Biggest Study on Cellphone Health Effects Launched
April 23, 2010
Reuters.com
by Kate Holton and Georgina Prodhan
The Cohort Study on Mobile Communications (COSMOS) differs from previous attempts to examine links between cellphone use and diseases such as cancer and neurological disorders in that it will follow users’ behavior in real time.
Most other large-scale studies have centered around asking people already suffering from cancer or other diseases about their previous mobile-phone use. They have also been shorter, since cellphones have only been widely used for about a decade.
“One of the limitations of research to date is that when you ask people about their mobile phone use say five years ago there’s a lot of error,” said Jack Rowley, director of research and sustainability at industry body the GSM Association.
About 5 billion mobile phones are in use worldwide. To date, groups such as the World Health Organization, the American Cancer Society and the National Institutes of Health have found no evidence that cellphone use harms health.
“Research to date has necessarily mainly focused on use in the short term, less than 10 years,” principal investigator Professor Paul Elliott of the School of Public Health at London’s Imperial College told a news conference.
“The COSMOS study will be looking at long-term use, 10, 20 or 30 years. And with long-term monitoring there will be time for diseases to develop,” he said.
The COSMOS study forms part of the Mobile Telecommunications and Health Research Program (MTHR), a UK body funded by a variety of government and industry sources and run by independent experts, mostly university academics.
Professor Lawrie Challis from MTHR said: “Many cancers take 10, 15 years for the symptoms to appear. So we’ve got to address the question: Could there be something out there that we need to look at?”
TRILLION-DOLLAR INDUSTRY
The GSMA’s Rowley estimated that more than $100 million had been spent so far around the world on research into health risks from mobile phone usage.
Global spending on wireless equipment and services provided by companies such as Nokia, Ericsson and Huawei surpassed $1 trillion for the first time in 2009, according to technology research firm iSuppli.
The COSMOS study is recruiting participants aged 18-69 in Britain, Finland, the Netherlands, Sweden and Denmark through mobile carriers. It will use data from volunteers’ phone bills and health records as well as questionnaires.
Rowley, while welcoming the planned study, said organizers might have trouble finding enough volunteers, citing a previous attempt to carry out a similar study on a smaller scale in Germany in 2004, which foundered on privacy concerns.
In Britain, COSMOS is inviting 2.4 million mobile phone users to take part, through the country’s four top carriers: Vodafone, O2, T-Mobile and Orange. It hopes 90,000-100,000 will agree.
By late Thursday afternoon, 232 had signed up.
The study will examine all health developments and look for links to neurological diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s as well as cancer.
It will also take account of how users carry their phone — for example in a trouser or chest pocket or in a bag — and whether they use hand-free kits.
A spokesman for Britain’s Health Protection Agency, an independent public body, said the study had the potential to give very reliable results.
“The Department of Epidemiology and Public Health at Imperial College is one of the best research centers in the world for this type of study,” he said.
COSMOS will announce its findings as it progresses.
Click here to read the full article
Potentially Deadly Fungus Spreads Through Pacific Northwest
April 23, 2010
AlterNet.org
A potentially deadly strain of fungus is spreading among animals and people in the northwestern United States and the Canadian province of British Columbia, researchers reported on Thursday.
The airborne fungus, called Cryptococcus gattii, usually only infects transplant and AIDS patients and people with otherwise compromised immune systems, but the new strain is genetically different, the researchers said.
“This novel fungus is worrisome because it appears to be a threat to otherwise healthy people,” said Edmond Byrnes of Duke University in North Carolina, who led the study.
“The findings presented here document that the outbreak of C. gattii in Western North America is continuing to expand throughout this temperate region,” the researchers said in their report, published in the Public Library of Science journal PLoS Pathogens at http://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.ppat.1000850.
“Our findings suggest further expansion into neighboring regions is likely to occur and aim to increase disease awareness in the region.”
The new strain appears to be unusually deadly, with a mortality rate of about 25 percent among the 21 U.S. cases analyzed, they said.
“From 1999 through 2003, the cases were largely restricted to Vancouver Island,” the report reads.
“Between 2003 and 2006, the outbreak expanded into neighboring mainland British Columbia and then into Washington and Oregon from 2005 to 2009. Based on this historical trajectory of expansion, the outbreak may continue to expand into the neighboring region of Northern California, and possibly further.”
The spore-forming fungus can cause symptoms in people and animals two weeks or more after exposure. They include a cough that lasts for weeks, sharp chest pain, shortness of breath, headache, fever, nighttime sweats and weight loss.
It has also turned up in cats, dogs, an alpaca and a sheep.
Freezing can kill the fungus and climate change may be helping it spread, the researchers said.
Obamacare Creates Even More Profit for Big Pharma
April 22, 2010 by ktradio
Filed under Government
April 22, 2010
Mercola
By: Dr. Mercola
The healthcare bill may soon be creating even more profits for the pharmaceutical companies, thanks to a change in the tax code that affects flexible spending accounts (FSA) or health savings accounts (HSA).
Consumers can use these pre-tax accounts to pay for eligible health care expenses — expenses that used to include over-the-counter medications. Under the new healthcare bill, however, only prescribed medications will be covered. As written in Newsmax:
“ … Section 9004 of the Senate bill the House … as well as Section 531 of the House bill that passed in November, changes the tax code so that “distribution for medicine” from HSAs and FSAs are “qualified only if for prescribed drug or insulin.”
Yes, the bills are merciful enough to allow diabetics to purchase insulin under these tax plans, but if you or your family members need Pedialyte, prenatal vitamins, or numerous other OTC health items, you will see a tax hike that could be huge.
Since HSAs and FSA contributions are exempt from both income taxes and 15.3 percent payroll tax for Social Security and Medicare, and since these together can reach more than 40 percent of an employee’s salary, the effective tax increase on these medicines could be more than 40 percent.
And this tax change will almost certainly cost the healthcare system billions more dollars in unnecessary spending both to the government and private insurance plans.”
This is only one aspect of the healthcare bill that could end up costing the government more money. According to Robert J. Samuelson in the Washington Post, the plan may also trigger a budget crisis. He writes:
“Two weeks before the House vote, the Congressional Budget Office released its estimate of Obama’s budget, including its health-care program. From 2011 to 2020, the cumulative deficit is almost $10 trillion. Adding 2009 and 2010, the total rises to $12.7 trillion.
In 2020, the projected annual deficit is $1.25 trillion, equal to 5.6 percent of the economy (gross domestic product). That assumes economic recovery, with unemployment at 5 percent. Spending is almost 30 percent higher than taxes. Total debt held by the public rises from 40 percent of GDP in 2008 to 90 percent in 2020, close to its post-World War II peak.”
Click here for the full report.
Over 2,000 Photos from Airport Body Scanners Seized By The Government
April 22,2010
Epic
As a result of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, EPIC has obtained hundreds of pages of documents from the Department of Homeland Security about the plan to deploy full body scanners in US airports. A letter to EPIC reveals that the government agency possesses about 2,000 body scanner photos from devices that the DHS said earlier “could not store or record images.” EPIC has also obtained the most recent device procurement specifications, and several hundred new pages of traveler complaints.
Click here for the full report.
TSA Joins NYPD in Subway Baggage Screening
April 22, 2010
DNA info
By: Jill Colvin
Strangers on their way to and from work Wednesday were surprised to see Transportation Security Administration officials, who usually screen luggage in airports, checking bags at local subway stations.
The TSA launched a pilot partnership with the NYPD Wednesday morning to enhance security on city trains, a spokeswoman for the TSA said. About a dozen stations are covered daily, according to the NYPD.
“While there is no specific threat to mass transit in the United States at this time, TSA and NYPD continuously work together to strengthen overall security efforts and keep the American people safe,” the Administration said in a statement.
At the 40th Street and 8th Avenue entrance to the Port Authority 42nd Street station, TSA staffers began randomly searching passengers at 4 p.m. The searches were expected to last through the evening rush.
Screeners said that passengers are generally happy to comply.
“For the most part, people co-operate fully,” said NYPD Lt. Francis O’Keeffe, who oversaw the operation.
Latifa Ziyad, who is visiting from Boston her three daughters, said she is fine with the searches if they make people safer.
“As long as I’m not getting singled out because I look a certain way, it’s okay,” she said.
Others were willing but eager to get on with their days.
“It’s alright, I’ve got thing to hide,” said accountant Ramone Esmilla, 50, as officers tested his knapsack, which was filled with gym clothes. “But I just want to get out of here and pick up my kid.”
The Administration has nicknamed the teams, which randomly screen passengers’ bags using chemical swabs, “VIPR”s (pronounced viper): Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response.
Subway baggage checks have been routinely conducted by the NYPD since 2005 following the London subway bombings.
TSA spokeswoman Ann Davis would not say how long the Administration expects the program to last, except that mass transit riders should anticipate a TSA presence underground “for the foreseeable future.”
Click here for the full report.
Why Were CIA Interrogation Tapes Destroyed?
April 22, 2010
Time
By: Robert Baer
The case of the missing 92 CIA interrogation tapes would be a good subject for a modern day Agatha Christie mystery. Someone at the CIA decided the tapes had to be destroyed — even at the risk of an obstruction of justice charge — but no one’s confessing. By now John Durham, the assistant U.S. attorney investigating the tapes’ destruction, must be scratching his head wondering if everyone at the CIA was complicit. (See the Top 10 CIA Movies.)
What we know to be fact is that in 2005, the then-head of the CIA’s clandestine service, Jose Rodriguez, ordered the destruction of 92 videotapes of the interrogation in Thailand of two al-Qaeda suspects. The tapes were then destroyed, but that’s where the trail ends. We can only guess whether Rodriguez acted on his own authority or on the orders of a higher-up. And then there’s the question of why the tapes were destroyed. Did the CIA want to destroy graphic evidence of sleep-deprivation or waterboarding? They were interrogation methods approved by the Department of Justice in memos sent to the CIA, and therefore shouldn’t have been deemed a legal problem. The closest thing we come to answer is an internal CIA e-mail released last Thursday, in which an unidentified CIA officer writes that Rodriguez decided to destroy the tapes because they made the CIA “look horrible; it would be devastating to us.” (See pictures of the waterboarding protest.)
But was Rodriguez acting on his own, or following orders? Rodriguez’s lawyer said his client had cleared the decision up and down the CIA’s chain of command, even notifying Congress. The CIA director at the time, Porter Goss, denies it, saying he never approved the decision to destroy the tapes. But in one e-mail an unidentified CIA official writes that Goss had approved the tapes’ destruction — but only after the fact. The CIA’s acting General Counsel at the time, John Rizzo, also denies he knew of the decision, and says he was informed only after the tapes’ destruction.
What adds to the mystery is that it wasn’t as if the tapes’ disposal was a routine administrative matter, easily lost in the press of business. One of the internal CIA e-mails described White House counsel Harriet E. Miers as “livid” when she heard about the tapes being destroyed, especially since she’d instructed that she be consulted before any decision was made about what do with the tapes. (Read “Five Questions for the CIA IG’s Interrogation Report.”)
I haven’t been able to clear up the mystery either, beyond the fact that a former CIA officer aware of the details of the 2002 interrogation of the two al-Qaeda suspects told me that the tapes’ images were “horrific.” He believes that although the interrogations fell within the guidelines provided by the Department of Justice, if the public ever saw them, it would conclude that “enhanced interrogation” is just another name for torture.
But what’s really too bad is that Durham hasn’t been tasked with explaining the broader mystery of why, in the first place, the CIA is even interrogating prisoners of war. The 1947 National Security Act established the CIA as a civilian spy agency, not as some Pentagon backroom where you get to do things you don’t want the American people to find out about. But more to the point, the military is much better equipped to interrogate prisoners. It has its own interrogation school at Fort Huachuca, not to mention hundreds of language-qualified and experienced interrogators. It also has the Uniform Code of Military Justice to deal with interrogations that have gone bad. (Some almost inevitably do.) Unlike the CIA, military interrogators have immediate access to legal counsel. It’s not an accident that military misdeeds such as those at Abu Ghraib go right to trial, while CIA investigations drag on for years — and drag down morale.
Click here for the full report.
Millions Face Tax Hike Under Dem Budget Plan
April 22, 2010
Yahoo! News
By: Andrew Taylor
President Barack Obama’s Democratic allies in the Senate promise to cut the deficit by almost two-thirds over the next five years, but their budget plan could threaten about 30 million people with tax increases averaging $3,700 in 2012 and after because of the alternative minimum tax.
The alternative is tax increases elsewhere in the revenue code averaging up to $100 billion a year after 2011 to continue alternative minimum tax relief and also curb taxes on people inheriting large estates.
The Democratic plan released Wednesday by Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad of North Dakota relies on such boosts in revenues to carve the deficit from $1.4 trillion last year down to $545 billion by 2015.
The minimum tax, or AMT, was enacted four decades ago to make sure wealthy people couldn’t avoid taxes altogethe. But it wasn’t indexed for inflation in people’s incomes, so it gets “patched” every year or so in order to prevent people from being surprised by multi-thousand-dollar tax bills at tax time.
Estates larger than $7 million would also be threatened with higher taxes after 2011 if Conrad’s plan is carried out.
Conrad says lawmakers will have to find revenues elsewhere in the budget to pay for AMT and estate tax relief after 2011, which could require tax increases averaging up to $100 billion a year elsewhere in the code if Congress is going to keep its promises under tough new budget rules.
Conrad says he hopes the dilemma will force Congress to overhaul the complicated and inefficient U.S. tax code. The Tax Policy Center, a joint project of the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute, says that 33 million taxpayers would face the AMT in 2012, adding $3,700 on average to their tax liabilities.
Extending AMT and estate tax relief would cost $300-$400 billion over 2012-2015, Conrad said. Many observers say it’ll be virtually impossible for Congress to produce offsetting revenues to extend the tax relief. GOP Sen. Judd Gregg of New Hampshire predicted that when Congress confronts the problem in two years it will blink and simply borrow the money as it has done in the past.
The looming tax hikes result from the structure of President George W. Bush’s 2001 and 2003 tax bills, whose provisions generally expire at the end of this year. Obama promises to fully extend them except for individuals earning more than $200,000 a year and couple making $250,000 a year. They include lower income tax rates, a $1,000 per-child tax credit, and tax breaks for investments and reductions in the estate tax, and their five-year cost of almost $800 billion would be covered by adding to the nation’s $12.8 trillion debt.
But in the case of the AMT and estate tax, congressional Democrats have broken with Obama and promise that after two years of deficit-financed alternative minimum tax and estate tax cuts, Congress will have to come up with the money.
“If we want those things taken care of … they’ve got to be paid for,” Conrad said.
That’s easier said than done.
Gregg said the Democratic plan is “a budget that kicks the can down the road. More spending. More deficits. More debt. Less prosperity.”
The annual congressional budget is a nonbinding blueprint for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1 and sets the parameters for subsequent tax and spending bills. This year, that means a cut of almost $9.5 billion from domestic agency budgets and foreign aid and a freeze, on average, of those accounts for the following two years.
Conrad’s plan, to be approved by the Budget panel Thursday, would permit Democrats to advance legislation on priorities such as taxes, energy and job creation without fear of a Republican filibuster. That could boost clean energy programs and revive Obama’s stalled jobs agenda.
Democrats haven’t decided exactly what to include in the filibuster-proof measure, though Conrad promised it wouldn’t be used to pass deeply controversial legislation to curb global warming.
Click here for the full report.
Obama Unveils New Euro-Looking $100 Bill
April 22, 2010
Bloomberg
By: Vincent Del Giudice
U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke introduced the latest remake of the $100 bill, featuring advanced security designs and a larger portrait of founding father Benjamin Franklin.
The bills, viewable at http://www.newmoney.gov/, will go into circulation in February 2011.
The new look, aimed at thwarting counterfeiters, has several new security features, including a “3-D Security Ribbon” and an image of a bell on the front of the note that, when tilted, changes in color from copper to green. The reverse side of the bill includes a new vignette of Independence Hall in Philadelphia.
“As with previous U.S. currency redesigns, this note incorporates the best technology available to ensure we’re staying ahead of counterfeiters,” said Geithner, whose signature appears on the bills.
The bills also retain from the previous version a portrait watermark of Franklin, who signed the Declaration of Independence, as well as a security thread and a “color- shifting” numeral 100, officials announced at the unveiling ceremony at the Treasury in Washington.
“When the new design $100 note is issued on Feb. 10, 2011, the approximately 6.5 billion older design $100s already in circulation will remain legal tender,” Bernanke said. “U.S. currency users should know they will not have to trade in their older design $100 notes when the new ones begin circulating.”
The $100 bill is the largest denomination note printed by the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, a division of the Treasury. Larger denominations of $500, $1,000 and more are no longer issued but remain in circulation, especially among collectors.
Click here for the full report.
Wholesale Prices Rise More Than Expected Due To Jump In Food Costs
April 22, 2010
Yahoo! Finance
By: Christopher S. Rugaber
Wholesale prices rose more than expected last month as food prices surged by the most in 26 years. But excluding food and energy, prices were nearly flat.
The Labor Department said the Producer Price Index rose by 0.7 percent in March, compared to analysts’ forecasts of a 0.4 percent rise. A rise in gas prices also helped push up the index.
Still, there was little sign of budding inflation in the report. Excluding volatile food and energy costs, wholesale prices rose by 0.1 percent, matching analysts’ expectations.
Food prices jumped by 2.4 percent in March, the most since January 1984. Vegetable prices soared by more than 49 percent, the most in 15 years. A cold snap wiped out much of Florida’s tomato and other vegetable crops at the beginning of this year.
Gasoline prices rose 2.1 percent, the department said, the fifth rise in six months.
In the past year, wholesale prices are up 6 percent, with much of that increase driven by higher oil and other commodity prices. But the core index, which excludes food and energy, rose only 0.9 percent.
Consumers are facing smaller price increases, as many companies are reluctant to pass on higher costs. Last week, the Labor Department said the consumer price index rose only 0.1 percent in March. Excluding food and energy, the core consumer index was unchanged.
Core consumer prices rose by just 1.1 percent in the past 12 months, the department said last week, the best showing since January 2004.
Several economists noted that the wholesale price report showed increasing costs at earlier stages of production. That could pressure companies to raise prices later this year. Crude goods prices, excluding food and energy, rose 6 percent in the last 12 months, the department said.
But with unemployment high and credit tight, consumers’ spending power is crimped, limiting the ability of retailers and other firms to pass on the higher costs.
“Today’s report … does not bring any renewed concerns about inflation in the immediate future,” Dan Greenhaus, chief economic strategist at Miller Tabak, wrote in a report to clients.
Low levels of inflation also allow the Federal Reserve to hold down interest rates. The Fed has kept the short-term interest rate it controls at a record low of near zero in an effort to boost the economy.
Click here for the full report.
Monsanto Under Investigation by 7 States
April 22, 2010 by ktradio
Filed under Government
April 22, 2010
Mercola
By: Dr. Mercola
“At least seven U.S. state attorney generals are investigating whether Monsanto Company has abused its market power to lock out competitors and raise prices on seed,” the Organic Consumers Association reports.
This adds to the increasing pressures on the agricultural biotech giant.
The seven states are “probing whether Monsanto violated laws by offering rebates to seed distributors for excluding rival seeds, imposing limits on combining the product with other genetic modifications, or offering cash incentives to switch farmers to more expensive generation of seed varieties.”
In addition to that, Monsanto’s marketing practices are being reviewed by the US Justice Department, and DuPont Company has accused Monsanto of anti-competitive practices in licensing litigation.
Click here for the full report.
