New Cancer Drug Shows Fewer Side Effects

A newer drug prevents breast cancer in older, high-risk women just as well as today's standby tamoxifen — but with fewer side effects, the National Cancer Institute announced Monday.

Called raloxifene, the newer drug already is sold to treat bone-thinning osteoporosis.

But the striking new results, from a government study of nearly 20,000 women, suggest that raloxifene may supplant its older cousin as the first choice for breast cancer prevention in postmenopausal women at high risk of developing the disease.

"Now women have a choice," Dr. Leslie Ford, NCI's cancer prevention chief, said in an interview Monday. "It's good news, because we're giving you a choice with fewer side effects."

Manufacturer Eli Lilly & Co., which sells raloxifene under the brand name Evista, plans to seek Food and Drug Administration approval for the new use.

Until now, tamoxifen has been the only drug approved to reduce the chances of breast cancer striking high-risk women.

Both drugs are "selective estrogen response modulators" — they act like the estrogen hormone in some tissues but like an anti-estrogen in others.

Estrogen can fuel certain breast cancers, making tamoxifen a longtime top choice both to prevent the disease's return in women with estrogen-sensitive tumors and to reduce the odds of it striking high-risk women in the first place.

However, tamoxifen causes some rare but serious side effects: It acts like an estrogen in the uterus and bloodstream, thus increasing users' risk of getting uterine cancer or a life-threatening blood clot.

Raloxifene is a close chemical relative, and earlier research suggested that it might help breast cancer, too. So the NCI launched the $88 million study to compare the two.

Taking either tamoxifen or raloxifene daily for up to five years cut in half women's chances of developing invasive breast cancer, NCI announced Monday.

Raloxifene caused the same side effects, but not as many. Raloxifene users had 36 percent fewer uterine cancers and 29 percent fewer blood clots, according to initial results of the "Study of Tamoxifen and Raloxifene," or STAR project. Raloxifene users also suffered fewer vision-blocking cataracts.

Some 2 million U.S. women every year are thought to be candidates for tamoxifen risk-reduction therapy, but many have avoided it for fear of those side effects, said STAR researcher Dr. Kathy Albain of Loyola University.

While the reduction in those side effects was significant, the study also showed how uncommon the effects are. Thirty-six tamoxifen users developed uterine cancers, compared with 23 raloxifene users. The risk of blood clots was similarly low: 54 tamoxifen users had one in the lung, compared with 35 raloxifene users.

Still, "here we have something that's a little less scary," Albain said of the raloxifene findings. "It might tip the scales for a lot of women."

The new study means no change for premenopausal women — there's no data showing whether raloxifene is safe for them, Albain stressed.

Nor does it mean that tamoxifen users should necessarily switch, she said. Women currently are prescribed tamoxifen for five years, and its breast cancer prevention benefit continues even after they stop taking the drug — as raloxifene's seems to. So a woman already in, say, year four of her tamoxifen course with no sign of side effects probably has little to gain by switching, she explained.

But that's a question researchers were girding for as they spent Monday notifying study participants of the results.

One puzzle: While raloxifene was equally effective in blocking invasive breast cancer, it didn't protect quite as well as tamoxifen against noninvasive types of breast cancer such as ductal carcinoma in situ, noted Dr. Len Lichtenfeld of the American Cancer Society.

That type of tumor isn't life-threatening and shouldn't water down the overall message of raloxifene's benefit, said Dr. Victor Vogel of the University of Pittsburgh, who oversaw the study's design.

Among postmenopausal women, who's at high risk? Most of the study participants had a 4 percent chance of getting breast cancer within five years — because of advanced age, a close relative with the disease, never having a child or having one late in life, or other well-known risk factors that women can calculate on a government Web site: http://cancer.gov/bcrisktool.

In simpler terms, for every 1,000 of those women, doctors expected 40 to develop breast cancer within five years if they did nothing, but taking one of the drugs cut that number to 20, Ford explained.

By LAURAN NEERGAARD, AP Medical Writer
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060417/ap_on_he_me/breast_cancer_drug_5

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Charm, empathy may not be enough

WASHINGTON -- The public's anger over Iraq has pushed George W. Bush to the low point of his presidency, so he tried to confront the problem this week with a dose of charm and a simple message: I get it.

Bush used a pair of lively question-and-answer sessions to mix predictions of victory with a new tone of realism about the cost, hoping to convince voters that he sees what they see on TV, and he knows why they're upset.

"Nobody likes war," Bush said yesterday at a White House news conference. "War creates trauma. ... It creates a sense of concern amongst our people. And that makes sense, and I know that."

Make no mistake, Bush isn't changing course or coming home. In fact, he said yesterday that he expects U.S. troops to be in Iraq after he leaves office in 2009.

And it's not clear yet that this new appeal for patience will work, especially with Iraq teetering on civil war and congressional Republicans already nervous about Iraq ahead of this fall's elections.

Bush relied on post-9/11 emotion to carry the day for Republicans in 2002 and 2004, along with voters' sense that he was a strong and trustworthy leader.

But Bush is no longer viewed that way by most voters, so he finds himself trying to win the case on Iraq almost purely on the merits - at a time when good news there is hard to see.

In addition, the polls suggest that voters have formed a gut sense that Iraq is slipping away - 80 percent, for instance, believe there will be a civil war - and Bush may not have the credibility with voters to convince them otherwise, analysts said.

"People are looking for improvements there, and that's not something he has great control over, the day-to-day situation in terms of car bombs and sectarian violence," said Carroll Doherty of the Pew Research Center.

Yet one of George Bush's biggest assets has always been George Bush, the plain-spoken Texan fixin' to get after the terrorists. His political persona, particularly in 2004, boiled down to: You might not agree with everything he does, but you've got to admire that he knows what he thinks and isn't afraid to act.

That folksier George Bush hasn't been around much lately, and the White House seemed intent this week on reintroducing him to the public, having him interact with a crowd in Cleveland on Monday and with reporters at the White House yesterday.

With both, he was by turns forceful and playful, yesterday fixing a steely glare to cut off one reporter's follow-up, then joking that another fell asleep at his speech the day before.

But it's not clear, either, whether that old charm still holds. For some voters, Bush's can-do leadership seems to have gone awry in Iraq and on the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina. Some feel his plain talk just isn't the same since no weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq, making stick-with-me appeals like yesterday's more difficult.

"They have to deal with some pretty decent sales resistance" from the public, said Jack Pitney, a government professor at Claremont McKenna College.

Pitney praised the White House's efforts to get Bush out in front of not-so-friendly crowds, in part to shake the image of Bush-in-the-bubble, isolated from conflicting views and opposing opinion.

But Pitney agreed Bush has a big task ahead. "Given the intelligence failures on the eve of the war, a lot of Americans are just skeptical of what the government says about Iraq," he said.

BY CRAIG GORDON Newsday Washington Bureau
http://www.newsday.com/news/yahoo/ny-usbush224671236mar22,0,75790.story?coll=ny-newsaol-headlines

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NYPD to Install 500 Wireless Cameras

The New York Police Department has begun installing wireless cameras across New York City in a bid to curb violence in the city and also fight terrorism. By the project's completion, nearly 500 cameras will be installed at a cost of nearly $9 million.

The initiative is modeled after a similar one in London that is used to watch the city's financial district. New York City hopes to install hundreds more, however it is awaiting on $81.5 million worth of requested funds to be provided through grants from the federal government.

While the NYPD sees the money as a wise investment, privacy advocates have criticized the move. They say there is no guarantee that the cameras wouldn't be used for racial profiling or voyeurism, as not enough studies have been done on the plan -- a charge the NYPD denies.

The department said it had hired lawyers to advise about the project, and assured cameras would only be installed in public areas. Plus, the benefit of having an extra pair of eyes in problem areas could help everyone in the end, the NYPD says, as lawbreakers would be more weary of committing crimes.

However, opponents cite a 2002 British survey that showed little evidence of a drop in crime following the installation of cameras in 14 cities. Still, those tapes were used in identifying suspects of a failed follow-up attack to last year's London transit bombings.

New York City's plan is nothing new; it already has 1,000 cameras is the city, and some 3,100 monitoring housing projects. Chicago has a 2,000-camera system, with Philadelphia also deploying wireless cameras in troubled areas.

By Ed Oswald, BetaNews
http://story.newyorktelegraph.com/p.x/ct/9/id/2be641c96de3ff0b/cid/5a8b8c26522de7fd/

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Neil Young urges Bush impeachment on protest album

Veteran rocker Neil Young has recorded a protest album featuring an anti-Iraq war track with "a holy vow to never kill again" and a song titled "Let's Impeach the President," the singer said on Monday.

The 10-track set, called "Living with War," was recorded this month by a "power trio" -- electric guitar, bass and drums -- plus trumpet and a 100 voices, the 60-year-old Canadian-born musician announced on his Web site.

Young's longtime manager, Elliot Roberts, told Reuters the album, which has been the subject of Internet buzz for several days, will be played for executives at his label, Warner Music Group's Reprise Records, on Tuesday.

"It's devoted to the state of America, or the direction that America is moving in," Roberts said of the album.

In a message crawl along the bottom of his Web site, Young drew parallels to two of the leading protest singers of the 1960s, saying of his new record: "I think it is a metal version of Phil Ochs and Bob Dylan ... metal folk protest?"

The crawl goes on to reveal the lyrics of the album's title track, with such lines as: "I raise my hand in peace ... I never bow to the laws of the thought police ... I take a holy vow ... to never kill again ...

"In the big hotels ... in the mosques and the doors of the old museum ... I take a holy vow ... to never kill again."

Roberts confirmed that a separate song on the album is titled "Let's Impeach the President." He declined to disclose any further details about the record.

But according to some online reports, the song accuses President George W. Bush of "lying" and features a rap with Bush's voice set against a choir singing "flip-flop."

One member of that choir, a California-based musician, wrote on a "blog" entry last Friday that the recording session wrapped with an a capella version of "America the Beautiful."

Young's latest offering comes just seven months after the release of his last album, "Prairie Wind," which has sold about 450,000 U.S. copies as of last week, according to sales tracking service Nielsen SounScan.

Music from that album was featured in the recent concert film "Neil Young: Heart of Gold," directed by Jonathan Demme.

"Living with War" appears to bring Young full circle from a more pro-Bush administration stance he took in the months following the September 11 attacks.

Not long after recording the song "Let's Roll," a tribute to passengers who apparently fought back against hijackers on doomed United Airlines Flight 93 over Pennsylvania, Young came out publicly in support of the U.S. Patriot Act.

The legislation, which gave law enforcement authorities broad new powers aimed at bolstering the administration's war on terror, was harshly criticized by some as threatening Americans' civil liberties.

"Living with War" is hardly the first work by Young to take on the political establishment. As part of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, in 1970, Young wrote and recorded the song "Ohio," a song about the four Kent State University students killed by National Guard troops during an anti-Vietnam war rally.

By Steve Gorman
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060417/music_nm/leisure_young_dc_4

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Jury Finds Former Ill. Gov. Ryan Guilty

Former Gov. George Ryan was convicted of corruption Monday in the scandal that ended his political career in 2003 at the same time he was winning international acclaim for commuting the sentences of everyone on Illinois' death row.

Ryan, 72, sat stone-faced as the verdict was read, and vowed afterward to appeal.

He was convicted of steering state contracts and leases, including a $25 million IBM computer deal, to political insiders while he was Illinois secretary of state in the 1990s and then governor for one term. In return, he got vacations in Jamaica, Cancun and Palm Springs, and gifts ranging from a golf bag to $145,000 in loans to his brother's floundering business.

"I believe this decision today is not in accordance with the kind of public service that I provided to the people of Illinois over 40 years, and needless to say I am disappointed in the outcome," the Republican former governor said.

U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald called Ryan's actions "a low watermark of public service." Fitzgerald, who also led the Washington investigation of the CIA leak, added: "If they keep stealing, we'll keep chasing them."

The jury in the state's biggest corruption trial in decades found Ryan guilty on all counts, including fraud, lying to the FBI and racketeering conspiracy, which alone could bring 20 years in prison at sentencing Aug. 4.

His co-defendant, Chicago businessman Larry Warner, 67, was convicted of racketeering conspiracy, fraud, attempted extortion, and money laundering.

Prosecutors also want the two men to forfeit the $3 million they say Warner raked in through state business. The judge will rule on that request later.

Ryan was the third former Illinois governor in the past three decades to be convicted of federal felonies. Otto Kerner was found guilty in a racing stock scandal; Dan Walker was convicted of corruption involving bank loans.

"I hope this case begins the end of political prostitution that seems to have been evident in the state of Illinois and begins a resurrection of honest government and services in this state that so many people have demanded," said Robert Grant, the agent in charge of the FBI's Chicago office.

The scandal that led to Ryan's downfall began over a decade ago with a fiery van crash in Wisconsin that killed six children. The 1994 wreck exposed a scheme inside the Illinois secretary of state's office in which truck drivers obtained licenses for bribes.

The probe expanded to other corruption under Ryan. Seventy-nine former state officials, lobbyists, truck drivers and others have been charged. Before Ryan's trial, 74 had been convicted, including Ryan's longtime top aide, Scott Fawell, a star witness at Ryan's trial.

In 2000, Ryan, as governor, declared a moratorium on executions in Illinois after 13 death row inmates were found to have been wrongly convicted. Then, days before he left office in 2003, he emptied out death row, commuting the sentences of all 167 inmates to life in prison. He declared that the state's criminal justice system was "haunted by the demon of error."

Ryan declined to seek a second term after the scandal sent his approval ratings plummeting. He was indicted a year after leaving office.

Even as he faced charges back home, Ryan accepted speaking invitations across the country and was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for his criticism of the death penalty.

Neither Ryan nor Warner took the stand during their six-month trial.

The government witnesses included businessman Harry Klein, who testified that he entertained Ryan and his family at a luxurious estate in Jamaica every year for a decade. Klein said Ryan always paid him $1,000 a week with checks, but then accepted the $1,000 back in cash.

Jurors said no single factor tipped the balance in favor of conviction.

"It wasn't a smoking gun," said Kevin Rein of Glen Ellyn, a carpenter. He said "the government had a pretty good pile of evidence."

In late March, months of testimony nearly went down the drain when the judge discovered two jurors had failed to mention arrests on their court questionnaires. Rather than declare a mistrial, U.S. District Judge Rebecca R. Pallmeyer decided to replace the two jurors with alternates and, over the objection of Ryan's attorneys, ordered the jury to start deliberations over.

The jury had deliberated for 10 days when it announced its guilty verdicts.

Ryan attorney Dan K. Webb, a former federal prosecutor, zeroed in on the judge's decision to replace the jurors as potential grounds for appeal.

By MIKE ROBINSON, Associated Press Writer
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060417/ap_on_re_us/governor_s_trial_11

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