People who don't believe in God may get better sleep, study says

Atheists and agnostics are much more likely to sleep like an angel than Catholics and Baptists, a new study finds.

It included more than 1,500 participants in the Baylor University Religion Survey who were asked about their religious affiliation, behaviors and beliefs, as well as their average nightly sleep time and difficulty getting to sleep.

While 73% of atheists and agnostics said they got seven or more hours of nightly sleep, only 63% of Catholics and only 55% of Baptists said they got at least seven hours of sleep a night, preliminary data show.

Seven or more hours of sleep a night is recommended by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, or AASM, for good health.

RELATED Report: Humanists and non-religious people face discrimination in 8 countries

Catholics and Baptists were also more likely to report having difficulty falling asleep than atheists and agnostics.

Study participants who said they slept seven or more hours per night were much more likely to believe that they would get into heaven, compared to those who got less sleep.

However, beliefs about getting into heaven weren't linked with difficulty falling asleep at night.

RELATED Finding purpose in life can improve health, study says

The researchers said that better sleep results in a more optimistic outlook and that in this study, that manifested as people believing they'd get into heaven.

"Mental health is increasingly discussed in church settings -- as it should be -- but sleep health is not discussed," said study author Kyla Fergason, a student at Baylor University in Waco, Texas.

"Yet we know that sleep loss undercuts many human abilities that are considered to be core values of the church: being a positive member of a social community, expressing love and compassion rather than anger or judgment, and displaying integrity in moral reasoning and behavior," Fergason said in AASM news release.

RELATED More Americans choosing no religion, may lack community connection

"Could getting better sleep help some people grow in their faith or become better Christians? We don't know the answer to that question yet, but we do know that mental, physical and cognitive health are intertwined with sleep health in the general population," she noted.

The findings were recently published in an online supplement of the journal Sleep, and were presented last week at the virtual annual meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies.

More information

RELATED WWII: No atheists in foxholes, or even 50 years later

The National Sleep Foundation has more on sleep.

Copyright 2020 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

upi.com/7035781

New bio-containment unit protects health workers from COVID-19

A new individual bio-containment unit can protect healthcare workers lacking PPE from COVID-19 infection, a new study has found. Photo courtesy of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center

Sept. 3 (UPI) -- A new individual bio-containment unit designed to protect healthcare workers from COVID-19 blocks 99.99% of the airborne respiratory droplets that spread the virus, a study published Thursday by the journal Annals of Emergency Medicine found.

The unit is intended for use at facilities with coronavirus patients, particularly those in which personal protective equipment, or PPE, is in short supply, according to the researchers from the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command's Army Research Laboratory, who developed it.

It's designed to protect staff member as they intubate patients who require mechanical ventilation support to breathe, the researchers said.

Intubation involves inserting a breathing tube down a patient's throat, and places doctors and nurses at risk for infection as viral particles are released into the air during the process, they said.

RELATED CDC: Nearly 30% of health workers with COVID-19 didn't know they had it

"The ability to isolate COVID-19 patients at the bedside is key to stopping viral spread in medical facilities and onboard military ships and aircraft," Cameron Good, a research scientist at the Army Research Laboratory, said in a statement.

Earlier attempts to minimize exposure to healthcare workers involved placing a plexiglass intubation box over a patient's head and shoulders, according to Good and his colleagues.

RELATED PPE shortages, little guidance plague home health workers during pandemic

However, the device wasn't able to keep aerosol droplets from leaking out and exposing caregivers to the virus, they said.

Because of concerns about the potential of airborne viruses to leak from the plexiglass boxes, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration recently revoked its Emergency Use Authorization for these enclosures.

The individual bio-containment unit is designed to suck contaminated air out of the box with a vacuum and trap infectious particles in a filter before they seep into the room.

RELATED Study: COVID-19 risk 3 times higher for front-line health workers

For this study, researchers used a simulated patient -- a mannequin placed inside the unit -- and piped in an oil-based aerosol, which formed tiny droplets in the air, similar in size to the virus particles in breath that spread COVID-19, the researchers said.

The unit trapped more than 99.99% of the simulated virus-sized particles and prevented them from escaping into the environment, they said.

In contrast, outside of the passive intubation box, maximum aerosol concentrations were observed to be more than three times higher than inside the box, the simulation showed.

In addition to protecting providers during intubation, the unit also can provide negative pressure isolation of awake COVID-19 patients, supplying an alternative to scarce negative pressure hospital isolation rooms, as well as helping isolate patients on military vessels, the researchers said.

"Having a form of protection that doesn't work is more dangerous than not having anything, because it could create a false sense of security," said co-author David Turer, a plastic surgeon who recently completed his residency at the University of Pittsburgh and now is at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center.

Turer and colleagues submitted an emergency use authorization application for the individual bio-containment unit to the FDA several months ago, and they are preparing to manufacture the devices for distribution.

If the agency grants the authorization, hospitals and military units will be able to use the device to protect healthcare workers caring for COVID-19 patients.

"It intentionally incorporates parts from outside the medical world," Turer said. "So, unlike other forms of PPE, demand is unlikely to outstrip supply during COVID-19 surge periods."

Study: Mexico, U.S. have had most health workers die of COVID-19

Registered nurse Wendy Gould inspects N95 masks at Saint Louis University Hospital in St. Louis, Mo., on April 23. Amnesty's report Thursday said about 1,100 front-line health workers in the United States have died from COVID-19. File Photo by Bill Greenblatt/UPI | License Photo

Sept. 3 (UPI) -- More front-line workers have died of COVID-19 in Mexico and the United States than any other nations, according to a report by Amnesty International Thursday.

Amnesty's report said at least 7,000 health workers worldwide have died so far, with Mexico and the United States combining to account for nearly one-third of that total. The report cites about 1,300 front-line worker deaths in Mexico and 1,100 in the United States.
The nations with the next-highest tolls are Britain (649), Brazil (634), Russia (631) and India (573).

"For over seven thousand people to die while trying to save others is a crisis on a staggering scale," Amnesty International Head of Economic and Social Justice Steve Cockburn said in a statement. "Every health worker has the right to be safe at work, and it is a scandal that so many are paying the ultimate price."

Cockburn called for "global cooperation to ensure all health workers are provided with adequate protective equipment, so they can continue their vital work without risking their own lives."

The human rights organization said many of the deaths in Mexico were among hospital cleaners, who are especially vulnerable to infection due to a lack of protective gear.

The Mexican government has insisted for months that hospital workers have enough protective equipment, but medics have staged several protests in Mexico City to display what they called substandard gear.

Officials at the Pan American Health Organization said this week health workers have so far accounted for one in every seven COVID-19 cases in the United States and Mexico.

"We have the highest number of healthcare workers infected in the world," organization Director Carissa Etienne said. "Our data shows that nearly 570,000 health workers across our region have fallen ill and more than 2,500 have succumbed to the virus."

Etienne said scarce supplies of protective equipment early in the pandemic and slow implementation of triage protocols later contributed to the high infection rate among front-line workers, as hospitals became overcrowded and exposed them to the virus.

RELATED Study: COVID-19 risk 3 times higher for front-line health workers

Korean doctors call off strike, reach agreement with government

Health Minister Park Neung-hoo (R) and Choi Dae-zip, head of the Korean Medical Association, shake hands after signing an agreement Friday to end a nationwide strike by trainee doctors. Photo by Yonhap


SEOUL, Sept. 4 (UPI) -- Thousands of striking South Korean doctors are ready to return to work as the Korean Medical Association and the ruling Democratic Party came to an agreement Friday that put a halt to the government's medical reform plans.

South Korean interns and residents have been on strike since Aug. 21 in response to governments plans introduced in July that would have increased medical school admission quotas by 4,000 over the next decade.

CRAFT UNIONISM

The five-point agreement signed Friday morning by the KMA and DP said discussions would start from scratch after the COVID-19 pandemic subsides, with special commissions to be formed that include doctors, politicians and health officials.

Later in the day, KMA President Choi Dae-zip signed another agreement with Health Minister Park Neung-hoo to end the strike and call on trainee doctors to return to work.

RELATED Seoul lawmaker backtracks suggestion doctors be sent to North Korea

South Korean President Moon Jae-in reacted with relief on Friday, saying the agreement would "greatly reduce the public's anxiety" over the strike during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

"I now look forward to the government and the medical community working together to overcome the severe situation of the coronavirus," he said in remarks relayed by presidential spokesman Kang Min-seok.

South Korea has been battling a surge in COVID-19 cases since mid-August linked to outbreaks at a conservative Presbyterian church and a large anti-government rally held in Seoul.

RELATED South Korea president threatens action against doctors on strike

The country has seen triple-digit daily infection numbers for the past three weeks, with widespread clusters and untraceable cases alarming health officials.

On Friday, South Korea reported 198 COVID-19 cases, continuing a slowing trend in new infections over recent days. Health officials decided to extend heightened social distancing rules for another week in the Seoul area, restricting restaurant operating hours and requiring chain coffee outlets to offer take-out service only.

Moon said he hoped the agreement between doctors and the government would "be the foundation for a better future."

"I hope this will be an opportunity to advance our healthcare system to the next level," he said.

The government has argued that reforms are necessary to prepare for future public health emergencies such as another pandemic, as well as to help rectify a regional imbalance between medical care available in Seoul and the rest of the country.

In addition to adding new doctors, the government had planned to establish a new public medical school, extend national health insurance coverage to Korean traditional medicine and expand telemedicine services.

CRAFT UNIONISM
Doctors and medical students have countered that South Korea does not need more doctors but a better distribution of existing resources across specialties and geographical location.

"Improving the qualities of resident training and working environment through constant communication with doctors should be on the top of the action list," Park Jee-hyun, president of the Korean Intern and Resident Association, a group that represents the striking junior doctors, said in a statement earlier this month.

CRAFT UNIONISM

Some of the trainees disavowed Friday's pact, with dozens coming out to protest at the Korea Health Promotion Institute in Seoul against what they called a "hasty agreement."

Public sentiment had turned against the doctors' strike amid reports of medical services being disrupted around the country and fear of the growing pandemic.

A survey by pollster Realmeter released Thursday found that 55.2% of respondents said they didn't agree with the doctors' strike, while just 38.6% agreed.

Environmental groups slam oil industry for betting $400B on plastics

Children play amid a dumping ground for plastic waste near the Arabian Sea coast in Mumbai, India. File Photo by Divyakant Solanki/EPA-EFE

Sept. 4 (UPI) -- A London think tank said Friday the oil industry is investing $400 billion in plastics to help make up for anticipated losses in transportation, against efforts worldwide to mitigate proliferation of plastic waste.

A report by Carbon Tracker and environmental group SystemIQ said oil companies expect growth in plastics will be the largest driver for oil demand by 2040. The report said, however, the fiscal support runs counter to global campaigns for sustainable environmental change.

Major oil companies are expected to make large investments in virgin plastics, for example, as more electric vehicles hit the road and reduce the need for transportation-related oil.

"The oil industry is pinning its hopes on strong plastics demand growth that will not materialize, as the world starts to tackle plastic waste and governments act to hit climate targets," the groups said. "This risks $400 billion worth of stranded petrochemical investments, increasing the likelihood of peak oil demand."

The report said 36% of plastic is presently used only one time and 40% of the plastic produced ends up polluting the environment. Less than 10% of plastics are recycled, it noted.

"The plastics industry is a bloated behemoth, ripe for disruption," the report said. "Plastics impose an externality cost on society of at least $1,000 per ton, or $350 billion a year, from emitting carbon dioxide, associated health costs from noxious gases, collection costs and the alarming growth in ocean pollution."

Carbon Tracker strategist Kingsmill Bond said there's a breakdown between what oil companies need to profit from plastics and global efforts to slow pollution.

"The oil industry has polluted with impunity for 70 years but now they are going to be made to pay, by hook or by crook, for the huge costs that put on society," Bond said. "Remove the plastic pillar holding up the future of the oil industry, and the whole narrative of rising oil demand collapses."

The European Union this summer proposed a tax of $944 per ton for unrecycled plastic waste after China said it would ban single-use plastics in major cities by the end of this year and nationwide by 2022.

Antidepressant use rising in U.S., 

mostly in women, CDC says

The number of people in the United States taking antidepressant drugs has increased over the last decade -- with larger increases among men than women -- according to new CDC data. Photo by Sasint/Pixabay

Sept. 4 (UPI) -- Nearly 18% of all adult women in the United States used antidepressant medication between 2015 and 2018, compared to just over 8% of men, according to data released Friday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Overall, during the decade between 2009-2010 and 2017-2018, antidepressant use increased to 14% from 11%, the agency found. Use increased more for women -- to 19% from 14% -- than for men -- to 9% from 7%.

In 2018, slightly more than 7% of adults in the United States said they suffered from a "major depressive episode," the agency said.

The findings are based on an analysis of data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey for the 10-year period between 2009 and 2018.

Depression is a mental health disorder in which sufferers experience a persistent depressed mood or loss of interest in activities, causing significant impairment in daily life, according to the National Institute of Mental Health.

Antidepressant medications are used to reduce the symptoms of depression, and include selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs, and serotonin and norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors, or SNRIs.

From 2015 through 2018, antidepressant use increased with age and was highest among women aged 60 and over, at slightly more than 24%, the CDC found.

RELATED U.S. depression rates are triple pre-pandemic levels

In addition, use of the drugs was higher among non-Hispanic White adults, at 17%, compared with non-Hispanic Black adults, at 8%, and non-Hispanic Asian adults, at 3%.

Adults with at least some college education were more likely to use antidepressants than those with a high school education or less, the agency said.

Accused Kenosha, Wis., shooter's attorney resigns from role in $700,000 defense fund

Black Lives Matter supporters gather at the site where Jacob Blake was shot while President Trump visited Kenosha, Wis., on Tuesday. Photo by Alex Wroblewski/UPI | License Photo


Sept. 5 (UPI) -- An attorney for a teen accused of shooting protesters in Kenosha, Wis., has resigned from his position with a defense fund that has raised more than $700,000 for his client.

Attorney John Pierce, the lead attorney for Kyle Rittenhouse, 17, said Friday, that he resigned to avoid any "appearance of conflict," amid accusations that he has failed to pay about $65 million in debts.

Pierce and his firm have been accused of defaulting on millions of dollars from the firm's financiers, according to court documents.

Virage Capital Management claims Pierce's law firm defaulted on debt that current and former attorneys said built up over the past year.

RELATED 17-year-old arrested in shooting deaths at Wisconsin protest

Pierce said earlier this year that he failed to pay $4 million as part of a separate agreement with Karish Kapital for cash advances, according to court documents in New York. A Karish attorney said the judgment hasn't been satisfied.

Authorities indicted his client, Rittenhouse, last week on five charges, including two counts of homicide, related to a shooting on Aug. 25 that killed two people and injured a third during a protest in Wisconsin.

Rittenhouse, an Illinois resident, is accused of killing Joseph Rosenbaum, 36, and Anthony Huber, 26, and injuring Gaige Grosskreutz, with an AR-15 style rifle near the Civic Center Park in Kenosha, where protesters had gathered.

Black Lives Matter protesters were rallying to demand justice after an officer fired seven shots at close range of the back of Jacob Blake, a 29-year-old Black man, on Aug. 23, in front of his children, leaving him paralyzed from the waist down.

Pierce has said that Rittenhouse acted in self defense.

The fund for his client, called the #FightBack Foundation, was incorporated in Texas effective Aug. 12., according to the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts, which was prior to the shooting with a broader mission to "bring lawsuits to stop the left's lies."

RELATED Democratic nominee Joe Biden to visit Kenosha, Wis., Thursday

Pierce was one of the co-founders of the foundation that has raised more than $700,000, along with Lin Wood, an attorney who won notoriety for representing Richard Jewell, who was falsely accused in the 1996 Atlantic Olympic bombing.

Wood, who is now the foundation's controlling member, said he had "no concerns" about Pierce's financial troubles.

"If everybody who needed a lawyer was forced to hire a pristine firm, nobody would ever be able to hire a lawyer," Wood said.

RELATED Trump promises millions to Kenosha, Wis., to rebuild after protests

Pierce's firm has also represented President Donald Trump's personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani.

Trump embraced Pierce's argument that Rittenhouse acted in self-defense on Monday.

"I guess he was in very big trouble," Trump said. "He would have been, he probably would have been killed."

On Tuesday, Trump visited Kenosha and promised millions in funding to rebuild after protests he described as "domestic terror."

US Federal judge rules DeVos policy altering private schools' COVID-19 relief is illegal

Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos lost a court battle Friday when a judge struck down her department's rule on pandemic relief funding for private schools as illegal. Photo by Kevin Dietsch/UPI | License Photo

Sept. 5 (UPI) -- A federal judge has struck down Education Secretary Betsy DeVos' rule that altered the share of COVID-19 relief funding private schools are allowed as illegal.

U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich, who President Donald Trump nominated to the court, ruled that DeVos violated the CARES Act, which required COVID-19 relief funding to comply with federal statute.

Section 1117 of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 requires that federal funding for private schools be based on the number of low-income students. The CARES Act stipulated that the $13 billion that Congress set aside for K-12 schools in the CARES Act be distributed in that manner.

However, the Department of Education headed by DeVos, a billionaire who has advocated for private school vouchers, altered the funding formula Congress had laid out when it issued an interim final rule in July that said private schools could received the funding "regardless of low-income student population."

RELATED DeVos says gov't will still enforce school testing mandates

DeVos had argued that the text of the CARES Act was ambiguous, but the judge disagreed.

"In enacting the education funding provisions of the CARES Act, Congress spoke with a clear voice," Friedrich wrote in her opinion Friday. "It declared that relief funding shall be provided to private schools 'in the same manner as provided under section 1117."

Plaintiffs, including the NAACP, public school parents and school districts across the country, represented by the law firm Munger, Tolles & Olson, along with the Education Law Center and the Southern Poverty Law Center, lauded the ruling.

"The decision sends a clear signal that Secretary DeVos cannot use illegal means to advance her agenda of funneling scarce public resources to private education, to the detriment of our highest need students in public schools across the country," a partner at Munger, Tolles & Olson said in a statement. "We are particularly grateful that the court issued this decision quickly so that public school districts do not lose any more time in meeting the urgent needs of their students during this pandemic."

WHITE PUNKS ON DOPE
Opioids leading cause of drug overdose deaths in first half of 2019

Opioids accounted for 80% of all drug overdose-related deaths in the first half of 2019, according to new CDC data. Photo by LizM/Pixabay

Sept. 3 (UPI) -- More than 80% of all drug overdose deaths reported across the country in the first half of 2019 involved opioids, according to figures released Thursday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

All of the 10 most common drugs or drug combinations found in overdose-related deaths during the first six months of last year included at least one opioid, the agency said.

Drugs used in these cases included illicitly manufactured fentanyl, heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine and prescription opioid-based pain medications. Either alone or in combination, the five drugs were a factor in 77% of all drug overdose-related deaths.

"Three of four opioid overdose deaths involved illicitly manufactured fentanyl," the CDC researchers wrote. "[These drugs], heroin, cocaine or methamphetamine -- alone or in combination -- were involved in nearly 85% of overdose deaths."

RELATED Study: 7 of 10 hospital patients get opioids at move to nursing facility

Overdose death rates across the country in general dropped by 4.1 percent from 2017 to 2018, according to figures released by the CDC earlier this year.

Still, between 1999 and 2018, more than 750,000 Americans died following a drug overdose, the agency estimates.

The findings for the latest report are based on drug overdose death records in 24 states and Washington, D.C., for Jan. 1 to June 30 of last year.

RELATED NSAID painkillers less harmful, just as effective as opioid drugs, studies show

In all regions, overdose deaths involving opioids without stimulants were most common, followed by deaths involving opioids and stimulants and deaths involving stimulants without opioids.


RUST BELT JUNKIES
The pattern was most prominent in the Northeast and Midwest, where deaths involving opioids -- with or without stimulants -- accounted for 88% and 83% of all overdose deaths.

Among overdose deaths involving opioids, more than half of those who died were aged 25 to 44 years, and more than two-thirds of all overdose deaths involved men and three-quarters occurred in non-Hispanic White Americans.

RELATED Many deaths labeled cardiac arrest may be drug overdoses

"Evidence of injection drug use was more common among opioid-involved deaths than among deaths that did not involve opioids," the agency researchers wrote.

JUNKY WILLIAM BURROUGHS

upi.com/7035411

LITTLE GOD KING
Japan's Supreme Court endorses exclusion 

of pro-North Korea schools

Pro-North Korean schools in Aichi Prefecture, Japan, lost a case at Japan's Supreme Court, according to Japanese press reports on Friday. File Photo by Keizo Mori/UPI | License Photo

Sept. 4 (UPI) -- Japan's Supreme Court ruled a Japanese government decision to exclude pro-Pyongyang Korean schools from state benefits is not illegal following multiple lawsuits filed by the schools.

The court said Thursday schools in Japan's Aichi Prefecture affiliated with the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan, the pro-North Korean organization known as Chongryon, are not eligible for subsidies, including coronavirus relief, because of the Kim family worship required among students at the schools, Kyodo News reported Friday.

The idolization of the ruling Kims at the school is "unjust," the court said.

Japanese policy toward pro-Pyongyang schools, affiliated with a group that channels financial support to North Korea, has changed with administrations.

In 2010, when the now-dissolved Democratic Party of Japan was in power, Tokyo included pro-Pyongyang schools in benefits including tuition-free education. When the conservative Liberal Democratic Party of Japan returned to power, the schools were left out from benefits, starting in 2013, according to South Korean newspaper Hankyoreh.

The North Korean schools have filed lawsuits in other districts, including Tokyo and Osaka, but lost their fight in courts. The schools have claimed they are the targets of societal discrimination.

Chongryon has operated for decades in Japan, running schools and banking systems. According to analyst Markus Bell, the group acts as a tax collector for ethnic Koreans in Japan who support North Korea. The organization sends billions of Japanese yen to Pyongyang, where the government may have not suspended the development of weapons of mass destruction.

In August, the Japanese government excluded pro-North Korean schools from receiving coronavirus relief, Tokyo Shimbun reported. The move came after Tokyo decided to exclude the schools from benefits such as free early childhood education.

The United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination has raised concerns about lack of state subsidies for the schools.