WASHINGTON

CHERTOFF URGED FBI TO ADDRESS DELAYS IN RELEASING DETAINEES

Homeland Security Secretary-designate Michael Chertoff urged the FBI to address legal problems in the detentions of illegal immigrants who were held for months after they were swept up in terrorism investigations.

Answering a 163-page Senate questionnaire, Mr. Chertoff said he did not recall playing a role in developing Justice Department strategies to detain the immigrants longer by placing holds on their bond applications or release determinations. Mr. Chertoff said he told top FBI officials that such delays would affect bond hearings. Clearing the detainees, he said, should have taken only several days.

“The existence of the delay suggests the importance of developing appropriate procedures to streamline clearances in the future,” Mr. Chertoff said in the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee document.

The FBI declined to comment. The FBI and Homeland Security Department have been at odds over sharing intelligence. Mr. Chertoff, if confirmed as the nation’s second homeland security secretary, is expected to try to resolve those tensions.The committee is holding Mr. Chertoff’s confirmation hearing today.

– Associated Press

HEALTH

NEW HEALTH SECRETARY SAYS SOME STATES ABUSE MEDICAID

President Bush’s new health secretary accused some states yesterday of mismanaging their Medicaid programs and cheating the federal government and taxpayers of as much as $40 billion over a decade.

“We need to have a very uncomfortable but, frankly, necessary conversation with our funding partners, the states,” said Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt. “State officials have resorted to what I would refer to as a variety of loopholes and in some cases accounting gimmicks that shift the cost that they claim to pay to the taxpayers of other states.”

He said that if the federal government doesn’t persuade states to close those loopholes, they will shift as much as $40 billion in what officials describe as a shell game in which the federal government repays states for supposedly spent money.

The tough talk previewed Mr. Bush’s budget proposal, due next Monday, in which he has said he will look to control popular benefit programs to save money. Mr.Leavitt’s speech was the first hint of the tack Mr. Bush would take on the matter.

– Associated Press

HEALTH

AORTIC SCANS RECOMMENDED FOR OLDER MALE SMOKERS

Men between the ages of 65 and 75 who have been smokers should get a one-time ultrasound to reduce their chances of dying from a ruptured artery, an influential federal health task force recommends.

The findings by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force represent a shift from its last recommendation, in 1996, on screening for abdominal aortic aneurysms – a ballooning of the body’s main artery in the abdomen.At that time, the group didn’t find enough evidence to take a stand on widespread screening.

Studies published between 1998 and 2003, however, have shown convincing evidence that the screenings could significantly help reduce the risk of death in the millions of men between 65 and 75 who have smoked.

The recommendations, published yesterday in the Annals of Internal Medicine, are based on a study of four randomized, controlled trials involving more than 120,000 men ages 65 and older in Australia, Denmark, and the United Kingdom. The findings showed a 43% reduction in the number of fatal ruptured aortas in those who were screened. Aortic aneurysms account for about 15,000 deaths annually in America.

– Associated Press

NEW TEST MIGHT HELP DETECT ALZHEIMER’S

A highly sensitive new test could lead to a different way to diagnose people with Alzheimer’s disease, possibly helping find the illness in its early stages when there might be time for treatment.

While as many as 4 million Americans are thought to suffer from the memorydestroying illness, the only way to diagnose it definitively is by studying brain tissue during an autopsy. It is important to have some way to diagnose the disease while the patient is still alive, especially during its early stages, so experimental treatments can be evaluated, and to catch it at a time when the disease might be treatable. “If you can’t diagnose it, you’re not going to have a therapy for it,” said Chad Mirkin of Northwestern University.

Many companies have experimental therapies, he said,”But those therapeutics aren’t very good if you can’t definitively diagnose and follow a disease,” explained Mr. Mirkin, a lead researcher – along with William Klein – on a team that developed the new test, which can detect small amounts of proteins in spinal fluid.

The team’s findings were reported in yesterday’s issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.

– Associated Press