Pelosi: America Must Stand Up to Cancer

  • Author: Health Informer
  • Filed under: Health News
  • Date: Sep 6,2008

Speaker Nancy Pelosi issued the following statement today in support of the aims of the “Stand Up to Cancer” telethon, to be aired on all networks tonight:

“There is not a person in our country who has not seen a loved one suffer because of cancer. Cancer kills 565,000 Americans annually, and each year there are more than 1.4 million new cases. All Americans must work together to make eradicating the scourge of cancer a national priority of the highest order.

“The federal government’s role in our nation’s fight against cancer has been significant but more must be done. We must make key investments in research at the National Institutes of Health, promote prevention and screenings, and be certain that every American gets appropriate treatment. We must also allow scientists to pursue the research that they believe has the highest likelihood to heal.

“There are reasons for great optimism: scientists are working now to identify genetic changes that increase and decrease risk for cancer, to determine patterns of protein markers for early detection of cancer, and to better treat and cure the disease.

“Let us all work together to make this a golden era of progress as we Stand Up to Cancer.”

Source: Office of the Speaker of the House


FDA Approves First Hepatitis B Viral Load Test

  • Author: Health Informer
  • Filed under: Health News
  • Date: Sep 5,2008

Another Roche first in TaqMan(R) real-time PCR testing for the diagnostic lab

The U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the Roche COBAS(R) TaqMan(R) HBV Test, the first assay for quantitating Hepatitis B Virus DNA approved in the U.S. The test uses Roche’s real-time PCR technology to quantify the amount of Hepatitis B virus DNA in a patient’s blood. Doctors may use viral load testing results to establish a baseline level of infection and during treatment as an aid in assessing individual responses to therapy. Widespread application of antiviral therapy along with the Hepatitis B vaccine has helped reduce prevalence; however, Hepatitis B remains a serious and potentially life threatening global disease, potentially resulting in death from extensive liver damage or liver cancer for chronically infected people.(1)

“Viral load testing with an FDA approved test has long been the standard for managing patients with HIV and Hepatitis C,” said Teresa Wright, M.D., Chief Medical Officer at Roche Molecular Diagnostics. “Availability of this new Roche test enables doctors and laboratories to bring that same level of standardized viral load measurement to Hepatitis B treatment.”

Because the goal of Hepatitis B therapy is to treat until the virus is undetectable in the patient’s blood, it is critical for viral load monitoring tests to be able to quantify very low levels of virus. Similarly, it is important for the test to quantify very high levels of virus (higher than 100 million IU/mL), an indicator of the need for more or less aggressive treatment. The Roche COBAS(R) TaqMan(R) HBV Test can detect the World Health Organization (WHO) HBV International Standard in plasma and serum as low as 3.5 IU/mL and 3.4 IU/mL respectively. The test can measure HBV DNA as high as 1.10E8 IU/mL, representing a significantly broader dynamic range than previously available tests in the U.S.

Other infections concomitant with Hepatitis B are common, with up to 10% of HIV patients in the US also infected with Hepatitis B virus. This makes it essential for the test to quantitate the HBV virus in presence of other viruses.

Designed for use with the High Pure System, the test is run on the COBAS(R) TaqMan(R) 48 analyzer and gives labs the added benefits of automated real-time PCR. The test system benefits from the same contamination control protection designed into all COBAS(R) TaqMan(R) assays, including closed-tube processing and built-in Roche-proprietary AmpErase enzymes. To help with needed standardization, the Roche COBAS(R) TaqMan(R) HBV Test has been calibrated with the WHO standard and reports with the international unit of measure IU/mL. The test was designed to quantify all major Hepatitis B genotypes, including pre-core mutants that can lead to more severe liver disease and reduced response to antiviral therapy.

Roche Diagnostics, a leader in molecular diagnostics, has more than 10 years of global experience in HBV viral load testing and has actively monitored virus mutation through its Global Surveillance program. The COBAS(R) TaqMan(R) HBV Test is the latest in a portfolio of increasingly automated real-time PCR Hepatitis and HIV tests that Roche is developing. The company’s fully automated, real-time HIV monitor test was approved by the FDA in May 2007 and the company has filed a Premarket Approval Application for its test to quantitate HCV virus RNA.

About Hepatitis B

According to the World Health Organization, HBV is the most serious type of viral hepatitis infecting 2 billion people each year and representing a serious public health problem. Even with a Hepatitis B vaccine, which has been available since 1982, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control estimates that 1.25 million people are living with chronic Hepatitis B infection. Another 60,000 people become newly infected each year and 5,000 people die from hepatitis B-related complications.

The Hepatitis B virus is spread through having unprotected sex, by sharing drugs, needles, or from an infected mother to her baby during birth. Symptoms occur in about 70 percent of patients which include jaundice, fatigue, abdominal pain, loss of appetite, nausea, and vomiting.

Source: Roche


Targeted marketing of high- calorie foods and beverages exposes African American consumers to more unhealthy messages around eating and limits their access to healthy foods, compared to whites or the general population, according to a new research review published in the September issue of the American Journal of Public Health.

The overall effects of these marketing strategies may contribute to the significantly higher rates of obesity among African Americans than in whites, says the study’s lead author, Sonya A. Grier, Ph.D., a former Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health & Society Scholar at the University of Pennsylvania, currently at the American University Kogod School of Business in Washington, DC.

“It’s hard to make healthy choices when all the signals and supports in your environment tell you to do just the opposite,” says Grier. “One way to make a dent in the obesity epidemic is to reverse those messages so that marketing efforts support healthier eating among African Americans.”

The study is the first to take a comprehensive view of food marketing strategies aimed at African Americans. Study researchers considered the four key tools used by food and beverage marketers to reach particular target markets: products that are offered to a market; promotions, including advertising and other types of persuasive communications; place, referring to the distribution and availability of specific products; and price.

The researchers conducted a systematic review of published studies to identify the 20 that permitted comparisons of food and beverage marketing strategies to African Americans versus other groups. Despite a limited evidence base, they found that African Americans are more frequently exposed to food promotion and distribution patterns that support unhealthy eating habits.

Grier says that food-related businesses and marketers should take a hard look at how targeted marketing strategies may be contributing to racial and ethnic disparities in obesity. In addition, she recommends the following:

  • African American media should pursue healthier product sponsors and actively seek out healthier food promotions.
  • Communities should advocate for greater access to healthier foods, including supermarkets and farmers’ markets.

Source: Burness Communications


Reporting on Health Care and Health Insurance: The Florida Story

  • Author: Health Informer
  • Filed under: Health News
  • Date: Sep 5,2008

A FACS seminar for journalists Tuesday, Sept. 16 at the Orlando Sentinel

Health care costs for Florida and the nation are skyrocketing. At the same time, health plans are often inadequate to cover those who are insured. The number of uninsured is rising. Many areas of health care are experiencing what has been termed an “extreme shortage” of personnel.

Foundation for American Communications will provide background on these issues in a seminar for journalists on Tuesday, Sept. 16, at the Orlando Sentinel. The seminar is presented in association with the Orlando Sentinel, the Society of Professional Journalists and the Southern Newspaper Publishers Association.

The faculty includes:

  • Paul R. Duncan, Ph.D., Professor and Chairman, Department of Health Services Research at the University of Florida. He will focus on the present status of health insurance in Florida, including a discussion of the number and characteristics of uninsured Floridians, the impact of health insurance on health and health care; the consequences for hospitals and other providers; the consequences for insured people, and the various means by which they obtain insurance.
  • Glen Mays, Ph.D., Chairman, Department of Health Policy and Management, University of Arkansas. Mays will review recent trends in health care spending both nationally and in Florida specifically, examining the major components that drive health care spending. He will examine how health insurers, policymakers, and consumers are responding to these trends in terms of recent developments for cost control and care management.
  • Andrea C. Gregg, DSN, R.N., Campus Director and Associate Professor, University of Florida College of Nursing. She will discuss the workforce shortage in Florida health care, with an emphasis on nursing. Gregg serves on the board of directors of Gov. Jeb Bush’s new Florida Center for Nursing and is a trustee of the Florida Nurses Foundation. She also serves on the Florida Hospital Association’s nursing shortage advisory committee and is a member of the Council on Collegiate Education for Nursing.

You must be a journalist to attend this seminar. The program is offered free of charge, but participants must be registered in advance. Breakfast and lunch are included.

For further details or to register, go to http://www.facsnet.org/.

FACS is an independent, nonprofit 501(c)(3) educational institution providing seminars for journalists on complex issues in the news. FACS is a programming partner of SPJ.

CONTACT: Jamie S. Bray, Program Manager, Foundation for American Communications (FACS), +1-626-584-0010, bray@facs.us

Source: Foundation for American Communications (FACS)


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