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Doctors untangle the strange case of the giant hairball

(CNN) — It may not be the most appetizing reading before a hearty holiday meal, but the New England Journal of Medicine is devoting part of its Thanksgiving issue to a giant hairball — and not the feline kind.

The prestigious journal details the case of a previously healthy 18-year-old woman who consulted a team of gastrointestinal specialists.

She complained of a five-month history of pain and swelling in her abdomen, vomiting after eating and a 40-pound weight loss.

After a scan of the woman’s abdomen showed a large mass, doctors lowered a scope through her esophagus.

It revealed a large bezoar occluding nearly the entire stomach, wrote Drs. Ronald M. Levy and Srinadh Komanduri, gastroenterologists at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, Illinois.

For the uninitiated, a bezoar is a hairball.

On questioning, the patient stated that she had had a habit of eating her hair for many years — a condition called trichophagia, they wrote.

It seemed like she’d been doing this for several years, Levy told CNN.

The woman underwent surgery to remove the mass of black, curly hair, which weighed 10 pounds and measured 15 inches by 7 inches by 7 inches, the doctors said.

Five days later, she was eating normally and was sent home.

A year later, the pain and vomiting were gone, the patient had regained 20 pounds and reports that she has stopped eating her hair.

Reached at his home in Chicago, Levy said he had no idea whether the journal’s timing of the publication on Thanksgiving was intentional.

Either way, he said, it would not affect the gastroenterologists’ holiday dinner plans — We don’t get fazed by much.
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Saudi rape victim’s lawyer: Case may change judicial system

(CNN) — The lawyer representing a Saudi rape victim whose treatment has drawn worldwide criticism predicted Wednesday the controversy may help reform the Saudi judicial system.

I believe the kingdom is going through a reformist period and I believe what we’re going through will lead to a more modern judicial system that all citizens can enjoy, Abdulrahman al-Lahim said.

I’m confident that this line of thought will vanish one day, and indeed the country will be reborn.

In March 2006, when his client was 18 and engaged to be married, she and an unrelated man were abducted from a mall in Qatif, Saudi Arabia, and she was raped by seven men.

In October, the men were convicted and sentenced to two to nine years in prison.

But the rape victim was also convicted — for violating the kingdom’s Islamic law by not having a male guardian with her at the mall.

The man tried to blame his client for insisting on meeting him that day, Al-Lahim said. It is illegal for a woman to meet with an unrelated male under Saudi’s Islamic law.

The woman was sentenced to 90 lashes and — when she appealed — the sentence was more than doubled to 200 lashes and six months in prison.

Her lawyer accused the head judge in the three-judge panel of having been against his client from the beginning, and he criticized the judge’s position that the victim and the rapists appear in the same courtroom.

Based on my humanistic and professional ethics, I strongly rejected that stance, al-Lahim said. How can she stand next to these people while suffering further emotional and physical harm? The judge took my objection personally and raised the issue to the Ministry of Justice to revoke my license.

Al-Lahim said he feels the Saudi government is penalizing him for trying to help the woman get justice, including failing to reinstate his law license.

He said it was revoked last week by a judge in the Qatif General Court seeking to punish him for speaking to the Saudi-controlled news media about the incident and other controversial cases.

I think that they want to take revenge, he said. I don’t understand the sensitivity about media attention. By Saudi law, court sessions should be open to the public.

The judges may have increased his client’s original sentence because she hired him, a controversial lawyer, Al-Lahim said.

Al-Lahim vowed to fight till the end to get back his license, to work again, and help create a new generation of lawyers that will continue on this path. Watch al-Lahim say being a lawyer is a dream for him

The case has provoked outrage in the West and has cast light on the treatment of women under Saudi Arabia’s strict Islamic law.

The Saudi Justice Ministry — apparently stung by international media scrutiny — issued a clarification Tuesday.

It acknowledged that al-Lahim is no longer on the case, saying he was punished by a disciplinary committee for lawyers because he exhibited disrespectful behavior toward the court, objected to the rule of law and showed ignorance concerning court instructions and regulations.

The ministry also said it welcomed constructive criticism and said the parties’ rights were preserved in the judicial process.

We would like to state that the system has ensured them the right to object to the ruling and to request an appeal, without resorting to sensationalism through the media that may not be fair or may not grant anyone any rights, and instead may negatively affect all the other parties involved in the case, the statement said.

The case was handled through normal court procedures, and the woman, her male companion and the rapists all agreed in court to the sentences meted out, the statement said.

Under Saudi law, women are subject to numerous restrictions, including a strict dress code, a prohibition against driving and a requirement they get a man’s permission to travel or have surgery.

Still, the government’s handling of the matter has sparked anger among human rights groups.

Barring the lawyer from representing the victim in court is almost equivalent to the rape crime itself, said Fawzeyah al-Oyouni, founding member of the newly formed Saudi Association for the Defense of Women’s Rights.

The woman and the man were attacked after they met so she could retrieve an old photograph of herself from him, according to al-Lahim.

Citing phone records from the police investigation, al-Lahim said the man was trying to blackmail his client. He noted the photo she was seeking to retrieve was innocuous.

Al-Lahim has been ordered to attend a disciplinary hearing next month at the Ministry of Justice, where he faces a possible three-year suspension and disbarment, according to Human Rights Watch.
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Ups and downs of competitive eating

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Planning to gorge yourself this Thanksgiving? Don’t flatter yourself, amateur.

As Americans stuff themselves with turkey on Thursday, professional eaters will take center stage in a nationally televised competition, gobbling 20-pound birds in eight minutes.

While some shudder at the sight of contestants racing to devour food at a time when a third of Americans are obese, competitors just shrug.

Doing it once in a while isn’t bad for you, when you do it responsibly, champion eater Tim Janus said.

Others have had their fill of such events.

This fall, the University of Iowa canceled its annual corn-eating contest, held the week of the Iowa-Iowa State football game. Many saw the contest as a fun nod to the state’s hallmark crop, but Phillip Jones, Iowa’s vice president of student services, viewed it as an act of gluttony.

It was something I thought was reasonable based on the data and stories I’ve seen about obesity and the proportion of people who are overweight, Jones said. I don’t know … if it is dangerous, but it was a symbolic gesture to get people to address changes in our lifestyle.

Last year, organizers of the World Pie Eating Championship in Wigan, England, gave in to pressure from health advocates and cut back on contestants’ consumption.

Competitors converged on the northwestern English town for 15 years to see who could eat the most meat pies in three minutes. But organizers changed the rules in 2006, presenting the award to the person who could eat a single meat pie in the fastest time. They also added a vegetarian category.

In the U.S., the International Federation of Competitive Eating organizes about 80 eating contests a year, including The Turkey Bowl, scheduled to air Thursday on cable’s Spike TV.

The group’s chairman, George Shea, said competitive eaters are athletes who train for their sport, working to improve jaw strength and increasing their stomach capacity.

This is an entertainment product that has its roots in fairs and festivals and not a celebration of excess, Shea said. It’s a comedic thing — a combination of Coney Island hucksterism and sports commentary.

Janus said criticism of his sport demonstrates that people misunderstand the nation’s obesity problem.

Most of us are pretty thin and in pretty good shape. To say we’re bad examples is misleading, the 5-foot-10, 165-pound Janus said.

A 30-year-old stock trader from New York City, he competes in about 30 contests a year and holds records in several categories, including tamales (71 in 12 minutes) and cannoli (28 in 6 minutes).

Dr. Lee Kaplan, director of the Massachusetts General Hospital Weight Center in Boston, said concerns over the link between the contests and obesity aren’t well founded.

I think these competitions are somewhat caricatures of eating behavior … and don’t have much relevance to the obesity problem, he said.

Brian Wansink, a food science and psychology professor at Cornell University, compared competitive eaters to other extreme athletes.

It’s the same sort of person who, let’s say, would train really hard and compete really hard in a marathon, said Wansink, author of Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think.

It has the same level of competitiveness and compulsiveness, he said. One we label crazy and one we label as noble, but in reality it’s the same sort of process that drives both these people.

Shea said there’s no reason to be embarrassed about such events.

Seeing these guys go at a 20 pound turkey is like poetry, he said. It’s like a dance.
found here.

New evidence brings arrests in teen’s Aruba disappearance

(CNN) — Authorities have re-arrested three men in connection with the disappearance of an Alabama teenager in Aruba in 2005, based on new evidence in the case, prosecutors announced Wednesday.

Brothers Deepak and Satish Kalpoe were arrested in Aruba at the same time authorities in the Netherlands picked up Joran Van der Sloot at the request of the Aruban government, the statement said. Van der Sloot is attending school in Holland.

The three had previously been arrested in 2005, Aruban prosecutors noted in a statement, but a court released them, citing insufficient evidence.

They are now charged with involvement in the voluntary manslaughter of Natalee Holloway or causing serious bodily harm to Natalee Holloway, resulting in her death, the statement said. Watch what led up to Wednesday’s arrests

Van der Sloot, now 20, and the Kalpoes, now ages 24 and 21, were the last people seen with Holloway, 18, as she left Carlos n’ Charlie’s nightclub in Oranjestad, Aruba, about 1:30 a.m. on May 30, 2005. All three men have maintained their innocence in her disappearance.

No information was immediately available about what the new evidence was that led to the arrests.

Aruban prosecutors said a team of detectives from the Netherlands has been reviewing the Holloway case at the request of authorities in Aruba, and had been on the island as late as last month to complete the investigation.

The Kalpoe brothers were being interrogated by Aruban police Wednesday, Aruba prosecutor Dop Kruimel told CNN. They will appear before a judge Friday for a preliminary arrest hearing, in which the judge determines whether the arrest was credible, she said.

The judge can then authorize their being detained for eight more days, meaning police have that much time to produce evidence. The suspects then go before a judge again, she said.

Van der Sloot was arrested in Arnhem, the Netherlands, by Dutch police, Kruimel said. Aruban authorities have asked for him to be extradited to Aruba within eight days.

Because they were not familiar with the case, Dutch police were not questioning Van der Sloot, she said. He will be questioned when he is brought back to Aruba, she said. However, he will appear before a judge Thursday in Arnhem.

When CNN called the Kalpoe household, the person who answered the phone hung up.

Earlier, Van der Sloot’s attorney in the U.S., Joe Tacopina, confirmed his client’s arrest to CNN. However, Van der Sloot’s mother, Anita Van der Sloot, told CNN her son had not been arrested, but had only reported to a police station in the Netherlands for questioning Wednesday after receiving a letter asking him to do so.

He didn’t get arrested at all, said Anita Van der Sloot, who said she had spoken to her son briefly from her home in Aruba. She said a Dutch attorney was with him, and she expected him to appear before a judge and be released Thursday.

Holloway was visiting Aruba with a group of about 100 classmates celebrating their graduation from Mountain Brook High School in suburban Birmingham, Alabama, when she went to Carlos n’ Charlie’s that night in 2005.

The group had planned to leave for home the following day, and Holloway’s packed bags and passport were found in her hotel room after she failed to show up for her flight.

Her disappearance triggered an exhaustive search and investigation and a media sensation in the United States, Aruba, the Netherlands and beyond, but Holloway has never been found.

The governors of three Southern states — Alabama, Arkansas and Georgia — threw their weight behind a boycott of Aruba tourism to protest the lack of progress in the case. While there was indeed a dip in Aruba tourism, those on the island said last year they expected to recover.

Aruban authorities have been criticized for their handling of the case. At least 10 men, including Van der Sloot and the Kalpoes, have been arrested and identified as suspects either in Holloway’s disappearance or in an alleged cover-up. All were questioned and released.

Holloway’s mother, Beth Holloway, has spoken frankly about the anguish she has suffered following her daughter’s disappearance and the roller-coaster emotions she experiences as a result of false leads and arrests.

We just get our hopes up, another arrest, and then he’s released, and we still have no answers, you know. It’s just getting more and more difficult, she told CNN last year.

As she pushed for answers, Beth Holloway became a fixture at Aruban police headquarters and on television crime shows, criticizing the investigation and what has been characterized in the media as the Aruban catch-and-release system of justice.

Legal experts, however, have said differences in the U.S. and Aruban systems should be taken into account. Aruba’s criminal justice system is based on Dutch law and a descendant of the Napoleonic code. In Aruba, authorities’ reasonable suspicion that someone knows about or is involved in a crime is enough to make an arrest, while magistrates investigate and judges determine a suspect’s guilt or innocence. There are no jury trials.

Aruban authorities, meanwhile, have suggested that Holloway may have overdosed on drugs or died of alcohol poisoning.

Beth Holloway and Natalee Holloway’s father, Dave Holloway, filed a lawsuit last year against Van der Sloot and his father, Aruban judge Paulus Van der Sloot, in the Supreme Court of the State of New York. The Van der Sloots were served with the suit while on a trip to New York.

However, a judge in August 2006 dismissed the suit, saying New York was an inconvenient forum in which to consider it. It was unclear whether Holloway’s parents have pursued legal action elsewhere.
found here.

No holiday break on the campaign trail

WASHINGTON (CNN) — It may be Thanksgiving, but for some of the presidential candidates, there will be no holiday.

Many White House hopefuls are spending their Thanksgiving on the campaign trail.

It’s home for the holidays for the candidates, but it depends on what you call home, said CNN senior political analyst Bill Schneider.

With the moving up of the primary calendar, Thanksgiving falls just six weeks before the first caucuses, which will be in Iowa. That’s where two Democratic presidential candidates have chosen to spend their holiday.

Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware and his family are planning to volunteer and serve meals at the Machine Shed Restaurant in Urbandale.

Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut will be volunteering with his family at a Thanksgiving celebration in Monticello. Dodd’s not just dropping by Iowa — he rented a house in the Des Moines area and has moved his family to the Hawkeye State through the Iowa caucuses.

Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio and his wife are spending Thanksgiving in New Hampshire, where they plan to volunteer. New Hampshire holds the nation’s first primary and is another crucial player in choosing the party’s presidential nominees.

GOP hopeful Sen. John McCain will be spending Thanksgiving with U.S. troops in Iraq as part of a congressional delegation. This marks the Arizona senator’s seventh trip to Iraq.

Rival Rudy Giuliani will also be out this Thanksgiving. The former New York City mayor and his wife will host a breakfast for families of emergency workers.

Most of the remaining candidates will be home, spending the holiday with their families. But Thanksgiving eve found many of them mixing the holiday with presidential politics.

Democratic Sen. Barack Obama was in Manchester, New Hampshire, where he attended a service at a food pantry. In response to reports that such pantries and food banks are struggling with shortages, the Illinois senator urged Americans to do what they can to help those in need.

A similar theme came from rival John Edwards. The former senator from North Carolina helped at a food pantry in Carrboro, North Carolina. Earlier in the day, Edwards unveiled his six-point plan for fighting hunger.
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