Education startups: The bottom-up approach doesn't work here ...

By Erin Griffith
On January 24, 2013

Plenty of wide-eyed, ambitious, and possibly naive startups have set out to ?fix? or at the very least, improve, education. You can?t fault anyone for that ? with?US students lagging most of the world in subjects like math and science, the sector has much room for improvement.

The problem comes when those startups try to sell software and tools to schools. The schools want to innovate. It?s just not that simple. There?s a culture clash at play. New York?s Innovate NYC Schools program is trying to change that with the iZone, a 250-school subset of the district focused on experimentation and working with new technologies. Last week the program launched several initiatives to better connect startups with schools (see below).

The problems for startups are as such: Selling software to schools is a nearly impossible act for a startup of the nimble, lean, minimally viable product ilk. If you can get in front of the right person, the school district approval process is cumbersome. There are inflexible processes involving contracts, RFPs, lawyers, layers approvals, review cycles?and compliances that weren?t set up for modern day computing. The sales cycle is long and arduous. School districts are often stuck working with massive companies that have the patience to sit through their six month procurement cycles and productions.

Beyond that, schools are wary to adopt brand-new, untested technologies, because they can?t afford to get burned. If they spend the resources to implement something, they really don?t want want the startup to abandon the strategy six months later and pivot to something different. When an edtech company pivots, or worse, its product is buggy, the ramifications are much broader than the experience of ?Oh no, SnapChat is down.? Schools are aware that innovation doesn?t happen without risk. They?re willing to take some degree of innovation risk. But they can?t take execution risk. ?We can?t pivot away from serving lunch to 300 kids a day,? says Steven Hodas, Executive Director of the Department of Educations?s Innovate NYC Schools program.

The result? Large entities that are only comfortable doing business with other large entities.

That?s why investors and education industry experts often tell edtech startups to sell to the teachers, not the school. Take a cue from the success of freemium, bottom-up software companies like Dropbox or Expensify, and let the usage trickle up, they say.

There?s a problem with that model, though. ?People want it to be true because school districts are so hard to sell to,? Hodas says. Selling from the bottom up ? getting teachers to use your software ? and hoping they can eventually upsell the district on a premium product will not happen, he says. It only leads to startups, some with significant adoption, hitting dead ends once they run out of money after making free tools for a few years. The procurement cycle alone is long enough for a startup to run out of money.

That ultimately means many of the great technologies being built will never be implemented. Fortunately Hodas is not a government employee merely pointing out problems with no solution ? he?s part of the iZone?s Innovate NYC Schools program, which partners schools with tech companies to help blend the disparate cultures between school and startup. New York has dedicated 250 of its 1700 schools to the ?iZone.? Schools in the iZone are given more autonomy to experiment with new technologies. With 250 schools, the iZone is bigger than most school districts in the country. The idea is to give tech providers a better sense of how to sell and implement their solutions at scale.

The iZone schools last week kicked off the program. Startups that get involved with the project learn about the realities of working with large school systems early on, so they?re more prepared to meet their needs.

For some young entrepreneurs who have never had to deal with real world constraints, Hodas says, the needs of the schools can come as a rude awakening. ?You want that freshness and enthusiasm and unwillingness to accept limitations, but at the same time, there are realities out there,? Hodas says. ?Part of our job is to educate folks in a way that?s supportive and gives them a view of what?s necessary without scaring them away,? he says. ?We say, ?Here are some of the hoops you?ll have to jump through.??

Beyond managing the expectations of startups, the program aims to right-size the procurement model for schools, helping them to figure out how to buy and implement good technology faster. There are success stories in edtech ? Wireless Generation, a ten-year-old company offering reading assessment and professional development tools, exited to News Corp. in 2010 for $360 million. Edmodo, the social network for teachers and students, has seen widespread adoption and raised $40 million from Union Square Ventures, Learn Capital, Greylock, Benchmark, NEA and Glynn Capital Management. Schoology has also experienced traction selling its SaaS course management system into school districts.

The Innovate NYC Schools program links startups with schools through meetups and workshops attended by principals, educators, superintendents, as well as developers, project managers and data scientists (sign up here). The program is also building a database of educational products and services for decision makers in the schools to discuss, review and give feedback to various solutions they?ve tried. Lastly, there is an app challenge, where developers can submit their products for a chance to win?$50,000 in cash prizes, $54,000 in Amazon Web Service Credits, and consideration for a pilot program in iZone schools.

If the iZone?s plans to link startups and schools are successful, more edtech companies will live to see ? and sell ? another day.

Source: http://pandodaily.com/2013/01/24/education-startups-the-bottom-up-approach-doesnt-work-here/

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10 Trends to Watch in Finance for 2013 | The Big Picture

10 trends to watch in ?nance for 2013
Barry Ritholtz

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It?s a winter ritual: Seers, prognosticators and other gurus tell us which stocks to buy for the year ahead, where they think the Dow will close in December and which momentous events will take place.

History teaches us that the majority of these charlatans will be wrong, and the ones who get it right are mostly lucky. If you have been reading my column for any length of time, you know to ignore them. (See 2011?s Forecaster Folly.)

When it comes to predictions, I do the following: Note down the forecasts made this month and look back at them in a year. Repeat every year. I use my desktop calendar and an e-mail Web service called Followupthen.com to keep me on track. I started doing this almost a decade ago, and I found it terribly liberating. It will be always be instructive, and, as with the class of 2008 forecasters, occasionally hilarious.

Doing this taught me to ignore the forecasts I see or read, as well as to keep the piehole in the middle of my face closed whenever anyone asks me for a forecast. I defer, saying, ?I have no idea. No one does.? It is fun to watch the TV anchors? heads spin like Linda Blair?s in ?The Exorcist.?

A better use of your time? Discern what?s happening here and now. It?s been my experience that investors spend so much time worrying about what might come next that they miss what just happened.

To that end, let?s look at what?s driving the world of finance. Major shifts have already taken place, and if you understand what they are, it will help your financial planning. From my perspective, these are the more significant trends that will probably continue into 2013:

1. ETFs are eating everything.

The revenge of John Bogle continues apace. As investors figure out that they are not good at stock-picking or managing trades, they have also learned that most professionals are not much better. Paying high mutual fund expenses to a manager who underperforms a benchmark makes little sense. This realization has led to the rise of inexpensive exchange-traded funds and indices.

This ?ETFication? has obvious advantages: low costs, transparency, one-click decision-making. ETFs are accessible through the stock market for easier execution, with no minimum investment required. Even bond giant Pimco recognized this trend and created an ETF version of Bill Gross?s flagship vehicle, the Total Return Fund. Pimco actually charged more for the ETF than its mutual fund to prevent an exodus of investors from the world?s largest bond fund. This will eventually shift.

Note that Bloomberg, Yahoo Finance and Morningstar all have robust ETF sites that are free (Morningstar charges for some data).

2. The financial sector continues to shrink; advisers continue to leave large firms for independents.

Since the financial crisis, Wall Street has shrunk considerably. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were about 7.76?million people employed in finance and insurance as of November. That?s down almost 10?percent from the pre-crisis 2007 peak of about 8.4?million workers.

Its more than the crisis: Technology and productivity gains make it easier to operate with fewer workers. My office is a perfect example: Twenty years ago, it would have taken a huge staff to manage the assets we run, handle all the administrative functions, take care of the monthly reporting and manage compliance. What would have taken two dozen people in the 1980s is easily managed by five people today. Oh, and everyone in the office is required to do research or publish commentary. That would have been impossible 30 years ago.

Over the past 40 years, the financial sector over-expanded. Much of what is happening on Wall Street now reflects the process of reversing that excess capacity.

3. Increased pressure on fees and commissions.This trend predates ETFs and Wall Street shrinkage; highly paid people are being replaced with cheap software and online services. This is likely to continue for the foreseeable future.

This is a very good thing for investors: Academic studies have shown that fees are a drag on returns, and lowering these costs is a risk-free way to improve your returns.

4. Hedge fund troubles.This was not a stellar year for the hedge fund industry. First, there was the issue of underperformance, with the hedgies getting stomped ? they underperformed markets by 15?percent. Although being beaten by the market is part of the business, it must be tough explaining to clients why an $8 ETF outperformed a service for which they were being charged 2?percent plus 20?percent of the profit. Then there were the legal troubles and insider-trading indictments. A few high-profile closings also hurt the industry?s reputation.

What the industry has going for it is human nature (also known as ?greed?). At the first sign of outperformance, the formerly skittish client base will come stampeding back.

5. Dispersal of financial news.As the finance industry gets smaller, the media that covers it is also shrinking. If investors are moving away from stock-picking, there is less of a need for the chattering classes to tell you all about it. That is reflected in a variety of ways: Cable television channel CNBC?s ratings plummeted, and Dow Jones shuttered the 20-year-old magazine SmartMoney.

At the same time, alternative sources of news are rising. Blogs continue to be a source of intelligent analysis and commentary; Twitter has become the new tape/newswire. And start-ups such as StockTwits allow traders and investors to share ideas in real time. (Disclosure: I am an investor in StockTwits.)

6. Demographics are a huge driver.I am not in the camp that believes demographics are the be-all-end-all, but one should not underestimate how significant a factor they are. The aging of the baby boomers is affecting housing (they are downsizing), job creation (they are working longer), investment planning (they have been heavy bond buyers) and generational wealth transfer (it?s a-comin?).

The pig is still moving through the python, and the ramifications will be felt for years.

7. The death of buy-and-hold has been greatly exaggerated.Investors have a tendency to take the wrong lesson from recent experiences, and this one is no different.

Buy-and-hold investors don?t have a lot to show since the market peak ? 2000 or 2007 ? but that is more about valuation than anything else.

Since the punditocracy declared the end of buy-and-hold investing, something interesting has happened: Ten-year buy-and-hold returns became half-decent. Time has moved today?s 10-year-return start date near the post-2003 dot-com bust lows (March 2003). And three-year returns have outperformed both tactical portfolios and global macro as an investment style.

The lesson here is not that buy-and-hold is dead. Rather, it?s that when you begin investing and the valuation you pay matter a great deal to your returns.

8. What hyperinflation?

The deficit scolds have been warning for years that hyperinflation is imminent. I have been hearing these ominous warnings my entire adult life. ?This is unsustainable! Inflation is about to explode!? But inflation has been rather tame, and we are not experiencing anything remotely like hyperinflation.

They keep using that word ?unsustainable,? but with all due respect to Inigo Montoya, I do not think that word means what they think it means.

9. The bond bull market has ended/interest rates are spiking.Similar to what we keep hearing about hyperinflation, we have also been told that the bond market?s bull run is over and that rates are about to go much higher. Indeed, we have been hearing this for nearly a decade.

If you make the same prediction annually, you will eventually be right. Of course, that prediction will be of absolutely no value to anyone. I hereby declare that after three years of the same wrong forecast, you lose your pundit?s license. After five years, you must shut it ? forever.

10. The Fed still holds the system together.

This is the one trend that rules them all: The Fed has held the system together with a combination of ultra-low rates and massive liquidity injections known as QE, or quantitative easing.

Without this extraordinary intervention, the United States would probably be in a deep recession, home foreclosures would be considerably higher and major money-center banks would either be begging for another bailout or declaring bankruptcy.

The announcement of QE4 means that this trend is likely to continue for the foreseeable future ? and perhaps even further.

You may not have thought all that deeply about these trends, if at all. But I can assure you that understanding these forces is much more productive than reading someone else?s guesses as to what may or may not be true one year from now.

~~~

Ritholtz is chief executive of FusionIQ, a quantitative research firm. He is the author of ?Bailout Nation? and runs a finance blog, the Big Picture. On Twitter: @Ritholtz.

Source: http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2013/01/10-trends-to-watch-in-fnance-for-2013/

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Our Town and Its Business: Customer Service

"Cowardice asks the question...is it safe? Expediency asks the question...is it politic? Vanity asks the question...is it popular? But conscience asks the question...is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular but one must take it because it is right." ~Dr. Martin Luther King

Source: http://evelynmbuck.blogspot.com/2013/01/customer-service.html

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Colorado movie theater where massacre occurred set to reopen

DENVER (Reuters) - The Aurora, Colorado, movie theater where 12 people were killed in a shooting rampage at a Batman film last July was set to reopen on Thursday evening with a private "night of remembrance" for survivors and others connected to the tragedy.

The owners of the theater, Cinemark USA, offered victims or their relatives free passes to a movie later on Thursday after the event and invited them to view the revamped theater where the massacre occurred.

But in a letter to Cinemark, families of nine murder victims took umbrage at the offer to tour "the very theater where our loved ones lay dead on the floor for over 15 hours."

"We would give anything to wipe the carnage of that night out of our minds' eye," the letter said. "Thank you for reminding us how your quest for profits has blinded your leadership and made you so callous as to be oblivious to our mental anguish."

A spokeswoman for Cinemark declined to comment.

Some victims' relatives have said they will attend the event, among them Tom Sullivan, whose son Alex was killed in the massacre.

"If you truly knew my son Alex, you would know that he would want me to be there, if only to show that we will not allow anyone to take the joy we shared at theaters ... away from us," Sullivan wrote in an opinion piece published by the Denver Post.

After Thursday night's event, the theater will offer free movie passes to the public from Friday through Sunday. The theater will then close and reopen for good on January 25

The 16-theater multiplex has been closed since July 20, when a gunman opened fire on moviegoers during a screening of "The Dark Knight Rises," killing 12 and wounding dozens of others. Former graduate student James Holmes is charged with multiple counts of first-degree murder and attempted murder.

Aurora Mayor Steve Hogan, Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper and Cinemark President Tim Warner are slated to speak at Thursday's event.

Hogan issued a video statement about the reopening, calling it "part of a healing process" for the city of 325,000. He said three-quarters of Aurora citizens who responded to an online survey conducted by the city requesting input on the future of the site said they wanted the theater to reopen.

Cinemark is the third-largest movie exhibitor in the United States, according to a company profile.

The Texas-based theater chain reported a 1 percent year-over-year dip in revenue to $636.6 million in the third quarter of 2012, the time frame when the shooting occurred.

Cinemark has refrained from commenting publicly about the massacre. Some victims have sued the chain over the rampage, charging that the theater should have had more security because it was aware of previous crimes in or near the multiplex.

In a court filing seeking dismissal of the lawsuits, Cinemark denied it was aware of other crimes at the theater, but even if true, "such an event would be insufficient to make a madman's mass murder foreseeable."

(Editing by Dan Whitcomb and Peter Cooney)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/colorado-movie-theater-where-massacre-occurred-set-reopen-230846087--finance.html

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Finding Momo: Instagram User Creates Where's Waldo Photographs Of His Adorable Dog (PHOTOS)

Forget Waldo, Instagram user Andrew Knap is challenging you to find Momo, his adorable black and white border collie. Momo has a knack for blending in with his surroundings, as you can see in the images captured by his doting owner below.

The 30-year-old graphic designer from Canada began snapping shots of his pup as a gift for his nieces and nephews, according to the Daily Mail. He discovered Momo's talent for camouflage while playing fetch, watching as his dog would disappear into the landscape even before he threw a stick. So he began posing his four-legged friend in eye-catching scenes across his hometown of Sudbury, Ontario, snapping idyllic shots of Momo hidden in plain site.

As you can imagine, Momo's antics are picking up so many online followers that Knapp has announced his plans to turn the collection of Instagram pictures into a book.

Scroll through the slideshow below for more images from "Finding Momo." Let us know what you think of the pet project in the comments section.

h/t This is Colossal

Earlier on HuffPost:

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/17/finding-momo-instagram-user-photos-of-dog_n_2497910.html

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Hiking Apparel- Kathmandu Backpack Review - Recreation, Travel ...

January 17th, 2013 | Uncategorized

Hiking Apparel- Kathmandu Backpack Review ? The most popular videos are here

Hiking is an exciting outdoor activity. It allows one to enjoy nature and to sometimes travel in extreme and unfriendly conditions in the wild. Other than walking, hikers can also engage in camping, rappelling, kayaking and other related outdoor activities. Despite the fun and thrill hiking brings, it has threats to personal safety which include different types of dangerous situations and specific ailments and accidents. This is why preparation is key to preventing any of these challenges. Purchasing the right hiking backpack where you can place all your necessities is critical.

Source: http://www.inntownmotel.net/uncategorized/hiking-apparel-kathmandu-backpack-review/

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Source: http://forums.ferra.ru/index.php?showtopic=54029

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Arts and entertainment: Fiction, films: what works best? | kaatun88 ...

Sorry, Readability was unable to parse this page for content.

Source: http://asisboss.blogspot.com/2013/01/arts-and-entertainment-fiction-films.html

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What is Personal Income Tax? | BMS.co.in :: Bachelors in ...

Personal Income tax

Personal income tax is levied by Central Government and is administered by Central Board of Direct taxes under Ministry of Finance in accordance with the provisions of the Income Tax Act. The rates for personal income tax are as follows:-

Income range (Rupee) Tax Rate (%)

0-100,000 Nil
1,00,000-1,50,000 10
1,50,000-2,50,000 20
2,50,000 and above?????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????30

Surcharges of 10% on total tax is levied if income exceeds Rs. 8,50,000

Recent budget initiatives in this regard are as follows:

Threshold limit of exemption in the case of all assessees to be increased by Rs.10,000 thus giving every assessee a relief of Rs.1,000; in the case of a woman assessee, threshold limit to be increased from Rs.135,000 to Rs.145,000 and in case of a senior citizen from Rs.185,000 to Rs.195,000 giving him or her a relief of Rs.2,000; deduction in respect of medical
insurance premium under section 80D to be increased to a maximum of Rs.15,000 and, in case of a senior citizen, a maximum of Rs.20,000.

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About BMS Team

We, at BMS.co.in, believe in sharing knowledge and giving quality information to our BMS students. We are here to provide and update you with every details required by you BMSites! If you want to join us, please mail to contact@bms.co.in.

Source: http://www.bms.co.in/what-is-personal-income-tax/

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Plastic Surgery Sparks an Interest with Allure Magazine's Top Editors

Over the past few decades, ?the global interest for plastic surgery has reached an all time high. ?Talented surgeons offering state of the art procedures such as the "Brazilian Butt Lift" and "Mommy Makeover" have captured the interest of many, including the top editors at Allure Magazine.

Read the article below to learn how?Allure Magazine?plans to keep readers on the edge of their seats in?2013...

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/27/fashion/the-journalist-joan-kron-and-the-world-of-plastic-surgery.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Source: http://orlandoplasticsurgery.blogspot.com/2013/01/plastic-surgery-sparks-interest-with.html

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Archaebacteria: The Third Domain of Life Missed by Biologists for Decades

These unusual bacteria are genealogically neither prokaryotes nor eukaryotes. This discovery means there are not two lines of descent of life but three: the archaebacteria, the true bacteria and the eukaryotes

By Carl R. Woese

Methanogens, anaerobic bacteria that generate methane from hydrogen and carbon dioxide, make up the largest group of archaebacteria identified so far. Four genera of methanogens that differ widely in size and morphology are seen here in scanning electron micrographs made by Alexander J. B. Zehnder of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. Shown here is Methanosarcina. The cells are shown enlarged 2,500 diameters. The methanogens are found only in oxygen-free environments. Image: Scientific American

Editor's Note: Microbiologist Carl R. Woese, a recipient of the Crafoord Prize, Leeuwenhoek Medal, and a National Medal of Science, died December 30 at the age of 84. We are making this classic, definitive essay that outlines the evidence for archaebacteria as a domain of life (independent of eukaryotes and true bacteria) free online for the next 14 days. This story was originally published in the June 1981 issue of Scientific American.

Early natural philosophers held that life on the earth is fundamentally dichotomous: all living things are either animals or plants. When microorganisms were discovered, they were di?vided in the same way. The large and motile ones were considered to be ani?mals and the ones that appeared not to move, including the bacteria, were con?sidered to be plants. As understanding of the microscopic world advanced it became apparent that a simple twofold classification would not suffice, and so additional categories were introduced: fungi, protozoa and bacteria. Ultimate?ly, however, a new simplification took hold. It seemed that life might be dichot?omous after all, but at a deeper level, namely in the structure of the living cell. All cells appeared to belong to one or the other of two groups: the eukaryotes, which are cells with a well-formed nucleus, and the prokaryotes, which do not have such a nucleus. Multicellular plants and animals are eukaryotic and so are many unicellular organisms. The only prokaryotes are the bacteria (in?cluding the cyanobacteria, which were formerly called blue-green algae).

In the past few years my colleagues and I have been led to propose a funda?mental revision of this picture. Among the bacteria we have found a group of organisms that do not seem to belong to either of the basic categories. The or?ganisms we have been studying are pro?karyotic in the sense that they do not have a nucleus, and indeed outwardly they look much like ordinary bacteria. In their biochemistry, however, and in the structure of certain large molecules, they are as different from other prokary?otes as they are from eukaryotes. Phylo?genetically they are neither prokaryotes nor eukaryotes. They make up a new "primary kingdom," with a completely different status in the history and the natural order of life.

We have named these organisms ar?chaebacteria. The name reflects an untested conjecture about their evolution?ary status. The phylogenetic evidence suggests that the archaebacteria are at least as old as the other major groups. Moreover, some of the archaebacteria have a form of metabolism that seems particularly well suited to the conditions believed to have prevailed in the early history of life on the earth. Hence it seems possible that the newest group of organisms is actually the oldest.

The evolutionary record

The earth is four and a half billion years old, and on the basis of the macro?scopic fossil record it would appear to have been inhabited for less than a sev?enth of that time: the entire evolutionary progression from the most ancient ma?rine forms to man spans only 600 mil?lion years. The fossil imprints of unicellular organisms too small to be seen with the unaided eye tell a different sto?ry. Microfossils of bacteria in particular are plentiful in sediments of all ages; they have been found in the oldest intact sedimentary rocks known, 3.5-billion? year-old deposits in Australia. Over an enormous expanse of time, during which no higher forms existed, the bac?teria arose and radiated to form a wide variety of types inhabiting a great many ecological niches. This age of microorganisms is the most important period in evolutionary history not only because of its duration but also because of the na?ture of the evolutionary events that took place over those billions of years.

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=29fd43d4f0826cdfad91c5ed9226f69e

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Using the Internet to Find Affordable Auto Insurance | Celeste Bright

With our society becoming increasingly reliant on cars every day, it is essential to purchase an effective car insurance plan. Auto insurance includes many benefits. Auto insurance will protect your against financial loss, cover damage to or theft of your car, pay for your legal responsibility if you are responsible in an accident. Auto insurance rates and coverage can vary greatly depending on the company, which can be frustrating. Instead of spending hours researching on your own, why not let us do the work for you and provide you with all your options? Our site is your resource to find an assortment of quotes on car insurance, home insurance, renters insurance, and health insurance. Buying insurance doesn?t have to be a stressful experience; by using our website, it never will be. Free Insurance Quotes Buffalo NY

Insurance Brokers

Source: http://celestebright.com/using-the-internet-to-find-affordable-auto-insurance-2/

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Study ties drug shortage to poorer cancer survival | Online Athens

Young cancer patients who couldn't get a key medicine because of a national drug shortage were more likely to suffer a relapse than others who were able to get the preferred treatment, doctors report. It's the first evidence that a long-standing drug-supply problem probably has affected cancer treatment results in specific patients.

The study involved more than 200 children and young adults with a blood cancer called Hodgkin lymphoma. Like childhood leukemia, it can be cured nearly 80 percent of the time. But a drug shortage that has worsened since 2009 is threatening that success rate, doctors report in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine.

Hundreds of drugs, including sedatives, antibiotics, painkillers and cancer treatments, have gone in and out of short supply in recent years. Reasons include manufacturing and contamination problems, plant shutdowns, and fewer makers and lower profits for certain drugs, especially generics infused during surgery or cancer treatment.

Doctors sometimes substitute different drugs for ones in short supply. But proving that the swaps led to poorer results has been tough, especially for cancer patients whose disease and response to treatment vary so much.

"We really couldn't put our finger on, did anybody really suffer?" said Dr. Michael Link, a cancer specialist at Stanford University and past president of the American Society of Clinical Oncology.

The new study, led by Dr. Monika Metzger of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, gives the best evidence so far that patients are suffering.

It focused on mechlorethamine, or nitrogen mustard, a drug that has been in short supply until last month, when more became available. Doctors compared results among 181 Hodgkin lymphoma patients who received the drug to 40 others who were given a different chemotherapy, cyclophosphamide, when the first choice was unavailable.

Only 75 percent of those given the substitute drug stayed free of cancer for two years versus 88 percent who received the preferred treatment.

"We can think of no credible explanation for this dramatic difference" other than the drug substitution, the authors wrote.

No patients died, but those who relapsed were given more aggressive treatments, including stem-cell transplants that have more side effects and can harm fertility.

One of them was Abby Alonzo, of Port St. Lucie, Fla. She was diagnosed with lymphoma three years ago, when she was 10. After eight weeks of treatment with the preferred drug, "she was doing wonderfully," said her mother, Katie Alonzo.

Then doctors said they were out of it.

"I said, what do you mean, we don't have the medication my child needs?" Katie Alonzo said.

After four weeks on the substitute chemo, Abby's cancer had returned and spread to more places, her mother said. The child received high doses of chemotherapy and radiation and now seems cancer-free, although the treatments damaged her lung capacity, leaving her short of breath.

"When your child has cancer you live day by day," and to find out a life-saving medicine isn't available is "very, very frightening," Katie Alonzo said.

Source: http://onlineathens.com/health/2012-12-31/study-ties-drug-shortage-poorer-cancer-survival

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Alfred Morris does Adrian Peterson one yard better, leads Washington into postseason (Powerlineblog)

Share With Friends: | | Politics - Top Stories Stories, RSS Feeds and Widgets via Feedzilla.

Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/274009102?client_source=feed&format=rss

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