Airports Consider Call To Ditch TSA
November 19, 2010 by Andrew
Filed under Government
November 19th, 2010
The Associated Press
In a climate of Internet campaigns to shun airport pat-downs and veteran pilots suing over their treatment by government screeners, some airports are considering another way to show dissatisfaction: Ditching TSA agents altogether.
Federal law allows airports to opt for screeners from the private sector instead. The push is being led by a powerful Florida congressman who’s a longtime critic of the Transportation Security Administration and counts among his campaign contributors some of the companies who might take the TSA’s place.
Furor over airline passenger checks has grown as more airports have installed scanners that produce digital images of the body’s contours, and the anger intensified when TSA added a more intrusive style of pat-down recently for those who opt out of the full-body scans. Some travelers are using the Internet to organize protests aimed at the busy travel days next week surrounding Thanksgiving.
For Republican Rep. John Mica of Florida, the way to make travelers feel more comfortable would be to kick TSA employees out of their posts at the ends of the snaking security lines. This month, he wrote letters to nation’s 100 busiest airports asking that they request private security guards instead.
“I think we could use half the personnel and streamline the system,” Mica said Wednesday, calling the TSA a bloated bureaucracy.
Mica is the ranking Republican on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. Once the new Congress convenes in January, the lawmaker is expected lead the committee.
Companies that could gain business if airports heed Mica’s call have helped fill his campaign coffers. In the past 13 years, Mica has received almost $81,000 in campaign donations from political action committees and executives connected to some of the private contractors already at 16 U.S. airports.
Private contractors are not a cure-all for passengers aggrieved about taking off their shoes for security checks, passing through full-body scanners or getting hand-frisked. For example, contractors must follow all TSA-mandated security procedures, including hand patdowns when necessary.
Still, the top executive at the Orlando-area’s second-largest airport, Orlando Sanford International Airport, said he plans to begin the process of switching to private screeners in January as long as a few remaining concerns can be met. The airport is within Mica’s district, and the congressman wrote his letter after hearing about its experiences.
CEO Larry Dale said members of the board that runs Sanford were impressed after watching private screeners at airports in Rochester, N.Y., and Jackson Hole, Wyo. He said TSA agents could do better at customer service.
“Some of them are a little testy,” said Dale, whose airport handles 2 million passengers a year. “And we work hard to get passengers and airlines. And to have it undone by a personality problem?”
To the south, the city’s main airport, Orlando International, said it’s reviewing Mica’s proposal, although it has some questions about how the system would work with the 34 million passengers it handles each year. In Georgia, Macon City Councilor Erick Erickson, whose committee oversees the city’s small airport, wants private screeners there.
Erickson called it a protest move in an interview.
“I am a frequent air traveler and I have experienced … TSA agents who have let the power go to their head,” Erickson said. “You can complain about those people, but very rarely does the bureaucracy work quickly enough to remove those people from their positions.”
TSA officials would select and pay the contractors who run airport security. But Dale thinks a private contractor would be more responsive since the contractor would need local support to continue its business with the airport.
“Competition drives accountability, it drives efficiency, it drives a particular approach to your airport,” Dale said. “That company is just going to be looking at you. They’re not going to be driven out of Washington, they will be driven out of here.”
San Francisco International Airport has used private screeners since the formation of the TSA and remains the largest to do so.
The airport believed a private contractor would have more flexibility to supplement staff during busy periods with part-time employees, airport spokesman Mike McCarron said. Also, the city’s high cost of living had made it difficult in the past to recruit federal employees to run immigration and customs stations — a problem the airport didn’t want at security checkpoints.
“You get longer lines,” McCarron said.
TSA spokesman Greg Soule would not respond directly Mica’s letter, but reiterated the nation’s roughly 460 commercial airports have the option of applying to use private contractors.
Companies that provide airport security are contributors to Mica’s campaigns, although some donations came before those companies won government contracts. The Lockheed Martin Corp. Employees’ Political Action Committee has given $36,500 to Mica since 1997. A Lockheed firm won the security contract in Sioux Falls, S.D. in 2005 and the contract for San Francisco the following year.
Raytheon Company’s PAC has given Mica $33,500 since 1999. A Raytheon subsidiary began providing checkpoint screenings at Key West International Airport in 2007.
Firstline Transportation Security Inc.’s PAC has donated $4,500 to the Florida congressman since 2004. FirstLine has been screening baggage and has been responsible for passenger checkpoints at the Kansas City International Airport since 2006, as well as the Gallup Municipal Airport and the Roswell Industrial Air Center in New Mexico, operating at both since 2007.
Since 2006, Mica has received $2,000 from FirstLine President Keith Wolken and $1,700 from Gerald Berry, president of Covenant Aviation Security. Covenant works with Lockheed to provide security at airports in Sioux Falls and San Francisco.
Mica spokesman Justin Harclerode said the contributions never improperly influenced the congressman, who said he was unaware Raytheon or Lockheed were in the screening business.
“They certainly never contacted him about providing screening,” Harclerode said.
Anger over the screenings hasn’t just come from passengers. Two veteran commercial airline pilots asked a federal judge this week to stop the whole-body scans and the new pat-down procedures, saying it violates their civil rights.
The pilots, Michael S. Roberts of Memphis and Ann Poe of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., have refused to participate in either screening method and, as a result, will not fly out of airports that use these methods, according to a lawsuit filed Tuesday in Washington.
Roberts is a pilot with ExpressJet Airlines and is on unpaid administrative leave because of his refusal to enter the whole-body scanners. Poe flies for Continental Airlines and will continue to take off work as long as the existing regulations are in place.
“In her eyes, the pat-down is a physical molestation and the WBI scanner is not only intrusive, degrading and potentially dangerous, but poses a real and substantial threat to medical privacy,” the lawsuit states.
Click here for the full report from The Associated Press
More Trouble For The TSA
November 19th, 2010
KMOV.com
More Americans are growing angrier, over what the Transportation Security Administration, admits are more intrusive security put downs at airports.
One woman is comparing her experience at Lambert Airport to a sexual assault.
Business traveler, Penny Moroney, was flying home from St. Louis to Chicago. Like all other airline passengers, she had to go through security first. When the metal in her artificial knees set off the detectors, she had to undergo more screening. When Moroney asked if she could go through a body scanner, she was told none were available.
A pat down was the only alternative.
Moroney explains “Her gloved hands touched my breasts…went between them. Then she went into the top of my slacks, inserted her hands between my underwear and my skin… then put her hands up on outside of slacks, and patted my genitals.”
“I was shaking and crying when I left that room” Moroney says. “Under any other circumstance, if a person touched me like that without my permission, it would be considered criminal sexual assault.”
Moroney complained to the Transportation Security Administration, TSA, supervisor and then complained on the ACLU’s website.
The national office is now monitoring what it calls a “flood of complaints” from across the country.
Edwin Yohnka of ACLU Illinois says there are no laws and no regulations that govern scanners and pat downs.
Moroney said she wishes there were full body scanners everywhere so that she could have avoided a pat down.
The TSA’s response was that their officers’ first priority is safety when asked if putting hands down the front of someone’s pants is excessive.
The TSA said they don’t comment on individual screening procedures at checkpoints.
Anyone who sets off the metal detectors are required to go through a physical pat down, but the TSA says they use a less aggressive touch for children under 12.
The government is currently adding more body scanners at airports across the country.
Click here for the full report from KMOV.com
Donald Trump May Run in 2012
November 19, 2010 by Andrew
Filed under Government
November 19th, 2010
BBC News
US property tycoon Donald Trump has said he is considering running for president in 2012.
In an interview with ABC News, the billionaire Republican said he could “easily” spend more than $200m (£126m) of his own money on his campaign.
“It could be fun because I’d like to see some positive things happen for the country,” he said.
He added that he would happily take on former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, who many believe will join the race.
Mr Trump, who stars in the American version of TV show The Apprentice, said he believed that “everybody’s ripping America off”.
The 64-year-old real estate mogul singled out China, saying that the country was “getting away with murder” by manipulating its currency.
He said he believed the US was being used as a “whipping post”.
“The respect for this country is just not there,” he said.
‘Led by fools’
“I have many people from China that I do business with, they laugh at us. They feel we’re fools. And almost being led by fools. And they can’t believe what they’re getting away with.”
In the interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, he added that he would probably make his decision by June.
He was asked about the possibility of challenging Mrs Palin, who ran for vice-president in 2008, for the Republican ticket.
“I would take her on. I like her, but I’d take her on,” he said.
Mrs Palin has not formally declared that she will stand, but many commentators have said they believe she will.
Click here for the full report from BBC
Night Lights May Cause Depression
November 19th, 2010
The Telegraph
By: Stephen Adams
Neuroscientists believe that even having a dim light on – such as a night light often used in a child’s room – adversely affects the chemical balance and structure of the brain.
Such a light appears to interfere with secretion of the hormone melatonin, which helps let the body know it is night time.
A team at Ohio State University in the US came to their conclusions after comparing two sets of Siberian hamsters, one group which was exposed to a dim light at night, the other which enjoyed complete darkness.
Tracy Bedrosian, a doctoral student who co-authored the study, said: “Even dim light at night is sufficient to provoke depressive-like behaviours in hamsters, which may be explained by the changes we saw in their brains after eight weeks of exposure.”
For example, she said they drank less sugar water.
When they examined the hamsters’ brains they found those exposed to dim night light had less dense networks of dendritic spines in a part of the brain called the hippocampus. Dendritic spines are the hairlike growths on brain cells that transmit chemical messages from one cell to another.
Bedrosian, who presented the research on Wednesday at the annual meeting of the American Society for Neuroscience in San Diego, added: “The hippocampus plays a key role in depressive disorders, so finding changes there is significant.”
Earlier studies in mice have found that those exposed to bright light at night tend to become depressed and put on weight.
Click here for the full report from The Telegraph
J&J, Takeda Recall Cancer Drug Velcade
November 19th, 2010
Reuters
By: Bill Berkrot
Johnson & Johnson and Millennium Pharmaceuticals are recalling thousands of vials of the cancer drug Velcade sold in Europe, the United States, Japan and Malaysia after receiving reports of white particles seen floating in vials of the medicine.
The particles were found in batches of the drug distributed between January and June of this year.
They have been identified as a polyester-like material related to a component of the manufacturing process performed by a contract manufacturer for Millennium, which is now a unit of Japan’s Takeda Pharmaceutical Co.
Velcade, known chemically as bortezomib, is approved to treat multiple myeloma and relapsed mantle cell lymphoma. It is sold by Millennium in the United States and by J&J unit Janssen-Cilag in Europe and the rest of the world.
The recall was the latest to hit J&J, which has been plagued by massive recalls of numerous consumer products, such as Children’s Tylenol and Motrin, keeping those medicines off pharmacy shelves for months.
Six lots of Velcade were voluntarily recalled in Europe and Japan following five reports of floating particles in samples from two of the recalled batches after the powder form of the drug was reconstituted, according to details listed on the U.K. Medicines and Healthcare Regulatory Agency drug alert website (link.reuters.com/tar26q)
Another seven lots are being recalled in the United States as a precaution, Millennium said.
“In the U.S. we have received no confirmed product complaints or adverse events related to this issue,” Millennium spokeswoman Manisha Pai said.
In Europe, the recalled lots originally included about 195,000 vials of the 3.5 milligram dose of Velcade, but J&J expects to see only a fraction of that returned.
“Based on what we know, the majority of the lots has already been consumed. We anticipate recapturing about 20,000 vials,” J&J spokeswoman Kellie McLaughlin said.
The situation is similar in the United States, with Millennium expecting about 10,000 vials to be returned from about 200,000 produced in the seven lots, as most of the drug has already been administered to patients, Pai said.
In addition, 22,300 3-mg vials, only sold in Japan, are being recalled, J&J said.
No injuries were reported and no new safety issues were identified related to the J&J recall, McLaughlin said.
The root cause of the problem has been identified and both companies said all of the recalled lots were produced prior to manufacturing process improvements that were put in place in September of 2009.
Click here for the full report from Reuters
Government Claims 1 in 5 Americans Are Mentally Ill
November 19th, 2010
CNBC.com
More than 45 million Americans, or 20 percent of U.S. adults, had some form of mental illness last year, and 11 million had a serious illness, U.S. government researchers reported on Thursday.
Young adults aged 18 to 25 had the highest level of mental illness at 30 percent, while those aged 50 and older had the lowest, with 13.7 percent, said the report by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration or SAMHSA.
The rate, slightly higher than last year’s 19.5 percent figure, reflected increasing depression, especially among the unemployed, SAMHSA, part of the National Institutes of Health, said.
“Too many Americans are not getting the help they need and opportunities to prevent and intervene early are being missed,” Pamela Hyde, SAMHSA’s administrator, said in a statement.
“The consequences for individuals, families and communities can be devastating. If left untreated mental illnesses can result in disability, substance abuse, suicides, lost productivity, and family discord.”
The 2009 mental health survey hints at the impact of record unemployment rates, which last year hit a 25-year high as struggling employers slashed jobs to cope with a weak economy.
For many, lost employment meant loss of health insurance, leaving many of the nation’s mentally ill unable to get treatment.
According to the survey, 6.1 million adults last year had a mental health need that went untreated, and 42.5 percent said it was because they could not afford it.
It found 14.8 million Americans had major depression last year, and 10 percent of the jobless did, compared with 7.5 of retired people or those not in the job force, 7.3 percent who worked part time and 5.4 percent who worked full time.
Only 64 percent of adults aged 18 or older with major depression were treated last year, compared with 71 percent a year ago.
Being jobless also increased the risk of suicide.
Adults who were unemployed last year were twice as likely to have serious thoughts of suicide as people who were fully employed, with 6.6 percent of the unemployed considering suicide, compared with 3.1 percent of those who were working.
The survey also found that 23.8 percent of women had some form of mental illness, compared with 15.6 percent of men.
Click here for the full report from CNBC.com
BPA Destroys Sperm
November 18th, 2010
Natural News
By: Ethan A. Huff
Results from a five-year trial on the effects of bisphenol-A (BPA) in human males has revealed that the popular plastics chemical destroys sperm. One of the few BPA studies involving humans, the trial sheds more light on the obvious harm BPA causes on male reproduction, and the need to immediately remove the chemical from from all products.
“This study counters the argument that only highly exposed populations are affected,” explained Dr. De-Kun Li, author of the study and reproductive and perinatal epidemiologist at Kaiser Permanente’s Division of Research in Oakland, Calif. “You can be exposed from the workplace. You can be exposed from consumer products. It doesn’t really matter. Ultimately it will reflect in your urine.”
Numerous other studies have found that BPA causes significant bodily harm. Back in August, a study in the journal Biology of Reproduction found that BPA causes genetic defects. The chemical is also known to mimic estrogen in the body and alter proper hormonal balance, which leads to serious illness.
In the recent study, data collected from Chinese workers exposed to BPA exhibited a clear connection between even very low levels of BPA and sperm destruction. BPA exposure resulted in a 300 percent increased risk of low sperm concentration and low sperm vitality compared to those not exposed. Exposure also resulted in a 400 percent increased risk of reduced sperm count and twice the likelihood of decreased sperm motility.
“Our study shows that BPA could lead to pathological changes to human organs — semen quality, in this case,” explained Li to LiveScience. “In addition, this new finding of the detrimental effect of BPA exposure on semen quality raises the bar of BPA toxicity.”
Click here for the full report from Natural News
Monsanto to Start Testing Genetically Modified Wheat
November 18th, 2010
Reuters
By: Carey Gillam
Monsanto Co could start field testing genetically modified wheat within one to two years, but remains cautious about future commercialization, according to one of the company’s top wheat technology executives.
Six years after shelving an earlier biotech wheat product in the face of stiff market resistance, Monsanto still sees a need for circumspection, but believes building acceptance and a need for increased food production makes the wheat seed market potentially lucrative over the long term.
Currently there is no biotech wheat on the market because of consumer and food industry opposition, but Monsanto sees attitudes changing.
“I wouldn’t say we’re jumping in with two feet,” said Claire CaJacob, Monsanto’s global wheat technology lead executive, in an interview with Reuters. “But I wouldn’t say we’re tentative. We have traits that make more sense. It’s the right time.”
Several rival seed companies including Syngenta, BASF and others are also working on developing genetically modified wheat but Monsanto is the world’s largest seed company and its work is closely watched worldwide.
Monsanto aims to use genetic modification to develop a higher yielding and more drought and stress-tolerant crop. This year’s drought in eastern Europe that decimated the Russian wheat crop only underscores the need for improvements in wheat, said CaJacob. The drought caused U.S. wheat and European wheat futures prices to nearly double in just two months.
Monsanto’s wheat research is still in the early “Phase 1″ of discovery work, which translates to testing various genes to see what might work. Both U.S. wheat farmers and Australian growers are the early target market.
The company’s work to develop a drought-tolerant corn is helping with the research into wheat, she said, but wheat is a much more complicated plant, and it could be one to two years before the company starts field testing and a decade before a product is brought to market, according to CaJacob.
“We are in the stage of seeing if we have any genes that work,” said CaJacob. “Until you take it to the field you don’t know.”
Monsanto abandoned biotech wheat in May 2004 amid broad opposition from buyers of U.S. wheat and from U.S. wheat growers who feared losing sales. The company announced it was restarting wheat research last year, paying $45 million for the WestBred LLC seed germplasm company.
CaJacob said the company was examining various pricing strategies for a future wheat seed product, including questions about whether farmers would continue to be able to save their seed, a common practice by U.S. wheat farmers.
Saving seed is not allowed for farmers buying Monsanto’s patented corn and soybean seed technology.
Monsanto is also striving to develop a product line of improved wheat hybrids, using molecular markers that speed up traditional breeding techniques.
“When you hear Monsanto and wheat it doesn’t necessarily mean biotech,” she said.
Click here for the full report from Reuters
Florida Airport to Opt Out of TSA Screening
November 18th, 2010
WDBO.com
By: Ken Tyndall
The backlash continues over those new TSA screening measures, and now one Central Florida airport has decided to go with a private security screening firm.
Orlando Sanford International Airport has decided to opt out from TSA screening.
“All of our due diligence shows it’s the way to go,” said Larry Dale, the director of the Sanford Airport Authority. “You’re going to get better service at a better price and more accountability and better customer service.”
Dale says he will be sending a letter requesting to opt out from TSA screening, and instead the airport will choose one of the five approved private screening companies to take over.
Congressman John Mica, who’s expected to lead the powerful Transportation Committee next year, says the TSA is crying out for reform.
“I think TSA is overstepping its bounds,” said Mica.
Dale says, if all goes as planned, the private security firm could take over in about 12 months.
The TSA points out that even if an airport decides to use a private firm for security, the screeners still must follow TSA guidelines. That would include using the full body scanners if they are installed at the airport.
Click here for the full report from WDBO.com
Diet Makes All The Difference With Pancreatic Cancer Risk
November 18th, 2010
Natural News
By: Ethan A. Huff
What you eat plays a critical role in determining whether or not you develop cancer, indicates a new report published in the journal Nature. Pancreatic cancer takes nearly 20 years to develop in the body, but its onset, growth, and spread is largely determined by the types of food a person eats, and whether or not those foods feed or starve the cancer cells.
According to an analysis by Christine Iacobuzio-Donahue, MD, PhD, associate professor of pathology and oncology at Hopkins’ Sol Goldman Pancreatic Cancer Research Center, and her colleagues, it takes nearly 12 years for the first cancer cells to develop in the pancreas. It then takes another nearly seven years for them to grow, followed by at least another year for them to spread. It is only in the last two-to-three years that the disease actually starts to kill a person.
Conventional detection methods are typically unable to detect pancreatic cancer early enough to do much about it, and prevention methods are rarely spoken about by conventional medical experts. However, there are numerous studies that point to ways people can help prevent the disease from taking hold. After all, there is at least a 20-year window to start making the proper dietary changes now before it is too late.
A 2009 study published in Cancer Causes and Control suggests that eating meat, at least conventionally-raised meat, increases pancreatic cancer risk. Table sugar and potatoes are also implicated, each associated with roughly a 100 percent increased risk of developing the disease.
Highly cooked potatoes are known to contain cancer-causing carcinogens as well, and processed sugars produce insulin-like growth hormone, which studies have shown encourages the growth of cancer cells.
On the other hand, fruits and vegetables have been shown to reduce cancer risk, as have vitamin E, vitamin C, and potassium. There are many other foods, supplements, and herbs that help to prevent cancer as well.
Click here for the full report from Natural News
