Health Meaning

last month, the online journal the Australian reported allegations that pharmaceutical giant Merck had paid scientific megapublisher Elsevier to publish a fake medical journal the Australasian Journal of Bone and Joint Medicine , which swelled Merck products. Now The Scientist , which seems to have broken the story, online reports that between 00 and 05, Elsevier actually put on six false journals sponsored by anonymous pharmaceutical companies. The publications were like medical journals, peer-reviewed, but, again, ran "papers" pro-business products. Subscribers to The Scientist can read the latest twist in the sordid history, but the rest of us can read the mea culpa Elsevier, which is investigating the matter.

See 09 swine flu (H1N1) Map in a larger map

The husband of a pregnant woman in Texas who died of swine flu last week was the opening of legal moves in what could become a civil lawsuit of $ 1 billion for the wrongful death against a US pork producer who raised pigs in Mexico, where it alleges may be involved in the outbreak. (The petition was marked The Brownsville Herald .)

On May 11, Steven Trunnell, a paramedic, filed a petition to the County Court Cameron County, Texas, which seeks to lay representatives of Smithfield Foods, a Virginia-based company that owns 50% of Granjas Carroll de Mexico, a large pig farm in the state of Veracruz. Trunnell's wife, Judy, a special education teacher who was 8 months pregnant, was hospitalized because of swine flu, April 19 and died from infection with the new H1N1 virus on May 5, according to the petition. The healthy baby was delivered by caesarean section before the death of the mother. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on May 12 issued a dispatch in his Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report on H1N1 during pregnancy that described his case in detail. If the discovery is evidence to justify illicit demand death, states the petition Trunnell will change his plea and seek to maintain Smithfield Foods responsible as $ 1 billion in damages.

Granjas Carroll received intense media attention for weeks because a boy who lived at the Gloria, a town near the pig farm, had one of the first confirmed cases of swine flu in Mexico. The petition states that "it is likely that the creation and spread of the deadly strain of swine flu may have been caused in part by historically unsanitary conditions that Smithfield Foods knowingly taken him to Mexico as part of operating the largest pig farm in the world. "The petition further alleges that" it is reasonable to think that the area around the Gloria is "zero" for the H1N1-09 swine flu, "saying that the boy" seems to be the first person in the world who was diagnosed "with the virus.

Although epidemiologists have focused much attention on Gloria because of a respiratory outbreak there dating back to mid-February, a major Mexican epidemiologist of Ministry of Health said on May 4 science they had confirmed a case earlier that the boy and he was from Mexico, which calls into question the location of the origin of the epidemic in Mexico. Many researchers are also convinced that the virus jumped from pigs in Mexico in humans that live there, as he could have come to this country from an infected human, and there is still no evidence that pigs throughout Mexico or workers at Granjas Carroll-have been infected with the virus.

Smithfield Foods did not respond to an interview request. The lawyer representing Steven Trunnell, Marc Rosenthal, also could not be reached for comment.

One of the most confusing features of the outbreak of swine flu is that unlike the seasonal flu, mostly severe disease does not occur in the elderly . The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) plans to publish a detailed report which said that some elderly people have antibodies that react to the new H1N1 virus behind the swine flu.

The head of the flu CDC, Nancy Cox, discussed in an interview published on Science Insider last week, but Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report from the CDC more later today or tomorrow will have a detailed report of the results.

One reason that older people may have antibodies is exposure to an older strain of swine flu cousin. At a press conference today, CDC epidemiologist Daniel Jernigan noted that between the pandemics of 1918 and 1957, an H1N1 distributed in the United States seems to have left some people with an antibody response that in laboratory studies "cross-react" with the new H1N1 virus. "This does not mean something that speaks to you protection," warned Jernigan. "We can conclude that to a certain extent where there is some level of protection, but we are not a good answer to this question right now. "

The US House of Representatives last night approved $ 7.65 billion in new money to address the swine flu pandemic. The money will be used to purchase vaccines, antiviral drugs, and other medical needs. Congress also noted that funds are available for monitoring and to help contribute to international efforts. At least $ 350 million to be spent on "State of upgrading and local capacities."

Jeffrey Levi, health policy specialist who directs the DC-based Washington Trust for America Health commends the work of Congress. "This demonstrates a serious commitment on the part of the Administration and Congress to ramp up our capacity to respond to the H1N1 influenza pandemic," said Levi.

Although the Office of Management and Budget suggested that Congress set aside nearly $ 12 billion in emergency funds by tapping into the money allocated to the Project BioShield and the stimulus plan, Levi said that lawmakers have made the right decision not to rely on what he called a strategy "-Rob-Peter to pay Paul." "Preparing for a pandemic must not be at the expense of defending against other threats," he said.

The Obama administration has so far committed $ 1 billion to purchase vaccine against the new H1N1 virus to 20 million Americans and the new cash can allow it to buy more. "the administration now has the flexibility to leverage resources as necessary as they make decisions based on science whether to proceed to the production of vaccines, "said Levi.

the money is part of a set of additional capital of $ 106 billion, which mainly support the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. the Senate is expected to vote on the bill later this week, and is expected to pass easily and then receive the signature of President Barack Obama.

During the past week, confirmed cases of swine flu influenza in Australia jumped from 17 to 501. The island nation now has more if all countries outside of the Americas. The outbreak is centered in the state of Victoria, which has 80% of cases and closed several schools. Until now, Chile with 250 had the most confirmed cases in the southern hemisphere, a region that epidemiologists are closely as it is now in the winter flu season favorite.

A new study may be the last word in a controversy that plagued the search heart disease for years: if a marker of inflammation called C-reactive protein (CRP) causes heart attacks and strokes. In a survey of more than 128,000 people, researchers found that genes that raise CRP levels are not more likely cardiovascular disease. Although the study reaches the same conclusion as the previous work, its massive size, it is statistically the most powerful of this issue and difficult to refute test, experts say.

Produced by the liver, CRP has long been eyed as a suspect in heart disease. In part, this is because observational studies, which regularly found that higher CRP levels are associated with later heart problems. CRP is a vague indicator of many health problems Hike the risk of heart attacks and strokes, including obesity and type 2 diabetes, but these kinds of associations do not mean that CRP is actually causing heart attack. Indeed, last fall, Danish researchers reported that genes that raise CRP do not appear to cause cardiovascular disease ( Science NOW, October 29, 08).

Now, a team of three dozen researchers from the UK, Canada, Germany, and elsewhere have joined forces to reconsider the question. They shot many health studies that have banked the DNA of tens of thousands of participants. As the Danish group earlier one, led by epidemiologist Paul Elliott of Imperial College London, started with a simple premise: If high levels of CRP causes heart attacks, and the genes that increase CRP levels should also increase the risk of heart attacks. The researchers studied three variants each raised CRP by about 20%. They then tested whether having at least one of these variants was most likely a cardiovascular disease in more than 28,000 people with the disease and 100,000 people without. The result: The genes had no effect on heart disease, the group reports tomorrow The Journal of the American Medical Association

"It's pretty much nailed shut" now, says James de Lemos. , A cardiologist at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. "It's hard for me to imagine CRP is causal" Instead, he and others believe, the protein may be linked to other molecules that stimulate the disease. - Or it may simply indicate inflammation of the arteries which is already present, not the disease that is yet to come

given the news. data Mark Pepys, an expert in CRP at University College London, says he has no meaning to find a drug that targets CRP to prevent heart attacks. whether CRP is a useful way to assess the risk of disease later is in the air, he said, because it is unclear whether the levels of CRP add useful information beyond the usual measures, such as family history and obesity.

the latter CRP study also raises questions about a trial last year called JUPITER published. in this study, people with normal cholesterol levels were given a drug that lowers cholesterol and CRP, and their hearts have benefited ( Science NOW, November 10, 08). Some argued that the trial prevented the disease because CRP levels dropped, but others said the real advantage is due to lowering cholesterol in those whose levels are normal to start. Increasingly, the latter seems to be the case, said Elliott.

Here is an overview of some of the stories that we followed on science from the blog policy ScienceInsider :

A third case of swine flu resistant to oseltamivir, announced last week in Hong Kong, has flu experts are concerned that drug resistance is spreading. Unlike two cases reported in Denmark and Japan, Hong Kong the patient has not taken oseltamivir itself. This suggests, she picked up a resistant strain of someone else. Meanwhile, a journalist of Science learned firsthand about China quarantine process for swine flu.

The Czech Academy of Sciences is fighting for his future after the government proposed a budget that slashes funding for the academy half by 2012 the plan divert money basic research institutes of the academy performs more applied scientific efforts.

a Senate spending panel said in a recent report that the way the National Science Foundation (NSF) has dealt with a porn scandal on the Internet underlines "systemic management problems workforce" who created a "hostile work environment" for its 1,300 employees. lawmakers said part of the problem is the use of short-term NSF "cuff" academia to serve as program managers high.

John Niederhuber , director of the National cancer Institute, fired back last week in response to a front page article in the New York Times that harshly criticizes the way cancer research is funded in a long rebuttal to the question of NCI cancer Bulletin June 30, Niederguber gave several examples of the creativity of NCI -. including his project on the genome of cancer and physical science oncology centers set

the Wellcome Trust is to pay nearly $ 50 million in building research capacity in Africa. The UK charity biomedical research announced pan-African research partnerships involving over 50 universities and research institutes as part of a 5-year initiative. Each consortium has a different purpose, including research on infectious diseases and "the ecosystem and the health of the population."

For more on these stories and the latest news and analysis Science policy, visit Science Insider.

Three Italian scientists have lost the first round of what could be a long legal challenge to the decision of their government exclude human embryonic stem cell work from a call for proposals stem cells, even if such research is legal in Italy. On Friday, July 19, just 3 days before the deadline for submission of grant proposals, an administrative court in Rome supported the government's position and dismissed the appeal of scientists.

In Italy, where the Catholic Church has great influence on public policies, researchers willing to work on human embryonic stem cells have struggled. Then came cell scientists waited impatiently and anxiously for a call for proposals under the health and well-being, which recently allocated € 8 million for stem cells. But when the call is released in February, it included a statement that "projects on embryonic stem cells of human origin will be excluded." On 24 June, three researchers have challenged this exclusion by filing a lawsuit in court in Rome Lazio Regional administrative (TAR). They argued that, although Italian law does not allow the embryos are destroyed to create human ES cells, it allows research with already established lines. to exclude such work the call for funds was an unconstitutional violation of academic freedom, scientists have claimed.

But the court in Rome rejected the application of science to cancel the offering, noting that only institutional recipients financing, such as regional councils and universities are allowed to appeal against the government, individual researchers do not have this option

Although he did not express any judgment on the legitimacy of. Government policy, the TAR has made in the preamble to its decision ( ordinanza staminali.doc ) include a sentence stating that the Italian "law poses specific limits to experimentation on human embryos. "

" the verdict seems to inspire an ideology more than the law, "said Elena Cattaneo of the University of Milan, who, with Elisabetta Cerbai of the University of Florence and Silvia Garagna of University of Pavia, filed the complaint. "It is also shocking that individual scientists, we do not have the right to appeal against a public call for proposals that limit our freedom to do research that is legal in our country . "

Italian law that regulates in vitro fertilization (Legge 40) prohibits the creation of new cell lines from embryos for scientific purposes, but does not prevent researchers to study them. " why this law was quoted in the sentence of the TAR is totally uncertain, "said Vittorio Angiolini, Cattaneo's lawyer. Angiolini said Science that the next move will be to appeal to a higher court the Council of State, as he believes that the decision of the TAR is not justified from a legal point of view. But for now, researchers such as Cattaneo are left out of the race for money stem cells from Italy.

The appointment of geneticist Francis Collins to head the National Institutes of Health could soon be done. NIH observers in Washington say that the Senate committee that handles the nomination will not hold a confirmation hearing, the forum where all controversies are usually broadcast. Instead, the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) can send Collin appointment-apparently without opposition to the full Senate for an all or nothing "unanimous consent" vote some time next week-the last chance before the Senate recess passes August A spokesman of the HELP committee said no hearing has been fixed, but declined to comment further.

The publisher is the Public Library of Science (PLoS) launched a -Is the largest open access in biomedical research site " experimental "for preprints gross display articles on hot topics. PLoS Currents (Beta) debuted today with a series of papers on influenza. Although the four documents do not break much new ground, contributors are best virologists Peter Palese and Edward Holmes, who will also be presented bids for the positions of the subsequent flu. (Other topics for the future Currents will screen high-appropriate level.)

Google appears to be the hosting site, and the National Institutes of Health has implemented a new archive for newspapers and other "rapid research notes" submitted by publishers. In a project summary, PLoS president and co-founder Harold Varmus said that the expectation is that the documents will then be published in journals. Varmus proposed an archive documents unreviewed 10 years ago when he was director of the NIH, but he was shot down.

As the investigation into the murder of 24 horrible years of Yale University graduate pharmacology student Annie Le moved in high speed, the building in which it was found was closed and nobody knows when things will return to normal.

on whose body was found Sunday behind a wall in a basement laboratory, worked in the building Amistad Street, a four building complex history at the medical school a mile Yale's main campus. The building opened 2 years ago to house the Yale Stem Cell Center, as well as interdisciplinary programs in immunology and vascular biology

According stem cell researcher Diane Krause :. "All the research in the Amistad building is one standstill- people who need responsive to an ongoing clinical trial may not have access from now."

University Vice President Linda Koch Lorimer sent an email to the entire campus today said the staff "with essential research responsibilities" are escorted into the building by police.

Others are being given paid leave. "We'll know by the end of the day if the building will remain closed longer," says Lorimer. "Principal Investigators will be informed as soon as we know."

Yale President Richard Levin met this morning "a group of members of the Yale community in the university area of ​​Annie Le," according to the public affairs office of Yale.

The Amistad street building would have 75 surveillance cameras. The was seen entering at 10 am on Tuesday. She was never seen leaving.

Lorimer said security personnel and police patrols and a new bicycle patrol were added on the campus of med school.

A website on opa.yale.edu/investigationupdate investigation will be opened later today.

For the first time, the United States Food and Drug Administration has publicly admitted that politics has trumped science. The agency acknowledged yesterday that it approved a device to assist with knee replacement surgeries-a-own scientific agency device often failed only after receiving pressure from a cohort of members of the New Democratic Congress Jersey, where the device manufacturer is.

$ 3000 the device was known as Menaflex name, "collagen scaffold" that supported a damaged knee meniscus. It failed its initial reviews, but was approved in December of last year anyway, in the last days of the Bush administration. In a new report, the FDA cited pressure from Senators Robert Menendez and Frank R. Lautenberg and Representatives Frank Pallone Jr. and Steven R. Rothman as a decisive factor in getting approval: "The Director of the FDA's Office legislation described the pressure of [Capitol] Hill as the most extreme he had seen and the acquiescence of the body at the request of the Company to access the Commissioner and other officials in the commissioner's office as unprecedented in his experience. "

Moreover, former FDA chief Dr. Andrew C. von Eschenbach, spoke to the approved device.

According to New York Times , the company that manufactured Menaflex, ReGen Biologics Inc. , recently made campaign contributions to the four members of Congress. The Times added that thirty patients in the United States received the Menaflex and 3000 in Europe. U.S. News & World Report noted that, while acknowledging that the approval process has been compromised, the FDA has not currently scheduled to remove the device market.

A chronology of the process is available on the website agency. The agency announced that it has asked a committee established by the National Academy of Sciences to review the overall process of prior authorization for the marketing of medical devices.

scientists and policymakers are meeting in Cape Town, South Africa this week as part of the international DIVERSITAS program of biodiversity science.

300 farmers in 60 locations across the Benin signed as part of a program supported by the Canadian government to test and implement new farming strategies to cope with the effects of climate change.

as scientists are urging the public to get vaccinated against swine flu, voices in political right and left say to the public, for different reasons, do not take the vaccine.

the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation attacked the recommendations of a federal panel that genetic testing for diseases such as cancer should not be protected by patent law, and the American ... intellectual property Law Association is meeting this week in Washington, DC

William Brown, former director of the Academy of Natural sciences of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, was appointed chairman of the Woods Hole Research Center.

The Institute of Medicine yesterday announced 65 new members and 5 new foreign partners. Most are leading researchers in biomedicine and health, but the list also includes at least two lawyers and a health journalist.

(Credit http://www.flickr.com/photos/richardwest/ / CC BY 2.0)

South African President Jacob Zuma said today unequivocally that his country had to step its fight against HIV / AIDS. "We must do more and we must do better together," Zuma said in a speech at a meeting of the National Council of the Cape provinces. "Let us resolve now that this should be the day we begin to turn the tide in the fight against AIDS."

Zuma's statements may seem mat in other countries, but they marked a sharp departure from his predecessor, Thabo Mbeki, who brought much criticism in South Africa in challenging the evidence that HIV actually caused AIDS. South Africa has 5.7 million HIV-positive people, more than any other country in the world, was notoriously slow to start using anti-HIV drugs both as treatment and as a way to slow expansion HIV, the pregnant women to their babies.

Zuma words were celebrated by researchers of HIV / AIDS, clinicians and advocates from around the world. "State supported AIDS denialism in South Africa is dead, dead, kaput, finished, gone forever banished !!!" wrote South African defender Nathan Geffen first plane in a widely distributed email. "We won! Yahoo !!! I am retiring."

pharmaceutical companies Pfizer and Parke-Davis (now a subsidiary of Pfizer) shaded results of clinical trials in at least 12 studies to make drug gabapentin seems more effective for off-label use, says a report published today in the New England Journal of Medicine .

The studies examined how well gabapentin, originally approved to help control seizures and sold as Neurontin -treats other neurological conditions such as migraines and bipolar depression. Internal documents from Pfizer and Parke-Davis said the companies have changed the standards they used to measure the effectiveness of the drug in studies, an ethical no-no. In the planning phases of studies, studies have listed the main criteria they use to judge the effectiveness of gabapentin as relieve some symptoms. These criteria are known as key results. Many studies also indicate secondary outcomes, the least important criteria to judge success.

But according to NEJM article, Pfizer and Parkes Davis later exchanged some primary and secondary outcomes, dropped certain criteria altogether when the drug does not treat a symptom, introduced new results halfway through when the drug treated a symptom unexpectedly. None of these changes was mentioned in the final scientific papers published. "All the changes that took place ... have led to a more favorable presentation in the medical literature on the effectiveness of gabapentin," the report NEJM .

The pharmaceutical companies are hardly alone in the rigging of their research results in this way A report earlier this week in Annals of Family Medicine found chicanery similar with many tests clinical :. in 110 studies in the best medical journals, primary results have changed 30% of the time, secondary results of 70% of the time.

Even critics of this practice are not immune, it seems. MedPage Today included this side bite in his history of Annals study, "the researchers [quiontmenél Annals study] noted, either with intentional irony is known that the relationship between the state and the financing of studies of changes in the measurement of results was not one of their original research questions, but they provided an analysis anyway. "

Social and Behavioural Research finally gets a portion of the high-level attention it has sought for years to the National Institutes of Health. Yesterday the NIH Director Francis Collins announced that $ 10 million in recovery money will go to support the launch of the Behavioral and Social Science Opportunity Network base -. They call it OppNet, an initiative to support and coordinate behavioral research base through the NIH

The American Psychological Society Association for Psychological Science (APS), which works with the Congress for about a decade for most behavioral science at NIH, is ecstatic about OppNet. Executive Director APS Alan Kraut says NIH Office of behavioral and social science research, which is a funding agency, "has impacted less and less over time." OppNet, to be led by Jeremy Berg, director of the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, and the National Institute on Aging director Richard Hodes, "is a much higher visibility." He will receive all the directors of the institutes together on a regular basis to discuss behavioral research needs. Although the basic behavioral research already gets about $ 1 billion a year from the NIH, Kraut said OppNet will channel money in interdisciplinary areas that have so far been ignored. NIH institutes and centers have committed to another $ 110 million in the initiative over the next five years.

Harvard University announced it will temporarily stop the construction of a life sciences complex $ 1 billion in Allston, a few miles from the main campus in Cambridge. Crews are working on basement of the building, and once they reach the ground level, probably in March, work will stop. It is unknown when construction will continue.

In a letter to Harvard on Thursday, University President Drew Gilpin Faust said that the fragile state of the global economy -y including huge hits taken by staffing-made Harvard the break needed. She also said that Harvard would consider an option to lease space in the Allston complex and other buildings.

In a separate interview, Harvard Executive Vice President Katherine Lapp provided more details on the future of Allston, including the possibility that Harvard would change the design for Allston, although it did not say how. Both Faust and Lapp said that the state of the Allston campus would not interfere with the Harvard General plans to expand its life science programs.

You might think that the cleverest thing a physicist can do with your food is to explain why toast always lands dropped buttered side down (incidentally, they can). But the UK House Committee on Science and Technology Lords today released a report noting the increasing capacity of nanotechnology, which is concerned with particles, methods and devices at the nanoscale, has become important for the food and food packaging. For example, the molecular structure of plastic beer bottles may be modified so that they retain gases such as carbon dioxide, as well as those in C this glass makes sure the next round has a foamy head.

Some, including the heir to the British throne, Prince Charles expressed concern that the union of nanotechnology and food could create unexpected dangers.

Nanoparticles can sneak through the barriers in the body unreachable to ordinary foods and could potentially enter the bloodstream and accumulate in vital organs.

Yet the Lords committee, while predictable calling for more research on the subject, concluded that there was no concrete evidence of danger "nanofoods" and identified several potential advantages, such as the possibility of a salty taste of salt by changing the size of the crystals. At the same time, the Lords recognize "huge gaps" in knowledge, including precisely define what constitutes a nanofood. "We urge the European Commission to clarify the definition of a nanoparticle in the context of food," said President John Krebs committee. "Size is not everything. You have to think how the particles interact with the body "

At a conference yesterday, Stephen Holgate, an immunologist at Southampton University Hospitals Trust and advisor to the Committee, drew attention to the potential of nano-engineering to modify the allergenic properties of food: "nanomaterials are used to enhance immunological responses in the medical world. The very limited amount of research has been done in nano-engineered versions of allergenic foods indicates they divert the immune response away from allergy, but not a single nanoparticle is the same as the next. "

Citing a desire to avoid distractions such as the disputed expense accounts, the Board of Directors of the Institute German for the quality and efficiency of health care has decided not to renew the contract embattled director Peter Sawicki. "The excellent work of the institute should not suffer" discussions on administrative procedures, the board said in a statement. The board met on Wednesday to decide whether to extend the contract of Sawicki, which ends Aug. 31, but first could not reach agreement and has delayed its decision until Friday.

If you take antibiotics, your doctor will warn you not to skip pills and continue treatment even after you start feel better. Indeed, the failure to kill insects that makes you sick can cause some of them to become resistant to antibiotics. Now, a new study explains how non-lethal concentrations of antibiotics can lead to resistance. Drugs cause the release of species referred to as reactive oxygen species (ROS) within bacteria which in turn cause mutations in the DNA of insects -. Including some who manage to cause resistance

Traditionally, the development of antibiotic resistance - a big and growing problem in medicine - was considered a passive phenomenon. random mutations occur in bacterial genomes, and the bacteria exchange random genetic elements. Occasionally, a mutation or some newly acquired DNA allows microbes to detoxify antibiotics, pumping out of cells, or render them harmless otherwise. When these bacteria are exposed to antibiotics, natural selection will allow them to replace those who do not resist.

But over the past six years, a different view has emerged, says microbiologist Jesús Blázquez of the Spanish National Research Council in Madrid. The researchers found that mutation rates in bacteria sometimes go in response to stress, in some cases, promoting resistance. Blázquez and the studies and others have shown that antibiotics themselves can cause this phenomenon, called hypermutability.

The new study, led by biologist James Collins systems Harvard University explains how this is possible. There are a few years, the group of Collins discovered that antibiotics can trigger the production of ROS, also known as free radicals, which can cause mutations in DNA. At high levels, the group found at the time, these changes have helped to kill germs. But what about non-lethal doses of antibiotics, the researchers wondered. Can they, for the release of ROS, trigger the same mutations that make them resistant bacteria?

To find out, the treated group Escherichia coli bacteria with low levels of antibiotics norfloxacin, ampicillin, and kanamycin. ROS levels of drugs increased, reports the team today Molecular Cell . Using a simple procedure for estimating the number of mutations that occur in a cell culture, the team found that higher levels of ROS leading to higher mutation rate in bacterial genomes - to increase eightfold in the case of norfloxacin. Then they showed that low-level treatments were indeed trigger resistance -. In many cases, not only against the drug itself, but a range of other antibiotics, as well

The likely explanation, said Collins, is that antibiotics are creating a "whole zoo of mutants "in a bacterial population -.. including some that are found to be resistant to one or more drugs the findings could have practical results, said Collins for example, if researchers could find molecules that prevent hypermutability, they could be combined with antibiotics to prevent or delay resistance.

the document provides more evidence that antibiotics are not only choosing certain mutations, but cause them, says molecular geneticist Susan Rosenberg at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas . "and they showed that the mechanism involved is the release of reactive oxygen species," she said. The document also reinforces how microbes are versatile, adds Blázquez. "Again, it seems that bacteria use adversity as a stimulant to fit almost everything," he said.

In 1922, a teenager with diabetes Toronto became the first person to be rescued by an insulin treatment, and since then, the injections have suffered millions of diabetics who do not do their own hormone. But there are alternatives to a lifetime of insulin therapy? A new study suggests that an anorectic hormone called leptin is just as effective as insulin to control diabetes in mice.

The discovery of insulin diabetes type 1 transformed from a fatal to a chronic disease. In this type of diabetes, the body destroys the insulin-producing cells in the pancreas, which leads to high levels of glucose in the blood. (The most common form of type 2 diabetes occurs when the body does not respond properly to its own insulin.) But the insulin treatment is not perfect. Get the insulin dose is just hard, and despite all their efforts to manage their disease, many people with diabetes suffer from serious complications, including kidney failure, blindness and limb amputation.

Diabetes researchers are considering various replacements for insulin injections: Transplanting new pancreatic islet cells that make insulin, cuddly patient's own islets to regenerate or treating diabetics early in the disease with immunosuppressive therapies to prevent their bodies to destroy the rest of their pancreatic islets. Some studies have also examined leptin; such as insulin, the hormone helps the body lower glucose levels. Last year, researchers reported that mice with a form of diabetes recovered after receiving leptin gene therapy directly into the brain.

diabetes researcher Roger Unger of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas became interested in leptin by chance. He was performing transplants of islets in diabetic rodents and found that treatment of animals with leptin helped make the transplants more effective. Unger and his colleagues then tried to give leptin solo and glucose levels in the blood of animals returned to normal, as if they had obtained new islets. "We do not believe at first," he said.

To study the effect in more detail, the Unger group took 15 diabetic mice and implanted a pump near their shoulder blades that bring high levels leptin for 12 days. They compared these animals with those treated only with insulin pumps. glucose levels returned to normal in both groups, the researchers report online today in the Acts the national Academy of sciences .

Unger and his colleagues found that leptin curbs production glucagon, a hormone that is essentially the opposite of insulin. glucagon stimulates the liver to . glucose release into the blood removing glucagon with leptin had the same effect on mice that produce insulin. it reduced glucose levels in the blood

"he is insulin substitution, "agrees Satya Kalra, a neuroscientist at the University of Florida in Gainesville who did the work of gene therapy earlier with leptin. "In type 1 diabetes, if you have more leptin, it should help." Unger believes that leptin actually has advantages over insulin, since it appears to reduce sugar fluctuations in the blood that people with diabetes struggle with.

The efficacy of leptin to combat diabetes in these animals may have been due to heavy doses given, says Laura McCabe, a physiologist at Michigan State University in East Lansing. In a study published last year with one of his graduate students, Katherine Motyl, it tests whether leptin could help ward off mice bone loss that can accompany diabetes type 1. It did not. But they found that much lower doses than those used Unger causing glucose levels to drop, but not back to normal. Unger, however, said he has had success with lower doses, too.

McCabe and Kalra agree that leptin, which was used as a treatment for certain rare metabolic diseases, would probably not have serious side effects, although weight loss is a concern: Leptin dampens significantly appetite, and mouse Unger ate 50% less than normal. (In the long run, Unger said, the mice leptin are lighter than those who receive insulin, but they have more lean body mass and less body fat.) It is also unclear whether leptin has immune effects. Unger's team and some colleagues are now preparing to test a combination of leptin and insulin in a clinical trial to determine if people with diabetes do as well as his mouse.

For women, genetic testing offers hope to better understand the likelihood that they will develop breast cancer. But reality does not match the dream, at least not yet. Scientists at the National Institute of US cancer (NCI) report today that DNA does not risk much better predict a questionnaire about breast cancer. The small improvement does not justify the cost of the introduction of technology to the clinic, they say.

In recent years, several genetic mutations have been found that increase the risk of breast cancer of a woman. The best known are two mutations in tumor suppressor genes called BRCA1 (breast cancer susceptibility gene 1) and BRCA2 , which are thought to be present in 0.3% UK population. a harmful mutation or gene increases the lifetime risk of a woman from 12% to about 60%. Eighteen other genes were discovered more subtly influencing the risk of breast cancer of a woman.

In theory, testing of these genes may enable women to make more informed choices about how often undergo routine mammograms, for example, or, more radically, either taking cancer drugs such as tamoxifen prophylaxis. These decisions are being taken by patients in consultation with clinicians, on the basis of predicted risk of cancer provided by the so-called Gail model. This model calculates risk based on the answers to seven questions, including the age at which a woman began menstruating, the age at which she had her first child, and the number of relatives with breast cancer.

To find how much genetic screening measured to the Gail model-based questions, a cancer epidemiologist at the NCI team collected data from five studies originally used to isolate cancers within genetic risk factors. Four were cohort studies in which a healthy population was genetically screened early on and followed for 15 years to see who developed breast cancer and who does not.

In the new work, published today in The New England Journal of Medicine ( NEJM ), the researchers identified from these studies 550 women have developed breast cancer and 5998 who did not. Then they retrospectively calculated a prediction of cancer risk based on the data from each woman for 10 genetic risk factors at baseline. They then asked a simple question: What is the probability that a woman chosen at random from the group which will develop cancer have a higher risk of predicting a woman chosen at random who has not? For a completely useless model, the answer would be 50%; for a perfect model, the answer would be 100%.

The answer for genetic screening was 59.7%, while the response to the Gail model based questions was 58%. By combining the two, the researchers were able to produce a model with a predictive power of 61.8%. But this combination does not affect risk prediction, also called the score much for most individual patients. "There were very, very few cases where the new score was very different from the old score," said cancer epidemiologist Patricia Hartge of the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Maryland, a co-author of the study . She and her colleagues conclude that, given the cost involved, genetic screening is not useful in a clinical setting.

Nevertheless, Hartge remains optimistic about the future. it stresses that common genetic variants that they were tested were found there under 3 years. "is not it fascinating that we get the same ability to predict them we got 40 years of painstaking research on other risk factors? "Discoveries of several mutations, including eight found since this study began, should improve the reliability of genetic testing, she said.

cancer epidemiologist Paul Pharoah from the University of Cambridge in the UK , which published a similar analysis there 2 years in NEJM based on just seven genetic risk factors, agrees that genetic testing does not add much to the Gail model. But he questions the assessment of the new document that screening must be expensive: "The cost of one of these genetic tests really is trivial," says Pharoah. Therefore, genetic testing could be a cost effective way to decide which further screen, he said.

• This article has been corrected to take account of Patricia Hartge is currently affiliated with the National Institute of the National Institutes of Health cancer and not the University George Washington.

The British Chiropractic Association (BCA) has dropped its demand for defamation against science writer Simon Singh. The move comes just weeks after an appeals court ruled that Singh's article about chiropractic, which included a disputed use of the word "wrong" was the comment, not a statement of fact.

defamation case of Singh and several other scientists about, sparked outrage among researchers and calls for reform of the libel laws of England. In a statement issued today, Singh addressed some issues related to the research, saying

English libel law is so intimidating, so expensive, so hostile to serious journalists that has a deterrent effect on all areas of debate, silence scientists, journalists, bloggers, activists of human rights and everyone who dares to address issues of serious public interest. In the field of medicine alone, fear of libel means that good research is not always published because those interests could continue, and bad research that should be removed is not fired because the authors could continue magazine, and in both cases it is the public that loses because the truth is never exposed. ...

It is important to remember that another defamation case involving continuous Medicine - Dr. Peter Wilmshurst is a consultant cardiologist who is sued for defamation raise serious concerns about the data for a new heart device. If Dr. Wilmshurst loses his case, then it will be bankrupt. It is ridiculous that a researcher like Dr. Wilmshurst respected, someone who has dedicated his life to medicine, should be put under such pressure just to speak his mind. Our defamation laws discourage physicians, scientists and journalists to speak. It is only when Peter hopefully defended his libel suit that I will be able to celebrate.

Tracey Brown, managing director of Sense About Science, a British group that supported Singh and called for reform of defamation, the statement also released, noting:

It is ridiculous that writing on an important subject as the health of children of someone being dragged before the courts for years and at such cost.

However the case of Simon shone a light into the dark corner of legal threats used to silence academics, scientists, bloggers, writers and scientists unable to sacrifice two years and £ 0,000 to defend their words. The case of a public interest legal defense is indeed done.

Sing and BCA has yet to resolve whether BCA will pay the legal fees of the writer, estimated at more than £ 0,000.

In the wake of the announcement that Walgreens would sell a DNA test over-the-counter on the saliva from Friday on Washington post reports that the drug store stopped its plans. The move comes after the Food and Drug Administration said the test needed its first authorization:

An official FDA told the Post Monday that the test required the authorization of the agency because it implied consumers collect their own DNA. Company officials disputed that, saying the test was exempted from oversight by the FDA because the test was performed in its own laboratory.

But in a letter to Pathway released by the agency on Wednesday night, James L. Woods FDA notified the company that the test "seems to fit the definition of a device" under the Federal law, making therefore subject to the opinion of the agency.

According to the press release builder Pathway Genomics (not currently available on their website, but republished here):

Insight ™ Saliva Collection Kit contains a small collection of saliva kit, simple instructions, and a postage-paid envelope that customers can use to send their saliva sample to the laboratory Pathway Genomics. From there, they simply visit the Pathway website (www.PATHWAY.com) to create their own password-protected secure account and order an individualized Genetic Insight ™ Report for the response of drugs ($ 79), pre-pregnancy planning ($ 179), health Conditions ($ 179) or a combination of three ($ 249). Genetics Insight ™ Reports Pathway offer consumers a convenient and affordable way to learn about their personal genetics.

A new study of nearly 1,000 people with autism confirmed that the genetic disease are much more idiosyncratic than some had thought . Instead of a few genes that increase the risk of autism in the population, scientists found dozens of genes that drive the disease, many of them in just one or two people. It seems that these variants share certain characteristics, however. Many are involved in cell proliferation and cell signaling in the brain

Although scientists are encouraged by this new map of the genetics of autism, they also say they have a long way to browse to discern how these genetic changes cause this particular disease.

in recent years, researchers studying autism and schizophrenia have found that the genomes of patients either are riddled with so-called copy number variants or deletions duplication of DNA segments that can include many genes. Indeed, the most dramatic of these variants in the number of copies are still visible with a microscope, as abnormalities in the chromosomes of children with undiagnosed developmental disability. Some of these pathogens changes occur spontaneously during embryonic development, while others are inherited.

The latest study, published online today in Nature , is the second phase of the Autism Genome Project Consortium, which includes more than 0 scientists in 11 countries in North America and Europe. (The first, published in 07 in Nature Genetics was a broad analysis of genetic changes and copy number variation, with fewer families and less detailed analysis of number of rare variants copies.) Here scientists scanned the genomes of 996 children with autism spectrum disorders, a group of conditions that affect social and communication skills, high resolution and compared them with children Parents of genomes and to 1287 people without the disease .

just over 5% of individuals had at least a "de novo" varying number of copies that appeared in the sperm cell or egg cell forming the embryo, or spontaneously in the fertilized egg . And number of copies inherited from relatives variants were also much more common in autistic cohort: Overall, rare variations in copy number were 19% more likely to disrupt genes in autistic children than controls

gene deletions had. great effect. Almost all of them were extremely rare showing in, at most, a handful of families. "Most people who have autism will have their own rare form," genetically speaking, says lead author Stephen Scherer, a geneticist at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, Canada.

That said, the team found that genes deleted in autistic patients tended to perform similar tasks. Many have been involved in aspects of cell proliferation, such as the formation of an organ. A number have participated in the development of the central nervous system and other in maintaining the cytoskeleton, which protects the cell and help to move.

"Those are not shots randomly in the genome" and clearly have a link with autism, says Jonathan Sebat, a geneticist at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York state. First, "you look at it and immediately became fascinated," he said, especially because when it comes to genetic analysis, autism is behind other psychiatric disorders because studies have was lower. at the same time, they are subject to the same types of genes involved in schizophrenia and related illnesses, he says, to understand how they cause autism will probably be difficult.

A new study of nearly 1,000 people with autism confirmed that the genetic disease are much more idiosyncratic than some had thought . Instead of a few genes that increase the risk of autism in the population, scientists found dozens of genes that drive the disease, many of them in just one or two people. It seems that these variants share certain characteristics, however. Many are involved in cell proliferation and cell signaling in the brain

Although scientists are encouraged by this new map of the genetics of autism, they also say they have a long way to browse to discern how these genetic changes cause this particular disease.

in recent years, researchers studying autism and schizophrenia have found that the genomes of patients either are riddled with so-called copy number variants or deletions duplication of DNA segments that can include many genes. Indeed, the most dramatic of these variants in the number of copies are still visible with a microscope, as abnormalities in the chromosomes of children with undiagnosed developmental disability. Some of these pathogens changes occur spontaneously during embryonic development, while others are inherited.

The latest study, published online today in Nature , is the second phase of the Autism Genome Project Consortium, which includes more than 0 scientists in 11 countries in North America and Europe. (The first, published in 07 in Nature Genetics was a broad analysis of genetic changes and copy number variation, with fewer families and less detailed analysis of number of rare variants copies.) Here scientists scanned the genomes of 996 children with autism spectrum disorders, a group of conditions that affect social and communication skills, high resolution and compared them with children Parents of genomes and to 1287 people without the disease .

just over 5% of individuals had at least a "de novo" varying number of copies that appeared in the sperm cell or egg cell forming the embryo, or spontaneously in the fertilized egg . And number of copies inherited from relatives variants were also much more common in autistic cohort: Overall, rare variations in copy number were 19% more likely to disrupt genes in autistic children than controls

gene deletions had. great effect. Almost all of them were extremely rare showing in, at most, a handful of families. "Most people who have autism will have their own rare form," genetically speaking, says lead author Stephen Scherer, a geneticist at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, Canada.

That said, the team found that genes deleted in autistic patients tended to perform similar tasks. Many have been involved in aspects of cell proliferation, such as the formation of an organ. A number have participated in the development of the central nervous system and other in maintaining the cytoskeleton, which protects the cell and help to move.

"Those are not shots randomly in the genome" and clearly have a link with autism, says Jonathan Sebat, a geneticist at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York state. First, "you look at it and immediately became fascinated," he said, especially because when it comes to genetic analysis, autism is behind other psychiatric disorders because studies have was lower. at the same time, they are subject to the same types of genes involved in schizophrenia and related illnesses, he says, to understand how they cause autism will probably be difficult.

He was just an excerpt of news, reported by an obscure journal in the Netherlands. Yet he enlightened the Internet. Twitter was atwitter, mailboxes scientists from both sides of the Atlantic began to fill, and dozens of bloggers started jubilating. "It happened. I can not tell you all that this change in the world we have known for 25 years," a patient wrote on his blog. "Now to work on the part of the justification!"

The reason for all the excitement? Scientists at the US National Institute of Health (NIH) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have confirmed the link, first published in Science last year between a human retrovirus and the elusive condition known as chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS). Earlier this year, three other groups said they were unable to replicate such a connection. That federal scientists confirmed now, it was huge mood lifter for patients, many of whom are desperate to find a biological cause and a cure for their debilitating disease.

But the story was not that simple. Science has learned that a paper describing the new findings, already accepted by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences ( PNAS ), was put on hold because she directly contradicts another as- yet unpublished study by a third government agency, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). This paper, a scientist said retrovirus, has been subjected to Retrovirology and is also waiting; We do not find a link between xenotropic-related murine leukemia virus virus (XMRV) and CFS. The contradiction has caused "nervousness" both PNAS and among senior officials of the Ministry of Health and Social Services, the three organizations are members, said a scientist with inside knowledge.

debate on XMRV began in 09 when a group of researchers led by Judy Mikovits of the Whittemore Peterson Institute (WPI) for Neuro-Immune Disease in Reno, Nevada, reported in science find traces of the virus in peripheral blood mononuclear cells, a type of white blood cells, 67% of CFS patients. In contrast, only 3.4% of healthy controls have been found to harbor the virus. The team also showed that XMRV can infect human cells and found that the virus had previously been linked to prostate cancer may play a role in the onset of CFS ( Science , the October 23, 09, p. 585).

many scientists were skeptical, however, and in May science published three technical comments that have tried drilling holes in the study, with a rebuttal by Mikovits and first author Francis Ruscetti the National Cancer Institute. At the moment, two groups in the UK and the Netherlands were also published papers failing to find a link; in fact, they found little or no XMRV infection signs at all, either in patients or in healthy people. Three other groups, two US and one from Europe, also reported negative results at the meetings, said Kim McCleary, president of the chronic fatigue and immune dysfunction Association of America's syndrome, a group patient advocacy.

FDA-NIH paper offer new hope that Mikovits is something after all, but until now the details of the work are rare. Ortho, a Dutch magazine about the nutritional and dietary supplements, last week issued a press release saying that Harvey Alter, a renowned virologist at the Clinical Center of the NIH, mentioned the study when he gave a lecture during a blood safety meeting in the Croatian capital Zagreb in late May In his PowerPoint presentation, Alter writes that data to the scientific study in 09 "are extremely strong and likely true, despite the controversy." Another bullet point said: "We (FDA and NIH) have independently confirmed the Lombardi group findings." (Vincent Lombardi WPI was the first author of the paper.) But the statement offered no details beyond this tantalizing summary, and a spokesman said NIH Alter is not available for comment.

Meanwhile, a working group with retrovirologist William Switzer at CDC, which has an independent study, held her closer to his chest cards. But Science spoke to several scientists who say they saw the data, and they are negative. Although it is not unprecedented for government scientists to be on opposite ends of a scientific debate, two contradictory press releases on an issue like flashpoint CFS would seem strange, scientists say. With the deferred publication, "they want to know what's going on first," said a researcher who said he was informed of the controversy.

Last week, the AABB, an international association of blood banks, has recommended to its members that they discourage CFS patients blood donation. A special working group on XMRV conceded that the evidence was preliminary, but decided it was "prudent" to err on the side of caution, said member of the working group Louis Katz, medical director at the regional blood center Mississippi Valley in Davenport, Iowa. "If [XMRV] turns out to be important," said Katz, "I do not want be criticized for doing nothing when I could do something. "

(This story is adapted from a longer in July 2 issue of Science. )