Wednesday, March 09, 2022

Uber, Lyft, DoorDash Panned for New Lobby Group to Fight Worker Rights

"Imagine if they spent all this money paying workers fairly instead of on propaganda to prevent them from having to pay workers fairly," Gig Workers Rising said of app-based companies.


Lyft driver Al Aloudi speaks to demonstrators during a March 25, 2019 San Francisco protest against the company's pay cuts and its announcement that it is going public on Friday.
 (Photo: Gabrielle Lurie/San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)


BRETT WILKINS
COMMON DREAMS
March 8, 2022

An app-based worker advocacy group on Tuesday decried companies including Uber, Lyft, and DoorDash for launching a new lobby group to fight federal and state-level efforts to protect workers and reclassify them as employees instead of independent contractors.

"There's nothing about working on an app, or having some flexibility in your work schedule that means people need to forfeit basic workers' rights."

The Hill reports the new lobby group, called Flex, will push back against Democrats' Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act, a sweeping bill that, if passed, would expand collective bargaining rights, improve access to union elections, and impose penalties on businesses that exploit their workers.

The group will also fight state-level legislation to classify app-based drivers and other workers as employees—a status that would confer minimum pay, healthcare, and other benefits denied to independent contractors.

"Imagine if they spent all this money paying workers fairly instead of on propaganda to prevent them from having to pay workers fairly," the advocacy group Gig Workers Rising tweeted about app-based companies in response to Flex's formation.

The Wall Street Journal notes that some of Flex's members were previously members of the Internet Association, a lobby group representing tech titans including Facebook and Google.

Critics accuse app-based companies of seeking to extract maximum profits from their workers without providing them with the basic benefits and protections due to employees.

At the state level, Lyft in December made the largest one-time political donation in Massachusetts history—$13 million—to a coalition launched to fund a ballot measure that, if passed, would deny drivers employee status.

Meanwhile, tech companies including Uber and Lyft are backing a bill seeking to prevent app-based drivers from being classified as employees in Washington state. The measure, H.B. 2076, passed the state House in February and is expected to face a Senate vote as soon as next week.

The Massachusetts and Washington battles closely mirror California's fight over Proposition 22, a measure approved by voters in November 2020 that exempts app-based driver companies from classifying their workers as employees.

In what was the costliest ballot initiative in California history, Uber, Lyft, and DoorDash collectively spent $160 million supporting Prop 22. The app-based companies also pushed drivers to vote "yes" on the measure, while some high-profile opponents of the bill endured intense harassment.

Computer security researcher and app-based worker advocate Katie Moussouris on Monday said people should not believe the "propaganda" of app-based companies "trying to classify drivers as anything less than full-time employees."

"There's nothing about working on an app, or having some flexibility in your work schedule," she tweeted, "that means people need to forfeit basic workers' rights."
'Shocking': Report Warns US Likely to Miss Modest Vaccine Donation Goal

"The Biden administration is not on track to meet its commitment of donating 1.2 billion vaccine doses this year. 

The White House quietly dropped the timeline in its new pandemic plan."

President Joe Biden tours the Pfizer Kalamazoo Manufacturing Site on February 19, 2021 in Portage, Michigan. 
(Photo: Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images)

JAKE JOHNSON
COMMON DREAMS
March 9, 2022

An analysis published Tuesday warns that the Biden administration is likely to miss its modest goal of donating more than 1 billion coronavirus vaccine doses to the world by the end of September, a concern the White House seemed to tacitly acknowledge last week by omitting the timeline from its new Covid-19 preparedness plan.

Authored by Zain Rizvi of Public Citizen and Jo Walker, a PhD student in Yale's Department of Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases, the new report finds that the Biden administration is set to fall short of its vaccine donation commitment "absent a surge of funding and political support for global vaccinations."

"By the end of February, the U.S. had shipped 474 million doses, donating doses at a rate of 60 million in recent months," the report notes. "To meet the 1.1 billion dose target, the U.S. would have to donate 626 million doses in seven months, or about 90 million doses per month. That would require increasing the donation rate by 50%."

The assessment comes as Covid-19 remains a serious threat worldwide, killing more than 7,000 people each day and wreaking havoc on health systems across the globe.

Experts have been warning since the start of the vaccine rollout that failure to achieve sufficient global inoculation against the coronavirus virtually guarantees that additional mutations will emerge and spread, prolonging the deadly pandemic and its far-reaching societal consequences.

According to the World Health Organization, nearly 90 countries are not on track to fully vaccinate 70% of their populations by the start of July 2022. The latest figures from Our World in Data indicate that just 13.6% of people in low-income countries have received at least one coronavirus vaccine dose as rich nations continue to hoard doses and key technology.

In an interview with the New York Times, Rizvi said it is "shocking" that the Biden administration is struggling to meet donation commitments that advocacy groups have criticized as inadequate. Public health campaigners have also criticized the Biden White House for focusing its attention largely on vaccine charity while neglecting technology transfer and global manufacturing.


In the new report, Rizvi and Walker note that "after a brief spike in December, donations in January and February lagged behind the required pace."

"The reason for the delay is unclear," the report states. "But it comes after a Politico story in June reported that the Biden administration had used more than a billion dollars intended to assist countries with vaccine distribution to pay for Pfizer vaccines."

Last month, Politico reported that the Biden administration is "running out of money to support the global vaccination push, and negotiations with Congress on securing new funding have stalled." Such cash shortages are an indication that "more delays may be coming," Rizvi and Walker write.

"Biden promised a war time effort against the virus," the report continues, alluding to president's vow to make the U.S. the "vaccine arsenal" of the world. "But a narrow reliance on donations, without a larger strategy on delivery and manufacturing, has undermined the global vaccination effort. The Biden administration can move forward by rapidly requesting additional funding from Congress to make ambitious investments in delivery and manufacturing. One million lives may be at stake."

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Rizvi and Walker's analysis was released days after the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) found that "while the U.S. has contributed far more [coronavirus vaccine doses] than any other donor, its rank falls considerably when standardized by GDP."

"The U.S. falls to 6th when ranked by pledged doses per $1 million GDP and is more in line, but still lower than, other large economies such as Germany and France," KFF notes. "By this measure, Bhutan ranks first, followed by the Maldives, Germany, France, New Zealand, and then the U.S."
A veteran who set up a business delivering Amazon packages says he feels trapped and can't shut down because of potentially high exit fees for returning Amazon's branded vans

insider@insider.com (Isobel Asher Hamilton) 
© Provided by Business Insider 
Amazon Prime delivery trucks. 
MARCO BERTORELLO/AFP via Getty Images

A veteran who started an Amazon delivery business told Protocol he wanted to shut it down.

He said he was afraid of exit fees he could owe Amazon if he terminated his contract.

He said Amazon charged for damages to the vans and the damages could run upward of $100,000.

A veteran who set up an independent business delivering packages for Amazon told Protocol he wanted to shut his business down but was too afraid of anticipated exit fees from Amazon.


Amazon's vast delivery network is partly made up of delivery service partners, third-party contracted firms that deliver the tech giant's packages to customers.

The veteran, along with other DSP owners who spoke with Protocol, said they were dependent on federal Paycheck Protection Program loans to bolster their income or they previously were.

The veteran told Protocol he wanted to close his business but was too scared of the exit fees he could incur.

"They make it extremely difficult for you to get out of the program," he said. "If I were to say, 'Hey, I can't do this anymore,' they write down every nick or scratch on a vehicle; the average person that tries to return the vehicle, you're looking at well over $100,000 of damages they are going to find in your fleet."


Amazon did not immediately comment when contacted by Insider about Protocol's report.

Amazon offers DSP owners a "flexible lease" option that lets them lease Amazon-branded vans from an unnamed "third party fleet management company."

The veteran set up his DSP after he saw an ad that specifically encouraged veterans to apply by saying the usual requirement for applicants to have $10,000 in startup cash could be waived for veterans, he told Protocol.

Protocol granted the veteran and other DSP owners it spoke with anonymity because they were afraid Amazon might retaliate against them.

Vice also published a report on Monday about Amazon DSP owners shutting down their businesses.

One delivery service partner told Vice she shut down her business in October because she was falling into debt and showed the publication an invoice for $64,465 for damages on 20 vans.

Delivery service partners have butted heads with Amazon before over the degree of control it exerts over them and their drivers.

A woman who started a DSP business filed a lawsuit against Amazon in January alleging the tech giant squeezed her profit margins with its performance standards.

That lawsuit said Amazon charged delivery service partners for returned vehicles through its van-leasing contractor when a DSP contract was terminated and that one person was charged "$19,000 in exit fees each for multiple vans."

CNN reported in September that two delivery service partners threatened litigation against Amazon over working conditions for their drivers. After the legal threat, Amazon terminated its contracts with them. They then filed a lawsuit against Amazon in October alleging it made "unreasonable" demands of their drivers, Bloomberg reported.
House lawmakers ask Justice Dept. to open criminal investigation into Amazon

Amazon said on Wednesday that there is "no factual basis" for accusations of criminal conduct concerning a federal investigation into the company's competition practices.
 File Photo by Jim Ruymen/UPI | License Photo


March 9 (UPI) -- House lawmakers asked the Justice Department on Wednesday to investigate online retail giant Amazon, saying that they believe some laws were broken when the company was testifying in Congress about its competition practices.

In a letter to the department, the House judiciary committee said that it's possible Amazon broke the law and "certain" that Amazon executives did a couple years ago when the panel's antitrust subcommittee was investigating tech companies' market dominance.

The panel sent the 24-page letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland, which asks the department to investigate Amazon for obstructing Congress or violating other federal laws.

"Amazon engaged in a pattern and practice of misleading conduct that appeared designed to influence, obstruct, or impede the committee's 16-month investigation into competition in digital markets," the committee said in a statement Wednesday.

Lawmakers on the panel also said that Amazon executives lied under oath.

"Amazon lied through a senior executive's sworn testimony that Amazon did not use any of the troves of data it had collected on its third-party sellers to compete with them," the letter states. "But credible investigative reporting showed otherwise."

The 2019-20 investigation looked into claims that Amazon used its digital platform to favor its own products above those from other vendors.

"After Amazon was caught in a lie and repeated misrepresentations, it stonewalled the committee's efforts to uncover the truth," the letter says.

Amazon has long denied the accusations.

"There's no factual basis for this, as demonstrated in the huge volume of information we've provided over several years of good faith cooperation with this investigation," an Amazon spokesperson said, according to The Hill.

Illinois zoo announces birth of critically endangered Amur leopard cubs

March 9 (UPI) -- The Niabi Zoo in Coal Valley, Ill., has announced the birth of two critically endangered Amur Leopard cubs, a male and a female.
The cubs are thriving the Niabi Zoo said on Facebook. A third cub was also born, however, the newborn was only able to survive a few days.

Amur Leopard cubs are the most critically endangered big cat in the world with fewer than 100 left, the zoo said. Only seven others were born in 2021.

The births come after the Niabi Zoo was chosen by the Amur Leopard Species Survival planning group as a partner in 2019. The zoo, following COVID-19 related delays, received Iona from the U.K. to breed with their male Amur leopard named Jilin.

Jilin and Iona are now first-time parents.


"We are honored and excited to have been able to contribute to such an important conservation program for such a critically endangered species. It speaks very well of the regard in which Niabi is held in the international conservation community, and to the expertise of the Niabi Zoo animal care staff," director Lee Jackson said in a statement.



First pig heart transplant recipient dies 2 months after surgery

The first person to receive a pig heart transplant has died, the hospital that carried out the surgery has said. David Bennett, 57, underwent the operation in January as he was ineligible for a human heart transplant.

The University of Maryland Medical Center (UMMC) in the US announced on Wednesday that David Bennett has died, roughly two months after becoming the first-ever human to receive a genetically modified pig's heart

"We are devastated by the loss of Mr. Bennett. He proved to be a brave and noble patient who fought all the way to the end. We extend our sincerest condolences to the family," said Bartley P. Griffith, who conducted the surgery.

Bennett received the heart transplant on January 7 and passed away on March 8.

"His condition began deteriorating several days ago. After it became clear that he would not recover, he was given compassionate palliative care. He was able to communicate with his family during his final hours," the statement from the hospital said.

First-of-its-king transplant

Bennett was admitted to UMMC in October in need of a heart transplant but was classified as ineligible for a conventional heart transplant.

To keep him alive, he was placed on a heart-lung bypass machine. The transplant was his last option.

The US Food and Drug Administration gave emergency authorization for doctors to carry out the pig-to-human heart transplant on December 31.

This first-of-its-kind surgery only recently became a valid option thanks to developments in gene editing tools. The heart given to Bennett had been genetically modified to prevent rejection.

Experts have long looked to pig organs as a potential source for transplants due to their similarity with humans, but organ rejection and increased viral infection risk meant that prior efforts had failed.

Doctors still 'optimistic' about pig-to-human transplants

Bennett's son called the procedure a "miracle." His new heart functioned "very well for several weeks without any signs of rejection," the hospital said on Wednesday.

"Before consenting to receive the transplant, Mr. Bennett was fully informed of the procedure's risks, and that the procedure was experimental with unknown risks and benefits," the statement added.

Doctors at the UMMC said that despite the loss, the experience had helped them learn and they "remain optimistic and plan on continuing our work in future clinical trials," Muhammad Mohiuddin, director of the university's cardiac xenotransplantation program, said.

"We have gained invaluable insights learning that the genetically modified pig heart can function well within the human body while the immune system is adequately suppressed." 

ab/msh (dpa, AFP, Reuters)


Biden’s inflation plan upends thinking on jobs sent overseas
By JOSH BOAK

President Joe Biden speaks in the South Court Auditorium on the White House campus, March 4, 2022, in Washington. Biden has a solution for high inflation that seems counterintuitive: Bring factory jobs back to the U.S. This challenges a decades-long argument that employers moved jobs abroad to lower their costs by relying on cheaper workers. 
(AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File)


WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden has a solution for high inflation that seems counterintuitive: Bring factory jobs back to the U.S.

This challenges a decades-long argument that employers moved jobs abroad to lower their costs by relying on cheaper workers. The trend contributed to the loss of 6.8 million U.S. manufacturing jobs, but it also translated into lower prices for consumers and put downward pressure on inflation in ways that kept broader economic growth going.

It was a trade-off that many corporate and political leaders were privately comfortable making.

Now, with inflation at a 40-year high, the president has begun to argue that globalization is stoking higher prices. That’s because proponents of outsourcing failed to consider the costs of increasingly frequent global supply chain disruptions. Recent disruptions have included the COVID-19 pandemic, shortages of basic goods like semiconductors, destructive storms and wildfires and, now, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which has sent oil prices soaring.

Biden says the federal government can pursue two courses on inflation. It can either pull back on support and cause wages and growth to cool, or it can get rid of the pressure points that can lead to inflation when emergencies and uncertainties occur.

“We have a choice,” Biden said Friday when announcing plans by Siemens USA to add 300 jobs. “The way to fight inflation is to drive down wages and make Americans poorer or have a better plan to fight inflation: Lower costs and not your wages.”

The president then unspooled his thinking that more manufacturing of semiconductors inside the U.S. would lead to more cars and other products being produced domestically. That would fill the supply chain and, in theory, bring prices down.

But this plan would take years to implement and the consumer price report being released Thursday is expected to show that annual inflation rose to nearly 8% last month, according to the financial data firm FactSet.

Biden’s challenge is that he’s got long-term plans on inflation to address pain that consumers are feeling each day, said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president of the center-right American Action Forum, who described Biden’s plan as “optics.”

“Semiconductor manufacturing facilities take years to build,” he said. “Inflation’s here now, and it’s it’s an issue now.”

Biden’s assertion sets up an ideological battle with Republicans, who blame the president’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package for being excessive and flushing more cash into the U.S. economy than was needed. GOP lawmakers have said inflation — up from recent averages of about 2% — is entirely the president’s fault, while the administration is trying to say the bigger problem rests with the structure of the global economy.

House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy and others said last week that inflation — especially for gasoline — was the key source of the nation’s angst ahead of this year’s midterm elections.

“You don’t need a speech to know what the state of the union is. You feel it every time you go to the grocery store and the gas pump,” McCarthy said on Twitter.

Critics see this new Biden effort as largely an attempt at political damage control, rather than a data-driven approach to reducing inflation.

“It’s primarily about optics,” said Scott Lincicome, director of economics and trade at the libertarian Cato Institute. “The Biden administration clearly knows that inflation is a political albatross. And they are looking for anything and everything to show American voters that they have a plan to fix the problem.”

Lincicome argues that the vast majority of inflation is caused by Federal Reserve efforts to boost growth, Biden’s relief package and the general challenges of restarting an economy after the pandemic. Restoring factory jobs that went elsewhere would not address those challenges and any arguments for that are based on the belief that supply chain disruptions have become a permanent feature of the global economy, he says.

“Global supply chains lower costs and increase efficiency,” Lincicome said. “The idea that reshoring will somehow lower costs assumes a permanent pandemic situation and that’s just not reality.”

The Biden administration, for its part, is making that exact argument — supply chain disruptions are becoming more common and weighing on prices in ways that companies previously failed to consider.

The White House contends that the existing setup of the U.S. economy makes it vulnerable to disruptions that drive up prices. When companies first sent jobs overseas, they failed to fully account for the possible setbacks and challenges that can occur overtime with distant factories.

People were not accounting for increased “risks and disruption, and they weren’t thinking about five-, 10-year horizons,” said Sameera Fazili, deputy director of the White House National Economic Council. “They were looking at minimizing costs over a one-year horizon, two-year horizon.”

The administration is basing its argument, in part, on analyses done by the McKinsey Global Institute. A 2020 report by the institute found that companies will likely experience supply chain disruptions lasting a month or longer every 3.7 years, which increases costs and cuts into profits.

The risks examined in the report range from a “supervolcano” to a “common” cyberattack. There are political risks as well, as 29% of all global trade in 2018 came from countries ranked in the bottom half of political stability by the World Bank, an increase from 16% in 2000.
HUD says Texas discriminated against communities of color with flood aid

By Andrew Zhang & Joshua Fechter, The Texas Tribune
MARCH 8, 2022 / 

Rescue workers bring in a family through rising flood waters in the Cypress Station neighborhood as waters rise during Tropical Storm Harvey in Houston on August 28, 2017. File Photo by Jerome Hicks/UPI | License Photo

March 8 (UPI) -- A Texas agency discriminated against communities of color when it denied more than $1 billion in federal relief funds sought by Houston and Harris County to help hard-hit areas recover from Hurricane Harvey, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development found.

The Texas General Land Office -- the agency charged with distributing approximately $2 billion in federal funds for future flood preparation -- initially awarded Houston and Harris County nothing when deciding where to send the money. At the time, local officials blasted the state agency, headed by Land Commissioner George P. Bush, for denying much-needed aid and called on the federal government to intervene.


HUD officials said the state agency's method of doling out the funds "discriminated on the basis of race and national origin" and "substantially and predictably disadvantaged minority residents, with particularly disparate outcomes for Black residents," according to a Friday letter detailing the result of a HUD probe. The land office is in violation of the Civil Rights Act as well as federal housing law, federal housing officials said.

"Quite frankly, it's what those of us at the city and at Harris County have been saying for quite some time," Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said Tuesday.

Bush, who was born in Houston, is in the middle of a fierce runoff in the Republican primary for Texas attorney general against incumbent Ken Paxton. During the race, several of Bush's opponents have criticized his office's work in distributing the relief funds. Despite making it into the runoff, Bush placed third in Harris County in the March 1 primary.


Brittany Eck, a spokeswoman for the land office, said in a statement that HUD was politicizing the mitigation plan and the land office administered its program in accordance with the department's guidance.

"The GLO is considering all options, including legal action against HUD, to release this iron-fisted grip on mitigation funding and restore the pipeline of funds to communities," Eck said.

Local officials, meanwhile, applauded HUD's finding.

"It's not complicated: Harris County was ground zero for the heartbreaking impacts of Hurricane Harvey, and continues to be exceedingly vulnerable," Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo said in a statement. "The share of mitigation funds we receive from the federal government should reflect that reality."

The letter, which was first reported by The Houston Chronicle, is the latest turn in the drawn-out process to deliver relief for communities wrecked by Hurricane Harvey more than four years ago. Congress approved $4.3 billion for Texas in 2018, and about half of it remains undistributed.

The federal relief awarded to Texas is distributed through Bush's office. During the initial round of funding announced last year, the land office required communities seeking money to submit project proposals that were scored against a matrix with a variety of factors because of limited funding. Harris County's submissions did not score high enough to receive funding in the competition against other local entities, but county officials said the area's large population put them at a disadvantage.

Following the initial outcry after Texas' largest metro area was denied any federal funds, Bush called for the federal government to give $750 million directly to Harris County.

In June, Texas Housers, a nonprofit housing advocacy group, and Northeast Action Collective, an advocacy group formed to push for greater investment in flood mitigation after Hurricane Harvey, submitted a civil rights complaint to HUD alleging that the funding was distributed to white neighborhoods in lieu of Black and Hispanic neighborhoods that needed the money.

"Tragically yet predictably, the GLO's decision that violated civil rights laws delayed the award of badly needed funds to areas of our state at risk of future disaster," David Wheaton, advocacy director for Texas Housers, said in a video statement published Tuesday. "This delay is the sole fault of the GLO."

As the process continued to drag, HUD halted the approximately $2 billion in aid money in January after it said the land office had not submitted proper paperwork on its funding plan -- an announcement that an agency spokesperson called a political move. Then, Harris County officials asked the local congressional delegation to send future disaster relief money directly to large counties instead of routing it through a state agency.

The report said that if the land office does not voluntarily resolve the issue with a clear timetable for implementation, the department may initiate administrative proceedings or refer the matter to the U.S. Justice Department.

Disclosure: The Texas General Land Office has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a non-profit, non-partisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune. Read the original here. The Texas Tribune is a non-profit, non-partisan media organization that informs Texans -- and engages with them -- about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.

Study offers more evidence that education protects against dementia

By HealthDay News

A new study reinforces the idea that education can prevent or delay the onset of dementia. 
Photo by stevepb/Pixabay

Not everyone who becomes forgetful as they age develops dementia, and a new study suggests that those with college degrees and advanced language skills are likely to get better.

Mild cognitive impairment, or MCI, is an early stage of memory loss marked by lapses in memory and thinking problems that don't interfere with everyday life.

While people with MCI are more likely to develop dementia than folks who don't have these early memory lapses, some improve and return to normal.

"Although many people assume that if they develop mild cognitive impairment they will inevitably progress to dementia, we found encouraging evidence that this is not so," said study author Suzanne Tyas, an associate professor of public health sciences at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada.

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Education and language skills can help predict who will go on to develop dementia and who won't, the study found.

"These factors reflect exercise for the brain, and our work suggests they may be indicators of cognitive reserve," Tyas said. But exactly how cognitive reserve helps protect from dementia is not fully understood yet.

"One possible mechanism is neural compensation, where the brains of those individuals with higher levels of cognitive reserve may, by using alternate brain networks, be more able to compensate for the brain changes that originally led to mild cognitive impairment," Tyas explained.

The researchers analyzed data on 619 U.S. Catholic nuns, age 75 and up, in a long-running study of aging and Alzheimer's disease.

The nuns took tests measuring memory and other mental skills for up to 12 years or until they died.

A total of 472 women were diagnosed with MCI during the study, and about a third -- 143 -- regained their normal memory level at least once during an average 8.5 years after diagnosis. Nearly 84% of these 143 nuns never developed dementia.

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Another third did progress to dementia without ever reverting to normal thinking and memory skills, while 3% stayed in the MCI stage, and 36% of the nuns died.

The participants who earned a bachelor's degree had more than double the chances of getting their memory back compared to those with a grade school or high school education.

Nuns who had a master's degree or more advanced education were even more likely to regain their normal thinking skills after an MCI diagnosis, the study found.

The findings also offer reassurance for folks without such high levels of formal education, Tyas said.

Language skills, including those reflected in high grades in English class or in strong writing skills, also protected against dementia, the study found.

Those who had high grades in English but not in other subjects were almost twice as likely to improve after MCI as to develop dementia.

What's more, participants with strong writing skills based on number of ideas expressed were four times more likely to improve than progress to dementia, the study showed. This effect was even stronger for those whose writing used complex grammatical structure, Tyas said.

"Language is a complex function of the brain, so it makes sense that strong language skills were also protective, and this effect was even stronger than for education," Tyas said.

In addition to having high levels of education and solid language skills, nuns who were younger than 90 and didn't carry certain genetic risk factors associated with Alzheimer's disease, the most common type of dementia, were also more likely to see a return of their memory.

The bottom line? "It's encouraging that our findings show there are multiple factors that improve your chance of regaining cognitive function after experiencing mild cognitive impairment," Tyas said.

The findings were published this month in the journal Neurology.

Dr. Kenneth Langa, a dementia researcher at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, called the study "interesting and well-done."

Many people with MCI will get better on their own, said Langa, who was not part of the study.

"These findings are in line with other studies, but this study's careful measurement and long period of follow-up provide additional confidence in the results," he said.

These findings should be taken into account when considering treatment, Langa said.

"The fact that a significant number of individuals with MCI will not go on to dementia, even in the absence of any treatment, increases the risk for overdiagnosis and potential overtreatment among those with MCI," he said.

More information

The Alzheimer's Association has information about reducing your risk for Alzheimer's disease.

Copyright © 2021 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

Shift work linked with memory, brain function problems, study finds

A new study links night-shift work with memory and other brain problems, which researchers said may contribute to increased risk for workplace injuries and errors. Photo by dayamay/Pixabay

March 8 (UPI) -- Night-shift work can cause memory and other brain function problems, an analysis published Tuesday by the journal Occupational and Environmental Medicine found.

It is also associated with lower levels of alertness and visual focus, as well as declines in the ability to control impulses and situational response, the researchers said.

This could potentially raise the risk for workplace injuries and errors, they said.


Based on data from 18 studies that collectively included more than 18,000 participants, researchers found that night-shift workers had lower scores on tests designed to measure impulse control and situational response, or decision-making ability.

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Night-shift workers also scored slightly lower on tests assessing brain processing speed, working memory, alertness and ability to filter out unimportant visual clues, the data showed.

"Our findings suggest an association between shift work and decreased cognitive functions such as working memory," study co-author Thomas Vlasak told UPI in an email.

This "may ultimately contribute to work-related injuries and errors leading to potential implications for occupational health and safety especially for high-risk and safety-sensitive professions," said Vlasak, a member of the scientific staff at Sigmund Freud Private University in Linz, Austria.

Previous studies have linked shift work with sleep problems and other serious health complications, including heart disease, obesity, diabetes, mood disorders and substance abuse.

Working outside the normal day-night cycle interferes with the body's internal clock, or circadian rhythm, because it results in affected people sleeping "out of step" with the normal light-dark cycle, Vlasak and his colleagues said.

Interference with the circadian rhythm affects production of the hormones that govern it, such as cortisol and melatonin, which impacts stress response and mental and physical health, they said.

For this analysis, the Austrian researchers reviewed data from 18 studies published between 2005 and 2020 that collectively enrolled 18,802 working adults who had an average age of 35.

Five of the studies compared workers in fixed shifts with those working normal office hours, while 11 compared workers in rotating shifts with those working normal office hours and two did not specify shift type.

Half of the studies included healthcare professionals while the other half focused on different professions, such as police officers.

Based on the findings, companies who engage shift-workers should consider protective countermeasures such as scheduled naps, recovery plans and regular employee monitoring to minimize potential health effects, the researchers said.

"Studies suggest that managing healthy sleep patterns outside of shift work, taking naps when working overnight, following a healthy diet and controlled exposure to light during and after work can help to minimize risks," Vlasak said.