New gene triples risk for Alzheimer's disease

Scientists have identified a new gene variant that seems to strongly raise the risk for Alzheimer's disease, giving a fresh target for research into treatments for the mind-robbing disorder.

The problem gene is not common — less than 1 percent of people are thought to have it — but it roughly triples the chances of developing Alzheimer's compared to people with the normal version of the gene. It also seems to harm memory and thinking in older people without dementia.

The main reason scientists are excited by the discovery is what this gene does, and how that might reveal what causes Alzheimer's and ways to prevent it. The gene helps the immune system control inflammation in the brain and clear junk such as the sticky deposits that are the hallmark of the disease. Mutations in the gene may impair these tasks, so treatments to restore the gene's function and quell inflammation may help.

"It points us to potential therapeutics in a more precise way than we've seen in the past," said Dr. William Thies, chief medical and scientific officer of the Alzheimer's Association, which had no role in the research. Years down the road, this discovery will likely be seen as very important, he predicted.

It is described in a study by an international group published online Wednesday by the New England Journal of Medicine.

About 35 million people worldwide have dementia, and Alzheimer's is the most common type. In the U.S., about 5 million have Alzheimer's. Medicines such as Aricept and Namenda just temporarily ease symptoms. There is no known cure.

Until now, only one gene — ApoE — has been found to have a big impact on Alzheimer's risk. About 17 percent of the population has at least one copy of the problem version of this gene but nearly half of all people with Alzheimer's do. Other genes that have been tied to the disease raise risk only a little, or cause the less common type of Alzheimer's that develops earlier in life, before age 60.

The new gene, TREM2, already has been tied to a couple other forms of dementia. Researchers led by deCODE Genetics Inc. of Iceland honed in on a version of it they identified through mapping the entire genetic code of more than 2,200 Icelanders.

Further tests on 3,550 Alzheimer's patients and more than 110,000 people without dementia in several countries, including the United States, found that the gene variant was more common in Alzheimer's patients.

"It's a very strong effect," raising the risk of Alzheimer's by three to four times — about the same amount as the problem version of the ApoE gene does, said Dr. Allan Levey, director of an Alzheimer's program at Emory University, one of the academic centers participating in the research.

Researchers also tested more than 1,200 people over age 85 who did not have Alzheimer's disease and found that those with the variant TREM2 gene had lower mental function scores than those without it. This adds evidence the gene variant is important in cognition, even short of causing Alzheimer's.

"It's another piece in the puzzle. It suggests the immune system is important in Alzheimer's disease," said Andrew Singleton, a geneticist with the National Institute on Aging, which helped pay for the study.

One prominent scientist not involved in the study — Dr. Rudolph Tanzi, a Harvard Medical School geneticist and director of an Alzheimer's research program at Massachusetts General Hospital — called the work exciting, but added a caveat.

"I would like to see more evidence that this is Alzheimer's" rather than one of the other dementias already tied to the gene, Tanzi said. Autopsy or brain imaging tests can show whether the cases attributed to the gene variant are truly Alzheimer's or misdiagnosed, he said.

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Online:

Medical journal: http://www.nejm.org

Alzheimer's info: http://www.alzheimers.gov

Alzheimer's Association: http://www.alz.org

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Marilynn Marchione can be followed at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP

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Medical response time lags in many pricey L.A. neighborhoods

Waits for 911 medical aid vary dramatically across Los Angeles and many of the city's most exclusive neighborhoods have the longest response times, according to a Times investigation.

Under national standards adopted by the Los Angeles Fire Department, rescuers are supposed to arrive within six minutes to almost all medical emergencies. But the Times analysis found that in affluent hillside communities stretching from Griffith Park to Pacific Palisades, firefighters failed to hit that mark nearly 85% of the time.

In contrast, rescuers beat the six-minute standard in most of their responses in the more densely populated neighborhoods in and around downtown, where 911 calls are more frequent and the department deploys more resources.

INTERACTIVE: Check response times in your L.A. neighborhood

The disparities were also seen in cases of cardiac arrest, one of the most time-sensitive emergencies; brain damage can begin just four minutes after the heart stops beating. Over the last five years, cardiac arrest responses to incidents in Bel-Air have been twice as long as those in the Westlake neighborhood surrounding MacArthur Park, where rescuers arrived on average in just over five minutes.

The Fire Department's 911 response record is being closely scrutinized by auditors, fire commissioners and elected officials. In March, top commanders acknowledged the agency had for years been producing performance reports that overstated how quickly rescuers were reaching victims in need.

The Times investigation is the first independent, block-by-block analysis of how long it takes LAFD units to reach victims after the agency picks up a 911 call. The findings reinforce the obvious risks of living in L.A.'s scenic and desirable canyon enclaves, where wildfires and mudslides are a perennial concern and narrow and winding roads can slow rescue vehicles.

Battalion Chief Armando Hogan, a spokesman for the Fire Department, said rescuers do their best to get to patients as quickly and safely as possible. But he said difficult driving conditions in the mountains make that a challenge. "There's so many blind spots it's ridiculous," Hogan said. "Not a lot we can do about that."

Bel-Air residents Joe and Wanda Miller know how frustrating and frightening the long waits can be.

Last November, Joe, 84, had to wait more than 14 minutes for rescuers to come after Wanda, 86, passed out. She survived, but it was the fifth time the couple had called 911 in recent years. Each time, they waited more than 13 minutes for LAFD rescuers to arrive, records show.

"It's the hills. Just try to get around these curves," said Joe, who said the couple are thinking about leaving their sprawling, white-columned home to be closer to help.

The city's 469 square miles are protected by 106 firehouses, with deployment plans based on population and call load. As a result, some LAFD stations serve larger areas than others. A few cover swaths of sparsely populated territory larger than entire cities. The firehouse responsible for portions of Bel-Air and Brentwood, for example, serves an area nearly twice as large as the city of Santa Monica, which has four fire stations.

Fire Chief Brian Cummings has said the department would need to nearly double its stations and staff to meet national response time standards everywhere in the city.

Battalion Chief Trevor Richmond, who oversees the unit responsible for deployment, said, "We'd all like to have an unlimited amount of money and have a fire station on every corner.

"That would be the ideal situation," Richmond said. "But we know that's not reality."

Since questions arose about response times earlier this year, initial reform efforts supported by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and his Fire Commission have focused on calculating reliable citywide averages. A report released Wednesday by a task force appointed by the Fire Commission found the average response time for calls in September was 6 minutes and 47 seconds.

But the Times investigation, which mapped out more than 1 million dispatches since 2007, found those broad performance measures mask stark disparities in emergency response times that have grown longer in recent years amid budget cuts.

The analysis found that the longest responses often occur when an area's primary rescue units are on other calls or are out of service, creating holes in coverage. Citywide, the first unit to reach victims in medical emergencies came from a more distant station at least 15% of the time, the analysis found.

The effect is less pronounced in areas with a high concentration of fire stations, The Times analysis found.

But coverage gaps regularly created long delays in parts of the city with fewer stations, including in the east San Fernando Valley, the southern edge of Playa del Rey and some neighborhoods in the Santa Monica Mountains.

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White House Supports Top U.S. Commander in Afghanistan

WASHINGTON — Conflicting portrayals of e-mails written by Gen. John R. Allen, the top American and NATO commander in Afghanistan, emerged Tuesday after it was disclosed that the general was under investigation for what the Pentagon called “inappropriate communication” with the woman whose complaint to the F.B.I. set off the scandal involving David H. Petraeus’s extramarital affair.

Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta and other officials traveling with him to Australia overnight on Monday disclosed the inquiry into General Allen’s e-mails with Jill Kelley, the woman in Tampa, Fla., who was seen by Paula Broadwell, Mr. Petraeus’s lover, as a rival for his attentions.

Mr. Panetta, along with Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, referred the Allen matter to the Pentagon’s inspector general, according to Mr. Panetta’s aides, after a team of military and civilian lawyers reviewed what defense officials say are thousands of pages of documents, including hundreds of e-mails between General Allen and Ms. Kelley, that the F.B.I. forwarded to the Pentagon.

Associates of General Allen said Tuesday that the e-mails were innocuous. Some of them used terms of endearment, but not in a flirtatious way, the associates said. “If you know Allen, he’s just the kind of guy to respond dutifully to every e-mail he gets — ‘you’re the best,’ ‘you’re a sweetheart,’ that kind of thing,” according to a senior American official who is familiar with the investigation.

Even so, other Pentagon officials briefed on the content of the e-mails said that some of the language did, on initial reading, seem “overly flirtatious” and warranted further inquiry.

The Pentagon’s top lawyer, Jeh Johnson, recommended sending the matter to the inspector general, senior defense officials said. An inappropriate communication could violate military rules.

Senior officials in the Obama administration and lawmakers from both parties expressed shock at what could be a widening scandal into two of the most prominent generals of their generation: Mr. Petraeus, who was the top commander in Iraq and Afghanistan before he retired from the military to become director of the C.I.A., only to resign on Friday because of his affair, and General Allen, who also served in Iraq and now commands 68,000 American troops in Afghanistan.

President Obama, however, voiced support for General Allen through his spokesman on Tuesday. “The president thinks very highly of General Allen,” the spokesman, Jay Carney, said at a White House news briefing. “He has faith in General Allen.”

But the matter has created enough concern that General Allen’s recent nomination to become NATO’s top military officer was delayed at Mr. Panetta’s request, pending the investigation’s outcome.

Aides traveling with Mr. Panetta, reacting to anger from some of General Allen’s associates who said he was being unfairly treated, described Mr. Panetta as having great respect for General Allen. But they said that Mr. Panetta had little choice in referring the matter to the inspector general. General Dempsey informed General Allen of the investigation on Monday from Perth, where he had traveled for a security meeting that Mr. Panetta is also attending.

General Allen, a Marine, succeeded Mr. Petraeus as the top allied commander in Afghanistan in July 2011. He also served as Mr. Petraeus’s deputy when both officers led the military’s Central Command, based in Tampa, from 2008 until 2010.

General Allen’s connection to the scandal appears to have originated with an e-mail he received from an account that was registered under a fake name and has now been linked to Ms. Broadwell, according to a senior American official. The e-mail warned General Allen to be wary of Ms. Kelley and was vaguely threatening. Though he did not know who had written the e-mail, he was concerned and passed it on to Ms. Kelley. She then discussed it with an agent she knew at the F.B.I.’s field office in Tampa, Fla., whose cyber crime unit opened an investigation that eventually linked Ms. Broadwell to General Petraeus.

A senior law enforcement official in Washington said Tuesday that F.B.I. investigators, looking into Ms. Kelley’s complaint about anonymous e-mails she had received, examined all of her e-mails as a routine step. Officials familiar with the investigation said it covers 20,000 to 30,000 page of documents, but Pentagon officials cautioned against making too much of that number, since some might be from e-mail chains, or brief messages printed out on a whole page.

On Monday night, F.B.I. agents searched Ms. Broadwell’s home in Charlotte, N.C., and local television news crews filmed them carrying away boxes of material in what officials said was part of that continuing investigation.

The defense official said that the e-mails between Ms. Kelley and General Allen spanned the years 2010 to 2012.

American officials familiar with the social dynamics at the upper echelons of the Central Command described Ms. Kelley as wealthy socialite who knew “almost every” high- ranking officer serving in Tampa. Her ties were close enough that Mr. Petraeus and General Allen both intervened last September in a messy custody dispute on behalf of Jill Kelley’s twin sister, Natalie Khawam.

A senior official said Ms. Kelley was close to both General Allen and his wife. She would often send e-mails, hundreds over the course of any given year, to the couple about parties or people she had met or trips she was considering. General Allen was never alone with Ms. Kelley,  the official said, and while he may have been “affectionate in a few e-mails with her, there’s nothing he’s embarrassed about or embarrassed to tell his wife about.” 

Eric Schmitt reported from Washington, and Elisabeth Bumiller from Perth, Australia. Matt Rosenberg, Thom Shanker and Ron Nixon contributed reporting from Washington.

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GIF Named Oxford Dictionary's Word of the Year

By Maggie Coughlan

11/13/2012 at 07:10 PM EST

Being a computer geek just got a little sexier.

Oxford Dictionaries announced Monday the Oxford Dictionaries USA Word of the Year for 2012 is GIF.

If you're not familiar with the verb, it's defined as "a compressed file format for images that can be used to create simple, looping animations," according to Katherine Martin, Head of the U.S. Dictionaries Program at Oxford University Press USA.

After popping up everywhere from PEOPLE.com to Tumblr, the word had an amazing year.

The tech-savvy term beat out some fierce competition, including Eurogeddon (the potential financial collapse of the Eurozone), Superstorm (an unusually large and destructive storm), YOLO ("you only live once"), Nomophobia (anxiety caused by being without one's mobile phone) and more.

While you're contemplating what buzzword will make the cut next year, ogle these sexy GIFs of Hugh Jackman, Matt Bomer, Joe Manganiello, Zac Efron and William Levy!

PEOPLE's choice for the Sexiest Man Alive title will be revealed Nov. 14. Be one of the first to find out.

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Report: FDA wanted to close Mass pharmacy in 2003

WASHINGTON (AP) — Nearly a decade ago, federal health inspectors wanted to shut down the pharmacy linked to a recent deadly meningitis outbreak until it cleaned up its operations, according to congressional investigators.

About 440 people have been sickened by contaminated steroid shots distributed by New England Compounding Center, and more than 32 deaths have been reported since the outbreak began in September, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That has put the Framingham, Mass.-based pharmacy at the center of congressional scrutiny and calls for greater regulation of compounding pharmacies, which make individualized medications for patients and have long operated in a legal gray area between state and federal laws.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee released a detailed history of NECC's regulatory troubles on Monday, ahead of a meeting Wednesday meeting to examine how the outbreak could have been prevented. The 25-page report summarizes and quotes from FDA and state inspection memos, though the committee declined to release the original documents.

The report shows that after several problematic incidents, Food and Drug Administration officials in 2003 suggested that the compounding pharmacy be "prohibited from manufacturing" until it improved its operations. But FDA regulators deferred to their counterparts in Massachusetts, who ultimately reached an agreement with the pharmacy to settle concerns about the quality of its prescription injections.

The congressional report also shows that in 2003 the FDA considered the company a pharmacy. That's significant because in recent weeks public health officials have charged that NECC was operating more as a manufacturer than a pharmacy, shipping thousands of doses of drugs to all 50 states instead of small batches of drugs to individual patients. Manufacturers are regulated by the FDA and are subject to stricter quality standards than pharmacies.

The report offers the most detailed account yet of the numerous regulatory complaints against the pharmacy, which nearly date back to its founding in 1998. Less than a year later, the company was cited by the state pharmacy board for providing doctors with blank prescription pads with NECC's information. Such promotional items are illegal in Massachusetts and the pharmacy's owner and director, Barry Cadden, received an informal reprimand, according to documents summarized by the committee.

Cadden was subject to several other complaints involving unprofessional conduct in coming years, but first came to the FDA's attention in 2002. Here are some key events from the report highlighting the company's early troubles with state and federal authorities:

__ In March of 2002 the FDA began investigating reports that five patients had become dizzy and short of breath after receiving NECC's compounded betamethasone repository injection, a steroid used to treat joint pain and arthritis that's different from the one linked to the current meningitis outbreak.

FDA inspectors visited NECC on April 9 and said Cadden was initially cooperative in turning over records about production of the drug. But during a second day of inspections, Cadden told officials "that he was no longer willing to provide us with any additional records," according to an FDA report cited by congressional investigators. The inspectors ultimately issued a report citing NECC for poor sterility and record-keeping practices but said that "this FDA investigation could not proceed to any definitive resolution," because of "problems/barriers that were encountered throughout the inspection."

__ In October of 2002, the FDA received new reports that two patients at a Rochester, N.Y., hospital came down with symptoms of bacterial meningitis after receiving a different NECC injection. The steroid, methylprednisolone acetate, is the same injectable linked to the current outbreak and is typically is used to treat back pain. Both patients were treated with antibiotics and eventually recovered, according to FDA documents cited by the committee.

When officials from the FDA and Massachusetts Board of Pharmacy visited NECC later in the month, Cadden said vials of the steroid returned by the hospital had tested negative for bacterial contamination. But when FDA scientists tested samples of the drug collected in New York they found bacterial contamination in four out of 14 vials sampled. It is not entirely clear whether FDA tested the same lot shipped to the Rochester hospital.

__ At a February 2003 meeting between state and federal officials, FDA staff emphasized "the potential for serious public consequences if NECC's compounding practices, in particular those relating to sterile products, are not improved." The agency issued a list of problems uncovered in its inspection to NECC, including a failure to verify if sterile drugs met safety standards.

But the agency decided to let Massachusetts officials take the lead in regulating the company, since pharmacies are typically regulated at the state level. It was decided that "the state would be in a better position to gain compliance or take regulatory action against NECC as necessary," according to a summary of the meeting quoted by investigators.

The FDA recommended the state subject NECC to a consent agreement, which would require the company to pass certain quality tests to continue operating. But congressional investigators say Massachusetts Board of Pharmacy did not take any action until "well over a year later."

__ In October 2004, the board sent a proposed consent agreement to Cadden, which would have included a formal reprimand and a three-year probationary period for the company's registration. The case ended without disciplinary action in 2006, when NECC agreed to a less severe consent decree with the state.

Massachusetts officials indicated Tuesday they are still investigating why NECC escaped the more severe penalty.

"I will not be satisfied until we know the full story behind this decision," the state's interim health commissioner Lauren Smith said in a transcript of her prepared testimony released a day ahead of delivery. Smith is one of several witnesses scheduled to testify Wednesday, including FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg.

The committee will also hear from the widow of 78-year-old Eddie C. Lovelace, a longtime circuit court judge in southern Kentucky. Autopsy results confirmed Lovelace received fungus-contaminated steroid injections that led to his death Sept. 17.

Joyce Lovelace will urge lawmakers to work together on legislation to stop future outbreaks caused by compounded drugs, according to a draft of her testimony.

"We now know that New England Compounding Pharmacy, Inc. killed Eddie. I have lost my soulmate and life's partner with whom I worked side by side, day after day for more than fifty years," Lovelace states.

Barry Cadden is also scheduled to appear at the hearing, after lawmakers issued a subpoena to compel him to attend.

The NECC has been closed since early last month, and Massachusetts officials have taken steps to permanently revoke its license. The pharmacy has recalled all the products it makes, including 17,700 single-dose vials of a steroid that tested positive for the fungus tied to the outbreak.

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Aboard the Bill of Rights, an amended life

The 160-ton schooner rocked in the choppy waters at the mouth of the Channel Islands Harbor, and Donna Reed swung on her high-heeled cowgirl boots between ropes that dangled like vines, untying the cords that bound the sails to masts as thick as utility poles.

Reed swung again as the sails unfurled, balancing the soles of her boots on a rope several feet above the deck. Her movements were quick and precise, as if she were an old pro.

Yet not even a year ago, the 33-year-old was living in landlocked Columbia, S.C., working as a real estate agent and hosting a political talk show that aired on radio stations across the state. She lived in a luxury apartment. Her car had the requisite leather seats.

Now her wages are $150 a week. Her quarters are the size of a closet. And the canary-yellow North Face jacket she just bought from the thrift store still has the $1.99 tag on it.

She's found a new life aboard the Bill of Rights, an aging tall ship that its operator sees as an educational vessel not just for the high school students who join it on trips like this, but for the crew: physics and environmental science majors fresh from college, a marine biologist who had run out of money traveling in Mexico and Central America, a massage therapist and musician among them. A geologist born in Kolkata, India, just joined them by way of South Carolina.

Their lives in transition, they all had found their way to the Oxnard harbor where the schooner docks.

"Sometimes, if you keep running into a wall," Reed said, "you have to change direction."

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When Stephen Taylor found the Bill of Rights in 2007, it had been neglected. The wood on the once-majestic ship, built in 1971, was dry-rotting. The generator didn't run. The engine wasn't in good enough condition to handle the sea.

"It was pretty rough," he said.

Taylor, who had spent his career piloting private boats, dove into reinvigorating the Bill of Rights, imagining it as a classroom on the sea. Now, students can learn marine biology, sailing and even leadership on treks as short as a single afternoon or on excursions that last for days.

He started a nonprofit called the American Tall Ship Institute, which funds itself through charter trips, charging private schools for excursions and grants.

When it came time to form a crew, he operated on this premise: You can teach anyone to sail.

He sought professionals, academics and artists whose various backgrounds could offer something different to students and the fledgling operation in exchange for room and board. Some collect a small salary.

They typically sign three-month contracts. Some have shorter stays; many hang around much longer. But after about a year, Taylor will nudge them to move on.

"You get caught up in the awesomeness," he said, "and you completely forget that the rest of your life has stopped outside of this."

Many of the crew members found the ship through word of mouth, from friends who had worked on the ship. Taylor also posts to job boards for educators and on other sites.

As for Reed, she had unloaded most of her possessions at the start of the year and left to bicycle through Europe. She ran out of money in Spain.

To chart her next move, she visited a website for professionals seeking to flee the corporate world called escapethecity.org, where she found the Bill of Rights and reached out to Taylor.

As she waited, she found a job in Orange County, a lucrative sales position with a real estate website. She was two weeks in when Taylor asked her to come up for a weekend sail in June.

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Afghan Warlord Ismail Khan’s Call to Arms Rattles Kabul

Bryan Denton for The New York Times

Supporters of Ismail Khan gathered outside Herat city on Nov. 1.

HERAT, Afghanistan — One of the most powerful mujahedeen commanders in Afghanistan, Ismail Khan, is calling on his followers to reorganize and defend the country against the Taliban as Western militaries withdraw, in a public demonstration of faltering confidence in the national government and the Western-built Afghan National Army.

Mr. Khan is one of the strongest of a group of warlords who defined the country’s recent history in battling the Soviets, the Taliban and one another, and who then were brought into President Hamid Karzai’s cabinet as a symbol of unity. Now, in announcing that he is remobilizing his forces, Mr. Khan has rankled Afghan officials and stoked fears that other regional and factional leaders will follow suit and rearm, weakening support for the government and increasing the likelihood of civil war.

This month, Mr. Khan rallied thousands of his supporters in the desert outside Herat, the cultured western provincial capital and the center of his power base, urging them to coordinate and reactivate their networks. And he has begun enlisting new recruits and organizing district command structures.

“We are responsible for maintaining security in our country and not letting Afghanistan be destroyed again,” Mr. Khan, the minister of energy and water, said at a news conference over the weekend at his office in Kabul. But after facing criticism, he took care not to frame his action as defying the government: “There are parts of the country where the government forces cannot operate, and in such areas the locals should step forward, take arms and defend the country.”

President Karzai and his aides, however, were not greeting it as an altruistic gesture. The governor of Herat Province called Mr. Khan’s reorganization an illegal challenge to the national security forces. And Mr. Karzai’s spokesman, Aimal Faizi, tersely criticized Mr. Khan.

“The remarks by Ismail Khan do not reflect the policies of the Afghan government,” Mr. Faizi said. “The government of Afghanistan and the Afghan people do not want any irresponsible armed grouping outside the legitimate security forces structures.”

In Kabul, Mr. Khan’s provocative actions have played out in the news media and brought a fierce reaction from some members of Parliament, who said the warlords were preparing to take advantage of the American troop withdrawal set for 2014.

“People like Ismail Khan smell blood,” Belqis Roshan, a senator from Farah Province, said in an interview. “They think that as soon as foreign forces leave Afghanistan, once again they will get the chance to start a civil war, and achieve their ominous goals of getting rich and terminating their local rivals.”

Indeed, Mr. Khan’s is not the only voice calling for a renewed alliance of the mujahedeen against the Taliban, and some of the others are just as familiar.

Marshal Muhammad Qasim Fahim, an ethnic Tajik commander who is President Karzai’s first vice president, said in a speech in September, “If the Afghan security forces are not able to wage this war, then call upon the mujahedeen.”

Another prominent mujahedeen fighter, Ahmad Zia Massoud, said in an interview at his home in Kabul that people were worried about what was going to happen after 2014, and he was telling his own followers to make preliminary preparations.

“They don’t want to be disgraced again,” Mr. Massoud said. “Everyone tries to have some sort of Plan B. Some people are on the verge of rearming.”

He pointed out that it was significant that the going market price of Kalashnikov assault rifles had risen to about $1,000, driven up by demand from a price of $300 a decade ago. “Every household wants to have an AK-47 at home,” he said.

“The mujahedeen come here to meet me,” Mr. Massoud added. “They tell me they are preparing. They are trying to find weapons. They come from villages, from the north of Afghanistan, even some people from the suburbs of Kabul, and say they are taking responsibility for providing private security in their neighborhood.”

Habib Zahori and Jawad Sukhanyar contributed reporting from Herat, Afghanistan, and an employee of The New York Times from Kabul.

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John McAfee, Anti-Virus Software Creator, Wanted for Murder

By Johnny Dodd

11/12/2012 at 07:20 PM EST

John McAfee, in early photo

John Storey/Time Life Pictures/Getty

John McAfee, the high-tech pioneer whose anti-virus security software is installed on countless computers around the world, is on the lam from police in Belize who are investigating the murder of his neighbor.

The 67-year-old multimillionaire is a prime suspect in the Nov. 10 killing of Gregory Faull, says Vienne Robinson, assistant superintendent of the Belize's San Pedro police department, who spoke to Fox News.

"We are looking for him in connection with the murder," says Robinson, who adds that another suspect is currently in custody – although no charges have been filed yet.

Faull, who had recently filed a police complaint against McAfee for discharging firearms, was discovered by a housekeeper, according to a police report posted on gizmodo.com.

Faull, a 52-year-old builder from California, was reportedly lying face-up in a pool of blood with a bullet wound in the back of his head. On a nearby stair, police found a single 9-mm shell casing.

McAfee, whose former company was purchased by Intel in 2010 for nearly $7.7 billion, moved to Belize in 2008, intending to launch a company that manufactured herbal antibiotics from jungle plants.

In recent years, however, his strange behavior had alienated him from neighbors and others in the American expat community in the Central American country, according to reports.

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British medical journal slams Roche on Tamiflu

LONDON (AP) — A leading British medical journal is asking the drug maker Roche to release all its data on Tamiflu, claiming there is no evidence the drug can actually stop the flu.

The drug has been stockpiled by dozens of governments worldwide in case of a global flu outbreak and was widely used during the 2009 swine flu pandemic.

On Monday, one of the researchers linked to the BMJ journal called for European governments to sue Roche.

"I suggest we boycott Roche's products until they publish missing Tamiflu data," wrote Peter Gotzsche, leader of the Nordic Cochrane Centre in Copenhagen. He said governments should take legal action against Roche to get the money back that was "needlessly" spent on stockpiling Tamiflu.

Last year, Tamiflu was included in a list of "essential medicines" by the World Health Organization, a list that often prompts governments or donor agencies to buy the drug.

Tamiflu is used to treat both seasonal flu and new flu viruses like bird flu or swine flu. WHO spokesman Gregory Hartl said the agency had enough proof to warrant its use for unusual influenza viruses, like bird flu.

"We do have substantive evidence it can stop or hinder progression to severe disease like pneumonia," he said.

In the U.S., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends Tamiflu as one of two medications for treating regular flu. The other is GlaxoSmithKline's Relenza. The CDC says such antivirals can shorten the duration of symptoms and reduce the risk of complications and hospitalization.

In 2009, the BMJ and researchers at the Nordic Cochrane Centre asked Roche to make all its Tamiflu data available. At the time, Cochrane Centre scientists were commissioned by Britain to evaluate flu drugs. They found no proof that Tamiflu reduced the number of complications in people with influenza.

"Despite a public promise to release (internal company reports) for each (Tamiflu) trial...Roche has stonewalled," BMJ editor Fiona Godlee wrote in an editorial last month.

In a statement, Roche said it had complied with all legal requirements on publishing data and provided Gotzsche and his colleagues with 3,200 pages of information to answer their questions.

"Roche has made full clinical study data ... available to national health authorities according to their various requirements, so they can conduct their own analyses," the company said.

Roche says it doesn't usually release patient-level data available due to legal or confidentiality constraints. It said it did not provide the requested data to the scientists because they refused to sign a confidentiality agreement.

Roche is also being investigated by the European Medicines Agency for not properly reporting side effects, including possible deaths, for 19 drugs including Tamiflu that were used in about 80,000 patients in the U.S.

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Online:

www.bmj.com.tamiflu/

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Noguez's council account offers leads in corruption probe

When John Noguez ran for Los Angeles County assessor in 2010, large donations started pouring into his "office holder" account at Huntington Park City Hall, where Noguez served as a councilman.

Of more than $100,000 that flowed through the account that year, only one $250 donation came from a Huntington Park address, records show. The vast majority came from downtown Los Angeles business owners.

Within months of Noguez's election, he and his top aides knocked at least $36 million off the assessed values of properties owned by donors to that Huntington Park fund, a Times investigation has found. Those reductions lowered the donors' property taxes and prompted the county to write tax refund checks worth more than $557,000 to them in the first year of Noguez's term.

The list of donors to the Huntington Park account offers new leads for investigators probing corruption in the assessor's office. Noguez is now in jail after his arrest last month on charges that he took $185,000 in bribes from a prominent tax consultant and campaign contributor to lower taxes for properties on the Westside and in the South Bay.

A Times review of records shows that many of the contributions to Noguez's City Council account came from corporate entities registered to commercial property owners in downtown Los Angeles. Unlike Noguez's official campaign accounts for county assessor, the Huntington Park fund had no contribution limits, no restrictions on how the money could be spent, and its records were never posted online for public scrutiny.

By giving to the Huntington Park fund, many donors were able to exceed the $2,000 individual contribution limits imposed by the county for the 2010 campaign.

Most of the contributors to the Huntington Park account did not return phone calls requesting comment for this story. Those who did speak said any tax breaks they got after the election were appropriate and had nothing to do with their contributions.

"Noguez didn't do anything out of the ordinary, he's a very nice guy," said Ben Neman, who on March 2, 2010, made six separate $1,000 contributions to the Huntington Park account from companies he controls. Neman owns commercial property in downtown Los Angeles.

The companies are registered to the same address — Neman's office on South Los Angeles Street in the garment district.

Within months of the election, Noguez and his staff reduced the taxable value of properties that Neman's companies own by $8.1 million, records show, generating $103,555 worth of refund checks from the county.

Neman said that all of his reductions were warranted due to the drop in real estate values, and that Noguez did him no favors. He also said he didn't know which Noguez account his money had gone to because his secretary handled the details.

"To be honest with you, this is the first time I'm hearing about this Huntington Park account," Neman said.

Businessmen Robert Hanasab and his father, Moosa, wrote $1,000 checks to the Huntington Park account from three companies registered to them at their downtown office across from Pershing Square, the records show.

Months after Noguez's election, the assessed value of the properties owned by the Hanasabs were reduced by $7.5 million, generating refund checks worth $148,835, records show.

"I don't remember how or why we contributed to that particular account," said Robert Hanasab, who said he hosted a fundraiser for Noguez because "he seemed like he was on the side of fairness."

Hanasab and family members also contributed $4,150 to Noguez's county campaign accounts, records show. Hanasab said he never discussed any "particular property" with Noguez. Instead of receiving favors from the assessor, Hanasab said he was disappointed by how difficult the process of appealing a property's value remained even after the election.

"You'd still have to fight tooth and nail with the assessor to give you just what you deserve," Hanasab said.

Noguez spread the money from his Huntington Park account to other candidates running for local and state offices. Thousands went to consultants who also worked on his county assessor campaign.

There's nothing in state law that would have prohibited Noguez from accepting unlimited contributions to his Huntington Park account and spending it on his assessor race, according to Gary Winuk, chief of enforcement for the California Fair Political Practices Commission.

Law enforcement sources, who requested anonymity because the case is ongoing, said prosecutors are looking at the Huntington Park contributions for any evidence that Noguez accepted them in exchange for reducing property tax bills.

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