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Archive by category: Health and medicine

November 05, 2009

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Nanoparticle safety looking more complicated - November 05, 2009

cells-pink.jpg
A paper has been published today in Nature Nanotechnology with a fairly provocative title: Nanoparticles can cause DNA damage across a cellular barrier.

But before we start shouting “grey goo” from the rooftops and blaming nanotechnology for ruining our lives, the paper requires some more considered thought. We already suspect that certain nanoparticles cause damage, but the need for more research is abundantly clear.

What the team, led by Charles Case from the Bristol Implant Research Centre, UK, and his colleagues have shown is that in their lab situation – more of which later – certain nanoparticles can reach through a cellular barrier and cause damage to the DNA in fibroblasts, which are cells important in wound healing.

The fact that nanoparticles can cross a cellular barrier (think blood-brain barrier, or the placenta) could cause alarm, but in this case shouldn’t.

The report is likely to be more interesting for those wanting to study the cellular processes that are happening. The set up in the lab was far removed from a real-life situation. Case’s team used a type of cell that can be used to build a structure that mimics a cellular barrier, they then built up three layers of these cells to make sure there were no gaps, and put the fibroblasts behind it. They then exposed the system to a very high dose of cobalt/chromium nanoparticles – because these are created in small amounts when artificial joints wear during use.

The results showed that the nanoparticles stayed in amongst the barrier cells without killing them. They nanoparticles didn’t reach the fibroblasts. So how was the DNA in the fibroblasts damaged? This is the part that is likely to whet the appetites of other scientists in the field. It looks like the nanoparticles set off a series of signals within the cells of the barrier, that ultimately led to the release of DNA-damaging ATP through two specific channels at the edge of the barrier.

This signalling process meant that the fibroblasts’ DNA was more damaged when the barrier was present than when the fibroblasts were directly exposed to the nanoparticles.

So what does this mean? I can’t put it any better than Andrew Maynard, nanotech regulation expert from the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, DC, who told me, “it's an important study as it raises possible new ways in which harm could occur following exposure. But while it raises new questions, it is far from conclusive on whether this is a relevant or significant way in which specific types of nanoparticles can cause harm. More research is needed.”

November 04, 2009

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Nutt-gate rolls on - November 04, 2009

The science advisor fired by the UK government last week has penned an editorial explaining his actions.

David Nutt, until Friday the chairman of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD), was fired after widespread media attention focused on his comments on the relative risks of legal and illegal substances (see links below).

In a guest editorial in this week’s New Scientist, Nutt says that the UK government is both ignoring its own advisors and “falling out of step” with an international trend towards more liberal drug policies. He writes:

The message for the British government is a simple one: don’t exclude rational argument in order to exploit a visceral public response. Politicians have to win the hearts and minds of their electorate. If your policy is informed by an underlying moral imperative, be open about what that is, and don’t try to disguise it with a veneer of pseudo-science. We ignore scientific evidence at our peril.

Nature has also produced an editorial on Nutt-gate this week. It reads, in part:

Scientific advisers who publicly attack decisions they consider to be less than ideal, and in so doing provide ammunition for political opponents of those decisions, are entering dangerous territory.

Nonetheless, in this case, the position of the Labour government and of the leading opposition party, the Conservatives, which vigorously supported Nutt’s sacking, has no merit at all. It deals a significant blow both to the chances of an informed and reasoned debate over illegal drugs, and to the parties’ own scientific credibility.

Previous Nutt News
Cracks show in government over Nutt-gate – 03 November 2009
Sacked science adviser speaks out - 2 November 2009
Government sacks independent drugs advisor - 30 October 2009
UK government vs its own drugs advisor, Part II - 29 October 2009
Ecstasy advice is a bitter pill - 12 February 2009
Love drug gets politicians fighting - 09 February 2009

November 03, 2009

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Piggy sequence probed - November 03, 2009

091102_pig_genome.jpgMany thanks to genome scientists for giving us tastier sausages, for according to the Telegraph’s food and drink section, the best thing about the recently unveiled pig genome is that it will lead us to better bangers.

The announcement was made from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Hinxton, UK, but the pig, a red-haired Duroc pig came from a farm at the University of Illinois, US.

"The pig is the ideal animal to look at lifestyle and health issues in the United States," the AP reports Larry Schook as saying. Schook, from the University of Illinois in Champaign, led the DNA sequencing project.

The 98% complete genome sequence will be valuable to agriculturalists looking to improve pig breeding practices, look at their immunity to certain diseases, and also help preserve species fo rare, endangered pigs. And it might also help create a swine flu vaccine – but only for pigs (Daily Mail).

The pig genome is particularly useful because our porcine friends are like us in many ways that may not be obvious to the naked eye; they have similar psychology, behaviour and nutritional needs to us says WA today. Except I bet pigs don’t eat sausages.

Image: Scott Bauer - USDA, ARS, IS Photo Unit

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Cracks show in government over Nutt-gate - November 03, 2009

nutt david.jpgThe fallout from the UK Home Secretary’s sacking of an independent drugs advisor continues.

Yesterday Alan Johnson appeared in parliament to defend his sacking of David Nutt, who chaired the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs. Johnson stressed that he does not see this as an issue about the government’s approach to scientific advice, but about the particulars of Nutt’s case.

“I asked Professor Nutt to resign as my principal drugs adviser, not because of the work of the council but because of his failure to recognise that, as chair of ACMD, his role is to advise rather than to criticise Government policy on drugs,” he told Parliament. “…There is no doubt in my mind that the advice of independent scientific advisers is essential to substantial aspects of the government’s work.”

Johnson also admitted he did not consult the government’s chief scientific adviser John Beddington before sacking Nutt. Beddington told the BBC he agreed with Nutt that cannabis was less harmful than cigarettes and alcohol but wouldn’t say whether he agreed with the sacking.

Johnson may have a bigger problem though. According to the Sun, Science Minister Lord Drayson told the Prime Minister’s office the sacking was “a big mistake” and that he was “pretty appalled”.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown has thrown his weight behind Johnson though, telling the Evening Standard “We’ll get tougher on drugs.”

Bizarrely, Brown went on to say, “On climate change, or health, for example, we take the best scientific advice possible. But in an area like drugs we have to look at it in the round.”

If you can work out what that means please let us know.

Previous Nutt News
Sacked science adviser speaks out - 2 November 2009
Government sacks independent drugs advisor - 30 October 2009
UK government vs its own drugs advisor, Part II - 29 October 2009
Ecstasy advice is a bitter pill - 12 February 2009
Love drug gets politicians fighting - 09 February 2009

Image: University of Bristol

November 02, 2009

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US lifts ban on HIV+ travellers - November 02, 2009

obama hiv ban.bmpPresident Obama has lifted a ban on HIV positive individuals entering the United States.

“If we want to be a global leader in combating HIV-AIDS, we need to act like it,” said Obama on Friday. “That’s why on Monday my administration will publish a final rule that eliminates the travel ban.”

That rule was published today in the Federal Register. It states:

While HIV infection is a serious health condition, it is not a communicable disease that is a significant public health risk for introduction, transmission, and spread to the U.S. population through casual contact. As a result of this final rule, aliens will no longer be inadmissible into the United States based solely on the ground they are infected with HIV, and they will not be required to undergo HIV testing as part of the required medical examination for US immigration.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged other nations which impose travel restrictions on those with HIV to follow America’s lead. According to the UN over 50 countries impose travel restrictions of some kind on HIV positive individuals.

“Placing travel restrictions on people living with HIV has no public health justification. It is also a violation of human rights,” says Michel Sidibé, executive director of UNAIDS. “We hope that other countries that still have travel restrictions will remove them at the earliest.”

The US rule change comes into force 4 January, 2010.

“Today a discriminatory travel and immigration ban has gone the way of the dinosaur and we’re glad it’s finally extinct. It sure took too long to get here,” said Senator John Kerry on Friday.

Image: Obama on Friday / White House

October 30, 2009

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Government sacks independent drugs advisor - October 30, 2009

nutt david.jpgThe UK government has told its independent advisor on drug abuse to resign after he again called for a more scientific approach to drugs.

David Nutt, until now chairman of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD), delivered a lecture at King’s College London in July, an edited version of which was published earlier this week reiterating his views on the relative safety of different drugs [Corrected 02/11]. We noted at the time that he “looks set for another row with politicians who continue to ignore researchers’ advice over illegal substances”.

In his lecture he said, “Using the [Misuse of Drugs] Act in a political way to give messages other than those relating to relative harms undermines the Act and does great damage to the educational message. We also have to fully endorse harm reduction approaches at all levels and especially stop the artificial separation of alcohol and tobacco as ‘non-drugs’.” (PDF.)

Nutt had earlier riled a previous home secretary, Jacqui Smith, with his comments regarding the dangers of MDMA (‘ecstasy’), comparing the risks of the drug to horse-riding and calling for a wider debate on society’s approach to risk.

Today Alan Johnson, the current UK Home Secretary, told Nutt to resign.

“In a letter he [Johnson] expressed surprise and disappointment over Professor Nutt's comments which damage efforts to give the public clear messages about the dangers of drugs,” said a Home Office spokesperson. “As chair of the council his actions undermine its role and scientific independence. … [T]he clear role of the chair of the ACMD is to provide independent scientific advice and not to lobby for changes in policy.”

However the sacking of Nutt has already generated a furious response from other UK politicians.

Evan Harris, a Liberal Democrat MP and member of Parliament’s Science and Technology Select Committee, said, “The political sacking of a distinguished scientist, who is the chair of an independent scientific advisory committee, for the ‘crime’ of having different views than the Secretary of State is an enormous blow to the credibility of the Government’s approach to scientific evidence.”

Harris cites a recent response from the government to a committee inquiry on evidence based policy which stated:

The Government agrees that the independence of science advisers is critical. It was precisely for this reason that the GCSA [Government Chief Scientific Adviser] wrote to then-Home Secretary Jacqui Smith to express concern over her criticism, in Parliament, of Professor Nutt (Chairman of ACMD) with regard to an article he published in a peer-reviewed journal.

Phil Willis, the chairman of the Science and Technology committee, said, “As Chair of the Science and Technology committee I am writing immediately to the Home Secretary to ask for clarification as to why the distinguished scientist David Nutt has been removed of duties as Chair of Advisory Council on Misuse of Drugs at a time when independent scientific advice to government is essential. It is disturbing if an independent scientist should be removed for reporting sound scientific advice.”

UPDATE - Read Nature's interview with Nutt here: Sacked science adviser speaks out
Richard Garside, director of the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies where Nutt gave his lecture in July, has written to the Home Secretary. His letter, distributed by the Science Media Centre, is copied below.

Image: University of Bristol

Continue reading "Government sacks independent drugs advisor" »

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Toni Iommi hopes stem cells will make him an Iron Man again - October 30, 2009

Legendary guitarist Toni Iommi is undergoing stem cell therapy in an attempt to keep him rocking.

On October 20th he told a BBC radio show, “I’ve had this problem with my hand and I’ve had this stem-cell treatment on it. The joints [were] rubbing on the joints. It was bone to bone and it was getting a bit painful.”

The admission was noted at the time by music websites and the Daily Telegraph and the Times have followed up with new stories today.

Peter Buckle, of the Robens Centre for Health Ergonomics at the University of Surrey, warning in the Times that, “We have found a whole set of injuries affecting the hand, arms and wrist [of guitarists] which you would normally associate with working on a hard, fast production line. The temptation for younger musicians is to press too hard on the strings and try to force the frets. Holding the instrument away from the body to excite an audience may look good but it can put a huge pressure on the shoulder and upper arms.”

Iommi has already overcome damage sustained to his hand as a youth. We remain confident those who think this will force him to hang up his axe are merely paranoid.

October 29, 2009

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UK government vs its own drugs advisor, Part II - October 29, 2009

The head of the UK government’s independent drug advice group looks set for another row with politicians who continue to ignore researchers’ advice over illegal substances.

Earlier this year the UK’s Home Secretary launched an attack on David Nutt, chairman of the government’s own Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs and a respected academic.

Nutt’s crime, in the eyes of Home Secretary Jacqui Smith and other politicians, was to write an article in the Journal of Psychopharmacology. His article called for a wider debate on the risks of drugs and, in passing, compared the risks of MDMA (‘ecstasy’) to horse riding. (See: Ecstasy advice is a bitter pill.)

Credit to the man though, he has stuck to his guns and come back with another reasoned critique, delivered as a lecture at King’s College London. In it he reiterates his call for improving public understanding of the actual risks of drugs and again recommends a more logical classification of these.

Continue reading "UK government vs its own drugs advisor, Part II" »

October 28, 2009

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California hands out $230 million to move stem cells into the clinic - October 28, 2009

The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine today awarded $230 million in disease team awards, intended to move stem cell therapies into the clinic within four years.

Fourteen teams, including twelve academic institutions and two companies as principal or co-principal investigators, received the awards. Canada's Cancer Stem Cell Consortium will pay an additional $35 million for two of the grants that aim to target cancer stem cells, and the United Kingdom's Medical Research Council will award $8 million for two grants that aim to treat macular degeneration and target leukemia stem cells.

Continue reading "California hands out $230 million to move stem cells into the clinic" »

October 27, 2009

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Harvard medical researchers were poisoned - October 27, 2009

nrb.jpgThe possibility that six Harvard researchers were poisoned deliberately has been raised by one of those who fell ill after drinking coffee laced with sodium azide.

Matteo Iannacone, a postdoc at Harvard Medical School, said he doesn’t believe the coffee could have been spiked accidentally or as a joke (AP, ABC).

Experts seem to agree. David Benjamin, a local toxicologist and clinical pharmacologist, told the Boston Herald, “An accident? Sodium azide is a poison. Could it have gotten in the coffee machine inadvertently? Absolutely not.”

Although it has only just been made public, the incident occurred on 26 August, when six researchers who drank from a coffee machine in the HMS New Research Building were taken to a nearby emergency room.

“While we do not yet know how this incident occurred, we have recently learned that sodium azide, a preservative commonly used in laboratories, was present in the coffee consumed by the six employees,” the medical school said in a statement. “As the investigation continues, we are being prudent and taking additional precautionary measures to ensure the well being of our community.”

Police are now investigating the incident and lab security is being toughened up.

See also
Java drinkers detail ordeal – Boston Herald
Experts: Harvard Med School Poisoning Intentional - WBZTV

Image: the New Research Building by cliff1066™ via flickr under creative commons

October 26, 2009

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Gene fix helps blind boy see - October 26, 2009

2009102411.jpgA single dose of gene therapy greatly improved the vision of 12 patients with a rare, inherited visual disorder. The best results were achieved in the youngest patients, including a 9-year-old boy named Corey Haas, who was considered legally blind before the treatment began and now has the same level of light sensitivity as his normal-sighted schoolmates.

The study "holds great promise for the future" and "is appealing because of its simplicity", Frans Cremers and Rob Collin, of the Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Center in the Netherlands, wrote in a commentary accompanying the report, which was published online 24 October in the Lancet.

Leber's congenital amaurosis is an inherited eye disease characterized by severe degeneration of the retina and loss of vision in the first few months of life. The disease, which affects around 1 in 80,000 people, can be caused by mutations in 13 different genes. But all 12 of the patients in the Phase I study, led by researchers at researchers at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, suffered from a defective gene called RPE65, which codes for a vitamin A derivative that is essential for detecting light.

The researchers injected each patient's worse eye with a functional copy of the RPE65 gene inserted into an adenovirus vector. The investigators last year reported success with three adult patients (see 'Gene therapy treats blindness'), and now they've added an additional nine patients, including four children under the age of 11. These youngsters displayed the greatest visual recovery, presumably because their defective retinal cells did not yet have time to completely die off.

Continue reading "Gene fix helps blind boy see" »

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Collins hits the gym following genetic testing - October 26, 2009

Direct-to-consumer genetic testing can count one more consumer — the director of the US National Institutes of Health, Francis Collins.

Collins announced today at a personalized medicine colloquium in Washington DC that he spat into a set of tubes and sent off his genetic material under a pseudonym to three of the leading personal genetic testing companies. He said that all the companies provided highly accurate genotyping, but with substantial differences in the information that was revealed and the interpretations provided — similar to the conclusions reached by Collins's former human genome sequencing rival, Craig Venter, in a recent opinion article in Nature.

On a more personal level, Collins discovered that he carries two copies of the most common risk factor of type II diabetes. Collins, whose laboratory investigates the underlying genetic basis of adult-onset diabetes, said he was "surprised" by these findings since his family has no history of the disease. Upon learning the test results, Collins got off his Harley-Davidson and instigated a regular exercise regime. The svelter NIH director said he has now lost 20 pounds.

Official NIH photos from before and after Collins became director. Check out those gaunt cheeks!

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Hwang convicted in Korean court - October 26, 2009

hwang.JPGPosted for David Cyranoski

Found guilty of embezzlement and bioethical violations but cleared of fraud, Woo Suk Hwang has been handed a 2-year sentence by the Seoul Central District Court.

The sentence, which is suspended for three years and only half the length that prosecutors sought, pleased supporters of the cloning expert and former Seoul University professor. The prosecutors have pledged to appeal.

Hwang was once feted for creating stem cell lines from cloned embryos of patients suffering from a variety of diseases. The accomplishment, which offered the capability to produce an endless supply of stem cells genetically matched to respective patients, turned out to be bogus and his efforts to get eggs required for the cloning procedure turned out to be unethical. (See Nature’s Woo Suk Hwang special.)

In January 2006, while maintaining that he had the ability to do what he claimed, Hwang admitted to falsifying data. In May 2006, he was indicted on charges of fraud, embezzlement and violation of the bioethics law.

But scientific fraud, while certainly not a way to endear oneself to colleagues, would be illegal only if Hwang had used fraudulent data to gain grants. Prosecutors argued that he did dupe two companies, SKGroup and Nonghyup, into supplying research funds using the fraudulent data. The court reportedly rejected the allegations on the grounds that the two companies provided the funding without expectation of benefit.

The court did however find Hwang guilty of purchasing eggs in violation of the country's bioethics law and of embezzling KRW 590 830 million of government money by filtering it through bank accounts of associates.

Continue reading "Hwang convicted in Korean court" »

October 21, 2009

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Vaccine boom for world's kids - October 21, 2009

Poliodrops.jpgGlobal immunization rates of children reached an all-time high last year, but millions of youngsters in the world's poorest countries remain vulnerable to vaccine-preventable diseases, according to a new report released today by the World Health Organization (WHO), UNICEF and the World Bank.

The State of the World’s Vaccines and Immunization reports that 4 out of 5 children now have access to life-saving vaccines — a record 106 million infants were immunized in 2008. Yet this still leaves around 24 million children who do not receive the complete round of regular shots before the age of one.

The report calls on the world's wealthy nations to invest an extra US$1 billion annually to raise immunization rates above 90%. This would prevent an additional two million childhood deaths per year, the report says.

Some of this money is also needed to pay for the rising cost of immunization as more vaccines join the standard lot, said Rakesh Nangia, the World Bank's operations and strategy director. By next year, Nangia estimates that routine immunization will cost US$18 per child, up from $3-5 in 1980. Once recently developed vaccines, including those that protect against pneumococcal disease and rotavirus diarrhea, come on board, he expects the price to rise to $30. "All good things cost, and so do these vaccinations," Nangia said at a press briefing today in Washington DC.

Continue reading "Vaccine boom for world's kids" »

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Swine flu: vaccinations are go in Europe - October 21, 2009

flu.JPGAll Nature’s pandemic flu coverage is collected on our news special page.

As America faces warnings of a vaccine shortage, Europe is getting underway with the H1N1 jabbing.

In the UK vaccinations start today, with doctors, nurses and pregnant women first in line for shots. “This is the first pandemic for which we have had vaccine to protect people. I urge everyone in the priority groups to have the vaccine,” says Liam Donaldson, the UK’s Chief Medical Officer (press release).

France has also started vaccinating this week, and Germany will begin 26 October, followed by Ireland on 2 November (Independent, Bloomberg).

Last week the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned that vaccine production was not going as well as might be hoped. Anne Schuchat told reporters some manufacturers were having difficulties and production was “a bit delayed”.

“We wish that we had more vaccine and there is more vaccine coming out every day,” she said. (See: Swine flu shot shortfall.)

Australia became the first country to begin mass vaccination against H1N1 when it rolled out its programme on 30 September (see: Sky, Brisbane Times).

October 20, 2009

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Story Landis resigns from autism committee - October 20, 2009

story landis.jpgPosted for Meredith Wadman

The chief of neurological research at the US National Institutes of Health resigned abruptly on Saturday (17 October) from a pan-government committee coordinating autism research, after an Internet newspaper, Age of Autism, posted handwritten notes she left behind after a 30 September committee meeting.

Story Landis, the director of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, had questioned in the notes whether one parent on the committee, [Lyn Redwood] “is pushing autism as [a] multisystem disorder to feed into vaccine injury”.

In her letter of resignation, first reported by The Huffington Post, Landis apologized for “unprofessional” behaviour and said “I understand how my comments triggered frustration and anger” in the autism community.

Image: NIH

October 19, 2009

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NY fights over compulsory vaccines - October 19, 2009

flu.JPGAll Nature’s pandemic flu coverage is collected on our news special page

Healthcare workers in New York have won a temporary reprieve from compulsory swine flu vaccinations.

New York State Public Employees Federation has taken the State of New York to court in an attempt to overturn a policy that requires doctors and other healthcare workers to be vaccinated against H1N1 by 30 November or face disciplinary action. On Friday a judge granted a temporary restraining order on the emergency vaccination regulation.

“Our lawsuit states this regulation is an absolute violation of the separation of powers, as it is an unconstitutional exercise of the legislature’s authority,” says PEF President Kenneth Brynien.

If such forced vaccination is necessary it should come from the legislature, not from the desk of the State Health Commissioner, says Brynien. The PEF says it encourages its members to be vaccinated but opposes enforced vaccination.

Last month, State Health Commissioner Richard Daines wrote, “Questions about safety and claims of personal preference are understandable. Given the outstanding efficacy and safety record of approved influenza vaccines, our overriding concern then, as health care workers, should be the interests of our patients, not our own sensibilities about mandates.”

A spokesperson for the commission said it would defend the lawsuits brought by the PEF and others over the vaccination rules and that “the precedents are very clear about the commissioner’s legal right” (Newsday).

October 13, 2009

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Mom passes cancer to baby  - October 13, 2009

fetus.jpgA sad story has led to the confirmation of a long-standing hypothesis: in very, very rare cases, a pregnant woman’s cancer cells can sneak through the placenta, evade the developing foetus’ immune system and proliferate in the child.

Since 1866 there have been some 17 documented cases (including the present study) of a baby developing the same cancer as its mother, suggesting that the mother’s cancer cells had metastasized to the developing foetus. This speculation had strong support — for example, three infant boys who developed leukaemia like their moms' had bone marrow cells with two X chromosomes — but had never been backed by good old genetic evidence. One reason for doubt was that the mother's cancerous cells, even if they had slipped through the placenta, should have been destroyed by the foetus' immune system.

Researchers from Japan and the UK have finally demonstrated that mother-to-fetus metastasis can indeed happen, and published their findings online 12 October in PNAS. They focused on a baby who developed a tumour at the age of 11 months. The father then revealed that the mother had been diagnosed with leukaemia a month after giving birth to the child and had died.

Continue reading "Mom passes cancer to baby " »

October 06, 2009

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A neutralizer for nose candy? - October 06, 2009

crack.jpgA vaccine that takes the “yay” out of llello has shown some success in decreasing use in cocaine addicts, researchers reported 5 October in Archives of General Psychiatry. But the reduction was short-lived and only occurred in a subset of patients.

Similar to your standard vaccine, the cocaine vaccine induces the body to produce antibodies to cocaine. When a person snorts, smokes, chews or injects cocaine and it enters the bloodstream, the antibodies sop some of it up before it can make it to the brain and give the user an addictive, euphoric high. Then, while it’s trapped in the blood, an enzyme called cholinesterase finishes the job by degrading the chemical. The idea is that the vaccine, used in conjunction with other treatments like cognitive behavioural therapy, would help curb relapses and ultimately break dependency.

The Phase IIb study focused on people who were addicted to cocaine and opiates and were enrolled in an outpatient methadone treatment programme. These patients were ideal because people on methadone maintenance tend to show up for treatment fairly reliably, so the participants could be followed throughout the entire course of study (24 weeks, including the follow-up period).

Continue reading "A neutralizer for nose candy?" »

October 02, 2009

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Panda poop, panties and more at the Ig Nobels - October 02, 2009

panda poo.jpgLast night Cambridge’s clown school gave the world’s best and brightest the awards they deserved. Harvard University hosted its 19th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony, where its Annals of Improbable Research recognized the usual combination of mad scientists and asinine leaders.

Pulling in the biology prize was a Japanese team that discovered pandas are more than just cuddly tax dollar vacuums — their poop packs a potent punch. The group isolated bacteria in panda feces that can reduce kitchen waste by more than 90 percent in mass. Good news, given that pandas produce about 40 pounds of poop a day — and as one might expect, it doesn’t stink.

The Ig Nobel prizes also continued their fascination with skivvies. Back in 2001 the biology prize went to the inventor of panties that filter out flatulence with a replaceable charcoal filter, and this year the public health prize went to the inventors of a bra that can be “quickly converted into a pair of gas masks, one for the brassiere wearer and one to be given to some needy bystander” — in this case that needy bystander was Wolfgang Ketterle, 2001 winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics.

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Living longer looks likely with lack of ‘looming limit’  - October 02, 2009

A study published today in the Lancet suggests that if the increases in life expectancy seen over the last 200 years continue babies born since 2000 in North America, Japan and much of Europe are likely to reach 100.

“A key question is: are increases in life expectancy accompanied by a concurrent postponement of functional limitations and disability?” write Kaare Christensen, of the University of Southern Denmark, Odense, and colleagues. “The answer is still open, but research suggests that ageing processes are modifiable and that people are living longer without severe disability.”

Christensen says that data from 30 developed countries shows no “looming limit” to lifespan (BBC). Of course, as has often been pointed out, living longer means people are going to have to work longer to fund their extended retirements.

“I guess it’s good news for individuals and a challenge for societies,” says Christensen (ABC News). “If you’re going to retire when you are 60 or 65, it looks quite different when your life expectancy is 75 or 80 than when it’s 100.”

Meanwhile, in Science, researchers have shown that stopping production of a particular protein in mice increased life span and reduced age-related diseases. In AFP’s words: Scientists find path to fountain of youth.

“We are suddenly much closer to treatments for aging than we thought,” David Gems of UCL told the wire service.

October 01, 2009

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Flu pandemic might merit sewage treatment upgrade - October 01, 2009

Worrying levels of Tamiflu are detectable in rivers during flu season, report researchers in Japan, raising questions about the use of this drug and the possibility of drug resistance emerging.

Gopal Ghosh, of Kyoto University, and colleagues looked for oseltamivir carboxylate in river water. This is the anti-influenza molecule that the body converts Tamiflu into.

Ghosh found the compound in sewage treatment plant effluent in Kyoto at concentrations likely to be “high enough to lead to antiviral resistance in waterfowl” he told Wired. Once resistance emerged in birds it might come back to haunt humans.

The paper in Environmental Health Perspectives detailing this research suggests treating effluent with ozone during influenza epidemics, when use of Tamiflu and the potential for resistance will sky-rocket.

Wired notes:

Once ingested, virtually all Tamiflu will end up in the environment in the active form, notes environmental chemist Jerker Fick of Umeå University in Sweden. … Two years ago, Fick’s team published data showing that most sewage-treatment technologies will remove “zero percent” of any OC present. And ducks love hanging out around warm, nutrient-rich outflows of treated water during winter-flu season. While sampling for waterborne OC last year in Japan, “I saw it myself,” he says.

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‘Inadequate’ US chemical regulation up for reform - October 01, 2009

jackson.jpgCritics from all sides have been queuing up for years to kick the US’s legislation for regulating toxic chemicals, the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). Now Lisa Jackson, administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), has outlined how the Obama administration would put the poor old TSCA out of its misery.

In a 29 September presentation, Jackson outlined principles for much-needed reform of the act, which, she said, had “proven an inadequate tool for providing the protection against chemical risks that the public rightfully expects.” Congress will take up these ideas in legislation expected in coming months – probably introduced by Sen Frank Lautenberg (Democrat, New Jersey).

One of the main changes will be that chemical manufacturers must provide EPA with toxicity data on chemicals so that the agency can evaluate risks. At the moment EPA can only begin asking manufacturers for toxicity data after it has already got evidence that a chemical poses a risk. That may seem astonishing to Europeans, whose chemical manufacturers are gearing up to provide bundles of toxicity data under the new sweeping chemicals legislation REACH (Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals).

Jackson also wants to strengthen the EPA’s authority to clamp down on chemicals it judges dangerous. The agency has only taken action against five chemicals to date, and in one of those cases, asbestos, a federal appeals court struck down the ban. (AP) Jackson added that the EPA would immediately launch a review of six ‘priority’ chemicals that have raised concerns, including bisphenol A and perfluorinated chemicals.

Most chemical manufacturers agree the law needs to be modernized. But as Chemical and Engineering News notes, they are worried about a new concept floated by Jackson – that manufacturers help ‘support the costs associated with implementation’ of safety assessments. In Europe, industry’s costs for complying with REACH have been estimated at anything from €1.6 billion to a worst case €9.5 billion.

Image: Lisa Jackson / EPA via wikipedia

September 30, 2009

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Bird bug behind deadly dino’s demise - September 30, 2009

t rex head hole.jpgMany Tyrannosaurus rex may have been laid low by a single celled parasite that is still taking down modern birds.

Many tyrannosaurid fossils have multiple smooth holes in their mandibles. These have generally been attributed to either bacterial bone infection or bite wounds.

Now a study published in PLOS One instead points the finger at the trichomonosis parasite. By comparing the lesions seen in fossil dinos to those caused by modern bird maladies and crocodile pox the research team concludes tyrannosaurs were commonly infected with a trichomonas type protozoa.

The population probably became infected through consumption of infected prey, or even through cannibalism, write Ewan Wolff, of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and colleagues.

Perhaps the most famous victim may have been ‘Sue’, the huge T. rex now on display at the Field Museum in Chicago. “The lesions we observe on Sue suggest a very advanced stage of the disease and may even have been the cause of her demise,” says Wolff (press release).

“It is a distinct possibility as it would have made feeding incredibly difficult. You have to have a viable pharynx. Without that, you won't make it for very long, no matter how powerful you are.”

Field Museum palaeontologist Peter Makovicky told the Chicago Tribune. “It ... reinforces what I and many others thought, that [the jawbone holes] were the result of some kind of pathogen.

He adds, “The problem with ... making a diagnosis of an animal that old is that we know she had many things going wrong with her health. [Sue] was old and beat up, with a large lesion on her left leg that may have slowed her. She could have died simply of old age or had been so weakened by age or injury that some other disease took over.”

Image: artist’s impression of a T. rex suffering from a trichomonosis / Chris Glen, University of Queensland

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Mummy autopsy stands corrected - September 30, 2009

Mummy.jpgAugustus Bozzi Granville’s sensational autopsy of an Egyptian mummy, a study that he presented to Britain’s Royal Society in 1825, was a trail-blazing first in the field, which laid the foundations for the scientific study of ancient mummies. But his conclusion – that the mummy died of ovarian cancer – was wrong, according to a follow-up analysis performed by researchers at University College London (Proc. R. Soc. B, doi: 10.1098/rspb.2009.1484).

Granville did correctly identify a tumour in the unfortunate woman, named Irtyersenu, who died aged 50 in Thebes around 600 BC. But studies in 1976 and 2000 suggest that this tumour was benign. Instead, Irtyersenu likely died of tuberculosis, say Helen Donoghue and her fellow researchers.

New Scientist
notes that because the mummy is covered with a waxy substance, it has been particularly hard to extract DNA from. Nonetheless, the team found DNA from Mycobacterium tuberculosis in tissue from the lungs, bone and gall bladder, and also spotted acids specific to that bacterium’s cell wall in lung tissue and thigh bones.

The new findings don’t overshadow Granville’s achievement, Donoghue tells the BBC. “He was remarkably careful and thorough. It was the first time anybody had tried to do a medical autopsy on an Egyptian mummy. Before that it was all about their entertainment value - it was a bit like a circus - and most of the interest was in the jewellery that was wrapped up in the bandages."

More coverage:

“TB the culprit in the great mummy whodunit” (AP)
“Dr Granville’s mummy was killed by TB, not a tumour, researchers reveal” (The Times)
“Fresh autopsy of Egyptian mummy shows cause of death was TB not cancer” (The Guardian)

Image credit Royal Society

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NFL study confirms dementia link to american football - September 30, 2009

Football.JPGAn independent study by researchers at the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research has confirmed higher rates of dementia amongst professional (American) football players. The study was commissioned by the National Football League (NFL), which has denied a clear link in the past. The New York Times has a great story on it, here's the bottom line:

Former players between 30 and 49 are 19 times more likely to develop memory-related diseases, including Alzheimer's. Retired players ages 50 or higher appear to suffer these diseases at five times the national average. The study was not peer-reviewed but it appears to match similar findings on the effects of workplace head injuries.

More importantly, it contrasts sharply with previous studies commissioned by the league, including the work of the NFL's concussions committee, which has denied a connection between the sport and dementia.

That's not to say this is the final word on the matter. The study has come under some criticism for using phone surveys to diagnose patients. It contacted 1,063 players and caretakers and asked them questions about a variety of health-related topics, including whether they suffered from memory related diseases. Many of the researchers contacted by the Times said that it would have to be followed up with a more rigorous study.

Credit: USAF

September 29, 2009

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New vaccine scare following UK death - September 29, 2009

hpv.jpg
UPDATE - 30/9:Caron Grainger, joint director of public health for NHS Coventry and Coventry City Council, has released the following statement: “The preliminary post mortem results have revealed a rare serious underlying medical condition which was likely to have caused death. We are awaiting further test results which will take some time. However indications are that it was most unlikely that the HPV vaccination was the cause of death.”



Britain is bracing for another health scare over vaccines after a 14-year old girl died following injection with a human papillomavirus jab.

Natalie Morton died on Monday after receiving Cervarix at a school in Coventry.

“The incident happened shortly after the girl had received her HPV Vaccine in the school,” Caron Grainger, joint director of public health for NHS Coventry and Coventry City Council (press statements). “No link can be made between the death and the vaccine until all the facts are known and a post mortem takes place.”

Pim Kon, medical director of Cevarix-manufacturer GlaxoSmithKline, said the batch of vaccine used in this case had been quarantined as a precautionary measure. “We are working with the Department of Health and MHRA to better understand this case, as at this stage the exact cause of this tragic death is unknown,” says Kon (press release pdf).

Continue reading "New vaccine scare following UK death" »

September 24, 2009

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Nobel nod - September 24, 2009

Nobel.PNGWith less than two weeks to go until the Nobel Prize winners are announced, the soothsayers at Thomson Reuters have rubbed their crystal balls and come up with a shortlist of favourites.

The contenders, as predicted by Thomson Reuters' citation analyst David Pendlebury, are based on the number of citations and high-impact papers published in Nobel-worthy fields of study. Since 2002, 15 'citation' Laureates have gone on to win Nobel Prizes, seven of which were tapped in the same year as their triumph, including last year’s chemistry champ, Roger Tsien of the University of California, San Diego.

This year’s frontrunners for physiology or medicine include the codiscoverers of telomeres, the repetitive DNA add-ons at the ends of chromosomes that have been linked to ageing and cancer as they shrink, the researchers who worked out cellular membrane trafficking, and the Japanese researcher who showed that magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) could track oxygen flow, making real-time brain scans and functional MRI possible.

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September 21, 2009

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Plague vaccine found in dead researcher's body - September 21, 2009

Casadaban 2.jpg

Investigators have found a strain of the plague bacteria Yersinia pestis in the body of Malcolm Casadaban, a University of Chicago geneticist who died last week within 12 hours of his arrival at Bernard Mitchell Hospital with "intense flulike symptoms." The autopsy did not identify a cause of death, according to the Chicago Tribune.

No other cases have been reported in Chicago, and none of the other researchers exposed to the strain, used as a vaccine since the 1960s, has fallen ill, but officials gave antibiotics to Casadaban's family, friends, and co-workers. Ken Alexander, head of pediatric infectious disease said that the autopsy did not imply that the strain of the plague was a public health threat. He told the Chicago Tribune that "the more likely possibility, I'd say 999 to 1, is that there was something unusual about him."

Photo: Courtesy University of Chicago

September 11, 2009

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Child mortality in decline, but not fast enough - September 11, 2009

unicef_logo.gif
Good news from UNICEF, the United Nations children’s fund. Child mortality rates are continuing to fall: since 1990 there has been a 28% drop in the under-five mortality rate.

The latest figures show that there has been some progress to making Millenium Development Goal 4: to reduce child mortality. The target, set in 2000, was to cut child mortality by two thirds the under-five mortality rate of 1990 by 2015.

The goal is still a long way from being reached, despite the success of a measles vaccination drive.

The rate of improvement has increased, though. The average rate of decline from 2000 to 2008 is 2.3 per cent, compared to a 1.4 per cent average decline from 1990 to 2000, the press release says.

Successes have been seen in particular in Niger, Mozambique and Ethiopia where under-five mortality has been reduced by more than 100 per 1000 live births since 1990.

But still 93% of all under-five deaths in the developing world happen in Africa and Asia. “A handful of countries with large populations bear a disproportionate burden of under-five deaths, with forty per cent of the world’s under-five deaths occurring in just three countries: India, Nigeria, and the Democratic Republic of Congo,” said UNICEF executive director Ann Veneman. “Unless mortality in these countries can be significantly reduced, the MDG targets will not be met.”

September 10, 2009

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Stem cell company charged with hype - September 10, 2009

963-CellCyteLogo.jpgUS regulators accused a stem cell biotech company on Tuesday of inflating claims about an early stage cell therapy.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charged Bothell, Washington-based CellCyte Genetics Corporation, along with its former chief executive and former chief scientific officer, with duping investors into believing that its experimental stem cell technology was nearing human trials.

"CellCyte and its senior officers knew that it would take years of research to determine whether the stem cell discovery could be developed into a viable product," said Marc Fagel, director of the SEC's San Francisco office, in a statement. "In their rush to cash in on the promise of stem cell research, they concealed the true facts from investors."

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Commission ditches plan to buy swine flu vaccine  - September 10, 2009

The European Commission has abandoned plans for an EU-managed scheme to buy swine flu vaccines due to a lack of support from member states, reports the European Voice.

In July, Androulla Vassiliou, the European commissioner for health, said the Commission was considering a joint EU procurement scheme for the vaccines. But the proposal now looks likely to not be included in the EU’s swine flu strategy to be published next week. Instead the Commission will offer countries “technical advice” on procurement, the report says.

Jo Leinen, a German Socialist MEP who chairs the European Parliament's environment and public health committee, said the omission is a mistake.

“We know some countries are well prepared and others are less well prepared. There must be a mechanism for shifting the vaccine... The added value of the EU is to show solidarity,” he says.

September 07, 2009

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Alzheimer’s genes identified - September 07, 2009

alz graph.bmpThree new genes associated with Alzheimer’s have been discovered, to the delight of researchers in the field.

In two papers published in Nature Genetics, two teams describe how they compared the genomes of sufferers to healthy controls to identify potential gene variations leading to the disease. Philippe Amouyel’s team identified variants within CLU and CR1, while Julie Williams and her team also identified CLU and added PICALM to the mix.

“If we were able to remove the detrimental effects of these genes through treatments, we could reduce the proportion of people developing Alzheimer’s by 20%,” Williams, of Cardiff University in Wales, told a press conference. “In the UK alone this would prevent just under 100,000 people developing the disease. So the significance of these results in truly meaningful.”

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September 03, 2009

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Hippocratic loath - September 03, 2009

cia report.JPGDoctors employed by the US Central Intelligence Agency may have used detainees as “human subjects” to try to improve the effectiveness of waterboarding and other forms of torture, alleges the Physicians for Human Rights (PHR). The group has rifled through the heavily-redacted copy (pdf) of the CIA’s report on detention and interrogation practices, and this week released a report (pdf) of apparent health professionals’ ethical and human rights violations.

It's no surprise that doctors have been involved in "enhanced" interrogations — they needed to make sure the detainee wasn't about to die or suffer from organ failure or long-term psychological damage. This has already irked PHR, the Red Cross (who called it "a gross breach of medical ethics"), and other human rights groups, who assert the monitoring doctors are essentially complicit in torture.

But the new report alleges the doctors were more than just safety monitors. PHR says health professionals "participated at every stage in the development, implementation and legal justification of what it calls the CIA's secret 'torture programme'."

The most severe accusation is that doctors gathered data to try to improve the technique's effectiveness, "essentially using the detainees as human subjects, a practice that approaches unlawful experimentation."

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September 02, 2009

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Biogen Idec R&D head talks - September 02, 2009

biogenidec.jpgThe Biogen Idec boardroom battle continues to rage on. Mere months after billionaire activist investor Carl Icahn succeeded in getting two of his endorsed directors elected to the board, two of the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based company's scientific directors have resigned. In July, Phillip Sharp, a Nobel Prize-winning geneticist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the co-founder of Biogen, relinquished his spot on the board after serving for 27 years. And last month, Cecil Pickett, president of research and development, announced that he would retire from both his full-time day job and the board on 5 October. Both men were not due to step down until 2011.

Nature spoke with Pickett about his decision to resign prematurely. (Sharp declined to be interviewed.)

Did Carl Icahn's attempted takeover of the board influence your decision to retire early?

Not really, the plan all along was just a four-year tenure. That's how I went into it. I cut my job short because I just thought I had accomplished everything I could in the timeframe I had actually given it. We did a lot to build up the mid-stage pipeline and the small molecule discovery efforts, we did some licensing deals, and I did some significant recruiting where there were some weak spots. And given all the flux in the industry I thought it might be a good time to go out and recruit my successor.

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September 01, 2009

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Zeneca swells on Brilinta thinner news - September 01, 2009

tica nejm.bmpThere were probably some champagne corks popping over at AstraZeneca this weekend as the company unveiled results showing its new drug for thinning blood performs better than one of the world’s current best sellers.

Zeneca’s ticagrelor (marketed as Brilinta) was better at reducing cardiovascular events such as death and stroke than clopidogrel (Plavix). To put this in context: Plavix places as the world’s second or third best selling drug, with annual sales of $6 billion.

Results from a trial of over 18,000 patients were presented at the European Society of Cardiology meeting and also published in the New England Journal of Medicine. Death from vascular causes, myocardial infarction, or stroke occurred in 9.8% of patients on ticagrelor versus 11.7% of those on clopidogrel.

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August 27, 2009

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Doctors scrap over radiation tests - August 27, 2009

radiation punchstock.JPGAnother dose of worry has been produced over radiation exposure in America, upping the concerns of those who claim there is too much medical scanning going on.

A study in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine suggests that nearly 70% of the population had at least one medical scan that exposed them to radiation. This follows a National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements study from March that concluded Americans living in 2006 were exposed to over seven times more radiation from such scans than those living in 1980.

Both studies attributed much of the radiation to computed tomography scans.

“While the risk to any individual for a single test may be small, the overall risk to the population becomes a concern if one considers the large number of these procedures being performed each year,” says Brahmajee Nallamothu, and author on the NEJM paper and a doctor at the University of Michigan (press release).

The researchers found 18.6 people per 1,000 got high doses of radiation and 1.9 per 1,000 got very high doses. What’s really stoking the fires here though is not the research itself but a strongly worded commentary running alongside it.

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You can't hurry a flu vaccine - August 27, 2009

A report released by Barack Obama’s 21-strong crew of science advisers (PCAST) on Monday urged that H1N1 vaccines be made available as soon as possible – by mid-September, bearing in mind the start of the new school term.

But although the production line is stuffing bulk vaccines into vials as fast as possible – the recommended ‘fill and finish’ approach – it will not be possible to get them ready (including dose-testing) before October, says Thomas Frieden, acting director for the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

"We wish we had new vaccine technology that would allow us to turn on a dime and make new vaccine in terms of weeks or months. It's not possible with today's technology to do that," he told Reuters.

PCAST did praise the US administration’s efforts as ‘truly impressive’. But the Project on Government Oversight isn’t so impressed, citing an AP article that quotes public health expert Mike Osterholm as saying that 80% of the US pandemic vaccine flu supply will be coming from abroad. “What if death rates go up, and the shipment of promised vaccine from abroad is blocked by foreign governments?” it says in a 26 August letter to HHS secretary Kathleen Sebelius.

It’s a question that must concern developing countries even more – with no capability to produce vaccines domestically. South African Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi on Wednesday said his country had no choice but to develop its own H1N1 flu vaccine [Reuters].

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Bisphenol, eh? - August 27, 2009

Drbrown-biberon-240.gifA new Health Canada report has found bisphenol A leaching out of the plastic of baby bottles marketed as "BPA-free."

Dr. Brown's Natural Flow bottle, a five-time winner of a "best of the year" award from the parenting magazine American Baby, was the worst offender, showing 0.9 parts per billion of BPA after 238 hours at 60°C. Other brands touted as being free of the toxic chemical ranged from from 0.002 to 0.025 ppb under the same conditions. For comparison, polycarbonate bottles can reach levels of 60 ppb after 238 hours.

"Technically, they're not BPA free," said Pete Myers, chief scientist of the Virginia-based foundation Environmental Health Sciences. "Manufacturers ought to do due diligence to determine whether they're false positives or if there is truly even trace amounts of BPA, how is it getting in there." (Canwest)

It's not just the plastic bottles you have to worry about. Up until last summer, the epoxy liner in SIGG aluminum water bottles contained trace amounts of BPA, Steve Wasik, chief executive of the Swiss bottle manufacturer, announced this week on the company's website. SIGG has since switched to new a "BPA-free EcoCare liner."

BPA-free? I'll believe it when I don't see it.

Image: Dr. Brown's

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Gulf War Syndrome research contract cancelled - August 27, 2009

des storm.JPGA five year, $75 million contract to research Gulf War Syndrome has been pulled from the University of Texas Southwestern over allegations of “persistent noncompliance and numerous performance deficiencies”.

The US Department of Veterans Affairs, which commissions research studies on medical issues of relevance to military personnel, has ended the five year contract after just two years.

Gerald Cross, the VA’s Acting Under Secretary for Health, said research on the conditions that afflict Gulf War veterans “remains a priority” but that the department “must make certain that our resources are used to support effective and productive research”.

UT issued a statement expressing surprise at the cancellation and said it strongly disagrees with the Veterans Affair’s take on the matter.

“We thought we were in some productive discussions with them,” Tim Doke, a university spokesman, told the Dallas Morning News. “I don’t know that we see this as an endpoint, but as another of a long series of disagreements with them.”

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August 25, 2009

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Problems with ‘cognitive enhancing’ drugs on the rise - August 25, 2009

ritalin.jpgAbuse of ADHD medications appears to be rising among American teens.

According to data from poison centres fielding calls on potential teen overdoses, queries regarding attention deficit drugs rose 76%. This rise was more than increases seen generally for teenage substance abuse.

“The sharp increase, out of proportion to other poison center calls, suggests a rising problem with teen ADHD stimulant medication abuse,” write the researchers behind the analysis, published in Pediatrics.

Study author Jennifer Setlik, of Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, says there is a “rising problem” with the abuse of ADHD medications, which are sometimes taken as cognitive enhancers, for example to improve exam performance, as well as for more traditional recreational reasons.

In April last year a Nature survey found one in five respondents said they had used drugs such as ADHD treatments to stimulate their focus, concentration or memory (see: Poll results: look who's doping). Later in the year a commentary paper in Nature called for an evidence based approach to evaluating the use of cognitive enhancers by healthy people.

That commentary noted:

Safe and effective cognitive enhancers will benefit both the individual and society. But it would also be foolish to ignore problems that such use of drugs could create or exacerbate.

Setlik et al’s new study shows again how necessary research into this issue is.

Photo: by FGMB via Flickr under creative commons

August 24, 2009

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Hwang trial nears end - August 24, 2009

After almost three-and-a-half years, the trial of Korean stem-cell researcher Woo Suk Hwang may be drawing to a close.

In two seminal papers published in Science in 2004 and 2005, Hwang claimed to have created patient-specific embryonic stem cells using cloning techniques. In January 2006, a committee at Seoul National University, where Hwang held a post, found that the results were all fabricated.

On 24 August this year, in a final evidence hearing, prosecutors requested a four-year prison term for Hwang, who is charged with fraud, embezzlement of state funds and violation of the country’s bioethics law. Hwang has continually claimed he was duped.

Korean media report that the court is expected to hand down a decision in mid-October.

August 21, 2009

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Lead poisoning cases kindle Chinese unrest - August 21, 2009

More details are emerging of lead poisoning from processing plants in China.

More than 1,300 children were poisoned by lead pollution from a year-old manganese processing plant in Wenping township, Hunan province (central China). Xinhua says 60% to 70% of children living nearby had unhealthy levels (over 100mg) of lead in their blood. The factory was closed last week.

Last week in Shaanxi province, northern China, 615 children tested positive for lead poisoning attributed to a smelter, which is due to cease operating this Saturday (The Guardian, Xinhua).

The New York Times notes that although the national government has committed to clean-up measures, the World Bank says 59 percent of the water in China’s seven major rivers is unfit to drink, and the government says the air in about a quarter of cities is unhealthy.

August 19, 2009

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Consent conundrum cripples coroner CJD census - August 19, 2009

Potentially vital information on the prevalence of Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease in the UK is still not being collected, as coroners believe they are unable to test for it.

In a story now getting wide pickup, the BBC this morning reported that coroners are refusing to routinely test for CJD during post mortems, arguing that their job is only to discover the cause of death and not to collect such data.

The government wants routine tests but Michael Powers, a coroners’ law expert, told the Today programme, “This is a function which is outside the coroner’s statutory authority, because they are not – those tests – directed to ascertaining the [cause of] death in an individual case. If you step outside the coroner’s authority different considerations apply, most particularly of course consent.”

To date there have been 168 ‘definite and probable’ cases of vCJD in the UK, according to the Spongiform Encephalopathy Advisory Committee (pdf).

John Collinge, of University College London, told Today, “There is a concern that what we’ve seen so far may be the first wave … and that there may be more people silently infected in the community than the number of clinical cases would suggest.”

Powers said he would welcome a change to the law to enable testing and the Department of Health is running a pilot project to obtain samples from post-mortem examinations later this year (Daily Mail).

The issue is not entirely a new one however. In February last year the Guardian reported on the same issue, and was told by coroners’ society secretary André Rebello that “Coroners want to avoid any misapprehension that they might be ordering a post-mortem examination for access to research material rather than our statutory function ... Even if this was not inappropriate, coroners have neither the resources nor the time to be involved."

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First embryonic stem-cell trial placed on hold by FDA - August 19, 2009

geron.bmpCross posted for Monya Baker from The Niche, Nature's stem cell blog

Six months after giving it the green light, the US Food and Drug Administration has told Geron to put plans for a clinical trial in spinal cord injury on hold. The company has differentiated embryonic stem cells into precursors of cells known as oligodendrocytes, which help keep neurons alive. Geron hopes this cell product could promote healing in people who have recently severed their spinal cords.

In a press release, Geron said that the hold was placed after the company submitted data on animal studies done to support delivery of increased doses of its cell product and on animal studies applying the cell product to other neurodegenerative diseases. (See the story from the San Jose Mercury News; here’s the Nature story when trial won approval)

I asked Evan Snyder, who directs the stem cell program at the Burnham Institute and is not privy to the confidential information, to speculate what might have been in the preclinical data that prompted teh FDA's action. It’s possible that the FDA just wanted more time to review newly submitted data, he said. Or on the other end of the extreme perhaps some sort of tumour or adverse reaction had been observed in the animals. Most likely, he thought, given that the company is trying to make larger doses of the cells, is that undifferentiated or non-neural cells have been observed in the cell product.

Clinical holds are not unusual particularly for innovative therapies. The FDA issued a clinical hold for NeuralStem in February on a trial in Lou Gehrig’s disease (the company uses neural stem cells derived from fetal cells)

At a large FDA advisory committee meeting in April last year, experts discussed the risks and benefits of products derived from embryonic stem cells. They were particularly concerned about uncontrolled cell growth. Even if the cells are not cancerous, tumours in the contained spaces of the brain and spinal cord could be devastating. Committee members were particularly concerned for diseases that are debilitating but not immediately deadly, since adverse events caused by experimental procedures could mean that people with years to live die early or end up suffering more. Patient advocates protested that they should be allowed to decide whether to take that risk.

Previous posts
Overview of FDA meeting (includes links to transcripts)
Nitty-gritty questions for making safe products

August 17, 2009

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Be afraid: mathematical modelling of zombie attacks - August 17, 2009

zombies.jpgYou can pretty much kiss civilisation goodbye in the event of a zombie outbreak, according to a new mathematical modelling study by Canadian researchers.

Led by Robert Smith?, of the University of Ottawa, the team modelled a variety of scenarios using techniques that would be familiar to those studying more plausible pandemics. (And yes, the question mark is part of his name.)

A basic model using three classes of person – zombies, susceptible to infection, and ‘removed’ – found coexistence with the undead was impossible and following a short outbreak, “zombies will likely kill everyone”.

The researchers went on to model for a cure and quarantine, as well as the potential for counterattacks to eradicate the zombie threat. Things still do not look good for humanity, they report in their paper When Zombies Attack!

“A zombie outbreak is likely to lead to the collapse of civilisation, unless it is dealt with quickly,” they write in the new book Infectious Disease Modelling Research Progress.

“While aggressive quarantine may contain the epidemic, or a cure may lead to coexistence of humans and zombies, the most effective way to contain the rise of the undead is to hit hard and hit often. As seen in the movies, it is imperative that zombies are dealt with quickly, or else we are all in a great deal of trouble.”

This research paper is not a totally academic exercise; Smith et al note that their models may seem unlikely (as the dead can return to life), but they could have applications for those modelling allegiance to political parties or diseases that lie dormant for some time.

“If you look at it in a more realistic way, zombies are about the same as any other major infectious disease, they get out and we try to eliminate them,” study author Joe Imad told Canwest News. “Modelling zombies would be the same as modelling swine flu, with some differences for sure, but it is much more interesting to read.”

Given our worldwide success in acting quickly and in a unified manner to stop the spread of swine flu, I’m going to redouble work on that bunker under the Nature office.

Image: photo by rumikel via Flickr under creative commons

August 12, 2009

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Shakedown at the FDA - August 12, 2009

woodcock The upper echelons of the FDA are getting a lot of unwanted attention today. Yesterday, the top regulator of the medical devices division, Daniel Schultz, announced his resignation, and now the head of drug approvals is under investigation by the Department of Health and Human Services, reports the Wall Street Journal.

For months, the medical devices division has been on the list of Margaret Hamburg, whom Obama appointed to whip the controversy-plagued FDA into shape. At the center of the division's current mess are products that were approved despite the safety and efficacy concerns of agency scientists. The approval of such products — including a brain-zapping depression-treating device and a knee surgery device — led to allegations of being a bit too friendly with industry.

The criticism isn't just from outsiders. In a letter to the House Energy and Commerce Committee last October, nine employees alleged that some scientists had been pressured to approve the devices.

Schultz has some company. Janet Woodcock is the director of the FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, which approves drugs, and is also accused of being too cozy with industry. (Back in November, she was a drug maker hopeful for FDA commissioner but didn't get it).

Continue reading "Shakedown at the FDA" »

August 07, 2009

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Testing times ahead for Chinese children - August 07, 2009

Posted for David Cyranoski

A Chinese company is offering a test that can, it claims, reveal a child's abilities in areas like memory, speed, thinking, comprehension, emotion, adventure, braveness, focus, perseverance, vigour and physical strength. But amid disquiet about the claims, one of the testers has told Nature they are unhappy about the way the tests are marketed.

Shanghai Biochip's Healthcare division promises the tests will have 99% accuracy, although company representatives quoted by CNN said that the genes will only decide 30%-60% of the child's future, while the rest is up to upbringing, nutrition, education, and other environmental factors.

The company, which told Nature the test would cost RMB2000, says the tests will help direct children to pursuits that match their natural talents.

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August 06, 2009

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An ‘aerial view’ of HIV - August 06, 2009

nat hiv cov.bmpThe complex shapes that the HIV genome twists itself into have been totally mapped by the first time by a team of US researchers.

RNA viruses such as HIV like to fold themselves up and a proper picture of the shapes they form has been lacking, with researchers generally confining themselves to looking at small sections. In this week’s Nature, Joseph Watts, of the University of North Carolina, and his colleagues set out to look at the bigger picture.

In a News and Views article accompanying the research paper, Hashim Al-Hashimi of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, notes that structural biologists usually “cut out” the motifs formed by RNA and then “zoom in to determine their three-dimensional structures in an attempt to further understand their function. … However, Watts et al. zoom out and provide an ‘aerial view’ of the secondary structure of the entire HIV-1 genome.”

What they produced is, in Wired’s words, “the cellular equivalent of a rough wiring diagram”.

“What this may reveal is some of the proteins operating at a level below the structures, which may have all sorts of functions within the virus,” says David Robertson, of the University of Manchester (BBC). “More generally, if we can unpick the structures then we can compare the systems of different viruses and gain new understanding of how they work.”

Study author Kevin Weeks says the technique used here with HIV could also be applied to other virus such as influenza and might open up new opportunities for drug treatments (press release).

August 05, 2009

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Wyeth's ghostwriting skeletons yanked from the closet - August 05, 2009

ghostwriterWyeth, maker of the leading drugs for hormone replacement therapy, paid ghostwriters to help produce scientific papers lauding, yes, hormone replacement therapy, reports the NY Times.

The scandal’s been brewing since late 2008, when Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) started prodding the company to cough up documents detailing its relationship with medical-writing company DesignWrite Inc. On 27 July, upon request from PLoS Medicine and the New York Times Company, a federal judge ordered the public release of the records, effective 31 July.

The NYTimes says the documents show that, between 1998 and 2005, Wyeth paid DesignWrite to help produce 26 scientific papers that “emphasized the benefits and de-emphasized the risks” of hormone replacement therapy. The articles "were typically review articles, in which an author weighs a large body of medical research and offers a bottom-line judgment about how to treat a particular ailment".

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August 04, 2009

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Malaria came from chimps - August 04, 2009

wolfe chimp.jpgPosted for Mico Tatalovic

Malaria was originally a chimp disease that jumped to humans sometime between 3 million and 10,000 years ago, a new study suggests. This cross from chimps to humans might even have been down to a single infected mosquito.

Of the 500 million people malaria infects each year, 85% of cases are down to the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum, whose closest known relative is a chimpanzee parasite Plasmodium reichenowi. Until now scientists thought that both parasites evolved from a common ancestor that then diverged separately into human and chimp lineages (press release).

In the new study, published in PNAS, researchers analysed genes from eight new strains of P. reichenowi, from wild and wild-born captive chimpanzees in Cameroon and Côte d'Ivoire, and compared them to human P. falciparum. They found that human malaria descended directly from the chimp malaria, and that this jump likely happened only once. A lack of genetic variations between different examples of the human parasite further suggests the species barrier could have been crossed as recently as 10,000 years ago.

"For me, this is the microbiological equivalent of discovering the origins of HIV," says study author Nathan Wolfe, of the Global Viral Forecasting Initiative (CNN). "It jumped over just like SARS did, just like avian flu did, just like HIV did. What is really crucial, what is significant, is it continuing to jump over?"

Human agriculture and closer contact with wild animals as agriculture impinges on the wild habitats can create conditions for a species jump.

"Today, human encroachment into the last forest habitats has further extended, leading to a higher risk of transfer of new pathogens, including new malaria parasites" Wolfe says. "What this finding demonstrates is that the kinds of jumps we're having right now—HIV, SARS, etc.—could very well be the beginning of something that lasts for thousands of years." [BBC, National Geographic]

As if to back up Wolfe’s warning, the first case of a new strain of HIV was recently reported, this time found to come from gorillas.

Image: Nathan Wolfe, Global Viral Forecasting Initiative.

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Pneumonic plague hits China - August 04, 2009

The spread of pneumonic plague in a remote part of China has been gathering huge amounts of press coverage since Beijing notified the World Health Organization of the outbreak on Saturday 1 August.

The town of Ziketan and the surrounding part of Qinghai province has been quarantined, with three deaths now confirmed (see AP).

Pneumonic plague is a lung disease caused by the same bacterium, Yersinia pestis as bubonic plague, believed to be the bug behind the Black Death which killed about half of Europe’s population in the 14th century.

"This is not new," Beijing-based WHO spokeswoman Vivian Tan told Reuters. "There have been sporadic cases reported [in China] over the years. We're not surprised that it's come up. We're in constant contact with the authorities to make sure things are under control."

One reason for the rash of stories may simply be that the Chinese authorities are being much more open about how they are handling the situation than in the past, suggests the BBC’s correspondent in Beijing, Michael Bristow.

Meanwhile, the Times points out that untreated pneumonic plague has a mortality rate of almost 100%.

And although plague may sound like something from the Dark Ages, 2,118 cases worldwide were reported to WHO in 2003, more than 90 per cent of them in Africa.

August 03, 2009

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New HIV came from gorillas - August 03, 2009

hiv feld.JPGA new form of HIV from gorillas has been identified in a woman from Cameroon.

The 62-year old woman, who is now living in Paris, appears to have a new human lineage of HIV virus type 1 and is the first definite human infection of HIV-1 from a non-chimpanzee ape source.

Jean-Christophe Plantier, of the University of Rouen in France, and his colleagues found the new virus to be highly similar to gorilla simian immunodeficiency virus but not to have undergone recombination with chimpanzee SIV. They propose the new lineage be labelled P as it is distinct from the currently known types M, O, and N.

“Our findings indicate that gorillas, in addition to chimpanzees, are likely sources of HIV-1,” write the authors in Nature Medicine (paper, press release). “The discovery of this novel HIV-1 lineage highlights the continuing need to watch closely for the emergence of new HIV variants, particularly in western central Africa, the origin of all existing HIV-1 groups.”

The current prevalence of the new HIV in humans is unknown. The researchers say that the woman detailed in the new paper currently shows no signs of AIDS and probably caught the virus from another person as she has not had contact with apes or bushmeat (AP, Reuters).

Paul Sharp, of the University of Edinburgh, believes the new strain probably transferred from chimpanzees to gorillas before arriving in humans. He also says it will probably not spread widely, which is fortunate as he adds, “the medical implication is that, because this virus is not very closely related to the other three HIV-1 groups, it is not detected by conventional test” (BBC).

Image: computer model of HIV by Richard Feldmann / NIH

July 31, 2009

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US alternative medicine spend reaches $33.9 billion - July 31, 2009

cam pie.pngAmid concerns about the rising cost of healthcare, a new study suggests the American public spent $33.9 billion of their health-dollars on unproven treatments in 2007.

Research by the US National Center for Health Statistics shows this was the cost of out-of-pocket spending on complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) in that year. Nearly 40% of adults in the 29,266 households surveyed used some form of CAM (report pdf).

Although a relatively trifling amount when set against the $2.2 trillion spent overall on healthcare, $33.9 billion represents 11.2% of 'out-of-pocket expenditures', ie money not claimable from health insurers. The $11.9bn spent on visits to CAM practitioners represents 25% of out-of-pocket spending on physician visits.

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July 30, 2009

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Mosquitoes against malaria? - July 30, 2009

Anopheles_albimanus_mosquitosmall.jpgTwo malaria papers out this week in the New England Journal of Medicine have seen some press coverage. Undoubtedly the more concerning discusses the parasite’s increasing resistance to artemisinin-based drugs in Cambodia – see Nature’s news story.

The other, as Carlos Campbell of the PATH malaria vaccine initiative writes in an accompanying editorial, “reminds us that the whole malaria parasite is the most potent immunizing antigen identified to date”. In what AP describe as a “daring experiment” with “astounding” results, researchers found that ten people subjected to mosquito bites three times over three months whilst taking the drug chloroquine gained apparent immunity against malarial mosquito bites a month later.

It’s hard to see, however, that this finding adds much new to the vaccine-hunter’s arsenal.

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Fighting fat with fat  - July 30, 2009

fat cell fat.bmpPosted for Mico Tatalovic

It seems counterintuitive, but a paper published in Nature raises the possibility of losing weight by injecting fat cells.

In the paper American researchers describe using a molecular switch – two proteins PRDM16-C/EBP-beta – to turn mouse and human skin cells into brown fat cells (paper, press release).

White fat cells store fat, while brown fat cells use those stores to produce heat. Heavier people seem to have more white fat but less brown fat than slim people, so one idea for treating obese people is to increase stores of the energy-burning fat. Until now this could not be done since making brown fat was a mystery.

“Brown fat is one of the body’s natural defenses against obesity,” said cell biologist Bruce Spiegelman of Harvard Medical School, who co-authored the paper. “We’re trying to tap into a natural pathway involved in this kind of biology.” (Wired.)

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July 29, 2009

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Pfizer to settle Nigerian litigation Thursday - July 29, 2009

Pfizer is again reportedly close to agreeing a $75 million settlement over a drug trial in Nigeria that allegedly left 11 children dead and others injured.

Earlier this year in April it was reported that this settlement related to the trial of Trovan had been agreed (see: Pfizer settles Nigerian drug case out of court - April 06, 2009). Pfizer denied any wrongdoing in the trial, which Kano State prosecutors alleged was illegal. Pfizer, in contrast, says the trial was carried out with the consent of the Nigerian government, and conformed to standard ethical practices.

Now the agreement has been officially announced. AFP says:

The agreement, which is due to be inked on Thursday in Nigeria, was formally announced in court on Monday, lawyers from both sides said, without giving details of the amounts involved.

"Yes, we have agreed on the out-of-court settlement and we will sign the agreement on Thursday," confirmed Pfizer lawyer Anthony Idigbe.

AFP reports that Pfizer will cough up $35m for the victims and their families, $10m for state costs and $5m to do up Kano’s infectious disease hospitals; $50m in total. However Reuters agrees with the first two numbers but says that $30m is being set aside for “healthcare initiatives chosen by the Kano State government”; $75m in total.

Reuters’ numbers would agree with reports earlier this year from the BBC.

July 22, 2009

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Roll up, roll up for the lobbying frenzy – now with added health reform dollars - July 22, 2009

US lobby groups filed their second-quarter 2009 records (April, May and June) to the Senate Office of Public Records on Monday night.

The figures are trickling through (AP, or search the database yourself), and it’s no surprise that with landmark healthcare reform legislation working its way through Congress, drug-makers and healthcare trade associations have upped their lobbying efforts.

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July 15, 2009

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Falsified research goes unnoticed for over eight years - July 15, 2009

Posted for Fiona Tomkinson, British Science Association Media Fellow

The verdict is out on two researchers, Judith Thomas and Juan Contreras, who falsified results in journals and progress reports for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) - spanning an incredible eight years and amounting to more than $23 million in NIH grants (The Scientist).

Thomas and Contreras were performing kidney transplants on rhesus monkeys, to see if immunosuppressant drugs would help the operation. The researchers claimed they removed both native kidneys from their patients, leaving the transplanted kidney, plus immunosuppressant drugs, to fend for itself. But in at least 32 animals, only one native kidney was ever removed.

Peter Abbrecht, of the US Office of Research Integrity, told The Scientist that the accepted studies "could lead to wasted research effort by other researchers and possibly place patients at harm if they were enrolled in clinical trials designed on the basis of the falsified results.”

Thomas has voluntarily agreed to a ten year exclusion from working with any United States Government agency; while Contreras has been given only three years. These bans will ensure both researchers are black-listed in the US, and possibly crush their career aspirations elsewhere. The knock-on effect so far has resulted in losing their jobs at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB).

“Such behavior is absolutely unacceptable and will not be tolerated,” Richard Marchase, UAB vice president for research and economic development, said in a written statement (Birmingham News). “We take our commitment to ethics very seriously, and our first priority is to maintain the integrity of scientific data.”

July 10, 2009

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‘Dieting monkeys live longer’ - July 10, 2009

monkey left.jpgmonkey right.jpgAfter yesterday’s discovery of the elixir of life, another way to live (nearly) forever appears in the scientific literature today.

In a paper in Science, Richard Weindruch, of the university of Wisconsin, Madison, reports that restricting calorie intake appears to extend life in rhesus monkeys.

So-called Caloric Restriction, which does not involve malnutrition, has previous been shown to extend life in a number of species. Crucially though, evidence in primates has been lacking.

In their new paper, Weindruch et al report that after 20 years, 80% of animals on calorie restricted diets survived, versus 50% of control animals permitted to eat freely.

“We have been able to show that caloric restriction can slow the aging process in a primate species,” says Weindruch (press release). “We observed that caloric restriction reduced the risk of developing an age-related disease by a factor of three and increased survival.”

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July 09, 2009

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Of mice, men and rapamycin - July 09, 2009

all copy.bmpA drug already used in humans was reported yesterday in Nature to extend the lives of mice by up to 14%.

The drug, rapamycin, is a bacterial product developed from a compound found in soil on Easter Island. Although the research is only on mice and the drug suppresses the immune system (hence its use in transplant patients) many papers have jumped on this as an ‘elixir of life’ story.

In a News and Views article accompanying the research paper, Matt Kaeberlein and Brian Kennedy, of the University of Washington, Seattle, write:

Is this the first step towards an anti-ageing drug for people? Certainly, healthy individuals should not consider taking rapamycin to slow ageing — the potential immunosuppressive effects of this compound alone are sufficient to caution against this. On the basis of animal models, however, it is interesting to consider that rapamycin … might prove useful in combating many age-associated disorders.

So how well did news sources fare in presenting this study of mice to their readers? The Great Beyond investigates…

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July 08, 2009

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Obama announces NIH director - July 08, 2009

Posted on behalf of Meredith Wadman

US President Barack Obama today announced that geneticist Francis Collins will be his nominee to direct the National Institutes of Health (NIH.) The announcement caps months of waiting, watching and speculating by NIH groupies who, like the authors of this Nature editorial, were getting restive about the White House delay in naming a permanent chief for the $31 billion agency.

The president’s announcement that he intends to nominate Collins, who from 1993 to 2008 directed NIH’s National Human Genome Research Institute (called the National Center for Human Genome Research until 1997), came during what has already a big week for the NIH; two days ago, the agency issued its final guidelines on human embryonic stem cell research. Collins, an MD-PhD who turned 59 in April, will find their implementation in his inbox, along with the shepherding of a crush of stimulus-incited grant applications through an overburdened peer review system.

July 06, 2009

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This is your brain on coffee ... or is it? - July 06, 2009

It’s not every day that an addictive and/or psychoactive substance is heralded in the press as potentially healthy — wait, yes it is (see also chocolate, red wine, nicotine). Everyone loves it when the scientific community supposedly endorses their vices. In most cases, the compounds of scientific interest (resveratrol in wine, flavonoids in chocolate, nicotine in cigarettes) indeed may show promise in a laboratory setting, but claims about the foods containing them are usually confined to headlines.

This weekend, coffee got the press bump. The CBS Early Show announced “Coffee May Lower Alzheimer's Risk”, while the Daily Mail was even bolder with “How two strong coffees a day can ‘reverse’ Alzheimer’s”. The print version of the paper apparently led with “Coffee beats Alzheimer’s”. The Times of India and the Telegraph were both bold enough to use the word “cure” (the Telegraph at least had the decency to throw quotes around the word, though it’s unclear what or whom they were actually quoting).

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July 02, 2009

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The genes behind schizophrenia - July 02, 2009

There’s no shortage of reading material on the genes behind schizophrenia this morning. In addition to three papers in Nature announcing the identification of key genetic glitches responsible for increasing the risk of the disease there are at least five different press releases and well over a hundred news articles at the time of writing.

This new research combines DNA data from tens of thousands of people to identify the genetic variations behind schizophrenia risk. It also shows some links between schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

“Our findings are a real scientific breakthrough since they tell us a lot more about the nature of the genetic risk of schizophrenia than we knew as little as a year ago,” says a co-author of one of the studies, David St Clair, of the University of Aberdeen (press release).

Here comes the caveat: “However this is not a breakthrough that is going to change clinical practice any time soon,” he adds. “It will still be many years before our findings can be translated into new drug treatments.”

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July 01, 2009

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Who compares the comparisons? - July 01, 2009

doctor comstock.JPGUS President Barack Obama controversially decided to spend a billion dollars on ‘comparative effectiveness’ research, as part of the huge stimulus package announced earlier this year. Now the Institute of Medicine has brought out the list he asked for suggesting where the money should go.

Comparing difference between different treatments is hugely controversial in the US, where some see it as an outrageous attempt to bring cost as a factor into the health system.

Others disagree. In a statement Harold Sox, co-chair of the committee behind the new IOM list, said, “Health care decisions too often are a matter of guesswork because we lack good evidence to inform them. For example, we spend a great deal on diagnostic tests for coronary heart disease in this country, but we lack sufficient evidence to determine which test is best.”

His committee whittled down 1,268 suggestions for comparative effectiveness research topics into a 100 item list. It will come as no surprise to find out that coronary heart disease is on it. The best suggestion though has to be this one:

Compare the effectiveness of dissemination and translation techniques to facilitate the use of CER [Comparative Effectiveness Research] by patients, clinicians, payers, and others.

So the committee carefully considering controversial comparisons concluded comparing clinician communication criteria could create crucial clarity? Crikey!

Stand by for more fighting. “Because the committee's work was requested by Congress and the resulting portfolio is so broad in scope, the recommendations may be more influential than they might otherwise have been, but the report is unlikely to quell the controversy surrounding CER,” opines the New England Journal of Medicine.

More coverage
Candidates Aplenty for Spending on Comparative Effectiveness – WSJ health blog
Panel Suggests U.S. Medical Priorities – NY Times

Image: Punchstock

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Share price tumble prompted ‘rushed publication’ of drug study  - July 01, 2009

The editor of a respected diabetes journal has admitted he rushed an article on a Sanofi-Aventis drug into print in response to the company’s plunging share price.

Rumours about the results of the study on Lantus (insulin glargine) are perceived to be behind a 14% tumble in Sanofi shares last week.

“The market was falling and there were rumours about papers that we assumed were ours,” says Edwin Gale, editor of the Diabetologia journal and a researcher at the University of Bristol (Bloomberg).

“Because we were aware there were leaks, we felt there would be an alarmist, uncontrolled statement coming out in the press, so we did a rush job on it, coming out a week earlier than expected. We’ve never had to do that before.”

Bloomberg notes that Ralph DeFronzo, a diabetes researcher at the University of Texas Health Science Center, warned in an 11 June conference call that an “earthquake” might put doctors off Lantus.

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June 26, 2009

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‘Payment for eggs’ row reappears - June 26, 2009

The news that New York’s stem cell research initiative will be allowed to pay $10,000 to women who donate their eggs is enjoying another round of media coverage today.

As we noted last week:

[The New York Empire State Stem Cell Board] reached the decision on 11 June. Board members noted that taxpayer funds are already used to compensate some egg donors in state-subsidized in vitro fertilization programs. They also emphasized that researchers in other states that do not allow payment for eggs – including Massachusetts and California -- have largely failed to recruit donors.

The Washington Post published a sizeable piece on the decision today, noting that it makes NY state the first to allow taxpayer-funded researchers to pay women for eggs for stem cell research.

Researchers quoted in the Post story are divided over the move.

“In a field that’s already the object of a great deal of controversy, the question is, are we at the point where we really need to go that route in order to do the science?” says Jonathan Moreno, professor of bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania. “I’m not convinced.”

The NY Times notes that National Academy of Science guidelines prohibit paying women for eggs used in stem cell research.

Headline watch
$10,000 is an egg-cellent price, says stem cell panel – NY Daily News

June 25, 2009

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Baboon genes help fight parasites - June 25, 2009

Tung_2.bmpPosted for Erika Check Hayden

Some baboons are born with an in-built resistance to a malaria-like disease, scientists have found. It is the first known example of a genetic variant in a non-human primate species that is correlated with a complex trait — in this case, resistance to a parasitic disease.

Like ancestral humans, baboons are large-bodied primates that roam the grasslands of East Africa. The research reveals that both groups have evolved similar solutions to fighting off malaria parasites that are common in that region.

"Our study suggests that looking at genetic differences between non-human primates may help us learn more about the possible solutions that evolution has come up with for us to cope with these sorts of things," says Jenny Tung, a graduate student at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, who conducted the research with Gregory Wray, also of Duke, and Susan Alberts of Duke and the Institute of Primate Research at the National Museums of Kenya in Nairobi.

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June 22, 2009

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Chiropractors reveal "plethora of medical evidence" - June 22, 2009

The British Chiropractic Association, which sued science writer Simon Singh over a column in which he wrote about the organisation's stance on certain childhood medical conditions, has now released a list of studies which it says "support the claims which Dr. Singh stated were bogus."

Singh and others had challenged the BCA to support their claims with scientific evidence instead of taking the case to the libel court.

Skeptics, such as Martin Robbins on Lay Scientist, have already begun to deconstruct the list, pointing out that few of the 29 listed studies dealt directly with the medical efficacy of chiropractic and that those which did failed to conform to the statistically powerful, randomised, placebo-controlled, double-blind standard to which many medical studies are subject. Robbins also identifies a case of what he calls "dishonest quote-mining." [The comment is here.]

Robbins provides a list of other examinations of the BCA evidence, included below.

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June 19, 2009

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$20 billion, and for what? - June 19, 2009

Global spending on health in developing nations has increased massively in recent years, but research published today in the Lancet questions how well spent it really is.

So called ‘development assistance for health’ went up from $5.6 billion in 1990 to $21.8 billion in 2007, according to a study funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. But, while poor countries did generally receive a bigger share of this pot than richer nations, some are missing out.

Angola, Ukraine and Thailand are among the 30 poorer countries with the most illness and premature death. They are also among the twelve countries missing from the list of those nations receiving most health aid, says Christopher Murray, study author and researcher at the University of Washington.

“With no one tracking this massive growth in spending, it’s no wonder that some countries receive far more than their neighbours for no immediately apparent reason,” he says (press release). “We’re hoping that this attempt to count money that has never been counted before in a careful and consistent way will lead to greater transparency and better use of health resources.”

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June 18, 2009

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Military lab misplaced thousands of samples - June 18, 2009

army.mil-2007-12-21-153840.jpg
This is a drill, actual inventory procedures may vary.

It's a fact of lab life that stuff gets lost in the shuffle. Digging up that old data spreadsheet or lab notebook is probably not too much more than an inconvenience for most researchers. But if you happen to work at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) at Fort Detrick in Fredrick, Maryland then it's a lot more serious than that.

At a press conference yesterday Col. Mark Kortepeter, USAMRIID's deputy commander told reporters that a recent inventory had turned up some 9,300 vials of previously uncatalogued pathogens, including serum samples from patients who had contracted hemorrhagic fever during the Korean War. The inventory also turned up Ebola, plague, anthrax, and botulism. Most of the samples were left by researchers who had since retired from the laboratory.

The report was bound to get tonnes of press, in part because USAMRIID is the former employer of Bruce Ivins, a researcher who the FBI named a "person of interest" in the 2001 anthrax attacks. Ivans died of a Tylenol overdose in July of 2008. This February, it emerged that Venezuelan equine encephalitis virus at the lab had gone unaccounted for, and all work was suspended until this inventory was completed.

Officials told reporters that numerous new security measures have been installed at the lab since 2001, and they've instituted an "aggressive" inventory system to ensure that future samples don't go unnoticed. It's clear that USAMRIID hopes to use this event to draw a line under its recently troubled past.

Image: US Army/ArraySarah

June 17, 2009

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New York stem cell committee approves payments for eggs - June 17, 2009

The New York Empire State Stem Cell Board (ESSCB) has approved the use of state funds to compensate women who donate eggs for embryonic stem cell research.

The board, which implements New York’s $600 million stem cell research initiative, reached the decision on 11 June. Board members noted that taxpayer funds are already used to compensate some egg donors in state-subsidized in vitro fertilization programs. They also emphasized that researchers in other states that do not allow payment for eggs – including Massachusetts and California -- have largely failed to recruit donors.

Nevertheless, the decision sparked a predictable outcry from activists. The New York State Catholic Conference called it “a grossly unethical, dangerous and exploitative move that treats women’s body parts as commodities,” (Catholic Courier) and Thomas Berg, a Catholic priest and a member of the ESSCB’s ethics committee, criticized the board for not allowing public comment on the issue (Christian News Wire).

June 15, 2009

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Complaints converge on chiropractors - June 15, 2009

At least two bloggers have taken credit for independently making hundreds of formal complaints against British chiropractors for false advertising. British chiropractors have drawn extra attention in the wake of a libel case brought by the British Chiropractic Association against science writer Simon Singh (The Great Beyond, 10 June 2009), and a related campaign to keep libel laws out of science.

The head of the Leicester branch of Skeptics in the Pub explained on his blog Adventures in Nonsense on Saturday how he automated a search for false claims on chiropractic websites, and filed complaints with local Trading Standards offices and with the General Chiropractic Council (GCC). The activist has forced numerous companies to change the public claims they made about health remedies through similar steps in the past.

He told Nature that Saturday's post came in response to a blog post on Zeno's Blog, a blog about false medical claims, which announced an independent letter-writing campaign last week.

A self-identified ex-member of the GCC questions whether the council will take action on so many complaints at once, since members under investigation are exempt from paying the membership dues which fund the GCC's activities, and because a committee member is targeted by the complaint.

The author of Zeno's Blog told Nature: "I don't necessarily expect it to be a smooth process, but, as a statutory body, I fully expect the GCC to follow through on all valid complaints."

The author of Adventures in Nonsense said that he had already written the to GCC to ask how they would handle this and other potential conflicts and was awaiting a response. He added that while he has long had an interest in false claims made by many different businesses, the Simon Singh case had "focused [skeptics'] energy on chiropractic."

June 10, 2009

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Avandia debate continues - June 10, 2009

GlaxoSmithKline’s diabetes Avandia, previously plagued by problems associated with heart attacks, is in the news again. Late last week, GSK announced results of a large-scale clinical trial claiming that in the long term Avandia did not increase cardiovascular risk “compared to other commonly used diabetes medicines”.

The news means that GSK will hope that sales get a boost, but also that doctors will prescribe the drug more. “We believe that Avandia remains an important diabetes medicine for the appropriate patients,” said Ellen Strahlman, GSK’s Chief Medical Officer.

But there is still resistance. In the same issue of the Lancet (summary here) where the results of the trial, called Record, were published, Ravi Retnakaran and Bernard Zinman from Mount Sinai Hopsital, Toronto, Canada, offer caution. “definitive conclusions about the relation between rosiglitazone and cardiovascular disease remain elusive,” they say, and look at not just Avandia, or rosiglitazone but also a drug in the same thiazolidinedione family, pioglitazone.

“We believe that the evidence regarding the risk–benefit ratio for thiazolidinediones needs a prudent approach to the use of these medications in the management of type 2 diabetes.”

The whole thing is rounded up nicely over at FiercePharma, including links to other coverage and explanation of some of the controversies that have plagued the drug's history. The debate will rage for some time it seems.

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Chiropractic group advises members to 'withdraw from the battleground' - June 10, 2009

The libel case between the British Chiropractic Association and science writer Simon Singh appears to be drawing unwelcome attention to chiropractic in the UK.

The BCA sued Singh last year over a column he wrote attacking the organisation's medical claims. Nature has covered the case and a related campaign to 'Keep Libel Laws Out Of Science' coordinated by the non-profit lobby group Sense About Science most recently in a blog post and in a pair of news stories here and here.

Yesterday, the chair of the McTimoney Chiropractic Association (MCA), a professional organisation of practitioners of a form of chiropractic, reportedly emailed the group's members advising that they remove their websites to avoid being targeted by a coordinated campaign of complaints to the General Chiropractic Council (GCC), the UK's chiropractic regulating body. A copy of the email is posted on Chiropracticlive.com.

The message notes that "complaints against more than 500 individual chiropractors have been sent to the GCC in the last 24 hours." A representative from Sense About Science told Nature that the organisation is not involved in the complaints to the GCC.

Numerous chiropractors have removed their websites, but bloggers have already pointed to publicly available archived copies of the old sites, which made claims that the MCA suggested its members should not be making.

The MCA did not answer the telephone or respond to an email from Nature today.

The letter from the MCA is reposted in full below:

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June 08, 2009

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Petition, press release follow libel campaign - June 08, 2009

Libel scorekeepers take note: campaigners have collected over 4000 signatures from the public, joining a core of 150 prominent figures in science, government and the media who signed a statement Wednesday to “Keep Libel Laws Out of Science.”

The spark for the campaign was the libel case brought by the British Chiropractic Association against science writer Simon Singh. Last month, a British judge decided that Singh’s words, published in The Guardian in 2008, made a factual allegation that the BCA dishonestly promoted medical treatments its members knew did not work. Singh maintains otherwise, and he announced last Wednesday that he is appealing the ruling.

The BCA released a statement Friday in response to the campaign, declaring that “The BCA sued Simon Singh only as an act of last resort.” The brief statement notes that “to stifle scientific debate would clearly be wrong,” but that “scientists must realise that they cannot simply publish with impunity what they know to be untrue and libellous.”

Fear of libel suits also means that web publishers must closely monitor--and sometimes remove--potentially libellous public comments from their sites, as happened with a statement by Stephen Curry last week on Nature Network. He has since commented on the removal, writing that, "This development seems to introduce a level of self-censorship that I had not been fully aware of before. If I can find a positive note, it will make us rely even more heavily that we already do on solid evidence."

The UK judge presiding over the case—who with a single previous ruling prompted legislation denying the jurisdiction of UK libel law in several US states—is unlikely to be overruled by the appeals court, Singh says. For now, then, the present ruling on meaning stands, and the score is BCA: one ruling; Simon Singh: thousands of supporters.

Previous coverage on Nature:
Science writer will appeal libel case ruling (Nature News, 3 June 2009)
Science writer waits on legal advice in libel case (The Great Beyond, 19 May 2009)
Court setback for science writer (Nature News, 13 May 2009)
Simon Singh loses first round in chiropractic fight (The Great Beyond, 8 May 2009)

June 06, 2009

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WHO recommends expanded use of diarrhea vaccine - June 06, 2009

The World Health Organization has recommended that health authorities in all nations being routinely vaccinating young children against rotavirus, which causes 500 000 diarrheal deaths and 2 million hospitalizations every year.

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June 05, 2009

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Health costs drive US bankruptcies even for the insured - June 05, 2009

Think bankruptcy is just for folks with too many credit cards? Think again.

Major health costs (see table) contributed to over 60% of US bankruptcies in 2007, according to a study of over 2,000 individuals, although this is obviously before the credit crunch really started to bite. The study [pdf], published in The American Journal of Medicine (AJM) this week, is a follow-up to a study in 2001 which found that major health costs accounted for 46.2% of US bankruptcies in that year.

The surprise is that over three quarters of those bankrupted had medical insurance and middle-class incomes.

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June 04, 2009

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Does diabetes drug boost vaccines? - June 04, 2009

Administration of a common diabetes medication to mice appears to “considerably improve” the performance of an experimental anti-cancer vaccine, according to newly published research.

Yongwon Choi, one of the team behind the new study and a researcher at the University of Pennsylvania, says the discovery is “potentially extremely important and could revolutionize current strategies for both therapeutic and protective vaccines” (press release).

In their paper in this week’s Nature the researchers take a slightly more measured line, saying this “surprising finding” could “have important implications for therapeutic and prophylactic vaccine development”.

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June 02, 2009

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Controversial Chinese stem-cell company gets top billing - June 02, 2009

Posted on behalf of Jane Qiu

It was strange bedfellows indeed at a meeting on regenerative medicine in Beijing last month. At the opening ceremony Hu Xiang, chief executive officer of Beike Biotechnology in Shenzhen, gave a speech as a key sponsor, sharing the podium with government officials and influential public figures including China’s health minister Chen Zhu.

With multi-lingual websites and promoting agencies in the US, Europe, Thailand and India, Beike has earned international notoriety by recruiting patients around the world to receive untested stem-cell therapies in China. It supplies stem cells to a network of over two dozen hospitals in China and one in Thailand for treating a myriad of diseases. Hu told Nature that Beike has treated over 5,000 patients since 2005. The company claims to be conducting clinical research, but is yet to publish any data in major international peer-reviewed journals. (See related Nature story here.)

Ellis Rubinstein, president of the New York Academy of Sciences which cohosted the meeting, says that he did not know Beike’s track record, but was grateful that someone had put down “some serious money to support the event”; several major pharmaceutical companies had pulled out as sponsors. “We are having a financial crisis in a good part of the world. That’s the reality in which we are operating,” he says.

Some researchers, like Zhao Chunhua of the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, were deeply concerned. “Having Beike sharing the podium with such a distinguished list of speakers has simply sent out a very wrong signal,” he says.

June 01, 2009

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Artemisinin confusion - June 01, 2009

An as yet unpublished study reporting the emergence of artemisinin-resistant malaria in Cambodia is getting a fair share of attention. The study was first alluded to by a 20 May Bloomberg story, now unavailable on the Bloomberg site but still available here.

Roll forward 8 days and to a BBC reporter on the ground in Cambodia, reporting directly from the site of two clinical trials, where the news seems to be coming from. The BBC then ran another story that says: “International scientists say they have found the first evidence of resistance to the world's most effective drug for treating malaria. They say the trend in western Cambodia has to be urgently contained because full-blown resistance would be a global health catastrophe.”

In the UK, science reporters were then bombarded with offers of comments from expert malaria scientists, courtesy of the Science Media Centre, and the story took off. The Daily Mail has the considered "Killer new malaria bug discovered" headline for one, although other reports are somewhat more measured.

The studies are not yet complete, nor published or peer-reviewed. The WHO has no updates on its website about this work.

That doesn’t mean it isn’t important, but with stories mysteriously disappearing, and no signs of any reports, it is hard to form a firm opinion about the dangers. Of course, artemisinin should not be used on its own, but in combination with another anti-malarials, and in 2006 WHO recommendations were taken on board by 13 pharma companies to stop selling single-drug malaria medications.

The news from Cambodia doesn’t sound good, but the real extent of the situation will not be made clearer by a rash of media reports. We need to await the clinical trial data, and the peer-reviewed results of those trials.

May 29, 2009

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Behold -- the rock stars of science! - May 29, 2009

collins.jpgSure, Francis Collins is likely going to be the next head of the US National Institutes of Health. But is he famous? A new ad campaign called the Rock Stars of Science is trying to bring a little celebrity to the sciences by picturing famous researchers together with rock stars. (In case you can't recognize him behind those cool shades: that's Collins to the right of Joe Perry. And for those of you who have no idea who Joe Perry is: he's the guy with the striped hair to the left of Collins.)

The campaign launched with a 6-page photo portfolio in GQ magazine. “It’s like being in the middle of a genius sandwich”, the ad quotes Josh Groban, apparently a singer of some sort, who was pictured between UCLA neurologist Jeffrey Cummings and Elan Corp’s chief scientific officer, Dale Schenk. cummings.JPG

Musical ability was not a prerequisite to participate in the campaign, at least not for the scientists. One scientific rock star – cardiologist Eric Topol of The Scripps Research Institute -- told theheart.org: “I was asked to leave the band in ninth grade and take a study hall because my clarinet playing was so pathetic.” And participants evidently weren’t given much choice about their wardrobe: “I was the only scientist that ended up in tennis shoes and barefoot, but what can you do?” lamented Schenk to The Scientist. (Personally, I think NIAID director Anthony Fauci looks quite dapper in his white “cool and dry” “cotton-rich” button-down shirt, available for $49.95 at Macy’s.)

It’s all for a good cause of course: the ad campaign aims to highlight the importance of biomedical research and the need for science funding. Medscape Medical News notes that the campaign hopes to fight the social forces behind a recent survey which found that only 4% of Americans could name a living scientist and – prepare to be shocked – that Britney Spears is more influential than Stephen Hawking. Yeah. Good luck with that.

Images: Geoffrey Beene/GQ

May 19, 2009

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Science writer waits on legal advice in libel case - May 19, 2009

Journalists, scientists and even a Liberal Democrat Member of Parliament met in a pub last night in support of science writer Simon Singh, who is fighting a libel case brought by the British Chiropractic Association, which Nature covered two weeks ago and last week.

The 7 May ruling, in which Justice David Eady spelled out how he would interpret Singh's article if the case goes forward, will make it difficult for Singh to defend himself in a full trial.

The Skeptics Club, which meets at the Penderels Oak pub in London, invited speakers including comedian Dave Gorman, journalist Nick Cohen, and Lib Dem Dr. Evan Harris. The speakers decried English libel law, which is famously plaintiff-friendly, and warned of the dampening effect it is having on scientific discourse before welcoming Singh, who made jokes and thanked the crowd for its support.

Singh has until 28 May 2009 to decide whether to settle the case (for a cool £100,000+, he says), appeal the ruling, or fight the case under the current definition of his article. Lawyers from the Guardian, which was not sued, advised Singh that he was unlikely to win in an English court, but he and his personally retained counsel are still considering whether to appeal Eady's ruling and how their appeal might fare in a European court, he said.

Asked what impact a ruling against him would have on his science writing career, Singh joked, "I'll go back to writing cosmology and Fermat's last theorem. Everyone was very nice about it."

He added that he would not accept settlement terms that limited his ability to write about chiropractic in the future.

May 15, 2009

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One way you'll probably never catch an STD - May 15, 2009

Posted on behalf of Meredith Wadman

Is it possible to catch a sexually transmitted disease from a transplant of reproductive-tract tissue? That gross-out possibility doesn't seem too likely, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) was advised this week.

A panel of expert advisers to the US regulatory agency said on 14 May that, while rigorous data are lacking, epidemiologic and anecdotal evidence suggests that the transmission of Chlamydia trachomatis and Neisseria gonorrhoeae through products like amniotic membrane transplants used in eye surgery (pictured) are exceedingly slight. p-sample1.jpg

“Any potential for transmission with these products would seem to be very low-- acceptably low,” said panel member Emily Erbelding, an infectious-disease specialist at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland.

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May 14, 2009

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FDA warns General Mills over Cheerios labelling - May 14, 2009

The US Food and Drugs Administration is getting serious flack today from commentators (Eye on FDA, Testcountry) over a 5 May warning letter telling General Mills that the popular cereal's health claims are too drug-like.

A two-year-old marketing campaign claims that Cheerios can reduce cholesterol by 4% in 6 weeks. The FDA, which was responding to a complaint by the National Consumers League, had the option to send a less severe informal letter asking the company to change its labelling, according to the Eye on FDA posting.

New Picture.bmp

Another federal body, the Federal Trade Commission told Kellogg's earlier this year to stop claims that Frosted Mini-Wheats improved children's attention spans, reports Bloomberg.

The FDA, which is reportedly trying to make its image more consumer-friendly under the new White House administration, may be suffering from internal growing pains. Officials at the agency's headquarters "did not know, they were upset and said this was a field office that was freelancing," a former FDA official told AdvertisingAge. A spokesperson for the agency who would not comment on the fracas directly told AdvertisingAge that "warning letters speak for themselves."

Image: screenshot of Cheerios website earlier today.

May 12, 2009

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Vigil for jailed Iranian doctors - May 12, 2009

While Reporters Without Borders celebrates the release of Iranian-American journalist Roxana Saberi, Physicians for Human Rights are holding a virtual and live vigil today to draw attention to the continued imprisonment of Iranian doctors Kamiar and Arash Alaei.

The brothers’ HIV relief work landed them in an Iranian prison in June 2008. They were charged and later convicted of “communications with an enemy government” and “seeking to overthrow the Iranian government under article 508 of Iran’s Islamic Penal Code” this winter according to the vigil website.

The doctors, who studied and have attended conferences in the US, had distributed condoms and clean needles in Iranian prisons to curtail HIV transmission.

Saberi's conviction ("cooperating with a hostile state" ) was overthrown on the grounds that the United States is not hostile to Iran, according to an editorial in the Boston Globe. The reversal has diplomatic overtones, writes the Globe, which should also apply to the doctors.

Previous Nature coverage of this topic
An appeal to President Ahmadinejad - Nature Editorial, 29 January 2009
Iranian AIDS doctors' trial draws condemnation - Nature, 28 January 2009
Iran puts leading HIV scientists on trial - The Great Beyond, 07 January 2009
Iran holds AIDS doctors - Nature, 17 September 2008

May 11, 2009

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Cancer studies sometimes conceal conflicts - May 11, 2009

Clinical cancer research is often conducted by scientists with conflicts of interest, such as ties to the company making a drug tested in a study. And studies conducted by conflicted researchers are more likely to report positive findings, researchers reported yesterday.

The findings come from a study led by Reshma Jagsi of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, who published her results in the journal Cancer.

Jagsi and her colleagues studied 1,534 cancer research reports published in eight top journals in 2006. Twenty-nine percent of the studies appeared to have a conflict of interest. However, only 17 percent disclosed a conflict of interest. And randomized clinical trials that measured a treatment's impact on patient survival were more likely to report positive results if a conflicted researcher was involved with the study, Jagsi's team found.

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Cervical cancer vaccines slug it out - May 11, 2009

Pharma companies Merck and GSK are squaring up for a fight, with rival products vying for a slice of the controversial cervical cancer vaccine market.

Merck’s Gardasil has already been on the market for a while, and the company last week unveiled results showing that it can protect for over eight years, extending the known protection time.

GSK meanwhile unveiled a study on its product Cervarix, which it claims shows it to be better than Gardasil. Cervarix has yet to be approved by the US Food and Drug Administration, although it is used in other countries.

The whole issue of vaccinating against cervical cancer has been controversial. Both Merck and GSK’s vaccines actually protect against Human papillomavirus (HPV) , which can cause the cancer. Some groups, mainly on the political right, fear that vaccinating young people against STDs may encourage promiscuity, although the US Centres for Disease Control recommends vaccination for all 11 and 12 year old girls.

According to the Wall Street Journal, $1.4 billion of Gardasil sold last year, while GSK moved about $231 million-worth of Cervarix. As Mike Huckman notes on MSNBC’s Pharma’s Market blog, which vaccine works best is only one part of the fight.

“Sales of Gardasil are going down,” he writes. “By its own admission, Merck is having a tough time getting females in their late teens and early- to mid-20s to get the set of three shots.

“It’s hoping to find a way to break through with that population and to win approval of the vaccine for older women and males to reignite sales growth. And Glaxo will be late getting into the game.”

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Live from Lindau: Historic lectures by Nobel laureates - May 11, 2009

dhc.bmpCount Lennart Bernadotte of didn’t quite make it to 100. He died in 2004 at the age of 95, but not before ensuring that his life’s great project had a future. Great grandson of King Oscar II who presented the first Nobel awards in Stockholm in 1901, Count Lennart launched, exactly sixty years ago, the Nobel Laureates Meeting in Lindau, a pretty but very provincial town on Lake Constance. The original aim of the weeklong meetings was to encourage isolated and struggling scientists and doctors in post-war Germany by bringing them into social contact with great living scientists from around the world.

Over the next 55 years or so, not a lot changed, even though Germany was no longer isolated or struggling. The meetings – morning lectures, afternoon discussions, evening dances - were popular but remained anachronistically provincial. By the turn of the millennium that had become unsustainable. Laureates were becoming less interested in a long trip to speak with locals at meetings primarily conducted in German, however charming the location.

In 2005, the meetings were internationalised and thrust into the modern world (Nature 436, 170-1). Now 600 hand-picked students from all around the world mingle, discuss and dance with 20 or more Nobel laureates during summer.

To commemorate the centenary of Count Lennart’s birth on 8 May, the Meetings organisers set up a science-history project to digitalise selected lectures from their archives and make them openly available on their webpage (www.lindau-nobel.de). The first eleven selected lectures are now live, more will follow in phases throughout the summer.

The cleaned up voice recordings, accompanied by an introduction and charming black-and-white photos taken in Lindau, bring legendary scientists to life – be it Rita Levi Montalcini (Physiology or Medicine, 1986) pushing her human-rights agenda, Rosalyn Yalow (Physiology or Medicine, 1977) appealing to women to help solve social problems or simply the extraordinary plumminess of the British tones of Lawrence Bragg (Physics 1915) and Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin (Chemistry 1964). A particular treasure is the lecture on the gravitational constant by Paul Dirac (1933, Physics). Dirac was renowned for being almost pathologically socially withdrawn. Despite this, he showed up to the first ten meetings in Lindau, where, they say, he remained almost silent aside from his lectures.

Coming soon – Werner Heisenberg, Konrad Lorenz, James Watson and other stellar personalities.

Image: Nobel Laureate Dorothy Crowfoot-Hodgkin (Chemistry 1964) and young researchers at
the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting 1986.

May 08, 2009

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Simon Singh loses first round in chiropractic fight - May 08, 2009

The libel case brought by the British Chiropractic Association against science writer Simon Singh arrived in court yesterday.

Singh is being sued by the association over an article he wrote for the Guardian which was less than complimentary about the BCA. (See Chiropractors get litigious, again - August 19, 2008, also the ‘For Simon Singh and Free Speech’ Facebook timeline.)

Yesterday, the judge in the case ruled that Singh’s assertion that the BCA “promotes bogus treatments” was a statement of fact, and not comment (Index on Censorship).

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Psychologists rebuff interrogation claims - May 08, 2009

A string of e-mails posted on the non-for-profit news site ProPublica has reignited a long-running debate on the role of psychologists in interrogation.

The e-mails relate to a 2005 document from the American Psychological Association (APA) on psychological ethics and national security. The document lays out guidelines for psychologists working for the Pentagon and other security services. Among other things the document says that psychologists must report acts of cruel or degrading treatment, but that they may consult on interrogations.

The e-mails show that psychologists actively involved with the military had a disproportionate influence on the way the guidelines were written. "These guys were writing a get out of jail free card for themselves," says Nathaniel Raymond, senior investigator at the Cambridge-based Physicians for Human Rights, which has called on the APA to investigate.

The APA calls those accusations "ill-founded". The guidelines were meant to help psychologists working in places like Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, to navigate the ethical minefield surrounding military intelligence gathering. In that context it only makes sense that the panel would consult with those who needed guidance the most. "To allege that the APA leadership engaged in unethical conduct in the development of this task force’s report is wholly without merit," the organization said in a statement.

The Boston Globe has done a really good story on the subject here.

May 06, 2009

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Gates Foundation awards grants for unconventional projects  - May 06, 2009

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has awarded 81 grants worth $100,000 (£65,000) each for research projects into unconventional approaches to tackle global health issues, such as HIV, malaria, tuberculosis, pneumonia and diarrheal diseases (Telegraph, AP, Baltimore Sun).

Among the grant recipients of five-year grants is Eric Lam at Rutgers University in New Jersey, who is exploring tomatoes as an antiviral drug delivery system.

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April 30, 2009

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South Korea restarts stem cell research - April 30, 2009

South Korea has re-entered stem cell science, with the national committee on bioethics approving the first research proposal since the national scandal over Woo Suk Hwang’s fraudulent stem cell claims.

A new study will be undertaken at Cha Hospital in Seoul.

“The decision will help reactivate stem cell research in South Korea,” says Chung Hyung-Min, the hospital’s lead researcher (AFP). “Stem cell research has been done by scientists in Britain and other countries. But there has been no successful case yet, using human eggs.”

Reuters says the research will involve “producing human stem cells through cloning” while AFP confusingly says the project will be “using aborted human eggs to develop cures for grave human diseases”. The Korea Times says the approval is for “somatic stem cell cloning”.

A number of conditions have been placed on the research team. The Korea Times explains:

In lifting the ban, the committee called on the hospital to minimize the use of human eggs by having the research conducted primarily on lab animals. The use of human eggs will be limited to 800 for the research, lower than the 1,000 originally requested by the centre.

The hospital was also required to remove all references about stem cell research leading to 'cures' for certain diseases and improve the quality of its consent process for egg donors.

April 29, 2009

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Autism study implicates common gene variations - April 29, 2009

Common genetic variations implicated in autism are reported in two papers published this week by Nature. The studies represent the first robust evidence of a link between such common variations and autistic spectrum disorders.

“The genes that were discovere