Zicam Warning

clipped from www.fda.gov

FDA NEWS RELEASE

For Immediate Release: June 16, 2009

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Media Inquiries: Siobhan DeLancey, 301-796-4668, siobhan.delancey@fda.hhs.gov

Consumer Inquiries: 888-INFO-FDA

FDA Advises Consumers Not To Use Certain Zicam Cold Remedies

Intranasal Zinc Product Linked to Loss of Sense of Smell

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today advised consumers to stop using three products marketed over-the-counter as cold remedies because they are associated with the loss of sense of smell (anosmia). Anosmia may be long-lasting or permanent.

The products are:
--Zicam Cold Remedy Nasal Gel
--Zicam Cold Remedy Nasal Swabs
--Zicam Cold Remedy Swabs, Kids Size (a discontinued product)

The FDA has received more than 130 reports of loss of sense of smell associated with the use of these three Zicam products. In these reports, many people who experienced a loss of smell said the condition occurred with the first dose; others reported a loss of the sense of smell after multiple uses of the products.

"Loss of sense of smell is a serious risk for people who use these products for relief from cold symptoms," said Janet Woodcock, M.D., director of the FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER). "We are concerned that consumers may unknowingly use a product that could cause serious harm, and therefore we are advising them not to use these products for any reason."

People who have experienced a loss of sense of smell or other problems after use of the affected Zicam products should contact their health care professional. The loss of sense of smell can adversely affect a person's quality of life, and can limit the ability to detect the smell of gas or smoke or other signs of danger in the environment.

The FDA has issued Matrixx Initiatives, maker of these Zicam products, a warning letter telling it that these products cannot be marketed without FDA approval.

"Companies have an obligation to the public to demonstrate to the FDA that their products are safe, particularly when there is evidence they may be causing serious adverse events, and they are marketed for minor, self-limiting conditions like the common cold," said Deborah M. Autor, director of CDER's Office of Compliance.

Health care professionals and consumers are encouraged to report adverse events (side effects) that may be related to the use of these products to the FDA's MedWatch Adverse Event Reporting program online, by regular mail, fax or phone.

--Online

--Regular Mail: use FDA postage paid form 3500 and mail to MedWatch, 5600 Fishers Lane, Rockville, MD 20852-9787

--Fax: 800-FDA-0178

--Phone: 800-FDA-1088

For more information:
http://tinyurl.com/l8worq

A real balloon boy

Email from a relative in California.

The Ft Collins balloon boy hoax was national news, but it was not until [our friend] called yesterday. Her son-in-law Rick Snyder was the balloon boy in 1969 as described in Soucheray's article on the 11 year old Ricky Snyder in Dec 14, 1969. Amazing story which should have been covered by the press.

Joe Soucheray: Soar back to the past with tale of Minnesota's own balloon boy
Posted: 10/21/2009 1:27 AM
By Joe Soucheray Pioneer Press (twincities.com)

Those of us now at an age thought to be considered seasoned remember our own balloon-boy adventure, measured for drama, as are all balloon stories, against 'The Wizard of Oz.'' Dorothy had to go off after Toto in the crowd and missed her ride as the Wizard ascends, the tethers slipped. The tether must slip in order to get that sinking feeling.

On Dec. 14, 1969, an 11-year-old named Ricky Snyder and his mom climbed into the family's red-and-white-striped hot-air balloon gondola at halftime of a Vikings-San Francisco game. They were to float only the length of the field at Metropolitan Stadium, to promote the upcoming St. Paul Winter Carnival balloon race. Five men were holding a 200-foot mooring line, but when the balloon didn't rise, Mrs. Snyder hopped out to lighten its load and the balloon jerked upward mightily, the mooring line now dangling free. And there went the kid, Ricky, just missing the left-field light towers, on his journey across southeast Bloomington. It turned out that Ricky had flown a few times but never without a tether. The fans in the stadium could not see what was happening. And a crew frantically ran out to the parking lot to assemble a chase crew.

Ricky was cool and collected. He guided the balloon to a splashdown in the Minnesota River, about three miles away. The basket tipped on its side when it hit the water and Ricky swam 25 yards to shore, where an unidentified motorist picked him up and took him back to the stadium, where one of the Vikings doctors checked him out and said, "He's OK."

Our adventures were less choreographed back then. Reality TV did not exist, so there were not aspirants with alleged schemes and dramas and desperate 911 calls. I'm surprised this Richard Heene character didn't think of somehow involving the NFL in his flight of the homemade flying saucer.

The attention given to an escaped child with perhaps a loosely clad Dallas Cowboys cheerleader along for effect at halftime of one of today's NFL games would be unimaginable. We should have known, huh? Kid named Falcon. A 911 call in which the operator is told the child left in the flying saucer. A couple of appearances for the parents on "Wife Swap.'' Yup, we should have known. We've become quite a bit more unhinged than we used to be.

Meanwhile, those 40 years ago, before cell phones and Twitter and texts and 24-hour cable news, Ricky Snyder's parents and Winter Carnival officials were still chasing the balloon, unaware that Ricky had been rescued. Missing the first splashdown, the Snyders gave chase as the balloon rose off the river and settled down again in the mud flats adjacent to the Black Dog Power Plant of what was then Northern States Power Co. His parents slogged through the mud and snow, but when they reached the balloon, it was empty. No Ricky.

That day was hard on his mother, said Snyder, now a Minneapolis trial lawyer.
As he watched the TV image of the balloon supposedly carrying Falcon, Snyder said, he wondered how they were going to get him down.

"If he was in there," Snyder said Tuesday, "I could only imagine what his parents were going through." Back in 1969, they must have had some sort of primitive communications — maybe walkie-talkies — because signals got straightened out between the stadium and the chase crew.

"I didn't get too scared,'' Ricky said that afternoon, "until I saw the river. Before that, I kept my cool. I was pretty high. I'd say 1,000 feet. I was in the clouds part of the time. I was working the propane burner, too.'' "He flew the balloon so beautifully,'' his mom said that day. "He did all the right things.'' That was then. Today, Snyder has no interest in ballooning whatsoever.

Joe Soucheray can be reached at jsoucheray@pioneerpress.com or 651-228-5474. Soucheray is heard from 2 to 5:30 p.m. weekdays on KSTP-AM 1500.

Manifier Mouse

My nephew in Florida told me about a magnifier mouse that has a button which puts a magnifying lens in a rectangle around the cursor. The rectangle can be easily enlarged, and the degree of magnification easily changed.

Here is a photo I took of my screen showing the magnified area around the cursor. It's a really great help to those of us with low vision.

Click on image to enlarge.

clipped from dictionary.reference.com

Word of the Day

Monday, January 11, 2010

flagitious, adjective

1. Disgracefully or shamefully criminal; grossly wicked; scandalous; -- said of acts, crimes, etc.

2. Guilty of enormous crimes; corrupt; profligate; -- said of persons.

3. Characterized by enormous crimes or scandalous vices; as, "flagitious times."

Quotes:

However flagitious may be the crime of conspiring to subvert by force the government of our country, such conspiracy is not treason.

-- Ex parte Bollman & Swartwout, 4 Cranch 126 (1807)

The Grinch, a nefarious, flagitious, sly, nasty, troublesome, bad-tempered, intolerant and foul-smelling character who, for reasons never fully explained, lives in a cave above the town.

-- Robin Greer, "Carrey Christmas", News Letter, December 1, 2000

These men were reported to be heretics . . . , seducers of youth, and men of flagitious life.

-- Isaac Taylor, History of the World

Origin:

Flagitious comes from Latin flagitiosus, from flagitium, "a shameful or disgraceful act," originally, "a burning desire, heat of passion," from flagitare, "to demand earnestly or hotly," connected with flagrare, "to blaze, to burn."

Nostalgia

"Nostalgia," by Billy Collins, from Sailing Alone Around the Room (Random House).

Remember the 1340s? We were doing a dance called the Catapult.
You always wore brown, the color craze of the decade,
and I was draped in one of those capes that were popular,
the ones with unicorns and pomegranates in needlework.
Everyone would pause for beer and onions in the afternoon,
and at night we would play a game called "Find the Cow."
Everything was hand-lettered then, not like today.

Where has the summer of 1572 gone? Brocade and sonnet
marathons were the rage. We used to dress up in the flags
of rival baronies and conquer one another in cold rooms of stone.
Out on the dance floor we were all doing the Struggle
while your sister practiced the Daphne all alone in her room.
We borrowed the jargon of farriers for our slang.
These days language seems transparent, a badly broken code.

The 1790s will never come again. Childhood was big.
People would take walks to the very tops of hills
and write down what they saw in their journals without speaking.
Our collars were high and our hats were extremely soft.
We would surprise each other with alphabets made of twigs.
It was a wonderful time to be alive, or even dead.

I am very fond of the period between 1815 and 1821.
Europe trembled while we sat still for our portraits.
And I would love to return to 1901 if only for a moment,
time enough to wind up a music box and do a few dance steps,
or shoot me back to 1922 or 1941, or at least let me
recapture the serenity of last month when we picked
berries and glided through afternoons in a canoe.

Even this morning would be an improvement over the present.
I was in the garden then, surrounded by the hum of bees
and the Latin names of flowers, watching the early light
flash off the slanted windows of the greenhouse
and silver the limbs on the rows of dark hemlocks.

As usual, I was thinking about the moments of the past,
letting my memory rush over them like water
rushing over the stones on the bottom of a stream.
I was even thinking a little about the future, that place
where people are doing a dance we cannot imagine,
a dance whose name we can only guess.

New phrase from the flu season

Dracula Sneeze