Tuesday, May 31, 2011
NYPD: Another financial figure accused of hotel sexual assault
New York The chairman of a salt company who once headed an Egyptian bank was arrested Monday in New York, accused of sexually abusing an employee at a luxury hotel.Mahmoud Abdel-Salam Omar is charged with sexual abuse, unlawful imprisonment, forcible touching and harassment, according to the New York Police Department.
The alleged incident took place Sunday -- a little more than two weeks after Dominique Strauss-Kahn, then chief of the International Monetary Fund, was accused of sexually assaulting and attempting to rape a housekeeping employee at another swank New York hotel. Strauss-Kahn's attorneys deny the allegations, and he has since stepped down from the IMF to focus on his defense.
Omar, 74, did not immediately make a public statement.
The New York Police Department said it was informed Monday of an incident at the Pierre Hotel in Manhattan. Police came to the hotel, where the alleged victim told them that at about 6 p.m. Sunday she went to Omar's room to drop off tissues he had requested. "Once inside the room the victim was sexually abused," police said.
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A spokeswoman for Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance said prosecutors would not release any information until after Omar's arraignment, which could take place Tuesday.
The Pierre Hotel released a statement saying, "The Pierre's priority is the safety of our guests and staff. We take all complaints very seriously and investigate thoroughly. This incident has been formally reported to the New York Police Department and is under investigation. And we will fully comply with the investigation as requested."
Omar is chairman of El-Mex Salines Co. On its website, the firm describes itself as a subsidiary of Chemical Industries Holding Co., a chemical production company. It is "one of the oldest international companies in (the) salt industry," the website says.
A spokesman for El-Mex Salines said that Omar was head of the Bank of Alexandria 15 years ago.
El-Mex Salines had no immediate comment on the arrest.
The Bank of Alexandria was established in 1957 as an Egyptian joint stock company, according to its website. It was privatized in 2006.
75 additional bodies recovered from Air France crash after 2 years
75 additional bodies recovered from Air France crash after 2 years
May 31, 2011 11:42 a.m. EDT
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- The remains have not been identified, a French relative says
- The recovery more than doubles the number of bodies found since the 2009 crash
- Air France 447 plunged into the ocean, killing 228 people
Paris Seventy-five additional bodies have been recovered from the wreckage of an Air France plane that crashed off the coast of Brazil two years ago, more than doubling the number of remains that have been found, the vice-president of the French victims' association told CNN Tuesday.The remains have not yet been identified, Robert Soulas said.
Air France 447 plunged into the Atlantic Ocean on June 1, 2009, killing all 228 people aboard. The bulk of the wreckage was found this year after a search by robot submarines of an underwater mountain range.
Many bodies were still in the fuselage, investigators said at the time. Only about 50 bodies were recovered in the days following the crash.
Soulas got the news from a French government liaison appointed to deal with families of victims, he said.
"Personally, I would have preferred to leave the bodies of our loved ones on the seafloor," he added, repeating his long-held view.
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The Brazilian national news agency Agencia Brasil reported Tuesday that Nelson Faria Marinho, head of the Brazilian victims organization, said that with the latest recovery, the number of bodies found since the accident now totals 127.
Details of the doomed plane's last minutes only began to emerge last week as French air accident investigators studied data recorders recovered from the wreck earlier this year.
The Airbus A330 plummeted 38,000 feet in just three minutes and 30 seconds amid conflicting information that may have led the pilots to make bad decisions, France's Bureau of Investigation and Analysis (BEA) said Friday.
The pilots got conflicting air speed readings in the minutes leading up to the crash, according to an interim report. The aircraft climbed to 38,000 feet when "the stall warning was triggered and the airplane stalled," the report says.
Aviation experts are asking why the pilots responded to the stall by pulling the nose up instead of pushing it down to recover.
Miles O'Brien, a pilot and aviation analyst, said: "You push down on the wheel to gain air speed, perhaps they (pilots) were getting information that the air speed was too high. Pulling the nose up will exacerbate an aerodynamic stall."
The speeds displayed on the left primary flight display were "inconsistent" with those on the integrated standby instrument system (ISIS), the report says.
The aircraft experienced some "rolling" before stalling and then descending rapidly at 10,912 feet (3,300 meters) per minute.
At the time of the descent, the two co-pilots and captain were in the aircraft cockpit.
All 228 people aboard the Airbus A330 Flight 447 from Rio de Janeiro to Paris were killed on June 1, 2009.
The pilots lost contact with air traffic controllers while flying across an area of the Atlantic Ocean known for constant bands of severe turbulence.
Air crash investigators at the Paris-based BEA have been working on the theory that the speed sensors, known as pitot tubes or probes, malfunctioned because of ice at high altitude.
Cause for alarm: Antipsychotic drugs for nursing home patients
When a loved one moves into a nursing home, the support of family and friends is particularly important. This is especially true when the nursing home patient has dementia and can't adequately advocate on 
his or her own behalf.
A newly released report from my office -- the Office of the Inspector General for the Department of Health and Human Services -- makes clear just how crucial it is for families to monitor and ask questions about medications that such patients receive. The report found that too often, elderly residents are prescribed antipsychotic drugs in ways that violate government standards for unnecessary drug use.
Frequently, they are prescribed in ways that don't qualify as medically accepted for Medicare coverage. In addition, the drugs were predominately prescribed for uses that are not approved by the Food and Drug Administration.
But the most potentially troubling finding of the study is this: Researchers found that 88% of the time, these drugs were prescribed for elderly people with dementia.
Many pharmaceutical companies have improperly promoted these drugs to doctors and nursing homes for years.
--Daniel Levinson
--Daniel Levinson
This is precisely the population that faces an increased risk of death when using this class of drugs, according to the FDA. That's why the agency puts its strongest safety warning, called a "black box warning" on these antipsychotic drugs, cautioning about the risk of death when taken by elderly people with dementia.
The report didn't investigate why patients with dementia are prescribed antipsychotic drugs so often. But a series of lawsuits and settlements that my office helped bring about suggests that many pharmaceutical companies have improperly promoted these drugs to doctors and nursing homes for many years.
The study began a few years ago, when a member of Congress questioned how many nursing home residents received a class of antipsychotic drugs introduced in the 1990s, among them risperidone and olanzapine. These drugs are known as "atypical" or "second generation" antipsychotics. They replaced the antipsychotic drugs introduced in the 1950s and 1960s to treat schizophrenia -- and, incidentially, are far costlier.
The report found about 305,000 nursing home residents (about 14%) had Medicare claims for atypical antipsychotic drugs. Of these, about one in five residents was prescribed these antipsychotics in a way that violated government standards for their use. For example, residents were on a drug for too long, or at too high a dose.
Another finding: A little more than half the antipsychotic drug claims for which Medicare paid should not have been covered. Why? The claimed drugs were not used for medically accepted reasons or there were no records the drugs were actually provided.
To be clear: Most physicians and nursing homes dispense antipsychotic drugs with the best interests of patients in mind. Physicians can use their medical judgment to prescribe drugs for uses unapproved by the FDA, and also to patients for whom the boxed warning applies. Ideally, however, doctors who prescribe in such ways first determine that the benefits outweigh the risks.
Yet it remains a concern that so many elderly nursing home residents with dementia are prescribed antipsychotics. And, unfortunately, examples abound of companies' improper promotion of these drugs.
Government investigations of Bristol-Myers Squibb, AstraZeneca and Pfizer found that they improperly promoted their antipsychotic drugs for unapproved uses.
Federal prosecution is pending against Johnson & Johnson for allegedly paying millions of dollars in kickbacks to induce Omnicare, the nation's largest long-term care pharmacy, to recommend the use of Risperdal in treating nursing home patients, many of whom had dementia.
And Eli Lilly pleaded guilty to criminal charges associated with illegally marketing its drug Zyprexa, including to doctors who treat elderly nursing home patients.
Pharmaceutical companies have paid billions to resolve civil and criminal liabilities under federal health and safety laws. But money can't adequately compensate for corporate campaigns that could put vulnerable, elderly patients at risk.
How do we solve this problem? There's plenty to do.
Family members of nursing home residents must learn about their loved ones' medications, the reasons for their use, proper dosages and possible side effects.
Nursing homes and pharmacies that serve the elderly must keep the best interests of the patient in mind when dispensing pharmaceuticals and not base the decision on the improper influence of drug companies.
Doctors, too, should rely on their best medical judgments and engage in an especially careful analysis when prescribing drugs for off-label use.
Government must combat illegal off-label promotion of these powerful and potentially lethal drugs and uphold nursing home safety standards.
And drug companies should follow the laws, and refrain from promoting drugs for unapproved uses -- or paying kickbacks to influence doctors and institutions. About 46 million people are enrolled in Medicare. That will only grow as the huge baby boomer population retires. We cannot afford to leave unaddressed the urgent problem of antipsychotic drug use among elderly nursing home residents.
The opinions in this commentary are solely those of Daniel Levinson.
WHO: Cell phone use can increase possible cancer risk
Radiation from cell phones can possibly cause cancer, according to the World Health Organization. The agency now lists mobile phone use in the same "carcinogenic hazard" category as lead, engine exhaust and chloroform.Before its announcement Tuesday, WHO had assured consumers that no adverse health effects had been established.
A team of 31 scientists from 14 countries, including the United States, made the decision after reviewing peer-reviewed studies on cell phone safety. The team found enough evidence to categorize personal exposure as "possibly carcinogenic to humans."
What that means is they found some evidence of increase in glioma and acoustic neuroma brain cancer for mobile phone users, but have not been able to draw conclusions for other types of cancers
"The biggest problem we have is that we know most environmental factors take several decades of exposure before we really see the consequences," said Dr. Keith Black, chairman of neurology at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.
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The type of radiation coming out of a cell phone is called non-ionizing. It is not like an X-ray, but more like a very low-powered microwave oven.
"What microwave radiation does in most simplistic terms is similar to what happens to food in microwaves, essentially cooking the brain," Black said. "So in addition to leading to a development of cancer and tumors, there could be a whole host of other effects like cognitive memory function, since the memory temporal lobes are where we hold our cell phones."
Wireless industry responded to Tuesday's announcement saying it "does not mean cell phones cause cancer." CTIA-The Wireless Association added that WHO researchers "did not conduct any new research, but rather reviewed published studies."
The European Environmental Agency has pushed for more studies, saying cell phones could be as big a public health risk as smoking, asbestos and leaded gasoline. The head of a prominent cancer-research institute at the University of Pittsburgh sent a memo to all employees urging them to limit cell phone use because of a possible risk of cancer.
"When you look at cancer development -- particularly brain cancer -- it takes a long time to develop. I think it is a good idea to give the public some sort of warning that long-term exposure to radiation from your cell phone could possibly cause cancer," said Dr. Henry Lai, research professor in bioengineering at University of Washington who has studied radiation for more than 30 years.
Results from the largest international study on cell phones and cancer was released in 2010. It showed participants in the study who used a cell phone for 10 years or more had doubled the rate of brain glioma, a type of tumor. To date, there have been no long-term studies on the effects of cell phone usage among children.
"Children's skulls and scalps are thinner. So the radiation can penetrate deeper into the brain of children and young adults. Their cells are at a dividing faster rate, so the impact of radiation can be much larger." said Black of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.
In February, a study by researchers at the National Institutes of Health, revealed radiation emitted after just 50 minutes on a mobile phone increases the activity in brain cells. The effects of brain activity being artificially stimulated are still unknown.
Neurosurgeon and CNN chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta says Tuesday's announcement, "dealt a blow to those who have long said, 'There is no possible mechanism for cell phones to cause cancer.' By classifying cell phones as a possible carcinogen, they also seem to be tacitly admitting a mechanism could exist."
Manufacturers of many popular cell phones already warn consumers to keep their device away from their body.
The Apple iPhone 4 safety manual says users' radiation exposure should not exceed FCC guidelines: "When using iPhone near your body for voice calls or for wireless data transmission over a cellular network, keep iPhone at least 15 millimeters (5/8 inch) away from the body."
BlackBerry Bold advises users to, "keep the BlackBerry device at least 0.98 inch (25 millimeters) from your body when the BlackBerry device is transmitting."
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