UPI Hybrid Intern/Freelance Articles 2004-2005

Mobile music expected to be a hit

By Stokely Baksh
UPI Correspondent

WASHINGTON, Nov. 7 (UPI) — The United States has been slow to embrace music on mobile devices compared with 15 other countries, a leading market information provider found, but mobile-music businesses say this trend will soon change.

According to TNS Research, 19 percent of all mobile-phone owners worldwide now listen to music on their phones. Sixteen percent of those surveyed said they listened daily to all their music by phone compared to 15 percent on stereo systems and 10 percent on personal digital music players.

But despite the recent push of mobile-music downloads in the United States, it found only 4 percent of U.S. consumers listen to music on their cell phones on a regular basis attributing the lack of interest to the slow introduction of music-enabled handsets and the cost of devices and downloading.

The study that surveyed 6,800 adults aged 16 to 49 from 15 countries between July and August 2005 ranked the United States last among those whose population used mobile-music devices regularly; 26 percent in South Korea, 23 percent in Hong Kong and 19 percent in the United Kingdom.

In a separate study, TNS found that of 1,976 wireless users, only 10 percent indicated that they were either “extremely or highly likely” to purchase a wireless phone with an integrated digital music player. It also found that nearly half of all users had no interest in having music on their mobiles, and another 25 percent were concerned about the expense associated with an integrated music and mobile device.

However, mobile-music-services companies including Groove Mobile expect the music-mobile business to be booming in the states — reminiscent of the multimillion-dollar profits coming in from real music ringtone sales.

“Music fans are driving technology and technology is enabling what music fans want,” said Adam Sexton, vice president of marketing and product management at Groove Mobile. “They want their music mobile and instantly.”

Groove Mobile recently teamed up with Sprint to introduce the first mobile-music service available in the United States, which was released last week. The Sprint Music Store powered by Groove Mobile allows Sprint users to download full-track songs to their mobile phones or computers using two media-enriched phones, the SANYO MM-9000 and the Samsung MM-A940, that were also introduced.

“The ability to have music everywhere you go, we believe that’s going to be a huge driver,” said Sexton, who also says that the mobile devices and music will develop a new consumption model.

“Mobile music is to ‘hit’ content as the PC is to ‘catalog content,’” said Sexton, saying that mobile music is for consumers who desire hit songs instantly while the PC allows them to search for different variations or unique versions of the same songs.

Comparing the mobile-music business with that of the recent phenomenon of ringtones, he expects the same trend to ensue as more advanced network infrastructures and handheld sets are introduced to American consumers.

Sexton believes that the new trend is likely to become popular as sound quality, user-friendly menus and quicker Internet services like theirs are available as well as the whole industry initiating powerful opportunities and tie-ins for the music and mobile industry themselves.

“Whereas carriers were marketing the large number of minutes on handsets,” he said, “they have now moved to a more complete experience, recognizing the powerful and connecting element of the (mobile) device.”

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Blog Log: What’s holding you back, Judy?

By Stokely Baksh
UPI Correspondent

WASHINGTON, Oct. 4 (UPI) — What was the point of New York Times reporter Judith Miller’s 85-day stand in refusing to identify her source and staying in an Alexandria, Va., jail?

For some, Miller is a press heroine, while for others, what may have seemed like a noble gesture spiraling Miller to journalism sainthood received a backlash as many of her own colleagues in the news realm are calling her fluff.

On the blogging front, criticism and speculation are center stage for Miller not striking a deal earlier and the New York Times for inadequate reporting.

Press Think’s Jay Rosen’s Oct. 2 piece, “Judith Miller and Her Times,” writes that “when Chief U.S. District Judge Thomas F. Hogan ordered her to jail, he said Miller was wrong to think she was upholding some great principle of a free press. The source she ‘alleges she is protecting’ had released her from her duty to confidentiality, Hogan said. He appears to have been right in that warning: your sacrifice doesn’t say what you think it says.”

Furthermore, Rosen noted, “The Nation’s David Corn, Farhad Manjoo of Salon, and Steve Lovelady of CJR (Columbia Journalism Review) Daily all noticed that the story in the Times about Miller’s release, which should benefit from having the most complete information, was exceedingly hard to understand. “If you want to avoid a headache, stick to the Post piece,” Corn wrote at his weblog. “Over-edited, over-lawyered,” wrote Lovelady, formerly managing editor of the Inquirer. “I found the same thing; I had to read the Times story three times to ‘get’ it.”

Rosen cites Lovelady, who in his Oct. 3 CJR piece, “Spin Buster,” mentioned that he and others were disappointed when no written explanation from Miller was in the New York Times over the weekend.

As the Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz said on the CNN Sunday TV program “Reliable Sources,” “I was hoping I would wake up this morning and see in my “New York Times” and read a 5,000-word piece by Judith Miller telling us everything that was involved. She has no more legal liability here. Matt Cooper did it. No piece in the paper today.”

Many bloggers are frustrated with Times Executive Editor Bill Keller and Publisher Arthur Sulzberger’s handling of the situation, as well as the newspaper’s inadequate reporting of itself.

Jack Shafer of Press Box on Slate.com remarked Sept. 30, “The biggest loser in Judith Miller’s capitulation yesterday to special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald isn’t freedom of the press. And it isn’t Miller, the New York Times reporter whose reporting on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq had previously sullied her reputation. It’s the Times editorial page.”

Perhaps, most bluntly and what makes most sense comes from Shafer.

“You can’t investigate a crime that consists of leaking to the press without getting the press to talk,” Shafer wrote. “Maybe the paper’s publisher and editorial board have figured that out now. They should have grasped it then, before requesting the epic collision of first principles from which Judith Miller has just slunk away.”

But maybe Miller is just the Time’s version of SNL’s challenged-in-the-hearing-department Emily Litella as Jeff Jarvis writes on his blog Buzz Machine.

“Transparency, please. Reporting, please. Honesty, please,” Jarvis wrote. “If you dragged all journalism through the briar patch and didn’t have to, you owe an explanation.”

Much of the big hoopla seems to stem from skeptics of Miller’s heroic deed defending the press’s First Amendment rights as talks about the importance of confidentiality and anonymous sources have become a hot debate.

Jarvis, Rosen and a few others cited Dan Froomkin’s Washingtonpost.com piece, “Miller’s Big Secret,” which illustrates a worthwhile journalism point.

“Note to reporters: There is nothing intrinsically noble about keeping your sources’ secrets. Your job, in fact, is to expose them. And if a very senior government official, after telling you something in confidence, then tells you that you don’t have to keep it secret anymore, the proper response is ‘Hooray, now I can tell the world’ — not ‘Sorry, that’s not good enough for me, I need that in triplicate.’ And if you’re going to go to jail invoking important, time-honored journalistic principles, make sure those principles really apply.”

Still, much speculation is stirring over why Miller waiting so long and who her sources are, especially if you remember that back in 2003 this Pulitzer Prize winner was criticized for her ill-reporting of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, which some say helped the Bush administration win over support for its invasion.

As Shafer wrote back in July 2003 for Salon, “If reporters who live by their sources were obliged to die by their sources, New York Times reporter Judith Miller would be stinking up her family tomb right now. In the 18-month run-up to the war on Iraq, Miller grew incredibly close to numerous Iraqi sources, both named and anonymous, who gave her detailed interviews about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction. Yet 100 days after the fall of Baghdad, none of the sensational allegations about chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons given to Miller have panned out, despite the furious crisscrossing of Iraq by U.S. weapons hunters.”

Adrianna Huffington asked a number of questions on The Huffington Post on Sept. 30 that would do well to be answered. Among them: Why didn’t Miller accept the waiver a year ago? What prompted Miller finally to testify? Was it fear of staying in jail or being charged with criminal contempt as well as a slew of other questions like what was Miller’s relationship with the Bush administration, and what exactly is Fitzgerald cooking up?

Let’s hope for Miller’s sake that her final answer to the public isn’t a tell-all book, as Huffington writes of a rumor that a $1.2 million book deal might be in the works.

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Brand-name drug prices far outpacing generics

By Stokely Baksh
WASHINGTON, Sept. 27 (UPI) — A new federal report has found that brand-name drug prices have increased three times as fast as generic-drug prices over the past four years, and healthcare-reform advocates said this information could be used to encourage legislators to insert a pro-generics provision into the new Medicare prescription-drug benefit currently set to begin next January.

The report, from the Government Accountability Office, found the average price for a 30-day supply of 96 drugs frequently used by Medicare and non-Medicare enrollees increased 24.5 percent from January 2000 to December 2004.

Of the 96 drugs, 20 accounted for nearly two-thirds of the increase, and the price increases for 75 prescription drugs frequently used by Medicare beneficiaries closely resembled the increases for 76 drugs needed by non-Medicare consumers.

Pfizer’s Lipitor 10 milligram size and Celebrex topped the list of drug price increases, while only one generic — hydrocodone/acetaminophen — made the top 20, and more than 50 frequently used brand-name drugs cost three times more than their generic counterparts.

Other drugs with significant price increases included:

– Bristol-Myers Squibb’s Plavix;

– TAP Pharmaceutical’s Prevacid;

– Pfizer’s Lipitor 20 mg;

– Sanofi-Aventis’s Ambien, and

– Merck’s Zocor.

The report surveyed both the usual and customary prices covered by prescription-drug insurance and the prices individuals without insurance would pay at retail pharmacies. GAO researchers also used two state pharmacy-assistance programs used by Medicare and non-Medicare enrollees, average prices paid to manufacturers by wholesalers and the average suggested sticker prices that wholesalers charge pharmacies.

The report did not take into account manufacturer discounts, and as Pfizer spokesman Paul Fitzhenry told the Kansas City Star, “The report focuses on prices paid by consumers without insurance and in doing so excludes manufacturer rebates or discounts.”

“Those deficiencies are noted, but at the same time, there is no mention about the Medicare discount cards that were introduced last year,” Fitzhenry said. “These cards provide discounts between 30 and 40 percent or even more for uninsured patients.”

Gail Shearer, director of health policy analysis at Consumers Union, said the rebates and discounts often are discussed behind closed doors and it is difficult to determine their value.

“High prices and no negotiations, the real tragedy are the people who have to do without the drugs,” Shearer told United Press International. “The government should step up to the plate and ensure that we are getting value for our prescription-drug dollar.”

As many as 45.8 million Americans currently are without health insurance, while many more have reduced insurance plans.

Shearer said the GAO study illustrates how drug-price increases remain a problem, and the manufacturers are creating it.

“We’re at a critical juncture right now,” said Shearer, whose organization is pushing for discounts such as those achieved by the Department of Veterans Affairs for its beneficiaries. “High drug prices and high increases of prices have plagued the healthcare system for years. It’s critical for Congress to fix-up policies and rein in drug prices.”

Shearer said Congress should act, rather than relying on the market to do so, because average annual drug expenditures are increasing faster than inflation and consumers are being bombarded with brand-name drug advertising campaigns and drug companies are “educating” doctors in choosing branded products.

She said the GAO report also demonstrates the potential savings of generic drugs, which also are highlighted in Consumer Union’s Best Buy Drugs Report. The CU report surveys generic drugs that are equally effective and safe but are sold at lower prices than their brand-name counterparts.

“The federal government has the Web site (operated by the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services) with information on generic drugs, but the question is, is the information getting into the heads of the people who need it?” Shearer asked. “We think it’s time there be information to help consumers and doctors about equally effective drugs.”

She said higher drugs prices affect the insured because employers tend to shift more cost onto their employees when premiums rise. Likewise, she added, those with Medicare benefits must carefully consider their drug-purchase options when the new benefit plan engages in January.

“It is crucial that people understand that not all high-priced drugs will be covered by all drug plans,” Shearer said. “Medicare beneficiaries need to find out which drugs are covered by the plan they are considering and keep in mind that sometimes, equally effective and safe drugs are available at a much lower price.”

Consumers Union is not the only organization looking at drugs prices. AARP, the seniors’ advocacy group, released a study last month that looked at trends in prices of brand-name and generic drugs used by the elderly.

Among AARP’s findings, 110 of 195 brand-name drugs had price increases from Dec. 31, 2004, to March 31, 2005.

“As a result of this and increased prices in recent years, a typical older American (who takes three prescription drugs) is likely to have experienced an increase, on average, in the cost of therapy from the year 2000 through March 31, 2005, of $866.16, if the drugs are brand-name products used to treat chronic conditions, and the full price increases were passed along to the consumer,” the AARP study concluded.

AARP researchers found, however, that manufacturer list prices for 75 selected generic drugs rose by 0.7 percent during the year ending March 31, 2005. That slight increase represents a “substantial slowing” compared to dramatic increases in the past, the study said, and only three drugs out of the 75 generics registered a price increase during the first quarter of 2005.

Moreover, the National Association of Chain Drug Stores reported that in 2004 the average price of a generic drug was $28.74, compared to $96.01 for a brand-name drug.

IMS Health, a leading health-research company, expects U.S. generic-drug sales to top $28 billion this year, nearly 65 percent more than previous estimates. The company released its estimate at the Generic Pharmaceutical Association’s policy conference this month, as reported by the Newark Star-Ledger.

IMS Health also reported that U.S. sales in 2004 of brand-name drugs totaled $217.4 billion, while generic sales topped only about $18 billion.

For these reasons, generic drugs could occupy a more prominent place in the Medicare prescription-drug benefit plan.

Generic-drug companies continue to run into safety concerns and delayed approvals from the Food and Drug Administration, however, particularly involving biologic cancer drugs. Competition also remains a factor, mostly from brand-name companies producing generics themselves. These branded generics, as they are called, account for a significant portion of increased generics use.

The IMS Health report said “sales of cancer treatment are expected to more than double over the next five years to $55 billion, with cancer drugs replacing cholesterol-reducing medicines as the No. 1 pharmaceutical sector.”

The company also said despite generic drugs being filled in half of the nation’s 3.6 billion prescriptions, sales growth should slow down this year to 6.7 percent compared to an annual average of 13.5 percent since 2000, the Star-Ledger reported.

Dr. Alan Sager, director of the health program at the Boston University School of Public Health as well as the university’s healthcare-reform program, said higher brand-name prices might allow generic manufacturers to raise their own prices, because they tend to price their products in the shadow of brand-name competitors.

“As brand-name-drug makers raise prices, generic-drug makers will find room to boost their prices to compete for market share,” Sager told UPI.

He said although generic-drug usage has been increasing steadily as prescription drugs become less affordable every year, he is not surprised about brand-name companies seeking continued profits when their products go off patent.

“Generic drugs are a side show in a circus,” Sager said. “They attract a lot of attention, but the main event is the big tent — the brand-name drug makers.”

He said he thinks the answer to increasing drug prices is controlling them and making drugs affordable to everyone, despite claims that lowering drug prices will slow down the innovation process.

“Rising prescription brand-name drugs are raising insurance premiums to unaffordable heights,” Sager said. “The existing world of multiple prices and multiple discounts, and great amounts of complexity and paper work, harm ordinary American patients, businesses and taxpayers.”

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Author interview: Podcasting biz

By Stokely Baksh
UPI Correspondent

WASHINGTON, Sept. 9 (UPI) — The growing popularity of the Internet-based broadcast medium known as podcasting is finding its way into businesses that are looking for new methods to reach consumers.

In her new e-book, “The Podcasting Ebook: Your Complete Guide to Podcasting,” author Stephanie Ciccarelli writes of how the recent digital phenomenon can help businesses find new customers.

Ciccarelli, vice president of marketing at InteractiveVoices, is the host and producer of the company’s IV Podcast, a weekly show that is available to voice-over customers.

She first researched podcasting in hopes of bringing podcasting jobs to the Web site for the company’s voice-over talents, which prompted her to write the e-book, which can be found at ThePodcastingEbook.com.

The e-book, for $14.95, aims to inform readers of how to create, record, publish, and promote a podcast.

“More businesses should get involved with podcasting for a number of reasons,” Ciccarelli told UPI. “Podcasting is direct, is time-shifting, and is highly targeted, not to mention a cost-effective means to market a product or service to people who are listening on their own accord. Podcasting can also bring attention to electronic materials available at a given site, such as summaries of white papers that can be downloaded, tutorials, support aids, and announcing upcoming events.”

Already many companies and organizations have begun podcasting ranging from IBM to the White House, CNN and FOX News.

Businesses are podcasting to reach their audiences on a more intimate and personally convenient way, Ciccarelli said. As subscribers are more loyal to the podcast of a particular business — becoming a captive audience — the company then has the ability to “influence and convert them from a cold lead to a customer.”

According to Ciccarelli, the most lucrative way to make money from podcasting is to open up airtime to advertisers and sponsors.

“A loyal audience combined with good content is a prime opportunity for advertisers to seize,” she said. “Podcasting is ripe with potential, and advertisers know it.”

Currently, the trend for non-profit podcasts is to accept micro-payments to cover expenses, a trend adopted now by commercial podcasters, Ciccarelli said.

“In time, charging a modest fee for a podcast subscription will become standard, just as a customer pays for a magazine subscription or cable television,” she said. “‘The Podcasting Ebook’ has an entire chapter devoted to making money from podcasting, exploring advertising opportunities and other financial avenues to pursue.”

But business podcasting continues to be on a steady climb, says Ciccarelli.

As she sees it, business podcasting will include series, symposiums, conferences, training sessions and workshops, which will be available for both commercial and internal use.

In addition, companies will also produce commercial podcasts directed at their customers from question-and-answer podcast or “a sales pitch meant to close the deal with an individual or group of customers.”

In fact, the podcast listening base is getting bigger. An estimated 12.3 million U.S. households will use their MP3 players to listen to audio podcasts by the end of the decade (vs. listening on the Internet), according to the April 2005 report “The Future Of Digital Audio” from Forrester Research Inc.

“Podcasting is gaining momentum rapidly,” Ciccarelli said, in due part to the heavy promotion and easy access for iTunes users. “Within the first two days that iTunes offered podcast subscriptions, over 1 million people subscribed through their service to podcasts online. The number of podcasts and listeners continues to grow at an incredible rate as more individuals embrace this new information and entertainment medium.”

But podcasting is also getting a lot easier. Ciccarelli says that the basic tools of podcasting are readily available on the Internet for podcasters to easily publish their podcasts. Moreover, programmers are continuously improving current technology, making it easier for podcasters to publish their RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds.

RSS feeds are created from links to and from other distribution sites, sending material instantaneously, Ciccarelli said. In fact, many sites are already RSS formatted, allowing the average person to podcast without technical expertise.

For Ciccarelli, the future of podcasting will be an extraordinary one, but she doesn’t see it as a threat to mainstream media.

“There is so much potential to consider. Will it overtake traditional media such as television? No, most likely not,” she said. “Podcasting will establish its own role in the media and serve an audience with very specific needs and desires. By virtue that podcasts can be updated instantaneously, listeners will become dependent on their favorite podcasts to bring them the updates that they need, particularly if mainstream media outlets do not cover the information they are seeking.”

Broadcast radio has been adapting to the new podcasting world, and rather than seeing podcasts as a threat to radio, she says it’s more complimentary as some radio stations have already begun to use podcasting.

“I can foresee radio stations licensing podcasts from independent producers in order to diversify their broadcast programming, perhaps even collaborations between radio personalities and podcast hosts,” Ciccarelli said. “Broadcast will not go away, but it will need to adapt and change with the marketplace to remain competitive.”

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Information Suitor Highway goes mobile

By Stokely Baksh
UPI Correspondent
WASHINGTON, Sept. 2 (UPI) — More online-dating businesses are shifting gears to keep up with the latest technological trend in eDating by going mobile.

Turning to mobile devices as a new source of attracting singles on the go, the Information Suitor Highway has made the leap from PCs to cell phones, allowing singles to view profiles and text message others while keeping the same level of anonymity intact.

In fact, for most singles using Match.com Mobile, using the mobile phone to search for dates and flirt via text messaging will make dating more convenient, said Match.com spokeswoman Kathleen Roldan.

The popular online-dating site, with more than 15 million singles worldwide, launched its mobile service back in February 2003, enabling singles to search photo profiles, make condensed profiles and connect with other eligible singles in their area using basic search criteria.

Since its 2003 launch Match.com Mobile has seen more than 5.5 million chat requests, and more than 7 million messages have been sent as of June 2005.

As Roldan says, mobile dating offers a faster and more immediate way of finding other potential matches as well as enabling singles to become more flirtatious with one another; however, the one drawback is cell phones’ small screens.

Young single people are more attracted to the service, with 42 percent of users under age 25 and 81 percent under age 35, according to Roldan.

“More and more people are using the phone; it only makes sense to connect with singles on it now,” Roldan said, mentioning that their mobile service was recently launched in Japan.

Eventually, Match.com also hopes to enhance the service with a more enhanced location-based technology, so that mobile users could find matches in close proximity based on the location of their phone, she said.

Some companies are already doing this, like SmallPlanet, whose members can “crowdsurf” by using their Bluetooth radio signal as a “radar” to find friends or other members at best within 100 feet or less but still allow for members to control their privacy.

The popularity of mobile dating is a growing trend in Asia and the United Kingdom, unlike the United States, where the mobile-phone experience has been mostly textual, and as The San Francisco Chronicle reported there are fewer than 6 million users in the U.S. participating in mobile dating, compared to the estimated 40 million who use computer-based online dating services.

Moreover, according to analyst Brent Iadarola of Frost & Sullivan in the Chronicle, “subscription revenue for the mobile dating services are expected to rise from $31.4 million this year to $215 million by 2009, which does not include revenue from text-messaging charges, but could double those figures.”

Many in the online dating industry believe that the dating-service move from the computer to the cell phone is inevitable.

TheDateZone CEO Paul Geannopulos says that as newer mobile devices emerge into all-in-one devices with advanced audio, video and Web capabilities, mobile applications of online dating is the next generation.

Recently, TheDateZone.com, an interactive video dating site with 3,000 members that started back in 2004, partnered up with SmartVideo Technologies Inc. enabling members to receive SmartVideo’s basic subscription as part of their $24.95 monthly membership.

Members have the benefit of receiving access to a worldwide database of personal audio and video profiles, free Web camera and headset, live television, and communicating over audio and video conference via Internet and phones.

Geannopulos expects his membership base will increase to 1 million within the next year, noting that people are “sick and tired of phony photos of people misrepresenting themselves.”

“They think they are going to go out on a date with someone who looks like Tom Cruise, instead they look like a 700 pound gorilla,” he said.

Even young online dating companies are jumping on the mobile-device bandwagon, seeing a great potential for business like eDatingPlanet.com, a relatively young Nashville-based company launched in April.

“I always wanted to give people an online service that they could interact, have fun, and look for others,” said eDatingPlanet.com President Erick Shipmon, who likens his service to a “cool, modern nightclub.”

With an average of 500 new members per month, the company is moving towards mobile dating by offering its members free InPhonex Voice over Internet Protocol long-distance service within the $19.99 monthly fee.

As Shipmon says, the broadband long distance would be a good way for people to communicate without the large costs.

“Many eDatingPlanet.com members live in countries outside of North America,” Shipmon said. “As a result, people are having fun communicating with friends all over the world. We feel offering free VoIP long-distance to our members will help them continue to build those relationships.”

A veteran to the mobile dating scene is wireless communications company SMS.ac Inc., which created its version of a members’ interactive service with smsFlirt and smsClubs when the company was launched in December 2001.

SMS.ac, which conducts business with over 400 mobile carriers worldwide, provides a proprietary multimedia messaging service known as MMSBox that enables the exchange of text and multimedia mobile communication across any technology platform and deliverable to any enabled wireless device.

“We were the first ones to do this on a global scale,” SMS.ac Executive Vice President and co-founder Greg Wilfahrt said, mentioning that 6 million phones were registered for the service.

“The beauty of our product is the ease of use and (ability) for people to flirt while retaining their anonymity” he said. “It’s about instant gratification.”

In fact, he never expected to have individuals from Iraq and North Korea become members.

SmsFlirt allows individuals to register under a username, have a profile and search a worldwide database without giving out their phone number, while smsClubs is an online community based on different issues from religion to sports including one club, “Fans of Vanilla Ice,” started in Romania with 20,000 members.

According to Wilfahrt, having a phone that can do everything is the “Holy Grail,” and businesses should understand that.

He expects more online dating businesses will be launching mobile services as well as other businesses in general, as mobile technology advances and multimedia expands.

“Our perspective is that if you didn’t have a Web site, you’ll perish, but now if you don’t have a mobile-phone presence, you’ll be a dinosaur in the tar pits, you won’t be able to compete,” Wilfahrt said.

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Hi-tech laundry services hit colleges

By Stokely Baksh
UPI Correspondent
WASHINGTON, Aug. 26 (UPI) — At the start of the new academic year, some lucky college students will be able to face the mundane chore of doing their laundry as more high-tech companies compete for their business.

Mac-Gray Corporation and USA Technologies are going online and let students monitor campus laundry equipment, including getting e-mail notices for machine availability and cycle completion.

For many, it’s a service that is long overdue.

“This is a great idea just because the laundry situation right now is chaotic with people always throwing your clothes out the moment it finishes and don’t care,” said Drew Martin, a sophomore at Christopher Newport University in Virginia. “I think that this level of laundry technology would end a lot of frustration and allow more time to be spent doing other things.”

The second largest supplier of card and coin-operated laundry facilities management and catering to just over 500 universities, Mac-Gray Corporation will have installed LaundryView at 51 universities since developing the technology in 2003, according to Mac-Gray Chief Operating Officer Neil MacLellan.

LaundryView allows students to check the availability and status of each machine through any device equipped with a Web browser and Internet connection once the laundry facilities are connected to the Internet and the technology installed.

Students will also have the ability to check the graphical two-week history of equipment so that they could avoid peak times as well as specifying where notifications — by e-mail, cell phone or wireless PDA message — can be sent when their washer or dryer is available or cycle completed.

In addition, LaundryView enables Mac-Gray to be informed if there is a problem with its machines, which will notify the local branch office, and within minutes a service order is delivered to the appropriate service technician.

According to MacLellan, the technology for the system was especially conducive to today’s wireless environment.

“We believe we will more than double with colleges registering for this system by next Labor Day,” MacLellan told United Press International.

In fact, he estimates that the service will be affecting about 75,000 resident students this fall alone with the new service at universities including Gettysburg College, Syracuse University and Northeastern University.

However, LaundryView isn’t the only laundry Internet tool making waves on college campuses.

USA Technologies, which provides networking for distributed assets and wireless non-cash transactions, among other things, estimates that by fall 2005, 120,000 U.S. college students will be able to use their e-Suds online laundry services.

Managed by distribution partners Caldwell and Gregory Inc. and American Sales Inc., e-Suds enables students to not only go online to see availability of washers and dryers and be notified by e-mail, PDA or phone, but also use their student ID/one card system to pay for their wash.

Installed at 10 more colleges by this fall that include Rutgers University, American University and Elizabethtown University, it was only a year ago when USA Tech first installed e-Suds at Carnegie Mellon.

“The schools have really embraced the technology,” USA Tech’s Director of Marketing Wendy Jenkins said, who told UPI that they hope to launch an enhanced laundry online service to multi-housing complexes such as apartments and condominiums in the future. “We’re just trying to make a splash in the industry this fall.”

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Ringtones — and their theft — on the rise

By Stokely Baksh
UPI Correspondent

WASHINGTON, Aug. 23 (UPI) — The mobile-content industry has become a new distribution source for entertainment companies and celebrities who license their music and faces for ringtones and games, fueling a trend that U.S. consumers can’t get enough of and also creating a new breeding ground for online shoplifters.

A relatively young market in the United States, the mobile-entertainment industry is likely to enjoy this new source of income as the popularity and diversity of ring tones, ring backs and games are likely to increase with newer devices, full-track downloads and video set to be released in the future.

Jonathan Dworkin, vice president of artist and repertoire at Lagardere Active North America, the company that launched BlingTones, told United Press International the mobile industry has the ability to diversify the distribution of industries like the record business that would otherwise continue to watch their retail sales fall.

“Retail is not the only outlet, as digital and mobile are two viable methods of distribution, it’s really going to change the landscape of the record business,” Dworkin said. “People won’t continue to buy CDs for $18 when they can get a favorite ringtone song for $2.50.”

BlingTones, which is carried by mobile carriers Sprint, Nextel and T-Mobile among others, provides original mobile content from artists of the hip-hop, rap and R&B community and has sold over 4 million ringtones since its start in September 2004.

BlingTones’ latest addition includes an exclusive phone-only golf game featuring an animated Lil Jon, known for producing such hits as Usher’s No.1 smash hit “Yeah!” and Ciara’s breakthrough No.1 hit “Goodies.” In the game, the rapper/producer golfs in urban neighborhoods of New York, Los Angeles, Miami and Atlanta on top of rooftops, on the beach between bikini-clad women tanning, and on movie lots and expressways.

“Artists are playing with a medium that isn’t fully formed,” Dworkin said. “Mobile content can be used for retail and promotion. … It’s a powerful promotional tool they built into an actual product. You hear artists’ music on your phones and see their pictures, people want to express themselves, most likely, associating themselves with a celebrity, and (one way is through the phone).”

The mobile-content industry in the United States continues to grow, bringing in $4 billion in revenues last year alone, Forbes reported.

This trend seems unlikely to slow down, as Jupiter Research’s March 2005 report “Wireless Market Forecast, 2004 to 2009″ found that ringtone revenues were $91 million in 2003, which more than doubled to $217 million in 2004 and is forecast to reach $724 million in 2009.

Jupiter also found that mobile-game revenues were $24 million in 2003, tripled to $72 million in 2004 and should reach $430 million in 2009.

But ringtone shoplifters may pose a problem to the mobile and entertainment industry reminiscent of illegal online music downloading if entertainment sites aren’t secured, says Seattle-based digital media and services company Qpass.

According to Qpass’s study of 100 U.S. and European digital-content Web sites that included 42 mobile-carrier portals and 58 online entertainment/music stores, more than one-third of Web sites were unsecured, allowing users to “shoplift” music tracks and download them as free ringtones.

Such behavior may have already cost both industries an estimated $40 million since the beginning of 2004,and $123 million by 2007, Qpass reported. Attributing the security loophole to customers’ access to preview music, they found that two-thirds of Web sites offered 15- to 30-second unsecured music samples that could be converted into ringtones.

Steve Shivers, Qpass’s senior vice president of corporate strategy and development, told UPI the company first heard about this issue after a couple of music companies inquired about the problem.

Qpass decided to look into the problem, first by surveying chatrooms and weblogs as to how people were making free ringtones, and using their methods visited Web sites that enabled them to shoplift ringtones.

As Shivers explained, a person could simply download a preview music file by saving a sample file, if not secured, onto their computer, and then transfer it onto his or her mobile phone using Bluetooth, infrared, chip, and data cable technology.

“It’s not hard. The average mobile and computer user can do this,” he said. “Many of them are in their late teens and 20s; they’re a computer savvy crowd.”

However, Clark Siegel, a lawyer based in Los Angeles who specializes in intellectual property and entertainment law, said this is still a relatively new development and doesn’t think it would be as big of a problem as CD piracy.

“If it’s a problem, the music industry will go after it big time,” Siegel told UPI.

Much of the entertainment industry and mobile content have licensed deals, and many consumers are already paying the small fee required, he said.

“Many consumers have already paid for ringtones,” Siegel said. “The cost isn’t huge, and they are easy, micro-payments.”

Siegel also said he doesn’t think that as mobile phones become endowed with more Internet capabilities and a bigger memory, the addition of another device would make a huge difference in increasing piracy as seen since the introduction of Apple’s iPod.

Although no data could be measured to count how many people are actually ringtone shoplifting, Qpass says using streaming, embedded pre-listening or the use of a DRM-protected file format like Real Player or Macromedia Flash could secure preview content.

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Accessorizing cells phones a growing trend

By Stokely Baksh

WASHINGTON, Aug. 9 (UPI) — No longer does accessorizing a cell phone mean leather cases or cartoon covers. Now, individual artists and companies alike are profiting from an environment in which individuals make personal statements by adding flashy wallpaper, animated screen savers, pop-song ring tones and even antenna charms to their handsets.

The charms represent the latest addition to personalized cell phones. Jeweled accessories made into hearts, bears and tiaras with a stretchable ring on the back have been a craze in Asia for the last two years and only now are hitting the U.S. market.

Tiffany Weidman, a resident of Forney, Texas, first ran across Trinkies on the Internet last April and began selling them on eBay. She said customers can slip on a “glam princess” look for today or choose a “hippie chick” ring for tomorrow.

“I’m not really a girly-girl, but as far as accessories go, I think they’re cute,” Weidman told United Press International. “That’s why I started selling them.”

Since then, Weidman began her own Web site, selling the charms for $5 each, and has been seeing sales double each month since April.

She said pink crowns are the most popular and she will soon begin designing her own charms, too. In September she will add slot machines, smiley faces, martini glasses and Eiffel Towers to her offerings.

Cell-phone accessories also are becoming more electronic, with the addition of cameras, ring tones and animated screen savers becoming more popular and cheaper.

Jamster!, a leading provider of mobile content, is capitalizing on this latest trend of making personal statements via cell phones. The company offers more than 1,000 options in popular music ring tones, wallpaper, graphics and games to customers who pay $5.99 for various downloading plans.

“These accessories are a new vehicle for attracting new customers,” Brian O’Shaughnessy, a Jamster! spokesman, told UPI. “There are two functional aspects, one is that more Americans are becoming aware of personalization and second is the combination of mobility and entertainment.”

Most consumers recognize Jamster! by the company’s television commercials for ring tones, animated screensavers and wallpaper that feature pop artists and creations such as Crazy Frog — the same ring tone used in “Crazy Frog Axel F” that took the No.1 spot on the British pop-music charts.

“Artists are also using this environment and their entertainment to attract new fans,” O’Shaughnessy said. “A number of them understand the power of this medium.”

One example is the hip-hop tour, “Scream Tour IV: The Heartthrobs,” which Jamster! is co-sponsoring. The company provides its customers with unique mobile content, especially from artists from the tour, which includes Bow Wow, Omarion, Marques Houston and 3on3.

“We’ve only scratched the surface,” O’Shaughnessy said. “People are going to buy and use more of these (accessories) once they become more available, but most of it is in Japan and the (United Kingdom). This is really going to explode.”

As broadband becomes cheaper in the United States, accessorizing cell phones most likely will be taken to a new level, as enhanced cell-phone technologies continue to come out of Asia and the United Kingdom.

These include the ability to download more advanced games and cameras, .pdf files and MP3 quality music, as well as applications such as “Digital Stadium,” by CratMax in Tokyo, on DoCoMo 3G cell phones that will display cartoon versions of select live professional baseball games.

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Nursing shortage affects long-term care

By Stokely Baksh

WASHINGTON, July 11 (UPI) — As the U.S. retirement population grows, increasing demand for workers providing long-term care will become more of a problem because of the overall shortage of nurses, experts told United Press International.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics has estimated that jobs for direct-care workers in long-term care settings will grow by about 800,000 by 2010, or roughly 45 percent, while more than 1 million new and replacement nurses will be needed across the entire medical field by 2012.

At present, nearly 96,000 nursing positions are vacant in long-term care facilities in the United States, with a staff turnover rate that exceeds 50 percent, according to an “Act Now for Your Tomorrow,” issued last April by the National Commission on Nursing Workforce for Long-Term Care.

The current long-term-care nursing workforce exceeds 1.9 million individuals, the commission reported, with over 54 percent of long-term-care employees consisting of nurses and nursing aides.

Vacancy rates in 2002 reached over 15 percent of registered nurses in nursing homes, 13 percent of licensed practical nurses and 8.5 percent of certified nurse’s aides, the report found, while the turnover rate averaged 49 percent for RNs and 71 percent for CNAs in nursing facilities.

“The shortage is costing long-term care facilities an estimated $4 billion a year in recruitment and training expenses,” the report said. “The high rate of turnover of nursing workers decreases the quality of care due to inefficient and inexperienced staff and increases costs because of the need for recruiting and training of new staff.”

Suzanne Weiss, senior vice president for advocacy of the American Association of Homes and Services for the Aging, told United Press International the long-term care industry is not experiencing shortage as acute as it was a few years ago, despite nursing shortages across the medical spectrum.

AAHSA represents 2 million members that serve assisted-living facilities, continuing-care retirement communities, nursing homes, outreach programs and senior housing.

Weiss said the nursing shortage affects who long-term facilities can admit. For instance, the shortage could restrict admittance of patients on ventilators, patients with serious wounds, feeding tubes and conditions that require a lot of nursing attention.

She said the high turnover rate presents a particular difficulty.

“There is a lot of catch-up work for new staffers,” she said. “Change alone can be disruptive.”

In long-term care, Weiss said, the system is rebalancing itself because more people desire home-based care, taking away possible nurses from the nursing homes.

“It’s a challenging situation right now,” she said, adding that the healthcare system is trying to solve the shortage, and more nursing programs need to emphasize the geriatric field for aspiring nurses and nursing aides.

“Nursing homes have been making a lot of progress, especially making sure that the working environment is more positive,” Weiss said.

The nationwide nursing shortage also has been affecting nursing schools, which are struggling against a lack of space, faculty and financial resources to produce enough nurses to address the growing shortage.

To help the shortage in long-term care facilities, Weiss suggested more courses in geriatrics, an improved working environment for nurses and raising public consciousness to respect professionals in geriatric nursing.

Other experts think the growing nursing shortage is degrading standards of long-term care.

In June 2002 the Alliance for Retired Americans released a study entitled “Nursing Home Care: When Will We Get it Right?” blaming the lack of quality care in nursing homes on understaffing.

George J. Kourpias, the ARA’s president, said “a major conclusion of the report is that much of the neglect and abuse suffered by nursing home residents is due to a severe shortage of trained nursing staff.”

If quality of care is to be improved, those in charge must solve the issue of staff shortages, he said.

“Nursing home staff and management cannot produce a decent environment for residents until there are vast improvements in staffing ratios, staff and management training, decent pay, benefits and incentives and safety protections,” Kourpias said in a 2002 statement during the study’s release.

Dianna Porter, director of policy at the alliance, told UPI that quality of care remains a big concern for the ARA’s 3 million members.

“Not much has changed,” Porter said. “We’re still encouraging nursing homes to improve staffing. Overall, there still isn’t good quality of health in nursing homes. When is it going to get better?”

According to Porter, more legislation is needed to solve the nursing shortage and level of quality care in all medical sectors, but particularly in the long-term-care sector.

She said many bills have been attempted at both the federal and state levels to address the issue of understaffing and working conditions in long-term care, but few federal bills have passed, and those in the state legislatures have been too lenient on the nursing-home industry.

“Family members have to be vigilant and be advocates for their family, and you really have to worry about those people who have no one,” Porter said. “There’s a tendency, for people not to pay attention until it happens to someone in their family, there is a certain sense of denial that they aren’t going to be dependent, disable, or in a retirement home.”

The U.S. Census Bureau reports that by 2030 the number of U.S. adults age 65 and older is expected nearly to double, from about 36 million now to 71.5 million. By 2050 that number is expected to grow to 86.7 million.

Many of those older Americans are expected to seek long-term care. Currently, about 12 million people receive formal long-term-care services each year.

As the over-65 population grows, experts said, so too will unbalanced nurse-to-patient ratios, mandatory overtime, emergency-room overcrowding, discontinued patient-care programs, reduced service hours, delayed discharges and canceled surgeries.

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Women’s heart disease still an issue

By Stokely Baksh

WASHINGTON, July 5 (UPI) — Heart disease remains the leading cause of death for women, but among hospitals there remains a significant inadequate response to women’s cardiovascular disease symptoms.

A study by HealthGrades Inc. in Golden, Colo., a healthcare-quality ratings company, reports many medical professionals are unable to diagnosis women with cardiovascular disease in a timely manner because of symptomatic differences in symptoms between men and women — a situation that is dangerous to women.

The company’s third annual study analyzed women’s cardio outcomes from the published data of more than 1,500 hospitals in 17 states — including California, Iowa, New York and Texas — representative of 57.9 percent of the U.S. population. It reviewed outcomes of coronary artery bypass graft surgery, valve-replacement surgery and heart failure from 2001 to 2003.

The researchers found 39 percent lower mortality in best-performing hospitals, leaving many of the poorest-performing hospitals behind. They also found American hospitals improved women’s survival rates by 11 percent for cardiac disease and stroke between 2001 and 2003.

“Treatment is improving in that women are surviving, but we still have a long way to go,” said Dr. Samantha Collier, an author of the study and HealthGrades’ vice president of medical affairs. “More women know that cardiovascular disease is one of the first leading causes of death, but still 50 percent of women do not know that.”

Heart disease and stroke are the first- and third-leading causes of death among women, Collier said, affecting nearly half of women’s death and amounting to almost one death every minute.

“Only a small percentage of women believe that cardiovascular disease is their biggest threat, and only one in five doctors know that CVD kills more women than men each year,” Collier said.

She suggested increased awareness in the medical community, adding that women receiving treatment may be dangerously delayed or not receiving high-risk treatment in a timely fashion because of the difference in symptomology.

“We now know that women’s average outcomes for cardiovascular care can vary by as much as 46 percent between the best-performing and poorest-performing hospitals,” Collier said. “It’s important for women to do the research and seek hospitals for the best treatment possible.”

Dr. Don Nielsen, senior vice president for quality at the American Hospital Association in Washington, said the study demonstrates the need for a greater awareness of the symptoms peculiar to women vs. men, as well as an awareness of the need to begin timely and appropriate treatment for stroke and heart attack.

Nielsen said that, in the past, most doctors and nurses have treated men for cardiovascular disease based on symptoms such as severe chest pains, but women many times experience atypical symptoms such as pain in the arms and shoulders or excess fatigue.

“We are seeing greater awareness from governmental Web sites and the American Heart Association,” he said, about the need to educate women “about risks and symptoms of cardiovascular disease.”

A 2004 study by the American Heart Association found awareness of heart-disease symptoms increased to almost 50 percent among women, and respondents reported obtaining most of their information from the mass media instead of a physician. Only 24 percent of the women who responded cited healthcare providers as an information source, while 45 percent cited magazines, 34 percent cited television and 27 percent cited newspapers.

Among other findings in the HealthGrades’ study:

–The best-performing hospitals improved by about 12.7 percent in treating women cardiovascular disease patients between 2001 and 2003, while there was a 5.7-percent improvement among the poorest-performing hospitals.

– The greatest improvement across the board in women’s mortality was in CABG surgery, while the least improvement was in stroke treatment.

– The widest improvement gap between best-performing and poorest-performing hospitals occurred in heart-failure treatment, with best-performing hospitals showing a 23.7-percent improvement, while the poorest performers improved by 4.28 percent.

– The greatest differences in women’s cardiac and stroke outcomes among the best- and poorest-performing hospitals was seen in percutaneous coronary interventions, such as angioplasties, heart failure and CABG.

– On average, women treated at the best-performing hospitals have a 42.75-percent lower risk of mortality for PCI, a 43.63-percent lower risk of mortality for heart failure and a 46.44-percent lower risk of mortality for CABG.

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Fewer resources, fewer nursing students

By Stokely Baksh

WASHINGTON, July 5 (UPI) — The nursing shortage is likely to escalate as baby boomers age and healthcare needs multiply, but nursing advocates say the problem is not lack of interest in pursuing nursing careers — it is lack of space, financial resources and faculty to train aspiring individuals.

Even federal funding intended to alleviate the nursing shortage is falling short, as nursing organizations — particularly nursing schools — look to other means of easing the problem but find it difficult to expand enrollment for qualified students.

More than 1 million new and replacement nurses will be needed by 2012, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, and the American Hospital Association reports 126,000 registered-nurse vacancies and 13,900 staff vacancies in nursing homes.

Also, the BLS reports although RNs are on the list of 10 occupations with the largest projected job growth from 2002 to 2012, nursing shortages continue to increase.

Additional studies reveal the shortage is causing emergency-room overcrowding, discontinued patient-care programs or reduced service hours, delayed discharges and canceled surgeries.

Nursing advocates warn enrollments are not expanding rapidly enough to address the growing shortage.

According to the “2004-2005 Enrollment and Graduations in Baccalaureate and Graduate Programs in Nursing,” published by the American Association of Colleges of Nurses, U.S. nursing schools turned away 32,797 qualified applicants from baccalaureate and graduate programs in 2004 due to “insufficient number of faculty, clinical sites, classroom space, clinical preceptors, and budget constraints.”

Texas is below the national average in its nurse-to-population ratio, with 609 nurses per 100,000 population. (The national average is 782 nurses per 100,000 population.) Texas is expected to need 138,000 more nurses in the next seven to 10 years.

At the University of Texas School of Nursing in Houston, however, Dean Patricia L. Starck said 4,200 qualified applicants were turned away last year — or 10 applicants for every one accepted — because of limited resources.

In 2000, of the 411 applicants there were only 120 slots, and since then the applicant pool has risen 247 percent.

“It’s frustrating,” Starck told United Press International. “We are trying new things to increase the number of students we can educate, including accelerated nursing program, using hospital nurses as on-the-job educators, and many other programs, but there is only so much we can do.”

Starck said the problem became obvious after the 2000 nursing shortage. To meet growing demands, the school has increased the number of nursing students by 56 percent over the last five years, yet the shortage continues to get worse.

“In the state of Texas, we need a double enrollment by 2007,” she said.

Starck said more state funding could solve part of the problem, but the university also needs to attract faculty members willing to be paid less than they would make in the private sector.

“If we don’t see a lot of new money in this effort,” Starck said, “we are going to continue to struggle. Nurses will continue to work overtime, on their days off, for their patients’ needs.”

Many nursing schools, including Starck’s — which recently opened a new $57 million School of Nursing and Student Community Center — are hoping the additional space will accommodate more students, although it will not solve the problem entirely. The UT nursing school shares land with two others — Prairie View A&M University and Texas Women’s University — both of which are currently constructing new buildings.

The University of Miami’s School of Nursing and Health Studies is another institution dealing with nursing shortages.

Florida is projected to experience a shortage of 18,000 nurses by 2010 and from 55,000 to 60,000 by 2020, said Nilda Peragallo, the nursing school’s dean. The Miami-Dade County area has one of the lowest RN ratios of the 15 major U.S. metropolitan areas, with 6 per 1,000 residents — a particular problem in a region with a high number of uninsured adults and children.

Enrollment at the UM nursing school has doubled over the last two years, because the school has enhanced its accelerated program and currently is building a new state-of-the-art nursing school.

Peragallo added, however, that financial need and lack of scholarships limit the number of students.

Last year only 81 students of the 123 who were admitted were able to participate in the baccalaureate accelerated program because of financial limitations, she said, and of the 422 who applied and 234 admitted, only 131 actually attended the school.

Peragallo said the school needs more partnerships between its nursing program and healthcare companies to provide experienced faculty and clinical experience and to reduce the student-faculty ratio — if there are 100 students, there should be 10 faculty members and 10 clinical sites.

Some new initiatives are being set up by the federal and state governments and healthcare organizations to attract potential nursing students and provide job training.

The Nurse Reinvestment Act, for example, signed in August 2002, provides scholarship money and loan-forgiveness grants for faculty. In fiscal year 2004 Congress funded the program at $142 million. In FY 2005 it received $151 million, but under President George W. Bush’s FY 2006 budget it will lose $1 million, according to Carol Cooke, spokeswoman for the American Nurses Association.

“(The act) was a great piece of support,” Cooke said, “but the bad news is that we have to go back every year for funding.”

Cooke said the lack of classroom space and nursing faculty and the rate at which nursing students become nurses will not address the growing number of retiring nurses in the future.

“This situation is going to get worse,” said Cooke, who added there are not enough nurses with Master’s degrees and Ph.D.s who are qualified to teach, so more potential students will be turned away.

She said it is difficult attracting people to the field, particularly with reports of today’s nurses leaving the profession early because they are burned out.

In many cases, nurses are overworked with too many patients to care for, forced to work overtime with limited overtime wages and benefits, and need respect from their healthcare peers, she said

“It’s just not a problem with the nursing programs, but improving the work environment,” Cooke said. “Nurses are bedside caregivers 24/7. They, too, need to have input in patient care.”

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Managed care a growing part of Medicaid

By Stokely Baksh
WASHINGTON, June 29 (UPI) — Medicaid is expected to see 7-percent growth in coming years, and as Congress considers ways to reduce expenditures for the nation’s largest healthcare entitlement program, insurance-industry experts point to managed care as a cost-effective solution.

The Medicaid Health Plans of America, a national association that represents the health plans that have become a bigger part of the Medicaid program in recent years, Wednesday gave a state-of-the-industry update to reporters in Washington.

“The Medicaid health industry is the leading way in reducing the cost for poor families and low-income children while working to improve the quality of their health,” said Joy Wheeler, board chair for Medicaid Health Plans of America. “Improving health and wellness is accomplished through health education activities, aggressive care and management techniques, extensive outreach programs, and the constant goal of producing savings for the state and the government.”

Wheeler, president and chief executive officer of FirstGuard Health Plan, said penetration rates for managed-care programs in Medicaid has gone up every year, from 40 percent in 1996 to 60 percent in 2004. Moreover, as of June 30 all but three states — Alaska, New Hampshire and Wyoming — currently operate a Medicaid managed-care program. In some states managed care is mandated in the Medicaid program.

Margaret Murray, executive director of America’s Community Affiliated Health Plans, said states use managed care to offer more comprehensive Medicaid coverage.

“States are using Medicaid managed care programs to extend care to populations that are in great need, in addition to children and families,” Murray said in a press release. “These actions encourage greater accountability of healthcare dollars and offer the opportunity for preventive care and service not available in traditional fee-for-service programs.”

In Georgia, state officials have announced a plan that would shift Medicaid beneficiaries from fee-for-service to a statewide mandatory managed-care program by the end of 2007. Meanwhile, in Indiana the state hopes to phase in all counties into mandatory managed-care plans by November.

The industry has been successful in improving access to healthcare and being a cost-saving system, said Karen Ignagni, president and CEO of America’s Health Insurance Plans.

A report entitled “Innovations in Medicaid Managed Care” from AHIP found California Medicaid participants enrolled in managed-care plans were up to 38 percent less likely to have been hospitalized for conditions amenable to timely outpatient treatment. In Kentucky, AHIP found that since 1997 the percentage of Medicaid-covered children receiving early and periodic screening, diagnostic and treatment services increased by nearly 250 percent.

Studies by the Lewin Group found Medicaid-managed programs typically yielded a cost savings ranging from 2 percent to 19 percent. The analyses showed Pennsylvania’s managed-care program saved $2.7 billion over the past five years, while Wisconsin’s managed-care programs achieved a cost savings of 7.9 percent in 2001 and 10.7 percent in 2002, compared to traditional fee-for-service programs.

“Medicaid health plans remain eager to continue their work with public and private partnerships,” said Thomas Johnson, executive director of Medicaid Health Plans of America. “As the federal government today contemplates reform efforts, Medicaid managed care must be a part of such efforts.”

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AMA gets facelift to attract new members

By Stokely Baksh
WASHINGTON, June 22 (UPI) — The American Medical Association hopes a more focused agenda, a national advertising campaign and a new logo will reverse a trend of declining membership and strengthen its position with the public.

Despite the AMA’s efforts, however, critics say the organization will continue to deteriorate because of its business ventures, including an embarrassing 1997 endorsement of Sunbeam Corp. health products, a deal it later backed out of.

“This campaign highlights the AMA’s commitment to unify all physicians and shape the future of healthcare,” AMA President Dr. John C. Nelson told reporters during a teleconference at the organization’s annual House of Delegates meeting.

The goal of the marketing strategy is to recruit new members and member organizations, as well as build upon the AMA’s public name recognition. It also hopes to attract 250,000 so-called joiner physicians by identifying their needs.

“AMA membership has been declining since the 1960s,” said Dr. Michael D. Maves, AMA executive vice president and chief executive officer. He attributed the continuing decline to the rise of prominent specialty organizations.

In 2004 there were approximately 244,530 members, and the organization saw a 2.4-percent membership decline compared to 6.4 percent in 2002. Over the years AMA regular membership steadily has declined while memberships have increased among students and retired individuals who get a discounted rate.

Currently, of 800,000 physicians nationwide, the AMA has about a 28-percent market share, Maves said.

This year the AMA expects a 1-percent increase in paying members and, so far, membership is higher than last year, said Maves, who did not give an exact number or makeup of the current membership.

Among the issues that will top the AMA’s expanded agenda, medical-liability reform — already a priority — remains at the top. Other issues member surveys showed were important include Medicare physician payment reform, care for the uninsured and improving public health.

Moreover, the AMA also launched a $60 million, three-year advertising campaign that champions doctors and promotes the organization. To represent the future of medicine, the logo change includes replacing its teal color with purple and introducing a more contemporary-looking staff of Asclepius, the Greek symbol of medicine.

Dr. Mary Frank, president of the American Academy of Family Physicians, said the AMA’s decision to expand its agenda will help the organization with membership more than an advertising campaign and logo change.

“By addressing the needs of the public in this country and the physicians who take care of them, they are making themselves more attractive,” said Frank, an AMA member.

Since the 1980s the AAFP, a member organization of the AMA, also has worked on issues of the uninsured and increasing access to healthcare, she said.

Critics, however, said the AMA campaign will not work, especially when the organization depends mainly on business revenues rather than membership dues.

“Unfortunately, the AMA is running a business that doesn’t represent patients and physicians — it represents its own business interests,” said Andrew Schlafly, general counsel for the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons.

Schlafly told United Press International memberships are less than 20 percent of AMA’s revenue, which means more than 80 percent of revenue comes from business ventures.

In 1997 the AMA agreed to endorse Sunbeam products but backed out when members protested the deal, forcing the organization to pay millions of dollars to end the venture.

“Ethics aren’t even in their agenda,” Schlafly said. “They are slowly dying; in 10 years, they are going to be irrelevant, heading for extinction.”

Leana Wen, national president of American Medical Student Association, told UPI the AMA does not represent the idealistic nature of today’s medical students, who are interested in their patients rather than money.

“Young doctors want good healthcare for patients — not getting more money for ourselves like what the AMA wants,” said Wen, who added the No. 1 issue should not be medical liability but advocating universal healthcare.

The AMSA has a membership of 60,000 and boasts a 17-percent increase over the past two years, said Wen, who added she expects it to continue to grow.

“Most medical students are very idealistic,” she said. “Overall, we want another organization that stands for patient advocacy, and that organization doesn’t exist right now.”

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Medical helicopter businesses increasing

By Stokely Baksh

WASHINGTON, June 10 (UPI) — The airborne-ambulance business is likely to grow as more companies find the industry profitable and produce more heliports and enhance airlifts with in-flight paramedics and state-of-the-art equipment for communities wanting quicker access to medical care — but some experts warn that too many competing air-medical companies could be a problem.

A study in the June issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association reported that nearly 81.4 million people in the United States have received access to trauma care within an hour because of medical helicopters.

The study, by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in Philadelphia, also found that 46.7 million Americans — many living in rural areas — do not have access to trauma centers within an hour’s travel.

Dr. Charles C. Branas, the lead researcher, and colleagues suggested additional medical-helicopter bases and good geographic placement of centers could improve access for rural residents.

The ongoing study, which will provide recommendations to 13 states to enhance access, also found that 70 percent of Americans had access to Level I trauma centers within 45 minutes, while 84 percent of all residents had access to Level II centers within an hour.

A Level I trauma center offers a full range of specialists and equipment on a 24-hour basis and admits a required minimum volume of severely injured patients each year, according to standards established by the American College of Surgeons.

Medical helicopters bring more people within the one-hour radius, Branas and colleagues wrote, because they are more “movable” than trauma centers.

Emergency medical air transports are undertaken by state or individual hospitals, but within the last 10 years trauma centers have been outsourcing the business and, increasingly, the transport companies themselves are offering memberships.

Air Evac, one of the nation’s largest medical airlift companies and an independent provider model, has been selling its services to paying members in rural areas since 1985. Today the company is flourishing with 56 helicopter bases in nine states, including Arkansas, Tennessee, Illinois and Texas.

Seth Meyers, Air Evac’s director of operations, said the company has been growing by 30 percent per year over the past five years. It will be adding as many as eight bases this year, including in Mississippi and Iowa, he said, a first for the company, and there remain many communities still in need of service, particularly in areas where rural hospitals are facing financial difficulties.

Rural-based helicopters make an average of 30 to 35 flights a month, and many of their members are trauma, cardiac and stroke patients, Meyers said.

“We see (a continued increase of medical airlifts in rural areas), but it’s not growing as fast,” Meyers told United Press International, adding that more hospital medical-helicopter programs are recognizing the need to put aircraft in different locations.

He said he thinks most helicopters should be moved from urban areas to rural areas, because urban residents have more emergency-medical-service options.

Despite the increase of independent providers, Judy Kettenstock, program director of Midwest Medflight, a non-profit air medical service for St. Joseph Mercy Hospital in Ann Arbor, Mich., said the company is fortunate it does not have to compete with them, because the state of Michigan requires a certificate of need.

“(Medical helicopters) enable us to get to a scene as early as possible,” Kettenstock told UPI. It can take 45 to 60 minutes for ambulances to reach the scene of an emergency, while helicopters can get there “within 15 minutes, well within the golden hour.”

About 10 percent of Medflight’s airlifts are emergency-related, but the flights mostly transport cardiac patients from rural facilities to the hospital’s Michigan Heart & Vascular Institute.

At least one expert thinks there are too many competing air ambulances.

“It’s an industry that has not policed itself,” said Dr. Bryan Bledsoe, an emergency physician and EMS author in Midlothian, Texas. “We’ve got more medical helicopters in Dallas, Fort Worth and Phoenix than in Canada or Australia. They need more in rural places, not in Chicago, Dallas or Fort Worth.”

Bledsoe said EMS teams should follow better standards on whether medical helicopters should substitute for ground ambulances.

“The criteria for using medical air transport needs to be based on science, not antidote,” Bledsoe told UPI, explaining that two out of three trauma patients tend to have minor injuries, and one in four is not even admitted to the trauma center.

Bledsoe, a physician for more than 30 years, said he is concerned about the proliferation of medical helicopters because of the dangers crews face and the inexperience of flight paramedics. He said insurance companies provide good reimbursements to medical airlift companies, which only need eight flights a month to break even.

Tom Judge, president of the Association of Air Medical Services, said many people do not get to hospitals or the specialists they need within an hour for treatment of brain injuries or surgical problems.

The AAMS — a voluntary non-profit organization that encourages high standards for operation of medical airlifts and the care they provide — has a membership of 270, which makes up about 85 percent of the industry.

“Leave the urban areas and there are literally millions of people who don’t get the care they need in time,” Judge told UPI. “People who live in rural places are people who run out of time.”

Judge, also executive director of LifeFlight in Bangor, Maine, operates two helicopters for the state’s largest non-profit healthcare organizations. He said the AAMS is working with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to provide EMS assistance to more geographic locations.

“Air medicine is very visible, highly emotional, and you’re only called in, in the most horrible circumstances when patients are in life-or-limb situations,” Judge said, “(but it) is only one component of the EMS system. We need to make sure everyone has access to healthcare.”

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Author: Home remedies back in style

By Stokely Baksh

WASHINGTON, June 8 (UPI) — The answer to an earache, a grandmother from Italy once suggested, is to pour heated salt into a thick sock and place it against the child’s ear, taking care not to burn the child’s face, said pediatrician Lillian Beard.

“It works,” she added.

Beard collected this homemade remedy, along with hundreds of others that can heal minor injuries — from clearing up acne to ridding warts to easing a headache — during her 30 years of practicing medicine. She now has provided a physician’s take on why they work in her A-to-Z book, “Salt in Your Sock and Other Tried-and-True Home Remedies” (Three Rivers Press).

A practitioner in Silver Spring, Md., Beard also is associate clinical professor at The George Washington University School of Medicine and a contributor to ABC-TV’s “Good Morning Washington.”

She said the salt-and-sock remedy works because heated salt is able to draw out fluid caught in the ear and can decrease air pressure on the eardrum as well as soothe any facial discomfort.

“Complementary and alternative medicine is indeed changing the face of medicine today,” said Beard, adding that more people are returning to this form of therapy.

A 2004 study by the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta found, based on a survey of 31,044 adults, as many as 36 percent use some form of CAM, as it is known. It includes acupuncture, naturopath and yoga, and when mega-vitamin therapy and prayer are included, the share rises to 62 percent.

“I’d like to say what is old is new again, and if you stick around long enough, as I did, you will see it,” Beard told United Press International.

Beard said earlier in her career she had been dismissive of homemade remedies suggested by families, but over time, after similar remedies were suggested, she began to wonder whether they actually worked.

She explained how a great-grandmother once recommended urine paste to treat a rash on the face of her great granddaughter. At the time, Beard had dismissed such an idea. It was not until years later, while attending an art-history lecture, that she understood the urine use when she learned that soldiers from Hannibal’s army crossing the Swiss Alps survived by putting urine on their wounds.

Beard explained that urea, a component of urine, has soothing and healing as well as anti-infective properties and can even be found in skin creams.

In another case, a patient’s aunt had suggested cutting an onion and putting it in her child’s socks to reduce a fever. As the onion absorbed the heat, it turned brown, smelling like fried onions.

“The book represents what has been tried and true over generations,” Beard said. “In fact, generations ago, people used what was in their immediate environment” — remedies such as cayenne pepper to stop bleeding, aloe for burns, roasted onion on a potential bruise and ginger tea to treat nausea.

Other traditional remedies Beard recommends:

– To stop a headache, slice strips of potato and place across the forehead to act as a cold compress — as the Irish did.

– A couple of teaspoons of vinegar in water in the morning could help one feel more energized, lower blood pressure and speed up metabolism.

– Use a dry mustard plaster for chest congestion.

– Use a beanbag to stop bleeding, particularly when having a tooth extraction.

Beard noted these remedies are not laboratory-tested, but they are family-tested.

“I’m not sure if the grandmothers and aunties really understood the biology of why certain things worked,” Beard said, but added: “They could pull them out of the yard, they could pluck them from a tree, they canned them, bottled them, saved them from season to season. They can pass this knowledge on to generations. They used them because if they worked, they kept generations of families healthy.”

Beard stressed that homemade remedies should not become substitutes for the family physician. They are quick fixes, she said, offering an easier way for parents and others to cope through the night.

“There is the possibility that there is someone who may react to the allium plant or to an onion,” Beard said, encouraging people to consult their doctor, because overuse of home remedies or their interaction with prescription medications can be dangerous.

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Non-profit hospitals face more questions

By Stokely Baksh

WASHINGTON, May 27 (UPI) — Non-profit hospitals in the United States, which have spent the past year battling lawsuits alleging they failed to provide the charity healthcare required under their tax-exempt status, this week came under scrutiny by House and Senate leaders, who also demanded they explain their business practices.

A day after Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, the Finance Committee chairman, asked for an investigation of the financial practices of 10 of the largest U.S. non-profit hospitals, Rep. Bill Thomas, R-Calif., the House Ways and Means chairman, on Thursday asked, “What is the taxpayer getting in return for the tens of billions of dollars per year in tax subsidy?”

Thomas, during a hearing by his committee, suggested lawmakers might consider whether the tax-exemption definition should be changed to serve taxpayers better.

“Tax-exempt status is a privilege. Unfortunately some charities abuse that privilege,” Grassley said. “By gathering information from non-profit hospitals, I hope to learn whether the benefits they provide to the needy justify the tax breaks they receive.”

Non-profit hospitals around the country have enjoyed some success fighting lawsuits filed by a group of law firms led by Mississippi lawyer Richard Scruggs. The suits allege the hospitals did not live up to their tax-exempt responsibilities.

“It’s increasingly difficult to differentiate for-profit from non-profit healthcare providers,” IRS Commissioner Mark W. Everson testified before Ways and Means.

During the hearing, the IRS received some of the blame from lawmakers for widening its interpretation of “charitable” from its initial 1956 ruling on tax exemption. In 1969, the IRS adopted the “community benefit standard,” which no longer limited organizations to providing a specific level of relief to the poor, but allowed them to demonstrate they benefited the community sufficiently, Everson testified.

The current federal standard for exemption requires non-profit healthcare organizations to be governed by members of the community, rather than by financially interested individuals. It also requires medical staff privileges in the hospital to be made available to all qualified physicians in the area. It requires hospitals to provide full-time emergency room access to all patients, regardless of their ability to pay, and stipulates excess funds be applied to the expansion and replacement of facilities and equipment, as well as training and research.

“It was easy to change the IRS ruling, and that’s why we are here today,” Thomas said.

Stan Jenkins, chairman of the Board of Review for Champaign County, Ill., said more federal oversight is needed for non-profit organizations that receive charitable tax-exemption status, because county officials are intimidated by hospital politics or ill-equipped to deal adequately with such issues.

Jenkins’ group’s research found three central problems with two of the county’s non-profit organizations: overpriced care for the uninsured, improper billing and collection practices and availability of charity care.

In 2001, Provena Covenant and Carle Foundation hospitals in the county were stripped of their charitable tax-exempt status by the Illinois Department of Revenue, Jenkins said. A county investigation found Provena Covenant operated non-profit and for-profit sectors under its umbrella. Provena Hospitals and Senior Services transferred $159.7 million to the parent corporation, Provena Health, which transferred $23.1 million to a for-profit Provena Ventures. Meanwhile, Carle Foundation was found to have overcharged patients and sued patients over medical debt, Jenkins said.

“A hospital has every legal right to pursue collections through the court system, like any other business,” Jenkins testified, “but they can’t have it both ways. They can’t act like any other business, yet expect to enjoy tax-exempt status unlike any other business — especially if they hold themselves out to be charitable organizations under either federal or state law.”

Professor John Colombo, of the University of Illinois College of Law in Urbana-Champaign, testified that “hospitals have enjoyed exemption from the federal income tax virtually since the beginning of the income tax system.”

There is a lack of accountability for legal exemptions, Colombo added.

In Texas, lawmakers adopted specific charity-care standards in the 1993 Nonprofit Hospital Community Benefits Law, which requires non-profit hospitals to provide community benefits equal to 5 percent of net patient revenue. Of that amount, 4 percent must be the cost of charity care and unreimbursed cost of government-sponsored healthcare programs while providing services in relation to the community’s needs.

John T. Thomas, senior vice president of the Baylor Health Care System in Texas, said his organization conducts formal community needs assessments and non-profit hospitals submit annual reports detailing the amount of charity care and community benefits provided.

Baylor files three separate reports for its two major facilities — Baylor University Medical Center and Our Children’s House at Baylor — which satisfy the law requirements because of their heavy Medicaid patient load. Thomas said Baylor Health Care System’s total community benefit was $240 million in 2004.

“Texas charity care law is a fair, objective standard for determining if a hospital is meeting its mission as a nonprofit organization,” Thomas testified.

A recent survey of 100 hospital financial executives by PricewaterhouseCoopers’ Health Research Institute showed hospitals provide more free care than the $25 billion they report annually. The survey found the rising number of uninsured Americans forces hospitals to absorb higher levels of charity care and bad debt.

The survey also found it was difficult to report on the value of charity care because of inconsistencies in hospital policies to qualify for charity. Hospitals unable to classify charity cases when patients do not pay for services write off the debt.

“The survey was critical, because not enough data has been collected for legislators, hospitals, insurance companies … for anybody,” said Reatha Clark, a partner in the PricewaterhouseCoopers healthcare industry group. “The real heart of the problem is people’s access to care (and) whether it be charity care, bad debt and billing practices — that should be the second question. Senator Grassley isn’t asking the right question.”

Still, for other non-profit and faith-based organizations, a review of the IRS rulings is necessary so tax-exemptions are awarded appropriately because healthcare systems compete for subsidies.

“Many non-profits have a weak structure,” said Sister Carol Keehan, chairperson of the Board of Trustees of the Catholic Health Association of the United States. “We need to strengthen it, rather than tossing the non-profit structure out.”

The CHA, a faith-based organization that provides community health services, began its Social Accountability Budget and its Community Benefit Inventor for Social Accountability programs to plan, monitor, report and evaluate community-benefit activities in which the organization participates. The CHA hopes such standards could help non-profit hospitals better serve their communities.

Lawmakers said more research was needed on the charitable structure, its economic impact in different regions and joint ventures.

“We’re not able to talk honestly about this issue,” said Rep. Nancy Johnson, R-Conn. “We have to be conscious because we don’t know what we’re talking about.”

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Movie-goers, bloggers hit with Sith fever

By Stokely Baksh
WASHINGTON, May 20 (UPI) — Jason Piasecki spent six hours in line at Fairfax Corner 14: Cinema de Lux in Northern Virginia, waiting for the first screening of “Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith” at 12 a.m. Thursday.

“I’m a big fan of Star Wars,” said Piasecki who plans to see the movie three more times by Monday. “I wouldn’t have stayed out to 3 or 4 in the morning and come out to work the next day at 9 a.m. if I wasn’t a fan.”

The Star Wars community, techies and just fans of the original 1977 movie came out full force Thursday, not only to movie theaters but online as well, to share in the experience of the last installment of the Star Wars prequel trilogy.

Piasecki had ordered tickets two weeks ago for the premiere screening. The seventh one in line, he had been waiting for six hours with his friend, Justin.

“We’re veterans at this,” said Piasecki, who spent 12 hours in line when “Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King” came out.

“It was awesome,” he said as he described the Sith premiere. “People were playing with Master Replicas, which are light sabers that are like $150 a pop, and people were dressed up as Yoda and Darth Vader. There were three Princess Leilas there, too… I would have dressed up too if I had a costume.”

For Piasecki, the latest Star Wars edition was more than just a movie even as he admitted the acting wasn’t all that great.

“This marks the end of an era, there are no more epic films coming out,” he said. “There aren’t any more new epics to wait for … Sith was one of the turning points for the movie-going generation.”

Piasecki and others might scare some employers, who could lose as much as $627 million in lost productivity for Thursday and Friday because employees either skip work or take the day off to see “Revenge of the Sith,” said a study from the outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc.

Challenger researchers had calculated the loss from workplace absenteeism by assuming attendance on the first two days of Sith will at least match that of the previous Star Wars movie “Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones,” for which about 9.4 million people bought tickets over two days, making for a box revenue of some $54.5 million.

Among the fans expected to see the movie this weekend, Challenger figured about 51 percent are full-time workers.

“I’ve been a fan since the first Star Wars came out in 1977,” said Corey, who did not want his last name used as he was on his way to work Thursday after the movie. “They story is magnificent and as a young boy science fiction is the ultimate thing, and this was the ultimate story.”

Mark Fourniel of Northern Virginia, heading into the movie Thursday, said he was going into work late. Fourniel said he believes employers could lose $627 million.

“I believe it, but it’s funny,” Fourniel said. “It’s definitely possible, but I think there will be gains in other areas in terms of the entertainment industry. So, there probably won’t be a total loss in the grand scheme of things.”

Challenger said the movie industry will get a boost with “increased consumer spending on movie tickets and refreshments, increases in foreign and domestic tourism, and increased business in shops and restaurants near the movie theaters,” which may outweigh the loss of productivity.

Fandango, a popular online movie ticket vendor, found in an April online poll 79 percent of its film fans were planning to see Sith on opening weekend.

“Tickets are selling at light-speed,” Fandango President Art Levitt said in April. “Sales for Sith have surpassed anything we’ve seen before for a movie four weeks away from opening day. The enthusiasm of moviegoers and sales are tremendous, signaling a very busy start to the summer blockbuster season.”

Sith also ranked as Fandango’s fastest-selling movie to-date, currently selling five times as many tickets as the company’s next best-selling movie Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ.”

Meanwhile, the Geek Squad, which provides tech help in homes and businesses, took advantage of the occasion and auctioned Geek Squad Agents through eBay as emergency replacements for fans standing in ticket line, along with a 40-foot operational workstation with Internet so fans could check their e-mail.

The Geek Squad also provided excuse notes for moviegoers in school or work. They read: “Please excuse (insert name) from work on Thursday, May 19. (He/she) is not felling well. (First name) is at home in bed for the entire day, nursing what appears to be a serious (stomach bug/ flu/fever/dismemberment/loss of mitochondria/hamster attack). (First name)’s illness is in no way, shape or form related to the premier of (a long awaited/ the final installment of the greatest story ever/ the #$%%!! BEST THING EVER), which, coincidentally, premieres on the same date…”

“This shows that the Puritan work ethic may not be as strong as it used to be,” said Bernard Mergen, a professor of American Studies at George Washington University for 35 years. “For employers, it may add up but I don’t think individual employers are going to get too angry.”

Mergen also said people see this as a break in their work routine and that most employers could benefit from their employees, who may be happier as a result of taking off time to see the movie.

Many die-hard Star Wars fans have taken to the Internet to voice their opinions and anticipation through blogs and online chats.

Intelliseek’s BlogPulse.com, which tracks trends within the 11 million strong blog community, found from November 2004 to March 2005, “Revenge of the Sith” had been a hotter topic than any other big blockbuster movie, including “War of the Worlds,” “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire,” and “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.”

It reported the movie’s buzz maintained a near-steady level of discussion each day and that Darth Vader received more talk than another other character in the movie.

As one blog, “Darth Vader’s Meditation Chamber” (part of Starwars.com blogs) noted in its entry: “Thank you George,” “ROTS surely surpassed my own expectations. I loved it and I must watch it like 10 or 20 times more to catch every little detail. Emotional, fast, strong. One of the best, if not the very best of the saga!”

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DNA gives gender news for Buddha

By Stokely Baksh
UPI Science News

WASHINGTON, May 16 (UPI) — A month-old prehensile-tailed porcupine — the first of its kind born at the National Zoo — was both a delight and a mystery for veterinarians who couldn’t quite tell if Buddha was a girl or a boy.

It could have taken six months for nature to take its course and announce an answer — but curiosity won out and the researchers turned to DNA science to fill in the blank in just four weeks.

DNA extracted from her quills, another National Zoo first, showed quite plainly that Buddha was a girl.

“(When babies are born) we try to determine that eyes, ears, nose, throat is fine … and determine the gender,” said head veterinarian Dr. Suzan Murray. “This is our first prehensile-tailed porcupine and we weren’t really able to tell what gender she was by just looking.”

Baby porcupines are born with coarse red hair, but as they grow to adult size over the next year they lose the hair and grow sharp spines. Buddha was born with soft fur and eventually grew tiny quills that would later stiffen.

Animal keeper Dell Guglielmo, who cares for Buddha and her parents, said sex organs are not visible in babies and could take six months to be clearly discerned, since externally they look alike.

Palpating the area between the anus and the organ did not provide a gender answer so zoo researchers recruited the help of geneticist Dr. Jesus Maldonado to lead the DNA project that would determine Buddha’s sex.

“We pulled all our resources together in managing the animals, both those in captivity and the wild,” Murray said.

Collecting DNA from quills was a first for Maldonado, who had worked on other projects extracting DNA from wolves and wild African elephants.

Maldonado first performed a blind test with Buddha’s parents to figure out their gender, to see if the procedure was possible.

“This genetic procedure is relatively new and I had never worked with a porcupine,” Maldonado said. “It was exciting to test them blindly.”

Maldonado said the process wasn’t as simple as looking at DNA from a human — so far no genome map has been made for porcupines. It took only four days, however, to arrive at the answer.

“The closest sequence we found was a pig,” said Andrew Rivara, an intern in the genetics program.

Rivara was the technician who extracted DNA from the follicle or the white tip of the quill. Enzymes were used to expose the DNA before studying it further, he said. “It was really cool to do this in a noninvasive way,” Rivara said.

Murray said Buddha’s case is just one of many examples of the zoo’s commitment to using noninvasive measures in handling its animals.

“We do noninvasive procedures such as crate training, which we train an animal to go into a crate and all we do is close the door and take it to the hospital,” Murray said, “as opposed to the past, running around and chasing animals with nets or into holding. It’s much calmer for the animals and humans and you lose the risk of people getting hurt and the animals, too.”

Native to South America, prehensile-trailed porcupines are part of the rodent family. These tree-dwellers are nocturnal animals that use their quills and keen sense of smell to survive in the wild. Contrary to what some believe, their spikes do not shoot out, but rather get stuck to predators that directly approach them.

Guglielmo said Buddha will be part of a training program that will help provide researchers with information on genetics, ecological data, virus information and reproductive production.

Congratulations could also be in order again, as Guglielmo suspects Buddha’s 2-year-old mother could be pregnant with her second offspring. This could mean a new opportunity for Maldonado and his team.

Guglielmo said prehensile-tailed porcupines can get pregnant hours after giving birth but their gestation period is more than 200 days. Usually, they carry just one baby at a time.

“The results have been successful,” Guglielmo said. “It’s great to have this really proud feeling when I see kids come by and enjoy them. They’ll be a big hit and people do love babies.”

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U.S. race tests transplant cyclist

By Stokely Baksh
WASHINGTON, March 7 (UPI) — Mental fatigue and hallucinations, lack of sleep, weather and terrain changes and “psychological warfare” — this is what cyclists in this summer’s Race Across America are facing.

One expert said, “How much you can hurt yourself, how much pain you can take, how long you can handle the pain … that all depends on how successful you will be.”

Among the hundreds of riders who will be answering these questions is kidney-transplant recipient Lou Lamoureux, 33, the first organ transplant recipient to enter the Race Across America — a non-stop 3,000-mile ultra-racing marathon from San Diego to Atlantic City, N.J., in seven days.

The Virginian resident, part of the four-man Team Give Life, is cycling on behalf of the Give Life Foundation to raise at least $100,000 and public awareness for blood, tissue and organ donations.

By competing in the RAAM, the team hopes it can race against time for those who run a more profound race — “the race to find a donor in time for a critical organ transplant or blood transfusion that will save their lives,” according to the group’s Web site.

“People with two kidneys have trouble riding,” said Lamoureux who has to consider the health risks, including kidney failure and dehydration.

An experienced cyclist, Lamoureux became interested in the RAAM as a recovery patient from a 2000 transplant operation when he received a kidney from his mother, Donna, some 14 years after he found out that he had glomerulonephritishis, a type of disease resulting in eventual kidney failure.

“I tell people I traded a kidney for two grandchildren,” says his mother who remembers her son walking around and waving to her the first day after his transplant surgery. “Now he’s able to function, (and) he functions a lot more than other people.”

Lamoureux, who has a wife and two children, explained he felt like Superman after the transplant and was back to cycling before doctors could say otherwise. Nine months later he rode in the PACtour and did hours of collegiate racing.

Now, an advocate for organ donations and transplants, Lamoureux has kept a Web log “Transplant Athlete” on cycling-videos.com since 2004 detailing his cycling routines, various diagnosis and doctor visits, transplant concerns and his fascination with the RAAM.

A member of the National Kidney Foundation’s “Transplant Team” and several-time gold medalist recipient in the U.S. Transplant Games among his accomplishments, Lamoureux has come a long way and is the most experienced of his teammates in ultra-racing.

He hopes that this experience will help him as he attempts again to qualify for the RAAM race as a soloist in 2006, in which he must ride 425 miles in 24 hours in order to qualify.

Lamoureux, with fellow cyclists Bruce Deming, 48, and Bill Vosseller, 37, are looking for a fourth rider who will have to withstand one of the toughest ultra-racing competitions in the United States. Armed with three vehicles including an RV and no physician, they will pursue riding in some of the most difficult of U.S. weather and terrains.

It was Deming’s idea to put together the team for the Give Life Foundation since he knew founders, Bart S. Fisher and Patrick Hughes, and their cause.

“It’s an interesting cause,” Deming said. “The problem is awareness and education … it’s about raising national consciousness and registering more people for organ and blood donations.”

Deming played around with the idea of entering solo but decided on a four-person team to reduce the stress despite the still tremendous undertaken of riding for seven consecutive days and about six hours of riding for each cyclist.

“We won’t be gaining weight that’s for sure,” joked Deming about the race. Lamoureux says that when the race is over, he thinks he’ll have a big cheeseburger and lots of food.

All three have been training rigorous hours to increase their endurance and stamina, and plan to start training together as the race draws near.

“We’re hoping to finish the race safely … just finishing the race alone is an achievement in itself, but it’ll be terrific if we finish strong,” Deming said.

This year’s RAAM kicks off June 9 marking its 24th year of tradition in ultra-racing, likening itself to the Tour de France. Solo racers start on June 19 while two- and four-person teams race three days later. However, unlike the Tour de France that goes on for 21 days, the RAAM is a continuous ride that tests cyclists’ mental and physical capacities.

“The RAAM is America’s answer to the Tour de France,” said Deming. “It’s the Super Bowl of cycling.”

So far, 120 racers will ride through 14 states climbing mountains while battling tailwinds, heat and frigid weather.

Originally, started by four men who decided to take a trans-continental ride to see who would be the fastest to cross the country, the race has expanded in various categories, routes and procedures to attract potential riders as the race’s popularity continues to grow.

“It’s one of those races you enter and you want to stop or give up, but when you finish, you have this incredible … tremendous sense of unity,” said RAAM spokesperson and longtime cycle journalist Paul Skilbeck. “It’s about a group of powerful human beings seeing what their capabilities are and seeing what they are capable of doing.”

He added, “How much you can hurt yourself, how much pain you can take, how long you can handle the pain … that all depends on how successful you will be.”

About 50 percent of solo riders dropout while about 5 percent drop out in team categories, he said.

According to Race Director Jim Pitre, who has been involved with the race for seven years and directed the race for about four years, the RAAM is for experienced riders who have multiple years of serious cycling. Formerly having ridden the race, Pitre has been a key player in the RAAM’s increasing popularity since the ’80s.

Pitre said cyclists must face the race as a super-ultra-endurance exercise and must have be ready to train for the nutrition issues, varying weather conditions and sleep deprivation that comes along with it. He says that in Lamoureux’s situation and the right training, that he could finish the race in a four-person team but the odds are greatest if he were to do it as a solo racer.

Still, Skilbeck points out cases like that of Lamoureux are inspirational and obtainable. He cites the case of another rider who was a Vietnam veteran whom lost his leg and finished the race as a soloist.

But Team Give Life isn’t the only team raising awareness on a health issue or organ donations. Within the Corporate Challenge division, Team Donate Life consists of health care providers from the University of California-Davis Medical Center and a kidney donor who are also raising awareness for organ donations.

“The Tour de France had cancer survivor Lance Armstrong, well we have our transplant survivor,” said Give Life Foundation’s Bart Fisher.

For Fisher, Lamoureux’s story is a case study that one can lead a great life after a transplant. But this isn’t Give Life Foundation’s first attempt to get the word out especially after the fact that no appropriations were made this fiscal year to the federal-based national donor registry organization created by the 1984 National Organ Transplant Act.

For Fisher, it’s been a struggle of raising awareness since losing his son, Ivan, in the early 1980s to aplastic anemia, a once-life threatening disease that occurs when bone marrow stops making blood cells resulting in infections, bleeding and anemia. Channeling his grief into action, Fisher played a key role into the passage of the act.

However, Fisher said he believes that many people in the United States are uneducated about organ and marrow transplant and hopes that the team will bring attention to the topic.

“It’s not so much a money issue, it’s an awareness issue,” Fisher said.

In the United States, more than 87,000 names reside on a waiting list for organ transplants.

Each day 70 people will have received an organ transplant but 16 will die waiting for transplant because of the shortage of donated organs, according to The United Network for Organ Sharing.

While approximately 900,000 people in the United States will receive tissue transplants and nearly 25,000 receive organ transplants each year, the waiting list for organ transplants grows at the rate of 1,000 per month while another name is added to the waiting list every 15 minutes.

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For more information on the RAAM, Team Give Life, or the Give Life Foundation: raceacrossamerica.org, teamgivelife.org,give-life.org

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Valentine’s: From cards to carwashing

By Stokely Baksh
WASHINGTON, Feb. 14 (UPI) — Many couples are spending more on loved ones this Valentines, giving the phrase “love don’t cost a thing” a whole new meaning. This also means good news for business.

Shoppers plan to splurge about the same or more than they did last year, spending an average of $178.39 on Valentine’s Day-related purchases, says the national survey “Shopping in America: 2005 Valentine’s Day.”

The figure includes an average of $100.63 on gifts for 2.3 recipients, and an additional $77.76 on events such as dinner, movies and theater.

However, greeting cards topped the wish list of Valentine gifts for both men and women among other items like candy, flowers and jewelry. The survey found that about 23 percent of men preferred cards compared to 22.2 percent of women.

Of the 74 percent celebrating the day of lovers itself, about 55 percent will celebrate it with a card, says Hallmark spokesperson Rachel Bolton.

Hallmark, one of the largest card companies, expects to sell about 200 million Valentine cards this year with an excess of 50 percent in market shares. The greeting-card industry accounts for 7 percent of the entire market.

About 1,500 different cards will be offered to consumers for the holiday among the company’s other card brands such as Shoebox cards, Mahogany and Sinceramente.

The cards are particularly useful for people who aren’t able to express their emotions, Bolton said.

She also says that much research analysis has gone into the type of cards that are produced. The company’s greeting staff includes about 50 writers and over 700 staffed on a creative team.

One of the key emphasis is on language, according to Bolton who says that the words written have become increasingly more casual, open and honest compared to formal greetings in cards a couple of decades ago.

She also mentions that cards today are reflecting the lifestyles of busy career-focused couples with children who are under pressure or have less time to see each other.

In fact, according to years of research conducted by Hallmark, the company came up with the four R’s as requirements for a successful romantic Valentine Day card: recognition, romance, reflection and reconnection.

“Monday, in a sense, is an opportunity to get ready or an opportunity to forget,” said Bolton reminding people that the holiday falls on a Monday. “It’s preferred to start your day out with a Valentine Day card… then it’s a good day at the end of the day. It’s like… ‘GoodMorning, Darling. It’s Valentine’s Day. Here’s your card.’”

More than 175 million roses were purchased last Valentine’s Day and about 154 million the year before, said Jenny Stromann from the Society of American Florists.

The flower industry is a $19 billion dollar industry and Valentine’s Day is the largest holiday for florists and cut flower purchases. Florists make eight to 10 times more than they do normally, she said.

Roses remain the favorite among sweethearts, says Ken Young, spokesperson for 1-800-Flowers. The flower delivery company expects to sell as many as five million for the holiday.

Young, on Thursday, said that they were “busy, busy, busy…it’s the second largest holiday for us behind Mother’s Day.”

However, he says the surprise contender and new trend they have noticed are tulips. In 2004, they sold about one million up from 300,000 from the year before.”[Tulips] are the surprise hit of the season.”

The company has also already sold out of its six limited luxury gift baskets that included silk pajamas, chocolates, jewelry, fragrances as well as flowers that ran for $1,000 each.

Since the company began almost 25 years ago, Valentine purchases have repeatedly increased every year, according to Young.

The major trends the company has seen have included gift baskets, combination gifts and delivering flowers to the office.

Yet for others, cards, candy and flowers doesn’t quite say “I love you” to their sweetie.

For instance, the International Carwash Association encourages people who love their cars to spend time with their loved ones amidst a background of soapy water and hot wax.

“Flowers die and candy adds inches to the waist line,” said “Mr. CarLove,” a.k.a. Mark Thorsby, executive director of the International Carwash Association. “Car washing is really protecting what you love. If you love your car, treat it like you do.”

According to the organization, its recent “Car Love Survey” found that one in 10 car owners said they’ve kissed or made-out in a car wash and most Americans with children were more likely to have a smooch at the car wash than those without. Meanwhile, about six percent have taken a date to the car wash.

Moreover, 26 percent said they loved in a car or knew someone who did and 38 percent said that their car has played a significant role in a wedding or honeymoon or knew someone where it did.

Not to forget that 84 percent reported they had an emotional attachment to their car while 16 percent said that they loved their car more than their significant other.

“It really enforces that Americans really do love their cars,” Thorsby said. “It’s the second more valuable investment to their home.”

But for singles still looking for love – and who have a Sprint plan there’s an alternative way to spend some of that would-be Valentine’s cash. This month, the company is capitalizing on the “love is in the air” month by releasing its newest feature — helping their single customers by hooking up with Match.com to create Match.com Mobile along with two other mobile dating services SMS.ac and Lavalife.

According to Yankee Group research, active users of mobile interactive, entertainment and community applications, are forecasted to grow from 960,000 in 2003 to 16.3 million in 2008.

Sprint hopes the new feature will be a great way for people to “flirt,chat and possibly fall in love.” The mobile dating services works like an online dating services without all the heavy equipment. Customers will be able to create a profile, search profiles and communicate through text messaging.

Laura Tiggs, spokeswoman for Sprint, expects the new feature to be very popular especially around Valentine’s.

She also mentions the company decided to act on this because of the popularity of online dating and text messenging.

Subscribers considering Match.com Mobil can pay $4.99 a month for unlimited usage and for the month of February only they can sign up and communicate with matches free. Those signing up with SMS.ac can pay $0.25 to send or receive text message for their three services: search profiles to find a date to flirt with, join mobile communities to chat for the same price per text, and choose to receive a text from their feature channels like celebrity gossip or latest news.

Lavalife Mobile is to debut later this month will allow users to dial a number to listen to voice greetings, trade instant voice messages to connect live for $0.79 per minute plus airtime, browse picture profiles and send messages to each other for $4.99 per month.

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National Zoo debuts cheetahs

By Stokely Baksh
UPI Correspondent

WASHINGTON, Feb. 4 (UPI) — Anything but camera shy, the frisky cheetah cubs at the National Zoo, who are already playing follow-the-leader and romping around in the snow, will be making their formal debut to the public on Saturday.

The cubs, two boys and two girls, were born two weeks ago. This is the first litter for four-year-old mother Tumai who has been bonding with her cubs off-exhibit for the last month.

“I think people are going to say these are the cutest cubs they’ve ever seen no matter if their playing or sleeping,” said animal keeper Craig Saffoe, who hopes visitors will also take the time to learn more about the cats.

Saffoe, who has worked at the National Zoo for the last 11 years as a cheetah keeper, was on duty monitoring the cubs the night they were born.

On a daily basis, Saffoe takes care of both mother and her cubs. He says that since he has been at the zoo, there have been 15 cats and currently there are nine including the cubs.

“[The experience] has been phenomenal,” he said. “I can’t even put it into words. The best thing is that [Tumai] has been such a great mom. It’s been effortless for us because we were worried that she would neglect her cubs and we’d have to come in and hand-rear them.”

According to veterinarian Carlos Sanchez, who has been at the zoo for the last four years, says that both the mother and cubs are healthy. Sanchez has been looking after the cats since the birth.

As of Monday, the cubs weigh about 10 pounds and are examined every two weeks since they were born, and already one of the females is feisty when we examine her, says Sanchez. This includes taking blood samples to monitor immunologic response to vaccination. These studies, conducted on other cheetahs at the zoo, are among a number studies used to clarify cheetah biology as well as physiology.

The small cubs still have their baby teeth and fuzzy baby hair and Sanchez says it will take them seven months to a year before they are fully grown.

According to Sanchez, the staff are able to determine the different of the gender because of a patch of clipped hair on the left or right front or back leg of the cubs. Males had a patch on the back of one of their legs while females had a patch on one of the front legs.

What makes these cheetah cubs interesting to research experts are that their mother’s conception was of importance for reproductive scientists studying the cheetah species. These are the first ever cheetah cubs, naturally born, right at the zoo.

Tumai was found to be pregnant 93 days after mating with a male cheetah from another zoo. Her conception was natural instead of other methods such as artificial insemination.

“This really exemplifies what 25 years of research can accomplish,” said Dr. Jo Gayle Howard who has been involved in reproductive research primarily with endangered animals. She is a leading figure in developing successful sperm processing and artificial insemination protocols for rare carnivore species. Howard has been at the zoo for the last 25 years as well, since the time the zoo became committed to cheetah conversation.

The zoo’s researchers along with the National Cancer Institute first reported 25 years ago that the lack of genetic variation in the cheetahs contributed to reproductive problems and disease.

The zoo first successful developed a successful method of freezing and preserving cheetah sperm, which resulted in the first surviving litter of cheetah cubs caused by artificial insemination. One of those cubs from the litter stills remains at the zoo. So far, they’ve had 10 successful artificial inseminations cases.

Moreover, zoo researchers also have successfully transported and used frozen semen from wild cheetahs in Africa, said Howard who mentioned that there have been 3 litters to have resulted from this method.

She also says that they have made strides in understanding methods of mating such as studying hormones extracted from feces. She mentioned that some key elements should be some competition between two males for a female. But she says, that they have also learned over time what not to do, like sticking two cheetahs together and expecting them to mate.

In addition, Howard says that although cheetahs live from 12 to 15 years, infertility is greater within eight years, so younger animals are needed to breed.

The zoo also has a partnership with the organization Cheetah Conservation Fund that collaborates with African farmers in ways to deal with cheetahs without killing them. This includes using guard dogs or donkeys to scare off a cheetah from their livestock. Both organizations work together to record data and collect sperm from wild cheetahs, to diversify the gene pool. So far, there is an estimated 12,000 to 15,000 cheetahs in the wild today.

The zoo has also developed the Global Cheetah Forum, an African-based network that ensures the survival of the cheetah species. It is currently working with several organizations to implement the first cheetah census in Africa in 30 years.

The cubs will not stay long term at the zoo, but placement will be determined by the Species Survival Plan — a breeding and conservative program with zoos throughout North America.

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Iraqis head to vote in the United States

By Stokely Baksh
NEW CARROLLTON, Md., Jan. 30 (UPI) — Nada Al-Hussaini hasn’t seen her country for 12 years but she made sure she was going to have a say in its future — a one recorded by more than a vote.

Hussaini entrusted her son with the duties to videotape her family’s experience from the moment they arrived at the polling station in suburban Washington to the time they cast their ballots to elect a party for the Iraqi National Assembly.

“I want to see Iraq better,” said Al-Hussaini, 43, who migrated from the southern Iraqi city of Diwaniyeh and traveled with her family of 12 from Lancaster, Pa. — about 100 miles — to vote. “I want to see it better than America. I wish that … I think democracy will make something good of Iraq.”

The Iraq elections were called to select an interim government beginning with a 275-member National Assembly, which will name the country’s leaders and draft a constitution. That framework of government will be used in later elections — set for the end of 2005 — to seat a permanent government that will replace the regime of deposed President Saddam Hussein.

U.S. President George Bush, who ordered the military action that drove Saddam’s government from power, has called the Iraqi elections “historic.” “I anticipate a grand moment in Iraqi history,” Bush said of the elections during a news conference last Wednesday.

The run-up to the election was marked by increasing numbers of attacks on polling places and election workers in Iraq, as some elements in the country tried to short-circuit the process. Many of the attacks were said to be the responsibility of a group headed by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, which has links to Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida. Zarqawi has often threatened to disrupt the voting process.

Still, people there showed up to vote and, while the Iraq elections are certainly centered in that country, more than 280,000 Iraqi expatriates registered to vote outside Iraq and, like the Al-Hussainis, turned the opportunity to cast a ballot into a time of family, celebration and hope.

“I see a good future for Iraq, the way I see the sun,” says Eshan Al-Hussaini, 44, Nada Al-Hussaini’s husband. “We missed that for all our lives. All the years passed, years of suffering, years of no freedom, now we get it. We can say yes or no.”

Nada Al-Hussaini, like others, hopes of visiting the country again someday, perhaps this summer. She told of seeing her mother four years ago but she was not able to return to Iraq when her mother died two months ago. The couple hopes by June that Iraq would be safe enough to travel to.

“My children … ‘Mom, they tell me … we want to go to Iraq,’” Al-Hussaini said. “They’re excited.”

About 85,000 expatriate Iraqis voted Friday around the world and about 5,600 of those were from the United States. At the Ramada Inn on Friday about 500 Iraqi immigrants of the approximately 2,000 who had registered, had voted, according to spokesman Jeremy Copeland from the International Organization for Migration’s Iraq Out-Of-Country Voting Program.

The program, setup by the IOM, was allocated $92 million by the United Nations to facilitate the voting process in 14 countries, including Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Iran, Britain and the United States. In the United States, the Washington suburb of New Carrollton, Md., Detroit, Chicago, Nashville and Los Angeles became polling grounds as well.

“It’s amazing to see people’s faces when they drop the ballots in the box … Many have waited their whole lives to vote,” said Copeland, who also described Iraqis dancing and singing in the Maryland hotel parking lot. “People were clapping when their families voted.”

Unlike the high-tech electronic voting and short paper ballots seen in November’s U.S. election, Iraqi ballots were four 8-inch-by-11inch pages that listed 111 political entities and more than 7,000 candidates, Copeland said.

The ballots will be counted by Thursday and totals sent electronically to the Independent Election Commission of Iraq, which will tabulate all the votes and announce the results of the election.

While some Iraqis have complained about the lack of voting stations, the distance they had to travel and had concern over whether their vote counts, Copeland said that another problem has been that some people were “overwhelmed” to vote because of the many political entities and lack of resources and education on each entity.

But for others, they already knew who would have their vote.

“I hope Iraq (becomes like) America, where there is democracy,” said Raz Abdulqadir, 19, translating for her mother Saadia. “No more rulers, kingship and dictators. We don’t want that anymore. We want the ‘people’ in government.”

The two women, both Kurds who emigrated from northern Iraq to the United States five years ago, came with their family to vote. Although they are voting for Kurds, they say that all Iraqi people need to be like the United States and come together.

“All of them have to be involved,” said Raz, who said she was proud of voting and about the elections in general especially because her 20th birthday falls on the last day of elections.

For Hardi and Shaelair Nuri, the chance to vote meant bringing their 9-year-old son to the polling station. All were dressed in traditional Kurdish wear.

“He says ‘Mummy, I want to go to see what you’re doing over there,’” said Shaelair Nuri, mentioning that she doesn’t remember voting in her homeland.

“I don’t remember ever doing like today,” Shaelair Nuri said. “I’m very happy.”

Meanwhile, Mark Hanna, 29, an Iraqi immigrant who moved to the United States almost 20 years, said that the voting station reminded him of Iraq. Hanna, a labor lawyer, was part of a labor delegation that went to Iraq last year.

“This feels like Iraq … They even made a little entrance for (a checkpoint) like that in the Green Zone,” he said, adding that he hopes to go back to the war-torn country again.

Hanna, planning to vote for a progressive party in Iraq in hopes of allowing progressives like himself to return to the country, said he has family members in Iraq who are scared to vote.

“It’s a very courageous thing over there to vote … over here it’s not so bad,” he said. “I’m voting today to end the occupation and (create) a whole new Iraq.”

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Subsidy request shadows Airbus jet debut

By Stokely Baksh

WASHINGTON, Jan. 17 (UPI) — French aircraft maker Airbus SAS will unveil its new 555-seat A380 jumbo jet in Toulouse, France on Tuesday, only a few days after yet another Airbus request for development funding, which might well restart the long U.S.-E.U. feud over alleged illegal government aid to the aircraft-manufacturing giants.

Airbus overtook U.S. rival Boeing Co. in 2003, when Airbus delivered more planes than Boeing for the first time ever. Airbus did it again this year, delivering 320 planes to Boeing’s 285. Airbus describes the new A380 as the world’s only twin-deck, four-aisle airliner, the most fuel-efficient in the world, and outfitted with amenities like full-sized beds.

The new aid request is another blow to Chicago-based competitor Boeing, as this round of subsidies if granted would fund Airbus’ A350, designed to be a direct competitor to Boeing’s upcoming 7E7 Dreamliner.

Airbus has requested about $1.34 billion in new aid from France, Britain, Germany and Spain, countries that funded the development of the A380.

Those onsite for the unveiling will include E.U. leaders French President Jacques Chirac, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and Spain’s Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, who are expected to be among as many as 4,500 guests that will be attending.

Since June 2004, the United States has been urging European trade officials to end their subsidies to Airbus, which is jointly owned by European Aerospace and Defense Company EADS and BAE Systems of Britain.

The dispute first arose when Airbus outsold Boeing last year by 305 to 281 aircraft. Airbus now controls more than 50 percent of the aircraft market, up from 30 percent when the U.S.-E.U. Agreement on Large Civil Aircraft was signed in 1992. The agreement limits state financial support and limits grants to up to 33 percent for aircraft manufacturers’ research and development costs per new aircraft. In October 2004, the United States terminated the 1992 agreement late last year when it filed a complaint with the World Trade Organization about Airbus’ subsidies.

Also under the agreement, loans are repayable over a 17-year period, and Airbus will not have to repay the loans if the company does not meet its sales goals.

Boeing complained that Airbus had received as much as $15 billion in aid from European governments without the constraints of raising money at commercial rates and paying it back under traditional terms. But Europeans argued that those are loans on which Airbus has already repaid $6.5 billion.

Furthermore, tensions grew when EADS tried to compete with Boeing who was struggling to gain approval over the summer for a $23 billion deal for aerial-refueling tankers from its long-time customer the U.S. Air Force.

But both the E.U. and Airbus pointed out that Boeing received billions in what amounted to aid from its U.S. defense, space and transportation contracts. As general bilateral talks between the two nations deteriorated, the E.U. continually cautioned the United States from filing a WTO case against Airbus, as some E.U. officials have reported that the case was politically motivated to help President Bush in states where Airbus rival Boeing.

Former E.U. trade commissioner Pascal Lamy warned the U.S. Congress of a possible WTO case against U.S. tax subsidies to Boeing in September 2004. Moreover, Peter Mandelson, now E.U. trade commissioner, had threatened in October of last year that a WTO case would harm both aircraft makers which both enjoy subsidies. Mandelson even claimed that the E.U. would link the subsidy dispute to another transatlantic disagreement over Washington’s Foreign Sales Corporation (FSC) scheme that benefits Boeing.

Still U.S. trade officials warned against the FSC claim and soon filed a lawsuit with the WTO, causing an E.U. countersuit charging illegal subsidies to Boeing in October. It was not the first time the United States had taken action regarding Airbus; it had already challenged Airbus subsidies in 1989 and 1991.

“Since its creation thirty-five years ago, some Europeans have justified subsidies to Airbus as necessary to support an ‘infant’ industry. If that rationalization were ever valid, its time has long passed. Airbus now sells more large civil aircraft than Boeing,” said U.S. Trade Representative Robert B. Zoellick in October 2004.

The resulting bickering led to a tit-for-tat in Brussels, Belgium two months later when the E.U. said it would include the FSC in their WTO case about the U.S. export tax subsidy “extraterritorial income exclusion” that was deemed illegal by the WTO in 2002.

Congress, again objecting to the inclusion, repealed the export subsidy first and complied with the WTO achieving some praise from the international community. Worried E.U. officials though, expressed concerned that Boeing would benefit greatly with the two-year phase out period of the policy since the company will get a two-year, $300-million phase-out for the subsidy. The subsidy will be replaced with $137 billion in new corporate tax breaks.

The repeal of the tax break policy may prompt the E.U. to lift trade sanctions on some $4 billion in U.S. imports this month. The sanctions were scheduled to be eliminated on Jan. 1, but it was delayed after several E.U. member states objected to a proposal in December that would allow the European Commission to reimpose sanctions.

“For the first time in this long-standing dispute, the U.S. and the E.U. have agreed that the goal should be to end subsidies,” said Zoellick. “We have further agreed to use the definitions and framework of the WTO subsidies rules as the basis for an agreement.”

U.S. officials are saying that the framework for the agreement should take about three months, in which time the goal is to the end subsidies. During this time, neither country will be allowed to engage in any other WTO dispute proceedings or cases involving large aircraft development.

However, Airbus’s call for aid for the proposed A350, tentatively set for 2010 delivery, might disrupt the impending bilateral agreement talks.

“The objective on which we agreed is to secure a comprehensive agreement to end subsidies — and I repeat, end,” said Richard Mills, spokesman for Zoellick. “The U.S. will not agree to permit new aircraft subsidies that are illegal under World Trade Organization rules, and that certainly covers launch aid.”

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Hotel workers picket as inaguration looms

By Stokely Baksh
UPI Correspondent

WASHINGTON, Jan. 10 (UPI) — Visitors planning to stay in some of Washington, D.C.’s most expensive hotels for the presidential inauguration this Jan. 20 may have to do so without the assistance of more than 3,500 hotel employees, according to UNITE HERE! Local 25, the union organizing these workers.

In an informational picket outside of the Mayflower Hotel on Monday, representatives for area hotel employees said that if a new contract is not signed by Jan. 15, workers from 14 of the city’s hotels, including the Hilton, Starwood, Loews and Marriott, will go on strike for the presidential inauguration.

Donald Gomas has worked as a hotel housekeeper for the past 17 years, but the 72-year-old now faces the possibility of a strike if employees cannot negotiate a new contract by Jan. 15.

“We are looking for a contract to be signed,” Gomas said. “On Inauguration Day we are going to go right away to strike.”

Gomas says his biggest concern is health care, since he and his wife are in jeopardy of living without any insurance.

Other issues of concern to area hotel workers include wage and pension increases.

John Boardman, executive secretary-treasurer of Local 25, said the contract negotiations were about ensuring “dignity and respect” for all hotel employees. Boardman said the hotel workers want higher wages, health insurance for themselves and their families, and “a pension plan that allows these workers to retire with dignity, not poverty.”

Boardman said Washington, D.C. hotel employees are irreplaceable because of their experience working with politicians and members of state, as well as the security clearance they have gained. But Boardman worries that hotel management could exploit that experience by locking workers out after the inauguration.

“They’d use us in the inauguration and then throw us out on the street,” Boardman said.

The deadline for contract negotiations was set for Jan. 15 in order to prevent the hotels from utilizing workers’ skills during the busy inauguration period and then dismissing them when the festivities ended, Boardman said.

Hotel workers are keenly aware of the effect a strike may have on the inaugural festivities.

“No one wants to go on strike,” Boardman said, a sentiment echoed by many of the picketing workers outside the Mayflower. But the union employees are willing to do so in order to secure their contract demands.

Although occupancy at Washington D.C. hotels have risen to pre-9/11 rates, UNITE HERE! Local 25, which represents over 3,500 hotel workers, says that current negotiations between hotel workers and management do not reflect a fair wage increase. Hotels are proposing a 30-cent wage increase for each of the next three years, while workers say they need wage increases of 70 cents.

“We still don’t have a viable economic package on the table,” says Amanda Cooper, spokeswoman for UNITE HERE!

Under current negotiations, retirees in the hotel industry would receive a pension plan of $635 a month after 30 years of service. Cooper says that no one could retire on such a meager pension in a city as expensive as D.C.

“Our staffs are professionals,” says Cooper. “There is no way these hotels would be able to replace our workers.”

In the event of a strike, UNITE HERE claims that guests paying upwards of $1000 a weekend in posh downtown hotels could be faced with no room service, no clean towels, and no housekeeping services.

“We made a lot of progress in terms of respect and dignity issues,” said Cooper in reference to negotiations held on Jan. 6. But Cooper also mentioned a rift remained between hotel workers and management over the issues of wages, health insurance and pensions.

Still, hotel officials are not concerned that the strike will effect business.

One of the hotels not concerned about the strike is the Marriott Wardman Park in N.W., one of the largest hotels in the District, which employs about 900 associates.

The hotel’s Director of Marketing, Bill Wallace, does not anticipate any customer-service interruptions to occur if there was a strike. The hotel, said Wallace, has a business contingency plan which it implemented since the expiration of the workers’ contract over the summer, and the warning of a possible strike two days before the contract expired on Sept. 15.

Wallace expects that the hotel will be close to filling its 1,334 rooms for the event. A hotel room for the event will cost almost $400 and requires a minimum stay of three days and three nights. The hotel will also host one of the biggest inaugural balls, the Black Tie and Boots Ball, hosted by the Texas State Society of Washington D.C., which will see about 12,000 attendees, according to Wallace.

“Our hotel will be fully staffed and provide the services that [guests staying at our hotel] are accustomed to,” said Wallace, in terms of workers were to strike during the inauguration.

Lynn Lawson, spokesperson for the Hotel Association for Washington D.C. which represents the 14 hotels, says that general managers are prepared to continue providing the same quality of service.

“I think union leadership (needs to take into consideration) what the impact of the strike would be on employees,” Lawson said. “More progress can be made on the negotiation table, not on the city walk.”

A strike during inauguration would not help protesting employees, because they would lose out from attaining financial gains such as overtime and extra tips, she said.

Already some progress has been made as both sides have come to some compromises.

At last week’s meeting, more progress was made than in the five months that both sides have been in negotiation, says Lawson. Agreements at that meeting included language pertaining to workplace dignity, as well as some non-economical proposals of the contract, such as employees assigned to other jobs otherwise not part of their job description.

The challenge that remains is economical, including health insurance and wages.

However, Lawson, like Cooper and many hotel management staff and employees, hope that a contract will be signed by end of the week.

“I hope they are going to sign a contract this week (with the city) being busy with the inauguration,” said Mike Franz, an employee of the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel, who looked on at his peers on Monday’s informational picket. “We don’t try to enforce the strike, but if we have to, then we will.”

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(With reporting by Jackie Franzil and Carrie Moskal.)

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Feature: Election distortion at the Black Cat

By Stokely Baksh

WASHINGTON, Nov. 2 (UPI) — Distorted images of live feeds of election results and news anchors was the backdrop of election night at the Black Cat as patrons of the left spectrum from anarchists to moderates and supporters of Sen. John Kerry were exposed to techno music and election talk.

“Election Night Remix” showcased the local talents of DJ Spooky That Subluminal Kid, videographer and producer Robin Bell and a Media Deconstruction Kit created by Randall Packer from the U.S. Department of Art and Technology.

“We’re here to dance, we’re here to party in a totally non-Washingtonian fashion,” said Washington resident Melissa Ballowe. “Sure we’re going to watch the election results, but we’re going to have fun.”

Ballowe soon found herself torn between the music and watching the results of the election from a nearby television, eagerly hoping that President Bush would not win another state and the Democratic Party candidate Sen. John Kerry would emerge victorious. “I’m a nervous wreck,” Ballowe said.

During the show, many revealed their political ideologies and discussed the election. They included Laura Harris, 22, who works the door at the nightclub. Harris was watching the election results during her break.

She says that shows like these aren’t unusual for her since employees are politically active and the nightclub has been the host for many politically inspired shows.

“We try to be involved,” said Harris, who mentioned that they have worked on the Kerry campaign.

Harris also shared her feelings about the current election, the Republican voter, uninformed voters who are voting and her views of young people as well as the media.

“Hollywood media is crap, no one knows what’s going on,” Harris said. “They just need to speak in layman’s terms and explain everything.”

However, while many came out to see the elections, others came to see the musical performances, especially that of DJ Spooky.

Patrick Tuffy, who just moved from Boston, came out to the show not only to see the DJ but also to watch some of the election, which he could not see at home.

“(DJ Spooky) actually puts on a good show and I don’t have a TV at home, so at least I’ll be able to see the preliminary election results,” Tuffy said.

Although the crowd was mostly made up of young people, many older adults were seen hanging out in the same crowd talking politics and learning about a new subculture.

“(We’re) actually celebrating a birthday for my son and we wanted to see the elections,” said Maryland resident Cameron Niakan, who stands looking out over the crowd, which was still trickling in.

Niakan, who is originally from Iran, said that this was the first time he had visited the nightclub and did not know what to expect.

“I am a little too old for this music, but I can tolerate it,” said Niakon, who said he had recently turned 40.

For Randall Packer, the creator of the Media Deconstruction Kit, the experience was new. Packer, who began work on the kit in January, collected news coverage of the campaign trail. During the show, live feeds from news stations were shown in which they were manipulated and distorted by software he developed.

“I really want to have an impact on young people who come to these clubs and activate them,” said Packer, who hopes his artwork will inspire people. “We mix a few things that are not from tonight’s coverage, to show the confusion and the manipulation of broadcast.”

Packer, whose artwork has been shown in museums all over the world, said that he started the project because of the increase of media bias and polarization.

“The media articulates and calculates the perception of the government and whether it is right or wrong, it lies or tells the truth,” Packer said. “A lot of people feel helpless — they have no control over the media and the media is controlling their reality.”

Packer called tonight’s experience an anthropological experiment bringing experimental, radical art to the nightclub and providing people with a “purely artistic experience.”

However, videographer Robin Bell just hopes the event will bring people together and make them dance.

“Most Americans will sit isolated at home getting either ready to be angry or passive,” Bell said. “We’re hoping that no matter what the result is, people come out.”