AP IMPACT: Big Pharma cashes in on HGH abuse

A federal crackdown on illicit foreign supplies of human growth hormone has failed to stop rampant misuse, and instead has driven record sales of the drug by some of the world's biggest pharmaceutical companies, an Associated Press investigation shows.

The crackdown, which began in 2006, reduced the illegal flow of unregulated supplies from China, India and Mexico.

But since then, Big Pharma has been satisfying the steady desires of U.S. users and abusers, including many who take the drug in the false hope of delaying the effects of aging.

From 2005 to 2011, inflation-adjusted sales of HGH were up 69 percent, according to an AP analysis of pharmaceutical company data collected by the research firm IMS Health. Sales of the average prescription drug rose just 12 percent in that same period.

___

EDITOR'S NOTE — Whether for athletics or age, Americans from teenagers to baby boomers are trying to get an edge by illegally using anabolic steroids and human growth hormone, despite well-documented risks. This is the second of a two-part series.

___

Unlike other prescription drugs, HGH may be prescribed only for specific uses. U.S. sales are limited by law to treat a rare growth defect in children and a handful of uncommon conditions like short bowel syndrome or Prader-Willi syndrome, a congenital disease that causes reduced muscle tone and a lack of hormones in sex glands.

The AP analysis, supplemented by interviews with experts, shows too many sales and too many prescriptions for the number of people known to be suffering from those ailments. At least half of last year's sales likely went to patients not legally allowed to get the drug. And U.S. pharmacies processed nearly double the expected number of prescriptions.

Peddled as an elixir of life capable of turning middle-aged bodies into lean machines, HGH — a synthesized form of the growth hormone made naturally by the human pituitary gland — winds up in the eager hands of affluent, aging users who hope to slow or even reverse the aging process.

Experts say these folks don't need the drug, and may be harmed by it. The supposed fountain-of-youth medicine can cause enlargement of breast tissue, carpal tunnel syndrome and swelling of hands and feet. Ironically, it also can contribute to aging ailments like heart disease and Type 2 diabetes.

Others in the medical establishment also are taking a fat piece of the profits — doctors who fudge prescriptions, as well as pharmacists and distributors who are content to look the other way. HGH also is sold directly without prescriptions, as new-age snake oil, to patients at anti-aging clinics that operate more like automated drug mills.

Years of raids, sports scandals and media attention haven't stopped major drugmakers from selling a whopping $1.4 billion worth of HGH in the U.S. last year. That's more than industry-wide annual gross sales for penicillin or prescription allergy medicine. Anti-aging HGH regimens vary greatly, with a yearly cost typically ranging from $6,000 to $12,000 for three to six self-injections per week.

Across the U.S., the medication is often dispensed through prescriptions based on improper diagnoses, carefully crafted to exploit wiggle room in the law restricting use of HGH, the AP found.

HGH is often promoted on the Internet with the same kind of before-and-after photos found in miracle diet ads, along with wildly hyped claims of rapid muscle growth, loss of fat, greater vigor, and other exaggerated benefits to adults far beyond their physical prime. Sales also are driven by the personal endorsement of celebrities such as actress Suzanne Somers.

Pharmacies that once risked prosecution for using unauthorized, foreign HGH — improperly labeled as raw pharmaceutical ingredients and smuggled across the border — now simply dispense name brands, often for the same banned uses. And usually with impunity.

Eight companies have been granted permission to market HGH by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which reviews the benefits and risks of new drug products. By contrast, three companies are approved for the diabetes drug insulin.

The No. 1 maker, Roche subsidiary Genentech, had nearly $400 million in HGH sales in the U.S. last year, up an inflation-adjusted two-thirds from 2005. Pfizer and Eli Lilly were second and third with $300 million and $220 million in sales, respectively, according to IMS Health. Pfizer now gets more revenue from its HGH brand, Genotropin, than from Zoloft, its well-known depression medicine that lost patent protection.

On their face, the numbers make no sense to the recognized hormone doctors known as endocrinologists who provide legitimate HGH treatment to a small number of patients.

Endocrinologists estimate there are fewer than 45,000 U.S. patients who might legitimately take HGH. They would be expected to use roughly 180,000 prescriptions or refills each year, given that typical patients get three months' worth of HGH at a time, according to doctors and distributors.

Yet U.S. pharmacies last year supplied almost twice that much HGH — 340,000 orders — according to AP's analysis of IMS Health data.

While doctors say more than 90 percent of legitimate patients are children with stunted growth, 40 percent of 442 U.S. side-effect cases tied to HGH over the last year involved people age 18 or older, according to an AP analysis of FDA data. The average adult's age in those cases was 53, far beyond the prime age for sports. The oldest patients were in their 80s.

Some of these medical records even give explicit hints of use to combat aging, justifying treatment with reasons like fatigue, bone thinning and "off-label," which means treatment of an unapproved condition

Even Medicare, the government health program for older Americans, allowed 22,169 HGH prescriptions in 2010, a five-year increase of 78 percent, according to data released by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in response to an AP public records request.

"There's no question: a lot gets out," said hormone specialist Dr. Mark Molitch of Northwestern University, who helped write medical standards meant to limit HGH treatment to legitimate patients.

And those figures don't include HGH sold directly by doctors without prescriptions at scores of anti-aging medical practices and clinics around the country. Those numbers could only be tallied by drug makers, who have declined to say how many patients they supply and for what conditions.

First marketed in 1985 for children with stunted growth, HGH was soon misappropriated by adults intent on exploiting its modest muscle- and bone-building qualities. Congress limited HGH distribution to the handful of rare conditions in an extraordinary 1990 law, overriding the generally unrestricted right of doctors to prescribe medicines as they see fit.

Despite the law, illicit HGH spread around the sports world in the 1990s, making deep inroads into bodybuilding, college athletics, and professional leagues from baseball to cycling. The even larger banned market among older adults has flourished more recently.

FDA regulations ban the sale of HGH as an anti-aging drug. In fact, since 1990, prescribing it for things like weight loss and strength conditioning has been punishable by 5 to 10 years in prison.

Steve Kleppe, of Scottsdale, Ariz., a restaurant entrepreneur who has taken HGH for almost 15 years to keep feeling young, said he noticed a price jump of about 25 percent after the block on imports. He now buys HGH directly from a doctor at an annual cost of about $8,000 for himself and the same amount for his wife.

Many older patients go for HGH treatment to scores of anti-aging practices and clinics heavily concentrated in retirement states like Florida, Nevada, Arizona and California.

These sites are affiliated with hundreds of doctors who are rarely endocrinologists. Instead, many tout certification by the American Board of Anti-Aging and Regenerative Medicine, though the medical establishment does not recognize the group's bona fides.

The clinics offer personalized programs of "age management" to business executives, affluent retirees, and other patients of means, sometimes coupled with the amenities of a vacation resort. The operations insist there are few, if any, side effects from HGH. Mainstream medical authorities say otherwise.

A 2007 review of 31 medical studies showed swelling in half of HGH patients, with joint pain or diabetes in more than a fifth. A French study of about 7,000 people who took HGH as children found a 30 percent higher risk of death from causes like bone tumors and stroke, stirring a health advisory from U.S. authorities.

For proof that the drug works, marketers turn to images like the memorable one of pot-bellied septuagenarian Dr. Jeffry Life, supposedly transformed into a ripped hulk of himself by his own program available at the upscale Las Vegas-based Cenegenics Elite Health. (He declined to be interviewed.)

These promoters of HGH say there is a connection between the drop-off in growth hormone levels through adulthood and the physical decline that begins in late middle age. Replace the hormone, they say, and the aging process slows.

"It's an easy ruse. People equate hormones with youth," said Dr. Tom Perls, a leading industry critic who does aging research at Boston University. "It's a marketing dream come true."

___

Associated Press Writer David B. Caruso reported from New York and AP National Writer Jeff Donn reported from Plymouth, Mass. AP Writer Troy Thibodeaux provided data analysis assistance from New Orleans.

___

AP's interactive on the HGH investigation: http://hosted.ap.org/interactives/2012/hgh

___

The AP National Investigative Team can be reached at investigate(at)ap.org

EDITOR'S NOTE _ Whether for athletics or age, Americans from teenagers to baby boomers are trying to get an edge by illegally using anabolic steroids and human growth hormone, despite well-documented risks. This is the second of a two-part series.

Read More..

Wall Street slides as fiscal deal unlikely before 2013

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks tumbled more than 1 percent on Friday after a Republican proposal for averting the "fiscal cliff" failed to pass, diminishing hopes that a deal would be reached soon in Washington.

Trading was volatile as investors reckoned a fiscal agreement between the White House and Republicans before the end of the year was unlikely. Lower volume ahead of the Christmas and New Year holidays exaggerated market swings further, and the CBOE Volatility Index, or VIX, <.vix> was up 6.5 percent.

Late on Thursday, Republican House Speaker John Boehner failed to muster enough votes from his party to pass a tax bill, dubbed "Plan B," to avert the so-called fiscal cliff, $600 billion of tax hikes and spending cuts due to start in January. If U.S. lawmakers don't agree soon on a budget that avoids the cliff, the U.S. economy could tip into recession.

"The failure with Plan B was disappointing, if not terribly surprising, but now there's a real lack of clarity about what will happen and markets hate that," said Mike Hennessy, managing director of investments for Morgan Creek in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

The lack of support for Plan B, which called for tax increases on those who earn $1 million or more a year, suggested it would be difficult to get Republican support for the more expansive tax increases that President Barack Obama has urged. That, in turn, reduces the possibility of an agreement between the White House and Republicans before the end of the year.

Earlier on Friday, Boehner said congressional leaders and Obama must try to move on and work together.

While Friday's stock market slide reflected investors' anxiety, it wasn't a large enough drop to suggest they believed a deal would be reached too late to avoid damage to the economy, said Mark Lehmann, president of JMP Securities, in San Francisco.

"You could have easily woken up today and seen the market down 300 or 400 points, and everyone would have said, 'That's telling you this is really dire,'" Lehmann said.

"I think if you get into mid-January and (the talks) keep going like this, you get worried, but I don't think we're going to get there."

Banking shares, which outperform in times of economic expansion and have led the market on signs of progress with resolving the fiscal impasse, led declines. Citigroup Inc fell 1.8 percent to $39.44, while Bank of America slid 2.4 percent to $11.24. The KBW Banks index <.bkx> lost 1.4 percent.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> dropped 147.89 points, or 1.11 percent, to 13,163.83. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> fell 17.08 points, or 1.18 percent, to 1,426.61. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> lost 39.90 points, or 1.31 percent, to 3,010.49.

Even with the declines, the S&P 500 is up nearly 1 percent for the week and about 13 percent for the year, though uncertainty over the cliff may prompt many traders to lock in gains as the year draws to a close.

The day's round of data indicated the economy was surprisingly resilient in November; consumer spending rose by the most in three years and a gauge of business investment jumped.

But separate data showed consumer sentiment slumped in December. The S&P Retail Index <.spxrt> fell 1.3 percent.

U.S.-listed shares of Research in Motion sank 19.8 percent to $11.32 after the Canadian company, which makes the BlackBerry, reported its first-ever decline in its subscriber numbers on Thursday. A new fee structure for its high-margin services segment also concerned investors.

Herbalife dropped for an eighth day in a row. Investor Bill Ackman on Thursday ramped up his campaign against the company. Herbalife skidded 17.8 percent to $27.72 and has shed more than 35 percent this week.

(Additional reporting by Ryan Vlastelica; Editing by Bernadette Baum)

Read More..

Putin Defends Position on Syria and Chastises U.S. on Libya

MOSCOW — President Vladimir V. Putin on Thursday strongly defended Russia’s implacable opposition to military intervention in Syria and he sharply chastised the United States for its role in toppling Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi of Libya, describing that outcome as a mistake that created chaos and ultimately led to the death of Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens in Benghazi.

Mr. Putin, responding to a question at his annual end-of-year news conference, rejected an assertion that Russia was making a mistake, potentially isolating itself and at risk of losing influence in the Middle East, by opposing intervention in Syria, where the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad is now nearly two years old. Mr. Putin pointed to Libya as his evidence that intervention by the NATO alliance of Western nations had caused more harm than good.

“No matter how they explained their position, the state is falling apart,” he said. “Interethnic, inter-clan and intertribal conflicts continue. Moreover, it went as far as the murder of the United States ambassador.” He added, “I was asked here about mistakes: Isn’t it a mistake? And you want us to constantly repeat these mistakes in other countries?”

Mr. Putin insisted that Russia was not acting in defense of President Assad of Syria, but rather to preserve stability. “We are not concerned with the fate of Assad’s regime,” he said. “Of course, changes are being demanded but it’s something else that concerns – what will happen next?”

His remarks about Syria came as United Nations human rights investigators said in a new report that the Syria crisis had evolved from a battle to oust Mr. Assad into more of a sectarian conflict, pitting entire communities against each other and pulling in fighters from the Middle East and North Africa.

Mr. Putin expressed worry that the Assad government and the Syrian opposition could merely switch places, with the rebels in power but with the fighting unabated.

Later, elaborating on Russia’s position, he said: “We stand for finding a variation of a solution to the problem which would save the region and this country first from collapse and never-ending civil war.”

He continued, “Our position is not for the retention of Assad and his regime in power at any cost but that the people in the beginning would come to an agreement on how they would live in the future, how their safety and participation in ruling the state would be provided for, and then start changing the current state of affairs in accordance with these agreements, and not vice versa.”

Russia, a longtime ally of Syria, has used its veto authority as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, both to block more aggressive intervention sought by the United States and many other countries and to defend the sovereignty of the Assad government. But in recent days, the Kremlin has sounded increasingly pessimistic about Mr. Assad’s retention of power, and Russian officials have acknowledged developing contingency plans to evacuate Russia citizens from Syria. Thousands of Syrian men who attended universities in Russia and returned to live in Syria have Russian wives.

While the West has focused closely on any signs that Russia might alter its position on Syria, in the hopes that it might hasten the dislodging of Mr. Assad, it is far from certain that the Kremlin could persuade the Syrian leader to relinquish power.

Russia has been a major Syria arms supplier and trade partner with the Assad government and maintains a small naval refueling installation in the Syrian port of Tartus. But Mr. Putin on Thursday sought to portray the relationship as transactional. “Some special economic relations?” Mr. Putin asked rhetorically. “No. And Assad did not come to Moscow a lot during the period of his presidency. More often he was in Paris and other European capitals than here.”

In Geneva, an interim report on Syria by a panel of the United Nations Human Rights Council said that as the conflict approached the end of its second year, it “has become overtly sectarian in nature.”

The panel, led by Paulo Pinheiro, a veteran human rights investigator from Brazil, said attacks and reprisals had led communities to arm themselves and to be armed by different parties to the conflict. “Entire communities are at risk of being forced out of the country or killed inside the country,” the panel wrote in the report, which covered developments over the past two months.

“Feeling threatened and under attack, ethnic and religious minority groups have increasingly aligned themselves with parties to the conflict, deepening sectarian divides,” the panel said.

The sharpest split is between the ruling minority Alawite sect, a Shiite Muslim offshoot from which President Assad’s most senior political and military associates are drawn, and the country’s Sunni Muslim majority, mostly aligned with the opposition, the panel noted. But it said the conflict had drawn in other minorities, including Armenians, Christians, Druze, Palestinians, Kurds and Turkmens.

Most foreign fighters joining the conflict are Sunni Muslims from neighboring Middle Eastern and North African countries, many of them linked to extremist groups, the panel said, and often operating independently of the opposition Free Syrian Army but coordinating attacks with its forces.

Lebanon’s Shiite group Hezbollah confirmed that its members were fighting for the Assad government, the panel said, and it was investigating reports that Iraqi Shiites had also entered Syria. Iran has also confirmed that members of its Revolutionary Guards Corps are providing the Assad regime with “intellectual and advisory support.”

Making their fourth submission to the Human Rights Council, the panel of four investigators said government forces and supporting militias had attacked Sunni civilians and opposition forces had attacked Alawite and other pro-government communities. It said Kurdish groups had clashed with government and antigovernment forces, Turkmen militias were fighting with antigovernment forces, and Palestinians, increasingly split in their view of the Assad government, were being armed by both pro- and antigovernment forces.

“As the conflict drags on, the parties have become ever more violent and unpredictable, which has led to their conduct increasingly being in breach of international law,” the panel concluded.

David M. Herszenhorn reported from Moscow, and Nick Cumming-Bruce from Geneva. Rick Gladstone contributed reporting from New York.

Read More..

Britney Spears: The 3 Most 'Amazing' Things About My Year

By Marisa Laudadio

12/20/2012 at 01:45 PM EST

It was a very big year for Britney Spears, who's been named one of PEOPLE's 25 Most Intriguing People of 2012.

For starters, Forbes put the pop star at the top of its list of the top-earning female musicians (with $58 million), and her new single with will.i.am, "Scream & Shout," went to No. 1 in 17 countries.

She even took on Simon Cowell, along with the contestants – and any critics – as a judge on The X Factor.

After settling into the Fox reality show – whose two-hour finale airs Thursday night – she developed her own signature sound bite: "Amazing."

Now, Spears, 31, tells PEOPLE the top three things that made her 2012 "amazing."

1. Her career
"It's no secret I'm a shy person," Spears tells PEOPLE. "I feel doing this show over the past year has allowed me to come out of my shell a lot more. Everyone on the show has been amazing and made me feel really comfortable."

2. Her sons Preston, 7 and Jayden, 6
"It's really amazing to see how quickly my boys are growing up," she says. "It seems like yesterday I was reading books to them at night. Now I sit and listen to them read me books!"

3. Her fiancé Jason Trawick, 41
"It amazes me that no matter what situation I'm in," says Spears, "Jason has the ability to always make me feel protected and loved."

Read More..

Wall Street flat amid stalemate in fiscal talks

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks were little changed on Thursday as investors fretted that a deal on the U.S. budget wouldn't come as soon as they had hoped after President Barack Obama threatened to veto a controversial Republican plan.

NYSE Euronext was the star of the day, surging more than 30 percent as the S&P 500's top percentage gainer, after IntercontinentalExchange Inc said it would buy the operator of the New York Stock Exchange for $8.2 billion.

NYSE was up 32.8 percent at $31.95, while ICE shares vacillated between gains and losses. The stock was last down 0.8 percent at $127.22.

The market barely reacted to a round of strong data, including an upward revision of gross domestic product growth and stronger-than-expected home sales, suggesting talks to avert the "fiscal cliff," steep tax hikes and spending cuts due in 2013, remain the primary focus for markets.

Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives pushed ahead with their own fiscal plan in a move that muddles negotiations with the White House. Obama has vowed to veto the plan.

While investors have hoped for an agreement to come soon between policy makers, this seems unlikely as wrangling continues over the details.

"At least in the posturing it looks as if there are ultimatums put on the table, which tends to box either side in," said Quincy Krosby, market strategist at Prudential Financial in Newark, New Jersey.

Still, the absence of a significant sell-off shows "the market still believes that there will be an announcement of some sort. But as the clock is ticking, the most you're going to get is a stop-gap measure," said Krosby.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> edged down 3.77 points, or 0.03 percent, at 13,248.20. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> added 1.12 points, or 0.08 percent, to 1,436.93. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> slipped 3.58 points, or 0.12 percent, to 3,040.78.

Stocks rallied earlier in the week on signs of progress in the negotiations, led by banking and energy shares, which tend to outperform in times of economic expansion. On signs of complications, however, many have turned to hedging their bets through options and exchange-traded funds.

Herbalife fell 5.3 percent to $35.35 in the wake of news that hedge fund manager Bill Ackman was betting against the company as part of his big end-of-the-year short.

The U.S. economy grew 3.1 percent in the third quarter, faster than previously estimated, while the number of Americans filing new claims for jobless benefits rose more than expected in the latest week.

"It is great to see this kind of growth, but investors know it could all disappear if there's no deal on the cliff," said Todd Schoenberger, managing partner at LandColt Capital in New York. "Macro data may be on the back burner for a while."

Existing home sales jumped 5.9 percent in November, more than expected, and by the fastest monthly place in three years. Housing shares <.hgx> gained 0.4 percent.

But KB Home slid 5.5 percent to $15.75 as the company reported higher homebuilding costs and expenses in the fourth quarter.

(Additional reporting by Ryan Vlastelica; Editing by Bernadette Baum and Nick Zieminski)

Read More..

State Department Rebukes Israel Over Settlement Activity

The State Department accused Israel on Tuesday of engaging in a “pattern of provocative action” over the country’s plans to proceed with new settlement construction in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Victoria Nuland, a department spokeswoman, said settlement activity only put the goal of peace “further at risk” and urged both Israel and the Palestinians to halt all provocations and take steps to revive long-stalled peace talks.

Her remarks were a rare rebuke of a close ally, but the United States has grown increasingly frustrated with the Israelis, who continue to announce new settlement construction and take other measures seen as retaliation over a recent United Nations vote to upgrade Palestine’s status.

Separately on Tuesday, the British foreign secretary, William Hague, called all Israeli settlements “illegal under international law.”

He warned that the East Jerusalem project “would make a negotiated two-state solution, with Jerusalem as a shared capital, very difficult to achieve.”

The European Union, Israel’s biggest trading partner, has been increasingly vocal in its criticism of new settlements.

A string of European governments summoned their Israeli ambassadors to lodge protests after the Israeli settlement announcements.

Read More..

Shooting renews argument over video-game violence

WASHINGTON (AP) — In the days since the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., a shell-shocked nation has looked for reasons. The list of culprits include easy access to guns, a strained mental-health system and the “culture of violence” — the entertainment industry’s embrace of violence in movies, TV shows and, especially, video games.

“The violence in the entertainment culture — particularly, with the extraordinary realism to video games, movies now, et cetera — does cause vulnerable young men to be more violent,” Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., said.

“There might well be some direct connection between people who have some mental instability and when they go over the edge — they transport themselves, they become part of one of those video games,” said Gov. John Hickenlooper of Colorado, where 12 people were killed in a movie theater shooting in July.

White House adviser David Axelrod tweeted, “But shouldn’t we also quit marketing murder as a game?”

And Donald Trump weighed in, tweeting, “Video game violence & glorification must be stopped — it is creating monsters!”

There have been unconfirmed media reports that 20-year-old Newtown shooter Adam Lanza enjoyed a range of video games, from the bloody “Call of Duty” series to the innocuous “Dance Dance Revolution.” But the same could be said for about 80 percent of Americans in Lanza’s age group, according to the Pew Internet and American Life Project. Law enforcement officials haven’t made any connection between Lanza’s possible motives and his interest in games.

The video game industry has been mostly silent since Friday’s attack, in which 20 children and six adults were killed. The Entertainment Software Association, which represents game publishers in Washington, has yet to respond to politicians’ criticisms. Hal Halpin, president of the nonprofit Entertainment Consumers Association, said, “I’d simply and respectfully point to the lack of evidence to support any causal link.”

It’s unlikely that lawmakers will pursue legislation to regulate the sales of video games; such efforts were rejected again and again in a series of court cases over the last decade. Indeed, the industry seemed to have moved beyond the entire issue last year, when the Supreme Court revoked a California law criminalizing the sale of violent games to minors.

The Supreme Court decision focused on First Amendment concerns; in the majority opinion, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote that games “are as much entitled to the protection of free speech as the best of literature.” Scalia also agreed with the ESA’s argument that researchers haven’t established a link between media violence and real-life violence. “Psychological studies purporting to show a connection between exposure to violent video games and harmful effects on children do not prove that such exposure causes minors to act aggressively,” Scalia wrote.

Still, that doesn’t make games impervious to criticism, or even some soul-searching within the gaming community. At this year’s E3 — the Electronic Entertainment Expo, the industry’s largest U.S. gathering — some attendees were stunned by the intensity of violence on display. A demo for Sony’s “The Last of Us” ended with a villain taking a shotgun blast to the face. A scene from Ubisoft’s “Splinter Cell: Blacklist” showed the hero torturing an enemy. A trailer for Square Enix’s “Hitman: Absolution” showed the protagonist slaughtering a team of lingerie-clad assassins disguised as nuns.

“The ultraviolence has to stop,” designer Warren Spector told the GamesIndustry website after E3. “I do believe that we are fetishizing violence, and now in some cases actually combining it with an adolescent approach to sexuality. I just think it’s in bad taste. Ultimately I think it will cause us trouble.”

“The violence of these games can be off-putting,” Brian Crecente, news editor for the gaming website Polygon, said Monday. “The video-game industry is wrestling with the same issues as movies and TV. There’s this tension between violent games that sell really well and games like ‘Journey,’ a beautiful, artistic creation that was well received by critics but didn’t sell much.”

During November, typically the peak month for pre-holiday game releases, the two best sellers were the military shooters “Call of Duty: Black Ops II,” from Activision, and “Halo 4,” from Microsoft. But even with the dominance of the genre, Crecente said, “There has been a feeling that some of the sameness of war games is grating on people.”

Critic John Peter Grant said, “I’ve also sensed a growing degree of fatigue with ultra-violent games, but not necessarily because of the violence per se.”

The problem, Grant said, “is that violence as a mechanic gets old really fast. Games are amazing possibility spaces! And if the chief way I can interact with them is by destroying and killing? That seems like such a waste of potential.”

There are some hints of a sneaking self-awareness creeping into the gaming community. One gamer — Antwand Pearman, editor of the website GamerFitNation — has called for other players to join in a “Day of Cease-Fire for Online Shooters” this Friday, one week after the massacre.

“We are simply making a statement,” Pearman said, “that we as gamers are not going to sit back and ignore the lives that were lost.”

Gaming News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Title Post: Shooting renews argument over video-game violence
Rating:
100%

based on 99998 ratings.
5 user reviews.
Author: Fluser SeoLink
Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment

Read More..

It's a Boy for James Marsden

Mom & Babies
Celebrity Baby Blog

12/19/2012 at 01:30 PM ET

Christopher Polk/Getty; Courtesy Rose Costa

James Marsden is a father for the third time.

Brazilian model Rose Costa delivered a son, William Luca Costa-Marsden, on Friday, Dec. 14 in Los Angeles, PEOPLE has learned.

The 30 Rock star, who briefly dated Costa after his split from wife Lisa Linde in 2011, picked the name and is being very supportive, a source tells PEOPLE.

Marsden, 39, is already dad to daughter Mary James, 7, and son Jack Holden, 11, with Linde.

A rep for the actor could not be reached for comment.

– Sarah Michaud with reporting by Lesley Messer

Read More..

Experts: Kids are resilient in coping with trauma

WASHINGTON (AP) — They might not want to talk about the gunshots or the screams. But their toys might start getting into imaginary shootouts.

Last week's school shooting in Connecticut raises the question: What will be the psychological fallout for the children who survived?

For people of any age, regaining a sense of security after surviving violence can take a long time. They're at risk for lingering anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder.

But after the grief and fear fades, psychiatrists say most of Newtown's young survivors probably will cope without long-term emotional problems.

"Kids do tend to be highly resilient," said Dr. Matthew Biel, chief of child and adolescent psychiatry at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital.

And one way that younger children try to make sense of trauma is through play. Youngsters may pull out action figures or stuffed animals and re-enact what they witnessed, perhaps multiple times.

"That's the way they gain mastery over a situation that's overwhelming," Biel explained, saying it becomes a concern only if the child is clearly distressed while playing.

Nor is it unusual for children to chase each other playing cops-and-robbers, but now parents might see some also pretending they're dead, added Dr. Melissa Brymer of the UCLA-Duke National Center for Child Traumatic Stress.

Among the challenges will be spotting which children are struggling enough that they may need professional help.

Newtown's tragedy is particularly heart-wrenching because of what such young children grappled with — like the six first-graders who apparently had to run past their teacher's body to escape to safety.

There's little scientific research specifically on PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder, in children exposed to a burst of violence, and even less to tell if a younger child will have a harder time healing than an older one.

Overall, scientists say studies of natural disasters and wars suggest most children eventually recover from traumatic experiences while a smaller proportion develop long-term disorders such as PTSD. Brymer says in her studies of school shootings, that fraction can range from 10 percent to a quarter of survivors, depending on what they actually experienced. A broader 2007 study found 13 percent of U.S. children exposed to different types of trauma reported some symptoms of PTSD, although less than 1 percent had enough for an official diagnosis.

Violence isn't all that rare in childhood. In many parts of the world — and in inner-city neighborhoods in the U.S., too — children witness it repeatedly. They don't become inured to it, Biel said, and more exposure means a greater chance of lasting psychological harm.

In Newtown, most at risk for longer-term problems are those who saw someone killed, said Dr. Carol North of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, who has researched survivors of mass shootings.

Friday's shootings were mostly in two classrooms of Sandy Hook Elementary School, which has about 450 students through fourth-grade.

But those who weren't as close to the danger may be at extra risk, too, if this wasn't their first trauma or they already had problems such as anxiety disorders that increase their vulnerability, she said.

Right after a traumatic event, it's normal to have nightmares or trouble sleeping, to stick close to loved ones, and to be nervous or moody, Biel said.

To help, parents will have to follow their child's lead. Grilling a child about a traumatic experience isn't good, he stressed. Some children will ask a lot of questions, seeking reassurance, he said. Others will be quiet, thinking about the experience and maybe drawing or writing about it, or acting it out at playtime. Younger children may regress, becoming clingy or having tantrums.

Before second grade, their brains also are at a developmental stage some refer to as magical thinking, when it's difficult to distinguish reality and fantasy. Parents may have to help them understand that a friend who died isn't in pain or lonely but also isn't coming back, Brymer said.

When problem behaviors or signs of distress continue for several weeks, Brymer says it's time for an evaluation by a counselor or pediatrician.

Besides a supportive family, what helps? North advises getting children back into routines, together with their friends, and easing them back into a school setting. Studies of survivors of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks found "the power of the support of the people who went through it with you is huge," she said.

Children as young as first-graders can benefit from cognitive-behavioral therapy, Georgetown's Biel said. They can calm themselves with breathing techniques. They also can learn to identify and label their feelings — anger, frustration, worry — and how to balance, say, a worried thought with a brave one.

Finally, avoid watching TV coverage of the shooting, as children may think it's happening all over again, Biel added. He found that children who watched the 9/11 clips of planes hitting the World Trade Center thought they were seeing dozens of separate attacks.

___

EDITOR'S NOTE — Lauran Neergaard covers health and medical issues for The Associated Press in Washington.

Read More..

Wall Street trades flat after two-day rally, GM jumps

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks barely budged on Wednesday as stalled "fiscal cliff" negotiations gave investors little reason to keep buying following the best two-day rally for the S&P 500 in a month.

General Motors bucked the overall weakness to surge 8 percent after the company said it will buy back 200 million of its shares from the U.S. Treasury, which plans to sell the rest of its GM stake over the next 15 months. GM shot up 8 percent to $27.52.

Talks on avoiding the tax hikes and spending cuts that are set to come into effect in the new year are at a standstill amid a Republican plan to vote on extending tax cuts for all but those making $1 million or more, senior administration officials said.

President Barack Obama said he is still optimistic a deal is possible and that he would like to get it done before Christmas.

Investors are concerned that the fiscal cliff could send the U.S. economy back into recession, though most expect an agreement will be reached eventually.

Investors are positioning for a possible retreat once a deal is announced as market participants may choose to sell on the news after the recent run-up, said Alan Lancz, president of Alan B. Lancz & Associates Inc, in Toledo, Ohio.

If expectations of a deal start to buoy the market, "we'd be more inclined to take profits than chase these valuations now," Lancz said.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> slipped 14.45 points, or 0.11 percent, to 13,336.51. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> shed 3.06 points, or 0.21 percent, to 1,443.73. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> added 1.75 points, or 0.06 percent, to 3,056.28.

Markets have been lifted in recent weeks by any signs that an agreement between policymakers over the budget may be reached, with banks and energy shares - groups that outperform during periods of economic expansion - leading gains.

The S&P 500 added 2.3 percent over the past two sessions, the first time it has marked two straight days of 1 percent gains since late July. Still, trading has been light ahead of the holidays, and with investors' focus on the budget talks.

Defensive sectors led the downside on Wednesday, with the S&P utilities sector index <.gspu> slipping 0.5 percent.

Gains in technology shares boosted the Nasdaq after Oracle reported earnings that beat expectations on strong software sales growth. Oracle jumped 4 percent to $34.19, while the S&P tech sector index <.gspt> was up 0.1 percent.

Knight Capital Group Inc climbed 5.7 percent to $3.52 after it agreed to be bought by Getco Holdings in a deal valued at $1.4 billion. The stock, which nearly collapsed after a trading error in August, remains down about 70 percent so far this year.

An index of housing stocks gained 0.2 percent after data showed homebuilding permits touched their highest level in nearly 4-1/2 years in November. The PHLX housing index <.hgx> has surged nearly 70 percent this year as the housing market has turned the corner.

(Additional reporting by Ryan Vlastelica; Editing by Jan Paschal)

Read More..