Recommendations

In rejecting PSA screening for prostate cancer, an influential federal panel has chipped a cornerstone of preventive medicine, declaring that it's not always best to catch cancer as early as possible. "At best, PSA screening may help only 1 man in 1,000 avoid death from prostate cancer," the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force said Monday. "Most prostate cancers found by PSA screening are slow growing, not life threatening, and will not cause a man any harm during his lifetime.

Amid the many messages you will hear about screening for prostate cancer in the coming days, I hope these stand out: There is at best a small potential benefit from prostate cancer screening, and there are substantial known harms. We need a better test, and we need better treatment options. The panel I chair, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, has just issued a recommendation against screening men of any age for prostate cancer using the prostate-specific antigen, or PSA, blood test.

Rose Tree Media school board members have begun reviewing the long-awaited facilities study, which outlines more than $16 million worth of repairs, renovations and improvements. Representatives from the Wagner Group of Reading, which was hired in January to produce the 150-page report, told the board the buildings were safe and in good repair. The report makes recommendations for bringing buildings up to fire and building codes as well as suggestions for improving the appearance of the buildings, especially Penncrest High School.

The results were as different as day and night. On Wednesday, Oxford teachers voted at dawn, the school board after sundown, on a state fact-finder's labor contract recommendations. The teachers said yes. The school board, 8-1, said no to terms recommended by the impartial labor expert, Charles Halpin of La Salle University. The teachers' association was "extremely disappointed" by the school board's rejection, Donald Orner, the chief union negotiator, said Thursday.

A conference on African American health problems yesterday recommended dozens of ways to improve health care in Pennsylvania and called for establishing a state agency for minority health issues. Conference leader State Rep. David P. Richardson (D., Phila.) said the goal of the four-day session was to persuade Gov. Casey to provide $3.5 million for the proposed agency. "We have been mostly emotional people who only speak out of emotion. . . . We just speak off the cuff," Richardson told about 40 conference delegates who issued recommendations to be presented to Casey.

HARRISBURG - A group of environmental, labor and liberal-leaning public policy groups said the governor's Marcellus Shale advisory panel didn't go far enough in its recommendations, and released its own report Monday calling for broader protections from gas drilling. Calling themselves the Citizens Marcellus Shale Commission, organizers also countered criticism from one of their former members, Maya K. van Rossum, who on Friday described their final recommendations as watered down to become "politically palatable.

The executive director of the Chester County Intermediate Unit presented at the West Chester Area school board meeting this week alternatives regarding the future of the county's two vocational-technical schools. During the board's monthly meeting Monday, John K. Baillie reported on the recommendations of the Occupational Education Advisory Council, formed to study the reasons for the decline in enrollments at the county's two vo-tech schools. He told the board that the council's recommendations offer alternatives that would help to bolster enrollments and would make the vo-tech school programs eventually pay for themselves.

A much-anticipated report, aimed at settling the stalemated contract negotiations in the Coatesville Area School District, recommends that salaries for the district's 485 teachers be raised by 6 percent or more in each of the next three years. The recommended salary increase is more than double what the Coatesville school board has offered to pay the teachers. The report, completed by the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board, was ordered because of the two sides' inability to reach agreement on a new teachers' contract.

The owners of the Stringfellow Acid Pits and many of the companies that used the hazardous waste dump should pay to clean the area and to stop leakage into nearby water supplies, a court-appointed overseer has ruled. Those recommendations by federal court Special Master Harry V. Peetris will be forwarded to U.S. District Judge James Ideman who will consider their merits, said court spokesman Todd Maiden. Peetris also recommended Tuesday that J.B. Stringfellow Jr., operator of the dump, be held liable for cleanup costs at the 22-acre site near the community of Glen Avon.

A bipartisan subcommittee formed in Winslow to look into the township's controversial practice of selling public land has issued its preliminary report to the Township Committee. The report, released Aug. 9, proposes more stringent guidelines for future sales, including: That no public lands be sold below assessed market value; That any special conditions be reflected in the deeds, That a monitoring system be adopted to ensure that all obligations from a sale are met. The four-member subcommittee was created in March to examine public land sales in the township and to recommend procedural changes or refinements.

An FDA advisory panel Wednesday voted 6-4 against recommending approval of the blood thinning drug Xarelto for use in reducing blood clots. Janssen Pharmaceuticals, a division of Johnson & Johnson, makes the drug. The FDA reviewer had recommended approval, but the panel agreed with the reviewer's concerns about internal bleeding and gaps in data from clinical trials. The FDA does not have to follow panel votes, but usually does. The drug is already available for other conditions, but approval would have expanded the market for J&J. — David Sell

In rejecting PSA screening for prostate cancer, an influential federal panel has chipped a cornerstone of preventive medicine, declaring that it's not always best to catch cancer as early as possible. "At best, PSA screening may help only 1 man in 1,000 avoid death from prostate cancer," the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force said Monday. "Most prostate cancers found by PSA screening are slow growing, not life threatening, and will not cause a man any harm during his lifetime.

A federal advisory committee on Tuesday unanimously approved over-the-counter sale of a rapid HIV test, acknowledging public health workers' pleas for a new tool against an epidemic that is driven largely by people who don't know their status and infect others. If the Food and Drug Administation agrees with its advisers, the oral swab screening test made by OraSure Technologies Inc. of Bethlehem, Pa., would become the first infectious disease test approved for home use. The panel overcame considerable unknowns and concerns that the test cannot pick up newly-acquired infections to focus on a bigger picture.

Movies Opening This Week Bully See Steven Rea's preview on H2. The Cabin in the Woods When five friends visit a remote cabin, they suffer the fate that befalls most movie characters who visit remote cabins in the woods. What were they thinking? The Deep Blue Sea A distraught British woman who has been socially ostracized after leaving her husband, a highly respected judge, and entering a failed relationship with a Royal Air Force pilot, finds the will to live with the help of an outcast neighbor.

WASHINGTON - The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan said Thursday he preferred a significant American force of 68,000 to combat insurgents in 2013, signaling a potential halt in the drawdown and complicating any effort by President Obama to speed up troop withdrawals after more than a decade of war. Marine Gen. John Allen insisted that he would hold off on a recommendation on the pace of further reductions until after the 23,000-member surge forces...

If you find Yelp and Urbanspoon - let alone Foodspotting - to be too much work when you're searching for great restaurants in a new town, try a robot. Name: Alfred Available for: Android, iPhone, iPad What it does: This app analyzes your likes and recommends restaurants based on your previous favorites. Cost: Free What's hot: You don't have to spend long on the initial quiz for Alfred to figure out what you like. ("Hi. I'm Alfred!