Current Events in July 2014

Sarcasm alert: if you get your news through social media then, throughout the weekend, you might have seen tweets, Facebook posts or blog entries linking to this article: “Here's the crime-ridden hellscape that is Colorado after legal weed.”

It's actually a straightforward article which Reuters published on July 3, though the Huffington Post added the “hellscape” headline when it reprinted the article, and it was HuffPo's reprint that got the most attention from social media outlets – the headline sarcasm becomes evident once you read past the first few sentences in that article and it becomes plain that today's Colorado is not a “crime-ridden hellscape” at all:

Tax dollars are pouring in, crime is down in Denver, and few of the early concerns about social breakdown have materialized - at least so far …. In the first four months, marijuana sales amounted to more than $202 million, about a third of them recreational. Taxes from recreational sales were almost $11 million.

Despite some critics' fears of a pot-driven crime explosion, Denver police say burglaries and robberies were down by between 4 and 5 percent in the first four months of the year.

That's not to say there haven't been any downsides; Reuters went on to note

On the down side, sheriff's deputies in neighboring Nebraska say pot seizures near the Colorado border have shot up 400 percent in three years, while Wyoming and New Mexico report no significant increases.

In May, controls on marijuana edibles were tightened after two people died. In one case, a college student jumped from a hotel balcony after eating six times the suggested maximum amount of pot-laced cookies. In the other, a Denver man was charged with shooting dead his wife after apparently getting high from eating marijuana-infused candy.

Brief history

Reuters did not say how many alcohol-related health or crime problems Colorado saw in that same time period. However, it is true that (especially for inexperienced or careless users) inadvertently eating “too much” marijuana is indeed easier than inadvertently drinking “too much” alcohol, solely because of the time differential: when someone drinks alcohol, or smokes marijuana, the intoxicating effects kick in almost immediately, whereas with edible marijuana, it can take up to an hour before any effects are felt.

Colorado's brief history with legal marijuana sales is of particular interest now that Washington State is set to follow its lead: the state Liquor Control Board today gave out its first of up to 20 business licenses allowing for the recreational sale of marijuana to adults in that state.

Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, an organization of law-enforcement professionals opposed to the war on drugs, noted that, although the marijuana business is now legal in Washington State, there will almost certain be supply shortages and other problems at first, especially since the state's first legal marijuana growers only got their licenses in March, so there simply hasn't been time for many crops to come in yet.

Retired police Major Neill Franklin, LEAP's executive director, said that “Washingtonians know that, as in Colorado, governments both foreign and domestic will be watching to see how legalization progresses in the state. And I imagine that, as in Colorado, lower crime rates, increased tax revenue, thousands of new jobs and continuing public support will indicate legalizing and regulating marijuana is one of the simplest ways to improve not just our criminal justice system, but our state governments generally.”

The Associated Press reported that, due to the supply shortages,Pot prices were expected to reach $25 a gram or higher on the first day of sales — twice what people pay in the state's unregulated medical marijuana dispensaries.” Of the 2,600 people who applied to become licensed growers, less than 100 have been approved and only about a dozen had a ready-to-harvest crop by this month.

Excessive alcohol use is usually associated with damage to the liver. While that is a common side effect, researchers are now warning that heavy drinking can also take a toll on the lungs.

Alcohol can break down the immune system in the lungs, making them more vulnerable to infection, and the damage it causes. It's why alcoholics are at increased risk of developing pneumonia and life-threatening acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), for which there is no treatment.

Researchers at Thomas Jefferson University say they have discovered that one of the keys to immune system failure in the lung is a build-up of fat. It's significant, they say, because it not only explains why alcohol is linked to lung disease but offers the possibility of a new treatment.

Alcoholic fatty lung

“We call it the alcoholic fatty lung,” said lead researcher Ross Summer, M.D. “The fat accumulation in the lungs mimics the process that causes fat to build up and destroy the liver of alcoholics.”

When you over-consume alcohol your liver cells begin to produce fat – most likely a defense against the toxic effects of alcohol. Over time that fat accumulates to the point that heavy drinkers develop so called “fatty liver disease."

The fat build-up at first impairs liver function but can also cause scarring that eventually leads to liver failure. So, what does this have to do with the lungs?

The lungs also contain cells that produce fat. These cells expel a fatty secretion onto the inner lining of the lung to keep the airways properly lubricated during breathing. Summer and his teams speculated that these cells might act the same way liver cells do after extended alcohol exposure.

The study

Laboratory rats were enlisted for experiments and the researchers noted the lung cells increased production of triglycerides by 100% and free fatty acids by 300%. The researchers also noticed that immune cells in the lungs were less effective against infection.

From this, the researchers conclude that lipid lowering drugs might be an effective tool for doctors treating alcohol-related pneumonia. They think it might also head off development of ARDS.

Increased scrutiny

Alcohol only recently has received new scrutiny as a serious health threat. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says there are approximately 88,000 deaths in the U.S. each year that can be attributed to excessive alcohol use, making it the third leading lifestyle cause of death in the nation.

“Excessive alcohol use is responsible for 2.5 million years of potential life lost (YPLL) annually, or an average of about 30 years of potential life lost for each death,” the CDC said in a report.

In 2006, there were more than 1.2 million emergency room visits and 2.7 million physician office visits due to excessive drinking, the agency said. The economic costs of excessive alcohol consumption in 2006 were estimated at $223.5 billion.

Then there is the whole category of deaths and injuries due to accidents caused by excessive alcohol consumption. And there is some evidence that the current statistics understate the problem.

In March researchers writing in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs suggested a lot of highway deaths – and other accidents in which alcohol was a factor – might not make it into the alcohol-related statistics.

Between 1999 and 2009, more than 450,000 Americans were killed in a traffic crashes. The researchers maintain that in cases where alcohol was involved, death certificates very often failed to list alcohol as a cause of death.

Defining problem drinking

What constitutes excessive drinking? Heavy drinking is defined as 8 or more drinks per week for women and 15 or more drinks for men.

But don't think only drinking on Saturday night – but polishing off 12 beers – will qualify you as a moderate drinker. Binge drinking, according to the CDC, is the worst kind.

Binge drinking is defined as 4 or more drinks on a single occasion for women and 5 drinks for men.

A privacy organization has filed a formal complaint with the Federal Trade Commission protesting Facebook's manipulation of users' news feeds for psychological research, and the editor of a scientific journal that published the results has defended her decision to do so.

"The company purposefully messed with people's minds," the Electronic Privacy Information Center said in its complaint, charging that the study violates a privacy consent order and is a deceptive trade practice.

Facebook scientists published a paper called “Experimental evidence of massive-scale emotional contagion through social networks” in the latest issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The paper is based on a study carried out in 2012, when Facebook subjected 700,000 users to an "emotional test" by manipulating their news feeds. Facebook did not get users' permission to conduct the study or notify users that their data would be disclosed to researchers.

In the complaint, EPIC alleges that Facebook's misuse of data is a deceptive practice subject to FTC enforcement. And its notes that Facebook is bound by a 20-year consent decree from the FTC that requires Facebook to protect user privacy.

The consent decree resulted from complaints brought by EPIC and a coalition of consumer privacy organizations in 2009 and 2010. EPIC has asked the FTC to require that Facebook make public the news feed algorithm.

Decision defended

The study was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and the journal's editor, Inder Verma, says the decision to publish the research was based on the information provided by the study author, Adam Kramer, a Facebook "data scientist."

The study investigated a phenomenon dubbed "emotional contagion." Researchers altered the types of posts that could be seen in users' news feeds, making fewer positive posts visible for some individuals, and limiting the number of negative posts that could be seen by others.

Verma said that as a private company, Facebook was not legally obligated to follow the informed-consent policies of government agencies but conceded in a prepared statement that not doing so was "a matter of concern."

"The collection of the data by Facebook may have involved practices that were not fully consistent with the principles of obtaining informed consent and allowing participants to opt out," Verma said.

She said the study represents "an important and emerging area of social science research that needs to be approached with sensitivity and with vigilance regarding personal privacy issues."

A stolen Tesla S split in two after a high-speed chase through West Hollywood over the weekend, and the carmaker is vowing to find out why.

Los Angeles Police said they received a call from a Tesla dealer that one of their cars was being stolen. Officers responded and a chase ensued, reaching speeds of 100 miles per hour, KTLA reported.

After hitting several other cars, the Tesla hit a lamp post, split in half and caught fire, according to local news reports.

Witnesses said the front half of the Tesla was on fire in the street while the other half was wedged into the entrance of a synagogue. 

"I have never seen half of a car wedged into a building before," said Sheriff's Lt. Michael White, NBC4 reported.

The driver of the Tesla, who was at first thought be dead, was resuscitated and hospitalized. Occupants of several cars the Tesla struck were also injured, at least one seriously.

It's unusual for cars to split in half, even in a high-speed accident, and Tesla says it's eager to learn more.

“There aren’t so many S’s involved in major crashes, and certainly not quite like this one, so we absolutely want to have a look to understand what happened,” Bloomberg quoted Simon Sproule, a company spokesman, as saying.

The Model S, priced from $71,000, has a five-star rating for crashworthiness, the highest designation granted by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. 

The company added a titanium plate to the underside of the cars in March to protect the lithium-ion battery from possible damage in crashes and from road debris.

The Federal Trade Commission has added new charges of mobile cramming to a complaint the agency previously filed against a group of scammers who allegedly sent millions of unwanted text messages and robocalls to consumers.

The amended complaint adds the mobile cramming charges to the original allegations that the defendants used text messages promising free $1,000 gift cards and iPads as a way to deceive consumers into signing up for costly subscriptions and giving up personal information.

When consumers followed links in the spam text messages, they were prompted to enter personal information, including their mobile phone number. The defendants told consumers that the personal information was necessary to ship them the free prize.

But in fact, the complaint charges, the defendants used the personal information for several other purposes, including placing robocalls to consumers. Many consumers who entered their personal information allegedly were then prompted to “confirm” their mobile phone number and were then sent a text message telling them to enter a PIN number on the defendants’ website in order to “claim their prize.”

The amended complaint alleges that, in fact, by confirming their mobile phone number and entering the provided PIN, consumers were being signed up for unwanted premium text messaging services, resulting in a charge of $9.99 per month on their mobile phone bill.

According to the FTC’s amended complaint, consumers were not given adequate notice that confirming their number would lead to monthly charges – this notice appeared only in small print at the bottom of the screen or in a separate hyperlinked page.

Two defendants, Burton Katz, also doing business as Polling Associates, Inc. and Boomerang International, LLC, and Jonathan Smyth, also doing business as Polling Associates, Inc., are accused of overseeing the mobile cramming operation along with the creators of the websites.

Kanani Foods of Las Vegas, Nev., is recalling approximately 59 pounds of various chicken products.

The products were not produced under a fully implemented Ready-To-Eat Hazard Analysis & Critical Control Points (HACCP) plan.

There have been no reports of illness due to consumption of these products.

The products subject to recall include:

• 12 oz. bowls of “Teriyaki Chicken Rice Bowls”
• 12 oz. bowls of “Orange Chicken Rice Bowls”

The products bear the establishment number “P-46002” inside the USDA mark of inspection and “use by” dates of 6/30/14 – 7/4/14 on the package label.

The products, produced June 24-30, 2014, were distributed for retail sale in Nevada.

Consumers with questions about the recall may contact Timothy Cruz at 702-739-2800.

Foster Farms of Livingston, Calif., is recalling an undetermined amount of chicken products.

The products may be contaminated Salmonella Heidelberg.

One case-patient has been identified in California with an illness onset date of May 5, 2014.

The recalled product includes fresh chicken products sold by retailers under Foster Farms or private label brand names, with varying “use or freeze by”dates ranging from March 16 through March 31, 2014, and frozen Sunland Chicken products with “best by” dates from March 7 through March 11, 2015.

The products subject to recall bear the establishment number “P6137,” P6137A” or “P7632” inside the USDA mark of inspection. They were produced from March 7 through March 13, 2014, and shipped to Costco, Foodmaxx, Kroger, Safeway and other retail stores and distribution centers in Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Kansas, Nevada, Oklahoma, Oregon, Utah and Washington. The list of products subject to recall can be accessed here.

Consumers with questions regarding the recall can contact the company’s Consumer Affairs hotline at (800) 338-8051 or by email at orinfo@fosterfarms.com.  

Perhaps the mark of an affluent culture is one in which its citizens can be choosy about what they eat. In the U.S., we're beginning to be defined less by what we eat and more by the food we avoid.

Researchers at Cornell call it “food fear,” suggesting that a lot of information – and misinformation – about food is scaring consumers away from many types of food and ingredients. Their study looks at ways to correct what the authors see as misconceptions.

“MSG, gluten and high fructose corn syrup are just a few of the ingredients that have received a lot of negative attention in recent years,” said Aner Tal, post-doctoral researcher at the Cornell Food and Brand Lab. “While some ingredient food fears are justified by objective evidence, others have unnecessarily damaged some industries.”

Avoiding gluten

Gluten may be a prime example. Some people – not a very significant number – have a condition called celiac disease that requires them to avoid gluten, a mix of natural proteins in some food that gives it a stretchable and elastic texture. It's primarily in wheat-based foods like bread and crackers.

To serve this rather small population food manufacturers began producing gluten-free products that have now become popular with consumers who do not have celiac disease, but who have nonetheless adopted a gluten-free diet.

This food trend is very prevalent in Los Angeles, which inspired comedian Jimmy Kimmel's humorous observation below.

False feeling

Harry Balzer, the head industry analyst at the NPD group, has said people who eliminate gluten from their diet without having celiac disease most likely do it from “a false feeling of wellness.” The Cornell researchers tend to agree and find this point of view extends to other foods and ingredients.

Their research focused on consumers who avoid specific ingredients and draws 4 key conclusions about these selective consumers:

• They are more likely to receive their information from the Internet rather than television;
• They had a desire to have their food-related opinions known by their friends or reference group;
• Feared ingredients mainly hurt evaluation of foods that they perceived as relatively healthy rather than of foods that they perceived as unhealthy; and
• Those with a fear of a specific ingredient may exaggerate and overweigh perceived risks.

Solid information

On the other hand, the research team found that when consumers were presented with solid information about an ingredient’s history, background, and general usage the fear dissipated. To arrive at this conclusion they asked participants to rate the healthfulness of Stevia, a natural sweetener.

Half of the participants were given historical and contextual information to read about the product and the remaining participants were not given anything to read. Those who received information about an ingredient’s history rated the product as healthier than those who did not

“Learn the science, history, and the process of how the ingredient is made,” said Brian Wansink, lead author and director of the Cornell Food and Brand Lab. “You’ll be a smarter, savvier consumer if you do.”

If you follow the government's Consumer Price Index (CPI), a measure of inflation at the consumer level, you know that the index has been relatively tame since the financial crisis of 2008.

The CPI currently rises about 2% per year and the Federal Reserve worries that it isn't high enough. The Fed makes no secret of its desire to see more inflation, which it thinks will boost economic growth.

But not everyone thinks that way. Retirees, for example, don't think 2% inflation is all that low.

Cumulative effect

“The cumulative effect of even 2% inflation is pretty massive,” Mark Dotzour, chief economist and director of research at Texas A&M's Real Estate Center, told ConsumerAffairs. “At the end of 5 years that's 10%.”

Dotzour has tracked the inflation rate since 2008 and found that consumers who retired that year have struggled in ways the official inflation gauge simply doesn't measure. Within that overall number a lot of things have gone up more than others, and some things have gone down.

But the things that have gone down in price aren't the kinds of things that actually help seniors very much.

“If you are living on nothing but television sets, computers and carbonated drinks your cost of living has actually gone down,” Dotzour said. “But if you live in a home and pay insurance, drive a car and buy gas, fly an airline to see your children every once in a while, or buy a magazine or health insurance, or buy sausage or beef, your money isn't going very far.”

It all has to do with how the Labor Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) weights the cost of things. It looks at the cost of everything in the economy and the items that go down in price – like TV sets – tend to balance out the things that go up.

Things that have gone up

But Dotzour has focused on just a few essential expenses that nearly everyone has, looking at what they have done over the last 5 years. Here's what he found:

• Food prepared at home is up 9.5%
• Fresh ground beef is up 30.6%
• Bacon and sausage is up 32%
• Eggs are up 12.5%

Meanwhile, ice cream is only up 5.9% and carbonated beverages have risen just 4.6%.

And that's just food items. Costs of many other things seniors – and average consumers, for that matter – buy have risen more dramatically in the last 5 years. For example:

• Gasoline has surged 117.3%
• Car insurance is up 24.1%
• Water and sewer service is up 35.4%
• Air travel has risen 31.7%

But clocks are a bargain

If it's any consolation, Dotzour says prices of clocks and lamps have fallen 27.5% and the cost of dishes and flatware is down 25%. It's all part of a point Dotzour is trying to drive home.

“The annual rate of change in prices is not big but the cumulative increase in prices over time is substantial,” he said.

The pain is not just felt by seniors. Lots of people who are still working are facing these rising costs without the extra money to pay them. BLS data show disposable income is rising much slower than prices – around 0.2% per month.

Nothing could be more American then parades, backyard barbecues and fireworks. We love watching the high school bands and all the floats as well as everything that comes with a parade -- the clowns that blow up balloons, kids tossing candy. It's a tradition!

It's always fun to make your dog part of all the excitement. Just remember -- the long time in the sun without any water in sight can be deadly for your dog. Heat stroke can pop up at anytime of the day and when the humidity is high it's so hard on a dog walking around with their feet on the pavement.

So keep a backpack with you so you can pull out a collapsible bowl of water or some kind of container to hold water. And watch out for the candy being thrown. Chocolate, especially dark chocolate, is not something a dog can tolerate.

Make sure your dog has his or her dog tags on for proper identification. It just takes one dog, cat, rabbit or kid with a nice big ice cream cone to lure your best friend out of its comfort zone to run away and get whatever strikes their fancy.

You might also want to have your pet microchipped as a precaution to make it easier for your pet to be returned home safely and promptly. Around the 4th of July there's often an upsurge in lost pets and strays so keep a watchful eye on your pet's whereabouts at all time.

Hold the beer

We love to share everything with our four-legged friends and a good steak or hot dog is understandable but don't do a beer. Actually don't do any alcohol -- it is deadly for your dog. If alcohol is ingested, your pet could become very intoxicated and weak, severely depressed or could go into a coma.

In severe instances death from respiratory failure caused by alcohol consumption can result. While at the picnic be careful of people who are kind and want to feed your pet scraps -- they can love your dog to death. Grapes, raisins, onions, even avocados are poison to your pet.

Fireworks are amazing but the loud booms are terrifying to all animals. The continuous loud sounds can cause some pets to cower, shiver, panic, escape or go in a destructive chewing rampage, so hide any special gifts that can't be replaced. Leaving your pet indoors (not leashed in the yard) on the 4th of July in a safe, secure, escape-proof room of the house with comfy bed, food and water is the safest option.

Keep the decorations out of the way as color is not the easiest to detect for your dog so a green glow stick can make your dog see red when he wants to play with it. Chewing on that can harm his intestinal tract. Keep sparklers and all little pieces of decorations out of your dog's reach.

Your 4th of July holiday will be a lot more fun without any booming expenses at the vets office.

It's a sad but unavoidable fact of life: no matter how bad your financial situation might be, there's always someone looking to enrich himself by making your already-bad situation even worse. And many of those “someones” have found the pension-loan (also called pension advance) business particularly profitable.

On July 1, the Federal Trade Commission released a consumer warning about the dangers of pension advance plans:

If you’re trying to make ends meet, here’s a pitch that might catch your interest:

“Convert tomorrow’s pension checks into hard cash today.”

Sound tempting? Think again. The Federal Trade Commission, the nation’s consumer protection agency, advises consumers that pension advances, also known as pension sales, loans, or buyouts, come at a very steep price.

Most pension advances require you to sign over all or some of your monthly pension checks for five to 10 years. The lump sum payment you get in return is less than the pension payments you sign over, so you’re signing over money you need to live on. And pension advances often require retirees to buy a life insurance policy – with the pension advance company as the beneficiary – to insure that the repayments continue.

The FTC release included a link to the agency's consumer information site “Pension advances: not so fast,” which points out other potential pitfalls of pension advance loans: for many loans, the annual interest rate exceeds 100%. Even for loans offering reasonable rates, there might be severe tax implications: “Getting a large lump sum can put you in a higher tax bracket.”

Better options

If you actually are in a financial situation dire enough that you're considering a pension loan, there are better and cheaper ways to resolve it. Among other things, the FTC advises checking with your local credit union to see if it offers short-term loans, or talk to your creditors about arranging payment plans.

For those people who have actually taken out pension loans, what were the results? An online search for the phrase “pension loans” suggests the loan recipients ended up in worse condition than before.

The first page of Google results for “pension loans” included an April 2013 New York Times story “Pension loans drive retirees into more debt,” a Forbes.com post about it titled “Pension loans still unregulated poison,” and a website for an actual pension-loan company whose pitch sounds an awful lot like that come-on the FTC warned consumers about: “Have you ever been short on cash and wished you could tap into your future retirement pension for funding?”

In the state of Maine, a group called Pine Tree Legal Assistance posted “Five signs of predatory pension loans” which apply to residents of all American states and territories. Two of them, the warnings against high interest rates and mandatory purchase of life-insurance policies, were already covered by the FTC. But PTLA also warns people to watch out for these signs:

1. Using the word “advancement” instead of “loan” – Companies try to hide their intentions by describing their offers as “advancements” rather than a loans. This is done for two reasons: to hide the truth from you, and to charge very high interest rates that are illegal in many states.

2. Targeting veterans or government retirees – People with government pensions are a favorite target for these lenders because of the guaranteed income. If you are a recipient of a government pension, be extra wary.

3. Encouraging you to [set] up a new bank account – Many of these companies will encourage their clients to agree to set up a separate bank that will be controlled by the company. They do this because they need to find a way around the law that says it is illegal for government pensions to be given over to third parties.

Incidentally, Pine Tree Legal's first warning – using some word other than “loan” – applies to other forms of debt as well. Savvy homeowners, for example, understand that the chance to “withdraw equity” from your house actually means “go into debt with your house as collateral,” and the only thing worse than going into debt is doing so by borrowing money from someone who isn't even honest enough to admit that “going into debt” is exactly what you're doing here.

Is your dog your travel companion? These days traveling with a pet is not uncommon.

Of course, you just can't sit next to your Lab and hand him a piece of gum so his ears won't pop when the plane starts to land unless he is a service dog, in the U.S., service dogs can sit in the cabin, otherwise it's the cargo compartment. If you have a little dog, that can comfortably fit in a carrier that is approximately 8-9 inches high, 12-13 inches wide and 15-23 inches long then they can actually sit with you or under your seat.

Unfortunately, there have been many high-profile incidents of people losing their pets at airports and in the cargo department, prompting the feds to tighten reporting rules.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx recently announced a final rule that expands the Department of Transportation’s current requirement that air carriers report incidents involving the loss, injury or death of an animal during air transport. The rule will become effective on January 1, 2015.

“This rule will provide consumers with a fuller picture of an airline’s safety record when it comes to transporting animals," Foxx said. "Consumers deserve clear and accurate information when choosing among air transportation options.”

The DOT issues a report every month that details animal incidents aboard air carriers. These are the numbers from 2012:

• Total Deaths in 2012: 29
• Total Injuries in 2012: 26
• Deaths by Airline in 2012:
• Alaska Airlines: 1
• American Airlines: 5
• Delta Airlines: 10
• United Airlines: 12
• Hawaiian Airlines: 1

For a complete list go to www.dot.gov/airconsumer

Most airline companies will not let pets fly in cargo during extreme hot or cold weather or during particular seasons. But sometimes the weather is unpredictable and airlines can't always predict the temperature.

If your dog has to go in the cargo hold, it may be helpful if it is not alone on the flight. Dogs, being pack animals, feel comfort in having others with them -- so if you have two dogs traveling together, so much the better.

There is much debate on whether tranquilizing dogs helps or hurts, so you and your vet will need to make that decision.

Physicians at the University of Colorado School of Medicine have found that screening of genetically susceptible infants can lead to the diagnosis of celiac disease at a very early age.

Edwin Liu, MD, lead author of the study, said the findings are significant because they will help determine when screening should begin in at-risk children. In addition, the results will allow the group to explore factors that may be causing Swedish children to develop celiac disease at a higher rate than other countries.

Swedish residents had a higher risk for celiac disease than their European neighbors in Finland and Germany, and a nearly two-fold higher risk of celiac disease than their U.S. counterparts, despite sharing the same high-risk celiac genes, the study found.

"The findings in this report set the stage for the study of complex relationships between genetic, environmental and gestational factors that may play a role in the development of celiac disease in early childhood," said Liu.

The group studied 6,403 children with specific genetic markers from birth to identify the factors involved in the development of both celiac disease and type 1 diabetes.

The children are from the United States, Finland, Germany and Sweden and are part of The Environmental Determinants of Diabetes in the Young (TEDDY) study. 

Autoimmune disease

Celiac disease is an autoimmune disease that damages the small intestine and interferes with absorption of nutrients from food. It can sometimes develop silently, leading to long-term medical complications if left untreated.

People who have celiac disease cannot tolerate gluten, a protein in wheat, rye, and barley. Gluten is found mainly in foods but may also be found in everyday products such as medicines, vitamins, and lip balms.

The study is published in the July 3 issue of The New England Journal of Medicine. 

Casual observers of the meltdown engulfing the for-profit Corinthian Colleges, which owns and operates 107 schools under the names Everest Institute, Everest College, Heald and WyoTech, might wonder: why is it taking so long?

From the Department of Education's perspective, after all, shutting down an underperforming or non-performing school is quite easy: simply stop backing federal student loans to students enrolled at that school, and the main source of funding vanishes overnight, right.

Turns out it's not that simple. On Thursday, July 2, when Corinthian announced it had missed the latest deadline to reach an agreement with the government, the result was — nothing much, except that Corinthian and the government are still working toward reaching some agreement.

Bloomberg News reported the missed deadline in a policy piece explaining why “It's hard to shut down a poorly performing for-profit college.”

The reason can be summarized in one word: money. Specifically those federal-backed student loans, one of the very few types of loans which are, under ordinary circumstances, nearly impossible to discharge regardless of your financial circumstances: even declaring bankruptcy won't free you from your student loan obligations (why the government thinks an 18-year-old student should be more responsible for bad debt than, say, a middle-aged credit card holder who charged too many luxe vacations, is a different issue).

But you, the student, are free from your federal student loan obligations if the school you attended shuts down. In that case, the federal government is on the hook for those loans, not you.

Inside Higher Education noted that there's currently $1.2 billion in outstanding federal loans to Corinthian College students, (or, as the Consumerist blog said, “The government has 1.2 billion reasons to keep Corinthian Colleges afloat”).

Granted, even if/when Corinthian does shut down, that doesn't necessarily mean every Corinthian-based student loan becomes the feds' responsibility. Some of the Corinthian students might be able to have their Corinthian credits accepted by other schools and then continue their schooling, in which case they would still be expected to repay all of their student loans including those taken to pay for Corinthian.

Employment growth in professional and business services, retail trade, food services and drinking places, and health care helped push the nation’s jobless rate lower in June.

Figures released by the government show the unemployment rate slipped to 6.1% last month -- the lowest since September 2008 -- with the economy creating 288,000 jobs.

Who’s working and who’s not

The decline of 0.2% in the unemployment rate came as the number of without jobs dropped by 325,000 to 9.5 million. Over the year, the
unemployment rate and the number of unemployed persons have declined by 1.4% and 2.3 million, respectively.

Unemployment rates for adult women (5.3%) and blacks (10.7%) declined in June, while the rate for teenagers (21.0%) increased. The rates for adult men (5.7%), whites (5.3%), Hispanics (7.8%) and Asians (5.1) showed little change.

The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more) declined by 293,000 in June to 3.1 million, accounting for 32.8% of the unemployed. Over the past 12 months, the number of long-term unemployed has decreased by 1.2 million.

The civilian labor force participation rate was 62.8% for the third
consecutive month. The employment-population ratio, at 59.0%, showed little
change over the month but is up by 0.3% point over the year.

Who’s hiring

Employment growth was widespread last month. Professional and business services positions rose by 67,000, retail trade was up 40,000, food services and drinking places added 33,000 jobs, and health care employment increased by 21,000.

Manufacturing added 16,000 jobs, with all of the increase in durable goods manufacturing. Within durable goods, employment increased in motor vehicles and parts (+6,000) and in computer and peripheral equipment (+3,000).

There was little change over the month in other major industries, including mining and logging, construction, information, and government.

The complete June employment report is available on the Labor Department website.

Mortgage applications fell in the week ending June 27 for the third week in a row.

Data from the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey show a 0.2% decline in applications on a seasonally adjusted basis from the week before.

Refinancings, on the other hand, were up 0.1% from the previous week, pushing the refinance share of mortgage activity to 53% of total applications from 52% the previous week.

The adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) share of activity was unchanged at 8% of total applications.

Contract interest rates

• The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages (FRMs) with conforming loan balances ($417,000 or less) fell to 4.28% from 4.33%, with points decreasing to 0.14 from  0.18 (including the origination fee) for 80% loan-to-value ratio (LTV) loans.  The effective rate decreased from last week.
• The average contract interest rate for 30-year FRMs with jumbo loan balances (greater than $417,000) dipped 2 basis points -- from 4.28% to 4.26%, with points decreasing to 0.06 from 0.12 (including the origination fee) for 80% LTV loans.  The effective rate were down from last week.
• The average contract interest rate for 30-year FRMs backed by the FHA dropped  to 3.99% from 4.03%, with points increasing to -0.33 from -0.38 (including the origination fee) for 80% LTV loans.  The effective rate decreased from last week.
• The average contract interest rate for 15-year FRMs fell 5 basis points to 3.42%, with points decreasing to 0.16 from 0.19 (including the origination fee) for 80% LTV loans. The effective rate decreased from last week.
• The average contract interest rate for 5/1 ARMs decreased to 3.21% from 3.23%, with points increasing to 0.33 from 0.27 (including the origination fee) for 80% LTV loans.  The effective rate was unchanged from last week.

The survey covers over 75 percent of all U.S. retail residential mortgage applications.

What a difference a month makes!

After cutting 52,961 jobs in May -- the highest level in 15 months, employers announced they’ll cut 31,434 payroll positions -- a decline of 41% and the lowest one-month total so far this year.

Figures released by outplacement consultancy Challenger, Gray & Christmas show that through the first half of 2014, the pace of job cutting is down 5.0% from a year ago, and 20% from June 2013.

In the quarter ending June 30, a 124,693 job cuts were announced, 3.0% more than in the first quarter of 2014. Second-quarter job cuts were up 9.5% from the same period last year.

Casino closings prominent

New Jersey-based employees were hit particularly hard by June activity, accounting for three of the top four job-cut announcements during the month.

The closings of two Atlantic City casinos and a Westhampton-based transportation firm resulted in nearly 7,000 job cuts. Those shutdowns were the primary reason the entertainment and leisure industry was the top job-cutting sector of the month.

In all, these firms announced terminations totaling 6,005, and 13,700 so far this year, which is up 50% from the same point in 2013.

The heaviest downsizing through the first half of the year occurred in the computer industry, where employers announced plans to fire 30,002 workers from their payrolls. Retailers have also seen heavy job cuts, having announced 26,863 planned cuts through June.

“The holidays were not kind to several retailers who answered with heavy layoffs in the first quarter,” said John A. Challenger, chief executive officer of Challenger, Gray & Christmas. “We saw large-scale job-cut announcements from Macy’s, Best Buy, J.C. Penney, and Sears to start out the year. Meanwhile, one of the largest job cuts of the year so far resulted from the bankruptcy of Coldwater Creek, which resulted in 5,500 layoffs,”

Initial claims

Meanwhile, the government reports first-time claims for state unemployment benefits rose by 2,000 In the week ending June 28 to 315,000 -- a little better that the Briefing.com consensus of 315,000.

Analysts say the range of  310,000 to 320,000 where the weekly figure seems to have settled, suggests a general improvement in conditions

The 4-week moving average, which is less volatile than the weekly number and considered a more accurate barometer of the labor market, was up 500 -- to 315,000.

The complete report is available on the Labor Department website.

That news story you're reading might not be all that exciting but when you scroll to the comments section at the bottom of the page, chances are you'll encounter some fireworks.

While we're happy to say that commenters at ConsumerAffairs are, for the most part, thoughtful and informed, all too often – especially on news stories about controversial topics – the commenting can get nasty.

Just how nasty? Researchers at the University of Arizona and University of Utah set out to find out.

Their study, written up in the Journal of Communication, analyzed more than 6,400 reader comments posted to news stories on the website of the Arizona Daily Star, the major daily newspaper in Tucson.

20% uncivil

In their tally, more than 1 in 5 comments – 20% – included some form of incivility, with name-calling as the most prevalent type.

“We tracked six different kinds of uncivil language, but name-calling was far and away the most common,” said Kevin Coe, assistant professor of communication at the University of Utah and one of the study’s authors. “Many people just can’t seem to avoid the impulse to go after someone else.”

Are people today just meaner and more arrogant? Or are they just more polarized along ideological lines? And is that polarization fanned by partisan media on both the left and the right?

The researchers found that while people may not be meaner, the anonymity of the Internet may be encouraging heated, over-the-top rhetoric. And the commenters do not fit the neat stereotype of a few angry people who spend hours at their computers blasting others and making baseless claims.

Infrequent commenters guilty too

In other words, the guys who seem to have an opinion on everything and insist on sharing it aren't the worst offenders. The researchers found incivility was more common among infrequent commenters.

And as for baseless arguments – that appears to be another myth. The commenters who expressed their opinions in uncivil ways were just as likely to cite evidence in support of their point of view than people using respectful language to express their opinions.

Lighting rods

Certain subjects serve as lightening rods for uncivil commenters. On the right, President Obama and Hillary Clinton tend to draw heated responses. On the left, it's conservative Supreme Court justices and Republican politicians.

For example, the researchers found that news stories quoting Obama generated comments that were nearly 33% uncivil, well above the sample's average.

The weightier the political issue or ideological point, the more likely commenters were to be uncivil in their comments. But amid all the nastiness, the researchers made an interesting observation.

When an uncivil commenter was challenged by someone with an opposing view, the resulting back-and-forth dialog between the two tended to be more civil than the original post. When some of the Internet's anonymity is stripped away, people tend to be more respectful.

“We tend to be more respectful in our public discourse when we recognize other citizens’ perspectives, even when we do not agree with them,” said Kate Kenski, associate professor of communication at the University of Arizona and co-author of the study. “When we quote others participating in an online discussion, we tend to focus on their arguments, not on personal attributions, which makes the conversation more civil.”

Fighting anonymity

One step that many news sites have taken to fight back against over-the-top comments is to use social media -- primarily Facebook -- as their submission portal.

Facebook users know their "friends" are watching them and tend to be at least a bit more circumspect in their comments. Facebook also has highly accurate algorithms that filter out most of the spam that plagues all online services.

Would-be commenters tend to object to being required to use Facebook but publishers respond that the cost of using human editors to police comment sections vastly outweighs any benefit the comments may have.

Software solution 

Other than Facebook, there's no generally accepted software solution for the problem of comments run amok. But the Washington Post, the New York Times and software developer Mozilla are working to change that.

The three recently announced that they were working on a project to create digital tools that would make it easier for readers to post comments and photos on news sites and to interact with journalists and each other.

The project is being funded by a $3.89 million grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. 

Media influence?

Still, it's hard not to believe that an increasingly partisan media doesn't play some role in a coarsening of public discourse, especially as it appears in cyberspace. Maybe we all fantasize a bit too much about hosting a show on MSNBC or Fox News.

For too many, the comments section of an online news story is a place to try out new material.

Here are some civil-liberty questions worth debating: assuming you're an ordinary everyday person going about your life without harming others, an assumption which holds true for the overwhelming majority of people, do you have any privacy rights when you're outside your own home?

Do police have the right to track you, and keep a permanent record of your whereabouts at all times? If the cops have this right, should anybody else?

These are not hypothetical questions in today's interconnected Internet era, with recording technology so cheap and ubiquitous, anybody with a smartphone has the ability to take pictures or video footage, then almost instantly post it online or add it to a distant database. That, of course, is in addition to the security cameras, traffic cams, police dashboard cameras, and other publicly and privately owned surveillance tools in today's society.

Unsurprisingly, government and law enforcement officials have been quick to embrace such surveillance technologies, especially license-plate scanners that photograph the license plate of any passing vehicle, then instantly compare it to the plates recorded on one of several databases.

False positives

Sometimes, the comparison leads to a false positive, which leads to innocent motorists terrorized and pulled over at gunpoint after, for example, a police license plate scanner mistakenly identified a certain vehicle as “stolen,” and the cops didn't bother noticing that the stolen vehicle was a gray GMC truck, whereas the woman they held at gunpoint was driving a burgundy Lexus sedan.

That said: license-plate scanners are indeed useful for police trying to find stolen cars, in addition to police who want to determine a suspect's habits and whereabouts in a given time period. That's the unsurprising conclusion the Rand Corporation reached in its recently released study “License plate readers for law enforcement: opportunities and obstacles.”

The opportunities, from a law-enforcement perspective, are pretty obvious: while license-plate readers (LPRs) were initially used to detect stolen plates and vehicles, their use has expanded to cover other areas as well:

Authorities can retrieve LPR data to determine vehicles in the vicinity of a crime scene.

The system can provide photos of those vehicles to confirm suspect alibis.

LPR data can be used to analyze crime patterns.

The chief obstacles or hurdles (again from the law-enforcment perspective) are certain civil-libertarian types:

Many privacy advocates have challenged the practice of storing LPR data not associated with a specific crime.

Some police departments lack clear guidance on storing plate data, leaving privacy advocates to fear it can be kept and retrieved indefinitely.

Some privacy advocates, departments, and lawmakers have moved to codify police procedures on recording these data; some have banned the technology's use outright.

Storage length

Meanwhile, the law enforcement point of view says that it's better to hold on to this data as long as posisble, maybe even indefinitely: “Systems with the most database access and longest retention policies are the most beneficial because they can provide the greatest number of alerts and the ability to retrieve LPR data over time across law enforcement activities.”

Again, that's pretty self-evident: the more information you store about individuals' whereabouts, the easier it is to later determine where they were or what they were doing, should you want to know this -- for good purposes, or otherwise.

Ultimately, the study concluded that police and other law enforcement agencies ought to use license plate scanners far more than they currently do. The list of six “recommendations” included “Estimate and secure necessary funding for the entire lifecycle of LPR technology,” “Ensure that sufficient infrastructure is in place to handle different types of data promptly and frequently,” and “Integrate LPR systems into daily agency operations and learn from other agencies how to expand their use to more analytical operations.”

Only at the end of the list came the recommendation “Identify tradeoffs between privacy rights and law-enforcement uses.” (Whether “identify” tradeoffs would lead to actually “respecting” tradeoffs, or even concluding “maybe the tradeoffs aren't worth it, having every citizen's whereabouts tracked and recorded just to make cops' jobs a little easier,” isn't specified.)