WASHINGTON

OSTEOPOROSIS COULD STRIKE HALF OF OLDER AMERICANS BY 2020

Half of Americans older than 50 will be at risk of fractures from too-thin bones by 2020, the surgeon general warned yesterday, urging people to get more calcium, vitamin D, and exercise to avoid crippling osteoporosis.

The bone-thinning disease is on the rise as the population grays – but weak bones aren’t a natural consequence of aging, Surgeon General Richard Carmona stressed.

Strong bones begin in childhood, and years of eating right and physical activity can leave even 80-somethings with sturdy bones. Unfortunately, Dr. Carmona said, too few Americans follow that prescription, setting the stage for worrisome increases in broken hips and other fractures as more people pass their 50th birthday. Osteoporosis can be prevented by a diet containing healthy amounts of calcium and vitamin D.

“Osteoporosis isn’t just your grandmother’s disease,” Dr. Carmona said in releasing the first surgeon general’s report on bone health. “We all need to take better care of our bones.”

Osteoporosis affects an estimated 10 million Americans, and each year, about 1.5 million suffer a fracture as a result. By 2020, about 14 million people over age 50 are expected to have osteoporosis and another 47 million will have low bone mass, the report predicts.

– Associated Press

OFFICIALS: MORE FLU SHOTS FROM ABROAD UNLIKELY

Don’t expect imports of flu shots from Canada or other countries to ease the crippling shortage, the nation’s health secretary cautioned yesterday.

The Food and Drug Administration is in discussions with two companies that sell flu vaccine in Canada and elsewhere, and have found a few million unsold doses. But that vaccine is not licensed for sale in America, and thus meeting FDA requirements in time for this flu season “is doubtful,” Health and Human Services Secretary Thompson said. He added that the only way foreign supplies could be used is if they met certain conditions that might allow some to be offered as experimental vaccine.

But even that determination could take too long to help ease the shortage. “It doesn’t look promising,” he said. Mr. Thompson’s comments came after President Bush suggested during Wednesday’s presidential debate that Canadian supplies might ease the vaccine shortage.

– Associated Press

NORTHEAST

HARVARD STUDENT CONVICTED OF MANSLAUGHTER

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – A Harvard graduate student was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to six to eight years in prison yesterday for stabbing a young man to death in a fight that heightened the generations-old tension between the Ivy Leaguers and working-class Cambridge.

Prosecutors had charged 26-year-old Alexander Pring-Wilson with murder in the slaying last year of Michael Colono, arguing that Pring-Wilson attacked the 18-year-old Colono for ridiculing him as he stumbled home drunk.

“Michael Colono made fun of the defendant and it cost him his life,” prosecutor Adrienne Lynch said.

Pring-Wilson said he pulled a 4-inch folding knife and stabbed Colono in self-defense after Colono and his cousin brutally beat him.

The jury deliberated over five days before finding Pring-Wilson guilty of the lesser charge. Judge Regina Quinlan could have given him 20 years behind bars.

The case represented a collision of two worlds.

Pring-Wilson, the son of Colorado lawyers, was studying for his master’s degree in Russian and Eurasian studies and planned to attend law school. Colono, a high school dropout, had earned his equivalency diploma and was working as a cook at a Boston hotel. He died the day before his daughter’s third birthday.

– Associated Press