The legislative push to enable school cafeterias to keep serving pizza and french fries won’t save nearly as much money as some lawmakers have suggested — if any, according to the Agriculture Department.
This week, a group of House and Senate lawmakers crafted an agriculture spending bill that barred the USDA from adopting the Obama administration’s proposal to limit the amount of tomato paste and starchy vegetables in federally funded school meals.
That proposal’s price tag — including the financial burden it would impose on strapped school districts — ranked as one of the top reasons for derailing it.
But on Wednesday, USDA officials said that scrapping the plan to limit tomato paste and starchy vegetables such as potatoes would not reap huge cost savings, and certainly not $7 billion as suggested by the GOP-controlled House Appropriations Committee.
The USDA’s plan to cut back on tomato paste and potatoes is part of a larger proposal to make school meals more nutritious. The USDA has estimated that revamping the entire school meals program would cost $6.8 billion over the next five years, in part because it would involve doubling the amount of fruits and vegetables served.
But barring the USDA from cutting back on tomato paste and starchy vegetables “will have little to no effect on the cost of the new standards” for school meals, said Aaron Lavallee, a USDA spokesman.
The USDA had proposed a one-cup-per-week limit on the amount of white potatoes and other starchy vegetables served to schoolchildren. The proposal also would have nixed the favorable treatment of tomato paste. Currently, one-eighth of a cup of tomato paste is credited with as much nutritional value as a half-cup of vegetables and thus counts as one vegetable serving. In effect, that enables food makers to market pizzas as vegetables.
The USDA wanted to bring tomato paste in line with the standards granted to fruit pastes and purees, such as applesauce.
But late Monday, lawmakers drafting a House and Senate compromise for the agriculture spending bill blocked the department from using money to carry out any of the proposed rules.
In a statement, the Agriculture Department expressed its disappointment with the decision.
“While it is unfortunate that some in Congress chose to bow to special interests, U.S.D.A. remains committed to practical, science-based standards for school meals that improve the health of our children,” the department said in the statement.
Food companies including ConAgra, Coca-Cola, Del Monte Foods and makers of frozen pizza like Schwan argued that the proposed rules would raise the cost of meals and require food that many children would throw away.
The companies called the Congressional response reasonable, adding that the Agriculture Department went too far in trying to improve nutrition in school lunches.
“This is an important step for the school districts, parents and taxpayers who would shoulder the burden of U.S.D.A.’s proposed $6.8 billion school meal regulation that will not increase the delivery of key nutrients,” said John Keeling, executive vice president and chief executive of the National Potato Council.
The Agriculture Department had estimated that the proposal would have cost about $6.8 billion over the next five years, adding about 14 cents a meal to the cost of a school lunch.
Corey Henry, a spokesman for the American Frozen Food Institute, said the proposed rules simply did not make sense, especially when it came to pizza.
The industry backs the current rules which say that about a quarter-cup of tomato paste on a slice of pizza can count as a vegetable serving. The Agriculture Department proposal would have required that schools serve more tomato paste per piece of pizza to get a vegetable credit, an idea the industry thought would make pizza unappetizing.
The department said the change would have simply brought tomato paste in line with the way other fruit pastes and purees were credited in school meals.
Nutrition experts called the action by Congress a setback for improving the nutritional standards in school lunches and addressing childhood obesity.
“It’s a shame that Congress seems more interested in protecting industry than protecting children’s health,” said Margo G. Wootan, director of nutrition policy at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a nonprofit research group. “At a time when child nutrition and childhood obesity are national health concerns, Congress should be supporting U.S.D.A. and school efforts to serve healthier school meals, not undermining them.
Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) is a degenerative brain disease caused by repeated blows to the head. It was commonly found in boxers starting in the 1920s. Now, the Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy will study the brains of 100 living patients to determine if CTE can be diagnosed before death.
Right now, the only way to determine if someone has CTE is by taking a sample of a brain and examining it under a microscope. Recent deaths such as Dave Duerson of the Chicago Bears and Rick Martin of the NHL have led to the larger study.
Boston University will study and scan the brains of 100 retired NFL players. They will also do genetic testing, interviewing and do a thorough examination over three years of all study participants. For a comparison group, the scientists will use athletes in non-contact sports such as runners, swimmers, tennis players and basketball stars.
All of the subjects will be between 40 and 69 years old. The 100 NFL players have all showed signs of increasing dementia that could be a sign of CTE. The athletes from other sports are also elite in their fields and were active in their sports for many years.
Before studying these 100 brains, Boston University only had about 70 to rely on and they were all from players who had passed away. This new endeavor will be the largest and most comprehensive of its kind.
The NFL players to be studied all played on defense, the side of the ball that required the most blows to the head. The NFL is helping Boston University contact former players. Another study being conducted involves interviewing former players to keep up on their condition from all sports.
The aim of the study is to try to better understand CTE and eventually will lead to a possible treatment for the disease. The brain slowly degenerates over many years due to repeated blows to the head. The condition is common in boxing, football and hockey.
Concussions and blows to the head have made news in the NFL this year. Former players filed a lawsuit in Los Angeles alleging the league hid the dangers of concussions and hid it from players for decades. The NFL commissioned its own study in the 1990s which concluded there was no danger. It wasn't until June 2010 that the NFL admitted concussions and dementia are a regular part of the NFL experience.
The NFL and the players' union are helping the center to contact former players. Stern said the initial response had been "extremely positive."
"There's a sense that former players want to be able to do something to not only potentially help themselves but also to help get the research moving quickly to help others in the future," he said.
The athletes in the comparison group will include retired swimmers and tennis players among others, recruited through college alumni associations and sports leagues.
"You'd be surprised at how many sports we exclude because we don't know for sure there's not a problem," Stern said, such as distance running, with the jolting of the head at every step.
Two more subjects are lined up for December, then the pace will pick up in January. The athletes are promised confidentiality.
The researchers hope genetic testing and other analyses help them eventually determine why some athletes who receive repeated blows to the head develop CTE and others don't. Dr. Robert Cantu and Chris Nowinski, a former Harvard football player and professional wrestler, are the other co-directors of the center.
Stern, a professor of neurology and neurosurgery at BU's medical school, also studies Alzheimer's. The recent progress made in diagnosing that disease during life encouraged him that the same could happen with CTE.
The grant, received in August, is also supported by the National Institute of Neurologic Diseases and Stroke, the National Institute on Aging, and the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. There are 20 co-investigators, including researchers at Harvard, Penn and Columbia. The center is still seeking additional funding to complete the study.
The center is also conducting a study called LEGEND of more than 1,000 athletes from a variety of sports using yearly telephone interviews, online questionnaires and a saliva sample for genetic testing to try to learn more about the development of CTE.
WASHINGTON — The 90-and-older population nearly tripled in the United States over the past three decades to reach 1.9 million in 2010 and will more than quadruple by 2050, the US Census Bureau said Friday.
Nonagenarians now represent 4.7 percent of the 65-and-older US population, compared to 2.8 percent in 1980. By the middle of the century, they will account for 10 percent of that group, according to the report.
Most Americans aged 90 and over have at least one disability, live alone or in a retirement home and have high school diplomas. And women outnumber men nearly three to one.
The age category is overwhelmingly white (88.1 percent), while blacks accounted for 7.6 percent, Asians 2.2 percent and Hispanics about four percent.
Nonagenarians are also mostly widows and widowers, live in poverty and have more disabilities than those aged less than 90.
"Traditionally, the cutoff age for what is considered the 'oldest old' has been age 85," Census Bureau demographer Wan He said in a statement.
"But increasingly, people are living longer and the older population itself is getting older. Given its rapid growth, the 90-and-older population merits a closer look.
An increase in education, improvements to nutrition and public health, a decline in smoking, diabetes controls and a reduction in strokes have been major factors contributing to the aging boom, Suzman said.
The report, which details the demographic, health and economic status of the oldest Americans, is based on the 2006- 2008 American Community Survey. It was released on the U.S. Census Bureau website.
"This is very important data for policy makers and researchers to start considering whether to change the definition for oldest-old from 85 to 90-plus," said Wan He, a Census Bureau demographer and an author on the report.
The so-called "oldest-old" in the United States has generally been defined as 85 and older.
Given the aging boom and increased life expectancy, that marker may now be inching closer to 90, researchers said, and it's important to understand the differences among the older population.
For example, of people aged 85-89, about 69 percent reportedly have a disability, which might include trouble hearing or seeing or a physical limitation.
At ages 90-94, that number jumps to nearly 83 percent.
Other study findings showed that the 90-plus population in the United States is overwhelmingly white with most earning a high school diploma.
Education is linked to a number of factors related to a person's well-being, according to the report, with higher education linked to lower mortality rates and better overall health.
Women over the age of 90 outnumbered men by nearly 3 to 1, according to the report. Nearly 80 percent of those women were widowed while more than 40 percent of the men 90 or older are married, it said.
RICHMOND, Va. — A federal judge on Thursday asked the Justice Department and America’s largest cigarette makers whether she should delay an order in a 12-year-old lawsuit against the tobacco industry while other courts decide newer cases challenging new tobacco marketing restrictions and graphic cigarette warning labels the government has proposed.
U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler in Washington ordered the parties to submit their views in the case in which she found the companies, including Philip Morris USA, maker of top-selling Marlboro cigarettes, masked the dangers of smoking.
It is not a myth that smoking cigarettes kills. In fact a lot of lives have been wasted due to glitzy advertising campaigns by the tobacco companies which make it look like it is a macho and sexy thing to smoke. Yet, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has reported that the adverse health effects from cigarette smoking account for an estimated 443,000 deaths, or nearly one of every five deaths, every year in the United States.
And so the Food and Drug Administration has been planning to demand the use of nine text and graphic health warnings on labels of cigarette packages and cartons by September 2012. The graphic images on these labels include a man smoking through a tracheotomy hole and a dead person with a surgery-scarred chest. The FDA feels this initiative would help curb tobacco use and encourage users to quit smoking.
A judge has however stepped in to temporarily block this plan. Alicia Gallegos has reported for American Medical News "Judge halts graphic warnings on cigarette packages." Judge Richard J. Leon of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia has said in his opinion the tobacco companies showed that they probably will prevail on their claim that the mandatory graphic images unconstitutionally force commercial speech. This decision was a victory for tobacco companies who claim the warnings are unfair and would cost millions of dollars to produce.
The government’s proposed corrective ads would cover the addictiveness of nicotine, the lack of health benefits from “low tar,” ‘’ultra-light” and “mild” cigarettes and the dangers of second-hand smoke. The companies have argued the statements are inflammatory, inaccurate and “designed solely to shame and humiliate” the companies.
The FDA’s new marketing restrictions include cigarette warning labels featuring images of a man exhaling cigarette smoke through a tracheotomy hole in his throat, the corpse of a dead smoker, diseased lungs and a smoker wearing an oxygen mask.
Tobacco companies are increasingly relying on their packaging to build brand loyalty and grab consumers. It’s one of few advertising venues they can use after the government curbed their presence in magazines, billboards and TV. The companies have said the graphic labels could cost them millions of dollars in lost sales and increased packaging costs.
Earlier this month a federal judge blocked the requirement that would have begun forcing tobacco companies next year to put the images on their cigarette packages and in advertisements.
Another case the tobacco companies filed over the marketing restrictions is pending before the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati after a judge in Kentucky upheld most of the marketing restrictions.
The defendants in the corrective statements case include Philip Morris USA’s parent company, Richmond, Va.-based Altria Group Inc.; Greensboro, N.C.-based Lorillard Inc., and R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., and its parent company, Reynolds American Inc., based in Winston-Salem, N.C.
