Seasonal changes in outpatient antibiotic use significantly alter seasonal patterns of drug resistance

ScienceDaily (July 2, 2012) ? A new study published in Clinical Infectious Diseases and available online shows how seasonal changes in outpatient antibiotic use -- retail sales of antibiotics typically get a boost during the winter -- can significantly alter seasonal patterns of drug resistance. The findings suggest that hospital campaigns to reduce inappropriate antibiotic use should be coordinated with efforts in the broader community if they are to be most effective.

In the study, Dr. Ramanan Laxminarayan, director of the Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics and Policy in Washington, D.C., and research scholar at Princeton University, and Eili Klein and Lova Sun at Princeton University show a link between changing rates of antibiotic consumption and resistance. They also suggest that restrictions imposed by hospitals may be undermined if usage at the community level is not addressed. "Considering that approximately 260 million antibiotic prescriptions are filled each year," they noted, "individual hospitals' efforts to restrict antibiotic usage are unlikely to have a large effect on certain pathogens unless complemented by and coordinated with campaigns at the community level."

Dr. Laxminarayan and his colleagues demonstrate that highly seasonal temporal relationships exist between some combinations of prescriptions among five classes of antibiotics (representing almost three-quarters of yearly antibiotic prescriptions) and resistance levels of two bacteria, Escherichia coli and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). Specifically, resistant E. coli and MRSA were significantly correlated with lagged antibiotic prescriptions for drugs that were highly prescribed, but uncorrelated with antibiotics that were not used as often.

To analyze prescribing patterns, the researchers relied on data collected from U.S. retail pharmacies from 1999 to 2007. Information about resistance came from a repository of test results collected from more than 300 laboratories spread throughout the country. In nearly all cases analyzed, a one-month lag was found between high antibiotic prescription levels and the prevalence of resistant E. coli and S. aureus.

Because the sheer quantity of antibiotic consumption is still the main driver of resistance, Dr. Laxminarayan said, "decreasing inappropriate use through flu vaccinations and better education of both patients and physicians on when to use antibiotics will have an immediate impact." The United States still uses more antibiotics per capita than most comparable countries, and "there is room to lower prescribing without compromising on outcomes." The researchers plan future studies to examine other combinations of antibiotics and resistant bacteria, and to specify subpopulations of the U.S.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Infectious Diseases Society of America, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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Journal Reference:

1. Lova Sun, Eili Y. Klein and Ramanan Laxminarayan. Seasonality and Temporal Correlation between Community Antibiotic Use and Resistance in the United States. Clinical Infectious Diseases, 2012 DOI: 10.1093/cid/cis509

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/07/120702134734.htm

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Nice Move: The Weather Channel Buys Weather Underground To Sharpen Focus On Digital

Smart move, this: The Weather Channel has acquired pioneering online weather service Weather Underground for an undisclosed sum, the companies announced today. The deal is expected to close in several weeks. The Atlanta, Georgia-based The Weather Channel has long had a strong brand name, wide reach, and big revenues, but...

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/BbvCpChi6sg/

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Spain, Italy rematch in historic Euro 2012 final

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) ? And so they meet again at Euro 2012.

This time, however, Spain and Italy are playing for the European Championship and a place in the history books.

The Mediterranean rivals meet Sunday in Kiev's Olympic Stadium, three weeks after they drew 1-1 in their opening match of the tournament's group stage.

As the defending champion and World Cup holder, Spain is bidding to win a third straight major title, cementing its place as one of the greatest national teams. It would also match Germany's record of three European Championship titles.

Only the unpredictable Mario Balotelli and a surprising Italy team ? orchestrated by Andrea Pirlo ? stand between Spain and what many see as its destiny.

Even Italy coach Cesare Prandelli reckons that Spain is the best bet to lift the trophy.

"At the moment, even if I open my eyes, I am still dreaming," Prandelli said after his side's 2-1 victory over Germany in the semifinals, when Balotelli scored both goals.

"Spain remain favorites because of the years of hard work that they have put in. They have been dominant in every game they've played so far."

Spain hasn't lost in a European Championship since 2004 and has already matched West Germany as the only defending champion to return to the final after winning the World Cup. The West Germans managed it in 1976, but subsequently lost to Czechoslovakia following Antonin Panenka's famous chip shot in a penalty shootout.

This final brings together teams with players brazen enough to have successfully copied Panenka's audacious spot kick during their penalty shootouts in the knockout rounds. Spain defender Sergio Ramos used it in the semifinal win over Portugal, after Pirlo employed it against England in the quarterfinals.

It also features the tournament's best defensive team against one of its most exciting attacking squads.

Spain has not conceded a goal since that opening draw with Italy and hasn't been scored upon in nine elimination games at major tournaments. Balotelli, Antonio Cassano and Pirlo are leading one of Italy's top attacking teams in recent history.

"We always just tried to play, I think that is our strength," said Prandelli, whose team is bidding to give Italy its second European title, the same number as Spain and France.

"When we started off at this tournament, we were convinced that by working in a certain way we could become a proper team ? not just a quality team, but also a team with the right spirit."

Though Balotelli's selection had been in doubt due to troubles both on and off the pitch at Manchester City, the 21-year-old Italian of Ghanaian descent has scored three times at Euro 2012.

"I waited a long time for this moment, especially because my mother came all the way here and I wanted to make her happy," he said after the victory over Germany.

"This is the greatest evening of my life, but I hope Sunday will be even better," added the striker, who has a chance to finish as the tournament's top scorer with one more goal.

"For the final my father is coming, too," he added. "So I hope to score . . ."

Along with their players, the Azzurri also have an encouraging statistic on their side: Spain hasn't beaten Italy in a competitive match that didn't end in penalties since 1920.

Spain's attack has featured a rotating cast of forwards, with attacking midfielder Cesc Fabregas usually being preferred to striker Fernando Torres. On Sunday, coach Vicente del Bosque is likely to repeat the 4-6 formation he first deployed against Italy on June 10.

Substitutes Pedro Rodriguez and Jesus Navas have had impressive tournaments, and Del Bosque certainly values the contribution of players who don't feel slighted by being on the bench.

"When you send out a substitute who is upset it always makes things more difficult. When you send out a player who is happy and ready to play one minute if that's what's needed, that is very important," said Del Bosque, who can match West Germany's Helmut Schoen as the only coaches to have won a European Championship and a World Cup.

Del Bosque admitted that Portugal not only made Spain look sloppy for over an hour, but had taken his players "to the limit."

However, his team's extra day of rest compared to the Azzurri will help with preparations, while Italy is keeping an eye on any injury problems after Balotelli came off in the second half against Germany due to cramps.

"We're proud of what we are doing and, of course, we hope to achieve what no one else has done before," Del Bosque said, before touching on what victory would mean with an economic crisis back home.

"It would be good for everyone, for Spanish football and for our country."

___

Paul Logothetis can be reached at: www.twitter.com/PaulLogoAP

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/spain-italy-rematch-historic-euro-2012-final-100529589--sow.html

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War-related climate change would reduce substantially reduce crop yields

ScienceDaily (July 2, 2012) ? Though worries about "nuclear winter" have faded since the end of the Cold War, existing stockpiles of nuclear weapons still hold the potential for devastating global impacts.

Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Rutgers University have found that the climate effects of a hypothetical nuclear war between India and Pakistan would greatly reduce yields of staple crops, even in distant countries.

The work, by Mutlu Ozdogan and Chris Kucharik of the Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment in the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies at UW-Madison and Alan Robock of Rutgers' Center for Environmental Prediction, will appear in an upcoming issue of the journal Climatic Change.

Robock used global climate models to calculate the climate impacts of a conflict between India and Pakistan, each using 50 nuclear weapons.

"This is essentially a climate change experiment, but instead of running a climate change model under a global CO₂ scenario, you run it under a soot scenario, where the soot comes from fires from cities and industrial areas burning as a result of the war," explains Ozdogan, a UW-Madison professor of forest and wildlife ecology.

The soot and smoke can travel around the world in the atmosphere and block some of the sunlight that would normally reach Earth. That leads to cooler temperatures, altered weather and precipitation patterns, and shorter growing seasons.

"We were surprised that there was such a large climate change -- climate change unprecedented in recorded human history -- even from a war with 50 small nuclear weapons per side, much, much less than one percent of the current nuclear arsenal," says Robock. He adds that the changes also lasted a full decade, much longer than he expected. "The question is, what impact does that have on things that matter to humans, and the most important is our food supply."

The researchers used the climate changes predicted for the Midwest to calculate potential effects on corn and soy production in Iowa, Illinois, Indiana and Missouri. Using climate-based agricultural output models, they compared yields under modern weather patterns and under the war scenario.

They found that the climate effects of nuclear war led to decreases in corn yields of 10 to 40 percent and soy yields of 2 to 20 percent, with the reductions gradually declining over the course of the decade following the war.

"Those changes -- in any year -- are much larger than the natural variation we might see" due to weather fluctuations alone, Ozdogan says. And unlike gradual environmental changes associated with greenhouse gas accumulation, the rapid onset of a war would not permit farmers or the global economy any time to adapt.

A companion study by Robock and Lili Xia of Rutgers University, also published in Climatic Change, calculated that the same scenario would dramatically reduce rice production in China: an average decrease of 21 percent during each of the first four years after the war and 10 percent less for the next six years.

Such losses add up to a huge impact on regional food supplies that could escalate into wider food shortages and trade breakdowns with dire economic and political consequences, Robock says.

The take-home message, Ozdogan says, is that localized events can have disproportionately large global impacts.

"Hopefully this will never happen," he says, "but if it happens, if the prospect is there, these are some of the results that people could expect."

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Wisconsin-Madison. The original article was written by Jill Sakai.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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Journal Reference:

1. Mutlu ?zdo?an, Alan Robock, Christopher J. Kucharik. Impacts of a nuclear war in South Asia on soybean and maize production in the Midwest United States. Climatic Change, 2012; DOI: 10.1007/s10584-012-0518-1

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/07/120702183937.htm

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Romney needs better team to beat Obama: Murdoch (reuters)

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Again: Islamists destroy monuments, this time in Timbuktu

Al Qaeda-backed Islamists in Mali destroyed centuries-old UNESCO sites Saturday, recalling the 2001 destruction of Buddha statues in Afghanistan by the Taliban.?

By Adama Diarra,?Reuters / July 1, 2012

A traditional mud structure stands in the Malian city of Timbuktu. Al Qaeda-linked Mali Islamists armed with Kalashnikovs and pick-axes began destroying prized mausoleums of saints in the UNESCO-listed northern city of Timbuktu on June 30, in front of shocked locals, witnesses said.

Adama Diarr/REUTERS

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Al Qaeda-linked Mali Islamists?armed with Kalashnikovs and pick-axes destroyed centuries-old?mausoleums of saints in the UNESCO-listed city of Timbuktu on?Saturday in front of shocked locals, witnesses said.

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The Islamist Ansar Dine group backs strict sharia, Islamic?law, and considers the shrines of the local Sufi version of?Islam to be idolatrous. Sufi shrines have also been attacked by?hardline Salafists in Egypt and Libya in the past year.

The attack came just days after UNESCO placed Timbuktu on?its list of heritage sites in danger and will recall the 2001?dynamiting by the Taliban of two 6th-century statues of Buddha?carved into a cliff in Bamiyan in central Afghanistan.

"They are armed and have surrounded the sites with pick-up?trucks. The population is just looking on helplessly," local?journalist Yeya Tandina said by telephone.

Tandina and other witnesses said Ansar Dine had already?destroyed the mausoleums of three local saints ??Sidi Mahmoud,?Sidi El Mokhtar, and Alfa Moya ??and at least seven tombs.

"The mausoleum doesn't exist any more and the cemetery is as?bare as a soccer pitch," local teacher Abdoulaye Boulahi said of?the Mahmoud burial place.

"There's about 30 of them breaking everything up with?pick-axes and hoes. They've put their Kalashnikovs down by their?side. These are shocking scenes for the people in Timbuktu,"?said Boulahi.

Contacted late on Saturday, Tandina said Ansar Dine had?halted the attacks on the holy site. Attempts to contact members?of the group were unsuccessful.

Locals said the attackers had threatened to destroy all of?the 16 main mausolem sites by the end of the day. UNESCO?Director-General Irina Bokova called for an immediate halt.

"There is no justification for such wanton destruction and I?call on all parties engaged in the conflict to stop these?terrible and irreversible acts," she said in a statement. The?sites date from Timbuktu's Golden Age in the 16th century.

France's Foreign Ministry condemned the attacks on what it?called "a part of the soul of this prestigious Sahelian city."

Ansar Dine has gained the upper hand over less well-armed?Tuareg-led separatists since the two joined forces to rout?government troops and seize control in April of the northern?two-thirds of the inland West African state.

Salt, Slaves, Gold, and Learning

Located on an old Saharan trading route that saw salt from?the Arab north exchanged for gold and slaves from black Africa?to the south, Timbuktu blossomed in the 16th century as an?Islamic seat of learning, home to priests, scribes, and jurists.

Mali had in recent years sought to create a desert tourism?industry around Timbuktu but even before April's rebellion many?tourists were being discouraged by a spate of kidnappings of?Westerners in the region claimed by Al Qaeda-linked groups.

UNESCO's World Heritage Committee said this week it had?accepted the request of the Malian government to place Timbuktu?on its list of endangered heritage sites.

"The Committee ... also asked Mali's neighbours to do all in?their power to prevent the trafficking in cultural objects from?these sites," it said of the risk of looting.

The rebel seizure of the north came as the southern capital,?Bamako, was struggling with the aftermath of a March 22 coup.

Mali's neighbors are seeking UN backing for a military?intervention to stabilize the country but Security Council?members say they need more details on the mission being planned.

* Writing and additional reporting by Mark John in Dakar; and?John Irish in Paris; Editing by Roger Atwood

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/9TxGwMZcRsg/Again-Islamists-destroy-monuments-this-time-in-Timbuktu

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