Pharmaceutical Manufacturing
Pharmaceutical companies, which develop both over-the-counter and prescription drugs, have been among the biggest political spenders for years. While the industry has traditionally supported Republican candidates, some key players have recently increased donations to Democratic candidates as the GOP’s power in Washington erodes.
The pharmaceutical manufacturing industry will likely fair better this decade now that President Barack Obama’s initial plan to institute a public health insurance did not become a part of sweeping health care reform legislation signed into law in 2010. A government-run plan, because of its size, would have had considerable negotiating power to draw down drug prices. [ Read more Background]
Top Contributors, 2011-2012
Contributor Amount Pfizer Inc 
$702,391
Amgen Inc AstraZeneca PLC Abbott Laboratories Merck & Co GlaxoSmithKline Eli Lilly & Co Novartis AG Bayer Corp Endo Pharmaceuticals Perrigo Co Mutual Pharmaceutical Allergan Inc Teva Pharmaceuticals USA Sanofi-Aventis Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharmaceutical Rsrch & Mfrs of America Nostrum Pharmaceuticals Cephalon Inc Takeda Pharmaceuticals North America
Contribution Trends, 1990-2010
Lobbying Totals, 1998-2010
Party Split, 1990-2010
Top Recipients, 2011-2012
Candidate Office Amount Obama, Barack (D Romney, Mitt (R Upton, Fred (R-MI House Brown, Scott P (R-MA Senate Hatch, Orrin G (R-UT Senate
Average Contributions to Members of Congress, 1990-2010
Data for the current election cycle were released by the Federal Election Commission on Monday, February 13, 2012
Feel free to distribute or cite this material, but please credit the Center for Responsive Politics.
Introduction
As a follow-up to my March 1 posting, I want to share the findings of our root cause analysis of the service disruption of February 29th. We know that many of our customers were impacted by this event and we want to be transparent about what happened, what issues we found, how we plan to address these issues, and how we are learning from the incident to prevent a similar occurrence in the future.
Again, we sincerely apologize for the disruption, downtime and inconvenience this incident has caused. We will be proactively issuing a service credit to our impacted customers as explained below. Rest assured that we are already hard at work using our learnings to improve Windows Azure.
Overview of Windows Azure and the Service Disruption
Windows Azure comprises many different services, including Compute, Storage, Networking and higher-level services like Service Bus and SQL Azure. This partial service outage impacted Windows Azure Compute and dependent services: Access Control Service (ACS , Windows Azure Service Bus, SQL Azure Portal, and Data Sync Services. It did not impact Windows Azure Storage or SQL Azure.
While the trigger for this incident was a specific software bug, Windows Azure consists of many components and there were other interactions with normal operations that complicated this disruption. There were two phases to this incident. The first phase was focused on the detection, response and fix of the initial software bug. The second phase was focused on the handful of clusters that were impacted due to unanticipated interactions with our normal servicing operations that were underway. Understanding the technical details of the issue requires some background on the functioning of some of the low-level Windows Azure components.
Fabric Controllers, Agents and Certificates
In Windows Azure, cloud applications consist of virtual machines running on physical servers in Microsoft datacenters. Servers are grouped into “clusters” of about 1000 that are each independently managed by a scaled-out and redundant platform software component called the Fabric Controller (FC , as depicted in Figure 1. Each FC manages the lifecycle of applications running in its cluster, provisions and monitors the health of the hardware under its control. It executes both autonomic operations, like reincarnating virtual machine instances on healthy servers when it determines that a server has failed, as well as application-management operations like deploying, updating and scaling out applications. Dividing the datacenter into clusters isolates faults at the FC level, preventing certain classes of errors from affecting servers beyond the cluster in which they occur.
Figure 1. Clusters and Fabric Controllers
Part of Windows Azure’s Platform as a Service (PaaS functionality requires its tight integration with applications that run in VMs through the use of a “guest agent” (GA that it deploys into the OS image used by the VMs, shown in Figure 2. Each server has a “host agent” (HA that the FC leverages to deploy application secrets, like SSL certificates that an application includes in its package for securing HTTPS endpoints, as well as to “heart beat” with the GA to determine whether the VM is healthy or if the FC should take recovery actions.
Figure 2. Host Agent and Guest Agent Initialization
So that the application secrets, like certificates, are always encrypted when transmitted over the physical or logical networks, the GA creates a “transfer certificate” when it initializes. The first step the GA takes during the setup of its connection with the HA is to pass the HA the public key version of the transfer certificate. The HA can then encrypt secrets and because only the GA has the private key, only the GA in the target VM can decrypt those secrets.
There are several cases that require generation of a new transfer certificate. Most of the time that’s only when a new VM is created, which occurs when a user launches a new deployment, when a deployment scales out, or when a deployment updates its VM operating system. The fourth case is when the FC reincarnates a VM that was running on a server it has deemed unhealthy to a different server, a process the platform calls “service healing.”
The Leap Day Bug
When the GA creates the transfer certificate, it gives it a one year validity range. It uses midnight UST of the current day as the valid-from date and one year from that date as the valid-to date. The leap day bug is that the GA calculated the valid-to date by simply taking the current date and adding one to its year. That meant that any GA that tried to create a transfer certificate on leap day set a valid-to date of February 29, 2013, an invalid date that caused the certificate creation to fail.
As mentioned, transfer certificate creation is the first step of the GA initialization and is required before it will connect to the HA. When a GA fails to create its certificates, it terminates. The HA has a 25-minute timeout for hearing from the GA. When a GA doesn’t connect within that timeout, the HA reinitializes the VM’s OS and restarts it.
If a clean VM (one in which no customer code has executed times out its GA connection three times in a row, the HA decides that a hardware problem must be the cause since the GA would otherwise have reported an error. The HA then reports to the FC that the server is faulty and the FC moves it to a state called Human Investigate (HI . As part of its standard autonomic failure recovery operations for a server in the HI state, the FC will service heal any VMs that were assigned to the failed server by reincarnating them to other servers. In a case like this, when the VMs are moved to available servers the leap day bug will reproduce during GA initialization, resulting in a cascade of servers that move to HI.
To prevent a cascading software bug from causing the outage of an entire cluster, the FC has an HI threshold, that when hit, essentially moves the whole cluster to a similar HI state. At that point the FC stops all internally initiated software updates and automatic service healing is disabled. This state, while degraded, gives operators the opportunity to take control and repair the problem before it progresses further.
The Leap Day Bug in Action
The leap day bug immediately triggered at 4:00PM PST, February 28th (00:00 UST February 29th when GAs in new VMs tried to generate certificates. Storage clusters were not affected because they don’t run with a GA, but normal application deployment, scale-out and service healing would have resulted in new VM creation. At the same time many clusters were also in the midst of the rollout of a new version of the FC, HA and GA. That ensured that the bug would be hit immediately in those clusters and the server HI threshold hit precisely 75 minutes (3 times 25 minute timeout later at 5:15PM PST. The bug worked its way more slowly through clusters that were not being updated, but the critical alarms on the updating clusters automatically stopped the updates and alerted operations staff to the problem. They in turn notified on-call FC developers, who researched the cause and at 6:38PM PST our developers identified the bug.
By this time some applications had single VMs offline and some also had multiple VMs offline, but most applications with multiple VMs maintained availability, albeit with some reduced capacity. To prevent customers from inadvertently causing further impact to their running applications, unsuccessfully scaling-out their applications, and fruitlessly trying to deploy new applications, we disabled service management functionality in all clusters worldwide at 6:55PM PST. This is the first time we’ve ever taken this step. Service management allows customers to deploy, update, stop and scale their applications but isn’t necessary for the continued operation of already deployed applications. However stopping service management prevents customers from modifying or updating their currently deployed applications.
We created a test and rollout plan for the updated GA by approximately 10:00PM PST, had the updated GA code ready at 11:20PM PST, and finished testing it in a test cluster at 1:50AM PST, February 29th. In parallel, we successfully tested the fix in production clusters on the VMs of several of our own applications. We next initiated rollout of the GA to one production cluster and that completed successfully at 2:11AM PST, at which time we pushed the fix to all clusters. As clusters were updated we restored service management functionality for them and at 5:23AM PST we announced service management had been restored to the majority of our clusters.
Secondary Outage
When service management was disabled, most of the clusters either were already running the latest FC, GA and HA versions or almost done with their rollouts. Those clusters were completely repaired. Seven clusters, however, had just started their rollouts when the bug affected them. Most servers had the old HA/GA combination and some had the new combination, both of which contained the GA leap day bug, as shown below:
Figure 3. Servers running different versions of the HA and GA
We took a different approach to repair these seven clusters, which were in a partially updated state. We restored to previous versions of the FC, HA, but with a fixed GA, instead of updating them to the new HA with a fixed new GA. The first step we took was to test the solution by putting the older HA on a server that had previously been updated to the new HA to keep version compatibility with the older GA. The VMs on the server started successfully and appeared to be healthy.
Under normal circumstances when we apply HA and GA updates to a cluster, the update takes many hours because we honor deployment availability constraints called Update Domains (UDs . Instead of pushing the older HA out using the standard deployment functionality, we felt confident enough with the tests to opt for a “blast” update, which simultaneously updated to the older version the HA on all servers at the same time.
Unfortunately, in our eagerness to get the fix deployed, we had overlooked the fact that the update package we created with the older HA included the networking plugin that was written for the newer HA, and the two were incompatible. The networking plugin is responsible for configuring a VM’s virtual network and without its functionality a VM has no networking capability. Our test of the single server had not included testing network connectivity to the VMs on the server, which was not working. Figure 4 depicts the incompatible combination.
Figure 4. Servers running the incompatible combination of HA and HA networking plugin
At 2:47 AM PST on the 29th, we pushed the incompatible combination of components to those seven clusters and every VM, including ones that had been healthy previously, causing them to become disconnected from the network. Since major services such as Access Control Service (ACS and Windows Azure Service Bus deployments were in those clusters, any application using them was now impacted because of the loss of services on which they depended.
We quickly produced a corrected HA package and at 3:40 AM PST tested again, this time verifying VM connectivity and other aspects of VM health. Given the impact on these seven clusters, we chose to blast out the fix starting at 5:40 AM PST. The clusters were largely operational again by 8:00 AM PST, but a number of servers were in corrupted states as a result of the various transitions. Developers and operations staff worked furiously through the rest of the day manually restoring and validating these servers. As clusters and services were brought back online we provided updates to the dashboard, and posted the last incident update to the Windows Azure dashboard that all Windows Azure services were healthy at 2:15 AM PST, March 1st.
Improving the Service
After an incident occurs, we take the time to analyze the incident and ways we can improve our engineering, operations and communications. To learn as much as we can, we do the root cause analysis but also follow this up with an analysis of all aspects of the incident. The three truths of cloud computing are: hardware fails, software has bugs and people make mistakes. Our job is to mitigate all of these unpredictable issues to provide a robust service for our customers. By understanding and addressing these issues we will continue to improve the service we offer to our customers.
The analysis is organized into four major areas, looking at each part of the incident lifecycle as well as the engineering process that preceded it:
- Prevention – how the system can avoid, isolate, and/or recover from failures
- Detection – how to rapidly surface failures and prioritize recovery
- Response – how to support our customers during an incident
- Recovery – how to reduce the recovery time and impact on our customers
Prevention
- Testing. The root cause of the initial outage was a software bug due to the incorrect manipulation of date/time values. We are taking steps that improve our testing to detect time-related bugs. We are also enhancing our code analysis tools to detect this and similar classes of coding issues, and we have already reviewed our code base.
- Fault Isolation. The Fabric Controller moved nodes to a Human Investigate (HI state when their operations failed due to the Guest Agent (GA bug. It incorrectly assumed the hardware, not the GA, was faulty. We are taking steps to distinguish these faults and isolate them before they can propagate further into the system.
- Graceful Degradation. We took the step of turning off service management to protect customers’ already running services during this incident, but this also prevented any ongoing management of their services. We are taking steps to have finer granularity controls to allow disabling different aspects of the service while keeping others up and visible.
Detection
- Fail Fast. GA failures were not surfaced until 75 minutes after a long timeout. We are taking steps to better classify errors so that we fail-fast in these cases, alert these failures and start recovery.
Response
- Service Dashboard. The Windows Azure Dashboard is the primary mechanism to communicate individual service health to customers. However the service dashboard experienced intermittent availability issues, didn’t provide a summary of the situation in its entirety, and didn’t provide the granularity of detail and transparency our customers need and expect.
- Intermittent availability: This dashboard is run on two different internal infrastructures, Windows Azure and Microsoft.com, to deal with the catastrophic failure of either system. It is also geo-replicated to deal with geographic specific incidents. However, the dashboard experienced intermittent availability issues due to exceptionally high volume and fail-over/load balancing that was taking place. We have taken steps to correct this and ensure more robust service in the future.
- Situation summary: The service dashboard provides information on the health status of 60+ individual services at the sub-region level. While this is valuable in understanding individual service status, the lack of summary information made it difficult for customers to understand the situation holistically. Customers have asked for a summarized view on the dashboard to quickly gain a comprehensive understanding of the scope and severity of the outage. We are taking steps to make this change.
- Detail and transparency: Although updates are posted on an hourly basis, the status updates were often generic or repeated the information provided in the last couple of hours. Customers have asked that we provide more details and new information on the specific work taking place to resolve the issue. We are committed to providing more detail and transparency on steps we’re taking to resolve an outage as well as details on progress and setbacks along the way.
- Intermittent availability: This dashboard is run on two different internal infrastructures, Windows Azure and Microsoft.com, to deal with the catastrophic failure of either system. It is also geo-replicated to deal with geographic specific incidents. However, the dashboard experienced intermittent availability issues due to exceptionally high volume and fail-over/load balancing that was taking place. We have taken steps to correct this and ensure more robust service in the future.
- Customer Support. During this incident, we had exceptionally high call volumes that led to longer than expected wait times. While we are staffed to handle high call volumes in the event of an outage the intermittent availability of the service dashboard and lack of updates through other communication channels contributed to the increased call volume. We are reevaluating our customer support staffing needs and taking steps to provide more transparent communication through a broader set of channels.
- Other Communication Channels. A significant number of customers are asking us to better use our blog, Facebook page, and Twitter handle to communicate with them in the event of an incident. They are also asking that we provide official communication through email more quickly in the days following the incident. We are taking steps to improve our communication overall and to provide more proactive information through these vehicles. We are also taking steps to provide more granular tools to customers and support to diagnose problems with their specific services.
Recovery
- Internal tooling. We developed and modified some of our internal tooling to address this incident. We will continue to invest in our tools to help speed recovery and make recovery from intermediate states more predictable.
- Dependency priorities. We are also examining our processes to make sure dependencies are factored into recovery to ensure that all Windows Azure infrastructure services, such as ACS and Windows Azure Service Bus, are recovered first to reduce the impact on customers.
- Visibility. We are looking at how we can provide better visibility into recovery steps and provide customers with visibility into the intermediate progress being made.
Service Credits
Microsoft recognizes that this outage had a significant impact on many of our customers. We stand behind the quality of our service and our Service Level Agreement (SLA , and we remain committed to our customers. Due to the extraordinary nature of this event, we have decided to provide a 33% credit to all customers of Windows Azure Compute, Access Control, Service Bus and Caching for the entire affected billing month(s for these services, regardless of whether their service was impacted. These credits will be applied proactively and will be reflected on a billing period subsequent to the affected billing period. Customers who have additional questions can contact
support for more information.
Conclusion
We will continue to spend time to fully understand all of the issues outlined above and over the coming days and weeks we will take steps to address and mitigate the issues to improve our service. We know that our customers depend on Windows Azure for their services and we take our SLA with customers very seriously. We will strive to continue to be transparent with customers when incidents occur and will use the learning to advance our engineering, operations, communications and customer support and improve our service to you.
Sincerely,
Bill Laing and the Windows Azure Team
Prominent academic physicians at multiple universities have allegedly been involved in ghostwriting. Below are just a few examples:
Gloria Bachmann, Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Robert Wood Johnson Medical School
Dennis Charney, Dean, The Mount Sinai Medical Center
Dwight Evans, Professor and Chair, Department of Psychiatry, University of Pennsylvania
Steven Haffner, Assistant Professor, Department of Medicine, Baylor College of Medicine
Martin Keller, Professor of Psychiatry & Human Behavior, Brown University
Marvin A. Konstam, Director, Cardiovascular Center, Tufts University School of Medicine
Stan Kutcher, Professor, Department of Psychiatry, Dalhousie University
Jeffrey Lisse, Rheumatology Section Chief, The University of Arizona
Charles Nemeroff, Chairman, Department of Psychiatry, University of Miami
Bruce G. Pollock, Head of the Division of Geriatric Psychiatry, University of Toronto
Gary S. Sachs, Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Psychiatry, Harvard
Alan Schatzberg, Professor, Psychiatry and Behavioral Science, Stanford
Barbara B. Sherwin, Canada Research Chair in Hormones, Brain and Cognition, McGill University
Kimberly Ann Yonkers, Professor of Psychiatry and Obstetrics, Yale School of Medicine
What do medical journals say about ghostwriting?
The
Journal of the American Medical Association
(
JAMA
published studies exposing the ghostwriting program used to push sales of Vioxx. In an
accompanying opinion,
JAMA
’s editors excoriated doctors who sign their names to ghostwritten studies and wrote, "Individuals, particularly physicians, who allow themselves to be used in this way, especially for financial gain, manifest a behavior that is unprofessional and demeaning to the medical profession and to scientific research."
PLoS Medicine
filed suit with
The New York Times
to gain access to hundreds of documents showing how companies used ghostwritten materials to convince women to use hormones after menopause. The journal then published
an archive of the documents, a study of the documents, and an
editorial that stated:
It's time to get serious about tackling ghostwriting. As has been shown in the documents released after the Vioxx scandal, this practice can result in lasting injury and even deaths as a result of prescribers and patients being misinformed about risks. Without action, the practice will undoubtedly continue. How did we get to the point that falsifying the medical literature is acceptable? How did an industry whose products have contributed to astounding advances in global health over the past several decades come to accept such practices as the norm?
Founded in 1981, the Project On Government Oversight (POGO is a nonpartisan independent watchdog that champions good government reforms. POGO's investigations into corruption, misconduct, and conflicts of interest achieve a more effective, accountable, open, and ethical federal government.
# # #
I have a great deal of respect for Robert Tauxe, MD, MPH, Deputy Director of the Division of the CDC that is charged with prevention and control of foodborne, waterborne and fungal infections. He has been in the diarrheal trenches for a very long time - from just after E. coli O157:H7 made its quiet entrance in a McDonald's restaurant (unnamed at the time , to the deadliest Listeria outbreak linked to tainted Colorado cantaloupes. Over many years he has had the responsibility for overseeing investigations into the estimated 76 million (or is it 48 million? sickened, 325,000 (or it is 125,000? hospitalized, and 5,000 (or is it 3,000? deaths yearly due to foodborne illness. That is a lot of responsibility.
I have had the pleasure over the last two decades to, on occasion, share the food safety stage with him (although I get the sense that the feeling is less than mutual . And I cannot think of anyone who looks better in a bow tie.
It is therefore with mixed emotions, and the knowledge that I likely make my relationship with public health - both federal and state - even more tenuous, that I question his quotes back in January to MSNBC during the dust-up over the disclosure or non-disclosure of "Mexican-style fast food restaurant chain, Restaurant Chain A", which was the source of a Salmonella outbreak that sickened 68 people in 10 states. Here is what he had to say to MSNBC:
Dr. Robert Tauxe, a top CDC official, defended the agency's practice of withholding company identities, which he said aims to protect not only public health, but also the bottom line of businesses that could be hurt by bad publicity. The CDC, the Food and Drug Administration and state health departments often identify companies responsible for outbreaks, but sometimes do not.
"The longstanding policy is we publicly identify a company only when people can use that information to take specific action to protect their health," said Tauxe, the CDC's deputy director of the Division of Foodborne, Waterborne and Environmental Diseases.
"On the other hand, if there's not an important public health reason to use the name publicly, CDC doesn't use the name publicly."
Because companies supply vital information about outbreaks voluntarily, CDC seeks to preserve cordial relationships.
"We don't want to compromise that cooperation we'll need," Tauxe said. ...
Tauxe acknowledged there's no written policy or checklist that governs that decision, only decades of precedent.
"It's a case-by-case thing and all the way back, as far as people can remember, there's discussions of 'hotel X' or 'cruise ship Y," he said.
I, too, was quoted in the article above and was repeatedly asked if I thought that the CDC was bending to company pressure to keep the restaurant chain's name quiet. I said emphatically no! But that did not make it into the article. So, not to put words in Dr. Tauxe's mouth (and, granted, he may have had more to say , but as best as I can tell, these are his arguments for disclosure and non-disclosure and my thoughts, in italics:
A. Although there is no written policy, it is the way we have done things for years;
Why do I hear my mom saying, "just because so and so does that does not mean you should too." For all government policies (and neckwear - change is good.
B. Since the outbreak has concluded, there is not an immediate public health threat;
Frankly, that is the case in most foodborne illness outbreaks. In nearly every single outbreak investigated by the CDC, the outbreak source is figured out long after the peak occurrence of the illnesses. However, disclosure gives the public important information about which companies have a strong or weak food safety record.
C. Disclosing the name of the company jeopardizes cooperation from the company in this and future outbreaks; and
If a company will only cooperate if they are placed in what amounts to a witness-protection program, with promises of non-disclosure, it does not say much for our government's or the company's commitment to safe food.
D. Bad publicity may cause economic hardship to the restaurant.
True, but not poisoning your customers is a better business practice.
I would also add a couple more reasons for non-disclosure that I received via email (mostly anonymously :
1. The source was an unknown supplier, so naming only the restaurant might place unfair blame on the restaurant;
This one does make some sense. However, is this the unnamed restaurant's first problem with a faulty supplier, or is this a pattern? And even if it is the first time, is there a possibility that some of the unnamed, contaminated product is still in the market? 2. Because the outbreak involves a perishable item, by the time the CDC announces the outbreak, the tainted product has long been consumed or discarded;
This one I have heard a "bunch" of times - especially in relation to leafy green outbreaks. However, why should the public be left in the dark about the type of product that sickens, as well as the likely grower and shipper responsible for the product? Shouldn't consumers have this informations so they can make decisions about who to buy from?
3. Going public with the name of the restaurant compromises the epidemiologic investigation by suggesting the source of the outbreak before the investigation is complete;
I completely agree with this one. This is a tough call, and one that must create the most angst for public health officials - they decide the balance between having enough data to go forward to protect the public health or wait for more data. The point is, do not go public until the investigation is complete.
4. Public health is concerned about making an investigation mistake like, it's the tomatoes, err, I mean peppers; and
See my answer to 3 above. This is why, under the law, public health officials are immune from liability for the decisions they make in good faith to protect the public.
5. Public health - especially surveillance - is under budgetary pressure and there are simply not enough resources to complete investigations.
There is no question that this is true. I have seen it in dropped investigations over the last few years. Labs are not doing genetic fingerprinting to help reveal links between ill people. And many tracebacks are stopped by the lack of people-power to do the research necessary to find the "root cause" of an outbreak.
For me it is easy - the public has a right to know and to use the information as it sees fit, and people - especially government employees - have no right to decide what we should and should not know.
Apple CEO Tim Cook showed a chart of how the iPad alone is selling more unites than PCs from any other individual vendor. This is an amazing achievement when you consider the iPad is a few years old and that HP swallowed up Compaq making it the largest vendor in the PC market. Of course with so much device proliferation the question of mobile device management or MDM has to rear its head. As this market is so crucial I am happy I had a chance to sit with Alan Dabbiere the charismatic Chairman of MDM leader Airwatch at MWC 2012.
A good part of our meeting centered around Dabbiere explaining how dominant his company is in the space – with over 500 employees and over 2,000 customers. He went on to say companies like Apple have to share the details of their new products to MDM vendors in advance and they want the market to consist of fewer large vendors. Other growth data points worth noting are the company has seen sequential MDM growth numbers between 30-100% in each quarter in 2011.
Moreover, the R&D team is now 175 people with R&D expense running at about 25% of revenue – a healthy number. Some of the differentiating features the company touts are support for all major OS versions as well as scalability, intelligent notifications, an SDK, an HTML5 console, an enterprise app catalogue and a multi-lingual console.
What Dabbiere spent considerable time discussing is the company’s secure content locker which allows anyone with console access to push content to selected users. What differentiates this solution from emailing content is the inability for users to subsequently take ownership of the content and forward in an unauthorized manner.
A real world example of how it works is adding a tab in the content locker which is sent to the board of directors just prior to a board meeting and then recalled the documents after the meeting is over. In another case an investment bank can use this solution to push research reports to clients without fear of them being able to forward these proprietary research documents to brokers at rival banks.
Of course I know your next question – in the case of a company pushing out content to non-employees – can the locker be branded by the company? The answer is yes. So Goldman Sachs could brand their own content locker and tabs which their clients can access but not copy or forward.
The final use case he shared was more esoteric but certainly helpful if you at a theme park in Orlando in August. Let’s assume you run a theme park where characters with big ears are prominently displayed and you would like to get email addresses for all your visitors but they likely don’t want to share this information with you as they fear spam. So instead you ask them to download a free app which includes a park map and then notify them when a ride is under or over crowded. Utilizing GPS of course would help you target visitors before they head to a part of the park which is overflowing with people.
Likewise you can use the app to help manage restaurant capacity – in other words you can send coupons to restaurants which are under crowded to ensure visitors are more evenly dispersed throughout the part. Another idea is if the park is experiencing capacity issues at all restaurants at the same time you can send a coupon to guests telling them it will be honored at a later time like say 1:00 pm.
Mobile device proliferation isn’t slowing down and neither is the need to manage and control the content on all these devices. One can imagine the MDM space and AirWatch have significant room to grow for the foreseeable future. At the moment the application is available on iOS and Android support should be here in a month with PC access available in the next 3-6 months.
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4g,
airwatch,
android,
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consumer electronics,
consumerization,
consumerization of it,
ios,
ipad,
iphone,
lte,
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mvno,
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wirelessRelated tags:
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One of the most important companies in the wireless space you may never have heard of is Aricent Group, the product engineering, carrier services and design company which renamed itself last year by combining Aricent and frog (formerly Frog Design . The name change was not done for cosmetic reasons, Aricent Group’s customers are carriers, and equipment providers who live in a brave new world requiring ever-faster time to market. In addition, in an increasingly standardized world of LTE, companies have to be able to provide bullet-proof interoperability and product and service stability while simultaneously adding value in order to reduce the brutal effects of commoditization which plagues virtually all markets where standards take hold. So faster product integration is necessary to keep up with evolving and hypercompetitive markets.
With financial backing from KKR and Sequoia Capital and 10,000 employees in 36 countries, Aricent Group is a major player in helping design and implement leading-edge wireless systems. And at MWC the company touted its 35th LTE win. Yes the word holistic is thrown around a lot but there seems to be no better term to describe how this corporate behemoth is helping customers from the consumer touch point to the core of the network. In fact many customers rely on Aricent Group’s 5,000 wireless engineers to provide them with protocol stacks and software frameworks to speed their time to market.
As an example, the company supports 3GPP Release 9 and Release 10 compliant protocol stacks and software frameworks for LTE span eNodeB platforms and components, IP Backhaul, and the Evolved Packet Core. Moreover they support reference frameworks support both the Frequency Division Duplex (FDD and Time Division Duplex (TDD modes of operation on LTE across different bands.
At MWC 2012 in Barcelona I spent time with Tim Leberecht the company’s CMO and Shrikant Latkar VP of Product and Solutions Marketing to learn about how the company is helping MVNOs with sophisticated OSS/BSS systems helping provide revenue assurance for MVNOs to how the drive towards the consumerization of IT has helped their company grow more quickly.
Some of the areas where they provide assistance have to do with designing products consumers don’t even know they want and helping their customers speed up their internal organizational structures to keep up with the rapidly accelerating market.
In the future, the company hopes to expand beyond the core telecom market into healthcare, financial and automotive spaces. In addition they have noticed a trend in the market where their customers now have in-house design departments meaning Aricent Group is becoming more of an advisor and partner.
Other areas where they see opportunity are M2M where they mentioned that if a machine-to-machine system is monitoring a heart patient they have to make sure it works and meets an SLA requirement. Other spaces of growth include big data, apps and the smart grid where they say they are helping consumers become aware of their energy usage.
Finally, we can expect the company to focus more on helping customers develop ecosystems as well as providing network-based apps.
At MWC much of the focus on the consumer press centered around the latest gadget and gizmos but the reality is while design is important, without the wireless infrastructure, support,
billing and OSS systems – all our fancy smartphones and tablets would become paperweights. So while Aricent group does focus on the glitz and glamour side of the wireless space, they also help make sure our devices keep working as efficiently as possible while helping carriers make the money they need to keep reinvesting in their networks.
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Last November, EngageHealth held its first conference in Brussels, ‘The future of healthcare in Europe’. This meeting brought together a broad range of cross-stakeholder organisations and explored healthcare strategies in a time of fiscal crisis. I thought you might like to know a report of that meeting is now available, free for download, and we hope that you will find it both useful and insightful. Patient groups, industry, policymakers, providers were the main contributors. To download please go to
VALUE-BASED RATIONING IN HEALTHCARE
Our next event, ‘What is value in healthcare?’ looks at value from a range of perspectives. Details of the programme can be found on the same web-page, and we very much look forwarding to welcoming many of you to London on the 29th March.
fyi attending patient groups are:
n Beat n Breathe On UK n Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Versicherte und Patienten e.V. (DGVP [Speaker] n European Federation of Road Traffic Victims n International Alliance of Patients' Organizations [speaker] n Macmillan Cancer Support n MS Society n Nephrotic Syndrome in Children Support Group n Oxfordshire Carers Forum n Parkinson's UK n Patient Concern n Rare Disease UK n Rarer Cancers Foundation [Speaker] n Really learning n Socialist Health Association n Trigeminal Neuralgia Association UK
PatientView is a co-founder of EngageHealth Alliance Europe
statement posted on its website today, Coca-Cola said that it is in fact not changing its world-famous formula. “The caramel color in all of our products has been, is and always will be safe, and The Coca-Cola Company is not changing the world-famous formula for our Coca-Cola beverages. Over the years, we have updated our manufacturing processes from time to time, but never altered our Secret Formula,” Coca-Cola said on its website. The No. 1 soft drink maker said they have asked its caramel suppliers to modify their production process to reduce the amount of 4-MI in the caramel, but that it will not have any effect on the formula or the flavor of its products. “These modifications will not affect the color or taste of Coca-Cola,” it said. The company added it is committed to the “highest quality and safety” of its products, and it will “continue to rely on sound, evidence-based science to ensure that our products are safe.” --------- A specific caramel coloring found in Pepsi, Coca-Cola, and other popular soft drinks that a consumer watchdog said contain high levels of a chemical linked to cancer in animals has now been deemed safe by US regulators. Despite this, PepsiCo and Coca-Cola both decided to adjust the formula of their caramel coloring across the US so they do not have to label their products with a cancer warning to comply with additional regulations enforced in California. The recipe has already been changed for drinks sold in the Golden State and the companies said the changes will be expanded nationwide to streamline their manufacturing processes. The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI
reported earlier this week that it found the unsafe levels of the chemical 4-methylimidazole (4-MI -- used to make caramel color -- in cans of Coke, Pepsi, Dr. Pepper, and Whole Foods’ 365 Cola. Coca-Cola confirmed that changes were being made at its facilities to keep within the law but argued that the CSPI’s allegations on the dangers the ingredient posed on humans were false. “The company has made the decision to ask its caramel suppliers to make the necessary manufacturing process modification, to meet the specific Californian legislation,” A spokesperson for Coca-Cola told
Daily Mail Online. “Those modifications will not change our product.” California added 4-MI to its list of carcinogens, after studies showed high levels of the chemical led to tumors in lab animals. However, the studies were inconclusive on whether the chemical was dangerous to humans or not. “Caramel is a perfectly safe ingredient and this has been recognized by all European food safety authorities,” the spokesperson added. “The 4-MEI levels in our products pose no health or safety risks. Outside of California, no regulatory agency concerned with protecting the public’s health has stated that 4-MEI is a human carcinogen.” “The caramel color in all of our ingredients has been, is and always will be safe. That is a fact,” the spokesperson said. This had been the CSPI’s second go-around with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA over the dangers of 4-MI in soft drinks. It first petitioned the regulator last year, but the FDA has continually maintained that the claims were exaggerated. “It is important to understand that a consumer would have to consume well over a thousand cans of soda a day to reach the doses administered in the studies that have shown links to cancer in rodents,” said FDA spokesman, Doug Karas to the Daily Mail's Laura Pullman. CSPI maintains that the regulator is allowing soft drink companies to needlessly expose millions of Americans to a chemical that is known to cause cancer. “If companies can make brown food coloring that is carcinogen-free, the industry should use it,” CSPI’s executive director Michael Jacobson told
Reuters. The FDA said it will review the watchdog’s petition, but that the soft drinks in question were still safe. CSPI took cans from stores in the Washington DC area, where they found some had levels of 4-MI near 140 micrograms per 12-ounce can. California has a legal limit of 29 micrograms of 4-MI per 12 ounces, it noted. The FDA’s limit for 4-MI in caramel coloring is 250 parts per million (ppm . Once the caramel is mixed in with the soda it becomes diluted. According to calculations by Reuters, the highest levels of 4-MI found in the soft drinks were about 0.4 ppm, significantly within the safe zone. “This is nothing more than CSPI scare tactics,” the American Beverage Association (ABA told Reuters in a statement. “In fact, findings of regulatory agencies worldwide ... consider caramel coloring safe for use in foods and beverages.” ABA said its member companies will continue to caramel coloring in certain products but that adjustments were being made to meet California requirements. “Consumers will notice no difference in our products and have no reason at all for any health concerns,” the ABA said. Diana Garza-Ciarlante, a representative for Coca-Cola, said its suppliers would modify the manufacturing process used to reduce the levels of 4-MI, which is formed during the cooking process and as a result may be found in trace amounts in many foods. “While we believe that there is no public health risk that justifies any such change, we did ask our caramel suppliers to take this step so that our products would not be subject to the requirement of a scientifically unfounded warning,” she said in an email to
The Telegraph. --- On the Net:
The war over contraception in America during the last bizarre month was never about religious freedom or women’s health care. It was about controlling women’s right to control their own bodies and to make their own sexual and reproductive choices, says Ruth Rosen
For weeks, bewildered Americans have witnessed politicians debate whether or not contraception should be covered by President’s Obama’s new health care plan. On March 1, after some of the most bizarre theatrical antics remembered in this nation’s political history, the U.S. Senate finally interrupted this surreal soap opera with a cliff hanger. By only two votes, they defeated an amendment that would have allowed religious employers to refuse to pay for the contraception of their employees.
The pilot episode of the drama began on February 16, when President Obama announced that all the employers of all institutions, regardless of their religious affiliation, would have to pay for contraception. When the Catholic Church and right-wing fringe went ballistic, he compromised and said that if an institution felt it was violating its religious beliefs, then the insurance company would have to pay.
But even that compromise was insufficient. In the weeks that followed, the Republicans launched a war on contraception. They told women that the appropriate birth control pill was an aspirin held by tightly-grasped knees; they created a religious “hearing” on contraception made up of all men; and right-wing radio pundit Rush Limbaugh called a Georgetown University law student, who had defended contraception,
a “slut” and a “prostitute.”. “No drama Obama” only intensified the plot when he personally called the student and thanked her for supporting his health plan.
Every day brought new and unbelievable episodes in this weird melodrama. In Virginia, the legislature passed a bill that would require a pregnant woman seeking an abortion to have an ultrasound probe inserted into her vagina so she would
really
know she was carrying a human being. The Governor at first agreed, but then, attacked for humiliating pregnant women, dithered about what kind of
bill he would sign. Some opponents, of course,
genuinely believe that contraception is the same thing as abortion—the murder of a human being. Some may even realize that less contraception results in more abortions and more government expenditures for unwanted children. The Republicans certainly know that the vast majority of Americans, including Catholics, support birth control, but they just couldn’t stop themselves. They thought they had found a way to defeat the President.
But they were wrong.
Women and independents tend to support birth control. In fact, by March 1, 63% of those polled
supported the President’s compromise. Liberal groups mobilised all across the country, noting that the right-wing wants an unobtrusive government unless it involves inserting a probe into a woman’s body for an ultrasound. Senator Barbara Boxer launched “one million Strong for Women,” to make women’s voice heard. Democrats, realising that the Republicans had truly overreached, became
positively giddy at how much they had to gain if they could keep the debate simmering.
So, part of this soap opera was simply politics as the loopy, right-wing fringe Republicans became intoxicated with the possibility of electing one of two candidates, both of whom oppose contraception and abortion. (Although former Governor Mitt Romney
flip-flopped when he backed away from his support of contraception and joined the Republican opposition a few hours later .
So what’s really going on?
The Republican party, for its part, framed the fight as one of religious freedom and freedom of speech, protected by the first amendment to the constitution. Democrats and women’s rights advocates responded that it was
exclusively
about women’s health care.
The media, with all its stenographic sophistry, uncritically quoted the language of both sides. The New York Times, for example,
said that “ the furor over President Obama’s birth control mandate has swiftly entered a new plane, with supporters and opponents alike calling the subject a potent weapon for the November elections and taking it to the public in campaigns to shape the issue---is it about religious liberty or women’s health?”
Actually everyone has missed the real story.
What neither side wants to say is that this is a counter-reformation, an attempt to return women to the early 1960s, before birth control pill existed and the Supreme Court, in
Griswold v.Connecticut
(1965 , established the right of contraception in the United States. In short, it was a nostalgic effort to return to a time when a middle class man could support a family, women knew their place, Georgetown University law students were mostly men, and African Americans could not vote, let alone become President. It was a time of male and racial supremacy, before the civil rights and women’s movements changed the political culture of this country and economic changes made a two-income family necessary.
At stake in 2012 is the right of a woman to control her own fertility, her own reproductive choices and therefore, to lead an independent life. This is a battle that has raged since the late 19th century. After abortion became legal in 1973, the Republican party inserted an anti-abortion plank into its 1980 platform and ever since, every Republican candidate has had to pass a litmus test of opposing abortion in order to run for president.
For most of human history, sexuality and reproduction have been intricately yoked together. Birth control, particularly the Pill, ruptured that link and gave women the right to enjoy sex without the goal of reproduction. When the Supreme Court formally ratified that rupture by making abortion legal in
Roe v. Wade , (1973 , many people in this country trembled at the possible changes women’s sexual independence might bring. By then, the women’s movement had challenged and changed laws and customs that governed the daily lives of women in both the work place and at home. The idea of women’s sexual freedom polarised the nation, with both men and women advocating for different choices.
In short, the war over contraception during the last bizarre month was never about religious freedom or women’s health care. It was about controlling women’s right to control their own bodies and to make their own sexual and reproductive choices.
Hardly anyone feels free to say this. Opponents of women’s sexual freedom talk about free speech or religious freedom when what they really want to do is to repeal everything the women’s movement’s changed. Supporters of women’s right to make their own sexual and reproductive choices know they must emphasise women’s health care. Even though contraception and abortion are a central part of that health care, they know they must remain mum about women’s sexual freedom.
This soap opera is hardly over. In fact, we are now seeing re-reruns of this never-ending drama. Some of us remember that in 1969, a feminist group called Redstockings
disrupted a New York State hearing on whether abortion should be legal. The panel included a dozen men and one nun. The women’s effort to be heard was thwarted when the hearing was moved.
Today, contraception and abortion are legal, but state by state, laws are chipping away at women’s access to both contraception and abortion. The truth is, this is the last gasp of a patriarchal counter-reformation that is still alive, mobilized and, most importantly, well-funded. Stay tuned, as they say. The soap opera is far from over.
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Writing a
weekly round-up of the various battles in the War on Women is usually pretty depressing.
For every battle won, there are a dozen more we've lost, and even those victories feel like little reason to celebrate, given that they're usually defensive. Yea, we managed to keep some bugfuck crazy state legislator from turning his bugfuck crazy proposed bill into law. Woo hoo, kinda sorta, I guess.
There are exceptions, of course. The president's new health care policy requiring insurance companies to cover comprehensive, preventative health care for women—including birth control—was an absolute cause-for-celebration victory. The beauty of this policy is that it is
offensive
, not
defensive
. We need a lot more of that kind of offense if those who care about women—or
sluts, as Rush Limbaugh calls them—are going to win this war. It isn't enough to stop Republicans from passing bad laws to hurt women; we need to pass good laws and enact good policies that expand women's equality.
Take, for example, the
Reproductive Parity Act being debated in the state of Washington:
[L]awmakers in Washington state have introduced a rare, groundbreaking reproductive rights bill that would require every insurance policy in the state that covers maternity care to also cover abortions. [...]California is also
"This bill is about ensuring that all Washington women have health insurance coverage that includes the full range of reproductive health care options, including abortion," said Rep. Eileen Cody (D , who sponsored the bill. "As we implement the federal health care reform law, we need to ensure that we have no erosion of our existing laws in Washington that protect women's reproductive rights."
debating a bill to protect and expand women's abortion access.
Meanwhile, in Congress, the
Paycheck Fairness Act, which would expand the Equal Pay Act of 1963 to better address the wage gap, languishes. As does the
Equal Rights Amendment, which is reintroduced every congressional session and always goes absolutely nowhere. The Pro-Choice Caucus also has repeatedly introduced the
Freedom of Choice Act to codify
Roe v. Wade
, and to make it the law of the land that:
[E]very woman has the fundamental right to choose to bear a child, to terminate a pregnancy prior to fetal viability, or to terminate a pregnancy after fetal viability when necessary to protect the life or health of the woman.
Predictably, this too has gone nowhere. Republicans, of course, oppose any attempts to protect and expand women's rights. And Democrats have been unwilling to expend any energy at all for what they typically dismiss as unimportant "special interest" legislation.
But the times, they are a-changin'. And as Republicans (and some of their Democratic enablers have become increasingly bold and blatant in their War on Women, Americans—and even usually tone-deaf Democrats in Congress—are waking up and fighting back and, most importantly, realizing that fighting
for
women isn't just the right thing to do; it's the
politically
smart thing to do too. For Democrats, it's
electoral gold. For Republicans, it's a
losing issue, driving women away from the Grand Ol' Party in droves. Maybe that's why Republican leadership is
losing their appetite for the fight. Heck, even Republican Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski
knows this war is a bad idea. (Too bad she didn't come to Jesus
before
she voted with her party to try to write a galaxy-sized loophole into the president's new policy.
Republicans' unwillingness to forcefully condemn
Rush Limbaugh's slut crusade has further revealed just how deep their hatred of women goes—and it's blowing up in their faces. The backlash against Rush and his Republican defenders, including Bill O'Reilly and
faux feminist Sarah Palin, has demonstrated that when people who care about women, aka sluts, fight back and go on the attack,
they win.
So, sluts, here is what you can do this week to fight back:
Stand with women veterans calling on Armed Forces Network to stop airing Rush Limbaugh.
Tell advertisers on Rush Limbaugh's show to drop him permanently.
Tell advertisers to drop Bill O'Reilly like a hot falafel for standing with Rush.
These three actions won't take but a minute of your time. Getting misogynists like Limbaugh and O'Reilly off the air won't solve all our problems—we need legislative victories as well as rhetorical ones—but with each battle we fight and win, we're one step closer to winning the war.
This week’s good, bad and ugly below the fold.
by Elizabeth Grossman
Nurses face many hazards on the job, and one that clearly demands more detailed analysis than it's received to date is the effect of occupational chemical exposures on nurses' reproductive health. A
recent study by researchers at the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH , Harvard School of Public Health, and Brigham and Women's Hospital has found that female nurses exposed to sterilizing agents and chemotherapy drugs at work are at least twice as likely to have miscarriages than those who are not. The study, published in
The American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology
, surveyed more than 7,000 female nurses and found that their exposure to sterilizing agents was associated with a two-fold increase in the risk of miscarriage between the 12th and 20th weeks of pregnancy. Exposure to chemotherapy drugs was associated with a two-fold increase in risk of miscarriage before the 12th week of pregnancy, while for women pregnant for the first time, this exposure appears to increase miscarriage risk three-fold. The study also found that exposure to x-rays was associated with some increased risk of early pregnancy loss.
Read the comments on this post...
“Stem cells beat kidney rejection,” says BBC News. The broadcaster says that an injection of stem cells given alongside a kidney transplant could remove the need for a lifetime of treatment to suppress the immune system.
The news is based on research detailing the outcomes of eight experimental kidney transplants where the organ came from a living donor. In addition to having their kidney removed, the donor also donated blood stem cells, which can develop into any type of blood cell, including immune system cells. After the recipient patient had received chemotherapy and radiotherapy to suppress their own immune system, the donor kidney and stem cells were transplanted. The aim was to help prevent the organ from being rejected by altering the recipient’s immune system to match that of the donor kidney. Five of the eight patients were able to have their immunosuppressant drugs reduced within one year. Furthermore, there was no evidence that the donor’s transplanted immune cells had started to attack the recipient’s healthy tissue, a possible complication of this type of treatment.
Although this is only early-stage research, the results of this small case series are promising and could have implications for the future of organ transplants, particularly in those cases where the donor and recipient are not an immunological match to each other.
Where did the story come from?
The study was carried out by researchers from Comprehensive Transplant Center, Northwestern Memorial Hospital, Chicago and other institutions in the US. Funding was provided by the US National Institute of Health; the Department of the Army, Office of Army Research; the National Foundation to Support Cell Transplant Research; the WM Keck Foundation; and the American Society of Transplant Surgeons Collaborative Scientist Award. The study was published in the peer-reviewed journal Science Translational Medicine.
The BBC News website provides good coverage of this research.
What kind of research was this?
This was a case series reporting on the results of eight patients receiving kidney transplants alongside haematopoietic stem cells (HSCs – cells that can develop into any type of blood cell . These were taken from “mismatched” donors (either related or unrelated to the recipient . If they are “mismatched”, the donor and recipient do not share the same human leukocyte antigens (HLAs , which are proteins located on the surface of immune cells and other cells in the body. The immune system recognises “foreign” HLAs and will attack cells that carry them, potentially leading to rejection. If donor cells carry the same HLAs there is less chance that the host’s immune cells would recognise the transplant tissue as foreign. This is why the ideal situation is to find a suitable HLA-matched donor for individuals awaiting a transplant, although this is often not possible.
The research investigates a theory known as “chimerism” (named after a mythical creature made up of parts of different animals , where the transplant recipient has both their own immune cells and those that come from the donor. The hope is that this will prevent the body from rejecting the transplant. However, there is a chance that this could increase the risk of what is known as graft versus host disease (GVHD , which is where the donor’s immune cells instead attack the healthy tissue of the host. HSC transplant also carries a risk of what is known as “engraftment syndrome”, which is characterised by a fever, skin rash and other symptoms.
What did the research involve?
This case series reported the outcomes of eight adults (age range 29-56 years who were receiving a kidney transplant from a living, unmatched donor. A special technique was used to retrieve relevant cells from the donor’s blood, including both HSCs and “graft facilitating cells” (FCs – which are a type of immune cell derived from HSCs .
Prior to transplant of the donor kidney and HSCs/FCs, the recipients were first treated with chemotherapy and radiotherapy to suppress their own immune system and reduce the chance of rejection. After the transplant they received continued treatment with two drugs to suppress their immune system and reduce the chance that their bodies would reject the transplant. They were discharged from hospital two days after the transplant and managed as outpatients.
The researchers monitored the patients to look at how the procedure was tolerated and whether GVHD or engraftment syndrome occurred.
What were the basic results?
By one month after transplant the level of chimerism in the recipients’ blood (where they demonstrated cell lines coming from both their own stem cells and the donor’s stem cells was reported to vary between 6 and 100%.
One patient developed a viral blood infection and blood clot in one of their kidney arteries two months after transplant. Two patients demonstrated only slight chimerism and were maintained on low-dose immunosuppressive treatment. However, five patients demonstrated “durable chimerism” and were able to be weaned from immunosuppressive treatment by one year. None of the recipients developed GVHD or engraftment syndrome.
How did the researchers interpret the results?
The researchers conclude that transplant of HSCs is a “safe, practical, and reproducible means of inducing durable chimerism”. It also appeared to be tolerated with no signs of GVHD or engraftment syndrome.
If confirmed in larger studies, the researchers say that this approach to transplantation could free some patients from the need for immunosuppressive treatment within one year of transplantation.
Conclusion
This research reported on the cases of eight patients who were receiving a kidney from an unmatched living donor. Alongside the kidney transplant, to the recipients were also given a transplant of the donor’s haematopoietic stem cells, which have the ability to transform into a range of blood cell types. The aim was that slightly altering the recipient’s immune system to produce cells that “matched” those of the donor kidney would help prevent the organ from being rejected. Five of the eight patients were able to have their immunosuppressant drugs reduced within one year. Furthermore, no patients developed a serious condition called graft versus host disease (where the donor’s transplanted immune cells start to attack the recipient’s healthy tissue , and no patients developed another complication of HSC transplant, known as engraftment syndrome, which includes fever, skin rash and other symptoms.
Importantly, this is only early-stage research, reporting the results of treatment in only eight people. Further follow-up in these patients will be needed, in addition to study in much wider groups of patients. However, the results are promising and could have implications for the future of kidney transplant and the transplant of other organs, particularly in people for whom it has not been possible to find a suitable matched donor.
Analysis by Bazian
Links To The Headlines
Stem cells beat kidney rejection. BBC news, March 9 2012
Breakthrough in kidney transplant 'could cut waiting list'. The Daily Telegraph, March 9 2012
Links To Science
Krebs TS Johansen PO. Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD for alcoholism: meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. Journal of Psychopharmacology, published online before print March 8 2012
This modern busy world has brought about quite a few modifications inside the life style of the men and women. But, this change of life style has turn out to be one of the primary reasons for numerous ailments like obesity, hypertension and so on. So, individuals have been forced to take some preventive methods to help keep away from these ailments. In this direction Wellness forums have develop into a point of reference for such health conscious folks.
National Sleep Awareness Week has wrapped up this morning, which means it's officially time for Daylight Savings! With a
majority of adults not getting the recommended amount of sleep each night and the Centers for Disease Controls (CDC
calling out a lack of sleep as an epidemic, we thought we'd go to the experts to get their tips for adjusting to this weekend quickly and in a healthy way.
This Sunday morning we'll "spring forward" an hour for Daylight Saving Time. And while the pay-off of extra light in the evenings is awesome (especially for after-work exercisers! , there is a bit of a health risk that goes along with the time change. According to research, the loss of an hour this time of year increases the risk of having a heart attack by 10 percent.
Editor’s column: Tribune’s fitness section getting a healthy blast of the outdoors
Published Mar 10, 2012 11:21PM MDT
Copyright 2012 The Salt Lake Tribune. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
A team of researchers at Duke University has determined the structure of a key molecule that can carry chemotherapy and anti-viral drugs into cells, which could help to create more effective drugs with fewer effects to healthy tissue.
"Knowing the structure and properties of the transporter molecule may be the key to changing the way that some chemotherapies, for example, could work in the body to prevent tumor growth," said senior author
Seok-Yong Lee, PhD, assistant professor of biochemistry at Duke.
The article was published in
Nature online on March 11.
The transporter molecule, called a concentrative nucleoside transporter, works by moving nucleosides, the building blocks of DNA and RNA, from the outside to the inside of cells. It also transports nucleoside-like chemo drugs through cell membranes.
Once inside the cells, the nucleoside-like drugs are modified into nucleotides that are incorporated into DNA in ways that prevent tumor cells from dividing and functioning.
"We discovered the structure of the transporter molecule, and now we believe it is possible to improve nucleoside drugs to be better recognized by a particular form of the transporter molecule that resides in certain types of tissue," Lee said. "Now we know the transporter molecule has three forms, which recognize different drugs and reside in different tissues."
The team determined the chemical and physical principles a transporter molecule uses to recognize the nucleosides, "so if you can improve the interactions between the transporter and the drug, you won't need as much of the drug to get it into the tumor cells efficiently," Lee said. "Knowing the shape of the transporters will let scientists design drugs that are recognized well by this transporter."
Because the drugs enter healthy cells as well as tumor cells, giving a lower dose of drug that targets tumor tissue would be the best scenario, said Lee, who is also a member of the
Duke Ion Channel Research Unit. "Healthy cells don't divide as often as tumor cells, so lowering the amount of drug given overall would be an effective approach to killing tumors while protecting patients."
The researchers studied transporter molecules from
Vibrio cholera
, a comma-shaped bacterium. The bacterial transporter serves as a good model system for studying human transporters because they share similar amino acid sequences. They found that both the human and bacterial transporter use a sodium gradient to import nucleosides and drugs into the cells.
The next step will be to try to understand which features of the transporter confer the ability to recognize certain chemo drugs and ultimately to design drugs that can easily enter the cells.
This work won a prize for Dr. Lee, the National Institute of General Medical Sciences Award, which he will receive at the Biophysical Society meeting in February.
The work was funded by the McKnight Endowment Fund for Neuroscience, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Klingenstein Fund, the Mallinckrodt Foundation, the Basil O'Connor Starter Scholar Research Award from the March of Dimes Foundation, and the NIH Director's New Innovator Award, in addition to start-up funds from the Duke University Medical Center.
Other authors include Zachary Lee Johnson and Cheom-Gil Cheong also of the Department of Biochemistry and the Ion Channel Research Unit.
Melatonin in autism spectrum disorders: a systematic review and meta-analysis
Developmental Medicine & Child Neurology Volume 53, Issue 9, pages 783–792, September 2011
DANIEL A ROSSIGNOL1, RICHARD E FRYE2 1International Child Development Resource Center, Melbourne, FL, USA 2Division of Child and Adolescent Neurology and Children’s Learning Institute, Department of Pediatrics, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, TX, USA.
This systematic review and meta-analysis is a good summary of existing knowledge about the role of abnormalities of melatonin secretion in children with autism, the possible genetic mechanisms underlying this, and the benefits of treatment with melatonin on sleep behavior and possibly some daytime autistic behaviours (including improvements in behavioural rigidity, ease of management for parents and teachers, social interaction, temper tantrums, irritability, playfulness, academic performance and alertness .
The article is available at:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1469-8749.2011.03980.x/full
A reminder that our list of Victorian sources of Melatonin from compounding pharmacies is available at
http://www.wch.org.au/genmed/clinical.cfm?tab=m&type=title&doc_id=2399
under “melatonin”.
MIKE
Aim The aim of this study was to investigate melatonin-related findings in autism spectrum disorders (ASD , including autistic disorder, Asperger syndrome, Rett syndrome, and pervasive developmental disorders, not otherwise specified.
Method Comprehensive searches were conducted in the PubMed, Google Scholar, CINAHL, EMBASE, Scopus, and ERIC databases from their inception to October 2010. Two reviewers independently assessed 35 studies that met the inclusion criteria. Of these, meta-analysis was performed on five randomized double-blind, placebo-controlled studies, and the quality of these trials was assessed using the Downs and Black checklist.
Results Nine studies measured melatonin or melatonin metabolites in ASD and all reported at least one abnormality, including an abnormal melatonin circadian rhythm in four studies, below average physiological levels of melatonin and/or melatonin derivates in seven studies, and a positive correlation between these levels and autistic behaviors in four studies. Five studies reported gene abnormalities that could contribute to decreased melatonin production or adversely affect melatonin receptor function in a small percentage of children with ASD. Six studies reported improved daytime behavior with melatonin use. Eighteen studies on melatonin treatment in ASD were identified; these studies reported improvements in sleep duration, sleep onset latency, and night-time awakenings. Five of these studies were randomized double-blind, placebo-controlled crossover studies; two of the studies contained blended samples of children with ASD and other developmental disorders, but only data for children with ASD were used in the meta-analysis. The meta-analysis found significant improvements with large effect sizes in sleep duration (73min compared with baseline, Hedge’s g 1.97 [95% confidence interval {CI} CI 1.10–2.84], Glass’s ? 1.54 [95% CI 0.64–2.44]; 44min compared with placebo, Hedge’s g 1.07 [95% CI 0.49–1.65], Glass’s ? 0.93 [95% CI 0.33–1.53] and sleep onset latency (66min compared with baseline, Hedge’s g?2.42 [95% CI ?1.67 to ?3.17], Glass’s ??2.18 [95% CI ?1.58 to ?2.76]; 39min compared with placebo, Hedge’s g?2.46 [95% CI ?1.96 to ?2.98], Glass’s ??1.28 [95% CI ?0.67 to ?1.89] but not in night-time awakenings. The effect size varied significantly across studies but funnel plots did not indicate publication bias. The reported side effects of melatonin were minimal to none. Some studies were affected by limitations, including small sample sizes and variability in the protocols that measured changes in sleep parameters.
Interpretation Melatonin administration in ASD is associated with improved sleep parameters, better daytime behavior, and minimal side effects. Additional studies of melatonin would be helpful to confirm and expand on these findings.
Mike
Prof Mike South,
Royal Children's Hospital, Parkville, Victoria 3052, Australia
Gloucester County College’s Center for People in Transition will offer an assortment of financial, healthy living and federal assistance workshops during the month of March.
DEPTFORD TWP. _
Gloucester County College’s Center for People in Transition will offer an assortment of financial, healthy living and federal assistance workshops during the month of March. All are free of charge unless otherwise noted. To register, please call (856 415-2222 or email
peopleintransition@gccnj.edu.
“Intermediate Computers”—This 40-hour computer class covers additional skills required to become proficient in Microsoft Word and Excel. The class will meet Monday and Wednesday beginning March 5 through April 18 from 6:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. The cost for displaced homemakers is $40. Non-displaced homemakers will pay a $100 fee.
“Forgiveness–A Healing Journey”—This eight-week workshop series is designed to help individuals overcome traumatic events that occurred in life. Sessions run Tuesday, March 6, 13, 20, 27, April 3, 10, 17 and 24 from 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.
“Financial Strategies for Divorcees”—This workshop, specifically designed for the divorced, demonstrates financial coping strategies for women upon ending a marriage. The seminar, scheduled for Wednesday, March 7, from 12 p.m. to 1:30 p.m., is taught by Financial Advisor Monique Castillo.
“Stop, Drop and Roll–Extinguishing Flames of Stress”—Coping mechanisms to avoid, reduce or alleviate stress will be covered Wednesday, March 7 from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.
“Managing Stress in Your Life”—This seminar will help participants identify life stressors and coping strategies to overcome issues, ranging from the loss of a loved one to financial setbacks. The session will meet Thursday, March 8 from 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. with Jennie McQuaide, Licensed Professional Counselor.
“Child Support”— The New Jersey Child Support Program for Public Awareness will give a one-hour information session regarding general child support services. Carmel Bolden will meet with all interested individuals Monday, March 12 from 1 to 2 p.m. or from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m.
“Financial Fitness for Life”—FDIC Financial Consultant Wanda Hardy will illustrate the basic principles of money management. A $10 refundable check made payable to the Financial Wellness Institute, Inc. is required to hold a seat—it will be returned with attendance to the workshop Wednesday, March 14 from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.
“Financial Aspects of Divorce”— This one-night workshop is designed to help navigate the complicated process and stressful ordeal of divorce. Financial Advisor Joseph Johnson will present on Monday, March 19 from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.
“How to be Trigger Happy”—How to recognize stress, sadness and depression symptoms—and how to stay calm and happy despite—will be covered Wednesday, March 21 from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.
“Financial Strategies for Widows”— This workshop, uniquely designed for widows, demonstrates financial coping strategies for women upon losing a significant other. The seminar, scheduled for Thursday, March 22 from 7 to 9 p.m., is taught by Financial Advisor Monique Castillo.
“Laws of Separation and Divorce”— Attorneys from the Gloucester County Bar Association’s Family Law Committee will discuss equitable distribution, custody, visitation, alimony and other issues associated with divorce. Esquire Barbara Moore will present Thursday, March 22 from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.
“Understanding Your Investments”—This one-night class will prov ide the information needed to plan for a secure financial future by better understanding investments. Main Street Financial Advisor Joseph Johnson will present on Thursday, March 29 from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.
“Peace Talks on the Home Front”—Licensed Professional Counselor Jennie McQuaide will assist individuals in identifying their own unique communication methods in order to promote a healthier lifestyle. This workshop will be held on Thursday, March 29 from 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.
For more information on any of the workshops, contact the Center for People in Transition at (856 415-2222. Route 55.
At a meeting of the National Congress of American Indians Wednesday, Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack announced that 17 tribes will receive additional funding for nutrition education programs this year.
Obesity and diabetes are a growing concern among today's Native American populations, and research is now showing that these conditions are affecting tribal members at younger and younger ages.
Nutrition education is a key component to combatting this trend, because it helps children form healthy eating habits early on.
This year the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA , through its Food and Nutrition Service, is pledging more than $850,000 to boost federally funded nutrition education programs for Native Americans. This figure is down slightly from the just over $979,000 given to this cause in the 2011 fiscal year. The educational programs are funded through the Federal Distribution Program on Indian Reservations (FDPIR , which provides food commodities for impoverished Native Americans. Food packages are delivered to pick-up sites or brought to recipients' homes, depending on the tribal program.
The grant will benefit the educational arm of this program by providing a recipe toolkit containing menus, shopping lists and snack ideas featuring more fruits, vegetables, and whole grains. It will also help fund nutrition education sessions held during scheduled food deliveries for participants in remote reservation areas and establish community gardens to encourage fruit and vegetable consumption.
"USDA is committed to working with tribal communities to drive economic growth, create opportunities through business and agriculture, and to improve the health and well-being of native families," said Vilsack. "These grants will help tribal communities promote healthy kids and healthy families by making sure they have access to nutritious food, education and the support they need to ensure healthy habits. With that winning combination we can help to reduce and prevent childhood obesity and ensure a stronger future for Indian country."
The recipients of the 2012 grant include:
- Alaska Native Health Consortium (Anchorage, Alas. , $62,500
- Hoopa Valley Food Distribution Program (Hoopa, Calif. , $52,804
- Sherwood Valley Food Program (Willets, Calif. , $36,711
- Quechan Food Distribution Department (Winterhaven, Calif. , $10,811
- Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe (Cass Lake, Minn. , $45,703
- Chippewa Cree Tribe of the Rocky Boy's Reservation (Box Elder, Mont. , $85,805
- Confederated Salish & Kootenai Tribes (Pablo, Mont. , $78,738
- The Chickasaw Nation (Ada, Okla. , $115,021
- Cheyenne and Arapaho Food Distribution Program (Watonga, Okla. , $41,786
- Seminole Nation of Oklahoma (Wewoka, Okla. , $17,749
- Zuni Tribe of the Zuni Indian Reservation, (Zuni, N.M. , $18,489
- Oglala Sioux Tribe of the Mountain Plains Nutrition Advisory Committee (Pine Ridge, S.D. , $45,000
- Lummi Indian Business Council (Bellingham, Wash. , $79,931
- South Puget Intertribal Planning Agency (Shelton, Wash. , $41,108
- Red Cliff Band of Chippewa Indians Food Distribution Program for the Midwest Nutrition Advisory Committee (Bayfield, Wis. , $93,907
- Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin (Keshena, Wis. , $45,860
- Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians (Lac du Flambeau, Wis. , $39,950
It took only a year to set up Medicare. But if President Barack Obama's health care law survives Supreme Court scrutiny, it will be nearly a decade before all its major pieces are in place.And that means ...
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