A new consensus report published today in the ethics journal The Hastings Center Report outlines a basic ethical framework necessary for health system reform. The report, “Improving Access to Health Care: A Consensus Ethical Framework to Guide Proposals for Reform,” highlights key ethical obligations and recommendations to guide health system reform proposals in order to improve access to care.
On Tuesday, September 18, 2007, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced that it would begin implementing President George W. Bush’s Executive Order to explore methods to expand the number of approved pluripotent stem cell lines “without creating a human embryo for research purposes or destroying, discarding, or subjecting to harm a human embryo or fetus.”
More than 150 million people worldwide are infected with filarial parasites — long, thread-like worms that can live for years inside the human body and cause severe, debilitating diseases such as elephantiasis. Mosquitoes spread the larvae of these parasitic nematodes from human to human, placing at risk more than a billion people who live in places in Africa, Asia and Latin America where filarial parasites thrive.
The provincial director of child welfare, Marilyn Hedlund, made the following statement today regarding policy and practice following the death of a child in care.
The obesity epidemic has spawned not just diabetes, but another serious public health problem: a surge in fatty liver disease, which can lead to cirrhosis and liver failure. Now, research suggests that limiting consumption of high-glycemic-index carbohydrates can prevent the condition in mice. A clinical trial is now testing this idea in overweight adolescents, as well as the possibility of reversing fatty liver disease through diet.
Biomedical engineers at the University of Texas School of Health Information Sciences at Houston have announced pre-clinical test results in the September issue of the International Journal of Nanomedicine demonstrating the feasibility of a smart particle insulin release system that detects spikes in glucose or blood sugar levels and releases insulin to counteract them
In a new qualitative clinical study published in the September-October issue of the journal Ambulatory Pediatrics, pediatrician Elizabeth Miller and her research colleagues report that a quarter of the teenage girls interviewed for the study — all of whom had histories of abusive relationships — say their partners were actively trying to get them pregnant. The study, available online today, is the first in the general adolescent health literature to document the role of abusive partners in promoting teen pregnancy.
Sirtris Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: SIRT), a biopharmaceutical company focused on discovering and developing small molecule drugs to treat diseases of aging, announced publication of a study by Sirtris and Harvard University scientists in the journal Cell that reveals a new mechanism to slow aging.
The North Central Cancer Treatment Group (NCCTG), a clinical research group based at Mayo Clinic, has received a $34.4 million renewal grant from the National Cancer Institute (NCI). The grant, to be awarded over a six-year period, will help fund NCCTG’s efforts to develop and conduct clinical trials to test new cancer therapies.
While obesity has been shown to contribute to high blood pressure, heart disease and diabetes, being overweight in old age does not lead to memory problems, according to a study published September 19, 2007, in the online edition of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.