China suspends some U.S. meat imports
Sat, 14 Jul 2007 17:52:11 GMTBy ANITA CHANG, Associated Press Writer
BEIJING - China has suspended imports of chicken feet, pig ears and other animal products from seven U.S. companies, including the world's largest meat processor, in an apparent attempt to turn the tables on American complaints about tainted products from China.
The American meat had contaminants including salmonella, feed additives and veterinary drugs, according to a list posted on the Web site of China's General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine late Friday.
The U.S. and other countries have cracked down on Chinese products since the U.S. Food and Drug Administration found in April that North American dogs and cats were poisoned by tainted Chinese pet food ingredients. Since then, a growing number of Chinese products have been found to be tainted with potentially toxic chemicals and other adulterants.
In recent weeks, Chinese authorities have been prominently announcing their own rejections of imports, including U.S. orange pulp, dried apricots, raisins and health supplements — apparently to show that they are not the only ones with food safety problems.
The Chinese agency said frozen poultry from Springdale, Ark.-based Tyson Foods Inc., the world's largest meat processor, was contaminated with salmonella.
Frozen chicken feet from Laurel, Miss.-based Sanderson Farms Inc. were tainted with residue of an anti-parasite drug, and frozen pork ribs from Wichita, Kan.-based Cargill Meat Solutions Corp. contained the leanness-enhancing feed additive ractopamine, the agency said.
Frozen pig ears from Kansas City, Mo.-based Van Luin Foods USA, Inc. were found to contain ractopamine. Frozen chicken feet from Atlanta-based Intervision Foods was tainted with salmonella, and frozen pork from Atlanta's AJC International, Inc. was tainted with ractopamine, the agency said.
Both stewed chicken feet and pig ears are popular dishes in China.
Sausage casing from a seventh company, listed by the Chinese agency as "Thumph Foods," was also found to contain ractopamine, according to the Chinese agency. It was not clear whether it was referring to Triumph Foods of St. Joseph, Mo.
Mark Klein, a spokesman for Minneapolis-based Cargill Inc., disputed the Chinese inspectors' findings that his company's products were tainted and said Cargill hoped to resolve the issue by working with U.S. and Chinese officials.
"We're proud of our products and our processes, and we'll be delighted to talk about them with all concerned," he said.
Cargill is the parent company of Cargill Meat Solutions Corp., which as of 2005 was the ninth leading pork producer in the U.S., according to the National Pork Producers Council.
Libby Lawson, a spokeswoman for Tyson Foods, said the company knew nothing about any tainted product.
"We're disappointed with this news from China and are investigating these claims as this is the first we've heard of this development," she said. "We have received no notice from the Chinese government about this matter. We will work with the U.S. and Chinese government to get this matter resolved."
Officials with the other companies could not immediately be reached for comment.
Although China supplies most of its own meat, its imports of foreign meat are growing. A contagious disease has killed tens of thousands of pigs in China this year, and many farmers have stopped raising pigs because of worries they would lose money if the animals die. As a result, prices of pork — the country's staple meat — have shot up 43 percent, a jump so serious that China's Cabinet held an emergency session and Premier Wen Jiabao made public appearances to address concerns.
Cargill, Van Luin and "Thumph Foods" were given 45 days to correct the contamination problems, while the others were suspended from imports, though China did not say for how long.
It was also unclear whether the bans covered only the products in question, or all of the companies' imports.
A duty officer reached by phone at the Chinese agency Saturday said he did not know details.
Beijing has taken steps in recent days to improve the image of its products. It executed the former head of its drug regulation agency for taking bribes, and banned toothpaste makers from using a chemical found in antifreeze.
Officials also have vowed to better integrate China's fractured regulatory system, which splits responsibility among at least six agencies. Blurred lines between them often enable the country's countless illegal operations to escape detection.
The official Xinhua News Agency ed Li Yuanping, director of the Chinese agency's import and export bureau, as saying China's government has thoroughly investigated each case of substandard exports.
"All of them are exceptional cases," he said in the Saturday report, adding that more than 99 percent of China's exports meets standards. "China-made products should not be labeled as substandard just because of a few bad producers."
Enduring a rare disease with no cure
Sat, 14 Jul 2007 08:10:13 GMTBy BEN DOBBIN, Associated Press Writer
ROCHESTER, N.Y. - All three of Darlene Royalty's daughters began to go blind at age 8, victims of a rare and brutal brain disorder with no cure.
Against the odds, Amber, Sandy and Sarah have survived into their 20s. They cannot speak or see, rely on feeding tubes, spend most of their days in bed at their home in tiny Ursa, Ill., and take multiple drugs to control seizures, clear their lungs, and relieve the anxiety or pain that comes with Batten disease.
They were diagnosed within three months of each other in 1995.
"We've been doing this for 12 years — 12 very painful and very wonderful, fulfilling years," their mother said. "I know there's no hope right now for them. I'm a realist. But maybe down the road, somebody else may be spared all of this suffering."
Batten disease is caused when defective genes fail to make enzymes needed to dispose of waste made by brain cells. The waste piles up in the brain and kills healthy cells until the patient dies. There are some 500 cases in the United States and most victims die before or during their teens.
Families cursed with the inherited degenerative disorder come together for a few days each year to sustain one another. They share a grueling ordeal that somehow fills their lives with dignity and purpose.
Their three-day "family support" convention in Rochester, which wraps up Saturday, coincided this year with a biennial summit of doctors who specialize in treating the disease and seeking a cure.
On Friday, researchers at the University of Rochester Medical Center presented test results on Batten-afflicted mice, hoping the results will hasten the first drug-based clinical trials aimed at alleviating the most common form of the disease, which typically shows up in children age 5 or older.
Gene-therapy treatments for younger victims with more aggressive types of the disease are already under way at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York. And stem-cell trials being conducted in Oregon could, if successful, open the door to treating a host of neural disorders.
"I think we have the scientific basis for a clinical trial," said David Pearce, an associate professor in biochemistry and biophysics who heads the Rochester school's 2-year-old Batten disease research center. "But there's a lot of very limiting steps. One is I don't have half a million dollars to do it.
"When it comes to a clinical trial, usually there's a big drug company behind it," he said. "This is a rare disease, so actually figuring out how to raise the resources is very difficult."
"It's definitely ignored as far as diseases go because we don't have the numbers that AIDS or leukemia or cancer has," said Karen Upchurch, of St. Petersburg, Fla., whose daughters, Dorothy, 16, and Rose, 24, died a decade apart of Batten disease.
Peg Davis, of Balsam, Minn., who brought her stricken daughters, Holly, 28, and Hannah, 25, to the convention, said that devoting her life to their care is not a burden.
"You get so much joy from them," she said.
But Davis admits she's begun to worry about "every little thing the sign that it's the end" since her eldest, Chad, died of the disease in May 2006 at age 30.
"The last four years of his life, he really went through a lot," she said tearfully. "He had a pacemaker put in, he had septic shock, he had pneumonia. All those years you're grieving. But when they're not with you anymore, that's when your heart breaks. When they're gone, what is your purpose?"
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On the Net: http://www.bdsra.org
Robot visits patients when doctor cant
Fri, 13 Jul 2007 19:16:04 GMTBy ALEX DOMINGUEZ, Associated Press Writer
BALTIMORE - Has it come to this? Robots standing in for doctors at the hospital patients' bedside?
Not exactly, but some doctors have found a way to use a videoconferencing robot to check on patients while they're miles from the hospital.
One is at Baltimore's Sinai Hospital. Outfitted with cameras, a screen and microphone, the joystick-controlled robot is guided into the rooms of Dr. Alex Gandsas' patients where he speaks to them as if he were right there.
"The system allows you to be anywhere in the hospital from anywhere in the world," said the surgeon, who specializes in weight-loss surgery.
Besides his normal morning and afternoon in-person rounds, Gandsas uses the $150,000 robot to visit patients at night or when problems arise. The robot can circle the bed and adjust the position of its two cameras, giving "the perception from the patient's standpoint that the doctor is there," the surgeon said.
"They love it. They'd rather see me through the robot," he said of his patients' reaction to the machine.
Gandsas presented the idea to hospital administrators as a method to more closely monitor patients following weight-loss surgery. Gandsas, an unpaid member of an advisory board for the robot's manufacturer who has stock options in the company, added that since its introduction, the length of stay has been shorter for the patients visited by the robot.
A chart-review study of 376 of the doctor's patients found that the 92 patients who had additional robotic visits had shorter hospital stays. Gandsas' study appears in the July issue of the Journal of the American College of Surgeons.
Nicknamed Bari for the bariatric surgery Gandsas practices, the RP-7 Remote Presence Robotic System by InTouch Technologies is one of a number of robotic devices finding their way into the medical world. Across town at Johns Hopkins, for example, a similar robot is used to teleconference with a translator for doctors who don't speak their patient's language. Robotic devices have also been used to guide stroke patients through therapy and help them play video games.
Michael Chan, executive vice president with InTouch Technologies, said his company's device allows physicians to "be in more than one place at once."
Speaking with Gandsas through one of the robots at company headquarters in Santa Barbara, Calif., Chan said the company envisions applications for the devices in remote locations and for dealing with shortages of health care professionals. About 120 of the robots are in use in hospitals worldwide.
Sinai patient David Williams said he appreciated the fact that Gandsas knew the details of his care.
"If you're laying flat like this and you see his face, I don't care what the man's dressed in. You're seeing him and you're talking to him and he's answering your questions," said Williams, a retiree from Falling Waters, W. Va.
Nurse Florence Ford, who has worked with the robot since it was introduced about 18 months ago, said patients have reacted well, particularly because "seeing the doctor's face gives them confidence."
Dr. Louis Kavoussi, chairman of the urology department at the North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System, said a study he did on the use of InTouch robots found no decrease in patient satisfaction or increase in complications. Kavoussi said the field is in its infancy and he expects the use of such devices will grow.
"This is a very rudimentary robot. It doesn't do a whole lot other than videoconference with patients. But it's the beginning of this technology," Kavoussi said, adding robots might not be the only form the technology takes.
"The same monitor you watch your entertainment on you'll be able to order your lunch menu, instead of having those paper menus, and you may be able to interact with your nurses and doctors right at the bedside."
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On the Net:
InTouch Technologies — http://www.intouchhealth.com/
Key senators agree on kids health plan
Sat, 14 Jul 2007 02:33:42 GMTBy KEVIN FREKING, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - Lawmakers in a key Senate committee brokered a bipartisan agreement Friday that they said would extend health insurance to an additional 3.3 million low-income children in the U.S.
The legislation would add $35 billion over the next five years to a program that subsidizes health coverage for families with incomes too high to qualify for Medicaid but too low to afford insurance on their own. The increased funding would be paid for through a 61-cent increase in the federal excise tax on a pack of cigarettes.
Many of the details of the package were not available, but the lawmakers issued a joint press release Friday night announcing their agreement.
"The State Children's Health Insurance Program has helped millions upon millions of low-income, uninsured American kids see doctors when they're sick, and this agreement will make sure that even more children get the health care they need," said Max Baucus, D-Mont., chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, which will take up the measure next week.
Democrats originally proposed adding $50 billion over five years, which would bring total spending to $75 billion. The Bush administration proposed adding $5 billion to the program over the next five years — on top of the $25 billion available under current spending levels.
Republicans whittled away at some of the proposed spending. They said the agreement reached late Friday would also refocus the program on low-income children. They were critical of Bush administration waivers that allowed hundreds of thousands of adults to participate.
"This proposal may not be perfect, but it's a true compromise that maintains the integrity of the CHIP program and ensures that it will continue to help the millions of children who desperately need it," said Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah.
More than 6 million people, including about 600,000 adults, get health insurance coverage each year through SCHIP. The federal government pays for about 70 percent of the program's costs, while states pay the rest.
Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo, said House Democrats will push for more funding than what the Senate Finance Committee leaders proposed.
"I've been talking to a lot of my colleagues," said DeGette, a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee "They want to find a way to get $50 billion."
She said the extra money would make it easier to increase enrollment among the millions of children eligible for Medicaid or SCHIP but currently not enrolled.
She said that House Democrats would also look to higher tobacco taxes to pay for the funding increase, but they do not plan to rely solely on a tobacco tax. The bill would also reduce payments to some private insurance plans that provide health coverage through a program called Medicare Advantage, she said.
Also, while the Senate bill focuses only on children's health insurance, House Democrats intend to broaden the scope of their legislation. It will ensure that physicians who care for Medicare patients don't get a 10 percent cut in their reimbursement rates next year, she said. The legislation will also probably make changes to the Medicare drug benefit, making it easier for some low-income seniors to qualify for a larger government subsidy.
Bush administration officials have warned that if lawmakers proposed a huge expansion of the program, the president's senior advisers would recommend a veto.
Some advocacy groups as well as the administration are dubious about the number of uninsured children who would end up getting coverage through the agreement announced Friday.
"The number of uninsured kids covered is at best 2 million, but more likely less than 2 million," said Bruce Lesley, president of First Focus, an organization that has lobbied for the program's expansion.
Lesley said the agreement would result in hundreds of thousands of adults having to leave the program. States like New Jersey and Minnesota would find that the federal government would pay a smaller percentage of the cost for the children in their program, he said.
Bush administration officials have also questioned how many children are uninsured and would actually gain coverage through a large investment in SCHIP. The administration notes that researchers at the Urban Institute estimated that about 4.9 million children under the age of 19 were uninsured for the entire year. That's a much lower estimate than the one compiled by the Census Bureau, which counts more than 8 million uninsured children.
Of that group, the researchers said only 1.1 million children uninsured for the entire year were eligible to participate in either Medicaid or SCHIP.
