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Abstract Summary: Purpose: Photosensitivity can represent a serious problem in epilepsy patients, also because pharmacologic treatment is often ineffective. Nonpharmacologic treatment using blue sunglasses is effective and safe in controlling photosensitivity, but large series of patients have never been studied. Methods: This multicenter study was conducted in 12 epilepsy centers in northern, central, southern, and insular Italy. A commercially available lens, named Z1, obtained in a previous trial, was used to test consecutively enrolled pediatric and adult epilepsy patients with photosensitivity. Only type 4 photosensitivity (photoparoxysmal response, PPR) was considered in the study. A standardized method was used for photostimulation. Results:...

Internet troublemakers, known as griefers, conducted an organized hack attack against an epilepsy support message board last weekend.  The attack, designed to inflict bodily injury, is the first known example of a large scale hack designed to inflict physical damage on the victims.  The attackers used injected JavaScript to trigger flashing images on the computers of their victims, causing them severe migraines and seizures. The site is run and maintained by a nonprofit organization, the Epilepsy Foundation.  Its goal is to provide a place where epileptics and family members can provide each other with support.  The group had to close...

SIERRA VISTA - The U.S. Border Patrol's drug seizures and illegal immigrant apprehensions rose for the agency's Tucson sector and Cochise County in fiscal year 2004 and continue to rise in the first quarter of fiscal year 2005. Officials say these heightened numbers are a result of increased enforcement personnel within the county and within the Tucson Sector, which stretches from the New Mexico state line to Yuma County, a length of 261 miles. The Border Patrol seized 362,351 pounds of marijuana and made 347,263 apprehensions during its 2003 fiscal year, which ran from Oct. 1, 2002 to Sept. 30,...

Wonder Marisa's first corn crop is tall and healthy, and early bolls of white fluff are already bursting in his sprawling cotton fields. "We drafted everybody in the family to put seeds in the ground," the new farmer remembered as he leaned on an ancient Yamaha motorbike on one of the pink-earth paths edging his 100-acre farm. "When I came here, I didn't know exactly how to farm, but I got good advice from the government. It's more work than I thought, but it's quite interesting." Marisa, 40, a former government civil servant, is one of the success stories of...