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$3.7M NIH Grant To Study Autonomic Nervous System Link To Painful Bladder Syndrome, Received By Case Western Reserve University
Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine has received a $3.7 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to determine if painful bladder syndrome may be caused by abnormalities in the autonomic nervous system rather than in the bladder itself.
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Saved By Junk DNA
VIB researchers linked to K.U.Leuven and Harvard University show that stretches of DNA previously believed to be useless "junk" DNA play a vital role in the evolution of our genome. They found that unstable pieces of junk DNA help tuning gene activity and enable organisms to quickly adapt to changes in their environments. The results will be published in the reputed scientific ournal Science.
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Memory Test And PET Scans Detect Early Signs Of Alzheimer's
A large study of patients with mild cognitive impairment revealed that results from cognitive tests and brain scans can work as an early warning system for the subsequent development of Alzheimer"s disease.
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Warning Issued Over Proposed Drug Company Promotion Of Medicines To Public, UK

Drug companies may exploit new rules to promote their products to the public but present it as mere provision of information, according to an editorial published this week in the Drug and Therapeutics Bulletin (DTB). Direct advertising of prescription-only medicines to the public is currently not allowed in the European Union (EU), but this position may be undermined by proposals from the European Commission (EC). The proposals, if agreed, would allow drug companies new opportunities to present the public with information about prescription-only medicine through the internet or yet-to-be-defined "health-related publications." The DTB editorial is concerned about the proposals, which it suggests would permit direct advertising to the public in spite of the EU-wide ban. It is proposed that each EU member state would ensure the companies providing the information were monitored and this could involve self-regulation by the companies. "A key concern about these ideas is the intrinsic difficulty in distinguishing between advertising of prescription-only medicines to the public (which would still be banned) and proactive provision of non-promotional information about such products," says the editorial. The UK medicines regulator, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, is currently carrying out a public consultation on this issue - due to finish on August 14 - but supports the principle of allowing the pharmaceutical industry to give patients more information about medicines. DTB, however, cites the negative experience in the US with direct to consumer advertising, where "infringements of rules on information provision have tended to be detected far too late and where there have been difficulties in imposing effective penalties." The editorial concludes: "We believe that acceptance of the EC"s proposals would permit public dissemination of promotional information about prescription-only medicines, masquerading as "information provision"." Given the obvious conflict of interests, DTB concludes, it would be naç¯ve to think that the pharmaceutical industry would provide independent and reliable information to allow people to make informed choices about treatment. "How to misinform patients." DTB 2009; doi 10.1136/dtb.2009.07.0027 Drug And Therapeutics Bulletin


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