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Cost of future post office retirees' health benefits driving possible default

The U.S. Postal Service is bracing for a first-ever default on billions in payments due to the Treasury, adding to widening uncertainty about the mail agency's solvency as first-class letters plummet and Congress deadlocks on ways to stem the red ink.

1 Aug 2012

Flightless molecule may help control spread of cancer from one tissue to another

Thanks to the "flightless" molecule, the spread of cancer from one tissue to another may one day be grounded. In a new report published in the August 2012 print issue of The FASEB Journal, laboratory experiments show that "flightless" (named after its effects on fruit flies) increases the "stickiness" that causes cells, including cancer cells, to attach to underlying tissue, which in turn, slows their movement throughout the body.

1 Aug 2012

U of I professor develops new algorithm for dietitians

If you've consulted with a nutrition educator about how best to lose weight or manage your diabetes, high blood pressure, or high cholesterol, you may not have learned as much as you could have, said a University of Illinois professor of nutrition extension.

1 Aug 2012

Keeping orphans in communities 'won't end AIDS' but 'will help AIDS orphans'

"The International AIDS Conference [AIDS 2012] was full of talk of hope and best practices, but no one was giving details on how to reach an 'AIDS-free generation,'" GlobalPost correspondent John Donnelly writes in this post in the "Global Pulse" blog.

1 Aug 2012

Miami Project to Cure Paralysis receives FDA permission to begin Phase 1 trial

The Miami Project to Cure Paralysis, a Center of Excellence at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, has received permission from the Food and Drug Administration to begin a revolutionary Phase 1 clinical trial to evaluate the safety of transplanting human Schwann cells to treat patients with recent spinal cord injuries.

1 Aug 2012

GSK begins shipping the first lots of 2012-2013 seasonal influenza vaccines

GlaxoSmithKline announced today it has begun shipping the first lots of 2012-2013 FluLaval (Influenza virus vaccine) and Fluarix (Influenza Virus Vaccine) to CDC distribution centers and U.S. healthcare providers.

1 Aug 2012

Devex assesses HIV/AIDS funding, initiatives of 5 leading donor countries in 2011

Highlighting a recently released UNAIDS and Kaiser Family Foundation report (.pdf) on the financing of the global response to HIV/AIDS in low- and middle-income countries in 2011, Devex assesses the HIV/AIDS initiatives and funding levels of the five leading donor governments for that year.

1 Aug 2012

Transfer of radioactive compounds in ecosystems is not straightforward

A new study by Tiina Tuovinen, from the University of Eastern Finland, and her colleagues casts doubt over the validity of models used to assess the impact of radiation on human health. Their work is published online in Springer's journal Hydrobiologia.

1 Aug 2012

Scientists decode stability blueprint of rhomboid enzyme

Johns Hopkins scientists have decoded for the first time the "stability blueprint" of an enzyme that resides in a cell's membrane, mapping which parts of the enzyme are important for its shape and function.

1 Aug 2012

First Edition: August 1, 2012

WBUR's Martha Bebinger, working in partnership with Kaiser Health News and NPR, reports: "The Massachusetts Legislature Tuesday passed the next phase of its ongoing attempt to reform the health care system: sweeping cost control legislation. Gov. Deval Patrick, a Democrat, hailed the lawmakers' work saying, 'This is more than a good bill, a great bill.'"

1 Aug 2012

Pediatric liver transplant recipients have increased risk of death when from obese donors

Children undergoing liver transplantation are at greater risk of graft loss and death from adult organ donors who are severely obese according to research published in the August issue of Liver Transplantation, a journal of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases. The study, funded in part by a grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), found that pediatric donor body mass index (BMI) did not increase mortality risk in this pediatric population.

1 Aug 2012