Information Salad

PARIS (AFP) –
After his nightmare 2009 season, French tennis player Richard Gasquet insists he now wants to turn the page and get back to winning titles.

The 23-year-old former world top ten player saw his world ranking plummet to 52 after a positive test for cocaine following a kiss in a Miami nightclub resulted in him serving a ban.

"In my heart I was expecting this outcome because I'm innocent. So justice has been done," the former French number one said after being cleared of doping Thursday by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).

Gasquet tested positive during the Miami Masters in March and was provisionally suspended in May before serving a two-and-a-half month retroactive ban.

But the ITF (International Tennis Federation) and WADA (World Anti-Doping Agency) wanted him to be hit with a ban of one or two years.

It was their appeal to CAS which was rejected as sport's top court acknowledged that the Frenchman was likely to have been inadvertently contaminated with a minute trace of the drug as a result of the kiss.

"I'm very, very happy this is behind me," said a relieved Gasquet.

"It's been very tough. I was positive in my head from the beginning because I knew that things should be OK. I've always told the truth.

"What was horrible was the way people look at you and to see yourself in the media."

"I've been waiting for this appeal for four months. Even at the US Open this was on my mind and now I can return to training with a clear head.

"I can turn the page towards 2010," said Gasquet who will now prepare for the first tournaments of the season in Australia.

The ruling means that Gasquet can now focus on adding to his five ATP titles the last of which he won in Mumbai in 2007.

"The aim is to return as quickly as possible to the top 20 then 15, little by little," he explained.

"And above all I want to play Roland Garros and have a great tournament. I've missed it for the past two years. This year was terrible because I couldn't even get into the stadium."

Gasquet said that the experience had change him forever.

"I don't know if I'll take something positive away from this," he said.

"I know that I'll never be the same again, I took a big blow but I know that I'm going to do everything to have a great season."

Gasquet said that he had been helped by the support of fellow tennis players including world number two Rafael Nadal.

"It did me good to have support," he said. "Today I saw that Gael (Monfils) and others left me a message. I'm going to try and call them all back."

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) –
A Dutch teenager who was stopped by welfare authorities from trying to become the youngest person to solo sail the globe has gone missing from her father's home, police said on Sunday.

Police spokesman Bernhard Jens said relatives in the city of Utrecht had reported Laura Dekker, 14, missing on Friday and authorities in nearby countries had been alerted to her disappearance and asked to monitor airports.

Jens added Dekker's boat was believed to be still moored at its usual place, but Dekker has left her father's home.

"We are concerned because she is 14-years-old and she has to come home," Jens said.

Laura, who was born on her parents' boat in New Zealand and spent the first four years of her life at sea, had intended to start a two-year solo voyage on September 1 when she was still 13.

Her plans had captured media attention around the world, but a court blocked her departure and placed her under state supervision, saying the trip posed risks to Dekker's safety.

(Reporting by Aaron Gray-Block)

Kites

The Indian festival of Makar Sankranti is devoted to kite fighting in some states. This spring festival is celebrated every January 15, with millions of people flying kites all over northern India. The states of Bihar, Jharkhand, Gujarat, some part of West Bengal, Rajasthan , and the cities of Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Dhanbad and Hyderabad are particularly notable for their kite fighting festivals. Kite flying in Hyderabad starts a month before the official kite flying festival (Sankranthi).

In Pakistan, kite flying is a popular ritual for the spring festival known as Basant. However, kite flying is currently banned as some kite fliers engage in kite battles by coating their strings with glass or shards of metal, leading to injuries and death. Kite fighting is a very popular sport in Pakistan, mainly centered in Lahore. Kup, Patang, Guda, and Nakhlaoo are some of the kites used in fighting and they vary in balance, weight and speed through the air.

LIVERPOOL (AFP) –
Alberto Gilardino's stoppage time winner ensured Liverpool ended a disastrous Champions League campaign with a 2-1 defeat against Fiorentina at Anfield on Wednesday.

Yossi Benayoun's first half header had given the hosts a 43rd-minute lead against the run of play before Martin Jorgensen levelled for the Italians after half time.

And in a finish which was typical of Liverpool's lacklustre season, Gilardino struck in the dying seconds to give the Italians their second victory this season over the five-times European champions.

Reds skipper Steven Gerrard admitted Liverpool only had themselves to blame for their plight. "If you look at the whole campaign, it was not good enough from our point of view but now we need to try to qualify for the same competition next year," the England midfielder said.

"It wasn't our strongest team tonight but we gave a good account of ourselves. We were a bit unlucky to lose in the end."

It was not all doom and gloom for manager Rafa Benitez as Alberto Aquilani produced an encouraging display on his long-awaited first start for the club while Fernando Torres also returned from injury.

Liverpool fans have waited four months for Aquilani to make his first start in a red shirt. But having been out for so long he is clearly going to need time before he starts repaying some of his huge transfer fee.

The Italian moved to Merseyside in August as a midfield replacement for Xabi Alonso, who joined Real Madrid.

However, he arrived while still recovering from a summer knee operation and had not started a game for his new club until now.

In what proved to be a low-key debut, Aquilani demonstrated some decent touches and clever passing without being spectacular, but Gerrard is confident he will prove to be a good signing.

"The boy's a player, there's no two ways about it," Gerrard said. "He sees a pass, he's on the same wavelength and I have no doubts he'll turn into a fantastic player for this club."

With Forentina safely through to the last 16 and Liverpool resigned to playing in the Europa League after Christmas, this was a dead rubber.

At times it seemed as though Anfield was staging a friendly as both sides showed a distinct lack of urgency, the visitors carving out the best chances before Benayoun broke the deadlock.

With nothing to play for but pride and with a titanic Premier League game against Arsenal on Sunday, Benitez used the game to give some of his fringe players a chance to shine in the Champions League spotlight.

Liverpool-born defender Stephen Darby was handed his first senior start at right-back and he was kept busy along with Diego Cavalieri, the second-choice keeper.

The hosts would have been behind at half time if Cavalieri had not produced a superb reflex save to keep out Lorenzo De Silvestri's 33rd minute header while the Brazilian also saved Daniel Agger from embarrassment after the Danish defender's weak backpass threatened to let in Mario Santana.

Cavalieri was also forced to beat away an awkward long-range effort from Riccardo Montolivo before Benayoun broke the deadlock two minutes before half time against the run of play.

It was made by Steven Gerrard. After winning a free-kick just outside the penalty area on the right, the Liverpool captain delivered a fine cross for Benayoun to head his sixth goal of the campaign.

Agger should have doubled the lead on the hour mark but, with the goal at his mercy, failed to connect with another excellent cross by Gerrard.

It was to prove a costly miss as three minutes later Jorgensen, who had earlier blazed over the bar, kept his composure to beat Cavalieri with a low finish after slack marking in by the hosts.

Fiorentina's fans were still celebrating as Torres made his long-awaited return. Liverpool's 10-goal leading scorer had missed the previous five games with a groin problem but was sent on in the 64th minute as a replacement for Dirk Kuyt.

Liverpool have missed Torres' threat in front of goal yet he was unable to inspire his team-mates to victory on this occasion.

Aquilani lasted 75 minutes before he was replaced by 18-year-old Spaniard Daniel Pacheco, who was making his first appearance for the club.

But just as the game appeared to be heading for a draw, Gilardino kept his composure to hit a dramatic winner and leave Liverpool totally deflated.

NEW YORK (Reuters) –
In a grainy black and white Web video, similar to footage from an in-store security camera, you can make out the muscular frame of rapper 50 Cent, smashing dozens of TV sets with a baseball bat.

None too subtle in its message, the clip is part of a advertising blitz by Vivendi's Universal Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment, two music giants hoping that their new website, Vevo.com, will finally put to rest any idea that TV is a place for top flight videos.

Launched on Tuesday, Vevo offers music from both Universal and Sony, as well as EMI Music, and contains programing from CBS radio stations and Last.fm, both owned by CBS Corp. In all about 30,000 videos are available.

The idea is to create an MTV for the digital age, a music site where all the latest and archived videos can be found. It's a business model similar to that of Hulu, the popular TV and movie site.

Vevo's debut comes as music companies are losing revenue and profits at a rapid tick due to the combined impact of falling sales of CDs, online piracy and evolving methods fans discover new music.

Moreover, MTV Networks, owned by Viacom Inc, is no longer considered a major outlet for playing music videos, and while Google Inc's YouTube has been an important music discovery tool for the record companies, it has failed to attract premium advertising dollars.

But Vevo has landed just the sort of blue-chip brands that have shied away from YouTube and its the random user-generated clips. That's largely because of the high production value of the videos, and the top flight artists they feature.

Indeed, Vevo launched with the support of nearly 20 new advertising partnerships, including names like Colgate-Palmolive Co., MasterCard Inc., McDonald's Corp., and AT&T Inc.

These advertisers will pay a near premium rate of around $20 to $45 for every 1,000-page views, Vevo Chief Executive Rio Caraeff said in an interview.

"We're offering advertisers opportunities that they can't buy off the rack," said Caraeff, who has hired more than two dozen executives to sell ads.

CHANGING THEIR TUNE

Across the industry, music companies and their technology partners are increasingly banking on the idea that fans are prepared to either pay for access to a site or will tolerate targeted advertising in exchange for their favorite songs.

Owning music, either in a physical format or even as a digital file, is also no longer as important as it once was, the thinking goes.

One indication of this came last week when Apple Inc's iTunes Music Store bought Lala, a digital music service that streams songs on a variety of sites.

The move surprised many long-time Apple watchers because iTunes is easily the dominant online music retailer, controlling about 70 percent of the U.S. market.

Apple is also not known for buying technology companies, preferring instead to painstakingly develop its own software to seamlessly fit within the Apple ecosystem.

"Apple's music strategy is always primarily about delivering a differentiated, high-quality music experience on its devices," said Mark Mulligan, an analyst at Forrester Research. "But social music and other streaming services have shifted the momentum of digital music away from downloads."

What has changed for iTunes is similar to the thinking behind Vevo: Modern music fans expect to have access to their songs on demand.

Services like Europe-based Spotify, News Corp's MySpace Music and YouTube have done well with fans because of the ease with which they can find their favorite songs.

The challenge is making the all-you-can-hear model work. Spotify delayed its launch in the United States till next year because it is still working out agreements with music publishers.

"It's like having your entire CD collection and that of all your friends with you wherever you are," said Daniel Ek, founder of Spotify. "That being said, music should be about choice - there will be some who will continue to prefer ownership over access for a time yet."

(Reporting by Yinka Adegoke; Editing by Paul Thomasch, Leslie Gevirtz)

WASHINGTON (AFP) –
Parents who let their kids romp in the mud and get chummy with germs could be helping to protect them against maladies like heart disease later in life, a US study showed Wednesday.

"Our research suggests that ultra-clean, ultra-hygienic environments early in life may contribute to higher levels of inflammation as an adult, which in turn increases risks for a wide range of diseases," including of the cardiovascular system, Thomas McDade, lead author of the study, said.

Researchers at Northwestern University in Illinois looked at a study in the Philippines which followed participants from birth to 22 years of age to try to better understand how childhood environments affect production of a protein that increases when there is inflammation.

Inflammation occurs when the body is fighting infection or injury.

The data in the Philippines were compiled by tracking the children born in the 1980s to 3,327 Filipino mothers.

Researchers visited the children every two months for the first two years of their lives and then spaced out the visits to every four or five years until the kids reached their 20s.

Among items that the researchers assessed were the hygiene of the children's household environment -- "whether domestic animals such as pigs and dogs roamed freely" -- and their families' socioeconomic resources.

Blood tests taken when the study participants reached adulthood showed that although Filipinos suffer far more infectious diseases as infants and toddlers than their American counterparts do, their level of C-reactive protein when they reached adulthood was at least 80 percent lower than in Americans.

Filipinos in their early 20s had average CRP concentrations of .2 milligrams per liter, while Americans in the same age group had blood concentrations of the protein of 1-1.5 milligrams per liter.

One finding of the study published in the online edition of the Proceedings of the Royal Society was that adults with high CRP levels -- not a good thing -- were exposed to less animal faeces in the home.

"In the US we have this idea that we need to protect infants and children from microbes and pathogens at all possible costs," McDade said.

"But we may be depriving developing immune networks of important environmental input needed to guide their function throughout childhood and into adulthood.

"Without this input, our research suggests, inflammation may be more likely to be poorly regulated and result in inflammatory responses that are overblown or more difficult to turn off once things get started," he said.

Discount K-Cups

Coffee berries and their seeds undergo several processes before they become the familiar roasted coffee. First, coffee berries are picked, generally by hand. Then, they are sorted by ripeness and color and the flesh of the berry is removed, usually by machine, and the seeds—usually called beans—are fermented to remove the slimy layer of mucilage still present on the bean. When the fermentation is finished, the beans are washed with large quantities of fresh water to remove the fermentation residue, which generates massive amounts of highly polluted coffee wastewater. Finally the seeds are dried, sorted, and labeled as green coffee beans.

A number of products are sold for the convenience of consumers who do not want to prepare their own coffee. Instant coffee is dried into soluble powder or freeze dried into granules that can be quickly dissolved in hot water.[61] Canned coffee has been popular in Asian countries for many years, particularly in Japan and South Korea. Vending machines typically sell varieties of flavored canned coffee, much like brewed or percolated coffee, available both hot and cold.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – A medical examiner has found that the cousin of rock veteran Bruce Springsteen died from an accidental drug overdose.
Kansas City television station KCTV reports that the autopsy results released Tuesday say 36-year-old Lenny Sullivan died of acute amphetamine and heroin intoxication.
Sullivan was assistant road manager to Springsteen's E Street Band. He was found dead at Kansas City's InterContinental Hotel on Oct. 26, just hours before Springsteen and the band were to take the stage at the Sprint Center. The show was canceled.
___
Information from: KCTV-TV, http://www.kctv5.com

THE HAGUE, Netherlands – The United States and Russia faced off over Kosovo at the United Nation's highest court on Tuesday, with the U.S. arguing the world should honor Kosovo's declaration of independence while Russia insisted it was still part of Serbia.
The Hague, Netherlands-based International Court of Justice, widely known as the World Court, has been asked to give its opinion on whether Kosovo's unilateral 2008 declaration of independence was legal.
The U.S. and Russia are two of 29 countries — including all five permanent members of the UN Security Council — weighing in on the matter before the court rules next year.
The case is being closely watched not only because the decision has the potential to upset the delicate peace in the former Yugoslavia but also because other countries with independence-minded provinces, like Russia, China and Spain, fear that Kosovo could set a precedent.
Representing the U.S., State Department lawyer Harold Koh said a declaration of independence is not something governed by international law but "fundamentally a political act ... which states then decide whether they should recognize or not."
"We therefore urge this court to leave Kosovo's declaration undisturbed by refusing to issue an opinion or by simply answering in the affirmative, that Kosovo's declaration is in accordance with international law," Koh told the 15-judge panel.
Outside the courtroom, Koh said that Kosovo's move was an expression of the reality on the ground and was justified, given historical abuses of the area's non-Serb population under Serb rule.
NATO bombed Serbia for 78 days in 1999 to end a brutal crackdown by the forces of then-President Slobodan Milosevic against Kosovo's separatist ethnic Albanians. Some 10,000 ethnic Albanians were killed and close to a million were forced from their homes.
The area was then placed under UN administration while Kosovo was negotiating a semiautonomous status within Serbia. Those talks were unsuccessful, leading to the declaration of independence.
The United States and most European Union states have recognized Kosovo's independence. Serbia, backed by Russia and a majority of the other countries in the world, is against recognizing it.
Russian lawyer Kirill Gevorgian argued Tuesday that a Security Council resolution specifying Kosovo should negotiate a status within Serbia is still in effect.
"The final settlement ... is to be negotiated between the parties and endorsed by the Security Council," he said. "No unilateral action can be regarded as such a final settlement."
U.S. lawyer Koh warned the court against attempts to revive "futile" talks or to "unravel delicate political arrangements that have brought stability to a troubled region."
At the start of the hearings this month, Serbia said Kosovo's independence tore at the very fabric of Serb national identity.
Kosovo warned that if its declaration is deemed illegal it could lead to a renewal of violence in the region.
Hearings continue through Dec. 11.

Traditionally, the broker provides a conventional full-service, commission-based brokerage relationship under a signed agreement with a seller or "buyer representation" agreement with a buyer. In most states this creates, under common law, an agency relationship with fiduciary obligations. Some states also have statutes which define and control the nature of the representation and have specific business broker licensing requirements.

In some states of the USA, business brokers act as transactions brokers. A transaction broker represents neither party as an agent, but works to facilitate the transaction and deals with both parties on the same level of trust. Most states that operate business transactions as Transactions Brokers also operate Real Estate transactions as Transaction Brokers.

Business Broker

NEW YORK – The talk-show host Charlie Rose will write a column for BusinessWeek once Bloomberg LP takes over the magazine next month.
Rose, 67, will continue in his role as anchor and executive editor of PBS's "The Charlie Rose Show." He'll use his round-table interviews with executives, politicians and other notables as fodder for weekly magazine pieces.
Bloomberg, a news and financial information provider based in New York, already pays to carry Rose's nightly broadcast on its cable channel.
The company agreed to buy BusinessWeek in October from McGraw-Hill Companies Inc.

Halloween, or Hallowe’en, is a holiday celebrated on the night of October 31. Halloween activities include trick-or-treating, ghost tours, bonfires, costume parties, visiting "haunted houses", carving Jack-o'-lanterns, reading scary stories and watching horror movies. Irish immigrants carried versions of the tradition to North America in the nineteenth century. Other western countries embraced the holiday in the late twentieth century. Halloween is celebrated in several countries of the Western world, most commonly in Ireland (where it originated), the United States, Canada, Puerto Rico, the United Kingdom, Japan, New Zealand, and occasionally in parts of Australia. In Sweden the All Saints' official holiday takes place on the first Saturday of November.

Halloween is very popular in Ireland, where it originated, and is known in Irish as Oíche Shamhna (pron: ee-hah how-nah), literally "Samhain Night". Pre-Christian Celts had an autumn festival, Samhain (pronounced /ˈsˠaunʲ/from the Old Irish samain), "End of Summer", a pastoral and agricultural "fire festival" or feast, when the dead revisited the mortal world, and large communal bonfires would hence be lit to ward off evil spirits.

Adult Halloween Costumes

The modern bi-fold wallet with multiple "card slots" became standardized in the early 1950s with the introduction of the first credit cards. Some innovations include the introduction of the velcro-closure wallet in the 1970s.

Specialist designers include Ben & Dafna, who create wallets made from duct tape in Camden Market; J Fold, that offer a large range of colourful leather wallets; Stewart-Stand, a New York design house that designs wallets made from woven stainless steel; and db clay a company based in Portland Oregon that creates unique wallets dubbed "pocket art".

RFID Blocking Wallet

TEHRAN, Iran – Iranian state television reports five people have been sentenced to death over the unrest that followed the country's disputed June presidential election.
At least three others caught up in the turmoil have received death sentences previously.
The report on Tuesday quotes a statement by the Justice Department saying the five sentenced were members of terrorist and armed opposition groups.
Iran began a mass trial in August for more than 100 prominent opposition figures and activists over the election protests. They accusations against them range from rioting to spying and plotting what authorities have called a "soft revolution" to topple Iran's Islamic rulers.
The opposition says President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was re-elected through fraud in the June 12 vote.

Computer software is often regarded as anything but hardware, meaning that the "hard" are the parts that are tangible while the "soft" part is the intangible objects inside the computer. Software encompasses an extremely wide array of products and technologies developed using different techniques like programming languages, scripting languages or even microcode or a FPGA state. The types of software include web pages developed by technologies like HTML, PHP, Perl, JSP, ASP.NET, XML, and desktop applications like OpenOffice, Microsoft Word developed by technologies like C, C++, Java, C#, etc. Software usually runs on an underlying software operating systems such as the Linux or Microsoft Windows. Software also includes video games and the logic systems of modern consumer devices such as automobiles, televisions, toasters, etc.

Computer software is so called to distinguish it from computer hardware, which encompasses the physical interconnections and devices required to store and execute (or run) the software. At the lowest level, software consists of a machine language specific to an individual processor. A machine language consists of groups of binary values signifying processor instructions that change the state of the computer from its preceding state. Software is an ordered sequence of instructions for changing the state of the computer hardware in a particular sequence. It is usually written in high-level programming languages that are easier and more efficient for humans to use (closer to natural language) than machine language. High-level languages are compiled or interpreted into machine language object code. Software may also be written in an assembly language, essentially, a mnemonic representation of a machine language using a natural language alphabet. Assembly language must be assembled into object code via an assembler.

Here

NEW YORK – Sarah Palin wouldn't reveal her political plans for 2012 in an interview with Barbara Walters, but when asked whether she'd play a major role replied that "if people will have me, I will."
The former Republican vice presidential candidate said that election isn't even on her radar screen.
"My ambition, if you will, my desire is to help our country in whatever role that may be, and I cannot predict what that will be, what doors will be open in the year 2012," she told Walters.
Palin is making the rounds to promote her new book, "Going Rogue," which will be released Tuesday.
On Monday, she appeared on the "The Oprah Winfrey Show," and ABC released excerpts of the interview with Walters that will begin airing on newscasts Tuesday.
The former Alaska governor said she'd rate President Barack Obama's performance a 4 out of 10. She criticized the president for his handling of the economy and for "dithering" on national security questions.
"There are a lot of decisions being made that I — and probably the majority of Americans — are not impressed with right now," she said on ABC.
The title of Palin's book refers to a phrase John McCain's campaign used to describe his vice presidential running mate going off message. In the book, she criticizes the people who ran McCain's campaign and says she wished she had been allowed to speak more freely. But she told Walters the outcome probably would not have been different if she had.
"The economy tanked," she said. "(The) electorate was ready, sincerely, for change."
Palin said she's gotten plenty of offers during the past few months, including to open up her family for a reality show, that she has rejected. She also said she wasn't sure whether a talk show would be best for her family. "I'd probably rather write than talk," she said.
During her interview with Winfrey, which was taped last week, Palin said that it's heartbreaking to see the road that Levi Johnston, the father of her grandson, has taken and that the soon-to-be Playgirl model hasn't seen his baby in a while.
Palin and Winfrey also talked about the controversy surrounding Palin's possible appearance on the show last year. The two women embraced as Palin walked onto the talk show stage.
The new memoir doesn't mention Johnston, who has sparred repeatedly with his former mother-in-law-to-be. Johnston and Palin's daughter, Bristol Palin, are parents to son, Tripp.
When Winfrey asked about Johnston, Palin said she didn't think "a national television show is the place to discuss some of the things he's doing and saying."
But Palin went on to say she finds it "a bit heartbreaking to see the road that he is on right now" and that "it's not a healthy place to be."
Bristol Palin and her son live at Palin's home, she said, and have much family support.
"(Johnston's) quite busy with his media tours and he hasn't seen the baby for a while," Palin said. "But we will let that be the discussion between Bristol and Levi as they work out their relationship."
Palin also said Johnston remains a member of the family and that they can work out any troubles. She said she prays for him and that he has an "open invitation" to Thanksgiving dinner.

Winfrey began the interview by asking Palin if she felt snubbed at not getting an invitation to "The Oprah Winfrey Show" last year. Winfrey said she didn't have any candidates on her Chicago-based show during the campaign because of her support for President Barack Obama.

Palin said she didn't feel snubbed and told Winfrey, "No offense to you, but it wasn't the center of my universe."

___

AP Writer Caryn Rousseau in Chicago contributed to this report.

___

On the Net:

http://www.abcnews.com

http://www.oprah.com

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) –
The European Union and Russia hope to lay the foundations of a new economic and political partnership at a summit on Wednesday despite differences over energy, trade, human rights and climate change.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and the EU's Swedish presidency will seek to rebuild trust shattered during Russia's war with Georgia last year but boosted by a deal this week on an "early warning" mechanism to shield Europe from supply cuts.

They are setting their sights low for now, especially as the EU fears gas supplies from Russia are threatened by a dispute between Moscow and Ukraine, but hope at least to avoid new quarrels and start a gradual improvement in ties.

"We need to work closely with Russia. There is a level of mutual dependence -- we depend on them for energy supplies and we are energy consumers for them," Finnish Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb said on Monday as the EU prepared for the talks.

The EU, which represents almost 500 million people, is Russia's biggest trading partner, accounting for about half its overall trade turnover in the first nine months of this year.

Russia, a country with vast natural resources and a population of about 142 million, hopes to win more foreign investment from the EU following the global economic crisis.

EU officials are encouraged by Medvedev's calls for reform and modernization of Russia's economy. Moscow sees positive signs from Sweden under Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt, who hosts the one-day summit because Stockholm holds the EU's six-month presidency until the end of this year.

"We see signs of pragmatism ... in the Swedish leadership which we hope will lead to productive meetings," said Sergei Prikhodko, Medvedev's chief foreign policy adviser.

TALKS ON NEW PARTNERSHIP AGREEMENT

The EU and Russia are negotiating a new Partnership and Cooperation Agreement to provide the framework for their relationship, but it will not be completed on Wednesday.

Relations are improving only slowly after the Georgia war in August 2008, which prompted Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt to compare Russia's military intervention to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler's invasion of parts of central Europe.

"Certainly I'm looking forward to a constructive discussion rather than a heated exchange of criticism," Vladimir Chizhov, Russia's envoy to the EU, told reporters on Friday.

Hopes of ties improving were lifted by the signing on Monday of a memorandum requiring both sides to notify the other of any likely disruption to energy supplies and to work together to resolve the problem.

Russian gas supplies to Europe via Ukraine, a route that supplies a fifth of Europe's gas, were halted for more than two weeks in January because of a quarrel between Moscow and Kiev.

Fears are growing of a new dispute next January, when Ukraine holds a presidential election. But the EU hopes the summit will help build trust on energy issues, even though it is seeking to diversify its supply routes.

"The EU should reiterate that it sees Russia as its key energy partner. The summit will serve as an opportunity for the EU to underline the need to rebuild confidence and ensure predictability in EU-Russia energy relations," the EU said in a document setting out its position for the summit.

The EU hopes to persuade Moscow to do more in the fight against global warming and wants clarity from Russia over its plans to join the World Trade Organization after Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said it would join only as part of a customs union with Belarus and Kazakhstan.

Regional security and issues such as conflict in Afghanistan and Iran's nuclear program are also expected to be discussed.

(Additional reporting by David Brunnstrom in Brussels and Oleg Shchedrov in Moscow; Editing by Louise Ireland)

SIAYA, Kenya – A mother watched with dread as a nurse inserted a tube in her baby's head. Blood streamed into the anemic 4-month-old who already has malaria, the mosquito-borne disease that kills a million African children every year.
"Malaria is one of the deadliest sicknesses for children," the nurse said — words that sent the young mother into a crumpled heap on the bed beside her wide-eyed baby boy, wrapped in a blue-and-yellow floral blanket.
There is new hope, however, in this verdant area where President Barack Obama's relatives live. A vaccine that appears to be able to prevent the disease in about 50 percent of children, is now undergoing the final stage of testing.
If regulators determine the vaccine is safe, it could be on the market in three to five years — the first vaccine against a human parasite.
Tens of millions of Africans are plagued by malaria every year, and more than a third of the hospital beds in this rural Kenyan region next to Lake Victoria are dedicated to its victims. More than 1 million children die of the disease in Africa annually, a crippling economic drain that prolongs a cycle of disease and poverty throughout the continent.
Malaria is also prevalent in parts of Asia, the Middle East and Central and South America.
This vaccine was developed specifically for Africa and will only prevent the African strain of the disease. Experts say it would be a historic advancement.
"Some may say, '50 percent, that's not great.' And that's true. If you get a measles vaccine, you're not going to get measles again," said Dr. Dave Jones, a U.S. Army colonel and director of a clinic in nearby Kombewa operated by the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research and the Kenya Medical Research Institute.
"But at the same time, when you consider we lose 1 million kids a year, if you could cut that in half it would be a great step forward."
Experts from around the globe are meeting in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, this week as part of the fifth pan-African malaria conference, and a news conference on the vaccine trial is scheduled for Tuesday.
More than $500 million has been spent on the combined efforts by drug maker GlaxoSmithKline and the PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative, which is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The Phase III testing is being done at 11 sites in seven African countries on 16,000 children under the age of 18 months.
The goal is to immunize children against malaria during their youngest high-risk years, and then for them to develop their own natural immunities as they age.
At the spartan, open-air clinic in Kombewa last week, Patrician Mrunde, a 34-year-old mother of six, sat in the hallway with her youngest, 6-month-old Linda, who was waiting to receive a shot as part of the trial.
Mrunde has seen her eldest child stricken with fever and lapse into convulsions from malaria, and a young relative die from it.
"I decided to join the study to get help for the disease," she said.
Dr. Allen Otieno, a 38-year-old pediatrician, said "everybody is afraid" of malaria in the region. He called the new vaccine promising. "As scientists we have great hope that it will reduce the burden of malaria," he said.
Joe Cohen, a top researcher for GlaxoSmithKline, said all the data collected during testing have been encouraging.
The 66-year-old Cohen, who has been working on a malaria vaccine for two decades, said the trial results will be submitted to regulators in 2012, and that a vaccine could be on the market shortly afterward.

No prices have been set for the vaccine, Cohen said, though families in Africa may not have to pay anything for it because the Gates Foundation, UNICEF, WHO and the GAVI Alliance would provide funds.

GlaxoSmithKline "is committed to making sure pricing will never be a barrier to access for this vaccine," Cohen said.

The vaccine has been in development for more than 20 years through the combined efforts of GlaxoSmithKline, the Malaria Vaccine Initiative, the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research and others.

"No single person could have ever achieved this," Cohen said. "That's the lesson that should be taken out of the collaboration."

Malaria is caused by a parasite and spreads through a bite from an infected mosquito. The parasite travels quickly to the liver where it matures, enters the bloodstream and causes fever, chills, flu-like symptoms and anemia. The vaccine is designed to attack the parasite before it can infect the liver.

Until now, the main line of defense in preventing the disease has been distribution of bed nets and mosquito spraying.

Jonathan Odro Anyumba, chairman of the board of the Kombewa district hospital, said malaria is a huge burden in this verdant area of Kenya, where many live in mud huts and collect water in plastic jugs from flowing streams.

Families must sleep under nets to protect against the disease, though many don't have any. Even half the beds at his hospital don't have nets, Anyumba said.

"When you visit these areas you'll find that each and every child has malaria. Thirty to 50 percent of the deaths in this community are from malaria," he said. "I think this vaccine is going to be very, very useful."

___

On the Net:

PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative, http://www.malariavaccine.org

GlaxoSmithKline, http://www.gsk.com/malaria

SEOUL (Reuters) –
North Korea said on Tuesday it had completed reprocessing spent fuel rods at its Yongbyon nuclear plant and turned it into arms-grade plutonium, giving the mercurial state more material to produce atomic arms.

The announcement comes after the reclusive North, hit with fresh U.N. sanctions to punish it for a nuclear test in May, has warmed up to the outside world in recent months and indicated it could return to stalled international nuclear talks.

"We have finished reprocessing 8,000 spent fuel rods as of August. We have made substantial achievements in weaponizing plutonium from the extraction," KCNA said.

Experts said the North might be able to produce enough material for at least one more atomic weapon from the spent fuel rods at its Soviet-era Yongbyon plant, which was being taken apart under a sputtering, six-way disarmament-for-aid deal.

The North already had enough fissile material for about six to eight nuclear weapons, experts said.

"They (North Korea) are just telling us that they are biding their time and increasing pressure on the United States ahead of bilateral talks," said Yang Moo-jin, a professor at the South's University of North Korean Studies.

The North called on Monday for direct talks with its long-time foe, the United States, and gave the clearest signal so far it was ready to return to nuclear disarmament talks it has boycotted for almost a year.

That followed last week's rare visit by a North Korean official to the United States and what has been a "charm" offensive by the ostracized state that some analysts say is looking increasingly desperate for finance and aid.

FINANCIAL PINCH

The sanctions following the nuclear test were aimed at cutting off the cash the North receives from its arms sales. Some estimates say those account for more than $1 billion a year in a state with a $17 billion annual economy.

"The sanctions caused the North to drop its hard-line policy but we have not seen any indications yet that Pyongyang has made a strategic decision to change its nuclear arms policy," said a diplomatic source in Seoul.

While North Korea would have to make concessions in the nuclear dealings if it wanted aid, few analysts think leader Kim Jong-il would ever give up his nuclear program, seen at home as the crowing achievement in his military-first rule that has also prevented a U.S. invasion.

North Korea said in April it had started extracting fuel rods from its aging Yongbyon nuclear plant, a few weeks after the country was hit with separate U.N. punishment for a long-range rocket launch viewed as a disguised missile test that violated U.N. resolutions.

The Yongbyon plant also houses an aging reactor and a plant that makes fuel to burn in the reactor. Those facilities and the reprocessing center were being taken apart under the nuclear deal among the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the United States.

South Korean government sources said there have been no indications yet the North has been rebuilding the reactor and fuel plant, which would signal it plans to restart all of Yongbyon, capable of producing about one bomb's worth of fissile material when fully operational, experts said.

North Korea said in June it had started a program to enrich uranium, which could give it a second path toward making an atomic bomb.

(Additional reporting by Christine Kim; Editing by Jonathan Thatcher and Jerry Norton)

BEIJING – China said it expressed grave concern to India about a visit by the Dalai Lama to a state in the country's northeast at the heart of a long-running border dispute, saying it showed an anti-China bias.
Tibet's spiritual leader is scheduled to visit a monastery in Arunachal Pradesh on Sunday on what he has said is a spiritual, and not political, trip.
"We have expressed our grave concerns. We believe that this once again exposes the nature of the Dalai Lama as anti-China," Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu said.
"We firmly oppose the visits of the Dalai Lama to the border regions ... this is a separatist action," he said.
On a trip to Tokyo late last month, the Dalai Lama said the Chinese government reads too much political meaning into his frequent travels abroad.
"The Chinese government politicizes too much wherever I go. Where I go is not political."
Despite strong criticism from China, the Buddhist leader, who lives in exile in India, recently visited Taiwan, which Beijing considers part of its territory.
Beijing opposes most activities of the Dalai Lama, whom it accuses of advocating independence from Chinese rule for his native Tibet.
Last month he visited Taiwan, his third trip there, to bless the survivors of Typhoon Morakot, which left nearly 700 people dead after it hit the island on Aug 8. He visited disaster areas in southern Taiwan, comforted survivors and held a prayer meeting for typhoon victims attended by 15,000 people, according to his official Web site.
Tibetans attacked Chinese migrants and shops in the regional capital, Lhasa, and torched parts of the city's commercial district in anti-government riots in March 2008.
Chinese officials say 22 people died, but Tibetans say many times that number were killed.
The violence in Lhasa and protests in Tibetan communities across western China were the most sustained unrest in the region since the late 1980s.
Chinese sensitivities endure over India's mountainous Arunachal Pradesh state, which shares a 640-mile (1,030-kilometer) unfenced border with China.
The Asian giants fought a border war in 1962 and the frontier has yet to be settled despite 13 rounds of talks on the issue.

WASHINGTON – The health care bill headed for a vote in the House this week costs $1.2 trillion or more over a decade, according to numerous Democratic officials and figures contained in an analysis by congressional budget experts, far higher than the $900 billion cited by President Barack Obama as a price tag for his reform plan.
While the Congressional Budget Office has put the cost of expanding coverage in the legislation at roughly $1 trillion, Democrats added billions more on higher spending for public health, a reinsurance program to hold down retiree health costs, payments for preventive services and more.
Many of the additions are designed to improve benefits or ease access to coverage in government programs. The officials who provided overall cost estimates did so on condition of anonymity, saying they were not authorized to discuss them.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has referred repeatedly to the bill's net cost of $894 billion over a decade for coverage.
Asked about the higher estimate, Pelosi spokesman Brendan Daly said the measure not only insures 36 million more Americans, it provides critical health insurance reform in a way that is fiscally sound.
"It will not add one dime to the deficit. In fact, the CBO said last week that it will reduce the deficit both in the first 10 years and in the second 10 years," Daly said.
Democrats have been intent on passing legislation this year to implement Obama's call for expanded coverage for millions, curbs on industry abuses and provisions to slow the rate of growth of health care costs nationally.
"Now, add it all up, and the plan I'm proposing will cost around $900 billion over 10 years," the president said in a nationally televised speech in early September.
Whatever the final cost of legislation, the calendar is working increasingly against the White House and Democrats. While a House vote is possible late this week, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., may not be able to begin debate on the issue until the week before Thanksgiving. Additionally, the Republican leader, Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, has hinted at efforts to extend the debate for weeks if not months, a timetable that could extend into 2010.
One casualty of the time crunch and threatened Republican delaying tactics may be formal House-Senate negotiations on a final compromise. An alternative is a less formal hurry-up final negotiation involving the White House and senior Democrats.
Pelosi and her lieutenants worked on last-minute changes in the measure to ease concerns among opponents of abortion and a contentious provision relating to illegal immigrants. Conservative Democrats have expressed concern about the cost of the bill, and an evening closed-door meeting gave Pelosi and her lieutenants their first chance to hear their response.
The bill includes an option for a government-run health plan.
The leadership can afford more than two dozen defections and still be assured of the votes to prevail on the bill, one of the most sweeping measures in recent years.
Republicans put the cost of the bill at nearly $1.3 trillion.
"Our goal is to make it as difficult as possible for" Democrats to pass it, House Republican leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, said at a news conference. "We believe it is the wrong prescription."
One day after announcing Republicans would have an alternative measure, Boehner offered few details. He said it would omit one of the central provisions in Democratic bills — a ban on the insurance industry's practice of denying coverage on the basis of pre-existing medical conditions. Instead, he said the Republicans would encourage creation of insurance pools for high-risk individuals and take other steps to ease their access to coverage.
Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., the third-ranking leader, said that Democrats looked at their bill as a way to advance universal coverage. In contrast, he said, Republicans "believe the real issue back home is cost" of insurance, and said their alternative would be designed to tackle it.
Democrats have made elimination of the industry's practice a linchpin of their drive to overhaul the health care system. The industry has said it would not fight the change, and an accompanying restriction on its ability to charge higher premiums for certain groups, as the legislation includes a requirement for individuals to purchase insurance. Lacking that, the industry says millions of relatively healthy individuals would refuse to pay for coverage until they became sick, and the cost of premiums would rise sharply for everyone else.

Republicans oppose any government requirements for individuals to purchase insurance or for businesses to provide coverage.

The Congressional Budget Office is seen by lawmakers as the arbiter of claims about the costs and effects of proposed legislation, and the agency has been under intense pressure in recent weeks to compete assessments on several bills circulating in House and Senate.

In a letter last week, the agency's director, Dr. Douglas Elmendorf, said the net cost of expanding coverage in the House measure was estimated at $894 billion over 10 years, a figure reflecting a gross total of $1 trillion in federal subsidies as well as other spending.

The letter contained no similar assessment for the balance of the legislation and it was not clear when or whether one would be forthcoming.

In a letter last week to Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., on the general subject of health care, Elmendorf cautioned that some provisions in legislation have elements that raise costs and elements that lower costs.

"Tabulating all of the aspects of the proposal that would, in isolation, increase federal outlays would be complicated and would require somewhat arbitrary judgments" about calculating overall costs, Elmendorf said.

CHICAGO – Nearly half of all U.S. children and 90 percent of black youngsters will be on food stamps at some point during childhood, and fallout from the current recession could push those numbers even higher, researchers say.
The estimate comes from an analysis of 30 years of national data, and it bolsters other recent evidence on the pervasiveness of youngsters at economic risk. It suggests that almost everyone knows a family who has received food stamps, or will in the future, said lead author Mark Rank, a sociologist at Washington University in St. Louis.
"Your neighbor may be using some of these programs but it's not the kind of thing people want to talk about," Rank said.
The analysis was released Monday in the November issue of Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine. The authors say it's a medical issue pediatricians need to be aware of because children on food stamps are at risk for malnutrition and other ills linked with poverty.
"This is a real danger sign that we as a society need to do a lot more to protect children," Rank said.
Food stamps are a Department of Agriculture program for low-income individuals and families, covering most foods although not prepared hot foods or alcohol. For a family of four to be eligible, their annual take-home pay can't exceed about $22,000.
According to a USDA report released last month, 28.4 million Americans received food stamps in an average month in 2008, and about half were younger than age 18. The average monthly benefit per household totaled $222.
Rank and Cornell University sociologist Thomas Hirschl studied data from a nationally representative survey of 4,800 American households interviewed annually from 1968 through 1997 by the University of Michigan. About 18,000 adults and children were involved.
Overall, about 49 percent of all children were on food stamps at some point by the age of 20, the analysis found. That includes 90 percent of black children and 37 percent of whites. The analysis didn't include other ethnic groups.
The time span included typical economic ups and downs, including the early 1980s recession. That means similar portions of children now and in the future will live in families receiving food stamps, although ongoing economic turmoil may increase the numbers, Rank said.
An editorial in the medical journal agreed.
"The current recession is likely to generate for children in the United States the greatest level of material deprivation that we will see in our professional lifetimes," Stanford pediatrician Dr. Paul Wise wrote.
Wise said the Archives study estimate is believable.
"I find it terribly sad, but not surprising," Wise said.
James Weill, president of Food Research and Action Center, a Washington-based advocacy group, said the analysis underscores that "there are just very large numbers of people who rely on this program for a month, six months, a year."
"What I hope comes out of this study is an understanding that food stamp beneficiaries aren't them — they're us," Weill said.
The analysis is in line with other recent research suggesting that more than 40 percent of U.S. children will live in poverty or near-poverty by age 17; and that half will live at some point in a single-parent family. Also, other researchers have estimated that slightly more than half of adults will use food stamps at some point by age 65.
___

On the Net:

Archives: http://www.archpediatrics.com

USDA: http://www.fns.usda.gov

LOS ANGELES (AFP) –
Lawyers for Roman Polanski will argue for the director's 1970s child sex conviction to be dismissed for judicial misconduct at a hearing in Los Angeles next month, legal sources said.

A three-judge panel from California's 2nd District Court of Appeal will hear Polanski's lawyers attempt to overturn a lower court ruling in May, where a judge dismissed the case on the grounds of Polanski's absence.

Polanski's lawyers have argued for the conviction to be set aside on the grounds that the judge and prosecutors in the 1978 case colluded improperly.

Superior Court Judge Peter Espinoza said in a May ruling that Polanski "was not entitled to request any affirmative relief from this court, as he remains at large."

However he said he would "consider the merits" of the dismissal request if Polanski returned to Los Angeles County.

Polanski, 76, is currently being held in Switzerland after being arrested on September 26 as he flew in for the Zurich Film Festival.

He has been held in custody since then as his lawyers in Europe attempt to fight extradition to the United States.

Polanski fled the United States in 1978 on the eve of a sentencing hearing after pleading guilty to unlawful sexual intercourse with a 13-year-old girl.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) –
The U.S. Agriculture Department should tighten regulations for the transport and slaughter of veal calves to ensure they are not treated cruelly, the Humane Society of the United States said on Monday.

The group petitioned the USDA to expand an existing regulation to ban the slaughter of veal calves that cannot stand on their own, and also said it wants the USDA to put a new ban on transportation of calves younger than 10 days.

Federal inspectors also need more training and should spend more time ensuring animals are treated humanely, the group said after releasing more video footage from an undercover investigation at a Vermont veal plant.

The Bushway Packing Inc plant in Grand Isle, Vermont, was shut down on Friday by federal and state officials because of the footage, which showed calves repeatedly shocked with electric prods and kicked to try to get them to stand up.

Veal calves, which produce beef prized for its tenderness, are typically slaughtered when they are about 500 pounds. But the Vermont plant specialized in "bob veal" from calves as young as a few days old.

The Humane Society alleges some animals at the Vermont plant were not adequately stunned before slaughter. It said their footage shows a plant owner participating in the abuse.

"We have him on tape wielding the (prod) with recklessness and repetition, and setting an example of cruelty and callousness for the rest of his employees," said Michael Markarian, the group's chief operating officer.

The group said their footage shows a USDA inspector turning a blind eye to the abuse.

"This is animal abuse of the most sickening kind and it should not be tolerated at any federally inspected slaughter plant," Markarian said.

Officials from the plant did not return calls on Monday.

The USDA said its Food Safety and Inspection Service took "immediate action with respect to its employee," but a spokesman declined further comment.

Government officials are now conducting their own investigation into the plant.

CLOSE "DOWNER" LOOPHOLE

The United States finalized a ban on downer cattle from the meat supply earlier this year after a 2008 Humane Society investigation showing workers at the Hallmark/Westland Meat Packing plant in California mistreating cattle.

But the regulation allows plants to set apart and treat veal calves that are tired or cold, under USDA supervision -- an exception the Humane Society said should end.

"These regulations inadvertently incentivize slaughterhouses to move downed calves by inhumane methods," the Humane Society said in its petition to the USDA.

"USDA will consider any petition it receives," said spokeswoman Caleb Weaver. "Protecting animal welfare and ensuring a safe food supply are critical priorities for the department."

The Humane Society also plans to petition USDA to ban transport of calves younger than 10 days old. "We're going to ask the industry to join with us in urging a cessation of this industry practice," said Wayne Pacelle, the group's president.

The American Veal Association said in a statement that it believes the USDA investigation will determine if additional action should be taken in the wake of what it called "deplorable and unacceptable treatment of animals" at the Vermont plant.

(Editing by David Gregorio)

EKG Machines

The mammalian heart is derived from embryonic mesoderm germ-layer cells that differentiate after gastrulation into mesothelium, endothelium, and myocardium. Mesothelial pericardium forms the inner lining of the heart. The outer lining of the heart, lymphatic and blood vessels develop from endothelium. Myocardium develops into heart muscle.

The structure of the heart varies among the different branches of the animal kingdom. (See Circulatory system.) Cephalopods have two "gill hearts" and one "systemic heart". Fish have a two-chambered heart that pumps the blood to the gills and from there it goes on to the rest of the body. In amphibians and most reptiles, a double circulatory system is used, but the heart is not always completely separated into two pumps. Amphibians have a three-chambered heart.

NEW YORK – Remember Ida, the fossil discovery announced last May with its own book and TV documentary? A publicity blitz called it "the link" that would reveal the earliest evolutionary roots of monkeys, apes and humans. Experts protested that Ida wasn't even a close relative. And now a new analysis supports their reaction.
In fact, Ida is as far removed from the monkey-ape-human ancestry as a primate could be, says Erik Seiffert of Stony Brook University in New York.
He and his colleagues compared 360 specific anatomical features of 117 living and extinct primate species to draw up a family tree. They report the results in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature.
Ida is a skeleton of a 47 million-year-old cat-sized creature found in Germany. It starred in a book, "The Link: Uncovering Our Earliest Ancestor."
Ida represents a previously unknown primate species called Darwinius. The scientists who formally announced the finding said they weren't claiming Darwinius was a direct ancestor of monkeys, apes and humans. But they did argue that it belongs in the same major evolutionary grouping, and that it showed what an actual ancestor of that era might have looked like.
The new analysis says Darwinius does not belong in the same primate category as monkeys, apes and humans. Instead, the analysis concluded, it falls into the other major grouping, which includes lemurs.
Experts agreed.
"This is a rigorous analysis based on many features," said Eric Sargis, an anthropology professor at Yale. He said he'd found the argument of the Darwinius researchers unconvincing, so the new result came as no surprise.
In fact, it confirms what most scientists think, said David Begun, a paleoanthropologist at the University of Toronto.
Jorn Hurum of the Natural History Museum in Oslo, Norway, an author of the Ida paper, said he welcomed the new analysis.
Darwinius is an example of a group of primates called adapoids, and "we are happy to start the scientific discussion" about what Ida means for where adapoids fit on the primate family tree, he wrote in an e-mail.
___
On the Net:
Nature: http://www.nature.com/nature

Air "sterilizers." A photon machine. Supplement pills to boost the immune system. Protective shampoos and face masks. Even fake Tamiflu. These and other products making bogus claims to prevent or treat swine flu are flooding the Internet as scam artists prey on the public's fears while the vaccine is delayed and real Tamiflu is rationed.
Every problem, it would seem, is a sales opportunity. Some of the products appear to have been pitched for other emergencies, such as one called "Quake Kare" and masks and purifiers sold during the SARS scare.
Federal officials have sent warning letters to promoters of more than 140 swine flu-related products, including well-known alternative medicine advocate Dr. Andrew Weil for his "Immune Support Formula."
Consumer Reports also has warned subscribers to be wary.
"It's harmful, disappointing, frustrating to see folks take advantage of the public like this," said Dr. John Santa, who evaluates health claims for Consumer Reports.
Fraudulent products emerged shortly after swine flu did last spring — about 10 a day, said Alyson Saben, head of a swine flu consumer fraud team formed by the Food and Drug Administration. The pace slowed over the summer as the flu abated, but "it's picked up" in recent weeks, she said. "We are seeing new sites pop up."
Most worrisome: sites that claim to sell Tamiflu without a prescription. The FDA bought and tested five such products. One contained powdered talc and generic Tylenol — no Tamiflu. Several others contained some Tamiflu but were not approved for sale in the U.S.
"We have no idea of the conditions under which they were manufactured. They could contain contaminated, counterfeit, impure or subpotent or superpotent ingredients," Saben said.
Tamiflu and Relenza are the only drugs recommended for treating swine flu.
Rogue Web sites are not the only ones trying to cash in on flu fears. Makers of some well-established products are making claims that may be close to the line, the FDA says.
This week, the makers of Dial Soap, Kleenex, Clorox and other big brands launched a joint promotional campaign costing up to $1 million. The FDA is reviewing the campaign, which includes a video that says:
"Germs are tiny organisms that can cause disease. According to the CDC, up to 80 percent of infectious diseases, like the flu, are spread by your hands. That's why frequent, proper handwashing is so important in preventing spread of the flu, other viruses and germs. An antibacterial soap like Dial Complete foaming hand wash kills 99.9 percent of germs."
Flu is caused by a virus, so killing bacteria is of uncertain benefit.
The campaign is "not being specific down to swine flu," said Scott Moffitt, an official with Dial Corp.'s parent company, Germany-based Henkel AG. He also contends the video is not misleading, even though the germ-killing claim follows a sentence about flu and other viruses.
One product that drew a warning letter from the FDA is the Photon Genie, a gadget that delivers "energy waves." Its Web site claimed it "helps strengthen the immune system, and a strong immune system is KEY to preventing swine flu symptoms and KEY to treating swine flu."
The site has since removed the swine flu claim but "other claims remain," Saben said.
The group behind the Web site, the Skilling Institute of Phoenix, "is not marketing, and will not market in the future, any product that is intended to diagnose, mitigate, prevent, treat or cure the H1N1 flu virus," its director, Warren Starnes, wrote in an e-mail.
Some products the FDA warned about contain silver, such as "Swine Flu...Gone," made by Secrets of Eden.

"Spray 'Swine Flu...Gone' with ionic silver on your hands and on any surface where these germs may exist and kill the virus," its site had claimed.

Secrets of Eden sells supplements and oils with a biblical flair, said its general manager, Rick Strawcutter, a former pastor in Adrian, Mich. The staff "got a little carried away" on marketing for one product and "drew the ire of the FDA," he said.

"It was not worth contesting," so he ordered a stop to it, Strawcutter said.

The federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry says silver "may cause harmful health effects," depending on the amount and type of exposure.

Dr. Andrew Weil's site had this problem language, the FDA's warning letter said: "...during the flu season, I suggest taking a daily antioxidant, multivitamin-mineral supplement, as well as astragalus, a well-known immune-boosting herb that can help ward off colds and flu. You might also consider ... the Weil Immune Support Formula which contains both astragalus and immune-supportive polypore mushrooms."

Weil issued a statement saying the content "was primarily educational" about how to avoid the flu, and that he had directed his Web site team to remove and review it for compliance with federal rules.

Doctors, too, are being warned not to prescribe unproven remedies, such as drugs not shown to be safe and effective for swine flu. In this week's New England Journal of Medicine, three FDA doctors caution against use of ribavirin, a drug approved in the U.S. for treating hepatitis C and respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, a childhood illness.

There have been reports of doctors wanting to try it for seriously ill flu patients, but it can cause a dangerous type of anemia and cannot be used in pregnant women because of the risk of birth defects, said the FDA's Dr. Debra Birnkrant.

"It shouldn't be used lightly" and needs to be tested in a clinical trial for flu, she said.

___

On the Net:

Fraudulent products list: http://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/h1n1flu/

To report fraud: http://tinyurl.com/ygut83y

ATLANTA – About 1 in 5 U.S. children had a flu-like illness earlier this month — and most of those cases likely were swine flu, according to a new government health survey. About 7 percent of surveyed adults said they'd had a flu-like illness, the survey found.
The information comes from a household survey of more than 14,000 adults done in the first 11 days of October. The adults were asked if they had a fever or other flu-like symptoms in the past week; a smaller number were asked about their children.
The survey was done by telephone and there was no medical confirmation of their reports. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced the results Wednesday at a medical meeting in Atlanta.
Swine flu is widespread throughout the country, and the virus is causing more illness now that it has at any time since it was first identified in April. In people ages 5 to 64, there have been as many flu-related hospitalizations in the last six weeks as there usually are in an entire flu season, said Lyn Finelli, a CDC flu surveillance official.
Also, the number of swine flu deaths in children since the start of September roughly equals the number in the first four months of the pandemic, Finelli said.
For most people, swine flu has been a mild illness, perhaps very mild, CDC officials believe. There are cases without symptoms, "and maybe quite a few of those," said Nancy Cox, a CDC flu expert.
Millions of Americans have been infected, CDC officials estimate.
___
On the Net:
CDC swine flu update: http://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/update.htm

WASHINGTON – Memo to President Barack Obama: It's a tax. Obama insisted this weekend on national television that requiring people to carry health insurance — and fining them if they don't — isn't the same thing as a tax increase. But the language of Democratic bills to revamp the nation's health care system doesn't quibble. Both the House bill and the Senate Finance Committee proposal clearly state that the fines would be a tax.
And the reason the fines are in the legislation is to enforce the coverage requirement.
"If you put something in the Internal Revenue Code, and you tell the IRS to collect it, I think that's a tax," said Clint Stretch, head of the tax policy group for Deloitte, a major accounting firm. "If you don't pay, the person who's going to come and get it is going to be from the IRS."
Democrats aren't the first to propose that individuals be required to carry health insurance and fined if they refuse. The conservative Heritage Foundation called for such a mandate in the 1990s' health care debate, although its proposal differed from the ones pending in Congress. Heritage has since dropped the idea and now favors using tax credits to encourage people to buy coverage — carrots and not sticks.
During the 2008 political campaign, Obama opposed making coverage mandatory because of the costs. His position has shifted now that it's becoming clear such a requirement will be part of any legislation that Congress sends him. Conservative activists are calling it a violation of his pledge not to raise taxes on the middle class.
"This is exactly what George Bush Sr. did when he said he wouldn't raise taxes, and it cost him the next election," said Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform. "Obama is doing the same thing, but he's insulting people by telling them that if you don't call it a big purple banana, somehow it wouldn't be a tax."
Some liberals acknowledge that Obama might be vulnerable on the insurance requirement. But they say most people will understand as long as the legislation provides enough of a subsidy to make the coverage affordable. That's a central issue this week as the Senate Finance Committee starts voting on legislation.
"I think it's a metaphysical question as to whether it's a tax or not," said Roger Hickey, co-director of the Campaign for America's Future. "The real question that will determine whether people are upset is whether the insurance is affordable."
In an interview that aired Sunday on ABC's "This Week," Obama insisted that the insurance requirement is not a tax.
"For us to say that you've got to take a responsibility to get health insurance is absolutely not a tax increase," the president said. "What it's saying is...that we're not going to have other people carrying your burdens for you anymore.
"Right now everybody in America, just about, has to get auto insurance," Obama added. "Nobody considers that a tax increase.
"You just can't make up that language and decide that that's called a tax increase," he added.
But a Democratic staff description of Sen. Max Baucus' bill calls the proposed fines an "excise tax." Penalties of up to $950 for individuals and $3,800 for families would be imposed on those who don't get coverage.
The House bill uses a complex formula to calculate the penalties, calling them a "tax on individuals without acceptable health care coverage."
The coverage mandate is part of a political bargain under which the insurance industry would agree to take all applicants, regardless of prior medical history.
"If we're going to have coverage without regard to pre-existing conditions, it makes sense," said economist Roberton Williams of the Tax Policy Center. "Otherwise people will come in the door the day they get sick." He sees no distinction between the requirement to get coverage and the fines themselves.
"The fact that it is imposed on people and they have no choice in paying it, and the fact that it's administered through the tax system all make it look like a tax," Williams said. The center is a joint venture of the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution.
It wouldn't be the first asterisk added to Obama's campaign pledge on taxes. Earlier this year, he signed a tobacco tax increase to pay for children's health insurance. Even that can be read as a violation of his expansive campaign promise.

"I can make a firm pledge," he said in Dover, N.H., on Sept. 12, 2008. "Under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes."

He repeatedly promised "you will not see any of your taxes increase one single dime."

LOS ANGELES – A Los Angeles pharmacist told Anna Nicole Smith's internist that the drugs the internist prescribed to the model after her son died were "pharmaceutical suicide," according to unsealed documents written by state officials.
Smith's doctors were warned about prescription drugs by three pharmacists, according to unsealed affidavits obtained Monday by the Los Angeles Times.
The pharmacist refused to fill the prescriptions and later recalled thinking, "They are going to kill her with this."
The documents are part of an investigation of the role that Smith's doctors, psychiatrist Khristine Eroshevich and internist Sandeep Kapoor, had in her overdose death in February 2007.
The physicians and Smith's boyfriend and attorney Howard K. Stern pleaded not guilty May 13 to conspiring to illegally provide her with controlled substances. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for next month.
In court papers filed last week, prosecutors said they plan to call the model's bodyguard and Larry Birkhead, the father of her daughter, Dannielynn, as witnesses.
The documents also cite evidence that both physicians crossed professional boundaries by having sexual contact with their famous patient. Calls to attorneys representing Eroshevich and Kapoor were not immediately returned Monday.
The first request for drugs for the former Playboy Playmate came five days after her son died and asked for two sedatives, 300 tablets of methadone, a muscle relaxer, an anti-inflammatory drug and four bottles of a strong painkiller.
___
Information from: Los Angeles Times, http://www.latimes.com