British tabloid claims add a new twist to Jackson’s death

In a new twist to the circumstances surrounding pop star Michael Jackson’s death, it has emerged that his “drug-riddled” body may have been lying in his bedroom for more than an hour before help arrived, a British tabloid claimed on Sunday, quoting what it sensationally described as a “bombshell” ambulance report.

It said the report made on a comprehensive official form showed that Jackson was clinically dead along before paramedics arrived at this Los Angels home.

The revelation contradicts claims by Jackson’s personal physician Conrad Murray that the singer had a faint pulse when the ambulance came.

The News of the world, which reported the claim, said that Steven Hoefflin, a close friend of Jackson had “confirmed” its details.

“I’ve spooken to a chief in the fire department who told me Michael was dead when they arrived. He had no pulse and was not breathing. They gave him an electro-cardio-gram, but he was flatlined. They say he even had lividity, which meant the blood had sunk to the back, indicating that his heart had stopped a couple of hours earlier. This is the most important aspect of the report, as it means he must have been dead for over an hour, or probably longer,” Dr. Hoefflin was quoted saying.

The report, the newspaper said, was completed more than seven weeks ago, but was kept from the public by the police.

The 50-year –old King of pop died of a heart attack on June 25 after taking a cocktail of prescription pills. According to his Physician Dr. Murray, the singer was unconscious, but still had a faint pulse and the body was warm when he walked into Jackson’s bedroom.

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Swine flu less severe than expected: European centre

The current swine flu pandemic is less severe than might be expected, says the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC). The ECDC has published the planning assumptions that European countries could use to prepare for the major first pandemic wave expected in the coming autumn and winter months. The Centre has drawn heavily on the planning assumptions put out by Britain’s Cabinet Office and its Department of Health last month.

The swine flu’s death rate, known as the ‘case fatality ratio’, is expected to be similar to that of seasonal flu that people catch each year.

Peak absenteeism:

The British had predicted a peak absenteeism rate of 12 per cent of the workforce, which fitted with the mild illness seen for most people, observed the ECDC. This suggested that “the social disruption effects of the pandemic will be less than feared for other pandemics and that severe social interventions will not be necessary given good business continuity planning,” it remarked.

‘Hope for the best and plan for the worst’ is at the heart of much contingency planning. The ECDC and British planning documents give a glimpse into what ‘the worst’ in the current pandemic, involving a virus that the World Health Organisation describes as moderate in its severity, might be like. The British planning document is based on analysis and modeling of data from swine flu outbreaks that have occurred both inside and outside the country.

Both ECDC and U.K. documents emphasise that the planning assumptions they describe should not be seen as a prediction of how the pandemic will develop. A number of parameters were involved, each taken at their ‘reasonable worst case’ value, noted the British document.

Taken together, these parameters “represent a relatively unlike scenario.” However, the use of such parameters ensured that the plans remained robust against all likely circumstances, it pointed out.

In order to plan for extreme contingencies, the British document assumed that up to 60 per cent of the population could catch the virus. But about half of them may show no or insignificant symptoms.

Up to 30 per cent of the population may therefore become clinically ill in the first major wave of infection. Children are more likely to be ill than older people. However, the latter are more likely to suffer from complications if they do become ill.

“Shoter and Sharper”

The British planning document indicates that 6.5 per cent of the population could fall ill each week at the peak of the pandemic. But since local epidemics are “often shorter and sharper,” the proportion of the local population that falls sick could be higher than national rates, the ECDC noted.

The document also suggests that up to 2 per cent of clinical cases in Britain might require hospitalization, a quarter of whom could need intensive care. Hospitalization rates for seasonal flu that occurs every year are typically in the range of 0.5-1.0 per cent for that country. However, the case fatality ratio – the proportion of clinical cases who die of flu during the complete wave of infection – is expected to be in the same range as for seasonal flu, 0.1 -0.35 per cent. “Current experience from abroad suggests a figure closer to 0.1 per cent at present,” the document observed.

“It is also important to appreciate that [the case fatality ratio] is especially subject to social effects,” the European centre remarked. In poor social settings such as Africa, even seasonal flu could result in death rates that were higher than seen in pandemics, it pointed out.

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Less is best

How do you keep your eating in check? Here’s one way: visualize your last meal. A recent British study found that women who were asked to write a detailed description of what they’d eaten for lunch that day snacked significantly less in the afternoon than those who didn’t focus on their last meal. Researchers speculate that recalling a specific, vivid memory activates the hippocampus, an area of the brain belived to be responsible for both decision making and memory recall, giving would-be snackers better appetite control.

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British men are least romantic

British men are among the least romantic in the world, states a new study.

The study has reveled that British men are less likely to make romantic gestures than men from other parts of the world. They are less likely to pay compliments and take their loved ones for holidays. British men mistakenly believe that buying sexy lingerie and expensive gifts are the way to a woman’s heart, The Daily Telegraph reported. However, gestures such as running a lover a hot bath after a hard day, or treating them to a morning cup of tea in bed, are what women really want, the study, of some 6,500 men and women all over the world, has revealed.

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How cats have their way

Cats coax their owners into giving them what they want with a special purr that blends their normal soft, low sound with a high-pitched element that is hard to ignore, British researchers said recently.

The high- frequency part is similar to a cry or a meow, and cats incorporate this into their normal, contended purr to exploit the nurturing instincts of humans for their own needs – usually to get fed, according to scientists.

Lead author Dr Karen McComb of Sussex University in southern England said she initiated the study after being repeatedly worken up in the mornings by her own cat, Pepo.

“I wondered why this purrings sounded so annoying and was so difficult to ignore. Talking with other cat owners, I found that some of them- including co-author Anna Taylor – also had cats who showed similar behaviour,” she said.

McComb and her team tested human responses to different purring types, including “solicitation” purrs- which included the high-frequency element and were made by hungry cats- against “non- solicitation” or normal purrs.

“When humans were played purrs recorded while cats were actively seeking food at equal volume to purrs recorded in non-solicitation contexts, even those with no experience of cats judged the solicitation’ purrs to be more urgent and less pleasant,” she said.

When the team re-synthesized the purrs to remove the embedded cry, the urgency ratings decreased significantly.

McComb concluded that the cats were using the special purr to make their views known without risking irritating humans with an overt meow. However, this solution appears only to work in cats living one-on-one with their owners—cats in large house holds usually have to meow to be heard.

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