EPA: Dry Cleaning Chemical is Likely Carcinogen

   Washington, D.C. – 2/10/2012 - The federal Environmental Protection Agency has declared tetrachloroethylene, or PERC, a chemical used by many dry cleaners, a “likely human carcinogen.”
   "The evidence against this ubiquitous dry cleaning chemical piled up for years, like dirty laundry in the corner of the room," said David Andrews, Ph.D., a senior scientist with Environmental Working Group. "It’s encouraging that EPA is completing this assessment so that health measures can be taken to protect workers and the public."
   The EPA’s decision is based on the 2010 recommendation of the National Research Council, an independent scientific body that advises the federal government.
   Tetrachloroethylene is a chlorinated solvent long used in dry cleaning, industrial cleaning and production of other chemicals and consumer products. Biomonitoring surveys have detected it in the bodies of a significant number of Americans. It has also been found in drinking water across the country including at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune and at EPA Superfund hazardous waste sites.
   Once in the environment, the chemical breaks down into other known human carcinogens, including trichloroethylene (TCE) and vinyl chloride.
   Consumers should take their dry cleaning to businesses that do not use tetrachloroethylene. The substance can remain on clothes and evaporate into the air at home, unnecessarily exposing the residents.
   EWG’s Tap Water Database can be searched to identify local tap water where tetrachloroethylene has been found.

  Source: Environmental Working Group.

Gene Regulator in Brain's Executive Hub Tracked

   (NIH) - 2/5/2012 - For the first time, scientists have tracked the activity, across the lifespan, of an environmentally responsive regulatory mechanism that turns genes on and off in the brain's executive hub. Among key findings of the study by National Institutes of Health scientists: genes implicated in schizophrenia and autism turn out to be members of a select club of genes in which regulatory activity peaks during an environmentally-sensitive critical period in development. The mechanism, called DNA methylation, abruptly switches from off to on within the human brain's prefrontal cortex during this pivotal transition from fetal to postnatal life. As methylation increases, gene expression slows down after birth.
   Epigenetic mechanisms like methylation leave chemical instructions that tell genes what proteins to make –what kind of tissue to produce or what functions to activate. Although not part of our DNA, these instructions are inherited from our parents. But they are also influenced by environmental factors, allowing for change throughout the lifespan.
   “Developmental brain disorders may be traceable to altered methylation of genes early in life,” said Barbara Lipska, a scientist in the NIH’s National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) and lead author of the study. “For example, genes that code for the enzymes that carry out methylation have been implicated in schizophrenia. In the prenatal brain, these genes help to shape developing circuitry for learning, memory and other executive functions which become disturbed in the disorders. Our study reveals that methylation in a family of these genes changes dramatically during the transition from fetal to postnatal life – and that this process is influenced by methylation itself, as well as genetic variability. Regulation of these genes may be particularly sensitive to environmental influences during this critical early life period.”
   Lipska and colleagues report on the ebb and flow of the human prefrontal cortex's (PFC) epigenome across the lifespan, February 2, 2012, online in the American Journal of Human Genetics.
   “This new study reminds us that genetic sequence is only part of the story of development. Epigenetics links nurture and nature, showing us when and where the environment can influence how the genetic sequence is read,” NIMH Director Thomas R. Insel said.

   In a companion study published last October, the NIMH researchers traced expression of gene products in the PFC across the lifespan. The current study instead examined methylation at 27,000 sites within PFC genes that regulate such expression. Both studies examined post-mortem brains of non-psychiatrically impaired individuals ranging in age from two weeks after conception to 80 years old.
   In most cases, when chemicals called methyl groups attach to regulatory regions of genes, they silence them. Usually, the more methylation, the less gene expression.Lipska's team found that the overall level of PFC methylation is low prenatally when gene expression is highest and then switches direction at birth, increasing as gene expression plummets in early childhood. It then levels off as we grow older. But methylation in some genes shows an opposite trajectory. The study found that methylation is strongly influenced by gender, age and genetic variation.
   For example, methylation levels differed between males and females in 85 percent of X chromosome sites examined, which may help to explain sex differences in disorders like autism and schizophrenia.
   Different genes — and subsets of genes — methylate at different ages. Some of the suspect genes found to peak in methylation around birth code for enzymes, called methytransferases, that are over-expressed in people with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. This process is influenced, in turn, by methylation in other genes, as well as by genetic variation. So genes associated with risk for such psychiatric disorders may influence gene expression through methylation in addition to inherited DNA.
   Scientists worldwide can now mine a newly created online database of PFC lifespan DNA methylation from the study. The data are accessible to qualified researchers at:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/projects/gap/cgi-bin/study.cgi?study_id=phs000417.v2.p1. BrainCloud, a web browser application developed by NIMH to interrogate the study data, can be downloaded at http://BrainCloud.jhmi.edu.

   Source: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Forecasted Base Salary Increases Remain Steady

   PHILADELPHIA - (BUSINESS WIRE) - 2/4/2012 - U.S. employees can expect median base salary increases of 3.0 percent in 2012, according to recently released Hay Group research. The median increase of 3.0 percent is consistent for executives, middle management, supervisory and clerical positions. This picture is relatively steady across most industry sectors, and after factoring in annualized consumer price index growth at 3.0 percent, expected employee wage growth is in line with inflation.
   “Even though the economy continues to show signs of a slow recovery, we do not expect most employees to receive increases at the levels seen in the years prior to 2008 for awhile, when median increases were tracking between 3.5 percent and 4.0 percent,” Hay Group’s North American Reward Practice Leader Tom McMullen said.

   “Slower growth in base salary increases is causing most organizations to be innovative in their approach to reward management. We see most organizations having a continued focus on managing their fixed costs in base salary and benefits programs while placing renewed attention on retention and engagement strategies for the talent needed to run their business. Differentiating all rewards and ensuring that top performers receive rewards that are greater than average performers is a continued focus area for organizations. Organizations are quite happy to pay for performance, but only if they get it.”

   While most industry sectors are also consistent with this 3.0 percent median base salary increase, including industrial, retail and financial services sectors, the economy impacts industry sectors differently. Certain job families in healthcare systems, such as nursing and clinical employees, are trending at 2.5 percent median increases, while employees in the oil and gas sectors are faring better with 4.0 percent median increases planned for 2012.

   Hay Group’s forecast results are based on the latest data available from Hay Group’s U.S. database, provided by 285 organizations in November and December 2011. This is Hay Group’s 33rd year of conducting the survey. Typical respondents to the survey include compensation professionals in the Human Resources departments of small to large size U.S. organizations across a wide range of industries.

Brokerage Firm Chief, Stock Promoter Convicted

   WASHINGTON – 2./2/2012 - The principal of a Costa Rican brokerage firm and a Las Vegas stock promoter were each convicted on January 31 in the Southern District of Florida of all charges for their roles in a stock manipulation scheme that defrauded investors, announced Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney Wifredo A. Ferrer of the Southern District of Florida, Chief Postal Inspector Guy Cottrell of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service (USPIS) and James W. McJunkin, assistant director in Charge of the FBI’s Washington Field Office.
   Jonathan Curshen, 47, the principal of Red Sea Management and Sentry Global Securities, two companies located in San Jose, Costa Rica, that provided offshore accounts and facilitated trading in penny stocks, was found guilty of conspiracy to commit securities fraud, wire fraud and mail fraud; two counts of mail fraud; and conspiracy to commit international money laundering. Nathan Montgomery, 30, a Las Vegas stock promoter, was found guilty of conspiring to commit securities fraud and wire fraud.
   The evidence at trial showed that in January and February 2007, Curshen, of Costa Rica and Sarasota, Fla., and Montgomery, of Las Vegas, were involved in a scheme to illegally manipulate the stock price of a company called CO2 Tech (ticker CTTD), which traded on the Pink Sheets, an inter-dealer electronic quotation and trading system.
   Evidence at trial showed that Curshen’s and Montgomery’s co-conspirators controlled the outstanding shares of CO2 Tech, which were used in the stock manipulation scheme. Montgomery and his conspirators engaged in coordinated trades in conjunction with the issuance of false and misleading press releases that were designed to artificially inflate the price of CO2 Tech shares to make it appear that it had significant business prospects. According to these press releases, CO2 Tech purported to have a business relationship with Boeing to reduce polluting gases emitted from airplanes, when in fact CO2 Tech never had any business or relationship with Boeing.
   According to the evidence at trial, Montgomery and his co-conspirators, Robert Weidenbaum, Timothy Barham Jr., Ryan Reynolds and others fraudulently “pumped” the market price and demand for CO2 Tech stock through these press releases and coordinated trades of shares of CO2 Tech stock in order to create the appearance of legitimate buying interest by legitimate investors. The evidence showed that as Montgomery and his conspirators pumped the price of the stock, Curshen and his conspirators facilitated the “dumping” of shares through the trading desk at Red Sea and Sentry Global Securities by selling the shares at the direction of their conspirators to the general investing public. The evidence showed that these shares, which became virtually worthless, were purchased by unsuspecting investors, including investors in the Southern District of Florida. The evidence showed that Montgomery, Weidenbaum, Reynolds and Barham were paid approximately $1 million in cash by their conspirators to participate in sham stock trades of CO2 Tech. The cash was delivered to Miami via a private jet from an airport outside New York.
   The evidence further showed that, from approximately 2003 through 2008, Curshen operated Red Sea as a money laundering hub in Costa Rica that established bank accounts and brokerage accounts in the United States and Canada under false pretenses and through nominee owners. The evidence further showed that Curshen and his co-conspirators laundered the proceeds of the stock fraud from accounts in the United States to an account in Canada, all in an effort to conceal and disguise the nature and source of the proceeds.
   At sentencing, Curshen faces a sentence of up to five years in prison on the conspiracy to defraud count, and up to 20 years on each count of mail fraud and money laundering conspiracy. Montgomery faces a sentence of up to five years for the conspiracy to defraud count. The defendants are scheduled to be sentenced by Judge Richard W. Goldberg on May 11, 2012.
   Stock promoters Weidenbaum, Barham and Reynolds, who were also charged in this case, previously pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit securities fraud, wire fraud and mail fraud. They also will be sentenced by Judge Goldberg on May 9, 2012. Michael Simon Krome, a securities attorney from New York, who participated in the conspiracy and evaded federal securities registration requirements in order to provide co-conspirators with millions of unregistered and “free trading” shares of CO2 Tech that were used to execute the stock manipulation, also pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit securities fraud, mail fraud and wire fraud.
  The case was investigated by the FBI’s Washington Field Office and the USPIS. The case is being prosecuted by Trial Attorneys N. Nathan Dimock and Rina Tucker Harris of the Fraud Section in the Justice Department’s Criminal Division. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida provided significant assistance in this case. The Department of Justice acknowledges the significant assistance of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in its investigation. The SEC has a pending parallel civil case. The Criminal Division’s Office of International Affairs and Costa Rican authorities also provided assistance.
Source: Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force