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Uphill Battle For Obama Sparks Comparisons To Clinton's Failed Reform Bid
"Will failing to reform health care have the same consequences for Obama"s administration as it did for Clinton"s?" CNN asks.
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Advocates At Kenya Conference Explore New Strategies To Combat HIV/AIDS In Africa
Nearly 30 years after the emergence of HIV/AIDS, the global health community must develop new strategies to curb the spread of the disease in sub-Saharan Africa, some experts said Tuesday ahead of the Global Citizens Summit for Social Mobilization to End AIDS in Nairobi, Kenya, AFP/Google.com reports. The advocates also stressed the need for innovative approaches to health financing as international donors shift their attention toward other issues and as the ongoing economic downturn threatens fundraising prospects. The conference, which opens Wednesday, includes participants from 32 countries, primarily in Africa.According to Wasai Jacob Nanjakululu of Oxfam, about 90% of HIV-positive people are unaware of their status and 70% of people in need of treatment are not accessing medical care. Leonard Okello, an HIV/AIDS specialist with ActionAid International, added that the global health community is "far from winning the struggle against" HIV/AIDS. Okello said the conference will examine the shortcomings of earlier HIV/AIDS policies and explore new methods to address the disease. "There are a lot of res in HIV/AIDS programs but not much of that reaches the community," Okello said, asking, "What is it that we should radically change?" (AFP/Google.com, 5/26). According to IRIN/PlusNews, conference participants also plan to discuss "people-centered" approaches to combating HIV/AIDS at the Nairobi meeting. ActionAid Report Calls For Improvements in Basic Health Care To Address HIV/AIDS
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Alzheimer's Disease And Traumatic Brain Injury Have Same Type Of Cell Destruction
Researchers in the US found that the destructive cellular pathways that occur following traumatic brain injury are the same as those activated in
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Link Between DNA Variations And Brain Tumors

Mayo Clinic researchers and colleagues at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) have found a connection between DNA alterations on human chromosome 9 and aggressive brain cancer known as glioblastoma. The findings are reported in the current online issue of Nature Genetics. The study, conducted with different patient populations at each institution, looked for genome-wide associations using individual patient data and information in the Cancer Genome Atlas. Researchers found that persons with the specific alterations -- also known as single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) -- have a 50 percent higher relative risk of developing glioblastoma. "This is not to cause those who possess these SNPs to worry about having CT scans every year," advised Robert Jenkins, M.D. Ph.D., genetics researcher and Mayo senior author of the study. He says an individual"s environment also has much to do with their risk of cancer and that such external factors may need to be present to trigger onset of brain tumors, even for those with these SNPs. "Increased relative risk is just that -- relative." A normal person"s risk of developing a glioblastoma is about 1 in 10,000. The risk is about 1 in 7,000 for a person carrying one of these SNPs. Each year between 25,000 and 30,000 persons are diagnosed with glioblastomas -- one of the most aggressive forms of brain tumor. The causes are not clear and very few who are diagnosed live beyond five years. How the Study was Conducted To discover genes that might indicate an increased susceptibility to glioblastomas and other types of brain tumors, the investigators searched over 250,000 variants in 692 adult glioma patients (from the San Francisco Adult Glioma Study; 70 from the Cancer Genome Atlas) and compared them to 3992 controls (3390 from Illumina Control database and 602 from the Genome Atlas). The study was then replicated using independent data from 176 glioma patients and 174 controls from Mayo Clinic. Additional reports in the same issue of Nature Genetics further support the findings with independent replication studies. "Replication is essential in genome wide association studies," says Dr. Jenkins. "Replication across independent patient populations is critical in establishing a real association between glioblastomas and the presence of these SNPs in the genome of patients with that type of brain tumor." Researchers on the study include Karla Ballman, Ph.D., Jan Buckner, M.D., Paul Decker, Caterina Giannini, M.D., Ph.D., Chandralekha Halder, Thomas Kollmeyer, Matthew Kosel, Daniel LaChance, M.D., Brian O"Neill, M.D., Amanda Rynearson, and Ping Yang, M.D., Ph.D., all of Mayo Clinic; Margaret Wrensch, Ph.D., Jeffrey Chang, M.D., Ph.D., Ru-Fang Yeh, Ph.D., Yuanuan Xiao, Ph.D., Mitchel Berger, M.D., Susan Chang, M.D., Lucie McCoy, Joe Patoka, Alexander Pico, Michael Prados, M.D., Terri Rice, Ivan Smirnov, Tarik Tihan, M.D., Ph.D., Joe Wiemels, Ph.D., and John Wiencke, Ph.D., all of the University of California San Francisco; and Charles Quesenberry, Ph.D., of Kaiser Permanente, Oakland. Research was supported by the National Institutes of Health and the National Cancer Institute (including the UCSF and Mayo Clinic Brain Tumor Specialized Programs of Research Excellence (SPOREs), the National Brain Tumor Foundation, the UCSF Lewis Chair in Brain Tumor Research, the Mayo Clinic Cancer Center, the families and friends of John Berardi, Helen Glaser and Elvera Olsen, and the Bernie and Edith Waterman Foundation. Robert Nellis Mayo Clinic


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