June 25, 2009

New Safe-Eating Guidelines Issued for SoCal Fish

(AP) — The state Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment is updating its safe-eating guidelines for fish caught off Southern California because of PCBs, DDT and other contaminants.

Spokesman Sam Delson says officials expanded the sampling area from Ventura Harbor to Carlsbad. Fish from 22 species were analyzed for contaminants.

Consumers are warned to avoid white croaker, barred sand bass and topsmelt from Santa Monica Beach to Seal Beach Pier. Children under 18 and women under the age of 45 are also warned not to eat black croaker or barracuda from Ventura Harbor to San Mateo Point.

PCBs and DDTs are man-made chemicals that were banned in the 1970s. But by then large amounts of the contaminants had flowed into the ocean and were deposited on the seafloor off the Palos Verdes Peninsula. They continue to be absorbed by fish. 

Mosquitoes in L.A. Park Test Positive for West Nile

(AP) — County officials say mosquitoes caught near Griffith Park in Los Angeles tested positive for West Nile virus.

Greater Los Angeles County Vector Control District spokeswoman Crystal Brown says the mosquito sample is the second to test positive this year, but not a cause for alarm.

Brown says officials found a dead bird infected with West Nile in Los Feliz last week, the third in L.A. County this year.

West Nile virus is transmitted by mosquitoes and can cause flu-like symptoms and, in rare cases, serious illness or death.

The Griffith Park area includes the Los Angeles Zoo.

Information from: the Los Angeles Times, www.latimes.com.

L.A. Nursing Home Fined $100K After Patient Death

(AP) — A Los Angeles nursing home has been fined $100,000 after a state investigation found deficient care that caused a death.

Lakewood Manor North was issued an “AA” citation on June 16 — the most severe that the state Department of Public Health issues.

In 2007, an 83-year-old man slipped and suffered a head injury while trying to move from his bed to a wheelchair. The state says the resulting head injury was not properly assessed or treated. The man died four days later.

The state’s investigation also found that the facility failed to provide safety supports needed to prevent falls. Nursing home administrator Kim Elliott says the penalty is the first in the facility’s 40-year history and has resulted in changes to operating procedures.

Ex-Hospital Exec. Pleads Guilty to Skid Row Fraud

(AP) — A former hospital executive has admitted he paid recruiters to bring in homeless people for unnecessary medical treatment in a scheme to defraud government health programs out of millions of dollars.

Robert Bourseau, 74, the former co-owner of the City of Angels Medical Center, faces up to 10 years in prison after pleading guilty to two counts of paying illegal kickbacks to defraud Medicare and Medi-Cal. He agreed to pay more than $4.1 million in restitution to the programs and will be sentenced Sept. 14.

Dante Nicholson, the medical center’s former senior vice president, was indicted with Bourseau in January and pleaded guilty to the same charges in March. He faces up to 10 years in prison when he is sentenced Aug 17.

The hospital’s former chief executive, Dr. Rudra Sabaratnam, pleaded guilty last year to bilking Medicare and Medi-Cal of $4.1 million from 2004 to 2007. The recruiter, Estill Mitts, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit health care fraud, money laundering and tax evasion.

The indictment was the product of an investigation into a scheme in which hospital officials paid the recruiter $500,000 over three years to find homeless people who were paid $100 or less. 

New Map Finds HIV Rates Are Highest in the South

ATLANTA (AP) — A new Internet data map offers a first-of-its-kind, county-level look at HIV cases in the U.S. and finds the infection rates tend to be highest in the South.

The highest numbers of HIV cases are in population centers like New York and California. However, many of the areas with the highest rates of HIV — that is, the highest proportion of people with the AIDS-causing virus — are in the South, according to the data map, which has information for about 99 percent of the nation’s counties.

HIV infection rates are higher in African American communities, and high minority populations in the South help explain the finding. While that’s not surprising, the high rates seen throughout states like Georgia and South Carolina were, said Gary Puckrein, president of the National Minority Quality Forum, the nonprofit research organization that put the map together.

The map depicts reported numbers of people living with HIV and AIDS in 2006.

Skin Color Clue to Nicotine Dependence 

UNIVERSITY PARK, Penn. — Higher concentrations of melanin — the color pigment in skin and hair — may be placing darker-pigmented smokers at increased susceptibility to nicotine dependence and tobacco-related carcinogens than lighter-skinned smokers, according to scientists.

“We have found that the concentration of melanin is directly related to the number of cigarettes smoked daily, levels of nicotine dependence, and nicotine exposure among African Americans,” said Gary King, professor of biobehavioral health at Penn State.

King states that previous research shows that nicotine has a biochemical affinity for melanin. Conceivably, this association could result in an accumulation of the addictive agent in melanin-containing tissues of smokers with greater amounts of skin pigmentation.

“The point of the study is that, if in fact, nicotine does bind to melanin, populations with high levels of melanin could indicate certain types of smoking behavior, dependence, and health outcomes that will be different from those in less-pigmented populations,” explained King. “And the addiction process may very well be longer and more severe.”