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Friday, October 19, 2012
Pediatric studies show the flu's deadly danger, the benefits of school vaccinations
ScienceDaily (Oct. 19, 2012) ? New data being presented at IDWeek 2012TM shows the fatal risk that influenza poses even for children without underlying health conditions and the effectiveness of school-based vaccination programs in protecting student populations. Together, these findings support the crucial public health message that families should take the flu virus seriously every year.
One study viewed influenza from an epidemiological perspective, analyzing U.S. pediatric influenza-associated deaths over an eight-year period and finding that 43 percent of the deaths occurred in children with no health conditions, such as asthma or diabetes, that would have predisposed them to being at high risk of serious flu complications. Moreover, the study found that those young, previously healthy patients succumbed faster. The median duration of illness from onset of initial symptoms to death was four days in children with no underlying high-risk health conditions compared with seven days in children with at least one such condition.
"During the 2004-2012 influenza seasons, almost half the children who died had been previously healthy," said Karen K. Wong, MD, an Epidemic Intelligence Service officer with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the study's lead researcher. "The numbers demonstrate how important it is for all children, even children who are otherwise healthy, to get a flu vaccine every year, and underscore why all children with severe illness should get treated early with influenza antiviral medications."
The other study looked at influenza from a proactive perspective, assessing the impact of immunization programs in elementary schools in the Los Angeles area and finding lower rates of flu and higher rates of attendance. At one school where nearly half of the students received either a flu shot or the nasal spray, a "herd immunity" seemed to even safeguard the unvaccinated children.
"It's the school-aged children who spread the flu. They generally are contagious even when active, so they tend to be around other children, giving it to them and spreading it for longer periods of time," said lead researcher Pia Pannaraj, MD, an assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of Southern California and Children's Hospital Los Angeles. "It seems like the best place to prevent community spread of influenza is actually to go and prevent it at the school level."
This work is among the significant research being discussed at the inaugural IDWeek meeting, taking place through October 21 in San Diego. With the theme Advancing Science, Improving Care, IDWeek features the latest science and bench-to-bedside approaches in prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and epidemiology of infectious diseases, including HIV, across the lifespan. More than 1,500 abstracts from scientists in this country and internationally will be highlighted over the conference's five days.
David Kimberlin, MD, an IDWeek chair for the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society, said the influenza studies illustrate why parents should pay attention to influenza and how they and their communities can work together during flu season.
"The findings underscore how severe the flu can be, even for children with no predisposing risk factors, and why all families should try to protect themselves against the virus," Kimberlin said. "School-based vaccination programs are a key strategy in that. The benefits are immediate and, if enough students get immunized, protection can extend to children not receiving vaccine. Public health officials will find these data very useful as they continue to work toward the goal of influenza control throughout the U.S. population."
The CDC-supported study reviewed influenza-associated deaths among children younger than 18, as reported by city and state health departments and confirmed through laboratory testing. From Aug. 1, 2004 through Sept. 1, 2012, there were 829 such deaths, most of which were associated with influenza A infection. Of the 793 children with a known medical history, 341 had no high-risk health conditions. Of the remaining cases, more than half were children with neurological disorders, and nearly half had pulmonary disease.
The median age at death was 7. About a third of the children died in the emergency department or outside the hospital, the researchers found.
"Children with and without underlying medical conditions can die from influenza, and death can occur rapidly," Wong said. "Caregivers should be aware of early warning signs of severe influenza virus infection in children -- including labored breathing, decreased fluid intake or urination, drowsiness or a lack of interaction -- and should seek medical attention for them quickly."
But prevention is always better than treatment, and health experts agree that annual flu vaccination is the best protection. The National Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices recommends a flu vaccine for all children ages 6 months to 18 years old.
The impact of widespread vaccination not only protects the child but a community. As Pannaraj notes, school-aged children can easily share the virus with classmates, teachers and others in the normal course of a day. But within a school, they can just as easily -- and quite efficiently -- be immunized. "Schools are the best place for a campaign to prevent the spread of influenza," she said.
In the Los Angeles school-based vaccination study, Pannaraj and colleagues looked at eight elementary campuses with similar socio-demographic characteristics. Half were tagged as control schools and the other half as the intervention sites. Together they enrolled nearly 4,500 students.
During the 2010-11 academic year, between 27.8 percent and 47.3 percent of students in the intervention schools received at least one dose of flu vaccine. And as the flu season began that winter, children who came down with fever and flu-like symptoms at any of the eight schools were tested so that a diagnosis could be verified empirically. (In comparison to other studies of school-based programs, this one involved nose and throat swabs and documented absences.)
More than 1,000 specimens were obtained over a 15-week surveillance period. They showed that unvaccinated children in any school were 2.9 times more likely to get the flu compared to unvaccinated children. But they also showed that influenza rates were higher overall in the control schools -- 5.5 per 100 children compared to 3.9 in the schools where immunizations had been given.
Not surprisingly, rates of absenteeism were also higher in the control schools (4.2 vs. 3.9 days per 100 school days), and students with the flu missed more school days than their peers with other respiratory viruses.
The one school where almost 50 percent of students were vaccinated got an unexpected bump. Researchers said that such widespread coverage seemed to better protect even the unvaccinated students, who were half as likely to get the flu as those in the control schools.
The research team interviewed parents and school officials to identify barriers to greater participation in such programs. Parents' concerns over vaccine safety was a prime issue, but an equally important factor was the support, or lack thereof, of front-office staff. If the clerks who answered the main phone line and fielded parents' questions were believers in the immunization program, then they often provided reassurance and promoted the effort. In turn, those schools recorded higher vaccination rates.
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.
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Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/most_popular/~3/3_icsJ2-pu8/121019141250.htm
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Campbell's Skillet Sauces At The NYC Wine & Food Festival ...
Lady and the Blog partnered with Campbell?s to launch their new line of Skillet Sauces at the NYC Wine & Food Festival. We did 4 live cooking demonstrations that featured the sauces over white rice.
The premise of the sauces is that it?s a quick go-to option for busy people. It takes only 15 minutes to prepare and is super easy. It can be made in 3 easy steps and there?s tons of room for adding your own flair to the recipe.
This sauce is perfect for me.
As a blogger and fashion designer, my days are filled with events, lots of writing, meetings, appointments and running all over Manhattan. At the end of the day, the last thing I want to do is stand in front of a stove for a long time to cook a full meal for my boyfriend and I. Usually I cook a big meal over the weekends and eat leftovers for a few days. Then, I do quick, easy options like macaroni pie (a Trinidadian pasta dish) and beans with some sauteed vegetables. I have to admit that, oftentimes, I?m still on the computer, even after I?ve gotten home. On these days, my boyfriend takes over and whips something up. Our days usually finish around 9pm so we?re always looking for quick food options.
We did 4 cooking demonstrations in the Kitchen Aid area, within the Shop Rite section. If you haven?t been to the NYC Wine & Food Festival Grand Tasting, consider yourself robbed of a true delight. This festival is for foodies, people who truly enjoy savoring their foods and wines.
I demo-ed the Creamy Chipotle Skillet Sauce with chicken and the Fire Roasted Tomato Skillet Sauce with steak with Senior Research Chef Todd Lyons and Senior Chef Robert Kristof. There are 6 flavors, though. Guests were able to taste the Thai Green Curry Skillet Sauce with chicken and the Toasted Sesame Skillet Sauce with tofu.
I couldn?t decide, between the Creamy Chipotle and the Thai Green Curry sauces, which was my favorite. They were so delicious! Chef Todd and Robert walked me through the preparation of each sauce as I prepared them with their respective proteins. We used white rice but the sauces can be made with pasta, potatoes or any other starch you fancy. You can also use which protein you like.
The demos were so much fun to do and I couldn?t believe that it actually took me 15 minutes to make each meal with the sauce. I asked Chef Todd what would go into making the sauces from scratch. He said it would take over $70 in ingredients and definitely much longer than 15 minutes. I loved that there were bits of veggies in the sauces. These sauces are great for after you put the kids to bed. When it?s just you and your spouse, you can whip this up in 15 minutes and enjoy some time together. One packet of sauce serves 2.
Okay, so don?t judge me but my absolute favorite thing about these sauces is the clean-up. I?m just going to go ahead and admit that I often leave the dishes to my boyfriend. There?s just something so intimidating about a sinkful of dishes! Sometimes, I dread cooking because I dread the clean-up. For these sauces, I literally used ONE pan! Yup, you read that right. You don?t have to cook the protein in one pot, then do the sauce in another. Everything goes in one pan. Here are the 3 easy steps for preparing the sauces.
Add vegetable or canola oil to saucepan and wait until it sizzles
Add protein of choice (chicken, beef, etc) and let cook thoroughly
Add sauce from packet and leave on for about 5 minutes
End of story.
It?s done!
I had such a great time demo-ing (and testing out) these sauces. You can find them in your local Shop Rite in the Prepared Food section and other grocery stores nationwide (they don?t need to be refrigerated!). Click here to check them out, online.
Full disclosure: This is a sponsored post. Campbell?s hired us to assist with the demonstrations and post about the experience. All opinions are our own. This is an unscripted feature.
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RIM taps 7Digital to power official BB10 music store
RIM is already well acquainted with 7Digital thanks to joint efforts on smartphones and tablets, and now its chosen the firm to power the official music store of BlackBerry 10. Not only does 7Digital bring its tech and catalog of downloads to the table, but the duo are promising to integrate the service with BB10 to provide features including recommendations and social integration. When RIM's fresh slate of devices launch next year, folks in the Americas, Australia, Europe, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore and South Africa will be able to purchase tunes from the new storefront.
Continue reading RIM taps 7Digital to power official BB10 music store
Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, RIM
RIM taps 7Digital to power official BB10 music store originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 18 Oct 2012 18:50:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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#NIHMiM12 The Spreading Shadow of Cancer Angst: 3 Things You Need to Know to Meet It Rationally
Barry Kramer wants to counteract irrational fear and actions by helping us get more rational about cancer screening. He?s currently Director of the Division of Cancer Prevention at the National Cancer Institute (NCI). A decade ago, Kramer started an annual evidence boot camp for journalists called ?Medicine in the Media?.
This year?s course with 48 journalists from broadcast, digital and print media started last Sunday with the topic of over-diagnosis of mental disorders. On Wednesday Kramer took on cancer over-diagnosis, and the triple whammy distorting understanding of cancer screening: selection bias, length bias and lead-time bias. Here?s how he explained these critical 3 concepts.
1. Selection bias. Studies of cancer screening are often skewed by a ?healthy volunteer? effect. Many people who follow through with regular screening also do other things that make them less likely to get, or die, of cancer. You need to stick to rigorously randomized trials to find out the effects of screening alone, said Kramer, ?because then you have just as many health-conscious people being screened or not screened.?
2. Length bias. For common cancers, no one generally knows how to tell at an early stage if it will become life-threatening. Even if you lived for 120 years, many cancers would be growing so slowly, they?d never make you sick.
Screening, unfortunately, is better at finding those slow, unthreatening cancers than at finding aggressive more lethal cancers that appear suddenly in the time between screening. As Kramer put it, ?We?re ?curing? people who didn?t need curing in the first place.?
3. Lead-time bias. Considering survival rates rather than mortality data leads people astray. In screening, that?s not quite the same thing. Even most doctors fall into this trap. Kramer led us through this thought experiment to explain the concept. Imagine a hypothetical cancer that will kill absolutely every person within 4 years from the day they have symptoms. That means their 5-year survival rate is 0%.
If you develop a screening test that detects everyone with this cancer a few years before symptoms start, you can still improve their survival rate without adding so much as a day to anyone?s life. Why? Because if the cancer clock starts ticking earlier, everyone will live longer than 5 years with the diagnosis: a 5-year survival rate of 100%. You increase your time with cancer, while decreasing the amount of your life you don?t have cancer: that?s not the same as living longer.
Screening only works when there?s a way to help more people than are already helped when they come to the doctor with symptoms. Kramer pointed out that ineffective screening is like being tied to a train track with a set of binoculars: you can detect the train that?s coming to hit you earlier, but it won?t change the moment of impact.
Meanwhile, cancer treatments can do major damage on a large scale to people who can?t benefit from them. Kramer?s view: ?Japan?s national screening tragedy was neuroblastoma. Ours is prostate cancer screening.? The discoverer of the test used for prostate cancer screening, Richard Ablin, expressed a similar view in an op-ed this week: ?I never dreamed that my discovery four decades ago would lead to such a profit-driven public health disaster.?
Of course, screening particular groups of people for some types of cancer does save lives. You can check official US recommendations here and look for good evidence and info here. Can?t get to a course, but want to learn more about understanding health research results? Kramer?s fellow musketeers over the years at ?Medicine in the Media? are Lisa Schwartz and Steven Woloshin, and reading their work is a great start.
Woloshin and Schwartz are general internists and part-time academics from Dartmouth who wrote a book intended to help people better understand risk statistics ? and then ran a randomized trial to see if people who read the book really benefited. They did. So ?Know Your Chances? is a book that?s actually proven to be clinically effective!
Still want more? There are some books and articles here. And the US Cochrane Center at Johns Hopkins University provides an online course. All of these can help you learn how to know if research constitutes strong evidence. And as Kramer said, that?s the key: ?Strong evidence of benefit is important when putting large numbers of people in harm?s way.?
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A shout-out to all the live-tweeters for Barry Kramer?s talk and more: #NIHMiM12 ? and watch out for the session on ?Covering cancer causes, prevention and screening? at Science Online 2013.
Interests: I presented at the NIH Medicine in the Media course and while I work at the NIH?s National Center for Biotechnology Information, I am not part of the organization of this event. The views expressed here are my own. Medicine in the Media is an annual event organized by the NIH?s Office of Disease Prevention.
Image: By the author at Statistically Funny (CC-BY SA license)
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Japanese House Prices Fall as Economic ... - Real Estate Japan
The Land Institute of Japan released a report on the status of land prices and house prices in Japan. According to the report, prices in the Tokyo and Osaka metropolitan areas remained stable for the year ending August 2012. However, house prices continue to fall. Deflation pulls the value of the yen and lower export volume forces prices down.
While reports of financial recovery in Japan emerged, analysts say that the country is still recovering from the decades of financial turmoil, which was made worse by the 2011 national disasters. ?According to the data from Global Property Guide, the average price of new condominium units in the Tokyo metropolitan area dropped 5.1% year on year to 691,000 per square meter in August 2012. The average prices of existing condo units also dropped 3.3% to 380,000 yen per square meter also in August 2012, the 14th consecutive month of decline. Price of detached houses fell 1.7% to 31,770,00 yen over the same period. In the Osaka metropolitan area, price of new condominium units fell 3.2% to 457,000 yen per square meter while existing condo units fell 1.6% to 239,000 per square meter over the same period.
Despite these numbers, experts say that land prices in Japan remain flexible. Average land price in Tokyo in the same period remain unchanged at 1187,000 per square meter while the average land price in Osaka increased by 1.7% to 117,000 yen per square meter.
The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transportation and Tourism of Japan also added that in the first seven months of the current year, the number of new houses in the country increased year on year by 2.5% because of the reconstruction after the Great Tohoku Earthquake. The report from the Ministry also showed that the number of condos sold in Tokyo increased by 10.6% while detached houses that were sold increased 9.5% during the first eight months of the year compared to the same period the previous year. When it comes to total outstanding real estate loans, The Bank of Japan reported an increase of 1.5% year on year in the second quarter of 2012.
Japan is still recovering from the great asset bubble in the late 1980s. Land prices in Japan increased 200% from 1970-1980 and 238.5% in six major cities and during the 1980s there was a 103% increase nationally and 272.2% increase in six major cities. The 1991 crash contributed to the slow recovery of the country?s economy, which left banks with bad loans of almost 1 trillion USD.
The country?s recovery is still slow moving, also because of the weight of the damages caused by the global financial crisis in 2008 and 2009 and the effects of the 2011 natural disasters. But still, any sign of recovery is better than nothing. Japan?s economy bounced back in 2010, with strong condo sales recorded in Tokyo and dwelling units sold increased 22.5%, an increase that was backed by the enchanted mortgage tax break carried over from 2009, according to the Real Estate Economic Institute. Though land sales declined in 2010, Sales in Osaka were up 0.24% during the year to September 2011 but land sales registrations in Tokyo and in other cities fell down 0.99% and 2.% respectively. Other signs of recovery include increase in housing starts, in the third quarter of 2011 and increase housing investment due to rebuilding efforts. Trade deficit in the country continues to grow, a problem that isn?t going away too soon. Trade deficit from January to November 2011 was above 2 trillion yen.
All in all, the future remains uncertain and there are mixed signals in Japan?s economy. The International Monetary Fund expects that the Japanese economy would rebound as the plans for reconstruction progress. IMF also adds that the economy will grow in 2012 by 2.3% which will be a good thing especially for the housing market. But despite a positive outlook, numbers remain dismal for Japan. In the second quarter of 2012, the economy expanded just 0.2%q-o-q after a 1.3% growth in the previous quarter. Deflation continues to get worse and core consumer prices fell 0.3% in August 2012 from a year earlier, a very sharp contrast on BOJ?s 1% inflation target.
The BOJ said that Japan is in for a great struggle to recover from the slump it?s in. The country faces a critical challenge to overcome deflation and get back on a sustainable growth path with price stability.
Original Article: NuWire InvestorPhoto credits: ?MortgagePro and ?H?ctor Romero via Flickr Creative CommonsTokyo Apartments For Sale | Tokyo Apartments For Rent | Real Estate Japan
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