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Drop In Access To Abortion Would Reward Antiabortion-Rights Violence, Opinion Piece Says
After the murder last month of Kansas abortion provider George Tiller, "there is a very real danger" that the availability of abortion later in pregnancy "will end in this country -- not after public deliberation, legislative debate and majority vote, but because antiabortion absolutists on the fringe have intimidated and blacklisted doctors and successfully threatened violence against them," Jim Buie, author of the blog The Buie Knife, writes in a Newsweek.com opinion piece. Buie writes that his parents in the early 1950s chose to institutionalize his three-year-old-brother, who was born with severe Down syndrome, after their attempts to care for him left them with "severe emotional distress" and unable "to meet the needs of their healthy children."Buie continues that he "cannot say that the option of a late-term abortion would have been the right one for my parents." However, "some of the arguments advanced by pro-life forces disturb me," he says, especially a "tendency to romanticize, sentimentalize and idealize life with a cute, forever-young Down-syndrome "angel child."" Buie adds, "It"s an argument I find off-putting, especially when it"s espoused by people who have never been through the wringer trying to care for a child whose disability level is on the most severe end of the scale." He continues, "At the same time, it is very disturbing that until recently, the majority of Down-syndrome fetuses were aborted without expectant mothers receiving proper information or support."Because of Tiller"s murder, it is "possible there won"t be any doctors in the country willing to perform" abortion later in pregnancy, "even if prenatal tests indicate severe retardation," according to Buie, who adds that this would mean that "domestic terrorism could win." He concludes, "It would mean that parents like my own would no longer have a choice, and would instead be forced to endure the same harsh realities that were present in the 1950s" (Buie, Newsweek.com, 6/17).
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Data Suggest Sodium Oxybate Significantly Improves Pain And The Core Symptoms Of Fibromyalgia
Jazz Pharmaceuticals" (Nasdaq: JAZZ) sodium oxybate (JZP-6) demonstrated statistically significant and clinically meaningful improvement in pain and the core symptoms associated with fibromyalgia, according to Phase III data presented last week at the 2009 Associated Professional Sleep Societies meeting in Seattle, WA. These data have not been evaluated by the FDA or other regulatory authorities for use of sodium oxybate in the treatment of fibromyalgia.
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Pfizer Discontinues SUN 1094 Trial Of Sunitinib Plus Paclitaxel In Advanced Breast Cancer
Pfizer Inc announced the discontinuation of the SUN 1094 Phase 3 study that evaluated SUTENT® (sunitinib malate) plus paclitaxel versus bevacizumab plus paclitaxel for the first line treatment of patients with advanced breast cancer. The independent Data Monitoring Committee (DMC) found that treatment with sunitinib in combination with paclitaxel would be unable to meet the primary endpoint of superior progression-free survival (PFS) compared to the combination of bevacizumab and paclitaxel. No new safety issues were identified.
Nutrition

Global Post Articles Examine Malaria Worldwide

Global Post examines the quest for an effective vaccine to fight malaria. According to Global Post, "epidemiologists are pinning their hopes on a malaria vaccine" because "[k]illing mosquitoes, or avoiding bites, is an imprecise solution to malaria." Human trials on the RTS,S malaria vaccine have produced "[p]romising results," and the vaccine could be publicly available by 2012. However, it only works 50 to 60 percent of the time and is engineered for children younger than age five who are "malaria"s most vulnerable victims," according to Global Post. The news outlet reports that vaccine research has "boomed" since 1999 after the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation made malaria a priority. Over the past decade, the foundation has given almost a quarter billion dollars to the non-profit Malaria Vaccine Initiative, which is involved in the RTS,S project. Global Post writes that a "first step for an adult vaccine came this spring," after the biotech company, Sanaria, began human trials on a vaccine (Herman, Global Post[1], 6/11). Recently, the AP/Washington Post examined Sanaria"s efforts to irradiate mosquitoes in order to create a weakened malaria parasite (Kaiser Daily Global Health Policy Report, 6/9). "The approach has been successful enough in lab tests to win FDA approval and move to the start of human trials," Global Post reports (Global Post [1], 6/11). In a separate article, Global Post examines how researches at Trinity College Dublin and Oxford University are using Mal - "a protein that helps determine whether a person succumbs to malaria after a mosquito bite" - to develop a vaccine. According to Luke O"Neill, a professor who directs Trinity"s School of Biochemistry and Immunology, when the human body senses a malaria parasite, "a set of sensors locks onto the intruder and sends a message to Mal, which wakes up the immune system to fight it. It doesn"t always succeed, said O"Neill." Adrian Hill, another professor who is working on the project, found that there are good and bad variants of Mal in humans. "The good type of Mal organizes a successful counterattack against malaria, whereas the bad Mal is either underactive, or it is overactive and destructive, like friendly fire," Global Post writes, adding that O"Neill believes these pathways in the body are "the key to a successful fight against malaria." The team working under Hill, who directs the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics at Oxford, is trying to activate Mal in specific ways for the development of the vaccine. O"Neill said, "Trials among chimpanzees have had a[n] 80 to 90 percent success rate, so that gives us hope with humans" (O"Clery, Global Post, 6/11). Global Post also examines vector control methods that are used to fight malaria. According to the news outlet, "Vector control strategies do compete in a broad sense with vaccine strategies for funding. But in practice both strategies end up in use." The article includes details about how different regions are using different vector control strategies (Herman, Global Post [2], 6/11). Global Post also published the following malaria-related articles: *"Malaria: The view from Colombia" (Drost, Global Post, 6/11). *"Malaria: The view from India" (Neelakantan, Global Post, 6/11). *"Malaria: The view from Indonesia" (Gelling, Global Post, 6/11). *"Malaria: The view from Mozambique" (Herman, Global Post [3], 6/11). *"Malaria: The view from South Africa" (Brilliard, Global Post, 6/11). *"Malaria: One NGO worker"s fight" (Dowell, Global Post, 6/11). This information was reprinted from globalhealth.kff.org with kind permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Global Health Policy Report, search the archives and sign up for email delivery at globalhealth.kff.org. © Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.


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