Current Events in December 2005

December 20, 2005
ABN AMRO Mortgage Group says it has recovered a computer tape that was lost last month while being transported by DHL Courier to a credit reporting service. The company is offering its customers one year of free credit monitoring.

The company said the tape included the names, account information, payment history and Social Security numbers of about two million of its customers. It was being shipped from ABN AMRO's Chicago data center to the credit reporting company Experian on Nov. 18 when it was lost. The company said today that the tape was recovered yesterday.

DHL said the package was found without the original airbill. DHL staff opened the package, found the return address on the tape, and repackaged the tape with a new airbill.

"We deeply regret that this situation occurred and are keenly aware of how important your personal information is to you," Thomas M. Goldstein, Chairman and CEO, said in a letter to customers dated Dec. 16, before the tape was recovered.

Goldstein's letter said that the company was offering affected customers 90 days of free credit monitoring by TransUnion, one of the three major credit reporting agencies, to help ensure that the missing data was not misused. The offer was later extended to one year after customers protested.

"We are pleased that the tape has been located and returned to us," Goldstein said in a statement. "Although we have no reason to believe that the tape was compromised, we feel it is always a good practice for consumers to monitor their credit activity on a regular basis and we continue to encourage customers who received written notification of this incident to sign up for the free credit monitoring service we have arranged."

"As we learned about this situation, we immediately began an investigation and asked DHL to search for the tape and to investigate the loss. We also alerted federal law enforcement," Goldstein said. "We are carefully reviewing this incident and will take whatever measures are necessary to ensure that it does not happen again."

ABN AMRO Mortgage Group, Inc. is one of the largest loan originators and loan servicers in the United States. It has about 3,000 employees located throughout the United States.

Almost one-third of women who underwent reconstructive breast implantation after mastectomy had at least one short-term complication in the chest or breast area, with one in five women requiring additional surgery, according to a study in the December issue of Archives of Surgery.

The most common complications were infection, blood clotting, seroma (collection of serum in the tissues) and skin perforation. Forty-nine percent of these complications occurred within three months and 67 percent within six months.

"Surgical or medical intervention is commonly required during the reconstructive course, but reconstruction failure (loss of implant) is rare," the authors report.

Women with breast cancer and their physicians often face several choices in the course of treatment, including whether to remove the breast (mastectomy) or undergo breast-conserving therapies, when and whether to reconstruct the breast following mastectomy and what materials to use in doing so.

Surgeons performing postmastectomy reconstruction can form the new breast from flaps of skin and other tissue from the womans body (autologous tissue) or insert an implant, and sometimes use both techniques at once.

Many women choose implants alone because the procedure is simpler and requires less operation time than those using autologous tissue, and it can preserve the color of the skin of the breast and possibly some of its sensitivity.

Trine F. Henrikson, M.D., of the Danish Registry for Plastic Surgery of the Breast (DPB), Copenhagen, Denmark, and colleagues analyzed data from 574 women in the registry who underwent postmastectomy breast reconstruction between June 1, 1999, and July 24, 2003.

The patients surgeons reported the dates and details of each implantation and filled out follow-up forms when the women returned for subsequent visits. The women, ages 21 to 78 years with a mean (average) age of 51 years, were monitored through Sept. 15, 2003.

Following their first implantation, 31 percent of the women developed at least one adverse event, 16 percent developed two complications and 8 percent experienced three or more during the course of the study.

Additional surgery was required for 21 percent of the women, while 3 percent underwent additional nonsurgical treatment. Surgery was most often needed to correct asymmetry of the breasts, displacement of the implant or capsular contracture, when the capsule-like scar tissue that forms around the implant tightened and hardened.

The researchers also examined data on the 302 women in the study who had reimplantations, usually to exchange or replace the existing implant.

These women had similar rates of complications -- 36 percent of them developed at least one adverse event and 21 percent required additional surgery.

"When evaluating benefits and risks associated with breast reconstruction, the surgeon and patient should consider that the reconstructive process often requires additional surgical interventions to treat local complications or to achieve the desired cosmetic result," the authors conclude.

"Detailed information on the likelihood of local complications associated with the given indication (cosmetic vs. reconstructive) should be an essential part of adequate informed consent for women seeking breast implantation."

A change in banking regulations will mean higher minimum credit card payments for millions of consumers beginning in January. At the urging of federal banking regulators, credit card companies are boosting the minimum payment on balances from two percent to four percent.

The idea is to help consumers. By increasing the minimum payment, the feds reason, consumers will pay down their balances faster, with a greater percentage of their payment going to principal instead of interest. But many cash-strapped consumers may find themselves overwhelmed.

"I have certain funds allocated for certain expenses and if that nearly doubled I would definitely have to realign my budget," Chicago consumer Cetrina Williams told WBBM-TV.

But Justin McHenry, Research Director for IndexCreditCards.com, says the new rules will probably be less burdensome to consumers than they fear. Hes seen the media reports of "double credit card payments" and thinks its overblown.

"While the government is requiring credit card companies to increase monthly minimum payments, the goal is to help credit card customers pay off balances without undue hardship," McHenry said.

Specifically, where most credit card issuers previously required customers to pay off 2% of their outstanding balances each month, most will now require customers to pay all monthly interest and fees, plus 1% of the outstanding balance.

What does that mean for monthly payments? McHenry said significant monthly increases will occur in only the most extreme cases, those in which very large credit card debt is combined with very high interest rates. Even then, he says the result is not as scary as you may think.

For example, he says, imagine a person with a $10,000 credit card debt and a 19 percent annual interest rate, both higher than the average consumer is carrying.

Using the two percent minimum balance calculation, this person would have a required monthly payment of approximately $203.16. Under new requirements, the monthly payment would be $258.33 ($158.33 in interest, plus $100 of the outstanding balance). This is a difference of roughly $55 on a balance and interest rate that exceeds what the average consumer is carrying. Most credit card customers will have much smaller minimum payment increases, if any, he said.

"Unless a credit card company has specifically announced raising their minimum payment from two to four percent, its almost impossible to think of a realistic scenario in which payments will double," says McHenry.

The upcoming change in minimum payments is a result of guidance from the governments Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which told banks they must require minimum payments that allow customers to pay off their debts in a reasonable amount of time.

Under the current industry-standard two percent minimum payment, customers with high balances can conceivably "meet the minimum" without even paying off a full months interest, much less taking a chunk out of the principal balance.

"While 'this is for your own good' generally should be met with skepticism," says McHenry, "in this case it's true."

Florida has sued an Indian River County man for allegedly running a bogus email operation touting a bogus fuel saver.

The complaint alleges that Rik Rodriguez, 47, is responsible for sending thousands of illegal emails that linked recipients to websites selling a device called Fuel Saver Pro that falsely claimed to increase automobile gas mileage and decrease harmful pollutants and emissions.

The lawsuit filed by Attorney General Charlie Crist's office joins Federal Trade Commission efforts against "button pushers" - paid spammers who inundate email in-boxes for commissions on product sales.

In October 2004, the FTC sued the Nevada-based company that manufactured and marketed the bogus fuel-saving device, as well as those who acted as resellers of the product online. Through the litigation, spammers who steered consumers to the websites selling the bogus products including Rodriguez were identified.

"Spam is a pervasive and growing threat to unsuspecting computer users everywhere," said Crist. "While spam is annoying, it is even worse when used to encourage recipients to spend their hard-earned money on bogus products."

Rodriguez allegedly sent or assisted the sending of more than 1,100 illegal emails to over 2,500 recipients. Many messages used false information to disguise the origin of the email, while others wrongfully concealed the sender's address by instead substituting innocent persons' names or invalid email addresses.

Rodriguez allegedly used several different computers to avoid detection, and in one instance used over 100 different computer addresses in a single day.

The spam emails were captured by Microsoft through its MSN Hotmail trap accounts and were referred to the Attorney General's Office to assist the investigation.

The emails that are the subject of this action were sent before Florida's Anti-Spam law was enacted, so the lawsuit against Rodriguez alleges violations of the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act.

In addition, the emails are said to have violated the Federal CAN-SPAM law. Rodriguez faces penalties of up to $10,000 per violation of Florida law. The lawsuit will be litigated by the Attorney General's Economic Crimes Division.

Ford has settled a class-action lawsuit over the troublesome plastic intake manifolds on certain Ford and Lincoln-Mercury models from the 1996 through 2002 model years. The settlement was reached in June but needed final approval by the court.

Owners who have already replaced the manifolds will receive full reimbursement. Owners without a receipt will receive $735 for repairs, according to attorneys handling the case.

The company is also extending the new-vehicle warranty on the nylon composite part to seven years to cover vehicle owners who haven't yet replaced the manifold.

The class-action lawsuit covers about 1.8 million vehicle owners. The settlement is expected to cost Ford more than $100 million.

Vehicles included in the settlement are the Ford Crown Victoria, Mercury Grand Marquis and Lincoln Town Car from the 1996-2001 model years; 1997 Mercury Cougar, Ford Thunderbird and Ford Mustang; some Mustangs from 1998-2001; and some Ford Explorers from 2002.

Plaintiffs in the case claimed the intake manifolds are prone to premature cracking, which could lead to coolant leakage and expensive damage to the engine.

The San Francisco law firm Levy, Ram & Olson represented consumers in the case.

Like thousands of other homeowners, Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) lost his home when Hurricane Katrina roared ashore. And like thousands of his constituents, Lott has not been able to get his insurer to pay for replacing his house.

So, like thousands of his constituents, Lott has sued his insurer, State Farm, which has stonewalled Lott and other South Mississippians who lost their homes on the grounds that their homeowners policies do not cover flood damage.

Home insurance typically does not cover floods but the homeless Mississippians contend that it was wind and wind-driven water that destroyed their homes. Wind damage is covered by homeowners policies.

Lott's suit adds powerful political muscle to the dispute. The state's attorney general, Jim Hood, sued five large insurers in September seeking to override the exclusions and there are numerous individual and class-action lawsuits pending in the courts.

"Today I have joined in a lawsuit against my longtime insurance company because it will not honor my policy, nor those of thousands of other South Mississippians, for coverage against wind damage due to Hurricane Katrina," the former Senate major leader said in a statement.

State Farm and other insurers vehemently deny that they are liable for the damages and say that the lawsuits "threaten the foundation of the economy of the state" by trying to undercut legal contracts.

While Republicans in Congress are quick to bash plaintiffs' lawyers who file class-action suits on behalf of consumers, Lott had no trouble turning for legal help to his brother-in-law, Richard Scruggs, a famous and enormously successful plaintiffs' lawyer who has won huge judgments against tobacco and asbestos companies, among others.

Lott and Scruggs were neighbors along the Gulf Coast in Pascagoula and both lost their homes in the storm.

The suit alleges that State Farm wouldn't cover Mr. Lott's total loss because it was caused by a "storm surge" from the Gulf, rather than by wind. It argues that the policy is supposed to cover losses from "storm systems" and that damage from storms typically includes not only wind but also storm surges.

Somewhere, a computer is collating and tabulating all of your information from the moment you step into the store, and using it to generate a "profile" of you for unknown purposes.

Not only that, but one day in the near future, you could have a little microchip implanted in your body. Like something out of "Blade Runner" or "The Matrix," you could be electronically "tagged" and identified in order to build a record of your medical information, accessible anywhere in the world -- and for other purposes you may not know about.

Sound like cyberpunk at its most clich? Far from it. Radio frequency identifiers (RFID) -- more commonly known as "spy chips" -- are a reality in everything from retail business to medical records.

And that's just the beginning. In the words of Alex Eckelberry, president of Florida-based Sunbelt Software, "The problem with RFID[is that] we are headed toward a state where privacy will be a thing of the past."

Brave New World

RFID works on a deceptively simple principle. An object is implanted or "tagged" with a small computer chip. The chip is monitored wirelessly by a "reader" that identifies its unique signature, and whatever information is on the chip is automatically stored in a linked database.

What makes this different from classic "bar codes" is that the data storage capacity for RFID enables each and every tagged item to have its own unique identifier, whereas the bar code system has one code for an entire class of item.

Business was quick to jump on the concept of millions of products that could be individually identified and tracked. Wal-Mart has led the way in using RFID tagging, investing $250 million in RFID technology and requiring their distributors to mark high-end items such as consumer electronics with RFID tags.

Walgreens recently partnered with marketer Goliath Solutions to track promotional displays in its 5,000 stores nationwide using RFID tags. The tags will be used to track how long displays are made available in stores, group displays by regional interest, and so on.

"With the GOLIATH system, we'll have unprecedented insight into marketing data collected daily from every store," said Robert Kral, Walgreens vice president of purchasing in a press statement.

RFID tags are used in the EZ Pass toll-charge system popular throughout the Northeast. EZ Pass users prepay a certain amount and install a transponder in their car.

When passing through tolls that use the EZ Pass system, a reader in the toll booth identifies the transponder and automatically deducts the amount of the toll from the driver's account.

The government is also getting in on the RFID action. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is testing the use of RFID-tagged cards for visitors to and from the United States. Border guards would "read" the cards each time a visitor to the U.S. crossed the divide.

The Defense Department has issued several big-ticket contracts to RFID suppliers in order to tag their shipments of food, clothes, and weapons around the world.

Investment in RFID is booming. A study by the Gartner research group found that worldwide spending on the technology was $504 million in 2005, with total spending expected to increase to $3 billion by 2010.

"Businesses are beginning to discover business value in places where they cannot use bar coding, which will be the force that moves RFID forward," Gartner's vice-president of research, Jeff Woods, said.

The Body Electric

The most controversial aspect of RFID technology usage is the concept of installing RFID tags in living beings, humans and animals alike. A rabies scare in the Bordeaux region of France in September 2004 motivated the Digital Angel Corporation to distribute 50,000 of its RFID tags to implant in pets in the region.

A year later, Digital Angel supplied 2,000 chips and 28 readers to identify pets displaced by Hurricane Katrina, both to read chips that had already been implanted in pets, and to create a database of information about the animals in order to identify them.

Digital Angel is a subsidiary of Applied Digital, Inc., a company that specializes in "information and security solutions." Another Applied Digital subsidiary, VeriChip, has championed the usage of implanting RFID tags in humans for medical database tracking.

VeriChip's "VeriMed" tracking solution would enable doctors to identify medical patients who may be unable to provide proof of who they are or who can't communicate effectively. The patient would have an RFID chip implanted on their body, which the physician could then track with a handheld reader.

The patient's medical information would be stored, according to VeriChip, "[in] a designated secure healthcare information database, allowing [the physician] to immediately take the safest course of action."

VeriChip has currently deployed the VeriMed system in 68 medical facilities, including 65 hospitals.

Applied Digital is taking advantage of recent publicity about RFID to file an initial public offering for VeriChip, scheduled to close in late 2006.

According to the press release announcing the IPO, "Offering proceeds will also be used for enhancing the growing sales of the infant protection systems, wander prevention systems and asset tracking systems both in the United States and internationally."

VeriChip got a huge publicity boost from the support of former Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) chairman Tommy Thompson. Thompson serves on the board of directors of VeriChip, and publicly exhorted the virtues of using RFID for medical information tracking.

In an interview with CBS MarketWatch, Thompson compared the technology's growing usage to that of the iPod.

"Today everybody knows what an iPod is," said Thompson, "and the same thing as with a chip in your arm that is placed there instantaneously, and is going to be able to help you secure your medical records which will be able to allow you tobe able to get immediate care."

Thompson also said that he himself would be willing to get "chipped" in order to demonstrate how quick and easy the procedure is. However, when asked about it on December 5th, VeriChip spokesman John Procter said that Thompson had yet to undergo the procedure.

According to Procter, The procedure is "very quick and painless," but Thompson has to fit it into his schedule. In an interview with ConsumerAffairs.com, Procter said that "it will be handled in an appropriate fashion."

Procter emphasized that all uses of the chip are "completely voluntary." "We will not have [the chip] imposed on people who don't want it." The best uses for the chip would be for patients who may be mentally ill or have prior conditions that require constant care, he said.

Legal guardians of patients who may be unable to communicate their desires may have the authority to "chip" someone without their permission. The data would be stored in a "secured, password-protected, firewalled database" maintained by Applied Digital, except in cases where hospitals maintained their own databases.

Although Procter stressed that the database would meet conditions required by the Privacy Act and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), which governs the collection and protection of medical records, he could not verify if the administrators would themselves be HIPAA-certified.

"Total Surveillance"

No one has done more to bring the issues surrounding RFID technology to the public than Katherine Albrecht.

Albrecht is the founder of Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering (CASPIAN), which regularly reports on the potential abuses of loyalty cards and discount card memberships in retail stores, and has become a tireless foe of spy chips.

Albrecht and her chief partner, Liz McIntyre, have repeatedly exposed the surreptitious usage of RFID in everyday life.

Albrecht recently told Mother Jones magazine, "The problem with RFID has to do with the fact that the RFID tags can be so easily hidden into products -- things people buy and carry -- and the reader devices can be so easily hidden into aspects of the environment. This makes it extremely easy for someone who wants to observe and watch people in these surreptitious ways to do so."

CASPIAN's efforts have led to such findings as the insertion of tiny RFID tags into Gillette razorblade packages and the usage of spy chips in discount cards for the METRO "future store" in Rhineberg, Germany.

Albrecht and McIntyre recently published "Spy Chips: How Major Corporations and Governments Plan to Track Your Every Move with RFID," which details their investigations of RFID usage and its implications.

In an interview with ConsumerAffairs.com, McIntyre was skeptical that the total amount of spending on RFID was $504 million. "That's pretty low," based on their findings, she said.

McIntyre said that Walgreens and Goliath could use their new RFID system "not just to track displays, but customers as well." She noted that Goliath has emphasized the ability to hide the RFID readers in light fixtures and other unobtrusive areas, "so customers couldn't see them."

McIntyre obtained patent and trademark information filed by Goliath regarding the usage of their RFID tracking information.

According to the patent filing, tracking store displays with RFID tags would "monitor and report exposure of particular shoppers to marketing materials that are being monitored by the system. The system will therefore allow companies to monitor and remedy compliance problems during an advertising program, which will improve overall compliance and increase the effectiveness of the advertising program. It will also allow fee-based marketing programs that are conditional upon certain retail conditions being present at a particular time to be executed with more precision, reliability, and verifiability.

"Furthermore," says the filing, "it will allow the flow of specific shopper traffic within a store to be monitored and analyzed. In addition, the system will allow subsequent marketing programs, such as coupons or direct mail, to be tailored to or made conditional on shopper interests, shopping patterns, or prior exposure to marketing materials."

Who Watches The Watchmen?

A concern expressed by opponents of RFID chips is that identity thieves and criminals may be able to use their own readers to "tag" the data in a chip. McIntyre believes that while that is a concern, the major issue should be with businesses and government agencies who have the capability to collect this information and who are already doing so without the public's consent.

"The Pentagon has been in talks with VeriChip" over using these technologies, said McIntyre. "We're looking ata government-held database of medical information records on every American."

Alex Eckelberry thinks that the usage of RFID for surveillance presages an erosion of individual privacy, and individual liberty with it.

"One of the founding tenants of our society is the belief that freedoms and privacy are interconnected. We have fundamental freedoms that are vital for our nation to continue to succeed, and we have seen a slow whittling down of these freedoms that pose a real danger to our future. Freedom and privacy are critical to a healthy society."

In the landmark Harvard Law Review article, "The Right to Privacy," Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis laid out the case for privacy being an essential right.

"Recent inventions and business methods call attention to the next step which must be taken for the protection of the person, and for securing to the individual what Judge Cooley calls the right 'to be let alone,'" Brandeis wrote.

Though he was speaking of "instantaneous newspaper photographs" and an increasingly invasive press, he could just as easily have been speaking of spy chips when he said, "The intensity and complexity of life, attendant upon advancing civilization, have rendered necessary some retreat from the world, and man, under the refining influence of culture, has become more sensitive to publicity, so that solitude and privacy have become more essential to the individual; but modern enterprise and invention have, through invasions upon his privacy, subjected him to mental pain and distress, far greater than could be inflicted by mere bodily injury."

The Food and Drug Administration has issued warning letters to nine companies marketing bogus flu products behind claims that their products could be effective against preventing the avian flu or other forms of influenza.

FDA said it is not aware of any scientific evidence that demonstrates the safety or effectiveness of these products for treating or preventing avian flu and the agency is concerned that the use of these products could harm consumers or interfere with conventional treatments.

"There are initiatives in place to deter counterfeiters and those who sell fraudulent or phony products to prevent or treat avian flu," said Andrew von Eschenbach, MD, Acting FDA Commissioner.

"The use of unproven flu cures and treatments increases the risk of catching and spreading the flu rather than lessening it because people assume they are protected and safe and they aren't. I consider it a public health hazard when people are lured into using bogus treatments based on deceptive or fraudulent medical claims."

FDA issued warning letters to nine firms marketing products making unproven claims that they treat or prevent avian flu or other forms of influenza.

Eight of the products purported to be dietary supplements. Examples of the unproven claims cited in the warning letters include: "prevents avian flu," "a natural virus shield," "kills the virus," and "treats the avian flu."

These alternative therapies are promoted as "natural" or "safer" treatments that can be used in place of an approved treatment or preventative medical product.

In the warning letters, the FDA advises the firms that it considers their products to be drugs because they claim to treat or prevent disease. The warning letters further state that FDA considers these products to be "new drugs" that require FDA approval before marketing.

The letters also note that the claims regarding avian flu are false and misleading because there is no scientific basis for concluding that the products are effective to treat or prevent avian flu. The companies have 15 days to respond to FDA.

Lexus leads the industry in retaining the highest percentage of new-vehicle owners, according to the J.D. Power and Associates 2005 Customer Retention Study. The study, now in its third year, measures the percentage of new-vehicle buyers and lessees who replace a vehicle that was previously purchased new with a new vehicle from the same nameplate.

With a 3.5 percentage-point increase from 2004, Lexus ranks highest, retaining 63.0 percent of its customers. The industry average is 49.6 percent.

Lexus is followed in the rankings by Toyota (62.6%), Honda (59.9%), Chevrolet (57.3%) and Hyundai (56.3%), respectively.

"By satisfying its customers on many different levels, Lexus consistently enjoys high retention rates," said Neal Oddes, director of product research at J.D. Power and Associates.

"Customer retention is extremely valuable in the auto industry because it costs manufacturers less to keep existing customers than to attract new ones, and strong retention fosters favorable word of mouth," Oddes said.

Most Improved

Although Suzuki retains just 28.6 percent of its customers, the brand records the greatest improvement, increasing its retention rate by 38 percent from 2003, which was the inaugural year of the study.

Acura is also enjoying strong increases in retention rates, improving 25 percent from 2003 to retain 45.7 percent of its customer base in 2005.

"Suzuki has made tremendous strides in better retaining its customers, due partly to the fact that it has expanded its lineup to include more segments of the market, which offers buyers a wider variety of models in different segments as their needs and wants change over time," said Oddes. "Suzuki has also been focusing heavily on quality, improving its performance in the J.D. Power and Associates Initial Quality Study by 35 percent over the past five years."

The study finds that quality and customer service experiences play key roles in influencing customer retention.

About 23 percent of respondents did not buy a vehicle from the same brand because they felt that too many things went wrong with their previous vehicle.

In fact, the nameplates with the fewest customers leaving for this reason also performed relatively well in the J.D. Power and Associates 2005 Vehicle Dependability Study, which measures problems experienced during the first three years of ownership.

Experiences with the dealer service and sales departments also have an important impact on whether customers return to the brand when they are in the market to buy a replacement vehicle.

Nameplates performing well in the firms 2005 Customer Service Index (CSI) Study, which measures satisfaction with the service department, and the 2005 Sales Satisfaction Index (SSI) Study, which measures satisfaction during the new-vehicle sales process, tend to have relatively few customers who cite poor service as a reason for defecting to another brand.

"Although acquiring new customers is an integral part of any OEMs strategic plan, strong nameplate retention is essential to grow and expand its customer base over time," said Oddes. "Manufacturers cannot underestimate the power of excellent service and short- and long-term quality in convincing their customers to come back to the brand time and again."

Estimates from researchers and the Heart Rhythm Society suggest that ARVD accounts for up to 5 percent of the 300,000 deaths each year in the United States from sudden cardiac death.

"Our results are a sobering reminder that if a young person faints, especially in association with exercise, their physicians should evaluate them carefully for cardiac diseases, including ARVD," says study lead author Darshan Dalal, M.D., M.P.H., a cardiology research fellow at Hopkins.

A family history of sudden cardiac death at a young age is considered a major risk factor for the disorder. Athletes are also at particular risk, but the precise biological reasons for this remain unknown.

According to senior study investigator and cardiac electrophysiologist Hugh Calkins, M.D., "physicians need to know that this is a serious disease, and they should be on the lookout for its early signs and symptoms because it is an important cause of sudden cardiac death in apparently healthy young individuals.

"Preventive treatment with an implantable defibrillator appears to eliminate the risk of sudden death," he adds.

Calkins, a professor of medicine and pediatrics at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and its Heart Institute, notes that the disease frequently strikes people who are relatively young and that symptoms may appear up to 15 years before diagnosis. Initial symptoms include palpitations, dizziness and fainting.

Researchers found that symptoms usually appear after puberty and before age 50. Eight of the 31 patients who died before diagnosis had shown signs of the disease when alive, including five who had passed out, suggesting they could have been treated and saved, the researchers say.

The Study

In their study, published in the journal Circulation online, the Hopkins scientists analyzed characteristics of 100 ARVD patients, including 69 while still alive and 31 diagnosed postmortem.

The subjects, who included men and women of many ethnic backgrounds, with a median age of 31, were part of Hopkins' registry of U.S. patients with the condition, which appears on MRI scans as either a protruding or pouch-like bulge from the right side of the heart or a dilated, poorly functioning right ventricle.

ARVD is composed of a range of symptoms, including irregular heartbeat and the presence of excess amounts of fatty tissue in the heart's right ventricle, the lesser known of the heart's two main pumping chambers and the one that pumps blood to the lungs.

As a result, the abnormal and often weakened and scarred right ventricle dramatically increases the risk of harmful ventricular arrhythmias and possible sudden cardiac death.

Diagnosis

Diagnosis of ARVD is based on a four-point scale, and up to 10 cardiac tests are required to confirm a diagnosis.

Electrocardiograms, or EKGs, and echocardiograms are performed to verify the origins of arrhythmia, and MRI tests -- backed up by tissue biopsy -- are done to confirm the buildup of fat and fibrous tissue in the right ventricle.

According to Calkins, who founded Hopkins' ARVD registry in 1998 and is also director of its arrhythmia programs, these confirmatory tests are important because the illness is often misdiagnosed if physicians rely on a single diagnostic test, such as MRI.

His earlier research, in 2004, showed that more than half of patients are misdiagnosed, with physicians correctly diagnosing only 27 percent of true cases of ARVD.

In the new study, of the 47 patients who were diagnosed early and implanted with defibrillators that shock the heart to correct irregular rhythms, only one died of cardiac arrest, when the heart suddenly stops functioning from a runaway heartbeat.

Twenty-nine of the patients' defibrillators "fired" within two years. This was, says Dalal "the good news that most patients do quite well if protected by a defibrillator."

Of 22 patients without defibrillators and maintained on drug therapy alone, two died of cardiac arrest, in addition to the 31 who died before diagnosis.

While the exact cause of ARVD remains unknown, the scientists believe it to be an inherited syndrome and that improved awareness and better diagnosis are steps toward their goal of developing a screening test for those at risk.

It's turning into a bad week for DirecTV. Yesterday the satellite broadcaster agreed to pay $5 million to settle a 22-state investigation of its marketing practices and today, the Federal Trade Commission fined the company $5.35 million for violating the national do-not-call registry.

It's the agency's biggest fine to date over telemarketing.

"This multimillion dollar penalty drives home a simple point: Sellers are on the hook for calls placed on their behalf," said Chairman Deborah Platt Majoras. "The Do Not Call Rule applies to all players in the marketing chain, including retailers and their telemarketers."

The FTC's complaint, filed in Federal District Court in Los Angeles, named DirecTV and five telemarketing firms. It alleges that the telemarketers contacted consumers on the National Do-Not-Call registry.

In addition, the complaint alleges that one of the telemarketers Global Satellite, directly or through another entity abandoned calls to consumers by failing to put a live sales representative on the line within two seconds after the called consumer completes his or her greeting, as required under the law.

Finally, the complaint alleges that DirecTV provided substantial assistance and support to Global Satellite, even though it knew or consciously avoided knowing, that Global Satellite was violating the FTC's Telemarketing Sales Rule.

The court order requires DirecTV to pay $5,355,000 in civil penalties. It also prohibits the company from violating the Telemarketing Sales Rule in the future.

The proposed settlement also requires DirecTV to terminate any marketer of its products who the company knows or should know is making cold calls to consumers without express, written authorization from DirecTV.

DirecTV has agreed to make sweeping reforms in its advertising practices, to make restitution to consumers who complained and to pay $5 million to the 22 states who banded together to investigate the issue.

"Consumers must be provided clear and complete information about offers, prices and services in order to make wise purchasing decisions," New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer said.

The states commenced an investigation in March 2003 based upon consumer complaints that:

• Advertised programs were not always viewable;
• Sports programs in DIRECTVs "Sports Package" were, at times, blacked-out;
• All local programming was not available as advertised;
• Many subscribers got poor reception; and
• Cancellation policies were unfair.

Specifically, the Attorneys General raised concerns that small unreadable print in advertisements modified DirecTV's offers and that consumers were locked into contracts before learning exactly what their monetary commitments to DirecTV were.

As part of the settlement, DirecTV has agreed to pay restitution to consumers who complained because:

(1) they were charged a fee for not activating DirecTV in a timely way;
(2) they paid for but did not receive all local channels they expected to receive; or
(3) they were assessed a fee for terminating service before the "free programming offer" period expired.

In settling the investigation, DirecTV agrees that it will clearly inform each of its customers as to the total scope and costs of the consumer's obligation in the event the consumer accepts a DirecTV service and/or equipment offer in its advertisements.

DirecTV also has agreed to improve its advertising by clearly disclosing: additional monthly charges for receivers; any obligations when accepting promotional offers, such as long term commitments and early termination charges; any obligation to activate service or maintain certain levels of service in order to obtain discounted equipment; limitations on availability of local channels, if promoting local programming; and whether blackouts may apply to sporting events offered through sports packages.

The states Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Kansas, Maryland, Massachusetts, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont and West Virginia are parties to the agreement with DirecTV.

The advent of air-conditioning and airplanes has turned the Valley of the Sun into one of America's hottest vacation destinations - especially when most of the country is cold. Consider these facts:

• With 1.4 million residents, Phoenix is the fifth-largest city in the USA.

• More than 13 million people visit annually, arriving on more than 20 airlines.

• There are 55,000 hotel rooms, 200 golf courses, and almost no rain (7.66 inches of annual rainfall, an average annual high temperature of 85, and 325 sun-filled days per year).

• Though Phoenix sits in the heart of the Sonoran Desert, its elevation is 1,117 feet (much higher than any point in Florida) and six lakes are within a 75-mile drive.

• The city is home to the world's largest municipal park: South Mountain Park covers 20,000 acres and includes more than 1,700 acres of traditional park land.

• The nine major-league baseball teams that train in Phoenix for six weeks (starting in mid-February) are the Angels, Athletics, Brewers, Cubs, Giants, Mariners, Padres, Rangers, and Royals.

• The Arizona Diamondbacks, who train in Tucson, play an 81-game home schedule in Phoenix.

• Other area sports include three pro golf tournaments, the annual Tostitos Fiesta Bowl (college football), and occasional Super Bowls (2008 is next).

• The area has teams from all of the Big Four sports plus arena football and the WNBA.

• City museums feature Frank Lloyd Wright's architecture, Native American art, area history, the world's largest collection of desert plants, and the largest collection of fire-fighting equipment on the planet - in something called the Hall of Flame.

• Phoenix Sky Harbor International, the world's sixth-busiest airport, also has one of the largest airport art collection (200 permanent pieces).

• By 2008, Metro light rail service will link the airport to the convention center and athletic facilities via a 20-mile arterial route, with another 27.7 miles of suburban track to be completed by 2028.

For further information, contact Greater Phoenix Convention & Visitors Bureau, One Arizona Center, Suite 600, 400 E. Van Buren, Phoenix, AZ 85004 (Tel. 877-CALL-PHX or 602-253-4415, Fax 602-254-6500, www.visitphoenix.com).

Dan Schlossberg of Fair Lawn, NJ is president of the North American Travel Journalists Association, and a frequent contributor to AAA Traveler and USAirways Magazine.

It will take a little more effort to purchase Sudafed and similar over-the-counter cold remedies, thanks to an act of Congress.

The new legislation, part of the renewed Patriot Act, requires consumers to show a photo ID and sign a log book when they buy products containing the nasal decongestant, pseudoephedrine.

The law is designed to make it harder for criminals to obtain pseudoephedrine, which is used to make methamphetamines.

But law enforcement officials are divided over whether it will do any good. While some think it will limit the availability of precursor drugs for small meth labs, others point out that most meth labs smuggle their supplies of precursor drugs from Canada.

Retailers, meanwhile, say they're concerned the new law will have a bigger impact on their operations. Grocery and convenience stores, especially, say requiring customers to show ID and sign a log book for cold medicine will diminish their efficiency.

However, some large drug store chains, in anticipation of the law, have already begun stocking their over-the-counter cold medicines behind the pharmacy counter.

The National Association of Chain Drug Stores has voiced the concern that the new law limits individual sales of pseudoephedrine to 3.6 grams per day and 9 grams per month within 30 days of the bill becoming law. But the bill gives retailers until Sept. 30, 2006, to implement the log system.

Mary Ann Wagner, senior vice president of the group, says until the log book system is in place, it will be impossible to keep up which how much of the drug individual customers have purchased.

The legislation?s supporters say they understand the law will be an inconvenience for some retailers and drugstores. But they point to recent laws in Oklahoma and Iowa limiting access to pseudoephedrine, saying they led to sharp declines in the local production of meth.

Dan Schlossberg of Fair Lawn, NJ is president of the North American Travel Journalists Association, and a frequent contributor to AAA Traveler and USAirways Magazine.

It might be hard to see how marketing meat has much to do with religion, but Tyson Foods is betting it can make a buck on a chicken wing and a prayer.

"People are not just buying our products, they're buying us and they're spending more and more time looking on the Internet and elsewhere to find out, 'what does this company stand for,'" said Bob Corscadden, Tyson's Chief Marketing Officer.

Trouble is, what consumers are likely to find when they research Tyson on the Web is a rather tawdry catechism of political manipulation, labor violations and workplace safety problems.

By wrapping itself in a cloak of piety, Tyson is hoping to sell more chicken, beef and pork while diverting attention from pork barrel politics, like the $7 million grant it received earlier this year from the Texas Enterprise Fund in exchange for its promise to hire 1,600 Texans at a new slaughterhouse and meat packing plant in Sherman.

Among Tyson's efforts is the "Giving Thanks at Mealtime" booklet, for those unable to say grace without a script. About 25,000 have been sent out since late August, when the program made its debut. Tyson concedes its urge to help consumers give thanks was based largely on market research that found prayer books were appetizing to its meat-loving customers.

The company would like to get into bed with some faith-based organizations but it doesn't take an expensive pollster to discover that teaming up with one religious group is a good way to alienate rival sects.

Or, as Corscadden put it in an interview with Advertising Age, "It's a sticky wicket."

The company insists it comes by its piety honestly. Chairman-CEO John Tyson is a self-proclaimed born-again Christian and admits to having battled against drug and alcohol addiction.

One of Tyson's guiding lights is Faith Popcorn, a marketing strategist who helped craft the religion-on-the-sleeve "Power by Tyson" campaign. The future success of food companies rests on selling their ideologies as much as their food, Ms. Popcorn believes.

Based in Springdale, Arkansas, Tyson is the world's largest producer -- not to mention slaughterer -- of chicken, pork and beef, with more than 114,000 employees at more than 300 facilities and offices around the world. The company says it has 128 chaplains in those plants.

For every new incident of identity theft, data loss, or online fraud, it seems as if a study has been commissioned to verify if this is a first-class threat or an exaggerated nuisance.

Depending on what you read, credit card fraud is a minor inconvenience, but cybercrime is a bigger cash crop than all illegal drugs combined.

That last statement came from Valerie McNiven, former security specialist for the World Bank and currently advising the U.S. Treasury Department on combating cybercrime. While addressing a conference on Internet security on Nov. 29th, she claimed that Internet-related crimes such as "phishing" and hacking netted over $105 billion in profits in 2004.

Major media outlets picked up on McNiven's remarks and reported them largely uncritically. But are they accurate?

A September report to the United Nations stated that the global drug trade generated $322 billion worldwide for 2004.

It's obviously difficult to effectively track profits from criminal enterprises, but if the $4 billion profit California marijuana growers enjoy is any indication, drug sales are still far and away a top-shelf source of income.

A study released on Nov. 8th by ID Analytics, a San Diego firm that specializes in fraud detection and risk management, claimed that in a compiled study of four data breaches totaling 500,000 victims, only 1 of every 1,100 customers actually had their data stolen.

The firm's co-founder, Mike Cook, claimed that alerting customers to every potential breach of their data was costly and unnecessary. Cook said that thieves actually focus on small breaches of a few hundred names, and that the larger the breach, the less likely it was that individual data records are at risk.

"If you're in a breach of 100, 200 or 250 names, there's a pretty high probability that your identity is going to be used," Cook said.

Perhaps not coincidentally, ID Analytics recently announced partnership endeavors with Visa and the Equifax credit bureau. Equifax is employing the company's "ID Score" identity verification assessment, while Visa is using a customized version of the system for authorizing its transactions.

The "ID Score" system utilizes "an empirically-derived risk assessment score that determines the likelihood of whether applicants are who they claim they are," similar to credit scores, auto insurance scores, and rental screening scores.

Given that creditors and businesses stand to lose serious profits as consumers shy away from credit and online shopping, it's not unreasonable to assume the industry will do all it can to minimize the threat of identity theft or fraud.

It's also highly lucrative to sell customers "ID theft protection" such as fraud alerts. But as in the case of the "spam charges" that hit thousands of Visa and Mastercard users recently, all the fraud protection alerts didn't stop the thieves in question from making potentially huge amounts of money in a nearly undetectable fashion.

Yet another study claims that Americans are woefully unprotected from online threats. A study commissioned by America Online and the National Cyber Security Alliance (NCSA) found that 8 of 10 home personal computers lack the basic security protections needed for Web surfing, such as a firewall, antivirus software, or a spyware detector.

The study also found that, "Nearly a quarter of online people in the United States have found themselves the target of the online con artists, and roughly one in five knows a friend or family member who has been duped."

The NCSA is a nonprofit institution that combines federal agencies such as the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and companies such as Microsoft, eBay, and Symantec. The stated goal of the NCSA is to "[provide] tools and resources to empower home users, small businesses, and schools, colleges, and universities to stay safe online."

Perhaps not surprisingly, many of the NCSA's charter members have had their own problems with data theft and online fraud, not to mention error.

eBay had to halt an auction of a "vulnerability" in Microsoft's Excel spreadsheet program. The vulnerability could compromise the safety of a PC if utilized.

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA), a subsidiary agency of DHS, recently admitted to having mistakenly placed the names of 30,000 airline passengers on a watch list for potential terrorists.

It's essential that consumers employ smarts and skepticism when it comes to online shopping and credit card scams.

It is just as essential to not assume that studies commissioned for a particular topic are objective, that the outcome isn't engineered, or that the agencies who called for the study are infallible.

The smart Web surfer is the one who takes customer surveys the same way they use their personal information -- very carefully.

Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller has campaigned against car title loans, only to see consumers continue to fall victim to them. Now he's urging the Iowa legislature to crack down on these loans, which charge what he called "astronomical and unjustified interest rates."

"Car-title loans are so expensive they just drive many people deeper into debt," Miller said. "On top of that, they pose the major threat of causing people to lose their vehicles as well."

Miller is lobbying the state legislature to stop the abusive loan practice.

"Car-title loans are secured loans, but secured loans should be much cheaper because they are backed by a vehicle as collateral. There is no justification for such astronomical interest rates. The Legislature should prohibit such abusive and unconscionable rates for car-title loans," Miller said.

The Iowa Senate approved a car-title loan law last year that would have capped car-title loan rates at 21 percent - but the bill died when House leaders refused to debate or vote on it.

"It's a simple and fair approach to solve this problem," Miller said. Millers appeal was made in a State Capitol news conference with Sen. Joe Bolkcom of Iowa City, who led the effort last year to pass the car-title legislation, and Des Moines Rep. Kevin McCarthy.

"Meanwhile, I hope consumers will resist appeals to get into car-title loans, for the holidays or anytime. We've heard of interest rates up to 360%, and right now there is no limit whatsoever. "It's expensive and it's risky," Miller said.

"For example: If a person borrows $300 for the holidays at 360% interest, he or she will have to pay $44.55 of interest in just fifteen days, and have to pay it again and again each fifteen days, if he or she doesn't pay off the $300 principal," Miller said.

"What's worse, if a payment is missed, the lender can start the process of repossessing the borrower's vehicle. Repossession and loss of transportation to work and health care is a very severe threat to these Iowans."

Miller encouraged consumers to try to work to get ahead by saving small amounts steadily, and, if necessary, by going to banks and credit unions that offer loans at far better rates.

A California marketing firm has been ordered to pay $3 million in civil penalties and $375,000 restitution to the Seattle School District for sending junk e-mails. The U.S. District Court order against AvTech Direct came as a result of Washington state's first lawsuit under the federal anti-spam act.

The Attorney General's Office sued AvTech Direct last year for allegedly sending unsolicited e-mails targeted toward employees of nonprofit organizations such as schools and hospitals.

The order of default was entered against AvTech after the company failed to obtain legal counsel or respond to the lawsuit.

AvTech was ordered to pay a total of $3 million in civil penalties -- $2,000 for each of 1,500 unsolicited commercial e-mails sent to the Seattle School District between May and July 2004. Each deceptive e-mail constituted a violation of the state Consumer Protection Act and the federal anti-spam act.

AvTech was also ordered to pay $375,000 restitution to the Seattle School District and $67,882 in attorneys' fees and costs.

"The Attorney General's Office alleges that AvTech Direct blanketed Seattle School District employees with at least 1,500 unsolicited commercial e-mail messages in just two months," Washington Attorney General Rob McKenna said. "Not only were the advertisements deceptive, but the company continued to send them to consumers who requested to opt-out of future solicitations.

"This is Washington's first lawsuit filed under the federal anti-spam act and is a reminder to spammers that deceptive e-mails are not only irritating, but illegal," McKenna continued. "Violations will be taken very seriously."

AvTech Direct also goes by the names AvTech Computers and Educational Purchasing Services.

According to the state's complaint, the company marketed the sale of desktop computers to consumers in Washington and nationwide since at least 2003 through unsolicited e-mails.

The e-mails offered a "limited allotment of brand new, top-of-the-line, name-brand desktop computers at more than 50% MSRP." The company targeted its e-mails to employees of nonprofit organizations, including the Seattle School District.

The Attorney General's Office alleged that AvTech altered or concealed header information to make it appear the messages were sent from other sources and used deceptive subject lines such as "Staff Bulletin."

The company also continued to send e-mails to recipients who requested not to receive future solicitations via an "unsubscribe" link or by phone.

Additionally, the complaint contends that AvTech claimed the computers, which were priced at $297, featured "the latest Intel technology" when they did not.