Sandra Day O'Connor retired from the Supreme Court to take care of her husband.
JOSE LUIS MAGANA / AP

Nation & World

THE SEATTLE TIMES
May 15, 2008

By Lauran Neergaard
The Associated Press

WASHINGTON — The first woman on the Supreme Court has become the nation's most prominent Alzheimer's caregiver.

Retired Justice Sandra Day O'Connor spoke about her family's battle with the illness Wednesday as she urged Congress to speed research in hopes of slowing a coming epidemic.

"Our nation is certainly ready to get deadly serious about this deadly disease," she told the Senate Special Committee on Aging.

She has a personal stake: "My beloved husband, John, suffers from Alzheimer's," she said, her voice wobbling briefly. "He's not in very good shape at present."

It was the first time O'Connor has talked publicly about her husband since her sons revealed last year that he'd fallen in love with another resident of the nursing home where he was then living.

The O'Connor family discussed the situation to help educate people about Alzheimer's. John O'Connor was moved to another facility as his condition deteriorated.

Her story resonated with senator after senator who told of mothers and fathers crippled and then killed by Alzheimer's — and with a crowd of about 300 onlookers, many wearing purple Alzheimer's Association sashes, who applauded the calls for aid in a Senate hearing room.

More than 5 million Americans suffer from Alzheimer's disease. The number is poised to skyrocket, with 16 million people forecast to have it by 2050 due to the aging population. It afflicts one in eight people 65 or older, and nearly one in two people older than 85.

"I'm getting pretty close to 80, so that gets my attention," O'Connor said wryly. "I think a lot of people will be concerned."

O'Connor told how, when her husband no longer could stay home alone, she would take him to work at the high court. She announced her retirement in 2005 by saying she needed time to care for him, and eventually moved him to an assisted-care center in Phoenix, near two of their three children. She retired in 2006.

Her main message Wednesday, however, was a call to action. She urged better support for caregivers and repeatedly stressed the need to speed high-quality research, citing the possibility of such treatment approaches as attacking a brain-clogging gunk called beta-amyloid that is the disease's hallmark.

O'Connor has joined a group of national leaders, including well-known scientists and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, to create what they call a "national strategy" to battle Alzheimer's, emphasizing research and improving help for caregivers.

Material from the Chicago Tribune is included in this report.

Copyright © 2008 The Seattle Times Company

CHISINAU (Moldpress),
May 15, 2008:

President Vladimir Voronin of Moldova visited the National Centre of Gerontology and Geriatrics, set up to provide guidelines for diagnosis, treatment and prophylaxis of sick elderly people to Moldovan medical institutions.

Health Minister Larisa Catrinici gave details of the Centre's professional staff, the institution's facilities and modern specialised equipment. The Centre specialises not only in old people's treatment and recovery, but also in scientific research in human aging and its consequences. The Centre is the only medical institution in Moldova with specialised medical assistants who take care and give advice to elderly people, the Minister noted.

Specialists served as instructors for the creation of saloons specialised in geriatrics with medical and social beds in district centres, which are to turn into territorial centres of gerontology and geriatrics in future.

Anatolie Negara, Director of the National Centre of Gerontology and Geriatrics, Anatolie Negara, said the centre has set three goals:
* to initiate scientific research in gerontology, including implications in the organisms' biology and physiology; psychology, public health, economics, society, demography, sociology, anthropology.
* To set up a department of gerontology and geriatrics at the State University of Medicine and Pharmacy Nicolae Testemiteanu, to train family physicians, and set up similar units in all the Moldovan district centres, including the Transnistrian region.
* Continuous training of staff, especially by foreign experts.

President Vladimir Voronin hailed the creation of the National Centre of Gerontology and Geriatrics, as part of the effort to improve elderly people's living standards. Care of old people is a moral duty of the state's and society, he commented.

Voronin said that the Centre will promote sustainable development of the services of elderly people's medical and social protection, and help remove difficulties that lead to social isolation and discrimination of old people, and prolongelderly people's active participation in society.

Vladimir Voronin was satisfied that specialists from Moldovan district centres have become aware of the need to restore gerontology traditions in Moldova. During 1922-32, the Institute for Study and Combating Old Age worked in Chisinau. It was the only institution at that time studying the phenomenon of aging in Europe, Voronin said. He underlined the importance of scientific research in gerontology and geriatrics, and to establish collaboration in these fields with partners from the countries of the region and Europe.

Seniors World Chronicle report based on material from Moldpres News Agency.

KOLKATA (The Statesman), May 15, 2008:

LIFESTYLE: Ageless Bonding

The mental image of grandmothers wearing wrinkled saris sleeping through the evening does not reflect our times. They are walking the ramp and are gainfully employed, writes Anju Munshi

By now you might be a bit blasé about fashion shows and ramp models, a regular in cities. But once in a while there are events that make you sit up and take notice, like the recent show ~ Grandglams ~ at Kolkata’s Tollygunge Club.

Instead of the usual skinny models, grandmothers walked the ramp. They didn’t reflect the clichéd picture of grandmothers in wrinkled saris, wearing spectacles, stooping over a walking stick or idling away their time in endless sessions of kirtan.

Bollywood reiterated this typical image through the Lalita Pawars and Sulochanas, who played the grandmother’s role with great élan, their salt-and-pepper hair neatly tied in a bun, coughing and slouching.

The change has been drastic. Meet the new-age grandmoms, who wake up with a spring in their toes and continue to indulge in various activities till late into the night. Old age, indeed, is a matter of the mind.

Today grandmoms read bestsellers, is a BBC or CNN buff, play golf and tennis, are online and wind up conversations over a rum punch or mocktail. And some of them work.

Ad-person Mira Kakkar, the moving force behind the NGO Thoughtshop Foundation in Kolkata, is a grandmother herself. She also initiated in the country That Takes Ovaries, a US-based women-centric concept of therapeutic talk sessions. She says with a laugh that it is becoming difficult to find a grandmother with “ample body”, at least in urban areas. “Contemporary medication, fitness and diet awareness routines have helped them to be fitter, slimmer and healthier.”

Bollywood films have been quick to mirror this change. Hema Malini as a grandmom in Baghban, wearing designer clothes, svelte figure and a good head of hair could give competition to any 30-plus actress.

Most of them take beauty tips seriously ~ regular facials, importance of Omega 3 and weight training. They also understand that reading the Ramayana and practicing reiki can go hand in hand. The concept of grandmom’s travelling has also undergone a change. From Badrinath to Bangkok and from Tarakeshwar to Toronto, this indeed is a major shift. Some of them have become globetrotters using their own money. Interest in cricket or golf and the political turmoil is not lacking.

Social worker Sunita Kumar, who is closely associated with Missionaries of Charity, is not lost for words when asked about the modern daadi. She designs saris for Hermes, the renowned French couture house, and paints. Some years ago she presented Queen Elizabeth and Prince Charles paintings of Mother Teresa. She also played the role of Rajmata in MF Hussain’s Gaj Gamini. “I couldn’t dream of seeing my grandmom in jeans or pursuing a professional career. It’s wonderful to see the change in attitude,” she says. Today some grandmothers are a part of the social circuit their grand children frequent.

Sixty-six-year-old Shamlu Dudeja is a well-known figure in Kolkata’s social circuit. A post-graduate degree holder in Mathematics, she designs kantha ensembles and looks after an empowerment project that helps economically vulnerable women to stand on their own feet by using their skill at kantha stitch. She is also the chairperson of the board of trustees and is founder-member of She (Self Help Enterprise) that helps underprivileged women. Dudeja’s ‘bedmate’ is a laptop. The day starts with receiving and answering e-mails. After completing the exercise, a bit of meditation, and she is ready to face yet another busy day. After the hectic schedule, she relaxes over a couple of drinks in the company of a few close friends.

It goes without saying they are well up on events taking place around the world. Dudeja says, “I don’t have to wait for others to tell me what’s happening around me. I have watched the Iraq war live on television and I am aware of conflicts taking place.”

In the past some grandmothers were considered to be biased towards boys, reminisces Dudeja. But times have changed, quite evident by the recent selection of a grandmother as beauty pageant. The time has come for them to take the challenge to their young counterparts.

Trans World Features

BEICHUAN, China
AFP
May 15, 2008:

A rescuer carries an elderly woman from the town of Beichuan which has been cut off after a powerful earthquake.

China said Thursday that over 50,000 people had likely died in the devastating earthquake that hit its southwest as time runs out to save survivors buried in the rubble of broken communities.

Photo:Peter Parks/AFP

More and more doctors, fed up with overpacked schedules and restrictive insurance company rules, are turning their practices into full-service, concierge affairs

By JENINNE LEE-ST. JOHN

TIME
May 14, 2008


Jupiter Images / Creatas / Alamy

The last straw for April Burnette-Dubose of Pembroke Pines, Florida, came one morning when she was 30 weeks pregnant. She had a prenatal doctor's appointment scheduled for 9:20 a.m., but wasn't seen until 11. The obstetrician had just left to deliver a baby, they told her. Which would have been understandable, had the same thing not happened at her three previous appointments. Her own doctor was never available at that practice, says Burnette-Dubose, 33, an attorney, and no one ever apologized for making her wait. Worse, her appointments rarely lasted longer than 5 minutes. She sensed indifference from the doctors and their staff: "I felt like I was in a pregnancy mill."

Burnette-Dubose's experience is extreme, but many American patients feel the same way — like they're just a number in line at the butcher's shop. Some patients have had enough, and those who can afford it are choosing to pay hefty premiums out-of-pocket to get more personalized, more polite service. There are now more than 1,000 doctors in the U.S. who have opened concierge, or boutique, practices, according to the Society for Innovative Medical Practice Design. They limit the number of patients they see so they can devote more time to each; accept insurance for routine treatment and tests; and charge patients an additional flat fee for extras like no waiting, longer office visits and round-the-clock availability via e-mail or cell phone. Though it seems like a recipe for more work, boutique docs say their style affords them more control over their lives and careers, and is more fulfilling. Most are primary care physicians, but OB/GYNs are entering the field too, as Burnette-Dubose discovered when an acquaintance suggested she bring her business — and her baby — to Elite Obstetrics and Gynecology, a Ft. Lauderdale practice owned by Dr. Lanalee Araba Sam.

Sam founded Elite in 2004, frustrated and disillusioned by how little time she was able to devote to her patients. After her residency Sam had joined a large private practice at which, in one 54-hour period, she delivered 12 babies. At one point, she recalls, "I introduced myself to a couple and they looked at me like I was crazy. I had just delivered them but I didn't remember." Sam struck out on her own soon after and opened Elite, and now charges patients $15,000 on top of insurance for VIP prenatal care that includes add-ons like a fetal ultrasound photo at every visit, private birthing classes, one massage per trimester, optional home doctor visits, her private home and cell phone numbers and e-mail address, and the guarantee that she will be at the hospital for her patients' full active labor and delivery. In order to fulfill that last promise, Sam, who also has a regular gynecological practice, accepts obstetric patients by due date — no more than four women due per month. That kind of attention, even for the most mundane concerns, goes a long way toward comforting patients during pregnancy, when every health concern is heightened. Burnette-Dubose says that Sam sent her periodic text messages just to check in.

Most physicians who offer concierge health care recognize the absurdity in paying so much to get the same kind of treatment — the non-medical perks aside — that used to be standard. But the model of the amiable country doctor who knows your kids and treated your grandparents has been replaced by a bureaucratic insurance behemoth that rewards physicians for seeing more patients in less time. "Thirty years ago, a family doctor could have had a panel of 1,500 patients and seen them each for enough time, given them personal care and met all their needs," says Dr. Robert Brooks, associate dean for health affairs and professor of family medicine at Florida State University College of Medicine. That model fell by the wayside as people moved around, farther from their extended families. "There was the ability for doctors to make a nuanced diagnosis that's not possible in a more fragmented, mobile society," Brooks says. Today, people who really want their doctors to get to know them have to pay for that investment of time.

Critics argue that concierge medicine enriches its practitioners and facilitates care for wealthy patients, at the expense of those who can't afford it. The fundamental question is: Should health care be provided equally for everyone, or is it fair to pay more for better health care? "Obviously there needs to be a standard of care we should try to obtain at a certain level for everyone in the country, and we're not there yet," says Dr. Raphael Darvish, founder and medical director of Concierge Medicine in Brentwood, Calif. "Beyond that, there are things people should be able to pay extra for." Given the insurance companies' strict rule book, says Darvish, neither patients nor doctors have much choice. "I think the incentives are all wrong," Darvish says. "They don't pay for you to make a phone call. They don't pay for you to send an e-mail. They don't pay for you to find an interesting article about a problem the patient is having and discuss it with them."

The number of American physicians offering boutique medical services remains low — in a 2005 survey of 4,200 primary care doctors led by Brooks, only 16.5% of respondents said they had ever even used email with their patients, and only 2.9% used it frequently. The shift to personalized health care has been slow and gradual, but it's led by a young generation of doctors who are accustomed to having easy access to information, and are betting that their patients want to be able to contact their physicians as easily and immediately as they contact their bank. Still, it's not clear that an uber-personal relationship with a doctor is any guarantee of better care — or better health. And not every patient feels that more face time with a primary care physician is worth paying a premium for. "Even very wealthy people have a hard time understanding the value," says Darvish, 32, whose practice, despite its location in a tony part of Los Angeles, doesn't see many millionaires come through the door. "Most of our patients are normal people who just care a lot about their health." Sam, who is 39, agrees that it's tough for some to quantify the added value of her VIP obstetric services. "Women seem to spend more time picking a hairdresser than picking who's going to take care of them for nine months and be responsible for the baby," she says ruefully.

That's why when Sam meets an expectant mother deeply interested in her own health but who cannot afford the fee, she sometimes offers her services at a discounted rate or for free. "I wish could give this service to everyone," she says, but "I have a family to look after, business to run and life to live while enjoying my work." A relaxed, unflappable doctor is important for jittery moms-to-be. Even more important is a doctor who remembers that her patients even exist. In the months since she canceled her appointment at her last doctor's office, says Burnette-Dubose, whose daughter Chloe was born in February, "no one ever called to find out why." Seems she got out just in time.

Copyright © 2008 Time Inc.

By Tham Choy Lin

BEIJING (Bernama News), May 14, 2008:

A group of 26 elderly Malaysian tourists has been missing since Monday's devastating earthquake that hit south-western Sichuan province as the death toll rises to nearly 15,000 and thousands reported buried under the rubble of collapsed buildings and landslides.

Several Malaysian families with young children in Chengdu have made plans to go home due to fears of water shortage and repeated aftershocks in the provincial capital.

While the fate of the group is still not known, there have been no reports of Malaysian casualties, said Malaysian Consul-General in Kunming Ayauf Bachi.

The consulate has sought the help of Sichuan local government to trace the Malaysians whose last known stop was in Maoxian, less than 50km from the epicentre of the quake in Wenchuan county.

"The Chinese authorities formed a special team this morning to look for foreign tourists. We are working with them on this," he told Bernama.

Copyright: Bernama

MOSCOW (Russia Today), May 14, 2008:

The private pension market in Russia is growing rapidly. Market analysts forecast that in the next seven years almost half of the country’s working population will transfer their pension savings from state-run companies to private fund managers.

Private or Public?
Russians Choose Pension Schemes

In the first quarter of 2008, the number of pension contracts Russians signed with commercial pension funds tripled compared to last year.

Despite the pension reforms of 2002, which allowed people to entrust their pensions to non-governmental organisations, the majority of Russians still look to the state. Currently, the Russian Development Bank holds more than 90 per cent of people’s pension contributions.

The painful experiences of the early 1990s and the 1998 default, when even solid banks lost people’s money, have made Russians cautious about investing in commercial funds.

Now it looks like more people are becoming aware of the attraction of non-governmental funds.

Stalfund was launched as a corporate pension fund for the steel giant Severstal employees. Soon after, the fund reached out to the wider market and now has more than 200,000 clients.

Nerijus Zaksauskas, Stalfund’s marketing director, says the pension group has a clear vision of how the market should develop.

“It’s very important to be open, professional and transparent. And Stalfund has achieved that. We are one of the few who have full transparency of our portfolio,” he said.

Copyright © Autonomous Nonprofit Organization "TV-Novosti" 2007

By Elizabeth Pfeuti

THE NETHERLANDS (Global Pensions), May 14, 2008:

Early retirement and increased longevity has forced the Dutch central bank (DNB) to make a €500bn contribution to cover increasing future benefits payments.

DNB released a study showing an average 8.2% increase in benefit payments since 1997 with a spike of 11.4% in 2007 costing €21bn.

The DNB report stated: “The increase in pension benefits is caused by the double greying of the population: the proportion of elderly citizens is growing – and part of this category has already gone on early retirement – and the elderly live longer, too.”

The bank also cited falling interest rates as problematic by making pension provision more expensive.

It estimated more money would have to be contributed to cover these higher payments in future.

© Incisive Media Ltd. 2008.

From The Times, London
May 14, 2008

Why should the cash-strapped young pay a tax to help out the elderly who have already done well?

Alice Miles
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Should a primary school teacher on a salary of £20,000 pay to help a lord or a former prime minister settle comfortably into old age? I wonder whether the staff whom Gordon Brown met when he visited the assisted housing scheme in Plymouth to launch his big review of long-term care financing would welcome being told it is only fair that they contribute to Tony and Cherie Blair's retirement nursing in future. Perhaps Lady Thatcher's, too. (It is one of the oddities of this debate being led by the Prime Minister that it doesn't apply to him - being Scottish, he will receive long-term care free anyway.)

The Government is proposing that younger workers should fund the care of the elderly through a new form of social insurance or ageing tax; a “new social care and support system”, offering protection to all, as the Prime Minister put it. Mr Brown added an astonishing thing: “We can and must look to give people the opportunity and the support to save for their old age in a way that insures them and protects their houses and their inheritance.”

It is amazing that after all the row over the 10p tax grab, and party fury over inheritance tax freebies to the better-off, Mr Brown is banging that drum again. Here is the man who supposedly believes in meritocracy, who presides over a campaign deriding the Conservative candidate in Crewe & Nantwich as a “Tory toff” because he will one day inherit part of the family business fortune, yet who is himself seemingly worrying away over how to protect people's inheritance. If it was an attempt to curry favour with the Daily Mail, it failed dismally: that newspaper splashed “a tax to pay for old age” all over its front page, with a column inside for good measure: “Who'd be old in Labour's Britain?”

Well you can't have it both ways: either we all pay, and it's a tax, or the people who need the care pay, and it might eat into their inheritance. Which would be perfectly fair - people reaching retirement age now have done well from the State and the housing market over the years: free university education, generous final-salary pension schemes, rocketing property prices. Today's pensioners will receive more from the welfare state over their lifetime than they paid into it, a balance that is beginning to switch with the baby-boomer generation and will dive into negative equity for the generations following.

Care is just the tip of it. With a quarter of the adult population expected to be over 65 by 2028, a doubling of people over the age of 85 and a quadrupling in those living to 100, the cost of care is predicted to double to £24 billion and then increase to £41 billion (in today's prices) by 2041. Yet by 2050 there will be just two people of working age for every pensioner.

Nobody denies that a definitive solution from government is long overdue. The best idea I have heard would not require a new tax, would protect people's homes while they are alive, but might have a small impact on thier inheritance. It comes from James Lloyd at the think-tank the International Longevity Centre and it sounds so perfect there must be a flaw somewhere, but I cannot see it. The idea is this: at retirement, each person with assets (the State would cover those without) would be asked to make a voluntary payment - today it would be £15,000 - to buy an insurance policy against care in old age. Or they can pay instalments each month, or - and here is the real beauty of it - agree to have the £15,000 taken from their estate after death.

Anyone who chose not to join the scheme would have to meet their own future care costs of up to £24,000 a year. Those who did join, would be covered, for life, for whatever care they needed. Simple, yes? And brilliant.

All these ideas, all these figures, are out there and easily accessible. Instead of looking at them, working out where it stands and making a decision, the Government has launched another long consultation, with a website where everybody can whinge - sorry, have their say: www.careandsupport.direct.gov.uk.

At least they are asking the question, I suppose, but does anybody believe they will take a firm decision? In the 11 years since Labour swept to office promising a “fair system for funding long-term care for the elderly”, some 4.5 million people in England and Wales have died after retirement age. That's 4.5 million people, most of whom will have had to grapple with what everybody agrees is a cruel lottery of a care system, needs unmet, homes lost, health failing, unwashed, untended, unfed - 11 years after Labour promised to end it.

End it? It's only talked about it. Again, and again, and again. First there was the Royal Commission, which proposed free care for all. I remember some vague idea knocking around No 10 for a voucher scheme enabling elderly people to choose between public and private providers of services. That got strangled by the Treasury at birth. It was to form part of a five-year plan for long-term care, which, for all I know, we are in the middle of.

Then, two years ago, Sir Derek Wanless, he of the NHS funding inquiry and a former NatWest chief executive, published a non-governmental report proposing that the State fund a minimum level of care but we pay top-ups, matched by the Government, to get a higher standard. The Government ignored it.

So now they launch a six-month consultation, to be followed by a Green Paper, to come up with a proposal for a manifesto... I know Mr Brown is posing as the man for the long-term decision, but this is ridiculous. Any more long-term and we shall all be dead.

Alice Miles
Alice Miles has been with The Times since 1999. She began as a Parliamentary Sketch writer before becoming a columnist, writing mainly on politics and national issues such as education and health. She won Columnist of the Year in 2007.

© Copyright 2008 Times Newspapers Ltd.

TOKYO (The Japan Times), May 14, 2008:

By PETER CROOKES
Staff writer

Assessing the battle: Is the humble bathroom scale destined, like the manual typewriter, for the halls of obsolescence? Amid the fret over metabolic syndrome and other health issues, just measuring your weight, even down to the gram, doesn't get the job done anymore.

National Electric has come up with a new device series to meet the demand for precision body measurements. The new Overall Health Balance Scale goes beyond the already high-tech scales that check your body-fat percentage, as well as your weight.

"Metabo" warrior: National Electric's EW-FA70S health/fat monitoring scale

The new EW-FA70S is built to gauge your weight, body mass index, fat levels around your organs, muscle levels and basal metabolic rate (how much energy you use when resting). It also measures your subcutaneous fat, which lies just under the skin, both the thickness of it in different body parts and the total percentage of such fat. Each measurement is ranked on a 5-point scale, and even an overall health rating based on your age is given. The scale can even check your balance and posture.

The way it lets you do this is indeed clever: The display module is tethered to the round body of the base unit with a retractable cord. Stand on the scale like you normally would, bend over and grab the handles on the screen and pull it up to eye level. The display module has an infrared sensor for measuring your subcutaneous fat levels. Hold the display module over key body points, such as the stomach, thighs and upper arms, and the sensor scans the thickness of your body fat, offering a measurement in millimeters.

Three models went on sale May 1. The EW-FA70-S (¥19,800) performs all the above functions. The EW-FA50W (¥16,800) doesn't measure the depth of subcutaneous fat. The basic model, the EW-FA30-W (¥9,980), lacks the test for fat as well as the balance test.

No doubt figures like weight, BMI and perhaps even body fat measurements are the bread and butter of dieting data, but might the plethora of information be a bit too much to fret over? Moreover, subcutaneous fat levels can be checked with an old-fashioned set of calipers.

It's ironic that this step up in innovation requires more physical exertion compared to the low-tech alternative: roughly double the bending over to retrieve and then replace the display module. panasonic.co.jp

AV home server: Few beliefs have staying power in the world of computing; the pace of change is just too quick for today's truism to avoid becoming tomorrow's discarded theory. One exception is the belief that you can never have too much data storage. These days this is as true for consumers as it is for businesses.

The relentless demand to store more photos, music and, increasingly, video means our hard drives just can't keep up. Instead of trying to pack bigger and better hard drives into our computers, a popular alternative is to add external storage space. Sony is following this approach with two new AV home servers. In effect, these are computers that lack operating systems and are set up to make it quick and easy for you store data in them and equally convenient to access it.

The servers connect to your computer on a local area network via Ethernet. You then send your data, such as photos and music, to the servers. In particular they are intended to store memory-hungry video, particularly high-definition TV, with the VGF-HS1 boasting a 1-terabyte capacity and the VGF-HS1S a still larger 1.5 terabytes. A terabyte is equal to 1,000 gigabytes, making the storage capacity of even the smaller model around three times that of the average desktop computer. The servers can also be connected to a television for displaying your video or photos.

There are also slots for reading SD, compact flash and the various versions of memory stick memory cards. Both models support the AVCHD, MPEG2 and HDV (MPEG-TS) video formats, the JPEG, BMP and PNG photo formats, and the MP3, WAV, ATRA, ATRAC Advanced Lossless, AAC and WMA audio formats. The servers will work with PCs equipped with Windows XP (Service Pack 2) or Vista and include the software for quickly setting them up.

The servers hit the market May 17. Sony lists both new models as being "open-priced," but the 1-terabyte VGF-HS1 now appears on several shopping sites priced at ¥59,800.

If you are big on recording high-definition TV, then these servers could be for you. While recording high-def TV to BluRay might be viable, with one hour of such top-quality television taking up around 4 gigabytes of space, regular DVDs aren't terribly well suited to the task. Also, your computer's internal hard disk is going to have its capacity eaten up quickly if you start using it as a TV library. Keeping your recordings on an external hard disk is an option, but the Sony servers, or a similar product, make it much easier to do this and any computer or TV hooked up to your network can access the data kept on the server. www.sony.jp

Cool running: Your computer's central processor is both the culprit and the victim of heat. The faster they run, the more heat they generate, which in turn slows your computer's performance. In recent years, CPU makers have had to put the breaks on their relentless drive to crank up the speed of their chips. Instead, they have had to come up with new methods, such as multiple processors working together, to keep computing power up and temperatures down.

A very different approach is to use liquid cooling in the computer. Normally, fans are relied on to cool down the CPU and other parts. The advantage of liquid cooling is that it does a better job of minimizing heat, and it makes less noise than the somewhat rowdy fans.

Tokyo-based computer innovator Mouse Computers on Thursday will roll out two new water-cooled models targeted at the kind of user who's counting processor clock cycles.

The Mouse machines have been eagerly anticipated in the local market because liquid cooling is particularly useful for users who want to "overclock" their computers — rigging the CPU to run faster than they are supposed to. While this delivers better performance, you can't escape the Catch 22 of more heat.

The Masterpiece V730XV5-LS ships with Windows Vista Ultimate as its operating system, while the Masterpiece V730X5-LS comes with Windows XP Professional. Both sport a 3-gigahertz Core 2 Extreme QX9650 CPU, 3 gigabytes of DDR2 RAM, two NVIDIA GeForce 9800GTX/ 512-megabyte graphic cards, a DVD burner and a more spacious than usual 650 gigabytes of hard disk space, comprising one 500-gigabyte drive and one 150-gigabyte drive.

How much for these Masterpieces? The XV5 sells for ¥359,940, while its sibling X5 ships for ¥354,900.

www.mouse-jp.co.jp/

(C) The Japan Times

Potentially fatal ... peanuts are Australia's leading cause of anaphylaxis. Photo: Virginia Star

LIFE & STYLE

SYDNEY (Sydney Morning News), May 14, 2008:

One in five Australians suffers from at least one allergy and the number with potentially dangerous reactions is rising steadily, the head of an allergy sufferers' lobby group said today.

Most allergies were related to foods, but many people did not know how to avoid the risks, Maria Said (Said), president of Anaphylaxis Australia, said.

Speaking at today's launch in Brisbane of Food Allergy Awareness Week, Ms Said said Australia and New Zealand had the highest rate of allergic disorders in the developed world.

On current projections, the number of people with allergies would nearly double to 7.7 million in just over 40 years, she said.

Peanuts were the leading cause of serious allergic reaction, known as anaphylaxis.

The incidence of peanut allergy alone had doubled over the last five years and was now the most common cause of severe food-related anaphylaxis and death in children.

"Australians have come a long way in their awareness and understanding of severe allergies and anaphylaxis, but we can't afford to be complacent," Ms Said said.

"About 10 Australians die each year and thousands of others require emergency treatment as a result of anaphylactic reactions, which are largely preventable."

It was vital for sufferers to avoid foods known to produce a reaction, she said. They must also take care to wash their hands after eating, not share food and not cross-contaminate foods in preparation or serving.

Sufferers also needed to carry their EpiPen auto injector, containing life-saving adrenaline, and their Anaphylaxis Action Plan at all times and to alert family, friends, carers and work colleagues on how to use those aids.

Governments should recognise severe allergy as a growing public health issue and the impact it would have on Australia's future, Ms Said said.

AAP
Copyright © 2008 Fairfax Digital

COLOMBO (Daily Mirror - Financial Times), May 14, 2008:

We see health services expanding in Sri Lanka. These services range from new hospitals and diagnostic laboratories to home nursing, home medical calls and marketing of specialised devices for invalid care such as wheel chairs and walking frames. The expansion was not limited to Colombo alone, but is visible in other urban centres, for example, Kandy, Galle and Kurunegala. What does this signify?

It signifies that the demand for health care, particularly for the elderly, has been rising, because Sri Lanka’s population is aging. The Consumer Finances and Socio Economic Survey (CFS) series of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL) recorded that from 1963 to 2003/04, the share of children under 14 years fell from 40% to 24% and of those over 55 years doubled from 7% to 14%. Hence, the working age population share rose from 53% to 62%, while the population nearly doubled from 10.6 million to 19.3 million, during those 40 years.

What does this mean for those of us who will be around in Sri Lanka for the next 20-50 years?

How will Sri Lanka’s population change in our lifetime?

“A Population Projection of Sri Lanka for the New Millennium” by Prof. W. I de Silva (2007), has projected that the share of working age population (defined as 15-59 years) is peaking now at around 65%. The publication provides standard, as well as high and low, population projections. Using standard projections, it estimates that the share of children will decline for the next 20 years and stabilise at around 15%, while the share of elderly will increase and stabilise at a third of the population in about 60 years. Hence, the working age population is projected to decline, then stabilise at just over half the population during that period. Meanwhile, the population, currently 20 million, is expected to peak at around 22 million in 20 years and decline slowly thereafter. In the 2001 Census, life expectancies at birth for men and women were 71 and 76 years, respectively, while the sex ratio was 98 men to 100 women. Life expectancy and sex ratio are projected to further favour women.

What are the key reasons for these changes?

First, Sri Lanka had an impressive record of preventive and curative health care since independence. Second, rising education levels have raised awareness about contraceptive methods, births supervised by skilled health personnel and infant immunisation, and also provided employment opportunities for women, thereby raising their age at marriage. Consequently, fertility rates (number. of live births per woman) and infant and child mortality rates have fallen, and, in turn reduced birth and death rates, and life expectancy has increased. Hence, the population is aging. Globally, life expectancy and sex ratios favour women. In Sri Lanka, more men than women have been lost to the country due to the civil conflict, accidents and permanent migration, further exacerbating these differences.

How will these changes affect

the country?

As time goes on, the demand for resources – both goods and services - used by the young will dwindle and be replaced by demands of the old. This transition requires changes to infrastructure and goods and services that bring new opportunities. Some examples follow.

Health Services

The demand for midwives, maternal and child health clinics, maternity wards, obstetricians and pediatricians will decline as the numbers children fall. At the same time, the demand will rise for nursing care for the elderly, specialists in geriatric care - mental diseases that manifest with age, such as Alzheimer’s disease, dementia and Parkinson’s disease, and surgical procedures such as hip, knee replacements that increase with onset of age. This demand fuels expansion of health insurance schemes, as safeguards against health expenditure as people age after they no longer earn. Already, considerable new private investment in 24 hour home nursing services, marketing of products for elderly invalid care and new health insurance schemes is rising. According to the CBSL Annual Report 2007, in the last 10 years, the number of hospitals had increased from 550 to 619, while the number of Western medical doctors had doubled from 5,612 to 11,442 and Ayurvedic doctors from 15,359 to 18,651.

Education Services

Recently, we have seen significant expansion in private educational services from pre-school to tertiary level vocational training and academic institutions in Sri Lanka. Advertisements in luminous colours for private tuition classes catering to students sitting public examinations adorn walls and posts along main roads in every large city. The CFS 2003/04 recorded that 50% of school going children attended tuition classes- 42% in primary, 54% in secondary and 70% in post secondary. Even in the poorest 20% of households, 29% attended tuition classes. This structure will change as the child population falls and day care centres, pre- and primary schools, and later, secondary schools, will decline over time. Meanwhile the demand for tertiary education services will rise, as older workers seek new training to move to new employment opportunities. Also, as the workforce shrinks and ages, innovative new training opportunities will arise to raise worker productivity. Library services, adult learning centres, refresher courses, and distance learning programmes would expand to new dimensions.

Employment

The work environment will also face change. As the 15-59 age group shrinks and people live longer, it may become necessary to raise the retirement age. Else, saving for longer retirement periods will create problems Also, due to gender differences in aging, women may move into male dominated professions. The government has to address these issues, together with the private sector, towards timely policy reforms.

Leisure Activities

The pattern of leisure activities will also change. For example, parks and playgrounds that cater to youth may need to evolve into elderly-friendly meeting places. In Beijing, some years ago, early one morning, I visited a beautiful park in the city centre with my hosts. As we walked around, we were fascinated by different groups of adults practicing Tai Chi and other forms of exercise. In one corner of the park, music was playing for a group of elderly couples who were twirling and whirling expertly, to waltzes and tangos. By the dance floor, vendors were selling take-away breakfast foods laid out on trestle tables. Hanging on the lower branches of surrounding trees were cages holding pet birds belonging to the dancers, brought on an outing by their owners! Sri Lanka too may need to sponsor such innovative outdoor activities as her population ages. Indoor leisure activities – selection of programmes for radio and television and books for libraries- may change to meet demands of an older population structure.

Housing Needs

Housing for the elderly is another area for future investment and business opportunities. In many developed countries such housing projects include related services. I visited an 80 year old friend in Australia, who lives in a retirement complex which included meal plans, transport for routine shopping, leisure activities and medical emergencies. In Sri Lanka, with high migration rates of young professionals and skilled workers, the extended family system that previously supported the elderly is disappearing, already creating such a demand. As the population ages, the demand for such living facilities will expand, while the child-friendly housing market would fall.

Retirement Benefits

As life expectancy increases, people will live for many more years after retirement. Hence, they would need to save during their working years to sustain their life styles for longer periods thereafter. Currently, Sri Lanka’s working population is around 8 million. Of this, one million are government employees entitled to pensions. This pension scheme is non-contributory. With government expenditure currently running at nearly double revenue, the government has to effectively borrow to meet its pension payments. Hence, the sustainability of such a scheme is questionable in the long term. In 2007, the Employee’s Provident Fund had around 2 million active accounts. Other approved provident funds serve another small share of the workforce. Hence, today, formal retirement benefits are available to 3-4 million workers, less than half the country’s work force, some of which are unsustainable in the long run. The majority do not have any mandatory superannuation benefits, providing a critically important business opportunity. The newspapers conveyed recently that the National Savings Bank launched a contributory savings scheme to meet this need. This is commendable. We hope that others will also take the initiative to market more schemes that would provide superannuation benefits to workers.

In summary, policy makers, businesses and individual should already be planning for the infrastructure needs and other requirements of significant population changes that will take place in the next 2 decades. Else, we will be ill-equipped to enjoy our old age.

The author is a former Assistant Governor and Director of Statistics of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka.

Copyright © Wijeya Newspapers Ltd.

TAX QUERIES

EXPRESS MONEY by Kanu Doshi

MUMBAI (The Indian Express), May 13, 2008:

Q. My NRI son wants to gift the sale proceeds of his house in India. The proceeds may be Rs 4 million (40 lakh) which he wants to gift equally to his parents who are senior citizens. What is the tax liability of the parents? What is the limit of gift that an NRI can give?
C.G., email

A. There is no limit on the sum of money that can be gifted by a son to his two parents. Similarly, such a gift is fully exempt under Section 56 from income tax in the hands of the donor son as well as in the hands of donee parents.

© 2008: Indian Express Newspapers (Mumbai) Ltd.

Former German chancellor Helmut Kohl and his companion Maike Richter seen in Berlin. File photo.(AP)

BERLIN (AP and Reuters/ Globe and Mail, Canada), May 13, 2008:

Former German chancellor Helmut Kohl has married his partner Maike Richter, an economist who is nearly 35 years his junior.

Mr. Kohl's office says the couple were married Thursday in a small ceremony with friends at a Heidelberg clinic where Mr. Kohl is recuperating from a head injury.

The couple said in a statement released Tuesday that they are “very happy.”

Ms. Richter, 44, is on leave from her post in the German Economy Ministry to tend to the former chancellor.

It is the second marriage for the 78-year-old ex-chancellor. His first wife, Hannelore, committed suicide in 2001 at the age of 68 after years suffering from a rare and incurable allergy to light. During her last 15 months she stayed shuttered in her home and went out only after dark. She and Mr. Kohl were married for 41 years.

Mr. Kohl, a conservative Christian Democrat, was Germany's longest-serving post-war leader, in office from 1982 to 1998. He was a driving force behind German reunification in 1990 and European integration.

He underwent knee surgery last year and suffered a bad fall earlier this year, which led him to be hospitalized.

© Copyright 2008 CTVglobemedia Publishing Inc.

FORT WILLIAM, Scottish Highlands, U.K. (Press Association), May 13, 2008:

An elderly long-distance walker who collapsed in pain in the Highlands has been rescued after a distress beacon was picked-up 4,000 miles away in America.

The RAF, who co-ordinated the Danish man's rescue, said it was the first activation of a new type of distress transmitter, in the UK.

The tourist activated the beacon while on a long-distance coast-to-coast solo trek when he became ill in Glen Etive, 15 miles south of Fort William.

Copyright © 2008 The Press Association.

LONDON, England (Daily Mail), May 13, 2008:

By STEVE DOUGHTY

Every working family could face paying an "ageing tax" to provide care for the elderly, Gordon Brown proposed yesterday.

It would take the form of a compulsory levy to force them to cover the cost of care home places in the last stages of their lives.

The ageing tax is a central plank of a consultation launched by the Prime Minister in the face of a growing crisis over who should meet the bills for the care of the elderly.

But the proposals raise the prospect of the modestly well-off having to pay twice.

They include no guarantee of ending the hugely unpopular system which forces elderly people to sell their homes to meet care home bills and deny their children an inheritance.

Instead, the consultation paper said, means tests will stay and working people who pay the planned tax will continue to meet the bills of those "in need" - many of whom have no savings or property because they have never worked or saved.

It said "housing equity" might still be used to cover costs.

The deepening controversy over the way care home places are paid for - and the resentment felt by families forced to sell homes - has been highlighted by the Daily Mail's Dignity for the Elderly campaign.

Yesterday's consultation paper, endorsed by Mr Brown and seven Cabinet ministers, put back any decisions until next year.

But it declared that the Treasury cannot pay the fast-rising cost of care homes and home help as the number of elderly people increases.

It said 68 per cent of people in care homes and 73 per cent of home help services are currently publicly funded.

But a "funding gap" of £6billion will open over the next 20 years between the amount paid by the taxpayer and what will be needed.

It continued: "We think the principle of sharing costs between the family, the individual and government is right.

"However, we must avoid over-stretching families and individuals, and believe that it is worth exploring how every adult could contribute in a way that insures them against very high costs of care and support.

"If every adult makes a contribution, the risks of high costs hitting each household are reduced."

Bleak:
The future for the elderly in the UK

An ageing tax could run alongside the existing National Insurance levy.

On means testing, the paper admitted that it can penalise people who have worked hard and made sensible decisions. But without it, "support is poorly targeted at those who need it most".

The document said government could do a number of other things, including making private insurance for care and support compulsory.

But independent experts are sceptical. They say the insurance industry has produced few ideas, largely because people are thought unwilling to pay high premiums for care they may never need.

The proposal for a new tax brought outrage from the Government's critics.

There was resentment that Mr Brown, the Chancellor who undermined the private pension system by taxing pension funds, now plans another tax to pay for care for elderly people.

Jill Kirby, director of the centre-right think-tank Centre for Policy Studies, said: "This is the Government that wrecked our pensions. It is hard to have any faith in their proposals for 'compulsory savings'.

"The best way to encourage people to save for their old age is by reducing the tax burden and encouraging them to make arrangements for themselves.

"It would help if people's pensions were not taxed."

Christine Melsom, of Is It Fair?, the council tax campaign which has wide support from pensioners, said: "The middle classes will carry the burden just as they do now.

"My guess is that people will pay the tax and their families will still lose their homes."

Labour has been aware of concern over means testing since before it came to power in 1997. Tony Blair set up a Royal Commission, but its report was largely ignored.

The new consultation paper was launched by Mr Brown in a talk at the King's Fund, the research group that published the 2006 report on the cost of ageing by Sir Derek Wanless.

Sir Derek estimated that an extra £10billion is needed to make the care system work properly.

But there was only a token £31million of new money on offer yesterday.

©2008 Associated Newspapers Ltd

Irena Sendler, a Polish social worker credited with rescuing 2,500 Jewish, mostly children, from the Nazis during the Holocaust. She died in Warsaw May 12, 2008 at the age of 98, the LOS ANGELES TIMES
reported on May 13.

Megan Felt, one of the authors of the play on which the 1933 movie "Schindler's List" was based, said Monday "the lesson Sendler taught them was that "one person can make a difference."
(Radek Pietruszka / EPA)

STALWART ... Ernie Robinson, pictured last year celebrating his 93rd birthday with mayor Janet Jefferson

By John Ritchie

SCARBOROUGH, England (Scarborough Today), May 13, 2008:

ONE of the town's most well known characters has died in Scarborough Hospital aged 93. Over the years, Ernie Robinson, of Normanby House, Belgrave Crescent helped to raise hundreds of thousands of pounds for various charities including, The Royal British Legion Poppy Appeal and Children in Need, Woodlands School and Christian Aid.

David Bridge, secretary of the Scarborough branch of Christian Aid said: "It was a pleasure to have known Ernie, he was such a great guy."

Scarborough's mayor, Cllr Janet Jefferson, who was a close friend of Mr Robinson, said: "Ernie will be sadly missed."

Rev Mark Haynes, a minister at Westborough Church where Mr Robinson was a regular worshiper, said: "Ernie lived such a generous life. I don't think I know anyone who gave away so much money to charity."

Second World War veteran Mr Robinson, spent 23 years in the Royal Army Ordnance Corps from 1940 until 1963. He served in Greece, the Middle East, India and Malaysia.

He spent the last 10 years of his service training young soldiers at Blackdown near Aldershot.

Before moving to Scarborough the super-fit ex-serviceman played a key role in establishing a boys' club in Londonderry just three years before "The Troubles" flared in Northern Ireland.

When he returned for a reunion in 1997 he was presented with a plaque by the town's mayor in recognition for his work in bringing together Protestants and Catholics under one roof.

©2008 Johnston Press Digital Publishing

BAHRAIN (Gulf Daily News), May 13, 2008:

A MOTION to allow female civil servants take early retirement at the age of 50 was blocked yesterday by the Shura Council.

Councillors described the government-drafted bill, originally proposed by parliament and approved by MPs last month, as unconstitutional, discriminatory and dangerous.

Pension Fund Commission officials said at yesterday's weekly council session that the scheme would cost the fund BD173.5 million over the next five years.

Under the law, female civil servants would be given five 'virtual years' at 50, to ensure they get the same benefits when they retire at 55.

Council services committee chairman Dr Bahiya Al Jishi said the law was discriminatory as it differentiates between male and female civil servants.

"The problem is that those behind the law think that females are fragile and could break easily, something I am here to say is wrong," she said.

"Basically, this law is being launched to remove females from the labour market and pave the way for more men.

Council legislative and legal affairs committee vice-chairman Sayed Habib Hashim said the law was found to be unconstitutional after being studied by his committee.

"The constitution doesn't differentiate between men and women," he said.

"This law suggests women are incapable and weak and can't handle work after the age of 50.

"This is wrong because most women continue achieving success after the age of 50.

"Pushing them out with this dangerous law means that we deprive them of an opportunity to reach the top."

However, councillor Weddad Al Fadhel said the law would be voluntary, not compulsory.

"It means that women would have the choice to either leave at the age of 50 or stay until the retirement age," he said.

Council public utilities and environment affairs committee chairman Faud Al Haji added the law should not be passed because it discriminates against men, not women.

"Female civil servants have around 200 days' holiday a year - if we take into consideration maternity leave, days off if they become widows and breastfeeding time-off, in addition to their annual leave," he said.

"And now we want them to get early retirement."

Mr Al Haji said studies showed women lived longer than men.

"Men don't live much and they are the ones who should be getting early retirement.

"When the next term comes in October, I will propose a law asking for early retirement for men," he added.

Fund assistant general manager for pension affairs Abdullatif Al Zayani said the law would encourage women to take early retirement, rather than encourage them to stay in their jobs.

"They would get a better pension if they decide to leave early rather than stay, which we believe shouldn't happen," he said.

"The only GCC country with such a scheme is Kuwait, but women are forced to contribute more to the fund to get such privilege.

"Here everyone pays the same, without discrimination.

"The fund will go bankrupt, considering that now three employees' contributions are being given to one pensioner.

"With this law, it will be five to one, which would be more disastrous."

The bill will now be referred back to parliament, but if MPs insist on it, it will return to the Shura Council again for a second review.

If it is opposed, it will be scheduled for a joint National Assembly session, in which both chambers would sit for a vote.

Copyright © 2007 Gulf Daily News

TOKYO (The Yomiuri Shimbun), May 13, 2008:

The new medical insurance system for people aged 75 or older has been severely criticized.

In addition to its apparently thoughtless name--literally, "a health insurance system for people in the latter stage of their advanced age"--the system lacks due consideration to its subscribers in many respects. Although it is a major systemic change for people aged 75 or older, the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry and local governments have failed to sufficiently prepare for the new system and adequately explain the nature of it to the public.

In addition, the ministry has presented only the vaguest estimates of how many people would see an increase--or a decrease for that matter--in their financial burdens when the new system takes effect. Consequently, it is natural that the elderly people concerned are angry about the new system.

It is necessary for the government and the ruling parties to adequately explain the purposes of and reasons for the new system to the public while also hurriedly examining the system's status quo to identify all problems involved in it.

The newly introduced system was preceded by a similar system covering people aged 75 and older. The latter system was designed to help cover the medical costs incurred by its subscribers when they consulted doctors, although they remained insured under national health insurance programs administered by their city, town and village governments. When their medical costs have exceeded expectations, the increase has been covered by contributions from mainly corporate health insurance societies.

Old system lacked clarity

However, under the previous system, it was not clear to what extent working generations should bear the burden of covering medical costs for the elderly. It also was unclear who was responsible for limiting medical costs for people aged 75 or older to necessities.

The new system incorporates an independent accounting scheme for which each prefecture-level operational organization is held responsible--a departure from the previous ambiguity about who should pay how much to cover elderly people's medical fees. By transferring managerial responsibility from the previous city, town and village level to the prefectural level, public finances for medical insurance are expected to be stabilized.

The new system also includes a system that requires elderly people with higher incomes to pay their due share of medical insurance premiums and specifies how much of the health insurance premiums paid by working generations is assigned to medical costs for the elderly.

As the rules on the distribution of the burden of medical costs for the elderly is made clear, the new system is likely to be seen by the public as a cold and callous way to treat the elderly.

Clearer picture

But making clear the relationship between the burdens of insurance premiums and benefits also clarifies the respective limits of premiums elderly people and working generations are required to pay. That will lead to discussion as to how to secure financial resources to cover future medical and social service costs.

The general direction of the new system is in line with one intended for a rapidly aging society, but its details are problematic.

The calculation formula for the insurance premiums under the new system is complicated and difficult to understand. As the central and local governments have failed to explain the new system to the public in a comprehensive and detailed way, people facing additional burdens are prompted to complain and lose trust in the system.

Some people are confused after local governments ended the practice of reducing or eliminating local taxes for low-income households and the disabled when they switched to the new system.

There also is a deep-rooted misunderstanding among elderly people that they are required to have their premiums deducted from their pension payments, in addition to those they paid under the old system.

It is important for the central and local governments to adequately explain the new system and take necessary measures.

© The Yomiuri Shimbun

By Megan Rauscher

NEW YORK (Reuters Health), May 13, 2008:

New research shows "alarming levels" of obesity in most ethnic groups in the United States, principal investigator Dr. Gregory L. Burke, of Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, North Carolina told Reuters Health. The study also confirms the potentially deadly toll obesity exacts on the heart and blood vessels.

"The obesity epidemic has the potential to reduce further gains in U.S. life expectancy, largely through an effect on cardiovascular disease mortality (death)," Burke and colleagues warn in the latest issue of Archives of Internal Medicine.

Among 6,814 middle-age or older adults participating in the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis, or "MESA" study, researchers found that more than two thirds of white, African American and Hispanic participants were overweight and one third to one half were obese.

Obesity rates were far lower in Chinese Americans in the study, with 33 percent overweight and just 5 percent obese, suggesting, Burke said, that high rates of obesity should not considered "inevitable."

The investigators also found that obese adults, compared with normal-weight adults, had higher rates of high blood pressure (up to more than twice as high), abnormal lipids (two- to three-fold higher), and diabetes, despite a "huge number" being on costly medications to lower blood pressure and lipid levels and control diabetes, Burke said.

"As the obesity numbers increase further, we will spend an even larger amount of health care dollars just treating risk factors," Burke said.

Obese adults also had more silent vascular disease (blood vessel disease that causes no symptoms); they had more atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries) and thicker heart walls, even after adjusting for "traditional" risk factors like high blood pressure and high cholesterol levels.

Given the higher amount of silent blood vessel disease with obesity, Burke said "one could worry that this will cause us to reverse our 50-year decline in cardiovascular disease mortality due to the obesity epidemic." This will likely be accompanied by an increase in diabetes, other heart disease risk factors, and silent disease - "on top of the aging of the baby boom generation."

"Our findings support the imperative to redouble our efforts to assist in increasing healthy behaviors and to remove...barriers to maintaining a healthy weight," Burke and colleagues conclude.

SOURCE: Archives of Internal Medicine, May 12, 2008.

AFP Photo.

Tibetan spiritual leader The Dalai Lama:
"The cultural rights and freedoms must apply to all Tibetans --
as it is stated in the constitution."

DHARAMSALA, India (Der Spiegel), May 12, 2008:

Tenzin Gyatso, 72, the 14th Dalai Lama, leader of the Tibetan people, discussed the uprising in his native Tibet, why he doesn't support protests against the Olympic torch relay and his proposals for a compromise with Beijing in an interview conducted here by Erich Follath and Padma Rao at the exile headquarters of the Dalai Lama.

Read the interview

Dalai Lama: The Chinese must finally admit that there is a Tibet problem. This is supposed to be the focus of the next talks to which we just agreed. Unlike earlier unrests, this time they not only affected Lhasa, and not just the so-called Tibet Autonomous Region. The protests encompassed all Tibetan-speaking parts of China. Even Tibetan students at Beijing University were demonstrating. This overwhelming and complete rebuff of the Communist Party government and its policies can't just be ignored. Beijing must know that something has gone terribly wrong in the last 50 years.

© SPIEGEL ONLINE 2008

TAIPEI, Taiwan (Reuters), May 12, 2008:

By Michelle Rizzo

Women who suffer from "dysfunctional voiding" - like having to urinate often and having difficulty voiding - experience a greater degree of depression and anxiety compared to women without these symptoms, research suggests.

"Dysfunctional voiding... is more commonly seen in recent years," Dr. Alex T. L. Lin, of Taipei Veterans General Hospital, Taiwan, told Reuters Health.

"Although we suspect that depression and anxiety are reactions to the dysfunctional voiding, we could not preclude the possibility that psychological abnormalities might predispose one to the occurrence of lower urinary tract dysfunction," he commented.

Lin noted that the stressful environment of modern society might be a contributing factor for the increased incidence of dysfunctional voiding.

"From our observations, avoiding stressful situations and stress-reduction are important to prevent dysfunctional voiding," Lin advised.

Lin and colleagues assessed anxiety and depression symptoms among 32 women with dysfunctional voiding and 31 asymptomatic control women with no lower urinary tract symptoms. The average age of the women studied was 48 years.

The women with dysfunctional voiding scored markedly higher on the Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression (HRSD) and the Hamilton Rating Scale for Anxiety (HAM-A).

The patients had an average HRSD score of 16,9, compared with 4,3 in controls. The mean HAM-A score for patients was 21,2 and 4,8 for controls.

A significantly greater degree of depression and anxiety was observed among patients with dysfunctional voiding compared to controls.

"For patients with dysfunctional voiding, psychological intervention to reduce anxiety and depression should be an indispensable part of the treatment plan," Lin said.

The researchers' next step is to assess the treatment benefit of psychological interventions on dysfunctional voiding.

Source: Reuters

Images of fruit fly wings showing tufts of hairs, which is an indicator used to highlight instability of DNA in the corresponding cells. Instability of DNA is one of the key similarities found between the fruit flies studied and human patients with premature aging condition Werner syndrome. (Credit: Dr. Robert Saunders)

CHEVY CHASE, MD (Science Daily), May 12, 2008:

Scientists funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) have found a fast and effective way to investigate important aspects of human aging. Working at the University of Oxford and The Open University, Dr Lynne Cox and Dr Robert Saunders have discovered a gene in fruit flies that means flies can now be used to study the effects aging has on DNA.

In new work published today in the journal Aging Cell, the researchers demonstrate the value of this model in helping us to understand the aging process. This exciting study demonstrates that fruit flies can be used to study critical aspects of human aging at cellular, genetic and biochemical levels.

Dr Lynne Cox from the University of Oxford said: "We study a premature human aging disease called Werner syndrome to help us understand normal aging. The key to this disease is that changes in a single gene (called WRN) mean that patients age very quickly. Scientists have made great progress in working out what this gene does in the test tube, but until now we haven’t been able to investigate the gene to look at its effect on development and the whole body. By working on this gene in fruit flies, we can model human aging in a powerful experimental system."

Dr Robert Saunders from The Open University added: "This work shows for the first time that we can use the short-lived fruit fly to investigate the function of an important human aging gene. We have opened up the exciting possibility of using this model system to analyse the way that such genes work in a whole organism, not just in single cells.”

Dr Saunders, Dr Cox and colleagues have identified the fruit fly equivalent of the key human aging gene known as WRN. They find that flies with damage to this gene share important features with people suffering from the rapid aging condition Werner syndrome, who also have damage to the WRN gene. In particular, the DNA, or genetic blueprint, is unstable in the flies that have the damaged version of the gene and the chromosomes are often altered. The researchers show that the fly’s DNA becomes rearranged, with genes being swapped between chromosomes. In patients with Werner syndrome, this genome instability leads to cancer. Cells derived from Werner syndrome patients are extremely sensitive to a drug often used to treat cancers: the researchers show that the flies that have the damaged gene are killed by even very low doses of the drug.

Professor Nigel Brown, Director of Science and Technology, Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council said: "The aging population presents a major research challenge to the UK and we need effort to understand normal aging and the characteristics that accompany it."

"Fruit flies are already used as a model for the genetics behind mechanisms that underlie normal functioning of the human body and it is great news that this powerful research tool can be applied to such an important area of study into human health."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Journal reference:

Saunders et al., Identification and characterization of a Drosophila ortholog of WRN exonuclease that is required to maintain genome integrity, Ageing Cell (2008), doi: 10.1111/j.1474-9726.2008.00388.x

Adapted from materials provided by
Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council.

LONDON, England
May 12, 2008:

Falling revenues mean studios are cutting back on high-earning actors, says Christopher Goodwin

When 84 year-old Sumner Redstone 'fired' Tom Cruise 18 months ago, ending his lucrative 14-year relationship with Paramount Pictures, some saw it as the petulant outburst of a grumpy old man who didn't understand how the Hollywood star system worked.

But now Redstone's abrupt dismissal of Hollywood's biggest star of the last 20 years looks eerily prescient. Number crunchers at the Hollywood studios have reached a startling conclusion: the highest earning stars are simply not worth the enormous sums of money they are paid, and the studios are determined to cut them down to size.

In the last decade it became common for top stars like Cruise, Julia Roberts and Tom Hanks to be paid an upfront fee of $25m per picture plus enormous profit participation deals. Mission: Impossible III, for example, made around $400m at the global box office. Cruise took home about $95m while Paramount, which had taken the risk of putting up the $150m budget, ended up with a profit of just $10m.

The Good German, starring George Clooney, took just $1.3m at the US box office

Since then, a slew of movies starring some of Hollywood’s biggest and highest-paid stars have failed miserably. The Good German, starring George Clooney, Cate Blanchett and Tobey Maguire, took just $1.3m at the US box office. Leatherheads, the most recent film to star Clooney, whom Time magazine recently hailed on its cover as 'The Last Movie Star', looks very unlikely to make back its $58m budget. The Invasion, starring A-listers Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig, made just $15m, having cost $85m to produce. Even such comedy stars as Ben Stiller, Jim Carrey and Will Ferrell have had serious misfires in the last year.

"Here's the new benchmark for predicting box-office performance: if a movie-star heads the cast, downgrade the forecasts," says Peter Bart, editor of the Hollywood trade paper Variety. "Some distributors inevitably ask: Has the basic concept of a movie star become something of an anachronism?"

The studios certainly think so. They are increasingly relying on high-concept 'franchise' films that don't depend on big stars. These include enormous hits like Iron Man, which has just taken $200m worldwide in its first weekend, Spider-man, Harry Potter, Batman and the upcoming 2008 releases Wanted, Wolf Man and Death Race. The other big money-spinners these days are cheap comedies like Knocked Up and Forgetting Sarah Marshall from producer-director Judd Apatow, which don't need big stars.

"What more and more studios are saying is, 'Let's find a concept we can market and once we have that, then we'll get the best actor who can fit that'," says one agent. Of course some of these franchise pictures, like Pirates of the Caribbean with Johnny Depp and now Iron Man with Robert Downey Jnr, are boosted by their star actors. But the new Hollywood rule is that outside these franchises even such huge stars as Depp have little drawing power any more.

The average number of top grossing films over the last few years that are driven by stars has fallen by 200-300 per cent," says Steve Zeitchik of the Hollywood Reporter.

The result is that Harrison Ford has been forced to accept a radical financial arrangement for Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull, which will be premiered at the Cannes film festival. Paramount Pictures has insisted that the film must take more than $400m at the box office, covering its production and marketing costs and some distribution fees, before Ford, director Steven Spielberg and producer George Lucas, none of whom is receiving an upfront fee, see a cent.

The upside for the three men is that if the film does recoup the $400m, between them they'll get 87.5 cents of every dollar thereafter. "It's good for both parties," says media analyst Harold Vogel. "If the talent has a true belief in the movie, they are taking a little more risk in exchange for a much larger share of the profits."

Harrison Ford has had to accept a radical financial arrangement for the new Indiana Jones"

"The average number of top grossing films over the last few years that are driven by stars has fallen by 200-300 per cent," says Steve Zeitchik of the Hollywood Reporter.

The result is that Harrison Ford has been forced to accept a radical financial arrangement for Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull, which will be premiered at the Cannes film festival. Paramount Pictures has insisted that the film must take more than $400m at the box office, covering its production and marketing costs and some distribution fees, before Ford, director Steven Spielberg and producer George Lucas, none of whom is receiving an upfront fee, see a cent.

The upside for the three men is that if the film does recoup the $400m, between them they'll get 87.5 cents of every dollar thereafter. "It's good for both parties," says media analyst Harold Vogel. "If the talent has a true belief in the movie, they are taking a little more risk in exchange for a much larger share of the profits."

© Copyright Dennis Publishing Limited

May 12, 2008

A report that 72% of journal articles on heart stents in 2006 failed to note who funded the research draws sharp criticism of disclosure practices

by Arlene Weintraub

A group of researchers at Duke University scoured more than 700 studies on heart stents published in medical journals over the course of a year, and were shocked to discover two huge omissions. First, 83% of the papers failed to disclose whether the authors were paid consultants for the companies that made the products they wrote about.

Perhaps more surprising, 72% of articles describing clinical trials and other research-related matters didn't identify who funded the research. The Duke paper, published May 7 in the online journal PLoS One, raises fresh questions about the ever-growing financial ties between doctors and companies, and the adequacy with which those relationships are communicated to the public.

Doctors who study drugs and medical devices often get financial support from the companies that make those products. It's a symbiotic and important partnership, especially as federal funding for medical research dries up (BusinessWeek, 5/8/08). But in the past few years, the medical community has become increasingly concerned that some physicians who author studies about products could be biased by the money they get from industry. That may prompt them to downplay dangerous side effects, critics say, or simply not publish studies that come to negative conclusions about experimental products.

Tougher Policies After Vioxx
In the wake of the controversy surrounding Vioxx—the Merck arthritis pill that was pulled from the market in 2004 after it was linked to heart attacks and strokes—publications such as the New England Journal of Medicine and The Journal of the American Medical Assn. (JAMA) toughened policies requiring authors to disclose financial ties to industry. The idea was that such transparency would allow doctors, patients, regulators, and insurance companies to see the studies in light of their backers, and decide for themselves how serious the potential for bias might be.

But the Duke study suggests the quest for transparency has failed. Aside from the revelation that most authors are ignoring journals' disclosure rules, the study suggests the disclosures themselves may be suspect.

The researchers zeroed in on the 170 or so authors, out of a total of 2,985, who fulfilled their duty to disclose in the journal articles, which were published in 2006. By doing informal Internet searches, they discovered that some of the physicians who said they had no conflicts of interest in fact served on the advisory boards of companies that make stents. One person co-founded a stent company. (The Duke paper doesn't name individual doctors.) Of the 75 authors who disclosed relationships with companies, only two did so consistently; the rest named their corporate sponsors in some journals but not others.

Lead author Kevin Weinfurt of the Duke Clinical Research Institute says journal editors are as much to blame as authors are for the lack of transparency. "These journals should be doing better" at policing their disclosure rules, he says. "We hope this is a wake-up call."

The Companies Respond
Disclosure guidelines are set by the journals, and they're completely voluntary. Some federal legislators have proposed mandating a national database that would list all doctors' financial ties to companies, but so far those efforts have stalled.

The study also reveals just how deeply corporate interests have infiltrated medical research. The top funding sources named in the disclosures that the Duke researchers found were stentmakers Johnson & Johnson, Boston Scientific, and Medtronic, as well as drugmakers Bristol-Myers Squibb and Sanofi-Aventis. Those last two companies co-market the blood thinner Plavix, which is widely prescribed to stent patients.

Weinfurt says that going in, he predicted the papers would at least disclose who funded the overall research, because most journals started requiring that information long before they started asking individual authors to reveal their personal connections to industry. "We were surprised that 72% [of papers] did not identify the source of their support," he says. "We'd like to know who funded those studies."

BusinessWeek contacted all five companies. A spokesperson for Bristol-Myers Squibb said in an e-mail that the company has an official policy stating, "Any BMS funding or involvement in a publication must be disclosed in the publication." A spokesperson for Boston Scientific sent this statement: "Boston Scientific requires disclosure of our involvement as a sponsor in any publication or presentation relating to a clinical study or its results. The manner in which an author reports that involvement to an academic journal to comply with the journal's author financial disclosure requirements remains the responsibility of each author." The other companies had not responded as of publication time.

What About the Disclosure System?
Some journal editors gripe that there is only so much they can do. Once they issue disclosure rules, they have no choice but to trust authors to follow them. "I'm not a cop. I'm not the FBI," says Dr. Catherine DeAngelis, editor in chief of JAMA and a longtime advocate of disclosure. With several thousand authors contributing every year to her publication, DeAngelis says, she can't expect her editors to Google every disclosure to try to determine whether it's accurate. And she's frustrated so many authors are resisting the call to disclose.

"It should be a no-brainer," DeAngelis says. "It doesn't mean the worthiness of the paper is marred. But if they're not disclosing because they think it's marred, then maybe it is."

Underlying the disclosure debate is a larger question: What good does transparency do anyway? If everyone was disclosing consistently, the world would be awash in information that could be hard to decipher. Most disclosures are simply lists of companies: They don't say how much money the authors receive from those companies, whether they're paid in cash and/or stock, or what services they provide in return.

"The whole system is pretty slipshod," says Dr. Jerome Kassirer, former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine and author of On the Take: How Medicine's Complicity with Big Business Can Endanger Your Health. "When you're reading an article and you know an author has a conflict of interest, you're still in the dark."

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Arlene Weintraub is a senior writer for BusinessWeek's science and technology department.

Copyright 2000-2008 by The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc.

SYDNEY (Sydney Morning Herald), May 12, 2008:

Kate Benson

A popular arthritis treatment used by thousands of Australians has been labelled ineffective by the nation's leading consumer group.

Choice reviewed 26 glucosamine products and found that many did not contain enough of the active ingredient to relieve the symptoms of arthritis and there was not enough clinical evidence the treatment worked.

More than 1.3 million Australians are affected by osteoarthritis, a condition caused by the loss of or damage to cartilage in the joints.

But a spokeswoman for Choice, Elise Davidson, said the only recent trials that found glucosamine benefited sufferers were sponsored by a pharmaceutical company.

"A study of all the research available suggests that, despite its popularity among osteoarthritis sufferers, there's little evidence to suggest taking products containing glucosamine offers anything other than a placebo effect," she said.

"Lifestyle treatments, such as low-impact exercise like walking and swimming, are better ways to treat osteoarthritis."

Clinical trials for glucosamine, derived from shells of prawns and other crustaceans, had shown a large placebo effect where people felt less pain despite taking only dummy pills, Ms Davidson said.

Government regulations specify the amount of active ingredient per tablet or capsule must not be less than 92.5 per cent but two products contained less than that, and three did not contain the 1500 milligrams listed as the recommended daily dose.

Ms Davidson said Choice had examined all published research until January 2005. Eight of the most rigorous clinical trials failed to show any benefits from glucosamine over a placebo, while a series of studies using a glucosamine sulphate product from Italy consistently showed clear benefits.

"As plenty of people think glucosamine works for them, and clinical trials show it is generally safe, it's worth giving it a try even if the only result is the placebo effect," Ms Davidson said.

"But start with one of the cheapest which has a dose of 1500 milligrams a day or more of glucosamine and avoid any which give you any less."

Copyright © 2008 Fairfax Digital