Dozens sue pharmacy, but compensation uncertain


NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Dennis O'Brien rubs his head as he details ailments triggered by the fungal meningitis he developed after a series of steroid shots in his neck: nausea, vomiting, dizziness, drowsiness, blurred vision, exhaustion and trouble with his speech and attention.


He estimates the disease has cost him and his wife thousands of dollars in out-of-pocket expenses and her lost wages, including time spent on 6-hour round trip weekly visits to the hospital. They've filed a lawsuit seeking $4 million in damages from the Massachusetts pharmacy that supplied the steroid injections, but it could take years for them to get any money back and they may never get enough to cover their expenses. The same is true for dozens of others who have sued the New England Compounding Center.


"I don't have a life anymore. My life is a meningitis life," the 59-year-old former school teacher said, adding that he's grateful he survived.


His is one of at least 50 federal lawsuits in nine states that have been filed against NECC, and more are being filed in state courts every day. More than 500 people have gotten sick after receiving injections prepared by the pharmacy.


The lawsuits allege that NECC negligently produced a defective and dangerous product and seek millions to repay families for the death of spouses, physically painful recoveries, lost wages and mental and emotional suffering. Thirty-seven people have died in the outbreak.


"The truth is the chance of recovering damages from NECC is extremely low," said John Day, a Nashville attorney who represents several patients who have been sickened by fungal meningitis.


To streamline the process, attorneys on both sides are asking to have a single judge preside over the pretrial and discovery phases for all of the federal lawsuits.


This approach, called multidistrict litigation, would prevent inconsistent pretrial rulings and conserve resources of all parties. But unlike a class-action case, those lawsuits would eventually be returned to judges in their original district for trial, according to Brian Fitzpatrick, a law professor at Vanderbilt University Law School in Nashville.


Even with this approach, Fitzpatrick noted that federal litigation is very slow, and gathering all the evidence, records and depositions during the discovery phase could take months or years.


"Most of the time what happens is once they are consolidated for pretrial proceedings, there is a settlement, a global settlement between all the lawyers and the defendants before anything is shipped back for trial," he said.


A lawyer representing NECC, Frederick H. Fern, described the consolidation process as an important step.


"A Boston venue is probably the best scenario," Fern said in an email. "That's where the parties, witnesses and documents are located, and where the acts subject to these complaints occurred."


Complicating efforts to recover damages, attorneys for the patients said, NECC is a small private company that has now recalled all its products and laid off its workers. The company's pharmacy licenses have been surrendered, and it's unclear whether NECC had adequate liability insurance.


Fern said NECC has insurance, but they were still determining what the policy covers.


But Day says, "It's clear to me that at the end of the day, NECC is not going to have sufficient assets to compensate any of these people, not even 1 percent."


As a result, many attorneys are seeking compensation from other parties. Among the additional defendants named in lawsuits are NECC pharmacist and co-founder Barry Cadden; co-founder Greg Conigliaro; sister company Ameridose and its marketing and support arm, Medical Sales Management.


Founded in 2006 by Cadden and Conigliaro, Ameridose would eventually report annual revenue of $100 million. An NECC spokesman didn't respond to a request for the pharmacy's revenue.


While Federal Drug Administration regulators have also found contamination issues at Westborough, Mass.-based Ameridose, the FDA has said it has not connected Ameridose drugs to infection or illness.


Under tort law, a lawsuit has to prove a defendant has a potential liability, which in this case could be anyone involved in the medical procedure. However, any such suit could take years and ultimately may not be successful.


"I would not be surprised if doctors, hospitals, people that actually injected the drugs, the people that bought the drugs from the compounding company, many of those people will also be sued," said Fitzpatrick.


Plaintiffs' attorneys said they're considering that option but want more information on the relationships between the compounding pharmacy and the hundreds of hospitals and clinics that received its products.


Day, the attorney in Tennessee, said the clinics and doctors that purchase their drugs from compounding pharmacies or manufacturers could be held liable for negligence because they are in a better position to determine the safety of the medicine than the patients.


"Did they use due care in determining from whom to buy these drugs?" Day said.


Terry Dawes, a Michigan attorney who has filed at least 10 federal lawsuits in the case, said in traditional product liability cases, a pharmaceutical distributor could be liable.


"We are looking at any conceivable sources of recovery for our clients including pharmaceutical supply places that may have dealt with this company in the past," he said.


Ten years ago, seven fungal meningitis illnesses and deaths were linked to injectable steroid from a South Carolina compounding pharmacy. That resulted in fewer than a dozen lawsuits, a scale much smaller than the litigations mounting up against NECC.


Two companies that insured the South Carolina pharmacy and its operators tried unsuccessfully to deny payouts. An appellate court ruled against their argument that the pharmacy willfully violated state regulations by making multiple vials of the drug without specific prescriptions, but the opinion was unpublished and doesn't set a precedent for the current litigation.


The lawsuits represent a way for patients and their families recover expenses, but also to hold the pharmacy and others accountable for the incalculable emotional and physical toll of the disease.


A binder of snapshots shows what life is like in the O'Briens' rural Fentress County, Tenn., home: Dennis hooked up to an IV, Dennis in an antibiotics stupor, bruises on his body from injections and blood tests. He's had three spinal taps. His 11-day stay in the hospital cost over $100,000, which was covered by health insurance.


His wife said she sometimes quietly checks at night to see whether her husband of 35 years is still breathing.


"In my mind, I thought we were going to fight this and get over it. But we are not ever going to get over it," said Kaye O'Brien.


Marjorie Norwood, a 59-year-old grandmother of three who lives in Ethridge, Tenn., has spent just shy of two months total in the hospital in Nashville battling fungal meningitis after receiving a steroid injection in her back. She was allowed to come home for almost a week around Thanksgiving, but was readmitted after her symptoms worsened.


Family members are still dealing with much uncertainty about her recovery, but they have not filed a lawsuit, said their attorney Mark Chalos. He said Norwood will likely be sent to a rehabilitation facility after her second stay in the hospital rather than return home again.


Marjorie Norwood's husband, an autoworker, has taken time off work to care for her and they depend on his income and insurance.


"It doesn't just change her life, it changes everyone else's life around her because we care about her and want her to be happy and well and have everything that she needs," said her daughter, Melanie Norwood.


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N. Korean Missile Hits Target of Alarming the World













North Korea's successful launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile hit its target: it bolstered the standing of its young tyrant Kim Jong Un and raised the specter of being able to eventually strike the U.S. with a nuclear weapon.


The pride in the success of the launch -- after several failures -- is a huge boost for Kim Jong Un, 29, who took power one year ago. He has been trying to cement his authority and win the hearts of the people with soft social and economic reforms, like allowing women to wear pants or more small businesses to operate based on profit.


But the rocket launch was on a different scale. A North Korean female announcer in a pink and dark grey national costume excitedly read an announcement of the missile's success and national TV aired interviews with people jumping and cheering on the news.


There had been reservations within and outside of North Korea when Kim Jong Un took power after his father's death on Dec. 17 last year as to whether the young Kim could lead a nuclear state. Looking determined at his first official appearance earlier this year, he had pledged to fulfill the legacy of his father Kim Jong Il to become a "self-sufficient strong nation" with space rocket technology.


The missile is believed to have a range of 6,212 miles, enough distance to reach the west coast of the United States. Its existence, along with a small North Korean nuclear arsenal, is an alarming possibility for many.










PHOTOS: An Inside Look At North Korea


North Korea, however, says it was simply putting a satellite in orbit.


"Picking on our launch (and not others) accusing that ours is a long-range missile and a provocative act causing instability comes from seeing us from a hostile point of view," said North Korea's foreign ministry in an official statement. "We do not want this to be overblown into something that none of us intended to be and hope all related nations act with reason and calmness."


But North Korean denials carry little credibility.


This evidence that North Korea has mastered the long-range missile technology does not mean there will be an imminent nuclear threat.


"They haven't figured out how to weaponize a nuclear (bomb) that will fit in a missile, nor do they have accurate guidance at long ranges," said Stephen Ganyard, ABC News consultant and former deputy assistant secretary of state.


Another crucial technology North Korea is yet to achieve is a proper heat shielding required to protect the warhead while re-entering the earth's atmosphere.


"This is a big leap for Pyongyang. They have been a threat with potential capability. But now a new era begins as a threat with possible capability," said Hwee-Rhak Park, professor of political leadership at Kookmin University in Seoul.


There was obvious alarm, however, as the international community condemned the launch, as North Korea is banned from developing nuclear and missile-related technology under U.N. resolutions.


South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak convened an emergency national security meeting. Japan's envoy to the United Nations called for consultations on the launch within the U.N. Security Council. Russian Foreign Ministry said it "has caused us deep regret," and even China "expressed regret," a significant notch up in condemnation from previous statements on North Korea, its traditional ally.


That international attention, analysts in Seoul say, is exactly what North Korea wanted.






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Mass 12/12/12 weddings in Hong Kong, Singapore, China






HONG KONG: Thousands of couples in Hong Kong, mainland China and Singapore flocked Wednesday to tie the knot on 12/12/12, seeking good fortune for marriages begun on the century's last repeating date.

Authorities in Hong Kong and Singapore respectively said 696 and 540 couples were scheduled to attend marriage registries, continuing a trend which has seen couples flocking to marry on 11/11/11 and 10/10/10 in both cities.

The figure is a near-fourfold increase compared to the daily average in Hong Kong and about an eightfold spike for non-Muslim weddings in Singapore, which is three-quarters ethnic Chinese.

Couples also queued to marry in many mainland Chinese cities, on the basis that 12/12/12 sounded like "Will love/will love/will love" in Chinese, the official news agency Xinhua reported.

The atmosphere was abuzz with hundreds of people crowding one of Hong Kong's five marriage registries, taking photos of brides and grooms in full wedding regalia as they congratulated the newlyweds.

"Today's date is very special and we can get married before doomsday as well," joked 34-year-old groom Raymond Ip.

Some doomsayers believe December 21 could be the date the world ends.

"There won't be a 13/13/13," Ip said, adding that he had booked the day half-a-year in advance to secure a spot.

Groom Terance Fung, 29, agreed. "Today is the last day of the century with the same date numbers, so it is quite special," he said.

In Singapore, hundreds of couples and family members trooped in batches to the marriage registry despite pouring rain.

12/12/12 was, however, a less popular day to tie the knot than previous sequential dates.

Hong Kong saw 1,002 weddings on November 11, 2011, which signified "Eternal love", and 859 weddings on October 10, 2010 which represented "Perfection".

Singapore had 553 and 724 marriages respectively on the same dates. The all-time high for a single day there was on February 14, 1995, when 1,082 couples were married because the western and Chinese Valentine's Day coincided.

Extra staff were deployed at the marriage registry at Changchun, in China's northeastern province of Jilin, where 2,000 couples were expected.

But the office director Wang Zhe played down the significance of so-called lucky dates.

"Every day is a lucky day to get married and it will be the most unforgettable day of their lives," Wang was quoted as saying.

- AFP/lp



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Central Vigilance Commission for e-tendering process to reduce corruption

NEW DELHI: The Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) has asked the government and PSUs to adopt and follow e-tendering process to reduce corruption in public service delivery systems, the Lok Sabha was informed on Wednesday.

Minister of state for personnel and public grievance V Narayanasamy said in a written reply that the government has been emphasising the use of modern technology to bring about transparency and accountability in all state organisations.

He said the CVC has recommended adoption of e-payments and other measures for reduction of person-to-person interface while making payments.

"The use of computers in the railways and in the income tax department are good examples of the salutary effects modern technology has had on reducing corruption in both the organisations" he said.

To a question on use of technology to minimise corruption in day to day life, the Minister said the use of modern information and communication technology can reduce direct contact between citizens and public servants and thus reduce the scope of corruption.

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DA investigating Texas' troubled $3B cancer agency


AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Turmoil surrounding an unprecedented $3 billion cancer-fighting effort in Texas worsened Tuesday when its executive director offered his resignation and the state's chief public corruption prosecutor announced an investigation into the beleaguered agency.


No specific criminal allegations are driving the latest probe into the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas, said Gregg Cox, director of the Travis County district attorney's public integrity unit. But his influential office opened a case only weeks after the embattled agency disclosed that an $11 million grant to a private company bypassed review.


That award is the latest trouble in a tumultuous year for CPRIT, which controls the nation's second-largest pot of cancer research dollars. Amid the mounting problems, the agency announced Tuesday that Executive Director Bill Gimson had submitted his letter of resignation.


"Unfortunately, I have also been placed in a situation where I feel I can no longer be effective," Gimson wrote in a letter dated Monday.


Gimson said the troubles have resulted in "wasted efforts expended in low value activities" at the agency, instead of a focused fight against cancer. Gimson offered to stay on until January, and the agency's board must still approve his request to step down.


His departure would complete a remarkable house-cleaning at CPRIT in a span of just eight months. It began in May, when Dr. Alfred Gilman resigned as chief science officer in protest over a different grant that the Nobel laureate wanted approved by a panel of scientists. He warned it would be "the bomb that destroys CPRIT."


Gilman was followed by Chief Commercialization Officer Jerry Cobbs, whose resignation in November came after an internal audit showed Cobbs included an $11 million proposal in a funding slate without a required outside review of the project's merits. The lucrative grant was given to Dallas-based Peloton Therapeutics, a biomedical startup.


Gimson chalked up Peloton's award to an honest mistake and has said that, to his knowledge, no one associated with CPRIT stood to benefit financially from the company receiving the taxpayer funds. That hasn't satisfied some members of the agency's governing board, who called last week for more assurances that no one personally profited.


Cox said he has been following the agency's problems and his office received a number of concerned phone calls. His department in Austin is charged with prosecuting crimes related to government officials; his most famous cases include winning a conviction against former U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay in 2010 on money laundering charges.


"We have to gather the facts and figure what, if any, crime occurred so that (the investigation) can be focused more," Cox said.


Gimson's resignation letter was dated the same day the Texas attorney general's office also announced its investigation of the agency. Cox said his department would work cooperatively with state investigators, but he made clear the probes would be separate.


Peloton's award marks the second time this year that a lucrative taxpayer-funded grant authorized by CPRIT instigated backlash and raised questions about oversight. The first involved the $20 million grant to M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston that Gilman described as a thin proposal that should have first been scrutinized by an outside panel of scientific peer-reviewers, even though none was required under the agency's rules.


Dozens of the nation's top scientists agreed. They resigned en masse from the agency's peer-review panels along with Gilman. Some accused the agency of "hucksterism" and charting a politically-driven path that was putting commercial product-development above science.


The latest shake-up at CPRIT caught Gilman's successor off-guard. Dr. Margaret Kripke, who was introduced to reporters Tuesday, acknowledged that she wasn't even sure who she would be answering to now that Gimson was stepping down. She said that although she wasn't with the agency when her predecessor announced his resignation, she was aware of the concerns and allegations.


"I don't think people would resign frivolously, so there must be some substance to those concerns," Kripke said.


Kripke also acknowledged the challenge of restocking the peer-review panels after the agency's credibility was so publicly smeared by some of the country's top scientists. She said she took the job because she felt the agency's mission and potential was too important to lose.


Only the National Institutes of Health doles out more cancer research dollars than CPRIT, which has awarded more than $700 million so far.


Gov. Rick Perry told reporters in Houston on Tuesday that he wasn't previously aware of the resignation but said Gimson's decision to step down was his own.


Joining the mounting criticism of CPRIT is the woman credited with brainstorming the idea for the agency in the first place. Cathy Bonner, who served under former Texas Gov. Ann Richards, teamed with cancer survivor Lance Armstrong in selling Texas voters in 2007 on a constitutional amendment to create an unprecedented state-run effort to finance a war on disease.


Now Bonner says politics have sullied an agency that she said was built to fund research, not subsidize private companies.


"There appears to be a cover-up going on," Bonner said.


Peloton has declined comment about its award and has referred questions to CPRIT. The agency has said the company wasn't aware that its application was never scrutinized by an outside panel, as required under agency rules.


___


Follow Paul J. Weber on Twitter: www.twitter.com/pauljweber


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Gunman 'Tentatively' Identified in Oregon Shooting













A masked gunman who opened fire in the crowded Clackamas Town Center mall in suburban Portland, Ore., killing two individuals and seriously injuring a third before killing himself, has been "tentatively" identified by police, though they have not yet released his name.


The shooter, wearing a white hockey mask, black clothing, and a bullet proof vest, tore through the mall around 3:30 p.m. Tuesday, entering through a Macy's store and proceeding to the food court and public areas spraying bullets, according to witness reports.


Police have not released the names of the deceased. Clackamas County Sheriff's Department Lt. James Rhodes said authorities are in the process of notifying victims' families.


The injured victim has been transported to a local hospital, according to Clackamas County Sheriff Craig Roberts.


PHOTOS: Oregon Mall Shooting


Nadia Telguz, who said she was a friend of the injured victim, told ABC News affiliate KATU-TV in Portland that the woman was expected to recover.


"My friend's sister got shot," Teleguz told KATU. "She's on her way to (Oregon Health and Science University hospital). They're saying she got shot in her side and so it's not life-threatening, so she'll be OK."


Witnesses from the shooting rampage said that a young man who appeared to be a teenager ran through the upper level of Macy's to the mall food court, firing multiple shots, one right after the other, with what is believed to be a black, semi-automatic rifle.






Christopher Onstott/Pamplen Media Group/Portland Tribune















911 Calls From New Jersey Supermarket Shooting Watch Video





More than 10,000 shoppers were at the mall during the day, police said. Roberts said that officers responded to the scene of the shooting within minutes, and four SWAT teams swept the 1.4 million-square-foot building searching for the shooter. He was eventually found dead, an apparent suicide.


"I can confirm the shooter is dead of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound," Rhodes said. "By all accounts there were no rounds fired by law enforcement today in the mall."


Roberts said more than 100 law enforcement officers responded to the shooting, and at least four local agencies were working on the investigation, including the FBI and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, which is working to trace the shooter's weapon.


READ: Guns in America: A Statistical Look


"For all of us, the mall is supposed to be a place where we can take our families, especially during the holiday season," Roberts said. "Things like this are not supposed to happen."


Roberts also said that shoppers, including two emergency room nurses and one physician who happened to be at the mall, provided medical assistance to victims who had been shot. Other shoppers helped escort individuals out of the mall and out of harm's way, he said.


"There were a huge amount of people running in different directions, and it was chaos for a lot of citizens, but true heroes were stepping up in this time of high stress," Roberts said. "E.R. nurses on the scene were providing medical care to those injured, a physician on the scene was helping provide care to the wounded."


Mall shopper Daniel Martinez told KATU that he had just sat down at a Jamba Juice inside the mall when he heard rapid gunfire. He turned and saw the masked gunman, dressed in all black, about 10 feet away from him.


"I just saw him (the gunman) and thought, 'I need to go somewhere,'" Martinez said. "It was so fast, and at that time, everyone was moving around."


Martinez said he ran to the nearest clothing store. As he ran, he motioned for another woman to follow; several others ran to the store as well, hiding in a fitting room. They stayed there for an hour and a half until SWAT teams told them it was safe to leave the mall.






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Nine hurt as gunmen fire at Cairo protesters


CAIRO (Reuters) - Nine people were hurt when gunmen fired at protesters camping in Cairo's Tahrir Square on Tuesday, according to witnesses and Egyptian media, as the opposition called for a major demonstration it hopes will force President Mohamed Mursi to postpone a referendum on a new constitution.


Supporters of the Islamist leader, who want the vote to go ahead as planned on Saturday, were also gathering in the capital, setting the stage for further street confrontations in a political crisis that has divided the Arab world's most populous nation.


Police cars surrounded Tahrir Square in central Cairo, the first time they had appeared in the area since November 23, shortly after a decree by Mursi awarding himself sweeping temporary powers that touched off widespread protests.


The upheaval following the fall of Hosni Mubarak last year is causing concern in the West, in particular the United States, which has given Cairo billions of dollars in military and other aid since Egypt made peace with Israel in 1979.


The Tahrir Square attackers, some masked, also threw petrol bombs which started a small fire, witnesses said.


"The masked men came suddenly and attacked the protesters in Tahrir. The attack was meant to deter us and prevent us from protesting today. We oppose these terror tactics and will stage the biggest protest possible today," said John Gerges, a Christian Egyptian who described himself as a socialist.


The latest bout of unrest has so far claimed seven lives in clashes between the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood and opponents who are also besieging Mursi's presidential palace.


POLICE POWERS


The elite Republican Guard which protects the palace has yet to use force to keep protesters away from the graffiti-daubed building, now ringed with tanks, barbed wire and concrete barricades.


The army has told all sides to resolve their differences through dialogue, saying it would not allow Egypt to enter a "dark tunnel". For the period of the referendum, the army has been granted police powers by Mursi, allowing it to arrest civilians.


The army has portrayed itself as the guarantor of the nation's security but so far it has shown no appetite for a return to the bruising front-line political role it played after the fall of Mubarak, which severely damaged its standing.


Leftists, liberals and other opposition groups have called for marches to the presidential palace later on Tuesday to protest against the hastily arranged constitutional referendum planned for Dec 15, which they say is polarising the country and could put it in a religious straightjacket.


Mohamed ElBaradei, a prominent opposition leader and Nobel prize winner, called for dialogue with Mursi and said the referendum should be postponed for a couple of months due to the chaotic situation.


"This revolution was not staged to replace one dictator with another," he said in an interview with CNN.


Outside the presidential palace, anti-Mursi protesters huddled together in front of their tents, warming themselves beside a bonfire in the winter air.


"The referendum must not take place. The constitution came after blood was spilt. This is not how a country should be run," said Ali Hassan, a man in his 20s.


Opposition leaders want the referendum to be delayed and hope they can get sufficiently large numbers of protesters on the streets to change Mursi's mind.


Islamists, who dominated the body that drew up the constitution, have urged their followers to turn out "in millions" in a show of support for the president and for a referendum they feel sure of winning.


OPPONENTS ANGERED


Leftist politician Hamdeen Sabahy, one of the most prominent members of the National Salvation Front opposition coalition, said Mursi was driving a wedge between Egyptians and destroying prospects for consensus.


As well as pushing the early referendum, Mursi has angered opponents by taking extra powers he said were necessary to secure the transition to stability after the uprising that overthrew Mubarak 22 months ago.


"The road Mohamed Mursi is taking now does not create the possibility for national consensus," said Sabahy. He forecast polarisation if constitution were passed.


The National Salvation Front also includes ElBaradei and former Arab League chief Amr Moussa.


The opposition says the draft constitution fails to embrace the diversity of 83 million Egyptians, a tenth of whom are Christians, and invites Muslim clerics to influence lawmaking.


But debate over the details has largely given way to street protests and megaphone politics, keeping Egypt off balance and ill equipped to deal with a looming economic crisis.


Mahmoud Ghozlan, the Muslim Brotherhood's spokesman, said the opposition could stage protests, but should keep the peace.


"They are free to boycott, participate or say no; they can do what they want. The important thing is that it remains in a peaceful context to preserve the country's safety and security."


The disruption is also casting doubts on the government's ability to push through economic reforms that form part of a proposed $4.8 billion IMF loan agreement.


(Writing by Edmund Blair and Giles Elgood; Editing by Peter Graff and Janet McBride)



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Heated election campaigns underway all over Japan






TOKYO: A heated election campaign is underway all over Japan as more than 1,500 candidates vie for 480 seats in the lower house of parliament.

This election will also see an unprecedented 12 political parties taking part.

Hundreds of people, sometimes even thousands, gather to listen to election speeches -- especially if they are by prominent lawmakers like Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda.

The 'celebrity' status of a politician can also help newcomers in their party.

"Today I want our party's new face Miki Yamada, Miki Yamada to win. With that hope I have come to greet you all in Shinjuku ward," said Nobuteru Ishihara, the former secretary general of the Liberal Democratic Party to a crowd.

"I'm hearing from many wishing the Liberal Democratic Party to do well. I'm receiving calls of 'debutant do well'," said Miki Yamada, the Liberal Democratic Party's candidate for Tokyo's 1st district.

For others with a lower profile, the campaign trail can be a lonely one.

Taro Kosai is running for a lower house seat for the first time.

He is a former assembly member of Minato ward in Tokyo who hopes to reform the fundamentals of the country.

"We have to set a new goal that will replace the typical economic growth target to catch up and surpass US and Europe. That has not been done," he said.

According to public opinion polls, what the public wants to hear the most is how each candidate will handle the Japanese economy.

Japan's economy has been facing a slowdown with its GDP in the July-September quarter showing a contraction. A contraction is expected this quarter as well.

It is a tough task that has not stopped the 1,500 candidates from battling for votes.

In Tokyo's 1st district alone, there are nine candidates running for a seat.

Japan will go the polls on 16 December.

- CNA/jc



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Left, Trinamool MLAs scuffle in West Bengal assembly

KOLKATA: The West Bengal assembly today plunged into bedlam with ruling Trinamool Congress and Left members coming to blows and the Speaker suspending three Left MLAs, while three injured members were taken to hospital.

Gouranga Chatterjee, a CPM MLA who received head injuries was taken to hospital as also two TMC MLAs Mahmuda Begum who was hit in the chest and Pulok Roy who was injured in the leg.

Tempers ran high after Left members who tried to bring an adjournment motion on the mushrooming of chit funds in the state rushed to Speaker Biman Banerjee's podium and started shouting slogans.

Senior ministers Partha Chatterjee, Subrata Mukherjee and Firhad Hakim shielded the Speaker as Left members continued to shout slogans.

Subsequently a section of TMC and Left MLAs rushed to to the well and came face to face, with Chatterjee and Hakim trying to separate them.

There was pandemonium as CPM member Nazmul Haque snatched away the microphone of the Speaker who adjourned the House till 1:30pm.

Congress members who were asked to join in the protests by the Left, did not did so.

Trouble broke out again after the House reassembled. Parliamentary affairs minister Partha Chatterjee demanded that action be taken against Left legislators who insulted the Speaker and snatched away his microphone.

The Speaker thereafter suspended three Left MLAs Nazmul Haque, Sushanta Besra and Amjad Hussain.

One Left member, the lone Jharkhand Party MLA Deblina Hembram and a TMC member were seen engaged in a heated verbal exchange.

Subsequently, a free for all ensued in the House with members of TMC and Left coming to blows.

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New tests could hamper food outbreak detection


WASHINGTON (AP) — It's about to get faster and easier to diagnose food poisoning, but that progress for individual patients comes with a downside: It could hurt the nation's ability to spot and solve dangerous outbreaks.


Next-generation tests that promise to shave a few days off the time needed to tell whether E. coli, salmonella or other foodborne bacteria caused a patient's illness could reach medical laboratories as early as next year. That could allow doctors to treat sometimes deadly diseases much more quickly — an exciting development.


The problem: These new tests can't detect crucial differences between different subtypes of bacteria, as current tests can. And that fingerprint is what states and the federal government use to match sick people to a contaminated food. The older tests might be replaced by the new, more efficient ones.


"It's like a forensics lab. If somebody says a shot was fired, without the bullet you don't know where it came from," explained E. coli expert Dr. Phillip Tarr of Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.


The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warns that losing the ability to literally take a germ's fingerprint could hamper efforts to keep food safe, and the agency is searching for solutions. According to CDC estimates, 1 in 6 Americans gets sick from foodborne illnesses each year, and 3,000 die.


"These improved tests for diagnosing patients could have the unintended consequence of reducing our ability to detect and investigate outbreaks, ultimately causing more people to become sick," said Dr. John Besser of the CDC.


That means outbreaks like the salmonella illnesses linked this fall to a variety of Trader Joe's peanut butter might not be identified that quickly — or at all.


It all comes down to what's called a bacterial culture — whether labs grow a sample of a patient's bacteria in an old-fashioned petri dish, or skip that step because the new tests don't require it.


Here's the way it works now: Someone with serious diarrhea visits the doctor, who gets a stool sample and sends it to a private testing laboratory. The lab cultures the sample, growing larger batches of any lurking bacteria to identify what's there. If disease-causing germs such as E. coli O157 or salmonella are found, they may be sent on to a public health laboratory for more sophisticated analysis to uncover their unique DNA patterns — their fingerprints.


Those fingerprints are posted to a national database, called PulseNet, that the CDC and state health officials use to look for food poisoning trends.


There are lots of garden-variety cases of salmonella every year, from runny eggs to a picnic lunch that sat out too long. But if a few people in, say, Baltimore have salmonella with the same molecular signature as some sick people in Cleveland, it's time to investigate, because scientists might be able narrow the outbreak to a particular food or company.


But culture-based testing takes time — as long as two to four days after the sample reaches the lab, which makes for a long wait if you're a sick patient.


What's in the pipeline? Tests that could detect many kinds of germs simultaneously instead of hunting one at a time — and within hours of reaching the lab — without first having to grow a culture. Those tests are expected to be approved as early as next year.


This isn't just a science debate, said Shari Shea, food safety director at the Association of Public Health Laboratories.


If you were the patient, "you'd want to know how you got sick," she said.


PulseNet has greatly improved the ability of regulators and the food industry to solve those mysteries since it was launched in the mid-1990s, helping to spot major outbreaks in ground beef, spinach, eggs and cantaloupe in recent years. Just this fall, PulseNet matched 42 different salmonella illnesses in 20 different states that were eventually traced to a variety of Trader Joe's peanut butter.


Food and Drug Administration officials who visited the plant where the peanut butter was made found salmonella contamination all over the facility, with several of the plant samples matching the fingerprint of the salmonella that made people sick. A New Mexico-based company, Sunland Inc., recalled hundreds of products that were shipped to large retailers all over the country, including Target, Safeway and other large grocery chains.


The source of those illnesses probably would have remained a mystery without the national database, since there weren't very many illnesses in any individual state.


To ensure that kind of crucial detective work isn't lost, the CDC is asking the medical community to send samples to labs to be cultured even when they perform a new, non-culture test.


But it's not clear who would pay for that extra step. Private labs only can perform the tests that a doctor orders, noted Dr. Jay M. Lieberman of Quest Diagnostics, one of the country's largest testing labs.


A few first-generation non-culture tests are already available. When private labs in Wisconsin use them, they frequently ship leftover samples to the state lab, which grows the bacteria itself. But as more private labs switch over after the next-generation rapid tests arrive, the Wisconsin State Laboratory of Hygiene will be hard-pressed to keep up with that extra work before it can do its main job — fingerprinting the bugs, said deputy director Dr. Dave Warshauer.


Stay tuned: Research is beginning to look for solutions that one day might allow rapid and in-depth looks at food poisoning causes in the same test.


"As molecular techniques evolve, you may be able to get the information you want from non-culture techniques," Lieberman said.


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Follow Mary Clare Jalonick on Twitter at http://twitter.com/mcjalonick


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