Recalls

Spalding In-Ground Basketball Hoops Recalled

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Black & Decker Reissues Trimmer/Edger Recall

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Ross Stores Recalls Plant Stands

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Polaris Recalls Ranger Side-by-Side Vehicles

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Kaplan Recalls Baby Hammocks

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Nova Natural Toys Recalls Baby Hammocks

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~Sandy G.

High Cholesterol In Midlife Raises Risk Of Late-Life Dementia

Study shows even moderately elevated cholesterol level boosts dementia risk

By James Limbach, ConsumerAffairs.com

Elevated cholesterol levels in midlife -- even levels considered only borderline elevated -- significantly increase the risk of Alzheimer's disease and vascular dementia later in life, according to a new study by researchers at Kaiser Permanente's Division of Research and the University of Kuopio in Finland.

The four-decade study, appearing in the journal Dementia & Geriatric Cognitive Disorders, found that having high cholesterol in midlife (240 or higher milligrams per deciliter of blood) increases, by 66 percent, the risk for Alzheimer's disease later in life.

Even borderline cholesterol levels (200-239 mg/dL) in midlife raised risk for late-life vascular dementia by nearly the same amount: 52 percent. Vascular dementia, the second most common form of dementia after Alzheimer's disease, is a group of dementia syndromes caused by conditions affecting the blood supply to the brain. Scientists are still trying to pinpoint the genetic factors and lifestyle causes for Alzheimer's disease.

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~Sandy G.

CDC Makes Recommendations For Use Of Swine Flu Vaccine

Five key populations targeted for vaccine against novel influenza A (H1N1)

By James Limbach, ConsumerAffairs.com

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) is out with its recommendations on who should be vaccinated against swine flu.

The recommendations determine which groups of the population should be prioritized if the vaccine is initially available in extremely limited quantities.

The committee recommended the vaccination efforts focus on those who are at higher risk of disease or complications, those who are likely to come in contact with novel H1N1, and those who could infect young infants.

FOR COMPLETE STORY, PLEASE CLICK HERE.



~Sandy G.

Findings May Explain Gap in Cancer Survival

By RONI CARYN RABIN, The New York Times

Scientists say they have made a discovery that may help explain the racial gap in cancer survival, providing clues to why white patients often outlive blacks even when they have what appear to be the same cancers.

The insights come from research at the University of Maryland into throat cancer and squamous-cell cancers of the head and neck, which have been increasing sharply in recent years, apparently because of the human papillomavirus — the same sexually transmitted virus that causes cervical cancer and is the target of a vaccine for girls.

The virus can also be spread through oral sex, causing cancer of the throat and tonsils, or oropharyngeal cancer.

FOR COMPLETE STORY, PLEASE CLICK HERE.



~Sandy G.

Lack of Study Volunteers Hobbles Cancer Fight

By GINA KOLATA, The New York Times

Not long ago, at a meeting of an advisory group established by Congress to monitor the war on cancer, participants were asked how to speed progress.

“Everyone was talking about expanding the cancer work force and getting people to stop smoking,” said Dr. Scott Ramsey, a cancer researcher and health economist, who was participating in that January 2008 meeting of the President’s Cancer Panel. “Lots of murmurs of approval.”

Then it was his turn.

The biggest barrier, in his opinion, was that almost no adult cancer patients — just 3 percent — participate in studies of cancer treatments, mostly new drugs or drug regimens.

FOR COMPLETE STORY, PLEASE CLICK HERE.



~Sandy G.

Feds Announce New Food Safety Strategies

Steps outlined for leafy greens, tomatoes, melons and ground beef

By James Limbach, ConsumerAffairs.com

HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack have announced new strategies designed to safeguard the food Americans eat every day.

Three draft guidances prepared by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), an agency within HHS, are aimed at minimizing or eliminating contamination in leafy greens, tomatoes, and melons that can cause foodborne illnesses.

"These proposed controls provide a guide for growers and processors to follow so they may better protect their produce from becoming contaminated," Sebelius told a group of growers, consumers, businesses, food safety advocates, and others gathered at the Eastern Market, a public fresh-food market in Washington, D.C.

FOR COMPLETE STORY, PLEASE CLICK HERE.



~Sandy G.

Fender Recalls SWR Bass Amplifiers

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~Sandy G.

Recalls

Crosley, Frigidaire, Kelvinator, Kenmore, Wascomat, and White-Westinghouse Clothes Washers Recalled

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Little Tikes Recalls Clubhouse Swing Sets

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Domestications Recalls Bed Steps

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~Sandy G.

Lawsuit Seeks Warning Labels for Hot Dogs

Dangers of processed meat cited in class-action suit

By Jon Hood, ConsumerAffairs.com

Many modern-day baseball stadiums prohibit smoking, but cancerous danger apparently still lurks around the corner: an anti-meat consumer group alleges in a class-action that hot dogs pose serious health risks and need to carry warning labels.

The lawsuit was filed by The Cancer Project in Essex County, New Jersey on Wednesday. Among the named defendants are Nathan's Famous, the well-known hot dog chain; Kraft Foods, which manufactures Oscar Mayer wieners; Sara Lee; ConAgra, which makes Hebrew National franks; and Marathon, manufacturer of Sabrett, “the frankfurter New Yorker's [sic] relish.”

The plaintiffs envision a warning label similar to the one currently on cigarette packages. The wording would look something like: “Warning: Consuming hot dogs and other processed meats increases the risk of cancer.”

FOR COMPLETE STORY, PLEASE CLICK HERE.



~Sandy G.

House Passes Food Safety Bill

Measure to improve FDA wins on second try

By Martin H. Bosworth, ConsumerAffairs.com

The House of Representatives voted 283-142 to pass the Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009 (aka H.R. 2749), designed to improve the Food & Drug Administration's (FDA) ability to police food suppliers and processors for signs of foodborne illnesses and unsafe practices.

The bill was originally introduced on June 29, but failed on a vote of 280-150 as the rules required a two-thirds majority for passage. The bill was reintroduced today only requiring a simple majority to pass the chamber.

229 Democrats and 54 Republicans voted to pass the bill that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called "strong legislation that will protect lives and prevent illness."

FOR COMPLETE STORY, PLEASE CLICK HERE.



~Sandy G.

"Cash For Clunkers" Suspended

Program ran out of funding after four days

By Martin H. Bosworth, ConsumerAffairs.com

The much-vaunted "Car Allowances Rebate System" (CARS)--more popularly known as "Cash For Clunkers"--where buyers could trade in their old gas-guzzler for a $3,500 or $4,500 voucher towards a more eco-friendly car, has been suspended after less than a week and roughly 250,000 cars sold.

The program certified 22,782 car trades since Monday, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), but a survey of automobile dealers found that there was a backlog of 25,000 trades still awaiting clearance. The agency also rejected many claims due to illegible or incomplete paperwork, according to the Detroit Free Press.

Many auto dealers around the country were reporting brisk business as a result of the program, while others were claiming the procedure for approval was too difficult and was leaving them unable to make transactions.

FOR COMPLETE STORY, PLEASE CLICK HERE.



~Sandy G.

Apple: Jailbreaking Could Knock Out Transmission Towers

By JEREMY KIRK of IDG News Service\London Bureau

Apple has told the U.S. Copyright Office that modifying the iPhone's operating system could crash a mobile phone network's transmission towers or allow people to avoid paying for phone calls.

The claims are Apple's contribution to the Copyright Office's regular review of the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), a law that forbids the circumvention of copy control mechanisms.

Apple says that modification of the phone's software, a process known as jailbreaking, could lead to major network disruptions. Jailbreaking gets around the copyright control features that prohibit, for example, the installation of applications unapproved by Apple.

FOR COMPLETE STORY, PLEASE CLICK HERE.



~Sandy G.

Extra '&' in Microsoft development code gave hackers IE exploit

Company's security development expert confirms reports by outside researchers

By Gregg Keizer, ComputerWorld

Microsoft yesterday confirmed that a single superfluous character in its own development code is responsible for the bug that has let hackers exploit Internet Explorer (IE) since early July.

A pair of German researchers who analyzed a vulnerability in a Microsoft-made ActiveX control came to the same conclusion three weeks ago.

"The bug is simply a typo," Michael Howard, a principal security program manager in Microsoft's security engineering and communications group, said in a post Tuesday to the Security Development Lifecycle (SDL) blog. Howard, who is probably best known for co-authoring Writing Secure Code, went on to say that the typo -- an errant "&" character -- is the "core issue" in the MSVidCtl ActiveX control.

FOR COMPLETE STORY, PLEASE CLICK HERE.



~Sandy G.

Researcher reveals massive 'professional thieving' botnet

A nasty piece of malware that's infected up to a million PCs is stealing financial information from consumers and businesses at an alarming rate, a noted botnet researcher said today.

By Gregg Keizer, ComputerWorld

A ferocious piece of malware that's infected up to a million PCs is stealing a "tremendous" amount of financial information from consumers and businesses that log on to their bank, stock broker, credit card, insurance, job hunting and favorite e-shopping sites, a noted botnet researcher said today.

"Clampi is the most professional thieving pieces of malware I've ever seen," said Joe Stewart, director of malware research for SecureWorks' counter-threat unit. "We know of few others that are this sophisticated and wide-ranging. It's having a real impact on users."

The Clampi Trojan horse has infected anywhere between 100,000 and 1 million Windows PCs, said Stewart -- "We don't have a good way of counting at this point," he acknowledged -- and targets the user credentials of 4,500 Web sites.

FOR COMPLETE STORY, PLEASE CLICK HERE.



~Sandy G.

False-positive swindles grow rapidly online

Fake anti-virus programs set to rule the roost

By John E. Dunn, Techworld

The phenomenon of fake anti-virus (AV) software is growing at such a pace that it could grow to eclipse all other types of malicious software, one security company has suggested.

The Business of Rogueware, the latest threat report from PandaLabs, the research wing of Spanish AV company Panda Security, contains the usual round of statistics on malware growth found in all such vendor reports, but it is the section on rogue anti-virus that should make PC users sit up and pay attention.

In the first quarter of 2009, the company detected more bogus anti-virus files or variants than in the whole of 2008, 111,000 in total. Unconfirmed second quarter figures show that this rose during the second quarter to 374,000. This rise accords with similar statistics published last week by rival Sophos, which said that it was now detecting 15 new bogus AV sites a day, compared to five a day in the latter half of 2008.

FOR COMPLETE STORY, PLEASE CLICK HERE.



~Sandy G.

Recalls

Nutracoastal Recalls S-DROL, STEAM Dietary Supplements

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2005-2007 Hyundai Accent, Azera, Elantra, Sonata, Tucson Recalled

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Subaru Recalls 2005-2006 Baja

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~Sandy G.

Microsoft rushes patches to fix 'big deal' programming flaw

Developers who used the buggy code 'library' must redo software, update customers

By Gregg Keizer, ComputerWorld

As promised, Microsoft Corp. today patched six vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer and Visual Studio with the first "out-of-cycle" update since last October, when it plugged a hole that the Conficker worm later used to run rampant.

Microsoft has been working on the Visual Studio bugs, and coordinating with third-party developers who may have crafted vulnerable software using Visual Studio, since early 2008.

As some had speculated, Microsoft rushed the patches to users this week to preempt a presentation slated for tomorrow at Black Hat by several security researchers. The researchers plan to demonstrate a way for attackers to bypass the "kill-bit" defenses that Microsoft frequently deploys as a stop-gap measure for fixing bugs.

FOR COMPLETE STORY, PLEASE CLICK HERE.



~Sandy G.

Recalls

Enviro-Flo Fuel Containers Recalled

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Baby Bjorn Balance, Air Bouncer Chairs Recalled

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Reflections of Magic Mirrors Recalled

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~Sandy G.

Microsoft rushes clutch patch for 'deep' bug in Windows, third-party apps

Researchers say move may be tied to this week's Black Hat security conference

By Gregg Keizer, ComputerWorld

The emergency patches Microsoft plans to rush out this week will fix a flaw that runs through several critical components of Windows and an unknown number of third-party applications, according to a pair of security researchers.

On Tuesday, Microsoft will slap a permanent patch on a video streaming ActiveX control used by Internet Explorer (IE), addressing a vulnerability that it has known about, but not fixed, for more than a year. Two weeks ago, Microsoft issued a "kill bit" update that, rather than address the underlying problem, disabled the ActiveX control to stymie attacks that were already in progress. It's also slated a fix for Visual Studio, Microsoft's popular development platform.

Although Microsoft has not spelled out exactly what it will patch with the two "out-of-band" updates -- the term for security updates released outside the company's once-a-month schedule -- earlier this month researchers pointed fingers at the Active Template Library (ATL), a code "library" used not only by Microsoft's own developers, but also by third-party software programmers to access some features within Windows.

FOR COMPLETE STORY, PLEASE CLICK HERE.



~Sandy G.

The 10 most damaging botnets in the U.S.

America's 10 most wanted botnets ranked by size and strength

By Ellen Messmer, Network World

Botnet attacks are increasing, as cybercrime gangs use compromised computers to send spam, steal personal data, perpetrate click fraud and clobber Web sites in denial-of-service attacks. Here's a list of America's 10 most wanted botnets, based on an estimate by security firm Damballa of botnet size and activity in the United States.


No. 1: Zeus


3.6 million compromised U.S. computers. The Zeus Trojan uses key-logging techniques to steal sensitive data such as user names, passwords, account numbers and credit card numbers. It injects fake HTML forms into online banking login pages to steal user data.

No. 2: Koobface


2.9 million compromised U.S. computers. This malware spreads via social networking sites MySpace and Facebook with faked messages or comments from "friends." When a user is enticed into clicking on a provided link to view a video, the user is prompted to obtain a necessary update, like a codec -- but it's really malware that can take control over the computer.

FOR COMPLETE STORY, PLEASE CLICK HERE.



~Sandy G.