Bush's War on Science and Health


Not satisfied with overt, violent, attacks the Bush Administration has
upped the ante on his "War on Science," "War on Education," and "War on
Health."

Every American has been held hostage by the monopolies granted
Corporations now in control of hospitals, HMO's, and the incessant legal
rangling on both sides running up the cost of health. There is more.

Bush's War on Science has delayed stem cell cures. Here are three
examples delayed by federal limitations on stem cell research:

============================================================== Stem cells
used to fix breast defects

By MARILYNN MARCHIONE, AP Medical Writer Sat Dec 15, 1:13 PM ET

SAN ANTONIO - For the first time, doctors have used stem cells from
liposuctioned fat to fix breast defects in women who have had cancerous
lumps removed.

The approach is still experimental, but holds promise for millions of
women left with cratered areas and breasts that look very different from
each other after cancer surgery. It also might be a way to augment healthy
breasts without using artificial implants.

So far, it has only been tested on about two dozen women in a study in
Japan. But doctors in the United States say it has great potential.

"This is a pretty exciting topic right now in plastic surgery," said Dr.
Karol Gutowski of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. "There are people
all over the country working on this."

The Japanese study was reported Saturday at the San Antonio Breast Cancer
Symposium. The company that developed the treatment, San Diego-based
Cytori Therapeutics, plans larger studies in Europe and Japan next year.

More than 100,000 women have lumps removed each year in the United States.
These operations, lumpectomies, often are done instead of mastectomies,
which take the whole breast. But they often leave deformities because as
much as a third of a woman's breast may be removed.

"It's almost a euphemism" to call it a lumpectomy, said Dr. Sydney
Coleman, a plastic surgeon at New York University who has consulted for
Cytori and is interested in the stem cell approach.

The defect "initially may not be as noticeable" but it often gets worse,
especially if the woman also has radiation treatment, said Dr. Sameer
Patel, a reconstructive surgeon at Fox Chase Cancer Center in
Philadelphia.

"There's a growing push to try to involve the plastic surgeon particularly
for this reason -- to try to avoid a defect," but once one develops,
options to repair it are limited, Patel said.

The implants sold today are for reconstructing breasts after mastectomies.
They aren't designed to fix odd-shaped deformities from lumpectomies or
radiation.

"Each one is so different, there's no little thing you can just pop in
there," Gutowski explained.

Doctors can try making the other breast smaller so they match,
transplanting a back muscle to boost the flawed breast, or rearranging
tissue to more evenly distribute what's left. But these involve surgery
and leave scars.

Mini implants of fat tissue have been tried, but they often get resorbed
by the body or die and turn hard and lumpy. The recent discovery that fat
cells are rich in stem cells -- master cells that can replenish
themselves and form other tissues in the body -- renewed interest in
their use.

In the Japanese study, doctors liposuctioned fat from 21 breast cancer
patients' tummies, hips or thighs. Half was reserved as the main implant
material; the rest was processed to extract stem cells and combined with
the reserved fat. This was injected in three places around a breast
defect.

Doctors think the stem cells will keep the tissue from dying and form
lasting mini implants.

Eight months after treatment, "about 80 percent of the patients are
satisfied" with the results, said the lead researcher, Dr. Keizo Sugimachi
of Kyushu University in Fukuoka, Japan.

There was a statistically significant improvement in breast tissue
thickness at one and six months after treatment.

Doctors with no role in the research say longer study is needed to see if
these results last.

The treatment is expected to cost $3,000 to $5,000, said Cytori's
president, Dr. Mark Hedrick. The company sees potential for cosmetic
breast augmentation of healthy breasts, but for now "our plan is to focus
on an unmet medical need" in cancer patients, he said.

The American Society of Plastic Surgeons says doctors must be cautious
about using fat cells for cosmetic purposes until more is known. Gutowski
heads a task force the society formed to study the science. Coleman is a
member.

"It's got great potential not only for breast but other cosmetic and
reconstructive purposes," like filling in facial defects from cancer or
trauma, Gutowski said. "Imagine the aging face."

Better cosmetic treatments may encourage more women to choose
lumpectomies. Some have opted for mastectomies because they are concerned
about being left with a defect, especially younger women.

Laurie Rapp, a 48-year-old restaurant manager in Philadelphia, was only 32
when she had a lumpectomy, and now has mismatched breasts.

"One is so much smaller than the other one," she said. "There's quite a
bit of puckering, and as I'm getting older I feel it's getting worse."

She probably would not try the stem cell treatment now, but if it had been
available when she had her surgery, "I definitely would have, especially
because I wasn't even married then," she said.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/mini_breast_implants;_ylt=Atn.88VePe4MfdbCxl8ol4Ks0NUE
============================================================ Stem cell
magic repairs heart
14 Dec 2007, 0000 hrs IST,REUTERS

LONDON: Scientists have made two significant advances in developing a stem
cell patch to repair the damage caused to the heart after an attack.

Sian Harding of London's Imperial College said on Thursday that her team
had successfully matured beating heart cells in a laboratory dish for up
to seven months and developed a biocompatible scaffold to form the basis
of a patch. The idea is to stitch or glue a patch of new tissue derived
from embryonic stem cells over the damaged area of the heart to make the
muscle viable again.

During a heart attack, or myocardial infarct, part of the heart muscle
loses its blood supply and the oxygen-starved cells die, causing scarring.
"We really would like to cover the area of the infarct scar as much as
possible, so it might be quite a large patch," Harding said in an
interview. "We think the patch itself will stop the scar expanding, which
is one of the big problems when you have a myocardial infarction because
the scar becomes weak and can bulge out."

The biomaterial developed for the patch is designed to have the same
elasticity as heart muscle and can also be programmed to degrade safely in
anything from two weeks upwards.

Several groups around the world are working on different ways to use stem
cells in heart repair but a key challenge is to get cells to function
properly.

By showing stem cell-derived heart cells can beat in a co-ordinated
fashion for months on end, the Imperial team believes their patch should
function smoothly alongside normal heart muscle, without causing abnormal
heart rhythms.

Harding, who will present her research at a UK Stem Cell Initiative
conference, said initial human trials of the patch could be underway
within five years - after safety studies on animals and tests to see if
the new cells are rejected.

Stem cells are controversial but the field received a boost last month
when researchers reported they had turned ordinary human skin cells into
batches of cells that looked and acted like embryonic stem cells, without
using human eggs or embryos.

"That is a very promising development," Harding said. "They have made
heart muscles from those cells and this technique has the potential both
for getting round the ethical problems and for producing patient-specific
cells."

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/HealthScience/Stem_cell_magic_repairs_heart/articleshow/2620838.cms
============================================================ Pancreatic
stem cell breakthrough could offer treatment for Type 1 diabetes

21 minutes ago

WASHINGTON (AFP) - An international team of scientists has isolated
pancreatic stem cells in adult mice, a breakthrough that could lead to
treatment for juvenile or Type 1 diabetes, researchers said in a study
published Thursday.

Scientists have for some time been searching for stem cells in the
pancreas, which have the potential of restoring the organ's insulin-making
capacity so crucial in maintaining adequate blood sugar levels in the
body.

The researchers hope to program the mice pancreatic stemcells to generate
new insulin-producing beta cells.

"One of the most interesting characteristics of these (adult) progenitor
cells is that they are almost indistinguishable from embryonic
progenitors," said Harry Heimberg of the JDRF Center at Vrije Universiteit
Brussel, in Belgium, and the Beta Cell Biology Consortium, a co-author of
the research.

Stem cells are the body's basic cells that can produce all of the tissues
of the body.

"The most important challenge now is to extrapolate our findings to
patients with diabetes," Heimberg said, cautioning however that any
potential stem-cell based diabetes therapy remains far into the future.

Juvenile or Type 1 diabetes affects five to 10 percent of the 20 million
Americans suffering from diabetes. Its causes are different to
adult-onset, or Type 2 diabetes, which is often linked with obesity and
high blood pressure.

The disease results from an abnormality in the body's ability to regulate
the blood's level of insulin, an essential hormone which tells the body to
store or burn sugar.

There is no known treatment for Type 1 diabetes outside of rare stemcell
transplants from cadavers into the liver of a sick patient.

Juvenile or Type 1 diabetes, which typically occurs in childhood and early
adolescence and is associated with genetic predisposition, is usually
managed with life-long, daily insulin injections and rigorous diets.

The study was published in the January 25 issue of Cell magazine
============================================================


-- Regards, Curly
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