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Chance Of Fetal Complications Following Accidents Not Increased By Automobile Restraints
It is well established that seat belts save lives. However, many pregnant women do not wear seat belts, for fear that the belt itself could injure the baby in a car crash. But is this actually the case? Does the seat belt put the baby at risk?
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First Evidence That Weed Killers Improve Nutritional Value Of A Key Food Crop
"Increase in Nutritionally Important Sweet Corn Kernel Carotenoids following Mesotrione and Atrazine Applications"
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GAO Report Finds Veterans Affairs Facilities Do Not Comply With Privacy Standards For Women
All Department of Veterans Affairs outpatient clinics and hospitals are failing to fully comply with federal privacy standards for women, according to a Government Accountability Office report, the AP/Boston Globe reports. The report comes as thousands of female veterans are entering the VA health system after returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.GAO auditors said that many VA facilities had gynecological tables that faced the door. In one instance, a gynecological table faced a door opening to a waiting room. The investigation also found cases where women had to walk through waiting rooms to use the restroom -- a violation of VA policy requiring adjoining restrooms. Four VA hospitals did not guarantee women access to private bathing facilities. In two of those cases, the facilities did not have locks.Nearly 20% of female veterans have been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, and many of them have experienced sexual trauma while serving, according to the report. The report also said that most female veterans at VA facilities are ages 20 to 29. On average, female veterans using VA facilities are much younger than male VA patients, it noted.Randall Williamson, director of health care issues at GAO, said that although top VA officials are committed to improving care for female veterans, facilities are not always taking simple steps, such as repositioning exam tables. Patricia Hayes, chief consultant for VA"s veterans strategic health care group, said that the agency recognizes issues and is making changes to address disparities in care. She noted that VA is creating a long-term plan for construction improvements to address space and building layout challenges (AP/Boston Globe, 7/15).
Oncology

'Shock And Kill' Research Gives New Hope For HIV 1 Eradication

Latent HIV genes can be "smoked out" of human cells. The so-called "shock and kill" technique, described in a preclinical study in BioMed Central"s open access journal Retrovirology, might represent a new milestone along the way to the discovery of a cure for HIV/AIDS. Dr. Enrico Garaci, president of the Istituto Superiore di Sanitç  (the Italian Institute of Health) and Dr. Andrea Savarino, a retrovirologist working at the institution, worked with a team of researchers to study the so-called "barrier of latency" which has been the main obstacle to HIV eradication from the body. Cells harbouring a quiescent HIV genome are responsible for HIV persistence during therapy. In other words, HIV-1 genes become pieces of the human organism, and many scientists have simply thought there is nothing we can do. Dr Savarino"s team aimed to "smoke out" the virus in order to render the latently infected cells targetable by the immune system or artificial means. They write, "This can be achieved using inhibitors of histone deacetylases (HDACs), which are a class of enzymes that maintain HIV latency. However, their effects on HIV are evident only when used in toxic quantities". To overcome this problem, the Italian researchers tested a collection of HDAC inhibitors, some of which specifically target only certain enzyme isoforms (class I HDACs) that are involved in HIV latency. The toxicity of this approach, however, was not markedly decreased, although it compromises a more limited number of cellular pathways. Moreover, at non-toxic quantities, class I HDAC inhibitors were able to induce the "awakening" of a portion of cells within a latently infected cell population. The researchers then repeated the experiment adding a drug inducing oxidative stress, buthionine sulfoximine (BSO). The results showed that BSO recruited cells non-responsive to the HDAC inhibitors into the responding cell population. An important result was that the infected cells" "awakening" was followed by cell death, whereas the non-infected cells were left intact by the drug combination. "I really hope this study may open new avenues to the development of weapons able to eliminate the HIV-infected cells from the body", says Dr. Andrea Savarino, "Such weapons, in combination with antiretroviral therapies, could hopefully allow people living with HIV/AIDS to get rid of the virus and return to a normal life. Of note, there are testable drug combinations composed of molecules that have passed phase I clinical trials for safety in humans". This type of approach has been dubbed "shock and kill". "Although this type of approach is largely accepted by the scientific community", adds Dr. Savarino, "to be honest, we have to take into consideration that some scientists are skeptical about this approach, and others even think that a cure for HIV/AIDS will never be found. Experiments using animal models will shed a new light on this difficult problem." BioMed Central Limited


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