by the University of Michigan

University of Michigan tests show short-term exposure to fine particle air pollution can drive up high blood pressure, raise risk of heart attack, stroke ANN ARBOR, Mich. – One in three Americans suffer from hypertension, a significant health problem that can lead to heart attack, heart failure, stroke, and other life-threatening problems.

It’s well kKnown that measures such as exercise, a healthy diet and not smoking can help reduce high blood pressure, but researchers at the University of Michigan Health System have determined the very air we breathe can be an invisible catalyst to heart disease What a perfect way to express that!

Inhaling air pollution over just two hours caused a significant increase in diastolic blood pressure, the lower number on blood pressure readings, during two pollution studies in Ann Arbor and Toronto, according to new U-M research.

The study findings appear in the current issue of Hypertension, a publication of the American Heart Association.

One in three Americans suffer from hypertension, a significant health problem that can lead to heart attack, heart failure, stroke, and other life-threatening problems. (paragraph 1, repeated)

“Although this increase in diastolic blood pressure may pose little health risk to healthy people, in people with underlying coronary artery disease, this small increase may actually be able to trigger heart attack and stroke,” says Robert D.

LatinosBrook, M.D., lead author and cardiologist at the U-M Cardiovascular Center.

In the study, researchers hoped to identify which air pollutants are harmful and how the pollutants work to damage the cardiovascular system.

For testing they used a mobile air quality research facility capable of collecting every day existing air and then concentrating it for human exposure.

Nearly 100About 80 people in Ann Arbor and Toronto were were involved in testing and breathed air, collected with a mobile air quality research facility, that was similar to what would be found in an urban environment near a roadway.

This is a little confusing. What did they do with this collected air? Did the study participants just have to sit and breathe it in? You might need another sentence about the methodology.

“We looked at their blood vessels and then their responses before and after breathing air pollution,” explains Robert Bard, M.S., project manager of the U-M Air Quality Laboratory.

Ozone gases, a well-known component of air pollution, were not the biggest culprit. Rather, Ssmall microscopic particles, about the a 10th of the size of the diameter of a human hair, not ozone gases, which also make up air pollution, caused the rise in blood pressure and blood vessel constriction, within minutes to hours of exposure, tests showed. The impairment lasted as long as 24 hours. It’s believed these fi ne particles deposit deep into the lungs and gain entrance to the blood stream.

The research is the latest in the relatively new fi eld of environmental cardiology which looks at the association between air pollution and heart disease. Brooks says the findings support maintaining current ambient air quality standards set by the Environmental Protection Agency. “It really bolsters and strengthens the importance of maintaining air quality for human health,” says Brooks.

There are practical ways to avoid exposure to high levels of air pollution, such as avoiding long commutes and not exercising during rush hour, or near busy highways or freeways, Brooks say. In modern society, the burning of fossil fuels is the primary source for air pollution.

“If air pollution levels are forecasted to be high, those with heart disease, ­diabetes or lung disease, should avoid outdoor activity,” he says.

by Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting

Prensa Asociada reportó que Dobbs perderá $9 millones en el último año del su contrato

[The following commentary, from the Nov. 12 blog of Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), summarizes former CNN host Lou Dobbs’ ongoing conflict with Hispanic organizations covering the past half-dozen years. In recent months, a number of Hispanic groups organized to press CNN president Jonathan Klein through petitions, sponsor contacts and other means to fire him. These efforts, they maintain, plus declining viewership, sponsorship losses and increasing public distrust all contributed to CNN’s cancellation of Dobbs’ back-loaded, five-year contract, which had a year and a half to run. The Associated Press reported Nov. 16 that CNN paid Dobbs $9 million to void the contract but it cost him another $9 million he would have earned in its final year.]

FAIR’S REPORT (Reprinted with permission) : TV host Lou Dobbs abruptly quit his CNN program Nov. 11, bringing a sudden end to a television program most notable for its remarkably one-sided presentation of immigration issues. Since 2003, Dobbs has regularly used his CNN platform to issue misleading and alarmist warnings about the threats posed by undocumented immigrants. Dobbs has spoken of an “army of invaders” scheming to reannex parts of the southwestern U.S. to Mexico (3/31/06), claimed that “illegal alien smugglers and drug traffickers are on the verge of ruining some of our national treasures” (11/9/03) and declared that “the invasion of illegal aliens is threatening the health of many Americans” (4/14/05).

Repeated segments on Dobbs’ show were devoted to “illegal aliens” getting free medical care (10/1/03), putting their children in schools (10/2/03), committing sex crimes (10/30/03), getting breaks on college tuition (10/22/03), clogging up the federal prison system (11/4/03) nd “flooding across our borders, in some cases carrying dangerous diseases” (11/20/03). More recently, Dobbs (3/9/09) promoted a misleading report that suggested hundreds of thousands of “illegal immigrants” would get jobs due to the government stimulus program.

Indeed, he seemed almost eager to misrepresent statistics in order to further his anti-immigrant agenda. Dobbs was famously challenged by CBS host Lesley Stahl (5/6/07) about his erroneous suggestion (4/14/05) that immigrants were causing an alarming increase in leprosy in the United States. Dobbs’ remarkable response — “If we reported it, it’s a fact” — was just as incorrect as his original reporting (which, it turned out, was based on inaccurate numbers peddled by a far-right anti-immigrant activist — FAIR Action Alert, 5/11/07).

While that incident received significant attention, it was certainly not the only time Dobbs’ program misrepresented reality. FAIR’s magazine Extra! (1/2/04) noted that Dobbs distorted a study of the costs and benefits of immigration, turning the study’s finding of a small economic benefit into a multi-billion dollar cost to the nation’s economy. Dobbs also inflated the proportion of the prison population believed to be undocumented immigrants (New York Times, 5/ 30/07) and recently garbled a CNN poll on immigration to argue that “most” Americans “want illegal immigrants now in the country to leave” (10/22/09; FAIR Blog, 10/23/09).

The show was a regular platform for a variety of anti-immigration advocacy groups. Dobbs (5/23/06) even went so far as to use an on-screen graphic from the white supremacist Council of Concerned Citizens in a report fanning fears about Mexican plans to invade the Southwest (Huffington Post, 5/24/ 06). Dobbs did not leave the overheated rhetoric to his guests, though. Before a Republican presidential debate (11/28/07), he called immigration advocates “misguided abject fools” who are “working to subvert the will of the majority of the people of this country.”

Responding to a reporter’s comment about how the governor of Arizona “supports comprehensive immigration reform, including a guest worker program,” Dobbs replied (4/19/ 06): “All I can say to that is lah dee-dah. The idea that the governor has taken such a superior view over the poor, humble residents of her state is there any kind of — is there any way in which they might turn out at the polls to express their grievances?” Environmental groups opposed to building a border fence between the U.S. and Mexico were “complete idiots” (5/19/08). Immigrants’ rights protests were regularly derided (5/1/08): “They ignore the fundamental values of the nation and demand an end to the enforcement of U.S. immigration laws. We’ll have complete coverage of this travesty.”

Such language is unsurprising, since there was never any pretense of balance to Dobbs’ show. As he put it to CNN host Howard Kurtz (4/2/06): “I’m not interested — are you interested in six or seven views, or are you interested in the truth? Because that’s what I’m interested in; that’s what my viewers are interested in.” Declining to present contrasting views because they conflict with one’s own definition of “truth” is not exactly the approach they teach in journalism school, of course. As reported by Daphne Eviatar in The Nation (8/28/06), some CNN reporters were concerned by the show’s techniques:

“Another former CNN news staffer from an overseas bureau said Kurtz (4/2/06): “I’m not interested — are you interested in six or seven views, or are you interested in the truth? Because that’s what I’m interested in; that’s what my viewers are interested in.” Declining to present contrasting views because they conflict with one’s own definition of “truth” is not exactly the approach they teach in journalism school, of course. As reported by Daphne Eviatar in The Nation (8/28/06), some CNN reporters were concerned by the show’sechniques:

“Another former CNN news staffer from an overseas bureau said (also on condition of anonymity) that whenever Dobbs’ producers contacted the bureau for stories, ‘they would request stories that would fit their agenda… We wanted to provide a balanced view. But people on Dobbs’ show would look at the script and ask for changes. If we gave too much of a balanced view, they would kill the story.’”

Former senior staffers said that Dobbs would search out stories that supported his anti-immigrant agenda. As one put it, “He’s assembled correspondents who feel beholden to him. They are given the line on the story and told how to assemble it in his partisan manner before they’re sent out to do the story.” One of Dobbs’ standard defenses over the years has been that his concern is illegal immigration, not legal immigration. But Dobbs’ show blurred that distinction a number of times. Dobbs introduced one report (11/4/03) about “illegal aliens, those noncitizens taking up a third of the cells in our federal penitentiaries.” The ensuing report noted that there was no way of knowing how many prisoners were actually illegal.

In 2003, Dobbs (9/23/03) expressed outrage over a group of immigrants’ rights activists: “People who have not respected immigration laws in this country are now demanding equal treatment under the law.” A week later (9/30/03), Dobbs acknowledged that the activists he was criticizing were not, in fact, lawbreakers. In 2008, Dobbs (1/16/08) attacked the campaign activities of one Nevada union, complaining that “as many as half of the union’s members are illegal aliens.” Actually, the union had reported that about half of its members were immigrants.

It should be noted that Dobbs’ troubling record of distortion is not limited to immigration. He has featured one-sided discussions on climate change (12/18/08, 1/5/09) and issued nonsensical complaints about the White House economic stimulus plan (Extra!, 4/ 09).

­Dobbs was one of many figures in the corporate media to cheer a premature Iraq War victory (“Some journalists, in my judgment, just can’t stand success, especially a few liberal columnists and newspapers and a few Arab reporters” — 4/14/ 03), and most recently caused a stir (Associated Press, 8/3/09) by giving airtime to “birther” guests to advance the discredited notion Barack Obama is not actually a U.S. citizen.In his final CNN broadcast (11/11/09), Dobbs suggested that he would continue in the public arena in some fashion: “Some leaders in media, politics and business have been urging me to go beyond the role here at CNN and to engage in constructive problem-solving as well as to contribute positively to a better understanding of the great issues of our day.” Dobbs also alluded to “the lack of true representation in Washington, D.C.”

Dobbs’ propagandistic approach to journalism was an embarrassment that CNN seemed more than willing to tolerate as long as his ratings were high (Extra!, 5-6/06); with much of the cultural anxiety formerly going into the anti-immigration movement now focused on the Tea Party movement associated with Glenn Beck, Dobbs’ viewership has been in a prolonged slump (New York Observer, 7/30/09), so it’s not too surprising to find him looking for a new home. CNN president Jonathan Klein once told The New York Times (3/29/06): “Lou’s show is not a harbinger of things to come at CNN. He is sui generis, one of a kind.” One can only hope. (For more on Dobbs’ removal, check www.HispanicLink.org. For more reports by FAIR, go to www.fair.org)

by Erick Galindo

Bomb threats, international calls for a boycott, and protests resounding from Washington, D.C., to Honduras’ capital of Tegucigalpa did not deter more than 1.7 million voters from casting their ballots Nov. 29 to choose a new president. Attracting 55 percent of the vote was Porfirio Lobo Sosa, or Pepe, as he is affectionately known in this tiny Central American republic. He is a key member of its conservative National Party, the direct opposition to the Liberal Party of ousted President Manuel Zelaya’s Liberal Party. In 2005, Lobo Sosa was runner-up to Zelaya in the presidential election. He was an adamant advocate to remove Zelaya from office.

A wealthy farmer, Lobo Sosa had tallied 897,000 votes with 60 percent of precincts reporting, more than 200,000 than were cast for the Liberal Party’s Elvin Santos, who has conceded.

Officials said that 62 percent of the eligible population voted in spite of tension and violence that has engulfed Honduras since Zelaya was seized and flown out of the country in a June 28 coup.

Holed up at the Brazilian Embassy in Tegucigalpa since sneaking back into the country Sept. 21, Zelaya has challenged the reported high turnout numbers, saying that his people reported less than half of registered voters cast ballots. He also denied reports that he is seeking political asylum in Nicaragua or anywhere else.

Analysts in both political camps do not expect the protests and violence to stop as a result of the election, but the large turnout has brought some optimism to a country that has suffered from economic sanctions, tourism downturns and numerous bouts of violence in the past five months.

In Washington, D.C., cultural anthropologist Adrienne Pine, author of “Work Hard, Drink Hard. On Violence and Survival in Honduras,” told Hispanic Link that the likelihood of the election being fair was slim.

“The country’s conditions are anything but free and fair right now,” said Pine, an American University professor who spent more than 10 years in Honduras. “The human rights violations are atrocious and the same military that has carried out over 4,000 human rights violations is responsible for protecting the elections.”

Pine represents a group of voices that claim anything short of Zelaya’s reinstatement would be a blow to democracy in the region. Zelaya’s term would have expired this year. He was charged by foes with planning to change a constitutional limitation that would have allowed him to run for ­reelection. The Organization of American States and most countries in the hemisphere, with the notable exception of the United States, have vowed not to recognize the election.

After the de facto Honduran government agreed to post-election concessions, the U.S. reversed its stance on the results, with State Department officials telling reporters that another four years of opposing the Honduran government was an unwise choice. Now Colombia, Panama and Costa Rica are indicating their support for the next government in hopes of ending the political crisis.

The OAS’s refusal to monitor the elections for fairness left the U.S. State Department scrambling to send its own monitors, impeding the Obama Administration’s path toward improving relations with Latin America.

The Center for Democracy in the Americas criticized the U.S. reversal of policy and said in a statement that it would only serve to slow negotiations for peace in the region.

President-elect Lobo Sosa emphasized peace and international relations as primary goals in his victory speech. Runner-up Santos also called for peace and unity of the Honduran people. Lobo Sosa’s term begins Jan. 27.

(Erick Galindo, of Washington, D.C., is editor of the national newsweekly Hispanic Link Weekly Report.) ©2009

by the University of Michigan

Members of antiwar movement CODEPINK hold a candlelight vigil to oppose the escalation of the war in Afghanistan at the new Federal Building on Thursday, Dec. 3. The group demands for a redirection of resources toward human needs. “This escalation is hopeless. Afghanistan needs an escalation of humanitarianaid and jobs, not war, the group’s, says the group in a written statement. (photo by Marvin J. Ramirez)

ANN ARBOR, Mich.— Video games can make children kinder and more likely to help – not hurt – other people.­

That’s the conclusion of ne­w research published in the current (June 2009) issue of Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, a top-tier, peer-reviewed academic journal.

The article presents the findings of three separate studies, conducted in different countries with different age groups, and using different scientific approaches. All the studies find that playing games with prosocial content causes players to be more helpful to others after the game is over.

The report is co-authored by a consortium of researchers from the U.S., Japan, Singapore, and Malaysia.

“Dozens of studies have documented a relationship between violent video games and aggressive behaviors,” says lead author Douglas Gentile, an Iowa State University psychologist. “But this is one of the first that has documented the positive effects of playing prosocial games.”

“These studies show the same kind of impact on three different age groups from three very different cultures,” says Brad Bushman, a University of Michigan co-author of the report. “In addition, the studies use different analytic approaches – correlational, longitudinal, and experimental. The resulting triangulation of evidence provides the strongest possible proof that the findings are both valid and generalizable.”

“These studies document that children and adolescents learn from practicing behaviors in games,” added Rowell Huesmann, another U-M co-author of the report.

One study examined the link between video game habits and prosocial behavior among 727 secondary students in Singapore, with a mean age of 13. Students listed their favorite games and rated how often game characters helped, hurt, or killed other characters. They also answered questions about how likely they were to spend time and money helping people in need, to cooperate with others and share their belongings, and to react aggressively in various situations.

As in numerous other studies, the researchers found a strong correlation between playing violent video games and hurting others. But the study also found a strong correlation between playing prosocial games and helping others.

The second study analyzed the long-term connection between video game habits and prosocial behavior in nearly 2,000 Japanese children ages 10 to 16. Participants completed a survey about their exposure to prosocial video games, and rated how often they had helped other people in the last month. Three to four months later, they were surveyed again, and researchers found a signifi­cant connection between exposure to prosocial games and helpful behavior months later.

“This suggests there is an upward spiral of prosocial gaming and helpful behavior, in contrast to the downward spiral that occurs with violent video gaming and aggressive behavior,” says Bushman, a professor of communications and psychology and a research professor at the U-M Institute for Social Research (ISR).

For the third study, the researchers carried out an experiment with 161 U.S. college students, mean age 19. After playing either a prosocial, violent, or neutral game, participants were asked to assign puzzles to a randomly selected partner. They could chose from puzzles that were easy, medium, or hard to complete. Their partner could win $10 if they solved all the puzzles. Those who played a prosocial game were considerably more helpful than others, assigning more easy puzzles to their partners. And those who had played violent games were signifi cantly more likely to assign the hardest puzzles.

“Taken together, these fi ndings make it clear that playing video games is not in itself good or bad for children,” says Bushman. “The type of content in the game has a bigger impact than the overall amount of time spent playing.”

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by the El Reportero’s news service

Porfirio (‘Pepe’) Lobo

Early today (30 November), with just under 62 percent of the votes counted, Porfirio (‘Pepe’) Lobo of the conservative traditional Partido Nacional (PN) was declared the winner in yesterday’s presidential election, with an estimated 57.16 percent of the first-past-the-post vot­e, to 33.42 percent for his nearest rival, Elvin Santos of the ruling Partido Liberal (PL). The PN also took 17 of the 18 departments in the country, with the PL securing just one (the southern coastal La Paz).

Turnout was an estimated 61.3 percent (just over 2.5m of the total 4.6m registered and legally obliged to vote) according to the supreme electoral court (TSE), a figure strongly disputed by the ousted president, Manuel Zelaya, who claimed abstention was close to 65 percent. The count was impressively quick and efficient, bearing in mind that it took 12 days in 2005 for the authorities to determine who had won, let alone count all the votes. Lobo immediately declared that the time for division “is over”, and announced that he would form a government of national unity and reconciliation, “without excluding anyone”.

The U.S., which is desperate to sweep this crisis under the carpet, looks set to recognize the vote, seeing it as an important pragmatic step on the path towards na­tional reconciliation.

by Erick Galindo

WASHINGTON, D.C.- Another historic moment in the capital and Latinos are once again stuck in the middle.

The Senate voted along party lines Nov. to begin debating landmark health care legislation paving the way for the creation a health care exchange that will cover 94 percent of the U.S. population and include a public option.

All 58 Democrats and two independents voted to allow the bill to reach the Senate floor, while its 39 Republicans opposed action. The Senate begins debate on bill after the Thanksgiving recess.

Unlike the House bill, which passed two weeks ago, the Senate version contains requirement that, to be eligible to participate, naturalized immigrants must have had U.S. residency status for at least five years. The Senate bill also contains a provision preventing undocumented workers from purchasing insurance from the health care exchange, leaving at least 7 million Hispanics without health insurance.

Bob Menéndez (D-N.J.), the lone Hispanic in the Senate, told Hispanic Link News Service he is optimistic that the waiting period for documented immigrants would be removed in conference when the House and Senate work to reconcile their bills.

Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.) noted to Hispanic Link that the House bill does make exceptions to the five-year ban for children and expectant mothers.

However, removing the Senate bill’s ban against undocumented immigrants may prove difficult. The White House endorsed the Senate provisions and has rebuffed efforts by the Congressional Hispanic Caucus that would allow undocumented immigrants the ability to purchase health insurance.

President Obama remains adamant “that the way you deal with” undocumented immigrants is by providing them with a path to legalize their status. Rep. Luis Gutiérrez (D-Ill.) says he plans to introduce such a comprehensive immigration reform package in the House soon.

Days ahead of the Senate cloture vote, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (DNev.) stood with the rest of the Democrat leadership team Nov. 19 and, with a broad smile, told reporters, “We will pass major health care legislation.” He compared its importance to the passage of Social Security and Medicare.

Menéndez added the caution, “But the path ahead is a long one.” Challenges to the Senate bill still loom as a number of centrist Democrats have expressed concerns over its inclusion of a public option, even though individual states could opt out of the government-run health insurance program.

­A majority vote will be required for any amendments to the Senate bill, where the Democrats hold sway. The bill expands Medicaid and provides subsidies for persons of low income to help them buy private insurance or insurance under the public option. According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Offi ce, the cost of the legislation would be offset and bill would reduce the federal deficit by $130 billion.

It would also make health insurance a requirement for most people living in the United States.

­by the El Reportero’s news services

Alberto Fujimori

Peru’s former president Alberto Fujimori was convicted for the fourth and final time on 30 September.

He pleaded guilty to the charges of corruption against him. Fujimori had a clear ulterior motive: to expedite a trial that would have exposed the full extent ­of his kleptocracy and, by extension, damaged the prospects of his daughter Keiko winning the presidency in 2011.

Keiko has promised to pardon her father if she wins. Opinion polls suggest that she has a fair chance of winning, as the ruling Partido Aprista Peruano (PAP) is discredited, the Left is currently split, and her main rival in the polls is over-reliant on Lima for his popularity.

by José de la Isla

Barak Obama

Democratic U.S. Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois won the presidential election Nov. 4 over Republican U.S. Sen. John McCain of Arizona with substantial Hispanic voter help from key states. Edison-Mitofsky exit polls estimate that Hispanics supported Obama nationwide by a margin of 67 percent to 31 percent.

At least 10 million Latinos voted, estimates Janet Murguía, president of the  National Council of La Raza NCLR was part of the coalition effort by Hispanic organizations to boost voter registrations. Actual Latino voter turnout is estimated at 9 percent of the national electorate.

The often-mentioned swing-states scenario—involving Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Florida, states with large numbers of Hispanic voters—proved true. The policy analysis group NDN reported the day for lowing the election that Obama’s victory margins in those four states were attributable to the Latino vote. Obama’s level of support from Hispanics comes as the second major voting-pattern shift in as many elections.

In 2004, attention was drawn to the 40 percent-plus level of support President Bush received during his re-election bid when he faced Democrat John Kerry.

The swing back to 2-to-1 in favor of Obama reflects a return to the mostly historical voting pattern.

In key battleground states (see table on p. 2) the results show Latinos made substantial, even unprecedented, contributions in electing the new president. Even in embattled Virginia, for instance, where Hispanics make up only 6 percent of the population (a full third under 16), they provided Obama 28 percent of his victory margin in that state.

In early September, pollster Sergio Bendixen revealed at the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute public-policy conference that Hispanic public-opinion surveys already indicated Latinos strongly favoring Obama in these critically important swing states. Only Florida was stale mated in a virtual tie between the Democratic and Republican candidates. Huge voter-registration and voter-turn out efforts followed, ­along with unprecedented levels of funding for campaign advertising.

On election night, Florida and Virginia were undecided when Ohio swung for Obama. As polls closed in New Mexico and Colorado networks held off calling the race until precincts closed in the West.

Elections analyst and former director of the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project Andrew Hernandez had earlier predicted to Weekly Report he envisioned Latinos getting credit for the election only if John McCain were able to win Ohio and Florida, hold on to Virginia, and Obama picked up New Hampshire and lowa.

“Then it’s a Latino narrative,” he said, because the election would hinge on New Mexico, Colorado and Nevada to put him over the top. “That, of course, can’t happen until the sun rises over San Francisco Bay.”

The day following the election, pollsters and analysts were reporting that young voters and “minorities,” alluding to Latinos, had put Obama over the top. And the sun was reported rising over Golden Gate Bridge. Hispanic Link.