DealBook: For S.E.C., a Setback in Bid for More Time in Fraud Cases

The Supreme Court on Wednesday delivered a swift and decisive rejection of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s argument that it should operate under a more forgiving statute of limitations in pursuing penalties in fraud cases.

As a result of the decision, the agency will have to find a long-term solution to give itself more time to investigate cases.

In Gabelli v. Securities and Exchange Commission, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote in the unanimous decision rejecting the S.E.C.’s argument that a federal statute that limits the government’s authority to pursue civil penalties should commence when a fraud is discovered, not when it occurred.

The S.E.C. was hoping that the court would apply what is known as the “discovery rule.” In 2010, the Supreme Court endorsed this rule in a private securities fraud class-action suit, Merck & Co. v. Reynolds, stating “that something different was needed in the case of fraud, where a defendant’s deceptive conduct may prevent a plaintiff from even knowing that he or she has been defrauded.”

The discovery rule is an exception to the protection afforded by a statute of limitations, which puts an endpoint on potential legal liability for conduct. Unlike most cases, when fraud is involved, it may not be apparent to the victims that they were harmed because the primary goal of deceptive conduct is to keep it from being exposed.

In the Gabelli case, the S.E.C. filed fraud charges in 2008 against the mutual fund manager Marc Gabelli and a colleague, Bruce Alpert, saying they had violated the Investment Advisers Act of 1940 for permitting an investor to engage in market timing. Ten years ago, a major scandal erupted when it came to light that some advisers had permitted select investors to buy shares at favorable prices to take advantage of pricing disparities in the securities held by mutual funds.

In its complaint, the S.E.C. sought civil monetary penalties based on market timing that it claimed had taken place from 1999 to 2002, and resulted in the preferred investor purportedly reaping significant profits while ordinary investors suffered large losses. The defendants denied the charges and filed a motion to dismiss the case because it was not brought in time.

A federal statute, 28 U.S.C. § 2462, provides that “an action, suit or proceeding for the enforcement of any civil fine, penalty, or forfeiture, pecuniary or otherwise, shall not be entertained unless commenced within five years from the date when the claim first accrued.” The provision dates to 1839, and applies to any government agency.

A decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in Manhattan allowed the case to proceed by applying the discovery rule to a governmental action. Coincidentally, that decision was written by Judge Jed S. Rakoff, who despite being an occasional thorn in the S.E.C.’s side, accepted the agency’s argument to avoid a strict application of the five-year statute of limitations.

The Supreme Court, however, saw things differently. This week, it issued its opinion less than two months after it heard oral argument in the case in January, a clear sign the justices found no merit in the S.E.C.’s contention that the agency should be treated the same as private plaintiffs in trying to get around the statute of limitations.

According to the Supreme Court, victims in securities fraud cases should have a longer period to file a claim – from when the fraud was discovered. “Most of us do not live in a state of constant investigation,” the court wrote. “Absent any reason to think we have been injured, we do not typically spend our days looking for evidence that we were lied to or defrauded.”

Chief Justice Roberts explained that “the S.E.C. as enforcer is a far cry from the defrauded victim the discovery rule evolved to protect.” One of the reasons the agency exists is to detect and penalize violations, with tools that the ordinary investor simply does not have, like the authority to compel testimony and the production of documents. The message is simple. When it’s your job to investigate fraud, you cannot argue that your failure to do so is a justification for not meeting a statute of limitations.

The Supreme Court’s decision puts increased pressure on the S.E.C. to pursue its investigations with greater alacrity and not let them gather dust, which can occur as a result of staff turnover or other pressing issues. The market timing case is a good example of how an investigation might get lost in the shuffle as corporate accounting frauds at large companies like Enron and WorldCom, which also came to light in 2002, strained the S.E.C.’s investigative resources.

There are a couple of options to deal with this issue in the long run, apart from a substantial increase in the agency’s budget – an unlikely prospect in the face of the looming federal budget sequestration deadline.

The S.E.C. can obtain an agreement to stop the statute of limitations, known as tolling, from those it is investigating, something it has done in the past. For example, in its insider trading and securities fraud case against Samuel E. Wyly, his now deceased brother, Charles J. Wyly Jr., and two other defendants, the S.E.C. got an agreement that let it pursue claims beyond the normal five-year limitations period.

A permanent solution would be to seek legislation from Congress that would give the S.E.C. a longer window to complete its investigations. The statute of limitations is not a constitutional protection, so Congress can amend it as it sees fit, which it has done in other areas involving fraud.

The limitations period for banking crimes, for example, was extended to 10 years during the savings and loan crisis because of the crush of cases that made it difficult to finish investigations in the five-year window to initiate criminal prosecutions. The Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act of 2009 added mail and wire fraud affecting a financial institution to the list of crimes that get the benefit of the 10-year limitations period, again because of fear that cases would be lost because of the number of investigations taking place after the financial crisis.

The issue of the statute of limitations may even come up at the confirmation hearings of Mary Jo White, who has been nominated to be chairwoman of the S.E.C. That could be an early indicator of whether she would be willing to push for relief from the effect of the Gabelli opinion to help out the enforcement division.

In the short run, the Supreme Court’s decision will cause defendants in government enforcement actions to examine whether they might be able to take advantage of the five-year limitations period. Given how slowly the government has been known to move on occasion, it may be that some cases will fall by the wayside because of the Gabelli decision.

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Phys Ed: What Housework Has to Do With Waistlines

Phys Ed

Gretchen Reynolds on the science of fitness.

One reason so many American women are overweight may be that we are vacuuming and doing laundry less often, according to a new study that, while scrupulously even-handed, is likely to stir controversy and emotions.

The study, published this month in PLoS One, is a follow-up to an influential 2011 report which used data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics to determine that, during the past 50 years, most American workers began sitting down on the job. Physical activity at work, such as walking or lifting, almost vanished, according to the data, with workers now spending most of their time seated before a computer or talking on the phone. Consequently, the authors found, the average American worker was burning almost 150 fewer calories daily at work than his or her employed parents had, a change that had materially contributed to the rise in obesity during the same time frame, especially among men, the authors concluded.

But that study, while fascinating, was narrow, focusing only on people with formal jobs. It overlooked a large segment of the population, namely a lot of women.

“Fifty years ago, a majority of women did not work outside of the home,” said Edward Archer, a research fellow with the Arnold School of Public Health at the University of South Carolina in Columbia, and lead author of the new study.

So, in collaboration with many of the authors of the earlier study of occupational physical activity, Dr. Archer set out to find data about how women had once spent their hours at home and whether and how their patterns of movement had changed over the years.

He found the information he needed in the American Heritage Time Use Study, a remarkable archive of “time-use diaries” provided by thousands of women beginning in 1965. Because Dr. Archer wished to examine how women in a variety of circumstances spent their time around the house, he gathered diaries from both working and non-employed women, starting with those in 1965 and extending through 2010.

He and his colleagues then pulled data from the diaries about how many hours the women were spending in various activities, how many calories they likely were expending in each of those tasks, and how the activities and associated energy expenditures changed over the years.

As it turned out, their findings broadly echoed those of the occupational time-use study. Women, they found, once had been quite physically active around the house, spending, in 1965, an average of 25.7 hours a week cleaning, cooking and doing laundry. Those activities, whatever their social freight, required the expenditure of considerable energy. (The authors did not include child care time in their calculations, since the women’s diary entries related to child care were inconsistent and often overlapped those of other activities.) In general at that time, working women devoted somewhat fewer hours to housework, while those not employed outside the home spent more.

Forty-five years later, in 2010, things had changed dramatically. By then, the time-use diaries showed, women were spending an average of 13.3 hours per week on housework.

More striking, the diary entries showed, women at home were now spending far more hours sitting in front of a screen. In 1965, women typically had spent about eight hours a week sitting and watching television. (Home computers weren’t invented yet.)

By 2010, those hours had more than doubled, to 16.5 hours per week. In essence, women had exchanged time spent in active pursuits, like vacuuming, for time spent being sedentary.

In the process, they had also greatly reduced the number of calories that they typically expended during their hours at home. According to the authors’ calculations, American women not employed outside the home were burning about 360 fewer calories every day in 2010 than they had in 1965, with working women burning about 132 fewer calories at home each day in 2010 than in 1965.

“Those are large reductions in energy expenditure,” Dr. Archer said, and would result, over the years, in significant weight gain without reductions in caloric intake.

What his study suggests, Dr. Archer continued, is that “we need to start finding ways to incorporate movement back into” the hours spent at home.

This does not mean, he said, that women — or men — should be doing more housework. For one thing, the effort involved is such activities today is less than it once was. Using modern, gliding vacuum cleaners is less taxing than struggling with the clunky, heavy machines once available, and thank goodness for that.

Nor is more time spent helping around the house a guarantee of more activity, over all. A telling 2012 study of television viewing habits found that when men increased the number of hours they spent on housework, they also greatly increased the hours they spent sitting in front of the TV, presumably because it was there and beckoning.

Instead, Dr. Archer said, we should start consciously tracking what we do when we are at home and try to reduce the amount of time spent sitting. “Walk to the mailbox,” he said. Chop vegetables in the kitchen. Play ball with your, or a neighbor’s, dog. Chivvy your spouse into helping you fold sheets. “The data clearly shows,” Dr. Archer said, that even at home, we need to be in motion.

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Phys Ed: What Housework Has to Do With Waistlines

Phys Ed

Gretchen Reynolds on the science of fitness.

One reason so many American women are overweight may be that we are vacuuming and doing laundry less often, according to a new study that, while scrupulously even-handed, is likely to stir controversy and emotions.

The study, published this month in PLoS One, is a follow-up to an influential 2011 report which used data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics to determine that, during the past 50 years, most American workers began sitting down on the job. Physical activity at work, such as walking or lifting, almost vanished, according to the data, with workers now spending most of their time seated before a computer or talking on the phone. Consequently, the authors found, the average American worker was burning almost 150 fewer calories daily at work than his or her employed parents had, a change that had materially contributed to the rise in obesity during the same time frame, especially among men, the authors concluded.

But that study, while fascinating, was narrow, focusing only on people with formal jobs. It overlooked a large segment of the population, namely a lot of women.

“Fifty years ago, a majority of women did not work outside of the home,” said Edward Archer, a research fellow with the Arnold School of Public Health at the University of South Carolina in Columbia, and lead author of the new study.

So, in collaboration with many of the authors of the earlier study of occupational physical activity, Dr. Archer set out to find data about how women had once spent their hours at home and whether and how their patterns of movement had changed over the years.

He found the information he needed in the American Heritage Time Use Study, a remarkable archive of “time-use diaries” provided by thousands of women beginning in 1965. Because Dr. Archer wished to examine how women in a variety of circumstances spent their time around the house, he gathered diaries from both working and non-employed women, starting with those in 1965 and extending through 2010.

He and his colleagues then pulled data from the diaries about how many hours the women were spending in various activities, how many calories they likely were expending in each of those tasks, and how the activities and associated energy expenditures changed over the years.

As it turned out, their findings broadly echoed those of the occupational time-use study. Women, they found, once had been quite physically active around the house, spending, in 1965, an average of 25.7 hours a week cleaning, cooking and doing laundry. Those activities, whatever their social freight, required the expenditure of considerable energy. (The authors did not include child care time in their calculations, since the women’s diary entries related to child care were inconsistent and often overlapped those of other activities.) In general at that time, working women devoted somewhat fewer hours to housework, while those not employed outside the home spent more.

Forty-five years later, in 2010, things had changed dramatically. By then, the time-use diaries showed, women were spending an average of 13.3 hours per week on housework.

More striking, the diary entries showed, women at home were now spending far more hours sitting in front of a screen. In 1965, women typically had spent about eight hours a week sitting and watching television. (Home computers weren’t invented yet.)

By 2010, those hours had more than doubled, to 16.5 hours per week. In essence, women had exchanged time spent in active pursuits, like vacuuming, for time spent being sedentary.

In the process, they had also greatly reduced the number of calories that they typically expended during their hours at home. According to the authors’ calculations, American women not employed outside the home were burning about 360 fewer calories every day in 2010 than they had in 1965, with working women burning about 132 fewer calories at home each day in 2010 than in 1965.

“Those are large reductions in energy expenditure,” Dr. Archer said, and would result, over the years, in significant weight gain without reductions in caloric intake.

What his study suggests, Dr. Archer continued, is that “we need to start finding ways to incorporate movement back into” the hours spent at home.

This does not mean, he said, that women — or men — should be doing more housework. For one thing, the effort involved is such activities today is less than it once was. Using modern, gliding vacuum cleaners is less taxing than struggling with the clunky, heavy machines once available, and thank goodness for that.

Nor is more time spent helping around the house a guarantee of more activity, over all. A telling 2012 study of television viewing habits found that when men increased the number of hours they spent on housework, they also greatly increased the hours they spent sitting in front of the TV, presumably because it was there and beckoning.

Instead, Dr. Archer said, we should start consciously tracking what we do when we are at home and try to reduce the amount of time spent sitting. “Walk to the mailbox,” he said. Chop vegetables in the kitchen. Play ball with your, or a neighbor’s, dog. Chivvy your spouse into helping you fold sheets. “The data clearly shows,” Dr. Archer said, that even at home, we need to be in motion.

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Gadgetwise Blog: A New Furby Toy

Furby has a new little sister — or maybe brother.

In stores this week, Furby Party Rockers from Hasbro, costing $23, are smaller and cheaper than the regular Furby, which are priced at $60. But they do less, too. There’s no animatronics and cheaper, backlighted lenticular eyes, designed to look like more expensive color eyes that move. They run on three AAA batteries and come in four varieties, complete with predetermined personalities and names like Loveby and Scoffby.

So what can they do?

Because the base is rounded, you wake up these little Furbys with a rocking motion. These motions are captured and counted, along the sound of our voice. More sound and motion equals more Furbish-talk, and eventually a song. If another Furby is near, large or small, they will sing in harmony.

Kris Paulson, Hasbro’s design manager of integrated play, said Furbys communicate with high-frequency sounds, called audio watermarks. You probably can’t hear them, but a nearby Furby or your dog probably can. So can your phone if it’s running the free Furby App on Android or the iPhone operating systems.

These new Furbys are part of a growing Furby empire that includes dress-up items, furniture (furbiture) and social media hooks.

One feature that Party Rockers share with their larger counterpart is that there is no off switch. Your only option is to remove the batteries, or drop one into solitary confinement for a few minutes. Finding such a place when children are around just might count as a 21st-century parenting skill. There’s a video on how these work.

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IHT Rendezvous: IHT Quick Read: Feb. 28

NEWS Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, 52, the top contender to succeed the Castros in Cuba, will need to display the authority of a future president while acting as if he does not want the job. Damien Cave reports from Mexico City.

In the waning hours of his troubled tenure, tens of thousands of believers gathered in St. Peter’s Square for Pope Benedict XVI’s valedictory address. Daniel J. Wakin reports from Vatican City.

The former mayor of Greece’s second city, Salonika, and two of his top aides were sentenced to life in prison on Wednesday after being found guilty of embezzling almost €18 million, or $23.5 million, in public money — a rare conviction in a case involving the political corruption that has contributed to the country’s dysfunction and economic decline. Niki Kitsantonis reports from Athens.

After Lars Hedegaard, a Danish polemicist, faced an attack for his anti-Islamic views, Muslim groups rallied to defend his right to free speech. Andrew Higgins reports from Copenhagen.

Islamic bonds, or sukuk, have long been popular with investors in the Middle East. Now they are being discovered in Europe and the United States. Sara Hamdan reports from Dubai.

The European Commission on Wednesday blocked the third attempt by Ryanair to acquire Aer Lingus, saying a union of the two Irish airlines would damage competition and raise prices on air routes to Ireland. James Kanter reports from Brussels.

At the Mobile World Congress, the industry’s largest convention in Europe, Samsung appears to be taking a page from Apple. Kevin J. O’Brien reports from Barcelona.

FASHION Fifteen years after much of its fashion manufacturing left for cheaper markets, Spain is trying to rebuild the sector and train new craftsmen. Raphael Minder reports from Madrid.

ARTS Van Cliburn, the American pianist whose first-place award at the 1958 International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow made him an overnight sensation and propelled him to a phenomenally successful and lucrative career, though a short-lived one, died on Wednesday at his home in Fort Worth, Texas. He was 78. Anthony Tommasini reports.

Giuseppe De Nittis was an original and innovative force and responsible for evocative images, persuasively demonstrated by an exhibition of 118 of his works in Italy. Roderick Conway Morris reviews from Padua, Italy.

SPORTS Real Madrid beat its archrival, 3-1, in Barcelona, less than a week after the Catalan club lost in the Champions League. Rob Hughes reports from Barcelona.

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DealBook: Obama’s Nominee for S.E.C. Tries to Allay Skepticism

Mary Jo White’s path to the Securities and Exchange Commission has reached a crucial juncture: the Congressional charm campaign.

Lawmakers are scrutinizing Ms. White ahead of her Senate confirmation hearing, raising questions about the former prosecutor’s lack of regulatory experience and the challenge of policing Wall Street firms she recently defended in private practice. But Ms. White is seeking to quell concerns about potential conflicts of interest.

She recently scheduled meetings with Senate Banking Committee members, who must clear her nomination, and answered a 20-page boilerplate questionnaire detailing her qualifications, according to a copy provided to The New York Times. The document sheds new light on her list of Wall Street clients, including little-known work performed for HSBC’s former chief executive. It also describes her ties to New York Democratic causes and laurels she earned both as a defense lawyer and federal prosecutor.

The questionnaire, created by the banking committee, focused significant attention on her movement through the revolving door between government service and private practice, a concern that has loomed since President Obama nominated Ms. White in January.

“As a government official, I believe I have an established track record and the reputation of being tough, but fair,” she said in the document.

Ms. White also offered a previously undisclosed concession, vowing “as far as can be foreseen,” never to return to Debevoise & Plimpton, where she had built a lucrative legal practice. To avert potential conflicts stemming from her work on behalf of Wall Street giants, Ms. White had already agreed to recuse herself for one year from most matters that involve former clients.

While Ms. White’s nomination is expected to sail through the committee before receiving full Senate approval, four Congressional officials who spoke anonymously warned that some Democrats have lingering reservations.

The Democrats note that her husband, John W. White, is co-chairman of the corporate governance practice at Cravath, Swaine & Moore, where he represents many of the companies that the S.E.C. regulates. They also question whether Ms. White’s recusals, even if well-intentioned, could cripple her ability to run the agency.

In a meeting on Tuesday with Senator Sherrod Brown, Democrat of Ohio, Ms. White did little to alleviate the fears.

“Senator Brown respects Ms. White’s credentials and experience, but is concerned with Washington’s long-held bias toward Wall Street,” his spokeswoman, Meghan Dubyak, said in a statement. “He pushed Ms. White,” to explain “whether her previous employment or her spouse’s current employment could cause her to recuse herself from key business facing the S.E.C.” The agency has already fallen behind in writing dozens of new rules for Wall Street.

Ms. White’s supporters counter that, before the White House announced the appointment, the Office of Government Ethics vetted her disclosures. The nonpartisan officials concluded that, even with her recusals, Ms. White could effectively run the agency.

Her supporters also trumpet her long tenure as a tenacious prosecutor. During stints as a federal prosecutor in Brooklyn and as the first woman United States attorney in Manhattan, she helped oversee the prosecution of the crime figure John Gotti and directed the case against those responsible for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. The cases won her praise from several lawmakers.

Ms. White still has time to win over remaining skeptics. Her confirmation hearing is not expected until the week of March 11, Congressional officials briefed on the matter said.

Until then, Ms. White is blitzing through the halls of Congress, a routine practice for nominees. She began her charm offensive at the top of the banking committee’s roster, visiting this month with the Democratic chairman, Senator Tim Johnson, of South Dakota. A Congressional official briefed on the matter said Ms. White performed well at the gathering, and no major issues arose.

In the next round of meetings, she will face off with a more liberal arm of the committee known to scrutinize nominees. After meeting Mr. Brown, Ms. White is scheduled to see Senator Jeff Merkley, Democrat of Oregon. She also will meet Elizabeth Warren, the Massachusetts Democrat who is an outspoken critic of Wall Street, Ms. Warren’s office confirmed on Tuesday.

Even if Ms. White fails to satisfy lawmakers’ concerns, the meetings are an important step in clearing the way for her appointment.

“Senators will have a chance to size Mary Jo up, and I believe will come away with a great sense of comfort that she’s a candidate of true quality,” said Harvey Pitt, who passed through the confirmation process in 2001 to lead the S.E.C.

He noted that additional disclosures could bolster her candidacy. “I do think she will need to provide a level of comfort to the committee that she is aware of the issue, has a definitive plan for navigating through the potential conflict issues, and will be completely open about when she has a potential recusal issue, and how she has handled it,” he said.

Ms. White, a political independent, assured lawmakers in her questionnaire that she was “completely independent of political or personal influences.” She did disclose, however, $13,000 in campaign donations to Democratic candidates. She also served on the campaign committee of a Democrat who had run for New York attorney general.

Her ties to Debevoise — and its clients — are more significant; she represented JPMorgan Chase, UBS and Michael Geoghegan, the former head of HSBC.

Ms. White, 65, said this month said that she would retire from Debevoise after taking over the S.E.C. and would forgo the firm’s typical retirement perks: office space and a free BlackBerry. She also will sever financial ties to the firm during her term at the S.E.C., taking an upfront lump-sum retirement payment rather than collecting a monthly installment of $42,500.

Her husband has also offered concessions. He agreed to convert his partnership at Cravath, Swaine & Moore from equity to nonequity status and promised not to “communicate directly” with the S.E.C. about rule-making. Ms. White will not participate in a matter with a direct effect on his compensation.

In line with a standard move for federal appointees, Ms. White further agreed to recuse herself for one year from voting on enforcement cases involving Debevoise clients. There are limitations to the policy, though, in case it is “in the public interest” and a “reasonable” person would not object.

Some lawmakers dismiss questions about her potential conflicts, but still question her mastery of regulatory minutiae. While Ms. White is a skilled litigator, she lacks experience in financial rule-writing, unlike a predecessor, Mary Schapiro, a lifelong regulator who ran the S.E.C. for nearly four years.

In her questionnaire, Ms. White highlighted her role as a director of the Nasdaq exchange and other experiences that she said gave her “a firm grounding” in securities laws.

She also, inadvertently, drew a connection to Ms. Schapiro. Like Ms. Schapiro, Ms. White is an animal lover, currently serving as a board member of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

She agreed to step down from the board once she is sworn in at the S.E.C.

A version of this article appeared in print on 02/27/2013, on page B1 of the NewYork edition with the headline: Nominee For S.E.C. Tries to Allay Skepticism.

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Personal Health: Too Many Pills in Pregnancy

The thalidomide disaster of the early 1960s left thousands of babies with deformed limbs because their mothers innocently took a sleeping pill thought to be safe during pregnancy,

In its well-publicized wake, countless pregnant women avoided all medications, fearing that any drug they took could jeopardize their babies’ development.

I was terrified in December 1968 when, during the first weeks of my pregnancy, I developed double pneumonia and was treated with antibiotics and codeine. Before swallowing a single dose, I called my obstetrician, who told me to take what was prescribed, “reassuring” me that if I died of pneumonia I wouldn’t have a baby at all.

In the decades that followed, pregnancy-related hazards were linked to many medicinal substances: prescription and over-the-counter drugs and herbal remedies, as well as abused drugs and even some vitamins.

Now, however, the latest findings about drug use during pregnancy have ignited new concerns among experts who monitor the effects of medications on the developing fetus and pregnancy itself.

During the last 30 years, use of prescription drugs during the first trimester of pregnancy, when fetal organs are forming, has grown by more than 60 percent.

About 90 percent of pregnant women take at least one medication, and 70 percent take at least one prescription drug, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Since the late 1970s, the proportion of pregnant women taking four or more medications has more than doubled.

Nearly one woman in 10 takes an herbal remedy during the first trimester.

A growing number of pregnant women, naïvely assuming safety, self-medicate with over-the-counter drugs that were once sold only by prescription.

While many commonly taken medications are considered safe for unborn babies, the Food and Drug Administration estimates that 10 percent or more of birth defects result from medications taken during pregnancy. “We seem to have forgotten as a society that drugs pose risks,” Dr. Allen A. Mitchell, professor of epidemiology and pediatrics at Boston University Schools of Public Health and Medicine, said in an interview. “Many over-the-counter drugs were grandfathered in with no studies of their possible effects during pregnancy.”

Medical progress has contributed to the rising use of medications during pregnancy, Dr. Mitchell said. Various conditions, like depression, are now recognized as diseases that warrant treatment; drugs have been developed to treat conditions for which no treatment was previously available, and some conditions, like Type 2 diabetes and hypertension, have become more prevalent.

Misled by the Web

Now a new concern has surfaced: Bypassing their doctors, more and more women are using the Internet to determine whether the medication they are taking or are about to take is safe for an unborn baby.

A study, published online last month in Pharmacoepidemiology and Drug Safety, of so-called “safe lists for medications in pregnancy” found at 25 Web sites revealed glaring inconsistencies and sometimes false reassurances or alarms based on “inadequate evidence.”

The report was prepared by Cheryl S. Broussard of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention with co-authors from Emory, Georgia State University, the University of British Columbia and the Food and Drug Administration.

“Among medications approved for use in the U.S.A. from 2000 to 2010, over 79% had no published human data on which to assess teratogenic risk (potential to cause birth defects), and 98% had insufficient published data to characterize such risk,” the authors wrote.

But that did not stop the 25 Web sites from characterizing 245 medications as “safe” for use by pregnant women, which “might encourage use of medications during pregnancy even when they are not necessary,” the authors suggested.

Furthermore, the information found online was sometimes contradictory. “Twenty-two of the products listed as safe by one or more sites were stated not to be safe by one or more of the other sites,” the study found.

The question of timing was often ignored. A drug that could interfere with fetal organ development might be safe to take later in pregnancy. Or one (for example, ibuprofen) that is safe early in pregnancy could become a hazard later if it raises the risk of excessive bleeding or premature delivery.

Fewer than half the sites advised taking medication only when necessary, and only 13 sites encouraged pregnant women to consult their doctors before stopping or starting a medication.

Doctors, too, are often poorly informed about pregnancy-related hazards of various medications, the authors noted. One woman I know was advised to wean off an antidepressant before she became pregnant, but another was told to continue taking the same drug throughout her pregnancy.

“In many instances the best bet is for mom to stay on her medication,” said Dr. Siobhan M. Dolan, an obstetrician and geneticist at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. She said that if a woman is depressed during pregnancy, her risk of postpartum depression is greater and she may have difficulty bonding with her baby.

Dr. Dolan, who is author, with Alice Lesch Kelly, of the March of Dimes’ newest book, “Healthy Mom Healthy Baby,” emphasized the importance of weighing benefits and risks in deciding whether to take medication during pregnancy and which drugs to take.

“In anticipation of pregnancy, a woman taking more than one drug to treat her condition should try to get down to a single agent,” Dr. Dolan said in an interview. “Of the various medications available to treat a condition, is there a best choice — one least likely to cause a problem for either the baby or the mother?”

She cautioned against sharing medications prescribed for someone else and assuming that a remedy labeled “natural” or “herbal” is safe. Virtually none have been tested for safety in pregnancy.

Among medications a woman should be certain to avoid, in some cases starting three months before becoming pregnant, are isotretinoin (Accutane and others) for acne; valproic acid for seizure disorders; lithium for bipolar disorder; tetracycline for infections, and angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors and angiotensin receptor antagonists for hypertension, Dr. Dolan said.

“Many medications that are not recommended during pregnancy can be replaced with low-risk alternatives,” she wrote.

Dr. Broussard, who did the “safe lists” study, said in an interview, “We’ve heard about women seeing medications on these lists and deciding on their own that it’s O.K. to take them. “Women who are pregnant or even thinking about getting pregnant should talk directly to their doctors before taking anything. They should be sure they’re taking only what’s necessary for their health condition.”

A reliable online resource for both women and their doctors, Dr. Mitchell said, are fact sheets prepared by OTIS, the Organization of Teratology Information Specialists, which are continually updated as new facts become available: http://www.otispregnancy.org.

Read More..

Personal Health: Too Many Pills in Pregnancy

The thalidomide disaster of the early 1960s left thousands of babies with deformed limbs because their mothers innocently took a sleeping pill thought to be safe during pregnancy,

In its well-publicized wake, countless pregnant women avoided all medications, fearing that any drug they took could jeopardize their babies’ development.

I was terrified in December 1968 when, during the first weeks of my pregnancy, I developed double pneumonia and was treated with antibiotics and codeine. Before swallowing a single dose, I called my obstetrician, who told me to take what was prescribed, “reassuring” me that if I died of pneumonia I wouldn’t have a baby at all.

In the decades that followed, pregnancy-related hazards were linked to many medicinal substances: prescription and over-the-counter drugs and herbal remedies, as well as abused drugs and even some vitamins.

Now, however, the latest findings about drug use during pregnancy have ignited new concerns among experts who monitor the effects of medications on the developing fetus and pregnancy itself.

During the last 30 years, use of prescription drugs during the first trimester of pregnancy, when fetal organs are forming, has grown by more than 60 percent.

About 90 percent of pregnant women take at least one medication, and 70 percent take at least one prescription drug, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Since the late 1970s, the proportion of pregnant women taking four or more medications has more than doubled.

Nearly one woman in 10 takes an herbal remedy during the first trimester.

A growing number of pregnant women, naïvely assuming safety, self-medicate with over-the-counter drugs that were once sold only by prescription.

While many commonly taken medications are considered safe for unborn babies, the Food and Drug Administration estimates that 10 percent or more of birth defects result from medications taken during pregnancy. “We seem to have forgotten as a society that drugs pose risks,” Dr. Allen A. Mitchell, professor of epidemiology and pediatrics at Boston University Schools of Public Health and Medicine, said in an interview. “Many over-the-counter drugs were grandfathered in with no studies of their possible effects during pregnancy.”

Medical progress has contributed to the rising use of medications during pregnancy, Dr. Mitchell said. Various conditions, like depression, are now recognized as diseases that warrant treatment; drugs have been developed to treat conditions for which no treatment was previously available, and some conditions, like Type 2 diabetes and hypertension, have become more prevalent.

Misled by the Web

Now a new concern has surfaced: Bypassing their doctors, more and more women are using the Internet to determine whether the medication they are taking or are about to take is safe for an unborn baby.

A study, published online last month in Pharmacoepidemiology and Drug Safety, of so-called “safe lists for medications in pregnancy” found at 25 Web sites revealed glaring inconsistencies and sometimes false reassurances or alarms based on “inadequate evidence.”

The report was prepared by Cheryl S. Broussard of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention with co-authors from Emory, Georgia State University, the University of British Columbia and the Food and Drug Administration.

“Among medications approved for use in the U.S.A. from 2000 to 2010, over 79% had no published human data on which to assess teratogenic risk (potential to cause birth defects), and 98% had insufficient published data to characterize such risk,” the authors wrote.

But that did not stop the 25 Web sites from characterizing 245 medications as “safe” for use by pregnant women, which “might encourage use of medications during pregnancy even when they are not necessary,” the authors suggested.

Furthermore, the information found online was sometimes contradictory. “Twenty-two of the products listed as safe by one or more sites were stated not to be safe by one or more of the other sites,” the study found.

The question of timing was often ignored. A drug that could interfere with fetal organ development might be safe to take later in pregnancy. Or one (for example, ibuprofen) that is safe early in pregnancy could become a hazard later if it raises the risk of excessive bleeding or premature delivery.

Fewer than half the sites advised taking medication only when necessary, and only 13 sites encouraged pregnant women to consult their doctors before stopping or starting a medication.

Doctors, too, are often poorly informed about pregnancy-related hazards of various medications, the authors noted. One woman I know was advised to wean off an antidepressant before she became pregnant, but another was told to continue taking the same drug throughout her pregnancy.

“In many instances the best bet is for mom to stay on her medication,” said Dr. Siobhan M. Dolan, an obstetrician and geneticist at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. She said that if a woman is depressed during pregnancy, her risk of postpartum depression is greater and she may have difficulty bonding with her baby.

Dr. Dolan, who is author, with Alice Lesch Kelly, of the March of Dimes’ newest book, “Healthy Mom Healthy Baby,” emphasized the importance of weighing benefits and risks in deciding whether to take medication during pregnancy and which drugs to take.

“In anticipation of pregnancy, a woman taking more than one drug to treat her condition should try to get down to a single agent,” Dr. Dolan said in an interview. “Of the various medications available to treat a condition, is there a best choice — one least likely to cause a problem for either the baby or the mother?”

She cautioned against sharing medications prescribed for someone else and assuming that a remedy labeled “natural” or “herbal” is safe. Virtually none have been tested for safety in pregnancy.

Among medications a woman should be certain to avoid, in some cases starting three months before becoming pregnant, are isotretinoin (Accutane and others) for acne; valproic acid for seizure disorders; lithium for bipolar disorder; tetracycline for infections, and angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors and angiotensin receptor antagonists for hypertension, Dr. Dolan said.

“Many medications that are not recommended during pregnancy can be replaced with low-risk alternatives,” she wrote.

Dr. Broussard, who did the “safe lists” study, said in an interview, “We’ve heard about women seeing medications on these lists and deciding on their own that it’s O.K. to take them. “Women who are pregnant or even thinking about getting pregnant should talk directly to their doctors before taking anything. They should be sure they’re taking only what’s necessary for their health condition.”

A reliable online resource for both women and their doctors, Dr. Mitchell said, are fact sheets prepared by OTIS, the Organization of Teratology Information Specialists, which are continually updated as new facts become available: http://www.otispregnancy.org.

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Gadgetwise Blog: A Wireless Speaker With a Wi-Fi Connection

When we talk wireless speakers, we still generally mean speakers that connect to players by Bluetooth.

There is nothing wrong with Bluetooth, but Wi-Fi, which can carry a lot more information, can sound a lot better. That is part of the reason we are seeing more Wi-Fi and Apple AirPlay speakers on store shelves.

Among them is the Libratone Zipp, a 10-inch tall canister with a fuzzy cover that makes it look like a small, colorful roll of carpet.

The Zipp’s Wi-Fi connection is supposed to be Apple- and Android-friendly. The connection with the iPhone was easy; in my test I set the iPhone’s Wi-Fi network to Libratone, then went to the music player, hit the AirPlay button, picked Libratone again and was connected through the play direct feature. That feature broadcasts directly from the phone to the speaker without going through your larger Wi-Fi network.

Connecting with a Android phone was did not work so easily, which is to say at all. Even with help from support and a software update, I was unable to get a Motorola RAZR Maxx to connect. Support said the problem seemed to be a faulty speaker.

The Zipp says it also supports DLNA, which should make it work with Windows, but I didn’t test that feature.

The Zipp is portable – it claims four hours of battery life when using Wi-Fi – but it isn’t exactly light weight, tipping the scales at four pounds.

The sound quality is good, thanks partially to a 4-inch woofer and a pair of 1-inch ribbon speakers, although I don’t know if it’s fair to call a monaural speaker “high fidelity,” as Libratone does.

There is one major drawback to using Wi-Fi to connect a player and speaker. Once the Wi-Fi is occupied by the Zipp, you can’t use it to connect to your Pandora, Slacker or other streaming audio account. So no streaming audio. You could get around this by connecting the device using a USB cable, which also doubles the Zipp’s battery life.

The Zipp, which comes in any of eight colors, starts at $400 list price online.

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India Ink: Image of the Day: Feb. 27

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