Study Raises Questions on Coating of Aspirin

While aspirin may prevent heart attacks and strokes, a commonly used coating to protect the stomach may obscure the benefits, leading doctors to prescribe more expensive prescription drugs, according to a study published Tuesday in the journal Circulation.

The conclusion about coated aspirin was only one finding in the study, whose main goal was to test the hotly disputed idea that aspirin does not help prevent heart attacks or stroke in some people.

For more than a decade, cardiologists and drug researchers have posited that anywhere from 5 to 40 percent of the population is “aspirin resistant,” as the debated condition is known. But some prominent doctors say that the prevalence of the condition has been exaggerated by companies and drug makers with a commercial interest in proving that aspirin — a relatively inexpensive, over-the-counter drug whose heart benefits have been known since the 1950s — does not always work.

The authors of the new study, from the University of Pennsylvania, claim that they did not find a single case of true aspirin resistance in any of the 400 healthy people who were examined. Instead, they claim, the coating on aspirin interfered with the way that the drug entered the body, making it appear in tests that the drug was not working.

The study was partly financed by Bayer, the world’s largest manufacturer of brand-name aspirin, much of which is coated.

Aside from whether coating aspirin conceals its effects in some people, there is little evidence that it protects the stomach better than uncoated aspirin, said Dr. Garret FitzGerald, chairman of pharmacology at the University of Pennsylvania and one of the study’s authors.

“These studies question the value of coated, low-dose aspirin,” he said in a statement accompanying the article. “This product adds cost to treatment, without any clear benefit. Indeed, it may lead to the false diagnosis of aspirin resistance and the failure to provide patients with an effective therapy.”

In a statement, Bayer took issue with some of the study’s conclusions and methods and said previous studies of coated aspirin, also called enteric-coated aspirin, have been shown to stop blood platelets from sticking together — which can help prevent heart attacks and stroke — at levels comparable to uncoated aspirin. Bayer also noted that the price difference between its coated and uncoated aspirin was negligible, although Dr. FitzGerald argued there was no reason patients should use anything other than uncoated generic aspirin, which is cheaper.

“When used as directed,” the company said, “both enteric and nonenteric coated aspirin provides meaningful benefits, is safe and effective and is infrequently associated with clinically significant side effects.”

Although researchers had long observed that, as is true with most drugs, aspirin’s effects varied among patients, the existence of “aspirin resistance” gained currency in the 1990s and early 2000s. One often-cited study, published in 2003, found that about 5 percent of cardiovascular patients were aspirin-resistant and that that group was more than three times as likely as those not aspirin-resistant to suffer a major event like a heart attack.

But some said the popularity of aspirin resistance got a boost in part because of the development of urine and blood tests to measure it and the arrival on the market of drugs like Plavix, a more expensive prescription drug sold by Bristol-Myers Squibb that also thins the blood.

In the most recent study, the patients who initially tested positive for aspirin resistance later tested negative for it and by the end of the study, Dr. FitzGerald said, none of the patients showed true resistance. “Nobody had a stable pattern of resistance that was specific to coated aspirin,” he said. If resistance to aspirin exists, he said, “I think that the incidence is vanishingly small.”

Dr. Eric Topol, one of the authors of the 2003 study, said he strongly disagreed with Dr. FitzGerald’s conclusions, noting that it looked only at healthy volunteers, “which is very different than studying people who actually have heart disease or other chronic illnesses who are taking various medications.” Those conditions or medications could affect the way aspirin works in the body, he said.

But Dr. Topol and Dr. FitzGerald did agree that there was little value in testing for whether someone was aspirin-resistant, in part because there was little evidence that knowing someone is resistant to aspirin will prevent a heart attack or stroke.

Representatives for Accumetrics, which sells a blood test, and Corgenix, which sells a urine test, maintained that there was value in determining how well aspirin worked in individual patients, and said more recent research on the issue has moved away from a stark determination of whether someone is resistant to aspirin. “This whole concept of drug resistance has moved past that term and moved into the level of response that someone has,” said Brian Bartolomeo, market development manager at Accumetrics.

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Report Bolsters Case for Large U.S. Natural Gas Exports

HOUSTON — In a victory for the oil and gas industry, a federal Energy Department study released Wednesday concluded that the national economic benefits of significant natural gas exports far outweighed the potential for higher consumer energy prices.

The Obama administration has been cautious on whether to embrace large exports of gas out of concern that consumers who rely on gas for heating and cooking could see their utility prices rise. Higher exports could raise costs to manufacturers that now benefit from a glut of cheap gas, some economists warn, although huge terminal projects would generate thousands of construction jobs and gas could be a lucrative export earner.

The new report, prepared by NERA Economic Consulting for the government, concluded that domestic gas prices would not rise sharply as a result of exports and that expanded export revenue would generally help most Americans.

Noting that gas exports could produce up to $47 billion in new economic activity in 2020, when many new terminals would be up and running, the report said, “welfare improvement is highest under the high export volume scenarios because U.S. consumers benefit from an increase in wealth transfer and export revenues.”

Only a decade ago, it appeared that the country’s domestic gas supplies were drying up, and that huge amounts of expensive gas in liquefied form would have to be imported from Trinidad, Africa and the Middle East. But over the last few years, a technological revolution has occurred in shale gas fields across the country, producing a glut that has driven the price of natural gas down by two-thirds since 2008.

The report, the second Energy Department study this year, is likely to be challenged by manufacturing and chemical companies like Dow Chemical warn that large-scale exports that raise domestic gas prices would hurt their ability to compete with foreign firms.

Yet oil and gas companies are eager for exports to bolster the lagging price of natural gas, and the report is likely to spur a competitive lobbying campaign for regulatory approval of export terminals. Executives in the oil and gas industry were enthusiastic about the report. “It’s great news,” said Rodney Waller, a senior vice president at Range Resources, a natural gas producer. “It’s encouraging to see that experts are joining the expectation that we are in a global marketplace and the United States has a huge opportunity to generate economic growth and at the same time reduce our energy costs.”

But several powerful members of Congress, including Senator Ron Wyden, the Oregon Democrat who is in line to be the next chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, have opposed large-scale exports.

In a recent letter to the energy secretary, Steven Chu, Senator Wyden noted the importance of the country’s newfound gas wealth to “improve the economic competitiveness of American manufacturers” and that “U.S. law has long held that imports and exports of energy must be considered differently than other commodities.”

The Sierra Club and other environmental groups have joined the opposition to exports in a bid to limit domestic production, which is increasingly dependent on hydraulic fracturing, a technique that blasts open shale rock with water, sand and chemicals to release gas and oil. Environmentalists say drinking water supplies can be put in jeopardy, a charge disputed by the oil industry.

The Center for Liquefied Natural Gas, a trade group whose members include ExxonMobil, Sempra Energy and Royal Dutch Shell, has argued that more gas exports will bolster domestic gas production and with it expand demand for oil field equipment and steel piping.

The Energy Department report noted that large exports of gas would produce “some shifts in output by industrial sectors” and “the electricity sector, energy-intensive sector and natural gas dependent goods and services producers will all be impacted by price increases.” Industries that are likely to be most impacted, economists say, would be producers of chemicals and fertilizers.

But the report said that natural gas exports could produce $10 billion to $30 billion of annual export revenue. The country now exports some gas by pipeline.

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Google updates Gmail for iOS to support multiple accounts, deliver autocomplete suggestions

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Nasrin Sotoudeh, Iranian Rights Advocate, Ends Hunger Strike

TEHRAN — An imprisoned human rights lawyer serving a sentence for “acting against national security” ended a 47-day hunger strike on Tuesday after judicial authorities acceded to her demand to lift a travel ban imposed on her 12-year-old daughter, her husband said.

The lawyer, Nasrin Sotoudeh, 49, who until her imprisonment in 2010 was one of the last lawyers taking on high-profile human rights and political cases in Iran, decided in October to go on the hunger strike out of fear of increasing limitations imposed on her family. She fell into fragile health during the hunger strike, in which she would drink only water mixed with salts and sugar. Her weight dropped to 95 pounds.

It was the second time that Ms. Sotoudeh felt compelled to quit eating. She declared her first hunger strike in 2010, after her family was forbidden to visit or make phone calls. In that case, the authorities capitulated after four weeks, allowing her husband and two children to visit weekly.

Ms. Sotoudeh has also written several public letters from prison, one of which thanked the head of the judiciary for putting her in jail, saying she was horrified by the thought of being free while her former clients were still in prison.

In recent years several lawyers representing people suspected of security crimes have been arrested while others, like the 2003 Nobel laureate, Shirin Ebadi, have left the country. Tuesday’s ruling, which has not been officially confirmed by the authorities here, seemed to show that Iranian officials are receptive to pressure in human rights cases — something that Ms. Sotoudeh has argued consistently.

Iranian officials deny there are any political prisoners in Iran, saying that all those behind bars have been tried according to the country’s laws. Ms. Sotoudeh was sentenced to six years in prison last year on the national security charge and for “misusing her profession as a lawyer.”

During a news conference last week, Mohammad Javad Larijani, a member of an influential political family and the head of the judiciary’s self-appointed Human Rights Council, said that from Iran’s official point of view there was nothing out of the ordinary about Ms. Sotoudeh’s imprisonment.

“Her dossier has had its course,” he told reporters, emphasizing what he called the independence of Iran’s judicial system. “Judges and lawyers have exhausted all legal possibilities and now she is doing her time in jail.” He said that contrary to reports, Ms. Sotoudeh was in good health. “We care about our inmates, whether they are on hunger strike or not,” Mr. Larijani said.

International rights activists and human rights groups have tried to highlight Ms. Sotoudeh’s case, and international lawyers, movie directors and politicians — among them Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton — have called upon Iran to set her free. Ten days into her hunger strike, on Oct. 26, Ms. Sotoudeh, together with Jafar Panahi, an Iranian filmmaker who is under house arrest, was awarded the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought by the European Union.

The international attention, widely replayed on Persian language satellite channels at odds with Iran’s rulers, has helped raise her profile among middle-class Iranians, who generally admire her persistence. The attention has made it increasingly hard for Iranian officials to ignore her case, Ms. Sotoudeh’s husband, Reza Khandan, a computer engineer, said in an interview.

Mr. Khandan said that his wife is a great admirer of the Burmese opposition leader and Nobel laureate, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, who spent years under house arrest, became an international symbol of resistance and is now a political leader herself.

“But this is her fight, and not our children’s,” Mr. Khandan said, “So Nasrin does everything she can in order to have something of a normal life.”

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Chiefs' LB mentioned other 'girlfriend' to police

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Police say Kansas City Chiefs linebacker Jovan Belcher spent some of his final hours sleeping in his car outside the home of another woman whom he described as his "girlfriend."

Police spokesman Darin Snapp said Tuesday that the woman's apartment complex was about 10 miles from the home where Belcher shot and killed the mother of his 3-month-old daughter, 22-year-old Kasandra Perkins. Belcher then drove to Arrowhead Stadium and killed himself in front of team officials.

Snapp says the officers who found Belcher sleeping in his car around 2:50 a.m. Saturday determined that he didn't have any outstanding warrants. He says Belcher made a phone call and that a woman let him into the building a few minutes later.

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Recipes for Health: Carrot Purée — Carrot Purée

Andrew Scrivani for The New York Times NYTCREDIT: Andrew Scrivani for The New York Times

You can serve the carrot purée on its own on croutons or pita triangles, or as a dip with crudités. You can also accompany it with garlicky yogurt seasoned with mint, as it would be served in Greece or Turkey.

1 1/2 pounds carrots, peeled and sliced

1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds, lightly toasted and ground

3/4 teaspoon caraway seeds, ground

1/2 teaspoon Aleppo pepper or mild chili powder

Salt to taste

3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1 to 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice (to taste)

Salt to taste

For the optional seasoned yogurt:

1/2 cup thick Greek style plain low-fat yogurt or drained plain low-fat yogurt

1 to 3 garlic cloves, mashed to a puree with salt to taste in a mortar and pestle

1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

1 tablespoon finely chopped mint

1. Steam the carrots above 1 inch of boiling water for 15 minutes or until soft. Remove from the heat and transfer to a food processor fitted with a steel blade.

2. Pulse the carrots in the food processor and scrape down the sides of the bowl. Turn on the food processor and while the machine is running pour in the olive oil and lemon juice. Process until the carrots are pureed. Stop the machine and scrape down the sides of the bowl with a spatula. Add the cumin seeds, caraway seeds, Aleppo pepper or chili powder, and salt to taste and process until incorporated. Taste and adjust seasonings. Transfer to a serving bowl or platter.

3. If using the seasoned yogurt, combine all of the ingredients and mix together well. Make a well in the middle of the carrots and spoon in the yogurt.

4. Serve the carrot puree with pita triangles, croutons, or crudités.

Yield: 2 cups

Advance preparation: The carrot puree will keep for 3 or 4 days in the refrigerator and can be frozen. The seasoned yogurt should be eaten soon after it is mixed together as the garlic will become even more pungent over time.

Nutritional information per tablespoon (without yogurt): 20 calories; 1 gram fat; 0 grams saturated fat; 0 grams polyunsaturated fat; 0 grams monounsaturated fat; 0 milligrams cholesterol; 2 grams carbohydrates; 1 gram dietary fiber; 15 milligrams sodium (does not include salt to taste); 0 grams protein

Martha Rose Shulman is the author of “The Very Best of Recipes for Health.”

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DealBook: Former Goldman Director Gupta to Stay Free Pending His Appeal

A former Goldman Sachs director Rajat K. Gupta can remain free on bail while he challenges his insider-trading conviction, a federal appeals court ruled on Tuesday.

In a surprise decision, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in Manhattan ruled that Mr. Gupta will not have to report to prison until his appeal his heard, a process that can take as long as a year. He was set to start serving his two-year sentence on Jan. 8.

Mr. Gupta, 64, was found guilty in June of leaking Goldman’s boardroom secrets to his friend, the hedge fund manager Raj Rajaratnam.

Tuesday’s ruling suggests that Mr. Gupta persuaded the judges that he has legitimate issues to argue on appeal. The same federal appeals court had denied a request by Mr. Rajaratnam to remain free on bail pending his appeal. Mr. Rajaratnam is serving an 11-year prison term.

Mr. Gupta’s lawyers are expected to make several arguments in pushing for his conviction to be overturned. The most significant issue on appeal is expected to be the government’s use of the wiretaps during the trial. Judge Jed S. Rakoff, the trial-court judge, allowed the jury to hear incriminating wiretapped conversations involving Mr. Rajaratnam and his traders that suggested he had a source inside of Goldman.

”I heard yesterday from somebody who’s on the board of Goldman Sachs that they are going to lose $2 per share,” said Mr. Rajaratnam to one of his colleagues, on a wiretapped call, in October 2008.

Multimedia: Insider Trading

Without the wiretaps, prosecutors would have had to rely on circumstantial evidence — telephone bills and trading records — to prove their case.

Mr. Gupta’s lawyers had argued that because the conversations were between Mr. Rajaratnam and his employees, the judge should declare them inadmissible hearsay evidence, meaning that they were too unreliable to be used against Mr. Gupta.

Another issue that Mr. Gupta’s lawyers are expected to raise is that Judge Rakoff erred in curbing testimony by Mr. Gupta’s daughter about her father’s deteriorating relationship with Mr. Rajaratnam.

Mr. Gupta, who lives in Westport, Conn., has been free on $10 million bail since his arrest in October 2011. In addition to a team of lawyers from Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel that have been representing him, Mr. Gupta hired Seth P. Waxman, a noted appellate lawyer, to help handle his appeal. Mr. Waxman, a partner at WilmerHale, is a former United States solicitor general who has argued more than 50 cases before the United States Supreme Court.

The court is expected to hear Mr. Gupta’s appeal this spring.

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Ericsson seeks U.S. import ban on Samsung products

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) – Swedish telecoms gear maker Ericsson has filed a request with the U.S. International Trade Commission to ban U.S. imports of products made by South Korean group Samsung,

The request from Ericsson, which said on Monday the products infringe on its patents, came after it sued Samsung for patent infringement in a U.S. court last week.

“The request for an import ban is a part of the process. An import ban is not our goal. Our goal is that they (Samsung) sign license agreements on reasonable terms,” spokesman Fredrik Hallstan said.

Ericsson said last week it was suing Samsung after talks failed to reach agreement on terms that were fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) over patents.

Samsung said it would defend itself against the lawsuit, adding that Ericsson had asked for “prohibitively higher royalty rates to renew the same patent portfolio”.

(Reporting by Sven Nordenstam; Editing by Dan Lalor)

Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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5 Nations Summon Israeli Envoys to Protest Settlement Plans

JERUSALEM — Britain, France, Spain, Sweden and Denmark summoned the Israeli ambassadors to their countries on Monday to protest Israel’s plans for increased settlement construction, an unusually sharp diplomatic step that reflected the growing frustration abroad with Israel’s policies on the Palestinian issue.

After the General Assembly voted overwhelmingly last week to upgrade the status of the Palestinians at the United Nations, Israel announced plans for 3,000 more housing units in contested areas east of Jerusalem and around the West Bank.

Israel raised particular alarms with its decision to continue planning and zoning work for the development of a contentious area known as E1, a project vehemently opposed internationally because it would partially separate the northern and southern West Bank, harming the prospects of a contiguous Palestinian state.

The move raised questions in Israel about whether the country’s leaders were putting domestic political interests ahead of its foreign relations, with Israeli elections scheduled for late January.

“Bibi had to do something” in response to the United Nations vote, said Prof. Shmuel Sandler of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan Universiy, referring to the prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, by his nickname, “first because he is Bibi and second because of the elections.”

Mr. Sandler said that Mr. Netanyahu, a conservative, was making the mistake of competing against those further to his right, adding, “But I don’t think he expected such a reaction” internationally.

Yet Israel remained defiant. The prime minister’s office issued a statement on Monday, saying, “Israel will continue to stand for its essential interests, even in the face of international pressure, and there will be no change in the decision it has taken.”

A press officer for United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said in a statement on Sunday that construction in E1 “would represent an almost fatal blow to remaining chances of securing a two-state solution.”

European countries long opposed to Israeli settlement construction went beyond their usual statements of condemnation.

The countries that called in the Israeli ambassadors “expressed their strong protests about the announced settlement plans,” said Yigal Palmor, the spokesman for the Israeli Foreign Ministry.

Mr. Palmor said that the Israeli ambassadors told their hosts that Israel has been warning for months that the Palestinian bid at the United Nations would not go unanswered and would have implications.

Israel has described the bid as a unilateral Palestinian step that violates previous signed agreements. The Palestinians have long refused to negotiate with Israel without a halt in settlement construction.

France, Spain, Sweden and Denmark voted for the Palestinian upgrade, while Britain abstained. Although Israel had expected the resolution to pass, officials here expressed disappointment over the lack of support from several friendly European nations. Israel was particularly surprised by Germany’s decision to abstain in the vote, having expected Germany to go with Israel.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is scheduled to visit Germany this week. Despite the so-called special relationship between Israel and Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel has not minced words about her opposition to Israeli settlement construction in the past.

Philippe Lalliot, a spokesman for the French Foreign Ministry, said in a statement on Monday that “Settlement activity is illegal under international law, hurts the confidence necessary for a return to dialogue and constitutes an obstacle to a just peace founded on the two-state solution.”

The British Foreign Office said it deplored the Israeli settlement plans and that it had called on the Israeli government to reverse the decision.

But Israeli officials denied that the government’s policies were isolating Israel.

“It is well known that Europe and Israel have a different approach on settlements,” said one Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity. “There is nothing new here. If European countries would have behaved differently in their vote at the United Nations last week,” he continued, “we may have reacted differently.”

Analysts here said that after showing strong support for Israel during its military campaign last month against Hamas, the Islamic militant group that controls Gaza, European countries had felt the need to bolster the more moderate Palestinian wing led by President Mahmoud Abbas in its United Nations bid.

At the weekly cabinet meeting on Sunday, Mr. Netanyahu said, “Today we are building and we will continue to build in Jerusalem and in all areas that are on the map of the strategic interests of the State of Israel.”

But beyond the tit-for-tat measures set off by the United Nations vote, analysts pointed to a trend of deteriorating relations between Israel and Europe in particular.

“That is because the top-level people making decisions here in recent years are completely insular and out of touch with the rest of the world, especially regarding the Palestinians and the settlements,” said Mark Heller, a foreign-policy analyst at the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University. “Self-righteousness may be good for domestic politics,” he said, but it is not a policy.”

At the United Nations General Assembly on Thursday, 138 nations voted in favor of upgrading the status of the Palestinians and 41 abstained. The nine that voted against it were Israel, the United States, Canada, the Czech Republic, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Panama and Palau.

Scott Sayare contributed reporting from Paris.

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A-Rod needs hip surgery, will miss season's start

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Alex Rodriguez will have surgery on his left hip and will miss the start of the season and possibly the entire first half.

Rodriguez has a torn labrum, bone impingement and a cyst, the Yankees said Monday. The third baseman will need to follow a pre-surgery program over the next four-to-six weeks, and the team anticipates he will be sidelined four-to-six months after the operation. That timetable projects to a return between the start of May and mid-July.

A-Rod had right hip surgery on March 9, 2009, and returned that May 8. The Yankees said this operation will be "similar but not identical."

Rodriguez, who turns 38 in July, complained of pain in his right hip the night Raul Ibanez pinch hit for him — and hit a tying ninth-inning home run — against Baltimore during the AL division series in October. He went to a hospital and was checked out then.

His left hip injury was detected last month during an exam by Dr. Marc Philippon, who operated on Rodriguez three years ago. A-Rod then got a second opinion from Dr. Bryan Kelly, who will repair the latest injury at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York.

"Both doctors believe that there is a very strong possibility that Rodriguez's hip condition may have had a negative effect on his performance during the latter stages of the season and the playoffs," the Yankees said.

Rodriguez was benched in three of nine postseason games and pinch hit for in three others. He hit .120 (3 for 25) with no RBIs in the playoffs, including 0 for 18 with 12 strikeouts against right-handed pitchers.

A-Rod broke his left hand when he was hit by a pitch from Seattle's Felix Hernandez on July 24. He returned Sept. 3 and hit .195 with two homers and six RBIs over the final month of the regular season.

This will be Rodriguez's sixth trip to the disabled list in six seasons. He had a strained quadriceps in 2008, the hip surgery in 2009, a strained calf in 2010, knee surgery in 2011 and the broken hand this year.

Signed to a record $275 million, 10-year contract after the 2007 season, Rodriguez is owed $114 million by New York over the next five years.

Fifth on the career list with 647 home runs, he had just 34 the last two seasons.

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