April 6. 2005
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Page B2
H ealth
Poll: Most
Americans
Sleep Poorly
(A P ) - G etting a good night’s
sleep is hard for many adults and
that often m eans poorer health,
low er productivity on the job. more
d an g er on the roads and a less
vibrant sex life.
“ By 3 to 4 in the afternoon. I’m
starting to feel brain-drained and I
need that caffeine to pick me back
up again,” said Becky M cerien, 50,
*
Experts Urge Routine HIV Tests for All
Not a good
night’s sleep
An increasing number of
adults are experiencing at
least some difficulty sleeping,
according to a recent survey
Percentage of respondents
reporting any symptom of
a sleep problem*
74°
75% |
2005
• a lew nights a week or more, based on
a survey ol 1.506 adults with a margin ol
ofPhiladelphia.
sampling error or » 2 5 percentage points
She gets about 6.5 hours o f sleep
a night - slightly less than the adult SOURCE Nalional Sleep Foundation AP
average o f 6.9 hours reported by V a., wakes up at 4 a. m. so he can get
a head start on his w ork day and
the National Sleep Foundation.
M any experts say adults need a says he som etim es gets drow sy
m inim um o f seven to nine hours o f during his com m ute into W ash-
ington.
sleep a night.
“ W hen I sleep in a little bit
A poll for the foundation, re­
leased T u esd ay , in d icates that longer, it m akes me a safer driver,”
three-quarters o f adults say they said M cC allian, w ho gets six to
frequently have a sleep problem , eight hours o f sleep a night.
It’s not ju st how m uch sleep a
such as w aking during the night or
person
gets, but the quality o f sleep
snoring.
M ost people ignore the problem that m atters, the report said.
Som e o f the n atio n ’s sleep hab ­
and few think they actually have
its
can be attributed to an alw ays-
one. Only h alf o f those polled were
o
n
-
th e -g o so c ie ty , sa id C h ris
able to say they slept well on most
D
rake,
senior scientist at the H enry
nights.
“ I get w hat I need to function,” Ford H ospital Sleep C enter in D e­
said G uillerm o S ardina, 55, of troit and co-chairm an o f the 2005
Ham ilton, N J ., who averages six or poll task force.
“ In an increasing 24-hour soci­
se v en h o u rs a n ig h t. "1 sleep
ety,
people are staying up m uch
through the night. I'm a sound
later,”
he said. "T hey can go to a
sleeper. ... I d o n 't even rem em ber
24-hour
pharm acy or superm arket.
my dream s.”
T
hey
can
do anything at any tim e
O ne-fourth o f adults say sleep
o
f
the
night
and day. T hat can
problem s have some im pact on their
im
pact
on
peo
p le’s decisions to
daily lives.
stay
up
later
w
atching
TV , doing
Richard G elula, the foundation’s
w
ork,
being
on
the
Internet.”
CEO , said there’s a link betw een
M ary C uffee, 64, o f W ashing­
sleep and quality o f life.
ton,
says she stays up w atching
“People w ho sleep well, in gen­
TV
and
has a stressful job. For her,
eral, are happier and healthier,” he
se
v
e
n
h o u r s o f s le e p a r e n ’t
said. “ B ut w hen sleep is poor or
enough.
She says she needs at
inadequate, people feel tired or fa­
least
10.
tigued, their social and intim ate re­
The study fo u n d :
lationships suffer, w ork productiv­
•
Six in 10 adult motorists said
ity is negatively affected, and they
they
have driven w hile drowsy in
m ake our roads m ore dangerous by
the
past
year: 4 percent reported
driving w hile sleepy and less alert."
that
they
have had an accident or
Sym ptom s o f a sleep problem
near-accident
because they were
include difficulty falling asleep,
too
tired
or
actually
fell asleep while
w aking a lot during the night, w ak­
ing up too early and not being able driving.
•Three-fourths said their partner
to get back to sleep, w aking up
has
a sleep problem , and the most
feeling unrefreshed, snoring, un­
pleasant feelings in the legs or com m on is snoring.
On the net at National Sleep Foun­
pauses in breathing.
D arw in M cCallian, 51, o f Burke, dation: w w w .sleep fo u n dation.org
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(AP) - Urging a major shift in U.S.
policy, som e health experts are rec­
om m ending that virtually all Ameri­
cans be tested routinely for the
AID S virus, much as they are for
cancer and other diseases.
Since the early years o f the AIDS
epidem ic in the 1980s, the govern­
ment has recom m ended screening
only in big cities, w here A ID S rates
are high, and am ong m em bers o f
high-risk groups, such as gay m en
and drug addicts.
But tw o large, federally funded
studies found that the cost o f rou­
tinely testing and treating nearly all
adults w ould be outw eighed by a
reduction in new infections and the
o p p ortunity to start patients on
drug cocktails early, when they work
best.
“G iven the availability o f effec­
tive therapy and preventive m ea­
sures, it is possible to im prove care
and perhaps influence the course
o f th e ep id em ic th ro u g h w ide-
Nurse Scherri Rucker-Graves sets up an HIV test in a Atlantic City mobile van exam room. (AP photo)
spread, effective and cost-effec-
tiv e screen in g ,” Dr. S am uel A.
B ozzette w rote in an editorial ac-
( A P) — A ccusations by Islam ic
preachers that vaccines are part o f
an A m erican anti-Islam ic plot are
th reaten in g efforts to com bat a
m easles epidem ic that has killed
h u n d red s o f N ig erian ch ild ren ,
health w orkers say.
G overnm ent officials play down
the anti-vaccine sentim ent, but all
the m easles deaths have been in
N igeria’s north, w here authorities
had to suspend polio im m uniza­
tions last year after hard-line clerics
fanned sim ilar fears o f that vaccine.
Nigeria, whose 130 million people
m ake it A frica’s m ost populous
nation, has recorded 20,859 measles
cases so far this year. At least 589
victim s have died, m ost o f them
children younger than 5 and all in
the north, the N igerian Red Cross
and the U.N. W orld H ealth O rgani­
zation say.
Southern N igeria, which is mainly
C hristian, had only 253 m easles
cases, and no deaths.
H ealth services are much better
in the south. But the anti-vaccina­
tion sentim ent in the north, evident
from interviews with parents, seems
to be a factor.
“Since the polio controversy, 1
have not presented any o f my ch il­
dren for im m unization because my
Mohamed Nasir carries his one year-old child Rukaiyya Nasir and
shows the skin problem on her as a result o f suffering from measles
as he and others wait to see the doctor at the Kano state
government hospital in Kano, Nigeria, Monday March 21. (AP Photo)
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husband said 1 should not,” said
R am atou M oham m ed, w ho w as at
A bdullahi W ase H ospital seeking
treatm ent for her baby, M iriam , for
a m easles rash.
“ I heard on the radio that the
vaccine w as contam inated. 1 still
d o n ’t trust any vaccine,” the 28-
year-old m other o f four added.
H er view s w ere echoed by o th­
ers in the w aiting room at the h o s­
pital in Kano, w hich is in the w orst-
hit state, w ith nearly 7,000 cases,
including 155 deaths, since Jan. 1.
In 2003, Islam ic clericsclaim ed
the U nited States w as using polio
vaccine to sterilize M uslim s or co n ­
tam inate them with the AID S virus.
T hey ordered a boycott in m es­
sages dissem inated from m osques,
in radio broadcasts and by door-to-
d o o r cam paigning.
T he U.S. Em bassy called the
claim s “absolutely ridiculous.”
But three pow erful state g over­
nors in the north jo in e d the polio
b o y co tt, an d it d rag g e d on 11
m o n th s b e fo re a u th o ritie s p e r­
suaded the governors in July to
accept vaccine b ought from the
predom inantly M uslim nation of
Indonesia.
By then the num ber o f poliocases
in N igeria had risen fivefold, and
the crippling disease had spread to
nine other A frican countries w here
it previously had been eradicated.
N ow there are fears the anti-vac­
cine sentim ent could also affect the
m easles outbreak.
Last year, W H O recorded 24,363
Nigerian measles cases from Janu­
ary to September. T hat is not many
more than this year, and officials say
som e states have not yet reported
cases for M arch, w hich is generally
the peak o f m easles season.
A big surge would be a blow to
W HO, w hich had hoped to bring
m easles under control this year.
Across Africa, m easles deaths fell
from 873,000in 1999tojust more than
500,000 - or half the global total - in
2003, according to the U.N. health
agency’s m ost recent statistics.
Som e clerics have added the
m easles vaccine to their cam paign
against im m unizations.
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