience, the recent much-lauded FSS Ltd research - for example, on Low Copy Number or LCN DNA profiling - has not been subject to proper scientific scrutiny. This scrutiny is made even more difficult by the resistance of the FSS Ltd to disclose data and, even when disclosure is forced by the Courts, the insistence that the data cannot be disclosed to the scientific community.”

Data disclosure could be a fraught issue in future. In his evidence – and in conversation with the BBC - Peter Gill of the University of Oslo says that courts have and will reject evidence if companies try to keep their proprietary methods secret.

He notes a recent case where the judge criticized the FSS for using a commercially confidential database that was not available for peer review or to other scientists. A retrial was ordered in that case.

“Commercialisation does not promote exchange of data, collaboration and convergence,” he writes. “Neither does it promote openness.”

Exhibits 1 through 3: inquiry evidence in quotes

“Research and development cost money, and not all techniques and processes that are looked into will yield financially viable products for a private firm. Without any established research, there is unlikely to be any future development of forensic science, except for any that has currently been completed by the Forensic Science Service but is not yet available to any of the privately owned providers.”
Current FSS scientist Colin Osmond.

“If the FSS is wound down, it is not clear who will fill the R&D vacuum. R&D, which is an extremely expensive long-term function, cannot be allowed to stagnate. Whilst other companies clearly have a R&D role, the impact of the loss of the FSS research function should not be underestimated.”
The Criminal Cases Review Commission, established by the government to investigate alleged miscarriages of justice.
“The proposed closure of the Forensic Science Service is ill-thought out, premature and at this stage likely to undermine the international status and reputation of what has been achieved in this field over many years.”
Independent forensic scientist Ronald Denney.

Posted by Daniel Cressey on February 25, 2011
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