Shortages of Critical Drugs Continue to Vex Doctors, Study Finds
By SABRINA TAVERNISEFEB. 10, 2014
Despite efforts by the Obama administration to ease shortages of critical drugs, shortfalls have persisted, forcing doctors to resort to rationing in some cases or to scramble for alternatives, a government watchdog agency said on Monday.
In recent years, drug shortages have become an all but permanent part of the American medical landscape. The most common shortages are for generic versions of sterile injectable drugs, partly because factories that make them are aging and prone to quality problems, causing temporary closings of production lines or even entire factories. The number of annual shortages — both new and continuing ones — nearly tripled from 2007 to 2012.
The analysis by the United States Government Accountability Office, released Monday, was required by a 2012 law that gave the Food and Drug Administration more power to manage shortages. The watchdog agency was charged with evaluating whether the F.D.A. had improved its response to the problem, among other things.
The accountability office concluded that the F.D.A. was preventing many more shortages now than in the past — 154 potential shortages in 2012 compared with just 35 in 2010 — but that the number of shortages has continued to grow.
White House delays health insurance mandate for medium-sized employers until 2016
By Juliet Eilperin and Amy Goldstein, E-mail the writers
The Obama administration announced Monday it would give medium-sized employers an extra year, until 2016, before they must offer health insurance to their full-time workers.
Firms with at least 100 employees will have to start offering this coverage in 2015.
Obamanomics: Obama Democrats’ troubling view on work
By Michael Goodwin
February 9, 2014 | 1:34am
Among its many stamps, the Postal Service has a series called “Made in America, Building a Nation.” The strip of “forever” stamps is a collection of iconic photographs of 20th-century industry featuring men and women toiling on railroads, skyscrapers and factory floors.
A celebration of work and workers, the series quotes Helen Keller saying, “The world is moved along, not only by the mighty shoves of its heroes, but also by the aggregate of the tiny pushes of each honest worker.”
My, oh, my, how times have changed. America now has a government that views work as a trap and celebrates those who escape it.
That is the upshot of last week’s remarkable exchange over ObamaCare. It began when the head of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office reported that the interplay of taxes and subsidies in the law “creates a disincentive for people to work.” The report predicted the mix would lead to fewer hours worked, costing the equivalent of nearly 2.5 million jobs.
How much phone data does NSA collect?
February 08, 2014, 12:08 pm
By Megan R. Wilson
The National Security Agency collects less than 30 percent of U.S. phone records due to “technical challenges” involved with the influx of cellphone data, according to media reports.
The agency’s phone data collection has dropped significantly since 2006 as it struggles to keep pace with consumers’ shift away from landlines.
It has faced issues in customizing its system to handle the increase of cell data while not sweeping in cell tower and location-based information, which the agency is not legally authorized to obtain. The records include numbers called and call duration.
Eight years ago, the NSA was collecting “almost 100” percent of bulk call data, an anonymous senior U.S. official told the Washington Post Saturday.
While officials told the Post that collection stands at under 30 percent, the Wall Street Journal pegs the telephone metadata collection levels at fewer than 20 percent – spurring questions about the legitimacy of the program.
Websites look to ‘harness the outrage’
February 09, 2014, 06:00 am
By Julian Hattem
Thousands of websites on Tuesday will take a stand against government surveillance by plastering protests across their home pages.
Tech companies and civil liberties organizations are hoping the demonstration, called The Day We Fight Back, will replicate their success in defeating the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect IP Act (PIPA) in 2012.
This time activists are focusing their energy on supporting the USA Freedom Act, which would end or curtail many of the most controversial surveillance programs at the National Security Agency (NSA) and elsewhere.
“The idea is to really harness the outrage of the Internet community in speaking out in one big voice on Feb. 11,” said Rainey Reitman, the director of activism at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
The protest comes nearly a month after President Obama announced a handful of changes to the embattled spy agency’s most controversial practices. Critics said the changes weren’t nearly enough.
February Recess: Ridgewood Parks & Recreation activities
Sukey Molloy – Children’s Music Program
Ridgewood Parks & Recreation
Award winning performer Sukey Molloy’s music and teachings are the centerpiece of her mission to encourage young children to play, move, and sing. Adults and children alike will enjoy her sing-along fun to celebrate winter. Tuesday, February 18th, 1:30 pm, The Anne Zusy Youth Center, Village Hall, 131 North Maple Ave. Tickets are $5 per person. All who attend must purchase a ticket (ages 2 and up). As seating is limited, it is suggested tickets be purchased in advance. Purchase online at Community Pass, www.ridgewoodnj.net/communitypass (under Village Parks and Recreation) or in person at The Stable, 259 N. Maple Avenue, Ridgewood, NJ 07450, weekdays 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Telephone 201-670-5560.
Magnetism Workshop – Explore Science
Ridgewood Parks & Recreation Program
Magnetism Workshop with Explore Science, Inc. Program to introduce students to the basics of attraction and repulsion of magnetism. Students will learn to use scientific method to test and create their own magnetic sailboats and vehicles. The workshop, for grades 1 through 5, will be held at The Stable, 259 North Maple Avenue on Tuesday, February 18th, from 10 a.m. to 12 noon. The cost is $50 per child which includes all materials. Non-residents may register if space allows; an additional $10 fee will be charged. Register online at Community Pass, www.ridgewoodnj.net/communitypass, or in person/by mail to The Stable, 259 N. Maple Ave., Ridgewood. Locate the registration form on the Recreation homepage at www.ridgewoodnj.net/recreation. The Recreation office is open Monday through Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Call 201-670-5560 with any questions of if special accommodations are needed.
Creative Art Lab – February School Break
Ridgewood Parks & Recreation Program
SmartyCat Kids provides exciting enrichment programs and invites students in Grades K through 3 to join the fun during the February school break. This is the ultimate art program for fostering creativity and enjoying freedom of expression. Using a wide variety of materials, students will sculpt, paint, design t-shirts and even create edible art. The art lab will be held at The Stable, 259 North Maple Avenue, Ridgewood, on Wednesday and Thursday, February 19th and 20th, from 9:30 a.m. to 12 noon each day. The cost is $60 per child which includes all materials. Non-residents may register if space allows; an additional $10 fee will be charged. Register online at Community Pass, www.ridgewoodnj.net/communitypass, or in person by mail to The Stable, 259 N. Maple Ave., Ridgewood. Locate the registration form on the Recreation homepage at www.ridgewoodnj.net/recreation. The Recreation office is open Monday through Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Call 201-670-5560 with any questions of if special accommodations are needed.
Bethlehem Lutheran Church, Ridgewood 10th Annual Service of Healing
Bethlehem Lutheran Church, Ridgewood, NJ will conduct its 10th Healing on Sunday, March 16th in the parlor. The church is located at 155 Linwood Avenue, Ridgewood, NJ, or call 201-444-3600
The worship service will be led by The Rev. Andrew D. Nelson, with music by Diane Mitchell, Director of Music. This service is being held in cooperation with the
Parish Nurse/Care Ministry at Bethlehem.
The focus of this worship service will be wholeness. Healing does not mean just the lack of illness or disability. The root of the word heal means wholeness. As Christians, we remember that our wholeness involves harmony in all areas of our lives-body, mind and spirit, with Christ at its center. Christian healing directs us toward being the person God is calling us to be at every stage of our living and our dying. For some,healing is comfort, for some, strength, for others, physical healing.
Through prayer, anointing with oil and confession we cast our burdens on the Lord. We confess that Jesus meets us in our brokenness and pain and brings His love to
bear – forgiving, transforming, redeeming and healing by His grace. Jesus does this in God’s way, in God’s time, and according to God’s loving purpose for each individual.
Our physical, mental and emotional hurts and ills are not signs of God’s rejection
but symptoms of our fallen world in which sin and death reign. We are invited by God to commend our ills on Him for this life, realizing that ultimate healing awaits us in heaven.
Please join us as we come together for this renewal of body, mind and spirit on
Sunday, March 16th bring a friend! at 1pm. Light refreshments will follow in the parlor. All are welcome,
New rights for same-sex couples
February 08, 2014, 03:08 pm
By Megan R. Wilson and Mike Lillis
The Obama administration will continue the extension of federal benefits to married same-sex couples as heterosexual couples, Attorney General Eric Holder will announce on Saturday.
The Justice Department plans to issue a policy memo on Monday, which will allow same-sex couples to be able to file jointly for bankruptcy and will mandate that they will not be compelled to testify against each other in trial, among other new rights.
Holder will deliver the news at a gala thrown by the gay rights group Human Rights Campaign at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel New York City Saturday night.
“Just like during the civil rights movement of the 1960s, the stakes involved in this generation’s struggle for LGBT equality could not be higher. Then, as now, nothing less than our country’s commitment to the notion of equal protection under the law was on the line,” Holder will say in his speech, according to an excerpt.
“As attorney general, I will not let [the Justice] Department be simply a bystander during this important moment in history.”
Tech fears shadow campaign to seize control of Internet
By Kate Tummarello
Fearing a power grab for control of the Internet, members of the tech industry are pleading with Congress to pay attention to the domain name expansion that is underway at a little-known nonprofit.
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), led by its CEO Fadi Chehade, last year began rolling out thousands of alternatives to the traditional .com ending used by most websites. New endings using the Latin alphabet, such as .clothing and .singles, became available in January, and hundreds of others are on the way.
ICANN says it is focused on making the Internet more broadly available and has prioritized creating domain names in languages such as Chinese, Arabic and Cyrillic. But critics say the nonprofit betrayed broader ambitions last year when it endorsed a statement calling for the globalization of ICANN and other domain name technical work that is currently managed by the United States.
HARTFORD, Conn. — The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating the use of a drone aircraft that was reported last weekend at the scene of a Hartford car crash.
The use of drones for commercial purposes is prohibited by the FAA. Violators can be subject to penalties.
Weather woes stall Christmas tree pickup in Ridgewood
Friday February 7, 2014, 11:39 AM
BY DARIUS AMOS
STAFF WRITER
The Ridgewood News
Last year, 33 days separated Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day, the typical lifespan of a Christmas tree inside one’s house before it is relegated to its final resting place. As of Friday, the new year is 38 days old.
Several dozen Ridgewood residents have expressed collective bewilderment and frustration when presented the revelation that their Christmas trees have spent more time curbside than they did decorated in their homes. This week’s snowfall blanketed streets and sidewalks, and many villagers have said their trees are still there and buried, waiting to be retrieved.
The village collects household Christmas trees after the holidays, asking residents to leave their undecorated firs, spruces and other evergreens by their curb for pickup. Residents also have the option of bringing their trees to the Graydon parking lot. Ridgewood converts the disposed trees into mulch for use in and around the village.
15.8% of Young People Still Out of Work in January
Washington, DC – (2/7/14) – Generation Opportunity, a national, non-partisan youth advocacy organization, is announcing its Millennial Jobs Report for January 2014. The data is non-seasonally adjusted (NSA) and is specific to 18-29 year olds:
The effective (U-6) unemployment rate for 18-29 year olds, which adjusts for labor force participation by including those who have given up looking for work, is 15.8 percent (NSA). The (U-3) unemployment rate for 18-29 year olds is 11.3 percent (NSA).
The declining labor force participation rate has created an additional 1.922 million young adults that are not counted as “unemployed” by the U.S. Department of Labor because they are not in the labor force, meaning that those young people have given up looking for work due to the lack of jobs.
The effective (U-6) unemployment rate for 18-29 year old African-Americans is 23.9 percent (NSA); the (U-3) unemployment rate is 20.1 percent (NSA).
The effective (U-6) unemployment rate for 18-29 year old Hispanics is 16.7 percent (NSA); the (U-3) unemployment rate is 12.2 percent (NSA).
The effective (U-6) unemployment rate for 18-29 year old women is 13.5 percent (NSA); the (U-3) unemployment rate is 9.9 percent (NSA).
Evan Feinberg, President of Generation Opportunity, issued the following statement:
“Young Americans can thank Obamacare for such a bleak jobs picture. The Congressional Budget Office wasn’t lying when it reported Obamacare will reduce the American workforce by an additional 2 million jobs over the next three years.
“15.8% of us are still out of work and we have almost nothing to show for it – fewer people have health insurance now than in 2009.”
Assembly Panel Wants to Establish New Reliability Standards for Utilities
Proposed measure would require power companies to restore service rapidly in wake of extreme weather.
A day after a half-million people in the mid-Atlantic region were left without power — including 60,000 in New Jersey because of an ice storm — a legislative committee voted yesterday to require the state to adopt new reliability standards for utilities in restoring service.
The Assembly Telecommunications and Utilities Committee approved the bill, A-1412), a measure that was first drafted in 2012 in the wake of Hurricane Irene, according to Assemblyman Upendra Chivukula (D-Somerset), the chairman of the panel and the bill’s sponsor.
Since then the state has been battered a number of times by extreme weather, most notably Hurricane Sandy in the fall of 2012, which left more than seven million people without power. Many had to wait up to two weeks or more to have service restored.
The extensive outages spurred widespread criticism from utility customers, local officials, and lastly, state regulators, who have convened their own proceedings to determine how to prevent such massive service disruptions in the future. The primary focus is what needs to be done — and at what cost — to make the power grid more resilient when extreme storms occur.
Chivukula noted the state Board of Public Utilities, which oversees utilities in New Jersey, already has established reliability standards, but said those rules lack key elements that require utilities to provide reliable service and quick restoration in the event of extreme storms — or face civil penalties if they fail to do so.
The issue is significant because the state’s utilities have filed petitions with the BPU to spend more than $4 billion on upgrades to make their gas and electric power grids more resilient. Those costs would be borne by utility customers, already saddled with some of the highest energy bills in the nation, according to consumer advocates.
Each utility would be required to submit a reliability plan to the state, but it would differ depending on the service territory a company serves. (Johnson/NJSpotlight)
NJ DOT: No secret stockpile of road salt at MetLife stadium
A spokesman for the state Department of Transportation today dispelled rumors that the state is hoarding a secret stockpile of ice-melting salt at MetLife stadium, causing shortages for townships throughout New Jersey.
DOT Spokesman Joe Dee said today the rumor is utterly false and the state is facing a salt shortage just like everyone else.
“We are in the same boat as everybody else. Our salt levels are uncomfortably low for the DOT like a lot of counties and municipalities not only here in New Jersey but from the Midwest to New England.”
Dee said he’s not sure how the rumor started but it may have been a misinterpretation of a press release issued prior to the Super Bowl saying the state had the capacity to store up to 60,000 tons of salt within 30 miles of MetLife stadium. The press release concerned the state’s readiness for a Super Bowl Sunday storm, should one have occurred.
“There is no separate stockpile,” he said. (Isherwood/NJ.com)
file photo Boyd Loving Information from Ridgewood OEM -Power Outage – Useful Tips
PSE&G Contact Number 1-800-436-7734
BEFORE A BLACKOUT
To prepare for a blackout you should do the following:
• To begin preparing, you should build an emergency kit and make a family communications plan.
• Follow energy conservation measures to keep the use of electricity as low as possible, which can help power companies avoid imposing rolling blackouts.
• Fill plastic containers with water and place them in the refrigerator and freezer if there’s room. Leave about an inch of space inside each one, because water expands as it freezes. This chilled or frozen water will help keep food cold during a temporary power outage, by displacing air that can warm up quickly with water or ice that keeps cold for several hours without additional refrigeration.
• Be aware that most medication that requires refrigeration can be kept in a closed refrigerator for several hours without a problem. If unsure, check with your physician or pharmacist.
• Keep your car tank at least half full because gas stations rely on electricity to power their pumps.
• Know where the manual release lever of your electric garage door opener is located and how to operate it. Garage doors can be heavy, so know that you may need help to lift it.
• Keep a key to your house with you if you regularly use the garage as the primary means of entering your home, in case the garage door will not open.
DURING A BLACKOUT
• Use only flashlights for emergency lighting. NEVER use candles during a blackout or power outage due to extreme risk of fire.
• Keep refrigerator and freezer doors closed to keep your food as fresh as possible. If you must eat food that was refrigerated or frozen, check it carefully for signs of spoilage. •Turn off or disconnect appliances, equipment (like air conditioners) or electronics in use when the power went out. Power may return with momentary “surges” or “spikes” that can damage computers as well as motors in appliances like the air conditioner, refrigerator, washer or furnace.
• Do not run a generator inside a home or garage.
• Do not connect a generator to a home’s electrical system. If you use a generator, connect the equipment you want to run directly to the outlets on the generator.
• Listen to local radio and to a battery- or generator-powered television for updated information.
• Leave on one light so that you’ll know when your power returns.
• Use a standard telephone handset, cellular phone, radio or pager if your phone requires electricity to work, as do cordless phones and answering machines. Use the phone for emergencies only. Listen to a portable radio for the latest information.
• Do not call 9-1-1 for information—call only to report a life-threatening emergency. Use the phone for life-threatening emergencies only.
• Take steps to remain cool if it is hot outside. In intense heat when the power may be off for a long time, consider going to a movie theater, shopping mall or “cooling shelter” that may be open in your community. If you remain at home, move to the lowest level of your home, since cool air falls. Wear lightweight, light-colored clothing. Drink plenty of water, even if you do not feel thirsty.
• Put on layers of warm clothing if it is cold outside. Never burn charcoal for heating or cooking indoors. Never use your oven as a source of heat. If the power may be out for a prolonged period, plan to go to another location (the home of a relative or friend, or a public facility) that has heat to keep warm.
• Provide plenty of fresh, cool water for your pets.
• Eliminate unnecessary travel, especially by car. Traffic signals will stop working during an outage, creating traffic congestion.
• Remember that equipment such as automated teller machines (ATMs) and elevators may not work during a power outage.
AFTER A BLACKOUT
Throw out unsafe food:
• Throw away any food that has been exposed to temperatures 40° F (4° C) for 2 hours or more or that has an unusual odor, color or texture. When in doubt, throw it out!
• Never taste food or rely on appearance or odor to determine its safety. Some foods may look and smell fine, but if they have been at room temperature too long, bacteria causing food-borne illnesses can start growing quickly. Some types of bacteria produce toxins that cannot be destroyed by cooking.
• If food in the freezer is colder than 40° F and has ice crystals on it, you can refreeze it.
• If you are not sure food is cold enough, take its temperature with the food thermometer. Throw out any foods (meat, poultry, fish, eggs and leftovers) that have been exposed to temperatures higher than 40° F (4° C) for 2 hours or more, and any food that has an unusual odor, color or texture, or feels warm to touch.
