Weekly News on Bioethics.net - week ending August 7, 2009

Lack of Study Volunteers May Hobble Cancer Fight
03 Aug 2009 - Not long ago, at a meeting of an advisory group established by Congress to monitor the war on cancer, participants were asked how to speed progress. The biggest barrier, in his opinion, was that almost no adult cancer patients - just 3 percent - participate in studies of cancer treatments, mostly new drugs or drug regimens.

Viral Infection May Explain Racial Differences in Oral Cancer Death Rates
03 Aug 2009 - African-American patients with head and neck cancers die earlier than whites, and researchers say they have made a breakthrough in understanding the underlying reasons for the racial gap.

August Offensive to Define Health Care Debate: Insurance Companies in the Bull's Eye
03 Aug 2009 - A potentially decisive battle to define this year's health care debate -- and the Obama Presidency -- will take place in town hall meetings, little league bleaches, and conversations on door steps near you during the August Congressional recess.The White House, its Congressional allies, and progressive organizations supporting health care reform have launched a new August offensive to write the narrative of the health care debate.

Schools Prep for Spread of Swine Flu
03 Aug 2009 - As the first day of classes approaches for some districts, school and health officials in several states are preparing for the possibility of wider outbreaks of the H1N1 virus. Swine flu, which disproportionately targets teenagers and young adults, is expected to begin spreading more rapidly when students return to the close quarters of classrooms and dormitories, county and state health officials say. They expect greater-than-usual numbers of students to seek inoculations because of widespread publicity about H1N1.

Washington Supports Exchange of Needles
03 Aug 2009 - City officials on Friday called on Congress not to reinstate a ban that prevented the nation's capital from using local money to distribute clean needles to drug users. Until 2007, when the ban was lifted, Washington was the only city in the country forbidden by Congress from using both local and federal tax dollars to distribute clean needles to drug addicts. The capital has one of the fastest-growing H.I.V. and AIDS problems in the country

F.D.A. Rejects Savient's Gout Drug
03 Aug 2009 - The Food and Drug Administration has declined to approve a gout drug developed by Savient Pharmaceuticals, the company said on Sunday. The decision was in spite of a 14-1 recommendation for approval by an F.D.A. advisory committee in June. Shares of Savient are likely to tumble on Monday.

Hepatitis Group Is Harassed in China
03 Aug 2009 - In the realm of potential threats to China's stability, an organization that advocates on behalf of people infected with hepatitis B would seem to be low risk.But on Wednesday, the group's director, Lu Jun, found himself squaring off against four security officials who were trying to cart away stacks of literature they claimed had been printed without official permission.

Chinese Workers Say Illness Is Real, Not Hysteria
03 Aug 2009 - Tian Lihua was just beginning her morning shift when she felt a wave of nausea, then numbness in her limbs and finally dizziness that gave way to unconsciousness. In the days that followed, more than 1,200 fellow employees at the textile mill where Ms. Tian works would be felled by these and other symptoms, including convulsions, breathing difficulties, vomiting and temporary paralysis.As soon as the Jilin Connell Chemical Plant started production this spring, local hospitals began receiving stricken workers from the acrylic yarn factory 100 yards downwind from Connell's exhaust stacks. On some days, doctors were overwhelmed and patients were put two to a bed.

Scientists Discover Genetic Sign of Ovarian Cancer Susceptibility
03 Aug 2009 - Scientists have discovered a common genetic difference in women at risk from ovarian cancer, in an important development they say could save lives. The newly discovered variation, which occurs in 55% of women, carries with it an increased risk of the disease of between 20 and 40%. It is the first time that a common variant has been linked to ovarian cancer, bringing with it the potential of future screening programmes.

Scientists Find New Strain of HIV
03 Aug 2009 - Gorillas have been found, for the first time, to be a source of HIV. Previous research had shown the HIV-1 strain, the main source of human infections, with 33m cases worldwide, originated from a virus in chimpanzees. But researchers have now discovered an HIV infection in a Cameroonian woman which is clearly linked to a gorilla strain, Nature Medicine reports.

Abortion Pill Approved in Italy
03 Aug 2009 - Italy's drug regulation agency has approved the use of the abortion pill RU486, also known as mifepristone, prompting protests from the Vatican.

Organ Transplant Policy Criticism
03 Aug 2009 - A policy which sees the UK share organ donations with the EU has been criticised by some people on the transplant waiting list. In the past 10 years the UK has sent more than 300 organs to other EU states, but received only 120 in return. Stewart Rankin, from Rogerstone, near Newport, believes that the disparity has added 50% to his three-year wait for a new heart.

President Obama's Health Reform Helping to Raise Awareness Around End-of-life Care Issues
03 Aug 2009 - Last Tuesday, AARP hosted a town hall meeting with President Obama to focus on the issue of health care reform. If you would like to listen to it in its entirety, here is the link. "Nobody's trying to change what does work in the system," Obama told the estimated 180,000 listeners. "We are trying to change what doesn't work in the system."

Britain to Clarify Its Assisted-Suicide Law
03 Aug 2009 - The House of Lords, Britain's highest court, delivered a landmark ruling on July 30 when it said that the nation's assisted-suicide law must be clarified to spell out the circumstances under which authorities will prosecute someone who helps another person end their life.

Replacement Teeth Grown in Mice
04 Aug 2009 - Researchers in Japan have successfully grown replacement teeth in mice, according to a report in PNAS journal.

Health Reform Demands That Lawmakers Read the Bills
04 Aug 2009 - Congress has agreed to step away from its promise to pass expansive health bills before its August recess as the president wanted.Now a slew of negative TV spots are asking lawmakers, "Have you read the bill?" Good idea; maybe the public should, too. The August recess is the perfect time for both legislators and the public to do this required summer reading.

Asperger's Syndrome, on Screen and in Life
05 Aug 2009 - The three new movies would seem to have little in common: a romantic comedy about Upper West Side singles, a biopic about a noted animal science professor, and an animated film about an extended pen-pal relationship. But all three revolve around Asperger's syndrome, the complex and mysterious neurological disorder linked to autism.

Medical Papers by Ghostwriters Pushed Therapy
05 Aug 2009 - Newly unveiled court documents show that ghostwriters paid by a pharmaceutical company played a major role in producing 26 scientific papers backing the use of hormone replacement therapy in women, suggesting that the level of hidden industry influence on medical literature is broader than previously known.

Groups Take Health-Reform Debate to Airwaves
05 Aug 2009 - The increasingly heated fight over health-care legislation is saturating the summer airwaves, with groups on all sides of the debate pouring tens of millions of dollars into advertising campaigns designed to push the cause of reform forward, slow it down or stop it in its tracks.

Oregon Gov. Signs Children's Health Care Expansion
05 Aug 2009 - Gov. Ted Kulongoski signed into law a bill that expands state health care access to nearly every child in Oregon.

Blood Procedure Allows Kidney Transplants, Can Help Minorities
06 Aug 2009 - Surgeons at two Washington hospitals have performed seven kidney transplants involving 14 recipients and donors who did not match, using a process that virtually eliminates the chances of organ rejection.The process, called plasmapheresis, can make it easier for underserved African-American patients to receive organs for transplant.

In China, DNA tests on kids ID genetic gifts, careers
06 Aug 2009 - At the Chongqing Children's Palace, experts are hoping to revolutionize child-rearing with the help of science. About 30 children aged 3 to 12 years old and their parents are participating in a new program that uses DNA testing to identify genetic gifts and predict the future.When Director Zhao Mingyou first heard about the technology earlier this year, he instantly knew it could be a success in China.

To Fight Cancer, Know the Enemy
06 Aug 2009 - THE National Cancer Institute, which has overseen American efforts on researching and combating cancers since 1971, should take on an ambitious new goal for the next decade: the development of new drugs that will provide lifelong cures for many, if not all, major cancers. Beating cancer now is a realistic ambition because, at long last, we largely know its true genetic and chemical characteristics.

FDA Recruits Bioethicist Charo to Its Top Ranks
06 Aug 2009 - Bioethics expert R. Alta Charo is joining the U.S. Food and Drug Administration as a senior adviser to FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg. In an interview Wednesday, Hamburg said that Charo will be involved in many cutting-edge fields. "I expect that we will quickly make use of her as we think about strategies on how to address the review of products in the arena of personalized medicine, in-vitro diagnostics, stem-cell therapies, where she's already done important work," Hamburg said.

Health Care Debate Steers Into Abortion, Euthanasia
06 Aug 2009 - Health care reform was initially stalled by concerns over who would pay for covering millions of the uninsured, but now forces long involved in social issues have jumped vigorously into the debate

Television Viewing Linked to Blood Pressure Increases in Children
06 Aug 2009 - Children who spend a lot of time watching television have higher blood pressure than those who watch less, even if the children are thin and get enough exercise, according to new research.

Quick Tests for the Flu Found Often Inaccurate
06 Aug 2009 - As the swine flu spreads, many doctors and hospitals are turning to rapid tests that can determine within minutes whether an anxious patient has the flu. Sales of such tests are soaring.

Italian Court Rejects Scientists' Plea to Fund Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research
06 Aug 2009 - Three Italian scientists have lost the first round of what may be a lengthy legal challenge to their government's decision to exclude human embryonic stem cell work from a call for stem cell proposals, even though such research is legal in Italy. On Friday, 19 July, just 3 days before the deadline for submitting grant proposals, an administrative court in Rome backed up the government's position and rejected the scientists' appeal.