OAKLAND, California |
OAKLAND, California (Reuters) - Pharmaceutical companies selling drugs in parts of the San Francisco Bay area would be required to submit plans for incinerating or safely disposing of unused medication under a plan advanced by county officials this week.
The measure, billed by supporters as the first of its kind in the United States, is designed to force pharmaceutical companies to bear the cost of collecting and safely discarding unused prescription drugs that might otherwise foul waterways or fall into the hands of substance abusers.
Officials in Alameda County, encompassing the Bay area cities of Oakland and Berkeley, gave preliminary approval on Tuesday to the measure. Representatives of two biomedical industry groups have criticized the proposal.
"This could be a model throughout the country," County Supervisor Nate Miley said of the proposal.
Alameda County currently operates 21 disposal sites where residents can drop off unused or expired medications. But Bill Pollock, the county's household hazardous-waste program manager, estimates the county's 1.5 million residents still have as much as 681 tons of unwanted drugs stockpiled in medicine cabinets.
The proposed ordinance, which requires a second vote set for later this month, would seek to shift the cost and responsibility for the disposal program to drug manufacturers.
Similar regulations have been enacted in Canada, parts of Europe and Australia, supporters said. Failure to comply could result in civil penalties of up to $1,000 a day and misdemeanor criminal charges punishable by jail time for company executives.
The federal government, which regulates the pharmaceutical industry, posts guidelines urging consumers not to flush old pills down the toilet, citing research showing that prescription drugs are ending up in the nation's water supplies.
GUIDANCE ON DISPOSAL
Public health experts also worry about abuse of cast-off pills. Nearly 21 percent of U.S. high school seniors reported taking someone else's prescription medication, according to the 2011 National Youth Risk Behavior Survey published by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Overdoses from prescription drugs have surpassed car crashes, heroin and cocaine abuse to become the leading cause of accidental deaths in the country.
Absent pharmaceutical collection programs, federal authorities urge consumers to discard pills in the trash after sealing them in plastic bags with other undesirable substances, such as coffee grounds or kitty litter, to make them less appealing to youngsters.
Representatives of two industry groups acknowledged that traces of pharmaceuticals have been detected in U.S. waterways. But they questioned whether the measure would ease pollution or prevent youths from acquiring drugs.
"Folks have to be their own guardians and stewards of what's in their homes," said Ritchard Engelhardt, vice president of government affairs for Bay Bio, which represents 450 Bay Area life-science research companies.
"We absolutely don't agree that this is going to have a measurable effect on pharmaceuticals in waterways," he said.
Consuelo Hernandez of California Healthcare Institute, a biomedical-industry group, said any regulation should come from the state or federal government.
"I am concerned about the environment, but scientific data shows that the vast majority of pharmaceuticals in water comes from human excretion," Hernandez said.
Alameda County Supervisor Scott Haggerty said he cast his vote in favor of the measure as the parent of a 14-year-old who was invited to a party where kids took random prescription drugs gathered from their homes.
Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O'Malley said children regularly steal pills from medicine cabinets. "It's time for these companies to step up and take responsibility," she said.
(Editing By Tim Gaynor and David Gregorio)
Source: uk.reuters.com
Positive Web Design Partner with Leading Antique Furniture Providers - YAHOO!
The web design experts at Positive Web Design are pleased to announce the acquisition of a new contract with antique enthusiasts, Driscolls Antiques Ltd.
(PRWEB UK) 11 July 2012
Providing high quality British antique furniture to customers across the UK, Driscolls Antiques Ltd specialise in cleaning and restoring antique mahogany, oak and walnut furniture from the Georgian, Victorian and Edwardian periods. An established name in the industry for over 25 years, the team have an unrivalled reputation for customer care and attention and are even able to deliver their goods worldwide.Providing such a personalised and specialist service, the team at Driscolls Antiques Ltd recognised the need for brand awareness in order to drive more traffic towards their site, and approached SEO Positive in May, searching for effective but affordable optimisation and [link building packages to see their site rank highly within Google’s search pages. Pleased with the results from their comprehensive SEO campaign, the team were keen to see what benefits were on offer from sister company, Positive Web Design.
Positive Web Design are often regarded as one of the country’s leading names in site build and development and the management at Driscolls Antiques Ltd were impressed by the skills and expertise of the web designers. Highly experienced within a range of different specifications, the team put their knowledge to use outlining a strategy to see the client acquire a newly refurbished site.
Shofiur Rahman, Lead Web Developer at Positive Web Design explains the key elements the new site will focus around.
“To complement the higher level of exposure the client has enjoyed though their SEO campaign, we are planning to build a new site which concentrates on being user friendly and chic- looking, in turn contributing towards long term goals such as higher conversion rates”, explains Shofiur.
Work is already underway across all areas of the project and progress continues to be made through the client’s SEO operation.
Positive Web Design is a division of SEO Positive Limited. Based in Chelmsford, Essex, Positive Web Design is able to offer a wide range of web services to clients across the UK and beyond. This website design agency has extensive experience with clients from all industries and specialises in professional web design projects, so call their sales consultants today on 0800 088 6000 for more information or to obtain quotes.
Ben Austin
Positive Web Design
0800 088 6000
Email Information
Source: news.yahoo.com
California city goes bust amid claim of false accounting - msnbc.com
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Officials in San Bernardino, California, scrambled on Wednesday to explain the city's surprise decision to seek bankruptcy protection, with the city attorney backing away from his suggestion that fraudulent accounting may have contributed to the city's problems.
At a late afternoon news conference, City Attorney James Penman, who the day before had told the city council that financial documents had been falsified for years, said: "I do not know if there was criminal intent or not."
Penman added that "evidence of suggested wrongdoing" had been turned over to unnamed government agencies. He declined to elaborate on his comments to the city council.
Mayor Patrick Morris earlier told Reuters that Tuesday night was the first time he had heard of falsified financial information. He said there had been a recent instance in which budget figures were not reconciled with audited financial statements, but said that may have just been "sloppy budgeting analysis."
San Bernardino's city council voted on Tuesday night to file for bankruptcy, marking the third time in recent weeks a city in California opted to seek protection from its creditors. The vote followed a presentation by city staff which said the city would be out of cash within weeks.
The staff report said San Bernardino, a city of about 210,000 residents approximately 65 miles east of Los Angeles, faces a crushing budget deficit of $45 million, which represents almost 38 percent of its general fund budget.
Unlike Stockton and Mammoth Lakes, the two other California cities that filed for bankruptcy recently, San Bernardino had given no advance indications its situation was dire. It is not clear why the city had not proceeded with a state-mandated mediation with creditors ahead of a move toward bankruptcy.
"The suddenness of San Bernardino's bankruptcy vote is troubling when other options were available," Dick Larkin, director of credit analysis at HJ Sims, said in a report.
Standard & Poor's Ratings Services downgraded San Bernardino's bond rating on Wednesday to speculative grade from investment grade and placed the rating on its CreditWatch with negative implications for further downgrades.
The city's abrupt action renewed concerns that California could face a tidal wave of local bankruptcies, but the state has so far appeared unaffected by the financial problems of its local cities.
A spokesman for California State Treasurer Bill Lockyer said the bankruptcies will not affect the state as it prepares to issue $10 billion in short-term debt in August.
"We expect heavy investor demand for the revenue anticipation notes," said Tom Dressler, a spokesman for treasurer.
HOUSING BUST RIPPLES
Like Stockton, a city of almost 300,000 that filed for bankruptcy protection in June, San Bernardino has seen revenues plummet as a result of the housing meltdown. And like many cities across California, San Bernardino is saddled with expensive union contracts and public employee pension obligations that were agreed upon in flush times and are extraordinarily difficult to modify.
Home building boomed in Stockton and San Bernardino in the early 2000s, boosting the budgets of the blue-collar cities. But by the end of the decade both cities had some of the highest foreclosure rates in the country, and property values and property tax revenues were in a free-fall.
San Bernardino's general fund revenue peaked at $133 million in 2008 and has been dropping since then. In the fiscal year that ended in June, the city had just over $78 million in general fund revenue.
Mammoth Lakes, a ski resort town of about 8,000 residents, last week filed for bankruptcy due to a nearly $43 million legal judgment against it.
By contrast, Stockton and San Bernardino see Chapter 9 as a way to restructure budgets hammered by steep revenue losses after their respective housing markets crashed.
The municipal debt market saw Stockton's problems building, said Marilyn Cohen of fixed-income investment firm Envision Capital Management in Los Angeles: "Everyone who follows the muni market knew Stockton had got itself into a real pickle."
San Bernardino had money problems but they seemed in hand. "There was no reading the tea leaves on this one," Cohen said.
WORSE THAN MESSY BOOKKEEPING?
Bad record-keeping was a factor complicating Stockton's attempts to keep its books in balance, said Marc Levinson, the attorney representing the city in bankruptcy court, and it may turn out that San Bernardino had similar problems - or worse.
"In Stockton we have the problem that the books and records just weren't very good," Levinson said, noting that also was a problem for Vallejo, California. He represented the former Navy town during bankruptcy proceedings from 2008 to 2011.
A report on San Bernardino's budget and financial options to the city council sheds no light on its bookkeeping issues but does stress the city's expenses have outpaced its revenue.
Despite cutting about $10 million a year and 20 percent of its workforce over the past four years, San Bernardino lacks the cash to meet its contractual obligations, the report said.
Source: www.msnbc.msn.com
California drift: Watch drift racer Ken Block drive at breakneck speed through the streets of San Francisco - Daily Mirror
When it comes to producing spectacular footage of race driving, few drivers do it better than American Ken Block.
The extreme sports star, who races a souped-up Ford Fiesta rally car in drift races and rallycross events, has filmed and released a host of stunning highlight videos featuring his exploits behind the wheel.
But his latest effort, the fifth in his "Gymkhana" series, is perhaps the most stunning of all.
Filmed with the co-operation of the city of San Francisco, Block speeds around the streets of the famous California city, tackling specially-constructed stunts along the way.
Few drivers in the world have the car control that Block has - and this video demonstrates that in living colour.
The video has only been online for 24 hours and it has already attracted over three million views on YouTube.
Watch and be amazed!
Source: www.mirror.co.uk
Antique and collectors fair at Norfolk Showground this weekend - eveningnews24.co.uk
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
8:14 AM
An antique and collectors fair is coming to the Norfolk Showground this weekend.
The Norfolk Antique and Collectors Fair will be taking place from 9.30am to 5pm on Saturday and Sunday, and will have a variety of stands, from ornaments and clocks, to furniture and jewellery.
Visitors to the fair will also be able to bring along their antiques and have them evaluated, for a small fee, by Phillip Stone from Durrants Auction House between 11am and 3pm.
More information is available at www.aztecevents.co.uk
The Evening News and its popular goody bags will be on sale at a stand at the fair.
Source: www.eveningnews24.co.uk
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