About The times. (Gainesville, Ga.) 1972-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 14, 2020)
12A Weekend Edition-November 14-15, 2020 The Times, Gainesville, Georgia | gainesvilletimes.com NATION Explosion kills 2 steam pipe workers at veterans hospital ROBERT BUMSTED I Associated Press Veterans Affairs Police guard the entrance to a maintenance facility after an apparent steam explosion in a maintenance building at a Veterans Affairs hospital in West Haven, Conn., Friday, Nov. 13. BY PAT EATON-ROBB Associated Press WEST HAVEN, Conn. - Two workers were killed in an explo sion Friday while repairing a steam pipe in a maintenance building at a Veterans Affairs hos pital in Connecticut, officials said. Alfred Montoya Jr., director of the VA Connecticut Healthcare System, said the men were in the basement of the small outer build ing and had just finished routine maintenance on a leaky pipe. He said the explosion occurred just after 8 a.m. as the pipe was being refilled with steam. The names of those killed were not immediately released. One was a contractor and the other was a VA employee and a Navy veteran, Montoya said. That man’s next of kin told Montoya that her loved one had decided to work for the VA because he wanted to take care of fellow veterans. “(She said) he wanted to give back to those men and women who fought so hard,” Montoya said. “It’s moments like that really tear at your heart and tear at your soul.” Three other workers were injured, but those injuries were not life threatening, officials said. Officials initially believed one worker was missing but all were accounted for. The contractor who died worked for Mulvaney Mechani cal, based in Danbury, Connecti cut, said company Vice President Charles Brough. “Our prayers are with the fami lies of the victims of this explo sion,” VA Secretary Robert Wilkie said. Police, the FBI, the VA and the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration were investigating the accident, and the cause of the explosion had not been determined Friday, officials said. The explosion occurred in a building that houses the hospital’s labor shops, such as carpentry and plumbing, a spokesperson for the hospital said. U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a member of the Senate Veter ans’ Affairs Committee, said the hospital, which officials said was built in the 1950s and underwent a renovation in the 1990s, has decay ing infrastructure and is on a list of aging VA facilities that need to be replaced. “This building is past its sell-by date,” he said. Gov. Ned Lamont, a Democrat, said state emergency manage ment officials will provide as much aid as necessary to conduct an investigation. “This is a heartbreaking trag edy, and I have instructed our state agencies to provide full resources as the response and investigation continues,” Lamont said. Big study supports cheap combo pill to lower heart risks BY MARILYNN MARCHI0NE Associated Press A daily pill combining four cholesterol and blood pressure medicines taken with low-dose aspirin cut the risk of heart attacks, strokes and heart-related deaths by nearly one third in a large international study that’s expected to lead to wider use of this “ polypill ” approach. For more than a decade, doc tors have been testing whether the cheap, all-in-one combo pills could make it easier to prevent heart disease, the top killer worldwide. Friday’s results show their value — and not just for poor nations. “It’s for all sensible countries,” said Dr. Salim Yusuf of McMas- ter University in Hamilton, Ontario. “If the rich countries don’t want the benefit, that’s their prerogative.” He helped lead the study and gave results at an American Heart Association conference. They also were published by the New Eng land Journal of Medicine. At least half a dozen compa nies sell polypills outside the United States, including several in Europe, but they’re not widely used or marketed. Doctors have been reluctant partly because no big, international studies have shown they can lower heart attacks and deaths — not just risk factors such as high blood pressure. “I think this will change with our results,” Yusuf said. One independent expert agreed. The study is very important and “the best data we have so far” on polypills, said Dr. Eugene Yang, a University of Washington heart specialist who leads a heart dis ease prevention panel for the American College of Cardiology. In the United States, “I could definitely see” using a polypill in places with big health disparities and access to care problems, he said. One small study last year in Alabama suggested benefit. The new study tested Polycap, a pill from India-based Cadila Pharmaceuticals Ltd. that con tains three blood pressure medi cines (atenolol, ramipril and the “water pill” hydrochlorothiazide) plus a cholesterol-lowering statin. It sells in India for about 33 cents a pill. Researchers enrolled more than 5,700 people, primarily in India and the Philippines plus Colombia, Canada, Malaysia, Indonesia, Ban gladesh, Tanzania and Tunisia. Men had to be at least 50 years old and women at least 55. All were at moderate risk of heart problems because of high blood pressure, diabetes or other conditions. They were divided into groups and given either low-dose aspirin (75 milligrams), the polypill alone, the polypill plus aspirin or placebo pills. One group was assigned to get vitamin D, but those results are not available yet. Neither the par ticipants nor their doctors knew who was taking what until the study ended. The study was to have run for five years and to have included 7,000 people, but drug delivery problems and the coronavirus pan demic forced researchers to cut it short. After just over four years on average, aspirin alone did not make a significant difference, and the polypill alone showed a trend toward modest benefit. However, the polypill plus aspi rin showed clear value, reducing the heart-related problems and deaths by 31%. About 4% of peo ple in this group died or suffered one of the heart problems being tracked versus nearly 6% of those on placebo pills. The side effects were minimal. About 1.5% more of the polyp ill users had dizziness or low blood pressure, but they could be switched to a lower dose if that happened, Yusuf said. “We now have direct evidence” from several studies with clearly consistent results and no safety concerns about the value of polyp ills, said another expert with no role in this work, Anushka Patel, a cardiologist at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney, Australia. “The public health impact ... could be enormous,” she said. The study was funded by the Wellcome Trust, a British char ity that supports research; Cadila Pharmaceuticals; and other public and private research organizations. Yusuf said polypill companies would need to seek regulators’ approval to sell the pills in various countries, and that generic drug makers might team with large insurers to offer the therapy. 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