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TAU Develops New Medical Management Tool To Combat Swine Flu, Viral Outbreaks
As swine flu spreads across America, good data can make all the difference in controlling it.
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HAART Is 'Optimal Treatment' For Reducing Mother-to-Child HIV Transmission
Highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) should be the new standard treatment for prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV in poor countries, according to an editorial in response to a research study in the August 15 issue of JAIDS: Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes. JAIDS is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health, a leading provider of information and business intelligence for students, professionals, and institutions in medicine, nursing, allied health, pharmacy and the pharmaceutical industry.
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Obama's Proposal To Redirect Abstinence-Only Funding Renews 'Culture-War Battle,' Washington Times Columnist States
President Obama is causing the "core culture-war battle" over sex education to "come full circle" by proposing to redirect funding for abstinence-only sex education to a new Teen Pregnancy Prevention Initiative that "rejects an abstinence-only approach," Washington Times columnist Cheryl Wetzstein writes. According to Wetzstein, Obama"s fiscal year 2010 budget plan "zeroed out" the Title V abstinence-only sex education grant program, set to expire on June 30, and the Community-Based Abstinence Education program. Wetzstein continues that groups supporting comprehensive sex education have "loathed Title V from its inception" because of its "prohibition on teaching teens how to use birth-control products (i.e., no condom demonstrations) and its eight-point definition that seemed utterly unrealistic to sex educators." For example, Title V"s definition said that the ""expected standard of human sexual activity"" was a ""mutually faithful, monogamous relationship in the context of marriage,"" which Wetzstein says she has "heard many times, was insulting to gay youth who couldn"t marry" and "insensitive to minority youth who grew up in neighborhoods where marriage was rare." Wetzstein asks, "What will happen to Title V?" She writes that opponents "are staying vigilant" and working to avoid "any last-minute, back-door revivals of this program." Groups that support abstinence-only sex education are "working the phones, too," Wetzstein reports. According to Wetzstein, Valerie Huber, executive director of the National Abstinence Education Association, noted that "[s]aving Title V will require some heavy lifting, but "it"s expired before and been retroactively renewed."" Wetzstein concludes that "we"ll soon see what happens with the new players in town" (Wetzstein, Washington Times, 6/23).
Oncology

A Step Closer To Drugs Against Winter Vomiting Disease

The virus that causes winter vomiting disease invades cells by attaching to particular sugar molecules on the surface of the cells. This is the conclusion of a thesis presented at the Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, Sweden. This result may be an important step in the development of a drug against the regular hospital-based epidemics caused by the virus. Winter vomiting disease is an infectious inflammation of the gastro-intestinal tract, which occurs principally during the winter months. There is presently no vaccine, and no drugs to combat the infection. The disease causes diarrhoea and vomiting, and its consequences may be very serious for people who are already seriously ill or weak. "We are aiming to develop a drug that can be given to vulnerable persons and to children in day-care when it has become clear that another epidemic is starting to break out. More research will, however, be required. Our results are important steps along the way, but it will probably be several years before a drug is commercially available", says Gustaf Rydell who successfully defended his PhD thesis on June 8, 2009. The thesis describes how the virus for winter vomiting disease can attach to cells by binding to special sugar chains. One of these chains is characterised in that it has a monosaccharide known as sialic acid at its end. The thesis also shows that the virus binds to such sugar chains even when they are not part of the cell surface. This means that it may be possible for the sugar chains to prevent the virus infecting the cells by blocking its binding structures. "Our results suggest that the sugar chains that have sialic acid are important for infection by the virus, but this must be confirmed. If it is true, it would be possible to develop a drug that blocks the access of the virus to the sugar molecule. One thing that we must investigate first, however, is whether there are other target molecules that the virus can use to enter the cell. These may be the starting point for even more effective drugs", says Gustaf Rydell. NOROVIRUSES Noroviruses are considered to be the micro-organism that causes the greatest incidence of vomiting and diarrhoea in the world. The viruses are responsible for approximately 200,000 child deaths in developing countries each year. Development of pharmaceuticals is made difficult by the fact that new virus strains arise continuously. One fifth of the population of Europe are "secretor negative" individuals, and these people have an inherited resistance to noroviruses. Elin Lindstrç¶m Claessen University of Gothenburg


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