Former classmate says Trump court nominee lied about his drinking

WASHINGTON - A one-time classmate of President Donald Trump's Supreme Court nominee said Monday that Brett Kavanaugh was a habitual heavy drinker, challenging the judge's Senate testimony to the contrary. 

The comments came days after the FBI opened a Senate-requested probe into allegations by three women that a drunken Kavanaugh sexually abused them or engaged in sexual misconduct while they were students in the 1980s.

"I can unequivocally say that in denying the possibility that he ever blacked out from drinking and in downplaying the degree and frequency of his drinking, Brett has not told the truth," Chad Ludington told reporters.

The North Carolina State University professor, who said he had contacted the FBI with his information, indicated in a statement Sunday that Kavanaugh was "belligerent and aggressive" when he drank.

Earlier, Trump had defended his pick but admitted that the appeals court judge has had a "bit of difficulty" with alcohol.

In a White House press conference, the US president sought to excuse excessive drinking by teenagers, while going beyond Kavanaugh's own testimony on his past use of alcohol to the Senate Judiciary Committee last week.

"I was surprised at how vocal he was about the fact that he likes beer," the president said.

"He's had a little bit of difficulty. He talked about things that happened when he drank. This is not a man that said... he was perfect with respect to alcohol."

He also questioned why investigators needed to examine the 53-year-old Kavanaugh's high school record.

"I think it's very unfair to bring up things like this," Trump said.

"I graduated from high school and while I did not drink, I saw a lot of people drinking," he said.

"They drink beer and go crazy and they were in high school... Does that mean that they can't do something they want to do in their life?" 

He returned to the theme during a campaign rally in Tennessee, where he accused opposition Democrats of being motivated by politics. 

"They have been blind in a blind rage ever since they lost the 2016. They have gone loco," he told supporters.

'I LIKE BEER' 

In Thursday's extraordinary hearing, Kavanaugh vehemently denied the sexual abuse allegations, and also aggressively challenged suggestions he had a drinking problem at the time.

"I drank beer with my friends. Sometimes I had too many beers," he told the panel. 

"Yes, we drank beer. I liked beer. I still like beer," he said.

"If every American who drinks beer or every American who drank beer in high school is suddenly presumed guilty of sexual assault, it will be an ugly, new place in this country."

The New York Times also reported that Kavanaugh was questioned but not charged by police after a 1985 bar fight in New Haven, Connecticut where he was accused of throwing ice on a fellow patron. 

A witness said that a friend of Kavanaugh's then threw a glass that hit the same patron in the ear, causing bleeding.

US media meanwhile reported that the FBI had begun their interview of Mark Judge, Kavanaugh's former best friend and a key figure in the misconduct allegations leveled by Christine Blasey Ford.

Judge's interview started but "has not been completed," his attorney said in a statement quoted by Fox News.

In last week's hearing, Blasey Ford said Judge witnessed Kavanaugh's alleged assault and jumped on top of them as it happened, sending all three tumbling and allowing her to escape.

CLOCK TICKING

Trump meanwhile said the White House would not restrict the new FBI probe, requested by senators before they take a final vote on Kavanaugh.

"I think the FBI should do what they have to do to get to the answer," Trump said.

"I want it to be comprehensive... With that being said, I would like to go quickly," he added.

"We don't want to go on a witch hunt, do we?"

Senators, including Republican Jeff Flake, struck a deal Friday that gives the FBI one week to conduct its investigation and deliver its report.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said the Senate, made up of 51 Republicans and 49 Democrats, will be "voting this week" on advancing the Kavanaugh nomination, setting up a possible final confirmation vote this weekend or early next week.

"The time for endless delay and obstruction has come to a close," McConnell said.

Last week, Flake expressed eagerness to see Kavanaugh confirmed but said he wanted a "better process" for assessing the allegations. Flake said over the weekend that he would vote for Kavanaugh unless the FBI finds something in its investigation.

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source: news.abs-cbn.com

Can drinking a little bit help you live longer?

Having a little wine or beer to unwind most days may help lower the odds of a premature death as long as that drink or two doesn’t routinely turn into more, a new study confirms.

Researchers examined health survey data on more than 333,000 U.S. adults, following them for an average of about eight years to see how their drinking habits influenced their survival odds.

Compared with people who never had a drop of alcohol, light to moderate drinkers were more than 20 percent less likely to die early of any cause, or of heart disease in particular, the study found.

Heavy drinkers and binge drinkers, however, were at least 10 percent more likely to die from any cause during the study, and they had at least 20 percent higher odds of an early death from cancer in particular.

“If alcohol is consumed, it should be consumed in moderation,” said lead study author Dr. Bo Xi of the School of Public Health at Shandong University in China.

Heavy drinking has long been linked to a variety of medical problems including liver disease, heart disease and certain cancers. But previous research has offered an inconclusive picture of the survival odds associated with light or moderate drinking.

The current analysis attempts to tackle two issues that have contributed to inconsistent results in much of the earlier research: `abstainer bias’ and `sick quitter bias.’

Many other studies compared moderate drinkers to people who currently didn’t drink, making it impossible to separate people who stopped drinking due to addiction or other health reasons from people who were lifelong abstainers.

To exclude `sick quitters,’ the current study left out people who died in the first two years of follow-up. To avoid `abstainer bias,' researchers created separate categories for adults who never drank at all and for ex-drinkers.

They sorted adults into six categories for the current study: lifetime abstainers; people who have always had alcohol on rare occasions; ex-drinkers; current light drinkers who have fewer than three drinks a week; moderate drinkers (more than three drinks a week but fewer than 14 for men or 7 for women); or heavy drinkers (more than 14 for men or 7 for women).

During the study period, 34,754 people died, including 8,947 fatalities from cardiovascular diseases and 8,427 from cancer, researchers report in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

Male heavy drinkers had a 25 percent increased risk of death during the study and 67 percent higher odds of deaths from cancer than men who never drank. These differences weren’t statistically meaningful for women, however.

The study wasn’t a controlled experiment designed to prove whether or how heavy drinking might hasten death or light to moderate alcohol consumption might help people live longer. Researchers also relied on survey participants to accurately recall and report how much they drank.

Scientists aren’t sure why light or moderate drinking might have a protective effect, said Dr. Eugene Yang of the University of Washington School of Medicine.

“It may improve the health of your blood vessels by reducing inflammation and your ability to form blood clots, increase levels of good cholesterol, and promote antioxidant pathways,” Yang, who wasn’t involved in the study, said by email.

Even if it doesn’t explain why drinking a little might lead to a longer life, the study does confirm that the risk of death tied to alcohol use increases sharply when people regularly drink more than they should, Dr. Giovanni de Gaetano, author of an accompanying editorial and a researcher at Istituto Neurologico Mediterraneo Neuromed in Pozzilli, Italy, said by email.

“The clear message is to avoid excessive drinking, either on a regular basis or even on any one day, to reduce risk,” Dr. Gregory Marcus, a researcher at the University of California, San Francisco, who wasn’t involved in the study, said by email. “Those prone to alcoholism or addiction are also likely best served with alcohol abstinence.”

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Alcohol's cancer toll revealed

PARIS - Alcohol consumption caused more than 700,000 new cancer cases and around 366,000 cancer deaths in 2012, mainly in rich countries, according to data reported Wednesday to the World Cancer Congress in Paris.

Comparing the cancer risk of people who drink, to that of people who do not, researchers calculated that alcohol was responsible for an estimated five percent of all new cancer cases, and 4.5 percent of deaths per year.

"A large part of the population is unaware that cancer can be caused by alcohol," study co-author Kevin Shield of the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), told AFP of the preliminary report, not yet published.

Alcohol was most strongly linked to new breast cancer diagnoses -- more than one in four of all alcohol-attributable cancer cases, the researchers found, followed by colorectal cancer at 23 percent.

For breast cancer, particularly, it was clear that "the risk increases with the dose" of alcohol, said Shield.

Measuring alcohol's contribution to cancer deaths, the researchers found it was most strongly linked to oesophagus cancer fatalities, followed by colorectal cancer.

The IARC, the cancer agency of the World Health Organization (WHO), lists alcohol as a "group 1 carcinogen", which means it is considered cancer-causing, though Shield said the mechanism was "not exactly known".

Globally, the burden was highest in North America, Australia and Europe, particularly eastern Europe, but this was slowly changing as people in developing nations start imbibing more, the researchers said.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com