At a G8 summit in Toronto, developed nations and other donors pledged $7.3 billion toward a global maternal and child health initiative, eliciting disappointment from aid groups that had hoped for a $10 billion commitment, the Washington Post reports.

Officials framed Canada’s Muskoka Initiative — named for the resort where the G8 leaders gathered — as an effort to focus on core international development goals. The outcome “highlighted how world economic dynamics have made a sudden lurch toward less government spending,” according to the Post (Schneider/Branigin, Washington Post, 6/26).

Canada pledged $1.1 billion in addition to the $1.75 billion country officials had already committed, the Toronto Star reports. The U.S. said it would contribute $1.35 billion over two years, while Japan committed $500 million over five years. An additional $2.3 billion over five years will come from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the United Nations Foundation and various nations — the Netherlands, Norway, New Zealand, Spain, Switzerland and South Korea.

Canadian officials said the nation’s spending will focus on providing prenatal care and safe delivery services, improving maternal and infant nutrition, and launching “high-impact, cost-effective interventions” to address the leading cause of mortality before age five. The spending “will be fully integrated into country-led plans on maternal, newborn and child health,” a background document said. Eighty percent of Canada’s overall spending will targeting sub-Saharan countries (MacCharles, Toronto Star, 6/26).

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper contended that countries are more likely to fulfill modest commitments. Five years ago, leaders promised to increase development assistance by $50 billion, but they have provided only half that amount to date.

Aid groups said the commitments are inadequate (Washington Post, 6/26). G8 leaders are “effectively passing the buck to the United Nations to deal with in September, when they address all of the Millennium Development Goals,” the global advocacy group ONE said in a statement.

“Even when their economies were booming over the last 10 years, they let women and children down,” Rosemary Mccarney of Plan International Canada said, adding, “[T]o plead economic problems today is a bit shallow” (Toronto Star, 6/26).

The Nation Opinion Piece Calls for U.S. Leadership on Abortion

The G8 summit gave President Obama an “opportunity to speak out” about the importance of abortion access to successful global health efforts, Jessica Arons and Shira Saperstein — both of the Center for American Progress — write in The Nation.

In the months leading up to the summit, Harper “pointedly excluded both abortion and contraception from the effort,” which ” provoked a strong rebuke” from U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, they continue. In March, Clinton said, “You cannot have maternal health without reproductive health. And reproductive health includes contraception and family planning and access to legal, safe abortion.” Arons and Saperstein write that Harper “refused to compromise on abortion, echoing the ‘no public funding for abortion’ mantra.”

Compared with Clinton, Obama “has been relatively silent” about championing access to abortion care, but “their positions are not as inconsistent as they may appear at first blush,” Arons and Saperstein argue. They add that “in both the international and domestic context, Obama has drawn a distinction between direct and indirect funding” for abortion care.

“Ideally, the administration would recognize that the U.S. and its partners cannot achieve maternal and child health goals without being willing to directly fund safe abortion services,” they write. “But at the very least, the president can stand solidly behind Clinton’s statement and reaffirm that women need to have access to safe and legal abortion both because it is a basic human right and because it is a necessary component of a comprehensive and effective approach to achieving maternal and child wellbeing,” they continue, concluding that Clinton “has set the stage for President Obama to take this leading role” (Arons/Saperstein, The Nation, 6/25).

Reprinted with kind permission from nationalpartnership. You can view the entire Daily Women’s Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery here. The Daily Women’s Health Policy Report is a free service of the National Partnership for Women & Families.

© 2010 National Partnership for Women & Families. All rights reserved.

September is National Preparedness Month and the Building Owners and Managers Association (BOMA) International has released a list of ten proactive steps property professionals can take to ensure their tenants, staff and buildings are safe in an emergency or natural disaster. With hurricane season in full swing and experts predicting an increase in cases of the H1N1 virus this fall, now is the time to revisit preparedness plans. To help property professionals, BOMA has compiled a preparedness best practices list.

“Preparedness is essential for property professionals as they strive to protect tenants, buildings and business operations against a variety of threats,” said BOMA International Chair and Chief Elected Officer James A. Peck, RPA, FMA, senior director of asset services, CB Richard Ellis. “A well thought out, regularly reviewed and practiced emergency preparedness plan is the best defense we have against any emergencies.”

An effective preparedness plan includes an emergency response plan, a communications strategy and a blueprint for business continuity. Here is a list of tips to help property professionals start planning now:

1. Review your plan. Regularly go over your building’s emergency preparedness plan with your team to ensure everyone is familiar with all aspects of emergency protocol.

2. Practice makes perfect. Have your preparedness team take part in tabletop exercises, in which team members walk through various emergency scenarios and propose responses to “what if” questions.

3. Involve your tenants. Make certain all of your tenants are aware of the building evacuation procedures and encourage them to participate in evacuation drills.

4. Communicate. Develop a multi-layered crisis communication plan that is fast and effective in reaching tenants, local authorities and agencies, and the media.

5. Stay alert. Sign up for daily alerts to monitor weather conditions and cases of pandemic influenza in your area.

6. Work with authorities. Review local evacuation procedures and identify the agency that will issue evacuation orders.

7. Cross-train staff. Identify and provide cross-training essential personnel to provide critical services.

8. Revisit HR policies. Determine how your company’s leave and salary policies will apply in emergency situations, such as a pandemic flu outbreak, when a significant portion of your workforce may be unable to come to work.

9. Operate remotely. Consider identifying off-site work facilities or telecommuting capabilities to ensure business continuity in the event of a disaster.

10. Find the latest resources. For the latest information and resources on H1N1, visit BOMA’s Pandemic Flu Resources site. BOMA knows buildings. Visit the BOMA bookstore to order these publications: The Property Professional’s Guide to Emergency Preparedness; Are Your Tenants Safe? BOMA’s Guide to Security and Emergency Planning; Pandemic Influenza: Are You Prepared?; and When Disaster Strikes, What Really Matters?.

For more information, visit boma.

Source
BOMA International

In the most volatile parts of North Kivu Province in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), violence has reached its highest levels in years while assistance is hardly reaching those most in need, the international medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders/M?©decins Sans Fronti??res (MSF) said today. Hundreds of thousands of people have been forced to flee their homes since full-scale war resumed at the end of August and are living in fear, without the means to meet their most basic needs.

The international community has failed to address the ongoing conflict in the region as a priority. Even though one of the largest peacekeeping forces in the world is currently deployed in DRC, the United Nations peacekeeping mission (MONUC) is clearly failing to fulfil its mandate to protect the civilian population in North Kivu.

Most United Nations agencies and nongovernmental organizations are also failing to provide an adequate response as an already disastrous humanitarian situation further deteriorates. Despite the presence of a large number of humanitarian organizations in Goma, the province’s capital, few are active in the areas most affected by the war.

Many people who now need assistance have been forced to flee several times. They have repeatedly lost their homes and belongings – often as a result of looting – and are losing their capacity to cope. In addition to the extensive needs of the population – food, shelter, access to water, medical care, and protection – the risk of epidemics is high, and many health clinics have been looted.

Some of the people who flee reach relatively established camps, while others gather in isolated pockets of calm or with host families. Still, others have become ‘invisible’ – hiding in the bush, trapped between armed groups.

“We were assisting over 100,000 displaced persons in Nyanzale and Kabizo,” said Anne Taylor, MSF head of mission in Goma. “We have no idea where they have fled in the past few weeks. Only 25,000 people arrived in Kayna and Kanyabayonga. Where are the others? We are extremely worried about their fate.”

In other areas, MSF found groups of newly displaced people. In Ngungu, thousands are living in terrible conditions, without any health care. Thousands of people also arrived in Kitchanga during the last weeks.

“Reaching these people is extremely difficult because of the volatile security context and because they are constantly on the move,” said Taylor. “But it is not impossible. We just keep trying and trying until we can find them and provide some vital assistance. But we are aware that we are only dealing with a small part of this humanitarian catastrophe. Hundreds of thousands are out of reach.”

In North Kivu, MSF teams are currently working in and around Rutshuru, Nyanzale, Kayna, Kanyabayonga, Kitchanga, Mweso, and Masisi. Mobile teams are doing assessments and providing medical assistance in new areas, including Ngungu in North Kivu and Minova, in South Kivu. MSF has 62 international staff and 716 national staff working in North Kivu.

doctorswithoutborders

A series of iron-binding agents to prevent Alzheimer’s disease has shown promising potential for getting into brain tissue. The new compounds can bind to excess iron in the brain and may prevent it from participating in the formation of abnormal protein deposits that are typically seen in the brains of patients with Alzheimer’s disease.

Speaking at the Royal Pharmaceutical Society’s annual event in Manchester, the British Pharmaceutical Conference, Mr Sourav Roy, from King’s College, London, described tests to find new iron-binding agents capable of crossing the so-called blood brain barrier – the walls of the tiny blood capillaries to the brain which control the flow of food and chemicals into brain cells.

Iron is known to accumulate in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s disease, and has been linked to the development of abnormal protein deposits – or plaques – which cause nerve damage, leading to Alzheimer symptoms, such as memory loss1. By binding to the excess iron and taking it out of the brain into the bloodstream, it is hoped that the new iron-binding agents will play a role in preventing Alzheimer’s disease.

“To develop new anti-Alzheimer treatments, we need drugs that can cross the blood brain barrier, and we have discovered four new agents that are better at getting into brain cells than an iron-binding drug that is currently used to treat conditions where there is too much iron in the bloodstream,” explained Roy.

The four iron-binding agents will now be tested to see if they can protect nerve cells from the type of damage that occurs in Alzheimer’s disease.

About Alzheimer’s disease

Alzheimer’s disease is the most common cause of dementia, affecting around 417,000 people in the UK2. Symptoms include memory loss, confusion and mood swings. Current treatments may delay progression of the disease, but do not cure or prevent it.

References

1. Gaeta A, Hider R.C. The crucial role of metal ions in neurodegeneration: the basis for a promising therapeutic strategy Br J Pharmacol 2005; 146: 1041-1059.
2. Alzheimer’s Society. What is Alzheimer’s disease? Accessed at: alzheimers

Source
The Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain

National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) engineers are organizing the fourth in a series of Response Robot Evaluation Exercises for urban search and rescue (US&R) responders to be held on June 18-22, 2007, at Texas A&M’s “Disaster City” training facility in College Station, Texas. These events, sponsored by the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate, test robot performance on emerging standard test methods using actual training scenarios for emergency responders. The results will be used to refine the test methods, and in developing usage guides that match specific kinds of US&R robots to particular disaster scenarios.

This exercise will use two Disaster City training scenarios. A simulated structural collapse of a municipal building will allow responders to deploy robots to search for victims and assist in “rendering the structure safe” for responders to extricate those victims. This will require robots to face a variety of challenges as they traverse complex and confined spaces within the structure’s semi-collapsed walls, sloping floors, rubble and voids while searching for victims. The robots will be deploying high-tech sensors such as laser scanners to capture the size and shape of interior voids to help structural engineers set up shoring supports.

Responders also will use robots to investigate a “train wreck/derailment” involving a passenger train and an industrial HAZMAT tanker train carrying unknown substances. The unknown hazards of the incident will require emergency responders to direct work from a distance of 150 m (500 ft) initially. This scenario will require robots to traverse railroad tracks, wreckage and debris to map the scene, look in windows to locate victims, find hazardous leaks and identify tanker placards describing their contents. Some robots also may take samples of unknown substances for analysis, all while being remotely controlled from a safe distance. This exercise will focus on ground robots that are highly agile, human-portable, or even throwable, and robots that can circumnavigate a large area from a remote operator station. The robots will feature a variety of sensors, including color cameras, two-way audio transmitters, thermal imagers, chemical sensors, 3D mapping systems and GPS locators paired with geographic information systems (GIS).

Robot developers and vendors benefit from these exercises by learning firsthand what emergency responders need to perform their roles safely and effectively, and by getting feedback about their systems during mock deployments. The emergency responders benefit by getting to work with a wide variety of high-tech solutions within their own deployment scenarios and to guide robot developers toward answering their needs. Both communities will benefit from the emerging standard robot test methods being developed as a result of these exercise, which will provide a means of measuring and comparing robot performance to help responders understand the trade-offs of particular devices, and also help measure and compare operator proficiency in performing critical task through remote control interfaces.

This Response Robot Evaluation Exercise is locally hosted by the Texas A&M Engineering Extension Service and the Texas Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) task force team (TX-TF1),

For further information, see isd.mel.nistus&r_robot_standards/disaster_city/eventintro4.htm.

Contact: John Blair

National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)

As the World Health
Organization (WHO) prepares to announce a dramatic decrease in global AIDS
cases from an estimated high of 39 million people worldwide down to 33
million in a report to be released Wednesday, AIDS Healthcare Foundation
(AHF) questioned whether this newly revised number of people thought to be
living with HIV/AIDS worldwide-now six million fewer-is any more reliable
or accurate than the previous number, and called for greater transparency
among the global bodies such as the World Health Organization that monitor
and track the disease, noting that all these numbers, be they higher or
lower, are guesswork at best.

“Because the vast majority of people who are infected with HIV don’t
know it, there is actually no way to know if this new WHO figure of 33.2
million is any more reliable than the previous estimation of 39 million.
There is certainly no basis for believing that half as many people were
infected this year than last, as is also being reported – especially not
when you can consider that most of the millions of people infected with the
virus are unaware of their positive status and are unknowingly transmitting
the virus to others. These figures are rough numbers based upon
extrapolations gleaned from unreliable data since so few people are being
tested. Let’s stop guessing and make routing testing worldwide a priority,
“said Michael Weinstein, President of AIDS Healthcare Foundation. “There is
certainly reason for skepticism when the numbers shift around so wildly.
Add to that the fact that this latest drop is in part being attributed to a
recent slashing of infection rates in India from nearly 6 million to 3
million-almost too severe a drop to be believed-and it is clear that
greater transparency is needed. Such radical drops in the WHO’s numbers
unfortunately discredits not only the old numbers but the new.”

According to today’s Associated Press, “AIDS Cases Drop, But Mostly Due
to Revised Data,” (Maria Cheng, 11/20/07): “Much of the drop is due to
revised numbers from India – which earlier this year slashed its numbers in
half, from about 6 million cases to about 3 million – and to new data from
several countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Previous AIDS numbers were largely
based on the numbers of infected pregnant women at clinics, as well as
projecting the AIDS rates of certain high-risk groups like drug users to
the entire population at risk. Officials said those numbers were flawed,
and are now incorporating more data like national household surveys. U.N.
officials could not rule out future downward corrections. WHO and UNAIDS
experts reported 2.5 million newly infected people in 2007. Just a few
years ago, that figure was about 5 million

“There has also been no overnight success or significant increase in
safer-sex practices or stepped up availability of condoms around the globe,
further eroding our belief in these newly revised WHO statistics,” added
Weinstein.

About AHF

AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) is the US’ largest non-profit HIV/AIDS
healthcare, research, prevention and education provider. AHF currently
provides medical care and/or services to more than 61,000 individuals in 18
countries worldwide in the US, Africa, Latin America/Caribbean and Asia.
Additional information is available at aidshealth

AIDS Healthcare Foundation
aidshealth

Doctors are often unable to recognise patient dissatisfaction and address concerns(1) has prompted EULAR Social Leagues and its campaigning arm, PARE (People with Arthritis/Rheumatism in Europe) Manifesto to develop a tool to improve doctor/patient communications as one of their World Arthritis Day projects under the theme of ‘small things matter’.

Studies(1,2,3) further reveal that missed communication opportunities between doctors and patients can impact on key outcomes, such as compliance with treatments and quality of life.

Recognising the need to help improve doctor/patient communications from both perspectives, EULAR Social Leagues have developed a Health Passport. The Health Passport is an A5 booklet, which has been developed by patients in cooperation with doctors to capture the clinical information doctors need, together with a monthly record of the patient’s experience of living with their arthritis/rheumatism.

Information gathered in the Health Passport provides a comprehensive record, which can be referenced as an aide memoir both when preparing for a consultation and during the consultation.

The average length of consultations in primary care in Europe is around ten minutes (4). The aim of the Health Passport is to help patients and doctors use these ten minutes effectively.

“Doctors and patients have different needs and expectations from a consultation, but it is important that both are met within the allotted time. The Health Passport is designed to help facilitate more effective communication between doctors and patients and improve satisfaction with the outcomes of the consultation from both perspectives,” says Professor Anthony Woolf, medical consultant to the project.

Belgium is the first country to develop the Health Passports in both Dutch and French led by patient organisations ReumaNet and CLAIR respectively. Evaluation forms were provided to both those trying out the passports over a test period and their doctors. Feedback has been very positive from both doctors and patients.

“The passport helps me prepare and remember important questions to ask my doctor. It also helps me evaluate and put into perspective whether my condition is improving or getting worse, as well as providing detailed information about my treatments, medications, activities and emotional control. As such, it can play a key role in my treatment programme and pain management,” said Sophie, one of the Belgian patients testing the Health Passport.

“This is a very good initiative. The Health Passport helps patients to be more precise when describing their symptoms and concerns related to their condition. By using the Passport patients learn what kind of information is important for their doctor when making decisions about the treatment,” said the rheumatologist of one of the patients using a Health Passport in Belgium.

“The Belgium pilot has demonstrated that Health Passports can make a huge difference to patients and doctors, so we are now calling on other countries to develop their own versions,” says Robert Johnstone, Chair of PARE Manifesto and working group that developed the Health Passport.

A copy of the Health Passport can be downloaded in English from the World Arthritis Day website (worldarthritisday) Design templates and support materials will be available for Social Leagues to adapt and translate from the end of June.

EULAR CONGRESS PRESS OFFICE
30 Orange Street
eular

Boys may be more apt than girls to have childhood asthma, but, when compared to girls, they are also more likely to grow out of it in adolescence and have a decreased incidence of asthma in the post-pubertal years. This indicates that there may be a buried mechanism in asthma development, according to a prospective study that analyzed airway responsiveness (AR) in more than 1,000 children with mild to moderate asthma over a period of about nine years.

“We wanted to investigate what was behind the observed sex differences in asthma rates and AR,” says lead researcher, Kelan G. Tantisira, M.D., M.P.H., of Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School. “This is the first study to prospectively examine the natural history of sex differences in asthma in this manner.”

Their results appeared in the second issue for August of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, published by the American Thoracic Society.

Dr. Tantisira and colleagues used data from the ongoing Childhood Asthma Management Program (CAMP) that enrolled 1041 children from 5 to 12 years of age with mild to moderate persistent asthma and performed annual spirometric testing with methacholine challenges to quantify their AR.

After an average of 8.6 years and each individual had undergone eight to nine annual methacholine challenges, the researchers were able to identify a clear pattern: when it came to the amount of methacholine it took to provoke airway constriction, the girls’ reactivity did not change markedly over the years. In contrast, boys became increasingly tolerant over time to larger and larger doses of methacholine, suggesting a possible decrease in disease severity. By the age of 16, it took more than twice as much methacholine to provoke a 20 percent constriction in the boys’ airway on average as it did with the girls.

What’s more, by age 18, only 14 percent of the girls did not demonstrate any significant degree of airways responsiveness, compared to 27 percent of boys.

“While our results were not unexpected, they do point to intriguing potential mechanisms, to explain the gender differences in asthma incidence and severity. Especially intriguing is that the differences in gender begin at the time of transition into early puberty.” said Dr. Tantisira.

This study into the natural history and sex differences in asthma marks the beginning of what many hope will be a long investigation into the subject.

“It will be of great interest to follow these children over time to see what happens with AR and severity of asthma in adulthood,” wrote Jorrit Gerritson, M.D., Ph.D., in an accompanying editorial.

This is precisely Dr. Tantisira’s next step: Dr. Tantisira and colleagues now have 12 years of data for the cohort, and is looking into investigating the characteristics of the individuals who attained clinically “normal” AR during follow-up. “Most of the original cohort has now reached adulthood,” said Dr. Tantisira. “We are now able to perform a secondary analysis with an emphasis on those who have reached clinical ‘normalcy.’”

This news brief is based on an article published in the American Thoracic Society’s peer-reviewed journal, the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

About the American Thoracic Society

Founded in 1905, the American Thoracic Society is the world’s leading medical association dedicated to advancing pulmonary, critical care and sleep medicine. The Society has more than 15,000 members who prevent and fight respiratory disease around the globe, through research, education, patient care and advocacy.

American Thoracic Society

In the construction industry, respiratory disease, often leading to disability or an increased risk of cancer, is a major public health concern. Studies led by Deborah Young-Corbett, a faculty member in Virginia Tech’s School of Construction, have shown that specific types of sanding tools are highly effective in reducing the dust that causes these health hazards, yet the industry’s usage of the available technology remains very low.

To find out why, Young-Corbett conducted follow-up studies with construction firm owners and workers, and identified a number of barriers to the adoption of technology that lead to healthier environments. She said they related to productivity, work quality, and perceptions of benefits and risks.

One of her colleagues, Theodore Koebel of urban affairs and planning at Virginia Tech has also conducted work in this area and has identified a number of strategies to encourage the construction industry to adopt the new technologies.

The two have now teamed on a new proposal to build upon this original work, and to improve the adoption of engineering controls in the construction industry to improve the health of the workers. Joining them is Enid Headen Montague, a member of the industrial engineering department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Under a Research-to-Practice (R2P) project, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) has agreed to fund the next phase of this work.

Young-Corbett, the principal investigator on the project, started working in this area when she was pursuing her doctorate in industrial engineering/industrial hygiene which she obtained in 2007. Among her honors as a Ph.D. candidate, she was a NIOSH fellowship recipient for 2006-07. She led a pilot project in the Virginia Tech Center for Innovation in Construction, Safety and Health on the evaluation of dust control technologies for drywall finishing operations. She also received a NIOSH training grant from Johns Hopkins University to enhance her work on this topic, which served as the background material for her dissertation.

In the two years since her arrival on the engineering faculty at Virginia Tech, she has brought in some $1.2 million in sponsored research, with a personal share of more than $700,000. This specific grant for $583,125 is part of the NIH Research Project Grant Program or an RO1. RO1s, the original NIH grant mechanism, provide support for health-related research and development. And although a dramatic increase in biomedical research has taken place at Virginia Tech, it is rare for an assistant professor to receive an NIH RO1.

Young-Corbett explained that for decades “drywall finishing operations have been associated with worker over-exposure to dust. This dust contains known particulate respiratory health hazards such as silica, talc, mica, and calcite. Despite the existence of effective engineering controls, such as ventilated sanders and low-dust drywall compound, worker exposures persist.”

Specifically, drywall finishers and laborers have a statistically elevated risk of death from cancer of the pharynx, lung, and respiratory tuberculosis, according to previous studies, Young-Corbett, the director of the Occupational and Construction Hazard Reduction Engineering Laboratory at Virginia Tech, added. mlsoc.vt/people/young/index.php

Yet, a previous NIOSH Hazard Control Study found that vacuum sanding systems reduced drywall dust levels by 80 to 97 per cent. This evaluation of five commercially available ventilated drywall-sanding systems found that four of the five systems reduced dust concentrations by greater than 90%.

A certified industrial hygienist, safety professional, and a hazardous materials manager, Young-Corbett has developed the Dust-control Usage: Strategic Technology Intervention (DUSTI) plan. Through education and marketing strategies, she, Koebel, and Montague will address key findings of previous studies that identified the barriers to the adoption and factors influencing diffusion of innovation in the construction industry. While their intervention strategy will be designed for generalization to all construction trade sectors, the initial evaluation will be performed in the drywall finishing trade.

“We selected the drywall finishing trade because respiratory disease among plasterers and wall finishers in particular, is a major public health concern,” Young-Corbett said. “Workers in these trades suffer from disproportionately high rates of respiratory disease and disability.”

Through their new grant, they will target three separate components of the industry: the workers, owners of small firms, and proprietors of large firms. “In our past work, we found that barriers to adopting the more user-friendly technology differed,” Young-Corbett said.

The worker intervention will employ “cues to action” and training aimed at health information, risks, trust, and control technology. The small-firm intervention will employ the creation of “technology champions” within the firms and training aimed at productivity and customer satisfaction impacts, health information, and regulatory drivers. The large-firm intervention will involve information dissemination to purchasing agents aimed at communicating productivity and quality impacts, health information, and regulatory drivers, Young-Corbett, also a member of the Virginia Tech Via Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, explained.

The DUSTI project is one of seven recently funded under the umbrella of a NIOSH/Center for Disease Control and Prevention award. The proposal was prepared by an interdisciplinary team of researchers, many of who are members of Virginia Tech’s Center for Innovation in Construction Safety and Health. A total of more than $7 million involving 19 faculty across six universities and two countries, encompassing as array of critical areas affecting safety and health in construction, was awarded.

Source: Lynn Nystrom

Virginia Tech

New data show for the first time that a course of 2 infusions of MabThera 1000mg (rituximab, known as Rituxan within the United States) given every 24 weeks as the patient’s first biologic can significantly slow down joint damage following 1 year of treatment, with virtually no progression of joint damage seen from six months1.

The IMAGE study, presented at the European League Against Rheumatism (EULAR) annual congress, showed that methotrexate-na??ve patients treated with 1000mg MabThera in combination with methotrexate (MTX), had three times less joint damage after 1 year (measured by Total Sharp Score) compared to those treated with methotrexate (MTX) alone.

In addition, 80% achieved a 20% improvement in their symptoms (ACR20) compared to MTX alone (80% vs 64%), while the percentage of these patients achieving a 70% improvement in symptoms compared to MTX alone was almost double (47% vs 25%). Patients taking MabThera also reported significantly improved physical function and quality of life, compared to those taking methotrexate alone2.

“Clinically and functionally, these positive data clearly support the use of MabThera earlier in the rheumatoid arthritis treatment algorithm. These robust data add to the wealth of existing evidence for the use of MabThera across a broad range of RA patients, and give us a great new option to prevent joint damage in the early stages of the disease”, said the lead investigator, Professor Paul-Peter Tak, AMC/University of Amsterdam, Netherlands.

Joint damage in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) often begins early in the disease, so it is critical to treat patients as early as possible to reduce symptoms and stop irreversible damage before it occurs. This damage can lead to permanent disability affecting patients’ ability to carry out normal everyday activities such as walking or dressing.

The study showed that when used as a first-line biologic only the approved 2 x 1000mg dose of MabThera plus MTX was shown to both significantly inhibit joint damage progression and improve clinical outcomes, compared to MTX alone.

Safety data from the IMAGE study are consistent with results from previous MabThera clinical trials and did not reveal any new or unexpected safety signals. Rates of serious adverse events and serious infections were similar between the two MabThera groups and the MTX-only group, further supporting the robust safety profile of this treatment.

Promising data which may predict enhanced response

Also presented today at EULAR, researchers have identified a group of rheumatoid arthritis patients who are two to three times more likely to achieve a significant improvement in their disease in MabThera studies3. Identifying which patients are most likely to benefit from treatment with MabThera will assist physicians in finding the best therapy choice for patients sooner.

“Because we can’t predict which patients will benefit most from a particular treatment, many patients unfortunately cycle through several types of treatment before achieving the optimum individual response. If we can predict which patients are likely to have the best treatment outcome with MabThera, they can be offered this option early enough to gain maximum benefit in terms of symptom reduction and prevention of joint damage. Although further research is needed, these data could signal an exciting breakthrough in the future management of rheumatoid arthritis”, said lead investigator, Professor John Isaacs, Newcastle University, UK.

In trials of MabThera, a pooled analysis showed patients who were seropositive to either of two characteristic RA autoantibodies, rheumatoid factor (RF) or anti-cyclic citrullinated peptide (anti-CCP), were two to three times more likely to achieve a significant improvement in their disease following treatment with MabThera, compared to patients who did not have these autoantibodies. Autoantibody production is one of the potential mechanisms that is thought to contribute to disease activity and joint damage which occurs in RA with approximately 80% of the RA patient population being seropositive. The enhanced response observed in seropositive patients may be linked to one of MabThera’s modes of action, as it targets the B cells which produce autoantibodies4.

IMAGE study

IMAGE was a Phase III, randomized, controlled, double-blind trial involving 748 patients to evaluate the safety and efficacy of MabThera in combination with MTX compared to MTX alone, in MTX-na??ve patients with active RA. Patients in the MabThera arms were either treated with 2 x 1000mg or 2 x 500mg every 24 weeks. The primary endpoint was radiographic progression measured by total modified Sharp score at week 52.

In patients treated with 2 x 1000mg MabThera and MTX, the data show a significantly smaller change (0.359) in modified Total Sharp Score (mTSS) compared to patients on MTX alone (1.079; p=