Sunday, July 26, 2009

News Clipping Archives

 

 

Maryland / Regional

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National / International

U.S. making doubly sure Census isn't overcounted (USA Today)

Europe fast-tracking swine flu vaccine (Associated Press)

 

Opinion

Unhealthy advertising (Baltimore Sun Commentary)

Abortion is not healthcare; Congress shouldn’t approve it (Cumberland Times-News Letter to the Editor)

 

 

Maryland / Regional

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National / International

U.S. making doubly sure Census isn't overcounted

 

By Haya El Nasser and Paul Overberg

USA Today

Sunday, July 26, 2009

 

During the 2000 Census, Kenneth Prewitt's mother proudly informed him that she had performed her civic duty: She filled out her Census form — twice.

 

That's not what Prewitt, director of the Census Bureau at the time, wanted to hear.

 

Although most of the Census effort to ensure an accurate head count next year focuses on rooting out people the government can't find, double-counting is just as much a problem.

 

A review of the 2000 Census revealed that for the first time in history, the count was actually too high. It took two years to nail down the scope of the problem: About 10.2 million people were missed, but almost 11.6 million — such as Prewitt's mother — were counted twice.

 

"My mother had moved April 1 (the day of the official tally)," Prewitt says. "Obviously, she got a form at the new house they moved into that day and at the old house they moved out of that day. She was so proud to have helped me by filling out her forms."

 

Counting people twice distorts the demographic and geographic profile of the population. Census counts are used to allocate federal funds, apportion seats among the states in the U.S. House of Representatives and redraw political districts.

 

Errors have an impact

 

Double-counting a white woman in Iowa who winters in Florida is as big a problem as failing to count a young black man in North Carolina. If the Census does both, it compounds the error and creates an imbalance that ripples from local to national politics.

 

That's why the Census must:

 

• Count everyone — once.

 

• Count everyone in the right place — where they're living on Census day.

 

The two groups — the double-counted and the uncounted —are often polar opposites:

 

• Many of the overcounted are much like Prewitt's mother — older white women who own a home, sometimes two. Others include young people who are in college, the military or prison.

 

• The undercounted are more often African American and men aged 18 to 49 who don't own homes.

 

Limiting double-counting

 

"We have made a lot of changes in 2010 in ways that would reduce the errors," says Daniel Weinberg, assistant director for the decennial census.

 

The biggest is in the Census form itself. Instructions now specifically warn people not to include people in their households who are living separately even if they plan on returning home. "Otherwise, they may be counted twice," the form warns.

 

Another change is a question that asks if people in the household sometimes live or stay somewhere else and, if so, where. The choices include prison, college, a seasonal home or a nursing home.

 

"While Mom and Dad are paying a bundle for tuition, they list the kid on their form," Weinberg says. "The kid lives in a dorm ... at UC-Santa Cruz and the parents live in New York City. He should be (listed) in Santa Cruz."

 

For the first time next year, forms will be scanned to pick up duplicates in birth dates and names. Follow-up calls will be made to clarify some returns, and field workers will double-check some addresses. Nevertheless, Weinberg says that "the media campaign is heavily weighted toward harder-to-count populations."

 

That includes immigrants — especially those here illegally — the poor, renters and any population suspicious of government. That group may be larger since 9/11 because of crackdowns on immigrants and covert surveillance. Historically, hard-to-count groups are more likely minorities.

 

"Both undercounts and overcounts undermine the accuracy of the Census and the ability of policymakers to evaluate community needs fully," Wade Henderson, president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, says in an e-mail.

 

The bureau is spending millions of dollars to publicize next year's national tally.

 

In addition to a media campaign in 28 languages, the Census is partnering with groups fluent in 69 languages. Bilingual staff will be at information centers, and 13 million households will get questionnaires in English and Spanish.

 

The 2010 push could lead to more overcounting, but it's a chance the government will take because weeding out duplicates is easier than finding people who don't come forward, Weinberg says.

 

The Census Bureau has workers focusing specifically on double-counting, says Angelo Falcón, president and co-founder of the National Institute for Latino Policy and a member of a Census advisory committee.

 

 

WHAT GROUPS ARE MOST LIKELY TO BE MISCOUNTED?

 

The 2000 Census overcounted the U.S. population by about half a percent. Some groups were more seriously miscounted than others:

 

Group                                     Percentage overcounted

Women age 50 and above       2.53%

Women age 18-29                   1.39%

Non-Hispanic whites             1.13%

Homeowners                           1.25%

Men 50 and over                     0.80%

 

Group                                     Percentage undercounted

Men age 30-49                        2.01%

Blacks                                                 1.84%

Men age 18-29                        1.12%

Non-homeowners                    1.14%

Hispanics                                 0.71%

 

Source: Census Bureau

 

Copyright 2009 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.

 

Europe fast-tracking swine flu vaccine

 

By Maria Cheng

Associated Press

Sunday, July 26, 2009

 

LONDON (AP) - In a drive to inoculate people against swine flu before winter, many European governments say they will fast-track the testing of a vaccine, arousing concern among some experts about safety and proper doses.

 

The European Medicines Agency, the EU's top drug regulatory body, is accelerating the approval process for swine flu vaccine, and countries such as Britain, Greece, France and Sweden say they'll start using the vaccine after it's greenlighted - possibly within weeks.

 

In an interview with The Associated Press, Dr. Keiji Fukuda, the World Health Organization's flu chief, warned about the potential dangers of untested vaccines, although he stopped short of criticizing Europe's approach outright.

 

"One of the things which cannot be compromised is the safety of vaccines," he said Friday. "There are certain areas where you can make economies, perhaps, but certain areas where you simply do not try to make any economies."

 

Flu vaccines have been used for 40 years, and many experts say extensive testing is unnecessary, since the swine flu vaccine will simply contain a new ingredient: the swine flu virus.

 

But European officials won't know if the new vaccine causes any rare side effects until millions of people get the shots. Still, they say the benefit of saving lives is worth the gamble.

 

"Everybody is doing the best they can in a situation which is far from ideal," said Martin Harvey-Allchurch, a spokesman for the European Medicines Agency. "With the winter flu season approaching, we need to make sure the vaccine is available."

 

In Europe, flu vaccines are usually tested on hundreds of people for several weeks or months, to ensure the immune system produces enough antibodies to fight the infection.

 

But to ensure swine flu vaccine is available as soon as possible, the European Medicines Agency is allowing companies to skip testing in large numbers of people before the vaccine is approved.

 

The main issue is probably that without thorough testing it's difficult to gauge the effective dosage - meaning Europeans might get too weak a vaccine. It's unlikely the vaccine would endanger anyone, but until it is used in large numbers of people, no one will know for sure.

 

Europeans appear ready to use the vaccine widely before conducting any big studies to prove it is safe and effective. Neither the vaccine makers nor the European Medicines Agency would specify what basic safety tests are being done.

 

The U.S. is taking a more cautious approach: the government called Wednesday for several thousand volunteers to be injected with the swine flu vaccine in tests beginning in August to assess the vaccine's safety. American officials said results should be ready by the time the U.S. plans to roll out a vaccination campaign in October.

 

Results from the U.S. tests will be of limited use to Europe, since countries like Britain plan to start vaccinating as early as August - before any American trial data is available. The vaccines used in the U.S. will also be different from those in Europe.

Some experts favor urgent action.

 

"The consequences of not having a vaccine if this virus gets worse are very high," said Leonard Marcus, a public health expert at Harvard University. "If (regulatory authorities) took all the time that was necessary to make sure there are no side effects, ironically, in the effort to save a few lives, many lives could be lost."

 

But critics say dangers lurk in any strategy to vaccinate without robust testing.

 

Scant information exists on flu vaccines with adjuvants, a component used to stretch the active ingredient that is commonly found in European flu vaccines. There are no licensed flu vaccines with the ingredient in the U.S.

 

There is also limited or no data on the safety and effectiveness of vaccines with adjuvants in children under 3 and pregnant women -two of the most vulnerable groups in a pandemic - a global outbreak.

 

Mass swine flu vaccination campaigns will also take place in the shadow of the 1976 swine flu disaster, when hundreds of people in the U.S. developed Guillain-Barre syndrome, a paralyzing disorder, after being vaccinated.

 

Experts don't know why that happened, but say modern vaccine production techniques have improved since 1976. To avoid a similar episode, some say comprehensive testing before the vaccine is rolled out is essential.

 

"I can't see any possible excuse to not test it for safety before it's given to anyone," said George Annas, a bioethics expert at Boston University.

 

If the vaccine turns out to have dangerous side effects, it could generate a public backlash, particularly in a country like Britain, where many people remain suspicious of vaccines because of unsubstantiated allegations linking the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine to autism. That could lead to millions of people refusing vaccination.

 

When the bird flu crisis hit several years ago, the European Medicines Agency designed a special protocol to approve a vaccine for use in a pandemic as soon as possible.

 

The agency let companies submit data for a "mock-up" vaccine, using H5N1 bird flu. The idea was to do most of the testing before the global epidemic hit so when it did, drugmakers could insert the pandemic virus into the vaccine at the last minute.

 

When the first swine flu vaccine doses are ready, the European Medicines Agency will approve them largely based on data from the bird flu vaccine, since both will have the same basic ingredients.

 

If the agency thinks the bird flu data predicts how the swine flu virus will work, they will approve it, said spokesman Harvey-Allchurch.

 

The agency will then require regular reporting of the vaccine's effects as it is being administered - monitoring that is normally done beforehand.

 

WHO's Fukuda said everyone involved in making the vaccine, from manufacturers to regulatory agencies, is looking at what steps can be taken to streamline the process.

 

"But there is no one who disagrees that one of the absolutes is that there can't be any question whether the vaccine is safe or not," he said.

 

WHO reported that the swine flu viruses aren't producing enough of a key vaccine ingredient, which may limit how much vaccine is available. Its laboratory network is now working to produce a new set of viruses that it hopes will work better.

 

Drugmakers including Baxter International, GlaxoSmithKline PLC, Novartis and Sanofi-Pasteur, however, insist they will be able to start shipping the first batches of vaccine soon.

 

British health officials have repeatedly said they will start vaccinating in August, as soon as the vaccine is approved. Other European countries, including Greece, France, Sweden, say they will use the vaccine after it gets the green light from the European agency, but none other than Britain expect to start the shots next month.

 

Associated Press writers Frank Jordans in Geneva, Malin Rising in Stockholm, Jenny Barchfield in Paris, and Derek Gatopoulos in Athens contributed to this report.

 

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

 

Opinion

Unhealthy advertising

Direct-to-consumer drug commercials are harmful to society; it's time to rein them in

 

By Christopher Lane

Baltimore Sun Commentary

Sunday, July 26, 2009

 

It's amazing what an hour of aimless channel surfing can turn up these days.

 

After some freewheeling with the remote one night recently, I managed to catch not only half a dozen low-budget makeover shows but also three ads for FDA-approved pharmaceuticals: one for depression, another for premenstrual dysphoric disorder and a third for inadequate eyelash syndrome - sorry, "eyelash hypotrichosis."

 

Prescription treatment for "longer, thicker and darker lashes?" Fellow Americans, have we lost our minds?

 

In the ad, actress Brooke Shields coyly advises women that any eyelid skin darkening that occurs - a potential side effect of the prescription liquid - "may be reversible" but "close doctor supervision" could still be necessary. Oh, and did I mention that the proposed treatment can take 16 weeks? Imagine the doctors' billable hours!

 

How does the pharmaceutical industry have the nerve to tap an already lucrative cosmetics market while keeping a straight face medically? And what exactly was Ms. Shields thinking as she read copy that, to my male ears at least, made the product sound downright scary: "There is potential for increased brown iris pigmentation, which is likely to be permanent ... for hair growth to occur in areas where [the] solution comes in repeated contact with skin surfaces. If you develop or experience any eye problems or have eye surgery, consult your doctor immediately."

 

Ms. Shields has also made a "video diary" - you can find it online - to "chronicle her lash journey." It sounds like an epic voyage. "I thought I would be a good candidate" for the prescription treatment, she confides, "simply because over the years I've just been ripping off my false eyelashes while on Broadway."

 

We do not go to American TV to seek signs of deep thought. The studios that gave us Baywatch, Toddlers & Tiaras and Skating with Celebrities can't be accused of setting our expectations too high. Still, at least we know what we're getting with such shows. Direct-to-consumer, or DTC, pharmaceutical advertising, legal only in the U.S. and New Zealand, is (or should be) another matter. After all, it concerns public health.

 

We should recall that we did just fine when these ads were limited to professional journals and health care providers. That constraint reduced the risk of self-diagnosis and spared us the barrage of vanity treatments that now besets us.

 

In 1997, however, the Food and Drug Administration - encouraged by the Clinton administration - relaxed its rules on this issue. The pharmaceutical industry got a green light to bypass providers and market directly to consumers.

 

To gauge the effect of that change, just follow the money. The year before the ruling, drug companies spent $595 million on DTC advertising, according to the Food and Drug Law Journal. Within a year of the change, their spending rose to $844 million. By 2000, it shot up to $2.24 billion. And an August 2007 New England Journal of Medicine article put the total for all drug-related marketing in 2005 at $29.9 billion, with $4.1 billion spent annually on DTC advertising. That's more than $11 million a day.

 

Although "prescription drug spending remains a relatively small proportion (11 percent) of personal health care spending, it is one of its fastest-growing components, increasing at double-digit rates" between 1993 and 2001, says a 2003 Kaiser Foundation study.

 

If Congress is serious about lowering health care costs, including for vastly expensive (price-controlled) pharmaceuticals, it can start by reversing the 1997 FDA ruling and banning DTC advertising. That is because such costs are always passed on to providers, and then to patients, in the form of higher prices, co-pays and premiums. Even when insurance providers decline coverage for treatments such as "eyelash hypotrichosis," as mine does, they - and eventually consumers - end up subsidizing the treatments because the drug makers inflate prices on regimens that are covered. Above all, there are so many more urgent needs in pharmaceutical research, including dealing with the H1N1 virus and the spiraling rates of HIV infection.

 

Health care reform involves a lot more than the bottom line. It's also an opportunity to weigh priorities, push preventive care and re-establish our fundamental needs in public health. If the pharma ads on TV are any indication of our priorities, it's time for some serious discussion.

 

Meanwhile, to those desperate for thicker, longer lashes, may I suggest more mascara? Umpteen brands promise "volume express" and a "luscious, intense definition," whose only side effect is a lightening of the purse.

 

Christopher Lane is the author of, most recently, "Shyness: How Normal Behavior Became a Sickness." This article originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times.

 

Copyright © 2009, The Baltimore Sun.

 

Abortion is not healthcare; Congress shouldn’t approve it

 

Cumberland Times-News Letter to the Editor

Sunday, July 26, 2009

 

To the Editor:

 

Under the proposed healthcare plan, virtually every American will eventually be forced into a plan that mandates abortion by requiring individuals to buy health insurance that meets minimum benefits standards determined by unelected government bureaucrats.

 

If the law does not clearly state that abortion is excluded, abortion automatically becomes a minimum required benefit.

 

Americans don’t support this and don’t support paying for abortions. The proposed healthcare bill amounts to a bailout for the abortion industry, which is swimming in profits already. Taxpayers should not be forced to subsidize this controversial industry.

 

Since abortion is mandated in the healthcare bill, every insurance plan will have to cover it and provide means necessary to obtain an abortion.

 

Abortion is not healthcare, nor is it a right. It is not in any way physically healthy for the woman if anyone knows their biology. Post Abortion Syndrome is also very real. Just knowing these few facts alone, no one should be forced to fund abortion under bureaucrat-run healthcare.

 

The government does not have the right to force its citizens to pay for such a procedure.

 

The majority of Americans being pro-life we are forced to continually ask, where is the defense of these little persons-in-the-making? Isn’t to protect actually the government’s role? How did it get so far off course?

 

Tell Congress to vote no on any healthcare bill that does not include language to explicitly exclude abortion. No one should be forced to pay for abortions.

 

John J. Rosenbaum

Fort Ashby, W.Va.

 

Copyright © 1999-2008 cnhi, inc.

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