Non-Environmental Cost-Benefit News

Objective: This study examined the role of marital quality in the physical health of mature adults. Method: Participants were from the National Survey of Midlife Development in the United States aged 50+ years who were in their first marriage. Five dimensions of marital quality and four indicators of physical health were used. Results: Regression analyses indicated that marital quality indices accounted fora significant amount of explained variance in physical health. Most notably, higher levels of negative spousal behaviors uniquely contributed to physical health, predicting more physical symptoms, chronic health problems, and physical disability, and poorer perceived health. Discussion: The occurrence of negative spousal behaviors was consistently associated with poorer physical health. The negativity effect observed regarding the costs and benefits of social support in general also applies to the context of marriage in that negative spousal behaviors outweigh positive spousal behaviors in contributing to mature adults' physical health.

by Jamila Bookwala. Journal of Aging and Health. February 2005. Volume 17, Issue 1; page 85
http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=780115971&sid=1&Fmt=2&clientId=13371&RQT=309&VName=PQD
http://www.sagepub.com/journal.aspx?pid=103

Journal of Aging and Health

No business would invest pounds 675m in new technology and processes without a clear idea of how it would get the money back. Luckily for innovators in public services, e-government works by different rules. Until now, very little work has been done on putting a monetary value on the payback from setting up e-services.

This is changing. One reason to start counting e-government's benefits is that central funding is drying up. Subsidies for local councils to put services online end in April 2006. Another reason is that, under the Gershon efficiency review published last summer, all authorities have to show efficiency gains of 2.5% a year.

As part of an effort to persuade councils to take up centrally funded e-government developments rather than re-invent them locally, the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister has published a set of independent studies measuring their payback.

The headline figures are impressive. They show that six projects alone could be worth up to pounds 2.45bn if implemented across every council in England. The returns include:

* Cost savings worth between pounds 160m and pounds 480m.

* Increased revenue worth between pounds 30m and pounds 100m.

* Service improvements worth between pounds 760m and pounds 1.87bn.

The six schemes are among 22 national projects funded by the ODPM to develop e-solutions to problems faced by local authorities. The projects have received pounds 118m from the ODPM's pounds 675m local government online programme.

Putting cash values on the changes enabled by e-government is difficult. Often there's no baseline from which to start: staff often resist attempts to measure the cost of conventional ways of working.

Another problem is that creating new electronic channels can increase costs in the short term by making access to a service easier. And when savings appear, it may not belong to the organisation making the investment. For example, the biggest beneficiary of an IT system that enables a local authority to identify dumped cars more quickly may be the local fire service, not the council that paid for the technology.

To get around these difficulties, the ODPM hired IT firm Capgemini to study six of the most mature national projects and to add up their effects on the authorities carrying them out, whether or not hard cash was saved, and to extrapolate the figures nationally. In order of size of potential savings, the projects were:

* Customer relationship management (CRM). This would allow savings of between pounds 49m and pounds 146m from efficiencies and cost-cutting and between pounds 195m and pounds 650m in improved services.

* Planning and regulatory services (Parsol). Potential efficiency savings of between pounds 17m and pounds 56m, with service improvements from pounds 291m to pounds 513m. Fewer errors and greater customer satisfaction are among the service improvements.

* Enterprise workflow. Potential efficiency savings, such as in office space and paper, between pounds 48m and pounds 159m, with service improvements including fewer errors and reduced backlogs worth between pounds 166m and pounds 296m.

* Mobile working (Project Nomad). This would create between pounds 30m and pounds 81m in efficiency savings by using field officers' time more productively and speeding up transactions. It would bring in between pounds 5m and pounds 50m in increased revenue by collecting fees more effectively and between pounds 40m and pounds 205m in service improvements. These include improved data quality and rationalisation of assets.

* Council tax and rates (Valuebill). The biggest potential returns are in increased revenue: between pounds 24m and pounds 48m from better identification of households. Efficiency savings would be worth between pounds 14m and pounds 25m and service improvements, including "reduction in the number of valuation appeals" between pounds 51m and pounds 167m.

* Local authority websites (Laws). This project could save English councils between pounds 4m and pounds 9m in software licence fees and create service improvements of between pounds 17m and pounds 35m. These include reduction in web development costs and increased availability of online services.

As well as the quantified benefits, each of the six projects has strategic or intang- ible benefits. These generally include better public perception, happier staff and increased ability for reform.

The figures came with a couple of health warnings. One was that "baseline data is not available in most cases", so some efficiency gains are just estimates. Another is that e-government gains are not instant: "It takes three to five years to derive full benefits."

The studies' methodology would also raise eyebrows among academic researchers. The ODPM admits that it commissioned Capgemini to compile a list of paybacks rather than to carry out an impartial study of costs and benefits.

But the ODPM says that the studies prove e-government can pay. Martin Scarfe, in charge of communicating the national projects, says: "If anyone needed evidence that e-government can be a huge driver for service improvement and cost efficiencies, these studies provide it."

The ODPM also points out that the project outcomes were just the kind of gains being sought by the Gershon efficiency review and the new "comprehensive performance assessment" of local government. That, at least, may persuade some local council sceptics to take a second look at e-government.

Weblinks:
Local e-gov: www.localegovnp.org.uk/ benefits
Office of the Deputy Prime Minister: www.odpm.gov.uk

by Michael Cross. The Guardian. Manchester (UK): Jan 26, 2005. pg. 7
http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=784429581&sid=1&Fmt=3&clientId=13371&RQT=309&VName=PQD
The Guardian

Researchers are trying to find out why females choose attractive men even though the former may incur more survival costs than males in rearing offspring, especially when they choose flashy mates.

Megan Head and colleagues now report in the online journal PLoS Biology, the results of simultaneously measuring both the costs and benefits of mating to female crickets and their offspring and provide new evidence that the costs that females pay for mating with attractive males are balanced by the fact that they produce offsprings with a higher level of fitness.

The authors paired females with either "attractive" or "unattractive" males (determining which males were attractive by running the equivalent of speed dating "tournaments") and measured the overall fitness consequences of the various unions.

Although female crickets, they found, paid a higher survival price for mating with attractive males, these females produced both daughters that laid more eggs within a given time and sons that were more attractive.

Hindustan Times

Whole-body computed tomography (CT) is not a cost-effective screening method, according to a study published in the February issue of the journal Radiology.

The use of whole-body CT as a screening tool for cancer and other diseases is the focus of an ongoing debate. Proponents of whole-body CT emphasize the potential benefit of early detection of disease, but others caution that the costs, false-positive findings and unnecessary radiation might render the procedure more harmful than beneficial.

"Our findings show that the average person should think twice before having a whole-body CT examination," said study author, G. Scott Gazelle, M.D., Ph.D., director of the Massachusetts General Hospital Institute for Technology Assessment and associate professor of radiology at Harvard Medical School in Boston. "When money is wasted on ineffective interventions, it drives up the cost and decreases the availability of other necessary healthcare interventions," he said.

The researchers evaluated the cost-effectiveness of a single whole-body CT screening examination, which they believe to be the most representative use of whole-body CT. They estimated the cost to be $900 in 2001 dollars, based on advertised prices at the time.

By using software to create an analytic model, the team calculated the monetary costs versus any increase in life expectancy that resulted from CT screening in a hypothetical, self-referred cohort of 500,000 asymptomatic 50-year-old males. They evaluated eight conditions and anatomic regions commonly associated with whole-body CT screening. Disease rates were based on 1973–1996 data from the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) program.

The findings indicate that whole-body CT screening exams provide only minimal gains in life expectancy (approximately six days) at an average cost of $2,513 per patient, or an incremental cost-effectiveness ratio of $151,000 per life-year gained (relative to survival with no screening), making the procedure more expensive in cost per life-year gained than the majority of other healthcare interventions currently funded in the United States.

The study also found that for every 1,000 patients screened, an average of 908 would have at least one false-positive test result, requiring further testing. Health insurance would be responsible for the costs of most follow-up tests and treatments prompted by the CT examination, which could lead to increased healthcare costs across the board.

The researchers maintain that serious consideration should be given to the costs and benefits of this technology before it is more widely used, as sufficient clinical data are not currently available to provide a definitive answer regarding whole-body CT screening, and the analytic model holds some limitations.

"Models are by definition a simplification of reality," Dr. Gazelle said. "The real test of a model is to compare the findings with actual clinical data. Currently, there is a paucity of data regarding the effectiveness of whole-body CT."

Dr. Gazelle believes that this type of screening is not appropriate in people with an average risk of disease. "Tests have downstream consequences," he said. "At this time, whole-body CT screening just doesn't appear to be a good use of healthcare funding."

Contact: Maureen Morley, mmorley@rsna.org, 630-590-7762, Radiological Society of North America, for interviews or a copy of the complete study, contact RSNA Media Relations at 630-590-7762.

Eurekalert.org

After five minutes explanation from Bob Teo, the inventor of the abKey ergonomic USB keyboard, I could easily write down all the alphabet's key positions on a blank paper template. I still can't do that after 35 years of touch-typing on a Qwerty keyboard - or not without a lot of "pretend typing" to figure out the bottom row.

The ease of learning, ease of typing and ergonomic advantages of his keyboard have persuaded Teo, a Singapore-based entrepreneur, that he can start a revolution that will finally displace a standard that has lasted more than 120 years.

In this he is far from unique: probably hundreds of people have designed Qwerty keyboard replacements. However, abKey, launched at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last week, is the first one I've seen that has a chance - albeit a slim one - of succeeding.

This is important, because if the abKey keyboard is successful, it will save countless billions of dollars.

The main savings come from the shorter learning time and more efficient typing, especially by people who can't touch-type. You can learn the abKey layout in five minutes or less (see box). Teo claims familiarity takes an hour, but says: "Most people take 42 hours to learn Qwerty." Even then they can't remember it.

Other savings come in health costs. The most common Qwerty keyboard design puts the hands in an unnatural position, which leads to repetitive strain injuries such as carpal tunnel syndrome. The costs include lost production, lost wages, medical expenses and compensation claims. Split ergonomic or "natural" keyboards are available, but Teo reckons splitting the Qwerty layout makes it doubly hard for most people to use.
Advertiser links

Big companies, local authorities, schools and far-sighted individuals should therefore be ready to adopt a new design. The problem is that, so far, nobody has come up with an alternative that makes economic sense.

There are, for example, various "chorded keyboards" that are more ergonomic and more efficient, and they have their uses, eg for making transcriptions in court. But Teo argues that they have been too expensive and too hard to learn for widespread adoption.

There are also alternative keyboard layouts such as the one developed by Dr August Dvorak in the 1930s. This is easy for personal computers to support, and for PC manufacturers to supply - after all, they probably need more than a dozen layouts just to cope with different European languages.

The problems with Dvorak are that "it takes as long to learn as Qwerty, and it takes a long time to switch," says Teo. "There have also been some studies that showed Dvorak wasn't as good as it claimed to be."

In fact, research by two American academics, Stan Liebowitz and Stephen Margolis, suggest Dvorak's results were fudged. The US government's "carefully controlled experiment designed to examine the costs and benefits of switching to Dvorak" - conducted by Earle Strong, a professor at Pennsylvania State University, in the 1950s - "unreservedly concluded that retraining typists on Dvorak was inferior to retraining on Qwerty", according to Liebowitz and Margolis.

While the pair have been debunked by Dvorak supporters, one fact remains: even after years of pro-Dvorak hype, hardly anybody uses it.

My experience is that most people can make significant advances in typing speed and accuracy if they spend a few hours learning to touch-type or improving their technique, whereas switching to a different system instantly makes them dramatically worse. If people can't be bothered to make the effort to achieve real gains in the short term, they are unlikely to make the much greater effort required to achieve the long-term gains promised by alternatives such as Dvorak or, perhaps, abKey.

But Teo still reckons he has a chance, because of the potential market among the billions of people who have not yet learned Qwerty - young children, and the populations of developing countries such as India and China.

"We're not saying everybody must switch," he says. "Kids are our prime target. If they grow up with a simple keyboard, they are never going to switch to a harder one."

Teo has run trials with Chinese, Indian and Malay children that show they make better progress with abKey and prefer it to Qwerty by two to one. If Asian governments were to mandate the abKey layout in schools, that could have a profound impact - but it hasn't happened yet.

Teo also argues that the populations of China, India and Indonesia will make up the bulk of the earth's population and could soak up the most of the next billion PCs to be sold. I agree - but I still reckon Chinese buyers are more likely to adopt Qwerty keyboards that cost $7 or less than Teo's much nicer $99 design.

Also, while abKey users can simply plug their own keyboard into PCs with USB ports, it will be harder to get notebook manufacturers to incorporate the new design. All this suggests adoption will be an uphill struggle.

"Will people change? We have no answer to that," says Teo. "All we can do is go out and try."

Keyboard designers have at least two things to think about. The first is to make the key layout memorable and easy to learn, which generally means making the order alphabetical. The second is to make typing fast and efficient, by putting the most common keys under the "home" fingers and reducing finger travel. Teo's layout is clever in providing a compromise that offers close to the best of both worlds. There is just one "gotcha".

Teo's design makes it possible to type fast by putting the vowels under the left hand and some of the most common consonants under the right hand. This is hard if the keyboard is kept symmetrical, so Teo has split the keys: there are three rows of three keys on the left and three rows of five keys on the right.

The left hand's keypad handles BCD on the bottom row with FGH on the top row. The right hand then gets the three remaining chunks of characters formed by removing the vowels: JKLMN, PQRST and VWXYZ. This is where the "gotcha" comes in. As a touch typist, you have two "home" positions for the right hand, with the fingers either on RST or shifted two places to the left.

One difficulty remains: how do you fit five vowels on to the three keys provided for the left hand? Teo's solution is to provide big round buttons for the A and U, with the E, I and O on the middle row of typewriter keys in between. It's not quite as elegant as the rest of the design, but it is practical.

Links:

abKey
www.abKey.biz

Dvorak primers
www.dvorak-keyboard.com
www.mwbrooks.com/dvorak/

Typing Errors, by Stan Liebowitz and Stephen Margolis
http://reason.com/9606/Fe.QWERTY.shtml

The Fable of the Keys, by Stan Liebowitz and Stephen Margolis
http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?TheFableOf TheKeys

The Guardian

RCM Technologies Canada has developed a decision support tool that will enable companies to better evaluate and understand the benefits and costs of traceability to their organization. This decision support tool is the result of work that broke new ground in food and produce traceability standards in projects for Can-Trace, the Produce Marketing Association (PMA) and the Canadian Produce Marketing Association (CPMA).

Due to the regulatory requirements in the U.S. Bioterrorism Act, as well as incidents of BSE in North America, and other global drivers, tracing the path of agricultural products from farm to consumer has become an increasingly important business and public health issue.

In 2004 RCM was the primary consultant in three pilot projects in partnership with Can-Trace (a national food supply chain tracking and tracing initiative), the Canadian Produce Marketing Association and the Produce Marketing Association (U.S.).

"Working with Can-Trace, the CPMA and the PMA," said Brian Sterling, Vice President, and RCM Technologies Canada, "our efforts focused on understanding and completing the development of standards to meet requirements for whole-chain traceability. Every producer, processor, re-packer, distributor and retailer is being affected by the demand for product tracing and tracking. Food industry organizations face significant risks if found non-compliant with regulatory requirements that are changing rapidly.

From a business perspective, however, enterprises can also use traceability to grow their markets and to make their business processes more effective and efficient as they strive to achieve compliance. To achieve that goal from a more practical standpoint, we produced a "decision support tool" so companies can better understand the benefits and costs of traceability to their organization."

RCM's Business Case report examines the costs and benefits of implementing traceability. Evidence from several pilots demonstrated that improving product traceability in the Canadian food value chain can deliver net business benefits. Based on these findings, RCM developed their decision support tool.

Four major categories of benefits were identified in the project:

* Benefits relating to maintaining business and achieving regulatory compliance;
* Market benefits related to meeting market or customer requirements;
* Risk and recall benefits from mitigation of potential liabilities; and
* Supply Chain improvement benefits, from using traceability as a tool to improve business operations, increase product quality and reduce costs.

What distinguishes these pilot studies and the resulting traceability standard is that it is inclusive and adaptable to all North American food manufacturers.

"Can-Trace's Canadian Food Traceability Data Standard Version 1.0 is groundbreaking - we are not aware of any other country that has attempted to bring together the entire food chain and build a single national traceability data standard. Further, the pilot project results confirmed that the Can-Trace data standard is sufficient to establish traceability," said Jane Proctor, Can-Trace's elected chair, and Director of Industry Technology & Standardization at the Canadian Produce Marketing Association. Can-Trace is a collaboration of food supply chain stakeholders from across Canada that convened in response to the Agricultural Policy Framework goal of 80% traceability of food sold in Canada by 2008.

Adaptable to different food and agriculture sectors, these standards are based on a one up/one down model of sharing traceability information, using international data carrier standards. Can-Trace has released reports on the results of beef, pork and produce traceability pilot projects (for which RCM was also involved), the business case for implementing traceability solutions, and traceability requirements specific to Canadian small and medium enterprises (SME).

RCM was also the primary consultant for the PMA on their traceability pilot, primarily to ensure that produce industry programs were in harmony within North America. "It is critical that the traceability pilot accurately reflects the needs of both Canadian and U.S. marketplaces," said Gary Fleming, PMA Vice President of Industry Technology and Standards, "as well as any regulatory and voluntary requirements. Both industries are integral trading partners and it is important that traceability solutions work together in a cohesive manner. Having RCM as our partner in this program ensured that traceability efforts are unified and consistent throughout North America."

Copies of the Canadian Food Traceability Data Standard Version 1.0, all Pilot Reports, the Business Case, and SME Report can be downloaded from the Can-Trace web site at www.can-trace.org.

About RCM Technologies

RCM Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ:RCMT - News) is a provider of business and technology solutions designed to enhance and maximize the operational performance of its customers through the adaptation and deployment of advanced information technology and engineering services. Additional information can be found at www.rcmt.com.

RCM's Supply Chain Optimization practice focuses on helping clients collaborate with their business partners across the supply chain. RCM is one of the few North American technology solutions firms with a specialized practice group that helps companies address the data issues around Global Data Synchronization, Sunrise 2005 and GTIN compliance requirements. Through its close work with industry and associations, RCM has become a leader in the area of product traceability and associated business benefits.

About Can-Trace

In July 2003, major Canadian trade associations, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada and the Electronic Commerce Council of Canada (ECCC) convened a tracking and tracing initiative named Can-Trace. The objective of Can-Trace is to identify requirements for a whole-chain Canadian food industry traceability (tracking and tracing) program. The Can-Trace initiative is managed by a Steering Committee composed of trade association and government representatives and funded by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. ECCC is the initiative's secretariat. To learn more about Can-Trace, visit www.can-trace.org.

Contact:
RCM Technologies Canada, Brian Sterling, 905-812-3868, brian.sterling@rcmt.com
or Special Assignment Inc., Peter Donato, 416-964-6118, donato@specialassignment.com

Yahoo Finance

To cities the lure of the convention business has long been the prospect of visitors emptying their wallets on meals, lodging, and entertainment, helping to rejuvenate ailing downtowns.

However, an examination of the convention business and city and state spending on host venues finds that:

* The overall convention marketplace is declining in a manner that suggests that a recovery or turnaround is unlikely to yield much increased business for any given community, contrary to repeated industry projections. Moreover this decline began prior to the disruptions of 9-11 and is exacerbated by advances in communications technology. Currently, overall attendance at the 200 largest tradeshow events languishes at 1993 levels.

* Nonetheless, localities, sometimes with state assistance, have continued a type of arms race with competing cities to host these events, investing massive amounts of capital in new convention center construction and expansion of existing facilities. Over the past decade alone, public capital spending on convention centers has doubled to $2.4 billion annually, increasing convention space by over 50 percent since 1990. Nationwide, 44 new or expanded convention centers are now in planning or construction.

* Faced with increased competition, many cities spend more money on additional convention amenities, like publicly-financed hotels to serve as convention "headquarters." Another competitive response has been to offer deep discounts to tradeshow groups. Despite dedicated taxes to pay off the public bonds issued to build convention centers, many—including Washington, D.C and St. Louis—operate at a loss.

This analysis should give local leaders pause as they consider calls for ever more public investment into the convention business, while weighing simultaneously where else scarce public funds could be spent to boost the urban economy.

by Heywood Sanders
January 2005

Brookings Institution

In 2002/3, sick leave among prison staff in England and Wales cost the taxpayer £80m.

Employees took an average of 14.7 days off through ill health, with more than a fifth taking 11 days or more.

A report by the all-party Public Accounts Committee (PAC) said the service should consider restricting sick pay, like the private sector.

In 2002-03, Prison Service employees took 668,337 sick days - equivalent to a year's work for 3,000 full-time staff - and 13.3 days in 2003/4.

And staff at three institutions took more than 20 days off sick annually - Haslar immigration removal centre in Portsmouth, Liverpool Prison and Hindley young offenders institution, near Wigan.

Latest CBI figures show that the average sickness rate for the private sector is 6.9 days and 8.9 for the public sector.

In private prisons, the figure was 12.5 days a year while in the Scottish Prison Service it was 12.9 days in 2002/3.

The PAC report said: "The Prison Service should consider the costs and benefits of not paying staff for the first three days of any period of sickness absence in line with the approach used by private sector prisons to manage sickness absence."

Committee chairman Conservative MP Edward Leigh told BBC News: "We were promised years ago, our committee, by the Prison Service that they were going to try and get this down. They've woefully failed to meet their targets. "It's undoubtedly true if you look at the private prisons that they have a much better record." He said if the Prison Service were to meet its target, then around 1,000 extra staff would be available for duty, easing the burden on their colleagues.

Prison Officers' Association head Colin Moses said criticism had not taken into account the high levels of assault on prison staff as well as the fact that the service was understrength by almost 2,000 people.

A spokeswoman for the Prison Service said the organisation now had a "strong grip" on sickness management and matters were "expected to improve".

Jayne Blake, governor of the Hindley young offenders institution, where staff took an average of 20 days off sick per year, said the figures should also show how much sick time was due to assaults on staff.

Ms Blake said her institution was tackling high sickness levels and had already cut levels by five days a year.

"We have a large range of interventions varying from occupational health advisers... to counselling and types of physiotherapy.

"Working with the Prison Service is a stressful occupation. We at Hindley deal with young people... Some teenagers are very demanding individuals.

"Members of staff do on occasion get assaulted. Maybe we should remove the periods covered by these assaults from the stats."

BBC News

British Columbia appears poised to offer improved incentives to its $1-billion dollar film industry, as it tries to level the tax playing field with other Canadian provinces, including Ontario.

B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell is set to hold talks with film sector officials this week, a sign his government may be prepared to match Ontario by raising the tax credit on foreign productions to 18 per cent from 11 per cent.

"The Premier has been asked to become involved with discussions with the industry about some of the issues it faces," said a spokesman for the B.C. Ministry of Finance.

They include concerns that, after years of growth, the industry is about to succumb to the impact of a strong loonie and competition from other Canadian and U.S. jurisdictions.

If B.C. does not increase its tax incentives, key players such as Lions Gate Entertainment Corp. and Brightlight Pictures Inc. have threatened to move productions outside B.C., a move that threatens up to 35,000 jobs in the province.

"This is a very portable industry," said Peter Leitch, chairman of the Motion Picture Production Industry Association of B.C.

"So it is either ours to maintain or ours to lose.''

Industry officials are hoping a decision will come quickly as this is a critical time of year, when decisions on where to shoot pilots and feature films are being made.

"We feel quite confident that a positive decision will be made quite shortly," said Neal Clarance, a partner with Vancouver chartered accountant Ellis Foster.

His confidence is based on a cost-benefit analysis of raising the tax credit on foreign productions by another seven percentage points.

It shows that the amount of labour, provincial sales and corporate tax collected on film productions would more than cover the increased tax credit paid by the provincial government.

"This doesn't take into account the fact that the government gets the benefit of dollars being paid [by the industry] and only pays a subsidy after the films have been made," Mr. Clarance said.

The cost-benefit analysis also excludes the spinoff effects of money spent by the film sector on everything from hotels to lumber.

Still, a prominent B.C. economist believes improved tax credits won't stop the industry from shrinking in the near future.

Jock Finlayson, a vice-president with the Business Council of B.C., said the province's film sector is highly vulnerable to the fact that 88 per cent of its production activity is driven by U.S. movie and television firms.

With the Canadian dollar trading at 83 cents (U.S.), he expects production activity to have fallen by as much as 25 per cent last year from a record $1.4-billion in 2003.

"In my view, it is going to continue to decline regardless of whether the B.C. government offers tax incentives or not," Mr. Finlayson said. "It is just a question of how much."

For that reason, Mr. Finlayson said the government needs to take a closer look at its film industry to determine how viable it is going to be in the long term. "That is the fundamental question," he said.

He said B.C. is facing unprecedented competitive pressure from other U.S. states, which are offering their own tax incentives in a bid to lure the film industry.

Louisiana, for example, offers income tax credits of up to 15 per cent for investment in movies made in the state, as well as a credit of up to 20 per cent for payroll exemptions. Projects with budgets of more than $250,000 are also exempt from paying sales tax.

Mr. Leitch admitted that production activity in B.C. has slowed from record levels seen in 2003.

"We don't have the luxury of a low dollar any more, so we are going to have to work harder," he said.

But Mr. Leitch said he is confident that the provincial government recognizes the importance of the film industry and the fact that it has cut costs in a move to become more efficient.

"We are going to fight to maintain an industry here."

by Peter Kennedy

The Globe and Mail

The Port of Iberia has been meeting weekly with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Washington, D.C., to complete the economic feasibility portion of the deepening project.

Port director Roy Pontiff said the study is still on course to be completed by April or May. The study was set back almost a year because questions remained about the economic activity generated by the deepening project.

Representatives of the Corps' Mississippi River Valley Division, Sen. Mary Landrieu's office and the company G.E.C. will be present at the meeting, Pontiff said.

G.E.C. is a third party consulting firm independently verifying the economic data, he said. The study's information has been collected and compiled but has to be verified before it can be used in the study, Pontiff said.

"Things are moving along with the schedule as I understand it," Pontiff said.

The deepening plan feasibility study must be submitted to the U.S. Congress before authorization of the project can be given and funding approved. Authorization is needed from Congress before any work can begin on the project's planning and design. Before authorization, it takes a recommendation from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

The port worked with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and others to assemble three parts of the feasibility study. The environmental portion has been submitted and approved, the engineering portion has also been submitted and approved, but the economic impact portion is still under discussion.

To justify a project, a cost benefit analysis study must show that for each dollar

spent another dollar is created, Pontiff said. The initial information the Corps compiled for the port showed it would barely qualify. The port wanted a firmer and more accurate study.

The Army Corps' economic standards apply only to shipping ports, he added. They do not cover fabrication ports. The economic dollars created from fabrication work are not reflected in shipping traffic. The Corps is considering new terminology that would apply to the Port of Iberia, and the ruling could impact other fabrication ports around the United States.

Once the Corps feels confident in the economic strength of the deepening project, the plan can be submitted to Congress. That can't happen unless the Water Resources Development Act is passed.

The wording that would authorize the deepening project, contingent on the feasibility study's completion, should come before Congress either at the end of the year, during the current legislative session or at the beginning of the next.

Once that happens, the project will be on its way to becoming a reality.

Pontiff said that, even before the dredging of the channel can begin, three other projects must be completed. The port must be reconfigured to handle vessels and a channel depth of 20 feet. The locks at the mouth of Fresh Water Bayou must be modified, and pipelines and other utilities that run under the present channel must be lowered. Because most of them are local projects, they wouldn't need federal funding and could start early.

The project will deepen the port channel from New Iberia through Vermilion Parish to the Gulf of Mexico from 12 feet to 20. It would enhance the port's capabilities and allow for larger projects there. The project is vital because many of the deep-water oil-platform fabrication jobs are too large for the channel to handle. Much of the work now requires a channel with an 18- to 20-foot depth. The largest package that can move through the channel presently is 6,000 tons.

Pontiff said a University of Louisiana at Lafayette and Louisiana State University study predicts 3,900 jobs would be created by the project. More than $300 million would flow through the state. That's about a 25-to-one return on the state's investment from their figures.

The federal government would fund 80 percent of the $194 million project.

By Henri Lejeune

The Daily Iberian (Louisiana)

For more than thirty years we in the United States have been losing the war on cancer because we've used the wrong "generals" and the wrong strategies. The war has been and continues to be waged using screening, diagnosis, treatment, and related research with the primary goal of "damage control." By contrast, cancer prevention through the reduction of avoidable exposures to carcinogens in the totality of the environment remains a minimal priority.

Ever since President Richard Nixon declared the "War on Cancer" in 1971 the country's primary generals-the federal National Cancer Institute (NCI) and the world's wealthiest nonprofit organization, the American Cancer Society (ACS)-have misled the nation. At first they promised a cure in time for the United States' 1976 bicentennial. Then in 1984, and again in 1986, the NCI declared that cancer mortality would be halved by 2000. In 1998 the NCI and ACS trumpeted that the nation had "turned the corner" in the war on cancer. Most recently, in 2003, NCI Director Andrew C. von Eschenbach pledged unrealistically to "eliminate the suffering and death from cancer by 2015." This pledge was shortly followed by a joint NCI and ACS claim that "considerable progress has been made in reducing the burden of cancer."

On June 3, 2004, a joint NCI and ACS Annual Report to the Nation on the Status of Cancer, 1975-2001 stated that "cancer incidence and death rates are on the decline from 1991-2001, due to progress in prevention, early detection, and treatment." This report prompted a flurry of positive headlines in national newspapers, such as "Cancer cases, death rates declining," supposedly by 7 to 8 percent from 1991 to 2001. But these decreases have largely resulted from the reduction of lung cancer cases and deaths due to decreased smoking by men and, to a lesser extent, women. Also, with few exceptions, the incidence rates of a wide range of non-smoking-related cancers continued to increase from 1991 to 2001. (These rates are based on statistics that are adjusted for the aging population.)

Confidence in the latest claim of the NCI and ACS of declining death rates was further shaken by the NCI's admission in a "Questions and Answers" release of "statistical uncertainties related to changes in data collection." These included discrepancies between the claim that death rates "are on the decline from 1991- 2001" in contrast to their previous annual report that "death rates were stabilizing." Even more to the point is the alarming fact that death rates have remained virtually unchanged since 1975.

Today cancer strikes about 1.3 million people annually. Nearly one in two men and more than one in three women develop cancer in their lifetimes. This translates into approximately 56 percent more cancer in men and 22 percent more cancer in women over the course of just one generation. Cancer has become a "disease of mass destruction."

These trends have developed over the last three decades during which the NCI's annual budget has skyrocketed by about thirtyfold, now approaching $5 billion. By one recent estimate, total public and private spending on cancer will have amounted to $14 billion for 2004.

Paradoxically, it seems that the more money spent fighting cancer the more cancer is discovered in patients. Certainly, major funding is essential for early detection, treatment, and related research. But much less money would be needed if more cancers were prevented, resulting in less to treat. Representative John Conyers (Democrat, Michigan), the ranking minority member of the House Judiciary Committee, recently warned that "so much carnage is preventable. Preventable that is, if the NCI gets off the dime and does its job."

The Cancer Establishment

The NCI is a federal agency funded by taxpayers while the ACS is a private, nonprofit "charity." However, despite their institutional independence, the NCI and ACS are joined at the hip. They are well dubbed the "cancer establishment."

The ACS powerfully and seemingly independently reinforces the NCI's strategies through well-orchestrated and aggressive public relations directed toward the public, the media, and Congress. This PR is underwritten by the multibillion-dollar cancer drug industry ("Big Pharma"), other industries that are major ACS donors, and public donations. In spite of its smaller size and budget, the ACS is the dominant partner in the cancer establishment-"the tail that wags the NCI dog."

The institutional relationship between the NCI and the ACS is reinforced nationally at the rank-and-file level. About half of ACS board members are surgeons, radiologists, oncologists, and basic scientists. Most are interlocked with the NCI, particularly with regard to funding for treatment and related research. And with the February 2002 appointment of ACS President-elect von Eschenback as NCI director, the relationship between ACS and the NCI became further consolidated.

The Wrong Strategies

The cancer establishment's strategies are overwhelmingly imbalanced. They are fixated on damage control-screening, diagnosis, and treatment-and related research to the virtual exclusion of prevention. These current strategies reflect professional mindsets within the establishment's leadership-predominantly oncologists, surgeons, radiotherapists, and research scientists. Such biases are exacerbated by strong and pervasive conflicts of interest.

Incidence Rates of Non-Smoking Cancers

At the April 2004 annual meeting of the American Association of Cancer Research, Leland Hartwell, president of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and 2001 Nobel laureate, admitted the facts plainly when he said, "Congress and the public are not paying [NCI] $4.7 billion a year just to learn about cancer [through basic research]. They are paying to cure the disease." Hartwell further stressed that most resources for cancer research are spent on "promoting ineffective drugs" for terminal disease.

Hartwell wasn't the first establishment figure to admit these facts. As reported by the Associated Press on July 27, 2003, leading oncologists have questioned whether cancer "will ever be reliably and predictably cured." They also admitted that the biotech industry's new magic bullet, "targeted" drugs, have turned out to be "as powerless as old-line chemotherapy," increasing survival by a few months at best. In this connection, Memorial Sloan-Kettering's Leonard Saltz estimated that the price for new biotech drugs "has increased 500-fold in the last decade." Unchecked, these runaway costs could implode the entire health care system.

Hartwell also agreed with Clifton Leaf's March 22, 2004, Fortune article, "Why We're Losing the War on Cancer," which reports that cancer mortality rates have remained almost stable over the past five decades, during which time there have been major reductions in mortality from heart disease and stroke. Taken aback by Hartwell and Leaf's conclusions, von Eschenbach responded with an irrelevant stump speech: "You are transforming the world. You are saving lives. God bless you for it, and God continue to bless you in your work."

In this connection, it should be stressed that the standard criterion for the success of drug treatment is based on the shrinkage of tumor size by over 50 percent within six months, regardless of whether the patient's life is prolonged. In fact, some "successful" treatments actually shorten survival due to drug toxicity while successes, particularly with the recent targeted drugs, are questionably based on brief increased survival in small trials.

When it comes to prevention, NCI and ACS strategies are fixated on faulty lifestyle, particularly smoking, to the virtual exclusion of a wide range of other avoidable causes of cancer. These include pervasive environmental contamination of air and water, hazardous waste sites, workplaces with carcinogenic industrial chemicals, contamination of food with carcinogenic pesticides, carcinogenic prescription drugs and high-dose diagnostic radiation, and carcinogenic ingredients in cosmetics, toiletries, and household products.

Arthur Andersen's silence regarding Enron's misconduct pales in comparison to the cancer establishments silence regarding reckless misconduct by the petrochemical and other industries. The former caused a financial meltdown while the latter has resulted in the cancer epidemic.

In sharp contrast to inflationary expenditures on treatment, the NCIs prevention budget has been and remains parsimonious. For instance, an unchallenged published analysis of its $2 billion 1992 budget revealed that less than 2.5 percent-not the 20 percent the NCI had claimed-was earmarked for research on avoidable causes of cancer. Furthermore, no funds were allocated toward making any such information available to the public.

In 1998 U.S. Representative David Obey (Democrat, Wisconsin) asked then-NCI Director Richard Klausner to back up the claim that 20 percent of NCI's $2.5 billion budget was allocated toward research on environmental causes of cancer. Klausner simply increased his 20 percent figure to 40 percent without providing any supportive evidence. Another example of the NCI's frank misrepresentation of its prevention policies appears in \the "Highlights" of its 2001 Cancer Facts. The opening sentence states, "Cancer prevention is a major component and current priority-to reduce suffering and death from cancer."

Sometimes NCI's false claims and indifference to avoidable causes of cancer extend to outright denial. For example, it holds that the causes of childhood cancer are largely unknown, in spite of substantial contrary evidence. The ACS takes a similar position. In the childhood cancer section of its 2003 Cancer Facts & Figures, no mention is made of any avoidable causes. (See chart at left.)

Indifference and denial can extend even to the outright suppression of information. At a 1996 San Francisco town hall meeting on breast cancer, chaired by U.S. Represenative Nancy Pelosi (a California Democrat, now the House minority leader), Klausner insisted that "low-level diagnostic radiation does not demonstrate an increased risk." Actually, the NCI's long-term studies on patients with scoliosis (spinal curvature) showed that such radiation was responsible for 70 percent excess breast cancer mortality.

Perhaps the most egregious violation of the publics right to know concerns the belated release in 1997 of decade-old data predicting up to 210,000 thyroid cancers from exposure to radioactive fallout following the hydrogen bomb tests in Nevada during the 1950s. Had the public been warned in time, these cancers, whose incidence almost doubled since 1973, could have been readily prevented with thyroid medication. In a 1999 hearing, the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs charged that the NCI investigation was "plagued by lack of public participation and openness" and that failure to "release this information (to the public) was a travesty."

As long as the NCI shirks its job of providing Congress and regulatory agencies with scientific evidence on avoidable causes of cancer, corrective legislative and regulatory action remains discouraging. Meanwhile, this silence also encourages petrochemical and other industries to continue manufacturing carcinogenic products and corporate polluters to continue contaminating the environment unchallenged.

Responding to growing criticism of its policies, the NCI now claims to allocate 12 percent of its budget toward "prevention and control" and to require its nationwide Comprehensive Cancer Centers to have a "prevention component." However, prevention continues to be narrowly defined in exclusionary terms of faulty lifestyle and screening, with no reference to environmental causes due to exposure to a wide range of industrial carcinogens.

The NCI goes even further by defining environmental causes of cancer as those other than genetic in origin. Commenting on the NCI's June 17, 2004, news release, "The Majority of Cancers Are Linked to Environment," Dr. Aaron Blair, NCI's leading epidemiologist, explained that "environmental" causes include all causes of cancer other than genetic. Blair thus claimed that environmental causes are predominantly smoking, diet, alcohol, and obesity and that industrial pollutants of air, water, and the workplace account for 5 percent or less of all causes of cancer.

The ACS indifference to prevention extends to hostility, as reflected in a decades-long history of proindustry bias and even collusion. Examples are legion. In 1978 the ACS in effect protected auto industry interests by refusing to support the Clean Air Act. In 1992 the ACS supported the Chlorine Institutes defense of the continued use of chlorinated pesticides, despite clear evidence of their carcino-genicity, persistence, and pervasive environmental contamination. In 1993, just before PBS aired a Frontline program warning of contamination of infant and children's food with carcinogenic pesticides, the ACS blanketed its forty-eight regional divisions and 3,000 local offices with false reassurances of safety crafted by the agribusiness industry. Then in its 2003 Cancer Facts & Figures, the ACS offered reassurance that carcinogenic exposures from dietary pesticides, "toxic wastes in dump sites," and radiation from "closely controlled" nuclear energy plants are all "at such low levels that risks are negligible."

The ACS pro-industry agenda is further exemplified by its lack of research on prevention. In spite of bloated contrary claims, less than 0.1 percent of its approximately $800 million budget has been assigned to address "environmental carcinogenesis."

Conflicts of Interest

The cancer establishment generals have longstanding conflicts of interest. A current case in point is the highly touted "anti- cancer" nutritional supplement, PC-SPES.

PC-SPES (PC for prostate cancer, and the Latin spes for hope) has been widely sold by International Medical Research (IMR) to prostate cancer patients, as well as to healthy men, to maintain "good prostate health without any adverse reaction." However, PC-SPES is laced with prescription drugs, including the potent carcinogen DES (diethylstilbestrol, a synthetic estrogen). Aside from the lack of any evidence of benefits, symptoms and prostate-specific antigen (PSA) levels in cancer patients are likely to have been dangerously masked by DES in the supplement.

In February 2004 more than twenty personal injury suits filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court alleged that IMR directors Richard Klausner and Michael Milken (the latter a securities felon turned philanthropist and founder and chair of the Prostate Cancer Foundation) systematically promoted PC-SPES. Other IMR directors include leading oncologists and scientists in the NCI's twenty-plus nationwide Comprehensive Cancer Centers.

Conflicts of interest of the PC-SPES type aren't just matters of personal wrongdoing. The conflicts are deeply rooted in the NCI's institutional structure. Founded in 1937 and incorporated into the National Institutes of Health in 1941, the NCI was divorced from the NIH by the 1971 National Cancer Act. Far beyond a mere reshuffling of bureaucratic boxes, this action in effect politicized the NCI and effectively insulated it from the scientific and public health communities. The NCI director reports to the U.S. president through the Office of Management and Budget, bypassing the NIH and the Department of Health and Human Services.

Nixon created a three-member NCI executive Presidents Cancer Panel, naming as its first chair Benno C. Schmidt, an investment banker and senior drug company executive with close ties to the oil, steel, and chemical industries. Schmidts successor in the 1980s was Armand Hammer, the late chair of Occidental Petroleum, one of the nation's largest manufacturers of industrial chemicals and infamous for its involvement in the Love Canal disaster. Not surprisingly, Schmidt and Hammer showed no interest in cancer prevention. Instead, they focused on the highly profitable development and marketing of cancer drugs.

The NCI's prototype Comprehensive Cancer Center, Memorial Sloan- Kettering, jointly funded by the ACS, represents another example of entrenched conflicts of interest. An analysis of the center's board reveals the predominant representation of cancer drug industries and close affiliations with oil and petrochemical industries. Dr. Samuel Broder, NCI director from 1989 to 1995, admitted the obvious in a 1988 Washington Post interview: "The NCI has become what amounts to a government pharmaceutical company." Broder left the NCI to take executive posts at IVAX and Celera Genomics, two major manufacturers of cancer drugs.

This revolving door between the NCI and industry-particularly industries indifferent or hostile to cancer prevention-has been and remains commonplace. The late Dr. Frank Rauscher, appointed NCI director by Nixon to spearhead his cancer war, resigned in 1976 to become the ACS senior vice president for research. He then moved on to become executive director of the Thermal Insulation Manufacturers Association, which promoted the unregulated use of carcinogenic fiberglass. Dr. Richard Adamson, the NCI's former director of research and policy on cancer causation, left the NCI in 1994 to head the National Soft Drinks Association, which vigorously promoted the use of artificial sweeteners, particularly the carcinogenic saccharin.

In a June 30, 2003, CNBC program, "Titans of Cancer" hosted by Maria Bartiromo, four cancer "titans" enthused about alleged breakthroughs in treatment with targeted biotech drugs while at the same time they ignored cancer prevention. Included on the program was Dr. Harold Varmus, president of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and a past recipient of major NCI research grants. In 1995 Varmus, then NIH director, struck down the "reasonable pricing clause" that protected against gross industry profiteering from cancer and other drugs developed with taxpayer dollars. Varmus' action also gave senior NCI and NIH staff free rein to consult with the drug industry. Another titan on the program-Dr. John Mendelsohn, president of NCIs University of Texas M. D. Anderson Comprehensive Cancer Center-has been embroiled in conflicts of interest over ImClone's targeted drug Erbitux.

Following the Los Angeles Times series of revelations on extensive private consulting by senior NCI scientists, some of whom have earned as much as $300,000 or more per year since 1995, the House Energy and Commerce Committee and the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee convened hearings in December 2003 and January 2004. An illustrative case was that of Dr. Jeffrey Schlom, head of NCI's Laboratory of Tumor Immunology and Biology since 1982. Schlom built himself another substantial career as consultant on Taxol to Cytoclonal Pharmaceuticals and on colorectal and prostate cancer vaccines to Jenner Biotherapie.

Meanwhile, further conflicts of interest hearings and a General Accounting Office investigation are pending. Klausner, now director of global health programs for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, remains under congressional investigationfor violating ethics rules. He allegedly accepted "lecture awards" from NCFs Comprehensive Cancer Centers while serving as NCI director more than two years ago. Congress is also investigating Klausners questionable travel arrangements and business connections.

For all that, the NCFs conflicts of interest are dwarfed by those of the American Cancer Society. The ACS openly trumpets its financial ties to Big Pharma and polluting industries. Designated as "Excalibur" donors for their annual contributions of $100,000 or more, these benefactors include such drug and biotech companies as Bristol-Myers Squibb, Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Eli Lilly, Amgen, Genentech, and Johnson and Johnson. Among polluting industries on the donor ledgers are more than ten major petrochemical and oil companies, including DuPont, Akzo Nobel, Pennzoil, British Petroleum, and Concho Oil.

A total of some 300 other industries and companies make similar contributions to the total annual ACS budget of about $800 million, not counting government grants or income from about $1 billion in reserves. The ACS honors these contributions with more than a wink and a nod. Such collusion between agency and industry is normally unthinkable. For example, one would never find the American Heart Association advocating low tar cigarettes. But the ACS continually crosses the line. Not surprisingly, a January 28, 1992, report in the Chronicle of Philanthropy, the nation's leading charity watchdog, has charged: "The ACS is more interested in accumulating wealth than saving lives."

Privatizing the War

The most disturbing development in the cancer war has been its privatization by ACS and NCI generals. In 1998 the ACS created and funded the National Dialogue on Cancer (NDC), cochaired by former President George H. W. Bush and Barbara Bush. Members included cancer survivor groups, some 100 representatives of the cancer drug industry, and Shandwick International Public Relations. Dr. John Durant, executive president of the American Cancer Society for Clinical Oncology, charged that the hidden purpose of ACS was "protecting their own fund raising capacity...from competition from survivor groups. It has always seemed to me that this was an issue of control by the ACS over the cancer agenda."

Without informing the NDC, the ACS then spun off a small legislative committee, the explicit aim of which was to increase NCIs autonomy and budget and to shift major control of cancer policy to the ACS-in other words, from the public purse to private hands. Shandwick International played a key role in managing the NDC and drafting the proposed legislation.

When news surfaced that R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Holdings was one of Shandwick's major clients, the ACS claimed prior ignorance and fired Shandwick. Astoundingly, the ACS next hired Edelman Public Relations Worldwide, another well-known tobacco public relations firm, to conduct a voter cancer education campaign for the 2000 presidential election.

Ever since von Eschenbach was appointed NCI director, the National Cancer Program has been effectively privatized. Von Eschenbach obtained George W. Bush's agreement to continue as vice chair of NDC, of which he was a main founder. The NDC since has been spun off as a nonprofit organization and renamed C-Change. The group then again hired Edelman as its PR firm, following Edelmaris signed pledge that it would sever its relations with the tobacco industry. Edelman represents the Brown and Williamson Tobacco Company and the Altria Group, the parent company of Philip Morris, the largest cigarette maker in the United States. Edelmans clients also include Kraft and fast food and beverage companies now targeted by anti- obesity litigation.

In July 2003 it was discovered that Edelman, in violation of its pledge, was continuing to fight tobacco control programs from its Malaysian offices. Edelman executives apologized for this "oversight" and agreed once more to terminate its support of the tobacco industry. It futher promised to donate this income to charity. Commenting on the ACS and NDC relationship with Edelman, Dr. Stanton Glantz, a prominent anti-smoking activist, commented, "It's like... Bush hiring al-Qaeda to do PR, because they have good connections to al-Jazeera."

Equally disturbing is the growing and secretive collaboration between the NCI and the C-Change organization. The latest example is the joint planning of a massive national tumor tissue bank for cancer drug and genetic research. According to the Washington insider Cancer Letter, this project would cost up to $1.2 billion to operate in addition to construction costs in the billions. This initiative would be privatized, ripe with conflicts of interest, and exempt from the public scrutiny required by the Federal Advisory Committee and Freedom of Information acts.

Behind the scenes, strong support for privatization of the cancer war comes from Michael Milken. As noted in the Cancer Letter, "Milken is the single most influential player in cancer politics within the last decade."

How to Win the War

After all this time we don't need another thirty years of research on cellular mechanisms of cancer and treatment or more billions of dollars spent on illusory wonder drugs to start winning the war. The war must be fought with the right generals implementing the right strategies. This goal should be supported by an array of interlocking initiatives.

The National Cancer Institute: For over three decades, NCI generals have violated the mandates of the 1971 National Cancer Act and its amendments to "disseminate cancer information to the public" and to call for "an expanded and intensified research program for the prevention of cancer caused by occupational and environmental exposures to carcinogens." The highest priority should be directed toward drastically changing the NCI high command. Those responsible for prevention should be given at least the same authority as those responsible for damage control. Responsibility for prevention should also be extended to the twenty-member National Cancer Advisory Board, as the Cancer Act requires, and to presidents of NCFs Comprehensive Cancer Centers. NCIs generals, senior staff, and Cancer Center presidents involved in illegal activities or in flagrant conflicts of interest with the cancer drug industries should resign or face dismissal.

The American Cancer Society: The public and media should be fully informed of the ACSs hos tile record on cancer prevention, beyond identifying the dangers of an unhealthy lifestyle. They should also be explicitly informed of flagrant conflicts of interest between the ACS and the cancer drug, petrochemical, and other industries as well as its close ties to the tobacco industry. Armed with this information, the public would then be in a position to decide whether to continue giving funds to this charity or to donate instead to individuals, groups, and organizations with strong scientific and public health policy concerns on cancer prevention.

Developing Grass-Roots National Support: Cancer affects virtually every family in the nation. Still, the epidemic is likely to be met with passivity or even denial unless citizens are provided with practical information on how to reduce their own risks. The most realistic strategy for developing broad public support for cancer prevention will stress self-interest rather than abstractions or ideology. Preventing smoking, particularly prior to addiction in adolescence, is obviously important. Much less recognized, though, is the critical need for user-friendly information on avoidable causes of a wide spectrum of non-smoking cancers, incidence of which has escalated dramatically over recent decades.

The publics right to know about avoidable causes of cancer is the fundamental basis for building a national grass-roots coalition. The continuing failure of the NCI and the ACS to provide the public, Congress, and regulatory agencies with such information is a flagrant denial of this right. The right can be restored by empowering consumers, citizens, workers, and patients in a number of areas:

Instituting explicit label warnings on carcinogenic ingredients and contaminants in food, cosmetics and toiletries, and household products. Consumers then would be empowered to boycott mainstream companies selling unsafe products and reward smaller, "green" companies marketing safe alternatives. With increasing demand for the latter, economies of scale would reduce their higher prices.

Utilizing the "Environmental Defense Scorecard." Citizens have increasing opportunities for empowerment on an individual and community basis by plugging in their zip code on the scorecards website, www.scorecard.org, in order to obtain basic information on toxic and carcinogenic pollutants to which they are exposed locally by local chemical industries and power plants. They can then organize, alert the media, and join with environmental groups to express their concerns to local and state health authorities, including state governors. Regardless of their politics, governors are generally sensitive to citizen lobbies in their states.

Informing workers of potential high risks of cancers because of exposures to a wide range of occupational carcinogens can enable them to act to reduce such exposures both individually and through their unions and health and safety committees.

Advising patients to exercise their right to know by requesting full information on cancer and other risks of prescription drugs, as detailed in the "Precautions" section of the Physicians Desk Reference, empowers them to take charge of their own health. Thus, for the wide range of common prescription drugs carrying cancer risks, safe alternatives may be requested in accordance with legal as well as ethical requirements for informed consent. Made aware of the carcinogenic risks of high-dose X-ray procedures, particularly pediatric CT scans and fluoroscopy, patientscan request dosage records for each examination, make informed decisions, and seek those (still few) informed radiologists and clinics practicing dose- reduction techniques.

Publicizing the Failure of the Cancer War: An aggressive critique of the cancer generals and their unwinnable strategies is well overdue. For decades the mainstream media have mostly ignored the failed cancer policies and conflicts of interest of the cancer establishment. Activist citizen groups could generate a mounting series of reports, initially in smaller independent newspapers and radio stations nationwide, focusing on hot button topicslocal or regional exposures to environmental carcinogens, "cancer clusters" in the vicinity of petrochemical and nuclear power plants, and escalating rates of cancers in children and retirees, together with the known or suspect causes of such cancers.

Key to such media activities should be emphasis on the escalating rates of nonsmoking cancers, along with the cancer establishments refusal to prioritize the overdue need to reduce exposures to environmental carcinogens and to recognize the publics right to know about these avoidable exposures. It might be argued that regulatory agencies, or industry itself, should be primary targets for media attention. However, considering the multibillion-dollar cancer establishments responsibility for and control of basic information about cancer prevention, primary emphasis should be directed at exposing the establishment's noninformation or, worse, willful misinformation.

Legislative Initiatives: In view of the NCI's exaggerated and inconsistent claims for its prevention budget, U.S. Representative Jan Schakowsky (Democrat, Illinois) recently asked the General Accounting Office to investigate the NCI's "fight against cancer." Specifically, she requested information on the dollar amounts spent on "funding for research on prevention" and "funding for outreach" to disseminate this information. Meanwhile, Congress is investigating conflicts of interest by NCI generals and scientists with particular reference to consulting with drug industries. This investigation should be extended by an order of magnitude to the NCI's institutional conflicts with the multi-billion dollar Big Pharma.

In response to congressional concerns about NCI policies, the National Academy of Sciences recently examined NCI's relationship with the NIH. In July 2003 the NAS reported that NCI's "special status" of independence from twenty-six other NIH bodies was problematic. It created "an unnecessary rift" between "the goals, mission and leadership of the NIH and those of NCI." In a startling statement that drew minimal media attention, the NAS emphasized, "Perhaps more important is the fact that the National Cancer Act has had little discernible effect on scientific and clinical progress for the diagnosis, treatment, or prevention of cancer."

The NAS report makes it clear that the NCI should be folded back into the NIH and integrated with the scientific community once again. But that is only the beginning of drastically needed reforms. Funding for cancer prevention should equal that of all other programs combined. Congress should direct the NCI to provide the public with all available information on avoidable and unknowing exposures to carcinogens in consumer products, prescription drugs, the workplace, and the environment.

Legislative initiatives should also be developed at the state and local levels. Since the 2002 midterm elections Congress has remained divided and gridlocked. Accordingly, leadership and innovative policies on domestic agendas is likely to shift further from the national to state, county, and city levels.

The Bottom Line: Citizens, the media, and Congress must belatedly recognize that, after spending thirty years and some $50 billion, we are now further from winning the war on cancer than when it was first declared. Furthermore, we all must recognize, albeit belatedly, that the cancer epidemic can still be arrested and reversed. But this goal will never be achieved until we recruit new generals and develop new strategies making prevention at least as urgent as damage control.

Avoidable Causes of Childhood Cancer

ENVIRONMENTAL

* Proximity of residence to nuclear energy plants.

* Proximity of residence to petrochemical industries.

* Exposure to carcinogenic pesticides from agricultural and urban spraying and uses in schools, including wood playground sets treated with chromated copper arsenate.

* Maternal or paternal exposures (preconception, conception, and post-conception) to occupational carcinogens.

Domestic

* Drinking and cooking water contaminated with carcinogenic pesticides or other industrial pollutants.

* Exposure to carcinogenic pesticides from uses in the home and garden and pet flea collars.

* Contamination of infant and childhood food with carcinogenic pesticides.

* Nitrite preservatives in hot dogs (interacting with naturally occurring amines to form carcinogenic nitrosamines).

* Maternal or paternal carry home of occupational carcinogens.

Medical

* Maternal X-radiation during late pregnancy.

* Ionizing radiation for treatment of scalp ringworm or enlarged tonsils.

* High-dose diagnostic X-radiation, particularly computerized tomography scans.

* Prescription drugs during pregnancy, such as DES and Dilantin.

* Pediatric prescription drugs, such as Eindane shampoos and Ritalin.

by Samuel S. Epstein, M.D. professor emeritus of environmental and occupational medicine at the University of Illinois Chicago School of Public Health.
Copyright American Humanist Association Jan/Feb 2005
Source: Humanist, The

www.Rednova.com

Brief alcohol counseling sessions for injured patients, already shown to be effective in reducing subsequent alcohol intake and trauma recidivism, can also reduce health-care costs. Each dollar spent on alcohol screening and intervention saves $3.81 in health expenditures, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, the Harborview Injury Prevention & Research Center, and the Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health.

"Alcohol Interventions for Trauma Patients Treated in Emergency Departments and Hospitals: A Cost Benefit Analysis" was published on-line on January 14th and will be the featured article in the April issue of the Annals of Surgery. (For obtain a faxed copy of the article, contact Larry Zalin at 206-744-9459.)

Alcohol intoxication has been found to be the leading risk factor for injury, according to previous research. Of the estimated 20.5 million American adults requiring emergency department (ED) care for their injuries, 27 percent screened positive for alcohol intoxication or dependency. A 30-minute intervention with a trained counselor has been shown to be highly effective at reducing subsequent alcohol use, injuries, and visits to the ED or hospital.

This study is the first to estimate the cost savings associated with the routine provision of brief alcohol interventions to trauma patients treated in hospitals and EDs. If a brief intervention were offered to every eligible injured person in the U.S., the resulting savings from health-care costs alone would be approximately $182 billion annually (20.5 million adult trauma patients multiplied by $89 of health-care cost savings per patient screened).

If injured patients were screened for alcohol problems and the brief intervention offered to those who qualify, the expected cost of screening, intervention, and subsequent ED visits and hospital admissions over the next three years was $600 per patient. When the screening and intervention were not offered, the expected cost of subsequent ED visits and hospital care was $689 per patient over three years. The brief intervention resulted in $3.81 in health-care savings for every dollar spent on screening and intervention.

"This study indicates that routine alcohol screening and intervention for trauma patients result in reduced health-care costs," says Larry Gentilello, M.D., a professor of surgery at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas and principal investigator for the study. "These intervention capitalize on a 'teachable moment,' during which the health-care worker can help a patient understand the link between their drinking and its consequences at a time when these consequences are obvious. Alcohol interventions in trauma centers may also provide an opportunity to initiate care before alcohol problems progress to a more severe stage, requiring more costly and intensive treatment and medical services."

Changes in health-care financing will be required before implementation of screening and intervention programs in trauma centers, the researchers say. Since 1947, most states have allowed insurance companies to deny payment on a claim in which an individual was injured and alcohol use was documented. This has been found to be a deterrent to alcohol screening in hospitals and emergency departments.

The National Association of Insurance Commissioners recently passed a model law that disallows such denials. The National Conference of Insurance Legislators has recommended that states adopt this model, but such changes must be adopted by individual state legislatures. Several states, including Washington, have recently done so.

The research was supported by a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
University of Washington News

A Denver-based nonprofit on Friday released a 32-page report detailing $515 million in tax-increment financing subsidies for almost $6 billion in projects, including such high-profile developments as Stapleton, Lowry, the Pepsi Center and the Adam's Mark hotel.

The report by the Front Range Economic Strategy Center founded by the Denver Area Labor Federation, said the subsidies, known as TIFs, for 24 projects are costing taxpayers almost $30 million a year.

The report is the first of three planned by the center, which compared the financing to "development credit cards" in which future revenues are used to pay back bonds issued by the Denver Urban Renewal Authority. Future reports will examine the economic gains to -DURA's private partners, and the quality of jobs and housing created.

The center recommended that the city account for expenditures in the Denver budget; hold revenue projections on projects accountable against actual performance; consider a ceiling on TIF commitments; and require TIF projects to pay a "fair share" of city services.

The first report raised the ire of public officials.

"Without TIFs, there would be no development at Stapleton, there would be no development at Lowry," said John Huggins, Denver's economic development director. "Downtown would still be a ghost town after 5 p.m. and virtually no one would be living there. I think this report is badly flawed and extremely biased and does not at all reflect the value created by tax-increment financing."

Tracy Huggins, (no relation to John), executive director of DURA, also criticized the report. She said it contains some inaccuracies, but more important, "it doesn't put things into context. Close your eyes and imagine Denver without Stapleton, without the Pepsi Center, without Broadway Marketplace, without the Pavilions. Stop me when I get to a project that people hate."

In Huggins' view, generating revenues is less important than cleaning up blighted areas, saving historical buildings, replacing parking lots with retail centers such as the Pavilions and creating jobs. "Look at Dahlia Square," she said. "When that project (in northeast Denver) is developed, it is not going to pay for itself because it will primarily be residential. But it's going to remove the blighted conditions that have burdened the neighborhood over the past 30 years."

Chris Nevitt, executive director of the center, said his group doesn't oppose TIFs but said they "need to be transparent and accountable to the public. We think TIFs are great. They're a powerful, useful tool and the city should be using more TIFs. That said, is half a billion dollars too much? The answer is, we don't know. But we do know there are hidden costs. What we want to see are a weighing of the costs and benefits."

But John Huggins argued: "They have this notion that TIFs are costing taxpayers money, presuming the development would have occurred anyway, and that is simply not true. It's really a case of land use. Would we be better off if Stapleton and Lowry were nothing but barren patches of land, surrounded by fences? I don't think so."

Subsidized projects

Project |Total Development Cost | TIF Subsidy

Stapleton $3.4 billion $294 million
Lowry $1.3 billion $35 million
City Park South $200 million $8 million
Pepsi Center $160 million $36 million
Adam's Mark $135 million $33 million
Pavilions $99 million $31.46 million

http://www.fresc.org/
Rocky Mountain News Inside Denver

More expensive pacemakers that “pace” the heart’s upper and lower chambers are worth the extra cost because they can reduce the risk of hospitalization and disability in patients with heart disease, according to a study published in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.

“The dual-chamber devices significantly reduced the rates of atrial fibrillation and heart failure hospitalizations, which over the long term results in a highly favorable cost-effectiveness ratio,” said David J. Cohen, M.D., M.Sc., an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School in Boston. Atrial fibrillation is a type of irregular heartbeat associated with an increased risk of stroke and heart failure.

Single-chamber or right-ventricular pacemakers “pace” a ventricle, one of the heart’s two large, lower pumping chambers. Dual-chamber devices also pace one of the atria (the smaller, upper chambers), which is considered a more natural synchronization.

Cohen, the senior author of the study, said that during the first four years after implant the dual-chamber devices had a cost-effectiveness ratio of $53,000 per quality adjusted year of life gained.

“In the U.S. healthcare system, cost-effectiveness ratios between $50,000 and $100,000 per quality adjusted year of life gained are generally considered to be in the gray zone of attractiveness as health care expenditures, ” he said. “But when we used a computer simulation model to estimate lifetime costs and benefits, the dual-chamber devices were associated with an average cost-effectiveness ratio of $6,000 to $7,000 cost per quality-adjusted life year gained compared with single-chamber pacing. That is very favorable.”

The four-year, 2010-patient Mode Selection in Sinus Node Dysfunction (MOST) study randomized 1,014 patients to dual-chamber devices and 996 to right-ventricular (single-chamber) pacing devices. The median age of patients was 74; 48 percent were women. The National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute sponsored the trial.

All of the patients had sick sinus syndrome, meaning they had very slow heartbeats along with symptoms such as lightheadedness, dizziness, fainting or general fatigue. The condition is diagnosed by electrocardiogram, Cohen said.

Since the dual-chamber devices didn’t reduce mortality, the favorable cost-effectiveness observed in the study was “derived mainly from improved quality of life — fewer hospitalizations, less disability,” Cohen said.

Patients who received the dual-chamber devices were less likely to develop atrial fibrillation, or to be hospitalized for heart failure, than those who received single-chamber pacemakers. Patients receiving the dual-chamber devices also had a slightly lower risk of death or stroke, had better results on a heart failure score, and relatively small, but significantly better results on several measures of health-related quality of life.

Although dual-chamber pacemakers cost about $3,000 more than single-chamber devices (including the cost of implantation) during the first four years, the cumulative cost for a patient with a dual-chamber device was $27,441. The cumulative cost for someone with a single-chamber device was $26,760. When cost data from the first four years were fed into a computer model that estimated lifetime costs, the dual-chamber pacemaker had a discounted lifetime cost of $59,104, while the discounted lifetime cost for the ventricular pacemaker was estimated at $58,160.

Included in the analysis were the costs of pacemaker implantation (hardware, hospital fees, professional fees), outpatient follow-up (emergency department visits, unscheduled outpatient visits, and half of scheduled visits during the trial), medication, and rehospitalization for cardiovascular events (atrial fibrillation, heart failure, stroke). Time costs and out-of pocket costs were not included as the authors expected these to be very small compared with medical care costs.

The authors concluded that compared with ventricular pacemakers, the dual-chamber devices have a projected gain of 0.17 quality-adjusted life years compared with single-chamber devices. “Although this increase in quality-adjusted years of life may seem modest, it compares favorably with other medical advances including r-tPA vs. streptokinase for suspected acute myocardial infarction (about 0.06 to 0.29 years of life), beta-blockers for low-risk survivors of heart attack (about 0.10 years of life), and stenting vs. balloon angioplasty for single-vessel coronary revascularization (about 0.03 quality-adjusted years of life),” the authors wrote.

by Dr. David J. Cohen with Stéphane Rinfret, M.D., M.Sc; Gervasio A. Lamas, M.D.; Kirsten E. Fleischmann, M.D., M.P.H.; Milton C. Weinstein, Ph.D.; John Orav, Ph.D.; Eleanor Schron, M.S., R.N.; Kerry L. Lee, Ph.D.; and Lee Goldman, M.D.

Science Daily

Passengers will not be allowed to carry butane lighters aboard airliners as of Feb. 15, according to sweeping aviation security legislation passed recently by Congress.

The very specific prohibition against butane lighters is an outgrowth of the Dec. 22, 2001, attempt by "shoe bomber" Richard Reid to destroy American Airlines [AMR] Flight 63 as it was enroute over the Atlantic Ocean from Paris, France, to Miami, Fla. (see ASW, July 22, 2002). Reid was able to pass through preboarding security with explosives concealed in the athletic shoes he was wearing. However, the matches he was using did not cause the explosives to detonate. He might well have succeeded with the hotter flame of a butane lighter.

Although regulatory authorities did not act to plug this potential loophole in security, Congress has forced the issue, directing the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to revise the list of prohibited items "not later than 60 days after the date of enactment of this Act" and to include butane lighters on that list of banned items.

The full title of the legislation, passed Dec. 17, 2004, is the "Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004" (S.2845). This Act is better known for creating an intelligence "czar" with overall authority over the disparate and sometimes disjointed panoply of U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies. The Act responds to the call of the independent 9/11 Commission for overhaul and reform of the U.S. intelligence apparatus. However, contained within the nearly 300 pages of legislation, of which the butane lighter prohibition is an illuminating example of the level of detail involved, is an entire section on transportation security in general and on aviation security in particular.

This section, Title IV of the Act, marks the most significant legislation on aviation security since passage Nov. 19, 2001, of the "Aviation and Transportation Security Act" (S.1447). This legislation, passed just weeks after the 9/11 attacks, created the TSA and mandated a broad range of initiatives to tighten aviation security (see ASW, Dec. 3, 2001).

The latest legislation marks another major development, in which the U.S. Congress is taking an activist and very specific role. As is typical of such legislation, Congress is requiring dozens of reports to be submitted by executive branch agencies to its various oversight committees. Congress also is directing more money to areas where it perceives funds could profitably be spent. In this respect, the latest legislation appears bereft of "unfunded mandates" (e.g., security requirements from Congress without the necessary dollars to implement them).

The legislation calls for a "risk based" national transportation security strategy, a tacit recognition that a shotgun effort can lead to a "security money pit" (see ASW, Feb. 17, 2003).

For all of its apparent activism, there are a number of things the latest legislation does not do. For example, it does not require positive passenger bag match (PPBM) for domestic flights, it does not call for the certification and licensing of screeners, nor does it increase the 40 hours of basic classroom instruction for screeners. Some security experts believe this training should be expanded five or six fold to further professionalize the front line troops of the aviation security workforce.

In the table below, highlights of the legislation are presented, with comments where appropriate. As is evident from the breadth of this Act, it does two things: plugs holes and pushes for tighter security.

The Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 Enacted Dec. 17, 2004 Title IV, Transportation Security - Highlights Section & Subject: Sec. 1078 Authority to Establish Inspector General of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence Provisions (paraphrased for brevity): If the Director of National Intelligence determines that an Office of Inspector General would be beneficial to improving operations and effectiveness, he is authorized to establish an Office of Inspector General. Comments: Does not require the new intelligence czar to establish an IG, leaving the decision optional. By not requiring the establishment of an IG, the legislation does not mandate independent oversight of the type that has been performed by IGs in the Transportation Dept. and Dept. of Homeland Security. Section & Subject: Sec. 2001 Federal Bureau of Investigation Provisions (paraphrased for brevity): New agents to receive basic training in both criminal justice matters and national intelligence matters. Advanced training and assignments in the intelligence community to be "a precondition" for promotion to higher-level intelligence assignments within the bureau. Comments: The nature of the terrorist threat makes it likely that intelligence matters will transcend U.S. borders, and the FBI will of necessity be coordinating its efforts with the Central Intelligence Agency, National Security Agency and other entities. Section & Subject: Sec. 4001 National Strategy for Transportation Security Provisions (paraphrased for brevity): Congress requires the Secretary of Homeland Security to submit a risk-based national strategy for transportation security, to include plans by mode of transport, by April 1, 2005, with annual updates every April 1 thereafter. The modal security plan for aviation shall (1) establish a damage mitigation and recovery plan for the aviation system in the event of a terrorist attack, and (2) include a threat matrix document outlining each threat to U.S. civil aviation and the corresponding layers of security in place to address such threat. Comments: One of many reports to Congress required by this legislation. Instead of implementing patchwork programs in reaction to every security incident, Congress is seeking a risk-management approach in order to prioritize aviation security resources. This initiative could be a precursor to more regularized cost-benefit analyses of security initiatives. Hopefully, this strategy will estimate relative risk magnitudes against the effectiveness of countermeasures. Section & Subject: Sec. 4011 Use of biometric identifier technology in aviation security Provisions (paraphrased for brevity): Guidance on the use of such technology in airport access control systems to be issued no later than march 31, 2005. Guidance to include: technical and performance standards to ensure that the biometric identifier systems are "effective, reliable and secure." Calls for a biometric travel credential for law enforcement officers (LEOs) within 120 days of legislation's enactment (April 17, 2005), and to begin issuing such identification to federal, state and local law enforcement officers; authorizes them to carry weapons aboard aircraft. Comments: Congress is seeking a major effort to standardize access control across the nation. The Aviation Security Advisory Committee (ASAC) has been tasked to develop security-related airport construction guidelines, another part of this overall standardization effort. The ASAC met last month to kick off this project, and its recommendations are expected in one year. Carriage and use of loaded weapons and the LEO's potentially perilous interface with anonymous armed Air Marshals during an inflight "event" is unclear (blue-on- blue?). Section & Subject: Subsection 4011(b) Aviation security research and development Provisions (paraphrased for brevity): Authorizes $20 million for the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). Comments: Test projects for biometric identification technology. Biometric technology can identify but not eliminate or evaluate threats. Section & Subject: Subsection 4011(d) Biometric center of excellence Provisions (paraphrased for brevity): Appropriates $1 million to establish a center of excellence to "expedite the Federal Government's use of biometric identifiers." Comments: Problems have been experienced with iris/retina identification and certain types of contact lenses. Finger-scan, face-scans and micro- chipped passports? Section & Subject: Sec. 4012 Advanced airline passenger screening Provisions (paraphrased for brevity): Requires the TSA to commence testing not later than Jan. 1. This is the system intended to replace the Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System (CAPPS). The replacement system has been dubbed "Secure Flight," to downplay any notion of profiling passengers; nonetheless, "Secure Flight" already has generated controversy and skepticism (see ASW, Oct. 4, 2004). Within 60 days, issue a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) allowing comparison of passenger information on international flights to or from the U.S. to be compared against the "consolidated and integrated terrorist watch list" before departure. Not later than 180 days after testing completed, air carriers to be required to submit passenger information need to begin implementing this second-generation system. Within 90 days of system implementation, expand its coverage to include charter and lessee operations involving aircraft with a maximum take off weight (MTOW) greater than 12,500 pounds. Comments: It is not clear if this testing will demonstrate that the new screening - which might reduce the number of selectees by more than half - will be more effective than existing screening. Will it be guaranteed that screening will not be decreased for non-selectees? The requirement to compare passenger information before departure of international flights bound for the U.S. marks a major departure from present procedure, where the comparison occurs en route, after the doors have been closed at the gate before pushback (see the Cat Stevens case, ASW, Oct. 11, 2004). The U.S. wants passenger manifests before the doors close (which could miss last-minute walk-up passengers). The passenger manifest matching process could involve a major harmonization issue with the European Union (EU) and its strict privacy protection protocols. By extending prescreening to charter operations, the legislation is clearly seeking to prevent terrorists from chartering an aircraft, or boarding one as passengers. Section & Subject: Sec. 4013 Deployment and use of detection equipment at airport screening checkpoints Provisions (paraphrased for brevity): The Secretary of Homeland Security shall give a high priority to the development and deployment of explosive detection equipment at airport screening checkpoints. Submit a plan to promote "optimal utilization" within 90 days of enactment (March 17) addressing walk- through explosive detection portals, document scanners, shoe scanners, and backscatter X-ray scanners. The plan can be in classified format. Comments: Expands by orders of magnitude the explosives detection portals for passenger screening at five airports today. Sec. 4021 of the legislation calls for deploying improved explosive detection system equipment, allocating $100 million to support development. The advanced systems Congress is seeking may be limited to secondary screening. Experts say more improvements are needed at screening checkpoints, such as full-body X-ray units and walk- through explosives detector portals - perhaps one for every four screening lines at major U.S. airports. Section & Subject: Sec. 4014 Advanced airport checkpoint screening devices Provisions (paraphrased for brevity): Not later than March 31, TSA shall initiate and deploy a pilot program to deploy and test advanced airport screening devices as part of an integrated system at no fewer than five airpo