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First Edition: September 28, 2012

Today's headlines include reports about political and policy-oriented health care developments.

28 Sep 2012

New report: African-American youth see more alcohol ads in magazines and TV

African-American youth ages 12-20 are seeing more advertisements for alcohol in magazines and on TV compared with all youth ages 12-20, according to a new report from the Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth (CAMY) at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

28 Sep 2012

U.S. Pharmacopeial announces winners of 2012-13 Global Fellowship awards

Since the program's inception more than thirty years ago, USP has invested nearly $4 million in over 200 fellowship awards.

28 Sep 2012

Three USU doctoral students to receive Henry M. Jackson Fellowships

The Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine, Inc. has selected three promising Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USU) doctoral students to receive fellowships for the 2012-13 academic year. The program, established in 1988, includes two Henry M. Jackson Fellowships and one Val G. Hemming Fellowship. Each fellow receives a stipend and travel support.

28 Sep 2012

Researchers discover way to detect and eliminate troublemaking stem cells

Mayo Clinic researchers have found a way to detect and eliminate potentially troublemaking stem cells to make stem cell therapy safer. Induced Pluripotent Stem cells, also known as iPS cells, are bioengineered from adult tissues to have properties of embryonic stem cells, which have the unlimited capacity to differentiate and grow into any desired types of cells, such as skin, brain, lung and heart cells.

28 Sep 2012

Shingles becoming more common in Australia

The herpes zoster virus, which causes shingles, is becoming more common as the population ages. In Australia the number of cases has doubled between 2000 and 2010. Hospital emergency departments report a 2–6% increase in cases per year.

28 Sep 2012

Researchers reduce life-threatening complication of stem cell transplants in mice with leukemia

Studying leukemia in mice, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have reduced a life-threatening complication of stem cell transplants, the only curative treatment when leukemia returns.

28 Sep 2012

Thymus tissue, iPSCS and liver cells can thrive in lymph nodes

Lymph nodes can provide a suitable home for a variety of cells and tissues from other organs, suggesting that a cell-based alternative to whole organ transplantation might one day be feasible, according to researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and its McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine.

28 Sep 2012

TRIL Centre announces Falls Awareness Day on Oct. 4

The TRIL Centre with Get Ireland Active announces Falls Awareness Day, Thursday 4th October 2012. One in three people over the age of 65 will fall every year in Ireland. Two-thirds of this group will fall again within six months, leading to risk of hospitalisation and significant health decline. As well as physical injuries suffered, the psychological and social consequences of falling can have a huge impact on the faller.

28 Sep 2012

Link between work-family conflict and musculoskeletal pain among nurses

Nurses and other hospital workers, especially those who work long hours or the night shift, often report trying to juggle the demands of the job and family obligations. A study out today by The George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services (SPHHS) suggests that the higher the work-family conflict the greater the risk that health care workers will suffer from neck and other types of musculoskeletal pain.

28 Sep 2012

Elevated c-Myc expression amplifies gene activity in tumor cells of multiple cancer types

For a cancer patient, over-expression of the MYC oncogene is a bad omen. Scientists have long known that in tumor cells, elevated levels of MYC's protein product, c-Myc, are associated with poor clinical outcomes, including increased rates of metastasis, recurrence, and mortality. Yet decades of research producing thousands of scientific papers on the subject have failed to consistently explain precisely how c-Myc exerts its effects across a broad range of cancer types. Until now, that is.

28 Sep 2012

Education key to ending AIDS

"When we talk about HIV prevention, we tend to frame it as a medical challenge and of course it is one," UNAIDS Executive Director Michel Sidibe writes in the Huffington Post's "Impact" blog.

28 Sep 2012

Blogs recognize World Contraception Day

The following blog posts were published in recognition of World Contraception Day, observed annually on September 26.

28 Sep 2012

Fear hard to extinguish from the teenage brain

A new study by Weill Cornell Medical College researchers shows that adolescents' reactions to threat remain high even when the danger is no longer present. According to researchers, once a teenager's brain is triggered by a threat, the ability to suppress an emotional response to the threat is diminished which may explain the peak in anxiety and stress-related disorders during this developmental period.

28 Sep 2012

FDA, docs, consumers scrutinizing medical apps

Consumers are increasingly relying on mobile applications to monitor their own health as some question whether the FDA can evaluate the apps fast enough.

28 Sep 2012

New malaria-transmitting mosquitoes: an interview with Jennifer Stevenson, Research Fellow at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine

In the area in which we carried out the study, which was in the western Kenyan highlands, the main mosquitoes that have been confirmed to transmit malaria are the females of Anopheles gambiae sensu stricto, Anopheles arabiensis and Anopheles funestus.

28 Sep 2012

Polls: Obama scores higher in trust on Medicare

A new Kaiser Family Foundation tracking poll found that 52 percent of the public trusts President Barack Obama over GOP presidential pick Mitt Romney to do a better job with Medicare's future, although young people were more receptive than seniors to GOP Medicare proposals. Meanwhile, a survey by AP-GfK found substantial belief in the widely challenged idea that the law includes "death panels."

28 Sep 2012

Researchers identify genetic origins in 10% of aortic valve malformations

Researchers at the Sainte-Justine University Hospital Center and University of Montreal have identified genetic origins in 10% of an important form of congenital heart diseases by studying the genetic variability within families.

28 Sep 2012

NPR blog examines Global Health Service Partnership

NPR's "Shots" blog profiles Vanessa Kerry, a physician and daughter of Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), and her work to develop the Global Health Service Partnership to send nurses and doctors to work abroad in exchange for a pay-down in their student loans.

28 Sep 2012

New understanding about function of MYC proteins

Scientists may have discovered why a protein called MYC can provoke a variety of cancers. Like many proteins associated with cancer, MYC helps regulate cell growth. A study carried out by researchers at the National Institutes of Health and colleagues found that, unlike many other cell growth regulators, MYC does not turn genes on or off, but instead boosts the expression of genes that are already turned on.

28 Sep 2012