THURSDAY, May 8 (HealthDay News) -- When television news reports about traffic crashes, fires or other injury-causing events feature interviews with police officers and fire department officials, viewers are more than twice as likely to hear prevention information that could help them and their families, according to a U.S. study.

Researchers at the University of Michigan Health System, the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the Medical College of Wisconsin analyzed one month's worth of late-evening TV newscasts from 122 stations in the nation's top 50 television markets.

Of the 2,795 newscasts, 1,748 included coverage of incidents such as crashes, fires, falls, drownings, accidental poisonings and recreational and sporting mishaps. Most of the stories (84 percent) involved crashes or fires.

Only 245 of the stories featured an interview with a police officer, fire official or other public services professional. These stories were much more likely to include prevention and risk-reduction information -- 2.5 times more likely for crash stories and more than 2.75 times more likely for fire stories -- than stories that didn't have these kinds of interviews.

"In the end, if police and firefighters appeared on camera, it meant more prevention messages for the public," study author Dr. James Pribble, an emergency medicine physician at the U-M Health System, said in a prepared statement.

"This suggests that we have a very powerful opportunity to train these public service professionals to be ready to give interviews on the spot, often on the scene, to give the public prevention tips and information about current public policy issues in injury prevention and safety," Pribble said.

The study was published in the May issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

Next, the researchers hope to survey police and fire departments across the United States to find out how they handle news media inquiries and how many officers have been trained as media spokespeople. The researchers also plan to analyze more TV coverage of accidental injuries, including coverage on Spanish-language newscasts.

"With the intense deadlines of daily TV news, it's hard to get the media to change how it covers certain kinds of staple stories," Pribble said. "But if we can help the media have easy access to experts who can give useful information for the public, and information on what is being done on a policy level to make the public even safer, the end result will be the same: The public will be better informed about injury prevention."

More information

The World Health Organization has more about injury prevention  .

THURSDAY, May 8 (HealthDay News) -- The belief that things should be divided fairly among members of a group isn't just a matter of culture or reason -- it's an emotion that's built into the human brain.

That's the suggestion of a new study that posed the question: Is it better to give food to some hungry children while others go hungry? Or is it better that every child get a share, albeit a smaller one?

"People prefer equity, when all things are equal, to efficiency," said study lead researcher Ming Hsu, a fellow at the University of Illinois Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology.

And different regions of the brain are involved when making decisions involving fairness or efficiency, he said.

"In terms of the brain, we find areas of the insular cortex are activated when people were choosing the equitable allocation of food," Hsu said. "Given the involvement of the insular cortex in emotions and fairness judgments, we conclude that emotions are underlying equity judgments."

Other areas of the brain are activated when people are making judgments about efficiency, he said.

But, not everyone is sensitive to equity, Hsu noted. "Some people care less about equity, and that's associated with a lower sensitivity in their insula," he said. "When these people are confronted with inequitable situations, their insula is activated less."

The study, by researchers at the University of Illinois and the California Institute of Technology, was published in the May 8 issue of Science.

For the study, the volunteers were hypothetically asked to distribute food to children in an orphanage in Uganda. The children would be given the cash equivalent of 24 meals, a "gift" from the research team to the orphanage.

But, a number of meals would have to be cut for some of the children. So, the volunteers were given two options to deal with the problem.

In one option, 15 meals could be taken from one child, or 13 from another child, or five from yet another child, for instance. Choosing this option, the total number of meals lost would be less, but one child would suffer from all cuts. Efficiency would be maintained at the expense of equity.

The second option reduced efficiency, but promoted equity. In this option, all the children would be fed, but they'd share fewer meals.

The researchers found that the study participants overwhelmingly chose the second option. This finding echoed other studies that showed that most people are intolerant of inequity, Hsu said.

During the experiment, the volunteers underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging. This allowed the researchers to determine which parts of the brain were most affected during decision-making.

The researchers found that regions of the brain called the insula, putamen and caudate were activated differently, and at different times, during the experiment. The insula responded to changes in equity, while the putamen responded to changes in efficiency. The caudate appeared to blend both equity and efficiency, Hsu said.

The insights involving the insula, which plays a key role in emotions, supports the idea that emotion rather than reason is at the base of people's attitudes about inequality, Hsu said. Also, studies had found that the insula is involved in deciding fairness. But, the putamen and the caudate are activated during reward-related learning, the researchers noted.

"These results support the idea that people care about equity at a very deep level," Hsu said.

Brian Knutson, an assistant professor of psychology and neuroscience at Stanford University, said the findings illustrate just how much emotion is involved in decision-making.

"We are finding that similar brain regions seem to be involved in individual economic well-being and also the well-being of others," he said.

Because the areas of the brain involved in such decisions are located deep inside the brain, it suggests they have a role in evolutionary survival function, Knutson said. "They are serving some sort of survival and emotional function," he said.

Knutson noted that many economic theories assume that people use reason to make decisions, but the areas of the brain involved in equity and efficiency are really areas activated by emotion.

"When people see an unfair offer, they actually have a negative emotional reaction to it," Knutson said. "They have a visceral reaction to unfairness."

More information

To learn more about the human brain, visit the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.

MONDAY, May 5 (HealthDay News) -- Prices of prescription drugs can vary by $100 or more for the same drug from store to store -- and even within the same chain. So it pays to shop around, a new survey found.

But the survey also found that consumers are less likely to consult with pharmacists about the drugs they're using than they were in the past, which can lead to serious consequences in terms of drug interactions.

"More people are paying a higher percentage of out-of-pocket expenses for their prescriptions than they did in 2002," said Tod Marks, senior editor at Consumer Reports magazine, which conducted the survey.

"In our survey, we found that there was a significant price difference, not only for the same drug at different stores, but there were price differences within the same chain and the online price," Marks said. "Sometimes those prices can be significantly different."

The findings were published in the June issue of Consumer Reports.

For the survey, the magazine called 163 pharmacies nationwide to determine price differences for four prescription drugs -- three name brand medicines and one generic.

The price for a three-month supply of the urinary incontinence drug Detrol ranged from $365 to $551. The price for Plavix, a drug that prevents blood clots, ranged from $382 to $541. Prices for Levoxyl, a treatment for hypothyroidism, varied from $29 to $85. And the costs for the generic osteoporosis drug alendronate ranged from $124 to $306, the survey found.

Costco was the cheapest source for the four drugs, while Walgreens and Rite-Aid were among the most expensive, according to the survey.

The survey also found that consumers shouldn't rule out independent drug stores -- while they may not be the cheapest, their prices are competitive, and they offer top service.

"A lot of people have the assumption that independent drug stores are expensive," Marks said. "In many cases, they were not the cheapest overall, but we did find a significant number of mom-and-pops that were highly competitive."

Consumers should also ask their employers about pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), which can offer substantially lower prices and co-payments, Marks said.

Marks also recommended buying generic drugs because they can cost up to 50 percent less than their brand-name equivalents. And consumers should look for store discount programs that can lower the cost of prescription medications for those without drug insurance, he said.

In another part of the survey, Consumer Reports questioned 40,133 readers about their drugstore experiences. Among the findings: People asked pharmacists for advice on prescription drugs just 38 percent of the time.

That's down from 50 percent since the last survey in 2002, Marks said, adding, "That's a pretty significant shift in the consumer-pharmacist relationship."

That's a worrisome trend, Marks said, because one-third of U.S. adults take five or more prescription medicines or supplements. And some 18 million people end up in hospital emergency room's each year because of medication errors, he said.

"Consumers should consult with their pharmacists, whether they're taking prescription drugs or even over-the-counter stuff, because people think they're innocent, but the fact of the matter is they can have serious ramifications," he said.

Marks noted that independent and chain drug stores both ranked high in consumer approval. Independent local pharmacies often ranked higher in personal service, compared with chain pharmacies, where consumers often experience longer waits, he said.

Pharmacies within supermarkets were rated high for convenience, Marks said. "One of the nice things about supermarket pharmacies is that they tend not to be as crowded as the big chains," he said.

Among mass-market retailers, Kmart and Shopko came out on top in terms of drug prices, Marks said. Wal-Mart and Target got high ratings for offering cheap generic drugs, he said.

A representative of the pharmacy industry said the reasons for the price variance between stores are likely to be complex.

"In any market, there is a price variation," said Chrissy Kopple, vice president of media relations at the National Association of Chain Drug Stores, based in Alexandria, Va. "As a trade association, we cannot comment in great detail on prescription drug pricing due to anti-trust issues. However as is the case with any business, many factors play roles in pricing decisions, including costs, business strategy and local competition," she said.

More information

For more on comparing drug prices, visit Consumer Reports  .

FRIDAY, April 18 (HealthDay News) -- Like most of America's blood donors, JJ and Logan are unaware of exactly how many or whose lives they may have saved.

But over a three-year period, the two healthy Labradors donated blood more than a dozen times -- helping numerous canine patients survive surgeries and illnesses to play "fetch" another day.

The dogs' owner, Joanna Goriss of Deerfield Beach, Fla., has no regrets in volunteering her pets as blood donors for the nearby Sun States Animal Blood Bank, a nonprofit center serving Florida.

"You're helping out," she reasoned. "It's similar to giving blood as a person -- what benefit do you get for that? You're just doing a good thing."

And just as it is in human medicine, the demand for blood transfusions for veterinary procedures is very real, one expert said.

"There's a significant need," said Dr. Andrew Mackin, an associate professor and service chief of Small Animal Internal Medicine at Mississippi State University's College of Veterinary Medicine.

"Severe injuries occasionally need blood transfusions, but more often dogs commonly need transfusions for different reasons," said Mackin, who is also past president of the Association of Veterinary Hematology and Transfusion Medicine. Those reasons include illnesses involving chronic anemia or clotting disorders, bone marrow diseases, and major surgeries such as removal of the spleen or a spinal surgery.

Too often, Mackin said, dogs also make the mistake of consuming rat bait containing the anticoagulant warfarin, which can lead to a massive loss of blood.

"So, there's a steady need for blood that is similar to the everyday need in people," he said.

That need is currently being met with a patchwork system that involves in-house transfusions performed at local clinics (some larger veterinary clinics keep a few animals on hand for this purpose), or via commercial animal blood banks spread across the United States.

"Where blood banks become important is when you have an overwhelming demand for blood, such as in specialty practices that do a lot of surgery or see a lot of emergency cases," Mackin explained.

Midwest Animal Blood Services, in Stockbridge, Mich., is one such regional supplier of canine and feline blood for transfusion. According to director Dr. Anne Hale, Midwest regularly sponsors local doggy donor blood drives. The ideal donor is a healthy dog under 8 years of age, weighing over 50 pounds, with a friendly disposition. Owners typically bring the dog in to donate blood once or twice a year.

"We want to make sure that [the dogs] meet the criteria as far as weight and age, so that we aren't unduly stressing their systems," Hale said. Vaccinations must also be up-to-date and the dog must be free of fleas and ticks, she added.

"And, like all blood banks who let volunteer donors participate, we check the dog's red blood cell counts, we may check their electrolytes, and make sure they are healthy that day," Hale said. "We do a physical exam, we monitor their temperature before the event and make sure there's no predisposing problem that we can foresee."

Dogs are different from humans, Hale said, in that they lack natural antibodies that can trigger blood mismatch reactions. However, once any dog has received one transfusion, those antibodies will be created, rendering a second transfusion much riskier unless a good match is found.

"But there are also 'universal donors' -- their blood type allows them to safely match with 98 percent of dogs in the U.S., even on second transfusions," Hale added. Certain breeds -- boxers, German shepherds, greyhounds -- are most likely to turn up universal donors. But Hale stressed that dog blood-donor drives typically accept all younger, large-sized dogs, once they pass the physical. A typical donation yields a 500 milliliter (one pint) volume of blood per visit, she said.

Animal blood banks are also concerned with the feline veterinary blood supply. At Midwest, these donations come from a group of hard-to-place cats that have been brought to the center from area shelters. "These cats stay and live and work with us as donors, and we eventually adopt them out," Hale explained.

"Of course, cats are also not the most willing donors -- what a shock," she said. "So all of our cats donate under anesthesia. We do that because it's less stressful for them."

According to Hale, the cat-adoption rate at Midwest is now more than 80 percent. "A lot of the time, these cats that were kind of thrown away by the system actually just needed a little more time to adjust, to have a behavior issue dealt with or to clean up a health problem," she said.

And does donating blood hurt an animal? Not at all, according to all the humans involved.

JJ and Logan -- who stopped donating this year after they reached the cut-off age of 8 -- never seemed to mind, Goriss said. "I don't think it hurt them. You are just sitting there petting them, keeping them calm," she said.

Goriss, who owns and manages Family Dog Central, a local doggy day-care service, said that in many cases, pet owners stand to benefit directly from signing their pet up for donation.

"If God forbid something happened to my dog -- he was hit by a car or something and needed a blood transfusion -- I have some [stored at Sun States] and I can get it for free," she noted. "And they also test the blood, so that if something was wrong with your dog you would know."

She and Hale advised all dog owners to consider providing the gift of life to other animals in need.

"I think that it would be great if anyone who is interested contacted their local veterinarian," Hale said. "Their vet should know who is in their area and doing a volunteer blood drive."

More information

There's more on pet blood donors at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine  .