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(c) 2010-2024 Jon L Gelman, All Rights Reserved.

Friday, December 27, 2013

Charts: The Worst Long-Term Unemployment Crisis Since the Depression

Today's post was shared by Mother Jones and comes from www.motherjones.com

Officially, the Great Recession of 2007 ended in June 2009. Yet the economic downturn remains in full effect for millions of Americans, particularly the nearly 40 percent of the unemployed who have been looking for work for six months or more.
In less than a week, emergency federal unemployment benefits for 1.3 million of these jobless Americans are set to run out. Proponents of ending the benefits argue that the economy is expanding and that the benefits prevent people from finding work. "You get out of a recession by encouraging employment not encouraging unemployment," according to Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who opposes extending benefits. However, the data shows that while corporate America has bounced back, it is not restoring all the jobs it shed when the economy tanked five years ago.
Currently, nearly 11 million Americans are unemployed. The unemployment rate stands at 7 percent. Both of those stats are improvements from a little more than four years ago, when the post-recession jobless rate peaked at 10 percent and more than 15 million people were out of work.
However, there currently are more than 4 million Americans who have been unemployed for six months or longer. Not since the Great Depression has the United States experienced such massive and persistent long-term unemployment.
Overall, the long-term unemployed (those with out a job for six months or longer) make up nearly 40 percent of all the jobless.
Long-term unemployment has not affected...
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10 Reasons That Long-Term Unemployment Is a National Catastrophe

Today's post was shared by Mother Jones and comes from www.motherjones.com

Unemployment is bad. Obviously long-term unemployment is worse. But it's not just a little worse, it's horrifically worse. As a companion to our eight charts that describe the problem, here are the top ten reasons why long-term unemployment is such a national catastrophe:
  1. It's way higher than it's ever been before. When the headline unemployment rate peaked in 2010, it was actually a bit lower than the peak during the 1980 recession and only a point higher than the 1973 recession. As bad as it was, it was something we'd faced before. But the long-term unemployment rate is a whole different story. It peaked at a rate nearly double the worst we'd ever seen in the past, and it's been coming down only slowly ever since.
  2. It's widespread. There's a common belief that long-term unemployment mostly affects older workers and only in certain industries. In fact, with the exception of the construction industry, which was hurt especially badly during the 2007-08 recession, "the long-term unemployed are fairly evenly distributed across the age and industry spectrum."
  3. It's brutal. Obviously long-term unemployment produces a sharp loss of income, with all the stress that entails. But it does more. It produces deep distress, worse mental and physical health, higher mortality rates, hampers children’s educational progress, and lowers their future earnings. Megan McArdle summarizes the research
    findings this way: "Short of death or a debilitating terminal disease,...
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That ringing isn’t Christmas bells: Tinnitus symptoms, prevention

Today's post was shared by NIOSH Transportation and comes from www.overdriveonline.com

Tinnitus is the medical term for “hearing” noises in your ears when there is no outside source of the sounds. The noises you hear can be soft or loud. They may sound like ringing, blowing, roaring, buzzing, hissing, humming, whistling or sizzling. They can be persistent and never-ending or intermittent.

Tinnitus
Hearing loss is common in the trucking industry, especially for the drivers who have been on the road for more than ten years. While the newer trucks are a lot quieter — in-cab noise levels are about half what they were just fifteen years ago — protecting your hearing is one of the most effective ways to prevent tinnitus. Avoiding loud noises and wearing hearing protection when appropriate is recommended by the Mayo Clinic website.
However, with 265 known medications on the market that report tinnitus as a possible side effect, there are literally hundreds of reasons why someone may experience symptoms. Behind medication side effects, a common cause of tinnitus is inner ear cell damage. Tiny, delicate hairs in your inner ear move in relation to the pressure of sound waves. This triggers ear cells to release an electrical signal through a nerve from your ear (auditory nerve) to your brain. Your brain interprets these signals as sound. If the hairs inside your inner ear are bent or broken, they can “leak” random electrical impulses to your brain, causing tinnitus.
The three most common causes of inner ear cell damage are: age-related...
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Found on
Tembow….

Arthroscopic Partial Meniscectomy versus Sham Surgery for a Degenerative Meniscal Tear

Today's post was shared by NEJM and comes from www.nejm.org

Background

Arthroscopic partial meniscectomy is one of the most common orthopedic procedures, yet rigorous evidence of its efficacy is lacking.

Methods

We conducted a multicenter, randomized, double-blind, sham-controlled trial in 146 patients 35 to 65 years of age who had knee symptoms consistent with a degenerative medial meniscus tear and no knee osteoarthritis. Patients were randomly assigned to arthroscopic partial meniscectomy or sham surgery. The primary outcomes were changes in the Lysholm and Western Ontario Meniscal Evaluation Tool (WOMET) scores (each ranging from 0 to 100, with lower scores indicating more severe symptoms) and in knee pain after exercise (rated on a scale from 0 to 10, with 0 denoting no pain) at 12 months after the procedure.

Results

In the intention-to-treat analysis, there were no significant between-group differences in the change from baseline to 12 months in any primary outcome. The mean changes (improvements) in the primary outcome measures were as follows: Lysholm score, 21.7 points in the partial-meniscectomy group as compared with 23.3 points in the sham-surgery group (between-group difference, −1.6 points; 95% confidence interval [CI], −7.2 to 4.0); WOMET score, 24.6 and 27.1 points, respectively (between-group difference, −2.5 points; 95% CI, −9.2 to 4.1); and score for knee pain after exercise, 3.1 and 3.3 points, respectively (between-group difference, −0.1; 95% CI, −0.9 to 0.7). There were no...
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D.O.T. Christmas Poem

Todays post is shared is shared from Discussion Forum for Clinical & Public Health
 professionals in Occupational & Environmental Medicine
and was contributed by Natalie P.  Hartenbaum, MD, MPH, FACOEM
President and Chief Medical Officer OccuMedix, with permission

of the author Rick Neal, PA-C of OnSite Innovations









Thursday, December 26, 2013

You may not be better off after knee surgery

Today's post is shared from cnn.com 

(CNN) -- Patients who underwent simulated knee surgery fared just as well as those who got the real deal, according to a new study that's raising eyebrows about the most common orthopedic procedure performed in the United States.

The findings, published Thursday in the New England Journal of Medicine, add to a string of papers suggesting that arthroscopic partial meniscectomy fails to help many patients. The operation typically is performed to relieve knee pain, whether from wear or from an injury.

But other doctors say it's still too soon to draw sweeping conclusions.

The study, which was conducted in Finland, followed 146 patients between the ages of 35 and 65 with symptoms of degenerative wear and tear of the meniscus, a disk-shaped piece of cartilage that acts as a shock absorber between the shinbone and thighbone. They had no detectable arthritis, suggesting that any pain was due to a problem with the meniscus.

About half the patients underwent an arthroscopic meniscectomy, in which a surgeon inserts a blade through a tiny incision in the knee, and essentially shaves down the rough, frayed edges of the meniscus.

The other half underwent an elaborately staged "sham" surgery, in which the doctor made an incision and poked around without any actual manipulation, shaving or cutting.

A year later, there was no significant difference in the knee pain reported by patients in each group. Nearly two-thirds on each side said they were happy with the results, and most said...


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Found on






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Buffalo attorney had key role in lead-paint ruling

Fidelma Fitzpatrick is a seasoned trial attorney with the law firm of Motley Rice LLC. She is exceptionally skilled in both negotiated settlements and complex trial litigation. Fidelma assisted in crafted the historic multi-billion dollar  tobacco settlement agreement between the US State Attorney Generals and the tobacco industry. She has represented public entities in litigation against the lead paint industry including the multi-billion dollar Rhode Island trial. Fidelma Fitzpatrick is a nationally recognized advocate of children's and women's health issues. Today's post is shared from the buffalonews.com.

A Buffalo attorney played a key role in a billion-dollar court decision last week in California.
Three lead-paint makers were ordered by Santa Clara Superior Court Judge James P. Kleinberg to create the $1.1 billion fund to protect children against lead paint produced decades earlier, despite knowing it endangered human health, especially for children.
Fidelma Fitzpatrick is a Nardin graduate.
Fidelma Fitzpatrick
is a Nardin graduate.
Fidelma L. Fitzpatrick, a Nardin Academy and Canisius College graduate who lives with her family in Elmwood Village, was lead trial counsel representing 10 California municipalities, including Los Angeles County and the cities of San Diego and San Francisco.
The verdict calls for the companies to put the money in a special health department fund dedicated to lead-poisoning prevention. The municipalities would then draw an allotted amount for use on lead inspections, repairs and removal effecting hundreds of thousands of homes.
“From a public health standpoint, the decision is absolutely monumental. The good that this will bring to the children of California cannot be understated. Children today and future generations will be protected from lead poisoning because of it,” Fitzpatrick said.
She has worked on the case for the South Carolina-based law firm Motley Rice for the past 13 years.
In the bench trial, Kleinberg found Sherwin-Williams Co., NL Industries and ConAgra Grocery Products Co. guilty of creating a public nuisance by manufacturing and selling lead paint long after...
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