29th Annual Liturgy for Deceased Children

29th Annual Liturgy for Those Whose Children Have Died 

Friday May 6, 2016 at 7:30 PM 

Notre Dame RC Church

359 Central Ave., North Caldwell 

All parents who have suffered the death of a child of any age are invited to attend with their families and friends. A personal witness will also be offered as the name of each child is read during the Mass. 

Pre-registration is requested by calling the Family Life Office at 

973-497-4327. 

Safety Groups Urge Government to Recall Ikea Dresser

Three Deaths from falling furniture prompt urgent call for action from Consumer Reports and its partners

Consumer Reports / Daniel DiClerico / April 27, 2016

Following a report last week by the Philadelphia Inquirer that the death of a 22-month-old boy in February was caused by a falling Malm IKEA dresser, Consumer Reports, along with several consumer and child safety groups, is urging the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) to secure a formal recall of the IKEA dresser responsible for the tragedy. This is the third confirmed tip-over death from a Malm IKEA dresser.

In a joint letter issued today to CPSC Chairman Elliot Kaye, Consumers Union, the policy and advocacy arm of Consumer Reports, along with Kids In Danger, the Consumer Federation of America, and the National Center for Health Research, urged the federal safety agency to take strong, immediate action to better protect children from the tip-over hazard of certain Malm IKEA dressers.

Both IKEA and the CPSC were aware of the safety concerns with this particular furniture line prior to this latest incident. In July 2015, the commission and Sweden-based retailer announced two deaths from tipping IKEA dressers and launched a repair and education campaign for the products. But the warnings stopped short of a recall.

The announcement also didn’t inform consumers that Malm IKEA dressers fail to meet a voluntary safety standard agreed to by the furniture industry (ASTM F2057-14), which requires testing to ensure that each dresser drawer can withstand a 50-pound weight, while open, without the unit tipping over.

While voluntary standards like this one can’t be enforced by the government—unlike mandatory federal safety standards—it is possible that tragedy may have been averted if the IKEA dressers involved in the latest incident complied with the industry standard.

"To learn that a tipping IKEA Malm dresser killed yet another child, when the company and the CPSC chose not to do a recall after the first two deaths, is beyond heartbreaking—it is unacceptable,” writes Consumer Reports, along with its fellow safety advocates. “We recommend a stop sale of the type of furniture that was involved in deaths and that does not meet the ASTM standard, as well as refunds for consumers who want them,” the group added. “For those who want to anchor the furniture, IKEA should develop a program to provide an incentive for consumers to anchor their furniture.”

While a particularly restrictive federal law limits the information that the agency can disclose, CPSC Chairman Elliot Kaye said in response to the safety groups' letter, “I wholeheartedly agree that more needs to done, quickly, to protect innocent children from the hidden hazard of furniture tip-overs. Without commenting on any specific case, companies are on notice that even if there has been a public announcement about a remedy to address a dangerous product, the company must take every possible step to prevent further harm. This is especially the case when a child dies. Companies need to move fast and work with us on a comprehensive plan that offers their customers every necessary measure required for the sake of safety. I expect companies to truly put safety first, period.”

Click the link for more details:

http://www.consumerreports.org/home-garden/ikea-dresser-tip-overs-/

Sleep aids carry an array of risks, including next-day hangover effects

Consumer Reports / April 22, 2016

Sleeplessness is complicated — but that hasn’t stopped millions from craving a simple chemical solution. Potions to ease the misery of insufficient sleep can be traced to the ancient Egyptians, who employed an extract of the opium poppy.

In a Consumer Reports survey, 37 percent of people who complained of sleep problems at least once per week said they had used an over-the-counter or prescription sleep drug in the previous year.

“But those benefits aren’t as great as many people assume, and the drugs have important harms,” says Dr. Lisa Schwartz, a drug-safety expert at Dartmouth’s Geisel School of Medicine in Hanover, N.H., who has worked with Consumer Reports Best Buy Drugs on investigating sleeping pills.

What’s more, the survey found that about half of people who take sleep aids use the drugs in potentially harmful ways — by, for example, taking them more often or longer than recommended or combining them with other medications or supplements.

Even taken as directed, sleeping pills pose risks, including next-day drowsiness. A study published online in June 2015 by the American Journal of Public Health found that people prescribed sleeping pills were around twice as likely to be in car crashes as other people. The researchers estimated that people taking sleep drugs were as likely to have a car crash as those driving with a blood alcohol level above the legal limit.

Several sleeping-pill instructions caution users to take the medications only if they can stay in bed for at least seven or eight hours.

And to address the dangers of next-day drowsiness, the Food and Drug Administration has cut in half the recommended doses for Ambien and Lunesta.


The labels for Ambien CR and Belsomra 20 milligrams, in fact, caution against driving at all the day after taking the pill. Yet Consumer Reports’ survey found that about a quarter of sleep-aid users drove with less than seven hours of sleep at least once in the previous year.

Sleeping pills can pose other dangers, too, including dizziness, falls, and fractures.

“These drugs are known to have a hangover effect that impairs coordination and balance into the next day, especially in older adults,” says Dr. Ariel Green, a geriatrician at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore.

Even over-the-counter sleep aids — such as Advil PM, Sominex, and ZzzQuil — pose risks, including daytime drowsiness, confusion, constipation, dry mouth, and problems urinating.

Consumer Reports’ medical experts recommend following these precautions, which apply to both prescription and over-the-counter sleep drugs:

■ Tell your doctor about all of the medications you take, including supplements. Many common drugs, such as certain antibiotics and antidepressants, can interact dangerously with sleep drugs.

■ Take the drugs only if you have time for at least seven or eight hours of sleep. Even if you’ve had that much sleep, don’t drive if you feel drowsy.

■ Do not take an extra dose if you wake up in the middle of the night.

■ Never mix sleeping pills with alcohol, recreational drugs, or other sleep drugs or supplements, including over-the-counter nighttime pain relievers and antihistamines, such as Benadryl Allergy, that contain the sedative diphenhydramine.

■ Start with the lowest recommended dose, especially until you know how the drug affects you.

■ Be cautious about frequent use. Taking sleep drugs regularly can breed dependence and raise the risk of adverse effects.

Editor's Note: This article and related materials are made possible by a grant from the state Attorney General Consumer and Prescriber Education Grant Program, which is funded by the multistate settlement of consumer-fraud claims regarding the marketing of the prescription drug Neurontin (gabapentin).

Do prescription drug ads help or hurt consumers seeking relief?

To the American Medical Association, the Zoloft egg is one example of a bigger problem they say is having a negative impact on American health care. Calling for a ban of direct-to-consumer drug advertising in November, the AMA accused the ads of driving the demand for often unnecessary, expensive medication.Do prescription drug ads help or hurt consumers seeking relief?




By Chandra Johnson
Deseret News Service


Posted Apr. 20, 2016 at 12:15 PM 



Conversationally, doctors refer to it as the Zoloft "sad egg," the small, weirdly cute animated egg cowering under a rain cloud in its cartoonish struggle to regulate its sadness in one of the most iconic prescription drug ads of the early 2000s.

For pharmaceutical companies, doctors and millions of American prescription patients, it was the face that launched a thousand ads — the beginning of a $4.8 billion advertising business that has since expanded to about 80 direct-to-consumer (DTC) prescription ads an hour, according to Nielsen.

To the American Medical Association, the Zoloft egg is one example of a bigger problem they say is having a negative impact on American health care. Calling for a ban of direct-to-consumer drug advertising in November, the AMA accused the ads of driving the demand for often unnecessary, expensive medication.

"Direct-to-consumer advertising also inflates demand for new and more expensive drugs, even when these drugs may not be appropriate," AMA board chairwoman-elect Patrice A. Harris said in the AMA's announcement.

But to Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), the ads serve a valuable public service in raising awareness about undertreated conditions and new treatment options.

"Providing FDA-regulated, scientifically accurate information to patients so that they are better informed about their health care and treatment options is the goal of direct-to-consumer advertising about prescription medicines," PhRMA senior communications director Holly Campbell said in an email. "DTC advertising encourages patients to visit their health care providers' offices for important conversations about health that might otherwise not take place."

While the call for a ban alone is unlikely to inspire a change to ad guidelines, it could inspire legislation to further restrict what pharmaceutical ads can and cannot include (the Food and Drug Administration declined to comment on ad regulation because of the potential for such legislation). Some doctors don't think that would be a bad thing.

"DTC ads are effective in that they increase patient/doctor conversations and prescriptions and, probably, the number of patients in genuine need of prescription therapy to get medications," said Dr. Richard Kravitz, University of California Davis professor of internal medicine. "But it also increases the number of unnecessary and harmful prescriptions for patients."

Others question what an ad ban would mean for Americans who could theoretically go their entire lives with a condition that's easily treated because they simply aren't aware of treatment options.

"It's really difficult to make a statement about all drug ads because you have the coexistence of under-treatment with some conditions, where advertising could help and overtreatment that can hurt," University of Pittsburgh public health researcher Julie Donohue said. "It's difficult for regulators to set up rules of the game that will address the lack of awareness without exacerbating the overuse problem."