Stanford University

U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommends statins for those at risk

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Beth Duff-Brown
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The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommends adults between the ages of 40 and 75 take a cholesterol-lowering statin drug to help prevent heart attacks and strokes if they are at risk of cardiovascular disease.

One in three Americans die of heart attacks or strokes. And those with no signs or symptoms, as well as no past history of cardiovascular disease, can still be at risk.

The independent panel of medical experts from around the nation said in a news release that statins could help those who have a risk factor for cardiovascular disease — such as high cholesterol or blood pressure, diabetes or those who smoke — and have at least a 7.5 percent risk of having a cardiovascular event in the next 10 years.

The task force also called for more research on the use of prescribing statins for children and adolescents who are at risk of heart disease.

The American Heart Association and American College of Cardiology have been recommending statins in adults for several years. The task force is now making a similar recommendation for primary prevention based on the latest clinical trials and research.

“The task force looked carefully at current data to identify who can benefit the most from taking statins,” said task force chair Albert L. Siu, MD, MSPH, who is also chair of the Ellen and Howard C. Katz Mount Sinai Health System.

“People with no signs, symptoms, or history of cardiovascular disease can still be at risk of heart attack or stroke,” said task force member Douglas K. Owens, MD, a Stanford professor of medicine and director of the Center for Health Policy and Center for Primary Care and Outcomes Research at Stanford Health Policy.

“Fortunately, for certain people at increased risk, statins can be very effective at preventing these events,” said Owens, who emphasizes that adults who fall into those risk and age groups must first consult with their physicians.

The task force said all adults could reduce their risk of cardiovascular disease by not smoking, eating a healthy diet, engaging in physical activity and limiting alcohol use. Managing high blood pressure and high cholesterol and taking aspirin when indicated can also help prevent heart attacks and strokes.

Based on the current evidence, the task force said, it is not yet clear whether taking statins is beneficial for people who are older than 75. But they did find the effectiveness of statins is the same for both men and women.

This is the first time the task force has changed its fundamental approach since 2008, when it recommended screening for abnormal amount of lipids in the blood. While screening remains key, most adults are now routinely screened as part of an overall cardiovascular risk assessment.

Therefore, the task force found the more relevant clinical question is no longer whom to screen for elevated cholesterol, but rather whom to treat with preventive medication once increased cardiovascular risk has been identified in an individual.

The Preventive Services Task Force also announced that there is not enough data and evidence to assess the balance of benefits and harms in screening for high cholesterol in children and adolescents up to age 20.

While some experts have recommended lipid screening in children and teens, the task force found that the evidence shows it’s difficult to predict which children who have high cholesterol will continue to have it as they age.

“There is currently not enough research to determine whether screening all average-risk children and adolescents without symptoms leads to better cardiovascular health in adulthood.” said Task Force Vice Chair David C. Grossman, MD, MPH. “In addition, the potential harms of long-term use of cholesterol-lowering medication by children and adolescents are not yet understood.”

The public can review the findings and comment on the task force website.

Other articles on the recommendation include:

The Associated Press

MedPage Today

Reuters

HealthDay

 

 

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Honoring high school students from Japan

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When I first started the Stanford e-Japan program, I never expected to be up on that podium making a speech [at Stanford University]… Yet there I stood, a little more grown up than before.
—Seiji Wakabayashi, Kumon Kokusai Junior-Senior High School

If I hadn’t participated in this program, I wouldn’t have been as interested in the U.S. as I am right now.
—Hikaru Suzuki, Senior High School at Otsuka, University of Tsukuba

I am very grateful to be given the chance to think about and to discuss with my fellow classmates what we should do in order to strengthen the U.S.–Japan relationship in the future.
—Haruki Kitagawa, Keio Senior High School

 

The Stanford Program on International and Cross-Cultural Education (SPICE) honored three of the top students of the inaugural 2015 Stanford e-Japan distance-learning course at an event at Stanford University on November 2, 2015. The three Stanford e-Japan Day honorees—Haruki Kitagawa (Keio Senior High School), Hikaru Suzuki (Senior High School at Otsuka, University of Tsukuba), and Seiji Wakabayashi (Kumon Kokusai Junior-Senior High School)—were recognized for their coursework and exceptional research essays that focused respectively on “A Comparison and Analysis of Educational Systems: What Is ‘Successful’ Education?,” “Why the Japanese Have a Good Image of America,” and “Schooling Japan.”

Stanford e-Japan Day featured welcoming comments by Dr. Gary Mukai, SPICE Director, and opening remarks on youth and the future of U.S.–Japan relations by Deputy Consul General Nobuhiro Watanabe, Consulate General of Japan in San Francisco. Deputy Consul General Watanabe reinforced that youth are the ones to shoulder the U.S.–Japan relationship in the coming years, and that he is very much looking forward to the day when these students will engage in furthering our two countries’ strong ties.

Waka Takahashi Brown, Stanford e-Japan Instructor, gave an overview of the course. Stanford e-Japan is a distance-learning course on U.S. society and culture and U.S.–Japan relations that is offered annually to 25–30 high school students across Japan. The course presents a creative and innovative approach to teaching high school students about U.S. society and culture and U.S–Japan relations, and provides Japanese students with unique opportunities to interact with diplomats and top scholars affiliated with Stanford University and other institutions through online lectures and discussions. Importantly, the course introduces both American and Japanese perspectives on many historical and contemporary issues.

Each student honoree gave a succinct and lucid summary of his/her research essay and skillfully answered questions from the audience. Following the question-and-answer period, each student was presented with a plaque by Brown. Following the presentations, the students and their families joined the audience in a luncheon.

Following the event, Stanford undergraduate Mathieu Rolfo took time from his studies to take the three honorees on a tour of the Stanford campus. Mathieu is a former student in SPICE’s Reischauer Scholars Program (RSP), a distance-learning course on Japan and U.S.–Japan relations that has been offered to high school students in the United States for 12 years. RSP Instructor Naomi Funahashi honored Rolfo as one of her top three RSP students in 2011. Funahashi and Brown are planning to continue to engage their students “virtually” across the Pacific.

Stanford e-Japan has been generously funded for the first three years (2015–17) by a grant from the United States-Japan Foundation. SPICE supporter Amanda Minami Chao was in attendance and had the chance to share her thoughts on Brown University with student honoree Seiji Wakabayashi who plans to apply to her alma mater.

During a recent trip to Japan, Mukai had the opportunity to meet with other excellent students who were enrolled in the inaugural course. Shoko Kitamura, Waseda Honjo Senior High School, noted that she especially enjoyed a lecture by Dr. Joseph Yasutake on Japanese-American internment during which Yasutake shared his first-hand accounts. Tairi Goto, International School of Asia in Karuizawa, stated that he especially appreciated a class activity during which he was introduced to textbook descriptions of the atomic bombing of Japan from Taiwan, Korea, Japan, China, and the United States. Misaki Katayama, Hiroshima Prefectural Hiroshima Junior/Senior High School, commented on her interest in learning about Japanese picture brides who left prefectures like Hiroshima to the United States in the early 20th century.

Reflecting back on the inaugural Stanford e-Japan course and e-Japan Day, Brown noted, “The inaugural group of e-Japan students was phenomenal. It was wonderful to be able to meet at least some of the students in person on e-Japan Day, although I felt like I had already met them through our interaction during the course. I have no doubt that future leaders, diplomats, and entrepreneurs will emerge from this cohort. ”

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2015 Stanford e-Japan Honorees: Seiji Wakabayashi, Hikaru Suzuki, and Haruki Kitagawa
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Crafting Democratic Transitions: Learning from Experience

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Abstract: 

Drawing upon personal interviews Abraham Lowenthal and Sergio Bitar of Chile conducted with 13 former presidents and prime ministers from 9 countries in Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America who played leading roles in managing successful and unreversed transitions from authoritarian rule toward democratic governance, Lowenthal will discuss recurrent challenges that democratic transitions pose, and what can be learned from prior experiences. He will introduce and provide background and highlights from Democratic Transitions:Conversations with World Leaders,recently published by Johns Hopkins University Press and International IDEA.The book will appear this semester in Arabic, Spanish, French, Dutch and Burmese.

 

 

Speaker Bio: 

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Abraham F. Lowenthal has combined two careers: as an analyst of Latin America, US-Latin American relations, and California’s global role, and as the founder and chief executive of three prestigious organizations—the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Latin American Program, the Inter-American Dialogue, and the Pacific Council on International Policy. Recently retired from his professorial chair at the University of Southern California, Dr. Lowenthal has authored, edited or coedited and contributed to fifteen volumes, including Global California: Rising to the Cosmopolitan Challenge (Stanford 2009) and others published by Harvard, Princeton, Johns Hopkins, and Brookings; more than a hundred journal articles, including seven in Foreign Affairs; and some 200 newspaper articles. He has been decorated by the presidents of Brazil and the Dominican Republic, and received an honorary degree from the University of Notre Dame. His book, Partners in Conflict: The United States and Latin America, was awarded USC’s prize for the best faculty book, and he has been honored by the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce for his contribution to California’s international trade. Dr. Lowenthal is a non-resident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution,an adjunct professor[research] at Brown, and a visiting fellow at Harvard.

Abraham Lowenthal Professor Emeritus of International Relations, University of Southern California
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Opioid crisis not limited to a few bad apples

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Beth Duff-Brown
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Most prescriptions for opioid painkillers are made by the broad swath of U.S. general practitioners, not by a limited group of specialists, according to a study by researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine.

This finding contrasts with previous studies by others that indicated the U.S. opioid epidemic is stoked by a small population of prolific prescribers operating out of corrupt “pill mills.”

The study, which examined Medicare prescription drug claims data for 2013, appears in a research letter published today in JAMA Internal Medicine.

“The bulk of opioid prescriptions are distributed by the large population of general practitioners,” said lead author Jonathan Chen, a Stanford Health Policy VA Medical Informatics Fellow.

The researchers found that the top 10 percent of opioid prescribers account for 57 percent of opioid prescriptions. This prescribing pattern is comparable to that found in the Medicare data for prescribers of all drugs: The top 10 percent of all drug prescribers account for 63 percent of all drug prescriptions.

“These findings indicate law enforcement efforts to shut down pill-mill prescribers are insufficient to address the widespread overprescribing of opioids,” Chen said. “Efforts to curtail national opioid overprescribing must address a broad swath of prescribers to be effective.”

Read More at Stanford News Center

More coverage here:

STAT News Service

Kaiser Health News

 

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The Great Surge: The Ascent of the Developing World

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** Note room changed to CISAC Central**

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We live at a time of the greatest progress amongst the global poor in human history. Never before have so many people in so many developing countries made so much progress in reducing poverty, improving health, increasing incomes, expanding health, reducing conflict, and encouraging democracy. The Great Surge tells the story of this unprecedented progress over the last two decades, why it happened, and what it may portend for the future.

“A brilliant new book” ~ Francis Fukuyama

“A stunning, wise, and deeply hopeful book that anyone concerned about global human development must read.”~ Larry Diamond

“Powerful, lucid, and revelatory” ~ George Soros

“A terrific book” ~ Nicholas Kristof

“With his typical care and detail, Steven Radelet describes humanity’s greatest hits over the last twenty years—never have we lived in a time when so many are doing so well” ~ Bono

 

 

Speaker Bio:

steve radelet
Steven Radelet holds the Donald F. McHenry Chair in Global Human Development and is Director of the Global Human Development Program at Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service. He serves as an economic adviser to President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia, and is a Non-Resident Fellow at the Brookings Institution. Professor Radelet joined the Georgetown faculty in 2012 after serving as Chief Economist of USAID and Senior Adviser for Development for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. He previously served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Treasury (1999-2002). From 2002-09 he was Senior Fellow at the Center for Global Development. He spent twelve years with the Harvard Institute for International Development, while teaching in both the Harvard economics department and Kennedy School of Government. While with HIID, he spent four years as resident adviser to the Ministry of Finance in Jakarta, Indonesia, and two years with the Ministry of Finance and Trade in The Gambia. He and his wife served as Peace Corps Volunteers in Western Samoa. Dr. Radelet is the author or coauthor of several books and dozens of academic articles, including The Great Surge: The Ascent of the Developing World (Simon & Schuster, 2015), Emerging Africa: How 17 Countries are Leading the Way (Center for Global Development, 2010) and the textbook Economics of Development (W.W. Norton, 7th Edition, 2013). He holds Ph.D. and master's degrees in public policy from Harvard University and a bachelor's degree in mathematics from Central Michigan University.

Steven Radelet Director, Global Human Development Program at Georgetown University
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Institutional Legacies and the End of Egypt’s Second Republic

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The coup of July 3, 2013 brought a decisive end to Egypt’s brief experiment with elected civilian governance that followed the downfall of President Hosni Mubarak in February 2011. Early attempts to understand the downfall of the “Second Egyptian Republic” focused largely around the events that immediately preceded the ouster of President Mohamed Morsi. This presentation adds historical depth to these discussions by analyzing the role of institutional legacies in contributing to that outcome. Specifically, decades-old state interventions have structured Egypt’s political field in ways that encourage defections from pacted transitions in the present moment.

 

Speaker Bio:

sallam hs2
Hesham Sallam is a research associate at CDDRL and serves as the associate director of the Program on Arab Reform and Democracy. He is also a co-editor of Jadaliyya ezine and a former program specialist at the U.S. Institute of Peace. His research focuses on Islamist movements and the politics of economic reform in the Arab World. Sallam’s research has previously received the support of the Social Science Research Council and the U.S. Institute of Peace. Past institutional affiliations include Middle East Institute, Asharq Al-Awsat, and the World Security Institute. He is editor of Egypt's Parliamentary Elections 2011-2012: A Critical Guide to a Changing Political Arena (Tadween Publishing, 2013). Sallam received a Ph.D. in government (2015) and an M.A. in Arab studies (2006) from Georgetown University, and a B.A. in political science from the University of Pittsburgh (2003).

Hesham Sallam Associate Director, Program on Arab Reform and Democracy
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Arab Reform and Democracy Speaker Series

How New is the “New” National Front?

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*Please note room changed to CISAC central*

 

Abstract:

mlp prise aux mots couverture seuil
Will Marine Le Pen be the next French President in 2017?

Since she took over the National Front in 2011, Marine Le Pen has carried the far right party to first place, winning an unprecedented 30% of the votes in France’s latest December 2015 elections. What does she say that resonates with French voters so strongly? And how did she manage to turn the once infamous “FN” into an almost mainstream party that claims to be the last champion of French republican values?

Using text mining software and textual analyses, Cécile Alduy has ciphered more than 500 speeches and texts by Jean-Marie and Marine Le Pen to pinpoint exactly how, and on what topics, the daughter’s discourse differs from that of her father.

In this talk, literary studies meet digital humanities and political science to crack the new National Front rhetorical code and uncover the deeper ideological and mythological structures beyond the stylistic polishing.

 

Speaker Bio:

cecile alduy
Cécile Alduy is Associate Professor of French literature and culture at Stanford University. She is the author of Marine Le Pen prise aux mots. Décryptage du nouveau discours frontiste (Seuil, 2015) and Politique des “Amours” (Droz, 2007) and co-editor of the special issue “The Charlie Hebdo Attacks and their Aftermath” for Occasion, a Stanford University online peer-reviewed publication. A specialist of the National Front and French political discourse, she is a contributor to Politico, The Nation, The Atlantic, The New Yorker, Al Jazeera America, The Boston Review, The Los Angeles Review of Books, Rue89 and Le Monde.

Cécile Alduy Associate Professor, Stanford University
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Election Ethics: Fair Play & Due Process

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Abstract:

Electoral competition, like athletic competition, requires its own norms of fair play. While the rules of the game, and the institutional umpire to enforce those rules, are important components for achieving the goal that the competition be fair, they do not suffice. The participants themselves must have their own standards of fair play apart from the rules and the referee. This need is particularly acute with respect to negative campaign ads, since the First Amendment bars the government from umpiring the fairness of those ads. But the same problem applies to other aspects of electoral competition, including compliance with campaign finance rules. What are these norms of fair electoral competition? Are they only intuitive, or can they be systematized? More specifically, insofar as incumbent candidates are officeholders, does due process constrain the use of their power to attain an unfair advantage in their race for reelection?

 

Speaker Bio:

foley
Edward Foley directs Election Law @ Moritz at Ohio State’s law school, where he also holds the Ebersold Chair in Constitutional Law. His book Ballot Ballots: The History of Disputed Elections in the United States, published by Oxford University Press, was available as of December 2015. Ned also serves as the reporter for the American Law Institute’s Election Law Project, which is developing nonpartisan rules for the resolution of disputed elections. (The American Law Institute is the well-respected professional society responsible for the Restatements of Law and the Model Penal Code, among many other projects.) While Ned has special expertise on the topics of recounts, he is conversant in all topics of election law, including redistricting and campaign finance, and recently co-authored a casebook Election Law and Litigation: The Judicial Regulation of Politics (Aspen 2014), which covers all aspects of election law. He and his casebook co-authors also have a contract with Oxford University Press to write a treatise on election law—remarkably the first of its kind in the United States in over a century. He is also a co-author of From Registration to Recounts: The Ecosystems of Five Midwestern States (2007).

Edward B. Foley The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law
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Envisioning the Future, Building on Our Past

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This 2016 newsletter from the Stanford Department of Medicine is neither a yearbook of our recent accomplishments nor an annual report replete with facts and figures. It’s most like an anthology, giving readers glimpses of some recent progress we’ve made as we addressed Stanford Medicine’s tripartite mission: to teach our students and trainees, to do research, and to care for our patients. As we move toward the future, it’s important to reflect on the past, which created the culture of the Stanford Department of Medicine. The report also features Stanford Health Policy's Marcella Alsan's work about the impact of the tsetse fly on African economies.

In this video, Robert Harrington, MD, chair of the Department of Medicine, gives an overview of the department's vision for the future, as well as highlighting the department's four strategic priorities.

 

 

See the multimedia report here.

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