State unemployment rate falls to 9.8% even as employers shed jobs

California's unemployment rate hit single-digits in November for the first time in almost four years, thanks in part to a holiday hiring surge by retailers.

The jobless rate fell to 9.8% from 10.1% in October, according to data in an overall jobs report released Friday by the state Employment Development Department.

The drop in the unemployment rate, determined in a survey of households, came even as a separate payroll survey found that employers in the state shed 3,800 jobs.

“The state showed a very significant and encouraging drop in the unemployment rate,” said Lynn Reaser, chief economist at the Fermanian Business and Economic Institute at Point Loma Nazarene University. “A fall below 10% is welcome news.”

For months, economic forecasts have said the unemployment rate wouldn’t fall to single digits until at least next year.

Both surveys in the report provide a mixed view, though, of what is still a fragile economic recovery in the state.

For instance, the state's labor force -- the number of people who are able to work and either have a job or are looking for one -- grew by 34,100 people in November. That typically indicates that job seekers feel encouraged to resume looking for work again.

“The good news in California was that we saw more people looking for work and more people getting jobs,” Reaser said. “But the bad news was that the nonfarm payroll survey, which is usually the more reliable source, showed a small drop in employment ... and comes as quite a disappointment.”

The payroll survey of employers showed that the biggest drop in jobs -- 11,000 -- came in the education and health services sector. The manufacturing sector lost 8,900 positions. The biggest gains offsetting most losses came in retail, which added 15,900 jobs.

The disparity between the falling unemployment rate and the drop in payroll jobs reflects the fact that the two are derived from different surveys: The unemployment rate is calculated from a survey of a small number of households, while the payroll job data come from a more thorough survey of businesses that report on changes in their monthly payrolls.

Other economists were skeptical of November’s reports, particularly losses reported in the healthcare and professional and business services sectors.

“Over the last year, [these sectors] have been very strong,” said Christopher Thornberg, founding principal at Beacon Economics, a Los Angeles consulting firm. “Why should it turn on a dime?”

Thornberg pointed out that healthcare has been resilient, expanding even through the economic recession.

He said he expects November’s job report to be revised early next year and the loss in payroll jobs will probably be reversed.

“The truth is, [the report] is not as good as what the household survey says, but it’s not as bad as the payroll survey,” Thornberg said. “None of this should be a surprise to us. California’s economy has clearly been gaining strength.”

In recent months, employers in the retail trend industry have beefed up payrolls as the 2012 holiday shopping season shapes up to be the strongest in years. The trade, transportation and utilities sector notched the largest over-the-month increase, as a group adding 12,900 jobs. The sector includes retail jobs.

The next-largest gain was in leisure and hospitality, which added 3,300 jobs. Construction, aided by a housing recovery that is slowly unfolding, notched a gain of 1,700 jobs last month.

Esmael Adibi, director of the A. Gary Anderson Center for Economic Research at Chapman University, called the report a “mixed bag.”

“Overall, yes, unemployment went down,” Adibi said. “Some people will see that as good news, but the question will be: Is this downtick going to be sustainable?”

Adibi said that even though the job figures are adjusted for seasonal hiring, he predicted that much of the retail hiring that has occurred in recent months will be temporary. Furthermore, losses in professional and business services suggest that firms are holding out on hiring until the so-called fiscal cliff crisis is resolved.

The fiscal cliff refers to the tax hikes and government spending cuts set to kick in Jan. 2 if Congress and the White House don't reach a deal to resolve those issues.

Economists have said that if the fiscal cliff is not avoided, the country will be pushed back into recession.

“If firms are worried about a significant slowdown, they’re not going to commit themselves to hiring people,” Adibi said.

Over the year, California has added 268,600 nonfarm jobs, an annualized growth rate of 1.9%. That's a faster pace than the nation as a whole, which has grown at an annual rate of about 1.4%.

The Golden State’s unemployment rate, still the third-highest in the nation, has fallen 1.5 percentage points since November 2011.

The state also reported that October’s job gains were revised slightly downward to 38,800 jobs net new jobs instead of the 45,800 originally reported last month.

ALSO:

In defense-heavy San Diego, 'fiscal cliff' threat hits home

Third-quarter GDP growth revised higher but weakness looms 

New jobless claims up 17,000 last week, but remain relatively low

ricardo.lopez2@latimes.com

Follow Ricardo Lopez on Twitter.

Read More..

33 New Species of Trapdoor Spider Discovered

Male Aptostichus barackobamai. Image: Jason Bond.

The discovery of 33 new species of sneaky trapdoor spiders boosts the total number described in one genus from seven species to 40.

Trapdoor spiders, which belong to the same suborder as tarantulas, are pretty bad-ass. Instead of weaving webs, they build subterranean silk-lined burrows — and cap the burrow with a trapdoor. Then, hunkered down beneath the trap door, the spiders wait for an unsuspecting insect to trigger the trip lines.

“They’re sort of ambush predators,” said arachnologist Jason Bond, director of the Auburn University Museum of Natural History, and author of the study describing the new species, which appeared Dec. 19 in the journal ZooKeys. “They wait at burrow entrances at night, until some dull-witted insect comes over. Then they jump out, bite it, and take it to their burrow. This particular group, they pack its carcass down into the bottom of the burrow.”

Some of the newcomers have pretty fantastic names. Aptostichus barackobamai is named for Barack Obama. Aptostichus bonoi, which lives in Joshua Tree National Park, is named after U2 band member Bono. Aptostichus sarlacc? That’s basically the Tatooine spider. It lives in the southern California desert, and takes its name from Boba Fett’s ground-dwelling tormentor. The Atomic Penn Jillette Trapdoor spider (Aptostichus pennjillettei) is from the old nuclear testing site near Mercury, Nevada.

Cesar Chavez, Dorothea Lange, John Muir, and Edward Abbey have also been similarly immortalized.

“Describing 33 new terrestrial species in North America is really exciting and likely represents the largest number of new species described from the US in over a decade,” Bond said. “Nevertheless, it further highlights how little we know about the natural world.”

When stretched out, the spiders are about the size of a quarter. Female trapdoor spiders can live for as long as 30 years, Bond said. The males? Not so much. It takes 5-7 years for them to mature. Then they mate, and die. “But occasionally you find them stuffed down into the bottom of burrows as well,” he said.

Bond’s report is the culmination of more than a decade of studying trapdoor spiders. He and his colleagues found most of the new species in the field, in bits of Nevada and throughout California, from the coast to the mountains to the desert. The rest, they found in museums. Differences in mitochondrial DNA, spider anatomy, and ecology pointed to the existence of multiple new species. Of the 40 species, more than half are considered imperiled or vulnerable. Two of the species, Aptostichus killerdana (named after a legendary surf break) and Aptostichus lucerne (also known as “Deadman’s Trapdoor Spider”), have likely gone extinct in the last half-century.

One of the species in this newest batch, found near a relatively young, volcanic cinder cone close to Barstow, CA, is named after Bond’s daughter, Elisabeth. Living among the lava tubes that extend from the cone, Aptostichus elisabethae builds deep, elaborate burrows that extend multiple feet into the ground. Some of the other species burrow only a few centimeters beneath the surface. “I’ve always appreciated their engineering marvels,” Bond said, noting that the spiders continually reinforce their burrow walls with silk, and that some desert species maintain a routine of “winter cleaning,” leaving little piles of excavated material outside.

It’s not the first time Bond has unveiled new creepy-crawlies. Previous discoveries of his, also in the same trapdoor spider genus, are named  after Stephen Colbert and Angelina Jolie. “The group, through the late 1800s and early 1900s, comprised about four species or so,” Bond said. “I added 36.”

Read More..

BMG Scores Rights to Nirvana, Tears for Fears Songs

NEW YORK (TheWrap.com) – BMG has acquired the worldwide rights to several music catalogues, a deal that will give it songs from artists including Kurt Cobain, Tears for Fears, The Human League, Iggy Pop, and Take That.

The company announced Friday that it will purchase the rights for the Virgin Music Publishing Companies, Famous UK Music Publishing and selected current songwriters from Sony/ATV and EMI Music Publishing.

Sony Corporation of America and a group of investors acquired EMI Music Publishing in June, and Sony/ATV Music Publishing administers EMI on behalf of the group. It had to sell the catalogues as a condition of the acquisition.

Virgin Publishing’s catalogue includes Kurt Cobain‘s songs for Nirvana, including “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” “Come As You Are” and “About A Girl.”

Other hits include Jim Steinman’s “Total Eclipse Of The Heart,” Lenny Kravitz’ “Are You Gonna Go My Way,” Mark Ronson and Amy Winehouse’s “Back to Black,” and Devo’s “Whip It.”

Other songs include Take That’s greatest hits, including “Patience,” “Shine” and “Greatest Day,” as well as former member Robbie William’s interests in “Angels,” “Rock DJ” and “Let Me Entertain You.”

Also in the catalogue are Tears for Fears‘ “Everybody Rules The World,” Culture Club’s “Karma Chamelon,” OMD’s “Enola Gay,” and Iggy Pop‘s “Lust for Life,” as well as recent hits including Duffy’s “Mercy.”

BMG, the fourth-largest music publishing company, is a three-year-old partnership between Bertelsmann and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. In May, it announced it had more than one million copyrights under management.

“These catalogues contain some of the most influential and successful songs in popular music,” said BMG CEO Hartwig Masuch. “We are delighted to have won the opportunity to represent the writers of those songs and to demonstrate to them BMG‘s commitment to twenty-first century service. They have my pledge that we will do our very best to deliver for them.”

Music News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Title Post: BMG Scores Rights to Nirvana, Tears for Fears Songs
Rating:
100%

based on 99998 ratings.
5 user reviews.
Author: Fluser SeoLink
Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment

Read More..

The New Old Age Blog: The Ex-Wives Club

Weather permitting, Kappy Lundy and Barbara Thompson are heading out to Vancouver, Wash., on Saturday night to have a holiday dinner with the parents of their daughter’s husband.

Yes, these women both mothered the same children — now grown and with children of their own. Ms. Lundy is their biological parent; Ms. Thompson is the stepmother who married their father after he and Ms. Lundy divorced.

But that doesn’t really begin to describe their relationship. Over more than 40 years, these two have been friends and what they call “wife-in-laws,” in addition to moms-in-tandem. Now, they’re so close they feel like sisters, they say.

There’s yet another dimension to this relationship that makes it so unusual: Ms. Lundy, who is 71, has become a caregiver for Ms. Thompson, who’s 67 and was given a diagnosis of mild cognitive impairment in 2009.

One wife caring for another, through thick and through thin – think about that. It’s another example of how the new old age is spawning unusual — and creative — alliances.

Ms. Lundy went with Ms. Thompson to eight months of classes on memory loss offered by the Alzheimer’s Association chapter in Portland, Ore., where the two women live. And now they go together to monthly meetings of the Wild Bunch, a group of people with dementia and their caregivers who’ve come together to provide each other emotional support. (More on that group to come in a future post.)

Ms. Lundy talks to Ms. Thompson every day and tries to get together with her once a week.

“We’re just really good friends, and we want to know what’s going on, what are you doing, like everybody else,” said Ms. Thompson, who moved into an independent living facility in Portland nearly a year ago, after Ms. Lundy helped pack up her previous apartment.

Ms. Lundy, who lives across town, about 20 minutes away, said: “We’ll go to happy hour together and have a little toddy and maybe a nice meal. And crack up – she makes me laugh.”

Both women grew up in Eugene, Ore., but became friends later, after they moved to Portland in their 20s. Their favorite haunt was the Goose Hollow Inn, a tavern where artists, architects and writers would congregate. Ms. Lundy and her husband began to socialize regularly with Ms. Thompson and her first husband.

“She’s full of life and fun – a gypsy at heart,” is how Ms. Thompson describes Ms. Lundy.

“She’s funny and smart and a really good listener,” is how Ms. Lundy describes Ms. Thompson.

When Ms. Lundy’s marriage to Phil Thompson — a handsome bear of a man, with a charismatic personality and an artistic sensibility — began falling apart, both members of the couple turned to their friend Barbara for support. “She listened to me and my anger, and she listened to him about how he was hurting,” says Ms. Lundy, who was separated from her husband for a year before the divorce was official.

There were no hard feelings when Phil’s feelings toward Barbara turned romantic, Ms. Lundy says. But she didn’t see the couple much during subsequent years of work and travel abroad. During those years, her children, Jessica and David, stayed with their father in Portland.

Eventually, Ms. Lundy came home and was invited to holidays at the Thompson house. She grew close to Barbara again and let go of negative feelings toward her former husband, she said. Over time, they became bound together as family.

“It’s incredible,” their daughter said. “They’re just really caring for each other and not threatened by each other.

“My dad got a big kick out of it and would always introduce them as ‘my wives.’”

When Phil Thompson died in August 2008, both women were at his bedside. And when Ms. Thompson started having memory problems months later, Ms. Lundy was one of the first to notice. “We could see she wasn’t remembering things, but she said, ‘This is my grief,’” Ms. Lundy recalled. It became clear something else might be going on as problems persisted and a doctor’s evaluation yielded the mild cognitive impairment diagnosis.

Ms. Thompson described her reaction to that information: “It was scary. Very scary. I didn’t know if it meant the end of my freedom, of my ability to just live my own life.”

For her part, Ms. Lundy said: “The hardest thing for me from the very beginning was to see my party pal and my dear, dear friend changing. It was very frustrating to me. And very hurtful. I wanted to support her. But sometimes I didn’t have the patience. Because, you know, she wasn’t acting like Barbara. It’s taken a while, but slowly, slowly, slowly and surely, I’ve accepted that this is who Barbara is.”

Ms. Lundy isn’t the only caregiver for Ms. Thompson: Jessica and David, her stepchildren, and two close friends also help out, as needed.

For Ms. Lundy, the uncertainty associated with her friend’s mild cognitive impairment diagnosis is hard to live with. Will it progress to dementia? Will it stay stable, or even get better? The doctor can’t say, and “all that not-knowing business is unsettling,” she said.

Becoming a caregiver has “made our friendship even stronger, I think,” Ms. Lundy says. “We’re closer now. Even though we’ve been friends for years and years, I never felt responsible for her before.”

For Ms. Thompson, what’s hardest is living alone after nearly 30 years of being married to Phil and worrying about losing her independence — notably, her ability to continue driving.

“I feel isolated with the disease,” she said. “And being alone in a new apartment with lots of strangers here has been a little difficult.”

“I’m very grateful to Kappy,” Ms. Thompson said. “I didn’t used to feel that she would be this way. She was always doing her own thing. But she has definitely reached out, beyond what most people would do.”

On Christmas the two women will be at Jessica’s house, arriving at around noon, after the grandchildren have opened their presents, and staying through the late afternoon. After the holidays, Ms. Lundy says she plans to take Ms. Thompson out more often and “have a couple of beers and a laugh and be happy and just be Barbie and Kappy,” two old friends, enjoying each other’s company.

This is the one of the most unusual caregiving relationships I know of. It reaffirms what I’ve been told several times: You never know who will end up being there for you when you need help. Sometimes the people we expect will care for us don’t, and others step forward. Has that been your experience?

Read More..

DealBook: Former SAC Trader Is Indicted

A former SAC Capital Advisors portfolio manager was indicted on Friday on securities fraud and conspiracy charges in a case that federal prosecutors have called the most lucrative insider trading scheme ever uncovered.

A federal grand jury in Manhattan indicted the former portfolio manager, Mathew Martoma, a month after the government arrested on him charges that he used inside tips about a clinical drug trial to help SAC earn profits and avoided losses totaling $276 million.

While Stamford, Conn.-based SAC has been touched by several insider trading cases in recent years, there is heightened attention surrounding the Martoma prosecution. For the first time, the government has tied questionable trades to Steven A. Cohen, the billionaire owner of SAC.

“Though disappointing, today’s events come as no surprise,” Mr. Martoma’s lawyer, Charles A. Stillman, said in a statement. “The simple fact is that Mathew Martoma did not trade on inside information, is innocent of all these charges, and we look forward to his ultimate vindication.”

Before Friday’s indictment, there had been speculation that the government, before formally presenting evidence to a grand jury, was trying to gain Mr. Martoma’s cooperation in building a case against Mr. Cohen. Mr. Martoma has rebuffed several earlier efforts by the authorities to enter into plea talks and implicate his boss.

Mr. Cohen has not been charged with any wrongdoing, and a spokesman for SAC has said that he believes that he and SAC have at all times acted appropriately. The Securities and Exchange Commission, which brought a parallel civil action against Mr. Martoma, has warned SAC that it is likely to filed a fraud lawsuit against the firm related to the Martoma case.

Hedge Fund Inquiry

Mr. Martoma, 38, is set to appear in Federal District Court in Manhattan on Jan. 3 for his arraignment, at which time he will enter a plea. The case was assigned to Judge Paul Gardephe, a former federal prosecutor who assumed his seat on the bench in 2008 after an appointment by President George W. Bush.

The government says that Mr. Martoma obtained secret, negative information from a doctor about clinical trials of an Alzheimer’s drug being developed by the pharmaceutical companies Elan and Wyeth. He then, prosecutors say, had a 20-minute telephone conversation with Mr. Cohen.

A day after the phone call, SAC sold $700 million in Elan and Wyeth stock and made a large negative bet on the companies. The companies’ shares plummeted after they announced the disappointing trial results, and SAC booked big profits.

The doctor, Sidney Gilman, is cooperating with prosecutors and has agreed to testify against Mr. Martoma. The government gave Dr. Gilman a non-prosecution agreement, meaning they will not bring criminal charges against him. Such an agreement is highly unusual, legal experts say, and is being used as a pressure point on Mr. Martoma in an effort to get him to “flip” against Mr. Cohen.

Before coming to New York for his arraignment, Mr. Martoma will be spending the holidays with his wife and three young children at home, in Boca Raton, Fla.

Read More..

Boehner rejects Democrats' push for immediate vote on gun bill

WASHINGTON -- House Speaker John A. Boehner rejected calls from Democrats to schedule a vote on new gun restrictions before the end of the year, saying he wants to wait for recommendations from a newly formed White House task force before committing to a legislative response to the mass shooting at a Connecticut school.

“When the vice president's recommendations come forward, we'll certainly take them into consideration,’’ Boehner (R-Ohio) said Thursday in his first public comments on calls for new gun legislation since the slaying of 20 students and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School. “But at this point I think our hearts and souls ought to be to think about those victims in this horrible tragedy.”

President Obama on Wednesday said he had asked Vice President Joe Biden to lead a task force to come up with initiatives to stem gun violence by the end of next month. House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco and fellow Democrats have pressed for an immediate vote on a long-stalled bill that would ban ammunition magazines containing more than 10 rounds.

Obama has outlined a slightly slower pace for action, urging Congress to hold a vote “in a timely manner” in the new year.

Both Obama and Democrats on Capitol Hill say they are trying to seize on what appears to be a burst of momentum behind gun legislation in the wake of the Newtown, Conn., tragedy. Similar efforts initiated after other high-profile shootings faltered after national attention veered elsewhere.

Biden held the first meeting of the task force Thursday, gathering several cabinet members and White House officials with a group of local law enforcement leaders. In remarks before the meeting, the vice president noted his work on the 1994 crime bill, which banned the sale of some assault weapons, and said he would again be working closely with police groups to craft proposals.

“What I think the public has learned about you is you have a much more holistic view of how to deal with violence on our streets and in our country that you’re ever given credit for,” Biden told the law enforcement officials. “I want to hear your views because, for anything to get done, we’re going to need your advocacy.”

richard.simon@latimes.com

Twitter: @richardsimon11

kathleen.hennessey@latimes.com

Twitter: @khennessey

Read More..

Boeing Uses Potatoes to Improve Inflight Wi-Fi

If you need to test Wi-Fi signals on an airplane, Boeing has discovered potatoes are a secret to success.

More and more airliners are equipped with Wi-Fi, but as anybody who has tried using it can tell you, not every seat gets the same experience. One passenger can have four bars showing, while the guy wedged into the seat next to him has one, or none. Boeing has an obvious interest in helping airlines provide a better experience for passengers, so a team of engineers at the company’s test and evaluation center in Seattle employed sacks of potatoes to develop a new method of ensuring wireless signals are as reliable as possible.

Boeing’s test and evaluation center has gained recent attention for the 787 flight test program, but its engineers test just about everything related to the company’s airliners, including inflight wireless. The company isn’t saying much about how the test is performed or the kind of equipment is used, but it says the new evaluation methods measure the propagation of signal quality throughout the cabin more efficiently and effectively.

So a bit about those taters.

Much of the testing was done aboard a parked airliner, and engineers needed extras to play the role of the passengers. Sacks of spuds are cheap, they don’t need bathroom breaks and it turns out water-logged tubers interact with electronic signal properties in a manner similar to humans.

The method was originally developed by Boeing to ensure radio signals transmitted within a cabin were safe and did not interfere with aircraft electrical systems. Now it is being used to test wireless signals in a matter of hours. The result is better signal tuning to safely propagate a stronger Wi-Fi signal throughout the cabin.

With any luck, this means those of us crammed into 18E for a cross-country flight to Newark will exceed the speed of a 2400 Baud modem so we can download that attachment before beginning our final approach.

Read More..

Putin offers French tax row actor Depardieu a Russian passport

MOSCOW (Reuters) – President Vladimir Putin offered French actor Gerard Depardieu a Russian passport on Thursday, saying he would welcome the 63-year-old celebrity who is embroiled in a bitter tax row with France‘s socialist government.

Weighing into a dispute over a hike in taxes, Putin heaped praise on Depardieu, making the offer of citizenship in response to a question during his annual televised press conference.

“If Gerard really wants to have either a residency permit in Russia or a Russian passport, we will assume that this matter is settled and settled positively,” Putin said.

French daily Le Monde reported on Tuesday that Depardieu had told his close friends he was considering three options to escape France’s new tax regime: moving to Belgium, where he owns a home, relocating to Montenegro, where he has a business, or fleeing to Russia.

“Putin has already sent me a passport,” Le Monde quoted the actor as jokingly saying.

Depardieu is well-known in Russia where he has appeared in many advertising campaigns, and in 2012 he was one of several Western celebrities invited to celebrate the birthday of Ramzan Kadyrov, Chechnya’s Kremlin-backed leader.

He also worked in Russia last year on a film about the life and times of the eccentric Russian monk Grigory Rasputin.

He has already inquired about how to obtain Belgian residency rights and said he plans to hand in his French passport and social security card.

In what has become an ugly public dispute, France’s Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault criticized Depardieu’s announcement as “pathetic” and unpatriotic. The actor hit back, accusing France of punishing success and talent.

But Putin said he thought the feud was the result of a “misunderstanding”.

The 60-year-old former KGB spy said he was very friendly with Depardieu, saying he thought the actor considered himself a Frenchman who loved the culture and history of his homeland.

Belgian residents do not pay a wealth tax, which in France is now levied on those with assets over 1.3 million euros ($ 1.7 million). Nor do they pay capital gains tax on share sales.

Hollande is also pressing ahead with plans to impose a 75-percent super tax on income over 1 million euros.

Russia has a flat income tax rate of 13 percent.

(Reporting by Alexei Anishchuk; Additional reporting by John Irish in Paris; Writing by Gabriela Baczynska; Editing by Alissa de Carbonnel and Andrew Osborn)

Celebrity News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Title Post: Putin offers French tax row actor Depardieu a Russian passport
Rating:
100%

based on 99998 ratings.
5 user reviews.
Author: Fluser SeoLink
Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment

Read More..

The Consumer: Grapefruit and Drugs Often Don't Mix

The patient didn’t overdose on medication. She overdosed on grapefruit juice.

The 42-year-old was barely responding when her husband brought her to the emergency room. Her heart rate was slowing, and her blood pressure was falling. Doctors had to insert a breathing tube, and then a pacemaker, to revive her.

They were mystified: The patient’s husband said she suffered from migraines and was taking a blood pressure drug called verapamil to help prevent the headaches. But blood tests showed she had an alarming amount of the drug in her system, five times the safe level.

Did she overdose? Was she trying to commit suicide? It was only after she recovered that doctors were able to piece the story together.

“The culprit was grapefruit juice,” said Dr. Unni Pillai, a nephrologist in St. Louis, Mo., who treated the woman several years ago and later published a case report. “She loved grapefruit juice, and she had such a bad migraine, with nausea and vomiting, that she could not tolerate anything else.”

The previous week, she had been subsisting mainly on grapefruit juice. Then she took verapamil, one of dozens of drugs whose potency is dramatically increased if taken with grapefruit. In her case, the interaction was life-threatening.

Last month, Dr. David Bailey, a Canadian researcher who first described this interaction more than two decades ago, released an updated list of medications affected by grapefruit. There are now 85 such drugs on the market, he noted, including common cholesterol-lowering drugs, new anticancer agents, and some synthetic opiates and psychiatric drugs, as well as certain immunosuppressant medications taken by organ transplant patients, some AIDS medications, and some birth control pills and estrogen treatments. (The full list is online; your browser must be configured to handle PDF files.)

“What drove us to write this paper was the number of new drugs that have come out in the last four years,” said Dr. Bailey, a clinical pharmacologist at the Lawson Health Research Institute, who first discovered the interaction by accident in the 1990s.

How often such reactions occur, however, and how often they are triggered in people consuming regular amounts of juice is debated by scientists. Dr. Bailey believes many cases are missed because doctors don’t think to ask if patients are consuming grapefruit or grapefruit juice.

Even if such incidents are rare, Dr. Bailey argued, they are predictable and entirely avoidable. Many hospitals no longer serve juice, and some prescriptions carry stickers warning patients to avoid grapefruit.

“The bottom line is that even if the frequency is low, the consequences can be dire,” he said. “Why do we have to have a body count before we make changes?”

For 43 of the 85 drugs now on the list, consumption with grapefruit can be life-threatening, Dr. Bailey said. Many are linked to an increase in heart rhythm, known as torsade de pointes, that can lead to death. It can occur even without underlying heart disease and has been seen in patients taking certain anticancer agents, erythromycin and other anti-infective drugs, some cardiovascular drugs like quinidine, the antipsychotics lurasidone and ziprasidone, gastrointestinal agents cisapride and domperidone, and solifenacin, used to treat overactive bladders.

Taken with grapefruit, other drugs like fentanyl, oxycodone and methadone can cause fatal respiratory depression. The interaction also can be caused by other citrus fruits, including Seville oranges, limes and pomelos; one published case report has suggested that pomegranate may increase the potency of certain drugs.

Older people may be more vulnerable, because they are more likely to be both taking medications and drinking more grapefruit juice. The body’s ability to cope with drugs also weakens with age, experts say.

Under normal circumstances, the drugs are metabolized in the gastrointestinal tract, and relatively little is absorbed, because an enzyme in the gut called CYP3A4 deactivates them. But grapefruit contains natural chemicals called furanocoumarins, that inhibit the enzyme, and without it the gut absorbs much more of a drug and blood levels rise dramatically.

For example, someone taking simvastatin (brand name Zocor) who also drinks a small 200-milliliter, or 6.7 ounces, glass of grapefruit juice once a day for three days could see blood levels of the drug triple, increasing the risk for rhabdomyolysis, a breakdown of muscle that can cause kidney damage.

Estradiol and ethinyl estradiol, forms of estrogen used in oral contraceptives and hormone replacement, also interact with grapefruit juice. In one case in the journal Lancet, a 42-year-old woman taking the birth control pill Yaz developed a very serious clot that threatened her leg several days after she started eating just one grapefruit a day, said Dr. Lucinda Grande, a physician in Lacey, Wash., and an author of the case report.

But Dr. Grande also noted that the patient had other risk factors and the circumstances were unusual. “The reason we published it as a case report was because it was so uncommon,” she said. “We need to be careful not to exaggerate this.”

Some drugs that have a narrow “therapeutic range” — where having a bit too much or too little can have serious consequences — require vigilance with regard to grapefruit, said Patrick McDonnell, clinical professor of pharmacy practice at Temple University. These include immunosuppressant agents like cyclosporine that are taken by transplant patients to prevent rejection of a donor organ, he said.

Still, Dr. McDonnell added, most patients suffering adverse reactions are consuming large amounts of grapefruit. “There’s a difference between an occasional section of grapefruit and someone drinking 16 ounces of grapefruit juice a day,” he said.

And, he cautioned, “Not all drugs in the same class respond the same way.” While some statins are affected by grapefruit, for instance, others are not.

Here is some advice from experts for grapefruit lovers:

¶ If you take oral medication of any kind, check the list to see if it interacts with grapefruit. Make sure you understand the potential side effects of an interaction; if they are life-threatening or could cause permanent injury, avoid grapefruit altogether. Some drugs, such as clopidogrel, may be less effective when taken with grapefruit.

¶ If you take one of the listed drugs a regular basis, keep in mind that you may want to avoid grapefruit, as well as pomelo, lime and marmalade. Be on the lookout for symptoms that could be side effects of the drug. If you are on statins, this could be unusual muscle soreness.

¶It is not enough to avoid taking your medicine at the same time as grapefruit. You must avoid consuming grapefruit the whole period that you are on the medication.

¶In general, it is a good idea to avoid sudden dramatic changes in diet and extreme diets that rely on a narrow group of foods. If you can’t live without grapefruit, ask your doctor if there’s an alternative drug for you.

---

Readers may submit comments or questions for The Consumer by e-mail to consumer@nytimes.com.

Read More..

RIM Posts Smaller Than Expected Loss as Subscriber Base Slips

(Reuters) - Research In Motion reported a smaller-than-expected quarterly loss on Thursday, but recorded the first-ever drop in its subscriber base barely a month before the crucial launch of the new BB10 smartphone line.

Excluding one-time items related to restructuring and other issues, the struggling BlackBerry maker reported a loss of $114 million or 22 cents a share.

Analysts, on average, had forecast a loss of 35 cents a share, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Waterloo, Ontario-based RIM, which hopes to reinvent itself and revive its fortunes with the launch of the Blackberry 10 line next month, reported fiscal third-quarter net income of $9 million, or 2 cents a share. That compared with a year-ago profit of $265 million, or 51 cents.

The company said its subscriber base in the quarter fell to about 79 million from about 80 million in the period ended September 1.

(Reporting by Euan Rocha; Editing by Janet Guttsman)

Read More..