NEW YORK (Reuters) - Global growth is likely to remain tepid this year and central banks should keep their easy monetary policies in place, the head of the International Monetary Fund said on Wednesday.
"Thanks to the actions of policymakers, the economic world no longer looks quite as dangerous as it did six months ago," IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde told the Economic Club of New York.
But while there were signs that financial conditions are improving, Lagarde said those changes are not yet translating into improvements in the real economy.
"In present circumstances, it makes sense for monetary policy to do the heavy lifting in this recovery by remaining accommodative," Lagarde said ahead of meetings of global finance chiefs in Washington next week.
"We know that inflation expectations are well anchored today, giving central banks greater leeway to support growth," she added.
She said a three-speed recovery is underway, led by fast-growing emerging economies, followed by countries such the United States that are on the mend, and with the euro zone and Japan trailing.
In January, the IMF trimmed its 2013 forecast for global growth to 3.5 percent from 3.6 percent, and projected a 4.1 percent expansion in 2014. It said the world economy grew 3.2 percent in 2012.
Lagarde said the exceptionally loose monetary policies of central banks in advanced economies is a concern for emerging economies, which fear a sudden reversal of the large capital flows that have flooded their economies in recent years as investors have sought higher yields.
"Right now, these risks appear under control," Lagarde said, but she urged emerging economies to boost their defenses to deal with the possible repercussions should central banks start to exit from quantitative easing.
The IMF chief welcomed the unprecedented burst of monetary stimulus announced by the Bank of Japan last week to revive the country's economy. She urged Japan to deliver a credible fiscal plan to lower its public debt, "which looks increasingly unsustainable".
"Japan needs a clear and credible plan to lower public debt over the medium term," Lagarde said. "It needs comprehensive structural reforms to shift the economy into higher gear."
Lagarde said the 'fiscal cliff' in the United States had been avoided, but that it is vital now for the Obama administration to put in place credible, medium-term plans to cut debt.
In Europe, Lagarde said monetary policy is "spinning its wheels" with low interest rates unable to translate into affordable credit for those who need it because of unfinished repairs to the banking sector.
"The priority must be to continue to clean up the banking system by recapitalizing, restructuring, or, where necessary, shutting down banks," Lagarde added.
The banking bailout in Cyprus, she reiterated, is not a template for future reforms. However, she said people, "whether investors or depositors need to know what the banking order is".
Cyprus received a 10 billion euro bailout from the euro zone and the IMF. However, the structure of the deal has injected a higher level of uncertainty into markets because it requires large depositors, many of them Russian, to share in the losses of the banking system.
"Cyprus was not a template, it doesn't set standards because it was not a standard itself. It was vastly different from many banks in the region," Lagarde said in response to a question.
In addition to banking reform, most European governments need to maintain tight fiscal policies to reduce debt levels, she said, but added that spending cuts need not be too severe too soon.
"We believe it is a question of pace," Lagarde said. "(Reforms) don't have to be brutal or abrupt or massively front-loaded. Those under financial pressure have to demonstrate the ability to do so but be mindful of the fabric of society."
The IMF's spring meeting will be held in Washington April 19-21.
(Writing by Lesley Wroughton; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama; and Peter Galloway)
Doctors not informed of harmful effects of medicines during sales visitsPublic release date: 10-Apr-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Barbara Mintzes barbara.mintzes@ti.ubc.ca 604-822-7130 University of British Columbia
The majority of family doctors receive little or no information about harmful effects of medicines when visited by drug company representatives, according to an international study involving Canadian, U.S. and French physicians.
Yet the same doctors indicated that they were likely to start prescribing these drugs, consistent with previous research that shows prescribing behaviour is influenced by pharmaceutical promotion.
The study, which had doctors fill out questionnaires about each promoted medicine following sales visits, was published online today in the Journal of General Internal Medicine. It shows that sales representatives failed to provide any information about common or serious side effects and the type of patients who should not use the medicine in 59 per cent of the promotions. In Vancouver and Montreal, no potential harms were mentioned for 66 per cent of promoted medicines.
"Laws in all three countries require sales representatives to provide information on harm as well as benefits," says lead author Barbara Mintzes of the University of British Columbia. "But no one is monitoring these visits and there are next to no sanctions for misleading or inaccurate promotion."
Serious risks were mentioned in only six percent of the promotions, even though 57 per cent of the medications involved in these visits came with US Food and Drug Administration "black box" or Health Canada boxed warnings the strongest drug warning that can be issued by both countries.
"We are very concerned that doctors and patients are left in the dark and patient safety may be compromised," says Mintzes, an expert on drug advertising in UBC's School of Population and Public Health.
Doctors in Toulouse were more likely to be told of a harmful effect in a promotional visit, compared to doctors in Canada and the U.S., according to the study. Researchers suggested that this may reflect stricter regulatory standards for promotion of medicines in France.
NB: Figures showing the study's key findings are available at
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/gzo3d9uqy19rexl/ULFOzdk5d-.
###
BACKGROUND | DRUG SALES VISITS LACK DETAILS
About the study
The UBC-led study is the most comprehensive to date of the quality of pharmaceutical sales representative promotions to family physicians.
Researchers recruited physicians to participate using random samples from lists of primary care physicians at four sites Vancouver, Montreal, Sacramento and Toulouse. Among 704 eligible physicians contacted, 255 (36 per cent) chose to participate. Information was collected on 1,692 drug promotions at sales visits between May 2009 to June 2010.
Doctors were asked to fill out a questionnaire about the information provided for each promoted medicine following each visit they received from pharmaceutical sales representatives. Sales representatives regularly visit doctors' offices to promote medicines by providing information, free samples and in some cases food and invitations to events. The study focused on how often information was provided about drug safety.
The team includes researchers from UBC, York University, University of Montreal, University of California, Davis and the University of Toulouse.
Third-party comment
Dr. Tom Perry, an internal medicine and clinical pharmacology specialist at the UBC Hospital in Vancouver, who is not part of the study, expressed concern about the findings:
"Doctors learn relatively little about drugs in medical school, and much of their exposure to pharmacology after graduation may be in the form of advertising. If they are unaware of the potential harms from drugs they prescribe, patients inevitably suffer the consequences."
Perry also called for much stricter control of drug advertising in Canada.
Dr. Perry can be reached by pager 604-707-1427 or e-mail tperryjr@shaw.ca.
CONTACT
Prof. Barbara Mintzes
UBC School of Population and Public Health
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Doctors not informed of harmful effects of medicines during sales visitsPublic release date: 10-Apr-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Barbara Mintzes barbara.mintzes@ti.ubc.ca 604-822-7130 University of British Columbia
The majority of family doctors receive little or no information about harmful effects of medicines when visited by drug company representatives, according to an international study involving Canadian, U.S. and French physicians.
Yet the same doctors indicated that they were likely to start prescribing these drugs, consistent with previous research that shows prescribing behaviour is influenced by pharmaceutical promotion.
The study, which had doctors fill out questionnaires about each promoted medicine following sales visits, was published online today in the Journal of General Internal Medicine. It shows that sales representatives failed to provide any information about common or serious side effects and the type of patients who should not use the medicine in 59 per cent of the promotions. In Vancouver and Montreal, no potential harms were mentioned for 66 per cent of promoted medicines.
"Laws in all three countries require sales representatives to provide information on harm as well as benefits," says lead author Barbara Mintzes of the University of British Columbia. "But no one is monitoring these visits and there are next to no sanctions for misleading or inaccurate promotion."
Serious risks were mentioned in only six percent of the promotions, even though 57 per cent of the medications involved in these visits came with US Food and Drug Administration "black box" or Health Canada boxed warnings the strongest drug warning that can be issued by both countries.
"We are very concerned that doctors and patients are left in the dark and patient safety may be compromised," says Mintzes, an expert on drug advertising in UBC's School of Population and Public Health.
Doctors in Toulouse were more likely to be told of a harmful effect in a promotional visit, compared to doctors in Canada and the U.S., according to the study. Researchers suggested that this may reflect stricter regulatory standards for promotion of medicines in France.
NB: Figures showing the study's key findings are available at
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/gzo3d9uqy19rexl/ULFOzdk5d-.
###
BACKGROUND | DRUG SALES VISITS LACK DETAILS
About the study
The UBC-led study is the most comprehensive to date of the quality of pharmaceutical sales representative promotions to family physicians.
Researchers recruited physicians to participate using random samples from lists of primary care physicians at four sites Vancouver, Montreal, Sacramento and Toulouse. Among 704 eligible physicians contacted, 255 (36 per cent) chose to participate. Information was collected on 1,692 drug promotions at sales visits between May 2009 to June 2010.
Doctors were asked to fill out a questionnaire about the information provided for each promoted medicine following each visit they received from pharmaceutical sales representatives. Sales representatives regularly visit doctors' offices to promote medicines by providing information, free samples and in some cases food and invitations to events. The study focused on how often information was provided about drug safety.
The team includes researchers from UBC, York University, University of Montreal, University of California, Davis and the University of Toulouse.
Third-party comment
Dr. Tom Perry, an internal medicine and clinical pharmacology specialist at the UBC Hospital in Vancouver, who is not part of the study, expressed concern about the findings:
"Doctors learn relatively little about drugs in medical school, and much of their exposure to pharmacology after graduation may be in the form of advertising. If they are unaware of the potential harms from drugs they prescribe, patients inevitably suffer the consequences."
Perry also called for much stricter control of drug advertising in Canada.
Dr. Perry can be reached by pager 604-707-1427 or e-mail tperryjr@shaw.ca.
CONTACT
Prof. Barbara Mintzes
UBC School of Population and Public Health
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Crucial's budget-friendly yet high-capacity 2.5-inch M500 SSD has finally cropped up for sale today, as have the reviews of it from the usual enthusiast sites. While it's still not exactly low-cost, many applaud the fact that the company's $600 960GB drive is the cheapest near-1TB model you can get on the market. It uses Micron's 20nm MLC NAND flash, a SATA 6 Gb/s controller and is the first to implement the new 128Gb MLC NAND die. According to Benchmark Reviews, it certainly bests its m4 predecessor with peak speeds that reach 500 MB/s read and 400 MB/s write, with 80,000 IOPS in operational performance.
Both TweakTown and Anandtech concur that it's not quite as fast as its closest competitor, the Samsung 840 Pro, but as Anand Lai Shimpi said in his review: "If you need the capacity and plan on using all of it [960GB], the M500 is really the only game in town." TechnologyX, however, gives the nod to the 480GB model, if only because it's about $200 cheaper if you're willing to compromise on space. Crucial also offers the M500 in 120GB and 240GB for $130 and $220 for those with smaller wallets. If you're keen to see the full breakdown on this tiny wonder, head on over to the sources to judge for yourself, or just click on the Crucial link below to get your own.
Sequestration budget cuts could stand between Osama bin Laden's son-in-law, Suleiman Abu Gaith, and a trial on American soil timed almost to match up with the anniversary of the September 11 attacks.
Judge Lewis Kaplan today said Abu Gaith could go on trial in federal court in Manhattan as early as September of this year, around the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks the suspect lauded in al-Qaeda videos. Gaith's lawyer protested, saying a September start might be too soon, because of sequester cuts to public defenders.
The judge said it would be unfortunate if sequestration issues interfered with a trial of this importance, and he agreed to appoint other lawyers to assist the federal defenders service.
The U.S. court system stands to lose almost $350 million to sequester cuts. Last month Judge Julia Gibbons, chair of the Judicial Conference Budget Committee, testified that leaving sequestration as is would "have a devastating effect on federal court operations nationwide."
READ MORE: 57 Terrible Consequences of the Sequester
"We believe we have done all we can to minimize the impacts of sequestration but a cut of this magnitude, particularly so late in the fiscal year, will affect every facet of court operations and impact the general public as well as individuals and businesses looking for relief in the courts," Gibbons told the House subcommittee on financial services and general government of the appropriations committee.
She warned the courts could face up to 2,000 layoffs or furloughs before September.
"In our defender services program, federal defender attorney staffing levels will decline which could result in delays in appointing defense counsel for defendants," Gibbons said.
Last week, the results of furloughs became visible as a federal public defenders' office in Maryland all but shut down, while elsewhere, some agencies have managed to delay staffing cuts until mid-April or later.
READ MORE: Where's That Worker? Sequester Furloughs Start
Republicans have criticized the president for his administration's decision to try Abu Gaith in a federal court, instead of a military tribunal at Guantanamo Bay.
ABC's Aaron Katersky and Ariane de Vogue contributed to this report.
In this Jan. 2013 photo provided by Phil Grabsky Films, art historian Tim Marlow, left, curator Larry Nichols and the curator of the Manet exhibit at the Royal Academy of Arts Mary Anne Stevens talk in front of a Manet painting at the Royal Academy of Arts in London. On April 11, BY Experience is launching EXHIBITION, broadcasts of current or just closed art exhibitions from around the world to select movie theaters and performing arts centers in nearly 30 countries. (AP Photo/Phil Grabsky Films)
In this Jan. 2013 photo provided by Phil Grabsky Films, art historian Tim Marlow, left, curator Larry Nichols and the curator of the Manet exhibit at the Royal Academy of Arts Mary Anne Stevens talk in front of a Manet painting at the Royal Academy of Arts in London. On April 11, BY Experience is launching EXHIBITION, broadcasts of current or just closed art exhibitions from around the world to select movie theaters and performing arts centers in nearly 30 countries. (AP Photo/Phil Grabsky Films)
In this Jan. 2013 photo provided by Phil Grabsky Films, employees of the Royal Academy of Art move a Manet painting at the Royal Academy of Arts in London. On April 11, BY Experience is launching EXHIBITION, broadcasts of current or just closed art exhibitions from around the world to select movie theaters and performing arts centers in nearly 30 countries. (AP Photo/Phil Grabsky Films)
In this Jan. 2013 photo provided by Phil Grabsky Films, a film crew works on a film about an exhibit devoted to the portraiture of Edouard Manet at the Royal Academy of Arts in London. On April 11, BY Experience is launching EXHIBITION, broadcasts of current or just closed art exhibitions from around the world to select movie theaters and performing arts centers in nearly 30 countries. (AP Photo/Phil Grabsky Films)
NEW YORK (AP) ? From the people who brought live Metropolitan Opera performances to a movie theater near you comes the next big-screen cultural attraction: museum art exhibits from around the world.
It begins Thursday with a retrospective devoted to the portraits by Edouard Manet from the Royal Academy of Arts in London, screened to 450 theaters across the U.S. and about 600 around the globe, with many locations scheduling encore broadcasts.
Two more exhibits are already lined up: a June retrospective on the art of Edvard Munch from the Munch Museum in Oslo, Norway, and an October showing of works by Johannes Vermeer from the National Gallery in London.
Unlike the live opera broadcasts, the art presentations are slickly produced documentaries giving viewers a VIP guided tour of current or recently ended exhibitions from noted art historian Tim Marlow, who lingers on each of the displayed works and explains why they are special. Curator interviews, artist profiles and backstage tours fill out the 90-minute, high-definition show ? for an average price of $12.50.
"This is a way for an armchair traveler to come to the arts world, have it brought to them," said Julie Borchard-Young, co-owner of BY Experience, the company distributing the broadcasts. "Because it's not live, we wanted to make sure that the programs are very immersive and contemplative, that the viewer has a chance to slow down his or her busy life and really take this in."
For BY Experience, fine art is a natural next step in spreading culture to the masses, building on the niche success of its live series from the Met Opera and London's National Theatre.
The Met Opera series, for example, has grown every year since it was first beamed in 2006 to 98 theaters in four countries. Today it's seen in more than 1,900 theaters in 64 countries, with nearly 13 million tickets sold since 2006, according to figures provided by the opera house.
It had gross ticket sales of more than $57 million around the world for 11 performances during the 2011-12 season. Its Feb. 16 screening of "Rigoletto" took in $2.6 million in North America, ranking it No. 12 in the weekend box office, beating "Argo" and "Lincoln."
Like the Met, which realized $11 million from the opera broadcasts last season, the participating art museums will get a cut of the profits.
But will art exhibits work at the movies? Unlike new opera and theater performances, just about every piece of art from current exhibitions can already be viewed over the Internet. And the exhibits will be a documentary film, not a live event.
Borchard-Young said By Experience was encouraged by the response to what served as the pilot for its art exhibit series: "Leonardo Live," a 90-minute film by Phil Grabsky on the Leonardo da Vinci exhibition at London's National Gallery that was viewed by 125,000 people in 21 countries.
"We were convinced there was an audience for fine arts" after that, she said.
Patrick Corcoran, director of media and research at the National Association of Theatre Owners, believes the program has a good chance, noting that many in the industry were surprised by how popular the opera series has been.
"They're aiming at a similar kind of audience ... for events that are limited to one location. That has a market," he said. "People do love art exhibitions, and not all of them travel. This is a real opportunity to bring something to those customers."
At The Englert Theatre in Iowa City, Iowa, people "are responding very strongly to having something like this," Executive Director Andre Perry said. His theater has been offering live and encore broadcasts of National Theatre productions for more than a year.
The nearby Marcus Sycamore Cinema presents the Met broadcasts, and two weeks ago featured an Encore performance of Riccardo Zandonai's "Francesca da Rimini," an opera inspired by an episode from Dante's "Inferno."
"It's a smaller culture but a super vibrant one," Perry said of the arts crowd. "They're super enthusiastic and very positive about having the series."
The initiative appears to come at an opportune time for the city of 60,000 residents. The flood of 2008 shuttered the main building of the University of Iowa Museum of Art and a small number of its collection now is scattered among several venues while it rebuilds.
Museum director Sean O'Harrow said that while he supported the art exhibition broadcasts, he didn't want people to think it was a substitute for the real thing.
"A museum offers a three-dimensional experience. Seeing things on a screen for the most part is not," he said. "Seeing real objects in person is the most powerful experience you could possibly have."
The Rialto Cinemas in Sebastopol, Calif., has been showing the Met HD series since its inception. Because of demand, it has expanded showings to two screens. Owner Ky Boyd said he expects the same kind of feedback from the art exhibit series.
"This is another great opportunity for people to experience blockbuster exhibitions," he said. "Typically, you wouldn't have a chance to see these unless you live in a radius within the museum or are traveling in that part of the world."
A handful of art and movie lovers interviewed in New York City weren't quite as enthusiastic.
Megan Orr, 17, of Davis, Calif., who was visiting the Museum of Modern Art, said she would check out an art exhibit via the movies only if there was no possible way she could visit for herself.
"Honestly, I think the appeal of going to an art museum is that you can get up close ... and it feels a lot more emotional. And I'm a huge fan of Manet. I don't think it would have the same exact draw for me," she said.
Justin Liebergen, 31, an actor from Manhattan, who had just stepped out of a multiplex cinema in mid-Manhattan, said he saw the idea as only for the art aficionado.
"I haven't thought, 'Oh, I wish I could go to this exhibit at this place on the planet somewhere' without physically wanting to go there," he said. "If I wanted to see a photo I would go online. Computers today have every image of every museum on the planet."
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Public release date: 10-Apr-2013
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