UCB gets Japan clearance for two new drugs

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Belgian pharmaceutical company UCB has secured two regulatory clearances in Japan, further cementing its worldwide shift to a new generation of drugs.

The company said in a statement on Tuesday that the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare had approved UCB’s Neupro patch to treat Parkinson’s disease and moderate-to-severe Restleg Legs Syndrome in adults.

Otsuka Pharmaceutical has the exclusive rights for developing and marketing Neupro in Japan, with UCB responsible in all other regions worldwide. Neupro is available in 35 countries.

In a separate statement on Tuesday, UCB said its drug Cimzia had been approved in Japan for treatment of rheumatoid arthritis in adults.

UCB is jointly developing the drug there with Astellas Pharma Inc, with UCB manufacturing it and Astellas managing distribution and sales. UCB said it would receive an unspecified milestone payment from Astellas.

Cimzia is currently being sold in over 30 countries, including the United States and in Europe.

UCB, a central nervous system and immunology specialist, is placing its hopes on three new drugs – Cimzia, Neupro and epilepsy treatment Vimpat – as previous blockbuster Keppra, also for epilepsy, faces patent expiries.

(Reporting by Philip Blenkinsop; editing by Patrick Graham)

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U.N. General Assembly voices concern for Myanmar’s Muslims

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – The U.N. General Assembly expressed serious concern on Monday over violence between Rohingya Muslims and Buddhists in Myanmar and called upon its government to address reports of human rights abuses by some authorities.

The 193-nation General Assembly approved by consensus a non-binding resolution, which Myanmar said last month contained a “litany of sweeping allegations, accuracies of which have yet to be verified.”

Outbreaks of violence between ethnic Rakhine Buddhists and the Rohingyas have killed dozens and displaced thousands since June. Rights groups also have accused Myanmar security forces of killing, raping and arresting Rohingyas after the riots. Myanmar said it exercised “maximum restraint” to quell the violence.

The unanimously adopted U.N. resolution “expressing particular concern about the situation of the Rohingya minority in Rakhine state, urges the government to take action to bring about an improvement in their situation and to protect all their human rights, including their right to a nationality.”

At least 800,000 Muslim Rohingyas live in Rakhine State along the western coast of Myanmar, also known as Burma. But Buddhist Rakhines and other Burmese view them as illegal immigrants from neighboring Bangladesh who deserve neither rights nor sympathy.

The resolution adopted on Monday is identical to one approved last month by the General Assembly’s Third Committee, which focuses on human rights. After that vote, Myanmar’s mission to the United Nations said that it accepted the resolution but objected to the Rohingyas being referred to as a minority.

“There has been no such ethnic group as Rohingya among the ethnic groups of Myanmar,” a representative of Myanmar said at the time. “Despite this fact, the right to citizenship for any member or community has been and will never be denied if they are in line with the law of the land.”

(Reporting By Louis Charbonneau; Editing by Paul Simao)

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Suing the Senate to Kill the Filibuster

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has it in for the filibuster. “I think the rules have been abused, and we are going to work to change them,” he told reporters soon after the election. The Nevada Democrat is worked up because Republicans have used it to hold up legislation 389 times since 2007. “We will not do away with the filibuster,” Reid said, but “we are going to make it so we can get things done.” He’d change the rules so filibustering senators would have to go back to doing it the old-fashioned way—talking on the Senate floor nonstop, Jimmy Stewart-style—instead of merely declaring a filibuster and going home, which is the way it’s often done now. He’d also make it so senators could only filibuster final votes and not use it to block every procedural step along the way. Even these modest reforms won’t be easy to pass: To change Senate rules Democrats need 67 votes, 12 of them Republican.

A federal lawsuit now in the U.S. District Court in Washington could do Reid one better. It seeks to outlaw the filibuster as unconstitutional. Common Cause, the left-leaning advocacy group, filed the case on behalf of eight plaintiffs, among them three children of undocumented immigrants who say they would have been naturalized under President Obama’s proposed Dream Act if a GOP filibuster hadn’t blocked it. Lawyers for the plaintiffs argue that unlimited debate isn’t a vital Senate tradition that protects the rights of the minority party, but an historical accident that’s led to the equivalent of minority rule.

Illustration by Eleanor DavisFilibuster comes from the Spanish “filibustero,” or pirate

Blame it on Aaron Burr. In his famed farewell address to the Senate in 1805, the vice president urged his colleagues to simplify the body’s rules. They did the next year, eliminating among other things a parliamentary motion that required a simple majority to force an end to debate and move to a vote. Burr thought it unnecessary, since it had only been invoked once in four years. Yet without it, there was no longer a way to stop a determined talker from stalling a vote on a bill he opposed. The Senate didn’t set out to create the filibuster; it was an unintended consequence.

In Washington no opportunity goes unexploited, and by the mid-19th century the filibuster had become a weapon. There have been periodic attempts to weaken it. A rule change in 1917 allowed a two-thirds majority to cut off an obstinate senator, and in 1975 the threshold was lowered further to a three-fifths majority, or 60 votes.

According to Emmet Bondurant, lead counsel for the plaintiffs in the federal suit, the Senate’s power to set its own procedures has come into conflict with another constitutional imperative: majority rule. Bondurant notes that the framers of the Constitution created a supermajority requirement in the Senate for six specific circumstances, among them approving a treaty or impeaching a president. From this, the Common Cause suit infers that the Constitution intends the Senate to decide other matters by majority vote.

In the Federalist Papers, James Madison wrote that requiring a supermajority in Congress would reverse “the fundamental principle of free government,” and that a minority might use it to “extort unreasonable indulgences.” It could be used to “embarrass the administration” and “destroy the energy of the government,” wrote Alexander Hamilton. Says Bondurant: “You take those Federalist Papers and publish them today, and people would think you’re talking about the current dysfunctional Senate.”

At a Dec. 10 hearing, lawyers for the Senate asked the judge in the case, Emmett Sullivan, to dismiss the suit, arguing that the plaintiffs can’t plausibly claim to have been injured by a law that wasn’t enacted. The question of the filibuster, they say, is a political one, not for the courts to decide. Judge Sullivan hasn’t indicated when he’ll rule on letting the case proceed.

Common Cause is stretching to make its point, says Michael Gerhardt, the director of the Center for Law and Government at the University of North Carolina School of Law. Gerhardt, a friend of Bondurant, agreed as a favor to look for weaknesses in the suit before it was filed. Gerhardt points to the 1917 and 1975 changes that made it easier to defeat a filibuster. Reid’s current push for further changes, he says, shows the system is capable of correcting itself.

Bondurant doesn’t buy his friend’s argument. The Senate, he says, has been grappling with the implications of the filibuster for the better part of two centuries. Only the courts can extricate it from its own mess. Reid’s proposals are “a great deal of talk,” says Bondurant. “But he doesn’t have the capacity to deliver.”

The bottom line: Although senators defend the filibuster as fundamental to the democratic process, it’s not mentioned in the Constitution.

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Atheist Kids and Bullying: Just an Xbox and a Football Game Away From Redemption

I’ll never forget the year my eight-year-old daughter came home from school saying she got in trouble for going to the bathroom.

“I was afraid,” she said, “that the devil was coming out of the mirror to get me…. I wanted Aya to stay with me until I was done.”

Like any parent, I sat her down and asked her to tell me why she would ever think a mirror could spawn something as terrifying as that.

“Susie told me because I didn’t believe in god, the devil was coming to take my soul.”

MORE: Bullying the Bullies: What to Do to Save the Next Amanda Todd

“Susie” as we’ll call her, was a fellow eight-year-old student at my daughter’s Catholic school. Susie attended church every Sunday with her family—the same church that many of her classmates to this day all go to.

Was my daughter being bullied for being an atheist? I quickly dismissed it. After all, these were only eight-year-old girls, and it wasn’t like we talked about god hating with our morning cereal.

I soon noticed a new pattern of my daughter: She wouldn’t enter a bathroom without a friend or parent and began wetting the bed at night for fear of our extensive collection of bathroom mirrors pulling her into almighty hell at 2 a.m.

Sure enough, the religious eight-year-old was still pressuring my daughter to consider her morality, spirituality and reason for living daily in the school bathroom.

“When the child goes to school, and encounters for the first time other kids who don’t believe the same thing, whether it’s no belief or a different belief system, that can rock a kid’s world.”

I got on the phone and made sure the principal was aware of the bullying, that the child was reported and that my daughter would hopefully make the choice not to play with her anymore. The school thought I was a little crazy. Bullying was getting punched in the stomach in a dark place behind the school, not a little girl being taunted for not believing she was going to have life eternal. This was a new place they were afraid to gain control of. The principal, a former nun, kept a tight lip.

According to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, every day “an estimated 160,000 students in the U.S. refuse to go to school because they dread the physical and verbal aggression of their peers. Many more attend school in a chronic state of anxiety and depression.”

Courtney Campbell, Professor of Religion and Culture at Oregon State University, says he encountered the same case with his own children who were told at a very early age by some of their “friends” that they were “going to hell.” Though there were no physical beatings, the “psychic bullying” may have been worse.

“There is a phenomenon of religious-bullying at an early age, though in my own view/experience with raising my kids, it’s less of an issue than lookism [obese kids], size [‘big’ bullies], or gender, or clothes, or any of a number of things that kids do to manifest power over others,” says Campbell.

He points out that in most conservative/evangelical/fundamentalist Christian traditions, kids are taught at a very early age in their Sunday schools or summer bible camps that there’s only one path to happiness and salvation. That teaching, absorbed at a young age, is on its own rather threatening to the child.

“When the child goes to school, and encounters for the first time other kids who don’t believe the same thing, whether it’s no belief or a different belief system, that can rock a kid’s world,” Campbell adds.

Blame it on fear, maybe a calling out of one’s most sacred and learned family beleifs, but this form of push and shove is only getting more sophisticated.

Rachel Wagner, Associate Professor for the Department of Philosophy and Religion at Ithaca College and author of Godwired: Religion, Ritual and Virtual Reality, says we are overlooking a major player of the religious bullying model—video games.

“If we compare video games to rituals as similar kinds of interactive experiences that are meant to shape how we see ourselves and others in the world, then we can argue something more basic—that video games (like rituals) can teach people habits of encounter—and offer youth deeply problematic models of encounter with difference,” says Wagner, who adds that in her next book, she’ll argue that religion has always had the ability to be “played” like a game, a religious encounter she coins “shooter religion.”

While Wagner admits it’s very important to remember that all world religions also have “deep and abiding practices urging compassion, understanding, tolerance, and social justice,” in today’s media-soaked society, feeling the need to retreat into a simpler world where people can be reduced to camps can be terribly tempting.

Stacy Pershall, author of Loud in the House of Myself: Memoir of a Strange Girl, says that growing up in Prairie Grove, Arkansas, in an athletics-focused, Christian bible belt, she was used to being surrounded by “Jesus talk.”

Pershall, who was bullied for being a “strange girl,” when young, unathletic and atheist to boot, now works and empowers high school and college students as a writing teacher and mental health speaker.

“Although it still makes my heart pound a little to stand in front of a crowd and admit that I don’t believe in god (as I recently did at Catholic University in D.C.), somebody needs to do it. I get to be the adult who says to kids, ‘I’m an atheist, I have morals, I have friends, I’m happy, and I care about how you feel.’ That’s a wonderful, powerful thing. I get to tell bullied kids who might be considering suicide that they’re not alone, and that they have kindred spirits. It’s what the Flying Spaghetti Monster put me on Earth to do.”

Were you ever bullied? Leave what you were bullied about in COMMENTS.

These are solely the author’s opinions and do not represent those of TakePart, LLC or its affiliates.

Related Stories on TakePart:

• 5 Things to Keep in Mind About Bullying

• A Bully’s Paradise: Hidden Halls, Dark Corners and No Supervision

• Mother Bullied to Abort Unborn Twins?

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Amy DuFault is a writer and editor whose work has been published in EcoSalon, Huffington Post, Ecouterre, Organic Spa, Coastal Living, Yahoo!, The Frisky and other online and print publications. In addition to being a former co-owner of an eco-boutique, she coaches and connects the sustainable fashion community to feed her soul. She also dreams of singing in an all-girl punk band even though she has stage fright. @amytropolis | TakePart.com

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Pro-gun rights US petition to deport Piers Morgan

LONDON (AP) — Tens of thousands of people have signed a petition calling for British CNN host Piers Morgan to be deported from the U.S. over his gun control views.

Morgan has taken an aggressive stand for tighter U.S. gun laws in the wake of the Newtown, Connecticut, school shooting. Last week, he called a gun advocate appearing on his “Piers Morgan Tonight” show an “unbelievably stupid man.”

Now, gun rights activists are fighting back. A petition created Dec. 21 on the White House e-petition website by a user in Texas accuses Morgan of engaging in a “hostile attack against the U.S. Constitution” by targeting the Second Amendment. It demands he be deported immediately for “exploiting his position as a national network television host to stage attacks against the rights of American citizens.”

The petition has already hit the 25,000 signature threshold to get a White House response. By Monday, it had 31,813 signatures.

Morgan seemed unfazed — and even amused — by the movement.

In a series of Twitter messages, he alternately urged his followers to sign the petition and in response to one article about the petition said “bring it on” as he appeared to track the petition’s progress.

“If I do get deported from America for wanting fewer gun murders, are there any other countries that will have me?” he wrote.

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Few tests done at toxic sites after superstorm

OLD BRIDGE, N.J. (AP) — For more than a month, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has said that the recent superstorm didn’t cause significant problems at any of the 247 Superfund toxic waste sites it’s monitoring in New York and New Jersey.

But in many cases, no actual tests of soil or water are being conducted, just visual inspections.

The EPA conducted a handful of tests right after the storm, but couldn’t provide details or locations of any recent testing when asked last week. New Jersey officials point out that federally designated Superfund sites are EPA’s responsibility.

The 1980 Superfund law gave EPA the power to order cleanups of abandoned, spilled and illegally dumped hazardous wastes that threaten human health or the environment. The sites can involve long-term or short-term cleanups.

Jeff Tittel, executive director of the Sierra Club in New Jersey, says officials haven’t done enough to ensure there is no contamination from Superfund sites. He’s worried toxins could leach into groundwater and the ocean.

“It’s really serious and I think the EPA and the state of New Jersey have not done due diligence to make sure these sites have not created problems,” Tittel said.

The EPA said last month that none of the Superfund sites it monitors in New York or New Jersey sustained significant damage, but that it has done follow-up sampling at the Gowanus Canal site in Brooklyn, the Newtown Creek site on the border of Queens and Brooklyn, and the Raritan Bay Slag site, all of which flooded during the storm.

But last week, EPA spokeswoman Stacy Kika didn’t respond to questions about whether any soil or water tests have been done at the other 243 Superfund sites. The agency hasn’t said exactly how many of the sites flooded.

“Currently, we do not believe that any sites were impacted in ways that would pose a threat to nearby communities,” EPA said in a statement.

Politicians have been asking similar questions, too. On Nov. 29, U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., wrote to the EPA to ask for “an additional assessment” of Sandy’s impact on Superfund sites in the state.

Elevated levels of lead, antimony, arsenic and copper have been found at the Raritan Bay Slag site, a Superfund site since 2009. Blast furnaces dumped lead at the site in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and lead slag was also used there to construct a seawall and jetty.

The EPA found lead levels as high as 142,000 parts per million were found at Raritan Bay in 2007. Natural soil levels for lead range from 50 to 400 parts per million.

The EPA took four samples from the site after Superstorm Sandy: two from a fenced-off beach area and two from a nearby public playground. One of the beach samples tested above the recreational limit for lead. In early November, the EPA said it was taking additional samples “to get a more detailed picture of how the material might have shifted” and will “take appropriate steps to prevent public exposure” at the site, according to a bulletin posted on its website. But six weeks later, the agency couldn’t provide more details of what has been found.

The Newtown Creek site, with pesticides, metals, PCBs and volatile organic compounds, and the Gowanus Canal site, heavily contaminated with PCBs, heavy metals, volatile organics and coal tar wastes, were added to the Superfund list in 2010.

Some say the lead at the Raritan Bay site can disperse easily.

Gabriel Fillippeli, director of the Center for Urban Health at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, said lead tends to stay in the soil once it is deposited but can be moved around by stormwaters or winds. Arsenic, which has been found in the surface water at the site, can leach into the water table, Fillippeli said.

“My concern is twofold. One is, a storm like that surely moved some of that material physically to other places, I would think,” Fillippeli said. “If they don’t cap that or seal it or clean it up, arsenic will continue to make its way slowly into groundwater and lead will be distributed around the neighborhood.”

The lack of testing has left some residents with lingering worries.

The Raritan Bay Slag site sits on the beach overlooking a placid harbor with a view of Staten Island. On a recent foggy morning, workers were hauling out debris, and some nearby residents wondered whether the superstorm increased or spread the amount of pollution at the site.

“I think it brought a lot of crud in from what’s out there,” said Elise Pelletier, whose small bungalow sits on a hill overlooking the Raritan Bay Slag site. “You don’t know what came in from the water.” Her street did not flood because it is up high, but she worries about a park below where people go fishing and walk their dogs. She would like to see more testing done.

Thomas Burke, an associate dean at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, says both federal and state officials generally have a good handle on the major Superfund sites, which often use caps and walls to contain pollution.

“They are designed to hold up,” Burke said of such structures, but added that “you always have to be concerned that an unusual event can spread things around in the environment.” Burke noted that the storm brought in a “tremendous amount” of water, raising the possibility that groundwater plumes could have changed.

“There really have to be evaluations” of communities near the Superfund sites, he said. “It’s important to take a look.”

Officials in both New York and New Jersey note they’ve also been monitoring less toxic sites known as brownfields and haven’t found major problems. The New York DEC said in a statement that brownfields in that state “were not significantly impacted” and that they don’t plan further tests for storm impacts.

Larry Ragonese, a spokesman for the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, said the agency has done visual inspections of major brownfield sites and also alerted towns and cities to be on the lookout for problems. Ragonese said they just aren’t getting calls voicing such concerns.

Back at the Raritan Bay slag site, some residents want more information. And they want the toxic soil, which has sat here for years, out.

Pat Churchill, who was walking her dog in the park along the water, said she’s still worried.

“There are unanswered questions. You can’t tell me this is all contained. It has to move around,” Churchill said.

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New Zealand level series thanks to Guptill century

EAST LONDON, South Africa (Reuters) – A brilliant, unbeaten century from opener Martin Guptill led New Zealand to an eight-wicket victory off the final ball against South Africa in the second T20 international on Sunday.

Chasing 169 for victory in 19 overs at Buffalo Park, Guptill helped erase the memory of Friday’s embarrassing capitulation to 86 all out in Durban with a stunning batting display as the tourists reached their target for the loss of just two wickets to level the series 1-1.

Requiring 39 from the final four overs and 11 off the last, Guptill was on 97 and needing four for victory when Rory Kleinveldt bowled the final delivery – a low full toss which was eased away through extra cover.

Guptill’s unbeaten 101 was just the third T20 international century by a New Zealander, the first two belonging to captain Brendon McCullum who was almost anonymous with 17 from 15 balls during a second-wicket partnership of 73 with Guptill.

The right-handed opener was similarly dominant during an opening stand of 76 with Rob Nicol (25) as he drove the Proteas attack impeccably straight and displayed the skills – and patience – so obviously missing from the New Zealand batsman in Durban.

Captain Faf du Plessis led from the front once again as South Africa posted a competitive 165-5 in 19 overs after losing the toss and being asked to bat first.

Du Plessis paced his innings to perfection on a tricky pitch to reach 63 from 43 balls with eight fours and a six in a match reduced to 19 overs per side following a 52-minute floodlight failure.

The deciding match takes place in Port Elizabeth on Wednesday.

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News summary: Nintendo’s TVii replaces the remote

TVii LAUNCH: Nintendo if flipping on its TVii service Thursday, a month after sales started for its Wii U game console. The service turns the GamePad controller into a TV remote control, channel guide and Web video surfer.

SALES HOPES: Nintendo hopes the free service boosts sales of the console after recording 425,000 sales in the first week since its Nov. 18 launch.

HEAD START: It’s the first time a game console maker has put live TV controls into a device, but analyst Michael Pachter says competitors will copy the function soon.

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Nick Cassavetes Sued For Allegedly Stiffing Twin Canadian Pop Duo on $300K Movie Loan

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – Nick Cassavetes, Canadian twins and incest – besides three phrases that you probably didn’t expect to read in the same sentence today, they’re also elements of a bizarre new lawsuit that hit the California court system this week.

In a lawsuit filed Tuesday in Los Angeles Superior Court, TwinSpin music – home to twin Canadian pop duo Carmen & Camille – claim that “The Notebook” director failed to pay back a $ 300,000 loan to help make the upcoming drama “Yellow.”

The complaint alleges that the writer-director backed out of an agreement to give the duo parts in the movie and to feature a song of theirs in the Sienna Miller-Ray Liotta film.

The film chronicles a woman who’s addicted to pain pills and is fired from her teaching job for engaging in sexual shenanigans on school grounds. Oh, and she also had a love affair with her brother at one point. According to the suit – which also includes TwinSpin manager John Thomas as a plaintiff – TwinSpin and Cassavetes entered into an agreement in September 2010, in which TwinSpin would loan Cassavetes $ 300,000 to start production on the film.

In return, the suit says, Cassavetes agreed to pay the loan back with interest – for a total of $ 345,000 – the next month. Cassavetes also agreed to cast the duo in speaking roles in the film, use a song of theirs on the soundtrack, and to give Thomas a producer’s credit, the complaint claims.

But the money never came, the suit says – and neither did the roles, the song and the credit, without which the loan never would have been given.

“But for these representations, Plaintiffs never would have entered into the Loan Agreement or otherwise granted the Loan,” the lawsuit reads. “Plaintiffs are informed and believe that Cassavetes never had any intention of casting ‘Carmen & Camille’ in the Picture, or featuring a song by ‘Carmen & Camille’ in the Picture, of providing the producer credit to plaintiff Thomas, or of repaying the loan on a timely basis.”

Cassavetes’ agent has not yet responded to misrepresentation request for comment.

Alleging breach of contract, breach of covenant of good faith and fair dealing, fraudulent misrepresentation and negligent misrepresentation, the suit is asking for damages of $ 500,000, the amount that the plaintiffs believe is currently owed to them by Cassavetes, with accruing interest.

(Pamela Chelin contributed to this report)

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Meanwhile, Deep Inside Your Belly Button …

Dec 23, 2012 7:00am

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Reported by Dr. Amish Patel:

Researchers have found that more than 2,000 different species of bacteria live in our umbilicus – the medical word for belly button.  That means you have more kinds of bacteria in your belly button than there are different kinds of ants or birds in North America, according to the study.

The majority of these bacteria were rare and occurred in just one individual.  No single type was common to all 60 belly buttons sampled.

“I don’t find it alarming,” said Dr. William Schaffner, an expert in infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tenn.  “We knew belly buttons weren’t sterile.”

However, Schaffner believes that this does not minimize the study’s findings.

“This is in the context of a much larger study, which is trying to … get greater insight into the source of pathogens and how the [bacteria on our body] changes with antimicrobial therapy and age.”

Perhaps, he said, we can “use this to develop new antimicrobials.”

The benefits may extend beyond antibiotics.

“Understanding the biodiversity of our bodies and how it differs among people may play an important role in understanding why some … people are susceptible to the same pathogen or respond to the same drug or diet,” said Dr. Rob Knight, associate professor of molecular biophysics at the University of Colorado – Boulder.

Although the findings of the study do not have any immediate implications, this is good timing for a public service announcement from Dr. Gregory Poland, infectious disease expert at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.

“The current fad of women piercing their umbilicus has led to many case reports of infections,” Poland said. “And with today’s multiple drug-resistant bacteria, it can lead to disasters.”

SHOWS: Good Morning America

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