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U.S. Suggests All Baby Boomers Should Get Tested for Hepatitis C

By Timothy W. Martin

U.S. health officials are proposing all baby boomers get tested for hepatitis C, because theyre five times more likely than other adults to have the potentially fatal liver virus and many might not know theyre at risk.

Of the more than 70 million baby boomers those born from 1945 to 1965 800,000 may have contracted the liver virus decades ago from unsafe blood transfusions or experimental drug use and not gotten tested, U.S. health officials say. Many neglect getting tested, because theyve forgotten getting a transfusion or drug use, or theyre unaware they could be at risk. For those baby boomers who do remember risky actions, some may balk at telling their doctor.

So, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday proposed a recommendation that all members of that generation get a one-time blood test for Hepatitis C. About two-thirds of the 3.2 million U.S. adults with hepatitis C is a baby boomer, the CDC said.

Hepatitis C doesnt exhibit many symptoms. It slowly inflames or scars the liver, for years, if not decades. If undiagnosed, hepatitis C can cause liver cancer or cirrhosis, and U.S. health officials said more than 15,000 Americans died from those illnesses in 2007, the most recent data available.

The proposed recommendation comes as treatments battling hepatitis C are improving. For decades, it was combated with an injection that, under the best of circumstances, would clear out 30% to 40% of the virus, Dr. Paul Gaglio, medical director of the liver-transplantation program at Montefiore Medical Center in New York tells the Health Blog. Now, the injections are being paired with two new types of oral tablets, developed by Merck and Vertex Pharmaceuticals, that can block the virus from replicating. The combined therapy has doubled the treatments effectiveness, Gaglio says.

Our hope is that one day well have treatments that produce a near 100% clearance of the virus, he says.

The CDC guidelines, for now, call for hepatitis C testing only for individuals with certain known risk factors say, a blood transfusion before 1992 or admitted recreational intravenous drug use. The proposed recommendation, which could be enacted later this year, would suggest that all of the more than 70 million baby boomers get tested.

Hepatitis C is a huge unrecognized health crisis, says Dr. Bryce D. Smith, lead health scientist at the CDCs division of viral hepatitis. Its referred to as a silent killer, because there are so few noticeable symptoms.

For previous generations, blood transfusions and recreational drug use were less common, experts said. And for younger adults, universal standards were established in the early 1990s for more widespread blood screening of donors. The HIV scare, around the same time, led to more cautious drug use, especially for those doing so by injection.

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U.S. Suggests All Baby Boomers Should Get Tested for Hepatitis C

CDC: All Baby Boomers Should Get Tested for Hepatitis C

1 in 30 Baby Boomers Infected With Hepatitis C, but Few Know It

May 18, 2012 -- One in 30 baby boomers may be infected with the hepatitis C virus, but few know it until it's too late for their livers.

In the wake of new statistics showing more than 2 million baby boomers in the U.S. are infected with hepatitis C, the CDC is proposing new guidelines calling for all adults of that generation to be tested for the virus.

Officials say baby boomers, the generation born from 1945 through 1965, now account for more than 75% of all Americans living with the virus. But recent studies show few are aware they are infected or at risk for infection.

"Identifying these hidden infections early will allow more baby boomers to receive care and treatment, before they develop life-threatening liver disease," says Kevin Fenton, MD, PhD, director of CDC's National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and Tuberculosis Prevention, in a news release.

Current hepatitis C testing guidelines call for only those with certain risk factors to be tested for the virus.

The announcement of the proposed change coincides with the first-ever National Hepatitis Testing Day on May 19. After a public comment period, the new guidelines are expected to be finalized later this year.

The hepatitis C virus is spread through exposure to infected blood. The most common means of infection is through sharing of needles or other equipment used to inject drugs.

Researchers say most baby boomers were likely infected with hepatitis C when they were in their teens or 20s.

Some may have been infected when they experimented with injection drugs, even just once. Others may have been exposed to the virus through blood transfusions before modern blood-screening procedures came into effect in 1992.

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CDC: All Baby Boomers Should Get Tested for Hepatitis C

Spain may have to revise its 2011 budget deficit

By DANIEL WOOLLS and HAROLD HECKLE Associated Press

MADRID (AP) - Concern grew for the stability of Spain's place in the fragile eurozone economy after reports of a rise in the level of bad loans on the books of its banks and word from the government Friday that it may have to revise its 2011 budget deficit upwards for a second time.

The Bank of Spain reported that lenders' and savings banks' bad loan ratio had risen in March to an 18-year high of 8.36 percent from 8.15 percent the previous month.

The Finance Ministry then said in a statement late Friday the deficit could reach 8.9 percent of GDP after four of its 17 regions overshot their expected budgets. The regions mentioned were Madrid, Valencia, Andalusia and Castilla-Leon.

News of the increase in bad loans followed a downgrading by credit ratings agency Moody's late Thursday of the country's banking industry.

Spain's budget deficit is higher than the 3 percent threshold that was supposedly part of the euro's economic framework. The incoming government of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy earlier had to revise the figure upwards to 8.5 percent of GDP from the 6 percent forecast by the previous, Socialist government.

The ministry said it still expected to hit its target of 5.3 percent for this year's budget deficit.

Moody's acted late Thursday, citing Spanish banks' heavy load of non-performing loans amid a recession-plagued economy, their trouble raising financing on capital markets and the government's sovereign debt problems, which might make it hard for the government to come to the aid of banks.

Spain is in the eye of the storm of the eurozone debt crisis amid worries that its banks are overexposed to an imploded real estate bubble and the government, fighting recession and a nearly 25 percent jobless rate, could not afford to bail them out if it needed to.

Nuria Alvarez, a banking analyst with Madrid brokerage Renta4, warned that the rise in the bad loan ratio could mean that Spain's banks will get hit harder as the country's recession bites deep and unemployment worsens.

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Spain may have to revise its 2011 budget deficit

UK surveillance could yield window into lives

By RAPHAEL SATTER Associated Press

LONDON (AP) - British officials have given their word: "We won't read your emails."

But experts say that its proposed new surveillance program, unveiled last week as part of the government's annual legislative program, will gather so much data that spooks won't have to read your messages to guess what you're up to.

The U.K. Home Office stresses that it is not seeking to read the content of every Britons' communications, saying the data it was seeking "is NOT the content of any communication." It is, however, seeking information on who's sending the message, whom it's sent to, where it's sent from, and potentially other details including a message's length and its format.

The government's proposal is just a draft bill, so it could be modified or scrapped. But if passed in its current form, it would put a huge amount of personal data at the government's disposal, which it could potentially use to deduce a startling amount about Britons' private life - from sleep patterns to driving habits or even infidelity.

"We're really entering a whole new phase of analysis based on the data that we can collect," said Gerald Kane, an information systems expert at Boston College. "There is quite a lot you can learn."

The ocean of information is hard to fathom. Britons generate 4 billion hours of voice calls and 130 billion text messages annually, according to industry figures. In 2008 the BBC put the annual number of U.K.-linked emails at around 1 trillion. Then there are instant messaging services run by companies such as BlackBerry, Internet telephony services such as Skype, chat rooms, and in-game services liked those used by World of Warcraft.

Communications service providers, who would log the details of all that back-and-forth, believe that the government's program would force them to process petabytes (1 quadrillion bytes) of information every day. It's a mind-bogglingly large amount of data on the scale of every book, every movie, and every piece of music ever released.

So even without opening emails, how much can British spooks learn about who's sending them?

THEY'LL SEE THE RED FLAGS

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UK surveillance could yield window into lives

A brief word on John Tortorella's brief press conferences in playoffs

Posted: 12:23 PM ET May 17, 2012

By Brian Stubits | NHL Blogger

John Tortorella has done something rather amazing. He has turned the conversation in the postseason from criticism of his team's shot-blocking to criticism of himself.

Well it hasn't completely stopped the block talk. For example, CBS Sports Network hockey analyst Dave Starman just tackled the issue. But after Game 2 of the Eastern Conference finals he's about the only one who is still talking about the game and not talking about the talking.

By now you're well aware that Tortorella has made a habit of brief press conferences, particularly after losses. He has gone into a shell and refuses to say anything descriptive whatsoever. He won't talk about individual players. Anything that might resemble something strategic is left unexplained. Give him a yes or no question and he'll take the easy out with a one-word answer.

Put it briefly, he has been uncooperative and it's upsetting a lot of people in the media. Below you'll see the latest example after the Rangers' 3-2 loss to the Devils in Game 2.

It has gotten to the point that it's been suggested the media return the favor to Tortorella and stage a walk-out at Tortorella's next setting. I'm serious, that's a real suggestion.

And it makes me laugh. What is that going to do other than please Tortorella? The guy would probably love nothing more than not to have to talk to the media ever, so walking out isn't going to teach him a lesson. It's going to make a dream come true. The only skin off his back is that he spent the team to walk down the hall to the media room. Poor guy.

I've been one of those media members. I was present for a couple of his pressers in the second-round series with Washington. I admit that I'm on the side that actually finds them funny. I sat in the second row and was doing my best not to crack a smile. I was afraid to find out what would happen if an angry Torts saw me grinning like a teenage boy who snuck into an R-rated movie.

It was one of the many postgame briefings that he has given that was just that, brief. But only in their production. The post-press talk has been anything but brief.

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A brief word on John Tortorella's brief press conferences in playoffs