Posts Tagged Health
Cheerios not as heart-healthy
as cereal box claims, says FDA
Updated Tuesday, May 12th 2009, 2:50 PM
Sullivan/Getty
Cheerios are not as healthy as advertised, says the Food and Drug Administration.
It’s enough to make you just bust out the bacon and eggs.
Cheerios, the best-selling cereal in the world, isn’t as healthy as its packaging leads shoppers to believe, according to the Food and Drug Administration.
In a letter to General Mills Inc., regulators scolded the company for “serious violations” and gave it 15 days to fix claims that the iconic ‘Os’ lower cholesterol and treat heart disease.
A Cheerios box makes several claims about health benefits, including this boast: “You can lower your cholesterol 4 percent in six weeks.”
Only FDA-approved drugs can make those claims, the regulators wrote, repeatedly calling the labels statements “unauthorized.”
It also slaps the company’s Web site, www.wholegrainnation.com, for promising the same health benefits and failing to mention that fruits and vegetables can also reduce risks.
“Therefore, your claim does not convey that all these factors together help to reduce the risk of heart disease and does not enable the public to understand the significance of the claim in the context of the total daily diet,” the letter said.
General Mills said in a statement that it’s not the science behind their claims that is under attack, just the way their boxes are labeled.
They added that they’ve made the same health claims for years.
“The science is not in question,” said spokesman Tom Forsythe. “The FDA is interested in how the Cheerios cholesterol-lowering information is presented on the Cheerios package and Web site.”
If General Mills doesn’t comply, it could face a court injunction or product seizure.
With News Wire Services
Wednesday,May 13, 2009
BABY BOOMERS’ DRUG BOOM
BABY BOOMERS’ DRUG BOOM
By CHUCK BENNETT
November 17, 2008 –
Baby boomers are smoking pot and popping pills at an alarming rate, even as drug abuse among teens is decreasing, according to federal and local health data.
Some 5 percent of Americans in their 50s reported abusing drugs “in the past month” in 2007, compared with just 2.7 percent in 2002, researchers found.
1 comment Tuesday,November 18, 2008
Confronting the Racial Barriers Between Doctors and Patients
Doctor and PatientConfronting the Racial Barriers Between Doctors and Patients
By PAULINE W. CHEN, M.D.
Last Tuesday, like most of the country, I stayed up too late watching the election results come in and then became emotional when it was clear that Barack Obama, an African-American, was going to be our next president. Wednesday morning’s New York Times captured the most salient part of the moment for me in its headlines: “Racial Barrier Falls in Decisive Victory.”
But a few days later, as I thought more about racial barriers, I started to question my election euphoria. In politics, the racial barriers might have fallen, I thought, but what about in health care?
There is no question that racial barriers still exist in many parts of this society. The first time I remember having a frank conversation about racial barriers in medicine was during my residency.
Of all the surgical residents I trained with, “Eric” was easily one of the smartest. He possessed a great bedside manner, brilliant clinical skills and plenty of that Obama cool. Eric was African-American, and one night, when we were both on call together, he told me something I have never forgotten.
“You know, Pauline,” he said, “there are a lot of times when I go to a patient’s room for the first time and they ask me, ‘Are you transport? Are you here to wheel me to radiology?’” I can remember Eric shaking his head as he spoke. “They never assume I’m one of the doctors.”
Most of the research over the last 30 years has focused on the racial inequalities that affect patients; and the findings have been dismal. In 2002, the Institute of Medicine published a report that cited multiple examples of disparities across a wide range of health care and disease settings. African-Americans, for instance, were more likely to undergo less desirable procedures like amputation of all or part of a limb, while minorities with some forms of lung cancer had higher mortality rates because they were less likely to have surgery.
While there are probably multiple factors involved, researchers over the past decade have looked at how patients’ and doctors’ race and ethnicity might contribute to these disparities. One of the leading researchers in this area is Dr. Somnath Saha at the Oregon Health and Science University in Portland. Dr. Saha and his colleagues have shown that minority patients and white patients report better health care experiences when their doctors are of the same race or ethnicity .
But as my residency colleague, Eric, could attest, race and ethnicity can also influence the experiences of minority physicians. A recent study by Dr. Irena Stepanikova from the University of South Carolina notes that white patients who had non-white physicians were more likely to report a medical error than white patients with white doctors.
After reading through these study results, I decided to give Dr. Saha a call. I thought I would initially ask a couple of questions about his research, but I could not help starting with the election.
“On the one hand,” Dr. Saha said, “Obama’s election really provides some hope for people who thought it was impossible. But his election doesn’t automatically change what happens on the ground floor. Part of the downside of this historical event is that we may no longer believe that race can create a disadvantage. We may forget that we still do look at certain racial and ethnic minorities in a different way — not consciously but unconsciously.”
“I think the first step in addressing the disparities,“ Dr. Saha continued, “is really acknowledging that certain things affect the way we deliver care — our own stereotypes, our own cultural upbringing, our own ‘anxiety meters’ when we are interacting with people who aren’t like the people we grew up with.”
I never forgot my conversation with Eric because I, as an Asian-American woman, have had similar experiences. When working on consults with a white medical student or resident, I have watched physicians from other departments in the hospital look past me in order to speak to them. When preparing to operate on organ donor patients in other hospitals, I have had nurses and scrub technicians walk by me to help my assistants first, assuming that they were the lead surgeons.
But my own experiences were not the only reason I remembered Eric this past week. I remembered because our frank discussion was deeply unsettling. In order to empathize with my colleague and friend, I had to do the very thing Dr. Saha was talking about: I had to acknowledge my own biases and stereotypes first. And that was not easy.
I have prided myself on being as fair and as compassionate a doctor as I could be. But I am also very much the daughter of Taiwanese immigrants; and when, for example, I see patients or colleagues who come from a similar background, empathy comes almost automatically.
However, when I meet individuals whose race or ethnicity differs from mine — individuals who, for instance, are black, white, Hispanic or American Indian — there are fewer shared experiences. So I, like others, unconsciously tap into past experiences in order to bolster the connection and bring a greater sense of familiarity to the interaction. And it’s difficult to acknowledge that what I have tapped into may not always be fair.
“I think the key is getting to know each patient’s story and to treat each patient as an individual,” Dr. Saha said. “In doing so, you can really begin to understand where he or she is coming from. Empathy is really walking in their shoes, getting to know them, and putting your own biases aside.”
“It takes time to do that, Pauline,” Dr. Saha reflected. “But when it happens, it can really be a powerful thing.”
Join the discussion on the Well blog, “The Color of Medicine.”
Friday,November 14, 2008
GOTTA HAND IT TO GALS
GOTTA HAND IT TO GALSBy RANDOLPH E. SCHMID, AP
November 4, 2008 –
WASHINGTON – Wash your hands, folks.
Especially you, ladies.
A study has found that women carry a greater variety of bacteria on their hands than men do – and that we all have more types of bacteria on our hands than expected.
“The sheer number of bacteria species detected on the hands of the study participants was a big surprise, as was the greater diversity of bacteria we found on the hands of women,” said lead researcher Noah Fierer, an assistant professor at the University Colorado’s department of ecology and evolutionary biology.
The researchers aren’t sure why women hold a wider scope of bacteria than men. Fierer and study co-author Rob Knight, a Colorado biochemistry professor, think it may have to do with men generally having more acidic skin than women.
But they cited as other possibilities the difference in sweat- and oil-gland production, the frequency of moisturizer or cosmetics applications, skin thickness, and hormone production.
Women also may have more bacteria living under the skin’s surface, where they’re not accessible to washing, Knight added.
The researchers took samples from the palms of 51 college students and tested them with a new, highly detailed system for detecting bacteria DNA.
They identified 4,742 species of bacteria, only five of which were found on every hand, they reported on yesterday’s online edition of The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The average hand had 150 species of bacteria.
Asked whether guys should worry about holding hands with girls, Knight quipped, “I guess it depends on which girl.”
But he noted that “the vast majority of the bacteria we have on our bodies are either harmless or beneficial.”
And while the researchers stressed the importance of regular hand washing, they warned that soap and water alone don’t eliminate bacteria.
“Either the bacterial colonies rapidly reestablish or washing does not remove the majority of bacteria found on the skin surface,” they wrote.
Tuesday,November 4, 2008
Retired Transit Employees, Suffering Severe Illnesses, File Suit in New York Supreme Court
Retired Transit Employees, Suffering Severe Illnesses, File Suit in New York Supreme CourtLast update: 4:46 p.m. EDT Aug. 18, 2008
NEW YORK, Aug 18, 2008 /PRNewswire-USNewswire via COMTEX/ — Manufacturers of Diesel Engines and Buses Are the Target
Claiming that decades of exposure to diesel fumes at 19 Transit Authority-owned and -operated bus depots caused severe medical repercussions, 13 former transit employees or their next of kin today filed suit in New York Supreme Court in three counties (New York, Kings and Bronx) against the manufactures of diesel engines and buses, including General Motors, Grumman, Detroit Diesel, and Cummins Diesel.The 13 plaintiffs worked a combined 254,159 hours in 19 unventilated bus depots without exhaust systems from 1958 to 1999, as bus drivers, bus shifters, and bus mechanics for the Transit Authority and Manhattan and Bronx Surface Transit Operating Authority. [click here for more]
Tuesday,August 19, 2008
FEDS’ WARNING SHOT – ” GARDASIL “
FEDS’ WARNING SHOT
By SUSAN EDELMAN and BRUCE GOLDING
July 6, 2008 —
GARDASIL – a new cervical-cancer vaccine heavily marketed to young girls in ubiquitous ads on TV and in movie theaters – is under investigation for possible links to paralysis, seizures, and 18 deaths.
Federal health officials have logged 8,000 “adverse events” in girls and women injected with the Merck & Co. vaccine introduced two years ago, more than 500 of them from New York.
And lawyers last month filed the first two claims on behalf of girls with ailments blamed on Gardasil under a federal program to compensate victims of vaccine-caused illness, The Post has learned.
Both girls got the injections at their middle schools.
One is Jesalee Parsons, now 15, of Oklahoma, who began vomiting the day she got a Gardasil shot and developed pancreatitis, her claim says.
“It makes me mad because they’re saying how great it is, but they never mention how many people have been hurt by it,” Jesalee told The Post.
Healthy all her life, her family says, Jesalee has been hospitalized on and off for more than a year. She restricts her diet, takes pain pills and misses many school days.
“I’m pretty sick all the time,” she said.
The other claim was filed for Jessica Vega of Nevada, who came down with Guillain-Barré Syndrome, an immune-system disorder, at age 14 – a week after her second Gardasil shot.
Thirty others have reported the syndrome after getting the vaccine.
JESSICA’S mom, Rhonda Vega, says the girl’s lower legs and arms were paralyzed, but she’s learned to walk again. “Protecting girls against cervical cancer is a fabulous thing, but if this is what’s going to happen, they need to research it more,” she said.
In Florida, the mother of 13-year-old Brittany LeClaire said her daughter suffered headaches and lethargy after a Gardasil shot last Aug. 13. On Sept. 2, Brittany’s left leg became paralyzed. After months on a walker, she limps.
Her pediatrician “highly recommended” the vaccination, mom Christina Bell said. “He told me it was a cancer preventative. I thought it was the right thing to do. You see it advertised on TV every 15 minutes.”
Brittany’s case is one of six being prepared for filing by Boston vaccine lawyer Kevin Conway. He said other cases include “paralysis, seizures and brain damage.”
Gardasil was licensed by the Food and Drug Administration in June 2006 for females ages 9 to 26. Sold worldwide, it’s been given to more than 8 million US girls and women, Merck says.
The vaccine is aimed at warding off strains of the human papillomavirus, or HPV, which can lead to cancer. The vaccinations cost a total $360.
Securities and Exchange Commission documents show Merck made $1.5 billion in Gardasil sales last year.
ONE doctor who helped conduct clinical trials on Gardasil told The Post the vaccine has been aggressively marketed to girls too young to need it.
“There’s a huge push for giving this to girls 11 and 12 years of age,” said Dr. Diane Harper of Dartmouth Medical School. “There’s no hurry. You can give it to someone who is 20, 25 or 30 and still have the same level of protection.”
The Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, run by the FDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has collected thousands of reports of health problems after Gardasil shots.
The fatalities include:
* A 17-year-old New York girl who collapsed and died on Feb. 22 this year, two days after the last of three Gardasil injections. An autopsy could not pinpoint the cause, but doctors suspect a heart-rhythm disorder.
* An 11-year-old who suffered a heart attack in May 2007, three days after a Gardasil shot. The nurse who reported it said a doctor blamed it on “an anaphylactic [severe allergic] reaction to Gardasil.” The feds could not confirm the case.
* A 12-year-old girl with no prior medical problems who died in her sleep on Oct. 6, 2007, three weeks after a Gardasil shot.
DR. John Iskander, the CDC’s acting director for immunization safety, said a review of 10 confirmed deaths found no common thread. Officials “concluded to the degree of certainty possible” that Gardasil wasn’t to blame.
“It’s tragic that young, apparently healthy people, do die,” Iskander said.
But he added that doctors hold special meetings weekly to review new cases, and compare them to prior ones.
Fainting is the main symptom linked to Gardasil, he said.
Merck spokeswoman Kelley Dougherty said the company “actively monitors” reports of side effects.
“An event report does not mean that a causal relationship between an event and vaccination has been established – just that the event occurred after vaccination,” she said.
A Post analysis of adverse- event reports filed through April 30 found that about 20 percent followed injections of Gardasil, plus up to seven other vaccines at the same time – including shots to prevent flu, chicken pox, hepatitis and tetanus. Almost 6,300 cases involved Gardasil alone.
Under a federal law passed in the late 1980s, victims of vaccines may file a claim under the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, but cannot sue the pharmaceutical.
Last year, the government added HPV to a list of vaccines, including polio, hepatitis and measles, granted immunity from suit.
If victims prove a vaccine likely caused injuries, the program pays a maximum $250,000 for death. The average payment for injury has been $1 million.
20 comments Sunday,July 6, 2008
The Punany Poets of HBO’s Real Sex perform comedy, poetry and dance in an interactive cabaret show
The Punany Poets of HBO’s Real Sex perform comedy, poetry and dance in an interactive cabaret show
Head in a New York Minute
Sunday, July 27th, 2008
The Players Theater
115 MacDougall Street
New York, NY 10012
The Punany Poets (of HBO/BET) perform live in new York City on July 27th, 2008 at The Players Theater 115 MacDougall Street, New York, NY 10012. For ticket information visit http://www.punanysplayhouse.com
Punany is more than a show. It is a movement that has ignited an international conversation about Love & Sexual Health. Punany is a sensual theatrical science that can foster a commitment to public health as no other public service campaign ever has. The Punany project spearheaded what has now become known as the Black Sexual Revolution, which uses poetry to promote health/sexual safety and AIDS awareness. The Punany Project seeks to educate through entertainment, employing new and innovative methods to deliver complex messages.
Our audience members are adult students in a college of sexual health improvement. Since the project began in 1995, The Punany Poets’ work has found favor among millions of television viewers, literary critics and scholars. But enough about us, you will know for yourself. We encourage you to sit back, relax, and enjoy the show!
4 comments Sunday,July 6, 2008
34 Arrested for Selling Crack Cocaine
34 Arrested for Selling Crack Cocaine [ The New York Sun]
34 Arrested for Selling Crack CocaineBy Special to the Sun
June 19, 2008Thirty-four members of two drug-dealing organizations who shared one city housing project were arrested yesterday morning for selling crack cocaine.
Manhattan North Narcotics captain Donald Boller said the two groups “had an agreement” to split in half the Lincoln Houses territory, which extends from 132nd to 135th street, between Fifth and Park avenues. Madison Avenue runs through the middle of the housing project, and served as the dealers’ property line.
Thursday,June 19, 2008
