New push for most in US to get at least 1 HIV test

WASHINGTON (AP) — There's a new push to make testing for the AIDS virus as common as cholesterol checks.

Americans ages 15 to 64 should get an HIV test at least once — not just people considered at high risk for the virus, an independent panel that sets screening guidelines proposed Monday.

The draft guidelines from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force are the latest recommendations that aim to make HIV screening simply a routine part of a check-up, something a doctor can order with as little fuss as a cholesterol test or a mammogram. Since 2006, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also has pushed for widespread, routine HIV screening.

Yet not nearly enough people have heeded that call: Of the more than 1.1 million Americans living with HIV, nearly 1 in 5 — almost 240,000 people — don't know it. Not only is their own health at risk without treatment, they could unwittingly be spreading the virus to others.

The updated guidelines will bring this long-simmering issue before doctors and their patients again — emphasizing that public health experts agree on how important it is to test even people who don't think they're at risk, because they could be.

"It allows you to say, 'This is a recommended test that we believe everybody should have. We're not singling you out in any way,'" said task force member Dr. Douglas Owens, of Stanford University and the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System.

And if finalized, the task force guidelines could extend the number of people eligible for an HIV screening without a copay in their doctor's office, as part of free preventive care under the Obama administration's health care law. Under the task force's previous guidelines, only people at increased risk for HIV — which includes gay and bisexual men and injecting drug users — were eligible for that no-copay screening.

There are a number of ways to get tested. If you're having blood drawn for other exams, the doctor can merely add HIV to the list, no extra pokes or swabs needed. Today's rapid tests can cost less than $20 and require just rubbing a swab over the gums, with results ready in as little as 20 minutes. Last summer, the government approved a do-it-yourself at-home version that's selling for about $40.

Free testing is available through various community programs around the country, including a CDC pilot program in drugstores in 24 cities and rural sites.

Monday's proposal also recommends:

—Testing people older and younger than 15-64 if they are at increased risk of HIV infection,

—People at very high risk for HIV infection should be tested at least annually.

—It's not clear how often to retest people at somewhat increased risk, but perhaps every three to five years.

—Women should be tested during each pregnancy, something the task force has long recommended.

The draft guidelines are open for public comment through Dec. 17.

Most of the 50,000 new HIV infections in the U.S. every year are among gay and bisexual men, followed by heterosexual black women.

"We are not doing as well in America with HIV testing as we would like," Dr. Jonathan Mermin, CDC's HIV prevention chief, said Monday.

The CDC recommends at least one routine test for everyone ages 13 to 64, starting two years younger than the task force recommended. That small difference aside, CDC data suggests fewer than half of adults under 65 have been tested.

"It can sometimes be awkward to ask your doctor for an HIV test," Mermin said — the reason making it routine during any health care encounter could help.

But even though nearly three-fourths of gay and bisexual men with undiagnosed HIV had visited some sort of health provider in the previous year, 48 percent weren't tested for HIV, a recent CDC survey found. Emergency rooms are considered a good spot to catch the undiagnosed, after their illnesses and injuries have been treated, but Mermin said only about 2 percent of ER patients known to be at increased risk were tested while there.

Mermin calls that "a tragedy. It's a missed opportunity."

___

Online:

Task force recommendation: http://www.uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org

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Anxiety, an unwelcome side dish

It's the Sunday before Thanksgiving, and I should be making a shopping list, clearing space in my refrigerator, rummaging through cabinets for my roasting pan.

Instead, I'm still in my pajamas at 2 p.m., trying to muster the energy to wash the breakfast dishes.

I'm exhausted just thinking about Thanksgiving and can't bring myself to begin tackling all the preparations necessary to pull off a proper holiday.

There's something in the run-up to Thanksgiving that always puts me on edge. It bothers me that I feel that way — even the acknowledgment ups my anxiety. I don't want to seem ungrateful for a holiday that, after all, is supposed to be about gratitude.

I love the idea of Thanksgiving, the holiday of my memory: a house full of relatives, the dining room table groaning under the weight of everyone's contribution.

Growing up in Ohio, Thanksgiving was low expectations and high yield. Same menu, same folks, same routine each year: The men yelling at football games on TV, the women laughing in the kitchen, the kids in the basement entertaining and tormenting one another, the way cousins do.

It was the most comfortable of holidays. No presents, but no potential for disappointment. No chocolate bunnies, but no requisite hours crammed in church pews. It was simply big family and abundant food.

And even after 30 years in Southern California, there's a sense of melancholy that attends its grown-up incarnation, far from the people that I call family and the place I still consider home.

Thanksgiving as a grown-up settler in Los Angeles is a very different affair.

The guests may include strangers, the food tends toward gourmet, and the day feels like some sort of performance art, aimed at binding us to a narrative that doesn't exist anymore.

The holiday season tends to be hardest for those of us who've lost someone. The focus on family and reliance on rituals just magnifies those empty spots.

And the need for enforced cheeriness can turn the journey from Thanksgiving to Christmas into a wearying keep-your-chin-up slog.

There's this pressure to knit an age-old holiday around fragmented modern lives.

This year feels especially angst-y for me. Maybe it's the dreary weather. Or the crash after the election rush. Or the calendar quirk that bumped the holiday up. I'm just not ready to greet it.

Or maybe it's the sense that Thanksgiving is becoming a relic, shoved aside in our headlong rush to reward ourselves for a year survived with the glitz and glory of Christmas.

I feel ambushed in the car by my favorite radio station. Christmas music 24-7 a week before Thanksgiving? It's not "Silver Bells" I need, but the smooth grooves that have always eased me through the marathon of Thanksgiving cooking.

Even Starbucks has betrayed me this year. I'm still trying to savor Pumpkin Spice, but they jumped the gun and began pushing Peppermint Mocha the day after Halloween.

And you can start your Black Friday shopping on Thanksgiving evening this year. Just load those plates in the dishwasher and join the hordes at Wal-Mart or Target.

That makes the holiday meal seem less a celebration of gratitude than a way to fortify bands of shoppers hunting for a deal.

I couldn't even make it through the grocery store on my first shopping attempt last weekend.

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An Outgunned Hamas Tries to Leverage Rise of Islamists in Region

Bernat Armangue/Associated Press

Smoke rose over Gaza City on Sunday, as Israel widened its range of targets to include buildings used by the news media.

CAIRO — Emboldened by the rising power of Islamists around the region, the Palestinian militant group Hamas is demanding new Israeli concessions to its security and autonomy before it halts its rocket attacks on Israel, several people close to the talks said.

Pavel Wolberg for The New York Times

 A woman and her child took cover in the southern Israeli town of Ashod, which was the target of several missiles on Sunday.

After five days of punishing Israeli airstrikes on the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip and no letup in the rocket fire in return, representatives of Israel and Hamas met separately with Egyptian officials in Cairo on Sunday for indirect talks about a truce.

Hamas, badly outgunned on the battlefield, appeared to be trying to exploit its increased political clout with its ideological allies in Egypt’s new Islamist-led government. The group’s leaders, rejecting Israel’s call for an immediate end to the rocket attacks, have instead laid down sweeping demands that would put Hamas in a stronger position than when the conflict began: an end to Israel’s five-year-old embargo of the Gaza Strip, a pledge by Israel not to attack again and multinational guarantees that Israel would abide by its commitments.

“Hamas has one clear and specific demand: for the siege to be completely lifted from Gaza,” said Reda Fahmy, a member of Egypt’s upper house of Parliament and of the nation’s dominant Islamist party, who is following the talks.

“It’s not reasonable that every now and then Israel decides to level Gaza to the ground, and then we decide to sit down and talk about it after it is done,” Mr. Fahmy said. “On the Israeli part, they want to stop the missiles from one side. How is that?” He added: “If they stop the aircraft from shooting, Hamas will then stop its missiles. But violence couldn’t be stopped from one side.”

Hamas’s aggressive stance is the first test of the group’s belief that the Arab Spring and the rise in Islamist influence around the region have strengthened its political hand, both against Israel and against Hamas’s Palestinian rivals, who now control the West Bank with Western backing.

It also puts intense new pressure on President Mohamed Morsi of Egypt, a former leader of the Muslim Brotherhood who was known for his fiery speeches defending Hamas and denouncing Israel. Mr. Morsi must now balance the conflicting demands of an Egyptian public that is deeply sympathetic to Hamas and the Palestinian cause against Western pleadings to help broker a peace and Egypt’s urgent need for regional stability to help revive its moribund economy.

Indeed, the Egyptian-led cease-fire talks illustrate the diverging paths of the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas, a Palestinian offshoot of the original Egyptian Islamist group. Hamas has evolved into a more militant insurgency and is labeled a terrorist organization by the United States and Israel, while the Brotherhood has effectively become Egypt’s ruling party. Mr. Fahmy said in an interview in March that the Brotherhood’s new responsibilities required a step back from its ideological cousins in Hamas, and even a new push to persuade the group to compromise.

But Moussa Abu Marzouk, a senior Hamas official who was allowed to settle in Cairo after the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak, predicted a different outcome. In an interview at the same time, he said that if another conflict broke out with Israel, the moderate Islamist politicians around the region like the Egyptian Brotherhood would have to line up with the militants in Gaza.

“The position of all Islamists in the region will be that of Hamas,” Mr. Abu Marzouk said, “not the other way around.”

Israeli officials are conducting their side of the cease-fire talks through the contacts in Egyptian intelligence with whom they worked during Mr. Mubarak’s rule. Officials said their main focus was on ending the threat of rocket fire from Gaza, whether by diplomatic or military means.

Dan Meridor, the Israeli intelligence minister, said on Israeli television that the government would wait for Hamas “to stop firing” before it would negotiate a long-term cease-fire. In the meantime, he said, Israel would do “whatever it takes” to eliminate Hamas’s ability to fire rockets, potentially including an incursion into Gaza by the Israeli ground troops now positioned near the border.

Reporting was contributed by Ethan Bronner, Irit Pazner Garshowitz and Isabel Kershner from Jerusalem, and Peter Baker from Bangkok.

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Justin Bieber Brings His Mom to the American Music Awards

By Maggie Coughlan

11/18/2012 at 09:35 PM EST

Pattie Mallette and Justin Bieber

Jonathan Alcorn/Reuters/Landov

Mother knows best!

Despite his recent split from Selena Gomez, Justin Bieber still had a date for the 40th American Music Awards on Sunday: his mother, Pattie Mallette.

Malette – who recently penned Nowhere But Up: The Story of Justin Bieber's Mom – looked thrilled to pose for photographs with her son.

When Bieber won the first award of the night, for favorite pop/rock male artist, his proud mother, 38, beamed.

"I want to say this is for all the haters who thought I was just here for one or two years. I feel like I'm going to be here for a very long time," the singer said as he accepted the award.

The award was a highlight during a rocky week for Bieber, who on Friday reunited with Gomez, 20, for dinner at a Japanese restaurant in Los Angeles. But just five minutes after entering the restaurant, the couple emerged with Gomez looking visibly "mad," says a source.

Later that night, Bieber Tweeted "Things aren't always easy. there is a lot of pressure. im figuring it all out. im trying. but i care, i notice, i still hear u. #Beliebers."

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EU drug regulator OKs Novartis' meningitis B shot

LONDON (AP) — Europe's top drug regulator has recommended approval for the first vaccine against meningitis B, made by Novartis AG.

There are five types of bacterial meningitis. While vaccines exist to protect against the other four, none has previously been licensed for type B meningitis. In Europe, type B is the most common, causing 3,000 to 5,000 cases every year.

Meningitis mainly affects infants and children. It kills about 8 percent of patients and leaves others with lifelong consequences such as brain damage.

In a statement on Friday, Andrin Oswald of Novartis said he is "proud of the major advance" the company has made in developing its vaccine Bexsero. It is aimed at children over two months of age, and Novartis is hoping countries will include the shot among the routine ones for childhood diseases such as measles.

Novartis said the immunization has had side effects such as fever and redness at the injection site.

Recommendations from the European Medicines Agency are usually adopted by the European Commission. Novartis also is seeking to test the vaccine in the U.S.

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Schools eat up challenge of new federal nutrition standards

Sizzling saucepans, men and women in chef pants running with pots of water and frantic cries for salt made the cooking stations at Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts in Pasadena like a scene from a show on the Food Network.

Further enhancing the resemblance were boxes of mystery ingredients: acorn squash, alfredo sauce, persimmons, a pineapple and animal-shaped graham crackers.

But the frenzy wasn't a taping of the show "Chopped." It was the recent California School Nutrition Assn.'s annual conference.

Teams from 11 school districts participated in the cooking competition to highlight new federal nutrition standards and the chefs' ability to turn them into creative dishes that appeal to the pickiest consumers.

"These are the real Top Chefs," said Mary Lou Fulton, a senior program manager for the California Endowment, a nonprofit health foundation that organized the event. "They are cooking for the most important people of all: our kids."

The new standards include more fruits and vegetables, whole grains and no trans-fats, changes that some California schools have already implemented and morphed into a way of life. The Los Angeles Unified School District adopted a new food policy last week, ensuring that the state's largest school system buys organic produce and free-range animal products.

The Oakland Unified School District receives fresh produce from nearby farms and has 23 produce markets on some school campuses to encourage students to continue healthy eating at home.

"It's been a challenge because we're dealing with students," said Roslynn DeCuir, a food service employee in Oakland. "They eat with their eyes, and they might not recognize some of what is on their plates."

That challenge, DeCuir said, is what drives the cooks to be innovative. "This competition is a great opportunity to get creative."

The teams had 30 minutes to plan a kid-centric meal, prepare the ingredients and cook a plate for each of the four judges using the new federal guidelines. (They didn't have to use only the mystery ingredients.)

"We usually have an apron decorating contest," said Margan Holloway, president of the California School Nutrition Assn. "But the federal nutrition guidelines haven't changed since 1995. Now that they have, we thought this would be more meaningful than an apron."

Some teams weighed their ingredients before plating them; some stared at the acorn squash, perplexed. Other conference participants sat in the gallery chanting their district's team name, as if attending a political rally. "Give Peas a Chance! Give Peas a Chance!" said several, referring to a team from Palm Springs.

The changing landscape in school cafeterias is a result of education officials and elected leaders taking a larger interest in students' well-being, Fulton said.

Her colleague at the California Endowment, Judi Larsen, agreed but added that the guidelines are only the start of what needs to change.

"When we think about this opportunity, we also have to think about presenting in a more well-rounded approach," Larsen said, noting that time constraints may not allow for schoolchildren to finish their meals. "We have a ways to go, but this is a good first step."

In the end, the Cuisine Queens from the Antelope Valley Union High School District took first place with their chicken alfredo on whole wheat pasta, and a pineapple and persimmon fruit salad with a sweet honey yogurt and lemon croutons.

Anaheim Union High School District placed second, and DeCuir's Oakland team took third.

"Honestly, we thought we'd find things in [the mystery box] that we wouldn't be able to pronounce," said Nancy VanGinkle of the Anaheim team, which whipped up chicken tacos and stir-fried zucchini.

The only ingredient each team left out?

"That acorn squash really stumped us," VanGinkle said.

dalina.castellanos@latimes.com

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Israel Steps Up Aerial Strikes in Gaza

Tyler Hicks/The New York Times

A man injured by bombing in the Zaitoun neighborhood of Gaza City on Saturday that also killed one person.

GAZA CITY — Israel broadened its assault on the Gaza Strip on Saturday from mostly military targets to centers of government infrastructure, obliterating the four-story headquarters of the Hamas prime minister with a barrage of five bombs before dawn.

The attack, one of several on government installations, came a day after the prime minister, Ismail Haniya, hosted his Egyptian counterpart in that very building, a sign of Hamas’s new legitimacy in a radically redrawn Arab world. That stature was underscored Saturday by a visit to Gaza from the Tunisian foreign minister and the rapid convergence in Cairo of two Hamas allies, the prime minister of Turkey and the crown prince of Qatar, for talks with the Egyptian president and the chairman of Hamas on a possible cease-fire.

But as the fighting ended its fourth day, with Israel continuing preparations for a ground invasion, the conflict showed no sign of abating. Gaza militants again fired long-range missiles at Tel Aviv, among nearly 60 that soared into Israel on Saturday. Israel said it hit more than 200 targets overnight in Gaza, and continued with afternoon strikes on the home of a Hamas commander and on a motorcycle-riding militant.

The White House reiterated its strong support for Israel, with Ben Rhodes, the deputy national security adviser, describing rocket fire from Gaza as “the precipitating factor for the conflict.”

“We believe Israel has a right to defend itself, and they’ll make their own decisions about the tactics that they use in that regard,” Mr. Rhodes told reporters on Air Force One en route to Asia.

Hamas health officials said 45 Palestinians had been killed and 385 wounded since Wednesday’s escalation in the cross-border battle. In Israel, 3 Israeli civilians have died and 63 have been injured. Four soldiers were also wounded on Saturday.

Two rockets were fired at Tel Aviv on Saturday. One landed harmlessly, probably at sea. The other was intercepted by the Iron Dome defense system in the sky above the city. An Iron Dome antimissile battery had been hastily deployed near the city on Saturday in response to the threat of longer-range rockets.

Since Wednesday, Iron Dome has knocked 245 rockets out of the sky, the military said, while 500 have struck Israel. The American-financed system is designed to intercept only rockets streaking toward towns and cities and to ignore those likely to strike open ground.

There have been failures — on Saturday a rocket crashed into an apartment block in the southern port city of Ashdod, injuring five people — but officials have put its success rate at 90 percent.

Analysts said there is no clear end to the conflict in sight, since Israel neither wants to re-engage in Gaza nor to eliminate Hamas and leave the territory to the chaos of more militant factions.

“Ultimately,” said Efraim Halevy, a former chief of Israel’s intelligence service, “both sides want Hamas to remain in control, strange as it sounds.”

But Mkhaimar Abusada, a political science professor at Al Azhar University here, cautioned that “there is no military solution to the Gaza problem.”

“There has to be a political settlement at the end of this,” he said. “Without that, this conflict is just going to go on and on.”

President Mohamed Morsi of Egypt said late Saturday night that “there could be a cease-fire soon,” after he and other members of his government spent the day in meetings with the Turkish premier, the Qatari prince, the political leaders of Hamas and other Gaza factions. But Mark Regev, a spokesman for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, denied reports that a truce was imminent.

It was unclear whether the deal under discussion would solely suspend the fighting or include other issues. Hamas — which won elections in Gaza in 2006 and took full control in 2007 but is considered a terrorist organization by Israel and the United States — wants to turn its Rafah crossing with Egypt into a free-trade zone and seeks Israel’s withdrawal from the 1,000-foot buffer it patrols on Gaza’s northern and eastern borders.

Mr. Rhodes said the Turkish and Egyptian leaders “have the ability to play a constructive role in engaging Hamas and encouraging a process of de-escalation.”

Mr. Netanyahu, for his part, spoke Saturday with the leaders of Britain, Germany, Italy, Greece, Poland, Portugal, Bulgaria and the Czech Republic, according to a statement from his office.

Jodi Rudoren reported from Gaza City, and Isabel Kershner from Jerusalem. Reporting was contributed by Fares Akram and Tyler Hicks from the Gaza Strip, Carol Sutherland and Iritz Pazner Garshowitz from Jerusalem, and David D. Kirkpatrick and Mayy El Sheikh from Cairo.

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Sarah Michelle Gellar Names Son Rocky

Mom & Babies
Celebrity Baby Blog

11/17/2012 at 07:00 PM ET

Claire Greenway/Getty

Update: The couple have named their son Rocky James Prinze, a source close to the family confirms to PEOPLE.

Originally posted Sept. 24: Hello, little Prinze.

Sarah Michelle Gellar ”had a baby boy last week in Los Angeles,” her rep tells PEOPLE.

She and husband Freddie Prinze, Jr. “are thrilled to announce” the news, the rep confirms to Access Hollywood, adding that ”mother and baby are doing great.”

The newborn joins the couple’s daughter Charlotte Grace at home.

Their 3-year-old, who was spotted out with a still-pregnant Gellar last Tuesday, “is very excited to be a big sister,” the rep adds.

“They are thrilled that Charlotte [has] a little brother,” a source close to the couple told PEOPLE in July.

“They love their little girl more than anything in the world and know that love will only multiply.”

Gellar, 35, and Prinze, 36, were married in September 2002.

– Sarah Michaud with reporting by Charlotte Triggs

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EU drug regulator OKs Novartis' meningitis B shot

LONDON (AP) — Europe's top drug regulator has recommended approval for the first vaccine against meningitis B, made by Novartis AG.

There are five types of bacterial meningitis. While vaccines exist to protect against the other four, none has previously been licensed for type B meningitis. In Europe, type B is the most common, causing 3,000 to 5,000 cases every year.

Meningitis mainly affects infants and children. It kills about 8 percent of patients and leaves others with lifelong consequences such as brain damage.

In a statement on Friday, Andrin Oswald of Novartis said he is "proud of the major advance" the company has made in developing its vaccine Bexsero. It is aimed at children over two months of age, and Novartis is hoping countries will include the shot among the routine ones for childhood diseases such as measles.

Novartis said the immunization has had side effects such as fever and redness at the injection site.

Recommendations from the European Medicines Agency are usually adopted by the European Commission. Novartis also is seeking to test the vaccine in the U.S.

Read More..

Pasadena considers whether to host NFL team at Rose Bowl

Many Pasadena residents who live near the Rose Bowl complain that the city's proposal to host an NFL team for up to five years would invite massive traffic jams, unleash rowdy fan behavior and displace recreational users from the Arroyo Seco.

The Pasadena Chamber of Commerce and others say the prospect of millions of dollars in public revenue and game-related local spending is a windfall well worth the inconveniences.

On Monday, the City Council will hold a public hearing to decide what course the city may pursue.

Both the disaster and money-making scenarios are speculative. No NFL team has committed to Southern California despite years of talk, and the Los Angeles Coliseum is another option as a temporary home while a permanent new NFL stadium is built.

But if talks with the NFL are to begin, Pasadena leaders must pass an ordinance to increase the number of large events allowed at the Rose Bowl from 12 to 25 each year, approve an associated environmental study and adopt a "statement of overriding considerations" that pro football's potential benefits outweigh its downsides.

A Nov. 5 report by Barrett Sports Group, a Manhattan Beach consulting firm hired by the city, estimates that NFL games would raise $5 million to $10 million a year for the city-owned stadium, where costs for an ongoing renovation have spiraled to nearly $195 million. The gap between the funds Rose Bowl officials have and what they estimate they need has reached $30 million.

City Council members declined to say how they would vote on Monday, but several said the renovation cost was a factor.

Councilwoman Margaret McAustin said the city would seek to reduce impacts on Rose Bowl neighbors if it decided to go ahead with the plan.

"It's not that we'll do this at all costs … [but] we have to keep in mind that the Rose Bowl is a football stadium," she said. "We're not spending $200 million to preserve it as a museum."

Mayor Bill Bogaard, who opposed a 2005 plan to bring pro football to the Rose Bowl permanently and give the NFL control over stadium renovations, said he was giving this plan serious thought. "That funding gap would be relieved if we were to strike the right deal with the NFL," he said.

But the right deal remains elusive, said Linda Vista-Annandale Assn. President Nina Chomsky, an opponent of the plan.

"They are trying to more than double the amount of events at the Rose Bowl without any contract or deal that tells us what the full impacts will be, so any attempt to mitigate those impacts is speculative," Chomsky said.

The city's 688-page environmental study found that NFL games would result in "significant and unavoidable" traffic congestion, emissions, noise and disruptions in the central Arroyo Seco.

The arrival of more than 25,000 vehicles during eight home games, two preseason games and possible playoff matches would disrupt joggers and prompt the Kidspace Museum, Rose Bowl Aquatic Center and Brookside Golf Course to go dark on those Sundays.

Chomsky added that back-to-back college and pro games would clog the area for entire weekends.

Sixty-four letters and two petitions were submitted as public comment on the environmental study, most against the proposal.

Several writers expressed fears that NFL games would attract alcohol-fueled and criminal mischief, with one Arroyo resident imagining "ever-expanding cultural crassness" on game days.

Contemporary Services Corp., which handles security at the Rose Bowl and stadiums throughout the country, countered in a Nov. 5 report to the city that "our experience has indicated that NFL fans are generally more orderly than college football fans."

joe.piasecki@latimes.com

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