Page 8-A Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Free breast screenings offered for uninsured

Mercy Philadelphia Hospital will hold free breast screenings for uninsured women on May 26 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at 501 S. 54th St. The breast health program is for women age 40 and above who do not have insurance or who have health insurance that does not cover screening mammography. The program consists of a clinical breast examination, breast health education including self-breast exam instructions, screening mammography and follow-up. Appointments are necessary. For an appointment call (215) 748-9700.

Survivors Workshop on cancer treatment scheduled for June 2

The Wellness Community of Philadelphia will host a workshop titled "What You Should Know After Cancer Treatment" on June 2 from 6:30 to 8 p.m. at Ridgeland in Fairmount Park. Dr. Nevena Damjanov, director of clinical research at Penn Presbyterian, will present post treatment needs of cancer survivors, managing late effects of treatment, ongoing healthcare follow-up, risk factors and other concerns that confront survivors after treatment. RSVP by (215) 879-7733.

Conference will address child development issues

Albert Einstein Healthcare Network will host a multidisciplinary child development conference and expo on June 3 from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. at the Academy of Natural Sciences Museum, 1900 Benjamin Franklin Parkway. The conference will provide health-care and educational professionals and families with the latest information on research, special education and support services associated with special education, autism, dyslexia, ADHD and auditory and sensory processing disorders. The keynote address will be by Dr. Barry S. Zuckerman, the Joel and Barbara Alpert professor of pediatrics at Boston University School of Medicine and chief of pediatrics at Boston Medical Center. The cost is $60 per person and scholarship discounts are available for students and parents. For information call Maria Kreiter (610) 296- 6725, Ext. 168.

Epilepsy program to cite latest advances in care

The Epilepsy Advocate Take Charge Tour 2010 will be held June 10 at 7 p.m. at Crowne Plaza Hotel Philadelphia West, 4010 City Ave. Attendees will learn about the latest advances in epilepsy from a medical expert and connect with others living with the condition. Speakers will include Dr. Scott Mintzer, Jefferson Comprehensive Epilepsy Center and a local epilepsy advocate. To register call 1(866) 865-7305 or visit www.epilepsyadvocate.com.

Crohn's/Colitis Webcast to discuss how to cope

The Crohn's and Colitis Foundation of America will present a free, interactive educational Webcast/teleconference titled "IBD and She: Focusing on Living While Managing IBD: on June 16 at 8 p.m. The event will cover topics including intimacy/sex, fertility and pregnancy, menstruation and menopause, hormones and hysterectomy, vitamins, medication interactions with other drugs including birth control, breastfeeding and coping/stress. The event will be hosted by national experts and researchers Dr. Sunanda Kane, associate professor of medicine, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Dr. Uma Mahadevan-Velayos, associate professor of Clinical Medicine and associate professor of Clinical Research Center for Colitis and Crohn's Disease, University of California San Francisco. To register visit www.ccfa.org/webcasts/womenandibd or call 1(877) 547-5641 ext. 312.

Breast cancer awareness campaign to be launched

The George E. Thorne Development Center kicks off its 2010 Praise is the Cure breast education and awareness campaign with the second annual Praise Café on June 19 from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at The Corinthian, 6113 N. 21st St. The café is a brunch event filled with fellowship among Praise is the Cure's network of breast cancer patients and survivors and their families and friends. The brunch also serves as an opportunity to honor men who have taken the lead in educating the community on breast health issues and providing support to patients and survivors. To register call (215) 635-1025. - Compiled by Ayana Jones The problem with Washington's drinking water began in 2000 when officials switched the disinfectant they used to purify the water. The switch was supposed to make the water cleaner. But the change also increased corrosion from the city's lead pipes, upping the amount of lead in the water. - AP FILE PHOTO

Report: CDC used bad data to judge D.C. water safety

Jessica Gresko WASHINGTON - Federal health officials knowingly used flawed data in a study that calmed public fears about lead in the District of Columbia's drinking water in 2004, according to a congressional investigation released Thursday. The report by a House science and technology subcommittee admonishes the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for the study's methodology and says the CDC has "failed its public health responsibilities" by refusing to withdraw the report. District officials say the problem with high lead levels in drinking water has since been fixed. A CDC official defended the federal agency, saying it reported as factually as it could in 2004, based on information it had. A second analysis - with many more blood tests - was later conducted. "We have concluded that CDC's initial reports did not understate the magnitude of the problem," said Dr. Robin Ikeda, the CDC's deputy director over environmental health. She was speaking at a congressional hearing Thursday chaired by Rep. Brad Miller, a North Carolina Democrat. Miller faulted the CDC's Karen Hawkins CHICAGO - One of the nation's largest gay health centers is investigating allegations that staff mishandled federal funding for a landmark HIV/AIDS study credited with helping to uncover some of the illnesses' most important mysteries. The Howard Brown Health Center receives up to $4 million a year from the National Institutes of Health as one of four sites participating in the Multicenter AIDS Cohort Study, which the NIH says contributed to improved diagnosis and treatment of HIV and helped identify the link between viral load and the progression of the disease. The NIH would not discuss the allegations involving Howard Brown, and CEO Jamal Edwards would not say how much money allegedly was mishandled. But he said the center is conducting an internal investigation and hopes to turn over its findings to the NIH in the next few weeks. The allegations led to the departures of the previous CEO and chief financial officer and the clinic lost control of the grant. But officials said they have no evidence any money was used for personal gain or that the study was affected. Even so, "it's a great blow to the prestige of the clinic," said Dr.

WHO says measles making 'rapid comeback'

Frank Jordans GENEVA - Measles is making a rapid comeback in African, Asian and even some European countries despite being easily avoided through vaccination, the World Health Organizations said Friday as countries pledged to sharply cut infections and deaths worldwide by 2015. Since 2008, funding cuts for vaccination campaigns have allowed measles to spread again where previously it was close to being eradicated, the global body said. handling of other environmental health investigations, suggesting a pattern of downplaying problems that were later exposed as legitimate concerns. The problem with Washington's drinking water began in 2000 when officials switched the disinfectant they used to purify the water. The switch was supposed to make the water cleaner. But the change also increased corrosion from the city's lead pipes, upping the amount of lead in the water. City officials knew about the problem, but failed to quickly warn residents, according to the report. In January 2004, The Washington Post exposed the issue. In response to a public outcry, D.C. sought the CDC's help in evaluating the impact of the high lead levels. The CDC study was reassuring. It found that the high lead levels were not noticeably harming city residents. But the congressional investigation says the CDC study was based on "fundamentally flawed and incomplete data." Among other things, the subcommittee's report said the CDC ignored the fact that thousands of blood lead tests were missing. The CDC's Ikeda told the hearing David Ostrow, founder of the MACS in Chicago and co-founder of Howard Brown - a pillar of Chicago's gay community that began in 1974 as a support group for gay medical students and now provides health services to more than 36,000 clients a year. Ostrow no longer works at the clinic but is a subcontractor for the study. Howard Brown is one of the largest of the country's eight gay community health centers, and participation in the MACS helped transform the clinic "from a struggling allvolunteer organization to an organization with millions of dollars in research monies," Ostrow said. NIH auditors told the clinic in October that they had information about the alleged mishandling of funding for MACS but haven't said who provided the information, Edwards said. Independent lawyers and forensic accountants hired by Howard Brown found "areas of concern" with the clinic's handling of the MACS grant, Edwards said. The board placed CEO Michael Cook and CFO Mark Joslyn on administrative leave, and Cook eventually stepped down, and Joslyn was fired, the center said. Messages left by The Associated Press at published telephone listings for both men were not returned. The clinic issued a news release saying the money might have been "Being one of the most contagious diseases, measles is making a rapid comeback," said Dr. Peter Strebel, who leads WHO's work on measles. Measles deaths among young children fell to 118,000 in 2008, compared with 1.1 million in 2000, according to WHO. But the number of cases has surged over the past year, with large outbreaks reported in 30 African countries - from Mauritania to Zambia and Angola to Ethiopia - and Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam and Bulgaria. Even Britain experienced a worsening measles outbreak. that its 2004 report was based on the 2003 blood lead tests results it got at the time from the district. It recently collected all 2003 test results and did another analysis. The percentage of elevated tests was actually lower in the second analysis than in the first, according to Ikeda. During Thursday's hearing, Marc Edwards, a Virginia Tech scientist who has studied the issue, called the CDC report "little more than a cheap publicity stunt" and a "historic violation of the public trust." A 2009 analysis he wrote prompted the congressional investigation. The CDC has its defenders. In October, a group of public health officials and advocates sent a letter to Miller, saying they believe CDC acted quickly and appropriately in the D.C. investigation by advising pregnant women and young children against drinking unfiltered tap water. The agency also dispatched public health officers to provide filters to residents who needed them, the letter said. "In our view, this exemplifies the quick response that was needed," said the letter signed by David Jacobs, research director for the National Center Healthy Housing, and more than a dozen others.

Clinic investigates funding intended for HIV study

funneled to clinic services that were unrelated to MACS, which isn't allowed under the grant's rules, but officials would not elaborate. Ostrow said was told that clinic staff used MACS money to cover the costs of patient care as they waited for long-delayed health care payments from the state of Illinois, intending to replace the funding once the state paid up. Edwards declined to confirm whether that's what happened. "I don't want to make this seem like this is the state of Illinois' fault," Edwards said. "Everybody knows the state is in a difficult situation right now. I'm not going to lay this problem at the feet of the state of Illinois." The clinic transferred stewardship for Chicago's portion of the grant to research partner Northwestern University, ending Howard Brown's distinction as the only community health clinic to be a lead agency for MACS. Research at the study's other three sites - Baltimore, Pittsburgh and Los Angeles - is led by universities. Edwards said that won't change much about the research or its funding. Howard Brown is still involved in the study as a subcontractor, and the MACS research and data haven't been affected. "There's no reason to believe that any of the scientific integrity has been compromised," he said. - (AP) The disease's resurgence in Britain follows a sharp drop in immunization rates in the late 1990s sparked by the publication of a flawed paper linking autism to the combined measles, mumps and rubella vaccine. Britain has reported 1,000 cases in each of the last two years - more than 10 times the figure a decade ago. Measles is usually characterized by coughing, rash and high fever, and is fatal in rare instances. Strebel told The Associated Press that the 64,000 infections reported in Africa last year likely represents only 1-10 per-

Study: A heart attack shouldn't kill your sex life

Marilynn Marchione Surviving a heart attack can kill your sex life. But it doesn't have to, and a new study shows doctors play a key role in whether it does. Patients were less likely to resume having sex if their doctors did not talk about when it was safe, the study found. Many heart attack survivors fear that a tryst could land them back in the hospital - or even in the graveyard. But the chance of that is extremely small, doctors say. "People perceive it might kill them. And it's not just the person with the heart attack, but also their partner," said Dr. Stacy Tessler Lindau, a gynecologist and sexuality researcher at the University of Chicago. "If you can walk up two flights of stairs or do moderate exercise, then it's OK to have sex," she said. Lindau led the study, the largest ever on this topic, and was to present results Friday at an American Heart Association conference in Washington. It involved 1,184 male and 576 female heart attack survivors taking part in a bigger nationwide study, funded by the federal government. The average age was 60. Less than half the men and only about a third of the women said advice about resuming sex was part of the instructions they got when leaving the hospital. Even fewer had that talk with their doctors over the next year. One year after their heart attacks, more than twothirds of the men and 40 percent of the women reported some sexual activity. They were 30 percent to 40 percent more likely to be having sex if they had talked with a doctor about it. Men were more likely to be sexually active and married before the heart attack, and to maintain their sex life after it. Some people actually reported more sex after their heart attacks, but this was the exception rather than the rule, Lindau said. A heart attack should not keep people from enjoying sex, said Dr. Edward Havranek, a cardiologist at Denver Health Medical Center and leader of the Heart Association conference. "The risk of having a heart attack during sex is really, really low," he said. "The amount of actual physical exertion people have during sex is actually lower than one might think. It's not as demanding as shoveling snow." Doctors say it is safe to resume sex as soon as the patient feels better and can handle moderate exercise. Chest pain during sex means you should stop and consult a doctor, Lindau said. Depression and mood swings are common after a heart attack and can dampen interest in sex, but this usually goes away within three months, says advice from the Heart Association. It has these tips for resuming sex: * Prepare by improving your physical condition and personal hygiene. * Choose a time when you're rested, relaxed and free from daily stress. * Wait one to three hours after eating a full meal. * Pick a familiar, peaceful setting that's free from interruptions. - (AP)

UC Berkeley plan to test freshmen DNA criticized

Marcus Wohlsen BERKELEY, California - A plan by the University of California, Berkeley to voluntarily test the DNA of incoming freshman has come under fire from critics who said the school was pushing an unproven technology on impressionable students. The university has said it will send test kits to 5,500 new students to analyze genes that help control the body's responses to alcohol, dairy products and folic acid. The voluntary tests are intended to spur conversation about the growing field of personal genomics, not predict the likelihood of disease, university officials said Thursday. "We thought that this would be a more engaging vehicle for discussion than having them read a book or an article," said Mark Schlissel, dean of biology at UC Berkeley. DNA - Page 9A cent of the true case load. Governments meeting in Geneva this week pledged to cut the number of measles deaths worldwide to under 36,650 - or 5 percent of 2000 levels. WHO said that target would be difficult to meet unless countries put more money and effort into combating the disease. Strebel said he feared a "return to over 500,000 measles deaths a year by 2012, wiping out gains made over the past 18 years." The cost of vaccinating a child against measles is less than US$1 (?0.80). - (AP)

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