Greece MPs back austerity cuts

7 November 2012 Last updated at 18:27 ET

Lawmakers in Greece have narrowly backed a fresh round of austerity measures, despite violent protests across the country.

The austerity package aimed at securing the next round of bailout funds was passed with 153 MPs in favour – a majority of just three.

The 13.5bn-euro ($ 17.3bn; £10.5bn) bill includes tax rises and pension cuts.

Earlier, riot police fired tear gas towards protesters when they were attacked with petrol bombs in Athens.

Prime Minister Antonis Samaras warned before the vote late on Wednesday that without the bailout Greece would run out of money this month and face “catastrophe”.

The austerity package – Greece’s fourth in three years – is meant to close the nation’s budget deficit, lower its huge debt burden and make its economy more competitive.

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“Start Quote

Many of these measures are fair and should have been taken years ago, without anyone asking us to”

End Quote Antonis Samaras Greek PM

But the level of resistance on the streets is a reminder that implementing the measures will be extraordinarily difficult, the BBC’s Mark Lowen in Athens reports.

The approval of the bill means that Greece will stay afloat, but the decision will go down very badly among this exhausted nation, our correspondent adds.

Samaras’s warning

The crucial vote was held after a lengthy debate in the 300-strong parliament.

Immediately after the bill was adopted, co-governing New Democracy and Pasok parties expelled seven lawmakers from their ranks for failing to back the package.

The adopted plan includes a two-year increase in the retirement age from the current average of 65, as well as salary cuts and labour market reforms, including cuts to holiday benefits, notice periods and severance pay.

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Measures in austerity package

• Retirement age up from 65 to 67


• A further round of pension cuts, of 5-15%


• Salary cuts, notably for police officers, soldiers, firefighters, professors, judges, justice officials; minimum wage also reduced


• Holiday benefits cut


• 35% cut to severance pay


• Redundancy notice reduced from six to four months

Workers fear this will just make it easier and cheaper for them to be fired at a time when unemployment has already soared to 25% and a five-year recession means there are few job prospects.

“Many of these measures are fair and should have been taken years ago, without anyone asking us to,” Mr Samaras said.

“Others are unfair – cutting wages and salaries – and there is no point in dressing this up as something else,” the prime minister said, adding that Greece was, nevertheless, obliged to take the measures.

Mr Samaras has said that without this money, which will be used largely to recapitalise the country’s banks, the country will be bankrupt by 15 November.

The vote on the cuts will be followed by a second vote this Sunday on Greece’s revised budget for 2013.

A positive vote on both is required for Greece to secure 31.5bn euros in fresh loans from the European Union (EU) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

‘Mother of all strikes’

Earlier on Wednesday, tens of thousands of protesters held a rally in Syntagma Square – outside the parliament building in the heart of the capital.

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Key dates

• 6-7 Nov General strike


• 7 Nov Vote on austerity package


• 11 Nov Vote on budget


• 12 Nov Eurozone finance ministers to discuss releasing new cash for Greece


• 16 Nov Deadline for Greece to repay 5bn euros in debt

The protesters chanted: “People – don’t bow your heads!”

Some in the crowd held giant flags of Greece, Portugal, Italy and Spain – four of the eurozone’s most heavily-indebted states.

The riot police – who sealed off parliament – later fired tear gas after the demonstrators attacked them with petrol bombs and flares.

Protests also took place in other big cities across Greece.

The Greek unions were staging what they described as the “mother of all strikes” – a 48-hour walkout which culminated on Wednesday.

The third major strike in just two months brought public transport to a halt and shut schools, banks and government buildings.

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Merkel says Germany, Britain must work together on EU

LONDON (Reuters) – Germany and Britain must cooperate to work round their differences on the European Union‘s long-term spending plans, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Wednesday.

“Despite differences that we have it is very important for me that the UK and Germany work together,” Merkel said through a translator before a meeting in London with Prime Minister David Cameron to discuss the EU‘s 2014-2020 budget.

“We always have to do something that will stand up to public opinion back home. Not all of the expenditure that has been earmarked has been used with great efficiency … We need to address that,” she said.

EU leaders meet in Brussels on November 22-23 to try to secure a seven-year budget for the 27-nation bloc amid signs of differences of opinion over what action should be taken.

(Reporting by Peter Griffiths; Editing by Andrew Osborn)

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DC offering monthly titles via Apple, Amazon, B&N

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — DC Comics is expanding its digital storefront, putting all its monthly titles — from Batman to Superman — on sale at iTunes, Amazon‘s Kindle store and Barnes & Noble‘s Nook shop.

The move announced Wednesday appears to make DC Entertainment the first major comics publisher to make its titles available through online stores the same day they’re on sale in comic shops. It also expands its digital offerings beyond the top industry digital purveyor, Comixology.

Hank Kanalz, DC Entertainment senior vice president for digital, said the decision shows the importance of digital downloads to the company, which relaunched its universe last year under the so-called “New 52″ banner.

“We’ve proven over the last two years that going digital has added to our business in general and going wider is the way to go,” he said.

The decision to go with devices by Apple Inc., Amazon.com Inc. and Barnes & Noble Inc. reflected the fact that users of those gadgets have extensive libraries of digital files — movies, books, TV shows and, now, comics — and don’t necessarily tend to jump from one device to another.

“If you devoted your library to being collected in your Kindle, now you have the option to add to your comics to that,” Kanalz said. “You’re going to have to commit to what platform you want to build your library in.”

It also offers would-be readers the chance to buy single issues quickly.

“Instant gratification,” Kanalz said. “We found that when certain books hit the news, we see a nice spike in digital sales.”

For DC, and others, the proliferation of tablets — iPads, Kindles and Nooks — means more opportunities to lure new readers, said DC co-publisher and artist Jim Lee.

“As e-readers and tablets continue to explode in popularity, it’s important for us to offer consumers convenience and choice in how they download digital comics and graphic novels and these new distribution deals with the top three e-bookstores do just that,” Lee said, adding that the titles include not just DC but also its Vertigo imprint, too.

Besides Comixology, DC also sells its titles through its own DC and Vertigo apps.

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DC Comics is owned by Time Warner Inc.

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Controversial “SEAL Team Six” Film Gives Nat Geo Highest Ratings in a Year

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – “SEAL Team Six: The Raid on Osama bin Laden” might have drawn cries of partisan bias, but despite the controversy – or perhaps because of it – the film about the killing of the terrorist leader yielded big numbers with its premiere on National Geographic Channel on Sunday night, handing the network its best ratings in more than a year, and the sixth-highest ratings in the network’s history.

Sunday’s premiere of “Seal Team Six,” which was initially slated for theatrical release before getting snapped up by National Geographic Channel, posted a 1.4 rating in the 25-54 demographic – four times the network’s average in the Sunday 8 to 10 p.m. timeslot this season. In total viewers, the military dramatization drew 4.7 million people, with an average 2.7 million tuning in throughout the premiere.

“SEAL Team Six” posted the highest performance in the demographic since the August 2011 special “George W. Bush: The 9/11 Interview,” which drew a 1.7 in the 25-54 demo.

“We are overwhelmed that viewers across the country responded en masse to this socially relevant, factually based and entertaining film that highlighted the real inside story behind the manhunt for bin Laden and the heroes in our military and intelligence agencies,” said David Lyle, CEO National Geographic Channels. “It proved that no matter who Americans are planning to vote for, a good film is a good film, and we are happy to have had such success with our first original broadcast of a feature film inspired by real-life events.”

The film’s premiere date – just two days before the election – drew suspicion from some of the more conspiracy-minded segments of the population, who suggested that the premiere might have been planned to boost President Barack Obama‘s chances in the election by reminding the public of one of his major accomplishments during his first term. The criticism was fueled by the fact that unabashed Obama supporter Harvey Weinstein served as an executive producer on the film.

The network denied the allegations, with Lyle telling TheWrap last month, “The movie itself is its own defense; it’s a perfectly straightforward dramatization of what happened.”

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FDA grants priority review to Roche’s breast cancer drug

(Reuters) – Roche, the world’s biggest maker of cancer drugs, said U.S. health regulators granted a priority review to its experimental breast cancer drug TDM-1, expediting the review process for the marketing application of the drug.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration will announce its decision on the marketing approval by February 26, the Swiss drugmaker said.

The FDA grants priority reviews to medicines that are considered potentially significant therapeutic advancements over existing therapies.

Roche said its marketing application for the drug was accepted by European regulators.

TDM-1, or trastuzumab emtansine, is being developed with ImmunoGen, using ImmunoGen’s targeted antibody payload delivery technology.

Roche said in late-August that the drug significantly extended the lives of women with an aggressive type of breast cancer, compared with those receiving the standard drug cocktail.

(Reporting By Pallavi Ail in Bangalore; Editing by Maju Samuel)

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France to give businesses $25 billion tax break

PARIS (AP) — France‘s government has promised €20 billion ($ 25 billion) in tax credits to businesses as part of a “competitiveness pact” that it hopes will spark innovation and lower unemployment – but falls short of calls in a recent report for a “shock” to the economy.

The announcement of the plan Tuesday came a day after a government-commissioned report — by Louis Gallois, former head of Airbus parent EADS — said the country’s ailing economy needed a big kick to stay globally competitive.

Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said the government‘s plan, which includes a €500 million fund to help struggling small businesses, would put the country “back at the heart of the world economy.”

“This new French model will consist of finding a way back to creating jobs and will no longer be financed by permanent deficits,” he said.

However, the government plan has fallen short of some of the recommendations in the Gallois report and raises fears that the Socialist administration of President Francois Hollande is not doing enough to revitalize the French economy.

For example, the $ 20 billion tax credit is to be implemented over three years — with €10 billion available in 2013 and the rest split over the following two years. Gallois recommended in his report for the government that the breaks should happen over one or two years to have the maximum effect.

The measure also takes the form of an income tax credit, rather than a reduction in the social charges employers pay on salaries, as Gallois had suggested. The government argues that its method is designed to have immediate impact, while deferring payment until 2014 when next year’s tax bill comes due. That, however, assumes that companies will start spending and hiring right away in anticipation of the credit.

France faces several major economic challenges, including an unemployment rate of 10.8 percent, and labor regulations that make firing so difficult it has discouraged hiring. Growth has ground to a halt, and several major companies have announced thousands of layoffs in recent weeks.

France has largely sidestepped the massive budget cuts and reforms undertaken by its neighbors, despite having one of the world’s highest proportions of state spending. Unions and companies are currently in discussions to overhaul the labor market – but the issues are so touchy in France that it’s unclear how far they’ll go.

Gallois warned in his report that the biggest problem in France is that because of high labor costs, companies have to slash prices in order to compete. Without high profit margins, companies have very little to invest in product innovation and quality. Ayrault promised that the pact would give companies more room to maneuver and address this problem.

The government’s plan focuses on small businesses, often the motors of innovation and employment. It calls for small businesses to receive special help to compete internationally, and billions of euros in a new public investment bank will be reserved for smaller companies.

The government also promised to reduce red tape and to limit changes to its tax and other policies over the next five years. France has a very complex tax code – a major thorn in the side of companies, especially small ones that spend tremendous resources to figure out what they owe.

Half of the money will come from spending cuts between 2014 and 2015. However, Ayrault did not detail what would be cut. The rest will come from new taxes, including a hike to most sales taxes – apart from basics like food which will benefit from a cut – in 2014.

The new measure follows a similar plan by former President Nicolas Sarkozy to lower the tax burden on companies via a blanket increase in sales tax. At the time, the Socialists campaigned against the plan and one of their first moves in office was to scrap it. The new government’s plan is similar, but lowers the sales tax on basic necessities, a move the Socialists hope will ensure the poorest people aren’t unduly burdened.

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Officials: New mass graves found in Ivory Coast

ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast (AP) — Up to 10 new mass graves have been discovered near the site of a July attack on a camp for displaced people, officials said Tuesday, amid allegations that initial casualty totals were downplayed to mask killings carried out by the national army.

Rights groups claim summary executions were carried out by the Republican Forces of Ivory Coast, known by its French acronym of FRCI. Last month, officials found six bodies in a well close to the former campsite in the western town of Duekoue.

Government, army and U.N. officials toured 10 more graves in the same area on Saturday, said Paul Mondouho, vice-mayor of Duekoue. He said the graves had first been identified by civilians, and that officials did not know the number of bodies they contained because they had not yet been properly exhumed.

“People were suspecting the presence of bodies in these graves because of the smell coming out of them and because of the shoes we saw nearby,” Mondouho said.

Prosecutor Noel Dje Enrike Yahau, who is based in the commercial capital of Abidjan, confirmed that multiple new graves had been discovered but could not provide details. U.N. officials and the local prosecutor in charge of investigating the suspected killings could not be reached Tuesday.

U.N. spokeswoman Sylvie van den Wildenberg confirmed that U.N. forces helped Ivorian authorities secure a perimeter around 10 wells “similar to the one in which six bodies were found,” and that “some of those wells are suspected mass graves.”

She stressed that Ivorian authorities were leading the investigation but that the U.N. was able to provide assistance.

Army spokesmen could not be reached Tuesday. The Justice Ministry has previously vowed to investigate the discovery of the initial grave.

On the morning of July 20, a mob descended on the U.N.-guarded Nahibly camp, which housed 4,500 people displaced by violence in Ivory Coast, burning most of the camp to the ground. Officials said at the time that six people were killed.

The attack was prompted by the shooting deaths of four men and one woman on the night of July 19, according to local officials and residents. In response a mob of some 300 people overran the camp on the morning of July 20 after the perpetrators of the shootings reportedly fled there.

The victims in the July 19 attack lived in a district dominated by the Malinke ethnic group, which largely supported President Alassane Ouattara in the disputed November 2010 election. The camp primarily housed members of the Guere ethnic group, which largely supported former President Laurent Gbagbo.

Gbagbo’s refusal to cede office despite losing the election to Ouattara sparked months of violence that claimed at least 3,000 lives.

Albert Koenders, the top U.N. envoy to Ivory Coast, said one week after the attack that U.N. security forces had been inside and outside the camp at the time but that no Ivorian security forces were present. He said the U.N. forces decided not to fire at a large group of people that were attacking the camp in order to avoid “a massacre.”

Several witnesses have said soldiers and traditional hunters, known as dozos, participated in the attack on the camp. Both military and dozo leaders have denied the claims, saying they had tried to protect the camp.

In a statement released Friday, the International Federation for Human Rights, known by its French acronym of FIDH, said it had information — including the preliminary results of autopsies — confirming that the six bodies found in October were men who had been summarily executed by the army.

“The disappearance of dozens of displaced persons after the attack, as well as confirmation of cases of summary and extra-judicial executions, suggest a much higher victim rate than the official figures report,” said the organization, which counts Ivorian civil society groups among its members.

Duekoue was one of the hardest-hit towns during the post-election violence. The U.N. has established that at least 505 people were killed in and around the town, including during a notorious March 2011 massacre that claimed hundreds of lives and was allegedly carried out by fighters loyal to Ouattara.

Duekoue residents belonging to ethnic groups that supported Gbagbo have long complained about abuses carried out by the FRCI, with some pointing to the direct involvement of the local commander, Kone Daouda. FIDH said in its statement that Daouda had been transferred following the discovery of the grave in October, and called for him to be interrogated over the matter.

The group also said two FRCI members were being “actively sought” after failing to return to their barracks on Oct. 16, noting that they are believed to have fled to neighboring Burkina Faso.

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Apple Hides its Second Faux-pology to Samsung

For all that its products are (arguably unfairly) associated with elitism, Apple as a company has a pretty good track record when it comes to apologizing for screw-ups.

For example: When people complained about the iPhone 4′s poor reception, back in 2010, Steve Jobs took reporters on a tour of Apple’s antenna testing center, and gave everyone who bought an iPhone 4 a free case if they wanted one. More recently, Apple CEO Tim Cook publicly apologized for “the frustration [iOS 6's maps have] caused our customers,” and suggested they use Google’s app instead. The Wall Street Journal even reported that Scott Forstall — formerly Apple’s exec in charge of iOS — was asked to leave the company for refusing to be the one to apologize.

But when the British courts ordered Apple to apologize to Samsung for accusing the Korean tech giant of copying Apple’s designs? Cue the snark and passive-aggressiveness.

The lawsuit(s)

Apple filed suit against Samsung in numerous courts worldwide, claiming its designs infringed on Apple’s and seeking injunctions to ban them. (Pseudonymous Redditor MarsSpaceship published a graphic which ironically points out the uncanny similarities.) Courts in Australia and the United States ruled in Apple’s favor, and Samsung was ordered to pay more than $ 1 billion to Apple in damages.

Except in the United Kingdom

The courts in the UK not only found that Samsung’s designs don’t infringe, they ordered Apple to publicly apologize to Samsung on its website and in newspapers, in words big enough to be read. Apple faux-pologized by stating the facts — that the court found Samsung’s designs don’t infringe — then going on to point out how every other court in the world said otherwise, and quoting the judge when he said that the reason people wouldn’t mistake Samsung’s products for Apple’s is because “They are not as cool.”

Try again, Apple

The British courts were not amused, and told Apple to try it again. You can read Apple’s new “apology” on its UK website, assuming you can translate the legalese which calls an iPad a “Community registered design No. 0000181607-0001″ … and assuming you can find it.

Say what, now?

Another anonymous Redditor, Dismiss, discovered that Apple had reprogrammed its UK website to hide the apology to Samsung. Not only did it redesign the site’s front page, making graphics larger and pushing the legal text out of view, it used custom code to make it so that you have to scroll to see the apology, no matter how big your screen is. This effectively hides it from view for most people, unless they go out of their way to look for it.

Round three, coming up?

The UK courts haven’t responded to Apple’s second faux-pology, which may be partly because they aren’t aware of what Apple did yet. Either way, Apple seems to have come out the winner worldwide, and Samsung’s latest designs — like the Galaxy S III smartphone — are much less derivative of Apple’s.

Jared Spurbeck is an open-source software enthusiast, who uses an Android phone and an Ubuntu laptop PC. He has been writing about technology and electronics since 2008.

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William Shatner – there’s an app for him

RALEIGH, North Carolina (Reuters) – Actor William Shatner is having a moment. A couple of years after CBS canceled his Twitter-inspired “$ #*! My Dad Says” TV comedy, Shatner is at the top of the tech world.

The former “Star Trek” captain, now 81, is featured in Blindlight Apps “Shatoetry”, which catapulted to the top of the entertainment app list on Apple iTunes last week on its first day of release.

The celebrity app allows users to choose from hundreds of words to arrange sentences, which Shatner will then recite in his trademark voice and style. There is also a mode that allows Shatner fans to collaborate on “Shatisms” and there are single-player challenges like creating Haiku and poetry.

Shatner, who is currently touring the country with his critically-acclaimed one-man Broadway show, “Shatner’s World,” took a few minutes to talk technology with Reuters.

Q: How would you like to expand this app moving forward? Perhaps adding music?

A: “Well, we have that in mind. Words to music. We have in mind holiday things. We have in mind events in your life, words so that you can use them as well. We will increase this if people love it and tell other people that they love it. When we get an audience we know that is worthwhile, we will add to it.”

Q: One audience you know you definitely have out there is “Star Trek” fans. Do you see any opportunities with special app add-ons for them?

A: “Well, yes. I don’t think we’ll leave opportunity unexplored, but I wanted to be very careful about how we introduce it so it is not something that is derogatory or stupid. I want to make sure that it’s used in the way it’s meant to be used, which is for your entertainment.”

Q: Do you see opportunities for other actors to work with you on this app?

A: “We hope that it becomes popular enough to interest people into doing some words.”

Q: So users would be able to mix your words with other actors’ words through this app?

A: “Yes. Exactly. Have them do keywords like ‘love.’ There are certain words that everybody wants to use like ‘love’ and ‘hate’ and words that you use somewhere in your conversation… Commonly used words that are positive, I think that would be a way of getting a well-known person to take a chance in interpreting that word several different ways and know that they won’t look foolish, or be made to look foolish.”

Q: How are you taking advantage of today’s technology to connect with fans?

A: “I’m using it in as many ways as feasible. I’m doing podcasts. I’m certainly doing everything else, Facebook, Twitter and all that kind of thing. I’m taking advantage of communicating with the people out there as much as possible, and this app is one of those ways.”

Q: What technology do you have?

A: “I have iPhone, an iPad and I will be getting an iPad Mini shortly.”

Q: How do you use those devices?

A: “I don’t play games. I read the newspapers. I’ve got a dictation sound-to-print app and since I don’t type very well, I find myself dictating to it and sending the notes on. It’s a truly creative tool with. Once you have a means of communicating – there’s so much wrong with the world and so many crises in the mix here that, if we can communicate faster and better, we may be able to fix them before the end of the world, as far as human beings are concerned.”

Q: How’s the tour going for your show “Shatner’s World”?

A: “I’m going to be in Connecticut and New Jersey this week. I’m playing about four different places that are just opening up now. My heart goes out to the nightmare that these people are in. I feel a little awkward in talking about providing a laugh or two, but on the other hand some people may need that, and that’s what I’ll be doing….I will be with my heart on my sleeve trying to entertain people who have had a great deal of hardship in the last week.”

Q: A lot of my friends in New York and New Jersey are still without power after Hurricane Sandy.

A: “I know, and hopefully by the time I get there, there will be power. And hopefully by that time, they’ll be of a mind to be able to want to be entertained.”

(Reporting by John Gaudiosi, editing by Jill Serjeant and Marguerita Choy)

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When it comes to colon cancer checks, options exist

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – For people who have had a negative colonoscopy, less-invasive screening options may work just fine for follow-up cancer tests, a new analysis suggests.

“No one screening test is right for everyone,” lead researcher Amy Knudsen, from the Institute for Technology Assessment at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, told Reuters Health in an email.

The findings, which are based on a mathematical model, showed life expectancy varied by only a few days between people who continued getting colonoscopies every ten years and those who chose annual fecal blood tests and other less-invasive alternatives.

“The best test for you depends on your risk, your preferences, and which screening approach you are willing and able to adhere to, since no screening is effective unless it’s done,” she added.

“Patients should talk with their doctors to decide which test is best for them.”

Knudsen’s team fed colon cancer screening and survival data into a National Cancer Institute (NCI) model, starting with hypothetical study participants that had a negative colonoscopy at age 50.

The researchers found that with no further screening, 31 out of every 1,000 people would be diagnosed with colon cancer during their lives and 12 would die from it. For people who continued having colonoscopies every ten years, that would fall to eight colon cancer diagnoses and two deaths per 1,000 people.

With annual fecal tests starting at age 60, Knudsen and her colleagues calculated that 11 to 13 out of every 1,000 people would get colon cancer, and three or four would die.

And with the last screening method, known as computed tomographic colonography, or CTC, nine people would be diagnosed with cancer and three would die if the tests were done every five years. Like colonoscopy, CTC requires bowel preparation, but otherwise is not as invasive.

The less-invasive screening methods would each cause about half as many complications as colonoscopy – affecting one percent of patients versus two percent, according to findings published Monday in the Annals of Internal Medicine. Those complications include bleeding and colon perforations.

“All of these methods will work if your ultimate goal is to reduce deaths from colon cancer,” said gastroenterologist Dr. David Weinberg from Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia, who wrote an editorial accompanying the study.

PAYING A LOT MORE

According to the NCI, about 143,000 people are expected to be diagnosed with colon or rectal cancer in 2012, and close to 52,000 will die of the disease.

Weinberg said one of the advantages of colonoscopy is that it finds pre-cancerous polyps that can be removed before they turn into cancer.

Fecal blood tests, on the other hand, typically catch very early cancers, so more patients screened that way will get cancer and need treatment, although they’ll have a good prognosis.

Colonoscopy is also more expensive than other options, at a bit over $ 1,000 a pop – and getting the procedure is typically not the most pleasant experience. A fecal test costs $ 20 to $ 50, and CTC about $ 500.

“If everybody gets a colonoscopy, you will have many fewer people who ever develop colon cancer, but you’re going to pay a lot more money to get that effect,” Weinberg told Reuters Health.

“What people and populations have to decide is, how do you want to spend your money?”

Although it’s a limitation that the results are based on a mathematical model and not on screening and outcomes for real people, Weinberg said a comparable human study will likely never be done because of the time and money required.

Based on the available evidence, the United States Preventive Services Task Force, a government-backed panel, recommends screening for colon cancer using colonoscopy, sigmoidoscopy or fecal occult blood testing between age 50 and 75.

Although both colonoscopy and fecal blood tests are available most places in the U.S., other tests including CTC may be harder to find, or not reimbursed by insurance, according to Weinberg.

SOURCE: http://bitly.com/MnBiCA Annals of Internal Medicine, online November 5, 2012.

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