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The Springer Dog Exerciser Helps You And Your Dog Stay Fit
If you want a safe way to take your dog with you on bike rides, the Springer dog exerciser might be the perfect answer.
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Wall Street Journal Examines Pharmaceutical Companies Expansion Into Developing Countries
The Wall Street Journal examines the "strategic shift in the $770 billion pharmaceutical industry to target the working poor in the developing world" through the eyes of a Pfizer pharmaceutical representative working in the slums overlooking Caracas, Venezuela. The newspaper writes: "For the first time in a half-century, sales of prescription drugs are forecast to decline this year in the U.S., historically the industry"s biggest and most profitable market ò€¦ As a result, developing countries ò€¦ have begun to look more attractive to the industry."
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Massachusetts Health Insurance Law Has Increased Access To Care, Though Residents' Ability To Obtain Treatment Hampered By Provider Supply, Study Find
Since the implementation of the Massachusetts health insurance law in 2006, more residents have health coverage and increased access to care, but rising health care costs combined with the current economic recession could undermine some of the law"s successes, according to the third annual "Update on Health Reform in Massachusetts" report by the Urban Institute, the Boston Globe reports. The study was funded by the Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Massachusetts Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Commonwealth Fund, and published in the journal Health Affairs.For the report, Sharon Long of the Urban Institute and colleagues surveyed about 4,000 Massachusetts adults in 2007 and 2008 and compared their health care habits with those of residents surveyed in 2006 -- just after the law went into effect. Researchers found that although there were initial gains in health care affordability, there are now some signs that an increasing number of state residents are reporting problems paying for medical bills, and an increasing number of people -- especially lower-income residents -- not seeking care because of costs (Lazar, Boston Globe, 5/28). One in five adults reported being told in the past 12 months that a physician or clinic was not accepting new patients or would not see patients with their type of insurance (Sack, New York Times, 5/28). Lower-income residents had more difficulties finding a physician than higher-income residents, with 24% of residents enrolled in state-subsidized health plans, saying they were told that a physician did not accept their insurance, compared with 7% of residents with private coverage (Boston Globe, 5/28). Additional Findings
Public Health

Cancer Vaccine Efficacy Enhanced Using Anti-Diabetic Drug Metformin

After a vaccination or an infection, the human immune system remembers to keep protecting against invaders it has already encountered, with the aid of specialized B-cells and T-cells. Immunological memory has long been the subject of intense study, but the underlying cellular mechanisms regulating the generation and persistence of long-lived memory T cells remain largely undefined. Now, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine researchers have found that a common anti-diabetic drug might enhance the effectiveness of vaccines. The findings are described this week in an advanced online publication of Nature. In this study, an experimental preventive vaccine was made more efficacious by boosting numbers of cancer fighting T cells with the anti-diabetic drug metformin. This resulted in a larger population of memory immune cells that were able to fight off a tumor at a later time. "We serendipitously discovered that the metabolizing, or burning, of fatty acids by T cells following the peak of infection is critical to establishing memory in those T cells," says senior author Yongwon Choi, PhD, Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine. "As a consequence, we used the widely prescribed anti-diabetic drug metformin, which is known to operate on fatty-acid metabolism, to enhance this process." "We have shown experimentally in mice that metformin increases T-cell memory as well as the ensuing protective immunity of an experimental anti-cancer vaccine," notes postdoctoral fellow and first author Erika Pearce, PhD. "These findings were unanticipated, but are potentially extremely important and could revolutionize current strategies for both therapeutic and prophylactic vaccines," says Choi. The lab developed mice deficient in TRAF6, a protein important in the immune response. They found that CD8 T cells deficient in TRAF6 mount an initial response, meaning they are able to proliferate into an army of so-called effector cells that can clear infection. However, TRAF6-deficient CD8 T cells do not develop into a population of memory cells that can recall a particular infectious agent when the body encounters it a second time. Using microarray analysis and a program that searches protein pathways, the team compared the gene expression profiles of TRAF6-deficient cells and cells with TRAF6 to see what stood out. "We discovered differences in genes that regulate fatty acid metabolism," says Pearce. Fatty acids can be broken down for energy and the microarray analyses revealed that TRAF6-deficient CD8 T cells exhibit altered expression of genes that regulate this process. Consistent with the microarray findings, CD8 T cells lacking TRAF6 display defective fatty acid oxidation in response to growth factor withdrawal. Giving the mutant mice the metformin restored fatty acid oxidation and the generation of memory cells that lack TRAF6. Remarkably, this treatment also increased the generation of memory cells in normal mice, and consequently was able to significantly improve the efficacy of an experimental anti-cancer vaccine. A lack of fatty acid metabolism is correlated with lack of T-cell memory and through in vitro studies the team also saw that T cells burn more fatty acids when given metformin. T cells proliferating to form an army of effector cells burn glucose for their energy. Non-proliferating T cells, such as memory cells, burn fatty acids, amino acids, and glucose interchangeably in a different metabolic pathway. From this, explains Pearce, "it is implied that there"s a switch in metabolism somewhere along the way between proliferating and non-proliferating T cell populations." Perhaps at the peak of the proliferation, when energy is limiting and cells are metabolically stressed, there is a switch to another energy pathway to survive, say from glucose to fatty acids. "Most T cell vaccines have a good initial response, but the development of long-term T memory cells has been difficult to achieve," says Choi. "The key improvement we"re hoping to contribute is to use the traditional vaccine, then with the proper timing, we can use metformin, in theory, to boost the development of memory cells. We want to enhance immunity after an initial vaccination so we can make vaccines that are being tested now better." This work was funded in part by grants from the National Cancer Institute and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. Co-authors in addition to Choi and Pearce are Matthew C. Walsh, Pedro J. Cejas, Gretchen M. Harms, Hao Shen, and Li-San Wang, all from Penn as well as Russell G. Jones from McGill University, Montreal. Karen Kreeger University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine


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