The contraceptive pill is being blamed for the death of a 24-year-old woman who was using it as part of her acne treatment.

Tanya Hayes, a student from Croydon in Melbourne, Australia, died Monday, hours after collapsing in her car.

Hayes had been taking Yasmin, an oral contraceptive recommended for patients using the acne medication Accutane, for about four months.

Hayes had ignored symptoms of a pulmonary embolism for about two weeks, including “breathlessness” and “a nasty, hard cough,” according to her family.

She collapsed outside a restaurant late Sunday night and was rushed to Angliss Hospital in Melbourne, Australia.

Hayes died less than five hours later after a pulmonary embolism, or blood clotting, occurred in her lungs.

Associate Professor Graeme Thomson, the hospital’s director of emergency medicine, said Hayes’ death had been “caused by blood clotting caused by factors related to taking the oral contraceptive pill.”

Dr. Stephen Shumack, secretary of the Australasian College of Dermatologists, said contraceptives are advised for women using Accutane.

Women using the acne drug have an “extremely high risk of having a baby that is severely deformed” if they become pregnant and contraceptives also boost the effectiveness of the acne medication, he said.

Shumack said a death linked to hormonal contraception was “certainly a recognized event, but it’s extraordinarily rare.”

A spokeswoman for Bayer, the manufacturer of Yasmin, said Hayes’ death was being “investigated as a priority.”

suresh

‘Aval Peyar Tamizharasi’ to be launched

Moser Baer in association with Blue Ocean Entertainment is coming up with a film titled ‘Aval Peyar Tamizharasi’ to be directed by Meera Kathiravan. The film would star Jai who has made it mighty big after the stupendous success of ‘Subramaniyapuram’.

Moser Baer is currently producing the films ‘Raman Thediya Seethai’ and ‘Poo’. The production house has organized the launching ceremony of the film ‘Aval Peyar Tamizharasi’ at eight in the morning in Hotel Green Park (Vijaya Mahal) on the 20th of August.

Distinguished guests in the form of directors Balu Mahendra, A. Venkatesh, Venkat Prabhu and Sasi Kumar will grace the occasion.

Big names associated with the production of the film include Vijay Antony (music), P. G. Muthaiya (Cinematograpy), Trasky Maruthu (Art direction), V. M. Lalitha (Blue Ocean Entertainment) and Dhananjayan (Moser Baer).

Brian McFadden accused of being ‘homophobic’

Irish singer Brian McFadden has sparked outrage in New Zealand after warning heterosexual men not to wear the colour pink.

The former Westlife star was guest-hosting an Auckland radio breakfast show when he told listeners: “If you are not gay, a man should not be wearing pink. Saying pink is a form of red is the same as saying homosexual is a form of male.”

Gay rights activists have accused the star of homophobia, reports contactmusic.com.

Robert Marshall, coordinator of Rainbow Youth rights group, said: “It’s the sort of stuff that gets said every day in the schoolyard. A lot of young people are quite impressionable and when they see celebrities saying stuff like that, they think it’s alright to say it themselves.

“It’s always unacceptable to put people down based on their sexuality—it’s just like putting down people because of their race. Judging people just because they’re a little bit different from you.”

suresh

Swimming in gold, with more on the way

The word “record” is a recurring theme in any presentation by Australia’s resources titan BHP Billiton.

And it’s a theme that appears destined to continue. Yesterday’s record $17.7 billion (that’s a company PB and a gold medal in the national championships) is likely to be dwarfed by next year’s projected record, estimated to be about $27 billion.

This year’s record was given a kick along from record oil prices, although the record iron ore prices and record coal prices certainly didn’t hurt.

And next year’s record profit looks pretty much locked in because during recent price negotiations, iron ore prices were struck at twice last year’s record and three times last year’s record coking coal prices.

But for how long? For several years now, we’ve heard the “stronger for longer” argument; that this resources boom was unlike any other in recent history.

If you believe Marius Kloppers, the youthful South African-born chief executive of the Big Multinational, there is still a lot left in this boom.

For despite the meltdown in the US economy, problems emerging in Europe, the contagion that has swept global markets and the crisis in the world’s biggest financial institutions, China and India just keep growing.

The developing nations’ early rapid growth was based on cheap exports to the developed world and they amassed huge trade surpluses in the process.

But now, that growth is being fuelled internally by the rapid urbanisation of China and the huge demands resulting from massive infrastructure investment. Exports are still important. But China no longer is beholden to a wealthy West for capital inflows to sustain its growth. It has an enormous population demanding a first world lifestyle and living conditions. And it is that internal demand for goods and services that is driving its economy.

The rapid growth in the emerging economies caught most resource companies on the hop. Major resource projects take years and billions of dollars to develop. That doesn’t include the enormous outlay required to simply find the stuff. It’s not just a matter of flicking a switch and suddenly meeting the demand. And then there are the problems of transporting the extra material on rail, through ports and onto ships.

That’s why prices are so high: the inability of major resource companies to expand production quickly enough to meet surging demand.

Kloppers referred to this in his presentation yesterday. A great many analysts overestimated the supply response. Few took account of the shortages of manpower and machinery to dig the new mines, to build the new rail links and ports and the ships required to transport the material to a rapidly industrialising economy with a near insatiable appetite for commodities. Almost none figured a mining boom would also result in huge cost increases for manpower and machinery.

The resulting demand/supply imbalance, particularly for bulk goods such as coal and iron ore, will ensure record prices for the medium to longer term.

BHP and its takeover target, Rio Tinto, agree on this and both have pulled out all stops in their quest to expand production. That $170 billion takeover bid is still on ice. It has been given the green light by US competition regulators but their European counterparts are still poring over the details and a decision now is not expected until some time “this year”.

In addition to the earnings records, yesterday’s presentation included plenty of references to record production in iron ore, copper and coal.

One of the major differences between Rio and its nemesis is that BHP has a large oil division. Rio Tinto has no oil division at all.

Rio’s American boss, Tom Albanese, has mounted a courageous, but slightly curious, argument that somehow this gives his company an advantage, primarily because it is a “pure” mining company.

This didn’t hinder BHP from pointing out yesterday that earnings from its oil division rose to a record $5.49 billion, 82 per cent higher than the year before as it boosted production levels to a new record.

This made it the second biggest earner for the group.

Oil prices have fallen. But new supplies are becoming increasingly difficult to reach and global demand for energy is likely to remain high. Possibly even at a record.