Archive for October 28th, 2010

The Next Public Health Crisis: Longevity

Posted on October 28, 2010 by Jason

The New York Times, October 21st, 2010

Since her appointment as dean of the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University
in 2008, Dr. Linda P. Fried, a geriatrician, has sought to make the
dramatic aging of the world’s population, and its myriad ramifications,
one of the pillars of education for the 1,100 graduate students there.

Since 1900, life expectancy for the average American has increased by
three decades, creating a host of medical, financial and public policy
challenges. Just as the school took on AIDS in the 1980s and emergency
preparedness in the wake of 9/11, so it is now scrambling to prepare its
students to turn this age wave from a public health emergency to an
opportunity.

Rigorous exploration of the subject is now high on the school’s
agenda. A study by Mailman researchers, released early this month,
explored the causes of the lag in life expectancy in the United States,
compared with more than a dozen other countries. To the researchers’
surprise, the likely suspects — obesity, smoking, traffic accidents and
homicide — were not to blame for the disparity.

Instead, the researchers concluded that “costly specialized and
fragmented care,’’ hallmarks of American medicine, are probably to blame
— despite a per capita increase in health care spending here that was
twice the rate of other countries. “It was shocking to see the U.S.
falling behind other countries even as costs soared ahead of them,” said
the lead author, Dr. Peter Muennig, assistant professor of health
policy and management at the Mailman School of Public Health.

Days before Dr. Muennig’s study was released, I attended a memorial
service for Dr. Robert N. Butler at All Souls Unitarian Church on
Manhattan’s East Side. Dr. Butler, who died suddenly in July of acute leukemia at the age of 83, all but invented geriatrics as we know it: he was founding director of the National Institute on Aging and created the first full-fledged geriatrics department at an American medical school, the Mount Sinai School of Medicine. Today, 11 of 145 medical schools in America have such departments.

More than any other physician and researcher, Dr. Butler was
responsible for turning aging into a discipline unto itself, not an
afterthought of various medical specialties. And so I was intrigued to
hear at his memorial service that the International Longevity Center
— a think tank run by Dr. Butler that produces reams of research on old
age, longevity and caregiving — would move to Columbia University and
begin a formal collaboration with the Mailman School of Public Health.

Read more of this article.

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When Hormone Creams Expose Others to Risks

Posted on October 28, 2010 by Jason

The New York Times, October 25th, 2010

Veterinarians around the country are reporting a strange phenomenon:
spayed dogs and cats, even some puppies and kittens, are suddenly
becoming hormonal.

In female pets, the symptoms resemble heat: swollen genitals, bloody
discharge and behavioral problems. Male animals are showing up with
swollen breast tissue and hair loss. Standard treatments and even repeated operations have had no effect.

Now vets have identified the culprit. The pets were all owned by women who used hormone creams on their hands, arms and legs to counter symptoms of menopause.
Animals who licked or cuddled their owners, or rubbed up against their
legs, were being inadvertently exposed to doses of hormone drugs.

These anecdotal reports, about 20 of which were first collected by the Veterinary Information Network,
a news service for veterinarians, suggest that many women are not
taking proper precautions when using topical hormone products — putting
not only pets but also family members at risk for hormone exposure.

“The dogs are licking and rubbing the treated area and absorbing the
drug, which is putting them back into heat,” said Dr. Terry Clekis, a
veterinarian in Bradenton, Fla. Dr. Clekis has seen about five cases of
pet exposure to menopause creams, including a dog that appeared to go
into heat about six months after being spayed.

Dr. Clekis feared he had left remnants of ovarian tissue behind after
the spaying. So he repeated it, but found nothing. It was his wife,
chatting with the pet owner, who discovered she was using a hormone
cream. Once the owner took precautions against exposing her pet, the
symptoms disappeared.

The Food and Drug Administration issued a warning in the summer after eight children exposed to the estrogen spray Evamist showed signs of premature puberty
like nipple swelling and enlarged breasts. The agency also received two
reports of dogs exposed to Evamist, and last year it issued another
warning after eight children were exposed to topical testosterone.

Read more of this article.

Failure to Annuitize Retirement Assets Increases Number of Households ‘At Risk’ by Nearly 10 Percent

Posted on October 28, 2010 by Jason

Forbes, October 26th, 2010

Though many households focus on accumulating assets for retirement, it
is equally important that they have a plan in place to help them get as
much as possible out of those assets during retirement. New analysis of
the National Retirement Risk Index (NRRI) by the Center for Retirement
Research at Boston College, and sponsored by Nationwide Mutual Insurance
Company, shows the percent of households ‘at risk’ for retirement jumps
from 51 to 60 percent when they live off of the interest from their
assets instead of purchasing an inflation-indexed annuity to provide a
guaranteed stream of retirement income.

The NRRI measures the share of American households ‘at risk’ of being
unable to maintain their pre-retirement standard of living in
retirement. The Index uses the conservative assumptions that people work
to age 65, receive income from reverse mortgages on their homes and
annuitize all of their financial assets. The new fact sheet examined
what would happen if households did not purchase an annuity to provide
lifelong income.

“It’s critical for today’s workers to not only invest for retirement but
to also have a plan in place to manage their assets once they retire,”
said Center Director Alicia H. Munnell. “Purchasing an annuity is one
way that households can ensure that they don’t outlive their assets but
the reality is that most people do not choose this option. We decided to
explore what impact removing the annuitization assumption would have on
the retirement outlook of American households in the Index.”

The full report is available at the Center
for Retirement Research at Boston College.

The study examined two alternative scenarios to annuitization. The first
alternative was that households drew down their assets at a rate of four
percent per year, a common strategy suggested by financial planners and investment
professionals. The second scenario examined what would happen if
households lived off the interest on their accumulated wealth (estimated
at 1.9 percent annually).

Read more of this article

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