Researchers Discover Promising New Treatment for Egg Allergy

ScienceDaily (July 18, 2012) ? Doctors currently have only one recommendation for people allergic to eggs: avoid eggs completely. But researchers at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine recently found promise in doing just the opposite. Eating small amounts of egg every day for many months lowered the threshold for allergic reactions in 75 percent of egg-allergic children; 28 percent were able to incorporate egg into their regular diets after two years on the treatment.

"It's just what we had hoped for," said Wesley Burks, MD, Curnen Distinguished Professor and Chair of the UNC Department of Pediatrics and the study's lead author. "It's what we anticipated based on earlier studies, but we weren't sure it would happen. Almost a third of the children had a permanent change and were no longer egg-allergic."

The study appears online July 19, 2012, in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Burks cautioned that the treatment is not yet ready for widespread adoption, however. "There are too many side effects that we don't really understand, and it could be dangerous if it was done by a family in a home," said Burks. "More studies are needed to understand the safety aspects better."

Egg allergy is one of the most common food allergies and occurs most frequently in children. Although many children outgrow it by age 5, the allergy can persist into adulthood. Total egg avoidance is difficult when eggs lurk everywhere from baked goods to pastas and sauces; allergic reactions to accidental egg ingestion can be mild to severe and include skin, respiratory, and gastrointestinal symptoms.

"The intent of this study was to develop a new treatment for egg allergy because we really have no treatment now, other than avoidance," said Burks. "This study gives us hope that we're closer to developing a treatment." Burks added that the results may also have implications for treating other food allergies, such as allergies to milk or nuts.

The study enrolled 55 children and adolescents aged 5-18 with egg allergies that were considered unlikely to resolve on their own. Participants' families were given either small amounts of powdered egg (building up to the equivalent of 1/3 of an egg daily) or a placebo to mix into the child's food. Although children on the treatment experienced allergic reactions to the egg powder during the first few months of the study, none experienced a severe reaction.

After 10 months, researchers administered an "oral food challenge" to test participants' reactions to eating 5 grams of egg powder, equivalent to nearly a whole egg. Fifty-five percent of those on the treatment passed the challenge without significant allergic symptoms. None of the 15 participants who had been given a placebo passed the challenge.

After 22 total months, researchers performed another challenge during which participants on the treatment were given 10 grams of egg powder, equivalent to nearly two whole eggs. This time, 75% passed the challenge. Those who passed discontinued the treatment.

At month 24, those who had passed the second challenge and discontinued treatment were given a final test of 10 grams of egg powder plus a whole cooked egg. Twenty-eight percent of the original treatment group passed and were subsequently able to integrate egg into their regular diets.

Burks said the study demonstrates that there is hope for treating egg and other allergies, but further research is needed to determine how the treatment can be performed safely. Studies involving more patients would also help researchers determine which patients are most likely to benefit from the treatment.

The study was organized by the Consortium of Food Allergy Research (CoFAR). Co-authors include Brian P. Vickery of UNC; Stacie M. Jones and Amy M. Scurlock of the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences and Arkansas Children's Hospital; Robert A. Wood of the Johns Hopkins University Medical Center; David M. Fleischer and Andrew H. Liu of National Jewish Health; Hugh A. Sampson and Scott H. Sicherer of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine; Robert W. Lindblad, Donald Stablein and Alice K. Henning of The EMMES Corporation; Wayne G. Shreffler of Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School; and Marshall Plaut of the National Institutes of Health.

This work was funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health, under grant numbers U19AI066738 and U01AI066560.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of North Carolina School of Medicine.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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Journal Reference:

1. A. Wesley Burks, M.D., Stacie M. Jones, M.D., Robert A. Wood, M.D., David M. Fleischer, M.D., Scott H. Sicherer, M.D., Robert W. Lindblad, M.D., Donald Stablein, Ph.D., Alice K. Henning, M.S., Brian P. Vickery, M.D., Andrew H. Liu, M.D., Amy M. Scurlock, M.D., Wayne G. Shreffler, M.D., Ph.D., Marshall Plaut, M.D., and Hugh A. Sampson, M.D. for the Consortium of Food Allergy Research (CoFAR). Oral Immunotherapy for Treatment of Egg Allergy in Children. New England Journal of Medicine, 2012; 367: 233-243 DOI: 10.1056/NEJMoa1200435

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/Z4N58aSKEA4/120718172828.htm

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Miss Basketball Already? Here are the Best Dunks of 2012 NBA Season!

The NBA season just ended, but there is not going to be a long break like last year during the lockout. The Olympics games are starting and basketball is a main event of these games. For all of those that miss basketball in these few weeks in between, here is a review of the best dunks of this past year!

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Source: http://lockersmash.com/2012/07/miss-basketball-already-here-are-the-best-dunks-of-2012-nba-season/

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EFT is One Step Closer to Professional Association Approval!

By Dr. Mercola

A historic moment in the era of emotional freedom techniques (EFT) has arrived, with the finding that EFT is closer to meeting the criteria for evidence-based treatments proposed by the American Psychological Association (APA).

In a critical review scheduled to appear in the APA's journal Review of General Psychology, researchers found that EFT "consistently demonstrated strong effect sizes and other positive statistical results that far exceed chance after relatively few treatment sessions."

EFT is on its Way to Mainstream Acceptance!

This doesn't mean the APA has certified EFT or reversed its 12-year ban on continuing education credits for EFT... yet. But it's exciting in that this is an important step toward EFT's acceptance by the wider professional community.

EFT is a powerful self-help method based on research showing that emotional trauma contributes greatly to disease. Clinical trials have shown that EFT is able to rapidly reduce the emotional impact of memories and incidents that trigger emotional distress. Once the distress is reduced or removed, the body can often rebalance itself, and accelerate healing.

I've seen its effectiveness first-hand for a number of years, which is why EFT is the?healing technique?I most highly recommend to optimize your emotional health.

What is EFT?

EFT is a form of psychological acupressure, based on the same energy meridians used in traditional acupuncture to treat physical and emotional ailments for over five thousand years, but without the invasiveness of needles. Instead, simple tapping with your?fingertips is used to input kinetic energy onto specific meridians on your head and chest while you think about your specific problem - whether it is a traumatic event, an addiction, pain, etc. - and voice positive affirmations.

This combination of tapping the energy meridians and voicing positive affirmation works to clear the "short-circuit" ? the emotional block ? from your body's bioenergy system, thus restoring your mind and body's balance, which is essential for optimal health and the healing of physical disease. Some people are initially wary of these principles that EFT is based on ? the electromagnetic energy that flows through the body and regulates our health is only recently becoming recognized in the West.

Others are initially taken aback by (and sometimes amused by) the EFT tapping and affirmation methodology.

But keep in mind that, more than any traditional or alternative method I have used or researched, EFT has the most potential to literally work magic. I witnessed the results firsthand in my patients when I began using?EFT exclusively in June 2001. Indeed, beyond my own experience because of its very high rate of success, the use of EFT has spread rapidly, and medical practitioners employing EFT can now be found in every corner of the country and world.

EFT is Scientifically Proven

The latest critical review should serve as yet another stepping stone to help bring EFT into the fold of mainstream society, as the study found statistically significant benefits in using EFT for the following conditions:

Anxiety	Athletic Performance	Depression	Pain & Physical Symptoms
Phobias	Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)	Weight Loss	Food Cravings

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EFT is actually a subject of intense research, and has been researched in more than 10 countries, by more than 60 investigators, with results published in more than 20 different peer-reviewed journals. Dawson Church of the Foundation for Epigenetic Medicine expands on this in the guest commentary that follows, explaining how one day soon you may be able to access EFT on the Web.

Online Delivery of Efficacious Therapies like EFT for Depression, Anxiety, PTSD, and Pain

By Dawson Church
Foundation for Epigenetic Medicine

In the past few years, energy psychology has amassed a respectable research base. Many new studies have been published in peer-reviewed professional journals showing that methods using the stimulation of acupressure points combined with cognitive and exposure techniques?Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) and Thought Field Therapy (TFT) in particular?are efficacious for many of the most common mental health conditions.

They also show promise for physical problems such as pain. That is the milestone that the energy psychology field has recently passed. What is the milestone ahead?

The most exciting development is the movement toward making these modalities available online, bringing the benefits of energy psychology to a large population. There are many advantages to online delivery of a therapy, some of which are the following:

Lowered service burden on mental health and primary care services	Frequent reinforcement of desired change	Avoidance of power differentials inherent in the therapeutic relationship	User access to 24/7 support, including at times they are having the most difficulty
Rudimentary mental health tool placement in the hands of front-line service personnel (e.g., first responders, medics, aid workers, and physicians' assistants)	Help provided to rural populations lacking access to mental health services	Online treatment supplements to individual and group therapy sessions	Help obtained without disclosing one's condition to others
Accessibility of self-help tools between office visits to a therapist	Rapid resolution of certain problems in compressed time frames	Greater user control of timing and duration of intervention	Embrace of online technologies by young people
Inexpensive and customized software user interfaces ("skins") for special populations (e.g., preoperative patients, military personnel, university students)	User customization of services selected (e.g., public speaking anxiety vs. test anxiety vs. needle phobia)	Portable service provision on smartphones and other mobile devices	Lowered cost burden to society

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These and other issues are discussed in new publications such as the Journal of Medical Internet Research (Griffiths, Lindenmeyer, Powell, Lowe, & Thorogood, 2006).

The most recent milestone passed was an analysis showing that existing published research meets established efficacy standards for treating several psychological conditions. The standards were developed by American Psychological Association (APA) Division 12 (Society of Clinical Psychology) in the 1990s as a way of identifying "empirically validated treatments." They define an empirically validated treatment as one for which there are two different controlled trials conducted by independent research teams.

For a treatment to be designated as "efficacious," the studies must have demonstrated that the treatment is better than a wait list, placebo, or established efficacious treatment. To be designated as "probably efficacious," a treatment must have been shown to be better than a wait list in two studies that meet these criteria or to have been conducted by the same research team rather than two independent teams.

The APA standards advocate that studies contain sufficient subjects to achieve a level of statistical significance of p < .05 or greater, which means that there is only one possibility in 20 that the results are due to chance. The current status of EFT as an "evidence-based" practice is summarized in this statement to be published in the APA journal Review of General Psychology:

"A literature search identified 50 peer-reviewed papers that report or investigate clinical outcomes following the tapping of acupuncture points to address psychological issues.

The 17 randomized controlled trials in this sample were critically evaluated for design quality, leading to the conclusion that they consistently demonstrated strong effect sizes and other positive statistical results that far exceed chance after relatively few treatment sessions. Criteria for evidence-based treatments proposed by Division 12 of the American Psychological Association were also applied and found to be met for a number of conditions, including PTSD." (Feinstein, in press)

EFT is Effective Even When Delivered at a Distance (Online, Over the Phone, etc.)

Several methods for delivering EFT other than individual therapy have been tested. In a controlled trial of veterans with PTSD, Hartung and Stein (2012) compared telephone coaching with office visits. Two-thirds of the veterans receiving telephone coaching showed a significant symptom reduction within six EFT sessions. For office visits, the results were even stronger, with 91% of veterans going from above to below PTSD thresholds on standardized inventories within six EFT sessions. The superiority of office visits in reducing symptoms should not, however, obscure the strong results obtained over the telephone.

The telephone sessions still produced a better result than most other therapeutic methods can offer, along with the expanded accessibility and other advantages of a non-office option.

Another way of delivering energy psychology interventions is in group therapy sessions. This has been reported in several studies.

A study of 216 healthcare workers receiving a day of group EFT found a 45% reduction in psychological symptoms such as depression and anxiety (Church & Brooks, 2010). A randomized controlled trial of depression in college students found that most participants in the moderate to severe depression category normalized after four group therapy sessions (Church, De Asis, & Brooks, in press). Rwandan orphans who received TFT group therapy experienced significant reductions in PTSD symptoms (Stone, Leyden, & Fellows, 2009).

EFT is Going Online ...

Taken together with similar published studies, this research has demonstrated that delivery methods other than personal counseling can improve mental health. The next logical step is to make them available online and test them against other delivery methods that have already demonstrated their efficacy.

Research is often driven by the availability of technology. The human genome project was accelerated by the development of fast and inexpensive gene sequencers. Brain research made huge strides when MRIs became available. In a similar way, the electronic delivery of energy psychology will be driven by the availability of new online content delivery systems. Several of these have become available recently, and more will follow.

One is Coursera, which provides a rich user experience that flips seamlessly between a wide variety of media. They can serve up PDFs, HTML web pages, videos, spreadsheets, word processing documents, PowerPoints, live streaming video, quizzes, certification programs, live instruction from a teacher, instant feedback from students, chat forums, social networking, and live video images of participants.

Andrew Ng is an associate professor of computer science at Stanford University and cofounder of Coursera. The previous semester, 100,000 students took his online course on machine learning. He compares this to classroom education by saying, "I normally teach 400 students. To reach that many students before, I would have had to teach my normal Stanford class for 250 years."

Hardware is interacting with software to accelerate this progress. Today's smartphones have more computing power than the laptops of 10 years ago and are able to perform more functions using less bandwidth. With data stored on cloud services, and applications such as spreadsheets and word processors increasingly accessed from online servers rather than local hard drives, powerful data processing operations are possible from remote locations.

Some organizations, such as the U.S. Department of Defense, have already written applications that use smartphones to deliver psychological services. One called PTSD Coach, released by the Defense Department in 2011, is a free mobile app that allows users to track their symptoms, discover local support services, identify personal strategies for managing PTSD, and receive anonymous assistance.

EFT on Your Smartphone or Online Games

There are already at least four EFT applications available in the iTunes store. They range from a simple application that recaps EFTs Basic Recipe to a sophisticated application offering virtual coaching for specific mental health problems like anxiety and depression.

It is also conceivable that mental health interventions can be built into online games. Many children's games combine play and learning. A tapping game might reward users who lower their stress levels; a multiplayer world modeled on an interface similar to World of Warcraft, which allows thousands of simultaneous users worldwide to band together for battles, quests, and treasure hunts, might instead create a virtual world in which users could offer energy psychology relief services to disaster victims, educate children, or mediate in geopolitical conflicts.

The iTunes store includes scores of games that use nontherapeutic tapping, in some form or other, as part of the user interface. They include Tapping Ants, Toddler's Tapping Zoo, Tap of War, Speed Tapping, and many others. Applications could be developed that combine acupoint tapping with game play for therapeutic gain.

Are There Any Downsides to Accessing EFT Online?

There is no guarantee that only roses will bloom in this new world. It is also possible that research will discover potential dangers in the online delivery of energy psychology methods. There are certainly high risks with many drug-based conventional therapies.

The flip side of NNT is NNH, or Number Needed to Harm. This is a measure of the potential risks of a therapy. With the NNH, the lower number is the undesirable one; that is, an NNH of 5 means that it only takes five people taking it for one person to experience harmful effects. Pregabalin (brand name Lyrica; Pfizer, New York, NY), an antiseizure medication touted for use in reducing the pain of fibromyalgia, has an NNT of 5, which might not be so bad, but its NNH is reportedly close to 1.

That means that nearly every person taking it will experience harmful effects. Xanax (Pfizer, New York, NY), an antianxiety drug often prescribed for fibromyalgia patients, has an NNT of 6 (six people treated before one benefits) and an NNH of 3 (three people treated, one harmed).

By way of contrast, in the thousands of subjects treated in the dozens of energy psychology studies published to date, no adverse events have been reported. That does not mean that, as its use spreads and unsupervised online delivery increases, dangers will not become apparent. Some possible source of harm might be:

Users might attempt inappropriate self-treatment of severe mental health diagnoses like schizophrenia or bipolar disorder.	Early success might encourage users to employ energy psychology alone, instead of using it within a suite of other methods that can support progress.	Psychological adverse reactions that a user, alone in a room with a computer, cannot manage might occur.
Users might display a lack of control over how much time is spent on resilience-building before undertaking potentially retraumatizing psychological exploration.	Beneficial initial experiences might spontaneously open up deep-seated traumatic wounds that the user is not equipped to deal with.	Self-use of energy psychology might undermine therapeutic alliances with trained mental health professionals.
Novice users might attempt to use freely accessible online tools to treat other persons without obtaining training or licensure.	Clients may lack discrimination as to the quality of available web therapies.	?

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For reasons such as these, it is important that online projects incorporate a research component whenever possible. This might include an informed consent statement that includes a description of potential harms, plus an online version of a simple assessment such as the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS; Zigmond & Snaith, 1983), which can be completed by the user online in less than a minute. A high score could alert both user and provider of the enhanced possibility of risk, and steps could then be taken to reduce this risk before it becomes substantive.

Easily Accessible, Online EFT Likely to Increase Dramatically in Coming Years

Despite these drawbacks, the online delivery of mental health services is likely to increase dramatically in the coming years, driven by technology and user demand. Brattberg's study (2008) opened the eyes of many clinicians to the possibility of treating large numbers of sufferers using online treatment programs.

At present, online EFT research has been proposed or is in progress for prostate cancer, depression, interpersonal relationships, and PTSD, as well as a replication and extension of Brattberg's study. The next few years will see the publication of these data.

The many desirable characteristics of online delivery of energy psychology methods are unlikely to mean that they will completely replace traditional methods. Clients will still visit psychotherapists and life coaches. No computer program, no matter how sophisticated, can interpret the millions of sensory and energetic cues provided by one-to-one human interaction. However, the advent of online delivery systems will make energy psychology available to vastly greater numbers of people at greatly reduced cost.

If the 45% reduction in psychological distress found in the healthcare workers study were applied to millions of people rather than 216, the online delivery of energy psychology could make a serious reduction in aggregate human suffering.

References:

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??? See All References

Source: http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2012/07/18/eft-health-professionals-acceptance.aspx

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Are consumers aware that they are drawn to the center when choosing products?

Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Consumers are more likely to select products located in the horizontal center of a display and may not make the best choices as a result, according to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research.

"A close investigation of visual attention reveals that consumers do not accurately recall their choice process. Our findings emphasize the relationship between horizontal location, attention, and choice," write authors A. Selin Atalay (HEC Paris), H. Onur Bodur (Concordia University), and Dina Rasolofoarison (Aston Business School).

Many products are arranged horizontally. For example, rows of snack bars in a vending machine, bottles displaying the beer selection in a bar, or jars of peanut butter on a supermarket shelf. How does this influence which option a consumer will choose?

Using eye-tracking devices, the authors investigated how location influences choices for products as varied as vitamins, meal replacement bars, and energy drinks. Consumers had a tendency to increase their visual focus on the central option in the final five seconds prior to a decision and this determined which option they would choose. Consumers did not accurately recall their choice process and were not aware of any conscious visual focus.

Another study in a retail environment demonstrated that the centrally located item within a product category is chosen more often, even when it is not placed in the center of the shelf or visual field. Consumers would make better choices if they were aware that their attention usually focuses on the center.

"In the context of low involvement choice between frequently purchased products, when choosing between unfamiliar yet equivalent brands, the visual search process and consumer choice are biased toward centrally located options. Being unaware that our attention is focused on the center can lead to poor choices," the authors conclude.

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University of Chicago Press Journals: http://www.journals.uchicago.edu

Thanks to University of Chicago Press Journals for this article.

This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/121778/Are_consumers_aware_that_they_are_drawn_to_the_center_when_choosing_products_

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Groups seek to block Arizona immigration law

PHOENIX (AP) ? Opponents of Arizona's hardline immigration enforcement law launched a new effort Tuesday aimed at thwarting a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that will allow police to enforce the so-called "show me your papers" provision.

A coalition of civil rights groups, religious leaders and business organizations filed a new request seeking a court order that would prevent authorities from enforcing a rule that requires police to check the immigration status of people they stop for other reasons.

The groups are asking U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton to block enforcement of the requirement before it takes effect, arguing that Latinos in Arizona would face systematic racial profiling and unreasonably long detentions under the contentious section of the 2010 law.

In their 65-page filing, the coalition claims Arizona's immigration law "is pre-empted by federal law and violates the Fourth Amendment" and could "undermine trust between the police and community members, for whom a routine encounter with law enforcement will become a lengthy detention."

They also say that immigration patrols in recent years by Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio ? the Arizona lawman known for his rigid stance against illegal immigration ? demonstrate that the law's requirement will disproportionately affect Latinos. Though the requirement hasn't taken effect, Arpaio said his officers have inquired about people's immigration status in the past.

The National Immigration Law Center is one of the groups pushing the challenge in court along with the American Civil Liberties Union, Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Asian American Justice Center, National Day Labor Organizing Network and others.

Matthew Benson, a spokesman for Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, said "this latest legal challenge is unsurprising as opponents of SB 1070 have indicated they'll go to any length in order to block Arizona's implementation of this law.

"The Supreme Court has already spoken unanimously on the constitutionality of this provision. Gov. Brewer is hopeful Arizona law enforcement will soon at long last be empowered to enforce SB 1070, showing that it can be done fairly, lawfully and in harmony with civil rights and the Constitution," Benson added in a statement.

The new lawsuit comes the same day that Arpaio criticized comedian George Lopez's recent profanity-laced tirade against the sheriff. It also comes as Arpaio touted the findings of a volunteer posse, which the sheriff claimed has found "definite proof that President Barack Obama's long-form birth certificate was a computer-generated forgery.

The Arizona Democratic Party said in a statement that Arpaio's investigation is intended to draw attention away from problems within his own agency, A call to Arpaio's office for comment wasn't immediately returned Tuesday evening.

In a separate case, the U.S. Justice Department has accused Arpaio's office in a lawsuit of racially profiling Latinos in immigration patrols. The sheriff denies the allegations. That case goes to trial Thursday in federal court.

Although a different challenge to the Arizona law by the Obama administration succeeded in getting three other parts of the law thrown out by the Supreme Court last month, the administration failed to get the "show me your papers" requirement overturned on its argument that federal law trumps state law.

The justices upheld the requirement that officers question people's immigration status, saying that the provision could be subject to additional legal challenges. The coalition is seeking to shelve the requirement on other grounds.

Arizona's law was passed in 2010 amid voter frustration with the state's role as the busiest illegal entry point into the country. Five states ? Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, South Carolina and Utah ? have adopted variations on Arizona's law.

Legal experts say the groups face an uphill battle in trying to persuade Bolton to bar enforcement of the requirement because the lower courts might want to wait until the requirement ? which won't take effect until at least Friday ? is enforced to consider actual injuries from the law, rather than confront the potential for harm.

Even if opponents don't succeed in getting the requirement put on hold, some backers of the law are questioning the level of cooperation they will get from federal immigration authorities, who will be called to verify people's immigration status and be responsible for picking up illegal immigrants from local officers.

Federal immigration officers have said they will help, but only if doing so conforms to their priorities, including catching repeat violators and identifying and removing those who threaten public safety and national security.

If federal agents decline to pick up illegal immigrants, local officers in some cases will likely have to let them go unless they're suspected of committing a crime that would require them to be brought to jail.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/groups-seek-block-arizona-immigration-law-072644482.html

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One in ten UK businesses have suffered from cybercrime ...

Tineka Smith Published 17 July 2012

Research by Hiscox reveals that one in ten small businesses in the UK have experienced a data hack.

The study also revealed that 90% of small businesses don't have a cyber crime insurance policy.

While four in ten SME's are worried about their computer systems being hacked only one in four are confident about their security measures against attacks.

"Cyber crime is costing the UK economy around ?11bn a year and while the media is reporting a growing number of high profile data breaches, some small businesses may also be a popular target for hackers because the systems are usually easier to get into and the breach may not be found out for a good few weeks," said SME insurance expert Alan Thomas.

The research shows that cybercrime is one of the leading concerns among SME's who are more afraid of security related attacks
(75%) than physical theft being stolen from the office (31%).

"We know that cyber crime insurance policies might be the last thing on an entrepreneurs' mind when they are trying to drive their business forward on a day to day basis, but it is worrying that over one in ten (13%) of these businesses don't know what security measures they have in place and if they are protected from online crime", says Thomas. "It is increasingly important for small companies to evaluate all the risks their businesses face, both online and offline, and include their IT security and protection requirements in the overall contingency strategy."

Hiscox has given the following security tips to protect your business from online risk.

• Protect information with an internal 'need-to-know' policy. If storing information on a central file server, manage who has access to these files. This can help prevent accidental or deliberate data loss
• Encrypt important information for extra security so that only authorised users will be able to access it
• Using the internet and email to conduct business means that data loss becomes a bigger risk. Develop a clear email policy and raise online security awareness with employees and follow up on suspicious emails even if they're a one off
• Make it protocol across the business for employees to use numbers and letters in passwords that provide much more robust protection from online criminals.
• Back up your files and check your insurance cover so that you can get your business up and running again quickly in the event of an incident

Please follow this author on Twitter @Tineka_S or comment below.

Source: http://www.cbronline.com/news/one-in-ten-uk-businesses-have-suffered-from-cybercrime-170712

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Mosquito Guts Implanted with GMO Malaria Assassins

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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/mosquito-guts-implanted-gmo-malaria-assassins-160000635.html

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