A child walks with activists in a rally ahead of World AIDS Day in Kolkata, India, Nov. 30, 2012. The activists demanded monthly pension and free ration facilities for sex workers and HIV/AIDS-affected people. World AIDS Day, observed each Dec. 1, is dedicated to raising awareness of the spread of AIDS and HIV. (Bikas Das/AP Photo)
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JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel responded swiftly Friday to U.N. recognition of a Palestinian state, revealing it will build 3,000 more homes for Jews on Israeli-occupied lands that the world body overwhelmingly said belong to the Palestinians.
The plans also include future construction in a strategic area of the West Bank where critics have long warned that Jewish settlements would kill hopes for a viable Palestinian state.
Israel's moves served as a harsh reminder to Palestinians — euphoric over the U.N. upgrade — that while they now have a state on paper, most of it remains very much under Israeli control.
"This is a doomsday scenario," Daniel Seidemann of Ir Amim, a group that promotes coexistence in Jerusalem, said of the building plans.
Israel's decision was bound to embarrass the United States, which was among just nine countries in the 193-member General Assembly to vote against accepting Palestine as a nonmember observer state.
Accelerated settlement construction could also set a more confrontational tone as Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas weighs his next moves.
In Washington, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland criticized the Israeli announcement. "These actions are counterproductive and make it harder to resume direct negotiations or achieve a two-state solution," she said.
Friday's decision was taken by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and eight senior Cabinet ministers, according to the Israeli news website Ynet.
The plans include 3,000 new apartments in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, as well as preparations for new construction in other large West Bank settlements, including Maaleh Adumim, near east Jerusalem, said an Israeli government official.
Among the projects is an expansion of Maaleh Adumim, known as E-1, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the decision with reporters.
Successive U.S. administrations have pressured Israel not to build in E-1 because it would effectively cut off east Jerusalem from the West Bank, and split the northern part of the territory from the southern part. Israel has said in the past it envisions 3,500 apartments there.
"E-1 will be the death of the two-state solution," said Seidemann, referring to the establishment of a state of Palestine alongside Israel. "If the pronouncements are to be treated seriously, we are months away from the implementation of E-1. This is very serious and very problematic."
Tzipi Livni, Israel's former foreign minister and chief negotiator with the Palestinians, warned that "the decision to build thousands of housing units as punishment to the Palestinians only punishes Israel ... (and) only isolates Israel further."
Since 1967, the number of Israelis living in settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem has risen to half a million, compared with 2.7 million Palestinians in those areas, and continued construction makes partition of the land increasingly unlikely.
The new U.N. observer state status could enable the Palestinians to pursue possible war crimes charges against Israel at the International Criminal Court over settlement construction on war-won land.
In his speech to the U.N. on Thursday, Abbas said he would coordinate with sympathetic countries and act responsibly, suggesting he would not seek confrontation with Israel.
"It is our right to get the membership of the ICC, but we don't want to go to it now," Abbas told reporters in New York on Friday, before the Israeli decision on new settlements became known. "We will not go unless we are attacked."
Following Israel's decision to accelerate settlement building, however, Abbas aide Saeb Erekat said the Palestinian leadership was studying its options. He would not elaborate.
Erekat accused Netanyahu of "defying the whole international community and insisting on destroying the two-state solution."
The U.N. endorsed a Palestinian state in territories Israel captured in 1967. Abbas has said he is ready to negotiate the final borders with Israel, provided Netanyahu drops his refusal to use the 1967 lines as a starting point.
Abbas asserted Friday that a Palestinian demand for a settlement freeze ahead of negotiations still stands.
"I'm ready for negotiations," Abbas said, rejecting Netanyahu's portrayal of the demand for a settlement freeze as a precondition. "Is stopping settlement activities a precondition?" he said. "There are 15 Security Council resolutions that say settlements are an obstacle to peace."
On the Israeli side, compromise on settlements seemed unlikely. Netanyahu is seeking re-election two months from now at the helm of a Likud party turned more hawkish since primaries earlier this week and in an electoral alliance with an ultra-nationalist pro-settler party.
Abbas returns Sunday to the West Bank, where Palestinians are preparing a hero's welcome. The U.N. bid has given a boost to his standing, which has been suffering after years of failed peace efforts with Israel. At the same time, the rival Islamic militant group Hamas in Gaza has scored points domestically, after an eight-day cross-border conflict with Israel earlier this month.
Abbas aides say his top priority is to reconcile with Hamas, which seized Gaza from him in 2007 and has been running its own government there since then. Abbas heads the Palestinian Authority, a self-rule government that administers 38 percent of the West Bank, while he has no say in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem.
The U.N. vote drew mixed reactions among Palestinians trying to reconcile global recognition with the limitations imposed by Israeli control, including border restrictions in Gaza.
Shahira Taleb, a 45-year-old Gaza housewife who has been unable to visit family in the West Bank because of an Israeli travel ban between the territories, was skeptical.
"I don't know if it's something that will change our life or is just a new paper added to thousands of papers issued over the past years in support of our cause," she said, standing in line at a bakery.
But Talal Jafari, a 47-year-old shopkeeper in the West Bank city of Hebron, said for Palestinians, every victory counts. "The entire world supports us, and that by itself is great for us," he said.
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Laub reported from Ramallah. Associated Press writer Mohammed Daraghmeh in Ramallah, West Bank, Nasser Shiyoukhi in Hebron and Ibrahim Barzak in Gaza City contributed reporting.
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — This metropolis of 6 million people may be one of the world’s most intense, overwhelming cities, with tremendous levels of crime, traffic and social strife. The sounds of Caracas‘ streets live up to its reputation.
Stand on any downtown corner, and the cacophony can be overpowering: Deafening horns blast from oncoming buses, traffic police shrilly blow their whistles and sirens shriek atop ambulances stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic.
Air horns routinely used by bus drivers are so powerful they make pedestrians on crosswalks recoil, and can even leave their ears ringing. Loud salsa music blares from the windows of buses, trucks with old mufflers rumble past belching exhaust, and “moto-taxis” weave through traffic beeping high-pitched horns.
Growing numbers of Venezuelans are saying they’re fed up with the noise that they say is getting worse, and the numbers of complaints to the authorities have risen in recent years.
One affluent district, Chacao, put up signs along a main avenue reading: “A honk won’t make the traffic light change.”
“The noise is terrible. Sometimes it seems like it’s never going to end,” said Jose Santander, a street vendor who stands in the middle of a highway selling fried pork rinds and potato chips to commuters in traffic.
Prosecutor General Luisa Ortega recently told a news conference that officials have started “putting an increased emphasis on promoting peaceful coexistence” by punishing misdemeanors such as violations of anti-noise regulations and other minor crimes. That effort has translated into hundreds of noise-related cases in recent years.
Some violators are ordered to perform community service. For instance, two young musicians who were recently caught playing loud music near a subway station were sentenced to 120 hours of community service giving music lessons to students in public schools.
Others caught playing loud music on the street have been charged with disturbing the peace after complaints from neighbors. Fines can run as high as 9,000 bolivars, or $ 2,093.
On the streets of their capital, however, Venezuelans have grown used to living loudly. The noisescape adds to a general sense of anarchy, with many drivers ignoring red lights and blocking intersections along potholed streets strewn with trash.
“This is something that everybody does. Nobody should be complaining,” said Gregorio Hernandez, a 23-year-old college student, as he listened to Latin rock songs booming from his car stereo on a Saturday night in downtown Caracas. “We’re just having fun. We’re not hurting anybody.”
Adding to the mess is the country’s notoriously divisive politics, which regularly fill the streets with marches and demonstrations.
On many days, the shouts of protesters streaming through downtown can be heard from blocks away, demanding pay hikes or unpaid benefits.
And the sporadic crackling of gunfire in the slums can be confused for firecrackers tossed by boisterous partygoers.
It’s difficult to rank the world’s noisiest cities because many, including Venezuela’s capital, don’t take measurements of sound pollution, said Victor Rastelli, a mechanical engineering professor and sound pollution expert at Simon Bolivar University in Caracas. But Rastelli said he suspects Caracas is right up there among the noisiest, along with Sao Paulo, Mexico City and Mumbai.
Excessive noise can be more than simply an annoyance, Rastelli said. “This is a public health problem.”
Dr. Carmen Mijares, an audiologist at a private Caracas hospital, said she treats at least a dozen patients every month for hearing damage caused by prolonged exposure to loud noises.
“Many of them work in bars or night clubs, and their maladies usually include temporary hearing loss and headaches,” Mijares said. For others, she said, the day-to-day noise of traffic, car horns and loud music can exacerbate stress and sleeping disorders.
Several cities have successfully reduced noise pollution, said Stephen Stansfeld, a London psychiatry professor and coordinator of the European Network on Noise and Health.
One of the most noteworthy initiatives, Stansfeld said, was in Copenhagen, Denmark, where officials used sound walls, noise-reducing asphalt and other infrastructure as well as public awareness campaigns to fight noise pollution.
But such high-tech solutions seem like a remote possibility in Caracas, where streets are literally falling apart and aging overpasses regularly lack portions of their guard rails. Prosecutors, angry neighbors and others hoping to fight the noise will have to persuade Venezuelans to do nothing less than change their loud behavior.
For Carlos Pinto, however, making noise is practically a political right.
The 26-year-old law student and his friends danced at a recent street party to house music booming from woofers in his car’s open trunk, with neon lights on the speakers that pulsed to the beat.
When asked about the noise, he answered: “We will be heard.”
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AP freelance video journalist Ricardo Nunes contributed to this report.
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Christopher Toothaker on Twitter: http://twitter.com/ctoothaker
Latin America News Headlines – Yahoo! News
LOS ANGELES (AP) — An autopsy report shows no drugs were detected in the body of a former “Sons of Anarchy” actor who police say killed his landlady and then fell to his death.
Toxicology results on Johnny Lewis found no traces of cocaine, alcohol, marijuana or any other types of drugs in the actor’s system. Officials checked for anti-psychotic drugs as well as psychedelic drugs.
Lewis was found dead in September in the driveway of a Los Angeles residence, and police found his landlady and a cat dead inside the home. Officials believe Lewis fell while trying to flee the home after killing 81-year-old Catherine Davis.
The killing occurred just days after Lewis was released from jail. Records show he had pleaded no contest to assault with a deadly weapon and attempted burglary in separate cases.
Authorities expressed concern about his mental health in court hearings before his release.
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NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – In a broad comparison of U.S. dietary standards and real Americans’ eating habits, researchers found that people fall short of nutritional recommendations overall, but some groups are worse than others.
Among the findings, researchers said that children and the elderly seemed to eat a healthier diet than younger and middle-aged adults, and women had a better diet than men. Hispanics also tended to have better quality diets than either blacks or whites.
“I think it’s a really important piece of science because it demonstrates what many of us suspected for a long time: there are many profound disparities in the American diet,” said Gary Bennett, who was not involved with the new work but studies obesity prevention at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina.
For the study, researchers used responses to a large national health survey to compare what 8,272 Americans said they ate in the course of one day to what the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) suggested they should be eating.
Each subset of people was assigned a score between zero and 100 based on the percentage of the USDA recommendation for different food groups, such as fruit, vegetables, grains, milk, meat and beans, they consumed each day.
Overall, the researchers found that children and adults as groups each scored 56, while seniors scored higher with 65, meaning they did a better job meeting the USDA standards than most younger people, but no one came close to a perfect score of 100.
“Regardless of socioeconomic status, age, race and education, the American diet as a whole needs to be improved,” said the study’s lead author Hazel Hiza, of the USDA’s Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion (CNPP) in Alexandria, Virginia.
Hiza and her colleagues, who published their findings in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, did find further differences when they looked at race and income.
Hispanics scored better than African Americans and whites across many different food groups.
Hispanic children, for example, were getting closer to the recommended amounts of fruit and vegetables compared to white children, and closer to the recommended amount of fruit compared to black children.
Bennett cautions, however, that the findings do not mean all Hispanics had better diets than all white and black children.
For kids, family income also made a difference, but not with the result some might expect.
The researchers say that children from poor families were meeting more of the USDA dietary recommendations than wealthy children in several food groups, which is possibly due to the low-income families’ participation in the National School Breakfast and Lunch Programs.
Adults, however, did seem to meet more of the USDA recommendations as their incomes increased.
“What we know very clearly is that kids, who are in those lowest poverty groups, are doing OK, but not their parents,” said Bennett. “This is a win for some of our policies, but it is also the case that some of these parents are sacrificing their diets for the benefit of their kids.”
Overall, Bennett said Americans would benefit from policies that encouraged people to eat more fruit and vegetables.
“Most policy decisions have advanced the production, processing and consumption of inexpensive grains… If we can figure out policy that could do the same for fruit and vegetables, our health would benefit,” he said.
Hiza added that Americans should also take into account their physical activity levels, and not just their diets.
Robert Post, deputy director for the USDA CNPP, told Reuters Health that people can find tools and resources to help them meet dietary standards on ChooseMyPlate.gov, including a tool that tracks diet and exercise.
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/UsLfDG Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, online November 19, 2012.
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UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The 193-nation U.N. General Assembly on Thursday overwhelmingly approved the de facto recognition of the sovereign state of Palestine after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called on the world body to issue its long overdue "birth certificate."
The U.N. victory for the Palestinians was a diplomatic setback for the United States and Israel, which were joined by only a handful of countries in voting against the move to upgrade the Palestinian Authority's observer status at the United Nations to "non-member state" from "entity," like the Vatican.
Britain called on the United States to use its influence to help break the long impasse in Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. Washington also called for a revival of direct negotiations.
There were 138 votes in favor, nine against and 41 abstentions. Three countries did not take part in the vote, held on the 65th anniversary of the adoption of U.N. resolution 181 that partitioned Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab states.
Thousands of flag-waving Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip set off fireworks and danced in the streets to celebrate the vote.
The assembly approved the upgrade despite threats by the United States and Israel to punish the Palestinians by withholding funds for the West Bank government. U.N. envoys said Israel might not retaliate harshly against the Palestinians over the vote as long as they do not seek to join the International Criminal Court.
If the Palestinians were to join the ICC, they could file complaints with the court accusing Israel of war crimes, crimes against humanity and other serious crimes.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called the vote "unfortunate and counterproductive," while the Vatican praised the move and called for an internationally guaranteed special status for Jerusalem, something bound to irritate Israel.
The much-anticipated vote came after Abbas denounced Israel for its "aggressive policies and the perpetration of war crimes" from the U.N. podium, remarks that elicited a furious response from the Jewish state.
"Sixty-five years ago on this day, the United Nations General Assembly adopted resolution 181, which partitioned the land of historic Palestine into two states and became the birth certificate for Israel," Abbas told the assembly after receiving a standing ovation.
"The General Assembly is called upon today to issue a birth certificate of the reality of the State of Palestine," he said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded quickly, condemning Abbas' critique of Israel as "hostile and poisonous," and full of "false propaganda.
"These are not the words of a man who wants peace," Netanyahu said in a statement released by his office. He reiterated Israeli calls for direct talks with the Palestinians, dismissing Thursday's resolution as "meaningless."
ICC THREAT
Granting Palestinians the title of "non-member observer state" falls short of full U.N. membership - something the Palestinians failed to achieve last year. But it would allow them access to the ICC and other international bodies, should they choose to join them.
Abbas did not mention the ICC in his speech. But Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki told reporters after the vote that if Israel continued to build illegal settlements, the Palestinians might pursue the ICC route.
"As long as the Israelis are not committing atrocities, are not building settlements, are not violating international law, then we don't see any reason to go anywhere," he said.
"If the Israelis continue with such policy - aggression, settlements, assassinations, attacks, confiscations, building walls - violating international law, then we have no other remedy but really to knock those to other places," Maliki said.
In Washington, a group of four Republican and Democratic senators announced legislation that would close the Palestinian office in Washington unless the Palestinians enter "meaningful negotiations" with Israel, and eliminate all U.S. assistance to the Palestinian Authority if it turns to the ICC.
"I fear the Palestinian Authority will now be able to use the United Nations as a political club against Israel," said Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, one of the sponsors.
Abbas led the campaign to win support for the resolution, which followed an eight-day conflict this month between Israel and Islamists in the Gaza Strip, who are pledged to Israel's destruction and oppose a negotiated peace.
At least 17 European nations voted in favor of the Palestinian resolution, including Austria, France, Italy, Norway and Spain. Abbas had focused his lobbying efforts on Europe, which supplies much of the aid the Palestinian Authority relies on. Britain, Germany and others chose to abstain.
The Czech Republic was unique in Europe, joining the United States, Israel, Canada, Panama and tiny Pacific Island states likes Nauru, Palau and Micronesia in voting against the move.
PALESTINIANS RALLY
Peace talks have been stalled for two years, mainly over Israeli settlements in the West Bank, which have expanded despite being deemed illegal by most of the world. There are 4.3 million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.
After the vote, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice called for the immediate resumption of peace talks.
"The Palestinian people will wake up tomorrow and find that little about their lives has changed save that the prospects of a durable peace have only receded," she said.
She added that both parties should "avoid any further provocative actions in the region, in New York or elsewhere."
Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said he hoped all sides would use the vote to push for new breakthroughs in the peace process.
"I hope there will be no punitive measures," Fayyad told Reuters in Washington, where he was attending a conference.
"I hope that some reason will prevail and the opportunity will be taken to take advantage of what happened today in favor of getting a political process moving," he said.
Britain's U.N. ambassador, Mark Lyall Grant, told reporters it was time for recently re-elected U.S. President Barack Obama to make a new push for peace.
"We believe the window for the two-state solution is closing," he said. "That is why we are encouraging the United States and other key international actors to grasp this opportunity and use the next 12 months as a way to really break through this impasse."
(Additional reporting by Andrew Quinn in Washington, Noah Browning in Ramallah, Jeffrey Heller in Jerusalem, Robert Mueller in Prague, Gabriela Baczynska and Reuters bureaux in Europe and elsewhere; Editing by Peter Cooney and Eric Beech)
BANGKOK (AP) — The South Korean rapper behind YouTube’s most-viewed video ever has set what might be a “Mission: Impossible” for himself.
Asked which celebrity he would like to see go “Gangnam Style,” the singer PSY told The Associated Press: “Tom Cruise!”
Surrounded by screaming fans, he then chuckled at the idea of the American movie star doing his now famous horse-riding dance.
PSY’s comments Wednesday in Bangkok were his first public remarks since his viral smash video — with 838 million views — surpassed Justin Bieber‘s “Baby,” which until Saturday held the record with 803 million views.
“It’s amazing,” PSY told a news conference, saying he never set out to become an international star. “I made this video just for Korea, actually. And when I released this song — wow.”
The video has spawned hundreds of parodies and tribute videos and earned him a spotlight alongside a variety of superstars.
Earlier this month, Madonna invited PSY onstage and they danced to his song at one of her New York City concerts. MC Hammer introduced the Korean star at the American Music Awards as, “My Homeboy PSY!”
Even President Barack Obama is talking about him. Asked on Election Day if he could do the dance, Obama replied: “I think I can do that move,” but then concluded he might “do it privately for Michelle,” the first lady.
PSY was in Thailand to give a free concert Wednesday night organized as a tribute to the country’s revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who turns 85 next month. He paid respects to the king at a Bangkok shopping mall, signing his name in an autograph book placed beside a giant poster of the king. He then gave an outdoor press conference, as screaming fans nearby performed the pop star’s dance.
Determined not to be a one-hit wonder, PSY said he plans to release a worldwide album in March with dance moves that he thinks his international fans will like.
“I think I have plenty of dance moves left,” he said, in his trademark sunglasses and dark suit. “But I’m really concerned about the (next) music video.”
“How can I beat ‘Gangnam Style’?” he asked, smiling. “How can I beat 850 million views?”
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Associated Press writer Thanyarat Doksone contributed to this report.
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama opened a new front on Wednesday in the battle between Democrats and Republicans over the best way to avoid the year-end “fiscal cliff” – Twitter.
The web-savvy Obama administration launched a social media campaign that asks Twitter users to add the “#my2k” hashtag to messages with examples of what $ 2,000 means to them.
The amount is roughly what a middle-class family of four would have to pay extra in taxes next year if Congress cannot strike a deal to remove the threat of roughly $ 600 billion in tax hikes and federal spending cuts.
The fast-paced social networking site known for its zippy 140-character comments is a tried-and-true method of reaching Americans. The latest call for such searchable references is an effort to pressure Congress into finding compromise on long-held partisan views.
Obama announced the new Twitter hashtag campaign at a news conference on Wednesday. He and fellow Democrats, who oppose significant cuts to U.S. “entitlement” programs such as Medicare as a way of balancing the budget, have been trying to break Republican opposition to hiking taxes on anyone, including the wealthy.
Promotions of “#my2k” quickly went out to millions of followers of the White House Twitter account and scores of Democratic backers, including former House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Soon, “my2k” was a top-trending subject.
“#My2K means food for a year, the remainder of my student loan paid off or a full month of child care. $ 2200 can make or break a family,” wrote Twitter user Katrina Burchett.
In the anarchic spirit of social media, Republicans, who also polished their Twitter hashtag skills during the bitter 2012 presidential campaign, pounced quickly.
The conservative Heritage Foundation bought the promotional tweet that pops up at the top of the list if one searches for “#my2k” mentions, where the think tank offered its own take on solutions to the fiscal cliff.
House Speaker John Boehner and scores of fellow Republican lawmakers started sharing examples they hoped would put the blame for the lack of a resolution on the Democrats.
“We in the House took steps this summer to avert #fiscalcliff and stop #my2K tax hikes,” wrote Representative Mike Turner. “It’s time for @whitehouse and @SenateDems to act.”
‘BEING AWARE OF WHAT’S GOING ON’
Users on Twitter can sign up to follow one another’s messages, making searchable hashtags a helpful way to sort by subject or theme.
Marcus Messner, who studies social media at Virginia Commonwealth University, said Twitter was a perfect environment to reignite Obama’s base swiftly and gauge public engagement on the issue.
The Obama administration has used Twitter hashtags as part of lobbying campaigns to keep student loan rates low with #dontdoublemyrate and to extend payroll tax cuts with #40dollars, which was their estimate of how much the cuts saved an average family each year.
White House Social Media Director Macon Phillips later called the $ 40dollars hashtag “one of the most significant campaigns we ran on Twitter.”
“It’s about being aware of what’s going on and understanding that in the age of social media, you’re just a participant,” he told an Entrepreneur.com blogger in February. “It’s not something that you can control.”
(Editing by Peter Cooney)
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LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – FX released its early 2013 premiere schedule Wednesday, including dates for the second season of Charlie Sheen‘s sitcom “Anger Management” and the fourth season of the Timothy Olyphant lawman drama “Justified.”
The premiere schedule kicks off with “Justified” on Tuesday, January 8 at 10 p.m. The season will find Olyphant’s character, U.S. Deputy Marshall Raylan Givens, picking up a 30-year-old cold case, unraveling a riddle that echoes all the way back to his boyhood and his criminal father’s bad dealings.
The premieres go into high gear on January 17, with the return of “Anger Management,” “Archer” and “Totally Biased W. Kamau Bell,” as well as the series premiere of the new offering “Legit.”
“Anger Management,” which received a 90-episode order after the success of its first season, will premiere with consecutive episodes at 9 and 9:30 p.m., with the animated series “Archer” premiering its fourth season at 10 p.m.
The new series “Legit,” which stars Jim Jeffries as a foul-mouthed Australian comedian struggling to legitimize his life and career in Los Angeles, will begin its 13-episode maiden season at 10 p.m., while “Totally Biased W. Kamau Bell,” which features comedian Bell riffing on politics, culture and other topics, will start a new cycle of episodes at 11 p.m.
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CHICAGO (AP) — Preventing surgery-linked infections is a major concern for hospitals and it turns out some simple measures can make a big difference.
A project at seven big hospitals reduced infections after colorectal surgeries by nearly one-third. It prevented an estimated 135 infections, saving almost $ 4 million, the Joint Commission hospital regulating group and the American College of Surgeons announced Wednesday. The two groups directed the 2 1/2-year project.
Solutions included having patients shower with special germ-fighting soap before surgery, and having surgery teams change gowns, gloves and instruments during operations to prevent spreading germs picked up during the procedures.
Some hospitals used special wound-protecting devices on surgery openings to keep intestine germs from reaching the skin.
The average rate of infections linked with colorectal operations at the seven hospitals dropped from about 16 percent of patients during a 10-month phase when hospitals started adopting changes to almost 11 percent once all the changes had been made.
Hospital stays for patients who got infections dropped from an average of 15 days to 13 days, which helped cut costs.
“The improvements translate into safer patient care,” said Dr. Mark Chassin, president of the Joint Commission. “Now it’s our job to spread these effective interventions to all hospitals.”
Almost 2 million health care-related infections occur each year nationwide; more than 90,000 of these are fatal.
Besides wanting to keep patients healthy, hospitals have a monetary incentive to prevent these infections. Medicare cuts payments to hospitals that have lots of certain health care-related infections, and those cuts are expected to increase under the new health care law.
The project involved surgeries for cancer and other colorectal problems. Infections linked with colorectal surgery are particularly common because intestinal tract bacteria are so abundant.
To succeed at reducing infection rates requires hospitals to commit to changing habits, “to really look in the mirror and identify these things,” said Dr. Clifford Ko of the American College of Surgeons.
The hospitals involved were Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles; Cleveland Clinic in Ohio; Mayo Clinic-Rochester Methodist Hospital in Rochester, Minn.; North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System in Great Neck, NY; Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago; OSF Saint Francis Medical Center in Peoria, Ill.; and Stanford Hospital & Clinics in Palo Alto, Calif.
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Online:
Joint Commission: http://www.jointcommission.org
American College of Surgeons: http://www.facs.org
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AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/LindseyTanner
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