Asian shares, euro fall on uncertainty over Greek bailout

TOKYO (Reuters) – The euro skidded on Wednesday and Asian shares fell after European officials failed to reach a deal on another bailout for Greece, a day after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke highlighted the dangers of a U.S. fiscal crisis.

U.S. stock futures eased 0.4 percent, pointing to a weak Wall Street open.

Financial spreadbetters predict London’s FTSE 100 <.FTSE>, Paris’s CAC-40 <.FCHI> and Frankfurt’s DAX <.GDAXI> would open down as much as 0.2 percent, following weakness in Asia. <.L> <.EU> <.N>

The euro slumped 0.5 percent to $ 1.2752, extending losses and retreating from Tuesday’s two-week high of $ 1.28295.

The euro’s decline lifted the dollar up 0.3 percent against a basket of key currencies <.DXY> and weighed on commodities such as gold, which eased 0.3 percent to $ 1,722.70 an ounce.

Euro zone finance ministers and Greece’s international lenders will gather again on Monday. Their meeting in Brussels ended on Wednesday without an agreement on the next tranche of loans to Greece, as they haggled over myriad options on how to bring the country’s debt down to a sustainable level, without which emergency aid cannot be disbursed to Athens.

“The euro is being sold because markets had believed the ministers would agree on aid for Greece at today’s meeting,” said Yuji Saito, director of foreign exchange at Credit Agricole in Tokyo.

“Instead, a settlement is postponed, highlighting the difficulty of getting consensus on the debt crisis. But I feel this is a typical European political show and an agreement will be reached.”

The bearish news from Europe dragged down Asian shares, whose two-day rise had already been stalled after Bernanke on Tuesday repeated a warning that failure to avoid the $ 600 billion “fiscal cliff” in expiring tax cuts and government spending reductions could lead to recession in the United States.

The Fed chief said worries over how budget negotiations will be resolved were already damaging growth.

Concerns about the United States failing to raise its debt ceiling rattled financial markets in August 2011 and prompted Standard & Poor’s to cut the top-notch U.S. government bond rating for the first time ever.

“The price action suggests market participants are unclear of what to make of recent developments and therefore this warrants some caution,” said Stan Shamu, strategist at IG Markets.

But Hirokazu Yuihama, a senior strategist at Daiwa Securities, said that for all the concerns over the fiscal cliff, most of the market expected the U.S. Congress and White House to reach a compromise to avert the crisis.

MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan <.MIAPJ0000PUS> slipped 0.2 percent. Hong Kong <.HSI> shares bucked the falling trend but pared earlier gains to rise 0.5 percent while Shanghai shares <.SSEC> inched up 0.3 percent.

Japan’s Nikkei stock average <.N225> closed up 0.9 percent at a two month-high as exporters were buoyed by a weaker yen.

The yen has come under pressure on expectations that a general election on December 16 will result in victory for an opposition leader who wants the Bank of Japan to aggressively ease monetary policy to stem the economy from further deterioration. <.T>

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Daiwa’s Yuihama said concerns over third-quarter earnings have subsided as most Asian companies had already reported results.

“This has prompted investors to turn to economic fundamentals. Signs of recovery in the U.S. and China are offering some assurances that the global economic slump may not be as severe as previously feared, even if growth remains fragile,” Yuihama said.

Investors will now focus on HSBC China flash PMI for November due on Thursday to see whether a low point for China, the world’s second largest economy, is over. U.S. manufacturing figures are due later on Wednesday while those from Europe are due on Thursday.

Trading activity was slowing ahead of the U.S. Thanksgiving long weekend.

Going into the holiday, the dollar has been underpinned broadly by data indicating a moderate U.S. recovery taking root, while the yen remained under pressure, with more data showing Japan‘s economy struggling.

Japan’s exports fell 6.5 percent in October from a year ago, dropping for a fifth consecutive month, weighed down by weakening global demand and a territorial row with China, its main customer.

In the U.S. on Tuesday, a report showed housing starts rose to the highest rate in more than four years in October.

The dollar rose to a 7-1/2-month high against the yen of 81.975 yen while the euro briefly touched a peak of 105.05 yen, its highest point since May 4.

A retreat in shares dragged oil lower, although prices remained supported by a lack of ceasefire between Israelis and Palestinians, which raised concerns about supply disruptions from the Middle East.

U.S. crude futures pared earlier gains and were up 0.1 percent to $ 86.85 a barrel by midafternoon, and Brent crude also trimmed earlier rises and was up 0.2 percent at $ 110.03.

Weak appetite for riskier assets also interest in Asian credit markets subdued, with the spreads on the iTraxx Asia ex-Japan investment-grade index tightening by 1 basis point.

(Additional reporting by Miranda Maxwell in Melbourne; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore & Kim Coghill)

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AP Exclusive: Syrian rebels seize base, arms trove

BASE OF THE 46TH REGIMENT, Syria (AP) — After a nearly two-month siege, Syrian rebels overwhelmed a large military base in the north of the country and made off with tanks, armored vehicles and truckloads of munitions that rebel leaders say will give them a boost in the fight against President Bashar Assad‘s army.

The rebel capture of the base of the Syrian army’s 46th Regiment is a sharp blow to the government’s efforts to roll back rebels gains and shows a rising level of organization among opposition forces.

More important than the base’s fall, however, are the weapons the rebels found inside.

At a rebel base where the much of the haul was taken after the weekend victory, rebel fighters unloaded half a dozen large trucks piled high with green boxes full of mortars, artillery shells, rockets and rifles taken from the base. Parked nearby were five tanks, two armored vehicles, two rocket launchers and two heavy-caliber artillery cannons.

Around 20 Syrian soldiers captured in the battle were put to work carrying munitions boxes, barefoot and stripped to the waist. Rebels refused to let reporters talk to them or see where they were being held.

“There has never been a battle before with this much booty,” said Gen. Ahmad al-Faj of the rebels Joint Command, a grouping of rebel brigades that was involved in the siege. Speaking on Monday at the rebel base, set up in a former customs office at Syria’s Bab al-Hawa border crossing with Turkey, he said the haul would be distributed among the brigades.

For months, Syria’s rebels have gradually been destroying government checkpoints and taking over towns in the northern provinces of Idlib and Aleppo along the Turkish border.

Rebel fighters say that weapons seized in such battles have been essential to their transformation from ragtag brigades into forces capable of challenging Assad’s professional army. Cross-border arms smuggling from Turkey and Iraq has also played a role, although the most common complaint among rebel fighters is that they lack ammunition and heavy weapons, munitions and anti-aircraft weapons to fight Assad’s air force.

It is unclear how many government bases the rebels have overrun during the 20-month conflict, mostly because they rarely try to hold captured facilities. Staying in the captured bases would make them sitting ducks for regime airstrikes.

“Their strategy is to hit and run,” said Elias Hanna, a retired Lebanese army general and Beirut-based strategic analyst. “They’re trying to hurt the regime where it hurts by bisecting and compartmentalizing Syria in order to dilute the regime’s power.”

The 46th Regiment was a major pillar of the government’s force near the northern city of Aleppo, Syria’s economic hub, and its fall cuts a major supply line to the regime’s army, Hanna said. Government forces have been battling rebels for months over control of Aleppo.

“It’s a tactical turning point that may lead to a strategic shift,” he said.

At the 46th Regiment’s base, about 25 kilometers (15 miles) west of Aleppo, the main three-story command building showed signs of the battle — its walls punctured apparently from rebel rocket attacks. The smaller barracks buildings scattered around the compound, about 2.6 square kilometers (1 square mile) in size, had been looted, with mattresses overturned. A number of buildings had been torched.

Reporters from The Associated Press who visited the base late Monday saw no trace of the government troops who had been defending it — other than the dead bodies of seven soldiers.

Two of them, in camouflage uniforms, lay outside the command building. One of them was missing his head, apparently blown off in an explosion.

The rest were in a nearby clinic. Four dead soldiers were on stretchers set on the floor, one with a large gash in his arm, another with what appeared to be a large shrapnel hole in the back of his head. The last lay on a gurney in another room, his arms and legs bandaged, a bullet hole in his cheek and a splatter of blood on the wall and ceiling behind him as if he had been shot where he lay.

It could not be determined how or when the soldiers had been killed.

The final assault that took the base came after more than 50 days of siege that left the soldiers inside demoralized, according to fighters who took part.

Working together and communicating by radio, a number of different rebels groups divided up the area surrounding the base and each cut the regime’s supply lines, said Abdullah Qadi, a rebel field commander. Over the course of the siege, dozens of soldiers defected, some telling the rebels that those inside were short of food, Qadi said.

The rebels decided to attack Saturday afternoon when they felt the soldiers inside were weak and the rebels had enough ammunition to finish the battle, Qadi said. The battle was over by nightfall on Sunday. Seven rebel fighters were killed in the battle, said al-Faj of the rebels’ Joint Command. Other rebel leaders gave similar numbers.

It remains unclear how many soldiers remained in the base when the rebels launched their attack and what happened to them.

Al-Faj said all soldiers inside were either killed or captured. He said he didn’t know how many were killed, but that the rebels had taken about 50 prisoners, all of whom would be tried in a rebel court. Aside from the 20 prisoners seen at the rebel’s Bab al-Hawa base, the AP was unable to see any other captured soldiers.

The Syrian government does not respond to requests for comment on military affairs and said nothing about the base’s capture. It says the rebels are terrorists backed by foreign powers that seek to destroy the country.

Disorganization has plagued the Syrian opposition since the start of the anti-Assad uprising in March 2011, with exile groups pleading for international help even when they have no control over those fighting inside of Syria.

A newly formed Syrian opposition coalition received a boost Tuesday, when Britain officially recognized it as the sole representative of the Syrian people.

The National Coalition of the Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces was formed in the Gulf nation of Qatar on Oct. 11 under pressure from the United States for a stronger, more united opposition body to serve as a counterweight to more extremist forces.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague said Tuesday the body’s members gave assurances to be a “moderate political force committed to democracy” and that the West must “support them and deny space to extremist groups.”

The United States and the European Union have both spoken well of the body but stopped short of offering it full recognition.

Key to the body’s success will be its ability to build ties with the disparate rebel groups fighting inside Syria. Many rebel leaders say they don’t recognize the new body, and a group of extremist Islamist factions on Monday rejected it, announcing that they had formed an “Islamic state” in Aleppo.

Anti-regime activists say nearly 40,000 people have been killed since Syria’s crisis started 20 months ago.

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Associated Press write Elizabeth Kennedy contributed reporting from Beirut, Lebanon.

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Review: Gift guide to full-size tablets

NEW YORK (AP) — Tablets are at the top of many wish lists this holiday season. But what to get? The choice used to be pretty limited, with the iPad dominating the latecomers. But this year, the field is more even, as tablets from Apple‘s competitors have matured. In addition, Google and Microsoft are diving in with their own tablets, providing more choice.

The first step in the buying process is to decide on the size of the tablet. They fall into two rough categories: the full-sized tablet, pioneered by the iPad, and the half-size tablet, epitomized by the Kindle Fire.

Full-sized tablets, which generally have screens measuring about 10 inches on the diagonal, are better for surfing websites designed for PCs, and far better when it comes to displaying magazines and documents. Overall, they go further toward replacing a laptop. They cost $ 400 and up.

Half-sized tablets, which have screens measuring roughly 7 inches on the diagonal, are cheaper and lighter, but just as good as full-sized tablets for e-book reading. It’s an excellent first computing device for a kid, or a gentle nudge into the digital world for an older adult with little computing experience. This year’s crop costs $ 199 and up, but last year’s models are available for less.

If you’ve settled on a large tablet, here are some top choices. A review of smaller tablets ran Monday.

— Apple iPad, fourth generation (starts at $ 499)

Apple usually updates the iPad once a year, so it was a surprise when it dropped a new model in October, with a faster processor and the new “Lightning” connection and charging port, replacing the wide port inherited from the iPod. Like the third-generation iPad launched in March it has an ultra-high-resolution “Retina” screen. The model’s resolution of 2,048 by 1,536 pixels is only surpassed by the Google Nexus 10.

That means the current iPad is two generations ahead of the iPad 2 that was on sale last holiday season. It packs enough improvements to make the upgrade worth it. The iPad 2 is still on sale for $ 100 less, but it’s not a very good value for the money: if $ 400 is all you can spend, there are better tablets out there than the iPad 2.

While other tablets are starting to approach it in terms of hardware, the iPad still enjoys the best support by far from third parties, both in terms of quality applications and accessories like cases.

One caveat: the base model of the iPad has only 16 gigabytes of storage, which fills up fast these days. The thoughtful giver goes for at least a 32-gigabyte model, for $ 100 more.

Other than that, there are few downsides to the iPad: no one will frown when opening this package.

— Barnes & Noble Nook HD+ (starts at $ 269)

For a book store, Barnes & Noble makes some amazing tablets. The HD+ is its first model that approaches the iPad in size, with a screen that’s 9 inches on the diagonal. That makes it slightly smaller than the iPad, and the resolution is lower as well, but still very respectable. At 1,920 by 1,280 pixels, it can show more detail than a living-room HDTV.

The Nook is family-friendly too. You can create user accounts and restrict them from certain content, so there’s less risk that your kids will stumble on your copy of “Fifty Shades of Grey.”

Like the basic iPad, the basic Nook HD+ comes with just 16 gigabytes of storage memory, but it can be expanded with a microSD memory card. That means another 32 gigabytes will cost you just $ 25 — a good deal.

But the Nook is the least versatile tablet in our roundup. The number of apps available is small, and it’s focused on Barnes & Noble content like e-books, magazines and movies. It doesn’t have any cameras, while the competitors have two each. It’s best for someone who’s likely to stick to media consumption, and doesn’t need the latest apps and games.

— Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 (starts at $ 499)

If the Nook is for the avid reader or movie watcher, the Galaxy Note 10.1 is for the creative type. It’s the only tablet in our roundup that comes with a “pen” that can be used to write and draw on the screen. In our test, this worked well, though the number of apps that take advantage of the pen is still small. (Other tablets, like the iPad, only respond to finger-like objects, so third-party styluses for them are of necessity thick and clumsy.)

The Note 10.1 runs Google‘s Android software, giving it access to a wide array of apps originally written for smartphones. The selection is not on par with the iPad’s but better than other alternatives.

The Note’s screen falls into the low-resolution category, sporting 1,280 by 800 pixels. That’s a third of what the iPad musters.

Like the Nook, the Note 10.1′s storage memory can be expanded with cards.

The Note’s appeal is somewhat niche, but it could be just the thing for the budding or established artist.

— Microsoft Surface (starts at $ 499)

Microsoft’s first tablet seems at first like a throwback to the first iPad. It’s thick, heavy and rugged. But it’s really doesn’t have much in common with the first iPad or any Apple- or Google-powered tablet. It runs Windows RT, a version of Windows 8 adapted for tablets. It comes with a version of Microsoft’s Office suite and the ability to connect to wireless printers and some other peripherals, like USB drives. The covers for it have functional keyboard printed on the inside.

The screen resolution is 1,366 by 768 pixels, placing it in the low-resolution category.

The Surface screams “work, work, work.” It’s the tablet for those who are wedded to Word and want to take their writing on the go.

One thing to note about the Surface: the basic model starts out with “32 gigabytes” of memory, but of that, only 16 gigabytes are available to the user. It accepts memory cards of up to 64 gigabytes, however, so expanding the memory is cheap.

Note that even though it runs Windows, the Surface doesn’t run standard Windows applications. It will run only programs specifically adapted for Windows RT. The selection is, for now, quite limited.

— Asus Vivo Tab RT (starts at $ 599 with a dock)

Asus has a quality line of Android tablets they call “Transformer” because they dock into a keyboard with an extra battery. The combination folds up just like a small laptop and has excellent battery life. The Vivo Tab RT essentially takes a Transformer and stuffs it with Windows RT instead of Android.

The tablet part is smaller and thinner than the Surface. Together with the keyboard, it makes for a familiar little setup: a tiny laptop running Windows. Like the Surface, it has a memory card slot and a USB port. The screen resolution is the same.

The Vivo Tab is a good tool for those who want to get some work done on the commute or plane, or those who can’t decide if they want a laptop or a tablet.

— Google Nexus 10 (starts at $ 399)

This is Google’s first full-size tablet and the only tablet from any manufacturer that beats the screen resolution of the iPad. It boasts 2,560 by 1,600 pixels, a third more than the fourth-generation iPad.

It’s also the only tablet in this roundup that has speakers on either side of the screen when it’s held horizontally, making for good stereo reproduction when you’re watching movies. It has a grippy, rubberized back and widely rounded corners. There’s no memory card slot or an option for a cellular modem.

The array of third-party software is wide, just as it is for the Note 10.1. Most people don’t associate Google with online books, music or movies, so it may feel odd that the Nexus steers buyers to Google’s Play store. Of course, given the open nature of Google’s Android operating system, there are apps available for other entertainment stores, including Amazon’s, and for streaming services like Netflix.

The Nexus 10 is a snappy performer, and among the iPad’s competitors, it comes the closest to matching the versatility of Apple products.

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Peter Svensson can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/petersvensson

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“Twilight” sendoff starts with huge $341 million worldwide

(Reuters) – The “Twilight” vampire saga‘s final chapter debuted with a massive $ 341 million in global movie ticket sales as devoted fans bid farewell to blood-sucking spouses Bella and Edward and one of Hollywood‘s biggest franchises.

“The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2″ earned an estimated $ 141 million in the United States and Canada over the weekend, falling slightly short of a record for the supernatural romance series about a human-vampire-werewolf love triangle.

The total, which includes sales from late night Thursday through Sunday, ranked as the eight biggest domestic film debut of all time. Late-night Thursday screenings comprised $ 30.4 million of the $ 141 million total.

Fan fever for the fifth “Twilight” movie raged high around the world. “Breaking Dawn – Part 2″ rang up sales of $ 199.6 million from Thursday to Sunday at theaters in 61 countries for a worldwide total of $ 341 million, distributor Summit Entertainment said on Sunday.

The earlier “Twilight” films pulled in a combined $ 2.5 billion at global box offices over a four-year run. The success lifted tiny studio Summit Entertainment into Hollywood‘s big leagues and paved the way for its $ 412 million acquisition in January by Lions Gate Entertainment.

“New Moon” scored the biggest debut of the series, grossing $ 142.8 million over its first three days in 2009.

The movies based on a series of best-selling young adult books by Stephenie Meyer ignited a pop culture infatuation with blood-sucking vampires and werewolves. The films star Kristen Stewart as human-turned-vampire Bella Swan, Robert Pattinson as her vampire love Edward Cullen, and Taylor Lautner as werewolf Jacob Black, who competes for Bella’s affection.

Summit spent $ 120 million to produce “Breaking Dawn – Part 2,” which concludes the tale with newly turned vampire Bella and husband Edward in a high-stakes battle to protect their half-human, half-vampire daughter from an ancient vampire clan. The couple enlist the extended Cullen family in their fight.

Fans of the series, mostly teen girls nicknamed “Twi-hards,” embraced the final film, which includes a surprise twist that was not in the final book. Audiences polled by CinemaScore awarded the movie an “A” grade, with an “A+” from filmgoers under age 25, according to Summit. Critics were less supportive. Fifty-one percent of reviews collected on the Rotten Tomatoes website were positive.

Summit Entertainment‘s president of domestic distribution Richie Fay said though the vast majority of the audience was female, he expected more male viewers than for previous “Twilight” films.

“The male audience has increased a good bit, and the ratings among males are higher I think in part to the action in the film,” he said.

Author Meyer has not ruled out the possibility of more stories in the vampire-werewolf universe but said she has closed the chapter on the Cullens.

Hollywood is eager to fill the void after the success of “Twilight” highlighted the power of young adult stories on the big screen. Studios are bringing at least four new films based on popular young adult novels to theaters next year as well as the sequel to the newest teen movie sensation, “The Hunger Games.

The “Twilight” excitement eclipsed all other movies over the weekend. Last week’s winner, James Bond movie “Skyfall” finished in second place with $ 41.5 million at North American (U.S. and Canadian) theaters.

“Skyfall” is now the highest-grossing Bond movie to date with a global total of over $ 669 million, surpassing the $ 599 million taken in by “Casino Royale” in 2006.

“Skyfall” also propelled distributer Sony Pictures Entertainment to a record year, pushing its worldwide box office total over the $ 4 billion mark.

Historical drama “Lincoln” expanded from a limited opening a week ago and landed in third place with $ 21 million. The movie stars Daniel Day-Lewis as the 16th president near the end of his life as he battles to ban slavery and end the Civil War. The movie is directed by Steven Spielberg and has earned critical praise and awards-season buzz.

In fourth place, Walt Disney Co animated movie “Wreck-It Ralph,” about a videogame character who destroys everything in his path, pulled in $ 18.3 million. Denzel Washington drama “Flight” earned $ 8.6 million and the No. 5 spot.

Elsewhere, romantic comedy “Silver Linings Playbook” brought in $ 458,000 at 16 locations, or an average of $ 28,625 per theater. The film stars Bradley Cooper as a bipolar former teacher just released from a mental institution and Jennifer Lawrence as a young widow he encounters as he tries to put his life back together.

“Silver Linings” won over critics who say it may earn a spot in the Oscar race. The Weinstein Co, the private company that released the movie, will expand the film nationwide beginning on Wednesday, November 21.

Sony Corp’s movie studio distributed “Skyfall.” “Lincoln” was produced by Dreamworks and released by Walt Disney Co. “Flight” was distributed by Paramount Pictures, a unit of Viacom Inc.

(Reporting by Lisa Richwine; Editing by Jackie Frank)

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Those TV Ads for High Cholesterol and Erectile Dysfunction Probably Aren’t Going Away

It has been almost two decades since pharmaceutical manufacturers decided that they might have better luck promoting their products if they bypassed doctors and took their messages straight to consumers. And although the Food and Drug Administration is keeping a wary eye on direct-to-consumer advertising, the practice now appears solidly entrenched. The United States and New Zealand are the only two countries among developed nations that permit direct-to-consumer advertising.

Direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical advertising, or DTC, was never against the law. But pharmaceutical manufacturers began targeting consumers in the 1980s and, in 1999, the FDA clarified the rules on DTC advertising to better protect consumers. Since then, the practice has exploded. According to a 2011 report issued by the Congressional Budget Office, DTC advertising totaled $ 4.7 billion in 2008—about one-quarter of pharmaceutical manufacturers’ promotional budgets.

This year, the FDA launched two new studies on the impact of DTC drug ads and also issued new instructions to manufacturers on how it will review the content of drug ads. However, other attempts to reign in DTC ads, such as through legislation, haven’t progressed very far.

“I think there are a lot of people who want us to pull back from DTC advertising. They think it’s gotten out of hand,” Francis B. Palumbo, professor and executive director of the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy Center on Drugs & Public Policy, told TakePart. But, he adds: “It’s kind of woven into the fabric of American culture now. To pull it back would be very difficult. It’s a question of what would happen if you pulled the plug.”

Some studies suggest that DTC ads aren’t so bad. The ads can educate people, help them start a conversation with their doctors, and even prompt someone to see a doctor when they otherwise might not have. Information contained in the ads may improve patient compliance regarding instructions on how to take a particular drug and how to spot side effects.  

But the ads have generated considerable controversy. Doctor groups tend to dislike the practice, Palumbo says, because consumers demand prescriptions for certain medications they’ve heard about on TV. Sometimes, doctors say,  their patients would benefit more and save money by taking a different medication than the one advertised on television.

RELATED: Beware Rogue Online Pharmacies, FDA Says

“Patients put more pressure on their doctors to prescribe a particular drug when they see it on TV,” Palumbo says.

Other healthcare experts have questioned whether DTC leads to higher drug costs. And, because many DTC ads are for newly approved medications, some critics say the ads expose consumers to unnecessary risks. For example, the drug Vioxx was heavily advertised and sold to millions of people but was later taken off the market because of serious health risks linked to its use.

Certain classes of medications advertised to consumers have triggered considerable controversy, such as advertisements for drugs to treat depression, Palumbo says. While it may be helpful for consumers to know there are treatments for depression, drug companies have been criticized for pitching atypical antipsychotics, a newer class of drugs, for the treatment of depression. Many atypical antipsychotics are costly and carry harsh side effects. Typically, such medications are only prescribed when other treatment options have been exhausted.

RELATED: Americans Struggling to Pay for Prescription Drugs

According to the Congressional Budget Office report, pharmaceutical manufacturers only promote a small set of specific drugs using DTC. The CBO looked at 366 brand-name drugs that were promoted to doctors and other healthcare professionals from 1999 to 2008. Of those drugs, only 73 were advertised directly to consumers. Drug companies spent an average of $ 71 million per drug for a two-year period of DTC advertising.

The CBO found that the average number of prescriptions for newly approved brand-name drugs with DTC advertising was nine times greater than the average number of prescriptions written for newly approved brand-name drugs that weren’t advertised. But pharmaceutical companies are selective about which products are advertised to consumers. They tend to focus on medications for common conditions that affect large numbers of people, like high cholesterol or seasonal allergies.

“When pharmaceutical companies advertise directly to the consumer their sales go up,” Palumbo says. “That’s why they do it. They garner huge sales.”

RELATED: The Most Expensive Prescription Drugs in the U.S.

The FDA is watching the DTC scene carefully. Earlier this year, the agency launched a study examining the impact of “corrective” direct-to-consumer advertising. This is a type of ad that the agency demands of pharmaceutical manufacturers when the company’s initial ad features false or misleading information. One of the best-known examples of a corrective ad was for the birth control pill Yaz. The agency is looking at how corrective ads impact consumer misperceptions about the drug. In other words, do the corrective ads reverse the false impression?

Another FDA study, announced in August, will examine whether consumers understand ads for drugs that have “composite scores.” These are drugs that are advertised for multiple symptoms, such as an allergy drug touted for sneezing, runny nose, watery eyes and wheezing. Such drugs are given a single composite score (encompassing the effectiveness scores for each particular symptom) that shows how effective the drug is compared to another drug. But, the FDA states: “Because most DTC prescription drug ads do not explicitly state that they used composite scores” consumers may not understand the drug’s actual efficacy.

Also this year, the FDA informed pharmaceutical companies that it wants to review DTC ads for new drugs and drugs with new indication before they appear before the public to make sure the ads include all pertinent risk information. The agency will have 45 days to conduct the review

“FDA is under a lot of criticism for that,” Palumbo notes. “FDA is always under-resourced, and the question is whether FDA will get back to the manufacturer in a timely manner. The manufacturers are spending millions of dollars putting out these ads. They want to run them.”

Question: Should FDA tighten the reins on DTC drug ads? Tell us what you think in the comments.

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Shari Roan is an award-winning health writer based in Southern California. She is the author of three books on health and science subjects.

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Black Friday and the Triumph of Marketing

A century ago “Black Friday” referred to the market crash of Sept. 24, 1869, which was caused by two financiers’ failed attempt to corner the gold market. Today we know Black Friday as the country’s busiest shopping day, falling right after Thanksgiving. How did that happen?

One popular but false explanation is that the name marks the day retailers end an 11-month stretch of red ink and harvest profits for the first time all year. Others say it refers to the dark day thousands of retail workers will spend greeting shoppers, stocking shelves, folding garments, and ringing registers.

In fact, factory owners in the 1950s first coined Black Friday to lament the high number of workers who wouldn’t show up for work, as linguist Ben Zimmer pointed out last year. The connection between Black Friday, crowds, and shopping came in the early 1960s from some Philadelphia cops, he explained. They used the phrase to describe the mad traffic downtown on the day holiday shoppers converged with football fans arriving for the Army-Navy game, traditionally played in Philly on the Saturday after Thanksgiving.

The name Black Friday, picked up by the press, presented a branding problem from the start. Zimmer quotes a 1961 story from Public Relations News that called the label “hardly a stimulus for good business,” and notes city spinmeister Abe Rosen’s efforts to replace it with the anodyne “Big Friday.” The Philadelphia newspapers refused, and Black Friday stuck.

It’s not exactly clear when, in the decades since, retailers across the country embraced the name. By the time they did, it came with the reassuring myth that Black Friday was the day they turned a profit to be “in the black.” (A quick look at retailers’ quarterly earnings should put that canard to rest.) The retail industry shed any queasiness it had about the Black Friday brand in recent years, as big-box stores and shopping malls embraced “door-buster” sales that got shoppers to line up for discounts before opening time.

Although Black Friday has long been called the busiest shopping day of the year, that’s only become true in the past decade, according to data from retail analyst ShopperTrak. Before 2004, holiday shopping generally peaked on the Saturday before Christmas, the International Council of Shopping Centers reported (PDF). But after enough years of retailers and reporters and shoppers repeating that Black Friday was the busiest day, the myth eventually became true.

More recently, the hoopla has spread throughout the week. Cyber Monday was invented in 2005 by the National Retail Federation’s digital division in an attempt to promote online shopping when office workers get back to their desks after the holiday; it was not the highest volume day for e-commerce sales. In 2010, American Express (AXP) made up Small Business Saturday, with promotions and rebates aimed at getting gift-seekers to swipe their AmEx cards at local merchants’ shops. Note to retailers: Three days of Thanksgiving week remain unbranded. Or four, if Thanksgiving itself is not off limits.

And, of course, it’s not. Black Friday has been creeping earlier, from dawn to midnight to Thursday evening. Wal-Mart Stores (WMT) plans to open its doors on Thanksgiving day at 8 p.m. this year, two hours earlier than last year, a decision that’s helped provoke some workers to strike. Perhaps the earlier hour is an attempt to avoid the sometimes unruly crowds that door-buster sales attract. Last year, a Wal-Mart shopper in California reportedly pepper-sprayed fellow customers to reach coveted merchandise. But even that’s not Black Friday’s darkest moment: In 2008, Jdimytai Damour, a 34-year-old Queens man who took a seasonal job at a Wal-Mart in Valley Stream, N.Y, was killed when a pre-dawn Black Friday mob broke the glass doors and trampled him to death.

Long before such deadly excess, some activists seized the symbolism of Black Friday to make people think twice about consumer culture. Since the 1990s, the day after Thanksgiving has also been dubbed Buy Nothing Day, an idea championed by Adbusters magazine and, lately, the Occupy movement. The thought of getting masses of consumers to stay home on what has become the biggest shopping day of the year may sound like a pipe dream. But Black Friday only holds its current place in our culture through miracles of marketing, spin, and rebranding. Those celebrating Buy Nothing Day, at least, don’t have to explain the name.

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Turbulence on Cuba-Italy flight leaves 30 bruised

ROME (AP) — An airliner flying from Havana to Milan abruptly plunged some 1,000 meters (3,300 feet) when it hit unusually strong turbulence over the Atlantic on Monday, terrifying passengers and leaving some 30 people aboard with bruises and scrapes, airline officials said.

The flight continued to Milan’s Malpensa airport after the plane’s captain determined that it suffered no structural damage and two passengers who are physicians found no serious injuries, Giulio Buzzi, head of the pilots division at Neos Air, told Sky TG24 TV.

The ANSA news agency quoted bruised passenger Edoardo De Lucchi as saying meals were being served when suddenly there was “10 seconds of terror.” He recounted how plates went flying and some passengers not wearing seatbelts bounced about.

Buzzi had said that the drop measured some 3,000 meters (10,000 feet) in a cloudless sky. But Milan daily’s Corriere della Sera’s web site, quoting Neos official Davide Martini, later reported that the plane first bounced up some 500 meters (1,650 feet), then dropped some 1,000 meters (3,300 feet) to some 500 meters (1,650 feet) below the original altitude.

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People turn to Twitter for CPR information: study

(Reuters) – Amid snarky comments and links to cat videos, some Twitter users turn to the social network to find and post information on health issues like cardiac arrest and CPR, according to a U.S. study.

Over a month, researchers found 15,234 messages on Twitter that included specific information about resuscitation and cardiac arrest, said the study published in the journal Resuscitation.

“From a science standpoint, we wanted to know if we can reliably find information on a public health topic, or is (Twitter) just a place where people describe what they ate that day,” said Raina Merchant, the study’s lead author and a professor at the Department of Emergency Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.

According to the researchers, they found people using Twitter to send and receive a wide variety of information on CPR and cardiac arrest, including their personal experiences, questions and current events.

Some researchers and organizations already use Twitter for public health matters, including tracking the 2009 H1N1 “swine flu” pandemic and finding the source of the Haitian cholera outbreak, the researchers said.

For the study, the researchers created a Twitter search for key terms, such as CPR, AED (automatic external defibrillators), resuscitation and sudden death.

Between April and May 2011, their search returned 62,163 tweets, which were whittled down to 15,324 messages that contained specific information about cardiac arrest and resuscitation.

Only 7 percent of the tweets were about specific cardiac arrest events, such as a user saying they just saw a man being resuscitated, or a user asking for prayers for a sick family member.

About 44 percent of the tweets were about performing CPR and using an AED. Those types of tweets included information on rules about keeping AEDs in businesses and questions about how to resuscitate a person.

The rest of the tweets were about education, research and news events, such as links to articles about celebrities going into cardiac arrest.

The vast majority of the Twitter users send fewer than three tweets about cardiac arrest or CPR throughout the month. Users that sent more tweets typically had more followers – people who subscribe to their messages – and often worked in a health-care related field.

About 13 percent of the tweets were re-sent, or retweeted, by other users. The most popular retweeted messages were about celebrity-related cardiac arrest news, such as an AED being used to revive a fan at a Lady Gaga concert.

“I think the pilot (study) illustrated for us that there is an opportunity to potentially provide research and information for people in real time about cardiac arrest and resuscitation,” Marchant said.

“I can imagine in the future we will see systems that would automatically respond to tweets of individual users. Twitter is a really powerful tool, and we’re just beginning to understand its abilities.”

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/T2bj7u

(Reporting from New York by Andrew Seaman at Reuters Health; editing by Elaine)

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Jackie Chan: upcoming film will be last big action movie

BEIJING (Reuters) – Kung Fu superstar Jackie Chan said that while the upcoming film “Chinese Zodiac 2012″ will be his last major action movie, citing his increasing age, he will still be packing punches in the world of philanthropy.

Chan wrote, directed and produced his latest film, set to premiere in cinemas in China next month. He also plays the lead role and said that he regarded it the “best film for myself” in the last ten years.

“I’m the director, I’m the writer, I’m the producer, I’m the action director, almost everything,” the 58-year-old Hong Kong actor told Reuters while in Beijing to film a documentary.

“This really, really is my baby. You know, I’ve been writing the script for seven years,” and the film took a year and half to make, he added.

In the film, Chan is a treasure hunter seeking to repatriate sculpture heads of the 12 animals of the Chinese zodiac, which were taken from Beijing‘s Summer Palace by French and British forces during the Opium Wars.

He said it was an important movie for him because it will be his last major action feature, although he insisted it is not the end of his action career.

“I’m not young any more, honestly,” he said, noting that with special effects technology and doubles a lot can be done without physical risk.

“Why (do) I have to use my own life to still do these kind of things?” he said. “I will still do as much as I can. But I just don’t want to risk my life to sit in a wheelchair, that’s all.”

Chan was recently awarded the Social Philanthropist of the Year award by Harpers Bazaar magazine. He said he wanted to increase time devoted to charitable work and hoped China’s leagues of newly wealthy will follow his example – which he underlined by auctioning a Bentley 666 for around 6 million yuan ($ 961,837).

China now has more billionaires than any other Asian country, but very few philanthropic organizations, and giving to charity remains a relatively new phenomenon in the world’s most populous country.

Chan said while Chinese philanthropists have made some encouraging strides, much more still needs to be done – a task made harder by the Internet, with netizens willing to leap on every perceived wrong move.

“Right now people (must) very, very be careful, but that doesn’t stop them to want to do the charity. I think it’s a good sign,” Chan said. (Reporting by Reuters Television, editing by Elaine Lies and Christine Kearney)

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Pharmacies Dispense Meds Even After Docs Stop Prescription

Image courtesy of iStockphoto/monkeybuisnessimages

When doctors take patients off of a prescription medicine, it is often for a good reason. But pharmacists don’t always get the memo. A new study finds that more than 1 in 100 discontinued prescriptions were filled by the pharmacy anyway, putting some patients at serious risk. In the U.S., pharmacists filled more than 3.7 trillion prescriptions in 2011. With so many prescriptions and refills–and our still largely human- and paper-based prescribing system–there are bound to be mistakes. Pharmacists may overlook drug interactions, dispense inappropriate medications, or commit other little-understood errors. One such underappreciated problem area is the process of taking patients off medication. While errors in initial prescribing have drawn much attention, potential for error when doctors order a prescription to stop also looms large. And electronic health records, which have helped to minimize medical errors in other areas, might be partly to blame. These electronic communiqu?s might be giving some doctors–and patients–a false sense of efficacy. Doctors might assume that when they make a note on a patient’s electronic health record to stop a prescription the pharmacy will automatically get the message as it does when they first prescribed that medication. This, however, is not always the case, wrote Adrienne Allen, of the North Shore Physician Group, and Thomas Sequist, of Brigham and Women’s Hospital in the new paper, published online November 19 in Annals of Internal Medicine. To find out how often the pharmacies continue to dispense meds the doctor no longer ordered, Allen and Sequist analyzed electronic health records of 30,406 adults in a Massachusetts health system whose doctor had discontinued a drug to treat a high-risk condition such as high cholesterol, hypertension, diabetes, blood coagulation or platelet aggregation. Some 83,900 medications were discontinued during the course of a year. Nevertheless, pharmacists still dispensed 1,218 of these prescriptions after they were discontinued. The most common drug that pharmacists dispensed after a doctor canceled the prescription was metoprolol (Lopressor or Toprol), which is often prescribed to treat high blood pressure after a heart attack and which can have harmful drug interactions with other commonly prescribed drugs. In a subset of medical records, a computer analysis flagged more than a third (34 percent) of the improper dispensations as creating a “high risk of potential adverse events” such as a harmful reaction, potential drug interaction or suspect lab test result, the researchers noted. And manual assessment verified that potential harm actually occurred in at least 12 percent of cases. Patients receiving these drugs were more likely to be taking more medications, older, enrolled in Medicare and black. Additional medications make it more likely that a patient will suffer an adverse drug interaction if they take an unintended prescription (especially if a doctor has subsequently prescribed a similar drug to take the discontinued drug’s place). And older adults might be less likely to notice a mistake. One limitation of the study is that the researchers could only study the 52 percent of discontinued prescriptions that were filled at participating health care system pharmacies; unaffiliated pharmacies might have even higher inappropriate dispensation rates. Additionally, the researchers only studied a limited number of drugs. Adding other drugs to the analysis would likely increase the number of discontinued prescriptions dispensed, even if the risk of side effects might be lower. They researchers see promise for filling this communication gap in the future. Electronic health records offer an opportunity to track these missteps, and adding more direct communication with pharmacies about prescription discontinuation should help avoid these errors. For now, however, the new technology is often not as powerful as many doctors think it is. So some of the responsibility will continue to lie with the patient. Officials would be wise to help “increase patient awareness of their medication list,” the researchers concluded. That is, until the computers can just do it for us.

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