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New York Becomes First State To Allow Payment For Donating Eggs For Stem Cell Research
New York"s Empire State Stem Cell Board earlier this month decided to allow embryonic stem cell researchers who receive state funding to compensate women for donating their eggs for use in research, making New York the first state to enact such a policy, the Washington Post reports (Stein, Washington Post, 6/26). According to the New York Times, the New York state Legislature in 2007 allotted $600 million for an 11-year stem cell research plan (Nelson, New York Times, 6/26). Under the board"s decisions, researchers receiving the state funding may pay women up to $10,000 to compensate them for the time, discomfort and expenses associated with egg donation. David Hohn, vice chair of the board"s two committees that endorsed the decision, said that the board "could not distinguish ethically between the payment for in vitro fertilization, which is very well precedented, and the compensation for donation for research." The board said researchers should follow the same guidelines as infertility clinics that receive donated eggs for infertile couples. Under those guidelines, payments exceeding $5,000 must be justified, and those exceeding $10,000 are considered excessive (Washington Post, 6/26). Robert Klitzman, director of the master"s degree program in bioethics at Columbia University and a member of the stem cell board"s ethics committee, said the payments will be carefully evaluated by an institutional review board (New York Times, 6/26).The Post reports that the decision goes against policies in other states that offer funding for embryonic stem cell research, as well as against current guidelines from scientific organizations like the National Academy of Sciences (Washington Post, 6/26). NAS guidelines, for example, prohibit paying women for eggs used in stem cell research. Similarly, the internal guidelines for New York-based groups like Rockefeller University, Cornell University and the Sloan-Kettering Institute prohibit financial compensation for donated eggs. However, researchers say that efforts to recruit unpaid donors have been unsuccessful and that the board"s decision will give New York an advantage in stem cell research (New York Times, 6/26). The decision was welcomed by scientists and other proponents of stem cell research, who said it will allow them to further research in areas like therapeutic cloning. The process, also known as somatic cell nuclear transfer, involves replacing the genetic material in a human egg with genes from the nucleus of a patient"s cell. The egg is then developed into an early embryo, which, in theory, could be used to produce stem cells that the patient"s immune system would not reject. Although the procedure has been unsuccessful so far, researchers say the board"s decision will help attract more donors, which will allow for more experiments. Egg donation involves weeks of hormone injections to stimulate the ovaries and a painful egg extraction procedure, which carries rare but serious risks. Other attempts at soliciting women to donate eggs for stem cell research have been unsuccessful, according to the Post.Some critics of the board"s decision said that paying women for eggs could lead to exploitation, especially for low-income women. Thomas Berg -- a Roman Catholic priest who is director of the Westchester Institute for Ethics and the Human Person and a member of the Empire State Stem Cell Board"s ethics committee -- said that in the current economic recession, paying a woman $10,000 to participate in a research project is an "undue inducement." He added that he thinks it "manipulates women" and "creates a trafficking in human body parts." Other opponents of the decision questioned if compensating women who donate eggs for research is indeed equivalent to the process for infertility treatments. Jonathan Moreno, a professor of bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, said that donors recognize that egg donation for infertility treatments is a "very concrete good for society" but that "you can"t be sure any biological material you collect for research wi
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Neural Substrates Of Controlled And Automatic Processes Involved In Empathy For Pain
Seeing others in pain can automatically engage the brain"s empathy systems even if we are not paying attention, according to new research from Mount Sinai School of Medicine presented at the Annual Meeting of the Organization for Human Brain Mapping. The investigators showed people images of hands and feet in painful or non-painful situations while scanning the brain using magnetic resonance imaging. Under some conditions the subjects paid attention to whether the situation was painful, while in other conditions they paid attention to other aspects of the images. The results showed that a brain area called the insula responded to pain even if the subject was not paying attention to pain, while another area called the anterior cingulate cortex was important for the voluntary control of empathy for pain. The research provides a better understanding of how the social brain responds to others" pain.
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Swine Influenza Daily Update: 16 July 2009, Wales
The NPHS influenza surveillance scheme, which records reports of diagnoses of flufrom more than 300 GP practices across Wales, shows low but increasing levels of influenza activity across Wales. Further detail can be found on the NPHS website.
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Study Suggests TB Screening Needs To Be Targeted For Maximum Public Health Benefit

New estimates of the likelihood that a latent case of tuberculosis (TB) will become active have resulted in a roughly 50 percent increase over previous estimates of the number of people needed to be screened (NNS) to prevent an active infection, limiting the cost effectiveness of screening in many Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)-defined risk groups, according to an analysis conducted by experts in the epidemiology of the disease. The research will be presented at the American Thoracic Society"s 105th International Conference on Tuesday, May 19. "Screening for LTBI [latent tuberculosis infection] is an important method for eliminating the diseases," says lead researcher Benjamin Linas, M.D., M.P.H., of Massachusetts General Hospital. "This analysis, does not suggest we reduce screening. Indeed, if we did that, we"d likely take a step backward in TB control. The study does suggest, though, that we redirect and focus our screening efforts on those most at risk." Among patients with chronic medical conditions, the NNS to prevent an active case of TB ranged from 1,150 for those who are underweight to 2,778 for patients with end-stage renal disease. Previous estimates of the NNS ranged from 806 to 1,923. Screening was not cost-effective for many patients who are currently recommended for screening, including those who are underweight, have had a gastrectomy, or have silicosis, diabetes or end stage renal disease. Screening was a cost-effective strategy under previous estimates of the rate of reactivation TB, but the new, lower estimates of reactivation limited the case finding rate and decreased the cost effectiveness of screening. The NNS was lower in populations with a high prevalence of latent TB infection, including foreign-born residents, recent immigrants, the homeless and injection drug users. It was also lower in patients with a high risk of reactivation TB, including those with HIV infection and those taking immunosuppressive medications. As a result, screening remained cost effective for these groups. Dr. Linas and his colleagues, from MGH and Boston University School of Public Health, based their analysis on several new estimates of TB reactivation rates gathered from 1998-2005. According to Dr. Linas, current guidelines for screening are based on rates indicated from studies conducted in the 1950s and 1960s. To arrive at new estimates of NNS and cost effectiveness, the Boston-based researchers constructed a Markov computer model that simulates the clinical progression of a cohort of patients, can integrate a wide array of parameters and allows the analysts to plug in different estimates to determine which are most important in determining outcomes. In addition to the old and new estimates of reactivation rates, the group included in their model estimates based on published reports of TB mortality, percent of diagnosed patients who complete isoniazid (INH), the standard therapy for LTBI (for U.S.-born residents, 50 percent; for foreign-born, 48 percent) and the effectiveness of the therapy among those who complete it. "The take home message of this research," Dr. Linas said, "is not that we should reduce funding for LTBI screening, but that we can use current funding to make greater strides toward eliminating TB by targeting those at highest risk for latent infection becoming active." American Thoracic Society (ATS)


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