Florida

Study: Aspirin’s effects differ between genders

In a stunning example of gender differences in medicine, a major new study found that aspirin helps healthy women avoid strokes but makes no difference in their risk of heart attacks unless they’re 65 or older — the polar opposite of how the drug affects men.

Aspirin is recommended now for both men and women at high risk of heart disease. Many doctors have assumed it also prevented heart problems in healthy women because of research showing it helped healthy men.

The new study “raises issues about the dangers of generalization,” said Dr. Paul Ridker of Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, one of the researchers. “This is an issue we thought we already had an answer to.”

The Women’s Health Study was the first rigorous test of aspirin and vitamin E in women. It found that taking vitamin E did no good, adding to a large body of evidence that such supplements don’t help and might even be harmful.

Afghanistan

British development worker killed in capital

Gunmen shot and killed a Briton who worked with Afghanistan’s development in a nighttime attack in downtown Kabul, police said Tuesday.

Two vehicles, one of them a black landcruiser, followed the British man’s pickup truck then drove ahead of him and blocked his way, Gen. Sher Agha, a Kabul police commander, told The Associated Press.

From inside the landcruiser, an unidentified gunman opened fire, killing the man, before driving away, he said.

The attack happened about 10.15 p.m. Monday in front of the main guest house for U.N. workers in Kabul and the Dutch Embassy, he said. Agha did not name the victim.

The British Embassy could not immediately confirm the incident.

Agha said police were investigating the shooting.

U.N. spokesman Manoel de Almeida e Silva confirmed that a foreign national had been shot dead late Monday in Kabul, but said he was not U.N. personnel.

ROME

State funeral held for slain negotiator

Italy paid homage Monday to an intelligence officer killed by U.S. fire in Iraq while escorting an ex-hostage to freedom, with a state funeral in a Rome basilica drawing as many as 20,000 mourners — some bringing flowers, some waving flags — and all of the country’s top officials.

The killing of Nicola Calipari, 50, fueled anti-American sentiment in a country that was strongly opposed to war in Iraq, and prompted Premier Silvio Berlusconi, a staunch supporter of the U.S.-led military campaign, to demand that Washington provide a full explanation of the shooting in Baghdad.

“A grateful and admiring Italy bows to its hero, the victim of a war without a name,” said the Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, which opposed the Iraq war. “His gesture has moved the whole country.”

Before the funeral, Calipari’s body lay in state at Rome’s Vittoriano monument, where police estimated 100,000 people streamed past his coffin. The body had been returned from Iraq Saturday night.

The killing has fueled anti-American sentiment in Italy, a country where Bush is unpopular and where tens of thousands have taken to the streets to protest the war and Berlusconi’s decision to send 3,000 troops after Saddam Hussein’s ouster.