iPhone Saves Earthquake Survivor’s Life
January 20, 2010
NBC Miami
By Todd Wright
Usually, when someone says their iPhone is a life saver, they are talking about the phone helping them find a good takeout spot or an emergency bathroom.
When Dan Woolley says it, he really means it. He used a medical app saved on his phone to treat a leg injury after the Hotel Montana in Port-au-Prince collapsed around him.
Woolley, who is from Colorado Springs, is one of the Americans who survived the massive earthquake that hit Haiti last week, and he did it with an iPhone application. Woolley is now recovering at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami, but it was his fast actions with the app that may have saved his life.
Woolley used the light from his iPhone to show him his injuries and diagnosed it properly as a broken foot. Then, he used the instructions from the app to treat the excessive bleeding from cuts on his legs and the back of his head.
Woolley used his shirt to tie off the three-inch gash that was opened on his leg and a sock to bandage the back of his head. He said he also looked up ways to stop from going into shock.
“I kind of had some time to do some self-diagnosis down there,” Woolley said. “God was with me.”
Not bad for a film producer who was in Haiti filming a documentary on efforts to help the nation’s poverty-stricken children.
Woolley also used his camera to take pictures of the surrounding rubble to piece together a way out. He eventually took refuge in an elevator shaft until rescue crews found him 65 hours after the earthquake.
“I took pictures all around me, then I would hold up the back of the camera to me and I could see what the picture was of a little,” he said. “I was able to find an elevator in one of the pictures and that is where I decided to hobble to be in a more safe location.”
On Tuesday, Woolley told The Today Show he knew he was going to die and decided to write a journal on his notepad to his wife and young kids in the event someone found his corpse under the rubble.
“I was in a big accident. Don’t be upset at God. He always provides for his children even in hard times,” Woolley wrote in the dim light. “I’m still praying that God will get me out but he may not but He will always take care of ya.”
Study Finds Autism in Regional Clusters
January 13, 2010
ABC News
By Julie Steenhuysen
U.S. researchers have identified 10 locations in California that have double the rates of autism found in surrounding areas, and these clusters were located in neighborhoods with high concentrations of white, highly educated parents.
Researchers at the University of California Davis had hoped to uncover pockets of autism that might reveal clues about triggers in the environment that could explain rising rates of autism, which affects as many as one in 110 U.S. children.
But the findings likely say more about the U.S. healthcare system than the causes of autism, said researcher Irva Hertz-Picciotto of UC Davis’ MIND Institute, whose study will be released online Wednesday in the journal Autism Research.
Advocacy groups have been clamoring for treatment options and for better research to show what might be causing an apparent increase in autism cases.
Hertz-Picciotto and colleagues used a research technique that has been effective at identifying cancer clusters.
“This kind of analysis sometimes turns up clues about environmental factors,” she said in a telephone interview.
The researchers looked at about 2.5 million births recorded in California from 1996 through 2000. About 10,000 of those children were later diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder, according to the state’s department of developmental services.
Using data from birth records, the team found a strong link between parental education and the high rates of autism.
“In this particular case, we found 10 clusters of autism across the state of California. When we looked further, we discovered virtually all of them were areas where there was a higher level of education among the parents who were giving birth in those years,” Hertz-Picciotto said.
“We already know that people with a higher education in the United States are more likely to get a diagnosis of autism for their child. It doesn’t necessarily mean that autism occurs more frequently in those families,” she said.
Study Finds Autism in Regional Clusters
January 06, 2010
ABC News
By Julie Steenhuysen
U.S. researchers have identified 10 locations in California that have double the rates of autism found in surrounding areas, and these clusters were located in neighborhoods with high concentrations of white, highly educated parents.
Researchers at the University of California Davis had hoped to uncover pockets of autism that might reveal clues about triggers in the environment that could explain rising rates of autism, which affects as many as one in 110 U.S. children.
But the findings likely say more about the U.S. healthcare system than the causes of autism, said researcher Irva Hertz-Picciotto of UC Davis’ MIND Institute, whose study will be released online Wednesday in the journal Autism Research.
Advocacy groups have been clamoring for treatment options and for better research to show what might be causing an apparent increase in autism cases.
Hertz-Picciotto and colleagues used a research technique that has been effective at identifying cancer clusters.
“This kind of analysis sometimes turns up clues about environmental factors,” she said in a telephone interview.
The researchers looked at about 2.5 million births recorded in California from 1996 through 2000. About 10,000 of those children were later diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder, according to the state’s department of developmental services.
Using data from birth records, the team found a strong link between parental education and the high rates of autism.
“In this particular case, we found 10 clusters of autism across the state of California. When we looked further, we discovered virtually all of them were areas where there was a higher level of education among the parents who were giving birth in those years,” Hertz-Picciotto said.
“We already know that people with a higher education in the United States are more likely to get a diagnosis of autism for their child. It doesn’t necessarily mean that autism occurs more frequently in those families,” she said.
Antidepressants As Good As Placebo Pills
January 06, 2010
Reuters
By Eric Walsh
Mild to severe depression might be better treated with alternatives to antidepressant drugs, which do not help patients much more than an inactive placebo, researchers said Tuesday.
Combining data from six studies that examined the effectiveness of two commonly prescribed antidepressants — paroxetine and imipramine — found the drugs produced benefits only slightly greater than a placebo in patients with mild to severe depression.
“They would have done just as well or just about as well with a placebo,” said Robert DeRubeis, a psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, who with colleagues performed the meta-analysis.
Paroxetine is one of a popular class of drugs, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, and is sold under the brand name Paxil by GlaxoSmithKline. Imipramine is an older tricyclic antidepressant drug developed in the 1950s.
The so-called placebo effect is powerful in treating depression, where people believe they are helped even though they are taking an inactive sugar pill, DeRubeis said.
CONSIDER ALTERNATIVES?
In the report published in the Journal of the American Medical Association involving nearly 800 patients, the drugs’ impact was noticeably stronger than a placebo in people diagnosed with very severe cases of depression.
Using a scoring system for depression where a diagnosis of 24 or above indicates a very severe case, the researchers said patients treated with drugs saw their scores drop by 13 points, compared to a drop of 9 points for those given a placebo.
But for those with initial depression scores of 23 or below the drop averaged 8 points for those given antidepressants and 7 points for those given a placebo. Roughly half of those prescribed antidepressants fit into the mild to severe categories.
“Our data should give some pause” to doctors and patients weighing antidepressants, DeRubeis said in a telephone interview. “They should give some consideration to other alternatives.”
Exercise has been shown to be helpful to stem depression, as does psychotherapy, and even “self-treatment” with the aid of the plethora of self-help literature, he said.
A spokeswoman for GlaxoSmithKline said the report “contributes to the extensive research” into antidepressants, noting that Paxil received U.S. government approval in 1992 and has helped “millions of people battling mental illness.
“The studies used for the analysis in the JAMA paper differ methodologically from studies used to support the approval of paroxetine for major depressive disorder, so it is difficult to make direct comparisons between the results,” spokeswoman Sarah Alspach said.
At least 27 million Americans take antidepressants, nearly double the number that did in the mid-1990s, according to a study by Columbia University and University of Pennsylvania researchers reported in the Archives of General Psychiatry.
More than 164 million prescriptions for antidepressants were written in 2008, totaling nearly $10 billion in U.S. sales, according to IMS Health. Global sales were twice that.
Stress From Prostate Cancer Diagnosis May Be Fatal
December 16, 2009
ABC News
By Joseph Brownstein
Prostate cancer may not be as deadly as it once was, likely because of advances in screening and treatment, but a new study suggests that even a diagnosis of the disease carries some risks.
A collaboration including researchers from Harvard University and the Karolinska Institute in Sweden looked at data for more than 4 million men in Sweden above the age of 30 and found that the diagnosis of prostate cancer — something that occurred in over 160,000 of those men — increased the relative risks for fatal heart problems 11 times and suicide by eight times in the week after diagnosis.
“Stress can be an important trigger for physiologic reactions, including increased risk of cardiovascular disease,” said Dr. Meir Stampfer, professor of nutrition and epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health. “The diagnosis of cancer also can cause high enough stress to see a noticeable increase in both heart disease and suicide.”
Given that suicide is generally rare, the study does not suggest that men commit it in great numbers following a prostate cancer diagnosis, but doctors say it does suggest a need for more careful monitoring and communication with patients following a diagnosis.
“This study is certainly a wakeup call that there are other issues&that somebody could be at increased cardiovascular risk or increased suicide risk,” said Bruce Trock, an epidemiologist in the department of urology at Johns Hopkins. “The lesson [of the study] is more for physicians, that when they give out a diagnosis of prostate cancer, they should be thinking about this.
“It would be incumbent for a physician to try to keep tabs on what’s going on with this patient,” especially during the first month, he said. “Once somebody’s diagnosed with prostate cancer, usually the first month is when they’re trying to make up their mind about treatment.”
But possible heart disease and suicidal thoughts are not the only potential problems for men after a prostate cancer diagnosis.
Bruce MacDonald, a social worker at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, counsels men following a prostate cancer diagnosis. While he said in his eight years there he has only had one patient who attempted suicide, he far more frequently deals with patients who are depressed or have other problems following treatment.
Among men who have removal of the prostate, some men are left impotent permanently, while others have to deal with incontinence. He said others must take hormonal treatments when surgery fails to remove the tumor completely from the prostate, and the absence of testosterone can lead to impotence and a lack of libido.
MacDonald said a man who is 50 years old and is diagnosed with prostate cancer, then left without a libido by the surgery can be heavily affected by the change in sexual function.
“That, obviously, is a red flag when it comes to what can lead to depression,” he said. “It’s a real struggle for a man in terms of his self-image, which sometimes can change really overnight. If there is significant clinical depression, we do our best to help a man receive treatment for that.”
MacDonald explained that those treatments could include medication and psychotherapy, and possibly couples therapy to deal with the changing relationship with a partner.
Prostate Care Abroad
While men receiving a prostate cancer diagnosis abroad may react similarly to men in the United States, it’s not clear how applicable this study would be, given differences in screening and treatments between the United States and Sweden.
For example, given that men in Sweden tend to be screened less, their disease is sometimes caught in later stages, making it more likely that hormonal therapy will be necessary, and the resultant side effects may create more anxiety.
“We’re pursuing that actively, looking at the U.S. statistics,” said Stampfer, although he said that data available for the United States is not as clear as that available in Sweden, and so doing a similar study would prove difficult. However, he said, “It looks like the overall, broad pattern would be similar in the U.S.”
Stampfer said he was encouraged by the fact that men in later years of the study were less likely to suffer heart problems following a diagnosis of prostate cancer.
“In more recent times, the public has gotten more sophisticated, better information and realizes a cancer diagnosis is not a death sentence,” he said. “It no longer carries as much of that horrible sense of doom that it used to.”
Prostate Cancer Diagnosis: Finding Trouble
But the drop in heart risks may mean problems in the study.
Dr. Nortin Hadler, a professor of medicine and microbiology/immunology at the University of North Carolina said that given the lack of screening in Sweden, it’s possible that the increase in heart disease is because that was why patients were coming to the doctor in the first place.
He explained that patients getting a prostate test were likely to be at the doctor’s office for another reason, and in later years, with more awareness of prostate cancer, that effect was lessened.
“We don’t know why these particular individuals who are diagnosed with prostate cancer decided to get the diagnosis,” Hadler said. “The answer may be that something else brought them to the doctor, and as part of the doctor’s approach … they did a much more general exam.”
But others said that possibility did not confound the study.
“The suicide portion of it verifies an American study that was done several years ago,” said Dr. Otis Brawley of the American Cancer Society. Suicide and heart risks are part of what physicians need to discuss with patients before prostate screening, he said.
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American Cancer Society – Non Profit or Big Business?
November 20, 2009
Cancer Prevention Coalition
By Samuel S. Epstein M. D.
The American Cancer Society is fixated on damage control— diagnosis and treatment— and basic molecular biology, with indifference or even hostility to cancer prevention. This myopic mindset is compounded by interlocking conflicts of interest with the cancer drug, mammography, and other industries. The “nonprofit” status of the Society is in sharp conflict with its high overhead and expenses, excessive reserves of assets and contributions to political parties. All attempts to reform the Society over the past two decades have failed; a national economic boycott of the Society is long overdue.
The American Cancer Society (ACS) is accumulating great wealth in its role as a “charity.” According to James Bennett, professor of economics at George Mason University and recognized authority on charitable organizations, in 1988 the ACS held a fund balance of over $400 million with about $69 million of holdings in land, buildings, and equipment (1). Of that money, the ACS spent only $90 million— 26 percent of its budget— on medical research and programs. The rest covered “operating expenses,” including about 60 percent for generous salaries, pensions, executive benefits, and overhead. By 1989, the cash reserves of the ACS were worth more than $700 million (2). In 1991, Americans, believing they were contributing to fighting cancer, gave nearly $350 million to the ACS, 6 percent more than the previous year. Most of this money comes from public donations averaging $3,500, and high-profile fund-raising campaigns such
as the springtime daffodil sale and the May relay races. However, over the last two decades, an increasing proportion of the ACS budget comes from large corporations, including the pharmaceutical, cancer drug, telecommunications, and entertainment industries.
In 1992, the American Cancer Society Foundation was created to allow the ACS to actively solicit contributions of more than $100,000. However, a close look at the heavy-hitters on the Foundation’s board will give an idea of which interests are at play and where the Foundation expects its big contributions to come from. The Foundation’s board of trustees included corporate executives from the pharmaceutical, investment, banking, and media industries. Among them:
David R. Bethune, president of Lederle Laboratories, a multinational pharmaceutical company and a division of American Cyanamid Company. Bethune is also vice president of American Cyanamid, which makes chemical fertilizers and herbicides while transforming itself into a full-fledged pharmaceutical company. In 1988, American Cyanamid introduced Novatrone, an anti-cancer drug. And in 1992, it announced that it would buy a majority of shares of Immunex, a cancer drug maker.
Multimillionaire Irwin Beck, whose father, William Henry Beck, founded the nation’s largest family-owned retail chain, Beck Stores, which analysts estimate brought in revenues of $1.7 billion in 1993.
Gordon Binder, CEO of Amgen, the world’s foremost biotechnology company, with over $1 billion in product sales in 1992. Amgen’s success rests almost exclusively on one product, Neupogen, which is administered to chemotherapy patients to stimulate their production of white blood cells. As the cancer epidemic grows, sales for Neupogen continue to skyrocket.
Diane Disney Miller, daughter of the conservative multi-millionaire Walt Disney, who died of lung cancer in 1966, and wife of Ron Miller, former president of the Walt Disney Company from 1980 to 1984.
George Dessert, famous in media circles for his former role as censor on the subject of “family values” during the 1970s and 1980s as CEO of CBS, and now chairman of the ACS board.
Alan Gevertzen, chairman of the board of Boeing, the world’s number one commercial aircraft maker with net sales of $30 billion in 1992.
Sumner M. Redstone, chairman of the board, Viacom Inc. and Viacom International Inc., a broadcasting, telecommunications, entertainment, and cable television corporation.
The results of this board’s efforts have been very successful. A million here, a million there— much of it coming from the very industries instrumental in shaping ACS policy, or profiting from it. In 1992, The Chronicle of Philanthropy reported that the ACS was “more interested in accumulating wealth than in saving lives.” Fund-raising appeals
routinely stated that the ACS needed more funds to support its cancer programs, all the while holding more than $750 million in cash and real estate assets (3). A 1992 article in the Wall Street Journal, by Thomas DiLorenzo, professor of economics at Loyola College and veteran investigator of nonprofit organizations, revealed that the Texas affiliate of the ACS owned more than $11 million worth of assets in land and real estate, as well as more than 56 vehicles, including
11 Ford Crown Victorias for senior executives and 45 other cars assigned to staff members. Arizona’s ACS chapter spent less than 10 percent of its funds on direct community cancer services. In California, the figure was 11 percent, and under 9 percent in Missouri (4):
Thus for every $1 spent on direct service, approximately $6.40 is spent on compensation and overhead. In all ten states, salaries and fringe benefits are by far the largest single budget items, a surprising fact in light of the characterization of the appeals, which stress an urgent and critical need for donations to provide cancer services.
Nationally, only 16 percent or less of all money raised is spent on direct services to cancer victims, like driving cancer patients from the hospital after chemotherapy and providing pain medication.
Most of the funds raised by the ACS go to pay overhead, salaries, fringe benefits, and travel expenses of its national executives in Atlanta. They also go to pay chief executive officers, who earn six-figure salaries in several states, and the hundreds of other employees who work out of some 3,000 regional offices nationwide. The typical ACS affiliate, which helps raise the money for the national office, spends more than 52 percent of its budget on salaries, pensions, fringe benefits, and overhead for its own employees. Salaries and overhead for most ACS affiliates also exceeded 50 percent, although most direct community services are handled by unpaid volunteers. DiLorenzo summed up his findings by emphasizing the hoarding of funds by the ACS (4):
If current needs are not being met because of insufficient funds, as fund-raising appeals suggest, why is so much cash being hoarded? Most contributors believe their donations are being used to fight cancer, not to accumulate financial reserves. More progress in the war against cancer would be made if they would divest some of their real estate holdings and use the proceeds— as well as a portion of their cash reserves— to provide more cancer services.
Aside from high salaries and overhead, most of what is left of the ACS budget goes to basic research and research into profitable patented cancer drugs. The current budget of the ACS is $380 million and its cash reserves approach $1 billion. Yet its aggressive fund-raising campaign continues to plead poverty and lament the lack of available money for cancer research, while ignoring efforts to prevent cancer by phasing out avoidable exposures to environmental and occupational carcinogens. Meanwhile, the ACS is silent about its intricate
relationships with the wealthy cancer drug, chemical, and other industries. A March 30, 1998, Associated Press Release shed unexpected light on questionable ACS expenditures on lobbying (5). National vice president for federal and state governmental relations Linda Hay Crawford admitted that the ACS was spending “less than $1 million a year on direct lobbying.” She also admitted that over the last year, the society used ten of its own employees to lobby. “For legal
and other help, it hired the lobbying firm of Hogan & Hartson, whose roster includes former House Minority Leader Robert H. Michel (R– IL).” The ACS lobbying also included $30,000 donations to Democratic and Republican governors’ associations. “We wanted to look like players and be players,” explained Crawford. This practice, however, has been sharply challenged. The Associated Press release quotes the national Charities Information Bureau as stating that it” does not know of any other charity that makes contributions to political parties.”
Tax experts have warned that these contributions may be illegal, as charities are not allowed to make political donations. Marcus Owens, director of the IRS Exempt Organization Division, also warned that “The bottom line is campaign contributions will jeopardize a charity’s exempt status.”
Click here for the full report
Prostate Cancer Screening Has Risks
October 15, 2009
Natural News
By S. L. Baker
Regular readers of NaturalNews know that recent studies have found little if any benefit to prostate cancer screening tests. What’s more, although about one in six men will be diagnosed with the disease during their lifetime, only one in 35 will actually die from prostate cancer — and the latest research shows that a diagnosis of the disease does not automatically mean any treatment is needed at all. Unfortunately, most men don’t know these facts and are not being told about the risks of prostate-specific antigen (PSA) screening. The result? Many are being pushed into having PSA tests, leading to unnecessary and side effect laden treatments.
A report just published in the September 28 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine concludes the majority of men just don’t know the basic facts about PSA testing. They are making decisions about prostate cancer screening based on conversations with their doctors — and these talks usually don’t include information about risks versus benefits of the test. Although most American men 50 or older have been screened with a PSA test, the new report reiterates the fact there’s no convincing scientific evidence that screening prevents deaths from prostate cancer. And if men are found through PSA screenings to have early-stage cancers, they are often told treatment is necessary when, in fact, it may not be and may lead to a host of health problems and complications.
“Given the uncertain benefit for screening and known treatment risks, prostate cancer screening decisions should be guided by patient preferences,” the authors wrote. “Indeed, most professional organizations recommend that the first step in screening should be a discussion between health care providers and patients about the risks and benefits of early detection and treatment so that patients can make informed decisions about whether to be screened.”
No real benefit to PSA screening
Richard M. Hoffman, M.D., of the New Mexico VA Health Care System and the University of New Mexico School of Medicine in Albuquerque, and his research team surveyed 3,010 randomly selected English-speaking adults age 40 and older in 2006 and 2007 by phone. Out of these, the scientists found 375 men who had either undergone or discussed PSA testing with their physicians in the previous two years. The researchers asked the men what their knowledge was concerning prostate cancer, what their talks with their doctors covered, and what factors and information helped them decide to be screened for a prostate malignancy.
The results showed that almost 70 percent of the men had discussed screening with their doctors before making a decision to have the PSA test. Out of these, only 14.4 percent turned down the screening. In the vast majority of cases, almost 65 percent of the time, it was the doctors who brought up the supposed need for PSA tests. In fact, 73.4 percent of physicians recommended the test and this recommendation from a doctor was the only part of the discussion about prostate cancer that was linked to testing.
