LibWorm Query: drug
LibWorm Query: drug
LibWorm.com provides a librarian RSS filtering service. Data from over 1500 librarian RSS feeds is collected and output via different categories. This feed contains the latest headlines from the user generated query: drug
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07/09/2010 06:05 PM
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Anthony horowitz: my family values
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The writer talks about his familySometimes I think the family I was brought up in was 100 years out of date. A gong would sound to announce a dinner prepared by servants, and if you didn't have good conversation, you were sent away to eat upstairs; it was like The Remains of the Day. In reaction, I have done everything I can to make my family feel modern, connected, close, without secrets.Until he lost all his money, my father was a successful north London Jewish businessman. He was unusual among his immediate family in that he was enormously cultured and had an incredible library. It wasn't possible to be close to him – he wasn't unloving, but very distant and private. What he would do was talk to me about his love of books, especially Dickens and Trollope. He never read to me, but the fact that he clearly adored it just seeped into me. One of the saddest things for me is that he died the year before my first book was accepted for publication. The notion that I become a writer was not possible to him – he ridiculed it.My mother was an extraordinary woman; I miss her to this day. As a medium-elderly widow, she became intrigued by the drug culture. Between the carnations and tomatoes she grew marijuana, although she never managed a harvest. When my father died everything vanished, like a curtain falling. (He had put his money in a Swiss bank account but never told us where it was. We never found it.) Having had a Rolls-Royce and a chauffeur and no experience of work, my mother just got on with it. In some ways, she was happier in the last 10 years of her life than she'd ever been. When she was diagnosed with terminal cancer she said three words to me: "What a bummer."All my family have featured in my books. I parodied my father in Groosham Grange as the mad father in the wheelchair. The only one to get a whole book to herself was my mother's mother in Granny. ...
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07/09/2010 03:44 PM
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Prescription drug disposal programs back in congressional spotlight
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Read the full post at The Dose.
While prescription drug disposal programs are growing and are popular with the public, government policies concerning the handling of these products are still a significant barrier to more successful disposal efforts, a dilemma examined by a Senate committee hearing this week.
In convening the hearing, U.S. Senate Aging Committee Chairman Herb Kohl (D-Wisc.) lamented the contradicting federal disposal guidelines for consumers from federal agencies like the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Food and Drug Administration, and Environmental Protection Agency. And he urged the DEA to update its rules to allow easier disposal of controlled substances, such as OxyContin or Vicodin, through takeback programs. (Source: Environmental News Bits)
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07/09/2010 01:11 PM
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International statistics on crime and justice
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International Statistics on Crime and Justice
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and The European Institute for Crime Prevention and Control (HEUNI) released this report on crime statistics based upon collection of The United Nations Surveys on Crime Trends and the Operations of Criminal Justice Systems (UN-CTS). The (UN-CTS) survey was sent out to United Nation member states to assess levels of crime and the functions of individual criminal justice systems. The data collected from (UN-CTS) is broken down into sections based on different crime issues. The survey report addresses police recorded crime, drug related crime, and complex crimes. The next section of the report addresses criminal justice systems and performance, including issues such as attrition and punitivity. The last section of this report has information on different prison populations and an analysis of the criminal justice data.
The ability of the United Nations to survey such a large diverse population makes this data unique and valuable. The large scope of data collected from the (UN-CTS) survey allows analysts to make inferences about international crime, judiciary systems, and future crime trends.
read more (Source: HSDL Weblog - On the HomeFront)
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07/09/2010 09:37 AM
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Rudy rucker’s ware tetralogy available for free
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The Ware Tetralogy is a collection of the four Ware books by Rudy Rucker. From Rudy’s website:
It starts with Software, where rebel robots bring immortality to their human creator by eating his brain. Software won the first Philip K. Dick Award.
In Wetware, the robots decide to start building people —and people get strung out on an insane new drug called merge. This cyberpunk classic garnered a second Philip K. Dick award.
By Freeware, the robots have evolved into soft plastic slugs called moldies —and some human “cheeseballs” want to have sex with them. The action redoubles when aliens begin arriving in the form of cosmic rays.
And with Realware, the humans and robots reach a higher plateau.
It is available from his site in PDF and RTF, but I downloaded my copy from ManyBooks in the Kindle version. Other versions are available at ManyBooks as well.
Digg us. Slashdot us. Facebook us. Twitter us. Share the news. (Source: TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home)
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07/09/2010 09:26 AM
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International statistics on crime and justice
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International Statistics on Crime and Justice (PDF)
Source: United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime
From National Criminal Justice Reference Service abstract:
This report consists of eight chapters designed to deal with all central issues addressed in the UN-CTS questionnaire. First, police-recorded crime is discussed with separate chapters on homicides, other police-recorded crimes, and drug-related crime and drug trafficking (chapters 1-3). Chapter 4 analyzes complex crimes separately, such as organized crime, and human trafficking; these crimes have played a marginal role in traditional crime statistics, and in order to improve the relevance of the data on such offenses, new solutions need to be developed. Chapter 5 presents data on responses of the criminal justice system, including an innovation where attrition issues are discussed. Parallel issues to responses of the criminal justice system are resources and performance; these are discussed in chapter 6, which includes a discussion on punitivity of criminal justice systems. Chapter 7 provides a presentation on prison populations of the world. Chapter 8 discusses challenges with crime and criminal justice statistics, arguing for the importance of further improvements in the area. Tables, figures, and references. (Source: Docuticker)
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07/08/2010 11:00 PM
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Fda: new final rule to ensure egg safety, reduce salmonella illnesses goes into effect
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News release: "The U.S. Food and Drug Administration says that as many as 79,000 illnesses and 30 deaths due to... (Source: beSpacific)
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07/08/2010 12:52 PM
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Top 10 corporate outrages
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I got this from MoveOn.org. I am a member. From: Ilyse Hogue, MoveOn.org Political Action [mailto:moveon-help@list.moveon.org] Sent: Thursday, July 08, 2010 1:07 PM To: Wilfred Drew Subject: Top 10 Corporate Outrages Help take back our democracy from corporate control. Forward this email and ask your friends to sign the "Fight Washington Corruption Pledge." Dear MoveOn member, You might have heard this: BP is so well connected in Washington that even after being cited for 760 different safety and environmental violations, the company still got environmental waivers for the Deepwater Horizon rig that's now destroying the Gulf.1 But BP's not alone in using its DC influence. Check out the list below of other companies' outrages—then pass it along. This is exactly why the "Fight Washington Corruption Pledge" that you endorsed last week is so important. 130,000 of us have already endorsed the pledge—but we need thousands more folks on board to convince politicians to sign on. Can you forward this list to your friends and ask them to sign the pledge? They can sign it here: http://www.fightwashingtoncorruption.org/?id=21637-10061127-JvUfQvx And you can share this list with them directly on Facebook and Twitter. 1. Exxon Mobil made billions in profits, and yet paid not one dime in federal income taxes in 2009.2 2. The 2005 energy bill had a little known provision, commonly called the Halliburton Loophole, which exempted natural gas drilling from the Clean Water Act. The result? Water so contaminated that you can light it on fire.3 3. ...
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07/07/2010 08:30 PM
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Damaged
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by DuPree, KiaCamille was placed in foster care as a young girl because of a drug addicted
mother. Camille's foster parents, the Beasleys, took her into their home.
However, her foster father abused her and her foster mother ignored her.
Camille later falls in love with a young man named Chu and life is wonderful until he
is murdered. With nowhere to go, Camille has some difficult decisions to make regarding her life. This
terrific love story is also a story of survival.
- reviewed by Cherise, , PLCMC (Source: Reader's Club's Latest)
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07/07/2010 05:33 AM
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Edinburgh wins prestigious libraries change lives award
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Congratulations to City of Edinburgh Libraries who have been crowned the worthy winners of the Libraries Change Lives Award for 2010, in conjunction with HMP Edinburgh (Saughton). They were awarded the title at the inaugural Libraries Change Lives Conference, at the impressive, canal-side Kings Place, London, for setting up a library within the prison. Liz McGettigan, Libraries and Information Services Manager, was delighted with the award “It’s an honour to accept this fantastic award. I’d like to thank Kate [King] and Ian [Kirby] for all their hard work and effort to make this a successful project. It has been a privilege for Edinburgh Libraries to be able to help those people who need it most build a future for themselves.”
After the lunch break we were able to hear more about the project from the afore-mentioned Kate and Ian. Ian, who coordinated the project from the library service side, began the presentation by highlighting the cost per annum of an inmate to society (£31k). If this project were to stop only one inmate from reoffending then it virtually pays for itself. Of course the project is far more than just a cost-cutting exercise; it is literally changing lives of thousands of people housed in Saughton Prison.
The project is successfully tackling and overcoming low literacy levels, and engaging inmates in reading. These skills are preparing the inmates to integrate into the outside world and lowering the chances of reoffending – something that is a target of the new government.
Kate, who has been dealing with the project from the prison side, then came to the microphone to give us some detailed information.
12,000 visits have been made to the library in the past year
15 inmates have trained as librarians
3 have been to college to get a librarian qualification
1 has an upcoming interview for a librarian post
These are impressive figures, but there is more impressive work going on. ...
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07/05/2010 11:00 PM
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Ship breaker
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Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi
Nailer works light crew, climbing into the shells of the discarded oil tankers to gather copper wiring from ductwork. His job requires him to be small, smart and loyal to his crew. As a teenager, he knows that he will eventually outgrow the work and that his only hope is to get big enough to join heavy crew or to become a violent drug addict like his father. When a huge hurricane strikes the Gulf Coast, Nailer discovers a wrecked clipper ship and a half-dead wealthy girl who owned her. Now Nailer has found another option, to leave the Gulf Coast and his dangerous low-paying work and try to help this girl find her family and safety. But nothing is a guarantee, especially with his father and others hunting them down. Set in a future where oil is no longer used and the climate is wreaking vengeance, this book is a dynamic merger of adventure and questions about family and loyalty.
Teen readers of dark, dangerous fantasy will find a lot to love here. Nailer lives in a world of filth, poverty and loyalty. It is a society that is original and makes for a great setting against which to posit a hero like Nailer who has no idea he is a hero! Just the creation of the Gulf Coast and the crews make for incredible world building, but Bacigalupi has created a world around it as well that is just as credible and detailed. Violence is an important aspect of the book, binding characters together, used as punishment, and also to show bravery.
The characters of the book are just as fascinating as the world itself and just as well built. Nailer is a rat with a heart of gold. He’s a disposable worker, unloved by his own father, who rises above all others in the book to heights of bravery and selflessness. He grows believably throughout the book, but never stops being himself. ...
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07/04/2010 07:41 PM
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Hallucinogenic drug or children's program?
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A woman called up the other day saying that her son's teacher, in his report card, had recommended he join LSD at the library over the summer. We figured out she meant the summer reading program - even though she was utterly, utterly convinced it (Source: Latest entries from tinylittlelibrarian.blog-city.com)
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07/04/2010 06:06 PM
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Once upon a life: david vann
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Finding himself in a Mexican backwater among drug lords, thieves and a dishonest captain, novelist David Vann escaped by sailing 500 miles up the coast to Acapulco. But when his engine packed up and a pair of high-speed pirate launches appeared, he knew he was in trouble…The lighthouses were full-sized but made of chicken wire and plaster. Women on their knees rubbed the new brick walkway with loose bricks to make the path seem worn and old, and the dredger worked all night to remove the waste of decades, preparing a new Mexican paradise for Guatemalans. The local fishing boats, called pangas, roared past on drug missions.My sailboat was large and broken, tied to the one crumbled chunk of concrete on the shoreline, visited by rats, snakes, begging children, prostitutes, the police, the navy, drunks, and the port captain's men. I was referred to locally as the ATM Machine, bleeding cash, on the edge of ruin, and even when I'd take a taxi from Tapachula, the city inland, the drivers knew who I was and every detail of my story. They knew the mechanic and his men who had held part of my engine ransom. They knew what I paid Gordo, the local drug lord, each week for protection. They knew who had stolen my outboard. They knew I was here because another captain had abandoned my boat and broken the engine, but they didn't know why I stayed. And finally, when my friend Julie visited, a temporary crew member, I decided to make a run for it, a desperate attempt for Acapulco, almost 500 miles north.We started early in the morning, using our engine and the main sail. There was almost no wind. Slow rollers about 2ft high, easy conditions, making 5 knots with the broken engine, not pushing it to high revs. I was excited to be leaving. Just getting out of that place made a stupid trip seem less stupid.We continued on through the day, into late afternoon, passing within 100 yards of shore. I wanted to have the option of anchoring in close if anything went wrong. ...
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07/03/2010 01:36 PM
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Florida medical examiners commission report on drugs identified in deceased persons
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Florida Medical Examiners Commission Report on Drugs Identified in Deceased Persons (PDF)
Source: Florida Department of Law Enforcement
Some general statewide trends for 2009 are listed below:
The four most frequently occurring drugs found in decedents were Ethyl Alcohol (4,046), all Benzodiazepines (3,379 including 1,963 Alprazolam occurrences), Oxycodone (1,948), and Cocaine (1,462).
The drugs that caused the most deaths were Oxycodone (1,185), all Benzodiazepines (1,099 – includes 822 deaths caused by Alprazolam), Methadone (720), Ethyl Alcohol (559), Cocaine (529), Morphine (302), and Hydrocodone (265).
The four drugs found in more than 50% of the deaths, in which these drugs were found, were Heroin (85.6%), Methadone (73.1%), Oxycodone (60.8%), and Fentanyl (56.7%).
While more than 50% of the deaths from Difluoroethane and Other Inhalants were caused by the drug, the number of occurrences is small for each drug. The majority of other inhalant deaths were caused by Helium (6 of the 11 reported).
The prescription drugs (Benzodiazepines,
Carisoprodol/Meprobamate, Zolpidem, and all Opioids excluding Heroin) tracked through this report continued to be found more often than illicit drugs, both lethal (86%) and non-lethal (75%). Prescription drugs account for 79% of all drug occurrences in this report when Ethyl Alcohol is excluded.
Heroin continues to be the most lethal drug named in this report; however, occurrences of Heroin have decreased by 15.9% and deaths caused by Heroin also decreased by 20% when compared with 2008.
Occurrences of Methadone rose 5.2% while Hydrocodone declined slightly by 0.6% when compared with 2008. Also, deaths caused by Methadone (27 more than 2008) increased this year. Deaths caused by Hydrocodone (5 less than 2008) decreased this year.
Oxycodone occurrences increased by 23.8% and deaths caused by Oxycodone increased by 25.9% when compared with 2008.
Cocaine occurrences decreased by 18. ...
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07/03/2010 10:21 AM
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Comparison of fourth-quarter 2009 average sales prices and average manufacturer prices: impact on medicare reimbursement for second quarter 2010
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Comparison of Fourth-Quarter 2009 Average Sales Prices and Average Manufacturer Prices: Impact on Medicare Reimbursement for Second Quarter 2010 (PDF)
Source: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Inspector General
We identified a total of 35 Healthcare Common Procedure Coding System (HCPCS) codes with average sales prices (ASP) that exceeded average manufacturer prices (AMP) by at least 5 percent in the fourth quarter of 2009. If reimbursement amounts for these 35 codes had been based on 103 percent of the AMPs during the second quarter of 2010, Medicare expenditures would have been reduced by $4.3 million during that quarter alone.
Pursuant to section 1847A(d)(3) of the Social Security Act (the Act), OIG must notify the Secretary of Health & Human Services (the Secretary) if the ASP for a particular drug exceeds the drug’s AMP by a threshold of 5 percent. If that threshold is met, the Act authorizes the Secretary to disregard the ASP for that drug and substitute the payment amount for the drug code with the lesser of the widely available market price for the drug (if any) or 103 percent of the AMP. This is OIG’s 17th report comparing ASPs to AMPs; however, CMS has yet to make any changes to reimbursement as a result of OIG’s findings.
Of the 35 HCPCS codes that met the threshold for price adjustment, 11 had AMP data for every drug product that CMS used to establish reimbursement amounts. Seven of these eleven drugs were also eligible for price adjustments in one or more of the previous four quarters. The remaining 24 of 35 HCPCS codes also met the 5-percent threshold in the fourth quarter of 2009 but did not have AMP data for every drug product that CMS used when calculating reimbursement. We could not compare ASPs and AMPs for an additional 62 HCPCS codes because AMP data were not submitted for any of the drug products that CMS used to calculate reimbursement. ...
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07/03/2010 03:40 AM
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Children/young adult services librarian (octavia fellin public library)
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Children/Young Adult Services Librarian (Octavia Fellin Public Library, New Mexico)
Children/Young
Adult
Services
Librarian
City
of
Gallup
Gallup,
NM
Hiring
Range:
$17.85
-
$18.94;
Status:
Full
Time;
Deadline:
07/21/10
The
City
of
Gallup,
NM
is
accepting
applications
for
a
Children/Young
Adult
Services
Librarian
to
administer
the
library’s
overall
children’s
and
young
adult
program
supervising
a
staff
of
4.
Responsibilities
include,
but
are
not
limited
to:
collection
development,
reference
and
readers’
advisory
services,
programming
and
outreach,
establishing
contacts
with
customers,
community
groups,
organizations
and
the
media.
Assists
with
budget
preparation,
monitoring
expenditures
and
trains
and
provides
leadership
to
staff. ...
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07/02/2010 02:00 PM
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June reading
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American Taliban by Pearl Abraham — This is a novel that is not actually based on the story of John Walker Lindh — in fact, he shows up in the narrative toward the end, just so you know for sure the protagonist isn’t him — although it is a novel about a young American who becomes entranced with Arabic, goes to Pakistan to study, and becomes entranced there with militants in the mountains and ends up going to Afghanistan with them. Like this reviewer, “my first move after finishing was to Google Lindh,” which was interesting, because I read very little of the coverage of him at the time because it made me so angry. Nine years later, I am still incredibly angry about this country’s treatment of the Muslim world and political prisoners, and at its incredible lack of respect for subtlety, and many other related issues, but I’ve calmed down enough to consider, at least, and enough time has gone by that more subtle things have been written. In addition to the New Yorker story linked above, you might also enjoy this piece from Esquire about Lindh in prison. But back to the book, for a moment — it’s good, though maddening at times, particularly toward the end. If anyone else out there reads it, or has read it, I’d love to discuss the ending.
Fat Girl by Judith Moore — There is a great deal of hatred for this book among fat-acceptance activists, at least to judge by Amazon reviews, which I didn’t look at until I was sitting down to write this post. I think it’s a misplaced anger, or an anger based on a misunderstanding of the book (which is a devastating account of both growing up fat and having a truly horrific mother, and yet isn’t at all self-pitying). Consider this, from the opening: “Narrators of first-person claptrap like this often greet the reader at the door with moist hugs and complaisant kisses. ...
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07/02/2010 11:05 AM
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Invalid prescriber identifiers on medicare part d drug claims
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Invalid Prescriber Identifiers on Medicare Part D Drug Claims (PDF)
Source: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Inspector General
OIG found that $1.2 billion in Medicare Part D prescription drug claims contained invalid prescriber identifiers in 2007. Invalid identifiers were used on more than 18 million prescription drug claims. These identifiers either (1) were not listed as valid identifiers in the National Provider Identifier (NPI), Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) number, or Unique Physician Identification Number (UPIN) registry databases or (2) had been deactivated or retired before January 1, 2006.
Part D drug plans must submit an electronic record to CMS for each covered prescription filled for their enrollees. This electronic record, called a prescription drug event (PDE) record, contains drug cost and payment data fields that enable CMS to make payments to plans and oversee the Part D benefit. CMS requires that PDE records contain an identifier for the drug’s prescriber. Identifiers that may be used include NPIs, DEA numbers, and UPINs. Each type of prescriber identifier has specific length and format requirements. For 17 percent of the PDE records that contained invalid prescriber identifiers, the identifiers did not conform to length or format specifications. These PDE records represented $213 million in payments by Medicare drug plans and enrollees in 2007.
Our review also revealed that 10 of the nearly 530,000 invalid identifiers accounted for 17 percent of all drug claims with invalid prescriber identifiers in 2007. Medicare Part D plans and enrollees paid pharmacies $237 million in 2007 for drug claims that contained these 10 invalid identifiers. Five of the top ten invalid identifiers appeared on individual claims for very expensive drugs, with payment amounts totaling more than $10,000 per claim. ...
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07/01/2010 10:44 AM
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M-edge m-skin for the kindle – a review
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Well, I went to school in the 60′s, entering Columbia in 1962 and leaving law school in 1969. Being young in the 60′s and 70′s meant being a part of the recreational drug culture that was burgeoning then. Marijuana and LSD being the major players.
I never had the guts to try LSD, but if I had, and if I had continued to use it, I might very well have come up with the design of this case. Who else but a follower of Timothy Leary could think up such a thing! I know one person – M-Edge’s crazed designer. First the FlexStand and now this!
Its a smooth, silky case that is just a pleasure to hold in your hand. I prefer a case that adds as little weight or thickness as possible, and this skin fills the bill. The front flap attaches closed with a little nubby-thing, and folds back to display the screen. Another nubby-thing holds it in place on the back, but you don’t really need that.
All the buttons line up perfectly and on the one I have, a blue one, the text printed on them is very easy to read as is printed in white. I tried to scratch off the text, but I couldn’t do it. It seems pretty sturdy. Another nice thing about the case is that it’s not slippery. This is the only case I’ve found that allows me to prop the Kindle up at an angle on a table and not have it slide down. There are cutouts for all the ports and the cutouts have little flaps to protect the ports from dust.
All in all, this has become my favorite case. It costs $29.99 and is available here in five colors.
By the way I met some of the M-Edge people at a recent press event in New York and thought you might be interested in seeing them. On the left is Devon Mish who is one of the owners. The other owner is her husband. On the right is Caitlin Mills who does a lot of their PR. Devon said that she and her husband started the company in their kitchen and it has just taken off from there. ...
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06/30/2010 09:27 AM
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Michael stanley's top 10 african crime novels
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The African crime writing duo pick the best books in their field, from established greats Agatha Christie and John Le Carré to newer names on the scene such as Kwei Quartey and Deon Meyer"Ever since we started writing detective stories set in Africa (A Carrion Death and A Deadly Trade), we've paid more attention to the many wonderful mysteries set on the continent. Some of the writers were born in Africa, others not. Some are oldies, but others are contemporary, reflecting the surge of mystery writers interested in Africa. The 10 books we've chosen all capture some aspect of African culture or location. All but one relate to sub-Saharan Africa – the lands of colonies and colonial masters; of newly democratic countries and post-independence struggles. Reading these books will introduce you to areas with which you may be unfamiliar and perhaps give you new insights into some of the oldest cultures in the world."Michael Stanley is the writing team of native Africans Michael Sears and Stanley Trollip. Research for their books has taken the friends tracking lions at night, fighting bush fires on the Savuti plains in northern Botswana, surviving a charging elephant and losing their navigation maps while flying over the Kalahari. Their new novel, A Deadly Trade, is published in paperback by Headline.1. Murder at Government House by Elspeth HuxleyElspeth Huxley is best known for The Flame Trees of Thika, in which she recalls her childhood years growing up in Kenya. She wrote a total of 30 books, including three mysteries, Murder at Government House, The African Poison Murders, and Murder on Safari. The first of these mysteries, Murder at Government House (1935), is set in the colonial town of Chania, where the governor is found strangled at his desk after a dinner party. Canadian-born Superintendent Vachel of the CID is called in to investigate. He finds himself in a web of colonial intrigue and dubious business dealings. ...
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06/29/2010 11:59 PM
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Happy law students and happier lawyers?!?
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♫ Baby no need for false pretenses
Baby just shock me to my senses
Everything that you do feels right…♫
Lyrics and Music by Ryan Tedder, recorded by Jennifer Lopez “Do it Well”.
In an article entitled: How Law Schools Can Produce Happier Students and Satisfied Lawyers, posted by the ABA Journal on Jun 22, 2010 and written by Debra Cassens Weiss, it is stated that:
Law schools need to do more than teach the legal basics—they also have a moral obligation to produce healthy and satisfied lawyers, a recent law grad asserts in an opinion column.
While many lawyers have felt that perhaps law schools didn’t quite prepare them for the onslaught of the practice of law, asserting that law schools have a moral obligation to produce happy lawyers is perhaps just a bit novel to the rest of us.
Writing in the National Law Journal, Michael Serota says schools should emphasize the importance of students making career decisions based on their own professional values. “By helping them identify their professional values and make individual career decisions that correspond to those values, law schools can help lawyers and law students derive satisfaction from their professional lives,” Serota writes.
Citing statistics on lawyer depression from an article by Todd David Peterson and Elizabeth Waters Peterson, Serota says Lawyers have higher rates of depression than any other professional, after adjusting for socio-demographic factors, and are more likely to develop heart disease, alcoholism and drug use.
Apparently the problems also extend to law school. It is stated that, according to one study, 44 percent of law students meet the criteria for clinically significant levels of psychological distress. ...
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06/28/2010 11:00 PM
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Statistics canada report on where youth commit crime
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Statistics Canada today released a report on Where and when youth commit police-reported crimes:"Police-reported data from 2008 indicate that, overall, private residences were the most common sites for youth crime, more than for commercial establishments and outdoor public spaces." "Nearly one-third (32%) of young people aged 12 to 17 accused of an offence were involved in incidents that occurred at a private residence, which includes homes and surrounding property and structures." "Commercial establishments, including stores, office buildings and gas stations, accounted for 23% of youth crime sites, as did outdoor public spaces such as streets, parks and parking lots. About 13% of crime occurred on school property (...)""The location of youth crime varied with the type of offence. For example, non-violent youth crime, especially property-related offences such as minor theft, possession of stolen goods, fraud and shoplifting, took place in commercial establishment more often than other offences." "However, youth violent crime and youth drug offences were more likely than other types of crime to occur on school property. About 23% of police-reported youth violent crime and 31% of youth drug offences took place on school property." (Source: Library Boy)
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06/27/2010 11:00 PM
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Opendemocracy drug policy forum
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This is a follow-up to yesterday's post entitled World Drug Report 2010. The post described the most recent annual report of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).The British website openDemocracy has a regular summary of news and developments in drug policy and criminal justice reform.This week's issue refers to the UNODC report as well as to many other developments. Some of the topics covered include:International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit TraffickingSentencing Reform for drug offences in England and WalesViva Rio launches "Drugs and culture: new perspectives" (from Brazil)The Global State of Harm Reduction 2010: Key Issues for Broadening the Response (Source: Library Boy)
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06/27/2010 11:00 PM
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Fda issues draft guidance on the judicious use of medically important antimicrobials in food-producing animals
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News release: "The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today issued draft guidance intended to help reduce the development of resistance... (Source: beSpacific)
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06/27/2010 11:00 PM
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Southlake public library blog
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1400 Main Street, Suite 130Southlake, Texas 76092Phone: (817) 748-8243http://www.southlakelibrary.org/"Nothing is more difficult, and therefore more precious than to be able to decide." ~Napoleon BonaparteOkay, how odd is it to find a quote about freedom from a dictator like Napoleon? This week we celebrate freedom and remember all of the costs and responsibilities that come with it. Celebrate your freedom and give some thought to the gift that it is to be able to decide. FICTION HARDCOVERTHE GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNET’S NEXT, by Stieg Larsson. (Knopf, $27.95.) The third volume of a trilogy about a Swedish hacker and a journalist. Call #: F LARTHE LION, by Nelson DeMille. (Grand Central, $27.99.) John Corey, now a federal agent, pursues a Libyan terrorist who has returned to America bent on revenge.Call #: F DEMTHE PASSAGE, by Justin Cronin. (Ballantine, $27.) More than a hundred years in the future, a small group resists the vampires who have taken over North America. Call #: F CROWHIPLASH, by Catherine Coulter. (Putnam, 26.95.) The F.B.I. agents Dillon Savich and Lacey Sherlock help investigate misdeeds at a pharmaceutical company.Call #: F COUThe HELP, by Kathryn Stockett. (Amy Einhorn/Putnam, $24.95.) A young white woman and two black maids in 1960s Mississippi.Call #: F STOTHE SPY, by Clive Cussler and Justin Scott. (Putnam, $27.95.) In 1908, a murder leads the detective Isaac Bell to investigate international spies who are trying to keep America from developing a fleet of dreadnought battleships.Call #: F CUSLOWCOUNTRY SUMMER, by Dorothea Benton Frank. (William Morrow/HarperCollins, $25.99.) In this sequel to “Plantation,” a woman returns home after her mother’s death to encounter old secrets and lies.Call #: F FRA61 hours, by Lee Child. (Delacorte, $28.) Jack Reacher helps the police in a small South Dakota town protect a witness in a drug trial.Call #: F CHIINNOCENT, by Scott Turow. (Grand Central, $27.99. ...
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06/26/2010 11:00 PM
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World drug report 2010
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The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) recently released its 2010 annual report [press release]:"The Report shows that drug use is shifting towards new drugs and new markets. Drug crop cultivation is declining in Afghanistan (for opium) and the Andean countries (coca), and drug use has stabilized in the developed world. However, there are signs of an increase in drug use in developing countries and growing abuse of amphetamine-type stimulants and prescription drugs around the world (...)""Globally, the number of people using amphetamine-type stimulants - estimated at around 30-40 million - is soon likely to exceed the number of opiate and cocaine users combined. There is also evidence of increasing abuse of prescription drugs (...)""The World Drug Report 2010 exposes a serious lack of drug treatment facilities around the world. 'While rich people in rich countries can afford treatment, poor people and/or poor countries are facing the greatest health consequences', warned the head of UNODC. The Report estimates that, in 2008, only around one fifth of problem drug users worldwide had received treatment in the previous year, which means that around 20 million drug dependent people did not receive treatment (...)""The World Drug Report 2010 contains a chapter on the destabilizing influence of drug trafficking on transit countries, focusing in particular on the case of cocaine. It shows how underdevelopment and weak governance attract crime, while crime deepens instability. It shows how the wealth, violence and power of drug trafficking can undermine the security, even the sovereignty, of States. The threat to security posed by drug trafficking has been on the agenda of the Security Council several times during the past year. ...
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06/26/2010 06:06 PM
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Ilustrado by miguel syjuco | book review
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A portrait of a culture that's been through history's mincer is a conventional mystery at heartThe "Ilustrados" from whom Miguel Syjuco derives his title – the enlightened ones – were Europeanised Filipinos who came home, from 1860 onwards, to prepare for revolution. He himself writes in English and has developed as a writer at such institutions as Columbia University and the University of Adelaide. Many if not most of the narrative mechanisms of this first novel don't actually work, but it's hard to quarrel with the judges who awarded it the Man Asian literary prize. At one point Syjuco describes the white sky over Manila bay as a blank page waiting for its first mark – but anyone who reads Ilustrado is likely to feel that the skyline has been richly inscribed and illuminated.The plot starts with the death by drowning in New York of a famous writer called Crispin Salvador, a gadfly in exile who can rarely resist provoking the powers that be in his home country. There is a noir tinge to this opening and a scattering of clues. Salvador leaves behind a list of names, but no trace of the manuscript (The Bridges Ablaze) that was supposed to establish his reputation for all time, as well as to settle any outstanding scores.The novel's narrator is a younger Filipino writer, a student of Salvador's who became close to him in his last weeks, who decides to follow the clues back to the Philippines and to write the biography of his mentor.Neither of these characters comes to life. Salvador is a bizarrely prolific producer in a number of genres, from the essay, the poem and the guide book to the disco musical, and extensive extracts are included from his works. His thriller and his books for children are equally feeble, and even the historical novel The Enlightened is closer to the Cookson-axis than the Tolstoy-axis of the genre. ...
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06/26/2010 06:05 PM
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Imperial bedrooms by bret easton ellis | book review
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The alienated teens of Less Than Zero are middle aged in Bret Easton Ellis's new novel, but they have sunk deeper into delinquency"I've never searched for controversy," claims Bret Easton Ellis; "it's not something I'm interested in generating." Maybe not, but in the 25 years since his precocious literary debut as a member of the so-called Brat Pack, it has certainly followed him. The author of five previous novels (Less Than Zero, The Rules of Attraction, American Psycho, Glamorama and Lunar Park) and a collection of stories (The Informers), Ellis has been attacked for his flattened, minimalist early style, his later darkly comic excesses, and above all his subject matter: money, sex, drugs, celebrity and violence.Top of this list is violence. American Psycho, which recounts a New York investment banker's secret life of rape, torture, murder, cannibalism and necrophilia, was notoriously withdrawn by Simon & Schuster before being published by Vintage. In some countries it is deemed so potentially disturbing that it can only be sold shrink-wrapped. At the same time, critics rave about it, academics revel in its transgressive and postmodern qualities, and for all the angry charges of misogyny, it has prominent female defenders, including Fay Weldon, who called it "beautiful, careful, important" and (no arguing with this one) "seminal". Ellis's infiltration of popular culture extends from Eminem songs to video games to references in The Simpsons. Three of his major works to date have received the homage of film versions, with a fourth adaptation (of Lunar Park) due for release in 2011. It seems a foregone conclusion that there will also be a movie of Ellis's much-talked about new novel, Imperial Bedrooms. ...
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06/26/2010 06:03 PM
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Anthony bourdain: the chef who swapped his blade for a pen
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A decade after his explosive memoir, Kitchen Confidential, laid bare the underbelly of the restaurant scene, the celebrated chef and food writer Anthony Bourdain is back for a second helping. But now he has hung up his apron, has he any plans to stop being a "loud, egotistical, one-note asshole"?At one point in his new book Medium Raw, the American chef turned food writer Anthony Bourdain imagines a cussing contest with a critic of his work. If somebody really wanted to put the boot in, he says, they could call him "a loud, egotistical, one-note asshole who's been cruising on the reputation of one obnoxious, over-testosteroned book for way too long and who should just shut the fuck up". Ah yes, the over-testosteroned book, or Kitchen Confidential, as it said on the cover. Published a decade ago, it was a rollicking, boisterous read which gave voice to a once-silent tribe: the tattooed madmen and drug fiends, the knife-wielding obsessives and compulsives and cutthroats who work the kitchens of a great city's great restaurants, in this case New York. It has been credited with freeing food writing from the confines of the genteel and the prissy; with giving it cojones and a racing pulse.What it did was free Bourdain, then a whip-thin fortysomething ex-junkie, from the gruelling life of the kitchen that he had written about. He was lauded for his authenticity. He was the man who had swapped his blade for a pen. (The fact that he had already written a couple of rather good, jaunty kitchen-based crime novels with names such as Bone in the Throat was conveniently overlooked, because it diluted the tale of breakthrough and arrival. ...
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06/25/2010 06:05 PM
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A life in writing: juan gabriel vásquez
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'I aim to show how the drug trade affects somebody not involved in it, somebody who – like me – has never seen a gramme of coke in his life'There is a museum in downtown Bogotá, Colombia's drizzly capital set high in the Andes, where a lawyer's pinstripe suit stands on display in a glass case – pristine, but for two bullet holes in the back. It belonged to Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, a liberal presidential candidate whose assassination in April 1948 sparked the Bogotázo, riots that set the city on fire. The riots ushered in 10 years of blood-letting between liberal and conservative sympathisers and, as peasants formed guerrilla movements, spawned the ensuing decades of South America's longest-running civil war.For Juan Gabriel Vásquez, among the most inventive and erudite of Colombia's emerging generation of novelists, the assassination was the "defining episode of our history – our own JFK". Those gun shots were "our coming of age – when Colombia was welcomed into the cold war. And we still haven't got to the bottom of it; nobody knows who killed Gaitán."Novelists leapt into the breach, "while the bodies were still falling" in the 1940s and 50s. But Colombia's most famous writer, Gabriel García Márquez – in the capital during the riots – dismissed them as a crude "inventory of dead people", crafted without art. "He complained writers hadn't taken the time to learn how to write novels," Vásquez says. "It's not enough to have the material; you have to have the narrative strategy, or you fail."Vásquez, aged 37, has taken that lesson to heart. His talk bristles with quotations from writers he has ingested, rather as, in his words, the Nobel laureate from Aracataca "hired and fired" Faulkner and Hemingway. Good writers, Vásquez believes, "control their own influences – it's not involuntary". ...
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06/25/2010 06:05 PM
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Imperial bedrooms by bret easton ellis | book review
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Mark Lawson enjoys a midlife sequel to Bret Easton Ellis's debutGraham Greene liked to claim that he had once entered a magazine competition inviting Greenian parodies and finished second. And you suspect that, if the Guardian's John Crace happened to be incapacitated while writing a spoof of Bret Easton Ellis's Imperial Bedrooms, the novelist himself could easily step in, although the result might be considered a little self-conscious.Certainly, few writers can have combined such distinctive literary mannerisms with such a strong awareness of their own effects. And, in his latest work of fiction, the sense of signature is increased by the fact that the book is a return to an earlier world: Imperial Bedrooms, his seventh novel, is a sequel, quarter of a century on, to his bravura 1985 debut, Less than Zero.The tone of Less Than Zero was a zombified monologue, in which the narrator, a young, rich brat called Clay, described encounters with sex, drugs and violence in an affectless present-tense: "I'm sitting in my pyschiatrist's office the next day, coming off from coke, sneezing blood." This was a voice so strange and strong – depravities recited in the manner of a shopping list – that it immediately invited pastiche, some of it by Easton Ellis himself, who took casual amorality perhaps as far as it could go in American Psycho, an apologia by a serial killer which the original publisher declined to print.In Imperial Bedrooms, Clay has doubled in age but voice-recognition software would have little trouble picking up his tense present: "We sit in my office naked, buzzed on champagne, while she shows me pics from a Calvin Klein show." He occasionally seems, though, to have developed the syntactical ability to look back: "They had made a movie about us," the book begins. ...
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06/25/2010 06:05 PM
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Restless cities edited by matthew beaumont and gregory dart | book review
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PD Smith enjoys a stroll through the ever-changing spaces of urban lifeMarco Polo, the narrator of Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities, does not attempt to describe the city of Zaira by simply listing the number of steps in its streets that rise like stairways, or the precise type of zinc tiles used on its roofs. He knows that mere facts alone are not sufficient. For Zaira, like all great cities, consists of "relationships between the measurements of its space and the events of its past". Monuments, city squares, even street names are dense with memories and recollections: the city is a place of living history, a mashup of past and present.Like Calvino's lyrical novel, this evocative collection of "city symphonies" attempts to go beyond facticity in order to capture the intangible essence of city life. It is a bold and admirable ambition, and generally these riffs on the urban everyday rise to the occasion. Highlights include Kasia Boddy on the history of attempts to green the city by growing pot plants on window sills, Michael Newton on the lodger – a "new urban character" in 20th-century film and fiction – and Geoff Dyer's delightful account of his love for familiar urban places and routes: "wherever we live we are always compelled to repeat the same thing over and over". Each writer contributes a piece to the jigsaw that is daily life in the modern city – a seemingly mundane subject, yet one that is shot through with the miraculous, like Ben Wilson's gemlike acrylic paintings on discarded chewing gum stamped into the pavement, described in Esther Leslie's piece on "Recycling".The editors describe the attempt to define urban life as akin to diagnosing some pervasive malady or "a state of delirium so habitual as to be almost unnoticeable". ...
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06/25/2010 08:14 AM
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Challenges to fda’s ability to monitor and inspect foreign clinical trials
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Challenges to FDA’s Ability To Monitor and Inspect Foreign Clinical Trials (PDF)
Source: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Inspector General
We found that in fiscal year 2008, sponsors relied heavily on data from foreign clinical trials to support their marketing applications for drugs and biologics.
The Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act requires all new investigational drugs and biologics to undergo clinical trials on human subjects to demonstrate the safety and efficacy of these products prior to approval for sale in the United States. FDA ensures the rights, safety, and well-being of subjects who participate in these trials and verifies that the clinical trial data collected are both accurate and reliable. Sponsors may submit data from foreign and domestic clinical trials to support marketing applications. Sponsors may realize benefits from conducting research abroad. However, medical ethicists have raised concerns about the increased prevalence of foreign clinical trials.
We found that 80 percent of approved marketing applications for drugs and biologics contained data from foreign clinical trials. Further, over half of clinical trial subjects and sites were located outside the United States. Although FDA inspected clinical investigators at few clinical trial sites overall, FDA inspected clinical investigators at less then 1 percent of foreign sites. Challenges in conducting foreign inspections and data limitations inhibit FDA’s ability to monitor foreign clinical trials. For example, if a sponsor has not submitted an Investigational New Drug (IND) application or consulted with FDA in some other way about its foreign clinical trials, FDA has no way of knowing whether and where clinical trials are taking place and therefore cannot conduct inspections while the trials are ongoing. ...
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06/24/2010 05:38 PM
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Drug trafficking and destabilization: world drug report 2010
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World Drug Report 2010
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) released the latest version of the World Drug Report on 23 June, 2010. This document starts by analyzing the transnational drug markets in heroin, cocaine, and amphetamine-type stimulants (ATS). It then provides updated figures on the production, seizure, prices, and consumption levels of opiates, cocaine, cannabis, and ATS. Finally, it delves into more detail on specific producer nations and the demand for treatment in different regions.
One of the key findings of the UNODC is that while heroin and cocaine production has continued to decline, the production and use of newer ATS drugs has skyrocketed in recent years. Cannabis remains the most popular illicit drug worldwide.
read more (Source: HSDL Weblog - On the HomeFront)
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06/24/2010 01:21 PM
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Average personal affordability of prescription drug spending in canada and the united states, 2010 edition
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Average Personal Affordability of Prescription Drug Spending in Canada and the United States, 2010 edition
Source: Fraser Institute
Much of Canadian prescription drug policy is based on the assumption that without government intervention, the market will fail to achieve certain socially desirable outcomes, one of which is affordable access to drugs. This assumption is the basis for justifying policies like price regulation, direct public provision of drug insurance, or government imposed restrictions on consumer choice through policies like mandated therapeutic substitution and comparative-effectiveness reviews.
The findings of this study suggest that, on average, greater government intervention in Canada’s drug markets has not provided more affordable access to prescription drugs relative to less interventionist policy in the United States. This study notes that if other indirect factors are taken into account, there are probably net socio-economic costs associated with government intervention.
+ Full Report (PDF) (Source: Docuticker)
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06/24/2010 11:10 AM
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Emergency department visits involving nonmedical use of selected prescription drugs — united states, 2004–2008
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Emergency Department Visits Involving Nonmedical Use of Selected Prescription Drugs — United States, 2004–2008
Source: Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (CDC)
Rates of overdose deaths involving prescription drugs increased rapidly in the United States during 1999–2006 (1). However, such mortality data do not portray the morbidity associated with prescription drug overdoses. Data from emergency department (ED) visits can represent this morbidity and can be accessed more quickly than mortality data. To better understand recent national trends in drug-related morbidity, CDC and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) reviewed the most recent 5 years of available data (2004–2008) on ED visits involving the nonmedical use of prescription drugs from SAMHSA’s Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN). This report describes the results of that review, which showed that the estimated number of ED visits for nonmedical use of opioid analgesics increased 111% during 2004–2008 (from 144,600 to 305,900 visits) and increased 29% during 2007–2008. The highest numbers of ED visits were recorded for oxycodone, hydrocodone, and methadone, all of which showed statistically significant increases during the 5-year period. The estimated number of ED visits involving nonmedical use of benzodiazepines increased 89% during 2004–2008 (from 143,500 to 271,700 visits) and 24% during 2007–2008. These findings indicate substantial, increasing morbidity associated with the nonmedical use of prescription drugs in the United States during 2004–2008, despite recent efforts to control the problem. Stronger measures to reduce the diversion of prescription drugs to nonmedical purposes are warranted. (Source: Docuticker)
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06/23/2010 05:38 PM
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Ottawa citizen feature on drug treatment courts
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The Ottawa Citizen recently ran a series on the capital’s crack cocaine problem.
An article that ran on Saturday, June 19, 2010 as part of the series examined the city’s Drug Treatment Court that works to divert small-time drug offenders away from jail and into addiction treatment programs:
Offenders in Drug Treatment Court are always facing jail for the petty theft that feeds their habit. After a rigorous assessment, they are accepted into the program and begin treatment with Rideauwood Addiction and Family Services. First they are required to plead guilty to any charges they face.
Addicts in the program set to work on reducing their drug dependency and perhaps achieving one of two goals:
1. Clean living for six months: If they stay drug-free and take all required treatment and counselling, they’ll walk away with a graduation certificate, one day’s probation and, with any luck, a promising future.
2. Clean living for three months: Leave with a year’s probation. (Since staying away from drugs will be a condition of probation, this can be a trap for those likely to relapse.)
There are six Drug Treatment Courts in Canada — Ottawa, Winnipeg, Toronto, Calgary, Edmonton and Regina. Each is more or less modelled on the first in North America which opened in Miami in 1989.
Cross-posted to Library Boy. (Source: Slaw)
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06/23/2010 02:30 PM
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Update on ntsb’s investigation of the may 8 staten island ferry accident
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Update on NTSB’s Investigation of the May 8 Staten Island Ferry Accident
Source: National Transportation Safety Board
On Saturday, May 8, 2010, the National Transportation Safety Board launched a team to the New York City Borough of Staten Island to investigate an accident involving a Staten Island ferry. The passenger ferry, Andrew J. Barberi, departed Whitehall Ferry Terminal in lower Manhattan for its regularly scheduled voyage to St. George’s Ferry Terminal, Staten Island. At approximately, 9:19 a.m. (EDT), the vessel struck the boarding apron and transition bridge on slip No. 5 of the pier on Staten Island. At the time of the accident, there were 18 crewmembers, 2 New York City police officers, 2 concessionaires and 244 passengers on the ferry. Forty-eight persons reported minor injuries. The NTSB’s on- scene investigation was completed on Saturday, May 15. Below is an update on the Safety Board’s ongoing investigation.
The last U.S. Coast Guard inspection on the vessel was its quarterly inspection on April 15, 2010.
Drug and alcohol tests of the crew were negative for alcohol and illegal drugs. (Source: Docuticker)
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06/23/2010 11:30 AM
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"sexting": legal and practical issues
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The Berkman Center is pleased to share our Youth and Media Policy Working Group Initiative's latest document, which addresses legal and practical issues related to the practice colloquially known as sexting:
Sexting: Youth Practices and Legal Implications (PDF)
The document was prepared by Harvard Law School's Cyberlaw Clinic, based at the Berkman Center, for the Risky Behaviors and Online Safety cluster of the Youth and Media Policy Working Group Initiative. It is intended to provide background for discussion of interventions related to sexting. It begins with a definition of sexting, and continues with overviews of research and media stories related to sexting. It then discusses the statutory and constitutional framework for child pornography and obscenity. It concludes with a description of current and pending legislation meant to address sexting.
The Youth and Media Policy Working Group Initiative aims to bring the best research on youth and media into policy-making debates and to propose practical, relevant, situated solutions based upon that research. The Initiative is exploring policy issues that fall within three substantive clusters emerging from youth’s information and communications technology practices: Risky Behaviors and Online Safety; Privacy, Publicity and Reputation; and Youth Created Content and Information Quality. The Initiative is funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and is co-directed by danah boyd, Urs Gasser, and John Palfrey. For more information, including a list of publications to date, please visit http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/research/digitalnatives/policy. ...
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06/22/2010 11:00 PM
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Ottawa citizen feature on drug treatment courts
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The Ottawa Citizen recently ran a series on the capital's crack cocaine problems.An article that ran on Saturday, June 19, 2010 as part of the series examined the city's Drug Treatment Court that works to divert small-time drug offenders away from jail and into addiction treatment programs:"Offenders in Drug Treatment Court are always facing jail for the petty theft that feeds their habit. After a rigorous assessment, they are accepted into the program and begin treatment with Rideauwood Addiction and Family Services. First they are required to plead guilty to any charges they face" "Addicts in the program set to work on reducing their drug dependency and perhaps achieving one of two goals:""1. Clean living for six months: If they stay drug-free and take all required treatment and counselling, they’ll walk away with a graduation certificate, one day’s probation and, with any luck, a promising future.""2. Clean living for three months: Leave with a year’s probation. (Since staying away from drugs will be a condition of probation, this can be a trap for those likely to relapse.)""There are six Drug Treatment Courts in Canada — Ottawa, Winnipeg, Toronto, Calgary, Edmonton and Regina. Each is more or less modelled on the first in North America which opened in Miami in 1989."Earlier Library Boy posts on the topic include:7th Annual Justicia Awards for Legal Reporting (August 14, 2006): "The Awards are sponsored by the Law Commission of Canada, the Canadian Bar Association and the Department of Justice Canada and are given for 'outstanding journalism that fosters public awareness and understanding of any aspect of the Canadian justice system and the roles played by institutions and participants in the legal system'. Enjeux (Radio-Canada TV) won an Award for its March 2006 program 'Tribunal des Toxicomanes' that dealt with Vancouver's groundbreaking Drug Treatment Court. ...
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06/22/2010 11:00 PM
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World drug report 2010
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The UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) launched the 2010 World Drug Report today, 23 June 2010. The Report shows that drug use is shifting towards new drugs and new markets. Drug crop cultivation is declining in Afghanistan (for opium) and the Andean countries (coca), and drug use has stab... (Source: UN Pulse | A Service/Blog of the United Nations Library)
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06/22/2010 06:53 PM
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Project deliverance: southwest border strategy in action
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Earlier this month, the Department of Justice announced the completion of Project Deliverance- “a 22-month, bilateral investigation focused on the transportation infrastructure in the United States used by Mexican drug cartels to distribute illegal narcotics throughout our country and smuggle weapons and cash across the U.S.-Mexico border.”
Attorney General Eric Holder made a statement at the culmination of the project on June 10, saying, “This interagency, cross-border operation has been our most extensive, and most successful, law enforcement effort to date targeting these deadly cartels, and it is a direct result of our ongoing Southwest Border Strategy. Our aim was to target not just cartel operations, but the networks of individuals across the United States that cartels tap to distribute drugs in our country and smuggle cash and guns out of it.”
More facts figures on Project Deliverance, as well as the press release, the Attorney General’s remarks, and a photo gallery from the press conference can be found on the Department of Justice Blog.
read more (Source: HSDL Weblog - On the HomeFront)
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06/22/2010 03:12 PM
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Study shows 111 percent increase in emergency department visits involving nonmedical use of prescription opioid pain relievers in five-year period
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Study Shows 111 Percent Increase in Emergency Department Visits Involving Nonmedical Use of Prescription Opioid Pain Relievers in Five-Year Period
Source: Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration
From 2004 to 2008 the estimated number of emergency department visits linked to the nonmedical use of prescription pain relievers rose from 144,644 visits to 305,885 visits a year.
Visits to hospital emergency departments involving nonmedical use of prescription narcotic pain relievers more than doubled, rising 111 percent, between 2004 and 2008, according to a study by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The study used data from SAMHSA’s Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN) emergency department system. It examined emergency department visits for nonmedical use of legal drugs, such as using them without a prescription.
The dramatic rise in emergency department visits associated with nonmedical use of these drugs occurred among men and women, as well as among those younger than age 21 and those 21 and older.
“The abuse of prescription drugs is our nation’s fastest-growing drug problem. And this new study shows it is a problem that affects men and women, people under 21, and those over 21,”said Office of National Drug Control Policy Director Gil Kerlikowske. “The newly released National Drug Control Strategy contains specific steps that all of us can take to address this issue.”
The three prescription opioid pain relievers most frequently involved in hospital emergency department visits from 2004 to 2008 were:
Oxycodone products – ED visits involving nonmedical use rose 152 percent, to 105,214.
Hydrocodone products – emergency department visits involving nonmedical use rose 123 percent, to 89,051.
Methadone products – emergency department visits involving nonmedical use rose 73 percent, to 63,629. ...
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06/22/2010 11:18 AM
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Report: problems at dea intelligence center
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Review of the Drug Enforcement Administration’s El Paso Intelligence Center
According to the Department of Justice (DOJ) Inspector General (IG), the Drug Enforcement Agency’s El Paso Intelligence Center (EPIC) lacks coordination with federal and state intelligence organizations across the nation. Additionally, the IG found that “Epic does not analyze information from several of the unique sources it possesses and, as a result, may be overlooking drug trafficking trends and patterns that could assist interdiction investigations and operations.”
Established in 1974 and located in El Paso, Texas, EPIC focuses on the collection and dissemination of tactical intelligence. It provides federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies information for investigations and operations that target smuggling and other criminal activities. While the IG points out a number of weaknesses, “EPIC is highly valued by its partner agencies and users, and it users find its products to be valuable and useful.”
read more (Source: HSDL Weblog - On the HomeFront)
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06/22/2010 06:50 AM
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Iom report recommends framework to evaluate health claims for foods and drugs; calls for equal rigor in assessing food claims and drug approvals
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IOM Report Recommends Framework to Evaluate Health Claims for Foods and Drugs; Calls for Equal Rigor in Assessing Food Claims and Drug Approvals
Source: Institute of Medicine
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) should apply the same rigor to evaluating the science behind claims of foods’ and nutritional supplements’ health benefits as it devotes to assessing medication and medical technology approvals, says a new report from the Institute of Medicine. There are no scientific grounds for using different standards of evidence when evaluating the health benefits of food ingredients and drugs given that both can have significant impacts on people’s well-being, said the committee that wrote the report. It recommended a new framework the agency can use to consistently and transparently judge the appropriateness and validity of the scientific benchmarks used in studies that companies provide to support health and safety claims for their products.
Because it can be time-consuming and difficult to test products against actual clinical outcomes — such as whether they cure or reduce the risk of a disease — companies often conduct studies measuring effects on biomarkers, which are used as biological yardsticks or substitutes for clinical outcomes. For example, tumor size is used as a way to measure a cancer drug’s effectiveness. Blood level of harmful cholesterol is often used as a biomarker for the risk of heart disease, and drug and food companies make claims about the heart health benefits of their products based on their ability to lower cholesterol levels, even if the products have not been shown to actually decrease heart disease. ...
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06/21/2010 10:13 PM
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This week’s biotech highlights
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This week in biotech, regulators ran amok.
On the plus side, the FDA approved two new drugs this past week, including one — prostate cancer drug Jevtana — months ahead of the FDA’s deadline.
The FDA also moved this week to regulate LDTs (laboratory developed tests) more closely. Most direct-to-consumer (DTC) genetic tests fall into this category, and a series of letters from the FDA to DTC manufacturers last week is evolving into broader action.
Health Canada also took action this week, with the goal of soliciting reports of adverse drug reactions directly from patients. Unfortunately, the benefits of this approach will be hard to realize unless they develop a consumer-friendly form to go along with the new policy.
For more regulatory news, deal news and news of anyone running amok in biotech, stay tuned to The Cross-Border Biotech Blog and @crossborderbio on Twitter. (Source: Slaw)
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06/21/2010 08:23 AM
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Fda fines american red cross $16 million for prior failures to meet blood safety laws
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FDA Fines American Red Cross $16 Million for Prior Failures to Meet Blood Safety Laws
Source: U.S. Food and Drug Administration
The FDA announced today that the American Red Cross has been fined $16 million for prior failures to comply with Federal laws and regulations related to the collection and manufacture of blood products.
Despite the compliance failures, FDA found no evidence that the Red Cross violations endangered any patients and the blood supply is believed to be safe. Multiple layers of safeguards are in place to protect and enhance the safety of blood products. However, these types of violations decrease the assurance that blood products manufactured by American Red Cross will continue to be safe and have the potential to compromise the safety of the blood supply.
The FDA assessed fines totaling $16.18 million – $9.79 million for violations related to mismanagement of certain blood products and $6.39 million for Good Manufacturing Practice violations. Blood products include red cells, plasma and platelets.
FDA is encouraged by recent efforts made by the Red Cross leadership and will work closely with them to achieve full compliance. The FDA is hopeful these fines will encourage the Red Cross to act more quickly to take the actions necessary to address and correct the issues that have contributed to these violations.
In October 2009, the agency notified the American Red Cross that FDA inspections conducted during fiscal years 2008 and 2009 revealed violations that included failure to identify problems that occur during manufacturing and failure to adequately investigate identified problems.
The fines announced today were assessed under an amended 2003 consent decree that outlines requirements for the American Red Cross to ensure safety of the nation’s blood supply.
+ American Red Cross 2009 Adverse Determination Letters (PDFs) (Source: Docuticker)
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06/20/2010 04:12 PM
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New mexico state u. librarian featured in national public radio (npr) report
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Molly Molloy, a librarian at New Mexico State University, was featured in a National Public Radio report that was broadcast and webcast on Sunday during the Weekend Edition Sunday program.
The title of the four minute report is, “Librarian Compiles Juarez Drug Death Data.”
From a Report Summary:
Molly Molloy, a librarian at New Mexico State University, compiles what is believed to be the most comprehensive database of drug-cartel-related killings in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. “What I try to do is essentially get the best reports I can from local newspapers,” says Molloy, who has been working on disseminating information about the Mexico border since the early 2000s. “All of a sudden in 2008, the murders began to be 200 a month or more. And by the end of 2008, the number…increased by more than five times.”
Listen to the Report: Listen to the Report
Source: NPR
See Also: Here’s Molloy’s Page from LibGuides.com
And a Few Resources
See Also: US-Mexico Border Migration Resources — a working list of resources for US-Mexico border migration
Updated February 2009.
See Also: Online Research Tools for the U.S.-Mexico Border –a working list for reporters
Updated February 2009.
See Also: US-Mexico Border Crime & Justice Resources
A working list of resources for US-Mexico border crime and justice issues. Updated February 20, 2009. (Source: ResourceShelf)
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06/20/2010 08:13 AM
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Health savings accounts and health reimbursement arrangements: assets, account balances, and rollovers, 2006–2009
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Health Savings Accounts and Health Reimbursement Arrangements: Assets, Account Balances, and Rollovers, 2006–2009
Source: Employee Benefit Research Institute
ASSET LEVELS GROWING: In 2009, there was $7.1 billion in consumer-driven health plans (CDHPs), which include health savings accounts (or HSAs) and health reimbursement arrangements (or HRAs), spread across 5 million accounts. This is up from 2006, when there were 1.2 million accounts with $835.4 million in assets, and 2008, when 4.2 million accounts held $5.7 billion in assets.
AVERAGE ACCOUNT BALANCE LEVELING OFF: Increases in average account balances appear to have leveled off. In 2006, account balances averaged $696. They increased to $1,320 in 2007, a 90 percent increase. Account balances averaged $1,356 in 2008 and $1,419 in 2009, 3 percent and 5 percent increases, respectively.
TYPICAL ENROLLEE: The typical CDHP enrollee was more likely than traditional plan enrollees to be young, unmarried, higher-income, educated, and exhibit healthy behavior. No differences were found between CDHPs enrollees and traditional plan enrollees with respect to gender, race, and presence of children.
MORE ROLLOVERS: Overall, the number of people with a rollover, as well as the total level of assets being rolled over, have been increasing. The average rollover increased from $592 in 2006 to $1,295 in 2009.
DIFFERENCES IN ACCOUNT BALANCES: Men tend to have higher account balances than women, account balances increase with household income, education has a significant impact on account balances independent of income and other variables, and no statistically significant differences in account balances were found by smoking, obesity, or the presence of chronic health conditions. ...
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06/19/2010 06:05 PM
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The princess and the frog; alice in wonderland; mimacs; extraordinary measures; the last station | dvd review
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Disney returns to form with the glorious The Princess and the FrogIn my youth (by which I mean my early 30s), I used to declare that there were only two sure things in movies: Woody Allen and Disney animation. For me, any film which bore either of those brands was pretty much guaranteed to entertain. In the years since, both have fallen somewhat into disrepair, with "sporadic satisfaction" a more accurate assessment of their relative outputs. The Princess and the Frog, however, finds Disney back on top form – a proper, old fashioned animation of the kind which once gladdened the heart.Most obviously, it marks a return to the hand-drawn techniques upon which Uncle Walt's reputation was built, but which has more recently become the domain of Hayao Miyazaki and his international progeny. Under the guiding eye of John Lasseter, whose Toy Story ushered in a new digital era, the mouse house has gone back to its roots with this ripping musical yarn which is beautifully drawn in every sense.Set in jazz-age New Orleans, the (un)familiar fairy tale follows hardworking waitress Tiana (sparkily voiced by Anika Noni Rose) and arrogant Prince Naveen (Bruno Campos) as they attempt to break a voodoo spell which has turned them both into amphibians. Trumpet-playing alligators and sympathetic bugs are thrown into the spicy gumbo mix, along with Keith David's electrifying Dr Facilier, one of the best Disney villains in years. The colours are lovely (all dark greens, shady blues and warm ochres) and the sense of invention magically nostalgic. Throughout, I was reminded of Thumbelina, an underrated gem from Don Bluth (who learned his trade at Disney) which boasted a similar blend of riverbank characters and riotous songs, but which underperformed at the box-office. ...
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06/19/2010 06:05 PM
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Once upon a life: paul murray
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As an awkward teenager at an all-boys Catholic school, novelist Paul Murray discovered a new, cooler version of himself through the subversive and thrillingly foul-mouthed Guns N' Roses. But if channelling Axl Rose impressed the school bullies, it had its downside…In 1983, a young man named William Bruce Bailey arrived in Los Angeles from Lafayette, Indiana. He had left his home and family, and soon he would leave his name behind, too. William Bruce Bailey became W Axl Rose, lead singer of the hard rock group Guns N' Roses and the unlikely hero of a small group of academically gifted boys in the South Dublin school of Blackrock College.As I turned 14, I didn't have any serious interest in music. A couple of years earlier, in a kind of patriotic fervour stoked by the massive success of his single "Lady in Red", I had bought Chris de Burgh's album Into the Light and been burned badly. Later I started listening to Def Leppard; I took personal pride in the six (six!) hit singles taken from their platinum-selling LP Hysteria, and the fact that their lead singer was for tax reasons domiciled in Ireland. But I was never entirely happy with Def Leppard. Their ringlets were a little too bouncy, and when, in the middle of their big hit, "Pour Some Sugar on Me", Joe Elliott squealed, "Do you take sugar? One lump or two?" I felt an inexplicable sense of embarrassment.I still remember the day that my friend David "Muller" Mulryan gave me a C90 tape of Appetite for Destruction, Guns N' Roses's first album. I had heard about these guys. Controversy stalked them at every turn. Their songs tackled such subjects as child abuse, drug abuse, the daily horror of life in LA. Word had it that Axl Rose had chosen his nom de guerre because it was an anagram of "oral sex", and added the mysterious prefix "W" so that his initials would spell WAR. Most shockingly of all, their LP featured gratuitous swearing. ...
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06/19/2010 02:05 PM
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New nationwide study shows a dramatic rise in the proportion of older americans admitted for substance abuse treatment from 1992 to 2008
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New Nationwide Study Shows a Dramatic Rise in the Proportion of Older Americans Admitted for Substance Abuse Treatment from 1992 to 2008
Source: Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (HHS)
A new study reveals that between 1992 and 2008 the proportion of substance abuse treatment admissions involving older Americans (aged 50 and older) nearly doubled — from 6.6 percent of all admissions in 1992 to 12.2 percent in 2008. The study, sponsored by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), also shows a sharp rise during this period in the proportion of older Americans admissions related to illicit drug abuse — even though alcohol abuse is still the leading cause for admissions involving this age group.
Among its more notable findings the SAMHSA study reveals that from 1992 to 2008 the proportion of admissions among this age group due primarily to:
Heroin abuse more than doubled — from 7.2 percent to 16.0 percent.
Cocaine abuse quadrupled — from 2.9 percent to 11.4 percent.
Prescription drug abuse rose from 0.7 percent to 3.5 percent.
Marijuana abuse increased from 0.6 percent to 2.9 percent.
At the same time admissions primarily related to alcohol abuse decreased from 84.6 percent in 1992 to 59.9 percent in 2008.
+ Full Report (Source: Docuticker)
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06/18/2010 06:06 PM
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A life in psychology: dorothy rowe
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'People don't suddenly become psychotic or depressed out of the blue, there's always a disaster that they suffer''If you make happiness your goal, then you're not going to get to it," says psychologist Dorothy Rowe. "Philosophers have been saying it for thousands of years. The goal should be an interesting life."Rowe has devoted her life to trying to help people free themselves from what she famously termed the "prison" of depression, to live that interesting life. In more than a dozen books, the self-help pioneer has set out what she believes are the obstacles that hold people back, and offered a recipe for, if not happiness, then a greater degree of satisfaction with their lot.Drawing on her own life experience, including a miserable childhood and a marriage ended by her husband's infidelity, as well as her clinical work as an NHS psychologist, Rowe has developed a clear set of ideas about depression, and the best way to fix it. In the process, she has become something of a guru, with some admirers convinced that just reading her books is enough to bring about a transformation, even a cure.Rowe believes talk of illness and cures is unsuitable. She prefers to speak of "mental distress", and rejects biological explanations for depression. "All the evidence has gone," she says, citing a recent study suggesting "life events" are what trigger depression in almost every case. "What we know now from research is that people don't suddenly become psychotic or depressed out of the blue, there's always a disaster that they suffer, and it's not always a disaster that other people can see is a disaster. It's a private personal one, but it always precedes depression, psychosis, obsession, mania, all of them."At the heart of Rowe's thought is the idea that depression is a crisis in the relationship between the individual and the world. ...
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06/18/2010 06:06 PM
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Food writing moves from kitchen to bookshelf
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Kathryn Hughes charts the rise of the food writer in the past decade, which began with Anthony Bourdain and his irreverent Kitchen ConfidentialIt is 10 years since Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential rocked into town and gave food writing such a hard slap that it has never quite known which end to stand on ever since. Bourdain's account of life as a professional chef in New York City made midweek service at Les Halles or the Supper Club sound like going on tour with the Rolling Stones circa 1972. In exquisitely dirty prose he described a life of constant high pressure, meaty sweats, singed fingers and drunken all-night come-downs with his crew of semi desperados. Kitchen Confidential blew the idea that there was anything refined or effete about cooking for a living, and gave its entranced readers the kind of insider information that made them feel as though they had been initiated into the coolest gang on earth.Now, a decade on, Bourdain has published Medium Raw. There have actually been five books in between, but this one is branded as the official follow-up to Kitchen Confidential. There is something identifiably different about it, though. It is not just the tone – Bourdain is in his 50s now, off drugs and a first-time father, so some of the piratical swagger has been burnt off, although the language remains as rococo as ever. It is more that the landscape into which Bourdain is launching his sequel has changed entirely. Whereas Kitchen Confidential was free to slash and burn its way through literary territory that felt relatively static, even stuck, Medium Raw is obliged to pick its way carefully through a richly variegated and much expanded genre. Food writing has evolved its own elaborate ecosystem, bristling with sub-genres, starting points, cross-currents and trip wires. For Bourdain to repeat his trick of 2000 and storm in, steak knives rattling, would not look so much heroic now as simply ignorant. ...
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06/18/2010 01:16 PM
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International criminal markets have become major centres of power, unodc report shows
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International criminal markets have become major centres of power, UNODC report shows
Source: United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime
A report released today by UNODC shows how organized crime has globalized and turned into one of the world’s foremost economic and armed powers.
The Globalization of Crime: A Transnational Organized Crime Threat Assessment, released at the Council of Foreign Relations in New York, looks at major trafficking flows of drugs (cocaine and heroin), firearms, counterfeit products, stolen natural resources and people (for sex and forced labour), as well as smuggled migrants. It also covers maritime piracy and cybercrime.
…
Among the findings in the new report, which features a number of high-impact maps and charts that illustrate illicit flows and their markets are: Europe is the highest-value regional heroin market (US$ 20 billion), while the Russian Federation is now the single largest national heroin consumer in the world (70 tons). Countries that grow most of the world’s illicit drugs, like Afghanistan (opium) and Colombia (coca), receive the most attention and criticism. Yet, most drug-related profits are made in the destination (rich) countries. For example, out of a global market of perhaps US$ 55 billion for Afghan heroin, only about 5 per cent (US$ 2.3 billion) goes to Afghan farmers, traders and insurgents. The report shows that the North American cocaine market is shrinking because of lower demand and greater law enforcement, which in turn has generated a turf war among trafficking gangs, particularly in Mexico, and new drug routes.
+ Full Report
Hat tip: PW (Source: Docuticker)
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06/18/2010 09:40 AM
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Sebastian horsley obituary
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Artist and self-styled Soho dandy, he underwent crucifixion for his art and was celebrated for his witSebastian Horsley, who has been found dead aged 47, always favoured the provocative and outre in his writing and his art. In 2000, he notoriously underwent a crucifixion in the Philippines as a participant in a rebirth ceremony. He was nailed to a cross for 20 minutes, fainted from the pain and fell when the footrest gave way. The incident – photographed by Dennis Morris and filmed by the artist Sarah Lucas, with accompanying music by Gavin Rossdale, the lead singer of Bush – inspired a series of paintings by Sebastian. These, alongside the photographs and the film, were exhibited in his 2002 show Crucifixion.Having swum with sharks when he was young, Sebastian became fascinated by their capacity for beauty and danger, and they became a recurrent motif in his large-scale paintings. His 2007 retrospective at the Spectrum Gallery, in London, was entitled Hookers, Dealers, Tailors and included displays of his flamboyant bespoke tailoring. The outfitters Turnbull & Asser created a shirt in his honour.Sebastian was as comfortable in the glittering salons of London's art world as he was in the backstreet dives of Soho, where he lived. Visitors to his two-room flat on Meard Street would be confronted by a sign on the black door stating: "This is not a brothel. There are no prostitutes at this address." If one were allowed to enter – a Byzantine process, often involving multiple rings of the bell and telephone calls – one encountered a cross between a Dickensian grotesque and a Byronic dandy, with just a touch of the circus ringmaster.Sebastian thrived on organised squalor and considered such niceties as kitchens and bathrooms to be optional luxuries. The focal point of his small but lavish drawing room was an extensive collection of human skulls. ...
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06/18/2010 09:00 AM
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Four essays addressing risky behaviors and online safety
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From danah boyd's blog:
At Harvard’s Berkman Center, John Palfrey, Urs Gasser, and I have been co-directing the Youth and Media Policy Working Group Initiative to investigate the role that policy can play in addressing core issues involving youth and media. John has been leading up the Privacy, Publicity, and Reputation track; Urs has been managing Youth Created Content and Information Quality track; and I have been coordinating the Risky Behaviors and Online Safety track. We’ll have a lot of different pieces coming out over the next few months that stem from this work. Today, I’m pleased to share four important essays that emerged from the work we’ve been doing in the Risky Behaviors and Online Safety track:
“Moving Beyond One Size Fits All With Digital Citizenship” by Matt Levinson and Deb Socia
This essay addresses some of the challenges that educators face when trying to address online safety and digital citizenship in the classroom.
“Evaluating Online Safety Programs” by Tobit Emmens and Andy Phippen
This essay talks about the importance of evaluating interventions that are implemented so as to not face dangerous unintended consequences, using work in suicide prevention as a backdrop.
“The Future of Internet Safety Education: Critical Lessons from Four Decades of Youth Drug Abuse Prevention” by Lisa M. Jones
This essay contextualizes contemporary internet safety programs in light of work done in the drug abuse prevention domain to highlight best practices to implementing interventions.
“Online Safety: Why Research is Important” by David Finkelhor, Janis Wolak, and Kimberly J. Mitchell
This essay examines the role that research can and should play in shaping policy.
These four essays provide crucial background information for understanding the challenges of implementing education and public health interventions in the area of online safety. I hope you will read them because they are truly mind-expanding pieces. ...
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06/17/2010 12:38 PM
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Unodc: international criminal markets are now centers of power
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The Globalization of Crime: A Transnational Organized Crime Threat Assessment
"Transnational crime has become a threat to peace and development, even to the sovereignty of nations. Criminals use weapons and violence, but also money and bribes to buy elections, politicians and power - even the military."
The threat of organized crime has a broad reach, though as this report suggests, it is insufficiently understood. This lack of understanding has prevented the creation of evidence-based policies that are able to deter future offenses from occurring.
This report, released by the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC) discusses organized crime across the world. Within the report, current trends in drug, firearm, counterfeit products, and stolen goods trafficking by criminal organizations are discussed. Human trafficking, maritime piracy, and cybercrime are also examined in detail.
The report finds that the North American drug market is shrinking due to lower demand and more effective law enforcement. This reduction has generated a turf war among criminal gangs involved in trading drugs, which can mainly be found in Mexico. It has also led to more drugs moving to West Africa and Europe from South and Central America.
According to the report: "There is no choice to tackle these problems at the scale they have emerged: globally. Local efforts are key, but will only serve to displace the flow until a coordinated approach is adopted."
read more (Source: HSDL Weblog - On the HomeFront)
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06/17/2010 11:27 AM
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Underworld dandy: sebastian horsley dies, aged 47, of suspected overdose | ben myers
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He was an artist, writer, Soho peacock and much more – yet perhaps Horsley's defining obsession and achievement was himselfIt's hard to know exactly how to describe Sebastian Horsley, who has been found dead today at the age of 47 of a suspected overdose.Artist? Yes. He remains most notorious for having himself crucified in the name of art in the Philippines in 2000. Writer? Undoubtedly. His autobiography Dandy in the Underworld – named after an album by his hero Marc Bolan's T Rex – is as memorable and witty a confessional since Quentin Crisp (another Horsley reference point) last put barbed pen to paper.Journalist? For a while. He enjoyed a six-year run writing a column for The Erotic Review, which, when it transferred to the Observer, lasted a mere four months due to readers' complaints about his endless descriptions of anal sex. Critic? Yes, he was that too. He criticised everything, sometimes professionally, as in his appearances on the likes of The Culture Show.He was also a dramatist, it could be said. After all, from birth to death his life was a living drama full of heroic triumphs, tragic downfalls and a deluge of one-liners, and which only last week made the leap from street to stage in a West End adaptation of his life story. A story so good, in fact, that it had also been optioned for development by Stephen Fry's film company.Horsley was many other things besides: a wit, a bisexual bedroom adventurer, a drug addict and a hustler in all senses of the word. He claimed to have made £1m on the stock markets in the 1980s, then spent most of it on crack and heroin and prostitutes, a profession that he himself dabbled in. Perhaps most of all, though, he was a peacock: a strutting, smirking Soho peacock, the likes of whom Britain seems to produce only every generation or two to enliven the drab lives of us everyday folk. The type of person that makes people stop and stare in the street. ...
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06/16/2010 11:00 PM
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A stimulating, nurturing environment is a necessity
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A Report from the Health Research Board, detailing drug-related deaths and deaths among drug users in Ireland, arrived at Library Headquarters on Monday morning. The report makes sad reading. It details the deaths of over 3,000 people, in the last decade, due to poisoning or trauma.In the same post, another publication arrived which featured a work by the Spanish artist Carmen Calvo. Calvo has been written about in the following way:"Artists, you can't help but notice, have more interesting gardens than the rest of us. That's because they're so suffused with talent, everything they touch blossoms into self-expression.Isn't that what, in our heart of hearts, we all believe?And isn't it a demoralizing thought? "Well, it's also dead wrong, says Maria del Carmen Calvo, a painter who keeps a garden in Capistrano."Artists don't live in beautiful spaces because they are artists," says Calvo. "They live in beautiful spaces so that they can be artists."They believe that a stimulating, nurturing environment is a necessity, not a luxury, and they go to great lengths to create it. "Beauty feeds our souls," she continues. "We need it in order to function at full capacity" And that "we," insists Calvo, includes all of us...(Read more)Perhaps the key point here is that “a stimulating, nurturing environment is a necessity, not a luxury.”I notice that one of the objectives of the Health Research Board is “to assist in identifying and prioritising areas for intervention and prevention, and to measure the effects of such interventions.”People take drugs because they are searching for something, because they need something for their heads. Literacy skills and access to books and reading in a stimulating, nurturing environment like a library will do something for people’s heads, will allow people to dream real dreams. ...
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06/16/2010 09:55 PM
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New web resource: fda (food and drug administration) to communicate safety monitoring activities to consumers and health care professionals
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From an Announcement:
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration [has] unveiled a new source of information for patients and health care professionals on the safety of recently approved drugs and biologics.
Summaries of FDA safety analyses on recently approved products will now be periodically prepared and posted on FDA’s website along with a brief discussion of the steps FDA is taking to address any identified safety issues.
Some side effects may not become apparent until after a medicine has been approved and becomes available to a larger, more diverse population than the patients who participated in clinical trials that supported approval. The new summaries provide a comprehensive look at safety data early in the product’s post-approval life cycle and are based on reports by manufacturers, providers, consumers and others to the FDA’s Adverse Event Reporting System (AERS) and the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System maintained by the FDA and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention; periodic safety information submitted to FDA by manufacturers; information contained in the medical literature; and data from ongoing drug and biologic studies.
Included in the summaries may be information on potentially serious, previously unidentified risks, if any are found during the review, as well as known adverse events that occur more often than they did during clinical studies. The summaries will also include a brief discussion of any steps FDA may be taking to address these safety issues.
+ Postmarketing Drug Safety Evaluation Summaries
+ Postmarket Drug Safety Information for Patients and Providers
Numerous Resources are Linked on this Page Including:
+ Postmarket Requirements and Commitments Search (Updated Quarterly)
+ Index to Drug-Specific Information
+ Adverse Event Reporting System (AERS)
“Provides a description of AERS, AERS data files, AERS summary statistics and other information. ...
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06/16/2010 11:29 AM
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The race against drug resistance: can it be won?
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“In an increasingly interconnected world, drug resistance does not stop at a patient’s bedside—it threatens global health. It has slowed gains against the fatal ravages of childhood dysentery and pneumonia, drastically increased the costs of fighting tuberculosis and malaria, and imperiled efforts to effectively treat people living with HIV/AIDS. Tens of millions of lives are at stake; quality of life for scores of millions more is under threat.” So concludes the Center for Global Development’s Drug Resistance Working Group in their new report released on June 14. The report, entitled The Race against Drug Resistance, calls for urgent action to combat this threat, in the form of “achievable steps […] which the health community, governments, donors, and the pharmaceutical industry can and must take to slow the spread of drug resistance.” The report outlines four key recommendations for these stakeholders:
1. Collect and share drug resistance information across disease networks
2. Secure the drug supply chain to ensure quality products and practices
3. Strengthen national drug regulatory authorities in developing countries
4. Catalyze research and innovation to speed the development of resistance-fighting technologies
If these steps are not taken, the working group warns that drug resistance “will quickly become a widespread threat—claiming lives, raising the cost of curing patients, and making future generations increasingly vulnerable to deadly diseases […] that were easily cured in the past.”
read more (Source: HSDL Weblog - On the HomeFront)
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06/16/2010 09:26 AM
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A microgram of prevention is worth a milligram of cure: preventing medication errors in animals
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A Microgram of Prevention is Worth a Milligram of Cure: Preventing Medication Errors in Animals
Source: U.S. Food and Drug Administration
The National Coordinating Council for Medication Error Reporting and Prevention (NCCMERP) defines a medication error as any preventable event that may cause or lead to inappropriate medication use or patient harm while the medication is in the control of the health care professional, patient, or consumer.[1] As a member of NCCMERP, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) adopted the Council’s definition of a medication error over 10 years ago.
Rather than fault an individual, FDA looks at the error-prone areas of the entire medication use process. Drug names that look-alike or sound-alike, incomplete or confusing drug labels, and lack of proper education about newly approved products are just a few areas of FDA’s initiative to prevent medication errors.
+ Veterinary Adverse Event Voluntary Reporting (Source: Docuticker)
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06/16/2010 07:22 AM
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Ecstasy overdoses at a new year’s eve rave — los angeles, california, 2010
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Ecstasy Overdoses at a New Year’s Eve Rave — Los Angeles, California, 2010
Source: Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (CDC)
Ecstasy (3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine [MDMA]) is an illegal synthetic amphetamine used as a stimulant and hallucinogen (1–3). On January 4, 2010, the Los Angeles County (LAC) Department of Public Health (DPH) learned of six MDMA-related emergency department (ED) visits and one death, all linked to a New Year’s Eve event attended by approximately 45,000 persons. LAC DPH conducted an investigation to search for additional MDMA-related ED visits, characterize the cases, and determine whether drug contamination was involved. This report summarizes the results of the investigation, which determined that 18 patients visited EDs in LAC for MDMA-related illness within 12 hours of the rave. All were aged 16–34 years, and nine were female. In addition to using MDMA, 10 of the 18 had used alcohol, and five had used other drugs. Three patients were admitted to the hospital, including one to intensive care. A tablet obtained from one of the patients contained MDMA and caffeine, without known toxic contaminants. The cluster of apparent ecstasy overdoses occurred in the context of likely increasing MDMA use in the county during 2005–2009, as indicated by increased identification of MDMA-containing forensic specimens and a large increase in LAC residents entering drug treatment programs for MDMA. Collaboration between public health, police, fire, and emergency medical service (EMS) officials on a comprehensive prevention strategy might reduce the number of overdoses at similar events.
A rave is an all-night dance party with electronic music. When raves first emerged in the late 1980s, they were underground parties usually held at abandoned warehouses and outdoor sites. ...
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06/15/2010 09:32 PM
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A gruesome reckoning
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WSJ – “Molly Molloy keeps a grim diary. “Eight killed in night club,” reads her April 28 entry. “Pregnant woman killed during soccer match,” she noted on May 4. Ms. Molloy, a 54-year-old librarian at New Mexico State University here, spends most mornings sifting reports in the Mexican press to create a tally of drug-cartel-related killings in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. She is striving to fill a widening information gap about these homicides in Juárez, some 50 miles southeast of Las Cruces, across the Rio Grande from El Paso, Texas.” (Source: Library Stuff)
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06/15/2010 10:45 AM
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What types of health/ medical info are people looking for online?
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From an iHealth Beat Summary:
Thirty-eight percent of U.S. adults report having researched a specific medical condition online in the past 12 months, according to a Forrester Research survey.
Meanwhile, 26% of U.S. adults have researched a specific drug or medication online in the past year and 10% of adults have gone online to research health insurance providers in the past year.
The survey also found that 7% of U.S. adults have researched the quality of a doctor or hospital online in the past year, while 5% of U.S. adults have researched the cost of a doctor or hospital online.
Source: iHealth Beat (Source: ResourceShelf)
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06/14/2010 11:00 PM
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Wsj: librarian sifts mexican press to tally drug-cartel-related killings in juárez
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WSJ.com: "Ms. Molloy, a 54-year-old librarian at New Mexico State University here, spends most mornings sifting reports in the Mexican... (Source: beSpacific)
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06/14/2010 11:00 PM
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Southlake public library blog
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1400 Main Street, Suite 130Southlake, Texas 76092Phone: (817) 748-8243http://www.southlakelibrary.org/"There is no secret to balance, you simply have to feel the waves." ~Frank Herbert, AuthorWhere does reading fall into the balanced life? With all that we have to do, how do we find time for those optional pleasures, those things we mean to do - one day? Step off the daily treadmill of activities and take some slow measured steps. Rediscover simple pleasures and the joy of being leisurely.FICTION HARDCOVERTHE GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNET’S NEXT, by Stieg Larsson. (Knopf, $27.95.) The third volume of a trilogy about a Swedish hacker and a journalist. Call #: F LARBULLET, by Laurell K. Hamilton. (Berkley, $26.95.) Anita Blake, vampire hunter, is menaced by the Mother of All Darkness, who wants to take over her body. Call #: F HAMTHE SPY, by Clive Cussler and Justin Scott. (Putnam, $27.95.) In 1908, a murder leads the detective Isaac Bell to investigate international spies who are trying to keep America from developing a fleet of dreadnought battleships.Call #: F CUSThe HELP, by Kathryn Stockett. (Amy Einhorn/Putnam, $24.95.) A young white woman and two black maids in 1960s Mississippi.Call #: F STODEAD IN THE FAMILY, by Charlaine Harris. (Ace, $25.95.) Sookie Stackhouse is exhausted in the aftermath of a Fae war. Call #: F HAR61 hours, by Lee Child. (Delacorte, $28.) Jack Reacher helps the police in a small South Dakota town protect a witness in a drug trial.Call #: F CHITHE BURNING WIRE, by Jeffery Deaver. (Simon & Schuster, $26.99.) The forensic detective Lincoln Rhyme investigates a series of murderous electrical explosions and tracks the killer known as the Watchmaker to Mexico.Call #: F DEASTORM PREY, by John Sandford. (Putnam, $27.95.) Lucas Davenport’s wife is a witness to a botched robbery and murder in the 20th novel in the “Prey” series.Call #: F SANTHE BOURNE OBJECTIVE, by Eric Van Lustbader. (Grand Central, $27.99. ...
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06/14/2010 08:01 AM
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New national report shows differences in the types and levels of substance use and mental illness problems experienced by the states
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New National Report Shows Differences in the Types and Levels of Substance Use and Mental Illness Problems Experienced by the States
Source: Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration
A new report providing state-by-state analyses of substance abuse and mental illness patterns reveals that despite wide variations among the states in the types and levels of behavioral health problems they experience — every state suffers from these problems. For example, among those aged 12 and older, Iowa had less than one third the current illicit drug use rate of Rhode Island (4.1 percent vs. 13.3 percent) – yet Iowa’s population aged 12 and older was among the group of states with the nation’s highest levels of people participating in binge drinking in the past month (27.2 percent).
The report provides state public health authorities and service providers with useful information on a wide range of substance use and mental illness issues affecting their states. The report is part of SAMHSA’s strategic initiative on data, outcomes, and quality – an effort to inform policy makers and service providers on the nature and scope of behavioral health issues.
Among the report’s other notable findings:
Cigarette use by adolescents has decreased in 35 states since 2002 — no increases in cigarette smoking were observed in any state during this period.
Minnesota had the nation’s highest rate of past year dependence on, or abuse of, alcohol among those age 12 or older (10 percent), while Kentucky had the lowest (5.7 percent).
Nine of the ten states having the highest levels of past month illicit drug use among persons age 12 or older also had the highest levels of past month marijuana use (in alphabetical order — Alaska, Colorado, District of Columbia, Montana, New Hampshire, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington). ...
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06/13/2010 11:00 PM
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Scientists use new technique grow cells in 3-d using magnetic fields
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Cells in the human body live in amazingly complex, three-dimensional environments that are crucial for the cells' proper function. The lung, for example, consists of layers of different kinds of cells that work together to exchange oxygen and carbon dioxide between the air and the blood.The way these cells work together, and the chemicals that they express to communicate with one another, change when they live on a flat, two-dimensional surface.Given these differences in cell behavior and expression, it's intriguing that the standard for testing new drugs and chemicals are tests that use cells grown in flat-bottomed Petri dishes.In an effort to more accurately mimic the effect of drugs or toxic chemicals on real living tissue, scientists from Rice University and the University of Texas' M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston have developed a new laboratory technique that uses magnetic levitation to grow cells in three-dimensional shapes. Compared with cell cultures grown on flat surfaces, these 3-D cell cultures form tissues that more closely resemble those inside the body. The technique has the potential to drastically reduce the cost of developing new drugs, as well as reduce the use of animals when testing the safety of manufactured chemicals. The team's results were published in March 2010 in Nature Nanotechnology."There's a big push right now to find ways to grow cells in 3-D because the body is 3-D, and cultures that more closely resemble native tissue are expected to provide better results for pre-clinical drug tests," said study co-author Tom Killian, associate professor of physics at Rice. "If you could improve the accuracy of early drug screenings by just 10 percent, it's estimated you could save as much as $100 million per drug."The new technique is an example of the innovation that can result when experts come together from disparate fields. ...
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06/12/2010 06:04 PM
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The dead yard by ian thomson | book review
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You can smell the sweat, sex and ganja in Ian Thomson's 'story of modern Jamaica'The Jamaican tourist board won't thank Ian Thomson. Worth $1bn a year, tourism is Jamaica's main source of income. Along with the trade in narcotics, which plays no small part in the island's 1,500 murders a year. The Dead Yard, which last month picked up the Ondaatje prize for Commonwealth travel writing, uncovers an "inbetween" Jamaica, one that's neither the rum and reggae of Disneyfied Montego Bay nor the "guns, guns, guns" of Kingston's slums. What Thomson finds in all corners, however, is a failing, mongrel nation that has slipped painfully and not entirely from British rule onto a path dictated by the political and business interests of America.Those after The Wire-style gore should be aware that Thomson leaves the grass roots of gangland pretty well alone. He tells us that 42% of Kingston's population are under 20, but we meet few of the city's desperate teens. When he ventures to a very late-night passa-passa party in Tivoli Gardens, no mention is made of the neighbourhood's unofficial "president", the drug and gun lord Christopher "Dudus" Coke, whose recent attempted extradition to the US led to gun battles and 70 deaths. Still, the party, like every street, house and landscape in the book, beautiful or ruined, is described with skill: you can smell the sweat, sex and ganja, and feel the quaking sound system.Thomson, a white Scot capable of combativeness and charm, meets mainly older residents with a historical perspective, among them community and religious leaders, musicians, and Errol Flynn's wife. Jamaican migrants in Britain get their say too, and the legacy of sugar slavery and British colonialism gets a kicking. The two-party politics inherited from Westminster hasn't worked, with gangs aligning with the JLP or PNP in exchange for criminal impunity. ...
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06/12/2010 10:52 AM
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Fda should adopt risk-based approach to food safety and take steps to prevent food borne illnesses
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FDA should adopt risk-based approach to food safety and take steps to prevent food borne illnesses
Source: Institute of Medicine and National Research Council
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s abilities to discover potential threats to food safety and prevent outbreaks of foodborne illness are hampered by impediments to efficient use of its limited resources and a piecemeal approach to gathering and using information on risks, says a new report by the Institute of Medicine and National Research Council.
To more proactively tackle food safety problems, FDA should implement a risk-based approach in which data and expertise are marshaled to pinpoint where along the production, distribution, and handling chains there is the greatest potential for contamination and other problems, the report says. The agency would then be able to direct appropriate amounts of its resources and attention to those high-risk areas and increase the chances of catching problems before they turn into widespread outbreaks, said the committee that wrote the report.
The report offers FDA a blueprint for developing a risk-based model. It also outlines several organizational steps the agency should take to improve the efficiency of its many food safety activities, such as increasing coordination with state and other federal agencies that share responsibility for protecting the nation’s food supply. In addition, the report says Congress should consider amending the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act to explicitly provide the authority FDA needs to fulfill its food safety mission.
Read full report for free online. (National Academies Press) (Source: Docuticker)
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06/12/2010 05:49 AM
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Directory of open access journals - recently added titles
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Industrial Psychiatry Journal
International Journal of Ayurveda Research
Open Area Studies Journal
Open Arthritis Journal
Open Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgery Journal
Open Endocrinology Journal
Open Neuropsychopharmacology Journal
Open Ocean Engineering Journal
Open Toxinology Journal
Psicología Política
Journal of Nucleic Acids Investigation
Open Atherosclerosis & Thrombosis Journal
Open Condensed Matter Physics Journal
Open Drug Discovery Journal
Practical Matters
Revista Dissertatio de Filosofia
Hmong Studies Journal (Source: Peter Scott's Library Blog)
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06/11/2010 06:04 PM
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Girl meets copyright
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The other day, a friend called to tell me that she was getting published in an international journal. The first words out of my mouth were, “Be sure you read your copyright agreement.” Yup. Not “Congratulations,” not “That’s great,” not “When can I get a copy?” Nope. I am such a librarian that the first thing I told her to do was to check her copyright.
I spent my formative years, as most people do, blissfully unaware of the intricacies of intellectual property. In fact, I’m fairly sure I didn’t run across that term until I was in graduate school (my second graduate school). Oh, I’d looked at the copyright statements in books from time to time, to see when they were written, and I’d realized that sometimes the copyright date didn’t really tell you that, because it was the date the copyright was renewed, or it was a copyright for that edition or something. I’d seen the battered paper sign taped up by the copy machines at the public library that gave dire warnings in small print about photocopying copyrighted material. I knew that when my favorite used record store put up a cutout of Garth Brooks saying you shouldn’t buy used CDs, it was making fun of the movement started by Brooks and other artists to clamp down on the sale of used CDs because they supposedly cut into their profits. But on the whole, copyright wasn’t something I ever thought about. The phrase “public domain” had not yet entered my consciousness.
How I got from those days copy ignorance to my current state of copyawareness is an interesting, and, I hope, instructive story. ...
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06/11/2010 12:15 PM
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Smooth sailing? not really.
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The Center for American Progress has released a report entitled Building a U.S. Coast Guard for the 21st Century. The report illustrates the need to modernize and upgrade the nation's oldest maritime force. "The age and condition of the Coast Guard fleet is already affecting the service's ability to carry out its missions."
The report details several challenges faced by today's Coast Guard, including: fiscal challenges, personnel challenges, defense readiness challenges, recapitalization challenges, organizational restructuring challenges, and climate change challenges.
These challenges are especially worrisome given the Coast Guard's increasing role in homeland security. "Coast Guard personnel and assets are conducting counter piracy missions in the Gulf of Aden, protecting Iraqi petroleum pipelines and shipping lanes in the Persian Gulf, and shouldering the load in the government's response efforts to the massive Deepwater Horizon oil spill off the coast of Louisiana, the largest oil spill in the nation's history. The Coast Guard remains heavily engaged in all of these theatres in addition to its traditional and better-known search and rescue, drug interdiction, and port security missions."
read more (Source: HSDL Weblog - On the HomeFront)
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06/10/2010 09:10 AM
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Manufacturing facilities release pharmaceuticals to the environment
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Manufacturing Facilities Release Pharmaceuticals to the Environment
Source: U.S. Geological Survey
Pharmaceutical manufacturing facilities can be a significant source of pharmaceuticals to surface waters, according to a new study by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) conducted in cooperation with the State of New York.
Outflow from two wastewater treatment plants in New York that receive more than 20 percent of their wastewater from pharmaceutical facilities had concentrations of pharmaceuticals that were 10 to 1000 times higher than outflows from 24 plants nationwide that do not receive wastewater from pharmaceutical manufacturers.
“This is the first study in the U.S. to identify pharmaceutical manufacturing facilities as a significant source of pharmaceuticals to the environment,” said Matthew C. Larsen, USGS Associate Director for Water. “The USGS is working with water utilities to evaluate alternative water treatment technologies with the goal of reducing the release of pharmaceuticals and other emerging contaminants to the environment.”
Maximum concentrations in outflows from the two wastewater treatment plants in New York were:
3,800 parts per billion (ppb) of metaxalone (a muscle relaxant)
1,700 ppb of oxycodone (an opioid prescribed for pain relief)
Greater than 400 ppb of methadone (an opioid prescribed for pain relief and drug withdrawal)
160 ppb of butalbital (a barbiturate)
Greater than 40 ppb of phendimetrazine (a stimulant prescribed for obesity) and carisoprodol (a muscle relaxant)
3.9 ppb diazepam (an anti-anxiety medication)
While pharmaceutical concentrations were significantly lower in receiving streams, measurable concentrations were detected as far as 20 miles downstream.
+ Full report and related documents (Source: Docuticker)
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06/09/2010 02:32 PM
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Aquaculture and aquaculture drugs basics
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Aquaculture and Aquaculture Drugs Basics
Source: U.S. Food and Drug Administration
Have you ever wondered where the fish in the pond in your local park may come from, where the fish you buy at the pet store are from, or where the fish at your local grocery store come from? What happens if they get sick, are there medicines available for them? Read below to answer these questions and to find out more about the up-and-coming field of aquaculture. (Source: Docuticker)
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06/08/2010 02:40 PM
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Social media: fda’s current thinking on social media and product promotion
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An article by Areta Kupchyk and Kevin Madagan on how the Food and Drug Administration is dealing (or not dealing) with social media when it comes promoting FDA regulated drugs and other industries/products it regulates.
This article explains why even though various business sectors have fervently embraced social media as a product marketing tool, FDA-regulated industries have been slow to adopt this practice. It also explores FDA’s emerging policy on Internet marketing activities and specifically the potential risks associated with using social media to disseminate promotional messages and scientific information about FDA-regulated prescription drugs and devices. It then provides suggestions for weathering the next few months before FDA issues a guidance document on the promotion of prescription products using social media tools.
Conversations through online social media communities among healthcare professionals, consumers, and others about FDA regulated prescription products and disease states have been taking place for some time. Sermo, for example, one of the largest online physician social networks spanning 68 specialties in 50 states, provides a venue for over 112,000 physicians to exchange observations in real-time about drugs, devices and clinical issues. Consumers are also discussing these issues. Over 60 million consumers used social media to communicate and research health and medical information in 2008.[1]
What is lacking in many of these social media communications, however, is an authoritative source of information about prescription products and the conditions and diseases for which they are used. As experts on their products, many companies want to serve in this capacity. They want to disseminate information about their products through social media to ensure that accurate, transparent, high-quality information is being communicated to social media participants. ...
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06/08/2010 02:30 PM
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Online research: survey: how many u.s. adults go online to find prescription drug information?
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New results from a survey summarized in this iHealthBeat report.
In 2009, 102.3 million U.S. adults went online for prescription drug information, according to a Manhattan Research survey.
That figure is up slightly from the 93.5 million U.S. adults who went online for prescription drug information in 2008 and more than double the 45.7 million U.S. adults who went online for prescription drug information in 2004.
Manhattan Research attributes the rise in adults seeking prescription drug information online to several factors, including:
+ Older consumers becoming more comfortable with the Internet;
+ An increase in the number of U.S. adults taking one or more medication;
+ Health care costs; and
+ Pharmaceutical marketers increasingly integrating online campaigns into their promotions.
Access the Complete Summary
Source: iHealth Beat
For those interested in e-Health this podcast series from Manhattan Research might also be of interest. (Source: ResourceShelf)
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06/07/2010 11:00 PM
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Enhancing food safety: the role of the food and drug administration
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Enhancing Food Safety: The Role of the Food and Drug Administration, June 8, 2010. Consensus Report, Institute of Medicine. "Foodborne... (Source: beSpacific)
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06/07/2010 10:42 PM
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This week’s biotech highlights
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It was a slimming week in the world of biotech.
Orexigen’s obesity drug, Contrave, was accepted for FDA review. Contrave joins weight-loss medicines from Arena and Vivus in the FDA hopper. Interestingly, all three are still seeking marketing partners, but there is a very real possibility that there will be an FDA-approved weight loss drug on the market soon.
Patients aren’t the only ones dropping weight. Amorfix dropped its vCJD program this week, and its CEO and 5 others are out as well. The company founder is back, along with the ProMIS rational drug design program.
Only The Cross-Border Biotech Blog is putting on weight. A new contributor, Wayne Schnarr, joined this week, bringing 30 years of industry experience and a fourth Ph.D. to the blog. (Source: Slaw)
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06/07/2010 05:28 PM
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United states of america-mexico: bi-national criminal proceeds study
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The governments of the United States and Mexico recently published a report entitled the Bi-National Criminal Proceeds Study. "This bi-national study reveals the very effective means by which Transnational Criminal Enterprises (CE) move criminal proceeds from the United States into Mexico and beyond."
According to the report, $19-29 billion travels from the United States into Mexico each year. This money is used to support the operations of criminal enterprises involved in drug trafficking.
The study "provides critical assessments of money collection sites, transport routes and chokepoints, and is based on actual evidence of the supply lines used to facilitate the drug trade and the movement of cash proceeds. This information will enable the United States and Mexico to strategically and tactically target law enforcement operations to attack the ability of criminal organizations to move their monies."
read more (Source: HSDL Weblog - On the HomeFront)
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06/07/2010 09:51 AM
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Biobase training and demo on june 22nd
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Don’t miss the BIOBASE training and demonstration for the BIOBASE Knowledge Library (BKL) and ExPlain Analysis System happening at MIT this month.
WHEN: Tuesday June 22nd, 10AM- 12PM
WHERE: DIRC 14N-132
Learn how to use the BKL bioinformatics database solution, with its newly designed user interface, for systems biology, biomarker, drug target discovery, and high-throughput data analysis, or simply to gain valuable, literature-derived information on your favorite gene or protein. Learn how to use ExPlain for promoter analysis and upstream regulatory network analysis, to identify regulators of gene expression, novel gene and drug targets, or biomarker candidates.
Please register to attend this training. (Source: MIT Libraries News)
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06/07/2010 12:59 AM
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James murdoch v the british library
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James Murdoch has accused the British Library of acting for commercial gain with plan to digitise newspapers – the library says this is 'patently not true'It is 1511, and printing has only recently been introduced across Europe (it came to England in 1476 via William Caxton's handiwork). But already Albrecht Dürer, who used the new technology to print his engravings, is unhappy with some of its consequences: "Hold! You crafty ones, strangers to work, and pilferers of other men's brains. Think not rashly to lay your thievish hands upon my works. Beware! Know you not that I have a grant from the most glorious Emperor Maximillian, that not one throughout the imperial dominion shall be allowed to print or sell fictitious imitations of these engravings?"As can be seen, battles over copyright – and the difficulties caused by piracy – have been with us since the invention of printing. Significantly, the problem emerged with the onset of a new technology – the printing press – and so it is hardly surprising in an era of disruptive technological change that battles over copyright have returned to the centre stage across the media industry. After all, it was only last month that James Murdoch chose to invoke the 1710 Statute of Anne – the first piece of copyright legislation in the world – as he criticised the British Library for trying to digitise the newspapers held in its vast collection in Colindale, north London.Legal monopolyInitially, in England, the monarchy controlled printing by licensing individual printers, and latterly the Stationers' Company, a legal monopoly that lapsed in 1695. It was eventually replaced by the 1710 law, which "for the encouragement of learning" chose to vest "the copies of printed books in the authors or purchasers of such copies [ie publishers]". ...
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06/06/2010 11:00 PM
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Tuberculosis, malaria, and drug resistance
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The May 14 Science has a special section, “Tuberculosis & Malaria,” focusing on research into two “infectious diseases with high mortality and morbidity, particularly in the third world,” with articles about malaria including “Malaria's Drug Miracle in Danger,” “If Artemisinin Drugs Fail, What's Plan B?” and “The Selection Landscape of Malaria Parasites,” the last emphasizing the adaptive mechanisms of “the most virulent of the human malaria parasites, Plasmodium falciparum.” The May 22 Lancet has a report “Multidrug-Resistant and Extensively Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis: A Threat to Global Control of Tuberculosis.” The Science and Lancet articles cover many aspects of the diseases, but a recurring theme is development of drug resistance in the pathogens and difficulties in finding effective drug therapies to combat drug-resistant versions of the diseases.Comprehensive medical works on drug resistance in communicable diseases are classed in 616.9041 Medical microbiology, which has the class-here note “Class here drug resistance in microorganisms” and the Relative Index entry “Drug resistance—microorganisms.” In WebDewey the LCSH “Drug resistance in microorganisms” and the MeSH “Drug Resistance, Microbial” are editorially mapped to 616.9041. The number 616.9041 is given in the schedule because notes are needed; it is actually a “number built according to instructions under 616.904,” as the note in the entry says (built with 616.904 Special topics of communicable diseases plus 1 from 01 Medical microbiology in the add table under 616.1–616.9 Specific diseases). An example of a work about drug resistance classed in 616.9041 is Antimicrobial Resistance and Implications for the Twenty-First Century.At 616. ...
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06/06/2010 09:23 AM
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Youth risk behavior surveillance — united states, 2009
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Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance — United States, 2009
Source: Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report
Results from the 2009 national YRBS indicated that many high school students are engaged in behaviors that increase their likelihood for the leading causes of death among persons aged 10–24 years in the United States. Among high school students nationwide, 9.7% rarely or never wore a seat belt when riding in a car driven by someone else. During the 30 days before the survey, 28.3% of high school students rode in a car or other vehicle driven by someone who had been drinking alcohol, 17.5% had carried a weapon, 41.8% had drunk alcohol, and 20.8% had used marijuana. During the 12 months before the survey, 31.5% of high school students had been in a physical fight and 6.3% had attempted suicide. Substantial morbidity and social problems among youth also result from unintended pregnancies and STDs, including HIV infection. Among high school students nationwide, 34.2% were currently sexually active, 38.9% of currently sexually active students had not used a condom during their last sexual intercourse, and 2.1% of students had ever injected an illegal drug. Results from the 2009 YRBS also indicated that many high school students are engaged in behaviors associated with the leading causes of death among adults aged ?25 years in the United States. During 2009, 19.5% of high school students smoked cigarettes during the 30 days before the survey. During the 7 days before the survey, 77.7% of high school students had not eaten fruits and vegetables five or more times per day, 29.2% had drunk soda or pop at least one time per day, and 81.6% were not physically active for at least 60 minutes per day on all 7 days. One-third of high school students attended physical education classes daily, and 12.0% were obese. (Source: Docuticker)
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06/05/2010 11:00 PM
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Dennis hopper, 1936-2010
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Somehow I missed the news that movie star Dennis Hopper died on May 29, but noticed it while reading Richard's blog, Three Score and Ten. Richard has interesting family and career stories, and knew Hopper through the business when he was younger. I think I'd seen him in two or three movies--Rebel without a Cause and Hoosiers. But I only remember Hoosiers. But he had over 200 roles in TV and movies, so I guess we just ran in different circles. When I did notice him in a small part, I think I mainly thought, "Oh yes, the crazy guy with the drug problems." As you can see, I'm not much into film. I didn't know about his art sideline/career. Seems to have been a really wonderful photographer even at a very young age. Dennis Hopper, The Photographer : NPRI checked the notice in the LA Times, which didn't seem to have much to write about except other people and the era in which he performed. And what a messy way to die--with your wife and daughter battling for the estate. At least, why else does a near death, pain overwhelmed man file for divorce except his offspring are encouraging it? (Source: Collecting my Thoughts)
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06/04/2010 11:00 PM
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Our value of luxury
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What Ricky said. It is not "our fault" that the oil spill happened because we drive cars and use oil products.It MAY be our fault that we've continued to support politicians who don't give a damn about safety regulations, gut worker protections, and support "watchdog" bureaucracies staffed by drug addled industry sycophants.But in the end this spill is the fault of BP, Transocean, and Halliburton. Those are the people responsible for this well's explosion that killed eleven people and continues to gush into our Gulf. There is not "collective guilt" for this. We could consume all the oil we want at prices that wouldn't change and still protect American workers and the American coast. There are specific individual actors in corporate and governmental institutions who have allowed this disaster to happen through their own malicious corrupt behavior. Those actors need to be held accountable. The failed institutions need to be fixed. Any stupid hippie who wants to tell you "we're really all to blame" because we drive cars is letting the criminals off the hook. Yes, I believe we need to make changes in the way we produce and consume energy. But those changes will only happen if we identify specific institutions and policies that need to be pressured. Nothing happens if all we ever do is throw up our hands and say, "we're really all to blame". (Source: Library Chronicles)
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06/04/2010 07:01 AM
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Regulators stage extreme refreshment crackdown
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Regulators Stage Extreme Refreshment Crackdown
Source: Competitive Enterprise Institute
The Food and Drug Administration’s attempts to crack down on makers of alcoholic beverages with added caffeine are unwarranted and rely on either irrelevant or misleadingly applied research, according to a new study published by the Competitive Enterprise Institute. The study warns that the possible ban of such drinks could also endanger the market for more common and widely-enjoyed products.
“The agency’s campaign against alcohol energy drinks (AEDs) is wasteful and misguided,” said study author Baylen Linnekin, a food and beverage law expert. “It is based on research unrelated to AEDs and targets products the FDA should classify as generally recognized as safe. With more than 100 years of historical evidence that consumers can safely consume caffeine and alcohol together, the FDA should not stand in the way of adults’ drink choices.”
The current threat of an AED ban originated in November 2009, when the FDA contacted manufacturers and took the unusual step of insisting they provide positive proof that their products were “generally regarded as safe,” a technical category that the FDA uses to decide how much regulatory scrutiny various products should receive.
“The FDA’s effort, brought at the behest of grandstanding state attorneys general and pro-regulation activist groups, is nothing more than an unprincipled attack on a small, politically incorrect segment of the market,” said CEI Director of Food and Drug Policy Gregory Conko. “Moreover, the central objection is not just to the mixture of alcohol and caffeine in a product, but the addition of caffeine to a food or beverage at all. The same arguments could be used to ban everything from Mountain Dew and Dr. Pepper to an array of popular candies and snacks that currently contained added caffeine.”
+ Full Report (Source: Docuticker)
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06/03/2010 09:47 AM
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Rx watchdog: brand name and specialty drug prices continue to climb
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Rx Watchdog: Brand Name and Specialty Drug Prices Continue to Climb (PDF)
Source: AARP
Brand-name prescription drug prices have jumped nearly 10 percent in the past 12 months—the biggest spike in eight years, according to a new AARP report.
The AARP Rx Watchdog report released this week found that the cost of prescription drugs most commonly used by those in Medicare rose 9.7 percent over the 12-month period ending in March. The Alzheimer’s drug Aricept rose by nearly 14 percent, while the heart disease medication Plavix saw a 10.5 percent jump. Expensive specialty drugs, such as biologics or injectable drugs, saw a hike of 9.2 percent, the report found. The inflation rate remained virtually flat during the same period.
Despite the price increase for brand names, the cost of generic drugs declined by an average of 9.7 percent. The study found that the average yearly costs for a person taking three generic medications dropped by $51, compared with a $706 increase for people taking three comparable brand-name prescriptions.
A spokesman for the drug industry, however, challenged the accuracy of the AARP study. “The report is misleading because it is based on incomplete information,” Ken Johnson, senior vice president of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, an industry association, said in a prepared statement. “The report’s conclusions ignore the reality that prescription medicines represent a small and decreasing share of growth in overall health care costs in the United States.” (Source: Docuticker)
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06/02/2010 05:50 PM
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Branch manager - library specialist ii (bossier parish library)
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Branch Manager - Library Specialist II (Bossier Parish Library, Louisiana)
Bossier
Parish
Public
Library,
Benton
Branch
seeks
Branch
Manager.
Duties
include
but
are
not
limited
to:
day-to-day
operations
of
the
Benton
Branch
which
includes
being
responsible
for
staff,
giving
full
attention
to
the
task
of
public
service,
collection
development,
marketing
the
library’s
services
to
the
Benton
community,
handling
routine
maintenance/repair
needs
for
branch
and
participating
in
continuing
education
activities;
must
adhere
to
mission,
policies
and
plans
of
Library
Board.
The
Benton
Branch
Manager
supervises
5
employees
(2
part-time,
3
full-time)
and
works
closely
and
in
full
cooperation
with
other
Branch
Managers
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for
Administration. ...
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06/01/2010 03:53 PM
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Mla’10 week in review from the mla blog
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Lots of things happened at the meeting and even those of us who were there and blogging had a hard time keeping up, so I thought I would provide a week in review of sorts from the Annual Meeting blog posts. Since bloggers are still adding posts (after MLA) I will add their links to this list as soon as possible.
Please note the links aren’t always in order of how they were posted on the MLA Blog. Due to the hectic nature of the conference many people posted about events that happened a day or two ago from the posting date. True to my librarian organizing nature I have tried to put the posts in some sort of day/event order. My apologies if it isn’t exactly perfect. Also people sometimes wrote about multiple things in one post, in the interest of my mental health and the prevention of carpal tunnel syndrome, I am only listing their posts once, not under multiple days/topics.
General Information: Those of you attended the meeting (in person or online) have access to the online meeting content at: https://www.xpressreg.net/register/MEDL050/xpresstoolkit/login.asp
At that site you will be able to watch the Plenary Session Videos, view the posters and related abstracts, 5 minute lightning posters and abstracts, and section program videos. I know some stuff is already up and available to watch and they are furiously editing the rest of it so that it is available as soon as possible.
Friday:
MLA News
MLA Green Project - Kraft- Report on the MLA Green Project Award, applications due November 2010, awarded at MLA 2011.
Seeing Stars- Leibfarth - Report on MLA leadership development pilot program MLA Rising Stars.
NPR Library Tour- Mihlrad- Only 15 people were lucky enough to go on a tour of National Public Radio’s library, read about it and check out Leigh’s pictures.
Saturday:
General Information and Fun
Amy Blevin’s First Post - Blevins- General information post about MLA. ...
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06/01/2010 08:50 AM
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Crs — colombia: issues for congress (updated)
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Colombia: Issues for Congress (PDF)
Source: Congressional Research Service (via OpenCRS)
In the last decade, Colombia—a key U.S. ally in South America—has made significant progress in reestablishing government control over much of its territory, combating drug trafficking and terrorist activities, and reducing poverty. Since the development of Plan Colombia in 1999, the Colombian government has stepped up its counternarcotics and security efforts. The U.S. Congress has provided more than $7 billion to support Colombia from FY2000 through FY2010.
In October 2009, Colombia and the United States signed a defense agreement that provides U.S. access to Colombian military bases for counter-terrorism and security-related operations for the next decade. The improving security conditions in the country and the weakening of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrillas are cited as evidence that the strategy is working by supporters. Critics, however, argue that while pursuing these security improvements, U.S. policy has not rigorously promoted human rights, provided for sustainable economic alternatives for drug crop farmers, or reduced the amount of drugs available in the United States.
First elected in 2002, President Álvaro Uribe initiated an aggressive plan to reduce violence. He has made substantial progress in addressing both Colombia’s 46-year conflict with the country’s leftist guerrillas and the rightist paramilitary groups that have been active since the 1980s. Uribe, who enjoys wide popular support, was reelected with a strong majority in 2006. He is credited with restoring public security and creating a stable environment for investment. Backers of the president helped to organize a referendum to change the constitution again (after it was changed in 2005 to allow a second term) so the president could run for a third term. ...
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05/31/2010 07:35 AM
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Fda: rare cases of liver injury reported with use of xenical, alli
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FDA: Rare Cases of Liver Injury Reported with Use of Xenical, Alli
Source: U.S. Food and Drug Administration
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today advised consumers and health care professionals about potential rare occurrences of severe liver injury in patients taking the weight-loss medication orlistat, marketed as Xenical and Alli.
The FDA has approved a revised label for the prescription drug Xenical. The agency is working with the manufacturer of Alli on label revisions to reflect this rare occurrence.
Both Xenical and Alli are medications contain the same active ingredient, orlistat. Xenical, available only by prescription, contains 120 milligrams of orlistat. Alli, sold over-the-counter without a prescription, contains 60 mg of orlistat. An estimated 40 million people worldwide have taken either Xenical or Alli.
The FDA’s safety information and labeling changes are based on a review of cases of severe liver injury reported in individuals taking orlistat. The agency has identified 13 cases of severe liver injury, 12 of which were reports from outside of the United States. The only U.S. report of severe liver injury involved Alli. At this time, a cause-and-effect relationship of severe liver injury with orlistat use has not been established.
People who take Xenical or Alli should be aware that liver injury with orlistat – while rare – has been reported. Those taking the drug also should be aware of the signs and symptoms of liver injury, which include itching, yellow eyes or skin, dark urine, loss of appetite, or light-colored stools.
+ FDA Drug Safety Communication: Completed safety review of Xenical/Alli (orlistat) and severe liver injury
+ Questions and Answers: Orlistat and Severe Liver Injury
+ Weight-Loss Drugs and Risk of Liver Failure
+ Early Communication (2009) about an Ongoing Safety Review Orlistat (marketed as Alli and Xenical) (Source: Docuticker)
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05/30/2010 11:00 PM
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Library of parliament legislative summary of act to amend the controlled drugs and substances act
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The Library of Parliament has published a legislative summary of Bill S-10: An Act to amend the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act:"Bill S-10 seeks to amend the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act (CDSA) to provide for minimum penalties for serious drug offences, such as dealing drugs for organized crime purposes or when a weapon or violence is involved. Currently, there are no mandatory minimum penalties under the CDSA. The bill also increases the maximum penalty for cannabis (marihuana) production and reschedules certain substances from Schedule III of the Act to Schedule I." "The bill contains an exception that allows courts not to impose a mandatory sentence if an offender successfully completes a Drug Treatment Court (DTC) program or a treatment program, under subsection 720(2) of the Criminal Code, that is approved by a province and under the supervision of a court. These programs are designed to assist certain individuals who are charged with drug-related offences (should they meet certain eligibility criteria) to overcome their drug addictions and avoid future conflict with the law. The DTC program involves a mix of judicial supervision, social services support, incentives for refraining from drug use, and sanctions for failure to comply with the orders of the court.' (Source: Library Boy)
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05/29/2010 02:47 PM
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Fda: possible fracture risk with high dose, long-term use of proton pump inhibitors
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FDA: Possible Fracture Risk with High Dose, Long-term Use of Proton Pump Inhibitors
Source: U.S. Food and Drug Administration
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today warned consumers and health care professionals about a possible increased risk of fractures of the hip, wrist, and spine with high doses or long-term use of a class of medications called proton pump inhibitors. The product labeling will be changed to describe this possible increased risk.
Proton pump inhibitors, available by prescription and over-the-counter (OTC), work by reducing the amount of acid in the stomach. Prescription proton pump inhibitors include esomeprazole (Nexium), dexlansoprazole (Dexilant), omeprazole (Prilosec, Zegerid), lansoprazole (Prevacid), pantoprazole (Protonix), and rabeprazole (Aciphex). Prescription proton pump inhibitors are used to treat conditions such as gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), stomach and small intestine ulcers, and inflammation of the esophagus.
OTC versions, used for the treatment of frequent heartburn, include omeprazole (Prilosec OTC, Zegerid OTC) and lansoprazole (Prevacid 24HR).
+ Drug Safety Communication
+ Possible Increased Risk of Bone Fractures With Certain Antacid Drugs (Source: Docuticker)
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05/29/2010 06:48 AM
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Big picture: addiction - wellcome trust (uk)
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"The latest edition of Big Picture, the Wellcome Trust resource for teachers and students, has just been published. It looks at the topic of 'Addiction': analysing the different forms addiction can take and the science used to understand it. There's more to Big Picture than the magazine, however: extra online resources for 'Addiction' include teaching plans, video interviews and also an image gallery of material drawn from the Library's collections, exploring drug and alcohol use across time" (Source: Peter Scott's Library Blog)
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05/28/2010 06:06 PM
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Maggie gee: when my parents died
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Maggie Gee didn't really believe her parents were mortal till her father died and her mother, too, six months later. She treasures their times together and hopes that when the time comes, she'll leave her own daughter with memories of loveIn a new memoir, My Animal Life, I have written about sex, motherhood and death. How very slow I was to understand them. Largely because I once lived in my head, myopic about most of what mattered. I married late, had a child even later: one beloved daughter, Rosa, when her father and I were in our late 30s – and yet, in a way, Nick and I were still children, because you can be a child, until you have a child, and then you learn you are part of a chain.It is a very lucky person who manages to grow up with two living parents. Naturally, as one of the lucky ones, I had managed not to realise that they would die. Ever since I was small, I had adored my mother, Aileen, a dark-haired, gypsy-ish, vivid woman who loved books and jokes and deferred to her husband. Rosa was my mother's first granddaughter: she had five beloved grandsons, and would later have six, but Rosa would always be the only girl, just as I had been Mum's only daughter. When we went to see my parents, in their Norfolk bungalow, Rosa would eat lunch on her grandma's lap, and even in summer Mum would do a Christmas pudding, because she knew that Rosa loved it.But in the autumn of 1990, when I was 41, there was a phone call to our London flat. My father, Vic, came on first: "Mum has something to tell you."Cancer. My mother's voice, a little hoarse, said the word that changed everything. Aileen had put off most of her dreams because Vic had Parkinson's and was going blind: once he was dead, she might travel abroad, write novels, stay with her children – Dad did not let her go away on her own.Now she had cancer. It would never happen.Dad and I were summoned to see the consultant. The operation had been "a success". ...
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05/27/2010 02:23 PM
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Fda and nih launch electronic safety reporting portal
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FDA and NIH Launch Electronic Safety Reporting Portal
The Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health today launched a new Web site that, when fully developed, will provide a mechanism for the reporting of pre- and post-market safety data to the federal government. Currently the Web site can be used to report safety problems related to foods, including animal feed, and animal drugs, as well as adverse events occurring on human gene transfer trials. Consumers can also use the site to report problems with pet foods and pet treats.
The new site, called the Safety Reporting Portal (SRP), provides greater and easier access to online reporting.
“The portal will be a key detection tool in improving the country’s nationwide surveillance system and will strengthen our ability to protect the nation’s health,” said Commissioner of Food and Drugs Margaret A. Hamburg. “We will now be able to analyze human and animal safety-related events more quickly and identify those measures needed to protect the public.”
The new Web portal includes different features for different types of reporting:
Reportable Food Registry: Industry will have a more user-friendly electronic portal for submitting reportable food reports that are required by law. This electronic portal collects reports from the food industry and public health officials regarding problems with articles of food, including animal feed, that present a reasonable probability of causing serious adverse health consequences or death to humans or animals.
Pets: Pet owners and veterinarians will be able to use the portal to report product problems with pet foods and pet treats.
Animal drugs: Animal drug manufacturers can report adverse drug events associated with animal drugs.
Clinical Trials: Biomedical researchers involved in human gene transfer clinical trials can report an adverse event, indicating whether it might be an unanticipated consequence of the product being tested. ...
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05/27/2010 11:24 AM
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Report: only 8 percent of sunscreens recommended
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Report: Only 8 Percent of Sunscreens Recommended
Source: Environmental Working Group
The fourth annual Sunscreen Guide by Environmental Working Group (EWG) gives low marks to the current crop of sunscreen products, with a few notable exceptions. EWG researchers recommend only 39, or 8 percent, of 500 beach and sport sunscreens on the market this season.
The reason? A surge in exaggerated SPF claims (SPFs greater than 50) and recent developments in understanding the possible hazards of some sunscreen ingredients, in particular, new government data linking a form of vitamin A used in sunscreens to accelerated growth of skin tumors and lesions.
Industry’s lackluster performance and the federal Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) failure to issue regulations for sunscreens lead EWG to warn consumers not to depend on any sunscreen for primary protection from the sun’s harmful ultraviolet rays. Hats, clothing and shade are still the most reliable sun protection available.
Products with high SPF ratings sell a false sense of security because most people using them stay out in the sun longer, still get burned (which increases risk of skin cancer) and subject their skin to large amounts of UVA radiation, the type of sunlight that does not burn but is believed responsible for considerable skin damage and cancer. High SPF products, which protect against sunburn, often provide very little protection against UVA radiation. Also, most people don’t get the high SPF they pay for: people apply about a quarter of the recommended amount. In everyday practice, a product labeled SPF 100 really performs like SPF 3.2, an SPF 30 rating equates to a 2.3 and an SPF 15 translates to 2.
+ Full Report (Source: Docuticker)
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05/27/2010 10:42 AM
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May 27 - my birthday!!
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In celebration of my 60th birthday, here is "This day in history" - from Wikipedia:Events:893 – Simeon I of Bulgaria is crowned Emperor of the first Bulgarian empire927 – Battle of the Bosnian Highlands: the Croatian army, led by King Tomislav, defeats the Bulgarian Army.1120 – Richard III of Capua is anointed as Prince two weeks before his untimely death.1153 – Malcolm IV becomes King of Scotland.1328 – Philip VI is crowned King of France.1703 – Tsar Peter the Great founds the city of Saint Petersburg.1798 – The Battle of Oulart Hill takes place in Wexford, Ireland.1812 – Bolivian War of Independence: In Bolivia, the Battle of La Coronilla, in which the women from Cochabamba fight against the Spanish army.1813 – War of 1812: In Canada, American forces capture Fort George.1849 – The Great Hall of Euston station in London is opened.1860 – Giuseppe Garibaldi begins his attack on Palermo, Sicily, as part of the Italian Unification.1863 – American Civil War: First Assault on the Confederate works at the Siege of Port Hudson.1883 – Alexander III is crowned Tsar of Russia.1895 – Oscar Wilde is imprisoned for sodomy.1896 – The F4-strength St. Louis-East St. Louis Tornado hits in St. Louis, Missouri and East Saint Louis, Illinois, killing at least 255 people and causing $2.9 billion in damage (1997 USD).1905 – Russo-Japanese War: The Battle of Tsushima begins.1907 – Bubonic plague breaks out in San Francisco, California.1919 – The NC-4 aircraft arrives in Lisbon after completing the first transatlantic flight.1927 – The Ford Motor Company ceases manufacture of the Ford Model T and begins to retool plants to make the Ford Model A.1930 – The 1,046 feet (319 m) Chrysler Building in New York City, the tallest man-made structure at the time, opens to the public.1933 – New Deal: The U.S. Federal Securities Act is signed into law requiring the registration of securities with the Federal Trade Commission. ...
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