Canadians healthier than Americans - study

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Despite complaints about long waits for services, Canadians are healthier than their U.S. neighbors and receive more consistent medical care, according to a report released on Tuesday.

A telephone survey of more than 8,000 people showed that even though Americans spend nearly twice as much per capita for health care, they have more trouble getting care and have more unmet health needs than Canadians do.

The survey was done by Harvard Medical School researchers who include members of Physicians for a National Health Program, which advocates for a national health program in the United States.

"These findings raise serious questions about what we're getting for the $2.1 trillion we're spending on health care this year," said Dr. David Himmelstein, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard.

"We pay almost twice what Canada does for care, more than $6,000 for every American, yet Canadians are healthier, and live two to three years longer," Himmelstein added in a statement.

"Canadians had better access to most types of medical care (with the single exception of pap smears)," Himmelstein and colleagues wrote in the study, published in the American Journal of Public Health.

"Canadians were 7 percent more likely to have a regular doctor and 19 percent less likely to have an unmet health need. U.S. respondents were almost twice as likely to go without a needed medicine due to cost (9.9 percent of U.S. respondents couldn't afford medicine versus 5.1 percent in Canada)," they added.

UNMET NEEDS

"After taking into account income, age, sex, race and immigrant status, Canadians were 33 percent more likely to have a regular doctor and 27 percent less likely to have an unmet health need."

The researchers analyzed data from a telephone survey of 3,505 Canadian and 5,103 U.S. adults.

They wanted to see if there were any differences in health between Canadians, who have a tax-supported national health care system, and Americans, whose health care largely depends on private insurers, employers or the free market, with older Americans and the very poor cared for by Medicare, Medicaid and other joint federal-state health insurance plans.

The researchers found that U.S. residents had higher rates of diabetes, arthritis, chronic lung disease, high blood pressure and obesity.

"Most of what we hear about the Canadian health care system is negative; in particular, the long waiting times for medical procedures," Dr. Karen Lasser an instructor of medicine at Harvard who worked on the study, said in a statement.

"But we found that waiting times affect few patients, only 3.5 percent of Canadians versus 0.7 percent of people in the U.S. No one ever talks about the fact that low-income and minority patients fare better in Canada," she added.

"Based on our findings, if I had to choose between the two systems for my patients, I would choose the Canadian system hands down."

The researchers said the study population was representative of 206 million U.S. adults and 24 million Canadian adults but noted that only half the Americans contacted took part in the survey, and 60 percent of the Canadians.

Gana mexicano premio por proteger perros de la pradera

Recibe Gerardo Ceballos el premio británico Whitley en la categoría "William Brake" por su labor de protección a esos roedores

El mexicano Gerardo Ceballos ha ganado el premio británico Whitley en la categoría "William Brake" por su labor de protección de los roedores llamados perros de la pradera, "especie clave porque puede tener un efecto desproporcionado en el entorno" explicó hoy .

El científico recibió anoche este premio, dotado con 30 mil libras esterlinas (unos 55 mil 800 dólares), de manos de la princesa Ana de Inglaterra en la Royal Geographical Society de Londres.

Para Ceballos, esta especie de ardillas desempeña un papel clave porque se alimentan de arbustos, lo que facilita el mantenimiento del ecosistema de los pastizales, hábitat de otros animales como los bisontes.

Sin embargo, los perros de la pradera han perdido el 98% de su hábitat en América del Norte, "porque los pastizales son tierras codiciadas para la agricultura".

Aunque el dos por ciento que queda de estas tierras está disperso por el continente, "en México se encuentran las colonias más extensas del mundo de perros de la pradera", indicó Ceballos.

El proyecto de este científico de la universidad Nacional Autónoma de México consiste en crear una reserva de medio millón de hectáreas en el estado de Chihuahua para proteger el ecosistema de estos roedores.

“ Queremos investigar cómo las actividades humanas repercuten en este entorno para poder integrar las comunidades locales sin poner en peligro el medio ambiente ” , explicó.

Grizzly-polar bear hybrid found

CNN

TORONTO, Ontario (AP) -- A DNA test has confirmed what zoologists, big-game hunters and aboriginal trackers in the far northern reaches of Canada have imagined for years: the first documented case of a hybrid grizzly-polar bear in the wild.

Roger Kuptana, an Inuit tracker from the Northwest Territories, suspected the American hunter he was guiding had shot a hybrid bear last month after noticing its white fur had brown patches and it had the long claws and slightly humped back of a grizzly.

Territorial officials seized the creature's body and a DNA test from Wildlife Genetics International, a lab in British Columbia, has confirmed that the hybrid was born of a polar mother and grizzly father.

"It's something we've all known was theoretically possible because their habitats overlap a little bit and their breeding seasons overlap a little bit," said Ian Stirling, a polar bear biologist with the Canadian Wildlife Service in Edmonton. "It's the first time it's known to have happened in the wild."

He said the first person to realize something was different about the bear -- shot and killed on the southern end of Banks Island in the Beaufort Sea -- was Kuptana, the guide.

"These guides know their animals and they recognized that there were a number of things that didn't look quite right for a polar bear," Stirling said. The bear's eyes were ringed with black, its face was slightly indented, it had a mild hump to its back and long claws.

Stirling said polar bears and grizzlies have been successfully paired in zoos and that their offspring are fertile, but there has been no documented case in the wild.

Kuptana, a guide from Sachs Harbour in the Northwest Territories, was tracking with Idaho big-game hunter Jim Martell, who had paid C$50,000 (US$45,500, or euro35,800), for a license to hunt polar bears.

The DNA results were good news for the 65-year-old hunter, who could have been fined or jailed for up to a year for shooting a grizzly. The Northwest Territories Environment and Natural Resources Department now intends to return the bear to Martell.

"It will be quite a trophy," Martell told the National Post newspaper last week, before the DNA results were in. He is now in Yellowknife for another hunt, this time with a permit to shoot a grizzly bear. Martell told the newspaper he has dubbed the hybrid creature a "polargrizz."

Stirling said others in his office have been tossing around in jest possible names for the hybrid: a "pizzly" or a "grolar bear." One colleague said they ought to call it "nanulak," combining the Inuit names for polar bear -- "nanuk" -- and grizzly bear, which is "aklak."

"He has a remarkable trophy from his perspective and from the perspective of this whole fraternity of people who like to go big-game hunting for trophies," said Stirling. When asked how he felt about the rare beast being killed, he said that Canada's polar bear hunt -- which runs from December through the end of May -- is done on a sustainable basis.

Colin Adjun, a wildlife officer in Kugluktuk on the northern mainland in western Nunavut, said he has heard stories before about an oddly colored bear cavorting with polars.

"It was a light chocolate color along with a couple of polar bears," Adjun said. Though people have talked about the possibility of a mix, "it hasn't happened in our area," he said.

Three years ago, a research team spotted a grizzly on uninhabited Melville Island, about 350 kilometers (220 miles) north of where Martell bagged his crossbreed.

Polar bear and grizzly territory also overlap in the Western Arctic around the Beaufort Sea, where the occasional grizzly is known to head onto the sea ice looking for food after emerging from hibernation. Some grizzly bears make it over the ice all the way to Banks Island and Victoria Island, where they have been spotted and shot before.

That might explain how a grizzly got to the region, but few can explain how it managed to get along with a polar bear mate long enough to produce offspring.

David Paetkau, a geneticist with Wildlife Genetics, said the hybrid bear could be an anomaly, but also a red flag that the bears are in danger.

Grizzlies are threatened; while polar bears are not considered endangered in Canada, scientists worry melting ice caps in the Arctic could soon have a detrimental impact. If they continue to mate, it would water down the breeds.

According to the National Wildlife Federation, there are about 1,200 grizzlies in the lower 48 United States, roughly 31,700 in Alaska, and 25,000 in Canada.

Stirling said there are about 24,000 polar bears in Canada, Greenland, Russia and Alaska.

Activista de Greenpeace sorprende a mandatarios en Viena

Una activista argentina de Greenpeace interrumpió hoy, vestida sólo con un bikini, en la tradicional foto de los más de 50 de jefes de Estado y de gobierno que participan en la IV Cumbre de la Unión Europea (UE)-América Latina y el Caribe.

La joven Evangelina Cardoso logró acceder al palacio de congresos en el que se celebra la reunión acreditada como reportera, informaron fuentes de la organización. Se trata de la "reina del carnaval de la ciudad de Gualeguaychú", muy conocido en Argentina.

La mujer exhibió ante los atónitos jefes de Estado un cartel en el que se leía un mensaje sobre la crisis de las papeleras que mantienen Uruguay y Argentina.

El único jefe de Estado en aplaudir fue el presidente venezolano Hugo Chávez mientras que el primer ministro de Gran Bretaña, Anthony Blair, se mostró muy sonriente.

En la pancarta que portó la joven durante unos instantes, antes de ser detenida por las fuerzas de seguridad, se leía "Basta de papeleras contaminantes. Greenpeace".

El conflicto por las papeleras enfrenta a Montevideo y Buenos Aires desde hace más de un año.

La organización ecologista Greenpeace se opone al plan por los posibles daños ambientales que podría ocasionar la construcción de dos plantas papeleras, una española y una finlandesa, en el área de la ciudad uruguaya de Fray Bentos, colindante con Argentina.