Heart Attack Patients in the U. S. More Likely to Be Readmitted to the Hospital Than Patients in Other Countries
By (ScienceDaily)
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In an analysis of data from more than 15 countries that included the U.S., Canada, Australia, and many European nations, patients in the U.S. who experienced a ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI; a certain pattern on an electrocardiogram following a heart attack) were more likely to be readmitted to the hospital at 30 days after the heart attack than patients in other countries, according to a study in the
Heart attack with ST-segment elevation accounts for 29 percent to 38 percent of all heart attacks. "In the present era of primary percutaneous coronary intervention [PCI; procedures such as balloon angioplasty or stent placement used to open narrowed coronary arteries], survival to hospital discharge has improved dramatically. Subsequently, patients who survive to hospital discharge are at risk for early postdischarge hospital readmission," according to background information in the article. "Recently, 30-day readmission rates have been proposed as a metric for care of patients with STEMI. However, international rates and predictors of 30-day readmission after STEMI have not been studied."
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Other predictors of readmission included recurrent ischemia, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, chronic inflammatory conditions, and a history of hypertension.
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"Significant attention has been focused on reducing acute myocardial infarction readmission rates in the United States as a means of reducing health care costs, according to the assumption that readmission is (at least in part) preventable. Our analysis shows that readmission may be preventable because rates are nearly one-third lower in other countries, suggesting that the U.S. health care system has features that can be modified to decrease readmission rates. Understanding these international differences may provide important insight into reducing such rates, particularly in the United States."
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Taliban leaders held at Guantánamo Bay to be released in peace talks deal
By Julian Borger, and Jon Boone
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The US has agreed in principle to release high-ranking Taliban officials from Guantánamo Bay in return for the Afghan insurgents' agreement to open a political office for peace negotiations in Qatar, the Guardian has learned.
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The releases would be to reciprocate for Tuesday's announcement from the Taliban that they are prepared to open a political office in Qatar to conduct peace negotiations "with the international community" – the most significant political breakthrough in ten years of the Afghan conflict.
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"To take this step, the [Obama] administration have to have sufficient confidence that the Taliban are going to reciprocate," said Vali Nasr, who was an Obama administration adviser on the Afghan peace process until last year. "It is going to be really risky. Guantánamo is a very sensitive issue politically."
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"If it had not happened then the idea of reconciliation would have been completely finished. The Qatar office is akin to the Taliban forming a Sinn Féin, a political wing to conduct negotiations," Nasr said, but added: "The next phase will need concessions on both sides. This doesn't mean we are now on autopilot to peace."
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Did We Learn Anything in Iraq?
By Tom Engelhardt
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On December 14th at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, the president and his wife gave returning war veterans from the 82nd Airborne Division and other units a rousing welcome. With some in picturesque maroon berets, they picturesquely hooahed the man who had once called their war "dumb." Undoubtedly looking toward his 2012 campaign, President Obama, too, now spoke stirringly of "success" in Iraq, of "gains," of his pride in the troops, of the country's "gratitude" to them, of the spectacular accomplishments achieved as well as the hard times endured by "the finest fighting force in the history of the world," and of the sacrifices made by our "wounded warriors" and "fallen heroes."
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Not surprisingly, given the society it comes from, the US military fights a consumer-intensive style of war and so, in purely commercial terms, the leaving of Iraq was a withdrawal for the ages. Nor should we overlook the trophies the military took home with it, including a vast Pentagon database of thumbprints and retinal scans from approximately 10 percent of the Iraqi population. (A similar program is still underway in Afghanistan.)
When it came to "success," Washington had a good deal more than that going for it. After all, it plans to maintain a Baghdad embassy so gigantic it puts the Saigon embassy of 1973 to shame. With a contingent of 16,000 to 18,000 people, including a force of perhaps 5,000 armed mercenaries (provided by private security contractors like Triple Canopy with its $1.5 billion State Department contract), the "mission" leaves any normal definition of "embassy" or "diplomacy" in the dust.
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In other words, the Iraqis were meant to wake up the morning after to find their foreign comrades gone, without so much as a goodbye. This is how much the last American unit trusted its closest local allies. After shock and awe, the taking of Baghdad, the mission-accomplished moment, and the capture, trial, and execution of Saddam Hussein, after Abu Ghraib and the bloodletting of the civil war, after the surge and the Sunni Awakening movement, after the purple fingers and the reconstruction funds gone awry, after all the killing and the dying, the US military slipped into the night without a word.
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Former pipeline inspector calls Keystone XL a potential ‘disaster’
By Stephen Lacey
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Klink was an inspector for Bechtel, one of the major contractors working on TransCanada's original Keystone pipeline, completed in 2010. Klink says he raised numerous concerns about shoddy materials and poor craftsmanship during construction of the pipeline, which brings tar-sands crude from Canada to Midwestern refineries in the U.S. Instead of actually addressing the problems, Klink claims he was fired by Bechtel in retaliation. He filed a complaint [PDF] with the Department of Labor in March of 2010, and made his story public last fall.
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A recent environmental impact statement -- outsourced by the State Department to another major TransCanada contractor -- found that there would be "limited adverse environmental impacts" associated with the 1,700-mile Keystone XL pipeline. Opponents of the pipeline cried foul, saying it was yet another major conflict of interest between the State Department and TransCanada.
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White House officials say the 60-day timeline forced by Congress on the Keystone XL pipeline will force the administration to deny the project. This is exactly what Republicans want -- but only to make the pipeline an election issue, not to consider the myriad environmental issues being raised.
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Chinese oil company Sinopec agrees $2.2bn US shale deal
By (BBC)
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Sinopec will get a one-third stake in five new shale projects, with the firms expecting to drill 125 wells this year.
China has been buying energy sources to feed its fast-growing economy, and wants to improve its ability to extract domestic shale deposits.
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Sinopec is not alone in trying to access US shale deposits, which are hoped will yield gas and oil.
France's Total also announced $2.3bn shale deal with Chesapeake Energy and EnerVest.
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