Erin Brockovich Slams EPA over Toxic Waste Superfund Site in Le Roy

ABC News(LE ROY, N.Y.) -- More than four decades after a train derailment left a massive toxic chemical spill in a small upstate New York town, the Environmental Protection Agency announced Wednesday that they will begin removing 235 drums of dirt still sitting on the site.

The Lehigh Railroad Derailment Superfund site is located in Le Roy, N.Y.; the same town that has received national attention over the past several months because of a medical mystery involving a group of girls who suddenly began displaying Tourettes-like symptoms.

Last fall, about a dozen girls attending Le Roy High School began experiencing uncontrollable and painful tics, seizures and verbal outbursts, which appear to be similar to the symptoms of Tourettes syndrome.

As of Thursday, nearly two dozen people, including one 36-year-old, are displaying the symptoms.  Some in town have wondered whether there is some connection with the decades-old toxic chemical spill.

Enter Erin Brockovich, the environmental activist who became a household name after Julia Roberts portrayed her in an Academy Award-winning film.

Brockovich was asked by some concerned parents in Le Roy to explore whether the spill could be linked to the bizarre symptoms their daughters are suffering.

The derailment left a spill of over 30,000 gallons of liquid trichloroethene (TCE) and cyanide crystals.

TCE is a dangerous man-made chemical that was once used as a solvent to remove grease from metal and to strip paint in manufacturing plants. Over the years, several studies have linked TCE exposure to certain types of cancer. Long-term exposure can affect the central nervous system, according to the National Institute of Health.

While the chemicals were reportedly cleaned up at the time, hundreds of barrels of TCE and cyanide contaminated earth gathered shortly after the spill remained at the site for 40-some years.

After a recent national media spotlight was shined on the Lehigh site, the EPA returned to test the barrels.  The results?  “No tested contaminants were detected in materials from 203 of the drums. In 32 of the drums, some detectable concentrations of contaminants were found.” The barrels will be removed by Friday and sent to a landfill that Lehigh is permitted to accept hazardous waste in Belleville, Mich.

Meanwhile, Brockovich’s colleague, environmental scientist Bob Bowcock, also went to Le Roy last month to conduct preliminary tests.  His results suggest that the plume of the contaminates did not move toward the Le Roy High School.

“This is good news,” said Bowcock. "It is one of the many areas we are investigating where we are able to reprioritize, so we can focus our attention and resources on other environmental concerns” in Le Roy that might have caused recent health problems there.

Bowcock’s stresses that his investigation is looking at a myriad of environmental concerns, including the natural gas wells on the grounds of Le Roy High School, fill material used at the school, the routine complaints of fumes or odors in the school vent system, the school’s storm water system and biological and chemical concerns surrounding the school’s sports field.

And as of yet, Bowcock and Brockovich say, they have found no link between the spill and the Tourettes-like symptoms.

Nonetheless, Brockovich is not pleased with the EPA. In a letter to Nightline anchor Cynthia McFadden, she said that the EPA is sending mixed messages. “On one hand, the EPA suggests they found no contamination in the barrels, but they go on to detail the contamination they did find, including TCE and cyanide.”

After reviewing the area for possible environmental causes of the illness and conducting testing in the area, Brockovich’s team came across the derailment site.

“We actually alerted the EPA that the rotting barrels were still there in Le Roy. They had no idea.” Brockovich said.  ”The EPA didn’t even realize the barrels of hazardous material had never been disposed of properly.”

Brockovich calls the EPA’s press release a “feeble attempt to gloss over their abject failure in Le Roy,” and she said that the “EPA clearly dropped the ball.”

Calling the derailment site “the largest TCE Superfund site in the country,” Brockovich went on to say that “the EPA had responsibility to ensure that the polluter clean up the site and remove the drums of toxic waste within 30 days of being filled. And that never happened. ”

According to Bowcock there are approximately 15,000 Superfund sites in the United States and Le Roy is just one example of thousands of towns that are unaware of their environmental surroundings.

“The EPA is failing -- it is not protecting people, it is not protecting the environment,” Brockovich said. "Sadly, it takes citizens like me, and the people of the impacted communities, to speak up and fix problems that should have been dealt with years ago.”

The EPA declined ABC News’ request for comment.

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

Teen YouTube Videos Shed Light on Self-Esteem Issues

Naomi Gibson(NEW YORK) -- Naomi Gibson, who lives just outside Denver, always makes a point to tell her 13-year-old daughter, Faye, that she's beautiful. So when she started getting calls from media asking to interview Faye about a video she had posted, she couldn't believe her ears.

"I was floored," Gibson said.

The video was called "Am I Pretty or Ugly?" and asked anyone who watched the YouTube video to comment on her attractiveness.

Faye says that she has long been a victim of bullying. A day does not pass when someone at school does not call her ugly, she said. "I get called a lot of names, get talked about behind my back," she said.

The psyche of a teenage girl is understandably muddled. Faye said she goes to the Web to get opinions from those who don't know her.

"Deep down inside, all girls know that other people's opinions don't matter, but we still go to other people for help because we don't believe what people say," she told ABC News.

What she received were mixed reactions. Though some comments were innocuous enough, others spewed hateful messages toward the young teenager.

One read, "FAYE! Stop asking for this attention. It makes you look so pathetic and dumb."

"It hurt me to see those comments about my daughter," Gibson said.

Faye's case is not unique. Similar videos have been posted in recent months, all asking often-unknown users to comment on whether or not a teen is ugly. Some have accrued thousands of hits, with one video, posted by user sgal01, getting 3,622,844 views. Comments are mixed, with some Good Samaritans imploring the teens to know their self-worth, as more disparaging commentors hurled insults, some even taking a sexual, predatory tone.

But while posting videos like this may be a recent phenomenon, experts say that teens' desire for approval is nothing new.

Dr. Joshua Klapow, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist at the University of Alabama-Birmingham, says that teens have always had a fervent desire to be accepted.

"This is just an extreme version of something that's very normal," Klapow said, adding, "Another piece that's normal is impulsivity. Give them a medium that is so easily accessible and so potent, you get the problem we're seeing."

Dr. Alan Kazdin, Ph.D., a professor of psychology and child psychiatry at Yale, agrees. "There's a part of it that's unfortunate, but there's a part of it that's natural. Technology has made it so that it's not new in principle but new in practice," he said.

Older generations may have used slambooks to share their feelings about peers but, for this technology-inundated generation, the Internet is teenagers' open forum, providing them the comfort and ease to open themselves up to the enormous and often-anonymous cyber-universe.

"The question is not, why would [teenagers] take their problems to the Web? The question is, why wouldn't you take it to the Web?" said Kazdin.

Experts say that part of the appeal of asking viewers open questions comes from the immediate reward the teens get. Rather than sitting down and having a conversation, teenagers can post something on the Internet and immediately experience the thrill associated with seeing a response, whether positive or negative.

But the negative comments can have deleterious effects.

"They have no safe place now," Kazdin said. "As long as they're electronically connected, they become vulnerable."

Gibson had already instituted rules to try and protect her daughter, requiring Faye to tell her when she posted a video so she could screen it. Initially, Faye had been using YouTube to showcase her singing and dancing talents as a way to detract from the bullying that she has been a victim of since she was 11. Now, Gibson says that the privilege may soon be revoked.

"I took away her Facebook and Twitter account because of bullying. She needs to stop putting herself out there. Now people are walking around asking her if she's pretty to her face. It's hurting her more in the long run, I think," Gibson said.

For Faye, the pain of not being accepted is inescapable.

"I feel like I could just go away and never come back…I feel like I've been standing all these years and keep getting torn down," Faye said.

Aside from the emotional damage the video has caused, Gibson has a deeper concern, worrying that the video could be fodder for predators. On several such videos, users have posted lewd and sexual comments.

She has appealed directly to YouTube to try and get these videos and comments taken down. In a statement sent to ABC News by a YouTube spokesperson, YouTube reiterated its policy on underage users:

YouTube is for people thirteen years or older only, and we provide information for teens and parents in our Safety Center on staying safe online. Our Community Guidelines prohibit videos or comments containing harassment, threats, or hate speech -- we encourage users to flag material so we can quickly review it and remove anything that breaks the rules. Videos involving children (anyone under the age of 18) are particularly sensitive. Videos containing children should never be sexually suggestive or violent.

Experts insist that effective parenting can help minimize insecurity, although nothing can completely eradicate it.

"Parents have to get serious about monitoring what their teens and tweens are doing. They've got to monitor regularly. They may not prevent [the video] from going up, but they need to catch it as soon as it goes up. They should use these videos as teachable moments. Perhaps ask the kids, 'How would you feel if you saw these comments?'" Klapow said.

Gibson is hoping that Faye's and her experience can help alert parents before their children's insecurities spiral into something dangerous.

"Hopefully it will open up the eyes of the parents," she said. "The kids aren't letting their parents know what's wrong, just like Faye didn't let me know. Hopefully, parents can get more proactive. [Faye's] internet usage is limited even more, I have the computer locked after a certain time. I've taken all the steps that I needed to take, here's another step I need to adjust and move on from."

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

Spiders Appear Bigger When You Fear Them

Duncan Smith/Thinkstock(COLUMBUS) -- If you suffer from an irrational fear of spiders, you may perceive the critters to be much larger than they actually are, according to a new study published in the Journal of Anxiety Disorders.

Researchers from Ohio State University recruited 57 people who suffered from arachnophobia, a fear of spiders, to better understand how perception affects phobia.  In the study, participants agreed to encounter tarantulas that varied in size (1 to 6 inches wide) five different times within an eight-week period.

In the first experiment, participants stood 12 feet away from a tank containing a spider, and moved closer to it upon instruction. Participants rated their own fear level using a distress scale of zero to 100 as they moved closer, and once beside the tank, researchers told them to move the spiders around with an eight-inch probe.

Afterwards, researchers took the spiders out of the room and participants were instructed to draw a single line to show how long the spider was that they saw.  Researchers found that, the more fear the participant expressed while encountering the spiders, the larger, and more inaccurate, they guessed the spiders to be.

“Given that our informal observations suggested the occurrence of the bias, we were not surprised that we found evidence for it in our study,” said Michael Vasey, lead author of the study and a psychologist at Ohio State University Medical Center. “However, it is fair to say that we were very surprised by the magnitude of the bias. We have seen highly fearful participants draw lines that are two to three times as long as the actual spider.”

Even in other research, Vasey said participants have looked directly at the spider while drawing the line and still estimate a larger-than-actual size.

The findings suggest that such biased perceptions may be a useful target for treatment, which could help patients recognize their observations, and then discount them and adjust for them, experts said.

Vasey said treatments for phobias are remarkably effective, although many who live in fear may not even know about them. The treatments typically come in the form of cognitive-behavior therapy, which assists the person in encountering the thing they fear so that they can correct the mistaken beliefs about the object that feeds their phobia. Nevertheless, most people who suffer from arachnophobia do not seek treatment.

“Individuals with phobias typically avoid the thing they fear or engage in safety behaviors, [or] behaviors designed to minimize risk despite encountering the feared object or situation, and therefore they are sheltered from discovering that their expectations regarding the feared object are wrong in ways that feed the fear,” said Vasey.

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

Qnexa Ruling Renews Debate About Its Risks and Benefits

FDA/iStockphoto/Thinkstock(WASHINGTON) -- The decision by a federal advisory panel to recommend Qnexa for approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is drawing praise and criticism from obesity and diet experts, reflecting a still-hot debate on the need for additional tools to treat obesity.

The 20-2 decision recommending approval Wednesday came as a surprise to many experts. The FDA has not approved a weight-loss drug in the past 13 years and has withdrawn from the market many drugs due to concerns over heart risks and other side effects.

Qnexa was rejected by the agency in 2010 after a 10-6 vote against approval by the same panel, which included about half of the same members as Wednesday's.

But the panel this week agreed that the health risks of obesity and the benefits of losing weight outweighed the risks posed by the drug.

"The approval of Qnexa is a major step forward for the field of obesity treatment and is the result of advances in our understanding of the health consequences of obesity, and the resistance mechanisms that make it difficult to lose weight," said Dr. Louis Aronne, director of the Comprehensive Weight Control Program at New York Presbyterian Hospital.

Qnexa's rejection in 2010 was largely due to concerns over the potential for heart problems, birth defects and mental effects such as lack of concentration and fogginess for patients taking the drug.

The panel seemed to be moved this time by plans by the drug's manufacturer, Vivus, to minimize those risks through measures like labeling and an additional trial to investigate cardiovascular side effects.

But some experts say the side effects are still a major concern for a drug that will likely be sought by millions of people.

"This is far from a great drug," said Dr. David Katz, director of the Yale Prevention Research Center. "The FDA panel recommended approval of Qnexa only because the ranks of useful weight loss drugs are so thin, and desperate times call for desperate measures. Approval of Qnexa would reflect that...desperation."

One-third of Americans are obese and have chronic, expensive health problems as a result -- diabetes, heart disease and arthritis, to name a few. Patients and doctors are often frustrated by the lack of middle-ground options between traditional recommendations for diet and exercise and the more extreme approach of bariatric surgery.

Patients and doctors aren't the only ones antsy for a solution. The FDA has faced mounting pressures from health care groups and patient advocacy organizations to take obesity more seriously as a condition worthy of pharmacological treatment. In a letter in September, the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee directed the FDA to file a report by March 30, 2012 on the steps it will take to "support the development of new treatments for obesity."

Critics say the search for an anti-obesity drug is nothing more than a search for a "magic bullet" cure for obesity to eliminate the need for making difficult lifestyle changes.

"The approval of Qnexa feeds into a quick-fix approach to weight management," said Dr. Gerard Mullin, associate professor at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. "The solution to the overweight-obesity epidemic lies not in another effortless 'quick fix' but in a painful but permanent lifestyle solution."

Qnexa is a combination of two drugs already approved by the FDA: phentermine, a stimulant that suppresses appetite, and topiramate, a drug used to treat migraines and epilepsy that has weight loss as a side effect. Vivus recommends that the drug be prescribed as a part of weight loss plans that include diet and exercise.

Clinical trials so far show that the drug helps people shed 10 percent of their body weight, although patients regained some weight in the second year on the drug. It also seemed to have positive effects on blood sugar and blood pressure.

The FDA will decide whether or not to approve Qnexa by April 17. Although the agency usually follows the recommendations of its panels, the drug's fate is not assured. In 2011, a panel recommended the weight loss drug Contrave for approval, but the FDA declined to follow its advice.

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

Kansas Teen Shot Hoops in Meningitis-Induced Coma

Margaret Meier(NEW YORK) -- Teen basketball star Maggie Meier had perfect free-throw form, even when she was in a coma.

In the fall of her freshman year of high school, Meier got meningitis, a bacterial infection that spurred swelling in her brain and sparked terrifying seizures in the healthy student athlete.

"I'll never forget it," said Meier's mom, Margaret, a pediatric intensive care unit nurse. "Her eyes rolled back, and I knew what was happening. It was terrifying."

That seizure, the first of 20 that night, marked the start of a 100-day hospital stay for then-14-year-old Meier of Overland Park, Kan., most of which she spent in a coma.

"Seeing her every day, not getting any better, it was horrible," Margaret said, detailing the tubes that delivered nourishment and life-saving medications to her unresponsive daughter. "But she would do things that would make us know she was still there."

Although Meier couldn't talk or walk in her trancelike state, she could still shoot hoops.

"She would wake up for two to five minutes and shoot the ball, then be completely out of it again," said Margaret, describing the perfect swish of a beach ball through the makeshift net of Meier's sister's arms. "That's when we knew we were going to get her back, and get her back all the way."

Meier's neurologist, Dr. William Graf, said he'd never seen anything like it.

"It was just incredible," said Graf, now a professor of pediatrics and neurology at Yale University in New Haven, Conn. "She couldn't walk or eat, had no basic functions, but still had this perfect shooting motion. It was engrained."

The severe swelling in Meier's brain had disrupted the connections between nerve cells, and there was no guarantee those connections would ever be restored.

When Meier's immune system cleared the infection and she finally woke up, she had to re-learn everything -- how to walk, talk, read and behave -- from scratch.

"She was very childlike," said Margaret Meier, describing the tendency of kids to, "just say whatever they want" without inhibition. "All those social things you learn over years and years, she had to re-learn. And she had some aggressive behaviors, especially towards me."

Over two months of intensive rehab, and with the unwavering support of her parents and five siblings, Meier slowly came back.

"It wasn't easy," her mom said, recalling the violent outbursts and the need to install special locks on all the doors. "It was months and months of intense work."

Five months after she was hospitalized, Meier returned to Blue Valley Northwest High School, where she got one-on-one instruction from a special education teacher as well as physical and occupational therapy. Her spot on the basketball team bench was lovingly marked with a sign and her teammates wore beads on their shoes with her initials.

"Basketball was hugely important in her recovery," said Margaret. "It's been such a major part of her life since third grade, and she always wanted to get back to it."

And in her sophomore year, she did, earning a spot on the Huskies' junior varsity team. The next season, Meier joined the varsity squad. And on Monday, her high school's Senior Night, the 17-year-old was part of the starting lineup.

"To see where she is now, after what she's been through," said Margeret, voice shaking, "she's just such a great kid."

In the fall, Meier will start college at Benedictine College in Atchison, Kan., where she plans to major in nursing or special education. Whether Meier will play college ball is still up in the air, given her undoubtedly hectic class schedule and busy social life. But her mom is confident she can do anything she puts her mind to.

"If she wants to play ball, we'll be behind her 100 percent," she said. "We're so proud of her."

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

Many Adults Still Sleep with a Teddy Bear

Creatas/Thinkstock(LONDON) -- Many adults slept with a teddy bear when they were younger, and a new survey reveals some apparently haven’t given up the habit.  A survey of 6,000 Brits by the Travelodge hotel chain finds 35 percent of adults admitting they sleep with a teddy bear.  The respondents say the bear helps reduce stress at the end of the day and make it easier to sleep.

Travelodge commissioned the survey after staffers made efforts to reunite more than 75,000 forgotten teddy bears left behind at its hotels, and discovered many belonged to adults.

Additional survey findings:

• 25 percent of male respondents take a teddy bear with them when they go away on business trips. Many say the bear reminds them of home, and snuggling with it at night helps them sleep.
• 26 percent of male respondents said it was quite acceptable to have a bear regardless of your age.
• 51 percent of British adults said they still have a teddy bear from their childhood.
• The average teddy bear in Britain is 27 years old.
• Ten percent of single men surveyed admitted they hide their teddy bear when a woman stays over.
• 14 percent of married men say they hide their teddy bear when family and friends come to visit.
• 15 percent of men and 10 percent of women treat their teddy bear as their best friend and share intimate secrets with it.

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

Cutting Edge Techniques Take Cutting Out of Plastic Surgery

ABC News(NEW YORK) -- According to a recent study cited by the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, over 50 percent of Americans would like to have their appearance enhanced through cosmetic medicine. It is a $10 billion a year business.

In record numbers -- 14 million cosmetic procedures were done in 2011 alone -- Americans are being cut, stretched, tucked, smoothed, tapered, injected and filled.  But how these changes are made is changing, thanks to new techniques and tools that are making plastic surgery involve less, well, surgery.

"The catchphrase in the old days was, 'Heal of steel' -- the knife can do everything," said New York plastic surgeon Dr. Doug Steinbrech, in an interview with ABC News' Barbara Walters.  "What we are trying to do with facelifts now is to limit the amount of surgery we are actually doing.  The cutting and the incisions, the length of the incisions."

Less cutting means shorter recoveries and fewer scars.  To complete a face lift, for example, Steinbrech uses a new skin-tightening device, not a scalpel.  The face lift takes a little less than three hours under anesthesia.  A patient's stitches can be removed after five days. The overall cost? Up to $35,000.

Some doctors go even further than Steinbrech, getting many of the same results without going under the knife at all.  How?

"We have different tools and we also have different approaches," said dermatologist Dr. Doris Day, who has explained these tools and approaches in a book called Forget the Facelift.

"I don't believe in aging gracefully," Day said in an interview with Walters.  "I think you have to fight it every step of the way."

Day said the new tools she champions, such as fillers and lasers, offer patients an option that can replace or be combined with more traditional surgery.

"I don't think one excludes the other," Day said.  "However, my experience has been that you can get rid of lines and wrinkles, but that doesn't always make someone look younger; they just look smoother.  What we lose over time is volume.  And what we do is we -- very carefully, naturally and discreetly -- add back volume."

And less invasive cosmetic surgery isn't limited to the face.  As Day explains, there's also Liposonics, a powerful ultrasound tool used to melt fat without surgery.

"Liposonics is the newest kid on the block for helping to re-sculpt and melt fat," Day said.  "It's like liposuction, but it's a non-surgical approach. ... It uses that high-density focus ultrasound to actually heat up and melt fat."

So have Day and Steinbrech found the fountain of youth in these new cosmetic techniques?

"Well, it may not be that you never look old, but you can put it a long way off," said Day.  "We can slow that process down in a very natural way, with these procedures."

Copyright 2012 ABC news Radio

12-Year-Old Boy to Halt Cancer Treatment to Be with Family

AbleStock[dot]com/Hemera Technologies(SHELBYVILLE, Tenn.) -- A 12-year old boy who has battled a rare form of cancer since he was 7 has made a bold decision: He is stopping his treatments so he can go home and be with his family.

Alex Rodriguez is aware of what his decision means.  So is his hometown of Shelbyville, Tenn., which has rallied around the boy.

“I had the opportunity to meet Alex this summer,” Dr. Tracy Lampley, principal of Harris Middle School told ABC News.  “He is a very courageous young man to have a very mature adult outlook on life.  It’s amazing as a 12-year old he is really able to face the opportunities and challenges that he has in his remaining time.”

“He’s just a wonderful little boy,” Rodriguez’s grandmother Carolyn Camacho said. “He’s always happy.  No matter what he’s always happy and he doesn’t like to talk about his cancer.  It makes him sad and he wants to be happy.”

Rodriguez's school and neighbors have been touched by his choice and are trying to make his last days cheerful, raising money for his hospice care and taking care of his bucket list.

He has two wishes, to tour the Coca Cola factory in Atlanta, Ga., and go to the indoor water park at the Wilderness Resort in Tennessee.  He will see one of them come true over the weekend when he visits the Coca Cola factory Saturday morning, in a limo, the ride donated by a businessman.

Rodriguez was diagnosed with rhabdomyosarcoma, a rare form of cancer, when he was 7.  This type of cancer is made up of cells that normally develop into skeletal muscles and is more common in children than adults, according to the American Cancer Society.

He had surgery on his spine and had a bar and two “cages” -- cylinder devices in the spine to replace discs -- put into his back.  He had to learn how to walk again after the surgery and received radiation as well as chemotherapy.

The treatments worked, but only for two years.

When Alex was in the sixth grade, “He went for all of his scans and tests and they said everything was gone,” his grandmother said.  “Then two or three months later it came back and it hit him pretty hard.”

Once the cancer returned, Rodriguez again resumed chemotherapy and radiation, but the tumors kept coming back.

With only one choice left -- traveling to Texas for experimental treatments -- Rodriguez opted to stay home so he can be with his family.

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

Shopaholic Says Shoplifting Arrest Was Her Wake-Up Call

iStockphoto/Thinkstock(LANSING, Mich.) -- For most people, a trip to the mall is, well, just a trip to the mall. But for Ronnie Haring, it a place full of dangerous temptations because the 38-year-old mother of two is a shopaholic.

"It's less a feeling of wanting to go, and more a feeling of needing to go," Haring said.

The term "shopaholic" has become commonplace, but Haring is among the estimated six percent of Americans who struggle with compulsive shopping. The American Psychological Association says that compulsive spending is an impulse control disorder that, like gambling or drinking, can spin out of control as sufferers ride that roller coaster of endorphin-fueled highs and guilt-ridden lows.

"It just feels so good inside," Haring said. "You're kind of floating as you're going through it and then, essentially, you just fall...very hard. You get home and you're like, 'Why did I buy all this?' And then you feel guilty. And the way to make yourself feel better [is] more shopping. And the cycle continues."

But when Haring went shopping, she said she was never able to buy just one item. She would always have to buy in bulk. For example, she would feel the need to buy every scent of a particular kind of hand soap or the same shirt in several different colors.

"If they don't have the right color, I'll drive to another mall to find the right color," she said.

Haring revealed that she has maxed out all of her credit cards and her credit card debt totals more than $50,000. She also endures phone calls from debt collectors.

Her shopping was so out of control that Haring is filing for bankruptcy, her family lost its home near Lansing, Mich., and, unless she changes her ways, she could lose her husband of almost 20 years.

"We've had our moments where it's to the point where you want to throw in the towel and walk away," said Bill Haring.

But even with the threat of her marriage ending, Ronnie Haring said shopping continued to seem more important to her.

It wasn't always so bad. Haring said her compulsive shopping started slowly and grew over the decades. As a young girl, she remembered wanting the latest fashions. As a mom, she wanted nice things to furnish the house or the newest toys for her two kids, now ages 10 and 13.

"It was so slowly escalating that you didn't realize it until it was all over, until you get to the point where it's like, 'Wow,'" Haring said.

She began shopping in secret, leaving work early to go to the mall and then hiding new purchases from her husband.

"And he'd say, 'Is that something new?' and I'm like, 'No, I've had this for a while,' so it wasn't a lie. It just wasn't the truth," Haring said.

And when she maxed out her credit cards, Haring went into her husband's wallet and started using his. Then as her lies grew bigger, Ronnie Haring grew more brazen.

"She goes to the extreme of copying down the card numbers and hiding them," Bill Haring said. "She even went to the point of calling the bank and disguising her voice as me to transfer money to buy things."

When Haring finally went completely broke, she said, she still went to the mall but turned to shoplifting. Last month, Haring, a Midwestern soccer mom, was arrested and charged for shoplifting at a local mall in Lansing and thrown in jail.

Haring only spent 30 minutes in a jail cell before her mother bailed her out, and she is expected to plead guilty at her upcoming sentencing hearing, but she said that was the wake-up call she needed to get help.

After her release, Haring reached out to shopping addiction specialist Terry Shulman for counseling. He explained that she used shopping as a way to fill a void of "emptiness."

"With Ronnie, there's a core of self-esteem and insecurity that [says], 'I'm not good enough. Who am I?'" Shulman said.

Her intense urges to buy in bulk, Shulman said, stem from Haring's childhood when her parents got divorced, and as a result, Haring is afraid to let things go.

"There's a feeling of being abandoned or being rejected," Shulman said. "For Ronnie, having to, you know, just pick one was like taking it away from a family and for her... it was intolerable and unthinkable to separate them."

Haring's recovery from her compulsive shopping could require years of therapy, but her husband has helped her take the first steps with imposing strict rules on how and when his wife has access to money.

"We have one checkbook with just my name on it. If she wants to write a check, then I have to sign my name to the check," Bill Haring said. "It's a way to kind of regulate what bills are paid and when they're paid. Otherwise, if she needs to use a debit card for something, then I would like the receipt."

"You have to treat her like a child if she's not responsible," he added. "And if you don't keep your money and pay your bills, then you lose what you have."

Today, Ronnie Haring said, she doesn't know if she will ever be fully cured of her compulsive shopping, but she has made progress and realized she must get better or face severe consequences.

"Otherwise, I'm going to end up in jail or lose my family, and that is too high a price to pay," she said.

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

Proof at Last? Colonoscopy and Cancer Prevention

iStockphoto/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) -- Do you really need that colonoscopy? It’s a question that seems simple at first. After all, as more Americans routinely undergo the oft-dreaded colonoscopy with each passing year, cases of colorectal cancer have continued to drop.

Yet data from large, conclusive studies that prove this test, currently the primary weapon in a doctor’s arsenal to catch colon cancer early, actually saves lives has so far been lacking.

Some doctors believe that new research, released Wednesday by the New England Journal of Medicine, takes a big step in this direction. In the study, researchers led by Ann G. Zauber of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York suggest that removing non-cancerous growths known as polyps could have a big impact on death from colorectal cancer. Doctors routinely remove these benign polyps during a colonoscopy. The new study indicates that people who have polyps removed slash their risk of death from colorectal cancer by more than 50 percent over the next decade and a half compared to the general population.

“This study confirms the suspected benefit of colonoscopy as it relates to reducing mortality from colorectal cancer,” says Dr. Fritz Francois of NYU Medical Center, who was not involved with the study.  He added that while certain questions still remain surrounding the overall body of research on colonoscopy, “the important message is clear: colonoscopy saves lives.”

Not so fast, say other cancer experts. Dr. Rita Redberg of the University of San Francisco, editor of the journal Archives of Internal Medicine, was less impressed by the new study. She said a major shortcoming of the study was that it did not factor in the so-called “healthy-user effect.” In other words, she said, those people in the study who received colonoscopies and had polyps removed may very well be more healthy than the average person in the general population -- perhaps doing things like eating a healthier diet, exercising or taking medications regularly. These aspects of their lifestyle may lower their chances of developing colon cancer even before colonoscopy is considered.

The healthy-user effect has confounded medical professionals before. Redberg said the healthy-user effect is, “the same reason we thought hormone replacement therapy [HRT] was protective against heart disease for women for many years, until a randomized trial was done.”  In the case of HRT, when such a trial was performed, researchers actually found a slight increase in heart disease and strokes among women taking the measure that was supposed to have improved their health.

Other doctors contacted by ABC News agreed that it is difficult to make any conclusions from the study at hand. That said, government health agencies have made prevention of colorectal cancer a top priority and, as a result, have strived to encourage more Americans to have screening colonoscopies. Current guidelines recommend that every American age 50 to 75 undergo screening colonoscopy -- though CDC data suggest 22 million Americans who should be getting screened aren’t.

The stakes for preventing colorectal cancer are high. In the U.S., among cancers that affect both men and women, colorectal cancer is the third most common and the second-leading cause of cancer death, according to the CDC. And the idea that finding and removing precancerous polyps before they turn into cancer seems a logical way to try and solve the problem.

So will doctors ever know conclusively whether or not colonoscopy and the removal of benign polyps save lives? Most experts contacted by ABC News believe so.

“If your doctor finds a polyp on colonoscopy, that’s a tissue we know may turn into cancer,” said Dr. Eric Esrailian, a gastroenterologist at UCLA. “It can be removed during the procedure and the cancer never develops....We can basically prevent cancer.”

Until this can be proven more conclusively, most agree that routine screenings may help -- and are unlikely to hurt.

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio