Eighty-three countries have been invited to submit movies to vie for next year's foreign film Oscar.
They include the former Soviet republics of Azerbaijan and Kyrgyzstan, who have received their.... first invites this year.
A recent rule change means that films entered for the award need no longer be in the country's official language.
The 2007 Oscars will be handed out on during a ceremony at Hollywood's Kodak Theatre on 25 February.
Dominant language
Since 1956, 102 different countries have submitted films to the foreign language competition.
South African film Tsotsi won the 2006 Oscar for best foreign film in March, beating titles from France, Germany, Italy and the Palestinian Territories.
Only one picture will be accepted from each country and must be submitted to the Academy by 2 October.
Under the new rules, announced last week, submitted films do not have to be in the country's official language as long as the dominant language is not English.
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
Blogger barters from red paper clip to keys to house
By BRIAN BERGSTEIN
The Associated Press
Workers fix up the Kipling, Saskatchewan, house that Kyle MacDonald of Montreal bartered for on the Internet.
DAVID BOILY / CANADIAN PRESS
Taking a paper clip and turning it into a house sounds like a cheesy magic trick or a phony instance of resourcefulness on the 1980s TV show "MacGyver."
Kyle MacDonald, however, has pulled it off.
One year ago, the 26-year-old blogger from Montreal set out to barter one.... red paper clip for something and that thing for something else, over and over again until he had a house.
On Wednesday the quest is ending as envisioned: MacDonald is to become the proud owner of a three-bedroom, 1,100-square-foot home provided by the town of Kipling, Saskatchewan. MacDonald and his girlfriend, Dominique Dupuis, expect to move there in early September.
"This is such a cool community project. It feels right," MacDonald said. "And now that I think about it, I can't believe that another small town didn't think of it. It will literally put them on the map."
What's in it for the town? The answer requires a quick MacDonald recap, featuring a menagerie of friendly folks, radio talk-show hosts and aging celebrities, all bound together by the Internet.
It began when MacDonald, an aspiring writer, doer of odd jobs and apartment dweller, advertised in the barter section of the Craigslist Web site that he wanted something bigger or better for one red paper clip. He traded it for a fish-shaped pen, and posted on Craigslist again and again.
Roaming Canada and the United States, he exchanged the pen for a ceramic knob, and in turn: a camping stove, a generator, a beer keg and Budweiser sign, a snowmobile, a trip to the Canadian Rockies, a supply truck and a recording contract. Next, in April, he got himself really close, obtaining a year's rent in Phoenix.
His adventure became an Internet blockbuster. He appeared on Canadian and Japanese television and "Good Morning America." He made dozens of local radio appearances — one of which, in Los Angeles, was heard by a man who ended up as a pivotal figure.
That man is Corbin Bernsen. You may remember him from his roles in "L.A. Law" and "Major League."
advertising
Hip to the publicity-generating machine that is Kyle MacDonald, Bernsen contacted him to say he was writing and directing a movie and would offer a paid speaking role as an item available for trade.
MacDonald was thrilled. But he feared the integrity of his journey would be compromised if he accepted the role without trading Bernsen something he really could use. Say what you want about "Major League 3," but Bernsen has done well enough that he doesn't need a free apartment in Phoenix.
So MacDonald kept Bernsen's offer off his blog, but plowed ahead with an eye to finding something Bernsen would legitimately want.
Seemingly disregarding good economic sense, MacDonald traded the year's rent for an afternoon with rock star Alice Cooper. (MacDonald's response: "Alice Cooper is a gold mine of awesomeness and fun.") Then in a move that really confused his blog readers, MacDonald bartered time with Cooper for a snow globe depicting the band Kiss.
Re-enter Corbin Bernsen.
You see, since the days when he would get free stuff on promotional tours for "L.A. Law," Bernsen has amassed a collection of 6,500 snow globes. "One off, they look sort of goofy," Bernsen said. "Put them all together and they sort of look like pop art."
So MacDonald gave Bernsen the Kiss model and encouraged his blog readers to send the actor even more globes in exchange for autographed pictures.
All this delighted the elders in Kipling, a town of 1,140 believed to have been named in honor of author Rudyard Kipling.
Like many rural towns, Kipling is eager to stave off the perils of dwindling population by attracting new businesses, tourism and, above all, attention. When the local development coordinator, Bert Roach, heard about MacDonald's odyssey, he suggested at the next council meeting that Kipling lure him.
Quickly the town purchased an unoccupied rental house on Main Street and offered it to MacDonald. Roach won't disclose the price because MacDonald says he doesn't want to know. But Roach says it was well under the going rate in Kipling, which is about $50,000 Canadian ($44,500 U.S.).
The town also pledged to put a giant red paper clip at a highway rest stop and hold an "American Idol"-style competition for the movie role. Participants will have to make a donation to the town's parks department and a charity.
When MacDonald agreed last week, "I was holding back tears, I was so bloody happy," Roach said. "It's going to be such a great project for our community."
Bernsen says that if the right person emerges in the talent show, he would be willing to cast him or her as a lead. "Maybe a career is going to get started. Maybe it's going to be huge. Maybe that's the magic of Kyle."
MacDonald doesn't expect to live in Kipling forever. But he says he'll make it home at least while he settles down to write a book.
Of course, even if the house came free, he'll have the usual homeowner headaches: taxes, utilities, upkeep. It should come as no surprise that MacDonald isn't worried.
"I'll figure something out," he said. "I can get a job. There's three grocery stores in town."
Copyright © 2006 The Seattle Times Company
Kyrgyzstan 'expels US diplomats'
The US and Kyrgyzstan have clashed over a US air base
The Kyrgyz authorities are expelling two US diplomats for "inappropriate" contacts with non-governmental organisations (NGOs), reports say.
Spokesmen from the foreign ministry and another official body confirmed the reports, but it was unclear whether.... the diplomats had already left the country.
In a statement on its website, the US embassy in the capital Bishkek said the allegations were "simply not true".
It said the expulsions were a bid to "silence the voice of civil society".
And it vowed to maintain contact with "all sectors" of Kyrgyz society, including opposition figures and NGOs.
Confusion
The news agency AP quoted an unnamed Kyrgyz official as saying the expulsions were down to "inappropriate" contacts with NGOs, and the US embassy used the same word in its statement, which referred only to "reports" of the expulsion.
AP also quoted Tursunbek Akun, head of the official Human Rights Commission, as saying: "A decision has been taken, but the diplomats remain in the country."
But the local news agency 24.kg said "reliable sources" said two US citizens had been deported. It quoted one as saying that the expulsion was due to "gross interference in the internal affairs of the sovereign Kyrgyz Republic".
The apparent expulsions come on the eve of planned talks on the future of a US military air base, Manas.
The two nations have been locked in dispute over the base, after Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiev demanded a one-hundred-fold rise in the annual rent to $200m.
President Bakiev came to power last year after popular protests swept the former President, Askar Akayev, from power after 15 years in office. The country's many active civil rights groups were a driving force behind the protests.
Monday, July 10, 2006
U.S. reaps what the Army sows
David R. Irvine
Recent headlines from Iraq are ugly: Marines charged with murdering Haditha civilians. A crippled man killed by Americans, who then planted a rifle and shovel near the body as if he had been burying roadside bombs. And a particularly gruesome charge that U.S. soldiers raped and killed an Iraqi woman, killed her family, and burned the bodies to cover the crime.
If these atrocities are carefully investigated, the.... likely deficiency may be sufficient command leadership and discipline. A recent book (May 2006) speaks to the issue of leader accountability with stunning eloquence. Tiger Force is a documented account of 120 U.S. soldiers who, between May and November of 1967, rotated through an Army special operations platoon. This platoon, Tiger Force, wreaked its vengeance in the vicinity of Duc Pho and Chu Lai in South Vietnam.
Operating largely on their own and only passingly accountable to a chain of command that rarely ventured into the jungles and paddies, these soldiers ruthlessly murdered hundreds of unarmed men, women and children. One soldier cut off a baby's head with a knife. Victims' ears were regularly sliced off, collected and fashioned into necklaces which some soldiers proudly wore. Other victims were scalped. Some were tortured. Teeth were kicked out to retrieve the gold from fillings. Virtually all of the civilian deaths were reported as "Viet Cong," even though, oddly, no weapons were ever found and none were ever reported. No officer in command ever questioned this glaring disparity.
That part of Tiger Force is grim enough. What the Army then did with the evidence is shocking, and what was covered up in 1974-75 may have sowed the headlines we are reaping in 2006. One of the most thorough Criminal Investigation Division (CID, the Army's internal FBI) investigations ever conducted, meticulously gathered the facts surrounding the war crimes committed by Tiger Force. The evidence was voluminous, certain and had been obtained at the risk of a few investigators' lives.
In 1974-75, Richard Cheney was a special assistant to President Ford. Ford's chief of staff was Donald Rumsfeld. The secretary of defense from 1973-75 was James Schlesinger. The case was made to disappear by these men who served presidents Nixon and Ford - probably out of considerations of politics. There were never any charges filed against the soldiers or the officers who ordered and participated in the routine killing of civilians.
The only reason the case file ever became public was that the CID officer who directed the investigation, and who later commanded the Criminal Investigation Division, kept a copy of the investigation file, and prior to his death in 2002 made provision for the file to be delivered to a reporter with the Toledo Blade.
Thirty years later, Mr. Rumsfeld refuses to discuss the Tiger Force case. Mr. Cheney declines to discuss much of anything. Mr. Schlesinger conducted one of the see-no-evil investigations at Abu Ghraib. The senior leadership of the Army and the nation prefers to characterize war crimes as the work of a few "bad apples." My Lai was pinned to Lt. William Calley, who suited the bad apple role.
Tiger Force was far larger, killed three times as many people, but involved too many "bad apples" and too much gore to maintain the right story line.
The common thread which runs from Tiger Force through My Lai, to Guantanamo, Bagram and Abu Ghraib, to a hundred episodes of sadistic brutality inflicted by U.S. soldiers in Iraq, is the remarkable fact that the official responsibility for all these tragedies never runs higher than the lowest-level trigger-pullers or body-stackers.
But suppose in 1975 that Mr. Rumsfeld and Mr. Cheney had made a different decision. Suppose the CID Tiger Force investigation had been permitted to charge the perpetrators and their superior officers with war crimes. Suppose a court-martial inquiry had asked why no battalion commanders bothered to check out the reports of Tiger Force ear collections? What if a colonel or two had been found guilty of failing to adequately control the troops under their command? For starters, those cases and leadership lessons would have been part of today's core curriculum in ROTC and at West Point.
This administration never holds anyone in senior positions accountable for derelict performance. However, unless there is full accountability for the war crimes of Iraq - wherever the evidence leads - there is a high probability that the lessons today's lieutenants and captains need to learn about the law of war and command leadership will never be sufficiently absorbed to make the crucial difference when those men and women become colonels and generals.
---
David R. Irvine is a lawyer in Salt Lake City and a retired Army Reserve brigadier general. He was commissioned as a strategic intelligence officer in 1967, and taught prisoner of war interrogation and military law for the Sixth Army Intelligence School for 18 years.
Recent headlines from Iraq are ugly: Marines charged with murdering Haditha civilians. A crippled man killed by Americans, who then planted a rifle and shovel near the body as if he had been burying roadside bombs. And a particularly gruesome charge that U.S. soldiers raped and killed an Iraqi woman, killed her family, and burned the bodies to cover the crime.
If these atrocities are carefully investigated, the.... likely deficiency may be sufficient command leadership and discipline. A recent book (May 2006) speaks to the issue of leader accountability with stunning eloquence. Tiger Force is a documented account of 120 U.S. soldiers who, between May and November of 1967, rotated through an Army special operations platoon. This platoon, Tiger Force, wreaked its vengeance in the vicinity of Duc Pho and Chu Lai in South Vietnam.
Operating largely on their own and only passingly accountable to a chain of command that rarely ventured into the jungles and paddies, these soldiers ruthlessly murdered hundreds of unarmed men, women and children. One soldier cut off a baby's head with a knife. Victims' ears were regularly sliced off, collected and fashioned into necklaces which some soldiers proudly wore. Other victims were scalped. Some were tortured. Teeth were kicked out to retrieve the gold from fillings. Virtually all of the civilian deaths were reported as "Viet Cong," even though, oddly, no weapons were ever found and none were ever reported. No officer in command ever questioned this glaring disparity.
That part of Tiger Force is grim enough. What the Army then did with the evidence is shocking, and what was covered up in 1974-75 may have sowed the headlines we are reaping in 2006. One of the most thorough Criminal Investigation Division (CID, the Army's internal FBI) investigations ever conducted, meticulously gathered the facts surrounding the war crimes committed by Tiger Force. The evidence was voluminous, certain and had been obtained at the risk of a few investigators' lives.
In 1974-75, Richard Cheney was a special assistant to President Ford. Ford's chief of staff was Donald Rumsfeld. The secretary of defense from 1973-75 was James Schlesinger. The case was made to disappear by these men who served presidents Nixon and Ford - probably out of considerations of politics. There were never any charges filed against the soldiers or the officers who ordered and participated in the routine killing of civilians.
The only reason the case file ever became public was that the CID officer who directed the investigation, and who later commanded the Criminal Investigation Division, kept a copy of the investigation file, and prior to his death in 2002 made provision for the file to be delivered to a reporter with the Toledo Blade.
Thirty years later, Mr. Rumsfeld refuses to discuss the Tiger Force case. Mr. Cheney declines to discuss much of anything. Mr. Schlesinger conducted one of the see-no-evil investigations at Abu Ghraib. The senior leadership of the Army and the nation prefers to characterize war crimes as the work of a few "bad apples." My Lai was pinned to Lt. William Calley, who suited the bad apple role.
Tiger Force was far larger, killed three times as many people, but involved too many "bad apples" and too much gore to maintain the right story line.
The common thread which runs from Tiger Force through My Lai, to Guantanamo, Bagram and Abu Ghraib, to a hundred episodes of sadistic brutality inflicted by U.S. soldiers in Iraq, is the remarkable fact that the official responsibility for all these tragedies never runs higher than the lowest-level trigger-pullers or body-stackers.
But suppose in 1975 that Mr. Rumsfeld and Mr. Cheney had made a different decision. Suppose the CID Tiger Force investigation had been permitted to charge the perpetrators and their superior officers with war crimes. Suppose a court-martial inquiry had asked why no battalion commanders bothered to check out the reports of Tiger Force ear collections? What if a colonel or two had been found guilty of failing to adequately control the troops under their command? For starters, those cases and leadership lessons would have been part of today's core curriculum in ROTC and at West Point.
This administration never holds anyone in senior positions accountable for derelict performance. However, unless there is full accountability for the war crimes of Iraq - wherever the evidence leads - there is a high probability that the lessons today's lieutenants and captains need to learn about the law of war and command leadership will never be sufficiently absorbed to make the crucial difference when those men and women become colonels and generals.
---
David R. Irvine is a lawyer in Salt Lake City and a retired Army Reserve brigadier general. He was commissioned as a strategic intelligence officer in 1967, and taught prisoner of war interrogation and military law for the Sixth Army Intelligence School for 18 years.
Friday, July 07, 2006
Thursday, July 06, 2006
Mandan recall petitions filed
By GORDON WEIXEL
Bismarck Tribune
For the second time this year, lawyer Ben Pulkrabek has turned in recall petitions for members of the Mandan City Commission - this time he expects there will be a special election.
Pulkrabek turned the petitions into the auditor's office just before lunch time on Wednesday. They are for Mayor Ken LaMont and commissioners Dan Ulmer and Sandra Tibke.
The reason remains the same, dissatisfaction.... with the commission's efforts regarding the settlement with BNSF Railway and the remediation effort. Last time Pulkrabek turned in recall petitions for all five commissioners including Tim Helbling and Stan Scott.
The petitions for Helbling and Scott were discounted since the commissioners were up for election in Tuesday's municipal election. Helbling retained his seat, receiving the most votes (1,375) of the five candidates. But Scott was ousted by downtown businessman Jerome Gangl who garnered 1,117 votes to the incumbent's 982.
"Some people may have thought that since Helbling was elected I wasn't going to go through with this (the recall)," Pulkrabek said. "But I feel this way: We got rid of one commissioner, and we're batting .500. You get a starting job in the big leagues if you're hitting like that."
Pulkrabek added that if anyone is interested in recalling Helbling, he'd be more than happy to help. But Pulkrabek's intentions are to stick to the three petitions he's turned in.
Helbling said his re-election does lend credibility to the actions the city commission has taken.
"I think it's a vote of confidence and lends support to what we're (city commission) doing," Helbling said. "But people have the right for a recall if they so choose. There are so many good things over the horizon. If we just can get over this hump we'll be there."
To recall the mayor and commissioners, Pulkrabek needed 492 signatures for each person. In the last attempt at recalling LaMont, Tibke and Ulmer, signatures were found to be invalid with instances of one person signing for another - in many cases it was a husband or wife signing for their spouse. By state law, one such occurrence on a page of 25 signatures invalidated the entire page. Because of this the recall attempt fell short of the necessary signatures.
This time Pulkrabek said much more attention was paid to the signatures to make sure each was valid. The Mandan attorney noted that the petitions were not due until July 27, and he and the petition sponsors were able to pull together the necessary numbers far more quickly.
The recall committee also was able to collect more signatures than the needed 492. For Tibke 563 were collected, LaMont 574 and Ulmer 559.
Ulmer and Tibke question the reason for the recall but agree Pulkrabek has the right to do so.
"I have mixed feelings," Ulmer said. "Frankly, I hope he has his stuff in order and we can get this over with."
Ulmer maintains the settlement is a done deal and there are no issues to debate.
"What are the people of Mandan really voting on here?" Ulmer said. "Pulkrabek hasn't told us, and no one on the sponsoring committee has. In fact, I don't know any of the people on the sponsoring committee. Who are they and what do they want? The people of Mandan need to know."
Tibke said that she's made many decisions as a city commissioner and the ones she was most sure of were the settlement with BNSF, the picking of the firm to handle the remediation and actually proceeding on the clean up.
"I feel very comfortable with our decisions," Tibke said. "I would like to hear how they would have done it differently. What is this group's vision. I haven't heard anything."
Deputy auditor Phyllis Hager said the city will go through the same process it did before in verifying the petitions, which will likely include telephone calls to many of the signers. The city has 30 days to verify the petitions. Once it's determined there are sufficient signatures the city will have to call a special election no sooner than 50 days or later than 60 days.
Hager said it's hard to determine how long verification will take, but added that it appeared the petitions had been critiqued more thoroughly than before.
How soon the petitions can be verified will depend on how many city employees will be available to help, according to Hager. It's the beginning of the vacation season, and the city has several time consuming projects in the works.
Pulkrabek noted that his recall campaign does not have any specific candidates to run for the commission, but several people have indicated to him they are interested.
Having just completed one election, another one may be held yet this summer in Mandan.
(Reach reporter Gordon Weixel at 250-8255 or gordon.weixel@;bismarcktribune.com.)
Bismarck Tribune
For the second time this year, lawyer Ben Pulkrabek has turned in recall petitions for members of the Mandan City Commission - this time he expects there will be a special election.
Pulkrabek turned the petitions into the auditor's office just before lunch time on Wednesday. They are for Mayor Ken LaMont and commissioners Dan Ulmer and Sandra Tibke.
The reason remains the same, dissatisfaction.... with the commission's efforts regarding the settlement with BNSF Railway and the remediation effort. Last time Pulkrabek turned in recall petitions for all five commissioners including Tim Helbling and Stan Scott.
The petitions for Helbling and Scott were discounted since the commissioners were up for election in Tuesday's municipal election. Helbling retained his seat, receiving the most votes (1,375) of the five candidates. But Scott was ousted by downtown businessman Jerome Gangl who garnered 1,117 votes to the incumbent's 982.
"Some people may have thought that since Helbling was elected I wasn't going to go through with this (the recall)," Pulkrabek said. "But I feel this way: We got rid of one commissioner, and we're batting .500. You get a starting job in the big leagues if you're hitting like that."
Pulkrabek added that if anyone is interested in recalling Helbling, he'd be more than happy to help. But Pulkrabek's intentions are to stick to the three petitions he's turned in.
Helbling said his re-election does lend credibility to the actions the city commission has taken.
"I think it's a vote of confidence and lends support to what we're (city commission) doing," Helbling said. "But people have the right for a recall if they so choose. There are so many good things over the horizon. If we just can get over this hump we'll be there."
To recall the mayor and commissioners, Pulkrabek needed 492 signatures for each person. In the last attempt at recalling LaMont, Tibke and Ulmer, signatures were found to be invalid with instances of one person signing for another - in many cases it was a husband or wife signing for their spouse. By state law, one such occurrence on a page of 25 signatures invalidated the entire page. Because of this the recall attempt fell short of the necessary signatures.
This time Pulkrabek said much more attention was paid to the signatures to make sure each was valid. The Mandan attorney noted that the petitions were not due until July 27, and he and the petition sponsors were able to pull together the necessary numbers far more quickly.
The recall committee also was able to collect more signatures than the needed 492. For Tibke 563 were collected, LaMont 574 and Ulmer 559.
Ulmer and Tibke question the reason for the recall but agree Pulkrabek has the right to do so.
"I have mixed feelings," Ulmer said. "Frankly, I hope he has his stuff in order and we can get this over with."
Ulmer maintains the settlement is a done deal and there are no issues to debate.
"What are the people of Mandan really voting on here?" Ulmer said. "Pulkrabek hasn't told us, and no one on the sponsoring committee has. In fact, I don't know any of the people on the sponsoring committee. Who are they and what do they want? The people of Mandan need to know."
Tibke said that she's made many decisions as a city commissioner and the ones she was most sure of were the settlement with BNSF, the picking of the firm to handle the remediation and actually proceeding on the clean up.
"I feel very comfortable with our decisions," Tibke said. "I would like to hear how they would have done it differently. What is this group's vision. I haven't heard anything."
Deputy auditor Phyllis Hager said the city will go through the same process it did before in verifying the petitions, which will likely include telephone calls to many of the signers. The city has 30 days to verify the petitions. Once it's determined there are sufficient signatures the city will have to call a special election no sooner than 50 days or later than 60 days.
Hager said it's hard to determine how long verification will take, but added that it appeared the petitions had been critiqued more thoroughly than before.
How soon the petitions can be verified will depend on how many city employees will be available to help, according to Hager. It's the beginning of the vacation season, and the city has several time consuming projects in the works.
Pulkrabek noted that his recall campaign does not have any specific candidates to run for the commission, but several people have indicated to him they are interested.
Having just completed one election, another one may be held yet this summer in Mandan.
(Reach reporter Gordon Weixel at 250-8255 or gordon.weixel@;bismarcktribune.com.)
Popular Painkiller May Cause Liver Damage
POSTED: 8:18 am EDT July 5, 2006
CHICAGO -- Healthy adults taking maximum doses of Tylenol for two weeks had abnormal liver test results in a small study, researchers found, raising concerns that even recommended amounts of the popular painkiller might lead to liver damage.
In the study, 106 participants took.... four grams of Tylenol - equivalent to eight extra-strength Tylenol tablets - each day for two weeks. Some took Tylenol alone and some took it with an opioid painkiller. Dummy pills were given to 39 others.
There were no alarming liver test results among the people who took the placebos. But nearly 40 percent of people in all the other groups had abnormal test results that would signal liver damage, according to the study that appears in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association.
"I would urge the public not to exceed four grams a day. This is a drug that has a rather narrow safety window," said a study co-author, Dr. Neil Kaplowitz of the University of Southern California.
Heavy drinkers should take no more than two grams daily, Kaplowitz said.
Another co-author, Dr. Paul Watkins of the University of North Carolina, said he's less worried than Kaplowitz, noting that acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol, has been used for 50 years and has a good safety record.
The maker of Tylenol, McNeil Consumer & Specialty Pharmaceuticals, said its own research found much lower rates of abnormal liver results. The company's studies tracked high-dose users over longer periods than did the new study.
"It doesn't lead to liver disease and it usually resolves as patients continue to take acetaminophen," said Dr. Edwin Kuffner, senior director of medical affairs at McNeil.
The researchers had been hired by the drug company Purdue Pharma LP, maker of the prescription painkiller OxyContin, to find out why abnormal liver tests were showing up in people testing a combination drug containing the acetaminophen and the opiate hydrocodone.
Purdue Pharma stopped its hydrocodone study early because of the abnormal liver tests. Researchers Watkins and Kaplowitz thought they would find the culprit in hydrocodone's interaction with acetaminophen.
"Our jaws dropped when we got the data," Watkins said. "It doesn't have anything to do with the opiate. It's good ol', garden-variety acetaminophen."
Acetaminophen is more popular than aspirin or ibuprofen. Each week, one in five U.S. adults uses it for pain or fever, a 2002 survey found.
Acetaminophen is included in numerous over-the-counter and prescription medications, making overdose possible as people unwittingly combine drugs. Overdoses of acetaminophen are the leading cause of acute liver failure.
"A week doesn't go by when I don't have to talk to someone about how much they're taking," said Kathleen Besinque of the USC School of Pharmacy.
Watkins said people considering switching painkillers should know that others have their own side effects, such as internal bleeding and stomach irritation.
New research under way at the University of North Carolina may determine if acetaminophen's effect on the liver continues for long-term, high-dose users, or if the body adapts, Watkins said.
Facts About The Study
THE STUDY:
#
# Involved 106 participants
# Each took four grams of Tylenol each day for two weeks
# Some took Tylenol alone
# Some took it with an opioid painkiller
# Dummy pills were given to 39 others
Study published in Wednesday Journal of the American Medical Association
FINDINGS:
#
# No alarming liver test results among people who took the placebos
40 percent of others had abnormal test results that'd signal liver damage
RECOMMENDATIONS:
#
# Don't take more than four grams a day
Heavy drinkers should not take more than two grams a day
QUOTE:
#
Co-author, Dr. Neil Kaplowitz of University of Southern California:
"This is a drug that has a rather narrow safety window."
Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
CHICAGO -- Healthy adults taking maximum doses of Tylenol for two weeks had abnormal liver test results in a small study, researchers found, raising concerns that even recommended amounts of the popular painkiller might lead to liver damage.
In the study, 106 participants took.... four grams of Tylenol - equivalent to eight extra-strength Tylenol tablets - each day for two weeks. Some took Tylenol alone and some took it with an opioid painkiller. Dummy pills were given to 39 others.
There were no alarming liver test results among the people who took the placebos. But nearly 40 percent of people in all the other groups had abnormal test results that would signal liver damage, according to the study that appears in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association.
"I would urge the public not to exceed four grams a day. This is a drug that has a rather narrow safety window," said a study co-author, Dr. Neil Kaplowitz of the University of Southern California.
Heavy drinkers should take no more than two grams daily, Kaplowitz said.
Another co-author, Dr. Paul Watkins of the University of North Carolina, said he's less worried than Kaplowitz, noting that acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol, has been used for 50 years and has a good safety record.
The maker of Tylenol, McNeil Consumer & Specialty Pharmaceuticals, said its own research found much lower rates of abnormal liver results. The company's studies tracked high-dose users over longer periods than did the new study.
"It doesn't lead to liver disease and it usually resolves as patients continue to take acetaminophen," said Dr. Edwin Kuffner, senior director of medical affairs at McNeil.
The researchers had been hired by the drug company Purdue Pharma LP, maker of the prescription painkiller OxyContin, to find out why abnormal liver tests were showing up in people testing a combination drug containing the acetaminophen and the opiate hydrocodone.
Purdue Pharma stopped its hydrocodone study early because of the abnormal liver tests. Researchers Watkins and Kaplowitz thought they would find the culprit in hydrocodone's interaction with acetaminophen.
"Our jaws dropped when we got the data," Watkins said. "It doesn't have anything to do with the opiate. It's good ol', garden-variety acetaminophen."
Acetaminophen is more popular than aspirin or ibuprofen. Each week, one in five U.S. adults uses it for pain or fever, a 2002 survey found.
Acetaminophen is included in numerous over-the-counter and prescription medications, making overdose possible as people unwittingly combine drugs. Overdoses of acetaminophen are the leading cause of acute liver failure.
"A week doesn't go by when I don't have to talk to someone about how much they're taking," said Kathleen Besinque of the USC School of Pharmacy.
Watkins said people considering switching painkillers should know that others have their own side effects, such as internal bleeding and stomach irritation.
New research under way at the University of North Carolina may determine if acetaminophen's effect on the liver continues for long-term, high-dose users, or if the body adapts, Watkins said.
Facts About The Study
THE STUDY:
#
# Involved 106 participants
# Each took four grams of Tylenol each day for two weeks
# Some took Tylenol alone
# Some took it with an opioid painkiller
# Dummy pills were given to 39 others
Study published in Wednesday Journal of the American Medical Association
FINDINGS:
#
# No alarming liver test results among people who took the placebos
40 percent of others had abnormal test results that'd signal liver damage
RECOMMENDATIONS:
#
# Don't take more than four grams a day
Heavy drinkers should not take more than two grams a day
QUOTE:
#
Co-author, Dr. Neil Kaplowitz of University of Southern California:
"This is a drug that has a rather narrow safety window."
Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Wednesday, July 05, 2006
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