By Matt Slater BBC sports news reporter

Olympic 400m champion LaShawn Merritt is determined to put the controversy of his doping ban behind him and show the world his “dominance” at London 2012.

The American failed a drugs test in 2009, making him the first big name to fall foul of the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) “next Games” ban.

But Merritt overturned the ban at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (Cas).

“I didn’t do anything wrong, I didn’t intentionally do anything to cheat,” said Merritt.

“I had something in my system, out of competition, that had nothing to do with track and field. I knew I was a great athlete and that when I was able to run again that wouldn’t change.”

Merritt, who dominated 400m running between 2008 and 2009, tested positive for a banned substance contained in an over-the-counter penis enlargement product.

As embarrassing as this was, it was nothing compared to the threat posed to his career.

Determined to protect the Olympic brand from growing cynicism about the prevalence of doping, the IOC imposed a tougher penalty for drugs cheats in 2008.

Rule 45 meant any athlete given a ban of six months or longer would also be barred from the next Olympics. This attracted little comment until Merritt’s case started to work its way through the tribunal system.

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Merritt eyes domination after ban

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An introduction to bingo

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Diabetic Sues Doctor After His Infected Penis Is Amputated

LOS ANGELES, May 17 (UPI) — A surgical technique can lessen the likelihood of erectile dysfunction and incontinence in men with prostate cancer who had surgery, U.S. researchers say.

Lead author Dr. Jim Hu, director of minimally invasive surgery in the department of urology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles, and colleagues recommend that men undergoing robotic-assisted surgery for prostate removal should look for a doctor who has performed at least 1,000 surgeries.

“It would be helpful for men who seek a surgical cure for their prostate cancer to appreciate the nuances required by a surgeon to successfully protect erectile function,” Hu said in a statement. “Like improving a golf swing, a technique for nerve-sparing surgery has many subtleties that are influenced by training, talent, a desire to improve, and meticulous review of technique and outcomes.”

The research team looked at nerve-sparing techniques and maneuvers used in the operating room in 400 surgeries performed by Hu over a two-year period at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. Hu tracked his patients’ erectile-potency recovery outcomes up to one year after surgery.

The study, scheduled to be published in the journal European Urology, found greater surgeon experience and more delicate handling of the nerves to minimize stretch injury helped improve erectile function significantly.

At five months post-operatively, patients went from zero to as high as 33 percent in erectile-function recovery and at 12 months post-operatively, they went from 15 percent to as high as 59 percent.

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To remove prostate find experienced surgeon

May 16, 2012 Updated May 16, 2012 at 9:17 AM PDT

This may not have been the type of “stimulus” feds intended.

Two grants totaling nearly $1.5 million were distributed to the University of California San Francisco, NBCBayArea.com has discovered. The money was part of the federal stimulus program and went to studies into the erectile dysfunction of overweight middle aged men and the accurate reporting of someone’s sexual history.

And investigation by the NBC Bay Area Investigative Unit into who got federal stimulus dollars, and why some projects did not break ground more than two years after receiving the grant uncovered the grant.

The Investigative Unit looked closely at the federal government’s decision to spend nearly $1.5 million of taxpayer money, money that came here to California.

Grant number 1R01HD056950-01A2 was among the thousands of grants funded, receiving $1.2 million. This grant studied how to improve the accuracy of how people responded to questions about their sexual history.

“I don’t think most tax payers would think that would be a justified spending of stimulus money to conduct a sex study over fixing bridges and roads that are crumbling every day,” said Scott Amey, the general council for POGO, the Project on Government Oversight, a Washington D.C. nonpartisan non-profit government watchdog group added.’

According to the grant, a good portion of the study will “Improve the accuracy of responses to questions,” specifically questions about a person’s sexual behavior.

The NBC Bay Area Investigative Unit discovered that for $1.2 million, taxpayers funded a study that included 200 videotaped interviews at $6000 per interview.

Amey was also left questioning another UCSF grant. When asked by an NBC reporter about a study into erectile dysfunction involving overweight middle aged men he replied, “Oh boy.”

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Millions in Stimulus Funds Used for Erectile Dysfunction Study

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Misuse of erection pills can damage users' sex lives

Young men who take erectile dysfunction drugs for fun may damage their sex lives, a new study suggests.

Don’t miss these Health stories

To a very vocal online contingent, cilantro is the very worst. On “I Hate Cilantro” websites and Facebook pages they gripe that the herb tastes like soap, mold, or dirt. Cilantro haters not only despise its flavor, they also detest its smell.

Nearly 6 percent of the sexually active college men involved in the study reported taking drugs for erectile dysfunction (ED) without a prescription. Yet an analysis of these students’ sex lives unveiled a paradox: The more ED drugs men took, the worse they felt.

“Using ED drugs recreationally has the potential to negatively influence one’s confidence,” said Christopher Harte, lead author of the study published this month in the Journal of Sexual Medicine.

Men who abused ED drugs reported the same level of physical sexual functioning as non-users did, but Harte found that they were less confident about their abilities to get and maintain an erection. The recreational users also were less satisfied with their sex lives overall, even if they were satisfied during intercourse.

“One needs to be careful when they are frequently using these medications. It can set you up to have unreasonable expectations” about your sex life, said Harte, a research fellow at VA Boston Healthcare System.

Because the survey captured students’ feelings at one moment in time, Harte said it isn’t clear how the link worked: It could be that experimentation with ED drugs led to anxiety, or that it was underlying anxiety that had led the men to try ED drugs.

The erection-mind connection Harte’s study involved 1,200 college-age men from across the U.S.

Cleveland Clinic urologist Dr. Drogo Montague said Harte’s findings confirm what many sexual health experts suspect about misuse of ED drugs.

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Men who take erection pills recreationally feel down

ScienceDaily (May 16, 2012) Prostate cancer is the most commonly diagnosed non-skin cancer in the U.S., and radical prostatectomy, the surgical removal of the prostate gland, remains the most popular therapeutic option, accounting for half of treatments.

The procedure, however, is not without possible side effects, primarily erectile dysfunction and incontinence. But a good nerve-sparing surgical technique can lessen the likelihood of these undesirable outcomes, as can the skill and experience of the surgeon, according to a new UCLA study that focused on robotic-assisted prostate surgery.

The study findings are published in the June 2012 print edition of the international peer-reviewed journal European Urology.

Based on their research, the study authors recommend that men undergoing robotic-assisted surgery for prostate cancer should look for a doctor who has performed at least 1,000 surgeries and who actively seeks to improve and enhance his/her surgical skills to help ensure a successful post-surgery recovery of erectile function.

The authors also found that new, refined techniques that prioritize the gentle handling of the delicate nerves around the prostate also make a difference in improved erectile function.

The study is one of the first to characterize a surgeons’ learning curve for improving erectile-potency outcomes and to demonstrate and quantify gentler handling techniques that involve minimizing stretch injury to the nerves around the prostate as the gland is removed, the researchers said.

“It would be helpful for men who seek a surgical cure for their prostate cancer to appreciate the nuances required by a surgeon to successfully protect erectile function,” said Dr. Jim Hu, director of minimally invasive surgery in the department of urology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and lead author of the study. “Like improving a golf swing, a technique for nerve-sparing surgery has many subtleties that are influenced by training, talent, a desire to improve, and meticulous review of technique and outcomes.”

The research team developed a video demonstrating the new techniques so that robotic-assisted surgeons may achieve better outcomes more quickly and potentially shorten their learning curves. Hu noted that the anatomic concepts and techniques extend to traditional, non-robotic-assisted surgery as well.

For the study, the team looked at nerve-sparing techniques and maneuvers used in the operating room in 400 surgeries performed by Hu over a two-year period at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Massachusetts. Hu tracked his patients’ erectile-potency recovery outcomes by groups of 50 up to one year after surgery.

While this is a single-surgeon study during robotic-assisted surgery, Hu used standardized questionnaires to quantify patient-reported recovery of erectile function, which is not often done by individual surgeons and which helped in assessing outcomes.

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Want to avoid erectile dysfunction following prostate cancer surgery? Find an experienced, gentle surgeon

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Unneeded Erection Pills Can Mess With Users' Heads

Mailand (R) Quo vadis Italien? Diese Frage beschftigte die meisten Aussteller und Besucher auf der Plast, der nach Veranstalter-Angaben grten europische Kunststoff-Messe des Jahres, die vom 8. bis 12. Mai 2012 in den Hallen des Mailnder Messegelndes Fiera Milano ber die Bhne ging. Einem Gefhl der Hoffnung, dass es nach dem Desaster im Krisenjahr 2009 nur besser werden knne, stand die Unsicherheit ob der wirtschaftlichen Entwicklung des nach Deutschland zweitgrten europischen Kunststoff-Marktes gegenber.

Diese Grundstimmung drckt sich auch in der Bilanz aus, die die Veranstalter kurz nach Messeschluss vorlegten. Zwar waren mit 1.514 Ausstellern in diesem Jahr ein paar mehr vertreten als 2009 (1.478), sie belegten jedoch mit 56.832 m2 weniger Flche als bei der vergangenen Ausgabe der Plast (59.714 m2). Und auch die Besucherzahl schrumpfte erneut: Statt 55.175 im Jahr 2009 fanden diesmal nur 50.593 Gste den Weg nach Mailand. Wohlgemerkt: 2009 fand die Messe auf dem Hhepunkt der Weltwirtschaftkrise statt, die damaligen Zahlen waren der absolute Tiefpunkt. Umso bemerkenswerter, dass es jetzt erneut bergab ging.

Im Vorfeld hatte der Verband der italienischen K-Maschinenbauer mit guten 2011-er Zahlen fr das Branchen-Ereignis getrommelt. Assocomaplast bilanzierte gegenber 2010 ein Umsatzwachstum von 11,1% auf 4 Mrd. EUR. Getragen wurde dies vor allem vom Export hier betrug das Wachstum 19,0% auf 2,4 Mrd. EUR. Vom Rekordjahr 2007 als insgesamt 4,25 Mrd. EUR 2,75 Mrd. davon im Export erwirtschaftet wurden, sind die Unternehmen jedoch noch ein Stck weit entfernt. berhaupt zeigt der Erfolg im Auslandsgeschft auch die grte Schwche der italienischen K-Maschinenbauer auf dem Heimatmarkt geht so gut wie nichts mehr. Im Jahresvergleich lag das Wachstum bei mauen 0,9%.

Noch dramatischer sieht es jedoch bei der Produktion und Verarbeitung von Kunststoffen entlang des Apennins aus. Einer Analyse des Verbandes der italienischen Chemieindustrie, dem Panel Congiunturale Federchimica zufolge, ging die Kunststoff-Produktion in den ersten neun Monaten 2011 gegenber dem gleichen Zeitraum 2010 um 2% auf 4,6 Mio. jato zurck.

Bei den Polyolefinen, die 56% aller in Italien verarbeiteten Kunststoffe und damit den Lwenanteil ausmachen, lag das Produktionsminus bei 3,4%. Die LDPE-Produktion ging um 4,2% zurck, die von HDPE gar um 5,5%. Als Grund werden rasant gestiegene Beschaffungskosten fr Rohmaterial und die schwierige Situation auf dem Folien-Sektor genannt. Die PP-Herstellung verbuchte ein Minus von 1,8%. Bei PA lag der Rckgang bei 2,4%, hier wird die Krise der italienischen Automobilindustrie als Begrndung angefhrt. Auch die Produktion von PUR ging um 1,6% zurck.

Hoffnungsschimmer gab es lediglich bei EPS (+1,5%), PVC (+0,9%) und PET (+0,3%), doch diese reichen lngst nicht aus, um die Verluste bei den anderen Kunststoff-Gruppen auszugleichen. Da der Verband auch fr das vierte Quartal eine nochmals verstrkte Abschwchung erwartet und mit einem Minus von 3,6% rechnet, drfte fr das Gesamtjahr 2011 unterm Strich ein Rckgang von 2,5% bei der Kunststoffproduktion in Italien zu verbuchen sein.

Dass der wichtige Kunststoffmarkt schwchelt, belegen auch die Zahlen des jhrlichen Reports von Plastic Consult. 2011 wurden demnach 5,9 Mio. t Thermoplaste in Italien verkauft. 2010 waren es noch 6,1 Mio. t gewesen unterm Strich ein Minus von 3,5%. Verglichen mit dem Rekordjahr 2007 ging die verkaufte Menge um rund eine Million Tonnen zurck. Dabei lagen alle Kunststoff-Gruppen unter Vorjahresniveau: PE (-4,5%), PP (-2,5%), PET (-4,5%). Am heftigsten war der Rckgang bei PS er betrug -6,3%.

Einen ausfhrlichen Bericht zur Plast 2012 lesen Sie in der K-ZEITUNG 10/2012.

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Unsicherheit prägt Plast 2012 in Mailand