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2012-02-01T06:08:00.000+02:00

The Simple Secrets for Becoming Healthy, Wealthy, and Wise

2011-10-03T09:10:00.002+02:00

This Ebook shows you how to become healthy,wealthy and wise with just a simple journey you'll have to go through everyday of the year that would make you happier than you are, more comfortable with yourself,creative healthy and wise.

And here's are the journey of January

1 Motivation Beats Everything
2 Be Happy to Succeed
3 Give Yourself Time
4 Creativity Comes from Within
5 The Mundane Is Heroic
6 Never Give Up
7 See Possibilities Where Others See Obstacles
8 The Quest for a Perfect Body Is Doomed
9 Don’t Let Your First Idea Be Your Only Idea
10 What You Do Matters
11 There Are Second Chances
12 Wonder
13 Volunteer for Yourself
14 Use a Plan, Not a Piecemeal Approach
15 You Have Nothing to Envy in Your Partner
16 Resist the Urge to Be Average
17 Too Much of a Good Thing Is Too Much
18 It’s Never Just One Thing
19 Change Is Possible, Not Easy
20 Know Your Health
21 It’s Not How Hard You Try
22 You Can’t Force Yourself to Like Broccoli
23 The Past Is Not the Future
24 Competence Starts with Feeling Competent
25 We’re Too Good at Imagining
the Worst-Case Scenario
26 Set Rules for Confl ict in Your Relationship
27 Give Yourself the Best Chance to Eat Well
28 You Are Never Too Old to Improve Your Habits
29 A Victory at All Costs Is Not a Victory
30 You Have to Have Art
31 Accomplish Something Every Day

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Why It's Good If You're Easily Embarrassed

2011-10-03T09:05:00.001+02:00

People who are easily embarrassed are more trustworthy, more generous and more likely to be monogamous, according to a new study.

"Moderate levels of embarrassment are signs of virtue," the study's lead author, Matthew Feinberg, a doctoral student in psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, said in a university news release. "Our data suggests embarrassment is a good thing, not something you should fight."

The findings apply to moderate levels of embarrassment -- not feelings of shame or extreme social anxiety, the authors pointed out.

In one experiment, the researchers videotaped 60 college students as they told stories about an embarrassing moment, such as mistaking an overweight woman for a pregnant one. The speakers were rated on how embarrassed they felt.

Then the students played a game used in economics research to measure selflessness, and the researchers found the participants who were most embarrassed showed the most generosity.

In another experiment, the researchers also asked 38 people found on Craigslist how often they felt embarrassed and measured their cooperativeness and generosity after they played the same game the students played.

Each time, embarrassment suggested a tendency to be pro-social, Feinberg said. The findings may be helpful for people seeking reliable partners in business and romance, the researchers said.

"Embarrassment is one emotional signature of a person to whom you can entrust valuable resources. It's part of the social glue that fosters trust and cooperation in everyday life," said the study's co-author, Robb Willer, UC Berkeley social psychologist, in the news release.

The authors noted more research is needed to explore whether or not overly confident people aren't trustworthy.

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2011-10-01T03:39:00.001+02:00

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2011-10-01T03:36:00.000+02:00

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A Sri Lankan Father Breast-feed His Son

2011-09-26T16:25:00.004+02:00

In a strange scene when can only see with this srilankan father feeding his son with his own breast.

The back story when the mother died having the baby and the father was in deep sorrow because of the death of his wife and his inability to feed his son, especially since the child will depend on the natural milk of his mother breast.

The father tried to replace the milk with industrial milk, but the child refused outright.

When the child cried the father held him close to his chest until he found the child coming close to his breast and starts to feed,the strange thing is that his breast produced milk which is a miracle.

The father is in a state of shock that he is able to breast-feed his son.

Doctors attributed the cause of this is excessive activity of the hormone prolactin, which triggers the breast to produce milk.

Hospital Privacy Curtains Laden With Germs

2011-09-26T03:33:00.001+02:00

The privacy curtains that separate care spaces in hospitals and clinics are frequently contaminated with potentially dangerous bacteria, researchers said in Chicago this week.

To avoid spreading those bugs, health care providers should make sure to wash their hands after routine contact with the curtains and before interacting with patients, Dr. Michael Ohl, from the University of Iowa, Iowa City, said at the 51st Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy.
"There is growing recognition that the hospital environment plays an important role in the transmission of infections in the health care setting and it's clear that these (privacy curtains) are potentially important sites of contamination because they are frequently touched by patients and providers," Dr. Ohl told.

Health care providers often touch these curtains after they have washed their hands and then proceed to touch the patient. Further, these curtains often hang for a long time and are difficult to disinfect.

In their study, Dr. Ohl and his team took 180 swab cultures from 43 privacy curtains twice a week for three weeks. The curtains were located in the medical and surgical intensive care units and on a medical ward of the University of Iowa Hospitals.

The researchers also marked the curtains to keep track of when they were changed.

Tests detected Staphylococcus aureus bacteria, including the especially dangerous methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA), as well as various species of Enterococci -- gut bacteria -- some resistant to the newer antibiotic vancomycin.

Dr. Joseph Rahimian, an infectious disease doctor in New York City, said this finding comes as no surprise to him.

"Just about everything is going to have bacteria on it, and items such as fixtures in patient rooms will undoubtedly have bacteria including resistant bacteria," Rahimian said. "The curtains generally do get washed and changed, but the frequency varies among hospitals. I suspect that more frequent cleaning of hospital curtains would be a good idea."

The researchers used additional tests to identify specific vancomycin and methicillin-resistant strains to see whether the same strains were circulating and contaminating the curtains over and over.

The study found significant contamination that occurred very rapidly after new curtains were placed.

Of the 13 privacy curtains placed during the study, 12 showed contamination within a week.

Virtually all privacy curtains tested (41 of 43) were contaminated on at least one occasion.
MRSA was isolated from one in five curtains, and vancomycin-resistant Enterococci (VRE) from four in 10. Eight curtains were contaminated with VRE more than once. Three of these were of a single type, but the other five showed contamination with different VRE strains, which suggested recontamination was happening with bacteria from new sources.

Overall, two thirds of the swab cultures were positive for either S. aureus (26 percent), Enterococcus species (44 percent) or various bacterial species from a group known as gram-negative rods (22 percent).

"The vast majority of curtains showed contamination with potentially significant bacteria within a week of first being hung, and many were hanging for longer than three or four weeks," Dr. Ohl noted.

"We need to think about strategies to reduce the potential transfer of bacteria from curtains to patients," he added. "The most intuitive, common sense strategy is (for health care workers) to wash hands after pulling the curtain and before seeing the patient. There are other strategies, such as more frequent disinfecting, but this would involve more use of disinfectant chemicals, and then there is the possibility of using microbial resistant fabrics. But handwashing is by far the most practical, and the cheapest intervention."

Study: Well-Child Visits Suffer From Time Squeeze

2011-09-26T03:22:00.001+02:00

Longer well-child visits for babies and toddlers make for happier parents because doctors can fit in more advice and answer more questions, a new study finds.

But most well-child visits last less than 20 minutes and pediatricians are getting even more time-crunched as health care systems look to cut extra expenses any way they can, researchers write in Pediatrics.

"The disability rates for children continue to increase, and the nature of disability is changing," with more kids getting diagnosed with behavioral and developmental problems, lead author Dr. Neal Halfon, from the University of California, Los Angeles Center for Healthier Children, Families and Communities, told

"You have to wonder whether the front line of interaction with children and families is adapting and adopting changes in how they're doing business so they're addressing those issues and concerns of parents," he said.

In 2000, the researchers conducted a phone survey of about 1,700 parents across the U.S. with a child between four months and three years old. They asked parents how much time they had spent with a doctor at their last well-child visit and whether the doctor had talked with them about issues such as breastfeeding, the child's sleeping position and sources of family support.

Parents also reported how satisfied they had been with the visit.

About one-third of parents said their most recent appointment lasted 10 minutes or less. Only one in five had a visit lasting more than 20 minutes.

During longer visits, doctors gave a more thorough developmental assessment and discussed more health and safety issues with parents, and more parents said they'd had enough time to ask questions. Still, parents said they didn't get any guidance about issues including child care, toilet training and emotional support at more than half of the longest visits.

The researchers cautioned that all information about visits was based on parents' recollections, so bias could have crept in. And it's not clear whether shorter appointments led to any more health problems down the road.

In general, parents reported being very satisfied with their appointments -- but were the most satisfied when doctors spent more than 20 minutes with the family.

Researchers said that regular appointments early in life can help prevent disease and injury and make sure youngsters aren't falling behind on social or learning skills.

"The well-child visit is a key in assuring healthy growth and development for children in the United States," said Dr. Eugene Dinkevich, a pediatrician from the State University of New York Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn.

But, "There is a lot pressure on physicians... not to do it as well as they could." That's because financial pressures -- including low reimbursement rates from government-run insurance programs -- mean they have less time to spend with each patient, added Dinkevich, who didn't participate in the new study.

Addressing that problem head-on will take system-wide changes, he said. But Dinkevich and Halfon agreed that in the short term, pediatricians can take steps to make sure families are getting the best possible guidance.

For example, they can figure out which families will benefit most from certain types of counseling and education to customize visits to fit their needs, Halfon suggested. All parents might not want a "Marcus Welby moment," he added.

In addition, most parts of the well-child visit besides the actual physical exam can be done with small groups of families together in one room, researchers said.

"The goal is to have better communication (and) more appropriate interaction," Halfon concluded.

ADHD Drug May Help Wake People Up After Surgery

2011-09-26T01:52:00.001+02:00

The drug Ritalin, prescribed to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), may help patients wake up after they've been placed under general anesthesia, a new study in animals suggests.

Rats given the drug regained consciousness in about one-third of the time it took those given a placebo.

If the same effect is found in humans, the drug would be the first safe and effective way to reverse the effects of general anesthesia, the researchers said.

"This offers a new approach to waking up patients at the end of surgery," said study researcher Dr. Ken Solt, an anesthesiologist at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. "The current paradigm really is to just let these drugs wear off at the end of surgery," Solt said.

The drug could help rescue people who have stopped breathing because they have been given too much sedation, Solt said.

Waking people up faster after an operation might also save on health care costs. Use of an operating room can cost between $1,000 and $1,500 dollars and hour. Because about 100,000 people in the United States are put under general anesthesia every day "The incremental cost savings could be tremendous," Solt said.

However, the researchers conducted experiments with only one type of anesthesia drug, and it's not clear whether Ritalin could reverse the effects of others. In addition, the drug, generically known as methylphenidate, has side effects including an increased heart rate, and may not be suitable for certain patients.

The study is published in the October issue of the journal Anesthesiology.

Waking up rats

In one experiment, Solt and colleagues anesthetized rats by having them inhale the anesthesia drug isoflurane. After they were taken off the anesthesia, methylphenidate (administered by IV) reduced the time it took for the rats to wake up by about three minutes.

In another experiment, the rats continuously inhaled isoflurane at a dose that kept them unconscious. Then, the researches simultaneously administered methylphenidate. After giving the drug, the rats showed signs of arousal, such as moving their heads and opening their eyes, even though the isoflurane would normally have kept them unconscious.

Methylphenidate might reverse anesthesia in two ways: it could stimulate pathways in the brain that are involved in arousal, and it could increase breathing rate, which would remove isoflurane from the brain faster, Solt said.

Understanding anesthesia

"I think this is an excellent piece of work," said Anthony Hudetz, a professor of anesthesiology, physiology and biophysics at the Medical College of Wisconsin, who was not involved in the study. "I can imagine[methylphenidate] eventually being used," to wake people up after surgery, Hudetz said.

In addition, the study also has some basic science implications.

Despite its use for more than a century, researchers don't understand exactly how anesthesia works. One way to try to figure this out has been to study the brains of people as they receive anesthesia, Hudetz said.

But another way is to study a mechanism that reverses anesthesia-induced unconsciousness. This study helps elucidate the biochemical and neuronal pathways that are involved in anesthesia's effects, Hudetz said.

More Doubt Cast on Chronic Fatigue's Link to Virus

2011-09-26T01:03:00.002+02:00

The idea that chronic fatigue syndrome may be caused by the virus named XMRV — a widely debated theory proposed a few years ago — received yet another blow.

A new study undermines the credibility of the original report that claimed a link between XMRV and chronic fatigue syndrome, by showing that the labs that performed tests for the original 2009 report do not reliably detect the virus.

So is this the nail in the coffin for the XMRV-chronic fatigue syndrome link? Not quite.

The authors of the 2009 paper are admitting the new findings demonstrate that some of their results were invalid. But they say their conclusion still stands, and as such, they are retracting part but not all of their 2009 paper.

Problems detecting XMRV

Finding the cause of chronic fatigue syndrome has long eluded researchers, so when in 2009 a group reported that about two-thirds of patients with the mysterious disease had XMRV, a mouse virus, in their blood, they caused quite a stir.

That study,

led to hope that a cause of chronic fatigue syndrome had finally been found and that treatments could follow. However, further studies were unable to find the virus in patients' blood.

In May "expression of concern," was published saying that laboratory contamination with the virus may have been to blame for the 2009 findings.

In the new study, researchers at nine different laboratories tested the blood of 15 patients previously reported to have XMRV. Of this group, 14 had chronic fatigue syndrome. The labs also tested the blood of 15 healthy people who were previously reported not to have XMRV.

Two of the labs that participated were involved in the original 2009 paper. The labs all looked for XMRV, and didn't know which samples they were testing.

Only two laboratories found any evidence of XMRV in their samples, and these were the labs involved in the 2009 paper. These labs detected XMVR in healthy people just as often as in chronic fatigue syndrome patients. And the two labs didn't agree on which samples were positive for the virus, the new study found.

Furthermore, when a single sample was divided into two or three parts, and each part tested, the results were inconsistent. And even when some samples were "spiked" with XMRV, the labs sometimes didn't detect the virus.

The findings suggest the labs involved with the 2009 paper are not using good tests for XMRV, the new study said. Their methods may not been accurate enough to specifically detect XMRV, or some of their lab samples may be contaminated with XMRV, said Michael Busch, a researcher at the Blood Systems Research Institute in San Francisco, who co-authored the new findings.

"The reliable tests are showing no evidence of infection in humans," Busch said.

Future research

The new study is another piece of evidence that that "there's a serious problem with the original analysis that indicated there was a connection" between XMRV and chronic fatigue syndrome, said Mary Ann Fletcher, a professor at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, who has studied possible causes of chronic fatigue syndrome.

But Fletcher said the XMRV controversy is "not going to hurt the field of chronic fatigue syndrome research."

"This is the perfect example of the scientific method," in which a hypothesis is tested, a proposal is made, and other scientists try to replicate the results, Fletcher said.

Studies looking for other agents that may cause chronic fatigue syndrome are in the pipeline, Fletcher said. These studies are large and have followed people forward in time. These studies are also expected to weigh in on the XMRV-chronic fatigue syndrome link, she said.

In explaining why they are standing by their conclusion that XMRV and chronic fatigue syndrome are linked, the authors of the 2009 study claim that XMRV could be elsewhere in patients' tissues besides the blood.

The new study does not rule out this possibility, Busch acknowledged. "But original data were based on blood samples," and so any suggestion that XMRV is somewhere else would be speculating beyond the evidence shown in the 2009 paper, Busch said.

Can Blind People See Now?

2011-09-26T00:46:00.002+02:00

An injection aimed at curing blindness is to be given to British patients, after health authorities approved plans for the first embryonic stem cell trial of its kind on Europe.

Surgeons at Moorfields Eye Hospital in London will inject cells into the eyes of 12 patients with the degenerative condition Stargardt's Macular Dystrophy.

Professor James Bainbridge, the retinal surgeon who will lead the trial to test the safety of the treatment, said, "There is real potential that people with blinding disorders of the retina, including Stargardt disease and age-related macular degeneration, might benefit in the future from transplantation of retinal cells."

If trials are successful, the treatment could be a routine clinical procedure within five years, Bainbridge predicted.

Stargardt's is a genetic condition that develops in childhood. It causes the progressive loss of retinal pigment epithelial (RPE) cells that lie beneath the surface of the retina and are essential for maintaining the health of the light sensitive photoreceptors.

Researchers hope to reverse the effects of the disease by injecting between 50,000 and 200,000 healthy RPE cells into the retina.

The U.S. company Advanced Cell Technology (ACT) announced the trial following the launch of a similar study in July at the Jules Stein Eye Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Lung cancer linked to risk of stroke

2011-09-25T05:58:00.001+02:00

People recently diagnosed with lung cancer are at higher risk of having a stroke than those without lung tumors, suggests a large new study from Taiwan.

Researchers looking at data covering more than 150,000 adults found that among those with lung cancer, 26 in every 1000 experienced a stroke each year, compared with 17 in 1000 who did not have cancer.

"This is one more telling sign of the long term risk of smoking," said Dr. Andrew Russman, a stroke specialist at the Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, who was not part of the study.

The Taiwanese researchers didn't factor in lifestyle issues -- such as smoking, drinking or diet -- that might influence stroke risk, explained senior author, Dr. Fung-Chang Sung of the China Medical University.

Still, they report in the journal Stroke, that stroke risk was highest during the first three months after lung cancer diagnosis for men and during the first four-to-six months for women. Risk decreased in men after one year and after two years in women.

They also found that a less common type of stroke -- hemorrhagic stroke, caused by sudden bleeding into the brain -- occurred more often among the lung cancer patients than ischemic stroke, which is usually caused by a clot blocking blood flow to brain tissue.

Some evidence suggests that excessive bleeding and blood clots, both of which can be caused by tumors, as well as chemotherapy side effects, could partly explain the apparent link between cancer and stroke, researchers note.

"The most common type of lung cancer, adenocarcinoma, increases the body's propensity to form blood clots, even more so than other types of cancers," Russman said.

More than 52,000 people with lung cancer and more than 104,000 people without lung cancer were selected from a nationwide health insurance database.

Most of the study population were blue-collar workers such as farmers, fishermen and vendors, who tended to have high blood pressure, diabetes and heart disease.

"There's a higher rate of high blood pressure and diabetes and pulmonary disease in patients with lung cancer," said Russman. "I think this reflects the heavy burden of smoking and smoking related risk factors in the population," he said.

According to the American Lung Association, smoking is directly responsible for approximately 90 percent of lung cancer deaths.

"In the U.S., smokers have twice the risk of having a stroke, regardless of lung cancer," said Russman.

Stroke accounted for one out of eighteen deaths in the U.S. in 2007, based on a report by the American Heart Association.

Asian Carp tacos? Illinois launches anti-hunger program

2011-09-25T05:52:00.002+02:00

Officials try to combat the yuck factor, turn an invasive species into a solution for hunger

Minced Asian carp tacos? How about spaghetti with carp sauce?

Illinois officials hope serving the invasive species on a plate is the creative solution to two big problems: controlling the plankton-gobbling carp from entering the Great Lakes and record numbers of people facing hunger. But the idea has major obstacles, mainly overcoming people's nose-crinkling response to eating a fish that grows to 100 pounds and is able to sail out of the water — a trait spotlighted in YouTube videos.

"We are in uncharted water here," said Illinois Department of Natural Resources spokesman Chris McCloud. "Why remove them and put them into a landfill when you can take them and use them for good? If we can get past the name 'carp' and the perception ... we can prove this is going to be a highly nutritious, cheap meal."

Starting Thursday, the department launches a campaign to change the fish's image and demonstrate how to work with the ultra-bony meat. Officials have enlisted Louisiana chef Philippe Parola, who's become a national advocate for the fish he calls silverfin. He plans to fry up the fish that tastes something like mahi mahi, so audience members can taste samples.

Getting carp to soup kitchens and food pantries is months off, said Tracy Smith, a director for Feeding Illinois, which supplies food banks and is helping on the project.

The idea is modeled after a state program that lets hunters donate deer meat to be ground and distributed to food pantries. But there's no system in place for netting Asian carp in large amounts and cleaning and distributing the fish. And state officials don't know the most feasible way to dole out the carp: minced or as boneless fillets, for example.

The yuck factor
While eating Asian carp isn't new — it's consumed in China and high-end restaurants, among other places — the first step to get it to the American masses is countering the yuck factor.

Illinois officials appear to have their work cut out for them; recent visitors to Our Lady of Grace Food Pantry in Chicago were skeptical. The pantry puts canned goods, meat and bread in the plastic food bags it gives out. If carp were to make its way there, workers would include it with the meat, leaving people to figure out how to cook the fish on their own.

"I wouldn't eat it," Vincent Williams, 49, an unemployed former bank worker, said with a look of disgust on his face.

"Ugh, I don't know. I might," said Christopher Cain, 25, a former moving company worker.

Asian carp were imported from China and escaped into the Mississippi River in the 1970s. They've spread across dozens of waterways, with bighead carp in dozens of states and silver carp — the other Asian species near the Great Lakes — in more than a dozen. The bighead reaches up to 4 feet long and 100 pounds, while silver carp are famous for leaping from the water when startled, at times slamming into boaters with bone-shattering force.

If Asian carp ever reached the Great Lakes — breaching electric fish barriers near Chicago — they could decimate food supplies and starve out native species, disrupting a $7 billion fishing industry.

Officials say carp are caught near the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, a man-made link between Lake Michigan and the Mississippi River system, as part of a plan to control population, along with other precautions.

Health benefits touted
Nutritionists and food scientists tout Asian carp as low in mercury because they don't eat other fish and are high in Omega-3 fatty acids. Illinois has been sending some of its carp to China, where the demand is high. This week, Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn, who is in China, sampled carp, reportedly saying it tasted like tilapia.

Anti-hunger advocates in Illinois are praising the idea of serving the carp, especially with increasing demand for food stamps. An average of 1.8 million people rely on the state's Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program each month, according to figures from earlier this year. That's up from 1.2 million people monthly in 2006.

"It's a crisis" Smith with Feeding Illinois said. "Creative partnerships are going to be critical to getting through this."

Chef Phillip Foss was among the first to serve it in a Chicago high-end establishment. Recipes on his blog, thepickeledtongue.com, include one for "Carp-accio," which calls for cucumber and watermelon. He said it's not easy to fillet because of the bones, but everyday cooks could use its minced form as a beef substitute.

"Make a seafood bolognaise sauce that everyone will love. Then surprise them, that they actually just ate Asian carp," Foss said.

He and others point out that another now popular fish, the Chilean Sea Bass, was rebranded from its original name, Patagonian toothfish.

Turning a nuisance into a good dinner
Illinois officials aren't the first to float a humanitarian approach with carp. Late last year, Louisiana State University officials partnered with a nonprofit to make canned carp to send to Haiti, where the diet is already fish-rich and protein is scarce.

They came up with a product in a spicy tomato sauce with the consistency of canned salmon. The test batches in Haiti were a hit, said Julie Anderson, a professor with the university's agriculture center. The project is stalled, because of funding and other reasons, but Anderson hopes it's revived.

She said there were rave reviews after the canned carp was served on crackers at an office Christmas party.

"You hear about it so much on the news as a nuisance, a problem," Anderson said. "People don't associate nuisances with a good dinner."

CDC urges all Americans to get flu vaccine

2011-09-25T05:47:00.001+02:00

There's plenty to go around, say experts, and four different ways to administer it

There's been a steady rise in the number of Americans getting an annual flu vaccination, the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases announced today.

Last flu season, about 130.9 million Americans, or 43 percent of the U.S. population, received a flu shot. That's about 8 million more than the previous season, said Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

While researchers can't predict exactly what this flu season will hold, "We can say with certainly that the best way to protect yourself, your family and your community is to get a flu shot," Frieden
said at a NFID news conference today.

“For most people, the flu makes them sick for a few days, but for others — especially children, the elderly and people with underlying health conditions — it can be life-threatening," Frieden said.

Last year, the CDC expanded its recommendation of who should get the flu shot to include everyone 6 months old and older.

This universal recommendation means the general public does not need to think about whether they should get vaccinated, "The answer is yes," said Dr. William Schaffner, president of NFID and chairman of the department of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University. "Our goal is to make annual influenza vaccination a no-brainer," Schaffner said.

To show his commitment to the cause, Frieden received his flu vaccination on-camera at the conference. NFID encouraged leaders in the community, including health care professionals, school principals and business leaders, to "lead by example" and get vaccinated.

Frieden emphasized there is enough vaccine to go around. More than 85 million doses are available now, and the agency anticipates 170 million will be made available this year. People can get their shots in doctors' offices, public health clinics, pharmacies and even retail stores, among other facilities.

For the first time, four types of flu shots are available: the traditional vaccine, a nasal spray, a high-dose injection designed for people aged 65 and older, and a new "intradermal" vaccine that is administered just under the skin with a small needle.

The intradermal vaccine is recommended for people ages 18 to 65. Schaffner, who has received a dummy shot with this vaccine, said he didn't even realize the injection had occurred. "[It] was 'ouchless' completely," he said.

The public health officials also stressed the importance of vaccination for pregnant women, who are at increased risk for complications from the flu. About 49 percent received an influenza shot during the 2010-2011 season, which was about triple the percentage who received it before the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic, Frieden said. However, public health officials would like to see a vaccination rate closer to 80 percent in this group.

The vaccine is not only safe and effective for pregnant women and their unborn children, it has been shown to be associated with lower rates of preterm birth and low birth weight, said Dr. Richard Beigi, an assistant professor of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences at the University of Pittsburgh.

In a typical year, influenza causes 200,000 hospitalizations, according to the NFID. Between 1976 and 2006, flu-associated deaths in the U.S. ranged from a low of about 3,000 to a high of about 49,000, according to the CDC. If pregnant women become seriously ill from the virus, they have a 20 percent risk of dying.

In addition to receiving a flu shot, the CDC recommends Americans practice good hygiene, including hand- washing and covering a cough, to protect against the virus.

Judge questions images for cigarette packages

2011-09-25T05:44:00.001+02:00

Fact or advocacy? Distinction is critical in a case over free speech

A federal judge peppered a government lawyer with questions Wednesday expressing doubts about whether the Food and Drug Administration can force tobacco companies to post graphic images on their cigarette packages showing the health effects of smoking.

In a two-hour hearing, U.S. District Judge Richard Leon closely questioned Justice Department lawyer Mark Stern on whether the nine graphic images proposed by the FDA convey just the facts about the health risks of smoking or go beyond that into advocacy — a critical distinction in a case over free speech.

The cigarette companies sued in an effort to block the FDA from enforcing the requirement, which would go in effect a year from now.

The images include a cloud of cigarette smoke within inches of a baby's face; a pair of healthy lungs next to the diseased lungs of a smoker and a warning that smoking causes fatal lung disease; a smoker's stained teeth and a lip diseased by cigarettes; and a dead smoker on an autopsy table with surgical stitches in his chest and the words "Smoking can kill you."

If the judge were to conclude the images amount to advocacy, that would make it more likely that the tobacco companies would be able to block the government's latest move in regulating the industry.

Leon said he hopes to issue a ruling by the end of October.

Lawyers for the tobacco companies argued that the government is free to tell people how to live — through steps such as enacting smoking bans on teenagers and by requiring written, factual warnings on the sides of cigarette packages from the surgeon general about the effects of smoking.

But what the government cannot do is "conscript" the companies "into an anti-smoking brigade," noted First Amendment lawyer Floyd Abrams told the judge.

The judge questioned Stern about why the images did not amount to advocacy. "What do you say is the line" between advocacy and fact? he asked Stern.

"This is not an ordinary product" and the images coupled with written warnings are designed to communicate the dangers to the public — including youngsters as well as adults, Stern replied.

Tobacco companies are increasingly relying on their packaging to build brand loyalty and grab consumers. It's one of few advertising levers left to them after the government curbed their presence in magazines, billboards and TV.

In June, the FDA approved nine new warning labels that companies are to print on the entire top half of cigarette packs, front and back. The new warnings, each of which includes a number for a stop-smoking hotline, must constitute 20 percent of cigarette advertising, and marketers are to rotate use of the images.

The companies, led by R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. and Lorillard Tobacco Co., sued the FDA last month to block the labels. Other plaintiffs are Commonwealth Brands Inc., Liggett Group LLC and Santa Fe Natural Tobacco Company Inc.

Altria Group Inc., parent company of the nation's largest cigarette maker, Marlboro maker Philip Morris USA, is not in the lawsuit.

The tobacco industry's legal challenge could delay the new warning labels for years. Such a delay would likely save cigarette makers millions of dollars in lost sales and increased packaging costs.

If You're Redheaded Your Sperm Isn't Needed

2011-09-25T05:36:00.002+02:00

Stock of red-haired donors 'is about to explode,' says agency director

Monday. "Our stock is about to explode. We have just too many on stock in relation to the demand for the time being."

Demand for redheads is still high in Ireland, according the clinic, but apparently it’s not enough to persuade officials at Cryos sperm bank to continue accepting them. It has 140,000 doses of sperm from red heads, and that’s enough.

Speaking from his office in Denmark, Schou explains the agency also won’t take any Scandinavian donors for the time being — unless they have brown eyes.

"What we need is brown-eyed Scandinavians/Caucasians and Mediterranean donors and other ethnicities and races," he says. "The problem is that we are located in Scandinavia and 'harvest' donors here but we supply to more than 65 countries all over the whole world. They don’t always want Scandinavian donors out there."

Schou later clarified to msnbc.com that the clinic is not shutting its doors to all red-headed sperm donors -- the specimen cups are still available for those with brown eyes. The issue for Cryos, Schou explains, is too many Scandinavian donors have blond, middle blond, dark blond and red hair, a legacy of their Viking ancestors who also heavily multiplied in Scotland and Ireland.

The sperm bank is also looking for more Black, Asian, Hispanic, Mediterranean and mixed-race donors, Schou says.

"Our function in society is to have all races and all ethnicities. Our problem is that we have too many Scandinavians only," he says.

If you're a blue-eyed redhead looking to donate sperm, you're still welcome at other sperm clinics, although you may be in higher demand if you’re really smart, tall, athletic or musical.

Maryann Brown, chief executive officer of International Cryogenics in Birmingham, Mich., one of the first sperm banks in the U.S., hasn't experienced an anti-red bias. The clinic has "a good call for redheads."

Prospective parents often do have very specific requests when it comes to sperm donors, Brown says.

When parents are seeking sperm, she says, they often prefer donors who are athletically or musically inclined, and they prefer donors who are educated. Sometimes they even want a specific blood type.

"Some people are very interested in their looks and even the shape of their face, and how tall the family members are," she says. "They want all kinds of ethnic backgrounds and eye color including green, hazel, brown and blue."

Wife sues after husband's brain is removed

2011-09-25T05:32:00.000+02:00

The practices of a prestigious medical research institute that studies schizophrenia and bipolar disorder are on trial in Maine, where the organization collected at least 99 brains from organ donors.

Anne Mozingo, of York, contends that the Stanley Medical Research Institute and a man working on its behalf removed her late husband's entire brain without her consent after he died of a brain aneurism in 2000. She said she agreed to donate only small brain tissue samples.

Mozingo learned nearly five years after her husband's death that his entire brain — along with its lining, plus his liver, spleen and pituitary gland — had been removed and sent to the institute. She filed suit in 2005 against the Bethesda, Md., institute and its Maine representative, Matthew Cyr.

Her claims include infliction of emotional distress, fraud and negligent misrepresentation. After Mozingo learned that her husband's entire brain had been removed, she suffered extreme emotional and mental distress and had nightmares in which her husband's body was being mutilated, she said in court documents.

The lawsuit accused the defendants of acting "beyond all possible bounds of decency."

The institute and Cyr, of Bucksport, deny any wrongdoing. The institute has repeatedly said over the years that it never knowingly obtained brains without full consent from next of kin.

From the mid-1990s to 2003, Stanley Medical Research Institute used a network of "brain harvesters" in Maine and three other states to collect hundreds of brains for use in the study of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. The brains were packed in dry ice and shipped by FedEx to the institute.

Cyr, who also worked for the Maine Medical Examiner's Office, was paid more than $150,000 to collect brains and other organs from at least 99 bodies from 1999 to 2003, according to court documents.

Mozingo's lawsuit is one of more than a dozen that were filed against the institute by Maine families alleging that their relatives' full brains were removed without their consent.

Most of the complaints have been settled out of court, but three have gone to trial.

The first one to go resulted in a mistrial in January 2010 after the plaintiff testified that he chose to put the case before a jury because he didn't want to settle. The judge ruled the statement implied to jurors that the defendant was offered a financial settlement to avoid a trial.

A second case went to trial last fall, with the jury siding with Stanley, Cyr and the institute's former executive director, Dr. E. Fuller Torrey.

Mozingo's case began this week in York County Superior Court.

On the first day of the trial, her attorney held up a model of brain as a prop while giving his opening statement. Mozingo told jurors that she was misled and betrayed during a time of grieving and stress. The institute's lawyers questioned her reliance on notes to recount her conversation with Cyr after her husband died.

Mozingo's lawyer, Thomas Douglas, declined to comment on the case because court proceedings were ongoing. Philip Coffin, who represents the institute, also declined to comment.

Mozingo's trial is expected to conclude Friday or Monday, but it likely won't be the final court case.

Portland attorney John Campbell said he expects his client, Ray Martin, of Old Orchard Beach, to have his day in court next spring. Martin's case was the one that ended in a mistrial, and Campbell said it's the last remaining case in Maine.

More doubt on virus, chronic fatigue connection

2011-09-25T05:28:00.000+02:00

There is more evidence that a virus once thought to be linked to chronic fatigue syndrome was a false alarm. A U.S. study released Thursday concluded lab tests used to make that link are unreliable.

Also Thursday researchers were withdrawing part of the original study that suggested the connection — although not its conclusions — because a laboratory that contributed to the work discovered contamination in some of its samples.

In 2009, researchers in the state of Nevada announced they had found a mouse-related virus named XMRV in the blood of chronic fatigue patients, fueling hopes that a cause of the mysterious illness might have been found. Blood banks began turning away donations from people diagnosed with chronic fatigue. Yet numerous other studies failed to confirm the findings. Last spring, Science declared any link "seriously in question" as genetic tracing suggested it was the result of laboratory contamination.

The newest study was part of government efforts to see if XMRV or related viruses might affect the safety of the blood supply. It concluded there's no reason to worry.

Nine laboratories re-tested blood samples from 30 people, some chronic fatigue patients previously reported to have XMRV and some healthy people known to be virus-free. Only the two labs that previously reported an XMRV link could find any signs of the virus in some samples — but some of those were from healthy people, and additional testing couldn't confirm the findings.

"There does not seem to be any evidence of an association of XMRV with chronic fatigue syndrome," said Dr. Harvey Klein, who was not part of the new research but monitors it for the international blood-banking association AABB. Still, blood banks may continue turning away chronic fatigue patients out of concern about their own health after losing blood, he added.

The controversy is not over. In a statement, researchers at Nevada's Whittemore Peterson Institute said, "We want to make it very clear that we are continuing the important work" of studying the virus, despite the partial retraction of their 2009 study.

Swedish daycare centers use GPS to track kids

2011-09-25T05:23:00.002+02:00

Your kiddo may not have an actual big brother, but in Sweden, she could have a virtual one.

The Associated Press reports that child care facilities in the Scandinavian nation have started using GPS systems and other electronic tracking devices to keep track of the little ones during supervised excursions.

Parents are concerned that the e-tracking is being used as a substitute for daycare staff, and ethicists wonder if it's good for kids to be Lojacked when they're barely out of training pants.

Monica Blank-Hedqvist, principal of a center in Borlange was quoted as saying that the devices, used during chaperoned walks in the forest, have "been only positive for us." She goes on to point out that the GPS devices are used as extra security by three preschool teachers watching about 20 children, to quickly discover if one has wandered away.

A spokesperson from Purple Scout, makers of a GPS tracking device, said the technology should be seen as a complement to staff at daycare centers, not a replacement. The system does not, according to the company, store any personal information.

The company has received orders from dozens of private childcare facilities in Sweden, the spokesperson added.

Would you be OK with your child's daycare center using GPS devices to keep track of your little ones? Or do you think it's creepy?

Bedbug battle leaves dozens sick, one dead

2011-09-25T05:20:00.001+02:00

CDC report shows toll of illnesses related to using pesticides

In 2010, 39 reportedly became sick and one person died because of the insecticides used to kill bedbugs, according to a report today from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). These occurred in seven of the 12 states that report pesticide-related illnesses to the CDC.

The fatality involved a 65-year-old North Carolina woman who had a history of health problems, including kidney failure and heart attack. In attempting to treat the invasion, the woman's husband used a product not designed to kill bedbugs, and did not follow the label instructions in treating the home, the CDC said. Additionally, the woman had applied the pesticide directly to her hair and skin.

The most frequent causes of illness were excessive application of insecticides, failure to wash or change pesticide-treated bedding and inadequate notification of pesticide application, the report said. The most frequently reported health problems included headaches, dizziness, and pain and irritation of the airways.

The agency urged the public to seek certified applicators who use both chemical and nonchemical methods — such as steaming or laundering infested items — to get rid of the pests.

One person, who was not certified to apply pesticides, pled guilty to criminal charges after an Ohio family was sickened. The person had used a product not intended for indoor use, and had soaked the apartment's beds and floor coverings until they were saturated, the CDC said.

Pesticide misuse

"Although the number of acute illnesses from insecticides used to control bedbugs does not suggest a large public health burden, increases in bedbug populations that are resistant to commonly available insecticides might result in increased misuse of pesticides," the report said.

Bedbug bites are itchy, and infestations can cause people to have trouble sleeping. However, bedbugs are not associated with the transmission of any human disease, the CDC has said.

Bedbug populations are increasing, and becoming increasingly resistant to pesticides, namely products containing chemicals called pyrethroids, the CDC said.

A growing nuisance
Between 2003 and 2010, there were a total of 111 bedbug-related illnesses reported, but no other deaths, the report said. There were 19 illnesses in 2009 and 23 in 2008. There were fewer than 10 cases in each of the preceding years.

In 39 percent of all cases of illness, the pesticides were known to have been applied by an uncertified person, and in an additional 46 percent of cases, it was not known whether the applicator was certified.

New York City was the site of 58 percent of all cases, the report said.

The CDC data were obtained from the Sentinel Event Notification System for Occupational Risks (SENSOR)-Pesticides program and the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (NYC DOHMH).

The report was limited in that cases in which people have minor symptoms and do not seek medical care are not reported and that it only included cases in which bedbugs were explicitly stated as a cause of the pesticide applications.

BFFing yourself: People pick friends just like themselves

2011-09-25T05:14:00.002+02:00

The more choices you have, the likelier it is you'll select a friend with your beliefs, study finds

Ever wonder what your friends see in you? It might just be themselves, according to new research

"When you have opportunity to choose your friends, you will tend to choose people who are similar to you; there's a lot of evidence that we like similar others," says Chris Crandall, psychology professor at the University of Kansas and co-author of the study entitled "Social Ecology of Similarity: Big Schools, Small Schools and Social Relationships."

"It's an amazingly powerful affect. We generally don't make strong friendships with people we violently disagree with."

But what happens when you have a smaller pool of potential friends to choose from? Do we hold out, waiting for our doppelganger to stumble along — or do we friend someone with different religious beliefs, different politics, or even (gasp) different musical taste?

To find out, Crandall and his colleagues interviewed pairs of students at both the University of Kansas (which boasts about 25,000 students), and several smaller rural Kansas colleges (with an average enrollment of about 1,300). Researchers asked a total of 268 students questions about their politics; their moral beliefs (regarding issues like birth control, abortion, the death penalty); their prejudices (everything from anti-Semitism to anti-fat), and even their health-related activities such as exercise or alcohol and tobacco use. Then they tallied the results.

"We found that when you ask people what's important in a friend, the people at the small colleges and the big colleges were pretty much the same," says Crandall. "There were also no differences between the campuses with regard to how long they'd known each other, how old they were, how much time they spent together."

Two differences did stand out, though. On larger campuses, people tended to be friends with those who held many of the same beliefs; in other words, they BFF'd themselves. And on small campuses, people had more diverse friends but rated those friendships as closer.

"It's not surprising they'd be closer," says Crandall. "A small campus is a more intimate experience. But the interesting thing is that they're less similar — but more close. Our data tells us you should feel free to make friends who aren't completely similar to you because people with some differences can still be very close friends."

Rebecca Price, a 34-year-old nonprofit development officer from Seattle, says that becoming friends with people with different viewpoints and backgrounds has been a huge boon to her personal growth.

"When I lived in Texas, there was not a lot of diversity," she says. "But after moving to Seattle — where there's a lot more diversity — and being forced to interact with people I might not have in the past, that changed a lot of my social and political views. My whole view of life has been expanded by being around people who are from different backgrounds than me."

While some wildly different types may never be able to get along (I'm talking to you, Congress), Crandall says there are benefits to being friends with dissimilar types.

"When you meet different people, they provide you with education, with different viewpoints," he says. "You learn that different viewpoints can be held by reasonable people. The message is really optimistic. It's a more expanded notion of who you can tolerate or enjoy as friends. It's probably more people than you think."

Pepperidge Farm warns sesame sticks may have wire

2011-09-25T05:11:00.000+02:00

Campbell Soup Co's baked goods maker Pepperidge Farm Inc is recalling some "Baked Naturals" sesame sticks because they may contain small, thin pieces of wire.

The company is voluntarily recalling 13,000 cases of 10.2-ounce boxes of sesame sticks after some consumers reported minor scrapes in and around the mouth.

Pepperidge Farm could not immediately be reached for further details.

The boxes, manufactured in Pepperidge Farm's facility in Willard, Ohio, were shipped across the United States and carry a yellow "20% More!" banner across the top.

The company is encouraging consumers to return the packages that are marked "sell by" November 20, 2011 through November 20, 2012 to the store where they were bought for an exchange or full refund.

We may hate laugh tracks -- but they work, studies show

2011-09-25T05:08:00.002+02:00

Two new fall TV shows premiering this week, "2 Broke Girls"and "Whitney", are counting on an old-fashioned sitcom standby to help them get chuckles and ratings: the laugh track.

Some TV networks and producers may love to use laugh tracks, and some viewers have grown to accept them as part of a program's background noise, much like the music or special effects used in a drama. Others -- including many television critics -- loathe the made-for-TV mirth.

But no matter your opinion of the canned ha-ha's, shows continue to use them because they work! They're meant to make the audience at home feel like they're part of a bigger crowd sitting in a movie theater or at a comedy club.

"We're much more likely to laugh at something funny in the presence of other people," says Bill Kelley, a psychology professor at Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H, who has studied the brain's response to humor. Hearing others laugh -- even if it's prerecorded -- can encourage us to chuckle and enjoy ourselves more. In fact,

people were more likely to laugh at jokes that were followed by canned laughter.

Kelley's own research compared student's reactions to an episode of "Seinfeld," which has a laugh track, to those watching "The Simpsons," which lacks one. Brain scans suggested that people found the same things funny and the same regions of their brain lit up whether or not they heard others laughing.

While his findings may give reason to do away with a laugh track, Kelley still sees value in them. When done well, he says, they can give people pointers about what's funny and help them along. But when done poorly, he admits, you notice a laugh track and it seems unnatural and out of place.

Some beloved shows, like "30 Rock," "Curb Your Enthusiasm," "Modern Family," "The Office" and "Glee," have said no to the laugh track, preferring the audience's authentic reactions to their humor and punch lines. They let viewers decide for themselves when and how much something tickles their funny bone.

But not all laugh tracks are created equal. Both "Whitney" and "2 Broke Girls" tape before a live studio audience and record the audience's giggles and guffaws. Even though they get a genuine human reaction to the show's jokes and humor, producers often "sweeten" a laugh track, meaning they edit it.

Sound engineers might insert some chortles if a wisecrack fell flat or lengthen the time an audience spends cracking up. They may also tone down the woman who loudly cackles at the wrong times or the obnoxious guy who is perpetually in stitches.

For comedies that don't shoot live, such as "How I Met Your Mother," they rely on "canned laughter," a pre-recorded mix of tee-hees and chuckles that may sound phony. Hearing it may make you wish had a mute button for the synthetic snickers.

Popular shows that currently dub in the yuks, whether they tape before a live audience or not, include "Two and a Half Men," "The Big Bang Theory" and "Mike & Molly." Past sitcom sensations, from "Seinfeld" and "Cheers" to "Friends" and "Frasier," also turned to some form of electronically enhanced giggles.

Do shows with TV laugh tracks make you yuk or say "yuck"? Can you tune them out or do they drive you crazy?

Expert: Don't call alcoholism a 'disease'

2011-09-25T05:02:00.000+02:00

For more than 100 years, alcoholism has been viewed as a disease; however, this framing has created barriers to diagnosing, treating and even understanding the condition, one psychologist argues.

"By adhering so strictly to the disease model…I think that we miss the opportunity to frame alcoholism in ways that could help some people," said Lance Brendan Young, a postdoctoral research fellow with the Department of Veterans Affairs’ Center for Comprehensive Access & Delivery Research and Evaluation in Iowa City, Iowa.

Thinking of the condition as a disease diminishes the moral stigma of it. However, this framing introduces the stigma of disease, Young said.

"It introduces the stigma of abnormality — of being permanently deviant in body and mind," Young said.

While the disease model may be useful for treating people who consider themselves alcoholics, it may be harmful to people trying to determine whether their drinking is problematic, Young said. To be diagnosed with alcoholism means a person has to give up their identity as a "normal" person, and take on the identity of someone with a disease, Young said.

"Individuals are faced with this identity-threatening choice they have to make," Young said. As a consequence, some people change their behavior so they can continue to think of themselves as normal. For instance, a person might believe "alcoholics" only drink alone, so he will try to get his friends to go drinking with him frequently. This way, he can continue consume alcohol excessively without needing to believe he is an "alcoholic," or seeking treatment.

Young said he is not advocating eliminating the disease model, but hopes instead to move beyond it. The medical community should find away to frame the condition so it is less threatening to people's identify, perhaps by using different words to describe it, Young said. And more research should investigate social and cultural influences on alcoholism, rather than focusing on biological causes of it, he argued.

Who is an 'alcoholic?'

Alcoholism is a physical addiction to alcohol in which people continue to drink even though the drinking causes physical, mental and social problems, including problems with job responsibilities and relationships, according to the National Institutes of Health. As is the case with other addictions, alcoholism is considered a disease by many in the medical community, including the American Medical Association.

A drawback to framing alcoholism as a disease is that we tend to think of diseases as something that needs to be diagnosed by a professional, Young said. However, physicians often only meet with patients for a short time and cannot possibility have the same insight into an individual's habits as she herself.

"I know of addicts who have been able to get a professional to tell them they are not addicted," and then use that as justification to continue their excessive drinking, Young said.

The disease model also gives the false impression that alcoholism is solely a biological disorder, Young said, leading some researchers tend to adopt a narrow view, focusing on particular chemicals or brain cells that might be involved.

"We tend to look at smaller and smaller parts of the human body, and the human mind and the human brain," to find the cause of something, Young said. In doing so, we lose sight of the bigger picture, including social and cultural influences that may play a role in alcoholism development. Factors including who you spend time with, how many liquor stores are near you and your religious affiliation all are linked with how much you drink, Young said.

Solutions

Young said he prefers to use the word "allergy" to describe alcoholism.

"It is less threatening to consider the idea that one might have an allergy than to consider the idea that one might be permanently diseased," Young said.

"With alcoholism, there's a dichotomy — you either are [an alcoholic] or you're not. And that sort of marks you as an individual — you're either normal or you're deviant." Young said. "With allergies, the deviance is much less significant."

In addition, drinkers should not feel they have to leave their diagnosis to a physician. People should give weight to their own experiences, including what they perceive their drinking is doing to their lives, Young said.

Other experts point out that the problem of disease stigmatization or identity crisis is not unique to alcoholism.

"It really doesn't matter what illness you have; people have a sense of loss," said Dr. Ihsan Salloum, chief of the Division of Alcohol and Drug abuse at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine; who also called the Young's article "more philosophical than scientific."

The disease model has helped us understand alcoholism and develop drugs for the condition, Salloum said.

However, Salloum agreed there is a need to take into account subjectivity when diagnosing and treating the condition.

"When somebody is suffering, it's not only the organ that's suffering, it's the whole person," Salloum said.

If doctors want to help patients accept their diagnosis as an alcoholic, they should wo
rk to understand how the patient is processing what's happening to him or her, Salloum said. Viewing alcoholism as a disease may create problems in terms of diagnosing, treating and understanding the condition.

Hoarse teachers find talking is an occupational hazard

2011-09-25T04:59:00.003+02:00

Educators rely on exercises, gargling, even surgery, to soothe their strained voices

By the end of her first day of school this month, Theresa Simon’s voice was already starting to go.

“You can hear a little bit of rasp,” said the 48-year-old teacher at Cecelia Snyder Middle School in Bensalem, Pa.

But the frog in her throat now is nothing compared to what Simon used to suffer every fall when she was among scores of teachers who find themselves going hoarse after heading back to the classroom.

“Probably by the middle of the week, by the end of the week, I would lose my voice, just from usage,” said Simon, a 23-year veteran who teaches seventh- and eighth-graders. “The acoustics in the classrooms are not that good and when you’ve got a class of 30 kids, you’ve got to reach the ones in the back.”

Simon’s story is nothing new to voice and speech experts, who say they see an influx of scratchy-voiced teachers seeking help every autumn. Teachers make up about 16 percent of the 37 million people in the United States who are dubbed "occupational voice users," which includes air traffic controllers, emergency dispatchers and telephone customer service representatives, said Eric J. Hunter, deputy executive director of the National Center for Voice and Speech.

On average, teachers are more than twice as likely as non-teachers to have voice problems and about three times more likely to see a doctor about the issue, he added.

“It’s in the first three weeks of school,” said Hunter, an associate adjunct professor in the departments of bioengineering and surgery at the University of Utah.

“What’s hard with teachers is that as their voice starts to go, the primary tool of their trade isn’t effective.”

The problem is especially acute in female teachers, who use their voices about 10 percent more than males when teaching, and about 7 percent more when not teaching, Hunter found. Women have smaller larynxes, or voice boxes, and their vocal cords vibrate more quickly. That, along with other physical factors, may contribute to the strain, Hunter said.

But sheer demand is also a factor, especially for teachers of younger kids, said Dr. Joseph Spiegel, co-director of the Voice and Swallowing Center at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia.

“The younger the children, the more they’re having to use their voices for crowd control,” said Spiegel, who says teachers make up about 20 percent of his clients in the fall.

That was certainly true for Lauren Roberts, 30, a teacher at Chews Elementary School in Blackwood, N.J., who transferred from small special education classes to large fourth-grade classes. Soon after, she found herself nearly speechless by the end of every work week, with a raspy voice, sore throat and aching neck muscles.

“I’m not a yeller,” said Roberts, who just started her ninth year of teaching. “But when you talk in front of a larger group, you have to project your voice a lot more.”

For Roberts and Simon, the solution turned out to be surgery, performed by Spiegel, to remove nodules and polyps they’d developed on their vocal cords. They also had to learn new ways to pamper their voices. Simon says she used a portable microphone to boost her volume and now makes sure to warm up her voice in the shower before heading to class.

Roberts says her voice is much better now, post surgery, but she makes sure to monitor it carefully — and to warn her colleagues about this occupational hazard.

“Whenever there’s a teacher with a raspy voice or who has a sore throat, I always say, remember what happened to me,” she said. “Without my voice, I couldn’t do my job.”