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Use of positron emission tomography may eliminate more strenuous drug development trials with animals

A number of articles explore the use of positron emission tomography (PET) and small animal imaging—nonsurgical techniques that open the door to understanding and treating human diseases—in the April issue of the Society of Nuclear Medicine’s Journal of Nuclear Medicine.

26 Apr 2005

GenoMed launches free trial against Marburg virus epidemic in Angola

GenoMed announced today that it has launched a free clinical trial to combat the current Marburg virus epidemic in Angola.

26 Apr 2005

EU calls for tougher warnings on antidepressants for kids

A committee of experts in Europe are calling for strong warnings to be placed on two classes of antidepressants, informing doctors and parents of the risk they could pose to children and adolescents.

25 Apr 2005

Despite knowledge, very few follow a healthy lifestyle

New research has shown that despite access to advice on healthy lifestyles and government campaigns to encourage people to adopt a healthier way of life, very few Americans are applying that knowledge to themselves.

25 Apr 2005

New drug combo helps prevent strokes

A British research team at St. George's Hospital Medical School in London, have found that the addition of the anti-clotting drug Plavix to daily doses of aspirin helps prevent the risk of later strokes better than using aspirin alone.

25 Apr 2005

Molecular models advance the fight against malaria

Research from Dartmouth Medical School, demonstrating how malaria parasites form mutations that make them stubbornly resistant to drug therapy, may hold the key to a new treatments for a disease that afflicts more than half a billion people worldwide.

25 Apr 2005

Pattern of gene expression predicts multiple drug resistance, treatment failure in pediatric leukemia

The discovery of a specific pattern of gene expression linked to multiple-drug resistance of leukemic cells is giving researchers crucial information into why standard therapies fail to cure some children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). This finding, from investigators at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, could lead to development of drugs that would overcome that resistance.

24 Apr 2005

Increasing benefit seen in novel drug AMN107, that treats Gleevec resistance

An investigational drug is producing powerful responses in patients resistant to Gleevec, the targeted therapy that helps most people diagnosed with chronic myeloid leukemia (CML), an international research team headed by investigators at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center is reporting.

23 Apr 2005

Maxim Pharmaceuticals issued patent for method of identifying therapeutically effective immunosupressive agents

Maxim Pharmaceuticals have announced the United States Patent and Trademark Office issued U.S. patent number 6,828,091 B2, entitled "Method of Identifying Immunosuppressive Agents."

23 Apr 2005

How Ebola virus infects cells - discovery

Ebola virus reproduction in laboratory-grown cells is severely hampered by enzyme-inhibiting chemicals, and these chemicals deserve further study as possible treatments for Ebola virus infections in humans, report scientists supported in part by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).

23 Apr 2005

Wide variation in access to HIV medications across states

Twenty-one State AIDS Drug Assistance Programs (ADAPs) report limiting access to their programs in some way, including 11 with waiting lists, despite an increase in the national ADAP budget, according to the ninth annual National ADAP Monitoring Project Report released by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the National Alliance of State AIDS Directors (NASTAD).

23 Apr 2005

Testing new manic depression drugs in slime mould

Research by University College London (UCL) scientists could lead to the development of more effective drugs for treating manic depression thanks to a new screening approach developed in a "slime mould" - a microbe that lives in leaves and dung on forest floors.

23 Apr 2005

International internet drug ring shattered

Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Administrator Karen P. Tandy has announced the results of Operation “Cyber Chase”, a year-long Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF) investigation that targeted international Internet pharmaceutical traffickers operating in the United States, India, Asia, Europe and the Caribbean. These e-traffickers distributed drugs world-wide using “rogue” Internet pharmacies.

23 Apr 2005

Efforts to raise awareness on teen substance abuse

The Consumer Healthcare Products Association (CHPA) today echoed the Partnership for a Drug-Free America's call for increased parental awareness about the intentional abuse of prescription and over-the-counter (OTC) medicines among teenagers.

23 Apr 2005

Wyeth victorious in Philadelphia diet drug case

Wyeth has announced that the jury in the cases of Janice Kydd v. Wyeth and Kathy Huber v. Wyeth in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas found in favor of Wyeth. The verdict came at the close of the first (damages) phase of this bifurcated (two-phase) trial.

23 Apr 2005

Outrage over usage of HIV positive children as Guinea pigs

Saying “the Administration for Children’s Services (ACS) has perpetrated a 21st century Tuskegee Experiment on nearly 500 New York City children over the course of 15 years,” New York State Assemblyman Keith L.T. Wright (D- Central Harlem/West Harlem) today demanded that the Vera Institute of Justice in conjunction with the NYS Office of Children and Family Services conduct a thorough investigation of ACS policy in light of its enrollment HIV-positive children who are in foster care in clinical drug trials during the late 1980s to 2001.

23 Apr 2005

Do psychotropic drugs cure mental disease?

Joanna Moncrieff (University College of London and David Cohen (Florida International University) discuss what is the actual role of psychotropic drugs as to mental disease in the May-June issue of Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics.

23 Apr 2005

Stem cells from adults may cause cancer

Stem cells, often lauded as future cures for numerous diseases, are immature "master" cells that can be programmed to become many kinds of tissue, but experts have known for a long time that stem cells harvested from embryos can turn cancerous and have been linked to leukaemias and breast cancer.

23 Apr 2005

Being chubby means you may be healthier!

A new study is saying that being overweight may not be the killer we once thought it was and the number of deaths each year attributed to obesity and being overweight in the United States is around 112,000 - about one-quarter of the previous estimate of more than 400,000 deaths.

23 Apr 2005

HIV kids in care may have had their rights violated in drug trials

Children's rights advocates are demanding an independent review of a New York city agency's program which subjected more than 400 HIV-positive foster children to clinical trials for AIDS drugs after children's rights advocates said it amounted to exploitation.

23 Apr 2005