Scientists cure mice with sickle cell
Fri, 07 Dec 2007 02:35:16 GMTBy LAURAN NEERGAARD, AP Medical Writer
WASHINGTON - Scientists have the first evidence that those "reprogrammed stem cells" that made headlines last month really have the potential to treat disease: They used skin from the tails of sick mice to cure the rodents of sickle cell anemia.
At issue: Turning adult cells into ones that mimic embryonic stem cells, master cells that can turn into any type of tissue. When scientists announced last month that they had successfully engineered embryo-like stem cells from human skin, it was hailed as a possible alternative to ethically fraught embryo research.
But no one yet knew whether those reprogrammed cells could create functioning tissue just like natural embryonic stem cells can.
Thursday, scientists in Alabama and Massachusetts reported a key next step when they used the technique to give mice with sickle cell anemia a healthy new blood supply.
The study, published in the journal Science, doesn't bring this potential therapy closer to people just yet. Big hurdles remain, including a risk of cancer from the reprogramming method.
But without the mouse work, scientists didn't know "whether all the recombined machinery will work or not," explained lead researcher Tim Townes, molecular genetics chief at the University of Alabama, Birmingham. "It's the first example of actually completing the cycle and curing a disease."
Townes had created a strain of mice bearing the human genes for sickle cell, a devastating inherited disease of deformed red blood cells that can't carry enough oxygen.
Townes paired with prominent stem cell scientist Rudolf Jaenisch of the Whitehead Institute in Cambridge, Mass., to reprogram skin from those mice into embryonic-like stem cells. They coaxed the newly engineered cells to grow into blood-producing cells. Then they replaced the sickle cell-causing gene with a healthy version and infused the new cells.
The mice started producing healthy blood, and their sickle cell symptoms vanished.
"What this paper shows for the first time is you can combine all these steps," said Konrad Hochedlinger, a researcher at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute and Massachusetts General Hospital. "It's an important proof of principle for the usefulness of this technology to treat disease."
Townes next is testing whether human skin cells from sickle cell patients can be similarly reprogrammed.
But it may take several years of additional research to create a safe enough reprogramming method to test such an approach in people.
Hochedlinger cited an even bigger challenge: Scientists know very little about how to direct an embryo-like stem cell to turn into the just the tissue they need, such as pancreas cells instead of nerve cells, for example.
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On the Net:
Science: http://www.sciencemag.org
Man jailed for not taking TB medication
Fri, 07 Dec 2007 02:56:17 GMTTUCSON, Ariz. - A man was jailed for failing to take his tuberculosis medication after officials said he was a serious health risk.
James Roman Pearson, 49, remained at the Pima County jail Thursday on a tuberculosis violation, more than two weeks after the county health department petitioned to have him taken into custody.
"He is now being held in isolation. The court will decide when he will be released," said Deputy Dawn Hanke, a sheriff's department spokeswoman.
Pearson has been taking his medication since he has been in custody, authorities said.
A Superior Court hearing Wednesday was ordered closed and records sealed, under a state law allowing a TB patient to request both.
Pearson's attorney, Robert Fleming, declined to comment on the hearing because it was closed.
Under Arizona law, patient confidentiality is paramount in tuberculosis cases, dating to when those with the disease carried a significant stigma, he said.
In October, a man who spent nearly a year jailed in Phoenix for failing to take precautions to prevent the spread of his drug-resistant TB moved to Russia.
Robert Daniels was determined no longer to be contagious after undergoing lung surgery in September in Colorado. He had been ordered confined in August 2006 and was placed in solitary confinement in the jail ward. Daniels holds both Russian and American citizenship.
In May, a TB patient caused an international health scare when he flew to Europe for his wedding. There has been no evidence that Andrew Speaker spread the disease on the flights there and back.
School bans students without mumps shots
Fri, 07 Dec 2007 00:07:02 GMTBy DAVID SHARP, Associated Press Writer
PORTLAND, Maine - The University of Southern Maine began notifying more than 400 students Thursday that they're being banned from campus for failing to meet the latest vaccination requirements for mumps.
Campus officials provided student lists to professors and were trying to reach about 50 on-campus residents to make sure they have another place to go.
The 426 students were among about 1,300 full-time or residence hall students on the two campuses who were told to get their vaccinations up to date following an outbreak of mumps in Maine that included at least one university student.
The list includes about 20 students who have declined vaccinations on religious or philosophical grounds, said spokeswoman Judie O'Malley.
All of those who failed to get their shots will be kept out of classes with the exception of students who are medically exempt from the vaccination, the university said. Those students must receive a special pass to get into class.
USM does not plan to kick anyone out of student housing onto the streets, and it will work with students who are having difficulty meeting course requirements.
"The faculty and the provost will work with any and all students so they can successfully complete their semester," O'Malley said.
The university, acting on recommendations from the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention, is now requiring students to receive two doses of the vaccine. In the past, the recommendation had called for only one shot.
The USM student who got the mumps has recovered and returned to class, but there have been two other unconfirmed cases involving students since then, O'Malley said.
The requirement applies to the university's campuses in Portland and nearby Gorham. The Lewiston campus, about 35 miles from Portland, was not affected by the vaccination rule.
Overall, there have been eight laboratory-confirmed cases of the mumps in Maine, and there are another 35 suspected cases, said Dr. Dora Anne Mills, director of the state disease control center, on Wednesday.
Maine's mumps outbreak is believed to be linked to Canada, which has been dealing with an outbreak for months.
Health officials believe the state's outbreak could be linked to a concert by a Canadian band at a crowded venue in September in the Portland area. A member of the music group came down with mumps, and Maine's first two cases had attended the concert, Mills said.
Mumps is a virus spread by coughing and sneezing. The most common symptoms are fever, headache and swollen salivary glands under the jaw. It can lead to more severe problems, such as hearing loss, meningitis and swollen testicles, which can lead to infertility.
First rise in U.S. teen births since 91
Fri, 07 Dec 2007 00:07:28 GMTBy MIKE STOBBE, AP Medical Writer
ATLANTA - In a troubling reversal, the nation's teen birth rate rose for the first time in 15 years, surprising government health officials and reviving the bitter debate about abstinence-only sex education.
The birth rate had been dropping since its peak in 1991, although the decline had slowed in recent years. On Wednesday, government statisticians said it rose 3 percent from 2005 to 2006.
The reason for the increase is not clear, and federal health officials said it might be a one-year statistical blip, not the beginning of a new upward trend.
However, some experts said they have been expecting a jump. They blamed it on increased federal funding for abstinence-only health education that doesn't teach teens how to use condoms and other contraception.
Some key sexually transmitted disease rates have been rising, including syphilis, gonorrhea and chlamydia. The rising teen pregnancy rate is part of the same phenomenon, said Dr. Carol Hogue, an Emory University professor of maternal and child health.
"It's not rocket science," she said.
At the same time, some research suggests teens are using condoms far more often than they did 15 years ago.
The new teen birth numbers are based on the 15-19 age group of women, which accounted for most of the 440,000 births to teens in 2006. The rate rose to nearly 42 births per 1,000 in that group, up from 40.5 in 2005. That translates to an extra 20,000 births to teen mothers.
In 1991, the peak year for teen births, there were nearly 62 births per 1,000.
The new report is based on a review of more than 99 percent of the birth certificates from last year by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The report, released Wednesday, quickly took on political implications.
Opponents of abstinence-based programs seized on the data as evidence of wrong-headed government policy.
"Congress needs to stop knee-jerk approving abstinence-only funding when it's clear it's not working," said U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo., who is pushing for more comprehensive sex education.
The new report offers a state-by-state breakdown of birth rates overall. Many of those with the highest birth rates teach abstinence instead of comprehensive sex education, according to the Planned Parenthood Federation of America.
And research has concluded that abstinence-only programs do not cause a decrease in teenage sexual activity, Planned Parenthood officials added.
"In the last decade, more than $1 billion has been wasted on abstinence-only programs," said Cecile Richards, the organization's president, in a prepared statement.
Decreased condom use and increased sexual activity are two likely explanations for the higher teen birth rate. But not all data supports those theories, said John Santelli, a professor of population and family health at Columbia University's school of public health.
For example, a biannual government survey of high school students found that the percentage of those who said they used a condom the last time they had sex rose to 63 percent in 2005, up from 46 percent in 1991.
Contraceptive-focused sex education is still common, and the new teen birth numbers reflect it's failing, argued Moira Gaul of the Family Research Council, a conservative advocacy organization in Washington, D.C.
The CDC also reported that births to unwed mothers reached an all-time high in 2006, but that is part of a continuing upward trend and was expected.
Health officials cautioned that the rise in teen births is not the chief cause of births to unwed mothers, however. Women in their 20s and 30s represent the largest proportion, with teens accounting for fewer than a quarter, said Stephanie Ventura, head of the CDC's reproductive statistics branch.
About thirty years ago, more than half of unwed mothers were teenagers, she said.
The report on births also showed:
_That the U.S. fertility rate is at the highest level since 1971, at 2.1 children. That is an increase of 2 percent from 2005 to 2006.
_Total births rose 3 percent to nearly 4.3 million in 2006.
_Rate of Caesarean section deliveries also rose 3 percent, setting a new record of 31 percent of all births. Health officials say the rate, which has risen by about half since 1996, is higher than is medically necessary.
The high C-section rate is believed to at least partly explain why rates of preterm and low-weight births also rose in 2006. Planned deliveries, including those involving C-sections, are often done before a pregnancy comes to full term, health experts said.
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On the Net:
The CDC report, including state-by-state figures: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs
Obese kids may face heart risks later
Fri, 07 Dec 2007 00:07:44 GMTBy STEPHANIE NANO, Associated Press Writer
NEW YORK - The chicken nuggets are coming home to roost. By the time today's teens are middle age, the rate of heart disease could be 16 percent higher because of the extra pounds they are carrying around today, a U.S. study suggests.
A second study, by Danish researchers, documents a connection between excess weight in even younger kids and heart disease in adults — especially boys.
The two reports in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine may well be underestimating the future health effects of childhood obesity, said Dr. David Ludwig, director of an obesity program at Children's Hospital Boston.
"We've simply never had a generation that's been this heavy from so early in life. The consequences of that are unprecedented and unknown," said Ludwig, who was not involved in the research.
While the U.S. projections were based on a computer model, the Danish study is a large, decades-long look at what happened in real life to 277,000 children as they grew up. Some 14,500 of them — twice as many men as women — had heart disease or died from it before age 60.
The researchers found that the more overweight a child was between ages 7 and 13, the greater the risk of heart disease was in adulthood. The relationship was strongest in boys and increased with age.
For example, an average-size 13-year-old boy had a 12 percent risk. But for a boy of the same age and height who weighed about 25 pounds more, the risk went up by one-third, to 16 percent.
"Our findings suggest that as children are becoming heavier worldwide, greater numbers of them are at risk of having a event in adulthood," said the researchers from the Institute of Preventive Medicine in Copenhagen.
Today, about a third of U.S. youngsters are either overweight or obese. Increasing numbers of obese children are being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, bad cholesterol and other obesity complications that were seldom seen in children before.
Some of those complications are risk factors for heart disease, which could explain the link between childhood weight and a higher risk of heart disease, the Danish researchers suggest. Or it could be because many heavy children — although not all — become heavy adults, they said.
Their study used detailed health records kept for every schoolchild in Denmark. They calculated the body mass index, which is based on height and weight, for children born between 1930 and 1976. Using hospital discharge records and a death registry, they tracked the children from age 25 to find out who had heart disease by age 60.
One of the researchers, Jennifer Baker, said previous studies that have looked at the issue have been inconsistent, and this is the "first to convincingly demonstrate that excess weight in childhood is associated with heart disease in adulthood."
The U.S. researchers used obesity figures for U.S. teens in 2000 to estimate that as many as 37 percent of men would be obese when they reached 35, compared to 25 percent now. For women, as many as 44 percent would be obese; now the rate is 32 percent.
Using a computer model, they estimated that by the time the teens are 50, the rate of heart disease will rise 5 percent to 16 percent — as many as 100,000 extra cases. They also projected heart disease deaths could rise by as much as 19 percent.
"If we do nothing, the health consequences are really going to be quite dramatic," said Dr. Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo, of the University of California, San Francisco, lead author of the study.
Projections of increasing rates of heart disease and deaths between ages 35 and 50 were particularly striking, she said.
"This is an age when people are normally working, they're raising their families. They're not worried about going to the doctor or worried about dying or having a heart attack," said Bibbins-Domingo.
The researchers noted that their predictions are based on current treatments and trends for obesity and heart disease, and changes in prevention and treatment could make a difference.
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On the Net:
New England Journal: http://www.nejm.org
China allows condoms on air for AIDS campaign organisers
Thu, 06 Dec 2007 12:13:08 GMTBEIJING - China's first televised AIDS campaign featuring condoms was launched on Thursday with top music and film stars championing the values of safe sex, organisers said.
The campaign, sponsored by the United Nations Development Programme and AIDS advocacy group the Chang Ai Media Project, will feature singer Peng Liyuan, the wife of a leading Chinese politician, and Hong Kong star Jackie Chan.
&;This is basically the first public campaign that has been allowed to feature condoms and link the transmission of AIDS to active sexual contact in the visual media,&; Chang Ai Media project spokeswoman Alison Spector said.
Previously, Chinese state television refused to air AIDS awareness announcements featuring condoms, she said, apparently due to fears that it could lead to greater promiscuity.
Besides airing on national broadcaster China Central Television and provincial stations, the ads will also run on video screens in airplanes, train and bus stations, office buildings and shopping centres and on the Internet, she said.
China is estimated to have about 700,000 HIV/AIDS cases, with tens of thousands of new infections each year, according to government figures released last week.
An increasing number of infections are due to heterosexual contact and not drug use, which was formerly the main channel of the disease.
Peng is the wife of Xi Jinping, who was promoted in October to the elite nine-member Communist Party Standing Committee Politburo and is widely seen as the top candidate to replace President Hu Jintao in 2012.
Although Peng is a household name in China, her husband remains relatively unknown in the nation where politics is secretly guarded by the ruling Communist Party.
