Odd Stories: Urology Practice Offers Pizza With Vasectomy

Barnstable, Massachusetts - Get a vasectomy, eat some pizza, and watch some basketball.

That's the idea behind a promotion by a Massachusetts urologists group that's offering a free pizza to vasectomy patients.

An administrator with Urology Associates of Cape Cod said it's a lighthearted way to raise awareness about the procedure and drum up business.Evan Cohen told the Cape Cod Times that getting a vasectomy during the NCAA basketball tournament is the perfect time because typically a day or two of recovery is needed following the simple operation, so it gives patients an excuse to lie on the couch and watch some hoops.

Dr. Evangelos Geraniotis, a urologist at the practice with offices in Hyannis, Sandwich and Nantucket, calls a vasectomy an "easy and less stressful" form of birth control.

Banks Hike Fees, Cut Costs to Boost Profits

By David Henry

United States - Jack up checking fees for bank customers who don't use direct deposit regularly. Replace tellers with self-service, touch-screen kiosks. Install new chairs and conference rooms to court well-to-do customers.

U.S. bank executives are handing down such orders to replace profits lost to recent regulatory reforms and low interest rates.

They hope these tactics will be more successful than Bank of America Corp's plan last fall to charge a $5 monthly fee for debit cards. The bank had to retreat amid howls of protest.

Having mostly stopped the losses from the financial crisis, banks are focused on lifting profits from levels below their own historic averages and those of many other industries.

Wells Fargo & Co, for example, has new account requirements that push customers to do more financial business with the company. Bank of America is testing new prices for basic services in three states.  JPMorgan Chase & Co is installing digital tablets and advanced ATMs to reduce the need for tellers and nearly one billion pieces of paper a year.

These three banks hold one-third of U.S. consumer deposits, and their price hikes, cost cuts and marketing to the rich are likely to influence the way Americans bank for years to come.

Increasingly, customers entering branches will be steered toward machines, much like airport ticket counters. More meetings with loan officers will take place by video conference. And nearly everyone, experts say, will need to be wary of new fees and pricing schemes.

Some customers are upset. Laurie Wittges of San Jose, California, said she is struggling to pay higher monthly charges from Wells Fargo. Unemployed, she can't maintain the balance of about $2,500 that the bank now requires to waive her fees.

"There are a bunch of people like me who can't afford this," said Wittges, 50. She lost a job as an executive assistant when the company where she worked closed last year.

CHECKING IS NOT FREE

As happens every decade or so, banks are intensifying efforts to increase pricing power, attract high net-worth customers and apply money-saving technology. While banks no longer lose money as they did in 2009, their stocks remain under pressure and executives are eager to raise profits.

Bank profits are simply too thin now to attract investors, said industry consultant Bert Ely. Return on equity, a key measure of profitability, in 2011 was 7.86 percent, which is below the 28-year average of nearly 10 percent and perhaps two-thirds as much as banks need to compete with other industries for capital, Ely said.
The outlook for the next few years is discouraging. One-time accounting adjustments boosted banks' 2011 results, and will need to be replaced for banks to increase earnings in 2012.

Regulators are on course to tighten limits on how much banks borrow to leverage up profits. And while bank stocks have rallied in the past six months, they are not hitting new peaks. The KBW Bank Index of stocks is no higher now than in August 2009 even though the Standard & Poor's 500 stock index is up more than 30 percent.

The Dodd-Frank Act, the law designed to address causes of the financial crisis, has curbed banks to the extent that there are fewer customers who bring enough revenue to cover the cost of serving them. Banks are barred from charging as much in overdraft fees as before, and from collecting from merchants all the money they used to get for debit-card transactions. Revenue from lending out customer deposits is down because of lower interest rates and loan demand.

Some executives regret marketing free checking accounts in the past. "As an industry, we have communicated with a generation of customers that this is all free, and there are costs," Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf lamented at an investment conference in December.

The average cost to provide a checking account through a bank branch, according to Wells Fargo and JPMorgan, is roughly $300 a year, including spending to open branches, build computer systems, create websites and operate call centers. On that basis, about half of all U.S. households are unprofitable to the banks, according to JPMorgan.

Even when customers leave thousands of dollars on deposit in accounts, banks often do not make enough money on the funds to cover the costs. For example, an account with $4,000 that JPMorgan could have invested last year would have generated only about $140 in interest revenue for the bank. That's based on the 3.51 percent average rate the bank received on interest-earning assets and does not factor in its cost to make loans.

To be sure, banks are not going to dump half of their accounts. Serving additional customers does not cost much once banks have set up operations. Incremental costs for things like checks, debit cards and additional deposit insurance are so slight that they are covered by about 90 percent of accounts, according to JPMorgan. The banks also know that once interest rates rise and loan demand returns they will make money on the marginal accounts.

NEW PRICE PLANS

But banks are making a shift. Across all banks, 45 percent of non-interest checking accounts are now free, down from 65 percent in 2010, according to a Bankrate.com study released in September.

Banks are searching for an extra $5 here and $10 there. Bank of America, for example, since last year has been testing a menu of account choices in Massachusetts, Georgia and Arizona. The accounts, for new consumers, cost $6 to $25 per month. Most of the accounts provide ways to escape the fees, but customers must keep a minimum balance or use a credit card.

Wells Fargo eliminated free checking for new customers in 2010 and is gradually ending it for existing customers. In early March, the bank said it will charge current customers in six East Coast states $7 per month, unless they keep a $1,500 minimum daily balance or make direct deposits of $500 each month. The bank has already made the change in 24 western states.

Wells Fargo CEO Stumpf also aims to convince customers to do more business with the bank, like take out loans and use investment services, to pay their way. "We can give them package pricing," Stumpf told investors. "It is a better deal for them."

To cut costs, Bank of America is closing branches. Wells Fargo said it may shrink branches and reduce the number of tellers.

JPMorgan is installing new technology in branches to cut expenses and, executives hope, attract profitable
customers.

"We'll have more room for self-service, more room for rich people and business customers," Todd Maclin, JPMorgan's consumer banking chief, said at an investor conference last month.

The bank plans to coach customers in online and mobile banking, he said. Advanced ATMs will cash checks and dispense currency in multiple denominations, reducing the need for human tellers.

In six branches where JPMorgan is testing self-service kiosks, check cashing with tellers declined 40 percent. "Paperless tellers," people equipped with computer tablet touch screens, saved time and reduced errors in five branches where they are being tested, the bank said.

JPMorgan expects to use video conferencing to allow foreign language speakers and investment and loan experts to talk with customers in multiple locations. Some 58 branches now have machines that issue debit cards on the spot to save postage and time. The machines will soon spit out credit cards, too.

Still, new equipment and mobile banking apps can only do so much. About 90 percent of retail transactions with the bank are already automated, Maclin said. While the remaining 10 percent of transactions tend to have especially high costs that can be reduced, the estimated $500 million in annual savings falls short of the $800 million JPMorgan said it is losing to new regulations on consumer accounts and debit cards.

Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan said in an interview that what is different for banks from past profit squeezes is that there are more ways to provide cost-effective services to customers, such as mobile banking.

That may be, but banks have failed with some technology investments in the past. In the late 1990s, First Union Corp, a North Carolina-based regional bank, flopped with a strategy called "Future Bank" intended to push customers away from tellers to phones, ATMs and computers. Customers grumbled about long waiting lines for tellers and in-branch phones that connected them to distant call centers. First Union lost deposits and had to rehire tellers.

Maclin of JPMorgan Chase vowed his bank will be careful as it pushes ahead. "We're not going to torture people in the process of getting them to go to self-service," he said.

Evangelist Sued in U.S. for Inciting Anti-Gay Hatred in Uganda

By Charundi Panagoda and Jim Lobe

Washington D.C./Uganda - A major U.S. civil rights group filed a federal lawsuit in Massachusetts Wednesday on behalf of a Ugandan gay rights organisation, the Sexual Minorities of Uganda (SMUG), against a right-wing evangelist leader for inciting hatred against homosexuals that has led to increased violence against LGBT persons in the East African country.

The lawsuit was filed by the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) in the home state of Scott Lively, the defendant, who heads the Abiding Truth Ministries, a fundamentalist Christian group.

He is also the author of "The Pink Swastika: Homosexuality in the Nazi Party", a 1995 book that claimed Nazism was created and propagated by homosexuals, and a second book, "Seven Steps to Recruit-Proof Your Child", a how-to guide for parents to "prevent" their children from becoming homosexual.

"Lively has been the man with the plan in this enterprise," said Pam Spees, a senior CCR staff attorney.

"He long ago set out a very specific and detailed methodology for stripping away the most basic human rights protections, to silence and ultimately disappear LGBT people. Unfortunately, he found willing accomplices and fertile ground in Uganda," she said.

Reached at the coffee house he owns in Springfield, Massachusetts, Lively, who has not been served yet, harshly denounced the lawsuit, which is being brought under the Alien Tort Statute (ATS), a 1789 anti-piracy law that, since 1980, has been used by foreign nationals to sue corporations and foreign individuals for human rights abuses committed overseas.

"It's a frivolous lawsuit. Everything that they are alleging is speech, and speech is not actionable. You can't bring a lawsuit in the United States saying that someone is legally liable for their speech." he told IPS.

He called the claims against him "just outrageous" and "without basis".

Lively began working with Ugandan anti-gay forces in 2002. According to CCR, he headed a conference in 2009 with Stephen Langa, another U.S. evangelist, titled "Seminar on Exposing the Homosexual Agenda", in which he characterised the gay movement as an "evil institution".

In the same presentation, Lively told audiences that homosexuals were a threat to children, committed child rape and "recruited" children into homosexuality.

Among the attendees, who included prominent politicians and members of the media, was Ugandan parliamentarian David Bahati. One month later, Bahati introduced the "Ugandan Anti-Homosexuality Bill", which criminalised gay-rights advocacy, depriving LGBT activists of freedom of assembly, association and the right to be free of discrimination. It also called for the death penalty for being a "serial offender for the offense of homosexuality".

At the same time, Ugandan tabloids and state-owned media called openly for persecuting homosexuals in what became a major campaign against them. After a number of attacks against homosexuals, many went into hiding.

In January 2011, an outspoken gay rights activist and chief litigation officer for SMUG, David Kato, was beaten to death in his neighbourhood after one tabloid published a photo of him and other advocates headlined "Hang Them".

The murder drew international attention and strong denunciations from Western governments, including the U.S. and Britain, some of which threatened to cut aid to Uganda unless the pending bill was withdrawn.

The bill was shelved under international pressure but was reintroduced in October last year.

Gay rights advocates pointed specifically to U.S. evangelicals, including Lively and Langa, a member of the Washington-based extreme- right Christian group the Fellowship, as responsible for stoking the anti-gay hysteria that resulted in the death of Kato.

"U.S evangelical leaders like Scott Lively have actively and intensively worked to eradicate any trace of LGBT advocacy and identity...His influence has been incredibly harmful and destructive for LGBT Ugandans fighting for their rights," said Frank Mugisha, executive director of SMUG, who received the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award in 2011 for his work promoting LGBT rights amidst the hostile climate in Uganda.

"We have to stop people like Scott Lively from helping to codify and give legal cover to hatred," he said.

Lively asserted that he is protected by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution which guarantees free speech.

"If you put everything I've said in context, nothing I said could motivate someone to hurt a homosexual. It's taken out of context. They're liars; they're being dishonest," he told IPS in a telephone interview.

But Heidi Beirich, director of the intelligence project at the Southern Poverty Law Center, said Lively's anti-gay propaganda "is not harmless". The center characterised his Abiding Truth Ministries as a "hate group" in 2008.

"When you lie about people, saying they cause genocide or they are Nazis, it often makes these populations vulnerable to violence," Beirich told IPS.

"Lively is being ridiculous," she said, "He's (in Uganda) saying anti-gay things and riling up the population to pass this disgusting legislation. He may have a right to free speech, but he needs to be held responsible for what he says as well."

The Alien Tort Statute has attracted considerable controversy as a tool for foreigners to hold alleged human rights abusers accountable in U.S. courts for their activities overseas. The Supreme Court upheld its use for that purpose in 2005 but is expected to review it again in June.

CCR said the suit against Lively marks the first time the statute has been wielded by victims of persecution on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.

New Figures: More of U.S. at Risk to Sea Level Rise

Washington D.C. - Nearly 4 million people across the United States, from Los Angeles to much of the East Coast, live in homes more prone to flooding from rising seas fueled by global warming, according to a new method of looking at flood risk published in two scientific papers.

The cities that have the most people living within three feet (one meter) of high tide — the projected sea level rise by the year 2100 made by many scientists and computer models — are in Florida, Louisiana, and New York. New York City, often not thought of as a city prone to flooding, has 141,000 people at risk, which is second only to New Orleans' 284,000. The two big Southeast Florida counties, Miami-Dade and Broward, have 312,000 people at risk combined.

All told, 3.7 million people live in homes within three feet of high tide. More than 500 US cities have at least 10 percent of the population at increased risk, the studies said.

"Southeast Florida is definitely the highest density of population that's really on low coastal land that's really most at risk," said lead author Ben Strauss, a scientist at Climate Central. Climate Central is a New Jersey-based group of scientists and journalists who do research about climate change.

The studies look at people who live in homes within three feet of high tide, whereas old studies looked just at elevation above sea level, according to work published Thursday in the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Research and an accompanying report by Climate Central. That's an important distinction because using high tide is more accurate for flooding impacts, said study co-author Jonathan Overpeck, a scientist at the University of Arizona's Institute of the Environment. And when the new way of looking at risk is factored in, the outlook looks worse, Overpeck said.

"It's shocking to see how large the impacts could be, particularly in southern Florida and Louisiana, but much of the coastal U.S. will share in the serious pain," Overpeck said.

And it's not just residents of coastal areas who will be hurt by this, said Sharlene Leurig, a senior manager for the insurance program at Ceres, a Boston-based investment network. Most coastal areas get flood insurance from the federal program and with more flooding, the program will have to spend more and that will come out of all taxpayers' wallets, she said.

Sea level has already risen about 8 inches since 1880 because warmer waters expand, Strauss said. In addition to the basic physics of ever-warming water expanding, scientist say hotter climate will cause some melting of glaciers in Greenland and western Antarctica that would then cause seas to rise even more.

Flooding from Hurricane Irene last year illustrated how vulnerable coastal places such as Manhattan are with a combination of storms and sea level rise, Strauss said.

Using data from the latest census, Climate Central also has developed an interactive system that allows people to check their risk by entering a ZIP code.

Sea level rise experts at the U.S. Geological Survey and the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration who weren't part of the studies said the results make sense and were done by experts in the field.

"All low elevation places in the many urban areas along the coast will become more vulnerable," said S. Jeffress Williams, scientist emeritus for the USGS, who wasn't part of the studies. He pointed to Boston, New York City, Norfolk, Va., New Orleans, Charleston, S.C., Miami and Washington and its Virginia suburbs. "More people and infrastructure will be at increasing risk of flooding."

Unexplained Dolphin Strandings Continue in Massachusetts.

By Jay Lindsay

Wellfleet, Massachusetts - There's no good spot on Cape Cod for dolphins to continue this winter's massive and unexplained beachings, but a group of 11 has chosen one of the worst.

The remote inlet down Wellfleet's Herring River is a place where the tides recede fast and far, and that's left the animals mired in a grayish-brown mud one local calls "Wellfleet mayonnaise."

Walking is the only way to reach the animals, but it's not easy. Rescuers crunch through cord grass and seashells before hitting a grabby muck that releases a footstep only after a sucking pop. One volunteer hits a thigh-deep "hole" and tumbles forward. The mud covers his face like messy war paint the rest of the morning.

Rescuers make a quick assessment once they reach the animals.

One dolphin is dead, but the other 10 appear healthy, and some bang their tails in the shallows, struggling to move. Rescuers decide the best course is to wait for the incoming tide to free the dolphins, then boats can try to herd them out of trouble. The only other alternative is hauling them to a waiting trailer, and open water. But the trailer is nearly a mile away.

Waiting has risks. Dolphins can't survive long on land and there's no guarantee the boats can push the dolphins on to safety.

"Now's where we start crossing our fingers," said Brian Sharpe of the International Fund for Animal Welfare, as he heads for a boat.

A year ago, Tuesday's 11 stranded dolphins would have seemed remarkable. Now, they just add to a growing tally.

In the last month, 177 short-beaked common dolphins have stranded on Cape Cod, and 124 have died. The total is nearly five times the average of 37 common dolphins that have stranded annually during the last 12 years.

So far, there's no explanation.

Workers at the IFAW, which has led the rescue efforts, tag and take blood samples of the stranded animals, necropsies have been done on dead dolphins and a Congressional briefing was held early this month in the push for answers. But researchers can offer only theories about things such as changes in weather, water temperature or behavior of the dolphins' prey.

Geography may also play a role, if the dolphins are getting lost along the Cape's jagged inner coastline, in towns like Wellfleet.

In mid-February, Wellfleet feels like a place long emptied out after a dimly-remembered party. A closed mini-golf course, candy store and drive-in theater are among the dormant summer businesses seen on a drive into town. A downtown road rolls past shuttered cottages and motel cabins.

But Wellfleet is a hot spot for the dolphin strandings, in part because of features such as Jeremy Point, a thin peninsula that blocks the way to Cape Cod Bay if the dolphins wander too far into the town's harbor. The IFAW boat is charged with pushing the animals past the point Tuesday, once they're freed.

Meanwhile, rescuers in orange vests and black waders work in pairs to move the dolphins on slings, bringing them closer together and pointed the right way.

"We'll take advantage of the fact that they're social animals," said Kerry Branon, an IFAW spokeswoman. "We're hoping if we release them together, they'll stick together and then we'll herd them out around the point."

Not all the dolphins are on board, though. One drifts off to the left, where he could beach again. The manager of the stranding team, Katie Moore, slides over, grabs its dorsal fin, and gives it a push in the right direction.

"You're going the wrong way, buddy," she says.

The inlet continues to fill and the dolphins break into waters that are deeper than the rescuers can follow, but they're in two groups. The IFAW's boat eventually follows one pod and the Wellfleet harbormaster takes another. The noise from the motors pushes the dolphins ahead. So do acoustic pingers, devices that make a sound that annoys the dolphins.

From here, all the shore workers can do is await word from the boats, which will follow the dolphins until dark, if needed. The crew trudges off the beach and gathers later in a parking lot at the Wellfleet marina, where coffee and two boxes of doughnut holes will be served.

Volunteer Mike Giblin, muck still on his face, sits in his truck and explains why, at 64, he can't wait to get an early-morning call to help the dolphins. The animals are special, says the retired high school teacher. He adds that the dolphins somehow know the workers are there to help. He's certain.

Moore later smiles at the thought, but dismisses any mystical link with the animals.

"They're wild animals," she says. "This is not comforting for them. They don't want to be touched."

The day's gray cold has soaked through Moore and she's worn out. Help for her team is coming from different places; some workers from a Virginia aquarium assisted Tuesday. But she says the pace of the strandings has been exhausting.

"We just don't know when it's going to end anymore," she said. "That wears on people."

She's been encouraged by IFAW's success so far in getting dolphins back to sea. She also believes in the work.

"I think that as humans we have such a huge impact on the ocean environment and on these animals in other ways, that this is our opportunity to do the right thing."

As Moore speaks, her eyes flicker out to the harbor, where she can see the harbormaster's boat has led its group of dolphins to sea. But her agency's boat is still out, and she wonders if those dolphins will make it, or simply beach again. She wonders if she'll soon be second-guessing her decision to let the tide try to free the dolphins, rather than her workers.

But it's too soon for answers.

"Ask me tomorrow how I feel about that decision," she said.

Dentist Pleads Guilty to Wrongful Dentristry Practice

New Bedford, Massachusetts – A dentist accepted a guilty plea to Medicaid fraud and several other charges related to the use of paper clips instead of stainless steel posts in root canals.


Dentist Michael Clair's other charges include defrauding 130-thousand dollars from Medicaid, assault and battery, illegally prescribing prescription drugs, and witness intimidation.


Although he was suspended in 2002 by Medicaid, he kept filing claims from 2003 to 2005 via the use of local area dentists' names.


His use of the paper clips in place of steel posts may possibly have caused pain and infection in some of his patients.

Update:  Michael Clair has received a year in jail for his medical malfeasance.  Prosecutors were hoping to get a sentence of five to seven years.

One victim's tooth turned black.  The victim's mother, who witnessed Clair's sentencing was outraged the former dentist only got a year in prison. He was also ordered to stay away from his victims and seven of his employees. 


"He put my kids in pain for months...I hope he rots there," she told reporters.


The reason for the light sentence was that he had, in Judge Richard Moses' words is "a lack of a criminal record and certain mental health issues" but didn't elaborate.

Washington State May Soon Legalize Gay Marriage

Washington - Washington state may soon be the seventh state to legalize same-sex marriage, joining New York, Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont in the move toward granting marriage equality across the country.

In the past Washington had two other laws, a domestic partnership one passed in 2007, and another granting same-sex couples “everything but marriage” in 2009. This however comes as a significant win for movement motivated to giving gay couples the same rights as heterosexual ones.

Governor Chris Gregoire in the past expressed her support for the law, which was opposed by people like Ken Huterson, Antioch's Bible Church pastor.

"You are saying as a committee and a Legislature that you know better than God," he said. Opponents' only argument against it seems to be that it “goes against traditional marriage and the Bible,” the standard argument.

Four Republicans, two in the House and two in the Senate, are likely to face the wrath of their more religious conservative base. The National Organization for Marriage stated they will spend approximately 250-thousand dollars against each Republican who dares to vote in favor of the new law. However, it seems that may not matter for much longer.

A University of Washington poll, conducted in October of last year, shows a five-year jump in support for gay marriage from 30 percent to 43 percent. Twenty-two percent say they are in favor of giving the same rights to same-sex couples but not calling it marriage.

When asked about the possibility of voting for a referendum which would repeal the new law, 55 percent said they wouldn't vote for it (47 percent of them saying they are strongly in support of it) while 38 percent said they'd vote for the referendum.

If the bill is passed it would go into effect starting in June.

Odd Stories: Man Surrenders 94 Hamsters to Shelter

Lawrence, Massachusetts - After five years of being a hamster enthusiast, an unidentified man voluntarily surrendered his 94 hamsters to an animal shelter. Explaining to Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals' (MSPCA) Small Animal Shelter director Mike Keiley how he was running out of space for the rodents, he paid a visit to the local non-profit stating he had 94 hamsters he was willing to surrender.

"The situation was not dire, so we asked him to wait a week so we could prepare for them," said Keiley.

Hamsters were kept in aquariums, Tupperware, and buckets

Thinking best of the hamsters' safety, it was agreed that a van would be sent to his house to accommodate the workload. Along with two workers Ellen Bistany, an Animal Control Officer, went to the location to assist with transferring the hamsters into MSPCA care.

"He started with one hamster, and there got to be more and more," said Keiley.

"He was overwhelmed," Bistany said, "At first, he wanted to keep a couple of them, but then he changed his mind."

The hamsters will be sent to shelters in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Maine where each shelter's prepared to take three to 12 hamsters. The ones at the Small Animal Shelter where the owner first went will release the hamsters for for a $10 adoption fee.

Indiana Law Would Criminalize “Inappropriate” Singing of National Anthem By David Wallechinsky and Noel Brinkerhoff

Claiming there’s a right and wrong way to do it, a lawmaker in Indiana has introduced legislation that bans the inappropriate singing of the national anthem.

 

Republican Senator Vaneta Becker’s bill would set specific “performance standards” for “The Star-Spangled Banner” at events sponsored by public schools and state universities, or by private schools receiving state or local scholarship funds or vouchers.

 

The bill’s language does not offer a definition of an acceptable version of the song. Instead, Becker is leaving that up to the State Department of Education and the Commission for Higher Education.

 

If the measure becomes law, those not abiding by the appropriate standards will be fined $25.

 

Indiana citizens have been particularly sensitive to the singing of the “The Star-Spangled Banner” since May 2001 when Aerosmith lead singer Steven Tyler, performing at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, changed the last line from “the home of the brave” to “the home of the Indianapolis 500.”

 

Massachusetts law forbids the use of “The Star-Spangled Banner” as dance music, as part of a medley or as an exit march…punishable by a fine of up to $100.

 

In October 2010 the House of Representatives of the Philippines passed a law that included jail time for improper singing of the Filipino national anthem, but the bill died in the Senate.

U.S. Twin Births Have Doubled in Three Decades: Study

By David Beasley

Atlanta - The number of twins born in the United States has doubled in the last three decades largely as a result of fertility treatments, with one in 30 infants born in 2009 a twin, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Wednesday.

"The increases are quite widespread, affecting all age groups and all parts of the country," said Joyce Martin, a CDC epidemiologist and coauthor of the new study.

More than 137,000 twins were born in the United States in 2009, accounting for one in every 30 babies. That compares to 68,339 twins born in 1980 when just one in 53 infants born was a twin, the CDC said.

A third of the increase in the twin birth rate can be attributed to women waiting longer to have children, the CDC said. From 2000 to 2009, more than 35 percent of all births were to mothers ages 30 and over, up from 20 percent in 1980.

The number of twins per 1,000 births rose in all 50 states and doubled in Connecticut, Hawaii, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Rhode Island.

Treatment for infertility such as in-vitro fertilization accounts for much of the remainder of the increase in twins, the CDC said.

"We seem to be making improvements, refinements to fertility-enhancing therapies, so that could then result in a lowering of the increase of the pace in twin and other multiple births," Martin told Reuters.
Twin births are riskier than single births, she said.

"Infants born in twin deliveries are at greater risk of poor outcome," she said. "They are born smaller, they are born earlier. They are more likely not to survive the first year. Most twins do fine, but they are at higher risk."