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Breakthrough Treatment For Rheumatoid Arthritis Offers New Hope To Patients
Today"s Irish launch of RoActemra, a new treatment for rheumatoid arthritis (RA) from Roche, is being hailed as a breakthrough in the fight against this incurable and often debilitating disease. RoActemra (tocilizumab) is the first medication of its kind developed for the treatment of RA and provides an innovative therapy option (1), which gives people with RA fast relief of RA signs and symptoms, such as pain. Also, people receiving RoActemra continue to benefit from increased relief during the course of treatment, with approximately half reaching remission (minimal signs and symptoms) by one year.
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Measurements Fail To Identify TB Patients Who Could Benefit From Shorter Treatment Course
Tuberculosis (TB) is a difficult infection to treat and requires six months of multiple antibiotics to cure it. To combat the TB pandemic, a shorter and simpler drug treatment would be a huge advance since most TB occurs in re-limited settings with poor public health infrastructures.
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Blogs Comment On Planned Parenthood Ad Campaign, Sex-Selective Abortion, Other Topics
The following summarizes selected women"s health-related blog entries.~ "A Radical Notion: Women"s Health Care as Mainstream," Cecile Richards, Huffington Post blogs: "To hammer ... home" the message that "Planned Parenthood and other essential community providers are the affordable, local access to basic preventive care that saves lives," the Planned Parenthood Action Center has introduced advertisements "educating the policy folks involved in fixing our health care system" about "why women"s health care needs to be taken care of in this mega-reform effort," Richards writes. She writes, "From cancer screenings to contraception to immunizations, the majority of women who go to women"s health care centers consider them their primary health care provider," adding, "In fact, more than 90% of what Planned Parenthood health centers do is preventive and primary care." According to Richards, "Essential community providers, including those who provide women"s health care, need to be part of any newly established health care system." She adds that "the three million patients who came to Planned Parenthood health centers last year can testify to it." Richards writes that "[f]amily planning and reproductive health care are unfortunately still not fully part of mainstream health care, even though 98% of women use contraception at some point in their lives -- there"s nothing more universal!" The "fact that women reproduce and, therefore, have different types of health care needs makes some folks on Capitol Hill go pale and start to sweat," Richards writes. She concludes, "Maybe one day we won"t need a special campaign to support women"s health," but "until then, Planned Parenthood is here to make sure women aren"t worse off after health care reform than before" (Richards, Huffington Post blogs, 6/18).~ "The Role of Medical Education in Preserving Abortion Access," Our Bodies, Our Blog: In response to a recent Salon opinion piece that examined whether there will be a next generation of abortion providers, the blog post discusses a few organizations that are "working to increase access to (accurate) abortion-related training." The blog includes links to Medical Students for Choice -- a group that "does student organizing and advocacy to influence medical school curricula, workshops ... and lectures on abortion techniques" -- and The Ryan Program -- which offers "funding, technical expertise, curriculum, workshops and other res to support training opportunities in abortion and contraception for ob-gyn residents." The blog entry also highlights the work of Physicians for Reproductive Choice and Health, which partners with members of the American Medical Student Association "to provide "project in a box" materials for medical students wanting to access and influence their schools" curricula on sexual and reproductive health" (Our Bodies, Our Blog, 6/18). ~ "Regulating Abortion May Be OK But Not To Avoid Sex-Selection," Marianne Mollmann, Huffington Post blogs: "Sex-selective abortion raises a multitude of overlapping ethical concerns regarding eugenics, population control and provider privilege or knowledge," according to Mollmann, advocacy director for the Human Rights Watch"s Women"s Rights Division. Mollmann writes that recent media reports indicating that sex-selective abortion occurs among some ethnic communities in the U.S. "has generated new discussion about what to do -- indeed what to think -- about the practice here." She continues that the "effect of abortion regulations depends on the context and motivation," adding that "[f]rom a human rights perspective, the regulation of medical procedures and interventions is legitimate and indeed often necessary so long as they are based on full respect for the full range of human rights." It is "perhaps tempting to hope that banning sex-selective abortions would safeguard the gender balance of future generations," but the "criminalization of abortion for whatever reason has in the past led only to underground and unsafe prac
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Researchers Discover That Phenoxodiol Kills Rapidly Proliferating T-Cells

Researchers at the Malaghan Institute of Medical Research in Wellington, New Zealand have found that abnormally proliferating human T-cells, rapidly dividing cancer cells such as primary myeloid and lymphoid leukemic blast cells undergo programmed cell death when exposed briefly to the investigational anti-tumor drug phenoxodiol. These results make phenoxodiol a promising candidate for the treatment of pathologically activated lymphocytes such as those in acute lymphoid leukemia, or diseases driven by T-cell proliferation such as autoimmune diseases and graft-versus-host disease, according to an article published in the Haematologica Journal on June 16, 2009, http://www.haematologica.org/cgi/reprint/94/7/928. The researchers demonstrated that phenoxodiol inhibited plasma membrane electron transport and cell proliferation and promoted apoptosis of rapidly proliferating human T-cells, induced to undergo rapid proliferation by exposure to cells from an incompatible donor, but at the same time it did not affect normal resting T-cells. "These findings indicate that phenoxodiol may have utility against autoimmune diseases, such as rheumatoid arthritis and psoriasis, as well as having potential in management of graft rejection in transplantation patients," said Prof. Alan Husband, Group Director of Research, Marshall Edwards, Inc. "We"re appreciative of Dr. Patries Herst and colleagues for undertaking this important research." About phenoxodiol Phenoxodiol is being developed by the U.S. oncology company Marshall Edwards, Inc. (NASDAQ: MSHL) as a chemosensitizing agent in combination with platinum drugs for late stage, chemoresistant ovarian cancer and as a monotherapy for prostate and cervical cancers. It has a unique mechanism of action, binding to cancer cells via a surface oxidase, disrupting membrane electron transport and causing major downstream disturbances in expression of proteins necessary for cancer cell survival and responsible for the development of drug resistance. In cancer cells, phenoxodiol appears to inhibit selectively the pro-survival regulator known as S-1-P (sphingosine-1-phosphate) that is overexpressed in cancer cells. In response to phenoxodiol, the S-1-P content in cancer cells is decreased, rendering those cells more sensitive to chemotherapy. Indeed, in laboratory studies, it has been demonstrated that cancer cells pre-treated with phenoxodiol were killed with lower doses of chemotherapy drugs. Importantly, phenoxodiol has been shown not to affect adversely normal cells in animal and laboratory testing. Phenoxodiol is being investigated as a therapy for late-stage, chemoresistant ovarian, prostate and cervical cancers. Phenoxodiol has received Fast Track status from the FDA to facilitate its development as a therapy for recurrent ovarian and prostate cancers. Phenoxodiol is an investigational drug and, as such, is not commercially available. Under U.S. law, a new drug cannot be marketed until it has been investigated in clinical trials and approved by FDA as being safe and effective for the intended use. Phenoxodiol is the first of a family of compounds in the Marshall Edwards, Inc. drug pipeline of flavonoid derivatives. Marshall Edwards, Inc.


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