At the Keystone Symposium in Cape Town, the Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise announced the appointment of its first executive director and the opening of a new secretariat in New York City. Dr. Alan Bernstein, founding president of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, will lead the international alliance of researchers, funders and advocates dedicated to speeding the search for an HIV vaccine.
CBM President Professor Allen Foster met with the Director-General Dr Margaret Chan, for the World Health Organizations global initiative to eliminate avoidable blindness “Vision 2020: The Right to Sight” on the eve of World Sight Day 2007 at WHO Headquarters Geneva.
FDA informed healthcare professionals and consumers that the Cochlear Implant device used in profoundly deaf or severely hard-of hearing patients has been associated with some increased risk of bacterial meningitis caused by Streptococcus pneumoniae.
Educating school children in healthy nutrition is one of the most effective strategies for overcoming malnutrition and chronic diet-related diseases but has been neglected far too long, FAO said today.
Children who lost weight were able to keep it off more effectively by participating in maintenance treatment programs that emphasized behavioral skills or social facilitation, although the effectiveness lessened over time, according to a study in the Oct. 10 issue of JAMA.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the first generic versions of Trileptal (oxcarbazepine), an anticonvulsant drug. Generic oxcarbazepine is FDA-approved for use alone or in combination with other medications in the treatment of partial seizures in adults and children aged four years and above.
In a study of the maternity records of more than 6,000 women, David J.P. Barker, M.D., Ph.D., and Kent Thornburg, Ph.D., of Oregon Health & Science University discovered a strong correlation between the size and shape of a woman’s hips and her daughter’s risk of breast cancer. Wide, round hips, the researchers postulated, represent markers of high sex hormone concentrations in the mother, which increase her daughter’s vulnerability to breast cancer.
Gastroesophageal reflux arises from increased exposure and/or sensitivity of the esophageal mucosa to gastric contents, and affects 5-40 percent of the population. Esophageal ultrasound studies in GER have mainly focused on the evaluation of the gastroesophageal junction and esophageal motility performed by transabdominal or endoluminal routes. Visualizing refluxate in transcutaneous cervical esophageal ultrasound was found to be useful as a pre-diagnostic tool for estimating GER and/or manometric pathology in 71.1 percent of adults.
Pan-European collaboration is important for many clinical trials and essential for trials that are investigating treatments for rare diseases. That was the message delivered today by the European Medical Research Councils (EMRC), the membership organisation for medical research councils across Europe based at the European Science Foundation (ESF) in Strasbourg, which is coordinating two trials in rare diseases and about to launch a review of how best to implement clinical trials that are initiated by investigators.
MIT Holding, Inc. (OTCBB: MITD), in collaboration with MEVLABS and Georgia Southern University, have successfully tested prototype designs of the patent pending PROVECTOR™. This small dispensable device is designed to stop the development of pathogens and parasites found in mosquitoes that carry deadly diseases such as malaria, dengue fever, and West Nile virus.