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José, Costa Rica, Wednesday, July 8, 2015, Vol. 15, No. 133
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Another flood
emergency in northeast
By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The northeaster section of Costa Rica has been hit again with heavy rains, and the national emergency commission has issued its highest alert for the province of Limón, and the cantons of Sarapiquí and Turrialba. More rain is expected, said the Instituto Meteorológico Nacional. At least 1,000 persons are now in public shelters, said the commission. The weather institute said in the early evening that up to six inches (150 millimeters) of rain had fallen in the province of Limón and that about two inches (50 millimeters) had fallen in the northern zone. The institute said it expected similar amounts today. There also were lower-level alerts issued for the Pacific coast and the northern zone. The emergency commission said at mid-afternoon Tuesday that the areas have been hit with rain for 15 days and there were 67 incidents of rivers flowing out of their banks, road problems and bridge collapses in 90 communities in 15 cantons. At least 94 communities have access problems, and the rivers continue to rise. Ruta 32 was closed at 5:30 p.m. due to torrential rain and the expectation of slides. Other roads also were blocked or closed for safety. The lost to agriculture is soaring as fields remain under water. There also are transport problems for exporters who must send their products over the major highways to the docks at Moín. Minors caught with drugs in thousands By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The Fuerza Pública said Tuesday that its officers had detained more than 2,000 minors on drug allegations in the first five months of the year. The data came from the Sección de Análisis y Estadística of the Ministerio de Seguridad Pública. Minors were defined as those under 18. The deputy director of the police agency, Nils Ching, said that the statistics should attract the attention of a number of public agencies. He added that frequently the drug crimes are associated with others. The detentions were mainly for carrying, selling or otherwise distributing drugs. In the province of San José alone there were 950 detentions, the agency said. There were detentions in all provinces with number ranging from 511 in Alajuela to 169 in Heredia. Fuerza Pública officers conduct stop-and-frisk operations on the streets. Frequently they find small amounts of marijuana on those they stop. They also search schools with trained drugs and generally turn up drugs or drug paraphernalia. The use of drugs by minors is not a new phenomenon. A.M. Costa Rica has documented homeless as young as 8 years smoking crack pipes in the full view of the public. Legal scholars defend U.S. soccer case By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
The soccer federation indictments of 2015 and the Salt Lake City Olympic Committee scandal of 1998 share an important characteristic: both were the targets of a corruption investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice. The Fédération Internationale de Football Association indictments triggered cries of outrage against the U.S. Justice Department from some quarters for overstepping its bounds. But for U.S. legal scholars, an indictment boils down to two questions: Was a crime committed on U.S. soil? Secondly, is there a basis for personal jurisdiction over the individual or individuals involved? “It's not unlike someone who stands on U.S. soil and intentionally fires a weapon to murder someone in a foreign country and succeeds. It's true that the dead body is in the foreign country, but the act that was the crime, and the intent, all happened in the U.S. The crime happened here,” explained Jennifer Arlen, a New York University law professor. Ms. Arlen said this type of case, involving bribes paid through U.S. financial institutions, is not uncharted territory for the United States. She said the Justice Department has aggressively pursued both foreign and domestic bribery for more than a decade -- including the Salt Lake City Olympic Committee scandal of 1998, involving bribes for the rights to host the 2002 Winter Games. Alexandra Wrage, an expert in anti-corruption compliance, was a member of federation’s independent governance committee until she resigned in 2013. She said she believes a culture of bribes and kickbacks has persisted at the federation for so long in part because it was seen as the normal way of doing business. “When you have this closed circle, with no independent oversight, no independent board members like corporations and others have now, I think it's really easy to have this mentality that's it's going to be business as usual, and that's been going on for a long time at FIFA,” said Ms. Wrage. Wrage said that if the Fédération Internationale de Football Association truly wanted to reform itself, it would have done so by now. “What happens instead is that Blatter talks about reform at intervals whenever the pressure builds and it fades back again into the background,” said Ms. Wrage. Sepp Blatter, who has served as federation president since 1998, remains under investigation. He has agreed to step down once a successor is named, but continues to maintain his innocence. Eduardo Li, the head of the Costa Rican soccer federation and a member of the international executive committee, is one of those indicted. He is fighting extradition from a cell in Switzerland. U.N. food confab tackles ginseng and lead By the United Nations news staff
The United Nations food standards body, the Codex Alimentarius Commission, has kicked off its latest session in Geneva, during which it will examine and adopt new food safety and quality standards, including limits on the use of drugs in food-producing animals. The commission is a joint intergovernmental initiative of two U.N. agencies, the Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Health Organization. Comprising 185 countries and the European Union, it compiles annually the standards, codes of practice, guidelines and recommendations that protect consumer health and ensure fair practices in food trade. Kicking off the week-long session, the commission over the weekend adopted guidelines related to the Trichinella parasite that may be found in the meat of pigs and other animals. The parasite causes trichinosis It has also decided to make the Asian regional standard adopted in 2009 to ensure the quality of ginseng products a worldwide standard, as long as these products are used as a food or food ingredient. During the session, the commission will consider a number of other topics, such as the maximum levels for lead in fruits and vegetables as well as the standards for the safe use of food additives and pesticides, including recommendations to prevent residues of certain antibiotics in food of animal origin. It is also expected to support the establishment of a new $3.3 million per year Codex Trust Fund to support the more active participation of developing countries in international food standards setting from 2016 to 2026. Marijuana found in car along Caribbean coast By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Tourist police at a checkpoint in Punta Cocles, near Cahuita stopped a vehicle that contained 3.3 kilos of processed marijuana, the Ministerio de Seguridad Pública reported. The Policía de Control de Drogas entered the case with the morning discovery. The marijuana was found in the truck, the ministry said. The driver was someone who has been linked to drug cases in the past, the ministry added. The Talamanca area has many fields of marijuana, but the trade with Caribbean beach residents usually involves higher-grade imported drugs.
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A.M. Costa Rica Third News Page |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Wednesday, July 8, 2015, Vol. 15, No. 133 | |
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| Lawmakers moving to reduce penalties for protesters who
block roads |
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By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
A legislative committee has moved to reduce the penalties for demonstrators who block public streets. The bill is No. 17.341, and it would reduce the penalty to a fine instead of from 10 to 30 days in jail. The measure requires changes in the penal code. The original bill was presented in 2009 by the late legislator José Merino del Río of Frente Amplio. Many of the left leaning politicians in the country support what they call democracy of the street in which protesters tie up traffic and create other blockades. The most recent example was in Paquera where protesters |
blocked a
main highway. The Fuerza Pública said it detained 12 persons. Protesting became criminalized in 2002 when the jail penalty was instituted. Despite the penalty, there does not seem to have been many protesters going to jail. If the full legislature accepts the decision of the Comisión Permanente de Asuntos Jurídicos, the penalty will be a fine equal to three to 30 days salary of a judicial clerk. Of course, protesters can face other charges, like destroying public property or assault. But the sense of the measure is to respect those who protest peacefully. |
| Surgeons were able to reattach hand severed by a machete blow |
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By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Surgeons needed 10 hours to reattach the hand of a man who was a machete victim in a confrontation a week ago. The 41-year-old construction worker has some movement in the left hand but will need therapy to recover more, according to Hospital Calderon Guardia. The man, Ricardo Pérez, was in the news a week ago. Judicial agents said he was motorcyclist who confronted a man chopping vegetation because the man sprayed rocks on the vehicle. In the argument that followed, the motorcyclist lost his left hand to a machete blow. The amputation took place in Barrio San Isidro, Nicoya, said the Judicial Investigating Organization. The man who had been cutting vegetation was detained on an attempted murder allegation. Aircraft from the Ministerio de Seguridad Pública carried the man to the Central Valley where hospital attendants said the operation to restore the severed hand began at 12:45 p.m. and lasted until 11 p.m. The hospital statement credited Cristian Castro Artavia, an orthopedist, and Pablo Solís Chaves, a reconstruction surgeon, with the successful operation. The hospital staffers said the surgical team used microsurgery. |
 Hospital Calderón Guardia photo
Ricardo
Pérez and his restored left hand
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| 20 year old detained in case of young teen's brief
disappearance |
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By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
A 20-year-old man from San Rafael Abajo de Desamparados has been detained for hiding a 13-year-old girl. The girl had been reported missing Monday, and law enforcement issued a bulletin via the new alert system that reaches the country's cell telephones. |
The security
ministry report is crediting the alert system for
helping to locate the girl but the specifics are not public. Agents detained the suspect Tuesday at the Coronado bus station on Avenida 7. The case appears to stem from a love affair because the sex crimes prosecutor is now involved. |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Wednesday, July 8, 2015, Vol. 15, No. 133 | |||||
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| Drones, subs and inflatables used to study wildlife at Isla
del Coco |
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By the Turtle Island Restoration Network
news staff
During a May scientific expedition to Parque Nacional Isla del Coco small two- and three-passenger submarines known as submersibles were used to deploy acoustic listening stations at 180-meter (590-foot) depth, an inflatable boat was used to catch sharks and implant acoustic tracking tags, and drones were used to patrol from above in search of marine wildlife below. The expedition was directed by Randall Arauz, Central American director of the Turtle Island Restoration Network, in collaboration with Costa Rica's Sistema Nacional de Areas de Conservación and the Cocos Island marine conservation area and with the companies Alucia Productions II, Precision Integrated and Aeroval. This cutting-edge research and conservation initiative was supported by the Dalio Ocean Initiative, a foundation committed to protecting ocean health and improving the stewardship of the marine world. In support of these pioneering efforts, the Dalio offered Turtle Island the use of its vessel, the Umbra, a state of the art ocean research vessel. A sister ship, the Alucia, was also deployed to support manned submersible research efforts. Alucia Production II, a world class production company dedicated to ocean-based media, provided all topside and underwater media production to document these unprecedented efforts. "Science and state-of-the-art technology came together to not only explore the ocean frontier, but to also collaborate on ways to protect the endangered marine wildlife that visits this biodiversity-rich Island" said Todd Steiner, biologist and executive director of Turtle Island. "It was an incredible experience to have a fleet of aerial drones, underwater subs, and surface boats all working together." Two submersibles explored the underwater summits of Las Gemelas, a formation of seamounts located about 40 miles southwest of Cocos Island. Here the subs deployed two acoustic receivers, or listening stations that will be used to monitor and track marine wildlife. Acoustic telemetry has been used to track over 100 sharks and sea turtles in Cocos Island since 2005, and the addition of these two listening stations will increase knowledge on the migratory movements and patterns of these animals between Parque Nacional Isla del Coco, Costa Rica and the Galapagos Islands of Ecuador. Inflatable boats were used to catch sharks in the waters surrounding Cocos Island. Sharks were immobilized and brought next to the inflatable by a team of trained biologists, |
 Turtle Island Restoration Network photo
This is one of the drones used in
the researchwhere they were then turned belly up and implanted with acoustic tags through a minor surgical procedure. Over 10 sharks were tagged including thresher, black tip, and silver tip sharks. One hammerhead shark was tagged underwater while scuba diving. Drones were deployed to evaluate their effectiveness to detect marine megafauna in the waters of Parque Nacional Isla del Coco, such as whale sharks, humpback whales, pilot whales, and manta rays. The potential to use of drones to assist in the surveillance the area alsow as tested. Some 12 miles around the Island is protected as a marine national park. "We are excited about the success of this first testing of Aerovel's Flexrotor UAV," said Charissa Moen of Precision Integrated. "The concept has been proven and the capabilities of the aircraft demonstrated, and we look forward to ongoing work with Randall and Turtle Island Restoration Network to assist in making the precious resources of Costa Rica long lasting." "It isn't very often that we get to go down 180 meters, or have a 900 meter bird's eye view of the waters surrounding Cocos Island," said an excited Arauz. "We are currently working with the authorities and our partners to strengthen this collaboration and hopefully not only increase our knowledge on the movements of highly migratory sharks and turtles, but also for this information to permeate public policy and improve conservation for these animals on the ground . . . and in the water." |
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A.M. Costa Rica's Fifth
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| Anti-hacking device gives visual display of threats By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
There is an old saying that goes, “You can not fight what you can not see.” “One of the things that’s very difficult about cyber space is that it’s invisible. . . so the idea of operating in it is very difficult," said Dan Kaufman, former information innovation office director at the U.S. Defense Department's research wing, known as DARPA. But among the tech tools in the lab at DARPA is a new cyber security program called PLAN X that maps out the invisible realm of cyber space. PLAN X developer and former Marine Frank Pound calls the space a cyber battlefield. “We treat this as a contested area," Pound said. "And so we need to start to reason about it in terms of that.” Without PLAN X, computer analysts must read thousands of data points gathered through hours of system monitoring to see a cyber attack. "So, we are detecting the attacks, but what happens is that a lot of times they get hidden in the noise of all this data,” Pound said. Typically, data monitoring is done in a spreadsheet format. It's difficult to read, and a user has to scroll through the information to identify any problems. PLAN X puts the data together in a way that makes it easier to spot trouble. "It is sort of like a weather channel for cyber,” Pound said. Hacked computers show up with a red alert and can be instantly quarantined, analyzed and even used to fire a cyber assault back at the attacker. “So, militaries of the future in the United States will be able to conduct cyber the same as they do with kinetic operations,” Pound said. Kaufman said PLAN X is nearing the point where it can go out to military units stationed across the globe. "My bad day is that I did not get the soy milk in my latte. Soldiers' bad day is that they get shot at. If you are sitting here and you can do something to make that better, I do not know how you can not go home every day, just excited," Kaufman said. The Defense Department debuted PLAN X in a military exercise last month. U.S. Army plans to cut 40,000 soldiers in two years By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
The U.S. Army is planning to reduce the size of its force by 40,000 soldiers over the next two years, according to U.S. media reports. The USA Today newspaper reported Tuesday that the Army also plans to cut 17,000 civilian employees. The cuts would reduce the active-duty Army to about 450,000, its smallest size since before the United States entered World War II. The Army had about 570,000 troops in 2012 at the height of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. The cuts will take place by the end of the 2017 fiscal year and affect virtually every Army post at home and abroad, USA Today said. If the automatic budget cuts known as sequestration, set to begin in October, take place, the Army would have to slash another 30,000 soldiers, according to a document obtained by the newspaper. U.S. rights office rejects Asian claim against Harvard By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
The U.S. Department of Education has dismissed a complaint filed against Harvard University by a group of Asian-American students who claim the university uses racial quotas to keep out high-scoring Asians. The department’s Office for Civil Rights rejected the complaint filed in May by more than 60 Chinese, Indian, Korean and Pakistani groups. The groups said they were very disappointed with the Education Department's decision. Harvard has said that its admission policies have been found to be fully compliant with federal law,' and that it has demonstrated a strong record of recruiting and admitting Asian-American students.' Small-scale distilleries bloom with New York legislation By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Kentucky might be known for its bourbon, but whiskey was made all over the U.S. in thousands of small-scale distilleries in the years before Prohibition made it illegal to make or consume alcohol. Nearly 80 years later, New York loosened its laws and encouraged craft distilling through business incentives. Now local distillers have set up shop in New York City creating innovative spirits with locally farmed ingredients. Every cocktail, says Allen Katz, co-founder of New York Distilling Co. in Brooklyn, starts with a great spirit, like the gin and rye whiskey he distills on site. "Finally, 80 years post-prohibition, we are reclaiming our taste buds,” he says. That’s because New York made it legal for small-scale distillers to not only operate but also to self-distribute and have tasting rooms. New York Distilling Co., which now sells up to 10,000 cases a year, is one of more than 30 state manufacturers. While craft distillers only account for 2 percent of total U.S. distilled spirits by volume, their presence is growing. The number of craft distillers has skyrocketed from 250 in 2009 to over 700 today — and small distillers did more than $400 million in revenue last year, according to the Distilled Spirit Council of the U.S. "It’s absolutely a win for us because it allows us to enter the marketplace at more reasonable cost to set up a business like this from scratch,” says Katz. New York rye has been used in local liquor for centuries, says Katz's head distiller, Bill Potter, adding that the oldest distillery was actually on Staten Island, dating back to 1640. Another Brooklyn-based distiller, Breuckelen Distilling Co., Inc., works with local farmers to create a regional flavor. The specialty farmer’s distillery license that Bruekelen and others operate under requires at least 71 percent local grains. “We’ve been working with the same farmer since we started, and we did the first distillation in 2010," says Brad Estabrook, founder of Breuckelen Distilling. He says small-batch spirits are successful because customers care where their liquor comes from and who makes it. It’s part of a what he calls a backlash against global commercialism. "When we first started we had the one product, and, yeah, we’ve grown a lot from there," he says. "We’ve shipped product into Europe, into Australia, we’re shipping into Panamá in July for the first time.”  Voice of America photo
Soccer team members are
seen on a big screenWomen's
soccer team gets
big welcome in Los Angeles By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
The World Cup-winning U.S. women's soccer team got a tumultuous welcome in Los Angeles Tuesday, after its 5-2 victory in a match against Japan in Vancouver, British Columbia. The 23 team members got a rousing welcome at the Staples Center, where fan Karen Mosce came to celebrate the U.S. women's third World Cup title, and the first since 1999. “I'm here to support our Team USA, women's soccer," she said. "They're the best in the entire world. Whoo, go USA!” Fans cheered coach Jill Ellis and her players, including midfielder Carli Lloyd, 32, who scored three of the five goals in Sunday's final game. The match drew the largest American television audience of any soccer game ever, attracting more than 25 million viewers. The team is an inspiration to the young female players who came to greet their heroes, said teenage fan Christina Prieto. “They're like a family," she said. "They support each other no matter what.” For some, the win highlighted the disparity in pay between male and female players, which fan Lisa Bartoli called unfair. “It's past time for them to have equal pay for equal play," she said. "They are women warriors.” But Bartoli said that was a battle to be fought another time. This was a day to celebrate the women who came home with the World Cup trophy. South Carolina Senate OKs removing Confederate flag By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
South Carolina's state Senate passed a bill to remove the Civil War-era Confederate flag from the state capitol grounds, where it has flown for more than 50 years. The bipartisan proposal was approved by a 36-3 vote Tuesday in the Republican-controlled Senate. The bill now goes to the South Carolina House of Representatives, where debate will likely begin Wednesday. It's far from clear when a vote may be taken. The political discussion comes after numerous officials, including Republican Gov. Nikki Haley, called for the flag's removal after the June 17 massacre of nine African-American churchgoers at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston. The person charged in the shootings, Dylann Roof, was seen carrying the flag in pictures taken before the killings. Hundreds of people have held weekly demonstrations urging lawmakers to scrap the official public display of what the protesters call a symbol of racism and slavery. Many in South Carolina have been calling for the removal of the flag for years. But several counter demonstrations also have been held, calling for the flag to remain displayed. Many in the state were stunned to see the Confederate flag still flying at the top of a pole on the State House grounds while the U.S. and state flags flew at half-staff in tribute to the shooting victims. President Barack Obama discussed the flag during his eulogy for Clementa Pinckney, a state senator and the pastor of the church where the shootings occurred. "Removing the flag from this state’s capitol would not be an act of political correctness. It would not be an insult to the valor of Confederate soldiers. It would simply be an acknowledgment that the cause for which they fought — the cause of slavery — was wrong,” said Obama, who knew Pinckney personally. The Confederate flag flew from the top of the South Carolina State House from 1962 until it was moved to a Civil War memorial in 2000. Flag opponents said it was originally put up over the capitol to defy racial integration. The legacy of the war that divided the nation includes statues of and monuments to Confederate heroes in various state capitals, the flag featured on special license plates drivers can purchase, as well as numerous roads and schools named after generals and politicians from the Confederate States of America. People in South Carolina and other states who want to keep flying the flag say the banner is about history, pride and family heritage, and is not linked to the issue of slavery, one of several factors that launched the Civil War. They condemn racists who they say have corrupted the flag, turning it into a sign of hate. Those who want to get rid of the flag say no one can escape the fact that it once stood for a fight to keep slavery legal and is a constant reminder of the concept of white supremacy. Suspected church killer Roof is in prison waiting for his next court appearance. He has already been charged with nine counts of murder, one for each victim. He was charged with three counts of attempted murder Tuesday for the three survivors. Roof could also face a weapons charge, and federal prosecutors are also considering hate crimes charges against him. Soft spinal implant used to stimulate nerve growth By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
A new implant that can chemically and electrically stimulate nerve growth could one day make it possible for someone with a shattered spine to walk again. Conventional spinal implants cause inflammation and damage because they are too stiff to stay in the soft tissue surrounding the spine long enough to be effective. So bioengineer Stéphanie Lacour wondered whether making a softer implant would eliminate this mismatch between the implant and the body, bringing people closer to a cure for paralysis. The professor at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland and her colleagues created an electronic dura mater implant or e-dura. It gets its name from the natural protective membrane around the spinal cord tissue called the dura mater. Older implants were placed above the dura mater instead of directly on the spinal cord tissue because, according to the researchers, the spinal cord is "one of the most demanding environments of the central nervous system." In contrast, e-dura's soft silicone material can be inserted directly underneath the dura mater, so it can provide direct electrical and chemical stimulation to the nerves in the spinal cord. Lacour said that a stretchable metallic track, made of a combination of platinum, gold and silicone, is a unique feature of the implant. The electrodes on the tracks can deliver electrical stimulation even as the spine twists and turns. The key in healing damaged nerves is being able to bathe the spine with chemicals, along with providing electrical stimulation. A thin, flexible tube connected to a small opening or microchannel in the implant allows the researchers to do this. E-dura's proximity to the spinal cord means that the researchers have to inject less of the drug than they did with the older, stiff implants to have an effect. Ms. Lacour and her colleagues tested e-dura in paralyzed rats to see whether the design improvements would restore hind limb movement. In their study published in Science, the researchers showed that e-dura outperformed the stif implants after several weeks of combined electrical and chemical stimulation. However, the rats could not move without the help of a harness that held them upright as they walked. For a rat to be able to walk on its own again, the regenerated spinal cord nerves need a way to talk to the motor cortex, the part of the brain that controls voluntary movement. But Ms. Lacour said, at this point, there's no link between the brain and the stimulated spinal cord. As many as 500,000 people suffer spinal cord injuries each year because of car accidents, serious falls and diseases, according to the World Health Organization, so making this link in rats may be the next big leap for helping many who are bound to their wheelchairs, waiting to move again. Wet veggies can harbor unhealthy listeria bacteria By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
The bacteria listeria thrive in moist conditions, including on the surface of fresh spinach and other produce just after a rainfall or irrigation. Delaying the produce’s harvest for a day, until moisture evaporates, can reduce the risk of food-borne illness, new research shows. Food poisoning with the pathogen Listeria monocytogenes can cause a range of reactions, from muscle aches, nausea and occasionally diarrhea in some patients to serious health threats in pregnant women, the elderly and people who are immune compromised, like those with HIV, according to the Web site FoodSafety.gov. The bacterium is everywhere in the environment, but it tends to thrive in water. So, crops harvested shortly after rain or irrigation are likely to contain unsafe levels of disease-causing listeria, said Martin Wiedmann, a Cornell University food safety professor. "The water creates favorable conditions, which allow these bacteria, which are naturally there to begin with, to then multiply and be found and detected," Wiedmann said. But "after one day, it drops back more or less to the baseline normal level that we find" in the environment, he added. "… Within a day, you are back to normal." For that reason, researchers such as Wiedmann are encouraging farmers to wait 24 hours after a rainfall or irrigation before harvesting crops so a field has enough time to dry out. Investigators discovered that listeria levels were 25 times greater in crops like spinach harvested immediately after rain or irrigation. The findings are published in the journal Applied and Environmental Microbiology. |
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By the University of Southern California
news staff
Across the entire world, women can expect to live longer than men. But why does this occur and was this always the case? According to a new study led by the University of Southern California-Davis School of Gerontology researchers, significant differences in life expectancies between the sexes first emerged as recently as the turn of the 20th century. As infectious disease prevention, improved diets and other positive health behaviors were adopted by people born during the 1800s and early 1900s, death rates plummeted, but women began reaping the longevity benefits at a much faster rate. In the wake of this massive but uneven decrease in mortality, a review of global data points to heart disease as the culprit behind most of the excess deaths documented in adult men, said Eileen Crimmins, a professor and a researcher. “We were surprised at how the divergence in mortality between men and women, which originated as early as 1870, was concentrated in the 50-to-70 age range and faded out sharply after age 80,” Ms. Crimmins said. The study was conducted with Caleb Finch and research associate Hiram Beltrán-Sánchez of the Center for Demography of Health and Aging at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. It examined the life spans of people born between 1800 and 1935 in 13 developed nations. Focusing on mortality in adults over the age of 40, the team found that in individuals born after 1880, female death rates decreased 70 percent faster than those of males. Even when the researchers controlled for smoking-related illnesses, cardiovascular disease appeared to still be the cause of the vast majority of excess deaths in adult men over 40 for the same time period. Surprisingly, smoking accounted for only 30 percent of the difference in mortality between the sexes after 1890, Ms. Crimmins said. The uneven impact of cardiovascular illness-related deaths on men, especially during middle and early older age, raises the question of whether men and women face different heart disease risks due to inherent biological risks and/or protective factors at different points in their lives, Finch said. “Further study could include analysis of diet and exercise activity differences between countries, deeper examination of genetics and biological vulnerability between sexes at the cell level, and the relationship of these findings to brain health at later ages,” he said. |
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