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Advocates push to ease stem cell restrictions
By wire services
Published February 17, 2005
WASHINGTON - Congressional supporters of human embryonic stem cell research began a push to expand federal funding for the controversial field, introducing identical bills Wednesday in the Senate and House that would loosen research restrictions President Bush imposed in 2001.
Members of Congress representing a wide spectrum of political sensibilities called for change.
"I firmly believe that embryonic stem cell research is the greatest medical hope of the 21st century," Rep. Michael Castle, R-Del., said at a Capitol Hill news conference.
Some researchers say embryonic stem cells could be capable of rebuilding ailing organs, but the research is mired in controversy because five-day-old human embryos must be destroyed to retrieve them.
Under current policy, federal money may be used to study only colonies of stem cells derived from embryos destroyed before Aug. 9, 2001.
The new bill would allow federally funded researchers to derive fresh colonies of stem cells from spare embryos that are about to be discarded by fertility clinics, if parents agree to offer them for research. It would not allow taxpayer money to be used to create embryos by cloning or other means.
Prostate cancer treatment shows some promise
ORLANDO - Doctors are reporting their first success at improving survival in men with advanced prostate cancer by using a treatment that trains the immune system to fight tumors.
The approach is called a cancer vaccine although unlike traditional vaccines, it treats disease rather than prevents it.
In a study of 127 men with advanced prostate cancer, those who got the vaccine lived an average of 41/2 months longer than those who were given fake treatments. After three years, survival was 34 percent in the vaccine group and 11 percent in the other.
"That's a huge difference. These are people who have relatively few options, with limited survival," said Dr. Eric Small, who led the study and will give results at a prostate cancer research meeting today in Orlando.
The vaccine, called Provenge, doesn't work like chemotherapy, and its side effects typically are only fevers and chills.
The vaccine combines a protein found in most prostate cancers with a substance that helps specialized immune system cells recognize cancer as a threat.
Protein can help predict clogged artery risk
BOSTON - Levels of a stress-related protein in the blood could give doctors a powerful new tool for deciding which patients with clogged heart arteries are most in danger and need aggressive treatment, a study found.
This protein is a predictor of heart trouble, in addition to such better-known substances as cholesterol and C-reactive protein.
The Danish study, published in today's New England Journal of Medicine, focused on a substance called B-natriuretic peptide, or BNP. It is released into the blood when the heart undergoes stress.
Some doctors already test for this protein to help evaluate patients with shortness of breath who may be suffering from congestive heart disease, in which the heart does not pump well.
Researchers looked at patients who were in stable condition but had clogged heart arteries.
The researchers measured the protein levels in 1,034 patients and followed their health for nine years. People with the highest protein levels were 21/2 times more likely to die from any cause than those with the lowest.
Questionable meat was allowed into U.S.
WASHINGTON - The Agriculture Department allowed Canada to import 42,000 pounds of questionable meat into the United States despite restrictions in place since the discovery of mad cow disease in Canada, department investigators said Wednesday.
The agency's inspector general faulted agriculture officials for allowing more kinds of Canadian meat products into the United States before the judge's ruling. Such "permit creep" let in products that were at greater risk for the disease, the report said.
Officials plan to allow imports of live cattle under 30 months of age beginning March 7, despite the discovery of two new cases of mad cow disease last month.
Mad cow disease, the common name for bovine spongiform encephalopathy, is thought to pose less of a risk to younger animals.
[Last modified February 17, 2005, 01:22:08]
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Fifty years ago, they were screwed-up kids sent to the Florida School for Boys to be straightened out. But now they are screwed-up men, scarred by the whippings they endured. Read the story and see a video and portrait gallery.
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