Scientist who coined “Pink Slime” reluctant whistleblower
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Every time someone calls former U.S. government scientist Gerald Zirnstein a whistleblower, he cringes a little.
When he coined the term “Pink Slime” to describe the unlabeled and unappetizing bits of cartilage and other chemically-treated scrap meat going into U.S. ground beef, Zirnstein was a microbiologist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
He made the slime reference to a fellow scientist in an internal - and he thought private - email. But that email later became public, and with it came an explosion of outrage from consumer groups.
Majority of fourth graders are exposed to smoke, study finds
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More than 75 percent of fourth-graders in urban and rural settings have measurable levels of a nicotine breakdown product in their saliva that documents their second-hand smoke exposure, researchers report.
A study of 428 fourth graders and 453 parents in seven rural and seven urban Georgia schools also showed that the urban children were more likely to be smokers – 14.9 percent versus 6.6 percent. Additionally urban children have the most exposure to smokers: 79.6 percent versus 75.3 percent, according to findings presented to the 15th World Conference on Tobacco or Health March 20-24 in Singapore.
“It’s bad news,” said Dr. Martha S. Tingen, Co-Director of Georgia Health Sciences University’s Child Health Discovery Institute and Interim Program Leader of the GHSU Cancer Center’s Cancer Prevention and Control Program. “Smoking is one of the major causes of low-birth weight infants, it increases the incidence of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome by 10 times, increases breathing problems, asthma-related hospital admissions, ear and upper-respiratory infections, yet all these kids are living in a smoking environment.”
New genomic test spares patients chemotherapy with no adverse effect on survival
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Testing a breast cancer tumour for its genomic signature can help identify which patients will need adjuvant systemic therapy (additional chemotherapy) after surgery, and spare its use in those for whom it is not necessary, according to the results of a study to be presented to the 8th European Breast Cancer Conference (EBCC-8) today (Thursday). Dr. Sabine Linn, an Associate Professor of Medical Oncology at The Netherlands Cancer Institute, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, will say that this is the first study where such a test has been incorporated in decision-making about adjuvant systemic therapy, and that the results are promising.
Adjuvant chemotherapy is used in order to destroy any microscopic cancer cells that might still be present in the body after surgery. Although it is effective, the side effects can be distressing. “Based on our data, the use of the genomic test could lead to a reduction of nearly 30% in the use of adjuvant chemotherapy without compromising patient outcomes,” Dr. Linn will say. “This percentage may vary somewhat due to different guidelines used in different countries. These findings are important both for quality of life and for cutting down unnecessary healthcare costs.”
The researchers studied follow-up data from 427 patients with early breast cancer who had taken part in a study called RASTER (MicroarRAy prognoSTics in breast cancER). Their cancers had not yet spread to the lymph nodes (node-negative). By looking for a particular selection of 70 genes in a tumour, the Mammaprint® test can predict which patients are at low and which at high risk of distant disease (metastasis); this enables doctors to select which patients could be spared the side effects of chemotherapy without adversely affecting their chances of disease-free survival. The study aimed to assess the feasibility of implementing the test in daily clinical practice in The Netherlands, as well as its effect on adjuvant systemic treatment decisions.
Childhood hunger policies should target neighborhoods, not families
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Policies addressing childhood hunger should target neighborhoods, not individual families, according to new research from Rice University.
Sociologists found that children living in neighborhoods with higher poverty rates and in those with high foreign-born populations and non-English speakers are more likely to experience hunger.
“Policymakers should be thinking about targeting whole communities, instead of what is done now, which is offering public aid programs for individual families,” said Rice sociology professor Justin Denney. “Public aid works on a limited basis, reaching approximately 70 percent of eligible individuals. But unfortunately, the remaining 30 percent are unaccounted for.”
The study, published in the Journal of Applied Research on Children, was co-authored by Denney and sociology professor Rachel Tobert Kimbro, co-founders of the Kinder Institute for Urban Research’s Urban Health Program at Rice, and postbaccalaureate fellow Sarita Panchang. They used data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, a nationally representative dataset of more than 20,000 kindergarteners in 1998-1999, to examine individual, family and neighborhood characteristics of children who are or are not affected by hunger. In the dataset, the children were clustered according to schools and neighborhoods.
New research about facial recognition turns common wisdom on its head
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A team of researchers that includes a USC scientist has methodically demonstrated that a face’s features or constituents – more than the face per se – are the key to recognizing a person.
Their study, which goes against the common belief that brains process faces “holistically,” appears this month in Psychological Science.
In addition to shedding light on the way the brain functions, these results may help scientists understand rare facial recognition disorders.
Humans are great at recognizing faces. There are even regions in the brain that are specifically associated with face perception – the most well-known one is the fusiform gyrus in the temporal lobe.
Comedian Gallagher still in medically induced coma
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Doctors have decided to wait before bringing the comedian Gallagher out of the medically induced coma he was put in after his heart attack last week in Texas.
Doctors had planned to wake the 65-year-old comedian on Saturday. But his promotional manager, Christine Scherrer, says he was trying to wake on his own. Doctors are keeping him sedated because they want to wake him slowly. She says they may try Sunday.
Scherrer says the comedian had two stents replaced after collapsing Wednesday before a performance at a bar in Lewisville, a Dallas suburb.
Students shave heads to find cure for cancer
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When freshman Kayla Gurganus got her head shaved, she received several cheers from the people involved at St. Baldrick’s.
The hall council in Brayton/Clevenger put on the event Saturday on the first floor. St. Baldrick’s is an organization that raises money to help find cures for children with cancer.
Students can either raise money to keep their hair cut or shave it. Gurganus said she received an email about the event last month, but did not know she was going to go through with it until today.
“You’d be surprised how much your hair weighs, I think, and how much you actually have,” she said. “It does definitely feel a lot different.”
Red meat is blamed for one in 10 early deaths
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The Department of Health was last night urged to review its guidance on red meat after a study found that eating almost half the daily recommended amount can significantly increase the risk of dying early from cancer and heart disease.
Small quantities of processed meat such as bacon, sausages or salami can increase the likelihood of dying by a fifth, researchers from Harvard School of Medicine found. Eating steak increases the risk of dying by 12%.
The study found that cutting the amount of red meat in peoples’ diets to 1.5 ounces (42 grams) a day, equivalent to one large steak a week, could prevent almost one in 10 early deaths in men and one in 13 in women.
The scientists said that the government’s current advice that people should eat no more than 2.5 ounces (70 grams) a day, around around the level the average Briton already consumes, was “generous”.
House GOP look to reshape birth control debate
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House Republican leaders are looking for a way to reshape the debate over the administration’s new rule on birth-control insurance coverage before moving ahead with a bid to nullify the requirement.
Representative Jeff Fortenberry, who has introduced legislation on the issue, acknowledged hesitation by some fellow Republicans to take on the incendiary issue. But he said a delay could give Republicans time to recast the issue as a question of religious freedom rather than women’s rights.
“We’ll keep trying to appropriately frame the debate about this core American principle,” Fortenberry said.
Representative Pete Sessions, who heads the House Republican campaign committee, said party leaders are not backing off. “We’re not hesitant to do anything,” Sessions said. “The successful rain dance has a lot to do with timing.”
Coke and Pepsi change recipe to avoid cancer warning
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Coca-Cola and Pepsi are changing the way they make the caramel colouring used in their drinks as a result of a California law that mandates drinks containing a certain level of carcinogens bear a cancer warning label.
The companies said the changes will be expanded nationally to streamline their manufacturing processes. The changes have already been made for drinks sold in California.
Coca-Cola and Pepsi account for almost 90% of the soda market, according to industry tracker Beverage Digest.
Robotic Surgery Proves Successful, Less Invasive Way to Treat HPV-Related Oral Cancer
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Over the past few decades, doctors have noted a surprising trend in cancer of the tonsils and base of the tongue. Though oral cancer previously appeared predominantly in elderly patients with a history of tobacco and alcohol use, it’s increasing in younger patients: 30- to 50-year-old nonsmokers with the human papillomavirus (HPV). Fortunately, the newer form of cancer tends to be less aggressive, and the latest approach to treating the tumors can avoid the debilitating consequences of open neck surgery or extensive radiation. Robotic surgery conducted through patients’ mouths provides excellent results in removing squamous cell carcinoma at the back of the throat, especially in patients with HPV, a Mayo Clinic study published in the March issue of Mayo Clinic Proceedings found.
VIDEO ALERT: Additional audio and video resources, including excerpts from an interview with Dr. Eric Moore are available on the Mayo Clinic News Blog. The password is robotic.
“We were surprised that the cancer cure results were even better than the traditional treatments that we have been doing, but that is probably almost as much of a matter that these cancers are HPV-mediated for the most part, and they respond much better to treatment,” says author Eric Moore, M.D., a head and neck surgeon at Mayo Clinic in Rochester. “Importantly, the treatment preserved patients’ ability to swallow and their speech performance was excellent.”
Statin label to carry diabetes warning
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All statin labels will now include a warning about a small increased risk for elevated blood glucose levels and possible problems with transient memory and cognition, the FDA announced today.
The agency will also remove existing recommendations to perform routine liver function tests on all patients taking the cholesterol-lowering medications, after concluding, “serious liver injury with statin use is rare and unpredicatable.”
“We want health care professionals and patients to have the most current information on the risks of statins, but also to assure them that these medications continue to provide an important health benefit of lowering cholesterol,” Mary Parks, MD, of the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, said in a press release.
In-Your-Face Fitness: Keeping your lower back pain-free
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On a recent ski trip, my best friend handed me a flask of cinnamon schnapps. He called it “courage in 100-proof form,” and I needed it. I was perched at the edge of a cliff, looking at a 20-foot drop into thigh-deep powder.
Nearly a decade ago, when I was laid up in an emergency room with two bulging disks in my lower lumbar spine, there’s no way I could have imagined myself attempting such foolish feats of middle-aged manliness.
I’m hardly alone in my lower lumbar woes. A 2009 study in Archives of Internal Medicine found that the prevalence of chronic, impairing low-back pain rose from 3.9% of adults in 1992 to 10.2% in 2006. And a 2006 study from the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases says that lower-back pain is the No. 2 reason why Americans see a doctor, second only to the common cold.
Bird flu may not be so deadly after all, new analysis claims
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Bird flu may be far less lethal to people than the World Health Organization’s assessment of a death rate topping 50 percent, scientists said on Thursday in a finding that adds fuel to the heated controversy over publication of bird flu research.
Scientists led by virologist Peter Palese of Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York argue in an analysis published in the online edition of the journal Science that the WHO, a U.N. agency, is calculating the death rate using an estimate of human bird flu cases that is simply too low.
Palese and his colleagues did not offer a specific death rate for people infected by bird flu. But based on figures cited in their analysis, the rate appears to be under 1 percent.
U.S. appeals court finds DNA testing constitutional
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California law enforcement officers can continue collecting DNA samples from adults arrested for felonies, a federal appeals court ruled on Thursday.
A divided three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a 2004 California law requiring officials to collect the DNA samples does not violate the U.S. Constitution’s ban on unreasonable searches.
“DNA analysis is an extraordinarily effective tool for law enforcement to identify arrestees, solve past crimes, and exonerate innocent suspects,” Judge Milan Smith wrote for the 2-1 majority. The government’s interests in the genetic information outweigh any privacy concerns, the majority concluded.
