Month: June 2011

Statement of Anthony S. Fauci, M.D., and Jack Whitescarver, Ph.D., National Institutes of Health, on the 30th anniversary of the first reported cases of AIDS

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On June 5, 1981, an article concerning five previously healthy, young gay men in Los Angeles diagnosed with Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia, an infection that usually appears only in individuals with substantial immune system damage, appeared in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, a publication of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Autism blurs distinctions between brain regions

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Autism blurs the molecular differences that normally distinguish different brain regions, a new study suggests. Among more than 500 genes that are normally expressed at significantly different levels in the front versus the lower middle part of the brain’s outer mantle, or cortex, only 8 showed such differences in brains of people with autism, say … Read more

Origins of XMRV deciphered, undermining claims for a role in human disease

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Delineation of the origin of the retrovirus known as XMRV from the genomes of laboratory mice indicates that the virus is unlikely to be responsible for either prostate cancer or chronic fatigue syndrome in humans, as has been widely published. The virus arose because of genetic recombination of two mouse viruses. Subsequent infection of lab … Read more

Statement of Anthony S. Fauci, M.D., and Jack Whitescarver, Ph.D., National Institutes of Health, on the 30th anniversary of the first reported cases of AIDS

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On June 5, 1981, an article concerning five previously healthy, young gay men in Los Angeles diagnosed with Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia, an infection that usually appears only in individuals with substantial immune system damage, appeared in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, a publication of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Medicare Card, Comparable effectiveness shown for two common sudden deafness treatments

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Direct injection of steroids into the middle ear for the treatment of sudden deafness was shown to be no more or less effective than oral steroids in restoring hearing levels in a large comparison study of patients. The study results appear in the May 25, 2011 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. … Read more

Scientists find genetic basis for key parasite function in malaria

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Snug inside a human red blood cell, the malaria parasite hides from the immune system and fuels its growth by digesting hemoglobin, the cell’s main protein. The parasite, however, must obtain additional nutrients from the bloodstream via tiny pores in the cell membrane. Now, investigators from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), … Read more