Cleveland, U.S.A. — After 10 years of debate regarding the risks and benefits of hormone therapy, 15 top medical organizations have come together to issue a statement of agreement regarding the benefits of hormone therapy for symptomatic menopausal women. It was July 9, 2002, when the controversial, highly publicized Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) published its assessment of hormone therapy for the prevention of chronic disease and concluded that risks exceeded benefits.

The new joint statement, prepared by The North American Menopause Society (NAMS), the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM), and The Endocrine Society, concludes that hormone therapy is still an acceptable treatment for menopausal symptoms. This statement has been endorsed by 12 other leading organizations in women’s health.

The purpose of this statement is to reassure women and their providers that hormone therapy is acceptable and relatively safe for healthy, symptomatic, recently postmenopausal women. Over the last 10 years, there has been a complete abandonment of hormone therapy in some settings accompanied by reluctance to treat women who would benefit from relief of their symptoms. As a result, some women have sought unproven alternative therapies.

“We want to emphasize the difference between taking hormone therapy short-term for treatment of menopausal symptoms versus taking hormone therapy for prevention of chronic diseases. Many women can safely take hormone therapy for relief of menopausal symptoms when they work closely with their provider to assess their personal risks and benefits,” said Dr. Margery Gass, Executive Director of NAMS. “Women and clinicians have been frustrated by the many conflicting recommendations over the past 10 years. This statement should be reassuring to all.”

Roger Lobo, MD, Past President of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine added, “Physicians can help patients determine, based on their own particular characteristics and history, whether or not they are good candidates for hormone therapy and what type of HT will provide them the greatest relief at the lowest risk. A decade of research and analysis has shown us that the generalized conclusions of the WHI do not apply to younger women at the beginning of the menopausal transition.”

“The results of the WHI and the conflicting reports that followed led many women to believe hormone therapy may not be a safe treatment for menopausal symptoms,” said Janet E. Hall, MD, immediate Past President of The Endocrine Society. “We want women to know that there are options out there for relief of their menopausal symptoms. The level of risk depends on the individual, her health history, age, and the number of years since her menopause began.”

When it comes to the safety and effectiveness of hormone therapy, one commonly heard lament is, “Even the experts don’t agree.” This statement was prepared to address this misperception by presenting evidence-based key concepts about hormone therapy to assist women and their clinicians in making informed decisions about use of hormone therapy when appropriate.

Major points of agreement among the societies include:

• Hormone therapy is an acceptable option for the relatively young (up to age 59 or within 10 years of menopause) and healthy women who are bothered by moderate to severe menopausal symptoms. Individualization is key in the decision to use hormone therapy.
• If women have only vaginal dryness or discomfort with intercourse, the preferred treatments are low doses of vaginal estrogen.
• Women who still have a uterus need to take a progestogen (progesterone or a similar product) along with the estrogen to prevent cancer of the uterus. Women who have had their uterus removed can take estrogen alone.
• Both estrogen therapy and estrogen with progestogen therapy increase the risk of blood clots in the legs and lungs, similar to birth control pills, patches, and rings. Although the risks of blood clots and stroke increase with either type of hormone therapy, the risk is rare in women ages 50-59.
• An increased risk in breast cancer is seen with 5 or more years of continuous estrogen with progestogen therapy, possibly earlier. The risk decreases after hormone therapy is stopped.

The statement is being published in the journals of The North American Menopause Society, the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, and The Endocrine Society and has been endorsed by the Academy of Women’s Health, the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American Academy of Physician Assistants, the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists, the American Medical Women’s Association, the Asociacion Mexicana para el Estudio del Climaterio, the Association of Reproductive Health Professionals, the National Association of Nurse Practitioners in Women’s Health, the National Osteoporosis Foundation, the Society for the Study of Reproduction, the Society of Obstetricians & Gynaecologists of Canada, and the SIGMA Canadian Menopause Society.

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Nashville, U.S.A - Country music’s newest sweetheart, Colby Dee, has been tapped as the exclusive artist to perform her inspirational single, “I Will Fight On,” at the Susan G. Komen Global Race for the Cure flagship event on Saturday, June 2; in Washington, D.C. Colby Dee will appear on the Race’s Main Stage on the National Mall.

Written specifically for her close friend, Joni Moore Kanazawa, who is currently battling breast cancer, “I Will Fight On” is extremely personal for Colby Dee. The song has been described by fans as a ‘cancer fighter’s battle cry’ and provides a message of strength and empowerment over the disease. Proceeds from iTunes sales go directly to help Joni offset medical costs.

“I am incredibly honored to be part of this year’s Susan G. Komen Global Race for the Cure,” said Colby Dee. “Not only is it exciting to perform in Washington, DC, but this fantastic event is a rewarding opportunity for everyone involved to give back and have fun.”

The annual race draws thousands of people to the National Mall for a 5K walk around the historic monuments. The event features entertainment, kids activities and represents Washington in a unique way with teams made up of congressional members and their staff. Moreover, 75% of the money raised from the race goes right back to programs in the greater Washington, D.C. area, focusing on Wards 7 & 8 and Prince George’s County, areas with some of the highest mortality rates in the country.

The other 25% goes to the foundation’s global community engagement in more than 50 countries. It’s an inspiring and uplifting morning, featured last year prominently in over 85 news stories.

“When I first heard Colby Dee’s song, ‘I Will Fight On,’ I knew it would be perfect for this year’s Global Race,” said Nancy Brinker, founder and CEO of Susan G. Komen. “Its message of never losing hope is an inspiration, to me personally, and to the millions of women and families living through a breast cancer diagnosis.”

Image Courtesy of   Colby Dee Music

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Wisconsin, US -Kohl’s Department Stores announced that in celebration of life, survival, and a “Wish for a World with Less Breast Cancer and More Birthdays,” Kohl’s threw a “One Wish” Birthday Bash at the 2012 American Cancer Society Making Strides against Breast Cancer walk, May 5, 2012, on Milwaukee’s lakefront. Decorated with nearly 8,000 pink cake pops, balloons and giant birthday candles, the celebration represents the company’s greater commitment to the fight against breast cancer. More than 3,000 Kohl’s associates, friends and family took part in the walk.

“Kohl’s is proud of our partnership with the American Cancer Society in providing valuable information and resource tools to local women battling breast cancer. It is important that Wisconsin women – our mothers, daughters, friends and co-workers – have easy access to breast health care information for prevention, diagnosis and treatment.”

“In the three years since we began our partnership, our program has provided nearly 17,000 women in southeast Wisconsin with life-saving breast health information and more than 1,850 breast cancer patients have received services and information,” said Julie Gardner, executive vice president and chief marketing officer of Kohl’s Department Stores.”

“This year our Kohl’s team included more than 3,000 associates, friends and family members – making it the largest corporate team in the history of the Making Strides against Breast Cancer Milwaukee walk. We know breast cancer has impacted thousands of families across the state and as a company, we are passionate about making a true difference in the fight against breast cancer and providing support to those when they need it most.”

“In 2012, more than 4,000 Wisconsin women will be diagnosed with breast cancer. Our partnership with Kohl’s Department Stores provides Wisconsin women access to life-saving breast health information and the steps necessary to prevent breast cancer or find it early.

It’s a gift that is truly life changing,” said Jari Johnston-Allen, chief executive officer, American Cancer Society, Midwest Division. “The American Cancer Society is honored to partner with Kohl’s in the fight against breast cancer and together, are working towards creating a world with less breast cancer and more birthdays.”

In 2010, Kohl’s philanthropic program, Kohl’s Cares, announced a nearly $5 million donation to the American Cancer Society’s Midwest Division over three years. In addition to this contribution, Kohl’s offers its Kohl’s Cares women’s cause merchandise, a series of exclusively-designed products to support the fight against breast cancer.

This women’s health philanthropic initiative builds upon Kohl’s long history of charitable involvement in the communities it serves. Since 2000, Kohl’s and the Kohl’s Cares program have combined to give approximately $47 million to support charitable initiatives in the metro-Milwaukee area. Also, during the past 12 years, the company’s Kohl’s Cares kids cause merchandise program, which sells plush toys and books, has raised more than $208 million to benefit children’s health and education initiatives nationwide.

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Life Technologies Corporation will exhibit products across the spectrum of basic, translational and clinical cancer research during the American Association of Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting 2012, taking place March 31 – April 4, in Chicago, Illinois. In addition, several of Life’s customers and collaborators will present research findings.

“From basic discovery of biomarkers to validation of new drug targets and the application of genomic sequencing in clinical trials, Life Technologies provides optimized solutions specific for cancer research,” said Ronnie Andrews, president of medical sciences at Life Technologies. “We share with our customers a commitment to accelerating our scientific understanding of cancer, driving to a world in which cancer becomes a manageable disease.”

DNA sequencing live on the Ion Bus – The Ion Bus offers a unique opportunity to view the game-changing Ion Personal Genome Machine (PGM) system in action. The Ion Bus will be parked outside the Chicago Hilton at the intersection of Wabash and Balboa streets. The Ion Bus will be open for tours from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. to 9 p.m., April 1 – 3.

Presentations:

Triple negative breast cancer - Triple negative breast tumors, which make up nearly 20 percent of breast cancers, do not respond to treatment with targeted therapies such as Herceptin (trastuzumab).

To investigate new options for these patients, the first clinical trial of whole-genome sequencing for women with triple negative breast cancer was initiated in March 2010; early results will be presented by John Carpten, Ph.D., head of the Integrated Cancer Genomics Division at the Phoenix-based Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen) on Monday, April 2 at 10:30 a.m. Life Technologies is supporting the study, which is revealing the diversity of genetic mutations in triple negative tumors.

Semiconductor sequencing of melanoma samples – George Watts, Ph.D., research assistant professor and co-director of the Genomics Shared Service at The University of Arizona Cancer Center, will present a poster demonstrating accurate, cost-effective sequencing of six commonly mutated genes in archived research samples from metastatic melanoma patients using the Life Technologies Ion Personal Genome Machine (PGM) system.

The authors state that the study represents proof of principle for “next-generation sequencing to provide robust detection of mutations in fixed tumor samples.” The poster will be presented April 2, Monday morning, from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m.

AmpliSeq panels accurately identify more than 700 mutations in patient samples – Marilyn Li, Ph.D., professor of molecular and human genetics and director of the Cancer Genetics Lab at Baylor College of Medicine, will present a poster demonstrating use of the Life Technologies Ion AmpliSeq cancer panels to sequence 12 archived tumor research samples including FFPE, bone marrow and cell line samples.

The authors report that the panel accurately identified all known mutations previously detected using Pyrosequencing or Sanger sequencing and was sensitive enough to detect mutations at frequencies as low as 5% with 99% confidence. The poster will be presented April 3, Tuesday morning from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m.

Single tube, ultra-multiplexed PCR with Ion AmpliSeq technology for amplicon resequencing on the Ion Personal Genome Machine System – Gianluca Roma, a senior product manager at Life Technologies, will present data highlighting the accuracy, simplicity and speed of mutation detection in research oncology samples using the Ion Personal Genome Machine (PGM) and Ion AmpliSeq cancer panel (see below). Roma will present a poster April 3, Tuesday morning from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m.

New Products:

Life Technologies offers cancer researchers the ability to detect mutations in cancer-associated genes using both PCR and sequencing platforms.

castPCR – TaqMan Mutation Detection Assays can help detect 44 mutations in three key cancer genes (BRAF, EGFR, and KRAS). In April 2012, Life will expand the number of assays covered by the existing/current research tool to an additional 241 key mutations in another 21 cancer genes. Powered by an innovative technology known as competitive allele-specific TaqMan PCR (castPCR technology), these assays help researchers detect key mutations in the highly heterogeneous samples typical of cancer tissue.

AmpliSeq panels – The Ion AmpliSeq Cancer Panel, made available for sale in the fall of 2011, allows scientists to sequence dozens of genes in cancer research samples within several hours, starting with as little as 10 ng of DNA. The panel detects more than 700 mutations across 46 known cancer genes. This week, Life Technologies announced the availability of Ion AmpliSeq Custom panels, which will allow researchers to design custom panels for genomic regions up to 250 Kb in size, expanding to 1 Mb later in 2012.

These products are available as Research Use Only, Not for Diagnostic Use.

Visit Life Technologies in Booth #4419 on the Exhibits floor of McCormick Place West. For more information about Life Tech activities at AACR Annual Meeting 2012, please visit:

http://www.lifetechnologies.com/global/en/home/about-us/news-gallery/events/Join-Life-Technologies-at-AACR.html?CID_AACR_blog_32012

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This March, Documentary Channel (DOC) honors female filmmakers with “Her Take.” A remarkable blend of unforgettable stories told by some of the most exceptional women in documentary film, every night of “Her Take” promises to enlighten, inform and inspire.

The special line-up begins with the US television premiere of filmmaker Gulcin Gilbert’s ”Pink Skies” (March 3, 8 pm ET/PT), an inspiring film that follows a group of courageous women, many of whom are cancer patients and survivors, as they attempt the World Record All-Women’s Skydiving Formation to raise money for breast cancer.

Other US television premieres in the line-up include ”The Price of Sex” (March 10, 8 p.m. ET/PT) an eye-opening investigation into the netherworld of sex trafficking and abuse from director Mimi Chakarova; filmmaker Joan Braderman’s ”The Heretics” (March 17, 8 p.m. ET/PT), the exhilarating inside story of the New York feminist art collective that produced “Heresies: A Feminist Publication on Art and Politics;”

“Atomic Mom” (March 24, 8 p.m. ET/PT), director M.T. Silvia’s unique exploration of two women, both mothers, and their very different experiences of the atom bomb; and director Gillian Armstrong’s ”Love, Lust & Lies” ( March 31, 8 p.m. ET/PT), the fifth of Armstrong’s unprecedented series about the lives, hopes and dreams of three lively, working-class girls since they were fourteen-years-old in 1976.

The complete “Her Take” schedule is as follows (all times ET/PT):

“HER TAKE” SCHEDULE

• “Pink Skies” – Saturday, March 3 (8 p.m.)
• “Gathering Remnants”- Saturday, March 3 (10 p.m.)
• “The Price of Sex” – Saturday, March 10 (8 p.m.)
• “Holy-Water Gate: Abuse Cover Up in the Catholic Church” – Saturday, March 10 (9:30 p.m.)
• “The Heretics” – Saturday, March 17 (8 p.m.)
• “Polar Opposites”– Saturday, March 17 (10 p.m.)
• “Atomic Mom” – Saturday, March 24 (8 p.m.)
• “All Over But To Cry” – Saturday, March 24 (10 p.m.)
• “Love, Lust & Lies” – Saturday, March 31 (8 p.m.)
• “Ferry Tales” – Saturday, March 31 (10 p.m.)

Documentary Channel is primarily available through satellite television services DISH Network (Channel 197) and DIRECTV (Channel 267). 

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“Now that the lead National Cancer Institute researcher on the abortion/cancer link has reversed herself and warned of abortion as a significant risk factor for breast cancer,” says Lolita Hanks, nurse practitioner and president of American Right To Life, “the pro-life pressure on Planned Parenthood and Susan G. Komen is increasing.”

“Louise A. Brinton was largely responsible for getting the government-funded NCI to deny the abortion-breast cancer link,” said Darrell Birkey, research director for ARTL, “and she has now reversed herself and co-authored a study which includes ‘induced abortion’ as a significant breast cancer risk factor.”

Brinton and her co-authors wrote in the peer-reviewed Cancer Epidemiology journal of the American Association for Cancer Research, “Specifically, older age, family history of breast cancer, earlier menarche age, induced abortion, and oral contraceptive use were associated with an increased risk for breast cancer.”

Endocrinologist Joel Brind, Ph.D. of Baruch College in New York City, dissented at the NCI’s conference that rejected the abortion link to breast cancer, a conference organized by Brinton. Professor Brind says, “The 2003 conference of the National Cancer Institute which denied abortion as a risk factor for breast cancer refused to allow attending scientists to present the opposing position of the scientific research establishing the link, showing that abortion was declassified as a cancer risk for political and not scientific reasons.”

“Following that political correctness,” says Hanks, “Komen is claiming they have halted funding to Planned Parenthood because a Republican chairman of a House sub-committee has inquired into their financial practices. We suspect the real reason is the growing evidence that abortion significantly increases the incidence of breast cancer.”

“The NCI’s own statistics show that breast cancer has increased, and only in women who were of child-bearing age when abortion was legalized in 1973,” said Brind, “so much so that nationally, cancer would have steadily declined, except it has held steady at the expense of women getting breast cancer.”

And Prof. Brind suggests that Komen now correct a factual error on their website which claims that, “the breast is mature after puberty.” Actually, “third trimester pregnancy hormones begin the final maturation process and the differentiation of mammary gland cells,” said Brind, a recognized expert in the field. “Abortion prevents this, leaving the woman with more undifferentiated cells vulnerable to carcinogens, increasing her risk of breast cancer.”

An ARTL state chapter, Colorado Right To Life, has protested Komen’s Race for the Cure for a decade, and met with Komen officials in Denver. As transcribed from a recording of the meeting, Komen’s public relations representative, Dana Brandorff was asked by CRTL’s Leslie Hanks, “Why aren’t women being told that abortion is the most preventable risk factor?” to which Brandorff answered, “We tend to focus on the cure… we’re focusing our energies on that, rather than the preventative.”

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The percentage of U.S. citizens screened for cancer remains below national targets, with significant disparities among racial and ethnic populations, according to the first federal study to identify cancer screening disparities among Asian and Hispanic groups.

The report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the National Institutes of Health, was published in the CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

In 2010, breast cancer screening rates were 72.4 percent, below the Healthy People 2020 target of 81 percent; cervical cancer screening was 83 percent, below the target of 93 percent; and colorectal cancer screening was 58.6 percent, below the target of 70.5 percent, according to the study, “Cancer Screening in the United States – 2010.”

Screening rates for all three cancers were significantly lower among Asians (64.1 percent for breast cancer, 75.4 percent for cervical cancer, and 46.9 percent for colorectal cancer) compared to other groups, the study found.  Hispanics were less likely to be screened for cervical and colorectal cancer (78.7 percent and 46.5 percent, respectively) when compared to non-Hispanics (83.8 percent and 59.9 percent, respectively).

“It is troubling to see that not all Americans are getting the recommended cancer screenings and that disparities continue to persist for certain populations. Screening can find breast, cervical, and colorectal cancers at an early stage when treatment is more effective,” said Sallyann Coleman King, M.D., an epidemic intelligence service officer in CDC’s Division of Cancer Prevention and Control and lead author of the study.

“We must continue to monitor cancer screening rates to improve the health of all Americans.” Healthy People 2020 sets national objectives for improving the health of all Americans. Such objectives include the use of screening tests recommended by the United States Preventive Services Task Force for breast, cervical, and colorectal cancers.

Women aged 50-74 years should be screened for breast cancer with a mammogram every two years. Women who have been sexually active for three years or are aged 21-65 years should be screened for cervical cancer with a Pap test at least every three years.

Colorectal cancer screening is recommended for average-risk men and women aged 50-75 years, using high-sensitivity fecal occult blood test (FOBT), done at home every year; sigmoidoscopy every five years, with high-sensitivity FOBT every three years; or colonoscopy every 10 years.

To assess the use of currently recommended cancer screening tests by age, race, ethnicity, education, length of residence in the United States, and the source and financing of health care researchers analyzed data from the 2010 National Health Interview Survey, which tracks progress toward the achievement of  Healthy People 2020 objectives.

For the ethnic subgroups, Asians were classified as Chinese, Filipino, or other Asian and Hispanics as Puerto Rican, Mexican, Mexican-American, Central or South American, or other Hispanic.

Significant findings include:

• Screening rates for breast cancer remained relatively stable and varied no more than 3 percent over the period 2000-2010.
• From 2000-2010, colorectal cancer screening rates increased markedly for men and women, with the rate for women increasing slightly faster so that rates among both sexes were nearly identical (58.5 percent for men and 58.8 percent for women) in 2010.
• From 2000-2010, a small but statistically significant downward trend of 3.3 percent was observed in the rate of women who reported getting a Pap test within the last three years.
• Considerably lower breast, cervical, and colorectal cancer screening use was reported by those without any usual source of health care or health insurance.

The authors note that this study reinforces the need to identify and track cancer screening disparities. Additionally, the report provides guidance for the development programs to increase the use of screening tests in order to meet Healthy People 2020 targets and simultaneously reduce cancer morbidity and mortality.

“Healthy People objectives are important for monitoring progress toward reducing the burden of cancer in the United States. Our study points to the particular need for finding ways to increase the use of breast, cervical, and colorectal cancer screening tests among Asians, Hispanics, as well as adults who lack health insurance or a usual source of health care” said Carrie Klabunde, Ph.D., an epidemiologist in NCI’s Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences and a co-author of the study.

According to the authors, the Affordable Care Act is expected to reduce financial barriers to care by expanding insurance coverage. Other efforts are needed such as developing systems that identify individuals eligible for cancer screening tests, actively encouraging the use of screening tests, and monitoring participation to improve screening rates, they say.

Image Courtesy of   http://www.flickr.com/photos/christianacare/

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As the War on Cancer enters its fifth decade and the number of people being diagnosed with cancer continues to rise, Lung Cancer Alliance (LCA) called for more aggressive integration of advanced imaging technology and biomedical research to improve prevention, earlier detection and treatment of cancer.

“We have developed remarkable new tools for imaging and biomarker identification that can bring about enormous changes at this moment in time and drive rapid improvements in the entire continuum of care in cancer,” said Laurie Fenton-Ambrose, President and CEO of Lung Cancer Alliance.

“But imaging and biomedical research must be linked together,” she said.

In 1975, when Congress passed the National Cancer Act, dubbed the War on Cancer legislation, 400 new cases of cancer were being diagnosed each year for every 100,000 people in the population. According to the latest figures, in 2008 that number rose to 463 new cases for every 100,000 people.

Over 1.6 million people will be diagnosed with cancer this year.

While the rate and number of people being diagnosed with cancer overall continues to climb, some progress has been made in reducing the percentage of people who die from cancer, primarily because of screening and better treatments. However the decline is uneven.

The drop in lung cancer death rates among men reflects the drop in the number of men smoking and being diagnosed with lung cancer, but not a reduction in the lethality of lung cancer, which continues to kill three times as many men as prostate cancer.

For women, incidence or mortality rates are still twice as high as they were in 1975 and nearly twice as many women will die of lung cancer than breast cancer.

In addition the percentage of women with lung cancer who have never smoked is twice as high as men.

“The overall numbers are staggering,” said Fenton-Ambrose.

Of the 577,000 people who will die of some form of cancer this year, one in four women and three in ten men will die of lung cancer – more than the combined total of deaths from breast, prostate, colon and pancreatic cancers.

“However, this past year has also brought us the most significant advance we have ever seen for lung cancer – the validation of CT screening as a life-saving tool that can dramatically reduce lung cancer mortality among those at high risk,” she said.

According to several national and international studies, that reduction would be at least 20% and possibly as high as 50-60%, which translates to 35,000 to 95,000 lives saved a year.

Screening can also stimulate research into precancerous conditions, genetic mutations and biomarkers that will improve risk assessment, diagnosis and treatment for all types of lung cancer, including lung cancers not associated with smoking.

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Patient Advocate Foundation (PAF) has announced that it has received a $9.3 million contribution, from an existing partner, providing further support through its Co-Pay Relief Program (CPR) for patients suffering from nonsquamous non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), breast cancer, colon cancer, rheumatoid arthritis and hepatitis C who are unable to afford their medical co-payments. These funds are currently available to qualified patients.

PAF’s CPR Program provides direct financial support for pharmaceutical co-payments to insured patients, including Medicare Part D beneficiaries, who financially and medically qualify. Since the program’s inception in April 2004, CPR has distributed more than $130 million in assistance to more than 50,000 patients nationwide who were unable to afford their pharmaceutical co-payments.

“The Co-Pay Relief Program was developed after PAF recognized extreme increases each year in the number of patients seeking pharmaceutical co-pay assistance, despite the fact they were insured,” said Nancy Davenport-Ennis, Founder and CEO of PAF. “Battling any disease is difficult, particularly now with the high out-of-pocket expenses that are routinely incurred by patients.

Thanks to this extremely generous donation, we will be able to offer an even greater level of support to patients seeking help with their pharmaceutical co-payments.”

On August 1, 2011, PAF announced a new operational model for CPR that serves more patients, provides enhanced service to both providers and patients through new technology tools, and allows for many more patient approvals. CPR donations are now released in total into each disease silo immediately upon receipt, rather than dividing contributions across a twelve month period.

CPR accepts all qualified new and renewal applications on a first come first serve basis with no limit imposed on the number of approvals issued monthly. CPR also accepts and processes all expenditures on a first come, first serve basis until the available funds in the entire silo are exhausted. Eligible expenditures may be submitted by patients, providers and/or pharmacists.

“We are excited about CPR’s use of state-of-the-art technology solutions to deliver a high degree of automation and efficiency to program users.

For example, electronic signature and file upload capabilities have been integrated into both the online application and the expenditure submission processes, including the capability for a user to fax documents which use a barcode based routing system,” said Beth Patterson, President of Mission Delivery, and Fran Castellow, President of Operations.

“These technological enhancements allow the patient, provider and pharmacy communities to leverage existing Electronic Health Records (EHR) or their Health Information Technology (HIT) to increase the speed with which their expenditures and applications are processed. In addition, CPR still has secure web-based portal access 24 hours a day, online assistance capabilities and live assistance via the toll-free phone number.”

Patient Advocate Foundation and its companion organization, the National Patient Advocate Foundation (NPAF), were founded on the principle that health care is a basic human need and shared social responsibility.

Annually, PAF receives thousands of contacts requesting information and assistance via their toll-free hotline, as well as online, with complete direct, sustained case management services provided to patients from all fifty states free of charge.

Image Courtesy  of    https://www.facebook.com/pages/Patient-Advocate-Foundation/121863874508285

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IBM announced it is contributing a massive database of chemical data extracted from millions of patents and scientific literature to the National Institutes of Health. This contribution will allow researchers to more easily visualize important relationships among chemical compounds to aid in drug discovery and support advanced cancer research.

In collaboration with AstraZeneca, Bristol-Myers Squibb, DuPont and Pfizer, IBM is providing a database of more than 2.4 million chemical compounds extracted from about 4.7 million patents and 11 million biomedical journal abstracts from 1976 to 2000.

The announcement was made at an IBM forum on U.S. economic competitiveness in the 21st century, exploring how private sector innovations and investment can be more easily shared in the public domain. The publicly available chemical data can be used by researchers worldwide to gain new insights and enable new areas of research.

It will also help researchers save time by more efficiently finding information buried in millions of pages of patent documents. Access to this data will also allow researchers to analyze far larger sets of documents than the traditional manual process, adding a whole new dimension to the ability to search intellectual property.

The data was extracted using the IBM business analytics and optimization strategic IP insight platform (SIIP), a combination of data and analytics delivered via the IBM SmartCloud, and developed by IBM Research in collaboration with several major life sciences organizations.

This new cloud-driven method for curating and analyzing massive amounts of patents, scientific content and molecular data. It uses techniques such as automated image analysis and enhanced optical recognition of chemical images and symbols to extract information from patents and literature upon publication.

This is a task that otherwise takes weeks and months to complete manually, but can be done rapidly using this new technology. ”Information overload continues to be a challenge in drug discovery and other areas of scientific research,” said Steve Heller, project director for the InChI Trust, a non-profit which supports the InChI international standard to represent chemical structures.

“Rich data and content is often buried in patents, drawings, figures and scholarly articles. This contribution by IBM and its collaborators will make it easier for researchers to use this data, link to other data using the InChI structure representation and derive new insight.”

Over the past six years, several major life sciences organizations have worked on this project with IBM Research gaining access to a comprehensive chemical library extracted from worldwide patents and scientific abstracts. Public structure extraction tools developed by researchers at the National Institutes of Health were also used successfully in this project.

“The scientific community will receive enormous benefit from this advancement,” said Heller. “This is an important addition to the open chemistry data sets. The comprehensiveness of the data and the new ways researchers can look at these data and cross-link to other data associated with each chemical is expected to help with drug development to fight many forms of cancers and other human diseases, as well as the development of other chemical compounds.”

The data will be contributed to the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), part of the National Library of Medicine (NLM), and the Computer-Aided Drug Design (CADD) Group of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) at the National Institutes of Health.

It will be incorporated in the NCBI’s PubChem, a public resource for the scientific community that serves as an aggregator for scientific results as well as in NCI CADD Group services such as the Chemical Structure Lookup Service and the Chemical Identifier Resolver.

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Studies have suggested that reducing casein intake can help prevent cancer, heart disease and arthritis. Casein, the protein found in animal breast milk, has been linked to prostate cancer, along with other forms of serious health problems.

The second-most-cited scientist in all of clinical medicine, Dr. Walter Willet, has conducted research studies that suggest an increase in dairy products can increase a man’s risk of prostate cancer by 30 to 50 percent. He also found that dairy consumption increases the body’s level of IGF-1(insulin-like growth factor-1), a known promoter of cancer.

A 1992 report in the New England Journal of Medicine discovered that proteins in cows’ milk can damage the production of insulin in those with a genetic predisposition to diabetes.

Over 70% of the world population is lactose-intolerant, the inability to digest and metabolize lactose. Lactose is the sugar found in milk, thus making three quarters of the world unable to digest dairy. The bestselling book, Skinny Bitch, declares “The undigested lactose and the acidic nature of pasteurized milk encourage the growth of bacteria in our intestines.

All this contributes to a greater risk of cancer because cancer cells thrive in acidic conditions.” Although the USDA pyramid advices that we should be consuming 3 dairy products daily, it has been proven in various studies that this level of casein consumption can increase the risk of several health concerns.

Health problems that have been linked to high diary intake are osteoporosis, arthritis, heat disease, irritable bowl syndrome (IBS), Type 1 diabetes, chronic constipation, ear infections, ovarian cancer, and allergies. Because dairy is a mucus producing product, the human body will often develop a cold or allergies to fight the dairy in our system.

The pyramid has been criticized by many scientists and nutritionists because some of the experts who helped create the pyramid work for the dairy industry. The Huffington Post reported that the UDSA panel of scientists admitted there is a link between dairy and prostate cancer, they also disclosed milk doesn’t have any benefit on sports performance.

Dr. T. Colin Campbell, nutrition and health researcher, conducted an extensive research project in the Philippines, in which he investigated why so many Filipino children were being diagnosed with liver cancer. The projects goal was to ensure that children were getting as much protein as possible. Dr. Campbell spoke about his findings “In this project, however, I uncovered a dark secret.

Children who ate the highest protein diets were the ones most likely to get liver cancer.” He later conducted another scientific research project along with Cornell University, Oxford University, and the Chinese Academy of Preventive Medicine. The study revealed that people who ate the most animal-based foods got the most chronic disease.

The study also showed that those who ate the most plant-based foods were the healthiest and tended to avoid chronic disease. Although there is popular belief that dairy intake can prevent osteoporosis, statistics show American women, whilst are the biggest consumers of calcium in the world, have one of the highest levels of osteoporosis in the world.

The Nurses’ Health Study declare that dairy may increase risk of bone fractures by 50 percent. The USDA scientists have also disclosed that there is no evidence that dairy is good for your bones or prevents osteoporosis, and has admitted the animal protein in dairy may actually help cause bone loss.

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In Indiana, a measure has been introduced in the House that would require medical doctors to tell women seeking abortion that having the procedure comes with risks including “the possibility of increased risk of breast cancer following an induced abortion and the natural protective effect of a completed pregnancy in avoiding breast cancer.”   Indiana isn’t the only state that makes this claim either. According to the Guttmacher Institute, five states — Alaska, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Texas and West Virginia — currently include some mention of a link between abortion and breast cancer in written counseling materials.

The connection between breast cancer and abortion that these state governments and other abortion opponents refer to comes from outdated data that has since been proven to be faulty.  Since 1981, several dozen studies looking at a potential link between abortions and a woman’s risk of developing breast cancer have been published. Many of the older studies alleging a link between breast cancer and abortion were flawed; some studies included only a small sample size and most of the older studies were dependent upon self-reporting abortion data which is a scientifically unreliable method.

The American Cancer Society (ACS) and other major health organizations have soundly rejected any potential link between breast cancer and abortions.  Over eight years ago, the U.S. National Cancer Institute brought together “more than 100 of the world’s leading experts who study pregnancy and breast cancer risk.” They found that neither induced nor spontaneous abortions lead to an increase in breast cancer risk. In fact, the risk is actually increased for a short period after a woman carries a pregnancy to full term.  According to ACS, these findings were considered “well established,” which is the highest level for scientific evidence.

Even recently, in June 2009, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists Committee on Gynecologic Practice wrote, “Early studies of the relationship between prior induced abortion and breast cancer risk were methodologically flawed. More rigorous recent studies demonstrate no causal relationship between induced abortion and a subsequent increase in breast cancer risk.”

The largest, and probably the most reliable study on this topic, was conducted during the 1990s in Denmark, a country with very detailed medical records on all its citizens. In this study, all Danish women born between 1935 and 1978 (a total of 1.5 million women) were linked with the National Registry of Induced Abortions and with the Danish Cancer Registry. All of the information about their abortions and their breast cancer came from registries – it was very complete and was not influenced by recall bias. After adjusting for known breast cancer risk factors, the researchers found that induced abortion(s) had no overall effect on the risk of breast cancer. The size of this study and the manner in which it was done provides good evidence that induced abortion does not affect a woman’s risk of developing breast cancer.

Another prospective study was published by Harvard researchers in 2007.  The study included more than 100,000 women between the ages of 20 and 46 at the beginning of the study in 1993. These women were followed until 2003. They were asked about childbirths and abortions at the start of the study so recall bias was unlikely to be a problem. After adjusting for known breast cancer risk factors, the researchers found no link between either spontaneous or induced abortions and breast cancer.

The California Teachers Study also reported on more than 100,000 women in 2008. Researchers asked the women in 1995 about past induced and spontaneous abortions. While the women were being followed in the study, more than 3,300 developed invasive breast cancer. There was no difference in breast cancer risk between the group who had either spontaneous or induced abortions and those who had not had an abortion.

The research is clear that there is no link between abortions and breast cancer.  However, many abortion foes continue to purport the myth, suggesting that pregnancy somehow protects women against breast cancer.  It is a dangerous myth that even the governments are now spreading along for their own purposes.  Women need to have the facts about breast cancer so that they can take the necessary steps to try to prevent it.  Scaring women into believing a lie does nothing to prevent breast cancer.

The article The Abortion Breast Cancer Link appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.