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Stroke Patients Less Likely To Meet Treatment Goals Than Heart Disease Patients
A majority of high-risk stroke patients are less likely to meet clinical treatment targets to prevent repeat stroke or heart attacks compared to those with heart disease, suggesting the need to examine new therapeutic strategies, according to a study led by St. Michael"s Hospital neurologist Dr. Gustavo Saposnik. What"s more, medical procedures or ongoing specialty care may improve patients" awareness and consequent treatment success.

Patient Upside Murky In Drug-Price Cases
"The prices of hundreds of brand-name drugs are about to be cut 4%, and millions of Americans may soon receive a check in the mail as compensation for having overpaid for their prescriptions," but "the extent to which the average consumer will benefit isn"t yet clear," the Wall Street Journal reports. "The price cuts and expected payments are the result of federal class-action settlements involving two drug-price publishers and a major drug wholesaler that were accused of inflating drug prices."
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Blogs Comment On Planned Parenthood Ad Campaign, Sex-Selective Abortion, Other Topics
The following summarizes selected women"s health-related blog entries.~ "A Radical Notion: Women"s Health Care as Mainstream," Cecile Richards, Huffington Post blogs: "To hammer ... home" the message that "Planned Parenthood and other essential community providers are the affordable, local access to basic preventive care that saves lives," the Planned Parenthood Action Center has introduced advertisements "educating the policy folks involved in fixing our health care system" about "why women"s health care needs to be taken care of in this mega-reform effort," Richards writes. She writes, "From cancer screenings to contraception to immunizations, the majority of women who go to women"s health care centers consider them their primary health care provider," adding, "In fact, more than 90% of what Planned Parenthood health centers do is preventive and primary care." According to Richards, "Essential community providers, including those who provide women"s health care, need to be part of any newly established health care system." She adds that "the three million patients who came to Planned Parenthood health centers last year can testify to it." Richards writes that "[f]amily planning and reproductive health care are unfortunately still not fully part of mainstream health care, even though 98% of women use contraception at some point in their lives -- there"s nothing more universal!" The "fact that women reproduce and, therefore, have different types of health care needs makes some folks on Capitol Hill go pale and start to sweat," Richards writes. She concludes, "Maybe one day we won"t need a special campaign to support women"s health," but "until then, Planned Parenthood is here to make sure women aren"t worse off after health care reform than before" (Richards, Huffington Post blogs, 6/18).~ "The Role of Medical Education in Preserving Abortion Access," Our Bodies, Our Blog: In response to a recent Salon opinion piece that examined whether there will be a next generation of abortion providers, the blog post discusses a few organizations that are "working to increase access to (accurate) abortion-related training." The blog includes links to Medical Students for Choice -- a group that "does student organizing and advocacy to influence medical school curricula, workshops ... and lectures on abortion techniques" -- and The Ryan Program -- which offers "funding, technical expertise, curriculum, workshops and other res to support training opportunities in abortion and contraception for ob-gyn residents." The blog entry also highlights the work of Physicians for Reproductive Choice and Health, which partners with members of the American Medical Student Association "to provide "project in a box" materials for medical students wanting to access and influence their schools" curricula on sexual and reproductive health" (Our Bodies, Our Blog, 6/18). ~ "Regulating Abortion May Be OK But Not To Avoid Sex-Selection," Marianne Mollmann, Huffington Post blogs: "Sex-selective abortion raises a multitude of overlapping ethical concerns regarding eugenics, population control and provider privilege or knowledge," according to Mollmann, advocacy director for the Human Rights Watch"s Women"s Rights Division. Mollmann writes that recent media reports indicating that sex-selective abortion occurs among some ethnic communities in the U.S. "has generated new discussion about what to do -- indeed what to think -- about the practice here." She continues that the "effect of abortion regulations depends on the context and motivation," adding that "[f]rom a human rights perspective, the regulation of medical procedures and interventions is legitimate and indeed often necessary so long as they are based on full respect for the full range of human rights." It is "perhaps tempting to hope that banning sex-selective abortions would safeguard the gender balance of future generations," but the "criminalization of abortion for whatever reason has in the past led only to underground and unsafe prac
Endocrinology

Inovio Biomedical H1N1 Influenza DNA Vaccines Demonstrate 100% Responses Against Swine Flu In Vaccinated Pigs

Inovio Biomedical Corporation (NYSE Amex:INO), a leader in DNA vaccine design, development and delivery, announced today that the company"s SynCon™ H1N1 influenza DNA vaccines achieved protective antibody responses against H1N1 swine influenza virus (A/Swine/Iowa/35233/1999) in 100% of pigs immunized with a two-dose vaccine regimen. Dr. Niranjan Sardesai, Senior VP, Research & Development, presented the data at the Annual Conference of DNA Vaccines in Asia 2009 held in Beijing, China, July 9-10, 2009, in a presentation entitled, "Pandemic and Seasonal Influenza DNA Vaccines Delivered Via Electroporation." In this study, scientists immunized pigs with consensus H1N1 influenza DNA vaccine candidates on day 0, day 14, and day 28. Sera collected on day 28 and day 42, after two or three doses of vaccine, respectively, showed hemagglutination inhibition (HI) titers above the protection threshold in 100% of the vaccinated animals against a swine H1N1 virus previously isolated from pigs. On-going additional animal studies are testing the ability of Inovio"s SynCon™ human H1N1 and swine H1N1 based vaccines to cross-protect from currently circulating human and swine H1N1 viruses as well as the new influenza A/H1N1 of swine origin. In a similar collaborative study with scientists from the National Microbiology Laboratory of the Public Health Agency of Canada and the University of Pennsylvania, Inovio previously demonstrated that mice immunized with Inovio"s SynCon™ H1N1 DNA vaccine provided 100% protection in a lethal challenge study against an unmatched H1N1 virus that caused the 1918 Spanish flu, which killed over 40 million people worldwide. Dr. J. Joseph Kim, Inovio"s CEO, said, "Our innovative SynCon™ technology has the potential to protect people from influenza strains not exactly like the ones that make up the existing vaccines. This is a clear advantage for our universal flu program over conventional influenza vaccines. We are pleased to report our H1N1 preclinical results using pigs, a more natural model for the current influenza pandemic. We look forward to advancing our SynCon™ universal flu vaccine program toward clinical investigation." Inovio"s novel SynCon™ technology enables the company to design DNA-based vaccines with the potential to protect against unmatched sub-types and strains of pathogens. Inovio has created SynCon™ DNA vaccines based on influenza HA, NA, and NP proteins that are common to strains H1N1, H2N2, H3N2, and H5N1, which make up the majority of seasonal and pandemic influenza. Using a designer approach, Inovio can formulate these DNA plasmids together to rapidly develop a universal influenza vaccine potentially targeting all these strains. The resulting vaccine could target seasonal as well as pandemic-potential influenza strains such as avian influenza and swine flu, which has already been designated pandemic status. Significantly, being based on a common set of antigens derived from a broad range of flu strains, such a universal vaccine would have the potential to provide greater protection against evolving, unmatched flu strains. Inovio Biomedical Corporation


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