China’s banking watchdog warns against information tech risks

BEIJING, Nov 25: China’s Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC) intends to hold a bank’s top management responsible for any breakdowns in its trading and payment system as system failures could have a domino effect, a senior official has said.

Board of directors, supervisory committee and top management of concerned banks will be held responsible for any breakdowns in its trading and payment system, media reports quoted CBRC Chairman Liu Mingkang as saying.

Liu urged domestic banks to "attach great importance" to IT risks as the security, reliability and efficiency of information technology have a direct bearing on the stability of the financial industry.

He cited one example that occurred in April when the inter-bank trading system of China Unionpay, the country’s only national electronic payment network operator, broke down for six hours, paralysing most of the country’s automatic teller machines and Point of Sales equipment in shops.

About 2.46 million trades involving an aggregate turnover of 128.77 billion yuan (16.3 billion US dollars) were blocked.

Describing the losses as "huge", Liu said bank management must be fully aware that warding off trading and payment system risks was not the concern of only one bank.

"Given the omnipresence of information technology, a breakdown in one area could lead to a domino effect across the entire sector," he warned.

Liu ordered that a special unit be set up to evaluate risk, and upgrade and maintain information technology facilities. (PTI)

Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie visit Vietnam orphans

HANOI, Nov 25: Hollywood superstars Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie doled out candies and toys during a surprise visit to an orphanage in southern Vietnam, a state-run newspaper said today.

The couple went to Tam Binh orphanage in Ho Chi Minh City and had lunch there yesterday, the director of the charity facility told the Saigon Giai Phong (Liberation Saigon) daily.

Newspapers, which ran front-page photos yesterday of Pitt and Jolie riding a scooter in the city, said today their photographers had been unable to capture any shot of the couple on their second day in town.

The two arrived in Vietnam on Thursday during what appeared to be a break from filming ''A Mighty Heart'' in India, where they have been mobbed by fans and stirred a media frenzy.

The film stars Jolie as the wife of US journalist Daniel Pearl, who was abducted and murdered by Islamic militants in Pakistan in 2002. Pitt is the producer.

State newspapers said the couple flew into Vietnam on Thursday from Cambodia, birthplace of their adopted son Maddox.

That night they dined at a Vietnamese restaurant. One newspaper said they would leave Vietnam today.

(AGENCIES)

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Doctors say Herceptin's cost may hurt others

LONDON, Nov 25: The high cost of treating cancer patients with expensive drugs like Herceptin could mean hospitals cutting treatment for other patients if no extra funding is available, a team of doctors said.

Hospitals in England and Wales were told earlier this year they should offer the breast cancer drug Herceptin to suitable patients in the early stage of the disease.

But the drug's high cost -- 20,000 pounds per patient a year -- means cuts may have to be made elsewhere, the doctors wrote in the British Medical Journal.

The government has dismissed their concerns.

Cancer doctors Ann Barrett, Tom Roques and Matthew Small from the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital NHS Trust said yesterday the medicines cost-effectiveness watchdog NICE, which approved Herceptin in August for NHS use, should also say what should be cut to fund it.

The move followed high profile legal battles by women with early stage breast cancer to force their local health authorities to pay for the drug.

The doctors estimated they would have to find 1.9 million pounds a year -- rising to 2.3 million after testing and monitoring -- to give Herceptin to 75 patients.

But with limited budgets, funding Herceptin might mean cutting post-surgery treatment to 355 other cancer patients, of whom 16 would be cured, or 208 patients receiving palliative chemotherapy.

''These untreated patients will be people we know,'' the doctors wrote.

''We will be the ones to tell them they are not getting treatment that has been proved to be effective and which costs relatively little, because it is not the treatment of the moment.''

Health Minister Rosie Winterton dismissed the doctors' concerns.

''Doctors treat patients according to their clinical need.

''Primary Care Trusts should always be planning ahead and we would expect them to consider the implications of introducing all drugs on the horizon, not just Herceptin.''

Barbara Clark, a Somerset nurse who won a legal fight for Herceptin treatment last year, said cancer patients were not to blame for the NHS's financial problems.

''It's absolutely dreadful that they are blaming women who have a particularly deadly cancer for the state of the health service -- pitting patient group against patient group,'' she told BBC radio. (AGENCIES)

Swimming in pools may raise hay fever risk

NEW YORK, Nov 25: Children who go to swimming pools on a regular basis may be at risk for developing hay fever in adulthood, German researchers report.

closer contact to allergens and increasing the risk of hay fever.

Subjects who attended a chlorinated swimming pool three to 11 times each year at school age were 74 per cent more likely to develop hay fever than those who never attended a pool at school age, the findings indicate.

Recent exposure to a chlorinated swimming pool also increased the risk of hay fever. Subjects who reported exposure to a pool more than once a week for the last 12 months were 32 per cent more likely to have hay fever than non-exposed individuals.

Lastly, subjects who reported any lifetime exposure to chlorinated swimming pools were 65 per cent more likely to have hay fever than individuals with no exposure.

The associations with both recent and school-age pool attendance appeared to be dose-related, the authors point out.

The new findings are consistent with past research linking exposure to chlorinated swimming pools with lung ''hyperpermeability,'' as well as exercise-induced cough and higher asthma rates, the team notes in the journal Allergy.

''Hay fever is a disease with numerous potential influencing aspects, including lifestyle changes, environmental factors, allergen exposure and immunology. Contact with chlorination by-products might not be the leading reason for higher frequencies of hay fever, especially in adults, but might make up an important contribution to this multifactorial disease,'' the authors conclude. (AGENCIES)

Weight-loss surgery success varies widely

NEW YORK Nov 25: In-hospital outcomes of weight-loss surgery, also known as ''bariatric'' surgery, vary widely from one institution to another, and it appears that hospitals that perform the most procedures have the lowest complication rates, according to the First Annual HealthGrades Bariatric Surgery Trends in American Hospitals Study.

Health Grades, located in Golden, Colorado, rates physicians, hospitals, and nursing homes, and makes this information available on their web site. The company's healthcare ratings are used by consumers, hospitals, employers and their health plans, liability insurers, and physicians.

In what they call ''the first study of its kind,'' the company used hospital discharge data between 2002 through 2004 to assess in-hospital outcomes of bariatric surgeries. Most of the procedures were gastric bypass or key-hole (laparoscopic) procedures.

The number of bariatric surgeries increased by 34 per cent from 2002 to 2004 in the 17 states included in the study. While bariatric surgery is considered the most effective treatment for morbid obesity, it is also associated with significant risk. In this study, roughly ten per cent of patients experienced an in-hospital complication and two patients for every 100O procedures will die.

Included in their study were 86,520 bariatric procedures performed in 398 hospitals. Excluded were 270 hospitals in which fewer than 30 bariatric surgeries were performed during the study period and if fewer than five surgeries were performed in 2004.

Half of all the surgeries were performed in four states: New York, Florida, Texas and Pennsylvania. Only 644 of patients paid for the surgery themselves in 2002, but the number rose to 1028 by 2004.

According to their risk-adjusted ratings, 17.8 per cent of hospitals were classified as ''best'' performers and given a five-star rating; 62.1 per cent were rated as ''as expected'' performers with a three-star rating; and 20.1 per cent were rated as ''poor performers'' and given a one-star rating.

During the trial period the five-star hospitals performed 388 surgeries, three-stars performed 155, and the one-star hospitals completed 195 surgeries.

The most common serious complications were respiratory, bleeding, and cardiac complications. The risk-adjusted in-hospital complication rate was five per cent in the five-star hospitals, versus 15 per cent in the one-star hospitals.

The full study and individual hospital ratings for bariatric surgery are published online at www.Healthgrades.Com. (AGENCIES)

Anesthetic jab treats headache in the ER

NEW YORK, Nov 25: For patients suffering severe headaches who present to the emergency department, the painkiller bupivacaine injected into the muscles at the base of the neck provides safe and effective headache relief.

These are the findings of a look back at all 417 headache patients, 18 years of age or older, who received this treatment over a one period at a single emergency department.

Complete headache relief occurred in 65 per cent and partial headache occurred in 20 per cent of patients. Roughly 14 per cent reported no significant headache relief and 1 per cent reported a worsening of headache pain.

Overall, bupivacaine injections yielded a therapeutic response in 356 of 417 patients, report Dr Larry B Mellick of the Medical College of Georgia in Augusta and colleagues in the journal Headache.

''Headache relief was typically rapid with many patients reporting complete headache relief in five to ten minutes,'' the authors note. Headache relief was often accompanied by resolution of associated signs and symptoms such as nausea, vomiting, and sensitivity to sound and light.

Mellick and colleagues note that headache is a ''common chief complaint'' of patients who present to the emergency department. Many come to the ED as a last resort after other interventions have failed to provide headache relief.

Based on their experience, the authors say bupivacaine injection ''appears to be a safe and effective therapeutic intervention for the treatment of headache pain caused by a spectrum of etiologies presenting to the ED setting.''

(AGENCIES)

Heart risk factors prevalent in psoriasis patients

NEW YORK, Nov 25: Psoriasis sufferers have an increased frequency of a variety of cardiovascular risk factors including diabetes, obesity, high blood pressure, elevated blood cholesterol levels, and smoking, results of a study confirm.

In particular, the current results suggest that psoriasis is associated with key components of the metabolic syndrome -- a clustering of heart risk factors -- and that this association is stronger in cases of severe psoriasis.

This finding is important, say the investigators, given that individuals with as few as one or two metabolic syndrome risk factors are at heightened risk for death due to cardiovascular disease.

''Our other studies suggest that, independent of other risk factors, severe psoriasis itself may be a risk factor for heart attack,'' Dr Joel M Gelfand from the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia told Reuters Health. ''Therefore, patients with psoriasis should be screened for cardiovascular risk factors, and if these risk factors are present, they should be managed appropriately.''

Gelfand and colleagues identified 127,706 patients with mild psoriasis and 3,854 with severe psoriasis. Each psoriasis patient was matched to up to five psoriasis-free control subjects.

Diabetes was present in 7.1 per cent of patients with severe psoriasis and in 4.4 per cent of those with mild psoriasis compared with just 3.3 per cent of controls.

High blood pressure was present in 20 per cent of patients with severe psoriasis, 14.7 per cent of those with mild psoriasis and 11.9 per cent of controls. Elevated cholesterol or ''hyperlipidemia'' was documented in 6 per cent, 4.7 per cent, and 3.3 per cent, respectively.

Nearly 20.7 per cent of individuals with severe psoriasis and 15.8 per cent of those with mild psoriasis were obese compared with roughly 13.2 per cent of controls. Thirty-one per cent of those with severe psoriasis were smokers compared with 28 per cent of those with mild psoriasis and 20.7 per cent of psoriasis-free controls.

Compared with controls, patients with mild psoriasis had higher adjusted odds of diabetes, hypertension, hyperlipidemia, obesity, and smoking. Patients with severe psoriasis had higher adjusted odds of diabetes, obesity, and smoking.

Additionally, diabetes and obesity were more prevalent in patients with severe psoriasis than in those with mild psoriasis.

Patients with psoriasis should be encouraged to identify and manage their modifiable cardiovascular risk factors, the authors conclude.

(AGENCIES)

Stroke more common among the poor

NEW YORK, Nov 25: Socioeconomic status may account for some, but not all, of the increased risk of stroke African Americans face, a new study shows.

Among men and women living in the Greater Cincinnati area, blacks were 69 per cent more likely to suffer a first-time stroke in 1999 than whites, Dr Dawn O Kleindorfer of the University of Cincinnati in Ohio found. Adjusting for the effects of socioeconomic status reduced some of the effects of ethnicity, but not all of them.

Kleindorfer and her team conclude that about 39 per cent of African Americans' increased stroke risk is due to socioeconomic status.

But the factors responsible for the remaining greater risk remain unclear, she noted in an interview with Reuters Health. High blood pressure, diabetes, genetic factors and even diet have been proposed as possibilities, said Kleindorfer, who believes high blood pressure and diabetes are the most plausible contributors. She and her colleagues are now conducting a large National Institutes of Health-funded study to investigate the issue.

In the current study, whites faced the same greater stroke risk from living in poorer neighborhoods seen among blacks.

People who live in a high-poverty census tract aren't necessarily poor themselves, Kleindorfer notes, but they may experience other factors that can affect health such as worse access to hospitals and health care, crime and crowding.

She and her colleagues conclude: ''Further study is required to understand why socioeconomic status is associated with stroke incidence so that we may intervene and decrease stroke incidence in the future.''(AGENCIES)

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Eiffel tower restaurants to change hands:Report

PARIS, Nov 25: French restaurateur Alain Ducasse, with the backing of catering group Sodexho, is set to win the concession to run the restaurants at Paris's Eiffel tower, Le Parisien newspaper reported.

It quoted Jean-Bernard Bros, an adviser to Paris mayor Bertrand Delanoe, as saying the decision to award the concession to Ducasse and Sodexho unit L'Affiche, which provides catering to a number of French race courses, had been taken unanimously. Neither Sodexho nor the Ducasse group would comment on the report.

Folic acid can cut heart attack risk:Experts

LONDON, Nov 25: Can taking folic acid supplements reduce the risk of heart disease and stroke? British researchers believe it can.

After analysing evidence from earlier studies, a team of scientists in Britain said yesterday there is enough research that shows folic acid lowers levels of the amino acid homocysteine and reduces the odds of cardiovacular disease.

''The evidence is very persuasive that lowering homocysteine with folic acid will lower your risk of heart attack and stroke by about ten to 20 per cent,'' David Wald, of the Wolfson Institute for Preventive Medicine, Barts and the London, Queen Mary School of Medicine and Dentistry in London, said in an interview.

Folic acid is a synthetic compound of folate, a B vitamin found in green leafy vegetables and liver. Women are advised to take folic acid before conceiving and during the early months of pregnancy to prevent neural tube disorders such as spina bifida.

Homocysteine is thought to increase the risk of cardiovascular disease by damaging the inner lining of arteries.

Wald and his team analysed results of large cohort trials looking at homosysteine and heart attacks and strokes in mainly healthy people and others that tested the effects of lowering levels of the amino acid.

They also examined studies of people with a genetic mutation, which occurs in one in 10 people, that increases their homocysteine level and the impact of folic acid in reducing it.

''The evidence shows clearly that those people who have the genetic defect who have higher homocysteine levels have a high risk,'' said Wald. ''The work we have done looks closely at this type of evidence because if you take enough folic acid, or folate, you can cancel out the effect of this mutation''.

The cohort and genetic studies showed a protective effect from lower homocysteine levels. Wald said there are trials that have shown no effect but he explained that they were too small, too short-term or too inconclusive.

''All the evidence put together is compelling,'' he said, adding that folic acid is a cheap and simple way to reduce heart disease and strokes.

Cardiovascular disease is a leading cause of death worldwide. A family history of the disease, smoking, high blood pressure, raised cholesterol, obesity, lack of exercise and diabetes are risk factors for cardiovascular disease.

(AGENCIES)

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