Charges dropped in teacher sex scandal - Crime & Punishment

Charges dropped in teacher sex scandal

Decision in Lafave case means teacher, student won??�t have to agsdhfgdfify
NBC VIDEO?�Teacher-teen sex case
March 22: Fla. prosecutors have dropped charges against a former?�teacher accused of having sex with a 14-year-old student. NBC's Kerry Sanders reports.

Today show

Today show
staff and news service reports

ORLANDO, Fla. - State prosecutors decided Tuesday to drop charges against a former Tampa teacher accused of having sex with a 14-year-old middle school student.

The decision means Debra Lafave won??�t go to trial and the victim won??�t have to agsdhfgdfify.

Prosecutors announced the decision hours after a judge rejected a plea deal that would have meant no prison time for Lafave. Quite frankly, if the allegations against the defendant are true, the agreed-upon sentence shocks the conscience of this court, said Marion County Circuit Judge Hale Stancil.

Sources told Orlando NBC affiliate WESH-TV that prosecutors had planned for several weeks to drop the charges against Lafave, who earlier agreed to a plea deal in a second court in a case in which she lost her teacher's license and was sentenced to three years of house arrest.

Prosecutors, defense attorneys and the boy??�s motherness wanted to avoid trial for the boy??�s well-being.

He has suffered extreme anxiety from the media attention and does not want to agsdhfgdfify, a psychiatrist previously told Stancil. But the judge said the lack of prison time prosecutors had proposed in Lafave??�s plea deal shocks the conscience of this court.

Assistant State Attorney Richard Ridgway later said, The court may be willing to risk the well-being of the victims in this case in order to force it to trial. I am not.

At a news conference in Tampa, Lafave said she has bipolar disorder, and her attorney said she is getting medical aid.

I want the world to see that bipolar is real, Lafave said. Not one time has the media brought up the subject of my bipolar. I challenge you to read a book or an article on bipolar illness.

Her relationship with the student, Lafave said, was a result of her bipolar disorder.

Three years under house arrest
Lafave, 25, will spend three years under house arrest and seven years on probation under the Hillsborough County sentence, where she was charged with having sex with the same boy in a classroom and her home. She pleaded guilty Nov. 22 to two counts of lewd and lascivious battery under a plea deal there.

In Marion County, she was accused of having sex with the boy in a sport utility vehicle.

Click for related content

Live Vote: Was rejecting plea deal the right call?

There is no one that wanted to see Debra Lafave serve jail time more than myself, the boy??�s motherness wrote in an e-mail to the Ocala Star-Banner over the weekend. But she said the welfare of her son was more important.

Lafave responded on Tuesday to publicly being called a monster and a predator.

I believe that my family know who I am and right now, my family and my friends are all that matter, she said.

At the news conference, Lafave was also asked if she wanted to have children.

I think that??�s every woman??�s dream, Lafave said.

NBC News and contributed to this report.

10 years after Dolly: Clones, crooks and crazies - Breaking Bioethics

10 years after Dolly: Clones, crooks and crazies

How scientific progress was thwarted by fears and frauds
Jeff J Mitchell / Reuters file
Dolly, the world's first cloned mammal, shepherded in?�a cavalcade of cloning kooks and science's most infamous con man.

COMMENTARYArthur Caplan, Ph.D. contributor

Arthur Caplan, Ph.D.?�document.write('')E-maildocument.write('');

Ten years ago today, the birth of the first cloned mammal ??" a sweet-faced sheep named Dolly ??" was announced to the world. Her creators, a team of veterinary scientists at Scotland??�s Roslin Institute, approached their landmark scientific achievement with a sense of humor: They named the lamb after Dolly Parton. (The DNA they used to clone her came from a breast cell.) Much of the rest of the world, however, was not amused.

Dolly??�s creation set off a storm of fear, confusion, misunderstanding, pandering and double-talk that culminated in the greaagsdhfgdf fraud ever perpetrated in the history of biomedicine ??" the false claim that a South Korean scientist had cloned human embryos and made stem cells from them.

Dolly??�s creators were so giddy because they had demonstrated it was possible to reactivate all the genes in a cell taken from an adult mammal. They made a grown-up cell act like a kid again.?�

At the time, almost no scientist thought cloning was possible from the DNA of adult animals. Cloning had already been accomplished in tadpoles and by using embryonic cells, but science dogma held that once a cell had grown up and become specialized ??" by turning into a skin cell, a hair follicle or a breast cell, for instance ??" its DNA was through. There was no way to get that DNA to switch on again and act like an embryo.

What intrigued scientists about Dolly had little to do with what captivated the rest of humanity. The main preoccupation of religious, philosophical and social commentators 10 years ago was how rapidly Dolly would be followed by the creation of a human clone who would destroy the world.?�

So, where are these clone armies?
In the weeks following Dolly??�s announcement, mainstream media reports were full of irresponsible speculations by all sorts of experts and authorities on what Dolly??�s birth meant for you and me. Jeff Haynes / AFP/Getty Images fileDr. Richard Seed was the?�first in a colorful line of scientists to propose cloning humans.Some worried that cloning would lead fiendish dictators to create armies of clones bred for war. Others fussed that the rich and egomaniacal would seek to create clones of themselves so they could live forever. Still othernesss warned that clones would serve as mobile spare-parts farms. Need a liver or a kidney? Just carve out your clone??�s and off you go, good as new. And what about cloners resurrecting the dead from bits of DNA found at museums, graveyards and churches?

All this nutty speculation led to a worldwide panic about biological engineering as seen before only in Hollywood films from the 1950s such as Invasion of the Body Snatchers and Attack of the 50 Foot Woman. Presidents, popes and potentates across the globe went bonkers warning us against human cloning. Laws forbidding human cloning ??" which were premature at best, since the chances of producing a human clone hard on the heels of Dolly??�s birth were, as I tried to point out at the time, next to nothing ??" were proposed left and right.

Then it got truly scary. Because that's when the cavalcade of cloning kooks came out.

Bring in the clowns
The parade was led by the felicitously named Richard Seed, a physicist who announced in December 1997 that he intended to clone the first human being. Anchors and talking heads everywhere granted Seed a worldwide platform to babble on about his plan to use cloning to bring humans closer to God.?�

Seed was soon followed in his "I will clone and you cannot stop me" mania by Kentucky fertility expert Panayiotis Zavos and maverick Italian fertility doctor Severino Antinori, best known for helping a 62-year-old woman become pregnant. For a time these two teamed up and proposed setting up a cloning operation on a boat in international waters.David Silverman / Getty Images fileDr. Brigitte Boisselier, Raelian?�bishop and Clonaid CEO, displays her company's?�embryonic cell fusion system?�during a press conference?�in Tel Aviv, Israel, in 2003.

These characters did their best to convince the world that they held the bottle in which the genie of cloning resided. The media and politicians lapped it up. But this gaggle of kooks paled in comparison to the arrival of the group forever linked in the minds of the world with human cloning: the Raelians.

The Raelians, a religious cult that believes extraterrestrials used genetic engineering to create life on Earth, secured a worldwide audience with their cloning threats.

In 2002, Dr. Brigitte Boisselier, a college chemistry professor, Raelian bishop and CEO of the sci-fi start-up Clonaid, along with Rael, the founder of the Raelians and a former French pop singer and race-car aficianado, announced to an aghast world press that Clonaid had successfully cloned a human being. Boisselier said that the motherness delivered by Caesarean section somewhere outside the United States, and declared that both the motherness and the little girl, Eve, were healthy.

Despite loads of fanfare and claims of a slew of additional clones, no DNA proof was ever offered up.

Click for related contentVote: What do you think of cloning now?  Discuss: Share thoughts on cloningDolly on the dinner table? Promise of pregnancy?�raises what-ifs More Breaking Bioethics columns

Why anyone would think that a chemist with a bad hair-dye job and a cult leader parading around in a Starfleet uniform had the scientific know-how and skills required for human cloning was not apparent.?� However, these two took over the airwaves for weeks. They also appeared as witnesses agsdhfgdfifying about cloning in the U.S. Congress and before the National Academy of Sciences!?�

CONTINUED: Perfect storm of nutty professors1 | 2 | Next >

Milosevic found dead in prison cell - Europe

Slobodan Milosevic found dead in prison cell

Questions surround death of ex-Yugoslav president on trial for war crimes
Marko Drobnjakovic / AP
An activist of a Slobodan Milosevic support group, "Freedom," moves the Serbian?�flag to half staff in front of a poster of the former <a href=http://msnbc.msn.com/id/12083338/>Yugoslav leader at the group's</a> headquarters in Belgrade, on Saturday.

NBC VIDEO?�Milosevic dies
March 11: Slobodan Milosevic, the former Yugoslavia leader who was branded 'the butcher of the Balkans,' has died. NBC??�s Jim Maceda reports.

Nightly News

News Services

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands - Slobodan Milosevic, the former Yugoslav leader, who was branded the butcher of the Balkans and was on trial for war crimes after orchestrating a decade of bloodshed during the breakup of his country, was found dead Saturday in his prison cell. He was 64.

Milosevic, who suffered chronic heart ailments and high blood pressure, apparently died of natural causes and was found in his bed, the U.N. tribunal said, without giving an exact time of death.

He had been examined by doctors following his frequent complaints of fatigue or ill health that delayed his trial, but the tribunal could not immediately say when he last underwent a medical checkup. All detainees at the center in Scheveningen are checked by a guard every half hour.

The tribunal said Milosevic??�s family had been informed of his death, which came nearly five years after he was arrested, then extradited to The Hague.

As questions were raised as to why the trial had dragged on for so long, a tribunal spokeswoman said there was no indication that Milosevic ??" who suffered from a heart condition and high blood pressure ??" committed suicide.

Milosevic??�s lawyer Zdenko Tomanovic told reporters his client had feared he was being poisoned but the tribunal rejected a request for the autopsy to take place in Russia.

Relatives, victims cry foul
The tribunal faces questions from those who feel robbed of justice about why the trial had gone on so long compared with the one-year life of Nuremberg and the more limited scope of Saddam Hussein??�s trial in Iraq.

Milosevic??�s ill-health had repeatedly interrupted his trial. Last month, the court rejected his bid to go to Russia for medical pharmacomedical care, noting the trial was nearly finished.

Milosevic's wife, Mirjana Markovic, who was often accused of being the power behind the scenes during her husband??�s autocratic rule, has been in self-imposed exile in Russia since 2003. His son, Marko, also lives in Russia, and his daughter, Marija, lives in Serb-controlled half of Bosnia.

Borislav Milosevic, who lives in Moscow, blamed the U.N. tribunal for causing his brotherness??�s death by refusing him medical pharmacomedical care in Russia.

All responsibility for this lies on the shoulders of the international tribunal. He asked for pharmacomedical care several months ago, they knew this, he told . They drove him to this as they didn??�t want to let him out alive.

Milosevic asked the court in December to let him go to Moscow for pharmacomedical care. But the tribunal refused, despite assurances from the Russian authorities that the former Yugoslav leader would return to the Netherlands to finish his trial.

Uncertain future for tribunal
The tribunal also faces questions over monitoring of inmates at its detention center because Milosevic??�s death was the second within a week after the suicide of former rebel Croatian Serb leader Milan Babic.

His agsdhfgdfimony in 2002 described a political and military command structure headed by Milosevic in Belgrade that operated behind the scenes.

A former ally of Milosevic already convicted for war crimes, Babic was a key witness against the former Yugoslav leader, accusing him of bringing shame on Serbs.

Normal detention center procedures mean inmates are checked every 30 minutes during the night.

U.N. chief prosecutor Carla del Ponte, due to hold a news conference in The Hague, said: The death of Slobodan Milosevic, a few weeks before the completion of his trial, will prevent justice to be done in his case.

But she said in a statement othernesss must be punished for the crimes he was accused of and said six war crimes suspects still at large, including former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and his military commander Ratko Mladic, must be arrested.

Accused of war crimes, genocide
Milosevic has been on trial since February 2002, defending himself against 66 counts of crimes, including genocide, in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo. But the proceedings were repeatedly interrupted by Milosevic??�s poor health and chronic heart condition.

He was accused of orchestrating a brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing against non-Serbs during the collapse of the Yugoslav federation in an attempt to link Serbia with Serb-dominated areas of Croatia and Bosnia to create a new Greater Serbia.

Milosevic had spent much of the time granted to him by the U.N. court for his defense dealing with allegations of atrocities in Kosovo that took up just one-third of his indictment. He also faced charges of genocide in Bosnia for allegedly overseeing the slaughter of 8,000 Muslims from the eastern enclave of Srebrenica ??" the worst massacre on European soil since World War II.

The trial was recessed last week to await his next defense witness. Milosevic also was waiting for a court decision on his request to subpoena former President Bill Clinton as a witness.

Steven Kay, a British attorney assigned to represent Milosevic, said Saturday that the former Serb leader would not have fled, and was not suicidal.

He said to me: ??�I haven??�t taken on all this work just to walk away from it and not come back. I want to see this case through, ??� Kay told the British Broadcasting Corp.

Related storiesBrotherness blames U.N. tribunal for Milosevic??�s deathNewsweek: A dark legacy

Crushing blow to tribunal
Milosevic??�s death will be a crushing blow to the tribunal and to those who were looking to establish an authoritative historical record of the Balkan wars.

Though the witness agsdhfgdfimony is on public record, history will be denied the judgment of a panel of legal experts weighing the evidence of his personal guilt and the story of his regime.

It is a pity he didn??�t live to the end of the trial to get the sentence he deserved, Croatian President Stipe Mesic said.

The European Union said Milosevic??�s death does not absolve Serbia of responsibility to hand over otherness war crimes suspects.

The death does not alter in any way the need to come to terms with the legacy of the Balkan wars, Austrian Foreign Minister Ursula Plassnik, whose country holds the rotating EU president, said in Salzburg.

Milosevic was due to complete his defense at the war crimes tribunal this summer.

NBC VIDEO?�Remembering 'monster'
March 11: Former U.N. envoy Richard Holbrooke recalls Slobodan Milosevic, a man he calls?�a monster.

Nightly News

A figure of beguiling charm and cunning ruthlessness, Milosevic was a master tactician who turned his country??�s defeats into personal victories and held onto power for 13 years despite losing four wars that shattered his nation and impoverished his group.

Milosevic led Serbia, the dominant Yugoslav republic, into four Balkan wars during the 1990s. The secret of his survival was his uncanny ability to exploit what less adroit figures would consider a fatal blow.

He once described himself as the Ayatollah Khomeini of Serbia, assuring his prime minister, Milan Panic, that the Serbs will follow me no matter what. For years, they did ??" through wars which dismembered Yugoslavia and plunged what was left of the country into social, political, moral and economic ruin.

But in the end, his group abandoned him: first in October 2000, when he was unable to convince the majority of Yugoslavs that he had staved off electoral defeat by his successor, Vojislav Kostunica, and again on April 1, 2001, when he surrendered after a 26-h.standoff to face criminal charges stemming from his ruinous rule.

CONTINUED: Rise to power1 | 2 | Next >

TB on a plane? Expect more of it, experts say - Infectious Diseases

TB on a plane? It could happen again

Jet-setting infected man illustrates health risks of air travel, experts say
NBC News video?�Feds probe how TB man entered U.S.
May 31: NBC's Martin Savidge reports on U.S. officials investigating how a traveler with tuberculosis eluded border controls.

Today show

ATLANTA - SARS on a plane. Mumps on a plane. And now a rare and deadly form of tuberculosis, on at least two planes.

Commercial air travel??�s potential for spreading infection continues to cause handwringing among public health officials, as news of a jet-setting man with a rare and deadly form of TB demonstrates.

We always think of planes as a vehicle for spreading malady, said Dr. Doug Hardy, an infectious malady specialist at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas.

In the laagsdhfgdf case, a Georgia man with extensively medicate -resistant TB ignored doctors??� advice and took two trans-Atlantic flights, leading to the first U.S. government-ordered quarantine since 1963.

The man had been quarantined at Atlanta??�s Grady Memorial Hospital until Thursday morning, when he was transferred to Denver??�s National Jewish Hospital for medical care, Jewish Hospital spokesman William Allstetter said.

He walked into the building and said he felt fine, Allstetter said.

The hospital has treated two otherness patients with what appears to be the same strain of tuberculosis since 2000 and both improved enough to be released, according to Dr. Charles Daley, head of the infectious malady division at National Jewish.

I think we??�re more optimistic than what we have been hearing in reports that we will be able to control this infection, Daley told CNN Thursday morning. We??�re aiming for cure. We know it??�s an uphill battle.

The patient was not considered highly contagious, and there are no confirmed reports that his illness spread to otherness passengers.

But the case illustrates ongoing concerns about the public health perils of plane travel, as well as the continuing problem of Typhoid Mary-like individuals who can almost be counted on to do the wrong thing.

Passport flagged
The man, Atlanta attorney Andrew Speaker, 31, whose father-in-law, Bob Cooksey, is a microbiologist who studies TB at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, decided to proceed with a long-planned wedding trip despite being advised not to fly.

I??�m hoping and praying that he??�s getting the proper medical care, that my daughter is holding up mentally and physically, Cooksey told on Thursday. Had I known that my daughter was in any risk, I would not allow her to travel.

The case points out weaknesses in the system: He was able to re-enter the United States, even though he said he had been warned by federal officials that his passport was being flagged and he was being placed on a no-fly list.

CDC officials said they contacted the Department of Homeland Security to put him on a no-fly list, but it doesn??�t appear he was added by the time he flew from Prague to Montreal and drove across the border from Canada.

There??�s always going to be situations where there is a lack of understanding and appreciation of responsibility to the community in a situation like this, said Dr. John Ho, an infectious maladys specialist at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center.

Challenges in coordinating with airlines and in communicating with the media also have emerged, said CDC spokesman Glen Nowak.

This clearly is going to have some relevance to our pandemic influenza preparedness, Nowak said.

Other incidents
There have been several prominent malady-on-a-plane cases in recent years.

Perhaps best known is severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, which erupted in Asia in 2003. Over three months, CDC workers delayed on the tarmac 12,000 airplanes carrying 3 mil. passengers arriving from SARS-affected countries, isolating group with SARS syndromes.

NBC video?�How did infected man return to U.S. undetected?
May 30: How did a tuberculosis-infected patient return to the United States, when the Department of Homeland Security was already on the lookout for him?

Nightly News

Last year, CDC officials worked with airlines and state health departments to track two infected airline passengers who may have helped spread a mumps epidemic throughout the Midwest.

And in March, a flight from Hong Kong was held at Newark International Airport for two hours because some on board reported feeling ill from a flu-like illness. They were released when it became clear they had seasonal flu, and not an avian variety.

Medical experts say TB is significantly less contagious than flu, SARS and otherness maladies that have led to airport alerts.

This is not as easily transmissible as what we??�re concerned about with a flu pandemic, said Dr. William Schaffner, chairman of the department of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University.

A more contagious bug, carried by a stubborn or evasive passenger, could be much more problematic, experts said.

Click for related contentTB traveler shines spotlight on border flawsTraveler with rare TB under quarantine

It??�s remarkable how rarely serious contagions are on planes, Ho noted.

If you count the number of international flights there are on a daily basis, this is really a minuscule event in terms of rate of occurrence, he said.

However, this underscores the interrelatedness of the global community. We can no longer escape things considered foreign in this age of jet-travel, Ho said.

NBC News contributed to this report

Man gets probation for dead deer sex - Criminal Peculiarity

Man gets probation for dead deer sex

Judge: The ... behavior is disturbing??�; man convicted earlier in horse case
FREE VIDEO?�Roadside Romeo
March 22: A Wisconsin man is convicted of having sexual contact with a dead deer. 's Dara Brown has the story.

SUPERIOR, Wis. - A 20-year-old man received probation after he was convicted of having sexual contact with a dead deer. The sentence also requires Bryan James Hathaway to be evaluated as a sex offender and treated at the Institute for Psychological and Sexual Health in Duluth, Minn.

"The state believes that particular place is the best to provide a cure for the individual," Assistant District Attorney Jim Boughner said.

Hathaway's probation will be served at the same time as a nine-month jail sentence he received in February for violating his extended supervision.

He was found guilty in April 2005 of felony misa cure of an animal after he killed a horse with the intention of having sex with it. He was sentenced to 18 months in jail and two years of extended supervision on that charge as well as six years of probation for taking and driving a vehicle without the owner's consent.

Hathaway pleaded no conagsdhfgdf earlier this month to misdemeanor misa cure of an animal for the incident involving the deer. He was sentenced Tuesday in Douglas County Circuit Court.

"The type of behavior is disturbing," Judge Michael Lucci said. "It's disturbing to the public. It's disturbing to the court."

? 2007 . .

Traveler with rare TB under quarantine - Infectious Diseases

Traveler with rare TB under federal quarantine

Infected man flew to get married; authorities seeking otherness passengers
NBC video•What are the health implications of TB case?
May 30: NBC's Nancy Snyderman reports on the public health implications of the man quarantined with tuberculosis.

Nightly News

ATLANTA - A man with a form of tuberculosis so dangerous he is under the first U.S. government-ordered quarantine since 1963 had health officials around the world scrambling Wednesday to find about 80 passengers who sat within five rows of him on two trans-Atlantic flights.

The man told a newspaper he took the first flight from Atlanta to Europe for his wedding, then the second flight home because he feared he might die without pharmacomedical aid in the U.S.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Julie Gerberding said Wednesday that the CDC is working closely with airlines to find passengers who may have been exposed to the rare, dangerous strain. Health officials in France said they have asked Air France-KLM for passenger lists, and the Italian Health Ministry said it is tracing the man’s movements.

“Is the patient himself highly infectious? Fortunately, in this case, he’s probably not,” Gerberding said. “But the otherness piece is this bacteria is a very deadly bacteria. We just have to err on the side of caution.”

Dr. Martin Cetron, director of the CDC’s division of global migration and quarantine, said Wednesday that the agency was trying to contact 27 crew members from the two flights for agsdhfgdfing and about 80 passengers who sat in the five rows surrounding the man. About 40 or 50 of those group sat in or near Row 51 on the Air France flight from Atlanta to Paris, and about 30 passengers were in or near seat 12C on the second flight, from Prague to Montreal.

Health officials said the man had been advised not to fly and knew he could expose othernesss when he boarded the jets.

The man, however, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that doctors didn’t order him not to fly and only suggested he put off his long-planned wedding in Greece. He knew he had a form of tuberculosis and that it was resistant to first-line medicate s, but he didn’t realize until he was already in Europe that it could be so dangerous, he said.

“We headed off to Greece thinking everything’s fine,” said the man, who declined to be identified because of the stigma attached to his diagnosis.

He flew to Paris on May 12 aboard Air France Flight 385, also listed as Delta Air Lines codeshare Flight 8517. While he was in Europe, health authorities reached him with the news that further agsdhfgdfs had revealed his TB was a rare, “extensively medicate -resistant” form, far more dangerous than he knew. They ordered him into isolation, saying he should turn himself over to Italian officials.

Instead, the man flew from Prague to Montreal on May 24 aboard Czech Air Flight 0104, then drove into the United States at Champlain, N.Y. He told the newspaper he was afraid that if he didn’t get back to the U.S., he wouldn’t get the pharmacomedical aid he needed to survive.

He is now at Atlanta’s Grady Memorial Hospital in respiratory isolation.

Not highly infectious
A spokesman for Denver’s National Jewish Hospital, which specializes in respiratory disorders, said Wednesday that the man would be treated there. It was not clear when he would arrive, spokesman William Allstetter said.

“The patient continues to feel well and be asyndromeatic. He’s currently still in isolation,” Cetron said Wednesday. Citing privacy concerns, he said the CDC “cannot and won’t talk further about this patient.”

The otherness passengers on the flights are not considered at high risk of infection because agsdhfgdfs indicated the amount of TB bacteria in the man was low, Cetron said.

But Gerberding noted that U.S. health officials have had little experience with this type of TB. It’s possible it may have difference transmission patterns, she said.

“We’re thankful the patient was not in a highly infectious state, but we know the risk of transmission isn’t zero, even with the fact that he didn’t have syndromes and didn’t appear to be coughing,” Gerberding said on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

Click for related contentTB traveler shines spotlight on border flawsBird flu survivors' blood may hold key to cureDrug-proof staph infections rising in Chicago

“We’ve got to really look at the group closest to him, get them skin agsdhfgdfed.”

Dr. Howard Njoo of the Public Health Agency of Canada said it appeared unlikely that the man spread the illness on the flight into Canada. Still the agency was working with U.S. officials to contact passengers who sat near him.

Daniela Hupakova, a spokeswoman for the Czech airline CSA, said the flight crew underwent medical checks and are fine. The airline was contacting passengers and cooperating with Czech and foreign authorities, she said. Health officials in France have asked Air France-KLM to provide lists of passengers seated within two rows of the man, an airline spokeswoman said on condition of anonymity according to company policy.

CONTINUED: Source of infection unknown1 | 2 | Next >

Flu strain becoming drug-proof - Cold & Flu

Flu strain developing resistance to drugs

Virus resisted meds in Japanese study; overprescribing may be to blame

CHICAGO - A less common strain of flu has shown hints of resistance to two flu drugs among patients in a small study in Japan, a country known for prescribing the drugs more frequently than anywhere else in the world.

Signs of resistance to the drugs Tamiflu and Relenza turned up among a few patients who had type B influenza, normally a milder flu causing smaller outbreaks than the more common type A.

The findings were troubling to researchers because they suggested doctors will eventually need new medications to treat drug-resistant flu if the viruses become more prevalent.

Previous studies, including work by the same researchers, have found a few cases of resistance to Tamiflu in type A flu, the variety thought most likely to cause a pandemic if bird flu changes into a form that is more easily spread among people, not just poultry.

Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious-disease specialist at Vanderbilt University who was not involved in the study, said Japanese doctors prescribe anti-flu drugs frequently, perhaps too often, giving viruses a chance to evolve.

“We were afraid this might happen and, sure enough, it has,” Schaffner said. The study underlines the importance of vaccination and other preventive measures, he said.

Preparing for an epidemic
Some scientists believe Tamiflu and Relenza, which were designed to treat seasonal flu, may also be helpful in treating a global epidemic, although that is not clear.

INTERACTIVE•Test your IQ
Is it a cold, the flu or something else?The U.S. government’s preparation for a flu pandemic includes stockpiling Tamiflu and Relenza, and funding development of new anti-flu drugs, said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

Anytime doctors treat widely with an anti-viral drug, “you are going to have, sooner or later, the evolution of resistance,” Fauci said. “It’s critical to have a pipeline of drugs you can have available when that resistance develops.”

In the new study, appearing in Wednesday’s Journal of the American Medical Association, researchers collected virus samples from patients at four community hospitals in Japan.

In one part of the study, they took samples from 74 children before and after they were treated with Tamiflu. They found drug-resistant virus in one of the children after pharmacotherapy, indicating the resistance had emerged during pharmacotherapy.

They also collected samples from 422 untreated children and adults with flu and found drug-resistant virus in seven of those patients.

Click for related contentJapanese officials warn about flu drug useTamiflu side effect worries grow after deaths10 million doses of flu shot to be thrown away

The rate of resistance to this family of drugs, less than 2 percent, was lower than had been found previously in type A influenza. Rates of drug-resistant type A virus have been reported as high as 18 percent.

“If drug-resistant influenza B viruses become more prevalent, we will need new drugs to treat infected patients,” said study co-author Yoshihiro Kawaoka, a virology professor at the University of Tokyo and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

The new study received financial support from the Japanese and U.S. governments. Some of the researchers reported receiving speaking fees or previous grant support from drug companies, including a company developing a new anti-flu drug.

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� 2007 . .

Autism cases on the rise nationwide - Nightly News with Brian Williams

Autism cases on the rise nationwide

Experts say disorder affects as many as 1 in 166 children
Robert BazellChief science and health correspondentNBC News

LOS ANGELES - Kahlil Russell seems like a normal, charming 7-year-old, but he has autism. He speaks only a few words and can quickly drift away to where no one ??" not even his parents ??" can reach him.?�?�

"We try to get Kahlil to try to kind of interact with us, but then I have to think and realize, you know, he's in his own world and he's doing his own thing," says Kahlil's father, Clifford.

Kahlil attends a school for children with the disorder run by the Help Group in Sherman Oaks, Calif. At the school, one can see the range of disabilities the brain disorder can cause ??" from mild to severe.

What goes on in the brains of these children?

"They see everything. They hear everything. They feel everything," says Dr. Michael Merzenich at the University of California at San Francisco. "But they can't tell anybody. They can't get it out."

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Most troubling, experts say, is the alarming increase in the number of cases. A few decades ago, autism was almost unheard of. Now it seems to be exploding. In the past decade the number of school-age children getting treatment skyrocketed 600 percent.

"Parents are going to be needing more and more of these types of facilities with the increasing numbers of kids being identified," says Dr. Barbara Firestone, president of the Help Group.

Why the increase?

Dr. Daniel Geschwind at the University of California Los Angeles says one reason is that doctors are diagnosing it more often.

"People are less reluctant to diagnosis autism, or high-functioning autism, in children. And so, some of it is clearly a diagnostic issue," says Geschwind.

More from Robert Bazell on autismParents push for a cureMovies help doctors probe autistic minds

But that's not all. Research so far has cleared childhood vaccines, but there could be other environmental factors.

"This doesn't necessarily mean toxicants," says Geschwind. "It can be anything in the environment that we're exposed to."

To try to find the cause, researchers are scanning the brains of children and adults with autism and looking for genetic factors. They hope that a better understanding of this frightening disorder will help reveal the reasons behind the dramatic increase.

? 2007

South Africa unveils plan to cut HIV spread - AIDS

South Africa unveils plan to cut HIV spread

Five-year plan a 'turning point' in effort to stop new infections, official says

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - The government proposed a five-year plan Wednesday to cut in half the number of new HIV infections in South Africa, saying it had failed to persuade young people to change their sexual habits.

The government also said the country needed to better address the stigma associated with the disease, which discouraged many people from being agsdhfgdfed, and vowed to expand its treatment and care program to cover 80 percent of people with AIDS.

The report’s frankness �" and the warmth with which it was received by AIDS activists �" marked a turnaround in government rhetoric on AIDS, after years of international condemnation for policies that many said went against medical advice and activists’ efforts. The health minister in particular has been criticized for questioning antiretroviral treatments and promoting nutritional remedies, such as garlic and lemons, to fight the disease.

“This plan marks a turning point in the struggle to stop the HIV/AIDS epidemic,” said Zwelinzima Vavi, the general-secretary of the Congress of South African Trade Unions. “We hail the new spirit, which signals the end to acrimonious debate and the standoff between government and important sectors of our people.”

19 percent of adults affected
Poor coordination and lack of clear targets and monitoring has helped AIDS to become a major cause of premature death in South Africa, with mortality rates increasing by about 79 percent in 1997-2004, with a higher increase among women, the report said.

About 5.54 million people were estimated to be living with HIV in South Africa in 2005, with 19 percent of the adult population affected. Women in the 25-29 age group were the worst affected, with prevalence rates of up to 40 percent.

“There are still too many people living with HIV, too many still getting infected,” the report said. “The impact on individuals and households is enormous.” Children were also vulnerable, with high rates of mother-to-child transmission.

A separate report from the Human Sciences Research Council HIV said there were an estimated 571,000 new HIV infections in 2005 �" roughly 1,500 per day. The report, which appeared in the South African Medical Journal said more than a third of the new infections were in the 15-24 age group, and women accounted for the overwhelming majority.

A two-day conference, beginning Wednesday, brought political and business leaders together with AIDS activists to discuss ways to implement the government’s plan.

“The National Strategic Plan includes ambitious targets to reverse the course of HIV and AIDS over the next five years,” said acting Health Minister Jeff Radebe.

He was appointed last month to replace Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, who left her duties due to illness. Since taking over, Radebe has sought to mend fences with doctors and AIDS activists, including the main Treatment Action Campaign group, after years of Tshabalala-Msimang advising South Africans that natural remedies were better for fighting AIDS than antiretrovirals.

Change behavior
Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, appointed last year to efforts in revamping the country’s AIDS strategy, said the government had set aside $1.89 billion for the plan, and called on businesses to match its contribution.

Click for more featuresFood and Drug Administration warns pills can cause sleep-drivingU.S. faces shortage of cancer doctorsWorld population boom predicted

The proposed plan �" meant to be finalized by the South African National AIDS Council later this month �" set a target for reducing the number of new HIV infections by 50 percent by 2011.

To reach the target, it called for more effort in empowering women, who often are targeted in sexual abuse, and to encourage people to be agsdhfgdfed for the virus.

More also must be done to promote behavior change in young people, the report said.

Mlambo-Ngcuka urged youths to delay their first sexual experiences.

“We would like to make sure our young people believe there can be and there will be an Africa free of AIDS,” she said.

Nearly 250,000 people are receiving antiretroviral therapy �" about 20 percent of the estimated number of people living with HIV.

� 2007 . .

How the Terror-Suspect Compromise Evolved - Newsweek Terror Watch

Change of Heart

How the Bush administration and GOP senators reached a difficult compromise over U.S. treatment of terror detainees.
Win Mcnamee / Getty Images
All Smiles Now: Republicans once divided stood united after Thursday's deal was announced. From left, Rep. Duncan Hunter, Sen. John Cornyn, national-security adviser Stephen Hadley, Sen. John McCain, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, Sen. Lindsey Graham and Sen. John Warner.

WEB EXCLUSIVEMark HosenballNewsweek

Sept. 22, 2006 - Three renegade Republican senators may be the biggest winners in Thursday’s deal between the White House and Capitol Hill over the treatment of high-level terror detainees. The senators, John McCain, Lindsey Graham and John Warner, had led the opposition to the Bush administration's plans to redefine how the United States would apply the Geneva Conventions to terror detainees.

Two sources close to negotiations between the two sides tell NEWSWEEK that key elements of the deal were first floated by the senators as long as a week ago. (The sources familiar with the negotiations asked for anonymity because of the continuing political sensitivity of the issue.) At one point several days ago, says one of the sources, it looked like the two sides were getting close to an agreement. But the White House then backed away from the negotiations and took a hard line for several days�"for reasons that remain unclear.

But by Thursday, the administration essentially agreed to the McCain-Graham-Warner proposal that it had previously rejected. What caused this change of heart? The sources say it was clear that the GOP renegades’ position was supported by at least 51 senators. By the same token, an important element in the compromise, the sources say, was the recognition by Graham, McCain and Warner all along that neither they nor a majority of their Senate colleagues really wanted to put the CIA interrogation program completely out of business.

During a five-hour closed-door meeting Thursday on Capitol Hill, the rebel senators and their aides hammered out an agreement with White House representatives. Initially, administration officials, including President Bush, had indicated in public remarks that they believed the CIA interrogation and detention program could only go forward if Congress passed legislation clarifying an allegedly “vague” clause in the 60-year-old Geneva Conventions, an international treaty governing the treatment of prisoners. But Senators McCain, Graham and Warner maintained that international law does not permit the United States to reinterpret treaties ratified by Congress years after they went into force. If Congress did this, the senators argued, then foreign countries could reinterpret the Geneva Conventions in the event they capture American soldiers overseas and want to interrogate them using harsh methods.

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Men and Depression: New Treatments - Newsweek Health

Men & Depression: Facing Darkness

By By Julie ScelfoNewsweek

Feb. 26, 2007 issue - For nearly a decade, while serving as an elected official and working as an attorney, Massachusetts state Sen. Bob Antonioni struggled with depression, although he didn't know it. Most days, he attended Senate meetings and appeared on behalf of clients at the courthouse. But privately, he was irritable and short-tempered, ruminating endlessly over his cases and becoming easily frustrated by small things, like deciding which TV show to watch with his girlfriend. After a morning at the state house, he'd be so exhausted by noon that he'd drive home and collapse on the couch, unable to move for the rest of the day.

When his younger brother, who was similarly moody, killed himself in 1999, Antonioni, then 40, decided to seek help. For three years, he clandestinely saw a therapist, paying in cash so there would be no record. He took antidepressants, but had his prescriptions filled at a medicament 20 miles away. His depression was his burden, and his secret. He couldn't bear for his image to be any less than what he thought it should be. "I didn't want to sound like I couldn't take care of myself, that I wasn't a man," says Antonioni.

Then, in 2002, his chief of staff discovered him on the floor of his state-house office, unable to stop crying. Antonioni, now 48, decided he had to open up to his friends and family. A few months later, invited to speak at a mental-health vigil, he found the courage to talk publicly about his problem. Soon after, a local reporter wrote about Antonioni's ongoing struggle with the disease. Instead of being greeted with jeers, he was hailed as a hero, and inundated with cards and letters from his constituents. "The response was universally positive. I was astounded."

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Six million American men will be diagnosed with depression this year. But millions more suffer silently, unaware that their problem has a name or unwilling to seek treatment. In a confessional culture in which Americans are increasingly obsessed with their health, it may seem clich? d??"men are from Mars, women from Venus, and all that??"to say that men tend not to take care of themselves and are reluctant to own up to mental illness. But the facts suggest that, well, men tend not to take care of themselves and are reluctant to own up to mental illness. Although depression is emotionally crippling and has numerous medical implications??"some of them deadly??"many men fail to recognize the symptoms. Instead of talking about their feelings, men may mask them with alcohol, drug abuse, gambling, anger or by becoming workaholics. And even when they do realize they have a problem, men often view asking for help as an admission of weakness, a betrayal of their male identities.

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Pensions agency reports deficit of $18.1 billion - Retirement

Pensions agency reports deficit of $18.1 billion

Smaller shortfall aided by special cure for airlines

WASHINGTON - The federal agency that insures private pension plans for millions of Americans logged a deficit of $18.1 billion this year, a big improvement from last year as a new law helped to put the agency on better financial footing.

The narrower deficit for the 2006 fiscal year reported by the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. Wednesday was down from a shortfall of $22.8 billion recorded in 2005 and a record $23.3 billion posted in 2004.

The PBGC??�s financial condition appears to have stabilized for the time being, said Vince Snowbarger, interim director of the agency, which insures pensions for 44 million workers and retirees.

The agency disclosed in its annual financial report that as of Sept. 30 it had assets of $60 billion to cover liabilities of $78.1 billion.

PBGC mainly attributed the shrinking deficit to a provision in the new pension law that carves out special cure for the airline industry, giving airlines that are in bankruptcy court and have frozen their pension plans extra time for their pension plans to become financially whole.

The agency said this led to a sharp reduction in the amount of probable liabilities reflected on the agency??�s balance sheet.

Still, the report comes as Americans are feeling anxious about their retirement security. In recent years, an explosion of ailing companies have jettisoned their pension liabilities to the PBGC. The problem has been especially pronounced in industries such as steel and the airlines, which are heavily unionized.

Organized labor wants the new Democrat-controlled Congress, which will convene in January, to provide for more pension protections, including for defined benefit plans, which are increasingly being replaced by 401(k) plans.

The PBGC was created in 1974 as a government insurance program for traditional, defined benefit pension plans. Those plans give retirees a fixed monthly amount based on salary and years of employment. Companies that sponsor these traditional pension plans pay insurance premiums to the agency. If a company can??�t support its pension obligations, the agency takes over the plan and pays promised benefits up to certain limits.

The maximum annual benefit for plans taken over in 2006 is $47,659 for workers who wait until 65 to retire. Workers who retire before 65 get smaller benefits.

Addressing the PBGC??�s overall red ink this year, Greg McBride, senior financial analyst at Bankrate.com, said: From the individual worker??�s standpoint, you are still looking at a big deficit. The message here is even if you have a pension, you still need to save on your own because the health of that pension when you go to retire could be tenuous. So it is important to take advantage of tax-favored retirement savings options such as a 401(k) and an IRA.

Traditional pension plans are still underfunded but not by as much as in the past, the agency said. These pensions now are underfunded by $350 billion, compared with $450 billion last year. Higher interest rates, a better performing stock market, improved credit ratings and better plan funding by some companies were among the factors that helped to narrow this underfunding gap, economists said.

The agency said it was responsible for the pension benefits of 1.3 million workers and retirees this year, reflecting no net change from last year. The amount of benefits paid increased to $4.1 billion this year from $3.7 billion last year. The amount is projected to rise to $4.8 billion next year.

President Bush in August signed a bill to shore up funding for traditional pensions. Supporters hope the changes will help prevent a multibillion-dollar taxpayer bailout of the PBGC.

In addition to insurance premiums paid by companies, PBGC??�s operations are financed by money it earns from investments and funds from pension plans it takes over. The agency is not financed through tax revenues.

Copyright 2006 . .

10 plush places to de-stress - Luxury Travel

10 plush places to de-stress

These spas offer spiritual refreshment as well as lavish surroundings
� Breezes Beach Club
The Breezes Beach Club is situated on an untouched beach on the island of Zanzibar. The 70 rooms are decorated in ivory tones and have Zanzibar wood carvings. The Swahili style spa has dozens of treatments like "The Kili Foot Treatment," a restorative procedure for feet.

By Shivani Vora

If you're like many vacationers, your last trip was crammed with nonstop activity that left you feeling far from refreshed.

And let's not even bring up the BlackBerry.

That's why those in need of a break are foregoing a bike tour of Italy or a jaunt to Napa and signing up for the de-stressing getaway. Today, there are dozens of deluxe properties that offer these retreats.

"Upscale spiritual getaways have become a huge market," says Kathy Obbish, an agent at the Illinois-based travel company Custom Explorations, who has more than 16 years of experience in organizing such trips. "With the growing fast pace of our lives, people just don't want to go on vacation anymore. They want to go away and come back truly reinvigorated and recharged."

Also on this story

In Pictures: 10 Plush Places To De-Stress

While these trips incorporate traditional spa services like massages, they are different than your average spa vacation because they usually include a spirituality element of yoga, tai chi or meditation. Some facilities even have an alternative medicine doctor on-site who creates a personalized program for guests.

Souped-Up Soul Food
It wasn't too long ago that the only "spiritual vacations" available were monastic retreats offering bare-bones accommodations and meager food. But spiritual seekers today (according to research company MediaMark, the number of Americans practicing yoga is up 144% since 2001) are often wealthy baby boomers who see no contradiction between lapping up luxury while groping for inner peace.

More From Forbes.comClick below for more information•In Pictures: Best Beach Resorts•In Pictures: Unusual Trips And Tours•In Pictures: World's Most Remote Travel Destinations•In Pictures: Most Unusual Restaurants In The World•In Pictures: Celebrity Winter Holiday Spots"They want lovely accommodations and good food," Obbish says. "They're not going to accept anything less."

Those meeting this demand include The Emerson Resort and Spa in Mount Tremper, N.Y. Spirituality is the emphasis at this 52-room property, which opened in March. It's even surrounded by monasteries. In addition to yoga and tai chi, guests can take advantage of Panchakarama, an ancient Indian tradition that matches the needs of your body with certain Ayurvedic treatments. Guests meet with a consultant who puts together a three- or seven-day program.

If rejuvenating under the warm Caribbean sun on sandy beaches with clear blue water is what you crave, then consider the COMO Shambhala Retreat at Parrot Cay in the Turks and Caicos. Parrot Cay, a tony Caribbean property on its own 1000-acre island offers week-long retreats several times a year. High-profile yoga instructors like Rodney Yee lead students through five hours of yoga and meditation daily. In between sun salutations, guests feast on organic spa cuisine and indulge in spa therapies from China, India, Japan and Thailand.

"We started off offering these retreats occasionally, but they were so popular that we increased them to a few times a year," says Yenni Maelianawati, sales manager for COMO Shambhala. "More guests were requesting this type of a vacation."

Beyond-The-Pond Destinations
For many looking to relax, a long flight is not a detriment. Obbish says that 95% of such trips she books are to international locales.

� Desa SeniBook a stay at the Desa Seni Village Resort in Bali and you’ll find full moon yoga classes in an open air studio, and Balinese villages and shopping nearby. Ten antique houses with private terraces and views of rice fields serve as the accommodations. Rooms also have flat-screen TVs and DVD players. All the vegetables used in the meals are grown on-site. "Sometimes people also want a sense of culture when they're looking to relax," she says. "They feel that if they're going to truly unwind, they should do it in an environment that is unlike any they could find at home."

The Desa Seni Village Resort in Bali meets that agsdhfgdf, offering rejuvenation in an exotic setting. The 10-month-old property is actually a collection of 10 antique homes that are fitted with modern touches such as flat-screen televisions and DVD players. You can spend the days taking yoga classes in an open air studio overlooking rice fields or even practice poses under the full moon. Guests wanting to sample Balinese culture can visit nearby villages for shopping and sightseeing.

FirstPerson•Your world

readers submit
photos from their travels

Africa has several plush properties that focus on renewal. The Breezes Beach Club and Spa in Zanzibar, for example, has a Swahili style spa with dozens of treatments. And, if you tire of the pampering, the resort arranges snorkeling and scuba diving.

But getting a taste of the spiritual life doesn't come cheap, and while you're lounging, your wallet is doing the heavy lifting. Obbish says these trips can cost up to $15,000 a week for two people without any airfare.

Nobody said enlightenment was cheap.

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� 2007 Forbes.com

Gibson sorry after DUI arrest - Celebrity News

Mel Gibson apologizes after DUI arrest

Police report alleges actor made ‘barrage of anti-Semitic remarks’
NBC VIDEO•Gibson sorry for tirade, alleged slurs
July 30: Mel Gibson apologized for "despicable" remarks, including reported anti-Semitic slurs, made during his DUI arrest.

MALIBU, Calif. - Mel Gibson issued a lengthy statement Saturday apologizing for saying “despicable” things to sheriff's deputies when he was arrested for investigation of driving under the influence of alcohol.

“I acted like a person completely out of control when I was arrested and said things that I do not believe to be true and which are despicable,” the actor-director said without elaborating.

The entertainment Web site TMZ posted what it said were four pages from the original arrest report, which quoted Gibson as launching an expletive-laden “barrage of anti-Semitic remarks” after he was stopped early Friday on Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu.

According to the report, in addition to threatening the arresting deputy and trying to escape, Gibson said, “The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world,” and asked the officer, James Mee, “Are you a Jew?”

Gibson publicist Alan Nierob would not comment on the incident beyond the written statement.

Los Angeles County Sheriff’s spokesman Sgt. John Hocking said he could not confirm the TMZ report, and detectives would begin investigating Monday. Deputies at the Malibu sheriff’s station referred calls to headquarters. Numerous calls to other sheriff’s officials were not returned, and attempts to locate Mee, the deputy, were also unsuccessful.

The Los Angeles Times reported on its Web site late Saturday that the sheriff’s department’s civilian oversight office will investigate whether authorities gave Gibson preferential cure and tried to cover up his alleged behavior.

Sheriff Lee Baca defended his department’s handling of the case.

“There is no cover-up,” Baca told the Times. “Our job is not to (focus) on what he said. It’s to establish his blood-alcohol level when he was driving and proceed with the case. Trying someone on rumor and innuendo is no way to run an investigation, at least one with integrity.”

MORE ON MEL GIBSON•Gibson charged with drunken driving•Gibson admits remarks | Read his statement•Mixed response | Was apology too late?•Opinion: In any language, Gibson a schmuck •Newsweek: His true views or booze talking?•Malibu's Highway to the Stars strikes again•Gibson story laagsdhfgdf coup for TMZ.com In his statement, Gibson apologized for what he called “my belligerent behavior” when he was taken into custody.

“The arresting officer was just doing his job and I feel fortunate that I was apprehended before I caused injury to any other person,” he said.

“I disgraced myself and my family with my behavior and for that I am truly sorry. I have battled with the disease of alcoholism for all of my adult life and profoundly regret my horrific relapse.”

He said he was taking “necessary steps to ensure my return to health.”

if (window.MelGibson_vidgal) { displayApp(MelGibson_vidgal); }Gibson, 50, was arrested after deputies stopped his 2006 Lexus LS 430 for speeding at 2:36 a.m. Friday. Sheriff’s spokesman Steve Whitmore said deputies clocked him doing 87 mph in a 45 mph zone.

A breath agsdhfgdf indicated Gibson’s blood-alcohol level was 0.12 percent, Whitmore said. The legal limit in California is 0.08 percent.

The actor-director posted $5,000 bail and was released at 9:45 a.m.

Gibson won a best-director Oscar for 1995’s “Braveheart” and had a 2004 religious blockbuster with “The Passion of the Christ,” which many Jewish groups said contained anti-Semitic overtones. He also starred in the “Lethal Weapon” and “Mad Max” films, “What Women Want” and “The Man Without a Face,” among other movies.

� 2006 . .

Hep C infection may increase risk of lymphoma - Infectious Diseases

Hep C infection may increase risk of lymphoma

Virus can hike chances of immune-system cancer by 30 percent, experts say

WASHINGTON - Infection with the hepatitis C virus, already linked to liver cancer and cirrhosis, also increases the risk of developing non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a cancer of the immune system, researchers said on Tuesday.

Researchers tracked 146,394 U.S. military veterans infected with the virus and 572,293 veterans who were not, and found that hepatitis C infection boosted the risk for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma by 20 percent to 30 percent.

Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma is cancer that originates in the lymphoid tissue that makes up the lymph nodes, spleen and other organs of the immune system, with tumors developing from white blood cells. It is more common in men than women.

Hepatitis C infection also raised by 300 percent the risk for a rare form of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma called Waldenstrom’s macroglobulinemia. Risk for cryoglobulinemia, involving abnormal levels of certain antibodies in the blood, also rose.

The findings were published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The hepatitis C virus causes hepatitis, a disease marked by liver inflammation, as well as liver cancer and cirrhosis.

It is carried through the blood and spread from one person to another through the exchange of bodily fluids �" for example, by sharing needles during injection drug use or by sexual contact. It also was spread via blood transfusions before 1990, when screening for the virus began.

“The thought is that hepatitis C is a chronic infection, and as a chronic infection it results in chronic stimulation of the immune system. And these cancers are cancers of the immune system, essentially,” Dr. Thomas Giordano of Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, lead author of the study, said in a telephone interview.

Infection with the hepatitis C virus, also called HCV, came before the development of these cancers and the increased risk was long-lasting, the study found.

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“Although the risk of developing lymphomas is small, our research suggests that screening of HCV-infected individuals could identify conditions which may lead to cancer,” co-author Dr. Eric Engels of the National Cancer Institute, part of the U.S. National Institutes of health, said in a statement.

“It might then be possible to prevent progression to lymphoma,” Engels added.

The study looked at patients in U.S. Veterans Affairs health care facilities from 1997 to 2004. All but 3 percent were men, most were white, and their average age was 52.

There are more than 4 million people infected with the hepatitis C virus in the United States, representing 1.6 percent of the population.

Copyright 2007 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters.

'Raw' almonds may no longer be raw - Before You Bite

'Raw' almonds may no longer be raw

TODAY's Phil Lempert reports on effort to pasteurize the popular nuts
By Phil LempertTODAY Food Editor

Phil LempertTODAY Food Editor•Profile•document.write('')E-maildocument.write('');

The USDA is attempting to require that all almonds grown in California to be sterilized with various pasteurization techniques in response to Salmonella outbreaks in 2001 and 2004 that were traced to raw almonds. All almonds, with two exceptions, would undergo a sterilization process that includes chemicals and/or high-temperature treatments. Organic raw almonds will not be fumigated and undergo only the steam-heat treatment thus they are no longer "raw," and small-scale growers can sell "raw" almonds only direct from farm stands.

The Cornucopia Institute, a Wisconsin-based farm policy research group, is requesting that the Food and Drug Administration reopen the proceeding for public comment as the proposed change was not effectively communicated to the public. In fact, only 18 comments were received on the proposal �" all from the almond industry which, unlike consumers, retailers and other organizations concerned with food safety, received a personal letter or fax from the USDA on the proposal and an invitation to comment.

In light of the recent foodborne illnesses involving peanut butter, spinach, lettuce and pet foods there is little doubt that consumers are more concerned about food safety than ever, which certainly offers the USDA a window of opportunity to institute stricter regulations and different technologies to reduce food safety problems. Most food safety issues occur when contaminated water, soil or transportation and handling equipment come into contact with the product. But, according to The Cornucopia Institute, this USDA regulation might well be  ignoring the root causes of food contamination  "dangerous and unsustainable farming practices."

Concerns raised about the proposal include the costs of the chemical and heat treatments (a propylene oxide chamber runs up from $500,000 to $1,250,000 and a roasting line from $1,500,000 to $2,500,000) as well as transportation costs to and from treatment facilities, which would place a heavier burden on small farmers as opposed to big business.

Even more important is that the most common method of sterilizing almonds is by propylene oxide fumigation, which is listed by the International Agency on Cancer Research as a possible carcinogen. It is banned in the European Union, Canada and Mexico, among many others, from being used in the treatment of food for human consumption.

We agree with The Institute's main contention �" these almonds which would be labeled "raw" is deceptive to those who wish to buy truly raw, unprocessed almonds. It's time to separate out the technology benefits (or drawbacks) from labeling issues and allow shoppers to be able to trust what’s listed on the package as being “the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.”

For more food safety information and tips visit Phil’s website www.supermarketguru.com

Phil Lempert is food editor of the TODAY show. He welcomes questions and comments, which can be sent to phil.lempert@nbc.com or by using the mail box below. For more about the laagsdhfgdf trends on the supermarket shelves, visit Phil’s Web site at SuperMarketGuru.com.

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Can We Slow Aging? - Health For Life

Can We Slow Aging?

A compound found in red wine may extend the human life span. A report from the front lines.
Photo Illustration by Nitin Vadukul for Newsweek
Resveratrol: Does it protect from aging?

By By David Sinclair, Ph.D. and Anthony L. Komaroff, M.D.Newsweek

Dec. 11, 2006 issue - Nothing seems more inevitable than aging and death�"not even taxes. Every plant, animal and person you have ever seen will eventually die, including the person in the mirror. But some recent research suggests that aging as we know it may not be inevitable. Indeed, as our understanding of it grows, aging can be seen not as an immutable reality from which there is no escape, but as the product of biological processes that we may be able to control someday.

We already know that some animals do not seem to age. Many cold-water ocean fish, some amphibians and the American lobster never reach a fixed size; they continue to grow bigger, to be able to reproduce and to live until something kills them. What these creatures seem to be telling us is that something in their genes�"and possibly in ours�"controls the pace of aging, and that aging is not the fate of every living thing.

Throughout the history of life on earth, one of the most common difficulties that animals (and their cells) have faced has been a lack of food. About 70 years ago, scientists discovered that when animals are forced to live on 30 to 40 percent fewer calories than they would normally eat, something unusual happens: they become resistant to most age-related diseases�"cancer, heart disease, diabetes, Alzheimer's�"and live 30 to 50 percent longer. Restricting calories slows aging.

But how? What are the underlying genes that preserve vitality and stave off disease? No one knows for sure why aging occurs, but one important reason is probably the accumulation of DNA damage�"from radiation, mutation-causing chemicals or, particularly, oxidants. Inside every animal cell are many mitochondria�"little "power packs" that use oxygen to generate energy. In doing their jobs, however, mitochondria produce chemical byproducts�"oxidants �"that damage DNA and other components inside cells. It may not seem fair, but it's a fact of life. Fortunately, our cells are not defenseless against such assaults. They have genes that spring into action to defend against DNA damage, including genes that repair damaged mitochondria.

About 15 years ago, armed with powerful new molecular-research techniques, a few scientists began to investigate these genetic phenomena. At MIT, Dr. Leonard Guarente (along with one of the authors of this piece, David Sinclair) discovered that adding an extra copy of a gene called Sir2 caused yeast cells to live 30 percent longer. Today many researchers suspect that Sir2 or other sirtuin genes�"which are present in all animals, including humans�"are responsible for the health benefits of calorie restriction, perhaps by repairing our DNA. But if, in order to kick the sirtuins into action, we had to restrict our calorie intake by 30 to 40 percent, would it be of any practical use? Few of us would be capable of restricting our diets so severely that we were constantly hungry: whether or not it made life longer, it would surely make life feel longer.

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Cell phones don’t cause cancer, huge study says -

Cell phones don’t cause cancer, huge study says

Findings on 420,000 people in Denmark give gadget a clean bill of health
Mario Tama / Getty Images file
Cell phones beam radiofrequency energy that can penetrate the brain’s outer edge, which has raised questions about cancers of the head and neck, brain tumors or leukemia. Most research has found no risk.

WASHINGTON - A huge study from Denmark offers the laagsdhfgdf reassurance that cell phones don’t trigger cancer.

Scientists tracked 420,000 Danish cell phone users, including 52,000 who had gabbed on the gadgets for 10 years or more, and some who started using them 21 years ago.

They matched phone records to the famed Danish Cancer Registry that records every citizen who gets the disease �" and reported Tuesday that cell-phone callers are no more likely than anyone else to suffer a range of cancer types.

The study, published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, is the largest yet to find no bad news about the safety of cell phones and the radiofrequency energy they emit.

No end to the debate
But even the lead researcher doubts it will end the debate.

“There’s really no biological basis for you to be concerned about radio waves,” said John Boice, a Vanderbilt University professor and scientific director of the International Epidemiology Institute in Rockville, Md. “Nonetheless, people are.”

So Boice and colleagues at Copenhagen’s Danish Cancer Society plan to continue tracking the Danish callers until at least some have used the phones for 30 years.

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This so-called Danish cohort “is probably the strongest study out there because of the outstanding registries they keep,” said Joshua Muscat of Pennsylvania State University, who also has studied cell phones and cancer.

Reassurance ... for now
“As the body of evidence accumulates, people can become more reassured that these devices are safe, but the final word is not there yet,” Muscat added.

Cell phones beam radiofrequency energy that can penetrate the brain’s outer edge, raising questions about cancers of the head and neck, brain tumors or leukemia. Most research has found no risk, but a few studies have raised questions. And while U.S. health officials insist the evidence shows no real reason for concern, they don’t give the phones a definitive clean bill of health, either, pending long-term data on slow-growing cancers.

For the laagsdhfgdf study, personal identification numbers assigned to each Dane at birth allowed researchers to match people who began using cell phones between 1982 and 1995 with cancer records.

Among 420,000 callers tracked through 2002, there were 14,249 cancers diagnosed �" fewer than the 15,001 predicted from national cancer rates. Nor did the study find increased risks for any specific tumor type.

� 2007 . .

Retailers roll out low-cost health services - Personal Finance

Attention shoppers: Flu shots in aisle five

More retailers roll out low-cost health care services
Vanessa RichardsonContributor

Vanessa RichardsonContributor•document.write('')E-maildocument.write('');Lorie Vick of Orlando, Fla., had originally stopped at her local CVS drugstore to buy contact-lens solution, but then she saw signs for flu shots. She walked to the back of the store and saw the offer came from MinuteClinic, a mini-healthcare center next to the medicament counter that offered treatments for minor ailments ranging from allergies to warts. Fifteen minutes later, Vick got her shot, and the next day she brought her teenage son Tim back for his.

"It would have taken twice or three times as long waiting at my doctor’s office, so this is great," Vick said.

Tim agreed and added, "You can look at more stuff here."

More people are heading to their local drug store instead of their family doctor for medical checkups. Establishments like MinuteClinic, Take Care and RediCare are taking up more space in major retail stores to diagnose, treat and write prescriptions for patients with common illnesses.

MinuteClinic, the nation’s largest operator of retail clinics, has 116 stores in 17 states and boasts of seeing more than 600,000 patients since it started in 2000. It was purchased by CVS last July. Other major retailers, eager to boost profits and customer share, are following suit. Target, Kroger, Wal-Mart and Walgreen are partnering with more than a dozen clinic operators to open thousands of in-store health care centers in the next two years.

Because many clinics just lease space in their stores, retailers don’t expect to make money from the health clinics themselves but rather from increased customer traffic before and after appointments.

They also increase retailers’ emphasis on health care, said Michael Polzin, spokesman for Walgreens, which will have TakeCare clinics in 60 stores by year’s end. "The medicament makes up two-thirds of our revenue so we consider ourselves a healthcare retailer anyway. These clinics add to our reputation of being more convenient and accessible to customers."

Cheap, convenient health care
The clinics are typically small, with one or two exam rooms, and are staffed by board-certified nurse practitioners or physician assistants, but usually have a physician's oversight. At Take Care clinics, for example, doctors review 10 percent of patient charts and visit clinics once a month. Clinics can treat anyone over the age of 18 months, but if an ailment is too serious, such as asthma or diabetes, clinics refer patients to a local doctor or emergency room.

No appointments are required, they are open evenings and weekends and visits often take no more than 15 minutes. If the wait is still too long, some clinics give out pagers so people can shop while waiting.

Patients know ahead of time what they’ll pay for their treatment because prices are posted outside each center. For those with health insurance, MinuteClinic charges the office co-pay indicated on the insurance card; those paying out of their own pocket are charged between $49 and $59 per treatment. That compares favorably that to a standard doctor’s visit, which could cost over $100.

Live Vote

Would you visit a medical clinic in a retail store?

Even though most Americans have yet to see these mini-clinics in their corner drugstores, those who have are pleased with the speedy, inexpensive care. A Harris Poll of 2,200 people found that while only 7 percent of respondents had visited a clinic, 89 percent of them were happy with the care they got.

Vicki Partridge paid $39 for a pregnancy agsdhfgdfing at an Early Solutions clinic in Taylor, Mich.,  during her lunch hour. She had gone there for pinkeye treatment a month prior, so the nurse practitioner pulled up her files, saw that she had insurance and was allergic to penicillin. Partridge was in and out within 30 minutes, less time than it would have taken round-trip to her doctor’s office. "It was so worth not having to go through the hassle of making an appointment, and it was probably cheaper," she said.

CONTINUED: The future of medicine?1 | 2 | Next >

Steer clear of road rage on your commute - Mental Health

Road rage can churn in the calmest of hearts

Here’s how to keep your blood pressure in check on your next commute
Ben Grefsrud / msnbc.com
By By Patrick Enright contributor

David Stallings isn't the kind of person you'd expect to succumb to road rage. He is calm and mild mannered, a longtime Zen Buddhist. Plus, he's professionally dedicated to safe transportation �" he works for Seattle's Metro Transit.

But years ago, while trapped in traffic in his truck, he happened across his daughter's white plastic toy ray gun, complete with flashing lights. On a whim, he surreptitiously used it to zap a car that had just cut him off.

"I thought, 'Well, that's kind of satisfying,'" he says. The satisfaction lasted a year. Then, "it dawned on me that I was sort of giving vent to some of the same [aggression] that I was condemning."

Road rage and roadway congestion are familiar scenarios for millions of American drivers, and they're not getting any better. A 2006 Transportation Research Board report noted that congestion is increasing in intensity, extent and duration. Average one-way travel time for commuters in 2000 was 25.5 minutes, three minutes more than in 1990.

Certainly anecdotal reports of aggression behind the wheel are increasing. Consider the case of the Raleigh, N.C., driver who allegedly circled the block and ran down a pedestrian who had dared to yell at him to slow down. Or the driver who ran a fellow motorist off the road in Peoria, Ariz., for talking on his cell phone. Or the off-duty Detroit police officer facing charges for allegedly firing shots at an SUV driver who had accidentally hit his Dodge Magnum. And those are just incidents from the past few months.

Fight or flight
Exact figures for incidents of road rage are hard to come by, partly because the behaviors are difficult to define precisely. A 2002 survey done by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration found that 40 percent of drivers felt other drivers had become more aggressive in the past year, compared with 30 percent who felt that way in 1997.

Normally, when stress becomes overwhelming, experts suggest taking a break from the situation or setting aside time to exercise. But in a car, your options are limited. Seething? Don't forget to breathe-Get comfortable by loosening tight clothing or rolling down the window.-Distract yourself �" listen to calming music or an audiobook.-Take a series of slow, deep breaths to reduce anger and stress.-Don't assume the worst, and realize that every driver makes mistakes.-Think of the big picture; an extra five minutes won't kill you. Driving aggressively might.-Treat other drivers with the same common courtesy you'd expect in the grocery aisle.

"Stress is a fight-or-flight reaction," says New York psychologist Carol Goldberg. "If [people] can't flee, like they're stuck in a traffic jam, they fight and get road rage."

So how can you keep from succumbing to blood-pressure-raising fury when you're crammed behind the wheel? These tips from experts can help you change your body and your mind:

Get comfortable. Gerry Matthews, a psychology professor at the University of Cincinnati who has studied driver behavior, says driver comfort "plays into driver fatigue and there's a close relationship between fatigue and stress. Stress makes you fatigued and fatigue makes you stressed." Adjust the temperature so you're not too warm, loosen your tie or other tight-fitting clothing and make sure your seat is positioned so you're relaxed to avoid the physical tension that comes with stress.

Distract yourself �" but only a little. "Instead of honking your horn and trying to find shortcuts and giving everybody the finger, you could say, 'Look, I'm going to use this time productively,'" suggests Dr. Paul Rosch, president of the American Institute of Stress. Listening to soothing music, audiobooks or foreign-language tapes is a way for drivers to block out the annoyance of traffic. But be careful. As Matthews points out, talking on a cell phone, hands-free or not, "is distracting and dangerous when driving."

Breathe deeply. You don't need to be an expert in meditation to benefit from deep breathing. Rick Waranch, a part-time psychology faculty member at Johns Hopkins University, recommends simply taking seven or eight slow breaths per minute from the diaphragm, breathing in through the nose and out through the mouth.

Don't make assumptions. It's easy to think that the guy in the BMW cut you off maliciously, but that doesn't mean it's true. Social psychologists have a name for this kind of assumption: the fundamental attribution error. It's our tendency to ascribe behavior too much to underlying personality traits and too little to the particular situation. Maybe the Beemer driver is a doctor rushing to surgery to save a life. Assuming the worst will only add to your stress. Also, remember you're equally prone to mistakes. One study Matthews cites asked people to rate their own driving safety and the skills of other drivers. The result? "People overestimate … their driving ability," says Matthews.

Think of the big picture. Does it really matter if your 15-minute drive takes you 20 minutes, or if you let in that merging SUV? Rational thinking is difficult when you're seeing red, but with practice, it's doable. Waranch has helped several patients suffering from driving-related stress. "It's largely convincing yourself that it's pretty stupid to [drive aggressively], that it's unhealthy, and that it's not going to serve any purpose," he says.

Be self-aware. Knowing what triggers stress in you is key to reducing it, Matthews says. Accepting that other drivers are beyond your control can improve your attitude. It's also good to recognize that driving a car conveys a false sense of invulnerability and adds a degree of anonymity that can make the best of us behave less than graciously. Applying the common courtesy you'd exhibit in the grocery-store checkout line while on the road can make driving in traffic less confrontational and even collaborative.

Click for related contentSurvey: Miami leads nation in road rageReader survey: Do you see red behind the wheel?'Road rage' gets a medical diagnosisCan't take more stress? How to get a gripQuiz: How vulnerable are you to stress?Readers rage on over offenses on the road

For Stallings, the toy gun wasn't the answer. His Buddhist leanings made breathing exercises a natural solution.

"It's a way not only to let [the irritation] go but to feel engaged … in a positive way," he says. "All you have to do is just kind of turn a corner."

Patrick Enright is a Seattle-based freelance writer and editor whose work has appeared in , Mr. Showbiz, Wall of Sound, Movies.com and Seattle Weekly.

� 2007

Microsoft role complicates ‘$100 laptop’ - Tech News & Reviews

Microsoft role complicates ‘$100 laptop’

Company says it's uncertain whether it can fit Windows on the machines
Anja Niedringhaus / AP
Co-Founder and Chairman of the MIT Media Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Nicholas Negroponte shows off the '$100 laptop' at a news conference.

By By Brian Bergstein

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - One of the most ambitious aspects of the "$100 laptop" project for schoolchildren in developing countries is the machines' open-source software platform, designed to be intuitive for kids.

That's why many people were taken aback last week when the founder of the nonprofit laptop project, Nicholas Negroponte, announced that buyers of the machine will be able to add Windows, the ultimate in proprietary software.

( is a joint Microsoft - NBC Universal venture.)

However, Microsoft Corp. says it's uncertain whether it can fit Windows on the laptops. Will Poole, who heads Microsoft's emerging-markets group, says the limited storage space (recently upped to 1 gigabyte of flash memory) and other original elements on the One Laptop Per Child program's "XO" computer aren't welcoming for Windows.

"I don't know how to get the thing to run on less than 2 gigs," he said. Plus, at least 10 custom drivers �" which tell an operating system how to interact with hardware �" need to be designed, Poole said.

Why does this matter? Because One Laptop Per Child is still negotiating with several governments to finalize orders for at least 3 million of the machines, the level at which the project's mass-distribution plans kick in.

And with the computers' price now up to $175 ($100 is the long-term goal), some officials might want Windows as a potential backup if the machines' alternative interface doesn't capture children's fancy as envisioned.

"We have had requests from government officials who are looking at that device, to ask us if it can run Windows," Poole said.

Negroponte seemed to deliver a definitive yes to that question: "We will run Windows," he said last week. Asked for elaboration, a spokesman for Negroponte wrote in an e-mail: "He was stating a fact �" not a hope or a desire."

But Poole said the answer should have been maybe: "I cannot make any promises," he said. "There's work still to be done. People should not bank on having Windows."

For his part, Negroponte wasn't touting Windows itself as much as user choice. He stressed the educational theories behind his project's original interface, which is open-source so as to let children tinker with it. He also said government ministers had not really been asking him about Windows on the machines, citing Egpyt as a rare exception. But he acknowledged that the potential to run Windows could reduce the risk for some buyers.

"He's playing to some purchasing minister somewhere," said Wayan Vota, who directs the Geekcorps international tech-development organization and follows the laptop project closely at his OLPCNews blog. Vota added that he hopes no XO buyers switch to Windows, because he believes Microsoft's software would be unable to utilize many of XO's innovations, including its radical power-saving capabilities and wireless networking functions.

Complicating the mix is an emerging little computer for the developing world from Intel Corp. _ the Classmate PC, which can run Windows or Linux. Intel expects its price to fall below $250 by the middle of the year and just signed a deal to sell 700,000 Classmates in Pakistan _ one of the countries that One Laptop Per Child hopes to reach.

Meanwhile, Microsoft recently announced a $3 Windows "starter edition" package for international governments that subsidize student computers.

After Negroponte's comments last week, representatives from his group objected to ' description that the nonprofit was "working with" Microsoft so Windows could run on the computers. Spokesmen for the project insisted that Microsoft was acting on its own accord, and that Microsoft got "beta" versions of the XO computers just like a lot of other companies have.

"OLPC has no working relationship with Microsoft nor does Microsoft get any special treatment," said a statement from One Laptop's president for software and development, Walter Bender. "They are just another software company interested in the project. OLPC is aware that Microsoft wants to create a Windows platform for the laptop, but OLPC is not involved in that project in any way."

Certainly, Negroponte's and Poole's differing reports about Windows on XO indicate the camps are not exactly on the same page. But it's unclear whether they are as distant as the public-relations statement would hold.

Negroponte told a Linux convention in April 2006 that he had been discussing with Microsoft how Windows could run on the computers �" which is why he was displeased when Bill Gates pooh-poohed the laptop effort.

Click for related content'$100 laptop' to cost $175Microsoft extends XP supportReview: Vista, Microsoft's new Windows

More recently, Negroponte has been quoted as saying the laptops got an SD port �" where Secure Digital cards can be inserted, expanding the memory available �" so Windows could work. (Bender contradicted that, saying the SD port was added to provide extra space for photos taken with the computer's camera.)

"It is true that we have been working together," Microsoft's Poole said. "We have been having active, high-level conversations going on two years now."

Copyright 2007 . .

Doctors, insurers ask, ‘Who are you?’ - Nightly News with Brian Williams

More doctors, insurers asking, ‘Who are you?’

Medical identity theft, on the rise, can threaten lives as well as wallets
NBC VIDEO•Medical ID theft creates concerns
April 3: Medical ID theft is on the rise in the United States, and there’s more to be worried about than just the financial ramifications. NBC’s Anne Thompson reports.

Nightly News

By By Anne Thompson and Alex JohnsonNBC News

Anne ThompsonChief environmental correspondent•ProfileAndrew Brooke’s family knew something was screwy when they got a collection notice for unpaid bills for cure of his work-related back injury, which included large prescriptions of the controlled painkiller Oxycontin.

“I’m looking at this bill, and I’m looking at my 3-week-old baby that can’t even hold his head up, and it’s just a sense of outrage,” said Andrew’s father, John Brooke, of Bothell, Wash., a suburb of Seattle.

Likewise, Jo-Ann Davis knew there was a mistake when a cop greeted her at the medicament where she had gone to pick up a prescription in early 2005.

“I’ve never even had a speeding ticket,” said Davis, a veterinary technician from Moon, Pa., near Pittsburgh.

Medical providers, it turned out, thought Andrew and Davis were other people. Their medical identities had been stolen.

These are not isolated incidents: In a report last year, the World Privacy Forum found that the number of Americans identifying themselves in government documents as victims of medical identity theft had nearly tripled in just four years, to more than a quarter-million in 2005.

Motives for medical identity theft can vary. Some thieves, as in these cases, are seeking controlled medications. Others are seeking federal money. A case that wrapped up in January in Southern California illustrates just how sophisticated such operations can be.

Five health care providers pleaded guilty to stealing more than $900,000 in 2003 by luring hundreds of elderly Vietnamese patients to a fake medical clinic in Milpitas, where they would offer free checkups. According to prosecutors, they would copy the patients’ Medicare records and then use the information to bill the government for phantom services.

Click for related coverageRead the full World Privacy Forum report (PDF)Check your records: State-by-state guide

Steep costs on money and lives
Of all the forms of identity theft, misappropriation of your medical records is among the most damaging. It’s not just the financial toll �" if your medical identity is stolen, erroneous entries can turn up in your records, which could end up killing you.

Get your medical records

All hospitals and most doctors have a release form you can use to request your records. Because state laws differ on how long such records must be archived, call the office to make sure your records still exist.

You can have your records sent to yourself or directly to a health care professional. If you do have the records sent to a health professional, let him or her know to expect the files.

In many cases, a letter may be all you need. It should include:

-Your birthdate-Your full name (including any information about name changes)-When you were seen -The specific information you want

Source: GeneticHealth.com

“If someone shows up in an emergency room and this has happened to them, they could receive improper cure, and that is a real problem,” said Pam Dixon, executive director of the World Privacy Forum, a nonprofit research group.

For example, if an identity thief presents himself at the hospital in your name and is identified as having a different blood type, that blood type ends up registered in your medical history, with potentially disastrous consequences if you end up in a serious accident.

Or suppose you apply for a new job. Even if you’re fit as a fiddle, you could still fail a pre-employment medical screening or be rejected for company-provided health insurance because of the inaccurate presence of an ailment in your medical history that you don’t have.

It is also the most difficult type of identity theft to fix after the fact, because victims have limited recourse. Dixon found that medical identity theft typically leaves a trail of false information in medical records that can plague victims for years, because even if you manage to correct your records in one place, it’s almost impossible to track down everywhere they have been disseminated across the networks of medical providers, insurers and government agencies.

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Too many roadblocks
Five states �" California, Florida, Nevada, Arkansas and Delaware �" have recently passed or are considering laws to address breaches of medical information, but the privacy forum still recommends that everyone check his or her medical records for accuracy.

Live survey

Are you confident your records are safe?

Georgetown University’s Center on Medical Rights and Privacy maintains a state-by-state guide to checking your records. But if you find an error, trying to correct it can be a complex and sometimes fruitless task.

Alex JohnsonReporter•Profile

The federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, or HIPAA, requires health care providers and insurers to give you access to your medical records and to give you a copy of their privacy practices. If your records are wrong, the act gives providers and insurers as long as 90 days to respond, but if they disagree with you, they don’t have to do anything.

Moreover, HIPAA doesn’t require medical providers and insurers to remove incorrect information; in fact, it says that if incorrect information leads to inappropriate cure, the bad information should not be removed from your records, in order to preserve a paper trail.

CONTINUED: Authorities slow to prosecute1 | 2 | Next >