Internet searches can identify drug safety issues well ahead of public alerts

Public release date: 6-Mar-2013
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Contact: Emma Dickinson
edickinson@bmjgroup.com
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BMJ-British Medical Journal

Analysis of anonymized web log data could be used as early warning system

The authors base their findings on an analysis of the anonymised search logs of millions of US web users, who agreed to install a browser add-on and share their online searches with Microsoft throughout 2010.

The researchers developed automated tools to analyse the queries of people who searched for information on the antidepressant (paroxetine) and a cholesterol lowering drug (pravastatin), using the search engines Google, Bing and Yahoo.

In 2010, it was not yet public knowledge that taking both these two drugs caused high blood sugar (hyperglycaemia), but the authors later extracted this information by mining the US drugs regulator's medicines side effect reporting system (AERS) and confirming the finding in a separate laboratory study.

In the web log study, the authors looked at whether people who had searched online for either one of the drugs separately, or for both of them, would also search with queries containing terms associated with the symptoms of high blood sugar.

In all, they analysed 82 million drug, symptom, and condition queries from among 6 million web users.

They found that online searches for information on prescription drugs was common, with more than one in 250 people looking up at least one of the 100 top selling drugs in the US, including paroxetine and pravastatin.

For people who searched online for both drugs during the 12 month period, queries were made on the same day in almost a third (29.61%) of searches, while four out of 10 were in the same week. Six out of 10 were made within the same month.

During the study period, those people who looked up both drugs online were almost twice as likely to search for terms associated with high blood sugar as were those who looked up the drugs separately.

One in 10 of those looking up both drugs did this, compared with around one in 20 of those looking up each drug separately. Just 0.3% of all users searched for one or more terms associated with high blood sugar over the 12 months.

These differences in search patterns were evident across the whole period of the study, and were not influenced by public information as the discovery of the interaction between this particular pair of drugs was only made in 2011.

Analysis of other 31 drug pair interactions associated with high blood sugar also indicated similar patterns, suggesting that the value of log analysis is not just confined to paroxetine and pravastatin.

"There is a potential public health benefit in listening to such signals, and integrating them with other sources of information," write the authors. "We see a potentially valuable signal, even though search logs are unstructured, not necessarily related to health, and can include any words entered by users," they add.

And they conclude: "We believe that patient search behaviour directly captures aspects of patients' concerns about sensed [symptoms] and can complement more traditional sources of data for pharmacovigilance [drug safety monitoring]."

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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Public release date: 6-Mar-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Emma Dickinson
edickinson@bmjgroup.com
44-020-738-36529
BMJ-British Medical Journal

Analysis of anonymized web log data could be used as early warning system

The authors base their findings on an analysis of the anonymised search logs of millions of US web users, who agreed to install a browser add-on and share their online searches with Microsoft throughout 2010.

The researchers developed automated tools to analyse the queries of people who searched for information on the antidepressant (paroxetine) and a cholesterol lowering drug (pravastatin), using the search engines Google, Bing and Yahoo.

In 2010, it was not yet public knowledge that taking both these two drugs caused high blood sugar (hyperglycaemia), but the authors later extracted this information by mining the US drugs regulator's medicines side effect reporting system (AERS) and confirming the finding in a separate laboratory study.

In the web log study, the authors looked at whether people who had searched online for either one of the drugs separately, or for both of them, would also search with queries containing terms associated with the symptoms of high blood sugar.

In all, they analysed 82 million drug, symptom, and condition queries from among 6 million web users.

They found that online searches for information on prescription drugs was common, with more than one in 250 people looking up at least one of the 100 top selling drugs in the US, including paroxetine and pravastatin.

For people who searched online for both drugs during the 12 month period, queries were made on the same day in almost a third (29.61%) of searches, while four out of 10 were in the same week. Six out of 10 were made within the same month.

During the study period, those people who looked up both drugs online were almost twice as likely to search for terms associated with high blood sugar as were those who looked up the drugs separately.

One in 10 of those looking up both drugs did this, compared with around one in 20 of those looking up each drug separately. Just 0.3% of all users searched for one or more terms associated with high blood sugar over the 12 months.

These differences in search patterns were evident across the whole period of the study, and were not influenced by public information as the discovery of the interaction between this particular pair of drugs was only made in 2011.

Analysis of other 31 drug pair interactions associated with high blood sugar also indicated similar patterns, suggesting that the value of log analysis is not just confined to paroxetine and pravastatin.

"There is a potential public health benefit in listening to such signals, and integrating them with other sources of information," write the authors. "We see a potentially valuable signal, even though search logs are unstructured, not necessarily related to health, and can include any words entered by users," they add.

And they conclude: "We believe that patient search behaviour directly captures aspects of patients' concerns about sensed [symptoms] and can complement more traditional sources of data for pharmacovigilance [drug safety monitoring]."

###

---

[ | E-mail | Share ]

?

AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-03/bmj-isc030513.php

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White House tours canceled due to federal budget cuts (Los Angeles Times)

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

Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/289288479?client_source=feed&format=rss

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Teen Mom 2 Recap: The Ex Factor

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2013/03/teen-mom-2-recap-the-ex-factor/

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Your Best Guide To chaussures de football Online Marketing ...

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Source: http://www.kratkeclanky.cz/2013/03/your-best-guide-to-chaussures-de-football-online-marketing-suggestions/

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Head of Chadian army claims troops kill Belmoktar

FILE - This image taken from video provided by the SITE Intel Group made available Thursday Jan. 17, 2013, purports to show militant militia leader Moktar Belmoktar. The head of Chad's military has announced Saturday March 2, 2013, on state television that Chadian troops deployed in northern Mali have killed Moktar Belmoktar, the international terrorist responsible for the attack on a natural gas plant in Algeria that resulted in the death of dozens of foreigners. The French military, which is leading the offensive in northern Mali, says it cannot confirm the information. (AP Photo/SITE Intel Group) THE ASSOCIATED PRESS HAS NO WAY OF INDEPENDENTLY VERIFYING THE CONTENT, LOCATION OR DATE OF THIS PICTURE. MANDATORY CREDIT: SITE Intel Group

FILE - This image taken from video provided by the SITE Intel Group made available Thursday Jan. 17, 2013, purports to show militant militia leader Moktar Belmoktar. The head of Chad's military has announced Saturday March 2, 2013, on state television that Chadian troops deployed in northern Mali have killed Moktar Belmoktar, the international terrorist responsible for the attack on a natural gas plant in Algeria that resulted in the death of dozens of foreigners. The French military, which is leading the offensive in northern Mali, says it cannot confirm the information. (AP Photo/SITE Intel Group) THE ASSOCIATED PRESS HAS NO WAY OF INDEPENDENTLY VERIFYING THE CONTENT, LOCATION OR DATE OF THIS PICTURE. MANDATORY CREDIT: SITE Intel Group

N'DJAMENA, Chad (AP) ? Chad's military chief announced late Saturday that his troops deployed in northern Mali had killed Moktar Belmoktar, the terrorist who orchestrated the attack on a natural gas plant in Algeria that left 36 foreigners dead.

The French military, which is leading the offensive against al-Qaida-linked rebels in Mali, said they could not immediately confirm the information.

Local officials in Kidal, the northern town that is being used as the base for the military operation, cast doubt on the assertion, saying Chadian officials are attempting to score a PR victory to make up for the significant losses they have suffered in recent days.

Known as the "one-eyed," Belmoktar's profile soared after the mid-January attack and mass hostage-taking on a huge Algerian gas plant. His purported death comes a day after Chad's president said his troops had killed Abou Zeid, the other main al-Qaida commander operating in northern Mali.

If both deaths are confirmed, it would mean that the international intervention in Mali had succeeded in decapitating two of the pillars of al-Qaida in the Sahara.

"Chad's armed forces in Mali have completely destroyed a base used by jihadists and narcotraffickers in the Adrar and Ifoghas mountains" of northern Mali, said Army Chief of Staff Gen. Zakaria Ngobongue in a televised statement on state-owned National Chadian Television. "The provisional toll is as follows: Several terrorists killed, including Moktar Belmoktar."

The French military moved into Mali on Jan. 11 to push back militants linked to Belmoktar and Abou Zeid and other extremist groups who had imposed harsh Islamic rule in the north of the vast country and who were seen as an international terrorist threat.

France is trying to rally other African troops to help in the military campaign, since Mali's military is weak and poor. Chadian troops have offered the most robust reinforcement.

In Paris, French military spokesman Col. Thierry Burkhard said that he had "no information" on the possibility that Belmoktar was dead. The Foreign Ministry refused to confirm or deny the report.

A spokesman for Chad's presidential palace did not immediately return a request for comment. In Kidal in northern Mali, an elected official, who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press, said that he did not believe that Belmoktar was dead and waved off the claim as an attempt by Chad to explain the loss of dozens of their troops to a grieving nation.

"These last few weeks, the Chadians have lost a significant number of soldiers in combat. (Claiming that they killed Belmoktar) is a way to give some importance to their intervention in Mali," said the official, who keeps in close contact with both French and Malian commanders in the field.

Belmoktar, an Algerian, is believed to be in his 40s, and like his sometimes partner and sometimes rival, Abou Zeid, he began on the path to terrorism after Algeria's secular government voided the 1991 election won by an Islamic party.

Both men joined the Armed Islamic Group, or GIA, and later its offshoot, the GSPC, a group that carried out suicide bombings on Algerian government targets.

Around 2003, both men crossed into Mali, where they began a lucrative kidnapping business, snatching European tourists, aid workers, government employees and even diplomats and holding them for multimillion-dollar ransoms.

The Algerian terror cell amassed a significant war chest, and joined the al-Qaida fold in 2006, renaming itself al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb.

Until last December, Belmoktar and Abou Zeid headed separate brigades under the flag of al-Qaida's chapter in the Sahara. But after months of reports of infighting between the two, Belmoktar peeled off, announcing the creation of his own terror unit, still loyal to the al-Qaida ideology but separate from al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb.

It was this group that launched the fatal attack on a BP-operated natural gas plant in southeastern Algeria in retaliation for the French-led military intervention in Mali.

In the attack and in the subsequent rescue attempt, 37 people, all but one of them foreigners, were killed inside the complex. Belmoktar claimed responsibility for the attack within hours, immediately catapulting him into the ranks of international terrorists.

In addition to the alleged killing of Belmoktar, Ngobongue said that Chad's military had also nabbed 60 of the jihadists' cars, electronic equipment and weapons. "The raid is still ongoing," he said.

___

Callimachi contributed to this report from Dakar, Senegal. Baba Ahmed contributed from Bamako, Mali.

___

Rukmini Callimachi can be reached at www.twitter.com/rcallimachi

Baba Ahmed can be reached at www.twitter.com/babahmed1

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2013-03-02-Mali-Belmoktar/id-0a601ae2ce9f4abda98acf03bf385f41

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Turkish Airlines still in talks over big aircraft order

ISTANBUL/FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Turkish Airlines is still in negotiations for an order for over 100 aircraft, a spokesman said, after a German report that a deal with Airbus had not come off during a trip by German chancellor Angela Merkel to Turkey.

Turkish Airlines wanted up to 120 of the European planemaker's A320 aircraft but held back from signing at the last minute after the airline said it wanted more Turkish suppliers to be involved, German magazine Focus reported without citing sources.

"Negotiations are still going on. And it's not right for us to comment on this issue at this stage," a spokesman for Turkish Airlines told Reuters on Saturday.

A spokesman for Airbus declined to comment.

Turkish Airlines plans to order more narrow-body planes after buying billions of dollars worth of larger models in 2012.

When budget carrier Pegasus Airlines placed its first order for Airbus jets in December, turning its back on Boeing , Turkey's transport minister had called on Airbus to contribute more to Turkey's aviation sector.

(Reporting by Evrim Ergin and Victoria Bryan; editing by Ron Askew)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/turkish-airlines-still-talks-over-big-aircraft-order-124607363--sector.html

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Republican losses obscure US drift to right

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Republican angst over presidential election losses obscures the fact that many conservative ideals have prospered for decades.

Conservative efforts have pushed the government rightward on taxes, spending and other policies, despite losses on some social fronts. One might say Republicans keep losing battles but winning wars.

This rightward drift serves as a curious, often ignored backdrop for GOP leaders' claims that the country is burdened by massive spending and taxation.

Republican lawmakers, for instance, adamantly oppose President Barack Obama's call for higher tax revenues as part of an alternative to big spending cuts about to hit government agencies. Yet the federal tax burden, as a portion of the overall economy, has been lower during Obama's four years in office than at any time since 1950.

And what about claims that spending on food stamps, environmental oversight and other nuts-and-bolts federal operations is out of control? Nonmilitary discretionary spending ranged from 3.8 percent to 5.1 percent of the overall economy throughout the 1970s. Starting in 1986, it didn't exceed 3.8 percent again until the 2008 recession dramatically slowed the economy.

Conservatives, however, have been unable in recent years to slow the rapid growth of "entitlement" programs such as Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. These popular but costly programs pose long-term fiscal dilemmas if not addressed.

Policy on some social matters ? gay rights, most notably ? has moved leftward. But the opposite is true for another big issue, gun control.

A 10-year ban on assault weapons that expired in 2004 is unlikely to be renewed, even in the wake of school massacres. In 1969, a Republican-led presidential commission recommended the confiscation of most handguns, a nearly unthinkable idea today.

"The political spectrum as a whole has moved to the right," said Bruce Bartlett, an economic adviser to Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.

Even conservative activists differ on why this has happened. Some say Republicans' constant focus on a few simple ideas, such as never raising taxes, appeals to ordinary people who follow politics only sporadically.

Grover Norquist, author of a famous no-new-tax pledge, has long urged Republicans to use the strategy to build a powerful brand ? "We won't raise your taxes" ? similar to universally recognized products such as Coke. Whatever the Democratic "brand" is, Norquist says, it's much more muddled.

Others say Democrats, by nature, are more willing to compromise in pursuit of "good government" solutions. Republicans, who are less pro-government, are less likely to bend. When one side compromises and the other side doesn't, the center of debate moves toward the unyielding party.

Emory University political scientist Alan Abramowitz says the Democratic Party has become "essentially a centrist party, and has remained so despite losing its right wing since the 1960s as a result of the realignment of the South." Meanwhile, he said, the GOP "has moved rather dramatically to the right since the '60s." The political middle ground, he said, "has also shifted well to the right of where it was 30 or 40 years ago on most issues."

Abramowitz, who is writing a book on the GOP's transformation, also points to "the growing racial divide between the parties as the country has become more racially and ethnically diverse; the growing influence of right-wing think tanks, funders and media outlets; and a growing cultural/religious divide in the country."

Some Democrats say current deficit-spending debates take insufficient notice of the nation's long-running rightward shift on fiscal policies. Partisan disagreements have led to recent showdowns over the debt ceiling, the end-of-2012 "fiscal cliff" and some fast-approaching, across-the-board spending cuts called the "sequester."

Obama, saying both spending cuts and revenue hikes are needed, repeatedly has tried to reinstate a limited portion of the income tax rates that applied under President Bill Clinton, who left office with a budget surplus.

Republicans, thanks to a law they helped enact in 2011, were forced last month to accept tax increases on the richest Americans. Now, however, they say all further deficit reduction must come entirely from spending cuts.

It's a policy that would puzzle past Republican presidents such as Reagan and Richard Nixon. They mixed tax reductions and tax increases as circumstances changed. But over the past 20 years, the Republicans' "no new taxes" mantra has become virtually sacrosanct.

GOP leaders and tea party activists routinely describe Americans as overtaxed. By historical standards, at least, it's a questionable claim. In 1981, the top marginal income tax rate was 70 percent. Today it is 39.6 percent.

Federal tax revenues exceeded 20 percent of the gross domestic product in 2000. Under Obama, they have not exceeded 15.8 percent a year.

When revenues fall and spending grows, or even stays flat, deficits result. Big tax cuts in 2001 and 2003 contributed to rising deficits, and today the national debt exceeds $16 trillion. To help narrow the gap, Democrats and some independents have implored Republican lawmakers to mix higher taxes on the rich with further spending cuts.

Some Republicans fear their party's antipathy to tax increases, despite the huge debt, will put it out of step with middle America. A Pew Research poll for USA Today finds that 3 in 4 Americans support Obama's call for a mix of spending cuts and tax increases.

"The truth is, Republicans just don't care about deficits," said Bartlett, who has parted ways with many former GOP associates.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and other top Republicans say the deficit is a threat. America has a spending problem, they say, not a taxing problem.

Even the often-criticized "Obamacare" law is built on foundations ? chiefly, universal health coverage ? proposed years ago by Nixon and the conservative Heritage Foundation. When Congress approved the new law in 2010, not a single Republican voted for it.

Some social issues are too much in flux to say, definitively, whether U.S. society has moved to their right or left. Momentum for more liberal immigration laws rose in the late 1990s, collapsed in 2007, and now seems to be rebounding.

On climate change, some conservatives dispute evidence about humans' role in rising temperatures, and the potential threat to the planet. But Obama and others are pointing to severe storms, record temperatures and other weather events in hopes of building public support for actions against greenhouse gasses.

"If you look at Republican positions on things like health care, climate change and cap and trade, they're moving away from their own positions due to internal political gravity," said David Di Martino, who was an aide to centrist Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska. "So when Obama arrives at a place where they were, say, on tax cuts, they have moved further right. So the president is always perceived to the left, even though the reality is that he's not."

Republicans have lost the popular vote in five of the last six presidential elections. They have done a far better job of pushing government policy to the right.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/republican-losses-obscure-us-drift-065418092--politics.html

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