Colorado River water sharing agreement

Government leaders in the United States and Mexico are close to signing a pact to add areas south of the border to Colorado River water sharing agreements involving seven Western U.S. states.
U.S. Bureau of Reclamation officials said Friday that final documents are circulating among the 15 water agencies and state officials in Nevada, Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming.
The Las Vegas Review-Journal reports the Southern Nevada Water Authority and Colorado River Commission of Nevada will consider it next week.
The agreement would link Mexican and U.S. water allocations during shortages that the documents dub "low reservoir conditions."
And for the first time it would let Mexico store water in U.S. reservoirs, including Lake Mead.
A signing ceremony is tentatively scheduled later this month.

diabetes once-a-week treatment for Type 2

First Weekly Diabetes Drug Wins FDA Approval

Well, now we know why celebrity chef Paula Deen was recently hired to promote the daily diabetes drug she takes: That drug is getting some new competition from Bydureon, the first once-a-week treatment for Type 2 diabetes approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

The FDA approved the injectable, extended-release drug last month after several delays due to government concerns that it might cause heart rhythm abnormalities.

Manufacturer Amylin Pharmaceuticals expects the drug to be available in pharmacies this month.

Shortly before Bydureon’s approval was made public, Deen, 65, revealed that she had had Type 2 diabetes for three years and had just signed an endorsement contract with Novo Nordisk, makers of competitor drug Victoza, which is injected once a day.

Deen, known for promoting the type of high-calorie Southern recipes that diabetics should avoid, was immediately criticized for keeping her disease a secret until it became financially worthwhile not to.

Not that the Food Network star is too worried about the criticism. As she told the Associated Press last week, “I am who I am. But what I will be doing is offering up lighter versions of my recipes.”

Both Bydureon and Victoza help the body produce more insulin to reduce high blood-sugar levels. Although once-weekly sounds more convenient than once-daily, a head-to-head comparison study last year found that daily Victoza was somewhat more effective at reducing blood sugar levels.

Like Victoza, Bydureon will come with a warning stating that it caused thyroid tumors in rats during the drug-testing process, according to the Wall Street Journal. Although it’s unknown whether either drug will cause tumors or thyroid cancer in humans, they shouldn’t be used by patients with a personal or family history of thyroid cancer.

An estimated 26 million Americans have Type 2 diabetes, the most common form of the disease, including nearly 11 million age 65 and older. Getting diabetics to monitor their blood sugar levels and take medication regularly has been on ongoing problem, many doctors say. Drugs that can be taken less frequently may help patients more easily keep their disease under control.

extradited to Mexico

Bruce Beresford-Redman, the reality television-show producer accused of murdering his wife, Monica, in Cancun in 2010, has been extradited to Mexico, NBC News reported Wednesday.

The one-time "Survivor"producer’s attorney, Richard Hirsch, confirmed that Beresford-Redman's extradition process began Tuesday and he was extradited to Cancun, where he must face the magistrate within six days.

Hirsh told NBC News that Beresford-Redman has retained an attorney in Mexico.

In December, officials said Beresford-Redman was dropping his extradition fight, but a "delivery date" had not been set.

NBC News reported that Beresford-Redman arrived in Cancun at 12:30 a.m. local time (1:30 a.m. ET) and was taken to the attorney-general's office. The Associated Press said that he was wearing a bulletproof vest and was escorted by nearly a dozen agents.

Monica (Burgos) Beresford-Redman, 42, disappeared from a Cancun resort where the couple was vacationing with their two children. Her body was found stuffed in a sewer cistern at a swank resort.

The Burgos family, in a prepared statement issued by attorney Alison Triessl and obtained by NBC News, hailed Bruce Beresford-Redman's return to Mexico.

"This day marks a major milestone in our journey to ensure justice for Monica," the family said. "It is our hope that Mexico will pursue his prosecution zealously and that once convicted, Bruce Beresford-Redman will be sentenced to the maximum term allowable by Mexican law."

In December, Hirsch said of the producer, "He is innocent and it is his hope that the court in Mexico will assure that he receives a fair trial in which, he is confident, he will be exonerated."

The family of Monica Beresford-Redman has said the couple went to Cancun to try to save their marriage. They claim Bruce Beresford-Redman, who is also the co-creator of the series "Pimp My Ride," was having a long-term affair with another woman. His wife, originally from Brazil, owned and operated a restaurant in Los Angeles.

U.S. District Judge Philip Gutierrez upheld an extradition order in December, saying that there are many pages of competent evidence supporting prosecution claims that the producer killed his wife.

From December 27, 2011: Carla Burgos, the sister of slain Monica Beresford-Redman, and family attorney Alison Triessl talk about Bruce Beresford-Redman's decision to not appeal a judge's ruling to extradite him to Mexico to face murder charges in his wife's death.

"All of this evidence points to homicide committed by the fugitive," said the judge's ruling.

Prosecutors presented statements from hotel guests who said they heard loud arguing and cries of distress coming from the couple's room on the night Monica Beresford-Redman went missing.

The producer's attorneys have claimed the noises came from Beresford-Redman and his children playing loud games throughout the night. They introduced statements from the couple's 6-year-old daughter to corroborate the claim, but judges who have reviewed the case were not swayed.

Beresford-Redman had been ordered to stay in Mexico after his wife's body was found but he left and returned to his home in Los Angeles. He voluntarily surrendered to U.S. authorities after a warrant was issued in Mexico for his arrest.

Mexican courts do not have juries, and the producer will be tried by the same judge who issued the warrant for his arrest, Hirsch had said.

If he is convicted of aggravated homicide in Mexico, Beresford-Redman faces 12 years to 30 years in a Mexican prison.

His two small children have been placed in the custody of Beresford-Redman's parents with visitation by their mother's sisters.

Southern U.S. Border Crossings

U.S. Mexico Border Crossings

There are currently 45 U.S.–Mexico border crossings. From west to east, below is a list of the border city twinnings, which are municipalities connected by one or more legal border crossings.
California
San Diego, California (San Ysidro) – Tijuana, Baja California (San Diego–Tijuana Metro.)
Otay Mesa, California – Tijuana, Baja California
Tecate, California – Tecate, Baja California
Calexico, California – Mexicali, Baja California
Andrade, California – Los Algodones, Baja California
Arizona
San Luis, Arizona – San Luis Río Colorado, Sonora
Lukeville, Arizona – Sonoita, Sonora
Sasabe, Arizona – Altar, Sonora
Nogales, Arizona – Nogales, Sonora
Naco, Arizona – Naco, Sonora
Douglas, Arizona – Agua Prieta, Sonora
New Mexico
Antelope Wells, New Mexico – El Berrendo, Chihuahua
Columbus, New Mexico – Palomas, Chihuahua
Santa Teresa, New Mexico – San Jerónimo, Chihuahua
Texas
El Paso, Texas – Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua
Fabens, Texas – Práxedis G. Guerrero, Chihuahua municipality
Presidio, Texas – Ojinaga, Chihuahua
Heath Canyon, Texas – La Linda, Coahuila (closed)
Del Rio, Texas – Ciudad Acuña, Coahuila
Eagle Pass, Texas – Piedras Negras, Coahuila
Laredo, Texas – Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas
Laredo, Texas – Colombia, Nuevo León
Falcon Heights, Texas – Presa Falcón, Tamaulipas
Roma, Texas – Ciudad Miguel Alemán, Tamaulipas
Rio Grande City, Texas – Ciudad Camargo, Tamaulipas
Los Ebanos, Texas - Gustavo Diaz Ordaz, Tamaulipas
Mission, Texas – Reynosa, Tamaulipas
Hidalgo, Texas – Reynosa, Tamaulipas
Pharr, Texas – Reynosa, Tamaulipas
Donna, Texas - Rio Bravo, Tamaulipas
Progreso, Texas – Nuevo Progreso, Tamaulipas
Los Indios, Texas – Matamoros, Tamaulipas
Brownsville, Texas – Matamoros, Tamaulipas

Medicar Un Truths

Medicare

False Rumor Medicare premiums 2014, the bogus rumor persists. $247 per month is ridicules and False.

An Internet e-mail still circulates that come 2014 the Medicare Part B standard premium will be $247 per person. That’s nonsense for several reasons.
1. The calculation of the premium is set by law and that law has not changed.
2. There is nothing in the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) that affects the Medicare premium calculation.
3. The President does not, as has been alleged, have the ability to unilaterally change any of this.

4. The standard 2012 premium for Medicare Part B is $99.90 (higher for the 5% higher income beneficiaries). If you used the highest rate of inflation to hit Medicare in the last forty years for both 2012 and 2013 you would get a premium of less than $130.00. The likelihood of that kind of inflation in the next two years is non-existent.

5. There is nothing in the 2011 Medicare Trustees report to indicate other than normal rates of cost increases over the next several years. In fact, the Trustee’s project that by 2020 the Part B premium will be $158.60. Even that is based on a premium for 2012 of $106.60 (not $99.90).

6. Most Medicare beneficiaries (95%) are protected from high increases in Medicare premiums under the Social Security hold harmless provision. This means that an increase in Medicare premiums cannot cause a net reduction in the Social Security payments. So, for example, if you are receiving $1,000 a month in Social Security benefits and you receive a 3% COLA increase, your Part B premium cannot increase my more than $30. Do the math and you will see there would have to be whopping COLA increases in Social Security in the next two years to get most people anywhere near $247 and that ain’t gonna happen.

English: President signing the Medicare Bill a...

1965

Are any of these projections 100% accurate? Certainly not, there are too many unknowns. However, before you pass along some outrageous story about Medicare premiums (or a tax on the sale of your home, or that the value of health benefits is now taxable income or that Obama was stopping the 2011 Social Security COLA – all of which were circulated in the last year), get the facts.

Unfortunately too many people out there are so obsessed with opposition to this or that, their judgement is clouded …or they are simply ignorant and that’s scary because they can still vote.

By the way, the story about a brain surgeon being at a meeting in Washington where denying care to Americans 70 and over was discussed is also a lie. There was no such meeting, there is nothing in the Affordable Care Act remotely related to that and the caller to a talk show giving the story was not a brain surgeon.

lower immune responses

A group of compounds used in a variety of products, including water-resistant clothing and microwave popcorn, may prevent childhood vaccinations from working properly, a new study says.

In the study, children who had higher concentrations of these compounds, called perfluorinated compounds (PFCs), in their blood had lower immune responses to diphtheria and tetanus vaccinations. An insufficient immune response to a vaccination can mean a child is actually vulnerable to catching a disease even though they've beenvaccinated against it.

Indeed, the levels of antibodies in the blood of some children exposed to PFCs indicated they were not protected against these diseases by age 7.

"When we take our kids to the doctor's office to get their shots, we expect that the vaccines are going to work," said study researcher Dr. Philippe Grandjean, of the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston. "What we found was that there was an increasing risk that they didn’t work if the kids had been exposed to the PFCs," Grandjean said.

The study is provocative, but the findings are not of immediate public health concern, said Dr. William Schaffner, chairman of the department of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. Despite the link found in this study, vaccines have largely protected the public against diphtheria and tetanus over the same period of time that PFCs have accumulated in the environment, Schaffner said.

"These are illnesses that have been virtually eliminated from children," in the United States, Schaffner said.

However, Schaffner said investigations into the link between vaccines' effectiveness and PFCs, along with other potential environmental hazards, should continue.

The study will be published tomorrow (Jan. 25) in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

PFCs have thousands of uses in manufacturing, and most people have the compounds in their bodies, Grandjean said. They are slow to break down and persist for many years in the environment.

Studies in animals have suggested PFCs may lower the body's immune response, but their impact on people's health is unclear.

Grandjean and colleagues analyzed data from 587 children living in the Faroe Islands, in the northern Atlantic Ocean between Scotland and Iceland. These islands were chosen because their inhabitants frequently consume seafood, which is associated with increased exposure to PFCs. Still, overall,levels of PFCs in this area are similar to those found in other countries, including the United States, Grandjean said.

The researchers measured levels of PFCs in the blood of 5-year-old children, and tested the children's immune response to tetanus and diphtheria vaccinations at ages 5 and 7. The kids received complete vaccinations against these diseases, including a booster shot at age 5.

The higher the levels of PFCs were in the blood, the lower the children's response was to the vaccines.

A doubling of the exposure to PFCs was associated with a 49 percent lower level of blood antibodies in children at age 7, Grandjean said.

Children with some of the highest levels of PFCs were two to four times more likely to have antibodies in their blood at a level below what is thought to protect against these diseases.

The study "emphasizes the importance of making sure that the world does not pollute the natural environment," Schaffner said. "Clearly, greater efforts must be made to keep these perfluorinated compounds out of the environment," hesaid.

It's not clear exactly how people come to accumulate levels of PFCs in their body, so advice on how to avoid them may not necessarily work. But Grandjean said, "It would be prudent to avoid microwave popcorn [and] treatment of furniture, carpets, shoes and clothing with stain repellants," unless they are known not to contain PFCs.

Future studies into the health impact of PFCs should examine their effect on the immune system, Grandjean said. The researchers would also like to know if exposure to PFCs is associated with a reduced immune response to other vaccinations.