by the University of Michigan

“Muerte y destrucción por desastre natural en comunidades pobres de El Salvador”: It is now that all the community must show the love to his neighbor. The people of El Salvador need your help after having being flogged by intense hurricane-force rains not seen in more than a decade. They have left mourning, thousands of homeless and destruction in the Central American region, but maily in El Salvador. To help, call 510-472-5138..

ANN ARBOR, Michigan.— The Great Depression had a silver lining: During that hard time, U.S. life expectancy actually increased by 6.2 years, according to a University of Michigan study published in the current issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Life expectancy rose from 57.1 in 1929 to 63.3 years in 1932, according to the analysis by U-M researchers José A. Tapia Granados and Ana Diez Roux. The increase occurred for both men and women, and for whites and non-whites.

“The finding is strong and counterintuitive,” says Tapia Granados, the lead author of the study and a researcher at the U-M Institute for Social Research (ISR). “Most people assume that periods of high unemployment are harmful to health.”

For the study, the researchers used historical life expectancy and mortality data to examine associations between economic growth and population health for the period between 1920 and 1940. They found that while population health generally improved during the four years of the Great Depression and during recessions in 1921 and 1938, mortality increased and life expectancy declined during periods of strong economic expansion, such as 1923, 1926, 1929, and 1936-1937.

The researchers analyzed age-specific mortality rates and rates due to six causes of death that composed about two-thirds of total mortality in the 1930s: cardiovascular and renal diseases, cancer, influenza and pneumonia, tuberculosis, motor vehicle traffic injuries, and suicide. The association between improving health and economic slowdowns was true for all ages, and for every major cause of death except one: suicide. Although the research did not include analyses of possible causes for the pattern, Tapia Granados and Diez Roux offer some possible explanations about why population health tends to improve during recessions but not expansions.

“Working conditions are very different during expansions and recessions,” says Tapia Granados. “During expansions, firms are very busy, and they typically demand a lot of effort from employees, who are required to work a lot of overtime, and to work at a fast pace. This can create stress, which is associated with more drinking and smoking. Also, new workers may be hired who are inexperienced, so injuries are likely to be more common. And people who are working a lot may also sleep less which is known to have implications for health. Other health-related behaviors such as diet may also change for the worse during expansions.”

In recessions, Tapia Granados notes, there is less work to do, so employees can work at a slower pace. There is more time to sleep, and because people have less money, they are less likely to spend as much on alcohol and tobacco.

In addition, economic expansions are also associated with increases in atmospheric pollution which has well-documented short-term effects on cardiovascular and respiratory mortality. Other reasons that periods of economic expansion may be bad for health could include increases in social isolation and decreases in social support that typically occur when people are working more.

The researchers noted that their study examined the relation between recessions and mortality for the population as a whole, and not the effect of becoming unemployed on an individual person. In fact, their results show that downturns in economic activity may have overall beneficial effects on the population, even if becoming unemployed has adverse health consequences for a given person. “Social science is not physics,” says Tapia Granados. “But regularities in the past allow us at least some confidence in forecasting the future. Historical experience tells us that no particular deterioration of mortality is to be expected as a consequence of a recession beyond an increase in suicides which, although clearly important, is of small magnitude compared to the reduced number of fatalities from other causes.

­Other studies suggest that the relationship between population health and business cycles may be weakening, at least in the U.S. and in Japan, where the phenomenon of karoshi – sudden death from overwork among Japanese salarymen – dramatically illustrates the dangers of life in economic boom times.

Still, Tapia Granados hopes that a better understanding of the beneficial effects of recessions on health may perhaps contribute to the development of economic policies that enhance health and minimize or buffer adverse impacts of economic expansions. And he cautions that the findings also suggest that suicide prevention services – often the casualties of budget cuts during economic downturns – are more important during bad times than ever.

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­by the El Reportero’s news services

Barak Obama

The first deputy assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere Affairs, Craig Kelly, travelled to Tegucigalpa and met the de facto president, Roberto Micheletti, and the ousted president, Manuel Zelaya on Nov. 10.

Kelly, like the Organization of American States (OAS), is pushing Micheletti and the Honduran congress to adhere to the terms of the US-brokered Tegucigalpa-San José agreement, which contemplates the establishment of a national unity government, a congressional vote on Zelaya’s restitution (taking into account the ‘opinion’ of the supreme court), along with full international recognition of the scheduled Nov. 29 general elections.

The US has made it patently clear that it is firmly focused on the scheduled elections as the definitive way out of this nearly five-month old crisis, with Zelaya’s position now secondary. That, however, has removed all incentives for the de facto administration and the other Honduran institutions to act in good faith.

As U.S.-Colombia bases deal is signed, Lula calls for all-round transparencyThe agreement granting the US additional base facilities in Colombia has been signed. Details have yet to be disclosed, but off-1the-record briefings suggest that the content does not vary much from what the US State Department anticipated in August [SSR-09-08]. Prior to the signing of the deal, Colombian and US diplomacy got Brazil to signal that it would not oppose the agreement in the Union of South American Nations (Unasur) if all parties agree to transparency. Meanwhile Venezuela and its allies continued to depict the deal as a threat.­

by Marcelo Ballve

New America Media — Viewed through the lens of the immigration issue, the overall results of the Nov. 3 elections might be called a mixed bag.

Republican gubernatorial candidates who promised more hardline immigration stances won races in Virginia and New Jersey, but a vacant seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in New York’s 23rd District was picked up by Democrats. This should make it a bit easier for House Democrats to marshal the votes needed to advance on comprehensive immigration reform, which they promised to do before the end of this year.

Earlier this autumn, 100 House Democrats sent a letter to President Obama reaffirming their commitment to push immigration reform legislation forward. Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-III.) has said he will introduce an immigration bill as early as this month.

Rep. Joseph Crowley (D-N.Y.) has warned immigration reform needs to happen by early next year,well ahead of Nov. 2010 mid-term elections if it is to succeed.

Here’s how they may impact immigration policy, at the state or federal level.

In California’s 10th District, east of the San Francisco Bay, Lt. Gov. John Garamendi, a progressive Democrat, won a contested open seat with 53% of the vote, beating Republican John Harmer.

In upstate New York’s 23rd District, retired Air Force Capt. Bill Owens, a Democrat, beat Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman, who had attracted the support of right-wing talk radio and cabie news hosts, and managed to push the Republican Party candidate out of the race.

These two Democratic victories modestly aided the balance of power in the U.S. House of Representatives, according to political blogger/author Matthew Yglesias. Nancy Pelosi had an easier time rounding up enough votes for a health care bill, for example, and “each and every Blue Dog (conservative) Democrat has his or her individual leverage over the process reduced.”

What Yglesias writes also applies for an immigration bill. Blue Dogs will have less leverage over the shape of any immigration bill, and Pelosi, as House Majority Leader, will have a marginally easier time culling the votes needed for any immigration legisletion to pass.

THERE’S POLITICAL RISK

Republican Chris Christie’s election as New Jersey governor over incumbent Jon Corzine mey slow down or kill efforts underway to grant undocumented immigrant students the right to access in-state tuition at New Jersey colleges.

Christie said he is opposed to the plan. Christie may also prove more sympathetic to local elected officials and law enforcement chiefs in New Jersey who want to contract with the Department of Homeland Security to carry out immigration enforcement actions normally undertaken by federal agents. The delegation of immigration enforcement to state and local cops is part of a federal program known as 287g, which is controversial in the Latino community. Republican Bob McDonnell, elected governor in Virginia, has proposed that the 287g program be extended statewide so that Virginia state troopers can carry out immigration enforcement actions. His opponent Creigh Deeds opposed thet proposal.

If McDonnell pushes ahead with foisting new immigration responsibilities on Virginia state troopers, the move will come with its portion of political risk. The 287g program is popular with many voters who argue it helps speed the deportation of undocumented immigrants who commit crimes.

Critics of the program say it diverts law enforcement resources away from primary crime-fi ghting tasks and sows distrust between Latino communities end law offi cers. Immigrant and Latino activists also say 287g leads to racial profi ling.

Despite his tough stance on illegal immigration, Mc-Donnell went out of his way to attract Latino votes.

McDonnell faced an uphill battle, since two-thirds of Virginia Latino voters helped President Obama to his surprise win in the state last year, according to Jennifer Rubin writing in Commentary.

‘A GOOD LISTENER’ Still, while campaigning, McDonnell strove to appear anti-illegal immigration Instead of anti-immigrant.

Sergio Rodriguera Jr., a Latino Republican activist, was quoted in Rubin’s article, saying McDonnell hes been a good listener, and his Hispanic-outreach events have not been token events with chips and salsa. He understands that Hispanics want to live the American dream of building a small business and owning their own home.

­It will be interesting to look at Virginia’s election returns and see how many Latinos voted for McDonnell. If many did, then McDonnell might indeed be regarded as an exemple to conservetive Republicens who want to attract Latino support in 2010 and beyond (as Rubin argues in her article).

But, if McDonnell pushes aheed with his plan to extend 287g statewide and appear tough-as-nails on illegal immigration, he will have to walk a fi ne line or risk alienating any Latino voters he managed to attract to his candidacy.

by the University of Michigan

Thousands of Latinos arrived in Washington, D.C., from many parts of the country to voice their demand for an amnisty for all undocumented immigrants who are exploited and forced to live in the shadow.

ANN ARBOR, Mich.– Brain implants that can more clearly record signals from surrounding neurons in rats have been created at the University of Michigan. The findings could eventually lead to more effective treatment of neurological disorders such as spinal cord injuries and paralysis.

Neural electrodes must work for time periods ranging from hours to years. When the electrodes are implanted, the brain first reacts to the acute injury with an inflammatory response. Then the brain settles into a wound-healing, or chronic, response.

It’s during this secondary response that brain tissue starts to encapsulate the electrode, cutting it off from communication with surrounding neurons.

The new brain implants developed at the University of Michigan are coated with nanotubes made of poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) (PEDOT), a biocompatible and electrically conductive polymer that has been shown to record neural signals better than conventional metal electrodes.

­U-M resarchers found that PEDOT nanotubes enhanced high-quality unit activity (signal-to-noise ratio >4) about 30 percent more than the uncoated sites. They also found that based on in vivo impedance data, PEDOT nanotubes might be used as a novel method for biosensing to indicate the transition between acute and chronic responses in brain tissue.

The results are featured in the cover article of the Oct. 5 issue of Advanced Materials. The paper is titled, “Interfacing Conducting Polymer Nanotubes with the Central Nervous System: Chronic Neural Recording using Poly(3-4-ethylenedioxythiophene) Nanotubes”.

“Microelectrodes implanted in the brain are increasingly being used to treat neurological disorders. Moreover, these electrodes enable neuroprosthetic devices, which hold the promise to return functionality to individuals with spinal cord injuries and neurodegenerative diseases,” said Mohammad Reza Abidian, a postdoctoral researcher working with Professor Daryl Kipke in the Neural Engineering Laboratory at the U-M Department of Biomedical Engineering.

“However, robust and reliable chronic application of neural electrodes remains a challenge,” Abidian said.

In the experiment, the researchers implanted two neural microelectrodes in the brains of three rats. PEDOT nanotubes were fabricated on the surface of every other recording site by using a nanofiber templating method. Over the course of seven weeks, researchers monitored the electrical impedance of the recording sites and measured the quality of recording signals.

PEDOT nanotubes in the coating enable the electrodes to operate with less electrical resistance than current metal electrode sites, which means they can communicate more clearly with individual neurons.

“Conducting polymers are biocompatible and have both electronic and ionic conductivity,” Abidian said. “Therefore, these materials are good candidates for biomedical applications such as neural interfaces, biosensors and drug delivery systems.”

­In the experiments, the Michigan researchers applied PEDOT nanotubes to microelectrodes provided by the University of Michigan Center for Neural Communication Technology (CNCT). The PEDOT nanotube coatings were developed in the laboratory of David C. Martin, now an adjunct professor of materials science and engineering, macromolecular science and engineering, and biomedical engineering. Martin is currently Karl W. Böer Professor and Chair of the Materials Science and Engineering Department at the University of Delaware.

Martin is also a co-founder and chief scientific officer for Biotectix, a University of Michigan spin-off company located in Ann Arbor. The company is working to commercialize conducting polymer-based coatings for a variety of biomedical devices. In previous experiments, Abidian and his colleagues have shown that PEDOT nanotubes could carry with them drugs to prevent encapsulation.

“This study paves the way for smart recording electrodes that can deliver drugs to alleviate the immune response of encapsulation,” Abidian said.

The research is funded by the Army Research Office, the Center for Neural Communication Technology and the National Institutes of Health.

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­by the El Reportero’s news services

Manuel Zelaya

Members of the National Front against the Coup d’Etat in Honduras will start Monday permanent vigil in front of the Congress headquarters until restitution of legitimate President Manuel Zelaya is approved.According to agreements signed on Friday between the constitutional government and the de facto regime, the legislative organization has to decide the statesman’s return, prior consultation to the Justice Supreme Court.

“We will be there until achieving our objective,” said Juan Barahona, leader of the Resistance Front, comprised of union, indigenous, rural, academic groups and other sectors.

People’s organizations denounced the possibility that the Parliament, which backed the June 28 coup, resorts to dilatory tactics to extend putschists’ presence in power.

They still do not know what the Congress voting result will be, but do know that the National Party’s stance is decisive, because it has 54, of the 128 seats in the Legislature and could vote en bloc.

The Liberal Party, to which Zelaya and the de facto regime chief Roberto Micheletti belong, has 62 legislators, but their stances are divided, while the rest of the seats are distributed in three minority parties.

Zelaya asserted that the Congress has a moral obligation to restore the democratic order existing before June 28, although there is always the possibility that they try to evade the accord.

Sandinistas protest U.S. ambassador for criticizing Nicaraguan leader’s re-election bid

The Nicaraguan government accused the United States of applying an “interventionist and destabilizing policy” Thursday after the U.S. ambassador criticized a ruling allowing leftist President Daniel Ortega to seek re-election.

The Nicaraguan Foreign Ministry issued a statement saying that it “considers unacceptable the intervention of the United States in internal affairs and sovereign decisions,” but added that it wants “relations of understanding, cooperation, and respect with all governments in the world, including the United States.”

Ortega’s supporters protested outside the U.S. Embassy in Managua, the capital, Thursday, and called for U.S. Ambassador Robert Callahan to be declared “persona non grata” for criticizing last week’s Supreme Court ruling.

­Colombia-U.S. base deal triggers fresh spat with Venezuela

The Colombian government is poised to sign a contentious military-base accord with the US before the end of this week, the defense minister, Gabriel Silva, revealed after a trip to Washington. The Venezuelan government – the most outspoken critic of the accord – expressed its displeasure by engaging in a tangentially related spat over the repatriation of eight Colombians killed by an armed group on Venezuelan soil earlier this month. It also sent two protest notes to Colombia: one in response to incendiary comments by Silva about alleged drug flights out of Venezuela; the other, related to the arrest in Venezuela of two alleged agents from the Colombian secret police (DAS) accused of spying.

Is Brazil fuelling the perceived South American arms race?

Increased arms purchases by South American countries have prompted much talk about an arms race in the region Ñ something all the governments involved strenuously deny. What is undeniable is that arms acquisitions have become part and parcel of regional geopolitics: Brazil and Venezuela have been competing with donations of surplus military hardware as instruments of political influence, and Brazil has been successfully turning into an important supplier of advanced defense equipment. (Latin News, Prensa Latina, and Associated Press contributed to this report.)

by Erick Galindo

Luis Gutiérrez

WASHINGTON, D.C.— Thousands of Latinos came from throughout the United States Oct. 13 to add their voices to the national clamor for immigration reform. “We came to fight for the reform President Obama promised us and nothing has happened since he’s been in office,” Newark, N.J., construction worker Jose Gregorio expressed his concern to Weekly Report.

Gregorio, from Honduras, in the United States on a work permit, has been in the process of securing his permanent residence visa.

­Despite a series of delays, Gregorio remains hopeful that he will be approved and even that immigration reform is forth coming.

Busloads of activists came to the nation’s capital from as far away as California, joining hundreds more who live in surrounding areas to meet with members of Congress. The pre-dominantly Hispanic crowd rallied on the west lawn of the Capitol in support of Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-III.), who shared with them the basics of a bill he plans to introduce to the House.

While jumping the gun on the White House, which has charged Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) with preparing an Administration bill, Gutierrez did not set a date for his, stating that health care and energy reform must come first.

Also hailed by the crowd was Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.) who delivered his pep talk in Spanish. As co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, Grijalva is expected to be influential in the debate. Chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Nydia Velasquez (D-N.Y.) was also on hand to offer her support.

But Gutierrez was the star of the show as members of the crowd compared him to President John Kennedy.

He said that learning English would be required under his bill, but that it would provide a path to citizenship that did not include huge penalties or require immigrants to return to their home countries for a period of time. “We’re going to learn English so well, we will be able to write novels and poetry,” he told the receptive crowd in English and Spanish.

The bill would also require background screenings and ensure border security.

Gutierrez also said that the current U.S. policy splits families who have U.S.-born relatives and asked for a moratorium of rids and firings while the country waits for reform. Hispanic Link.