truesee's Blog

Aspirin does more harm than good in healthy people: research

Healthy people who take aspirin to prevent a heart attack are doing themselves more harm than good, researchers have said.

At the same time they found it almost doubles the risk of being admitted to hospital due to internal bleeding.

The findings show that for otherwise healthy people the risks of taking aspirin outweigh the benefits. The doctors stressed that patients who had already suffered a heart attack should continue to take the drug.

It has been suggested that aspirin could be included in a so-called 'polypill' with an anti-cholesterol statin and a blood pressure drug which could be taken by everyone aged over 50.

Experts said substantial numbers of 'worried well' take aspirin as a 'just in case' measure believing that because it has been around for such a long time it is completely safe.

The results of a study carried out in Scotland and presented at the European Society of Cardiology Congress in Barcelona has added to the growing evidence that the risks outweigh the benefits for healthy people.

Prof Gerry Fowkes of the Wolfson Unit for Prevention of Peripheral Vascular Disease in Edinburgh, said: “Our research suggests that aspirin should not be prescribed to the general population at this stage.

“Aspirin probably leads to a minor reduction in future events but the problem is that has to be weighed against an increase in bleeding. Some of that bleeding can be quite serious and lead to death.”

Prof Peter Weissberg, Medical Director of the British Heart Foundation, which part-funded the study, said: "A lot of the worried well buy a small dose of aspirin over the counter not understanding that they are increasing their risk substantially of a major bleed."

He said it is known that aspirin does reduce the risk of cardiovascular problems but this must be countered against the increased risk of internal bleeding.

In patients who have already had a heart attack the risk of a second is so much higher that the balance is in favour of taking aspirin.

However, for people who have not had a heart attack the risks do not normally outweigh the benefits.

Prof Weissberg added: "If you have not got clear cut vascular disease that has caused an event while it does reduce the risk (of a heart attack or stroke) that benefit is offset by a worse risk of haemorrhage and potentially fatal haemorrhage."

In the study conducted in Scotland 29,000 men and women aged between 50 and 75 were screened to see if they had furred arteries in the legs, which means they are at high risk of developing heart disease but do not yet have symptoms.

More than 3,000 men were randomly assigned to receive a daily dose of aspirin or a dummy pill and were followed up for an average of eight years.

There was no difference in the rate of heart attacks or stroke between the two groups and deaths from any cause were similar.

However there were 34 major bleeds in people taking aspirin, or two per cent, compared with 20 or 1.2 per cent of those on the placebo.

He said the tablets were only taken 60 per cent of the time during the trial which reflects real life experience in people who have not had a heart attack.

He said in secondary prevention, where people have already had one attack and are trying to prevent a second one, compliance is usually better.

Earlier this year Oxford scientists found that although aspirin could cut the chances of a heart attack in patients who had never suffered one by a fifth, it also increased the risk of stomach bleeding by a third.

Nick Henderson Executive Director of the Aspirin Foundation said: "Aspirin use to prevent primary cardiovascular events is only appropriate where individual patients are considered by their doctor to be at special risk from particular factors such as obesity, lifestyle, stress and a familial history.

"The Aspirin Foundation continues to counsel individuals always to seek medical advice before embarking on a self medication prophylactic regime with Aspirin for whatever reason.

"Medical advocates of prophylactic Aspirin in the absence of previous cardiovascular events accept that potential benefits should be weighed against potential risks such as the bleeding demonstrated in the study by Professor Fowkes."

Rebecca Smith

Daily Telegraph

Medical Editor in Barcelona
10:00PM BST 30 Aug 2009

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/08/30/TREF19AT3N.DTL

Man gets 15 years for biting off finger

A 30-year-old Staten Island man was sentenced yesterday to 15 years in prison for biting off the finger of an Atlantic City police officer and assaulting two other officers attempting to subdue him at a casino nightclub.

Superior Court Judge Bernard DeLury sentenced Rafael Pichardo to seven years in prison for the biting incident and another eight years for the two assaults, Atlantic County Prosecutor Ted Housel said.

Pichardo was convicted May 1 on three counts of aggravated assault from the Feb. 11, 2007, altercation at the Casbah nightclub in the Trump Taj Mahal Casino.

During the incident, he bit off nearly half of Officer Dean Dooley's left index finger, which could not be reattached.

The jury also found him guilty of spitting at officer Patrick Yarrow and Lt. Christopher Applegate in addition to resisting arrest, obstruction and terroristic threats.

The officers were summoned to the club around 5 a.m. to subdue an unruly patron. Housel said Pichardo became combative as Dooley and Applegate escorted him from the bar.

Applegate, who spoke on behalf of the other officers who did not attend yesterday's sentencing, said the incident prompted him to retire.

"It is open season on our police officers,'' Applegate said. "There needs to be a deterrent. Respect for officers has gone out the window.''

Before imposing sentence, DeLury told Pichardo he was to blame for his own actions.

"There were plenty of poor choices made that night at

the Casbah, and they were all made by Mr. Pichardo,'' DeLury said.

Pichardo in October attempted to file aggravated assault charges against the officers.

He alleged they attacked him after he made an obscene gesture to them at the nightclub and then beat him after he was taken to the police station.

The claims were dismissed after an investigation by the prosecutor's official corruption unit determined they were unsupported by the facts of the case.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2Ycy4_uKw8

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/6110742/Chicken-dance-teacher-Youtube-clip-promps-warnings-of-new-technology-in-classrooms.htm

http://www.livescience.com/strangenews/top5_haunted_places.html

Burglar hits home again while police are present

TV left behind, then stolen again as police investigate

Travis Griggs

August 29, 2009

Steve Fluegge was shocked when he walked downstairs in his North Hill home about 6 a.m. Friday and came face to face with a burglar in his living room.

But he was even more shocked when, less than three hours later, the burglar returned and swiped a television he left in the backyard — while a police investigator was still on the scene.

"While they were inside processing the scene, the thieves came back and took it," Fluegge said.

"They were all very embarrassed," said Fluegge, 57.

Fluegge said he discovered the burglar inside his home in the 1400 block of North Spring Street shortly after waking up Friday morning.

"I said, 'What the hell are you doing in my house?' " Fluegge said.

The man ran from the house and fled across the backyard, disappearing into the early morning fog.

"We called the police and they were here within just a minute or so. There were policemen all over the place," Fluegge said.

Pensacola Police Department Capt. Jay Worley said several police units canvassed the neighborhood looking for the suspect, even using a K-9 to track the man's scent. But after looking for more than an hour, they gave up the search.

The burglar made off with several items, including Fluegge's wallet, a watch and a Nintendo 64 video game system. But he left one of the biggest items — the Fluegges' 42-inch plasma television — sitting near a fence in their backyard.

"It's a big, heavy TV. It probably weighed close to 100 pounds. You're not going to carry that thing a mile or two down the road," Fluegge said.

A crime scene technician arrived on the scene about 8 a.m.

Worley said the technician didn't want to move the TV before he dusted it for fingerprints, but he couldn't dust it immediately because it was damp with dew. He covered it with a plastic tarp and left it in the backyard to dry while he worked inside the house.

But when the technician returned about 45 minutes later, the tarp had been tossed aside, and the TV was gone.

"It looks bad and everything, but there's no way it could have been foreseen that someone would come back and do that," Worley said.

"We're doing everything we can to locate the suspect and not mess up the evidence. ... We had no reason to believe the TV would be stolen again," Worley said.

Worley said Friday afternoon that police were still searching for the man, and they hope that crime scene processing from inside the home will link them to a suspect.

Fluegge said the Pensacola Police Department offered to pay for the stolen TV, which cost about $1,000, and overall, he's in fairly good spirits about the ordeal.

He said he and his wife, Bridget, have lived in the home for 15 years, and it never had been broken into before. The couple said they're still shocked at the brazenness of the thief, who came back even though a crime scene van was parked out front.

Bridget Fluegge describes how a robber came back and stole their TV while the police were investigating the break-in at their North Hill Home. The TV was by the fence and part of a crime scene when the thief came back to get the 42-inch flat-screen TV while the police were inside the home.

Fort Lauderdale police lure suspects with fake stimulus cash offer

DAVID SMILEY

Miami Herald

8/26/09

Granny get your (stun) gun

Date goes from bad to worse

Friday, August 28, 2009

Michael P. McConnell
Daily Tribune Staff Writer

Police say man skipped out on restaurant bill, stole woman's car.

FERNDALE — A first date went from bad to worse when police say a man not only skipped out on a restaurant bill but stole his new girlfriend's car while she was still seated at the table.

A Detroit man faces trial on charges he stole his date's car after they ate and he asked her for her keys so he could get his wallet out of her vehicle.

"She gave him her keys and he went out the door," said Ferndale police Detective Sgt. Patrick Jones. "From where she was sitting she saw him get in her car and he drove off at a high rate of speed."

The woman called police from the restaurant.

Terrance Dejuan McCoy, 23, is charged with unlawfully driving away the woman's 2000 Chevrolet Impala, a five-year felony. He waived a preliminary examination Thursday in Ferndale 43rd District Court and was ordered to stand trial on the charge in Oakland County Circuit Court.

Police said McCoy stole the car April 24 shortly after he and the woman, 27, of Southfield ate at the Buffalo Wild Wings restaurant, 280 W. Nine Mile Road.

"It sounds like a bad date to me," Jones said. "She picked him up that night at his apartment, then he stole her car and didn't even settle up the bill for dinner."

The woman told police she also had a backpack with $300 cash inside the car, along with a laptop computer, iPod and a digital camera.

The stolen car turned up May 5 in Detroit with the radio missing.

The woman told police she met McCoy a week before she saw him drive away in her car. They first met at the Greektown Casino and she knew McCoy only as "Chris," police said.

They talked on their cell phones several times and McCoy sent her a picture of himself that she kept on her cell phone, police said.

The woman called Ferndale police immediately from the restaurant, but officers were unable to locate the woman's car, police said.

"We were able to identify him because she had a picture of him and we had his cell phone number," Jones said.

McCoy was later arrested and Ferndale police picked him up at the Wayne County Jail on July 28.

The suspect has two previous convictions for unarmed robbery in 2005 and was wanted for absconding from probation in Farmington Hills, Jones said.

He is jailed on $25,000 cash bond.

Police: Robber left traffic ticket

 Aug. 27, 2009 at 3:46 PM

Sgt. Barry VanNostrand said Ponder was given an undisclosed amount of cash, which he dropped along with the note while leaving. The suspect allegedly retrieved most of the cash, but left behind the traffic ticket.

Investigators said the ticket bore Ponder's name and address. He was arrested Tuesday in Rochester and charged with felony charges of third-degree robbery and fourth-degree grand larceny.

Wheelchair-bound man keyed car because it was parked in handicapped spot

Will Greenlee

TC Palm
Thursday, August 27, 2009

PORT ST. LUCIE — A 71-year-old man with no legs is accused of scratching a Nissan parked in a handicapped space at a Walmart SuperCenter, apparently thinking the Nissan driver was abusing the parking privilege, according to a police spokesman and a report released Thursday.

The 39-year-old victim on Wednesday told an employee at the Walmart on South U.S. 1 that she was picking up her handicapped mother. She was gone for about 30 minutes, and reportedly noticed someone had keyed the driver's side of the 2009 Nissan Altima.

A check of the surveillance system reportedly showed a legless man in a motorized wheel chair come out of a white van.

The man “powered his wheel chair across the parking lot to where (the victim's) car was parked . . . and came from the front to the rear of the driver's side,” a report shows.

Stopped while exiting the store, Keith Brian Berry, 71, apologized for the “most stupidest thing” he's ever done. He said “people always abuse the handicapped parking when they are not handicapped.”

Berry apologized to the victim, saying he didn't think of the possibility her mother could be handicapped. The Nissan had a handicapped decal hanging from the rear-view mirror.

Berry, of the 3400 block of Bromeliad Court, was issued a notice to appear in court Sept. 23 on a criminal mischief charge. Berry was told he could be arrested for trespassing if he returns to Walmart.

Man could be East Peoria's 'dumbest criminal

After allegedly trying to steal car, suspect shows up at police department

Leslie Williams

The woman then gave the would-be thief the bad news: The car was hers, and she had called police. She then told him to get out of the car and follow her, police said.

"Believe it or not, he started to follow her, but had a change of heart," Papis said. "He ran toward the expressway, jumped the fence behind Fashion Bug and was out of sight."

For almost an hour, a swarm of police, including Fondulac Park District officers and an Illinois State Police dog unit, combed East Peoria's riverfront for Robinson. With help from the victim, police knew who to look for: A black man in his 20s, of average height and weight, wearing a red, white and black jersey, black gloves and jeans.

Even with the great physical and clothing descriptions given to police, officers were unsuccessful in finding him.

But it wasn't Robinson's clothes that eventually helped police nab him. It was the large, abnormal growth hanging from his left ear lobe and patch of black hair on his chin.

After the search for Robinson concluded, Papis returned to the police department to finish paperwork. Not long after he sat down, he heard the dispatcher across the radio call several officers to the lobby of the police station.

To Papis' surprise, Robinson showed up at the police station lobby with a story how he needed money for a bus ticket to Bloomington. He had changed out of his clothes and was wearing a white polo shirt and tan shorts.

"The dispatcher recognized from the descriptors that this may be the suspect we were looking for," said Papis, adding the walnut-size mass on his ear was the tip-off. "I went out to the lobby, recognized that this individual was possibly our suspect and invited him into my office."

With him, Robinson carried two bags, clutched in his hands, into the chief's office.

It was after officers arrived, and as they emptied the contents of the bags, that what the dispatcher and Papis had suspected about the man turned out to be true.

"In his bags was the wet jersey, wet tennis shoes, the blue jeans, gloves, two screwdrivers, one needle-nose pliers and pen light," said Papis, noting the clothes were damp from sweat.

Also found were four pieces of computer paper, detailing step-by-step instructions of three different ways to break into and hot-wire a car.

Stated boldly across one of the papers was the recommendation, "Try this at night." It was advice Robinson didn't follow and Papis didn't let him forget.

"I chided him," said the chief. "I told him he didn't follow the instructions correctly. If he had, he might not have been seen and got away. Technically, he did get away, but if he had done it at night we may not have had all these descriptors and a witness."

Robinson, 20, of St. Louis was arrested on charges of attempted vehicle theft, criminal damage to property and criminal trespass to vehicle. He was taken to the Tazewell County Jail, where he was released without bond but ordered to be in court Sept. 17.

While criminals get caught every day, this arrest, Papis said, was one for the record books.

"The dispatchers and the officers had quite a few good laughs over the scenario," Papis said. "This has to rate as a segment (on the TV series) 'America's Dumbest Criminals.'"

                                                            Billy Robinson

Man called 911 for lost keys

Published: Aug. 27, 2009 at 3:28 PM