Health Meaning

When Judy Mikovits, a well known researcher for his controversial studies linking a mouse retrovirus to chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), was imprisoned on a felony charge of being a fugitive from justice, she could defend themselves behind bars and his criminal lawyer chose not to comment. But now she has a new lawyer, Scott Freeman, and he has much to say about his case. "She maintains her innocence and we expect to aggressively defend," said Freeman, who is based in Reno, Nevada. "Clearly, she is not someone who is a criminal."

Mikovits is charged with possession of stolen property from the Whittemore Peterson Institute for Neuro-Immune Disease (WPI) which is located on the campus of the University of Nevada, Reno. Mikovits worked on WPI for 4 years before being fired in September for insubordination. She helped bring the WPI rising to fame with a report she co-author who ran in Science 2 years ago that linked a mouse retrovirus called XMRV to CFS.

According to an affidavit of a police officer on campus that led to his arrest warrant, she told a laboratory assistant to "smuggle his old office" and retrieve laboratory notebooks , laptop, flash drives and correspondence belonging to the institute. on November 18, Mikovits, who lives in Ventura, California, was arrested and jailed on a felony charge of being a fugitive from justice. bail was set at $ 100,000 in cash. "The outside original mandate was extremely dramatic to have a single cash deposit of $ 100,000 for someone who has no history of being a risk to the community or a flight risk, "says Freeman." So these are very important issues that we will be investigating. Why is she not treated like everyone else? "

Mikovits made bail on 22 November, and turned on laboratory notebooks disputed the police of Ventura County. She went to Reno the next day and went to the prison of Washoe County, which was released on his own recognizance.

Freeman argued that, legally speaking, it is immaterial how she got the matter in controversy. "the question is whether she had the criminal intent to permanently deprive the Institute of property that belonged to them, "he said, adding that he hopes to get the case dismissed.

Mikovits is also the subject of a civil case filed Nov. 4 by WPI on the same property, which he said has been "hijacked". In this case, WPI alleges that she "orchestrated" the theft of property and submitted laboratory assistant's affidavits said he took the matter at its instigation. A civilian lawyer for Mikovits initially denied that it had equipment.

Mikovits will arraignment hearing on January 10, but Freeman said he will simply ask for a new hearing date. "Part of the challenge of representing someone like her is basically that we take a scientist with vast powers and try to educate as a client on what is to be a defendant in a criminal case" says Freeman. "This is an area that she never thought she would be in in his life , and she fights for her life."

Embattled researcher Judy Mikovits lost an important round in court yesterday in a civil suit that his former employer filed against it over alleged "misappropriation" laboratory notebooks and computer data.

Mikovits, who shot to fame in 09 for a disputed study that linked a mouse retrovirus to chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), seems to have frustrated a judge of Nevada, who said she had "mocked" his order return the disputed property to the applicant, the Whittemore Peterson Institute for Neuro-immune Disease (WPI) in Reno. Mikovits, who is also facing related criminal charges for possession of stolen property, returned some notebooks and a laptop after being briefly imprisoned. But WPI filed an affidavit of a computer expert who said that all the files were deleted recently on the laptop. WPI lawyer Ann Hall also argues that Mikovits returned only 18 laptops, retaining a half-dozen that include experiments between 06 and 09. Lawyers for Mikovits did not respond to interview requests.

After a flurry of motions were filed by each party, Brent Adams judge in the Second Court of the judicial district in Washoe County ruled in favor of WPI, who shot Mikovits in September for insubordination. In essence, the "default judgment" judge rejected Mikovits responses to the complaint and confirmed all allegations of WPI, including breach of contract and misappropriation of trade secrets. "It's surprising," said judge Hall "striking" the Mikovits response, noting that the judge noted that he never took this step in his 22 years on the bench. In general, judges give a decision point by point on merit answers a defendant to comply. Mikovits attended the hearing but did not testify.

In court documents, Mikovits pleaded the Fifth Amendment right not to testify against oneself. Room charge as the Fifth Amendment defense "was too broad and the nature of an abuse of process."

Temple said it is unclear whether WPI will never recover the property it seeks, and the civil case will now focus on the damage. WPI has yet to tell the court the value of the property in question, and no future court date was set for the damages hearing interests

updated December 22. Scott Freeman, lawyer Mikovits in his criminal case, said the judgment was "wonderful" when it comes to his defense against the charges levied against his client. "WPI not win because they have a judge or jury to decide the merits in their favor," said Freeman. "They win by default, literally. An analysis of criminal defense, there has never been tried on the merits." According to Freeman, frustration due mainly to judge lawyer with the civil fault Mikovits meet specific deadlines.

Freeman predicted that attempts to WPI to recover significant damage will not succeed. "Judy is not the Whittemores," he said, referring to Annette and Harvey Whittemore, who used part of their personal wealth to help start WPI. "She has no money. And you can not get water from a stone."

He says he tries to have his criminal case dismissed. But even if he does not succeed, Freeman said. "I am very optimistic about his defense" If this trial goes ahead, he hopes it will be around the beginning of spring

In a statement released today on the websites of Nature and science a group of 39 influenza researchers announced a moratorium of two months on studies that avian H5N1 strain of the flu more transmissible between mammals. The moratorium is to allow time for an international debate on such research, some people say has the potential to help bioterrorism.

Science Insider spoke to Ron Fouchier of Erasmus MC in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, who made one of two studies that triggered international debate. (The document is currently in review Science .) The responses of Fouchier were translated from Dutch and edited for clarity and brevity.

Q: Who took the initiative of this ad

RF: The initiative came from Adolfo García-Sastre [an influenza researcher at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City who has a grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) that funded Fouchier's study] Yoshihiro Kawaoka [dontleH5N1étudedanslapresseà Nature , was also considered by the National Advisory Council of the US science for biosecurity (NSABB)] and myself. We discussed with a group of about 10 scientists doing similar studies them; so we asked for another 30 or flu researchers who do not work on these studies, but could do if they wanted to sign. They all agreed wholeheartedly. It is therefore not a Fouchier show. It is an initiative that is supported very broadly.

Q: Why did you take this step now

RF: We have been informed by various organizations, and of course we have followed the press coverage and political debates. We had the impression, based partly on the advice of others, it would be reasonable to announce a moratorium.

Q: Which third party

R.F :. The agencies that fund our research, but also governments that we are talking to. As happens when it makes sense to pause, to give the infectious diseases field time to think about and talk about how to handle this type of research in the future. This research offers opportunities and challenges, and governments and organizations need time to react.

Q: Did you do this because if you do not do that, governments could move to stop the search

RF: The debate is so controversial that we can not rule that out. We prefer to have everyone take a break to think carefully about how to handle this.

Q: But have you received clear signals that there could be a ban of some sort

RF: We don ' have no clear signals that something will happen, but you get the signals in the press, experts and consultants, and these signals reach both governments. We see articles in Michael Osterholm [director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, and an influenza expert], and people like Laurie Garrett, Pulitzer Prize [and a Senior Fellow for Global Health at the Council on Foreign Relations]. And then there are the biosafety experts at the University of Pittsburgh, as Thomas Inglesby. ... And [smallpox eradication leader] D. A. Henderson was very vocal. All these people can have a strong impact on the White House and elsewhere.

Q: How do you feel about the moratorium you

R.F:. It is a pity that it should get there. I would have preferred if it has not caused so much controversy, but it has happened and we can not change that. So I think it is the right step to make. It is comparable to what happened in 1975 at the Asilomar Conference. But I think this has been driven more by the scientists themselves; this time is mostly public controversies that animate.

Q: Do you have ideas on how the debate on these studies should be organized and who should participate

RF: I think it should be a series of debates. A couple is already on track. As we said in our statement, a meeting will be organized in the next two weeks, I hope, will include the participation of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the US government. The [American Society for Microbiology] held a plenary meeting at its biodefense meeting next month. The New York Academy of Sciences meeting. People need to talk, and infectious disease specialists need to take the microphone and explain why this research is important and how you can do it safely.

Q: Does the extent of the controversy that has surprised you? If you planned this when you talked about the study at a meeting in Malta in September

RF: When we presented this, of course we expected there would be some agitation, and we would have to explain to the public and the press why we do this and how you can do it safely.

I think we did very well in the Netherlands. We were very proactive; before we submitted the paper for publication, we informed all competent authorities, so they knew what was going on and had time to prepare, and when the story began to tour in uS media, we spent three days talking to newspapers, TV, and radio. And pinched the debate in the bud. In the US, this has not occurred. And the people who are most vocal in the press are experts in biosafety. It is a pity that so few people in the field of flu jumped in front of cameras, particularly in the US

Q: Does the NSABB recommendations take you by surprise

RF: Absolutely. It was something that was unprecedented and something I did not count at all.

NSABB said the risks outweigh the benefits, and now many people say: In this case, you should not do this research at all. This is a very logical answer. But the infectious disease community does not agree with NSABB about it. NSABB that should better explain what the risks are exactly. How bioterrorism have we seen in the past? What are the chances that bioterrorist will recreate these viruses? And is it true that the publication of this research would bioterrorist or rogue nations an advantage? That's what I like to hear the NSABB.

Q: You think he does not give them an advantage

RF: No, because bioterrorist can not make this virus, it is too complex, it takes a lot of expertise. And rogue nations that have the ability to do it, do not need our information. So I do not think they will benefit from this information at all. Meanwhile, NSABB gives very little credit to the benefits of public health, while the community of the whole flu crying how important this is. For them, the balance of risks and benefits is very different from the NSABB.

Q: But NSABB several researchers of infectious diseases among its members, including Osterholm, a flu expert himself. And they hired Robert Webster, a flu researcher at St. Jude Children's Hospital in Memphis, as a special adviser.

R.F :. The question is whether it was enough or if they would have had to ask several influenza experts. If they had asked someone like Peter Palese of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, you would have had a very different answer. If you read his piece in Nature -I think he was quite right.

Osterholm, in his article [published yesterday with Henderson] in Science has a very fatalistic attitude. He says countries in Asia, Africa and the Middle East are unable to do surveillance, so they do not need data from our paper. It's too fatalistic. It would be better to say: How can we help these countries to develop a decent surveillance system? Osterholm also said the data make no difference to the development of vaccines. Which is really based on anything. So if this is the specialist of influenza within NSABB, I would like to see someone with a more positive attitude.

Q: How moratorium affect search to your own laboratory

RF: Of course we were working to confirm which mutations cause the virus become transmissible by aerosol. This will stop now; we're almost done with this, but not quite. We worked to find out what biological properties of the virus are associated with mutations that we found. The biological properties of the virus are far more important than the changes themselves.

Q: What are the biological properties tell you

RF: In an article Current Opinion in Virology we said that we thought there were a number of things that could make a virus transmissible bird flu among mammals. At the time, that was purely hypothetical. We said the virus probably has to do better in the upper respiratory tract that deep inside the lungs; it must bind to certain receptors in mammals; it must reproduce in large quantities, to increase the chances of transmission; it must be stable in the small droplets, and so on.

Now that we have these mutations, we can examine each of these steps to see if they occur. And you will see that for each step, there are several options, the most possible mutations that only those we have found so far. So this is very important.

Something else that needs to happen is to assess existing vaccines and antiviral drugs. So far we have only looked at in vitro if the characteristics of these viruses represent existing vaccine strains, and if the virus is susceptible to antiviral drugs. We have not tried in our animal model.

Q: You also want to repeat the experiments with more H5N1 strains

R.F :. Yes. We did it with a genetic lineage of H5N1. The question is whether all the lines can become aerosol-transmissible. If they can not, if it is just that line, maybe you can focus on the region where it comes and try to stop H5N1 outbreaks there to prevent a pandemic. If this can happen anywhere, you have to work everywhere.

Q: Would you also do similar studies in other strains of avian influenza, including H7N7?

R.F :. This is certainly something we would like to do in the long term. But it has a much lower priority because we do not see the H7N7 outbreak at the moment, and we're certainly not going to do it soon; I do not think that would be wise.

Q: Have you had requests from other laboratories to share the virus that you created

R.F :. Not explicitly. Everyone understands that this is not the right time to ask.

Q: But if they ask, what would you

RF: I have an agreement with our lender, NIAID, if such requests were made, I'll discuss it with them. So I can not decide myself.

Q: Andrew Pekosz recently said Science a moratorium would be especially harmful to young scientists who do the work of actual laboratory. Do you see that as a problem?

R.F :. I think this is a small problem compared with other issues. I have a postdoc here Sander Herfst, who worked hard on this for 4 years and for which a tremendous breakthrough in his career is on hold. But these are individual cases. I think the impact of NSABB recommendations for life sciences are much more important. If we get tough new guidelines for the screening of proposals, I think that could hinder the life sciences for years.

Q: In a policy forum that you co-wrote and which was published yesterday on Science Web site of the, you say you can not promise always keep the key details of your paper secret. Under what circumstances you decide to reveal them?

R.F :. Well, Science and we said that we will try to follow the recommendations of the NSABB. The US government is now looking for a mechanism to share key information with people who have a legitimate need to see, but it is far from easy; there are all sorts of legal questions. So that this mechanism will look like and that this information can be shared with is very clear.

Meanwhile, the WHO said: This research is super important, but it is equally important that the data is shared, or it could mean the end of Pandemic preparation influenza framework . And rightly so, because this part is very important for the monitoring systems. Suppose fall if, for any reason this manuscript could not be shared with certain people. Then we have to discuss with the government of the United States and WHO. This could occur. Again, you need to weigh the benefits and risks.

Moreover, as researchers, we work very closely with people in Indonesia. It would be very unwise for us not to share our results with our close collaborators.

Q: So if researchers are not approved for use of the sharing mechanism ...

RF: I do not know who will be driving this mechanism and what arguments would be to deny access to certain people. But if the result is that I can not share the details with my staff, I have a problem. This kind of situation can occur. So we will give the US government and the NSABB the chance to put a mechanism in place, and we expect that they come with. But we can not say now that we will never share this information.

Q: When do you think you will know more about this mechanism and the publication of your article

RF: The previous deadline was the end of January, but from what I heard, the US government has requested an extension of 4 weeks. So I think it will be the end of February.

Q: Are you in contact with Yoshihiro Kawaoka

R.F :. on a daily basis.

Q: You've been all over the news while remaining completely silent. Would not you have preferred to make the case for these studies together?

R.F :. We both made a conscious choice to do what we did. I feel the responsibility to defend my point of view and respond to these media calls. And of course, I made that decision when I decided to go to Malta. He did not talk about his work at a meeting, so what he did is still under wraps in this paper Nature . And I can understand his decision; he has two laboratories to perform, one in Japan and one in the US Frankly, the last 3 months, I only politics, the press, and things like that fact. I have more time to my knowledge.

The Whittemore Peterson Institute for Neuro-Immune Disease (WPI), well known to a study published by the retracted science in 09 that linked a mouse retrovirus to chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), will continue to receive US government funding for one, 5-year grant of $ 1.5 million to study the disease .

WPI, based in Reno, Nevada, has lost the grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), because in September he shot Judy Mikovits, the principal investigator of the grant. WPI then filed a complaint against Mikovits for goods that have been hijacked, and it has also become the subject of a related criminal case which led to his arrest and brief incarceration. Mikovits maintained his innocence and both cases are still before the courts. Harvey Whittemore and his wife, Annette, who founded WPI, are defendants in a lawsuit filed against them by his former business partners who claim that the couple improperly used funds of a holding company he co-ownership for support their institute. They denied the charges.

members NIAID staff visited WPI 15 December and assessed the qualifications of the researcher Vincent Lombardi, a co-author of the paper retracted who still works at the institute. NIAID formally approved Lombardi as the new principal investigator yesterday, noting that he had the "technical know-how and experience directly applicable to studies of Goal 2 of the grant," which focuses on the genetic susceptibility to disease and dysregulation of the immune system. Objective 1 was to identify and confirm the new virus related to CFS.

the National Institutes of Health, the parent organization of NIAID in 2010 spent about 6 $ million on research for the CFS, an amount patient advocates argue is insufficient for a disease that affects about 1 million to 4 million Americans alone. relatively scarce subsidy completed the WPI initiative to study CFS began in September 09, the month before the controversial Science report was issued, and ends in August 2014.

Craig Thompson, chair of the Cancer Center Memorial Sloan-Kettering in New York yesterday, was hit with a second lawsuit alleging that it made a bad business deal to exploit research on the metabolism of cancer cells.

The University of Pennsylvania has filed a lawsuit in US federal court in Manhattan accusing Thompson-old Penn employee failed to share intellectual property of its findings with the university as it was required to do so. Instead, the Penn claims, Thompson released the results of its group of cancer variant cellular enzymes in Nature and Cancer Cell while helping a private company seeking patents on discoveries. This repeats certain costs of a complaint in December, when Thompson was sued by Leonard and Madlyn Abramson Family Institute, part of a research university on the transaction related cancer Thompson previously directed. He was accused of sharing intellectual property with bad company he helped launch, Agios Pharmaceuticals of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Penn and the Abramson center Agios both included as a defendant.

In her complaint, Penn alleges that Thompson violated the rules on the university's patents and "breached its fiduciary duty to the university" by "failing to disclose to the research and discoveries academics. "instead, she claims, he shared the results with Agios, which filed patents, and disclosed his work in international journals," at the expense of the university. "

Agios, with $ in outside support 150 million, hopes to develop new therapies based on this research

in response, Thompson said. "I believe that the allegations in the complaint Penn is unfounded, both in fact and law. I am very disappointed that Penn chose to file its lawsuit without making any effort to talk with me or know the real facts before filing a suit that night unjustly my reputation. " A spokesman said that Agios Agios "believes he has done nothing wrong ... and fully expects to be justified."

The revolution continues with a study on the health of 21 proposed 100,000 American children known national study Children (NCS). Last Friday, a leading biostatistician who is a member of the NCS advisory committee resigned, just two weeks after another member of the committee resigned. Both are angry about a sudden change in the sampling design of the study.

In an email dated March 16, Jonas Ellenberg University of Pennsylvania presented his resignation to the NCS director Steven Hirschfeld at the National Institute of Child Health and Development (NICHD) . His note contains no explanation, but said: "I urge that the NCS to be examined again by the Institute of Medicine, as I believe that the current view of the NICHD NCS does not reflect the study design parameters reviewed and approved by the IOM in 08. "the reference is to an IOM report that praised the NCS plan to recruit pregnant women living in a statistical sample of 100 US counties. email Ellenberg was reported on Nature blog.

the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has decided that this geographical approach is too expensive. instead, the agency wants to reduce 15% from the current $ 193 million NCS budget in 2013 by recruiting by health care providers, which could mean health maintenance organizations (HMO). "the registered population is no longer a national probability sample but, instead, a well-described cohort followed longitudinally "or many years, a budget document said (see pp. 34-35).

Ellenberg said Science Insider that he resign because the advisory committee was not informed of this proposed change in the sampling plan. "We were told nada" says Ellenberg. "If we are not there to give advice about magnitude of a change, I do not know why we're here."

Ellenberg say that it is not necessarily opposed to a sample-based supplier, which could still be nationally representative. (this could mean randomly sample the nation's health care providers, simple medical practices to large HMO). the population Association of America, which represents demographers, says NIH in a letter on March 6 that its members would support a sample based on the supplier if it is done "very carefully" and not let groups such as immigrants and the uninsured . "Nothing less than a national probability sample of compromising data quality," says the letter.

A Johns Hopkins University environmental health researcher Ellen Silbergeld resigned from the advisory committee on March 5, as reported by Nature blog. She told Science Insider that his impression is that the study will not use a "consistent pattern" of recruitment but will instead use a "mix and community studies based on supplier" who will no data that can be compared between sites. "I do not think it will be scientifically valid," she said.

Some followers of the NCS, including Ellenberg, are also concerned about another issue : the NICHD terminates the contracts of seven centers "vanguard" which enrolled pregnant wife for a pilot study and plans to transform their operations to a single national contractor this summer.

Questions about NCS could come tomorrow and next week in the House of Representatives and the Senate hearings on the 2013 budget of the NIH. An article today about the loss of a South Dakota State University contract (SDSU) $ 13.1 million, 5 years for the center of avant-garde of his condition shows what is at stake for some districts Congress. SDSU expects to lose 27 full-time and eight part-time jobs. Many postdocs and graduate students will also be affected.

The loss of the contract will be "a very substantial loss" for both the university and the local community, Vice President for Research Kevin Kephart said SDSU The Brookings Register . And the Dakotas not HMO, they would be left out of an HMO-based study, the article points out.

chemotherapy drugs are like a shotgun. Although doctors are only intended for tumors, the compounds hit a variety of other places in the body, leading to effects such as damage to the bone marrow and the side hair loss. To improve their goal, researchers have tried to pack these drugs inside small hollow nano-sized containers that can be directed to tumors and bypass healthy tissue. But the size, shape, and composition of these "nanoparticles" can affect considerably when and where they are taken. Now, scientists have identified the landscape of some 100 different formulations of nanoparticles and found that when a conventional chemotherapeutic drug is packaged in the best of these nanoparticles, it is much more effective against prostate cancer in animals the single drug.

The new findings are the first to show promise of therapeutic nanoparticles against cancer. Nearly a dozen of these tiny drug carriers are already in clinical trials. But researchers are still struggling to adjust the size and composition of nanoparticles that work best for conveying drugs to tumors. So for their study, a team of 30 researchers led by chemical engineer Robert Langer of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, physician-researcher Omid Farokhzad of Harvard Medical School, and biochemical engineer Stephen Zale BIND Biosciences in Cambridge, Massachusetts, decided to adopt a more systematic approach.

Rather than looking at all types of biomaterials from which their particles, the researchers started with six different already approved materials for use by the Food and Drug Administration of the United States, as well as freight anticancer compound already approved called docetaxel. Then they ranged from 10 different factors, including the particle size in which they trapped docetaxel, the density of chemical groups used to wrap the particles of the immune system, additional surface-active compounds used to target the particles to tumor cells interest, the amount of docetaxel they wore, and how fast the particles decomposed and released their cargo.

After a preliminary assessment of more than 100 different drugs nanoparticle formulations, Langer and colleagues installed on a design containing particles of 100 nanometers made from a combination of a biodegradable polymer known as name PLA and a coating of PEG, other polymer which readily binds water molecules and helps hide the particles of the immune system. Some of the PEG chains were also capped with copies of a small molecule called ACUPA which binds to the receptor molecules overexpressed on the surface of cancer cells in the prostate.

Tests on mice, rats and monkeys have shown that delivering docetaxel in nanoparticles produced plasma drug concentrations over a period of 24 hours at 100 times higher than standard docetaxel injections made; 10 times more drug accumulated in tumors, as well. And in an early clinical safety trial of 17 people, the researchers found the drug accumulation in tumors and clinical effects at doses as low as 20% of the docetaxel dose normally prescribed, as they report online today Science Translational Medicine . Additional clinical trials are now testing higher doses, and no new toxicities have been observed to date.

"It is an important result and a great direction to go in," said Joseph DeSimone, an expert chemist and drug nanoparticle at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. The study shows that delivering drugs within nanoparticles has the potential to improve the effectiveness of many conventional anticancer drugs and other therapeutic agents that are limited by side effects, he said: "When you change where the deposition of the drug, you basically change the outcome. "

AMSTERDAM -After an international meeting of scientists and security experts on Monday, the Dutch government said that it can decide quickly whether virologist Ron Fouchier of Erasmus MC in Rotterdam is eligible for an export license that would allow him to resubmit his controversial study transmissibility of H5N1 for publication by science .

Fouchier, for his part, said he decided today to apply for an export license, required for so-called dual-use technology, after a meeting with his co-authors, the board Erasmus MC, and lawyers. But the application to specify that the researchers dispute the obligation to do so, a legal construction that Fouchier says will avoid creating a precedent. Fouchier is still "adamantly opposed" to the requirement of a license, he worried establish a "terrible precedent" for researchers in infectious diseases in Europe.

A government spokesman confirmed that Fouchier filed an application today and said Henk Bleker, Minister for Agriculture and Foreign Trade, is likely to make a decision "within days. " (The fact that the Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte submitted the resignation of his entire cabinet yesterday, will not delay the decision.)

The question is studying Fouchier H5N1 transmissibility in ferrets which came under surveillance by the US National science Advisory Board for biosecurity (NSABB), and a similar paper by Yoshihiro Kawaoka of the University of Wisconsin, Madison. NSABB recommended to fully publish the documents at the end of 2011, but reversed that decision last month after studying the revised manuscripts.

The Dutch government has yet to take a position if the Fouchier document should be published. Yesterday's meeting in The Hague was organized by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs and included scientists and security experts from the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, Indonesia and Vietnam, as well as representatives of the World Health Organization, Nature and science , the two journals in which manuscripts were submitted. The closed meeting was set up to gather additional information and did not lead to formal recommendations, said Marianne Donker, head of the Department of Public Health at the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sports , one of eight Dutch ministries involved in aspects of the case.

The government had already spoken at length with Fouchier and consulted two Dutch intelligence agencies. "We now have almost all the information on the table," said Donker. After the recovery NSABB, some expect the Dutch government to try to stop the publication of the document, which was also greenlighted by a group of experts convened by the World Health Organization and the US government . But the government insisted that Fouchier apply for a license to export first.

Last night Donker and Fouchier clashed during a public debate organized by the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences here, where Fouchier was struggling to hide his exasperation. "This is pure censorship, as far as I'm concerned," he said. Donker, meanwhile, asked Fouchier "not to let this degenerate case." "We would like to continue this process with Ron as we're supposed to," she said.

At the heart of their argument is the government's opinion that Fouchier needs an export license to publish the document or even post it on the laboratory website, where it would be accessible to readers outside the Netherlands. the government bases the decision on a regulation of the European Union 09 and a corresponding Dutch law prohibiting the export of certain goods and technologies that could be used for good or evil. an Annex to the Regulation stipulates that the prohibition includes H5N1 and technologies related to the virus and many other human pathogens, animals and plants. But the Regulation provides a exemption for "basic scientific research", defined as "experimental or theoretical work undertaken primarily to acquire new knowledge of the fundamental principles of phenomena or observable facts, not primarily directed towards a specific practical aim or objective."

Fouchier said her study falls into this category, because it is interested in the fundamental question of what makes the flu virus transmissible between mammals. Furthermore, the invocation of the government's export control rules to prevent the publication of an unprecedented document Fouchier said, and he warned that if the Dutch interpretation of EU regulations door the day, work many European researchers could be paralyzed

Donker emphasized that Fouchier himself has always insisted on the practical benefits of its findings may have. - -To Help prevent pandemics to test drugs and vaccines against the H5N1 pandemic strains. "This is not basic research. It is directly applicable," she said.

Fouchier presented his data earlier in the day in The Hague, as did Kawaoka. present to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, was also longtime collaborator of Fouchier Derek Smith, a mathematician at Cambridge University, who presented the data from an epidemiological document on which Kawaoka and Fouchier collaborated. This document, also presented at the meeting NSABB in March, puts the data in the two manuscripts controversial perspective Fouchier said. A fourth presenter spoke about non-proliferation.

An international panel of experts issued recommendations today for future research on Alzheimer's disease. The recommendations will help guide the research component of the new national plan for Alzheimer announced Tuesday by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. The plan sets the ambitious goal of developing effective prevention and treatment strategies for Alzheimer's disease in 2025.

The new research strategy has been developed by experts who gathered at a summit of two days at the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland, earlier this week. The group recognizes a number of challenges on the ground, including the need to develop better experimental models and initiate clinical trials in early stages of the disease. Their recommendations include conduct more interdisciplinary research on the biological mechanisms of Alzheimer's disease and drug targets, allowing faster and extensive sharing of data and biological samples, and to encourage more public-private partnerships (the along the lines of the neuroimaging Initiative for Alzheimer's disease, biomarker successfully jointly funded development effort by the pharmaceutical industry and NIH). The group also calls for more research on non-drug interventions, such as lifestyle changes, that might prevent or slow the disease.

A financial stimulus for Alzheimer's research seems to be in the works: draft budget of President Barack Obama in 2013 includes $ 80 million in new funding. Congress has yet to weigh in on the plan.

The National Institutes of Health announced (NIH) today announced details of its $ 20 million program to find new uses for drugs abandoned-and five more participating companies. The expansion of the program brings to 58 the number of compounds shelved that academic researchers can test new applications.

Use the discovery of New therapeutic for Existing Molecules, announced in early May, is the first major initiative of the new NIH National Center for the Advancement of Science Translational (NCATS). The idea is to give university researchers access to compounds that have made through safety tests, but were abandoned by companies for commercial reasons or because they were not working on a specific disease. Initially, three companies-Pfizer, AstraZeneca and Eli Lilly offered to share 24 compounds.

Now, Abbott Laboratories, Bristol-Myers Squibb, GlaxoSmithKline, Sanofi and Janssen Pharmaceuticals signed, bringing the number of compounds to 58. NIH has published a table of compounds that links to a page on cards drugs that include the mechanism of action and clinical results summary. NIH also supports preapplications (due August 14) to grant 2 to 3 years of the program.

The program received a mixed response from experts from the pharmaceutical industry; some think that the chances of finding new uses for the compounds are slim. Others are favorable but have concerns about the NIH model legal agreements developed for companies and academics. In this letter 1 June to NCATS, the Association of American Medical Colleges said that models should be revised because they "require university partners to share data and other information with companies supplying the same compounds when IP [intellectual property] rights do not necessarily go to that information. "