Current Events in September 2006

With its once profitable Vioxx banned from the marketplace, Merck & Co. has developed a new painkiller to compete with the arthritis drug Celebrex. But David Graham, a Food and Drug Administration insider, claims the new drug, Arcoxia, may be as risky for the heart as Vioxx.

Graham aired his concerns in an editorial posted on the Journal of the American Medical Association's website. In characteristically blunt language, Graham accused the pharmaceutical giant of engaging in "misdirection and disinformation presented in the guise of science."

An editor's note on the site says the FDA gave its permission for Graham to write the editorial, but only as a private citizen, not as an agency employee. The editorial and the two studies it accompanies will run in the Oct. 4 JAMA, the editors said.

Graham, who is a doctor and works in the FDA's Office of Drug Safety, created headlines in 2004 when he told a Senate committee that the agency was "virtually defenseless" in preventing a "tragedy and profound regulatory failure" such as Vioxx.

Vioxx, a COX-2 inhibitor, was withdrawn from the market two years ago after it was shown to increase the risk of heart attach and stroke. At the time, it was the nation's best selling prescription arthritis medications, taken by millions of consumers. It has since become the object of thousands of liability lawsuits.

Merck's new drug, Arcoxia, is also a COX-2 inhibitor, but the company says it presents a lower risk of dangerous side effects that other non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, or NSAIDs, such as ibuprofen.

The FDA, however, has still not made a final decision about Arcoxia. It has asked Merck for more data about its safety and effectiveness. Merck is currently selling Arcoxia in 62 other countries.

Despite having its wrist slapped by the Iowa attorney general, consumers complain that People to People International is still misleading families about how their children are "selected" for study-aboard programs.

People to People is a nonprofit study-abroad program for children kindergarten through 12th grade. The nonprofit sends letters to families nationwide saying their student "has been recommended for the honor by a teacher, former student ambassador or national academic listing."

Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller said this was misleading after his office received a complaint from an Iowa mother who received a letter (image below) saying her son, who died in 1993 at seven weeks of age, had been "recommended."

"We understand a student generally must pay about $5,000 to go on one of the trips abroad," Miller said in a prepared statement. "We conveyed our concern to People to People that parents who are induced to believe that their child was selected on merit are potentially misled, and may be improperly manipulated into making substantial expenditures they might otherwise decline to make."

As a result, People to People agreed to take out the offending sentence in their letters to Iowans and they also donated $20,000 to Blank Children's Hospital and $5,000 to the Iowa SIDS Foundation -- charities supported by the family of the child who died in 1993.

However, People to People apparently feels no real remorse.

"I received a letter today (9/9/2006) from People to People International that my 10-year-old son had been invited to travel and study in Australia in 2007," wrote Cherie of Hemlock, N.Y. "It stated that he has been named for the honor by a teacher, former student ambassador or national academic listing.

"I read your article about the mother whose deceased child received the same honor and that People to People agreed to revise their letters," Cherie continued. "People to People sent my son the same letter -- it has not been revised. ... I feel that People to People are deceiving us by saying that our children have been named for the honor when most likely they bought the name from a mailing list."

In a letter to People to People's lawyer, Miller's assistant attorney general, Steve St. Clair wrote, "We ultimately determined that one of the ways students are 'selected' to receive an invitation from People to People is through a comprehensive national listing of persons projected to be students within a targeted age range. This explains why the mother of the infant who died a dozen years ago received an invitation, even though her child was never a student, let alone an 'outstanding' student recommended for an 'honor.'"

"We thought it was misleading," said Bob Brammer, Miller's spokesperson. Brammer said he hopes that media coverage will force People to People to end their misleading practices in other states.

"What happened in Iowa is happening elsewhere," Brammer said.

People to People did not return three phone calls seeking comment about its practices.

To help stop People to People's misleading practices, consumers who receive letters from the organization should contact their state's attorney general and file a complaint with ConsumerAffairs.com. All complaints are reviewed by class action attorneys and are furnished to law enforcement agencies and prosecutors upon request.

Adults in Japan who consumed higher amounts of green tea had a lower risk of death due to cardiovascular disease, according to a study in the current issue of JAMA. But there was no link between green tea consumption and a reduced risk of death due to cancer.

Just last month, a European study found that drinking tea is a healthier choice than almost any beverage, including pure water.

Tea is the most consumed beverage in the world aside from water, with three billion kilograms of tea produced each year worldwide. Because of the high rates of tea consumption in the global population, even small effects in humans could have large implications for public health.

Among teas, green tea polyphenols have been extensively studied as cardiovascular disease (CVD) and cancer chemopreventive agents.

Although substantial evidence from in vitro and animal studies indicates that green tea preparations may impede CVD and carcinogenic processes, the possible protective role of green tea consumption against these diseases in humans remains unclear.

Shinichi Kuriyama, M.D., Ph.D., of the Tohoku University School of Public Policy, Sendai, Japan, and colleagues examined the association between green tea consumption and mortality (death rate) due to all causes, CVD, and cancer within a large population.

The study, initiated in 1994, included 40,530 adults (age 40 to 79 years) in northeastern Japan, where green tea is widely consumed. Within this region, 80 percent of the population drinks green tea and more than half of them consume 3 or more cups a day.

The participants, who had no history of stroke, coronary heart disease, or cancer at baseline, were followed for up to 11 years (1995-2005) for all-cause death and for up to 7 years (1995-2001) for cause-specific death.

Over 11 years of follow-up, 4,209 participants died, and over 7 years of follow-up, 892 participants died of cardiovascular disease and 1,134 participants died of cancer. The researchers found that green tea consumption was inversely associated with death due to all causes and due to cardiovascular disease.

Compared with participants who consumed less than 1 cup per day of green tea, those who consumed 5 or more cups per day had a risk of all-cause mortality and CVD mortality that was 16 percent lower (during 11 years of follow-up) and 26 percent lower (during 7 years of follow-up), respectively.

These inverse associations of all-cause and CVD mortality were stronger among women, although the inverse association for green tea consumption was observed in both sexes.

The researchers found there no significant association between green tea consumption and death from cancer. There were weak or neutral relationships between black tea or oolong tea and mortality.

"Clinical trials are ultimately necessary to confirm the protective effect of green tea on mortality," the authors write.

Linden Labs, creators of Second Life, announced that their payment database had been hacked on September 6th.

The hackers made off with members' names, addresses, contact information, and "encrypted payment information," according to a statement posted on Linden Labs' blog. The company claimed that no "unencrypted credit card information" had been stolen.

Linden Labs claimed to have shut down the hacker exploit as soon as it was discovered, and told members that they would need to reset their passwords by answering specific security questions.

Linden Labs did not specify how the hack was achieved, and TechCrunch's Marshall Kilpatrick theorized this might be due to the company wanting to avoid embarrassment, as well as future incidents using the same methods.

"The company was hesitant to disclose information about the breach, the data put at risk and the company's architecture for fear that such information could make future exploits easier to perform," he said.

Second Life is one of many massive multiplayer online games ("MMOGs") where players can create new identities, build online businesses, and engage in all manner of interesting behaviors, some of which the players might want kept private.

Much like the release of AOL's search data on its users, publicizing the account information stolen from Second Life could lead to all manner of embarrassing revelations as to what the players really get up to in the virtual world.

Second Life's breach could be particularly serious, due to the ease with which players can set up online businesses and sell items that can be converted into real-world dollars. Because "residents" of Second Life own the rights to their creations within the game, they can earn profits from hawking all sorts of wares within the online universe.

Blizzard Entertainment, makers of No.1 MMOG World of Warcraft, demonstrated the potential privacy dangers in online roleplaying games when they installed a monitoring program on players' computers called "The Warden." The program, designed to alert Blizzard to signs of cheating or abuse, enabled programmers to have access to almost any program on a player's machine.

Several World of Warcraft players were able to use yet another privacy-violating program, the infamous Sony rootkit, to circumvent "The Warden" and practically any other form of online monitoring.

In discussing the Second Life breach, AOL blogger Vladimir Cole said, "Gamers haven't been paying much attention to privacy of in-game communications. Given how intimate some of those communications have become, maybe it's time for more scrutiny of privacy protection measures taken by MMOG providers."

More than 400 New Yorkers have fallen victim to sweepstakes and lottery scams in the past seven months with losses ranging from a few hundred dollars to more than $35,000, according to an analysis by the New York State Consumer Protection Board.

While elderly people lost the most money, lottery scams also tricked younger people into believing they had won a large cash prize from a foreign lottery or sweepstakes.

In each case, the victims sent money usually to Canada -- thinking they had to pay insurance or taxes before they could collect these bogus prizes.

"No legitimate contest makes you pay a fee to collect a prize," said CPB Chairperson and Executive Director Teresa A. Santiago. "For many of the elderly victims, the scam artists made multiple demands for cash, falsely claiming that more money was needed in order to pay for 'taxes' or insurance."

Sons and daughters have filed complaints after failing to convince their elderly parent that there was no prize.

"You can't win a contest that you didn't enter. But it's hard to convince someone that they are the victim of a scam, especially when the con artists have made numerous phone calls and formed a bond with the victim," Santiago said.

"Elderly victims will receive phone call after phone call or multiple letters and emails, each promising that the large cash prize will soon be delivered," said Santiago. "But there's always another delay and always a demand for another payment."

Another common scam involves the mailing of a bogus check.

The recipient is told to deposit the check in their bank and then wire a smaller amount back to the scam artists. Several days later, the bogus check bounces and the victim's money is gone.

Once someone loses money in a lottery scam, their name, address, phone numbers and other personal information are sold, leaving these consumers vulnerable to another scam.

Many people, especially senior citizens, have been victimized by more than one sweepstakes scam, according to the CPB.

"The only way you can win with these phony contests is to not respond to them," Santiago said.

If it's Friday, it's time for another embarrassing case of companies losing data containing sensitive personal information. This time it's financial titan J.P. Morgan Chase, which tossed away five computer tapes containing data on holders of Circuit City credit cards, co-branded and sponsored by Chase.

Chase Card Services, the financial giant's credit card division, is currently notifying 2.6 million current and former Circuit City cardholders that "human error" caused the tapes to be mistakenly thrown out in late July.

Chase claims the tapes may have been destroyed and buried in a landfill, and is currently investigating to determine their ultimate fate.

In a public statement, Chase Card Services CEO Rich Srendicki expressed his regret at the mistake.

"We have found no evidence that the tapes or their contents have been accessed or misused. The privacy of our customers' personal information is of utmost importance to us, and we take the responsibility to safeguard this information very seriously," he said.

Chase discovered the incident during a regular systems audit in July, and had been monitoring affected accounts since then. Neither Srednicki nor other Chase officials revealed where the breach took place, or why the public and media were not notified until mid-September.

Nor was any information provided as to whether or not the data was encrypted or protected in any way.

Techworld's Chris Mellor called the Chase incident "an amazing display of incompetence."

Circuit City did not offer a statement regarding the loss, but a spokesman told Reuters that it was essentially Chase's problem.

"We certainly empathize with the affected cardholders, but this is a business that is administered by Chase," they said.

Although hackers and phishers represent serious threats to the safety of personal data, the number-one cause of identity theft and fraud is still the loss or theft of physical files or documents containing consumers' personal information.

Enterprising thieves "dumpster dive" for shredded credit card offers, laptop and desktop computers get stolen, and companies lose security tapes containing all manner of identifying information.

Blockbuster was criticized for tossing thousands of membership applications containing valuable personal information, including addresses and Social Security numbers, in trash bags on the sidewalk when it shuttered a New York City store in October 2005.

The Boston Globe and the Worcester Telegram-Gazette distributed the credit card information of over 240,000 subscribers to the public when they recycled internal reporting slips and packed them with their newspaper bundles.

And the list of consumers endangered by the theft of computers or storage devices containing sensitive, unencrypted, identifying personal data stretches into the tens of millions.

A new, safer battery technology called thin-film, may be replacing the somewhat volatile lithium-ion battery. The recent Dell, Apple and Panasonic recalls of almost 6 million laptop batteries has had a catalytic affect on thin-film battery research.

Thin-film batteries have a solid lithium core compared to the liquid core of the lithium-ion batteries. That solid core makes them less vulnerable to overheating and they can be fully discharged and recharged well more than 10,000 times.

"In comparison, a typical Li-ion battery can only be cycled about 300-500 times without significant degradation in capacity," Infinite Power Solutions spokesman, Tim Bradow wrote in an e-mail.

Infinite Power Solutions (IPS), a battery company in Golden, Colo. announced yesterday that it has received $34.7 million in investments from private firms that will allow the company to begin production of thin-film batteries next year.

"This new capital will enable us to scale our technology, build state-of-the-art fabs, and ramp to high volume production," Raymond Johnson, president and CEO of IPS said in a prepared statement.

Lithium-ion batteries can generate a tremendous amount of heat while charging and can occasionally burst into flames under the right conditions. ConsumerAffairs.com reported on how the batteries in Dell laptops possibly caught a man's truck on fire and even burned another man's house down. Even the lithium-ion batteries in cell phones are suspect to overheating and fire. Thin-film batteries do not pose a fire hazard.

"Because they have a solid-state electrolyte, they will not freeze or boil," wrote Bradow. "Therefore, they continue to work at very cold temps (-50C) and will not rupture or explode at very high temps (>200C). They are fabricated in a vacuum environment, so they will not outgas in a high temp environment. They will not burn. In fact, even under a direct short circuit condition, the temperature of single cell only increases 1C. Therefore, it is impossible to over heat and start a fire."

However, analysts say it could be many years before thin-film could completely replace lithium-ion.

"There is not one piece of consumer or enterprise technology that can run on thin-film battery technology," Carmi Levy, senior research analyst with Infotech Research Group in London, Ontario told The New York Times. "Every piece of circuitry must be fully re-engineered. It is a Herculean engineering feat to switch over to this."

As a result, the thin-film industry is focusing on enterprise technology markets to begin with such as radio-frequency identity (RFID) tags, smart cards, military equipment, surgical devices such as pacemakers and temperature and pressure gauges in car tires.

"It will take time to ramp production and license our technology to others for high volume manufacturing," wrote Bradow.

Thin-film batteries are extremely versatile. They can be smaller than a postage stamp and about twice its thickness, can be manufactured in various shapes and can be attached directly to a microchip.

The batteries can also have a long charge life. After being charged they can go into a standby mode for months without leaking any power. That long life would be useful for many applications including implanted surgical devices and missiles that are stored in silos for years without any activity.

"The end user will not see the battery, nor will they need to because it never needs replacement, only recharging," wrote Bradow.

Susan Eustis, president of WinterGreen Research in Lexington, Mass. has high hopes for the technology. She told the Times that with increasing cell phone sales and uses for RFID tags, the market for thin-film battery sales should approach 10 billion units by 2012.

Sony, Apple and Dell did not return phone calls for comment.

The error-prone Transportation Security Administration (TSA) says one of its contractors sent former employees' personal documents to the wrong addresses.

The agency said that Accenture, a global technology consulting firm that was contracted to the TSA, had mistakenly mailed nearly 1,200 former employees documents on other employees, including personal information such as names, addresses, Social Security numbers, and salary information.

The TSA notified affected former employees by mail in late August. Neither the TSA or Accenture offered a statement explaining or apologizing for the error, though the TSA counseled employees to put fraud alerts on their credit files.

Accenture, which bills itself as "delivering high performance," has high-level outsourcing relationships with many influential businesses and government agencies. The company recently won a high-profile partnership contract to automate data collection for the U.S. Census Bureau.

The mail mixup is the latest in a series of privacy-related snafus for the TSA. The agency came under fire when another contractor collected personal data on airline passengers to bolster the profiles in the TSA's "Secure Flight" screening program.

"Secure Flight" has been repeatedly delayed, most recently after a scathing Government Accountability Office (GAO) report that found numerous vulnerabilities in the hardware and software systems powering the program.

The TSA's existing "terrorist watch lists" are riddled with errors and mistakes, leading many average air travelers to be detained at airport checkpoints simply for being included on the list.

TSA launched its "Registered Traveler" pilot program last year, enabling passengers to pay a fee and be "prescreened" by the TSA for potential risks in order to bypass long waits at the airport. The program has met with general public approval, but privacy advocates remain concerned as to what TSA may do with the data it's collecting from registrants.

An inmate at the Hiawatha Correctional Facility in Kinross, Michigan, was sentenced to 5 to 20 years in the Chippewa County Circuit Court by 50th Circuit Court Judge Nicholas Lambros, according to Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox.

Dale Morris, 42, was convicted of maintaining a sophisticated criminal enterprise that he orchestrated from his Michigan prison cell. Morris' scheme enlisted the help of two fellow Michigan inmates, Darius Moye and Richard Custer, their mothers, Mary Moye of Georgia and Linda Custer of Detroit, David Bullard of Inkster, and Sherry Drake of Detroit.

The scheme involved the attempted use of thousands of stolen names and social security numbers, including several hundred stolen from the St. John's Medical System in Detroit, to defraud Michigan taxpayers out of hundreds of thousands of State tax dollars. The hospital records were later seized in Georgia in Ms. Moye's home.

"The sheer brazenness of this criminal enterprise is incredible," Cox said. "It just goes to show that law enforcement always has to be vigilant."

Morris, in prison as a 4th Habitual Offender (convicted of 3 prior felony convictions), was the ringleader of the scheme to obtain Homestead Property Tax refunds that were intended for low income renters.

While in prison, Morris' directed his co-conspirators to file hundreds of false homestead property tax claims with the Michigan Department of Treasury. These fraudulent filings, which used stolen names and social security numbers, claimed to be low-income renters in Detroit.

Hundreds of Michigan Treasury check "refunds" were in the process of being sent to various addresses in Detroit, many of which were non-existent, but all had a change of address form filed with the U.S. Post Office directing the checks to a Livonia P.O. Box. The P.O. Box was rented by Exarch Management Consultants -- which was incorporated by Morris while he was in prison.

U.S. postal carriers noticed the large number of Treasury checks going to the Livonia P.O. Box and alerted authorities. The Michigan State Police, U.S. Postal Inspectors, and the Michigan Attorney General's Office unraveled the scheme quickly and charged all participants with maintaining a continuing criminal enterprise, a 20-year felony, and filing false tax claims, a 5-year felony.

When the defendants were arrested, thousands of additional tax claims were in the process of being filed. Had this fraud continued, the defendants would have defrauded the state of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Though many eye drop prescription labels instruct patients to use one or two drops, consumers should only use one drop because there is a lesser risk of overdosing, Public Citizen writes in a new September posting on its WorstPills.org Web site.

"By improperly applying eye drops, consumers are putting themselves at risk of overdosing the medication and causing an adverse reaction," said Dr. Sidney Wolfe, director of Public Citizen's Health Research Group. "Applying only one drop can be more effective if that drop is applied correctly."

The consumer advocacy organization cited information published in the June 19 issue of The Medical Letter on Drugs and Therapeutics.

The volume of liquid contained in one eye drop varies with the thickness of the solution, the design of the dropper and the way in which the patient uses the dropper to dispense drops.

By administering a second drop, consumers could lower the effectiveness of the first drop by flushing it out or increase the risk of having an adverse reaction by allowing the medication in the drops to enter the blood stream.

A human eye can hold up to 10 microliters of liquid at a time, whereas a single droplet from an eyedropper can range from 25 to 50 microliters.

The excess medicine has only two places to go -- streaming down the patient's face in harmless, but expensive, tear-like rivulets or through a small duct in the corner of the eye and into the nose, where it is absorbed into the blood and distributed to the rest of the body.

By adhering to the following guidelines when using eye drops, consumers can ensure that they are safely getting the medication they need:

• Apply only one drop within a five-minute period -- the eye cannot hold or absorb more than a drop at a time.

• Lie down when applying drops to prevent solution "tears" from running down the face -- as much as 10 times more drug is wasted when applied in an upright position.

• Use the thumb and middle finger to apply pressure to the inside corners of the eyes for five minutes after inserting droplets to prevent the medicine from draining into the nose.

• Do not touch the dropper's tip to any surface, including the eye, to prevent contamination. Eye drops can be safely used for four weeks if they are stored tightly closed.

• Always wash your hands before applying eye drops. Use the middle finger of the hand on the same side as the eye receiving the drops to apply pressure to the inside corner of the eye to close the drainage duct. Tilt your head back, and use your index finger to pull down the lower eyelid and place a drop of medicine in the pouch. Close your eye gently and continue applying pressure for five minutes.

General Motorsis increasing the powertrain warranty on all of its 2007 passenger vehicles to five years and 100,000 miles.

"At GM today, we believe in our cars and trucks," GM CEO Rick Wagoner Wagoner said. "We're putting our money where our mouth is."

The increase, from the previous warranty of three years and 36,000 miles begins immediately and covers 900 engine, transmission and driveline components.

"This isn't going to be cheap, but we think it's going to be more effective for where we are today," GM CEO Rick Wagoner said at a press conference. "We think it's manageable within the cost conditions we've laid out."

GM sales continue to struggle as the company fights an image of poor vehicle quality aas well as the customer perception that many import brands, particularly from Japan, are better built. The automaker is counting on the expanded warranty to help ease that perceived quality gap between GM vehicles and those of its rivals.

GM will also expand its roadside assistance and courtesy vehicle programs and the new warranties carry deductibles and can be transferred.

The powertrain warranty will be in addition to the current three-year, 36,000 mile bumper-to-bumper guarantees. Buick, Cadillac, Hummer and Saab currently carry four-year, 50,000 mile bumper-to-bumper coverage.

In July, Ford Motor Co. extended its powertrain warranties by up to two years on 2007 Ford, Lincoln and Mercury models.

GM currently offers a 36-month, 36,000 mile warranty on most of its vehicles.

Some Korean automakers such as Hyundai, which has also faced consumer perception problems, offers a 5-year, 60,000 warranty on just about all parts of its vehicles, along with a 10-year, 100,000 mile warranty on its powertrain.

As the federal government pushes harder for electronic sharing and storage of medical records, privacy and security advocates have been raising concerns about the potential for data breaches and misuse and a new government report supports those fears.

A report issued by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reveals that privacy breaches have been rampant among state, national, and military health care agency contractors since 2004.

According to the GAO report, 40 percent of health insurance contractors and state Medicare/Medicaid offices experienced data breaches in the last two years.

The report also found that vendors contracted to provide health technology needs heavily outsourced their work to other contractors, many of whom may have been outside the United States.

Although the agencies surveyed rarely outsourced their work offshore directly, "[s]ome federal contractors and state Medicaid agencies did not always know whether their domestic vendors engaged in further transfers of personal health information domestically or offshore. Others indicated that they did not have mechanisms in place to obtain such information," the report said.

Among the report's findings:

• One privacy breach occurred in 2004 when a vendor tasked to collect data from patient surveys in California outsourced the task to another vendor, who designed the survey in such a way that patients could see others' personal information. An offshore vendor for another project blackmailed the agency with threats of disclosing patients' personal information unless they received payment for their transcription services.

• The agencies overseeing the Medicare, Medicaid, and TRICARE military health programs have differing requirements for reporting privacy breaches. While the TRICARE Management Agency (TMA) required notification of privacy breaches from all of its contractors, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) did not require it from Medicare Advantage plan contractors or state Medicaid agencies. In comments appended to the report, CMS concurred with the findings and detailed its plans to improve practices.

• The GAO recommended that the agencies extend their privacy practices to all contractors and subcontractors, and perform regular monitoring and oversight of every vendor they use to ensure compliance with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), and the 1974 Privacy Act, both of which regulate government agencies' collection of personal and medical data.

"We believe that federal contractors and state Medicaid agencies should be held accountable for how well personal health information, held by them or disclosed to their vendors, is protected," the report concluded.

It's not the first time the GAO has taken government agencies to task for failing to secure Americans' personal data in their operations.

A September 2005 report found that while agencies such as the IRS and FBI had authorized some data privacy regulations, none of the agencies surveyed had fully implemented all of the necessary rules to ensure privacy needs were met.

A January 2006 report found that government agencies had vastly different requirements for the handling of Social Security numbers by contract vendors the agencies outsourced business to. This led to "gaps in oversight," and potential dangers for data breaches.

In the wake of the massive Veterans' Administration data breach stemming from the theft of a laptop, government agencies have said they are scrambling to lock down data and institute new privacy and security safeguards. But the number of reported breaches indicates there is still much more work to be done.

Their new study of dietary data on more than 17,500 men and women finds consumption of salad and raw vegetables correlates with higher concentrations of folic acid, vitamins C and E, lycopene and alpha and beta carotene in the bloodstream.

Published in the September edition of the peer-reviewed Journal of the American Dietetic Association, the study also suggests that each serving of salad consumed correlates with a 165 percent higher likelihood of meeting recommended dietary allowances (RDA) for vitamin C in women and 119 percent greater likelihood in men.

The study is the first to examine the relationship between normal salad consumption and nutrient levels in the bloodstream, and also the first to examine the dietary adequacy of salad consumption using the latest nutritional guidelines of the Food and Nutrition Board of the National Academy of Sciences.

The findings blunt concerns about the human body's ability to absorb nutrients from raw vegetables, as well as concern that the structure and characteristics of some plants undercut nutritional value.

"The consistently higher levels of certain nutrients in the bloodstream of salad-eaters suggest these important components of a healthy diet are being well-absorbed from salad," said Lenore Arab, visiting professor of epidemiology at the UCLA School of Public Health and co-author of the study with L. Joseph Su, assistant professor at the LSU School of Public Health.

"The findings endorse consumption of salad and raw vegetables as an effective strategy for increasing intake of important nutrients. Unfortunately, we also found daily salad consumption is not the norm in any group, and is even less prevalent among African Americans," Arab said.

"We have so many food choices in this county. Increasing vegetable consumption is a wise strategy for composing a nutrient rich diet," she added. "In fact, our findings suggest that eating just one serving of salad or raw vegetables per day significantly boosts the likelihood of meeting the recommended daily intake of certain nutrients."

The study examined the relationship between reported salad consumption and blood serum nutrient levels, as well as dietary adequacy in pre- and post-menopausal women and men of comparable ages.

Salad consumption was based on reported intake of salad, raw vegetables and salad dressing. Laboratory measurements determined levels of nutrients in blood serum. Associations between salad consumption and serum nutrient levels were determined using statistical regression models. Measurements were adjusted to account for age, exercise, anti-cholesterol medication, smoking and other variables.