| The battle over two drug treatments
Thousands of Canadians will be diagnosed this year with macular degeneration, a debilitating eye disease that primarily strikes older adults and can rob them of their vision and independence. But an argument over whether the government should pay for an expensive treatment when a cheaper alternative is available is bringing a contentious debate over the competing interests of price, clinical evidence and accessibility into the spotlight. In Canada, two treatments are available that seem to fight the progression of wet macular degeneration, a severe form of the disease that has traditionally been challenging to treat. One, called Lucentis, has shown remarkable success in clinical trials, but can cost patients tens of thousands of dollars a year. The other, Avastin, is available at a fraction of the price but the drug, developed to fight colorectal cancer, hasn't been approved by Health Canada to treat the eye disease.
John Marshall and Kevin McGuinness Appointed to Ellex Board
ADELAIDE, Australia, Oct. 15 /PRNewswire/ -- Ellex Medical Lasers Limited (ASX: ELX) , a global leader in the design and manufacture of ophthalmic laser and ultrasound systems, announced today the appointment of Professor John Marshall and Kevin McGuinness to its board of directors to underpin the growth strategy of the company. Following two successful acquisitions and a capital raising in the past twelve months, Ellex's expanded board provides experience and industry specific knowledge to guide the company through its next phase of growth. Professor John Marshall is an internationally recognized expert on laser and light bio-effects in the field of ophthalmology. He is currently Frost Professor of Ophthalmology at the Rayne Institute and Head of the Department of Ophthalmology at United Medical and Dental Schools of Guy's and St Thomas' Hospitals, University of London.
You do not need any permission to link to any of the pages on this ...
You do not need any permission to link to any of the pages on this site. Limited copyright is granted for you to use and/or republish any of the press releases on this site for any legitimate media purpose as long as you reference PRWeb as the source. Using the press releases from the PRWeb network of sites on other sites that offer competing services to those offered by PRWeb, including but not limited to press release distribution, is expressly prohibited under the terms of this copyright. Non-press release pages (Press Release Tips, About PRWeb, etc..) cannot be republished without prior written consent of PRWeb. You may, however, link to these pages from your site. .
SFWMD approves Miami-Dade's 20-year water permit
With Miami-Dade County's promise to build about $1.9 billion in water projects, the governing board of the South Florida Water Management District approved a permit on Thursday for the next 20 years of the county's water use. The consumptive use permit allows Miami-Dade to use about 76 million more gallons of water a day by the time everything is built. That would support the county of 2.4 million people to grow to 2.7 million residents by 2027. However, the permit is contingent on the county building those water projects along a strict timeline. The district could revoke the permit and limit water allocations if the county doesn't perform. "Not only does it impose deadlines for the project to be in service, it also requires interim milestones to ensure the financial service plans are met," said Santiago Echemendia, a Tew Cardenas attorney in Miami who represents the district's governing board.
Reporter: Susan Ramsett
It's called Photodynamic Therapy (PDT) and it uses a laser light to destroy diseased cells in the lining of the esophagus. After a series of tests at Mayo, my mother and I met with Dr Wang's right hand, a Nurse Practitioner named Lynn Borkenhagen (Kinney) who coincidentally is a Wausau native. With compassion and clarity, she explained my mother's condition and helped us understand her options for treatment. Lynn told us my mother's condition had already developed into early-stage cancer. The good news was that it was a relatively small area of cancer and it didn't appear to have spread to any lymph nodes or other organs in her body. That was the moment I took my first deep breath in weeks. The next day Dr. Wang performed a new procedure called Endoscopic Mucosal Resection. Using a special scope inserted through her mouth, Dr Wang was able to lift up the damaged lining of my mother's esophagus, pinch together the cancerous area and clip it off.
IDs released on two ice-related deaths; Knox on 2-hour delay
Shockingly, they were wrong. After spending 90 minutes driving from the airport to Topside on Alcoa Hwy, I decided to get off at Topside and come up Pellissippi. Never did find out where the problem was. Once again, road crews are doing a great job keeping the roads clear. .
Atomic Rulers of the World
It used to be places like Bell Labs did what we do," says NIST researcher Eric Cornell. "Their day is passing." Caltech physicist David Goodstein agrees: "Companies like Boeing, AT&T, and Hughes supported big facilities doing fundamental research. Today, most of those labs have shut down or been scaled back." Without NIST, Goodstein believes, the US would not be a tech leader. Where NIST comes in for criticism is around the edges of its research. And this year, with a new administration in the White House, that faultfinding has turned to action. After years of ideological quarreling in Congress over NIST's precise role, George W. Bush's budget blueprint this March called for a "reassessment" of the agency's cash grant program, initiated in the 1980s to support advance-guard research that businesses wouldn't support themselves.
|
