Day: November 21, 2018

Suicide rates are rising among U.S. workers, and the risk may depend partly on the types of jobs people do, government researchers suggest. 

From 2000 to 2016, the U.S. suicide rate among those aged 16 to 64 rose 34 percent, from 12.9 deaths for every 100,000 people in the population to 17.3 per 100,000, according to the study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). 

The highest suicide rate among men was for workers in construction and mining jobs, with 43.6 deaths for every 100,000 workers in 2012 and 53.2 deaths per 100,000 in 2015, the analysis found. 

The highest suicide rate among women was for workers in arts, design, entertainment, sports and media, with 11.7 fatalities for every 100,000 workers in 2012 and 15.6 deaths per 100,000 in 2015. 

“Since most adults spend a great deal of their time at work, the workplace is an important and underutilized venue for suicide prevention,” said study co-author Deborah Stone, a behavioral scientist at the CDC in Atlanta. 

While the study wasn’t designed to prove whether or how specific types of jobs or workplace characteristics might contribute to the risk of suicide, lack of control over employment and a lack of job security can both be stressors that make suicide more likely, Stone said by email. 

Many factors outside the workplace can also influence the risk of suicide, including relationship problems, substance use, physical or mental health, finances or legal problems, Stone added. 

And ready access to guns and other weapons have a big impact on whether suicidal thoughts turn into actions with fatal outcomes, Stone said. 

Guns may explain the higher suicide rates among men than among women, said Gary Namie, director of the Workplace Bullying Institute in Boise, Idaho. 

“In America, with ready access to guns, men make the choice of death by gun, but it is the less likely choice by females,” Namie, who wasn’t involved in the study, said by email. “Hence, it is possible that in moments of despair that might pass if friends or family could intervene, with a gun handy, the decision is too quickly implemented.” 

Data from 17 states

To assess suicide rates by occupation, the CDC examined data collected from 17 states in 2012 and 2015; the results are not representative of the nation as a whole. The results were published in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.  

Although arts, design, entertainment, sports and media had the highest suicide rates among women, this category saw the biggest increase in suicide rate among men during the study. For women, the biggest increase in suicide rates was in the food service industry. 

One limitation of the study is that it didn’t examine suicide methods. It also excluded two groups of Americans that typically have stressors that can increase their risk of suicide: military veterans and unemployed people. 

Even so, the results suggest that employers can play a role in suicide prevention by offering worksite wellness programs, encouraging use of behavioral and mental health services, and training workers in the warning signs of suicide and how to respond, Stone said. 

Promoting social interaction rather than isolation in daily tasks on the job may also help with suicide prevention, along with creating a workplace culture of inclusion that does not allow for abusive conduct or bullying, Namie said. 

The road to suicide begins when one employee begins a “systematic campaign of interpersonal destruction against another employee,” Namie said. “Bullying is the most preventable predictor of suicide.” 
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A U.S. government agency said Wednesday that abortion rates among American women of all ages fell to a decade low in 2015, which both opponents and supporters of abortion rights attributed in part to individual states’ efforts to restrict women’s access to the procedure. 

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that statistics for 2015, the most recent year for which data are available, showed the abortion rate was 11.8 per 1,000 women aged 15 to 44. That was down 26 percent from 2006, when the study began and the rate was 15.9 abortions per 1,000 women. 

Teens aged 15 to 19 experienced a greater decrease than older women, with the rate falling 54 percent from 2006 to 2015, the CDC said. 

“This decrease in abortion rate was greater than the decreases for women in any older age group,” the CDC said in a statement. 

The CDC did not provide any reason for the decline, but abortion rights advocates attributed it to increased use of contraceptives as well as decreased access to abortion services in some states. 

“Affordable access to the full range of contraception and family planning options is critical for people deciding if and when they’d like to become parents, develop their careers, plan for their futures and manage their health,” said Rachel Jones, a research scientist at Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive health research group that supports abortion rights. 

Opponents of abortion rights said the decrease was primarily the result of many states’ efforts to restrict women’s access to the procedure. 

“That is due, in a significant way, to pro-life legislation that seeks to provide life-affirming solutions to abortion, combined with pro-life efforts that educate Americans about the effects of abortion and the humanity of the unborn child,” Carol Tobias, president of the National Right to Life Committee, said in an email. 

Total yearly number sinks

The total number of reported abortions fell to 638,169 in 2015, from 842,855 in 2006, a 24 percent decrease. In 2015, there were 188 abortions per 1,000 live births, compared with 233 abortions per 1,000 live births in 2006, a drop of 19 percent. 

In 2015, all measures reached their lowest level for the entire period of analysis from 2006 to 2015, the CDC said of the annual study, Abortion Surveillance — United States 2015.  

Conservative state lawmakers are passing increasingly restrictive abortion laws in a challenge to Roe v. Wade, the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1973 landmark decision that established that women have a constitutional right to have abortions. 

The Republican-controlled Ohio House of Representatives last week approved a measure that would ban abortions at six weeks, while an Iowa law banning abortions after a fetal heartbeat is detected is tied up in a court battle. 

Such laws are designed to end up before the Supreme Court, which has become more conservative following President Donald Trump’s appointments of Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh. 

The CDC study also showed 91.1 percent of abortions performed in 2015 were in a woman’s first 13 weeks of pregnancy. There was also a shift toward earlier abortions, with the number performed at six weeks or less increasing 11 percent. 
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Some 115 years after the first powered flight, scientists have developed a radical new approach toward flying in the form of a small, lightweight and virtually noiseless airplane that gets airborne with no moving parts like propellers or turbine blades.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) engineers on Wednesday described successful flight tests at an indoor campus gymnasium of the unmanned airplane powered not by engines that burn fossils fuels but by ion wind propulsion, also called electro-aerodynamic thrust.

The aircraft, called Version 2 EAD Airframe, or V2, weighs only 5.4 pounds (2.45 kg) with a wingspan of 16-1/2 feet (5 meters).

“This is the first time that an airplane without moving parts has flown,” said MIT aerospace engineer Steven Barrett, who drew inspiration from fictional shuttlecraft from “Star Trek.”

Electrical field strength near an array of thin filaments called emitters at the front of the wing ionizes air, meaning electrons are removed and charged molecules called ions are created.

These positively charged ions are attracted to negatively charged structures on the plane called collectors. As

they move towards the collectors, the ions collide with air molecules, transferring energy to them. This creates a flow of air that gives the plane its thrust.

Only time will tell whether the test flights at the duPont Athletic Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts, will become historic like the 1903 test flights of the first airplane by Wilbur and Orville Wright at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. And the engineers readily acknowledge their V2 prototype is inefficient

and limited.

But it could lead to big things.

“I’m trying not to over-sell it, but there are some really exciting possibilities here,” said Barrett, who pointed to near-silent drones as a possibility within several years.

“In the long term, I’m hoping for ultra-efficient and nearly silent airplanes that have no moving control surfaces like rudders or elevators, no moving propulsion system like propellers or turbines, and no direct combustion emissions like you get with burning jet fuel,” added Barrett, who led the

research published in the journal Nature.

The researchers conducted 11 test flights in which V2 flew about 200 feet (60 meters), typically flying less than 6-1/2 feet (2 meters) off the ground.

The plane, defined as a solid-state machine because it has no moving parts, was built to be as light as possible using materials like carbon-fiber, balsa wood, a plastic called polystyrene, shrink-wrap plastic and Kevlar.
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The first flight of a SpaceX rocket tailored to fly astronauts to the International Space Station is set for liftoff from Kennedy Space Center in Florida on January 7, NASA said on Wednesday.

The launch test is a crucial milestone in the space agency’s Commercial Crew Program, which aims to launch humans to space from U.S. soil for the first time in nearly a decade.

The U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration said SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft — which will shuttle three astronauts to space from the same launch pad that sent Apollo 11’s three-man crew to the moon in 1969 — will make its debut flight atop SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket on January 7.

While NASA did not detail the flight path, it said the test would provide data on the performance of the Falcon 9, Crew Dragon capsule, and ground systems, as well as on-orbit, docking and landing operations.

SpaceX and Boeing Co are the two main contractors selected under NASA’s Commercial Crew Program to send astronauts to space as soon as 2019, using their Crew Dragon and CST-100 Starliner spacecraft respectively.

Since the U.S. space shuttle program was shut down in 2011, NASA has had to rely on Russia to fly astronauts to the space station, a $100 billion orbital research laboratory that flies about 250 miles (402 km) above Earth.

The Demo-1 launch is the latest test in a rigorous certification timeline imposed under NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. While SpaceX is targeting early January, NASA spokeswoman Marie Lewis said the demo mission could be pushed back because “flying safely has always taken precedence over schedule.”

Founded by Tesla Inc Chief Executive Elon Musk, SpaceX said if the January 7 test is successful, it plans to launch its first crewed mission in June 2019, but the timeline may shift.

Boeing plans a similar test launch of the Starliner spacecraft atop its Atlas 5 rocket as soon as March, with a crewed mission following in August.

The Jan. 7 launch date announcement comes a day after NASA said it would conduct a “cultural assessment study” of the companies, “including the adherence to a drug-free environment,” prior to crew test flights.
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On a cold and rainy Saturday morning, hundreds of people have camped out all night in cars or huddled in sleeping bags, splayed out in a school parking lot that has been turned into a makeshift medical clinic in Charleston, West Virginia. 

By the time the doors open at 6 a.m., some will have been waiting for at least 14 hours to receive medical, dental, and vision care at this free mobile health clinic. Most here say they have no other health care option. 

“I’ve never had health insurance – never,” says Benny Cardenas, a construction worker who constantly worries he is an injury away from being in long-term debt. “This here, it’s free. It’s worth the sacrifice – a couple hours of no sleep (rather) than paying thousands of dollars.” 

Susan Stephenson, a truck driver from Houston, Texas, is already missing most of her upper teeth. Though she has medical insurance, she can’t afford to go to the dentist. “The copay is so outrageous, it’s like not having insurance at all,” says Stephenson, who drove four hours to attend the RAM Clinic. 

Insurance problems persist

Stephenson’s story is common. Most Americans get health insurance through their employers, or through government-provided insurance for older and lower-income people. Millions of other people have received health insurance in recent years under the Obama administration’s Affordable Care Act. But many still cannot afford basic dental or vision services. 

Since the 2010 passage of the legislation known as “Obamacare,” the uninsured rate has fallen from 16 percent to less than 9 percent, according to figures by the Centers for Disease Control and the U.S. Census Bureau. 

But 23 percent of Americans have no dental coverage, according to the National Association of Dental Plans. 

Even with insurance, costs can be prohibitive. Over 44 percent of Americans report difficulty paying for dental care and 11 percent of adults age 18-64 have foregone needed dental work altogether because of costs, according to a recent CDC study.

Ashley Bowman, who needs two cavities filled, has a state-subsidized health care plan, but it doesn’t include dental coverage. “I’m not sure why,” she says. “It just doesn’t.” 

So she’s huddled under an awning with several of her friends in the middle of the night – a small price to pay, she insists. “Just for one filling, that’s already half your rent! That’s a lot just for one tooth.” 

Partisan deadlock over voters’ top issue

Perhaps unsurprisingly, health care is a major priority for U.S. voters. According to exit polls taken during midterm elections, 41 percent of voters identified health care as their top concern – beating out every other issue, including immigration and the economy.

It’s not hard to see why. The U.S. spends approximately twice what other high-income nations do on health care, yet has the highest infant mortality rate and the lowest life expectancy, according to a March study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. 

The high costs are not because Americans are getting more medical care. Rates of doctor visits are roughly equal to the 10 other countries in the study. Instead, it concluded health spending is being driven by factors including the steep costs of prescription drugs, administrative tasks, and physician and nurse salaries.

But any legislative movement on health care appears more unlikely than ever after the election, which saw Democrats take back the House of Representatives, creating a divided Congress. 

Many Republicans have called for a complete repeal of Obamacare, but would not be able to get such a plan through the Democratic-controlled House. 

More liberal-leaning Democrats have increasingly proposed a “Medicare for All” program to expand government-run health care plans to cover all Americans. But Republicans fiercely oppose the proposal, saying it amounts to an inefficient government takeover of health care. 

RAM filling the gap

Amid the partisan deadlock, privately-funded clinics like the one in West Virginia continue to provide free health care to as many people as they can across the country. 

Each year, Remote Area Medical operates more than 60 mobile medical clinics.  About 90 percent are in the U.S., mostly in rural areas.

RAM founder Stan Brock started holding the clinics in the 1980s in developing Latin American countries, such as Guyana, Mexico, and Haiti. It didn’t take long before he realized one of the biggest needs was at home. 

“You can blindfold yourself and put your finger on the map of the U.S. and we could go there and this will happen there,” says RAM’s Robert Lambert. “The need is just huge.” 

At this two-day clinic in Charleston, RAM provided about $300,000 worth of free medical care to 775 patients. That figure may be small when compared to the vastness of U.S. health care problems. But for people here, it’s a lifesaver. 

“If I didn’t have a place like this to get my glasses, I’d be totally lost,” says Rosemary Pauley, a retiree who says she’s “blind as a bat.” 

“I’d be sitting at home doing nothing,” she says.
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A global diabetes epidemic is fueling record demand for insulin but tens of millions will not get the injections they need unless there is a dramatic improvement in access and affordability, a new study concluded on Wednesday.

Diabetes — which can lead to blindness, kidney failure, heart problems, neuropathic pain and amputations — now affects 9 percent of all adults worldwide, up from 5 percent in 1980. The vast majority have type 2 diabetes, the kind linked to obesity and lack of exercise, and cases are spreading particularly rapidly in the developing world as people adopt more Western, urban lifestyles.

Researchers said the amount of insulin needed to effectively treat type 2 diabetes would rise by more than 20 percent over the next 12 years, but insulin would be beyond the reach of half the 79 million type 2 diabetics predicted to need it in 2030. The shortfall is most acute in Africa, where the team led by Dr Sanjay Basu from Stanford University estimated supply would have to rise sevenfold to treat at-risk patients who had reached the stage of requiring insulin to control their blood sugar.

“These estimates suggest that current levels of insulin access are highly inadequate compared to projected need, particularly in Africa and Asia,” Basu said.

​”Despite the U.N.’s commitment to treat non-communicable diseases and ensure universal access to drugs for diabetes, across much of the world insulin is scarce and unnecessarily difficult for patients to access.”

Global insulin supply is dominated by three companies — Novo Nordisk, Sanofi and Eli Lilly– which have various programs to try to improve access to their products.

Insulin, however, remains costly and prices can be especially out of reach in poorer countries where tortuous supply chains and high mark-ups by middlemen often make it unaffordable for many patients.

Overall, Basu and colleagues calculated that global insulin use was set to rise to 634 million 1,000-unit vials by 2030 from 526 million in 2018.

Their study, published in the Lancet Diabetes; Endocrinology journal and funded by the Helmsley Charitable Trust, was based on projections of diabetes prevalence from the International Diabetes Federation.

Dr Hertzel Gerstein from Canada’s McMaster University wrote in an accompanying commentary that it was important to estimate and ensure insulin supplies, but added the forecasts should be treated cautiously as they were based on mathematical models.
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