Gomers -- What's going wrong

NO PEACEFUL DEMONSTRATION: About 60 pandits - religious men trained in meditating for peace - rioted Tuesday near Fairfield, swarming a law enforcement truck and throwing rocks at the sheriff. Officials had been called to the campus adjacent to Vedic City, affiliated with the Maharishi University of Management in Fairfield. The men were upset after program leaders removed one of their members for undisclosed disciplinary reasons. He has since been returned and a review of the case was to be made. The incident is raising questions about the program.

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NEW CANCER THREAT: Between 2006 and 2011, Iowa recorded a 24 percent increase in diagnosed cancers related to the human papillomavirus, compared to the period between 1988 and 1993. Cervical cancer accounted for 46 percent of all HPV-related cancer among women, and oropharynx cancer - believed to be linked to heavy alcohol and tobacco use - accounted for 79 percent of all HPV-related cancer among men. HPV was tracked to more than 2,000 cancer cases. Oropharynx cancer is essentially a new disease in Iowa over the past decade, and if the current trend continues, the number of cases will exceed cervical cancer by 2020, experts predict. Health officials are pushing two HPV vaccines that have been available since 2006. A series of doses can be given at ages 11 or 12 ideally, but the vaccines are also recommended for boys and girls through the teen years into early adulthood as a preventive measure.

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