There’s lots of buzz in the world of AIDS research this week, with the XVII International Conference on AIDS getting ready to kick off in Mexico City. Robert Siliciano, an HIV expert at Johns Hopkins, has found that current antiretroviral drugs have stopped HIV from replicating, the first of three steps needed to cure the virus. Some drug combinations have even squashed the viral cells’ ability to copy themselves to less than one time in a billion. So if the virus can’t spread, what’s left to cure? According to Siliciano’s prior research, HIV hides in reservoirs throughout the body, where it can live without replicating. Curing HIV means finding all of those reservoirs, and then finding a way to eliminate them.
Anti-transmission technologies are also seeing some success in the lab. At St. George’s University of London, a team of researchers led by Martin Cranage has been testing a rectal gel on macaques infected with SIV (the monkey version of the AIDS virus). They found that the gel, which contains the HIV drug tenofovir, partially or totally protected most of the uninfected monkeys from transmission.
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While the gas price spike has already reduced the amount of miles Americans drive and perhaps even jump-started a bicycling movement, could it really put a dent in America’s seemingly-unstoppable obesity rise?
Charles Courtemanche, an economics professor at the University of North Carolina, certainly thinks so. According to his latest research, a permanent one-dollar rise in gas prices is associated with a seven percent drop in overweight Americans and a nine percent drop in obesity rates—the equivalent of about four to five pounds (1.8 to 2.3 kilograms) in lost weight across the entire U.S. population. His analysis was based on gasoline prices in several states from 1984 to 2004, which he compared with each state’s average body weight and obesity rate.
Granted, these results seem to fly in the face of the obesity epidemic’s steady rise, which also began around twenty years ago—if gas prices were so steadily increasing and leading to weight loss, why were obesity levels simultaneously skyrocketing? Still, maybe some further data could bolster Courtemanche’s theory. While his paper was originally published in May of 2007 (when gas was at a “record high” of $3.22 a gallon), it was revised this summer—with gas prices already $1 a gallon higher. Perhaps incorporating the last four (crucial, unstable) years of data into his model could shed some light on whether his four-pounds-a-person theory is accurate. If so, we’re all going out for a burger.
Image: iStockPhoto
Here’s some news that could put an interesting twist in the gambling addiction/genetics debate (not to mention supply new reasons to sue drug companies): ABC News reports that several of the drugs prescribed for Parkinson’s disease and restless legs syndrome can cause a range of dangerous behavioral side effects including increased drinking, drug use, risky sex, and gambling.
The drugs, which include Mirapex and Requip, are dopamine agonists, which mimic dopamine in the brain to boost the movement and coordination centers—and also stimulate the pleasure response by reinforcing certain behaviors. Unwitting patients who’ve taken the drugs have wound up with costly gambling habits, DUI arrests, and compulsive eating disorders, as well as even stranger effects—one man reportedly plays basketball for up to 36 hours at a time, while another compulsively fishes.
Given that more than 10 million prescriptions have been written for Mirapex alone, it’s not unlikely that we’ll see some serious fallout, be it motorists killed by a drunk driver on the drug, or an STD spike as a result of risky sexual practices (which are already on the rise among seniors, the demographic most likely to be taking meds for Parkinson’s and RLS).
As such, it’s worth it to start asking to what degree patients should be held legally responsible for their actions while taking the drug—and, perhaps even more importantly for lawyers, whether the drug companies can be held at all responsible for all that irresponsible boozing and sex.
On Fridays here at Reality Base, we’ll bring you a summary of the latest in science and politics news and opinion from around the Web.
• The G8 summit started out strong, but the end results were tepid at best. Still, a little good may have come of it.
• Are ration books next? The British government urges Brits to cut back on food waste and eat more leftovers.
• The awesome (and frightening) power of Photoshop: With a single doctored photo, Iran alters missiles, fears, international perceptions.
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We’ve written at length about autism at DISCOVER, including the scientific debunking of the myth that vaccines are behind the disorder. But thanks to growing celebrity support, the vaccine-autism movement has been spreading misinformation and gaining converts in Hollywood and beyond at an alarming rate.
Media attention on the issue skyrocketed last month, when Playboy model-cum-actress-cum-autism activist Jenny McCarthy led a Washington D.C. march demanding changes to the CDC’s child vaccination guidelines. McCarthy, hailed by supporters as “the biggest thing to happen since the word autism was coined,” is throwing her weight behind chelation, an unproven and possibly dangerous treatment that removes heavy metals from the body—and increasing numbers of parents are backing her. The government has begun feeling the heat over the rise (which may not be a rise at all) of the disorder (which may not be a disorder at all), and the National Institute of Mental Health is pushing to begin tests of chelation.
Still, some big names in Tinseltown are less than convinced by McCarthy’s efforts.
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We’ve addressed the looming doctor shortage that could erupt into a full-fledged health-care crisis by the time all 78 million baby boomers reach 65. Now there’s yet another reason to start recruiting doctors fast: Those boomers are also contracting STDs at astounding rates. A new study shows that in the past 10 years infection rates for the over-40 set have skyrocketed, with cases of chlamydia, genital herpes, gonorrhea, syphilis, and genital warts among people over 45 increasing 127 percent between 1996 and 2003.
A host of factors, including high divorce rates, lack of safe-sex education, more sex for seniors, and outdated attitudes developed during the “free love” era are all to blame, but the results are no good news for a government that’s already set to break the bank on its disproportionately aging population. STDs, particularly HIV, cost money to treat, and our current health-care system is caught in enough of a spending spiral as it is.
Though perhaps one good thing will come of this: Maybe now we can finally quit preaching abstinence.
It’s no secret that waiting to reproduce can be a serious economic boon for women. We even have hard evidence, with University of Virginia economist Amalia Miller’s study showing that each year a woman delays having children increases her career earnings by 10 percent. But the cultural rise of delayed childbirth also has serious costs, both for the health of the mother and child, and for the health-care system.
A paper published this week by researchers at Cambridge University found that the recent and substantial rise in babies delivered by Caesarean section is linked to the major increase in the number of older mothers. After examining more than 500,000 entries in the Scottish Morbidity Record between 1980 and 2005, the authors found the following:
The proportion of women aged 35-39 entering their first pregnancy increased seven-fold, whilst there was a ten-fold increase for women aged 40 or older. At the same time, the Caesarean rate more than doubled. The team estimate that 38% of these additional procedures would have been avoided if the maternal age distribution had remained static.
The trend is mirrored in other developing countries as well. The U.S., for example, has gone from a 4.5 percent caesarean rate in 1965 to a 31.1 percent rate in 2006.
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Thirty-seven years and around $500 hundred billion after Nixon declared the War on Drugs officially on, it’s been officially panned as a massive flop. And to sprinkle a little salt in the wound, a new survey indicates that the U.S. has the highest levels of illegal cocaine and cannabis use among 17 countries, including Japan, the Netherlands, France, and China.
The study, led by Louisa Degenhardt of the University of New South Wales in Sydney, used results compiled from 54,068 participants in the WHO‘s Composite International Diagnostic Interview. In the U.S., 16.2 percent of respondents reported using cocaine in their lifetime. The next highest level was New Zealand, with 4.3 percent—well under a third as much use. Cannabis use in the U.S. was at 42.4 percent, followed by New Zealand’s 41.9 percent.
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We’ve covered how the location in which you vote can influence your choices (not a huge surprise, given the expanse of research on visual cues). But now a landmark study in the American Political Science Review suggests that whether or not you head to the polls this November may be partly attributable to your genes.
In the first empirical test of the genetics-voting theory, political scientists James Fowler and Christopher Dawes of U.C. San Diego and psychologist Laura Baker of U.S.C. studied whether variation in political participation can be partly attributed to genes. They found that individual genetic differences make up a “large and significant portion” of why some people vote and others don’t, even after controlling for socialization and other environmental factors.
For their data set, they turned to that most useful of tools for genetics research: identical twins (who share all their genes) and non-identical twins (who share about half their genes).
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The New York Times recently broke the news that three prominent Harvard psychiatrists, Joseph Biederman, Timothy Wilens, and Thomas Spencer, received a million or more dollars from antidepressant manufacturers. Biederman and Wilens each earned at least $1.6 million in “consulting fees” from 2000 to 2007, while Spencer earned at least $1 million in the same time period. None of them ever reported the income to the university, and thus all three may have violated federal law.
The story, with its big names, their controversial findings, and the massive payments involved, presents a pretty clear case of conflict of interest. Biederman in particular has stirred up the pot—his research on child bipolar disorder led to the dramatic rise of children using antipsychotic medications, a practice which has drawn criticism from the medical community.
But when it comes to doctors taking cash from drug makers, these docs are hardly the only ones worthy of a takedown.
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Since the mapping of the human genome, technology has advanced to radical new levels, allowing doctors and researchers to test for genetic predisposition towards anything from respiratory ailments to cancer.
But with the technology advances, concerns arose—rightfully—about the opportunity for “genetic discrimination,” in which insurance companies and/or employers could deny an employee medical coverage, or even turn him down for a job, because his genes show an increased likelihood that he’ll get sick in the future.
Now, the federal government has gotten into the act.
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A Seattle man in desperate need of a liver transplant has been denied a new organ by the transplant committee at his treating hospital, the University of Washington Medical Center. The reason for the committee’s decision—which is decidedly harsh, given that his condition is severe—is that the patient, 56-year-old Timothy Garon, used marijuana.
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First came the report from the Institute of Medicine that the U.S. is facing a massive healthcare shortage as the nation’s 78 million baby boomers enter their golden years. Projections estimate a shortfall of anywhere from 50,000 to 100,000 doctors relative to demand by 2020, and within three years our senior citizens will be dealing with a healthcare workforce that’s “too small and woefully unprepared.”
Now, the Journal of the American Medical Association reports in the April issue of Archives of Surgery that the number of general surgeons per 100,000 Americans has fallen more than 25 percent in the past 25 years.
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HIV/AIDS
Highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) has changed the face of HIV, limiting new infections and allowing the infected to live a somewhat “normal” life. But while the spread is slowing, AIDS deaths are far from over, both at home and abroad. Sub-Saharan Africa, not to mention China, Russia, and Indonesia, continue to see higher infection rates, and treatment is only reaching about 30 percent of those who need it. And, of course, there’s the matter of the two “separate” epidemics, and the taboos that come with acknowledging—and treating—them.
The Pharmaceutical Industry
As the race for new drugs grows ever tighter, Big Pharma companies have begun outsourcing R&D to China and India, while creeping ever closer to the “scientific research/private interests” divide. Meanwhile, activist groups are calling for greater social responsibility in the industry—and the the American Medical Students Association is calling for more policies on financial conflicts of interest—with good reason.
The Doctor Shortage
Conflicts of interest or no, we’re in for a serious shortage of doctors in the near future—bad news as the baby boomers hit their golden years. As for the doctors currently practicing, many of them are pretty unhappy.
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