Saturday, July 25, 2009

News Clipping Archives

 

 

Maryland / Regional

Swine flu claims state's fourth victim (Baltimore Sun)

Scientists as crime-fighting detectives (Baltimore Sun)

Is $12.4M in stem cell funding enough? (Daily Record)

Positive change in homeless donations (Daily Record)

 

National / International

FDA: E-cigarettes contain bad stuff, too (Baltimore Sun)

House votes to lift ban on needle exchange programs (Baltimore Sun)

Brooklyn man accused of buying, selling kidneys (Baltimore Sun)

Take caution before becoming a swine flu guinea pig (Examiner.com)

CDC: Swine flu could hit 40% of Americans (Baltimore Sun)

 

Opinion

---

 

 

Maryland / Regional

Swine flu claims state's fourth victim

Eastern Shore resident had no obvious underlying health issues, officials say

 

By Kelly Brewington

Baltimore Sun

Saturday, July 25, 2009

 

A fourth person has died of swine flu in Maryland - but unlike previous deaths in the state, the person did not appear to also have an underlying medical problem, health officials said Friday.

 

Officials gave few details on the death, saying only that the person was an adult from the Eastern Shore with no "immediately apparent underlying medical condition or risk factors."

 

On Saturday, a message appeared on the University of Maryland University College Web site expressing sadness for the swine flu death of an employee.

 

"Our thoughts and prayers go out to the employee's family and friends in their time of grief and loss," the message read. "Privacy and confidentiality standards prevent us from disclosing the employee's name, but we do know that this was the employee whose family informed us earlier may have been ill with the 2009 H1N1 virus, commonly known as swine flu. Given the current notification practices of state health officials, we do not expect to receive additional information."

 

The message said that facilities management had "taken steps to disinfect the employee's work area," and that other UMUC were unaffected."

 

State health officials said the death of someone without pre-existing illness should serve as a reminder to the public of how serious this flu, known as H1N1, can be - even in otherwise healthy people.

 

"We are saddened to report yet another death that has been associated with the novel H1N1 influenza," said John M. Colmers, Maryland's health secretary. "More H1N1 flu-related deaths are expected, as we would normally see with seasonal flu. While we wait for the development and delivery of a vaccine, everyone should remain vigilant and take precautions to protect themselves and their loved ones."

 

While not common, it's not unheard of for healthy people to die of the flu - either this new swine flu or the seasonal variety, said Andrew Pekosz, a professor of microbiology and immunology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. "A certain number of healthy people will succumb to the flu," he said.

 

Since the outbreak this spring, 302 people have died nationwide of the virus, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Of the 151 people whose deaths the CDC has studied, 86 percent were at higher risk because they had some underlying medical issue - including people with compromised immune systems, chronic diseases like asthma and even obesity.

 

While the virus has been described as "mild," it appears to be reacting differently in people, causing a wide range of problems, said Dr. Anne Schuchat, director of the CDC's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases.

 

"We've seen people with high fever and cough and respiratory illness and really not able to do much more than four or five days," she said. "Then we've seen people who have difficulty breathing, severe respiratory failure and need to be in intensive care unit for weeks. So I think there's really a spectrum."

 

Infectious disease experts have been concerned that the virus could mutate into a deadlier strain this fall, and Pekosz said experts will be closely examining the deaths of healthy people to determine whether the virus they died from has become more lethal.

 

Some 36,000 people are killed by seasonal flu each year in the United States. But Pekosz noted that those deaths happen in a nation with widespread vaccinations, with many people who have antibodies against influenza to protect them from the disease.

 

"If this one emerges like a seasonal flu, the number of people who could potentially be infected will be much larger than what we will have in a normal flu season," he said. "Since there is very little pre-existing immunity, vaccines are going to be an important way to limit the large number of cases that will happen."

 

Earlier this week, the government announced it would begin testing two H1N1 vaccines on adults and children at eight centers nationwide, including the University of Maryland's Center for Vaccine Development. It is the start of what could be a mass vaccination campaign to start in mid-October.

 

Meanwhile, yesterday, the CDC strengthened its recommendation that all children aged 6 months to 18 years get vaccinated against seasonal flu. In previous years, the agency has only encouraged the shots.

 

Maryland has 766 documented cases of the new flu virus, but officials say that figure is likely a fraction of the total cases. Most people who become ill with flulike symptoms aren't tested and recover within a week, much like seasonal flu.

 

Copyright © 2009, The Baltimore Sun.

 

Scientists as crime-fighting detectives

 

Picture of Health

Associated Press

By Kelly Brewington

Baltimore Sun

Saturday, July 25, 2009

 

It happened just three weeks after the 9/11 attacks -- mysterious white powder was turning up in letters to the media and politicians in congress. The powder turned out to be deadly, the sender unknown.

 

The anthrax attacks ended up killing five people and alarming everyone about the threat of biological terrorism. As the FBI tackled the case, they enlisted some unexpected crime-fighters: scientists. They helped trace the powder to its origins. Among them was Claire Fraser-Liggett, director of the University of Maryland's Institute for Genome Sciences, who worked on the project while at the director of the Institute for Genomic Research in Rockville.

 

She and her team will star in a documentary airing at 9 p.m. Sunday on National Geographic, discussing how they cracked the case. Last month, PBS ran a special on NOVA and there's an online video snippet. It's a fascinating detective story that highlights the use of a new field -- forensic genomics. It's also, as Fraser-Liggett said to me in an interview recently, "really cool."

 

The FBI gave researchers anthrax samples to investigate, but the feds told the scientists next to nothing about the samples or the details of their investigation. The suspense was huge. Security was thick. And the entire process was pretty tense.

 

"We all realized this was far more serious than anything we had done before," Fraser-Liggett told me. "Not to say we aren't serious about what we do. But we got a whole lot more serious about what we were doing."

 

In the end, her team successfully traced the sample to its source. But I won't give away the good parts...

 

Copyright 2009 Baltimore Sun.

 

Is $12.4M in stem cell funding enough?

 

By Andy Rosen

Daily Record

Saturday, July 25, 2009

 

A $3 million cut to the state’s stem cell fund will reduce the amount of research Maryland can pay for this year, but some in the biotechnology industry say there is enough money in place for the state to remain a player on the national scene.

 

To a degree, Maryland, like other states, is looking forward to the resumption of federal funding for stem cells, but is trying to maintain its own funding source. Stem cell research advocates warn that it’s early to begin relying on federal money.

 

O’Malley originally asked the General Assembly to fund the stem cell program at $18.4 million this year. The House and Senate negotiated the size of the fund until late in the legislative session this year, at last approving $15.4 million for the program.

 

O’Malley cut the stem cell funding to $12.4 million, which he said will keep Maryland competitive with other states. Last week, as the state cut more than $280 million from the budget, O’Malley said the research fund was one area among many that he would have liked to spend more on. He plans to cut up to $750 million in total by this fall.

 

“There’s a lot of progress that we’d like to make at a faster pace than we’ll be able to,” he said.

 

States have had mixed records with stem cell funding this year as policymakers look for savings at every level of government. For instance, New Jersey eliminated its funding as it dealt with a budget crunch, though a state treasury spokesman said it could find money if a worthy project came along.

 

New York, on the other hand, is sticking with its commitment to spend $600 million on stem cell research over 11 years. Although it has not cut funds, some of the money may be spent more slowly, though, a budget spokesman said.

 

In California, the state maintained its $3 billion stem cell spending plan, even as it closed a $26 billion budget gap. California’s fund is paid for through a voter-approved bond rather than through the state’s general coffers.

 

At last week’s Board of Public Works meeting where the cuts were approved, Comptroller Peter Franchot expressed concern about Maryland’s competitive position.

 

“Are [other states] also making these cutbacks in anticipation of federal funding, or are they leading the way here?” Franchot asked.

 

O’Malley spokesman Shaun Adamec acknowledged last week that the lifting of a ban on the use of federal dollars for stem cell research makes the state-level cut less painful.

 

“I think that this funding on the stem cells was a lot more critical when the federal government made it a policy to ban funding,” he said. Though he said the funding is important at the state level, the federal money adds flexibility.

 

Renee Winsky, who heads the Maryland Technology Development Corp., which oversees the state’s stem cell fund, said the cuts will essentially result in fewer grants being awarded this year.

 

The state has three types of stem cell-related grants. One provides fellowships and can pay out $110,000 over two years. Another “exploratory” grant pays out up to $230,000 over two years. A third category, which pays out as much as $1.7 million over five years, allows scientists to continue existing research.

 

Winsky referred questions about the specific effect on grants to Karen Rothenberg, chairwoman of the Stem Cell Research Commission, which decides who gets research money in the state. Rothenberg declined to comment for this story.

 

Fran Sharples, spokeswoman for the Interstate Alliance on Stem Cell Research, said it’s probably too soon for states to lean on federal funding because the rules about how it will be administered have only recently been released.

 

More likely, she said states are probably cutting because they are short on cash.

 

“I think the budget crunch is probably making it very hard,” she said. “The fact is that there are still a lot of things that the federal government prohibits.”

 

Ric Zakour, executive director of the MdBio division of the Tech Council of Maryland, said he thinks O’Malley and the state have shown a commitment to stem cell research simply by keeping it in the budget. He acknowledged that some may contend that Maryland is losing ground.

 

“There are certainly proponents within the state who will make that argument,” Zakour said. “I think what it does is it shows the state’s continued commitment to this area.”

 

Copyright 2009 Daily Record.

 

Positive change in homeless donations

 

By Maria Zilberman

Daily Record

Monday, July 25, 2009

 

While homelessness in Baltimore has increased 12 percent since 2007, a program that helps curb panhandling downtown has seen a jump in revenue this year after 17 additional donation meters were installed in the area, officials said.

 

The Downtown Partnership of Baltimore Inc., a nonprofit corporation that works to improve quality of life in downtown Baltimore, started the Make a Change meter program in 2006 by refurbishing parking meters donated by the city and installing them in high-traffic pedestrian areas.

 

The program originally placed 10 of the lime green and royal blue meters along Pratt Street and this year expanded to other parts of the downtown area, including on Charles, Howard and Lombard streets.

 

As people pass by the meters, they can donate their nickels, dimes and quarters and see an arrow move from “Despair” to “Hope.”

 

Since the first collection in December 2006, the program has raised $3,412 for Baltimore Homeless Services, the recipient of all of the donations.

 

BHS, which moved from the city’s Health Department to the mayor’s office in 2009, received $1,272 in 2007, $680 in 2008 and $1,510 as of May 2009 from the meters, according to Diane Glauber, director of BHS.

 

“It’s an education program and it’s a means of raising money. So the education is that it’s OK not to give to panhandlers, but certainly we want you to give your money to help the homeless,” said Eugene “Tom” Yeager, the partnership’s executive vice president of Clean and Safe Programs.

 

Yeager said the program to reduce panhandling started with collection boxes placed in downtown hotels. Three such boxes still exist, including at the World Trade Center, and the money collected from them also contributes to the money given to BHS.

 

In Baltimore, panhandling at night, unless done passively by simply holding a sign, is illegal. The law also prohibits aggressive panhandling, which includes asking for money in close proximity to an ATM or following or touching a person.

 

“My panhandling complaints are down this year,” said Yeager, adding that the program is only part of the solution to end homelessness.

 

But Michael Stoops, executive director of the National Coalition for the Homeless, expressed concerns about donation meter programs.

 

“We believe that people have a right to panhandle and the citizen has a right to give, rather than having a middle man,” Stoops said. “I think it’s self-serving on the part of the agency to say ‘Don’t give to people who are visibly in need on the street, give to us.’ The agency could buy a ream of paper for their copy machine [with the meter money],” adding that citizens must use discretion when choosing to give to a panhandler.

 

To alleviate costs from the program, Yeager and a colleague, both retired police officers, personally collect and deliver the meter boxes every month to the city’s Bureau of Revenue Collections, where the money is counted and deposited directly to BHS.

 

During high-traffic times for the city, such as during the July Fourth weekend, the collections occur more often.

 

Glauber said most of the Make a Change money goes to two 24-hour shelters in Baltimore, which are a 350-person capacity shelter for single individuals at 210 Guilford Ave. and a 75-person capacity shelter for women and children at 1114 N. Mount St.

 

The money collected from the meters is used by the shelters to provide beds, meals and access to permanent housing resources, she said.

 

However, a 275-person capacity shelter set to open next spring at 620 Fallsway will replace the Guilford Avenue shelter, Glauber said.

 

“We may have some overflow sites, plus we’re really concentrating as much as possible to move people into permanent housing,” she said of the 75-bed downsizing.

 

“Homes not Handcuffs: The Criminalization of Homelessness in U.S. Cities,” a July 2009 report by the National Coalition for the Homeless and The National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty, listed 13 cities, including Baltimore, that have implemented donation meter programs to reduce panhandling.

 

Make a Change is only a small part of BHS’s annual operating budget of $43 million, with most of the organization’s money coming from the federal government.

 

BHS received $9.5 million in stimulus money and plans to use two-thirds of that to help homeless people find permanent housing and one-third to help individuals facing eviction, Glauber said.

 

Copyright 2009 Daily Record.

 

National / International

FDA: E-cigarettes contain bad stuff, too

 

Picture of Health

By Stephanie Desmon

Baltimore Sun

Thursday, July 23, 2009

 

Electronic cigarettes -- smokeless devices marketed as a way to deliver nicotine without the harmful effects of tobacco smoke -- may be just as unsafe as the products they mimic, officials with the Food and Drug Administration said yesterday.

 

For months, the FDA has wanted to keep e-cigarettes, as they are known, from being sold in the United States. They have blocked shipments at the border. They have warned that people can't know what they are inhaling when they use the product. But their efforts are being held up, as an e-cigarette manufacturer questions in court whether the FDA has regulatory authority over the devices.

 

Now, the FDA is saying that a small sample of e-cigarettes that it analyzed contained carcinogens and toxic chemicals such as diethylene glycol, an ingredient used in antifreeze.

 

The FDA has no way of knowing what else is in the e-cigarettes -- including how much nicotine is in them -- because they have not been submitted to the agency for evaluation.

 

The products are sold at mall kiosks and online and contain no warnings of health risks, like the ones found on every pack of traditional cigarettes. Some even claim to be smoking-cessation tools.

 

"Relatively little is known about how they're used, how much nicotine gets into people, what other chemicals are coming along for the ride," Dr. Jonathan Samet, director of the Institute for Global Health at the University of Southern California, told me when I wrote a story about this in May. "To make a therapeutic claim, you need to do the proper testing."

 

Defenders of the products say they still contain way less of the bad stuff found in cigarettes. As one said in May: "If this was a form of vodka that didn't cause liver damage, would we be having the same sort of problems?"

 

Copyright 2009 Baltimore Sun.

 

House votes to lift ban on needle exchange programs

 

National/World Brief

Baltimore Sun

Saturday, July 25, 2009

 

WASHINGTON - The House voted Friday to lift a ban on using taxpayer dollars for needle exchange programs for intravenous drug users intended to prevent the spread of HIV and other diseases. The vote to lift a long-standing ban on federal aid for such programs - in place since 1988 - came after a brief but passionate debate on an amendment by Rep. Mark Souder, an Indiana Republican, to keep the ban in place. His amendment failed by a 211-218 vote. Souder said HIV is spread chiefly through sexual activities and that needle exchange programs don't have a proven record of success. Souder "providing needles acts as a way for drug users to sustain and support their intravenous drug use and does not address the primary illness of the drug addiction." But Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard, a California Democrat, said the scientific evidence is indisputable and that needle exchange programs put addicts into contact with social services agencies, opening the door for them to seek treatment.

 

Copyright © 2009, The Baltimore Sun.

 

Brooklyn man accused of buying, selling kidneys

 

National/World

Baltimore Sun

Saturrday, July 25, 2009

 

NEWARK, N.J. - Levy Izhak Rosenbaum of Brooklyn called himself a "matchmaker," but his business wasn't romance. Instead, authorities say, he brokered the sale of black-market kidneys, buying organs from vulnerable people from Israel for $10,000 and selling them to desperate patients in the U.S. for as much as $160,000. The alleged decade-long scheme, exposed this week by an FBI sting, rocked the nation's transplant industry. If true, it would be the first documented case of organ trafficking in the U.S., transplant experts said Friday. Rosenbaum was arrested Thursday, 10 days after meeting in his basement with a government informant and an FBI agent posing as the informant's secretary. The agent claimed to be searching for a kidney for a sick uncle on dialysis who was on a transplant list at a Philadelphia hospital.

 

Copyright © 2009, The Baltimore Sun.

 

Take caution before becoming a swine flu guinea pig

 

By Katie McKoy

Examiner.com

Saturday, July 25, 2009

 

According to the Baltimore Sun, 2,400 people will be used in the trials for the swine flu vaccine to test the side effects. This comes amongst the urging by the CDC that all children between the ages of 6 months to 18 years of age should get the flu vaccine.

 

“Researchers nationwide will enroll about 2,400 volunteers in trials that will test two vaccines in five population groups. They will also study the best time to give the vaccine: before, during or after the typical vaccination schedule for the seasonal flu.

 

Scientists at the University of Maryland School of Medicine expect to receive a vaccine from manufacturer Sanofi Pasteur as soon as Aug. 10 and begin testing immediately on roughly 1,000 volunteers - adults at University of Maryland Medical Center and later on children at sites in Frederick and Annapolis.

 

The other vaccine, by Australian drug maker CSL, will be tested at another U.S. site, and testing is under way in Australia, said Dr. Karen L. Kotloff, professor of pediatrics and medicine at the University of Maryland's Center for Vaccine Development, and the principal investigator for the trial here.

 

Volunteers will receive two doses of the vaccine, three weeks apart and at two strengths.

 

Healthy adults and the elderly will be tested before the vaccine is tried in children as young as 6 months old. Children have been more susceptible to the new H1N1 strain.

 

Medical experts think that older people may have been exposed to similar strains of the virus and may have some immune protection against it.

 

There are calls for Atlanta kids to become participants in this study.

 

However, before jumping into this blindly do some homework as a parent if your child has any medical issues or special needs.

 

There are some concerns that some of the ingredients in this vaccine are linked with Gulf War Syndrome and other autoimmune issues.

 

If you are considering allowing your child to participate in these trials, you do have a right to ask about the ingredients and make sure that they will not harm your child. Once the vaccine is released, ask your physician what exactly is in it.

 

Make sure that you are educated as a patient and parent.

 

Parents of special needs children need to take caution and discuss the safety and appropriateness of this and any other vaccine with their physician.

 

While vaccines help prevent life threatening illness, there are some situations where they can potentially harm a person. For example, according to Dr. Vincent Iannelli from About.com’s Medical Review Board, the following can be reactions from the traditional flu shot:

 

Flu Shot Side Effects

 

On the other hand, flu shots can commonly cause mild side effects, especially in younger children who are getting their flu shots for the first time. These reactions and side effects can include:

 

• Local Reactions, such as soreness, pain, and swelling where the shot was given, but which are usually mild and last for less than 2 days.

 

• Systemic Reactions, which usually begin 6-12 hours after getting the flu shot, last for only 1 or 2 days, and can include fever, malaise (not feeling good), and muscle aches.

 

• Allergic Reactions, including hives and anaphylaxis can be life-threatening, but fortunately are rare, and can triggered by residual egg proteins in people allergic to eggs or to other components of the flu shot. Keep in mind that there are protocols that allow people with egg allergies to get flu shots, so talk to your doctor or allergist if your child is at high risk for complications from the flu and also has an egg allergy.

 

Remember, before rushing out to get this vaccine, discuss if this is appropriate for your child’s individual health situation.

 

Copyright 2009 Examiner.com.

 

CDC: Swine flu could hit 40% of Americans

 

Associated Press

Baltimore Sun

Saturday, July 25, 2009

 

ATLANTA — In a disturbing new projection, health officials say up to 40 percent of Americans could get swine flu this year and next, and several hundred thousand could die without a successful vaccine campaign and other measures.

 

The estimates by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are about twice the number of those who catch flu in a normal season and add greater weight to hurried efforts to get a new vaccine ready for the fall flu season.

 

Swine flu has already hit the United States harder than any other nation, but it has struck something of a glancing blow that's more surprising than devastating. The virus has killed about 300 Americans and experts believe it has sickened more than 1 million, comparable to a seasonal flu with the weird ability to keep spreading in the summer.

 

Health officials say flu cases may explode in the fall, when schools open and become germ factories, and the new estimates dramatize the need to have vaccines and other measures in place.

 

A world health official said the first vaccines are expected in September and October. The United States expects to begin testing on some volunteers in August, with 160 million doses ready in October.

 

The CDC came up with the new projections for the virus' spread last month, but it was first disclosed in an interview this week with The Associated Press.

 

The estimates are based on a flu pandemic from 1957, which killed nearly 70,000 in the United States but was not as severe as the infamous Spanish flu pandemic of 1918-1919. The number of deaths and illnesses from the new swine flu virus would drop if the pandemic peters out or if efforts to slow its spread are successful, said CDC spokesman Tom Skinner.

 

"Hopefully, mitigation efforts will have a big impact on future cases," he said. Besides pushing flu shots, health officials might urge measures such as avoiding crowded places, handwashing, cough covering and timely use of medicines like Tamiflu.

 

Because so many more people are expected to catch the new flu, the number of deaths over two years could range from 90,000 to several hundred thousand, the CDC calculated. Again, that is if a new vaccine and other efforts fail.

 

In a normal flu season, about 36,000 people die from flu and its complications, according to the American Medical Association. That too is an estimate, because death certificates don't typically list flu as a cause of death. Instead, they attribute a fatality to pneumonia or other complications.

 

Influenza is notoriously hard to predict, and some experts have shied away from a forecast. At a CDC swine flu briefing Friday, one official declined to answer repeated questions about her agency's own estimate.

 

"I don't think that influenza and its behavior in the population lends itself very well to these kinds of models," said the official, Dr. Anne Schuchat, who oversees the CDC's flu vaccination programs.

 

The World Health Organization says as many as 2 billion people could become infected in the next two years - nearly a third of the world population. The estimates look at potential impacts in a two-year period because past flu pandemics have occurred in waves over more than one year.

 

Copyright © 2009, The Baltimore Sun.

 

Opinion

----

 

---

BACK TO TOP