Doctors treating people for chronic pain should avoid using all medications — at least at first — the American Heart Association advised yesterday in guidelines designed to have a significant impact on the use of medications known as nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, or NSAIDs. The scientific statement said that, with the exception of aspirin, there is now strong evidence that NSAIDs are associated with an increased risk of heart attacks and stroke. If 100 patients who have had heart attacks in the past or are at risk for heart disease take these drugs for a year, researchers would expect to see six additional deaths in this group. NSAIDs reduce fever, pain and inflammation. The statement expressed particular concern over a subgroup of these drugs known as Cox-2 inhibitors. The only drug in this group currently on the market in the United States is Celebrex. The professional association laid out a step-by-step approach that is very different from the way physicians typically have approached treating chronic pain and inflammation. ‘In the past, many physicians would prescribe the Cox-2 drugs first,’ said Elliott Antman, a professor at Harvard Medical School who led a group of experts assembled by the […]
Americans hate their jobs more than ever before in the past 20 years, with fewer than half saying they are satisfied. The trend is strongest among workers under the age of 25, less than 39 percent of whom are satisfied with their jobs. Workers age 45 to 54 have the second lowest level of satisfaction (less than 45 percent), according a survey conducted by The Conference Board, a market information company that also puts out the Consumer Confidence Index and the Leading Economic Indicators. Older people like their jobs more. Nearly half of all workers over 55 are satisfied with their employment situation. Unsettling trend Overall, dissatisfaction has spread among all workers, regardless of age, income or residence. Twenty years ago, the first time the survey was conducted, 61 percent of all Americans said they were satisfied with their jobs, according to the representative survey of 5,000 U.S. households, said Lynn Franco, director of the Conference Board’s Consumer Research Center. ‘Although a certain amount of dissatisfaction with one’s job is to be expected, the breadth of dissatisfaction is somewhat unsettling, since it carries over from what attracts employees to a job to what keeps […]
WASHINGTON — Forecasters warned Tuesday that a La Nina weather pattern – the nasty flip side of El Nino – is brewing, bringing with it the threat of more hurricanes for the Atlantic. Officials at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced the official end of a brief and mild El Nino that started last year. That El Nino was credited with partially shutting down last summer’s Atlantic hurricane activity in the midst of what was supposed to be a busy season. ‘We’re seeing a shift to the La Nina, it’s clearly in the data,’ NOAA Administrator Conrad Lautenbacher said. La Nina, a cooling of the mid-Pacific equatorial region, has not officially begun because it’s a process with several months with specific temperature thresholds, but the trend is obvious based on satellite and ocean measurement data, he said. ‘It certainly won’t be welcome news for those living off the coast right now,’ Lautenbacher said. But he said that doesn’t mean Atlantic seaboard residents should sell their homes. Forecasters don’t know how strong this La Nina will be. However, it typically means more hurricanes in the Atlantic, fewer in the Pacific, less rain and more heat for […]
WASHINGTON — More than a quarter of U.S. girls and women ages 14 to 59 are infected with the sexually transmitted human wart virus, which causes most cases of cervical cancer, U.S. health officials estimated on Tuesday. That means human papillomavirus or HPV infection is more common than previously thought, particularly among younger age groups, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention researchers said. Its prevalence was highest among those 20 to 24, with 44.8 percent infected, and nearly a quarter of teenagers aged 14 to 19. This first solid assessment of the U.S. female prevalence of HPV infection comes about nine months after the Food and Drug Administration approved a vaccine against certain types of the virus to prevent cervical cancer. Using data from a nationally representative group of 1,921 girls and women ages 14 to 49 who provided vaginal swabs in 2003 and 2004, researchers led by the CDC’s Dr. Eileen Dunne found that 26.8 percent were infected with any type of this virus. That rate translates to a total of 24.9 million U.S. girls and women, according to Dunne’s team, whose findings were published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. […]
NEW YORK — Five Western U.S. states have formed the latest regional pact that bypasses the Bush administration to cut emissions linked to global warming through market mechanisms, according to Oregon’s governor. Oregon, California, Washington, New Mexico and Arizona have agreed to develop a regional target for reducing greenhouse emissions in six months, according a statement from Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski. During the next 18 months, the governors will devise a market-based program, such as a load-based cap and trade program to reach the target. The five states also have agreed to participate in a multi-state registry to track and manage greenhouse gas emissions in their region. The Western Regional Climate Action Initiative comes on the heels of an agreement in the East called the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. ‘With the Western states you’ve got a huge part of the U.S. economy that are beginning to regulate greenhouse gases,’ said Jeremiah Baumann, an advocate with the Oregon State Public Interest Research Group. California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger recently passed the country’s toughest greenhouse emissions laws which aim to reduce the state’s economy-wide output of the gases by 25 percent by 2020. Monday’s agreement ‘sets the […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
