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Global food price increase forces World Vision to scale back food aid program

One of the world's largest humanitarian organizations has announced it can no longer provide food to 1.5 million of the 7.5 million poor it fed last year.

23 Apr 2008

Menstrual blood - an abundant sources of stem cells

Researchers seeking new and more abundant sources of stem cells for use in regenerative medicine have identified a potentially unlimited, noncontroversial, easily collectable, and inexpensive source - menstrual blood.

23 Apr 2008

Impact of environment and social gradient on Leptospira infection in urban slums

A study conducted in an urban slum setting in Salvador, Brazil has found that open sewers, accumulations of refuse, and inadequate floodwater drainage are acting as sources for transmission of the disease leptospirosis. The study is published in this week's PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases.

23 Apr 2008

Simplified economical method of giving rabies vaccine

A simplified economical method of giving rabies vaccine is just as effective as the expensive standard vaccine regimen at stimulating anti-rabies antibodies.

23 Apr 2008

Hirsutism in premenopausal women - new treatment guidelines

The Endocrine Society has released new clinical practice guidelines for the treatment of hirsutism in premenopausal women. The guidelines appear in the April issue of the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (JCEM), a publication of The Endocrine Society.

22 Apr 2008

Teenage suicides: Study advocates greater family support

Teenage suicide is often perceived as the result of rejection of family, significant others and of society. Families affected by teenage suicide often look back for warning signs and clues in order to make sense of the tragedy. With the recent teenage suicides in Bridgend, South Wales, there have been demands for improved suicide prevention strategies. However little attention is paid to those families who have already lost their teenage sons or daughters.

22 Apr 2008

Child's sex is associated with the mother's diet

New research by the Universities of Exeter and Oxford provides the first evidence that a child's sex is associated with the mother's diet. Published today (23 April 2008), in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, the study shows a clear link between higher energy intake around the time of conception and the birth of sons.

22 Apr 2008

Farm Bill will not include provision to ban physician referrals to specialty hospitals

Senate conferees in negotiations on the farm bill have withdrawn a proposal that the conference report include a provision under which physicians could not refer patients to specialty hospitals in which they have a financial interest amid opposition from House conferees and others, CongressDaily reports.

22 Apr 2008

Number of general surgeons in U.S. declined by 26% since 1981

The ratio of practicing general surgeons to patients in the U.S. declined by 26% between 1981 and 2005, according to an analysis published Monday in the Archives of Surgery, Reuters reports.

22 Apr 2008

Maryland lawmakers approve measures intended to improve dental care for low-income children

In the 2009 fiscal year state budget, the Maryland General Assembly included millions of dollars in funding for initiatives that will expand dental care to more children enrolled in Medicaid, the Washington Post reports.

22 Apr 2008

Independent examines U.K. insurers' practices regarding MSM, risk of HIV

London's Independent on Saturday examined the practices of some insurance companies in the United Kingdom regarding men who have sex with men who are applying for policies for life insurance or major illnesses.

22 Apr 2008

Chicago Tribune profiles home for HIV-positive men

The Chicago Tribune recently profiled the Jo-Ray House, a home for HIV-positive men in Chicago. Jo-Ray was founded in 2003 by Ida Byther-Smith, who was diagnosed as HIV-positive in 1991.

22 Apr 2008

Sub-Saharan African countries not on track to meet MDGs, U.N. Secretary General Ban says

Sub-Saharan African countries likely will not meet the United Nation's Millennium Development Goals -- which include reducing the spread of diseases such as HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria -- by 2015, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Monday at the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development in Accra, Ghana, AFP/Google.com reports.

22 Apr 2008

Zimbabwe HIV/AIDS Union calls on groups to provide post-testing services

The Zimbabwe HIV and AIDS Activist Union recently called on organizations involved in the fight against the disease to stop offering HIV tests if they cannot provide post-testing services, the Herald/AllAfrica.com reports.

22 Apr 2008

Jamaica to launch new female condom as part of HIV/AIDS prevention efforts

Jamaica's National Family Planning Board in the next few weeks plans to launch a new female condom in an effort to provide women with increased control over HIV/AIDS prevention methods, the Jamaica Gleaner reports.

22 Apr 2008

Life expectancy declines in some U.S. populations

Although life expectancy has been increasing in the U.S. for most people, there is a growing disparity in mortality depending on race, income and geography, according to a study published on Monday in the online journal PLoS Medicine, the New York Times reports.

22 Apr 2008

Class-action lawsuit over veterans health care system begins

Arguments began on Monday in a class-action lawsuit against the Department of Veterans Affairs that alleges the agency is unequipped to provide medical services to treat the mental health problems of soldiers returning from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the New York Times reports. The lawsuit was filed by two groups, the Veterans for Common Sense and the Veterans United for Truth, in a federal court in San Francisco (MacFarquhar, New York Times, 4/22).

22 Apr 2008

NIH study reveals incidence, precursors and psychiatric sequelae of major psychiatric disorders

A new study by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) presents results on the first onset of substance use disorders (i.e., alcohol and drug abuse and dependence) and major mood and anxiety disorders, based on Wave 2 of the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC).

22 Apr 2008

Pin1 is beneficial in Alzheimer's disease, detrimental to some forms of dementia

The most common form of dementia, Alzheimer's disease, and a relatively rare hereditary form of dementia, frontotemporal dementia with parkinsonism-17, share a common pathology: Both are the result of an overaccumulation of tau proteins, which form tangled lesions in the brain's neurons and eventually lead to the collapse of the brain cells responsible for memory.

22 Apr 2008

Discovery of primary driver of tumor development in the stomach

In a discovery that could lead to the development of new treatments for gastric cancer, scientists at the Melbourne Branch of the international Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research (LICR) have discovered what appears to be the primary driver of tumor development in the stomach.

22 Apr 2008