Lauren Odes and her attorney Gloria Allred (R) speak at a news conference in New York, May 21, 2012. Odes is suing her former employer, claiming she was dismissed for dressing too provocatively.
By Eve Tahmincioglu
The website for a Manhattan lingerie boutique called Native Intimates has a photograph of a well-endowed woman pushing her breasts together. So, it?s odd that an employee of the shop is claiming she was fired for being ?too hot.?
But that?s exactly what Lauren Odes is alleging.
?When I was first told that I was ?too hot? and that my breasts were too large I was shocked,? said Odes in a statement released Tuesday. Her sexy appearance, she said, got her a pink slip from an employer who sells intimate apparel much sexier than your basic slips.
Not surprisingly her story is getting a lot of media attention thanks in part to the celebrity lawyer representing her, Gloria Allred, who held a press conference Monday about the allegations. Allred has taken on many high profile and controversial discrimination cases in her day, including the case of a banker who claimed in 2010 she was fired for being too sexy.
In Odes? case, however, the work environment would seem a bit more conducive to a little cleavage.
Odes began working for Native Intimates on April 24 handling data entry and shipping tasks, but by May 1 she was out of a?job. She alleges her supervisors told her that her choice of clothing was disliked by the company?s owner, an Orthodox Jew.
In a statement, Allred said a complaint has been filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in New York claiming Odes ?was simply fired for being attractive and for not conforming to the religious strictures imposed by top management, apparently for having female body parts, despite having ably performed her professional duties.?
A woman reached by phone at Native Intimates would only say: ?We?re not interested in giving a comment.?
A spokeswoman for the EEOC would not comment on the complaint.
Live Poll
Do you think this former lingerie shop worker was a victim of discrimination?
184128
Yes.
42%
184129
No.
58%
VoteTotal Votes: 6332
Odes is alleging two types of?discrimination:?one based on gender and another based on religion.
Being too hot is not a protected category under the nation?s labor laws, but being terminated because you?re a woman or for religious bias is a legal no-no.
It?s unclear exactly why Odes was fired, but what is clear is employers have a lot of latitude in?restricting what their employees can wear.
?All companies, regardless of whether they?re selling lingerie or whatever, are permitted to have and enforce dress codes that an owner sees as appropriate,? said Keisha-Ann G. Gray, an employment attorney for Proskauer, a law firm that represents employers. ?They are permitted to require their employee to dress conservatively,? she noted, if it?s applied equally among workers of different genders, religions, and races.
Odes said she asked about a dress code when she was hired. She said she was told to look around and see what everyone else was wearing. "The dress varied from very casual athletic wear to business dress,? she said.
She also claimed she was wearing ?very covered up attire? but it was her body that was the target of her employer?s disdain. She said that?at one point a female employee suggested that she?consider taping down her breasts.
Women are often held to a double standard at work when it comes to their appearance, said Anne York, associate professor of economics at Meredith College?s School of Business in Raleigh, N.C.
While a supervisor may have thought she might turn off customers, she said, a well-endowed woman would seem like the perfect fit for a lingerie business.?
Parking spaces in New York City can be hard to come by, as evidenced by the 12 by 23-foot spot in Greenwich Village currently on sale for a cool million.
Season 14 finalists William Levy, Katherine Jenkins and Donald Driver.
By Ree Hines
As a football pro, Donald Driver knows a thing or two about how to play a game. It doesn't matter if you're down in the first half -- or even the first three quarters. What matters is where you land when the game's over. And when the clock ran down on Tuesday night's "Dancing With the Stars" finale, the Green Bay Packer was the clear winner.
After spending most of the season trailing just behind his fellow finalists?William Levy and Katherine Jenkins, Donald closed the gap (and then some) in the finals. A solid judge's pick routine on Monday night and his 24-hour-prep performance in the finale helped him, but it was no doubt his show-stopping, country-themed finals freestyle that sealed the deal when it came to viewer votes.
When the results were announced, Donald threw himself across the dance floor, as he's been apt to do during high-points all season long. Then host Tom Bergeron turned to the wide receiver and said, "I've got to ask you the question that Brooke (Burke Charvet) always asks: How do you feel?"
Completely ignoring that Brooke zinger, Donald raved, "Amazing! Oh, this is awesome! Thank you so much."
The victory was a sweet one for the man who spent much of the season hoping (and rehearsing) for a single perfect score from the panel -- and more importantly, from head judge Len Goodman. Donald regularly wished for a "10 from Len," and in the final 24 hours of the competition, he boasted two of them and a sparkling mirror ball trophy too.
Of course, the win wasn't just a victory for Donald. His partner, Peta Murgatroyd, is now a "Dancing" champ. After exiting the game in the first week during her premiere season, she took it all the way with Donald in her second effort.
Adam Taylor / ABC
Donald and Peta's win wasn't the only one of the night. OK, technically it was, but Donald's fellow finalists put on some praise-winning, if not show-winning performances.
First William, who ended the night in third place, took the floor for a salsa. It was a bold choice for his final routine after getting an earful from Len for performing a salsa-filled freestyle the night before. His last effort wasn't as polished as his earlier ones, but it still packed the hip-shaking and rear-rotating moves he's now known for.
Then second-place finisher Katherine took the floor for a jumping jive that earned raves from the panel. According to judge Bruno Tonioli, the dance only cemented the fact that she's "the girl that has it all."
Well, everything but a mirror ball trophy.
Donald's last-chance cha cha -- easily the best dance of the night, other than maybe his encore freestyle -- proved his win was well earned. The routine packed body rolls, smooth transitions and fan-pleasing perfect lines.
All the dances earned top scores from the panel.
And those weren't the only performances of note. The ballroom's past challengers of the season came back to remind the crowd just what they could do. Highlights included Sherri Shepherd's "It's Raining Men" routine, complete with pros Maksim Chmerkovskiy and Tony Dovolani raining from the ceiling while she took one last spin with Val Chmerkovskiy. And Melissa Gilbert hit the floor again with both Brothers Chmerkovskiy for a reworking of her memorable trio routine.
Roshon Fegan had the chance to show viewers what his freestyle would have looked like had he made it to the finals. The fast, content-packed dance was worth watching, but it seems a safe bet to say Donald would have still won that round.
But one of the most memorable performances of the night came from a not-so-great dancer -- Gladys Knight. The singing legend traded her dancing shoes for a microphone and belted out a tear-jerking rendition of "Memories" while the finalists awaited the results.
That (and a whole lot of star-studded, clip-tastic filler) was all the two-hour finale could pack. But as Tom reminded viewers, the ballroom bash will be back in the fall with an all-star season bound to entertain fans once again.
What did you think of the finalists' last dances? Which returning star had the best performance? Share your thoughts on our Facebook page!
This is an undated booking photo, provided by the Mountain View Police, of Thomas Langenbach, taken in Mountain View, Calif. Langenbach, a Silicon Valley technology executive, is facing charges after authorities say he changed the bar codes on Lego toys at a Target store to buy them for less. (AP Photo/Mountain View Police)
This is an undated booking photo, provided by the Mountain View Police, of Thomas Langenbach, taken in Mountain View, Calif. Langenbach, a Silicon Valley technology executive, is facing charges after authorities say he changed the bar codes on Lego toys at a Target store to buy them for less. (AP Photo/Mountain View Police)
SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) ? A Silicon Valley software executive put fake bar codes on Lego sets at various Target stores, bought the toys at steeply discounted prices, then sold them online for thousands of dollars, authorities say.
Thomas Langenbach, 47, is scheduled to appear in court Tuesday on four felony counts of burglary.
Authorities say he covered the original bar codes on Lego sets with his own bar-code stickers to get a cheaper price.
When they obtained a search warrant for his posh home south of San Francisco, police said they found hundreds of sets of the colorful toy bricks, many of which they said he sold on eBay under the name "tomsbrickyard."
Authorities say Langenbach's San Carlos home also was filled with Lego creations he had built himself.
Eight baggies of bar code stickers were found in his car, police said.
Langenbach works for German software giant SAP. His LinkedIn profile lists him as a vice president in a Northern California division.
He was already under surveillance by Target security officers who suspected him of the scheme when they spotted him at the chain's store in Mountain View on May 8. After he completed his purchases using the bogus bar codes, the store called police and Langenbach was arrested, authorities said.
"They had recognized him when he walked in the store and had seen him on camera actually sticking bar-code stickers onto items," Mountain View police spokeswoman Liz Wylie told KNTV-TV.
Supervising Deputy District Attorney Cindy Seeley Hendrickson told the station that Langenbach bought a $279 box of Millenium Falcon Legos for $49 and a $90 Anakin Skywalker Lego set for $35.
Attempts to reach Langenbach, who is free on bail, were unsuccessful.
If you discover motivation is on the decline in your office and your employees are looking preferably fed up then it could well be the environment they?re laboring in which is affecting their mood. That which the office looks like and their employer?s policies and morals can also impact on employees? wellbeing. Arena such as the Sunday Times 100 Most good Companies and the company behind it, Best Companies, lengthwise with accreditations such as Investors in Tribe prove that you care about your employees? laboring environment, wellbeing and happiness in the workplace. Under are some top tips for making your work a better place for your employees to act.
Invest in ergonomic design
Backcare.org states that ?back penalty is the second most common cause of illness absence in Great Britain?. A greater contributing factor to back pain can be the way your employees? desks are set up. If the desks and chairs in your work are not able to be easily adjusted then your employees are probable to be slouching which can cause neck and back penalty. Other issues which could influence your team?s health are a lack of ergonomic design through computer monitors and other computer accessories like as mouse mats. By allowing team members to customise their desks to set their height and the way they work, your team can favor from a better ergonomic design in the workplace.
Create the office more attractive
A messy work full of paper, tea stained desks, wires and bustle won?t do much to boost your team?s ethical. Instead of letting your employees? sit in a stupid and uninspiring office, liven the place up and inducement them with colours. Yellow, orange and verdant are all lively colours which could bestow your employees a creative spark and motivation boost. Hide wires absent from view with a smart metallic thread tidy which will also relieve prevent people tripping over the wires too. Decorative cable trunking can be used to cover wires on walls and you could even select different colours to complement or contrast through the rest of the office.
Think about the environment
As tribe?s awareness of environmental issues grow, you necessity to make sure that you?re doing your piece so your employees? see the company as a responsible and moral place to work. One way to make your assemblage more eco-friendly is to purchase recycled products. As well as the open choices such as paper and other fixed, items such as wire tidies, desks, chairs and other work equipment can all be bought from suppliers sacrifice recycled products. Ensure your employees do their piece and recycle paper, cans, plastics and other items like as printer cartridges. Switching off lights and accoutrement at the end of each day can also enhance your environmental testimonials. The Energy Saving Trust has some shocking statistics on energy wasted in offices, ?nearly a third of UK office workers frequently permission their PCs running overnight or over the weekend at the time they go home, resulting in carbon sub-oxide (CO 2) emissions equivalent to the output of 120,000 4?4 cars.?
For greater degree of information please visit CMD workplace ergonomic solutions
Educational costs, in the present era, are at its peak. Therefore, many students who are suffering from financial crisis, finding no way, apply for the student loan from the various monetary agencies or financial institutions in order to continue with their study. But, the students should never forget to repay the loan in time. In case, if they fail, they are considered as student loan defaulters. Failure to repay the amount of loan is basically due to unemployment. However, the lender gives more time to the defaulter for repaying the amount of loan. Still, if the defaulter cannot pay back the loan amount, then the lender hire the services of the collection agency student loan to secure back the amount of loan. The lender provides the agency with the detailed information about the defaulter.
It is always good to hire the services of the collection agency student loan as the lender need not visit the defaulter and ask for repaying the amount of loan. For collecting the amount of loan, such sorts of agencies apply harsh measures. They make phone calls to the defaulter for repaying the loan amount. They also visit the defaulter personally either at his home or his work place which is quite embarrassing for him. They can also torture the defaulter physically.
The lender should always remind that it has thorough knowledge about the ?Fair Debt Collection Practice Act? laws before hiring the services of the collection agency student loan. It is the duty of the lender to make the agency clear about the ?Fair Debt Collection Practice Act? laws and also ask to follow strictly the rules and regulations under it as the usage of harsh measures for collecting the student loans may lead the agency as well as the lender in a big trouble.
The lender should hire the services of a famous collection agency which can assure the lender to deal in a fair way with the defaulters to repay the amount of loan. The defaulters should also be aware of their deserved rights in order to avoid the harassments done by the collection agencies. However, the defaulters can prevent such kinds of unwanted circumstances by repaying the loan amount within the time specified. The defaulters can seek help from the student loan help agencies to avoid the harsh consequences. The student loan help also helps in improving the credit rating of the defaulters.
NIH study finds sigmoidoscopy reduces colorectal cancer ratesPublic release date: 21-May-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: NCI Press Officers ncipressofficers@mail.nih.gov 301-496-6641 NIH/National Cancer Institute
This release is available in Spanish.
Flexible sigmoidoscopy, a screening test for colorectal cancer that is less invasive and has fewer side effects than colonoscopy, is effective in reducing the rates of new cases and deaths due to colorectal cancer, according to research sponsored by the National Cancer Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health. In a study that spanned almost 20 years, researchers found that overall colorectal cancer mortality (deaths) was reduced by 26 percent and incidence (new cases) was reduced by 21 percent as a result of screening with sigmoidoscopy. These results appeared online, ahead of print, on May 21, 2012, in the New England Journal of Medicine, and were presented at Digestive Disease Week, a scientific conference.
Sigmoidoscopy involves examination of the lower colon using a thin, flexible tube-like instrument, called a sigmoidoscope, to view the anus, rectum, and sigmoid colon (see Figure 1). Sigmoidoscopy has fewer side effects, requires less bowel preparation, and poses a lower risk of bowel perforation (an uncommon event, when the screening instrument pokes a hole in the intestine) than colonoscopy, in which a similarly flexible, but longer, tube is used to view the entire colon.
Colorectal cancer is the second-leading cause of cancer-related death in the United States. Previous research has shown that colorectal cancer incidence and mortality can be reduced with a number of screening methods, including fecal occult blood testing (FOBT). However, flexible sigmoidoscopy and colonoscopy are more sensitive than FOBT for detecting polyps (see Figure 2) that may lead to colorectal cancer. Removal of pre-cancerous polyps, which can be done during sigmoidoscopy or colonoscopy, reduces colorectal cancer risk.
"The most important message is that, regardless of modality chosen, colorectal cancer screening lowers mortality from colorectal cancer, and all individuals 50 and over should be screened," said study author Christine Berg, M.D., chief of NCI's Early Detection Research Group and project officer of the Prostate, Lung, Colorectal, and Ovarian (PLCO) Cancer Screening Trial.
From 1993 to 2001, a total of 154,900 men and women aged 55 through 74 were randomly assigned to receive flexible sigmoidoscopy screening or usual care as part of the PLCO trial. People in the usual care group (i.e. control group) only received screening if they asked for it, or if their physician recommended it. This large population-based randomized trial was designed to determine the effects of screening on cancer-related mortality. Participants assigned to the flexible sigmoidoscopy group were screened once on entering the study (baseline) and again three years to five years later. The participants were followed for approximately 12 years to collect data on cancer diagnoses and deaths (additional background on PLCO).
The researchers compared overall colorectal cancer mortality and incidence in the two groups, and also analyzed incidence and mortality according to the location of the cancers that developed. Cancers located from the rectum through a bend in the colon called the splenic flexure (see Figure 3) were defined as distal, and those in the transverse colon to the cecum were defined as proximal. Although flexible sigmoidoscopy examines only the rectum and sigmoid colon, participants with a suspicious finding were referred for a follow-up colonoscopy, in which both the distal and proximal regions of the colon would be examined.
Overall, after an average of nearly 12 years, participants in the screening group had a 21 percent lower incidence of colorectal cancer overall and a 26 percent lower rate of colorectal cancer mortality than participants in the usual care group. This means that, over the course of 10 years, if 1,000 people followed the PLCO protocol of two sigmoidoscopy screenings, there would be approximately three fewer new cases and one fewer death from colorectal cancer than in a comparable group not receiving regular screenings. The incidence of distal colorectal cancer was reduced by 29 percent, and mortality from distal colorectal cancer was reduced by 50 percent, in the screening group. While there was no statistically significant decline in deaths from proximal colorectal cancer, the incidence of proximal colorectal cancer was reduced by 14 percent in the screening group.
"This is the second major trial that has shown that sigmoidoscopy is effective in reducing the risk of dying of colorectal cancer. Sigmoidoscopy is less invasive than colonoscopy and carries a lower risk of the colon being perforated, which may make it more acceptable as a screening test to some patients," said Barnett Kramer, M.D., director of NCI's Division of Cancer Prevention. "There are several effective screening tests for colorectal cancer, and the most effective screening test is the one that people choose to take."
Screening by sigmoidoscopy detected 24 percent of the colorectal cancers that were diagnosed in the screening group. Another 60 percent were detected by symptoms or by screening performed outside of the PLCO protocol or were found more than one year after a screening examthe cutoff for defining a cancer as screen detectedin participants who had at least one screening exam, and the remaining 16 percent developed in participants assigned to the screening group who never actually underwent screening. Of the colorectal cancers that were detected by screening, nearly 83 percent were found in the distal colon, whereas distal colorectal cancers made up about 53 percent of the cancers in people in the screening group who were never screened and about 32 percent of cancers in people who underwent screening but whose cancers were not detected by screening. Cancers detected by screening were more likely to be early stage (75 percent were stage I or II) than cancers that weren't detected by screening (51 percent were stage I or II). Screening was associated with reductions in incidence and mortality for all stages of distal colorectal cancer. However, in the proximal colon, reductions in incidence were only seen in stages I, II, and III, and there was no impact on proximal colorectal cancer mortality.
The researchers estimated that if they had used colonoscopy rather than sigmoidoscopy in this study, they would have identified 16 percent more cancers, two-thirds of which would have been proximal cancers. However, they were not able to determine what effect that may have had on proximal colorectal cancer mortality. There has been some controversy about how effective colonoscopy is in decreasing colorectal cancer mortality in different regions of the colon, with some studies suggesting that it is more effective against distal than proximal tumors. Sigmoidoscopy has never been directly compared to colonoscopy in a definitive clinical trial.
False-positive sigmoidoscopy results were observed in 20 percent of men and 13 percent of women in the screening group, but some of these false positives could have been the result of false-negative colonoscopies done to follow up on suspicious sigmoidoscopy findings. Approximately 22 percent of people in the screening group were sent for follow-up colonoscopies during the screening phase of the trial.
###
The NCI's Division of Cancer Prevention funded this research under contracts to the 10 PLCO screening centers and a coordinating center (N01-CN-25476, N01-CN-25511, N01-CN-25512, N01-CN-25513, N01-CN-25514, N01-CN-25515, N01-CN-25516, N01-CN-25518, N01-CN-25522, N01-CN-25524, and N01-CN-75022).
An overview of the PLCO trial results with perspectives in light of the end of the trial has just been published on our news blog at http://benchmarks.cancer.gov/2012/05/overview-of-the-prostate-lung-colorectal-and-ovarian-plco-cancer-screening-trial
A Q&A about the PLCO trial is available at http://www.cancer.gov/newscenter/pressreleases/2012/PLCOQandA.
NCI leads the National Cancer Program and the NIH effort to dramatically reduce the burden of cancer and improve the lives of cancer patients and their families, through research into prevention and cancer biology, the development of new interventions, and the training and mentoring of new researchers. For more information about cancer, please visit the NCI Web site at www.cancer.gov or call NCI's Cancer Information Service at 1-800-4-CANCER (1-800-422-6237).
About the National Institutes of Health (NIH): NIH, the nation's medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit www.nih.gov.
Reference: Shoen RE, Pinsky PF, Weissfeld L, Yokochi LA, Church T, Laiyemo AO, Bresalier R, Andriole GL, Buys SS, Crawford ED, Fouad MN, Isaacs C, Johnson CC, Reding DJ, O'Brien B, Carrick DM, Wright P, Riley TL, Purdue MP, Izmirlian G, Kramer BS, Miller AB, Gohagan JK, Prorock PC, and Berg CD. Colorectal Cancer Incidence and Mortality in the PLCO Screening Trial. NEJM. Online May 21, 2012. In print June 21, 2012.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
NIH study finds sigmoidoscopy reduces colorectal cancer ratesPublic release date: 21-May-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: NCI Press Officers ncipressofficers@mail.nih.gov 301-496-6641 NIH/National Cancer Institute
This release is available in Spanish.
Flexible sigmoidoscopy, a screening test for colorectal cancer that is less invasive and has fewer side effects than colonoscopy, is effective in reducing the rates of new cases and deaths due to colorectal cancer, according to research sponsored by the National Cancer Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health. In a study that spanned almost 20 years, researchers found that overall colorectal cancer mortality (deaths) was reduced by 26 percent and incidence (new cases) was reduced by 21 percent as a result of screening with sigmoidoscopy. These results appeared online, ahead of print, on May 21, 2012, in the New England Journal of Medicine, and were presented at Digestive Disease Week, a scientific conference.
Sigmoidoscopy involves examination of the lower colon using a thin, flexible tube-like instrument, called a sigmoidoscope, to view the anus, rectum, and sigmoid colon (see Figure 1). Sigmoidoscopy has fewer side effects, requires less bowel preparation, and poses a lower risk of bowel perforation (an uncommon event, when the screening instrument pokes a hole in the intestine) than colonoscopy, in which a similarly flexible, but longer, tube is used to view the entire colon.
Colorectal cancer is the second-leading cause of cancer-related death in the United States. Previous research has shown that colorectal cancer incidence and mortality can be reduced with a number of screening methods, including fecal occult blood testing (FOBT). However, flexible sigmoidoscopy and colonoscopy are more sensitive than FOBT for detecting polyps (see Figure 2) that may lead to colorectal cancer. Removal of pre-cancerous polyps, which can be done during sigmoidoscopy or colonoscopy, reduces colorectal cancer risk.
"The most important message is that, regardless of modality chosen, colorectal cancer screening lowers mortality from colorectal cancer, and all individuals 50 and over should be screened," said study author Christine Berg, M.D., chief of NCI's Early Detection Research Group and project officer of the Prostate, Lung, Colorectal, and Ovarian (PLCO) Cancer Screening Trial.
From 1993 to 2001, a total of 154,900 men and women aged 55 through 74 were randomly assigned to receive flexible sigmoidoscopy screening or usual care as part of the PLCO trial. People in the usual care group (i.e. control group) only received screening if they asked for it, or if their physician recommended it. This large population-based randomized trial was designed to determine the effects of screening on cancer-related mortality. Participants assigned to the flexible sigmoidoscopy group were screened once on entering the study (baseline) and again three years to five years later. The participants were followed for approximately 12 years to collect data on cancer diagnoses and deaths (additional background on PLCO).
The researchers compared overall colorectal cancer mortality and incidence in the two groups, and also analyzed incidence and mortality according to the location of the cancers that developed. Cancers located from the rectum through a bend in the colon called the splenic flexure (see Figure 3) were defined as distal, and those in the transverse colon to the cecum were defined as proximal. Although flexible sigmoidoscopy examines only the rectum and sigmoid colon, participants with a suspicious finding were referred for a follow-up colonoscopy, in which both the distal and proximal regions of the colon would be examined.
Overall, after an average of nearly 12 years, participants in the screening group had a 21 percent lower incidence of colorectal cancer overall and a 26 percent lower rate of colorectal cancer mortality than participants in the usual care group. This means that, over the course of 10 years, if 1,000 people followed the PLCO protocol of two sigmoidoscopy screenings, there would be approximately three fewer new cases and one fewer death from colorectal cancer than in a comparable group not receiving regular screenings. The incidence of distal colorectal cancer was reduced by 29 percent, and mortality from distal colorectal cancer was reduced by 50 percent, in the screening group. While there was no statistically significant decline in deaths from proximal colorectal cancer, the incidence of proximal colorectal cancer was reduced by 14 percent in the screening group.
"This is the second major trial that has shown that sigmoidoscopy is effective in reducing the risk of dying of colorectal cancer. Sigmoidoscopy is less invasive than colonoscopy and carries a lower risk of the colon being perforated, which may make it more acceptable as a screening test to some patients," said Barnett Kramer, M.D., director of NCI's Division of Cancer Prevention. "There are several effective screening tests for colorectal cancer, and the most effective screening test is the one that people choose to take."
Screening by sigmoidoscopy detected 24 percent of the colorectal cancers that were diagnosed in the screening group. Another 60 percent were detected by symptoms or by screening performed outside of the PLCO protocol or were found more than one year after a screening examthe cutoff for defining a cancer as screen detectedin participants who had at least one screening exam, and the remaining 16 percent developed in participants assigned to the screening group who never actually underwent screening. Of the colorectal cancers that were detected by screening, nearly 83 percent were found in the distal colon, whereas distal colorectal cancers made up about 53 percent of the cancers in people in the screening group who were never screened and about 32 percent of cancers in people who underwent screening but whose cancers were not detected by screening. Cancers detected by screening were more likely to be early stage (75 percent were stage I or II) than cancers that weren't detected by screening (51 percent were stage I or II). Screening was associated with reductions in incidence and mortality for all stages of distal colorectal cancer. However, in the proximal colon, reductions in incidence were only seen in stages I, II, and III, and there was no impact on proximal colorectal cancer mortality.
The researchers estimated that if they had used colonoscopy rather than sigmoidoscopy in this study, they would have identified 16 percent more cancers, two-thirds of which would have been proximal cancers. However, they were not able to determine what effect that may have had on proximal colorectal cancer mortality. There has been some controversy about how effective colonoscopy is in decreasing colorectal cancer mortality in different regions of the colon, with some studies suggesting that it is more effective against distal than proximal tumors. Sigmoidoscopy has never been directly compared to colonoscopy in a definitive clinical trial.
False-positive sigmoidoscopy results were observed in 20 percent of men and 13 percent of women in the screening group, but some of these false positives could have been the result of false-negative colonoscopies done to follow up on suspicious sigmoidoscopy findings. Approximately 22 percent of people in the screening group were sent for follow-up colonoscopies during the screening phase of the trial.
###
The NCI's Division of Cancer Prevention funded this research under contracts to the 10 PLCO screening centers and a coordinating center (N01-CN-25476, N01-CN-25511, N01-CN-25512, N01-CN-25513, N01-CN-25514, N01-CN-25515, N01-CN-25516, N01-CN-25518, N01-CN-25522, N01-CN-25524, and N01-CN-75022).
An overview of the PLCO trial results with perspectives in light of the end of the trial has just been published on our news blog at http://benchmarks.cancer.gov/2012/05/overview-of-the-prostate-lung-colorectal-and-ovarian-plco-cancer-screening-trial
A Q&A about the PLCO trial is available at http://www.cancer.gov/newscenter/pressreleases/2012/PLCOQandA.
NCI leads the National Cancer Program and the NIH effort to dramatically reduce the burden of cancer and improve the lives of cancer patients and their families, through research into prevention and cancer biology, the development of new interventions, and the training and mentoring of new researchers. For more information about cancer, please visit the NCI Web site at www.cancer.gov or call NCI's Cancer Information Service at 1-800-4-CANCER (1-800-422-6237).
About the National Institutes of Health (NIH): NIH, the nation's medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit www.nih.gov.
Reference: Shoen RE, Pinsky PF, Weissfeld L, Yokochi LA, Church T, Laiyemo AO, Bresalier R, Andriole GL, Buys SS, Crawford ED, Fouad MN, Isaacs C, Johnson CC, Reding DJ, O'Brien B, Carrick DM, Wright P, Riley TL, Purdue MP, Izmirlian G, Kramer BS, Miller AB, Gohagan JK, Prorock PC, and Berg CD. Colorectal Cancer Incidence and Mortality in the PLCO Screening Trial. NEJM. Online May 21, 2012. In print June 21, 2012.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Who's John Baldessari? To judge from this wonderfully mischievous video commissioned by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Baldessari is a hugely ? and I mean hugely ? successful conceptual artist, whose work has appeared in hundreds of gallery shows, major museum exhibitions. You name it, he's done it.
And yet ? in the hands of filmmakers Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman (whose movie, Catfishwas about hustling on the Internet), as narrated by Tom Waits, script by Gabriel Nussbaum ? there is something of the flimflam man in John Baldessari. His work, says Wikipedia, combines "the narrative potential of images and the associative power of language" ? which means ? I don't know what.
'I Will Not Make Any More Boring Art'
His works include people with colored dots on their heads, oddly composed photographs, large trumpet sculptures. Some of his pieces feature him promising, "I will not make any more boring art, I will not make any more boring art," which suggests that he often thinks he is making boring art, and that maybe he's a little bit amazed that people want to buy and buy and buy what he's making.
That is why I liked this video: it's commissioned by a museum to proclaim a great talent, but watching it, I have this sense that instead Mr. Baldessari & Co. are slyly winking at us, saying, (as he does at the end) that if you've got some ability and you're crazy enough to put in the hours, what an artist really needs is "to be at the right place at the right time." In other words, art is a business like any other, and the key is timing, to hit the market when the market is ripe.
If Baldessari weren't such a charmer, if the edits weren't so pitch perfect, if Tom Waits didn't have the best gravelly-wonderful voice in the world, I wouldn't be recommending this film.
But I am. It's an homage to art or to commerce or to mischief, I don't know which. And it's short. So take a look and decide for yourself.
![[ Back to EurekAlert! ]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_u-O1kNtw1Ta-rHwhXKgJ6bJsVyoO78HO0GS68an90w31D-8GSyv8aoYxGiye4zCnsgxYwdDhUTp8MO8amZlsAI7DIksK4B0TfKNziVkUM=s0-d){kind=small}
Public release date: 21-May-2012
Share ]