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2012: Women Will Be Key for Senate Democrats
Source: ABC News

By Matt Rourke

2010 was not a great year for women in Congress. The midterm elections in that cycle saw the first decrease in female representation in Congress in 30 years.

In 2012, however, things could look much different for women.

At a news conference in Washington, D.C., in December, Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., the chairwoman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee declared that 2012 would be a “historic year” for women in the United States Senate.

On Thursday, Stephanie Schriock, the president of EMILY’s List, a political action committee (PAC) that supports pro-choice, female Democratic candidates for office, echoed Murray’s message.

“2012 is a historic year for EMILY’s List,” Schriock told reporters at a pen-and-pad briefing in Washington, D.C.

2012 already marks a historic year for women. There are seven female senators who are up for re-election in this cycle – the greatest number ever in the Senate. Six of those senators are Democrats, while one – Olympia Snowe of Maine – is a Republican.

On the challenger side of senate races, there are five Democratic women candidates currently endorsed by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

EMILY’s List is also currently endorsing five female challengers in Senate races, in addition to the six incumbent Democratic senators. There are slight variations from the DSCC, though. EMILY’s List is endorsing Susan Bysiewicz in Connecticut. Bysiewicz is currently in a primary race with Democratic Rep. Chris Murphy, and the DSCC has not yet endorsed a candidate in this race.

There are four female Republican candidates running in Senate races in addition to Snowe.

In New Mexico, Rep. Heather Wilson is competing for the seat being vacated by retiring Democratic Sen. Jeff Bingaman. In Connecticut, former World Wrestling Entertainment Inc. CEO Linda McMahon is running for Senate again, this time looking to fill the seat being vacated by retiring Sen. Joe Lieberman. McMahon won her party’s nomination for U.S. Senate in Connecticut in 2010, but lost the election to Sen. Richard Blumenthal.

In Missouri, Sarah Steelman, the former state treasurer, is hoping to unseat incumbent Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill. And in Hawaii, former Gov. Linda Lingle, who has the distinction of being the first female governor elected in Hawaii, is running for the seat being vacated by Democratic Sen. Daniel Akaka.

Nineteen Senate seats held by Democrats were contested going into the 2010 midterms. Democrats lost six of those seats, narrowing their majority from a filibuster-proof 60 seats to 53 seats vs. the Republicans’ 47 seats.

This cycle, Democrats will have less wiggle room because of their smaller majority. Raising the stakes even more is the fact that a greater number of their seats will be in contention. Twenty-three Senate seats currently occupied by Democrats will be up for re-election in 2012. A little more than a quarter of those seats are represented by women.

The stakes are high for Republicans, as well. They need at least four seats in order to win the majority in the Senate. However, they do have a mathematical advantage: Only 10 Republican senators are up for re-election in this cycle.

Many of the Senate races featuring female Democratic candidates will likely be hard-fought, on both the incumbent side and the challenger side.

In Missouri, McCaskill, up for re-election, has been a strong supporter of President Obama and this season she will face a tough battle from her Republican challenger, currently unknown, because Obama has an approval rating of just 42 percent in Missouri, according to a Gallup poll taken in August 2011.

In Massachusetts, the race between incumbent Republican Sen. Scott Brown and Elizabeth Warren is already heating up. Crossroads GPS, the sister group of the Super PAC American Crossroads, has begun running ads against Warren in the state, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has promised using some of its resources to try and influence the race.

With the general election more than 10 months away, the dynamics of specific races are still very much taking shape. However, an overarching narrative has emerged: Female candidates will be key for Democrats.

“Women voters have long been a crucial voting bloc for Democrats,” said ABC News political director Amy Walter. “This year, the success of Democratic women candidates is likely to determine which party controls the Senate in 2013.”

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/02/2012-women-will-be-key-for-senate-democrats/ Go Red: Raising Awareness About Heart Disease in Women
Source: Huffington Post

By Susan Blumenthal, M.D. and Beth Hoffman

Today, Friday Feb. 3rd, National Wear Red Day, put on your favorite red sweater, dress or T-shirt and join in efforts to raise awareness about the No. 1 killer of women in America: heart disease.

While heart disease has long been considered an illness of men, it is in fact the leading cause of death for women in the U.S. Stroke, a condition caused by a sudden shortage of oxygen and nutrient delivery to the brain, ranks as the No. 3 killer for all people, and fourth for women specifically. Thanks to the triumphs of biomedical research and public health advances, the death rates from heart disease and stroke have declined by 60 percent since the 1950s.

Medications to treat high blood pressure and reduce cholesterol have played a significant role in lowering mortality rates, as has the decline in tobacco use in the U.S. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) hails the reduction in deaths from heart disease and stroke as one of the most significant public health achievements of the 20th century. Yet, even today, more people still die from these two diseases annually in America than from cancer, Alzheimer's, diabetes and kidney disease combined. In 2010, heart disease and stroke claimed the lives of more than 750,000 Americans. Those who survive acute attacks of these diseases can experience significant complications, with stroke ranking first as the leading cause of long-term disability among adults in the U.S.

Unfortunately, many people incorrectly assume that heart disease is primarily a disease of older men, and that cancer is the leading cause of death for women in America. But the truth is that heart disease is the leading killer of women in the U.S., and heart disease and stroke kill more women than the next five causes of death combined [2]. Last year alone, cardiovascular disease claimed the lives of nearly half a million women, and according to the Women's Heart Foundation, when adjusted for age and other factors, the mortality risk from cardiovascular illness is 1.7 times higher in women as compared to men. Furthermore, the death rate for heart disease in men has decreased by 17 percent since 1979, but it has only declined by 2.5 percent over this same period for women [2]. However, only 55 percent of women know that heart disease is their No. 1 killer, and less than half of women surveyed know what healthy levels are for determinants of cardiac health such as blood pressure and cholesterol levels [1]. Even more shocking, more than 90 percent of primary care physicians don't know that heart disease kills more women than men each year [2].

In addition to raising awareness of heart disease in women, special emphasis must be placed on the health of minority and younger females. While one-third of Caucasian adult women are living with some form of cardiovascular disease, that number climbs to nearly 50 percent in African-American women [2]. Furthermore, stroke incidence is rising dramatically among young and middle-aged Americans while declining in older people. A recent study presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Stroke Association reported a 17 percent increase in strokes among women 15 through 34 years old. This alarming shift in the age burden of this disease may be linked to the obesity epidemic in the U.S., which is a major risk factor for stroke.

These disturbing statistics are all the more tragic since both heart disease and stroke are largely preventable. Smoking, obesity, lack of physical activity, high blood pressure, diabetes and elevated cholesterol are all important risk factors that, when addressed effectively, can significantly reduce the risk of developing heart disease or experiencing a stroke. In fact, according to the National Stroke Association, simply lowering the risk factors for these diseases can prevent as much as 80 percent of heart disease and stroke in America. In addition, taking a daily aspirin has been shown to prevent a first stroke or second heart attack in women under age 65, and prevent a first or second stroke or heart attack in women over age 65 [3]. Recent research, however, suggests that taking a daily aspirin to prevent a first-time heart attack or stroke may have more risks (such as serious bleeding) than benefits [4]. Thus, it is important for individuals planning to start a daily aspirin to discuss this choice with their health care provider, as U.S. Preventive Services Guidelines currently recommend a daily aspirin for individuals at high risk of a heart attack only if their physician believes the benefits outweigh the risks.

While reducing risk factors is crucial to prevention, it is also important to raise awareness of the signs and symptoms of a heart attack or stroke so that women know when to seek medical care. A heart attack can be sudden and intense, but in many cases starts rather slowly, with mild discomfort. It is important to note that women may have a different symptom presentation than men, with more fatigue and indigestion rather than classic chest discomfort. This symptom presentation, combined with the misconceptions mentioned above, results in women being less likely than men to receive adequate screening and treatment, such as angioplasties and stents, for cardiovascular disease. Furthermore, relatively little research has been conducted on the effectiveness of drugs and medical devices specifically in women, meaning that physicians often do not know the effectiveness of a particular drug or procedure in women.

The goal of the Go Red for Women Campaign is to raise awareness about heart disease so that women can take the steps needed to protect their health. Looking to the future, increased investments are needed in basic science and clinical research to advance our understanding of how these diseases and their treatments uniquely affect women. In addition, another important step forward is education so that women can be savvy health consumers -- to learn about how to prevent these conditions by reducing risk factors, recognizing warning signs and entering into a partnership with their physician to promote better health.

Together, let's raise awareness of the No. 1 killer of women and make the elimination of heart disease and stroke one of the most significant public health victories of the 21st century!?

Common Warning Signs of a Heart Attack:

- Chest discomfort: The discomfort could be pressure, squeezing, fullness or a crushing pain. Usually lasts more than a few minutes.

- Discomfort in other parts of the body: Symptoms include pain or discomfort in the arms, back, jaw or stomach.

- Shortness of breath often accompanies chest discomfort, but doesn't have to be present.

Other symptoms include a cold sweat, nausea, severe indigestion, sense of impending doom and light-headedness.

For Stroke, a useful acronym to remember is "FAST"

- Face: Ask the person to smile. Does the face droop?

- Arms: Ask the person to raise both arms. Does one arm drift downward?

- Speech: Ask the person to repeat simple phrases. Is the speech slurred or disjointed?

- Time: If you or someone you know experiences these symptoms, call 911 immediately.

Other warning signs of stroke may include sudden numbness or weakness on one side of the body, confusion, trouble walking, severe headache or difficulty seeing in one or both eyes.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/susan-blumenthal/heart-month_b_1250873.html?ref=impact&ir=Impact Rinehart: The Richest Woman In Asia
Source: The Wall Street Journal

By Andrew Critchlow and David Rogers

Just how rich is Georgina “Gina” Rinehart?

According to the latest reckoning by Forbes, Ms. Rinehart–the mining mogul turned newspaper baron after her raid this week on a bigger share of the publisher of the Sydney Morning Herald and the Age–is worth a cool US$18 billion, up from US$9 billion last year.

That puts Ms. Rinehart in the big league of global billionaires and the richest women in the entire Asia-Pacific region, according to Forbes’s latest findings.

The printed word may be her latest interest but it’s mining that matters most when it comes to Ms. Rinehart’s bank account. Forbes says that the sale of a 15% stake in her Roy Hill iron ore development to South Korea’s Posco was the main catalysts for her jump in wealth.

If Ms. Rinehart keeps going she will soon overtake Christy Walton, of Wal-Mart fame, whose US$24.5 billion stash makes her the world’s richest woman, Forbes says on its website. Ms. Rinehart was unreachable for comment via the Perth, Western Australia-based offices of her company Hancock Prospecting on Thursday.

“If Gina Rinehart is the richest person in the country and has a media footprint, that would put her in the top few most powerful people in Australia,” says Christopher Macdonald, principal investment adviser at RBS Morgans in Sydney.

But US$18 billion could just be scratching the surface of Ms. Rinehart’s potential.

According to a report last year from Citigroup, which analyzed 400 of the world’s top mining projects, her net worth could eventually approach US$100 billion if output of iron ore, coal and commodity prices continue to rise.

That puts her well on course to overhaul Carlos Slim, the Mexican multi-billionaire, who also likes to flirt with newspapers.

http://blogs.wsj.com/dealjournalaustralia/2012/02/02/rinehart-the-richest-woman-in-asia/?mod=google_news_blog Q&A: Women Entrepreneurs Fear Failure More Than Men: Study
Source: Reuters

By Deborah L. Cohen

Babson College and the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor recently released the results of a comprehensive 2010 study about women's entrepreneurship around the world.

The 2010 Women's Report examined the attitudes of women in 59 economies.

In 2010, 104 million women representing more than half the world's population and 84 percent of world gross domestic product started and managed new business ventures. Reuters asked Donna J. Kelley, a Babson associate professor of entrepreneurship and one of the report's lead authors, for a bit of insight about U.S. women and small business.

Q: How do American women view opportunities for entrepreneurship?

A: Women in general have lower perceptions than men about their capabilities for starting a business. But typically in the U.S., compared to other parts of the world, women see more opportunities for entrepreneurship than other wealthy economies. The United States ranks highest among wealthy economies in terms of women's capabilities perceptions-their belief that they have the capabilities to start a business.

Q: So how does that compare with men's views?

A: Even though U.S. women tend to be higher in terms of capabilities perception, they are still a lot lower than men. What we might be seeing is that women need to work on their confidence and their perceived abilities. Look at the role models we see: Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs, Richard Branson - they're all male. Entrepreneurship has to feel accessible to women. There need to be local role models that say to women, I can do this. If capacities perceptions are not equal to men, then there's something there that we need to examine further. Is it the confidence level? Is it that they have lots of education but not the business skills? I would suggest it's more around the need for a practical education that lets women experiment with entrepreneurship and learn to become confident.

Q: What about U.S. women's view of the outlook for actually starting businesses?

A: Their opportunities perception looks like it's about average. You see much higher opportunity perception in Finland, Sweden, Iceland, Norway and Denmark, a lot of the Northern European countries. In the U.S. is it appears that there are a lot of women who have the confidence and capabilities but there's just not that perception that there are a lot of opportunities around entrepreneurship. In 2010, we were at a real low point for entrepreneurship rates. (They) had dropped substantially in 2009 and then again in 2010. There was a more pessimistic outlook. The recession had its roots in the United States -United States had low perception, so did Spain, Greece, Ireland, Italy and Portugal.

Q: What factors weigh on U.S. women's views about starting businesses?

A: Opportunity costs are high in the developed world. If I could work for IBM or start a business, it's got to be worth me not taking that job at IBM. In the developed economies you have four times the participation in the business service category than you do in the emerging economies. The customers are more other business - insurance, banking - they tend to be more human resource and knowledge-oriented. But in the emerging economies (women) may not have a lot of choices. They might be starting a small business that brings them some income and that might be their only form of income.

Q: How will women's views on entrepreneurship likely impact the U.S. economy?

A: Growth expectations are important to policy makers because that translates to job creation. It can also affect one's ambitions to grow a business. We calculate how many employees early-stage entrepreneurs expect to add over the next five years. In the U.S. women have about the same level of moderate growth ambitions as men. However, when it comes to high growth levels (adding 20 or more workers), less than 10 percent of women project this level of growth, while over 20 percent of men do. It's the growth that's the real issue. They have greater fear of failure than men.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/02/us-women-entrepreneurs-idUSTRE81127D20120202 Komen Struggles to Defuse Planned Parenthood Crisis
Source: Reuters

By David Morgan

The world's leading breast cancer charity, Susan G. Komen for the Cure, struggled on Thursday to defuse a growing crisis over its decision to cut funding for Planned Parenthood, which provides abortion and birth control services.

The sudden rift between the two top U.S. women's health advocacy groups triggered a furious debate on social media sites between supporters and opponents of abortion rights.

Democratic lawmakers called on Komen to reconsider its move as the organization was thrust into the center of an intractable dispute that some say will hamper its work for years to come. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg pledged his own money to help Planned Parenthood recoup the lost funds.

Planned Parenthood had received about $700,000 annually from Komen to provide poor women with breast cancer screening, education and access to affordable mammograms.

As the outcry intensified, Komen founder Nancy Brinker took to national television and the Internet to deny the charity's decision was the result of lobbying from anti-abortion groups.

"We will never bow to political pressure," she said in a video posted on the Komen website.

"The scurrilous accusations being hurled at this organization are profoundly hurtful to so many of us," said Brinker, who founded the group following her sister's death in 1980 of breast cancer. "More importantly, they are a dangerous distraction from the work that still remains to be done in ridding the world of breast cancer."

But philanthropy experts said it would be difficult for Komen to convince people it was not playing politics.

"There's a long-term weakening of the Susan G. Komen brand from this decision," said Melissa Berman, chief executive of nonprofit Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisers, which counsels wealthy donors who give more $200 million a year.

"We would see donors reluctant to be involved with a charity whose decision-making gets influenced by short-term pressures and politics because you would always wonder who is really in charge."

The Christian Science Monitor reported that the Komen foundation nevertheless reported a 100 percent increase in donations received during the past two days, although it said no hard numbers were available. Komen representatives could not immediately be reached for comment on the report.

A Dallas-based charity, the Lee and Amy Fikes Foundation, said it was making a $250,000 donation to Planned Parenthood to allow it to continue providing breast-screening services in the absence of Komen's support.

"Our family is saddened that the far right has relentlessly and successfully pressured (Komen) to cut funding for breast screening, referral and education support to low-income women who, until now, have been able to depend on the partnership between Komen and Planned Parenthood for their health," the Fikes Foundation said in a statement.

The Komen foundation, known for its pink ribbon symbol and Race for the Cure fundraisers, has collected more than $1.9 billion for breast cancer research and programs. It has affiliates in more than 100 U.S. cities and 50 countries.

Komen said its decision reflected a move to eliminate duplicate grants and tighten eligibility rules. That includes barring money to groups under investigation by authorities. Planned Parenthood is the subject of a probe by U.S. Rep. Cliff Stearns, a Florida Republican who opposes abortion.

POLITICIZING CHARITY

On Facebook and Twitter, Americans expressed anger that a widely supported cancer charity appeared to have taken sides in the polarizing debate.

"Susan Komen would not give in to bullies or fear. Too bad the foundation bearing her name did," writer Judy Blume, known for her books on girls growing up, said via Twitter. Democrats in the U.S. Senate urged Komen to reconsider.

"It would be tragic if any woman, let alone thousands of women, lost access to these potentially life-saving screenings because of a politically motivated attack," more than 20 U.S. Democratic senators said in a letter due to be sent later on Thursday.

Activists on both sides of the abortion debate cited evidence of a political shift within Komen.

Abortion rights advocates saw it as part of a turn toward the right. Brinker served as an ambassador to Hungary under President George W. Bush. In 2011, she appointed Republican Karen Handel to a senior policy position with the foundation.

Handel, a former Georgia secretary of state, ran unsuccessfully for state governor in 2010 on a platform that called for defunding Planned Parenthood.

Brinker "is overseeing a fundamental transformation of her organization. It has become a political organization. It is no longer an organization whose mission is to advance women's health," said Terry O'Neill, president of the National Organization for Women.

Jeanne Monahan of the conservative Christian group, Family Research Council, described some of the pressures Komen faced.

"Groups didn't even know there was a formal relationship between Planned Parenthood and Komen until the last few years, and Komen got a lot of negative feedback about that from people who are right to life," she said.

About 15,000 anti-abortion activists sent e-mails to Komen in support of its decision, FRC said.

There were signs of dissent within Komen's ranks. Media reports said the Komen foundation's top public health official, Mollie Williams, had resigned after the decision was made in December. Williams declined to comment on her exit because of a confidentiality agreement with Komen.

"The divide between these two very important organizations saddens me," she said in an email. "I am hopeful their passionate and courageous leaders ... can swiftly resolve this conflict in a manner that benefits the women they both serve."

BLOOMBERG PLEDGE

Planned Parenthood, already barred from using federal funds to provide abortions, has seen the U.S. tax dollars it still receives for family aid to poor women come under intensifying Republican scrutiny in Congress.

"Politics have no place in health care. Breast cancer screening saves lives and hundreds of thousands of women rely on Planned Parenthood for access to care," Bloomberg said in a statement, pledging $250,000 to the group.

Planned Parenthood has also come under attack from lawmakers in several states over the past year, including North Carolina, Indiana and Kansas, who have attempted to block state funding.

In Kansas, some local prosecutors are pressing criminal charges against Planned Parenthood, alleging it failed to maintain paperwork related to the abortions it provided.

Brinker told cable TV news network MSNBC that Planned Parenthood had lost funding partly because existing programs did not meet Komen's new standards. She did not elaborate.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/03/us-usa-healthcare-komen-idUSTRE8111WA20120203 No Women on Facebook Board Shows White Male Influence
Source: Bloomberg

By Carol Hymowitz

Most of Facebook Inc. (FB)’s more than 800 million users are women. You wouldn’t know it from looking at the board, whose seven directors are all men.

The disconnect puts the social-media company at odds with others in the industry that have at least one female director, including LinkedIn Corp. and Google Inc., and from most big public companies in the U.S. Just 11.3 percent of the Fortune 500 had male-only boards last year, according to Catalyst, a New York-based nonprofit that researches women and business issues.

“We’re long past having to defend or explain why women should be on boards, given all the data that shows how companies with female as well as male directors perform better,” said Anne Mulcahy, former chairman and chief executive officer of Xerox Corp. and a director at Johnson & Johnson Co., Target Corp. and Washington Post Co. “It’s unfortunate when companies with a large percentage of women constituents don’t reflect that in their boardrooms.”

A Catalyst survey of Fortune 500 companies found that those with three or more female directors outperformed those with fewer between 2005 and 2009, achieving on average 43 percent better return on equity. As Facebook prepares to raise $5 billion in an initial public offering, the composition of its board shows its business strategy is faulty, said Susan Stautberg, co-founder of New York-based Women Corporate Directors, which promotes female board membership.

“It doesn’t make sense for a company that claims to be so forward looking to not have any women directors,” she said. “If they just have an old boy’s network in the boardroom, they won’t have access to diverse ideas and strategies.”

Female Public Face

Facebook, which began eight years ago in a Harvard University dorm room, had sales of $3.7 billion in 2011. Fifty- eight percent of its users are women, according to a 2010 survey by the Pew Internet and American Life Project that found women spend more time than men making status and profile updates and commenting on others’ posts.

The board’s makeup is surprising considering Facebook’s chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg, is an outspoken advocate for gender equality, said Malli Gero, executive director of 2020 Women on Boards. The public face of the Menlo Park, California-based company, Sandberg, 42, is Facebook’s best-paid senior executive, receiving $30.9 million in compensation last year. She may own up to 1.7 percent of the company after the IPO, and at the top end of the valuation range expected for the offering, her stake may be worth $1.7 billion.

Social Mission

“It’s surprising and disappointing that Facebook has zero female directors because Sandberg is so powerful at the company and so outspoken in favor of women advancing,” said Gero, whose Boston-based nonprofit is campaigning for 20 percent female representation on U.S. boards by 2020.

Sandberg, a Walt Disney Co. director, was co-chairman of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Her activism on gender issues extends to her personal network. Last year, when her friend and EBay Inc. CEO John Donahoe asked for her to recommend a woman to join EBay’s board, she referred him to candidates including Katie Mitic, an executive at Facebook, said John Pluhowski, a spokesman for San Jose, California-based EBay. Mitic joined the EBay board in September.

Sarah Feinberg, a spokeswoman for Facebook, declined to comment on the board’s composition.
‘More Diverse Representation’

Its makeup clashes with the networking website’s ambition to be an agent for equality and openness, Stautberg said.

Mark Zuckerberg, the 27-year-old founder, chairman and chief executive officer, wrote in a letter submitted with the IPO filing that Facebook’s “social mission” is “to make the world more open and connected” and “give everyone a voice and to help transform society for the future.”

Zuckerberg has 56.9 percent voting control of Facebook shares, which some corporate-governance experts have said gives one person too much power.

The other directors are Donald E. Graham, chairman and CEO of The Washington Post Co.; venture capitalist Marc Andreesen, co-founder of Netscape Communications Corp., James W. Breyer, CEO of Breyer Capital; Peter A. Thiel, co-founder of Palantir Technologies Inc. and a fund manager at Clarium Capital LLC; Reed Hastings, chairman and CEO of Netflix Inc.; and Erskine B. Bowles, president emeritus of University of North Carolina.

It’s a board drawn largely from the male investor community as is often the case at Silicon Valley start-ups, said Mulcahy, who groomed Ursula Burns to succeed her at Xerox, where four of 11 directors are women.

As Facebook and other young companies mature, “they need to break out of this pattern and have more diverse representation,” said Mulcahy, who is chairman of Save the Children Inc. “And women also need to be better represented in the private equity industry.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-02/no-women-on-facebook-board-shows-white-male-influence.html Women Fret Over Implants, Line Up at Doctor's Offices
Source: Fox New Latino

By the Associated Press

In Venezuela, where women seem to love going under the knife, hundreds are lining up at doctor's offices worried breast implants.

The office of plastic surgeon Ignacio Sousa in Caracas is packed. College students in their 20s, housewives in their 40s, middle-class office workers: nearly all are fearful that their breast implants may be leaking.

Thousands of women worldwide are consulting their doctors about health concerns that have sprung up since December due to faulty silicone breast implants made by the now-defunct French company Poly Implant Prothese, or PIP. In some cases, the implants filled with industrial-grade silicone have split open, prompting growing demand for their removal.

"It's like a snowball," said Sousa, who has been receiving dozens of patients every day since the news broke that French authorities recommended the implants be removed.

The scandal has hit beauty-obsessed Venezuela particularly hard. An estimated 16,000 Venezuelans have the implants, one of the highest figures among Latin American countries, along with much-larger Brazil, where about 20,000 women have PIP-made implants.

Breast enlargement surgery is common in Venezuela and has grown in popularity in recent years among middle-class women, thanks in part to low-interest loans offered by private clinics for the operations.

The PIP brand was used frequently until the implants were pulled from the market in 2010.

Like many of those affected in Venezuela, Sania Arroyo has struggled with the mounting medical bills. The 33-year-old bank employee and single mother managed to save about 20,000 bolivars, or $4,600, for surgery to replace the implants in January, scraping together nearly four times what she paid to have them inserted in 2007.

She suspected a problem with the implants when she felt a tingling pain under her left breast, and an ultrasound exam confirmed one had ruptured and was leaking silicone into her body.

She said the replacement implants feel more comfortable, but she's still apprehensive about them.

"I feel so much better now, although I still have the fear something similar could happen again," Arroyo said, holding a plastic case containing the ruptured implant and the yellowish silicone that leaked out.

PIP's silicone gel is transparent, but doctors say the substance often turns yellow when it comes in contact with body tissues.

Arroyo is one of 495 Venezuelans who are suing companies that sold the implants, demanding payment of medical costs.

Venezuela's government offered to remove the implants for free, but many women say they won't take up the offer because they prefer to have new implants and the government won't pay for them.

French authorities say an estimated 300,000 women have the implants worldwide, including more than 42,000 in Britain, more than 30,000 in France, 9,000 in Australia and 4,000 in Italy.

The implants were never approved for sale in the United States, but tens of thousands of pairs were sold in Latin America. In Colombia, for instance, the association of plastic surgeons says about 14,000 pairs of PIP implants were sold.

On a per-capita basis, Venezuela appears to lead Latin America in the number of breast implants. That's no surprise to most people in the country, where beauty pageants are a source of national pride and where some teenagers receive implants as birthday presents. Middle-class women sometimes set aside large portions of their salaries for the surgery.

An estimated 35,000 to 40,000 women undergo breast enlargement surgeries in Venezuela each year, and doctors say the numbers have been rising.

"Terror has certainly gripped patients who have the implants, but I don't believe the desire for breast enlargement surgery is going to diminish," said Gabriel Obayi, a surgeon who has been answering many emails from women concerned about health risks.

Like most surgeons in Venezuela, Obayi recommends that PIP implants eventually be removed but advises that surgery is not urgent in most cases.

Regardless of the brand, breast implants are known to break down over time and rupture in some cases.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration banned silicone-gel type implants in 1992 amid fears they might cause cancer, lupus and other diseases. But in 2006 the agency returned the implants to the U.S. market after most studies failed to find a link between silicone breast implants and disease.

The FDA began an investigation last year into a possible link between implants and a very rare form of cancer, known as anaplastic large cell lymphoma. The agency said it had learned of about 60 cases of the disease worldwide among women with implants.

France's Health Safety Agency has said the suspect PIP implants appear to be more rupture-prone than other types, but officials have not specified why.

French health authorities have said they don't know enough about the health effects of the industrial-grade silicone in the faulty implants, and have recommended that women get them removed after the implants ruptured in more than 1,000 cases. The government has agreed to pay for the procedure.

Investigators in France say PIP sought to save money by using industrial silicone rather than the medical-grade variety.

Last week, French authorities filed preliminary charges against PIP's founder, Jean-Claude Mas, who according to his lawyer is under investigation for "involuntary injury." His company went into bankruptcy proceedings shortly after the government in 2010 pulled the implants from the market.

The scandal has left many women asking about the risks they may face, and doctors so far have limited answers.

"We don't know, neither in Venezuela nor Latin America, what percentage of PIP implants rupture," said Dr. Carlos Nieto, a surgeon and board member of the Venezuelan Society of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery.

It's also unclear how many women have had the implants removed so far.

In Argentina, about 300 women are negotiating with private clinics and a local distributor, Pro Estetica, demanding the defective implants be replaced for free, said attorney Virgina Luna, who represents the group.

Gabriela Febres, a 30-year-old financial analyst in Caracas, has joined the legal case against Venezuelan distributors. She suspects she needs to have surgery soon because her right breast has been hurting for weeks.

"This affects you in so many ways: your job, your finances and your psychological state," Febres said. "The uncertainty is the worst."

http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/health/2012/02/02/women-fret-over-implants-line-up-at-doctors-offices/ Texas Women Inmates' Cookbook Shows Joy of “Hot Pot” Cooking
Source: The Washington Post

By Associated Press

These women may not have an oven, refrigerator, stove, knife, or even the ability to boil water, but they do have plenty of time on their hands.

Decades, in fact. And that, combined with a few (admittedly peculiar) ingredients and a desire to cook despite the odds has resulted in a rather unusual cookbook — “From The Big House to Your House,” a collection of 200 recipes by six Texas prison inmates.

The women all are serving at least 50 years at the Mountain View Unit of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, all but one of them for murder. And a hankering for foods they enjoyed on the outside prompted them to get creative on the inside.

For example, they’ve found that an empty potato chip bag works for cooking in a quart-size electric warming pot, their only source of heat for cooking. A plastic ID card — similar to a credit card — makes an acceptable cutting or chopping implement. And tuna and mackerel can be made into great-tasting nachos.

“I know it sounds disgusting,” said Celeste Johnson, 49, one of the authors. “But I love tuna nachos. And I’ve got so many people here converted to it.”

The book was produced with the help of Johnson’s mother, who typed the recipes and submitted the manuscript on the women’s behalf to The Justice Institute, a Seattle group that works with convicts who maintain their innocence. The group published the book and now sells it online.

The book puts into print a long tradition of the joy of cooking behind bars, where generations of Martha Stewart wannabes have concocted legal and illegal brews and stews with a variety of success and failure.

And inmate cooking is not confined to women’s prisons. Former Texas corrections officer Jim Willett remembers his days working in a men’s unit, walking through a cell block and getting whiffs of simmering foods.

“You knew when there were certain foods cooking, just like being in your house,” says Willett, now director of the Texas Prison Museum. “It would make you want to stop and join them, but that’s not legal.

“Something like a Frito pie they’re certainly not going to get in the chow hall.”

The reality of prison cooking is a bit different from “GoodFellas,” the 1990 movie that shows mobsters delicately slicing garlic with a razor blade as they prepare a gourmet Italian dinner for themselves while serving time. And it isn’t always pretty.

Inmates tend to be creative in the “kitchen.” In the past, some have been known to fashion metal plates into skillets that get heated in toilets filled with burning toilet paper. Or to transform tooth paste tubes into spoons and turn fruit into prison “wine.”

In 2009, a Washington state prison inmate’s attempt to warm sausages in his cell’s stainless steel commode didn’t work as hoped. Smoke from the prisoner’s makeshift oven went through a sewer pipe vent and officials evacuated the lockup for what they feared was a fire. The inmate became known as the “toilet chef.”

More typical was the experience of Martha Stewart, the homemaking pro who was said to have dabbled in microwave cooking while locked up a few years ago in a federal prison in West Virginia while serving time for obstruction of justice and lying to the government.

At least she had a microwave, which Federal Bureau of Prisons spokesman Chris Burke said is available to many federal inmates, though they are prohibited from cooking in their cells.

The Texas women — who, in compliance with regulations prohibiting them from profiting from a business while behind bars, are donating proceeds from the book to their publisher — only have their “hot pot,” a coffee pot-like instrument that warms water, but can’t boil it (boiled liquid could become a weapon).

Ingredients also are limited mostly to what can be purchased from the prison commissary. They can forget about real milk — they get powder — or real butter, as well as most individual seasonings. Garlic? They squeeze that from garlic vitamin tablets.

“It looks kind of gross,” Johnson says. “But it works. You’d be surprised.”

Looking for alternatives to meals served in the chow hall, the Texas women began pooling their commissary food purchases and wrote down their discoveries, such as rehydrating potato chips in their warming pot. The resulting mush became a “baked potato.”

“I don’t know if we’ve been away too long, but it does taste like a real baked potato,” says Johnson, who’s been in prison for nine years and won’t become eligible for parole from her life sentence until 2042.

Prison historian Mitch Roth said cooking is a way for inmates to “access their former lives to a certain extent,” and to humanize the often dehumanizing prison experience.

Not every recipe the Texas women tried was a winner. Ceyma Bina, one of the co-authors who has served six years of a 50-year sentence for a slaying in Houston, winced as she described making ravioli from ramen noodles and salsa. And Johnson said rehydrated onion-flavored potato chips “turned like rubber.”

Bina and the others who worked on “From The Big House to Your House,” say in the book’s preface they were confident readers on the other side of the bars would “enjoy the liberty found in creating a home-felt comfort during unfortunate times.”

“It shows people how we survive in here,” said Bina.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/food/texas-women-inmates-cookbook-shows-joy-of-hot-pot-cooking/2012/02/01/gIQAwkmJiQ_story.html For National Girls and Women in Sports Day, More Evidence Fighting Title IX Is Losing Battle
Source: Forbes

By Bob Cook

Today, Feb. 1, is National Girls and Women in Sports Day, which celebrates, as you might expect, girls and women in sports. This year, commemoration is centered around marking the 40th anniversary of the Patsy T. Mink Equal Opportunity in Education Act. You might know the act by what it was called before it was renamed in 2002, and what it’s still called by most people today: Title IX.

When Rep. Mink introduced what became Title IX in June 1972, sports wasn’t in the front of her mind. In fact, the word “sports” is nowhere in the law. With a few exceptions spelled out, the law simply states, “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance… .”

You might think of Title IX as the wondrous piece of legislation that raised girls’ high school sports participation from 294,015 (compared to 3,665,367 boys) in 1971-72, the last pre-Title IX school year, to 3,386,965 (compared to 4,494,406 boys) in 2010-11, according to the National Federation of High School Associations.

Or, you might think of Title IX as outdated legislation that is killing some boys sports.

Or, you might think, as the organizers of National Girls and Women in Sports Day do, that while Title IX has been highly effective, success has come despite much foot-dragging by school administrators and others worried letting girls play will kill the boys’ golden goose.

Despite the stunning advances made in the 40 years since Title IX was enacted, high school girls still receive 1.3 million fewer participation opportunities than do boys , and evidence suggests that the money spent on girls’ sports programs lags significantly behind the money spent on boys’ programs.

Most of the difference in participation, and funding, in boys and girls sports in high school can be explained in one word: Football. (NFHS counts 1,108,441 boys in 11-player football, with only 1,395 girls involved. Also, National Girls and Women in Sports Day this year happens to be overshadowed in a major way by today’s National Signing Day, when college football coaches huddle around fax machines to get letters of intent from high school prospects.)

But football is not all the difference, as lawsuits over the years have contended. Such as one involving when boys and girls basketball games are played at one Indiana high school.

On Jan. 31, the eve of National Girls and Women in Sports Day, the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago overturned a lower court’s dismissal of a Title IX lawsuit against Franklin County Community School Corp. in Brookville, Ind., not far from Cincinnati, and 13 schools on its girls basketball schedule. The plaintiffs, two mothers (one of whom was Franklin County’s girls basketball coach at the time the suit was filed) of players, contended that with “half their games have been relegated to non-primetime nights (generally Monday through Thursday) to give preference to the boys’ Friday and Saturday night games,” the girls’ team suffered “a loss of audience, conflict with homework, and … feelings of inferiority.”

The Circuit Court disagreed with a U.S. District Court judge in Indianapolis who said the lawsuit did not show the girls team suffered substantial damage. The three-judge panel (which includes Frank Easterbrook, brother of ESPN Tuesday Morning Quarterback writer Gregg Easterbrook, who has called Title IX “an exemplar of the kind of government action that initially was justified but since has taken on a life of its own grounded in legal and bureaucratic nonsense”) notes that the Franklin County case focuses on something unusual but important:

…[A]majority of litigation under Title IX has focused on “accommodation” claims where plaintiffs assert that schools have failed to establish athletic programs to meet the interests and abilities of the underrepresented sex. Few cases have focused on “equal treatment” claims seeking substantial equality in program components of athletics. Title IX, however, not only requires schools to establish athletic programs for female athletes, but also prohibits schools from discriminating against females participating in those programs by denying equivalence in benefits, such as equipment, facilities, coaching, scheduling, and publicity. This only makes sense; if schools could meet Title IX’s requirements by creating a sufficient number of female athletic programs that are substantially inferior to their male counterparts’ programs, Title IX’s enforcement scheme would ring hollow.

So in remanding the case back to U.S. District Court, the Circuit Court panel said, indeed, there was evidence that having 53 percent of girls’ games on primetime nights while boys play 95 percent of their games on such nights could create an environment that could dissuade girls from participating. Also, it noted, “tradition” of scheduling boys games’ on Friday and Saturday night doesn’t overcome federal law. The Circuit Court did not rule for the plaintiffs in the lawsuit itself — but it allowed the lawsuit to go forward.

If history holds, Franklin County — and the schools it plays — had better start making adjustments now, no matter how long the lawsuit ends up bouncing around through the court system. I don’t have an official record, but in my research, I’ve found Title IX lawsuits against schools tend to be successful.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/bobcook/2012/02/01/for-national-girls-and-women-in-sports-day-more-evidence-fighting-title-ix-is-losing-battle/ A Parity Gap for Women in Indian Art
Source: The New York Times

By NILANJANA S. ROY

At the India Art Fair, a mammoth annual event here that drew crowds of artists, curators, buyers and gawkers this year, it was clear where women belonged: on an equal platform with the men, often running the show. But their visibility also raised an old and tricky question: Why haven’t female artists caught up with the men when it comes to pricing?

The answer to that question isn’t obvious. At the Art Fair, as in the broader realm of Indian art, there seemed to be two levels at which women participated and were accorded respect. The works of women like the sculptor Hemi Bawa and the photographer Dayanita Singh drew as much attention as the works of men like Jitesh Kallat or Subodh Gupta. And the Indian art world is a hospitable environment for women in other roles — as gallery owners, art fund managers, curators and auction house managers.

Back in the 1940s, there was little room for female artists. Amrita Shergil was one of the few of that era to make her mark, but the advance of modernists in India was dominated by men for the next few decades. It was in the 1970s, the art historian and critic Gayatri Sinha recalls, that the floodgates opened for female artists. But while women have enjoyed equal gallery space and critical praise, their works haven’t commanded the same prices, and women don’t rank among India’s top five artists measured by the admittedly blunt instrument of sales figures.

“The difference in pricing is not a conscious gender divide,” said the art critic Deepanjana Pal, who is based in Mumbai. “Despite the fact that we have so many women gallerists and artists, the ones who are taken more seriously are the men. As a society, we take women less seriously. When you look at artist couples — Atul and Anju Dodiya, Bharti Kher and Subodh Gupta — both might be taken equally seriously by critics, but for a long time, the pricing was completely different. It’s an unconscious bias.”

In 2010, there were a few signs that things might change. “Wish Dream,” a multipaneled canvas by Arpita Singh, an artist based in Delhi, sold at the Saffronart auction for $2.24 million — the highest price ever achieved for a work by an Indian woman at auction. (The highest price fetched by any Indian artist in recent times was $3.4 million, for “Saurashtra,” a painting by S.H. Raza, which sold the same year at Christie’s in London.)

One of Ms. Kher’s signature sculptures, a life-size elephant slumped on the floor, its skin marked with hundreds of bindis — the forehead decoration of many Indian women — sold at Sotheby’s, also in London in 2010, for a record $1.5 million, placing the artist in ninth position on a list of India’s 10 top-selling artists compiled by an art gallery in Delhi.

Opinion in the art world is divided on the question of whether these women are outliers, or indicators that women in general might be catching up with men in terms of pricing parity.

Anjali Purohit, an artist based in Mumbai whose career spans three decades, suggests that pricing is only one way to look at differences between the sexes in the arts, here and elsewhere.

“The situation in India reflects the status of women artists everywhere in the world,” she said. “How many women artists have gained prominence in the wider world? In India, if you look at why the work women artists produce is not taken seriously, start with their early careers. Men are seen as professional from the moment they start working as artists. Women have to prove their credentials, because they’re seen to have other competing priorities — children, the family. A gallery thinks before investing in a woman artist: How seriously does this woman take her art? Will she last?”

The same questions, Ms. Purohit and many female artists say, don’t apply to men.

Some women do break through, says Ms. Pal, the art critic, cautioning that there is a difference between “appreciation and valuation.” Kishore Singh, a former art critic who heads the Delhi Art Gallery, would agree, and he has a nuanced perspective to offer.

“We mustn’t forget that the contemporary Indian art scene started with about four women artists to 70 male artists, roughly, and it’s improved since then,” he said. The discrepancy in pricing is not conscious or obvious, he added, given that the market is driven by female artists, gallery owners and buyers — to a much greater extent than several other art markets.

He said he had noticed a pattern at his gallery that may be of some significance. As with many other buying experiences in India, from cars to household goods, he noted, women tend to do the browsing and selecting, but men tend to make the final decision. Mr. Singh’s observation is corroborated by many other art dealers, who say that women tend to be more curious, but men tend to control the checkbooks.

“When you look at the distance we’ve come over the last few decades,” Mr. Singh said, “you might argue that the art world has been getting more equal, on all fronts. Even with pricing, perhaps it’s catching up. Eventually it has to happen, as art becomes more democratized and as people concentrate less on the signature and more on the artwork.”

And perhaps, he said, the international art market might inadvertently contribute to gender-blind pricing in the Indian art world.

“A buyer or a collector abroad can’t tell from the names whether an artist is a man or a woman,” Mr. Singh said. “With Indian art becoming more international, that might actually work better for women.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/01/world/asia/01iht-letter01.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

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