News (Updated April 10,
2005)
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| Tuesday April 5, 04:44 PM
|
Britain pledges funds for anti-HIV gel trials
LONDON (AFP) - Britain pledged 24 million pounds (35.1 million euros,
45 million dollars) to fund trials for a gel that can prevent women from
being infected by the HIV virus which leads to AIDS. The field trials, to be carried out by the Medical Research Council
and Imperial College London, are expected to begin within four months
and will run for 39 months, the council said in a joint statement with
the government. More than 10,000 women in South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia
are expected to take part in the research. "AIDS is the biggest killer in Africa," said International
Development Secretary Hilary Benn. "Most new HIV infections occur among young African women. Women
vulnerable to infection are frequently unable to refuse sex or to insist
on the use of a condom," he said. "The 26 million pounds will fund a final stage trial of a
microbicide gel that, if effective, could help women to protect
themselves against HIV infection." An additional two million pounds is being contributed by the Medical
Research Council, a government-funded research body. Sheena McCormack, a clinical epidemiologist at the Medical Research
Council's clinical trials unit, told AFP that the gel, if proven
effective, would stand a much better chance of being used than condoms. "The gel is something women can use themselves," she said.
"They don't have to ask men." The gel, known as PRO2000, can be applied before sexual intercourse
and prevents the HIV virus from latching onto human cells. "The funding will take us one step further towards identifying
an effective microbicide, a crucial element of our effort to reduce HIV
transmission," said Janet Darbyshire, director of the clinical
trials unit. |
Robots doing house chores. A cure for HIV/AIDS and Alzheimer's disease. Quake-predicting computers. An inhabited base on the moon.
That's what the not-so-distant future holds in store, according to Japanese researchers who responded to a recent Japanese government poll.
The Science and Education Ministry's survey of about 2,700 researchers and academics was conducted over several months through February to find out their predictions for future scientific and technological breakthroughs, the nationwide Asahi newspaper said Saturday. The results are expected to be incorporated into the country's plans to fund science projects.
The researchers' vision for the future is a bright one.
In 15 years, they think doctors will cure AIDS patients of the HIV virus, which ranks among the world's top killer diseases. The virus attacks the immune system and has eluded researchers' efforts to thwart it with a vaccine.
By then, robots would be washing dishes and laundry in homes and express trains floating on a magnetic cushion at speeds of 500 kph (310 mph) would be common for intercity travel. China has a high-speed magnetic levitating _ or maglev _ train traveling between Shanghai's airport and financial district, while Japan has an experimental maglev that hasn't been approved for commercial use because of high startup costs.
A cure for Alzheimer's disease could come 20 years from now. Technology to prevent cancers from metastasizing _ or spreading to other parts of the body _ might also be available.
In 30 years or more, humans could land on the moon to build a base where astronauts would run experiments and exploit lunar resources to try for manned space flights to Mars, the poll found.
|
Mon Apr 4, 8:56 PM ET
|
By CARLA K. JOHNSON, Associated Press Writer
CHICAGO - About one in five ninth-graders report
having had oral sex and almost one-third say they intend to try it during the
next six months, a small study of teens at two California schools reports.
The teenagers, whose average age was 14 1/2, also say oral sex is less risky,
more common and more acceptable for their age group than intercourse.
The researchers surveyed 580 ethnically diverse ninth-graders in two
California public high schools.
Girls and boys reported similar experiences and opinions about oral sex,
which surprised the study's lead author, Bonnie Halpern-Felsher, associate
professor of pediatrics at University of California San Francisco.
"I think the stereotypes don't exist as much anymore," she said.
"Girls and boys both see oral sex as not being a big deal."
The study appears in April's edition of the journal Pediatrics, published
Monday.
What's known about the risk of oral sex is based largely on case reports and
studies of HIV transmission in gay men.
While there's little reliable data on the health risks, parents and health
care providers can tell teenagers that there is a potential for getting herpes,
hepatitis, gonorrhea, chlamydia, syphilis and HIV from oral sex.
And parents can discuss how oral sex might affect a teenager's relationships
and self-image, she said.
The study, although limited by the small number of teenagers surveyed in only
two schools, is still interesting, said Dr. Robert Blum of the Johns Hopkins
Bloomberg School of Public Health. He was not involved in the research.
"Adults are sitting there yelling at each other about abstinence,
condoms, oral contraception and abortion, and kids have found their own
path," Blum said. "That's the most important issue that underlies
these data: Adults are more clueless than we would like to admit."
In the survey, the teenagers were instructed to imagine themselves in a
dating situation that included unprotected oral sex with a partner who had had
previous sexual intercourse with other partners.
The teenagers were then asked to estimate the chance that they would get
various sexually transmitted infections, including HIV, and the chance that they
would experience social and emotional costs such as feeling guilty or getting a
bad reputation.
More data on oral sex and teenagers is expected soon from the federal
National Survey of Family Growth, which for the first time in 2002 included
questions on oral sex, said David Landry, a researcher at the Alan Guttmacher
Institute, a nonprofit group that studies reproductive issues.
Landry said the California survey is encouraging because it shows teenagers
know that oral sex carries some health risk.
"Most adolescents also correctly recognized that oral sex is less risky
than sexual intercourse," Landry said. Fri Apr 8, 2005 01:36 PM ET NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Antidepressants may do more than improve the
mental health of people with both HIV and depression. New study findings suggest
the treatment may also bolster patients' compliance with their HIV medications.
In a study of HIV-positive people seen at Denver public health clinics,
researchers found that among the patients with depression, those who were on
antidepressants were more likely to be compliant with their antiretroviral HIV
drugs.
"Attention to diagnosis and treatment of depressive disorders in this
population may improve antiretroviral adherence and ultimate survival," the
study authors write in the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes.
"Depression screening should be a part of care for all patients,"
study co-author Dr. Arthur J. Davidson of the Denver Public Health Department
told Reuters Health.
"Many patients may present with physical symptoms that are directly
related to depression," he added.
For their study, Davidson and his colleagues looked at 1,713 HIV-positive
patients age 12 and older who were treated between 1997 and 2001. The
researchers used data from patients' medical and pharmacy records to gauge their
compliance with prescriptions for antidepressants and antiretroviral
medications.
Overall, 57 percent of the patients were diagnosed with depression, about
half of whom had picked up prescriptions for antidepressants and refilled them
at least twice.
Davidson's team found that patients who adhered to their antidepressant
prescriptions were also more likely to be compliant with their HIV regimen; more
than two-thirds of these patients were adherent to their HIV medications, versus
only 31 percent of those who did not comply with their antidepressant therapy.
The fact that patients who adhered to their depression medications also
tended to stick with their HIV regimens may reflect certain individuals' natural
tendency to closely follow their prescribed care, the researchers note.
However, there is reason to believe that the benefit came from addressing
patients' depression, according to Davidson.
It's known, he noted, that treating depressed patients -- HIV-positive or not
-- can improve their emotional and physical health, as well as how they view
their quality of life.
More research, according to Davidson and his colleagues, is now needed to
confirm whether improvements in depression boost patients' compliance with their
HIV drugs.
SOURCE: Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes, April 1 2005. Depression
Therapy May Help HIV Treatment
By Amy Norton
The two drugs, Emtriva capsules and Truvada tablets, were among three medicines for treating HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) for which JT had acquired the rights to market in Japan from the U.S. bio company in 2003.
Truvada is a combination of Emtriva and another of Gilead's anti-HIV drug, Viread, which has been sold in Japan since last April by Torii Pharmaceutical . Torii is 54 percent owned by JT.
Japanese drug authorities approved JT's application to market the two drugs on March 23, the tobacco company said.
A Torii spokesman said it would target 20 million yen ($184,200) in sales of Emtriva and 100 million yen in sales of Truvada for the first year and hoped to boost the figures to 200 million yen and 1.8 billion yen respectively in eight years.
Prior to the announcement, shares in Japan Tobacco ended down 0.78 percent at 1.28 million yen, against a 0.54 percent rise in Tokyo's benchmark Nikkei 225 share average . ($1=108.59 Yen)
|
Wed Apr 6, 1:02 PM ET
|
By Patricia Reaney
LONDON (Reuters) - An active ingredient in cannabis can ease inflammation and slow the progression of coronary artery disease in mice, and possibly humans, researchers said on Wednesday.
Daily low doses of the ingredient, THC, prevented atherosclerosis, a primary cause of heart disease and stroke in western countries, without producing the associated high.
"We have proven that very low doses of cannabis therapy will have an anti-inflammatory effect that will slow the progression of atherosclerosis in mice," said Dr Francois Mach, of Geneva University Hospital in Switzerland.
He and his team do not know whether TCH, or delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, will have the same effect in humans. But they believe the discovery will help find compounds that produce the same effect in humans without side effects such as raised blood pressure or euphoria.
"The goal now is to find new molecules, new compounds, that will act only on this anti-inflammatory effect," Mach told Reuters. Atherosclerosis is a common disorder of the arteries. Fatty materials build up and eventually block the arteries and interfere with blood flow.
THC and similar molecules are known as cannabinoids. Cannabis, which contains more than 60 different cannabinoids, and hashish have been used for centuries for medicinal purposes.
Mach and his team gave mice which were genetically engineered to be prone to atherosclerosis very low oral doses of THC with food each day. The dose was about 10 times less than that from smoking cannabis.
"It is the first study showing any beneficial effect of cannabis therapy on atherosclerosis," said Mach.
Cannabis creates a high when it binds to receptors called CB1 on the surface of cells in the brain. In the mouse study, another receptor, CB2, which is found on immune system cells and has nothing to do with euphoria, was affected. The dose given to the mice was too low to create a sense of euphoria.
Mice given THC had a slower progression of the disease than other mice not given the compound. The scientists are now studying whether THC can prevent the illness in the rodents.
"We are planning to look in more detail into how cannabis interferes with inflammation," said Mach.
"What we have proven in mice is that acting on this receptor 2 ... has an anti-inflammatory effect that is very beneficial against the development of atherosclerosis."
In a commentary on the research in Nature magazine, Michael Roth, of the University of California in Los Angeles, described the findings as striking.
"But they should not be taken to mean that smoking marijuana is beneficial for the heart," he said.
On the contrary it increases the pulse rate and causes sharp rises and then falls in blood pressure upon standing and walking.
The Netherlands was the world's first country to make cannabis available as a prescription drug for cancer, HIV and multiple sclerosis (MS). In the United States it is used to treat weight loss in AIDS patients and nausea and vomiting in cancer sufferers.
In Britain, GW Pharmaceuticals Plc has been pioneering cannabis-based medicine.