“Histological evaluation of AMPK signalling in primary breast cancer - BioMed Central” plus 4 more |
- Histological evaluation of AMPK signalling in primary breast cancer - BioMed Central
- National Education Association Health Information Network (NEA HIN ... - PR Newswire
- Racing Goggles From Super Filly Rachel Alexandra's Historic Haskell ... - PR Newswire
- Rally Against Wall Street's Health Care Takeover - Common Dreams
- The Fight Over Rescissions - Newsweek Blog
| Histological evaluation of AMPK signalling in primary breast cancer - BioMed Central Posted: 01 Sep 2009 12:11 PM PDT Abstract (provisional)BackgroundAMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) acts as a cellular fuel gauge that responds to energy stress by suppressing cell growth and biosynthetic processes, thus ensuring that energy-consuming processes proceed only if there are sufficient metabolic resources. Malfunction of the AMPK pathway may allow cancer cells to undergo uncontrolled proliferation irrespective of their molecular energy levels. The aim of this study was to examine the state of AMPK phosphorylation histologically in primary breast cancer in relation to clinical and pathological parameters. MethodsImmunohistochemistry was performed using antibodies to phospho-AMPK (pAMPK), phospho-Acetyl Co-A Carboxylase (pACC) an established target for AMPK, HER2, ERalpha, and Ki67 on Tissue Micro-Array (TMA) slides of two cohorts of 117 and 237 primary breast cancers. The quick score method was used for scoring and patterns of protein expression were compared with clinical and pathological data, including a minimum 5 years follow up. ResultsReduced signal, compared with the strong expression in normal breast epithelium, using a pAMPK antibody was demonstrated in 101/113 (89.4%) and 217/236 (91.9%) of two cohorts of patients. pACC was significantly associated with pAMPK expression (p=0.007 & p=0.014 respectively). For both cohorts, reduced pAMPK signal was significantly associated with higher histological grade (p=0.010 & p=0.021 respectively) and axillary node metastasis (p=0.061 & p=0.039 respectively). No significant association was found between pAMPK and any of HER2, ERalpha, or Ki67 expression, disease-free survival or overall survival. ConclusionThis study extends in vitro evidence through immunohistochemistry to confirm that AMPK is dysfunctional in primary breast cancer. Reduced signalling via the AMPK pathway, and the inverse relationship with histological grade and axillary node metastasis, suggests that AMPK re-activation could have therapeutic potential in breast cancer.  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| National Education Association Health Information Network (NEA HIN ... - PR Newswire Posted: 01 Sep 2009 12:04 PM PDT Program Helps Teachers Prepare For Flu Season as They Head Back to School WASHINGTON, Sept. 1 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- With worries about the flu season looming over the start of school this year, The National Education Association Health Information Network (NEA HIN) and The Clorox Company are teaming up to help teachers. Starting September 2 through September 5, 2009, teachers nationwide can visit www.CloroxClassrooms.com and get a free coupon for Clorox(R) Disinfecting Wipes, while supplies last. "With teachers' limited resources and heightened concerns about the H1N1 2009 flu virus this year, it is critical that they have the tools they need to implement simple prevention strategies," said Jerry Newberry, executive director, NEA HIN. "Healthy habits, like hand washing and disinfecting germ hot spots are important steps to help prevent the spread of germs that can cause illnesses, like flu." Teachers can visit www.CloroxClassrooms.com and sign up to receive a free coupon available on the home page during the offer period (September 2 - September 5, 2009). At the Web site, teachers can also sign up to download a free "Clean Up the Classroom" kit, which includes lesson plans, games and other tools to help reduce the spread of germs at school. "This year, more than ever, teachers across the country are reaching into their own pockets to purchase supplies for their classrooms," said Jon Balousek, vice president, Clorox Cleaning Division. "Through our partnership with NEA HIN, we hope we're able to help." Kids keep close company in classrooms, sharing cell phones, books and school supplies, offering lots of opportunities to spread germs that can cause illness. In a joint recommendation to help prevent school closures and absenteeism this flu season, Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary, Kathleen Sebelius, recently stressed the importance of making sure kids stay healthy and in the classroom. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), illnesses caused by bacteria and viruses account for millions of lost school days each year.[1] In fact, the majority of H1N1 virus cases earlier this year were in young people 5 to 24 years of age. Teachers can use the following tips to help prevent the spread of the virus in their classroom:
For additional information about the National Education Association Health Information Network, please visit www.neahin.org. About The National Education Association Health Information Network As the nonprofit health affiliate of the National Education Association, the NEA Health Information Network (NEA HIN) provides health and safety information, training and services to 3.2 million educational employees and the more than 43 million students they serve. Since its inception, NEA HIN has addressed numerous health and safety related issues that affect NEA members and students, including chronic diseases such as diabetes and obesity, HIV/AIDS, substance abuse, breast and cervical cancer, teen pregnancy, mental wellness, physical activity and nutrition, school safety, and school environmental quality, including asthma and indoor air quality. As new health and safety issues arise, NEA HIN develops initiatives to address them, always with an eye to selecting those topics that are responsive to the expressed interests and concerns of NEA members. For more information about NEA HIN, visit www.neahin.org/index.html About The Clorox Company The Clorox Company is a leading manufacturer and marketer of consumer products with fiscal year 2008 revenues of $5.2 billion. With 8,300 employees worldwide, the company manufactures products in two dozen countries and markets them in more than 100 countries. For more information about Clorox, visit www.TheCloroxCompany.com. [1] http://www.itsasnap.org/snap/references.asp#6 SOURCE The Clorox Company Website: http://www.cloroxclassrooms.com/Website: http://www.nea.org/ Website: http://www.thecloroxcompany.com/  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Racing Goggles From Super Filly Rachel Alexandra's Historic Haskell ... - PR Newswire Posted: 01 Sep 2009 12:04 PM PDT SANTA ROSA, Calif., Sept. 1 /PRNewswire/ -- Bidding for the third item in the Kendall-Jackson/Rachel Alexandra Running Auction started today with an opening bid of $1,000 for the three pairs of racing goggles worn by jockey Calvin Borel as he rode his super filly to victory in the Haskell Stakes last month--her second win over the colts in her historic 2009 campaign. The proceeds from the auction will go to The V Foundation for Cancer Research. The victory goggles, signed by Borel, owner Jess Jackson and trainer Steve Asmussen, are virtually dirt-free, since Rachel Alexandra was never directly behind any horse in the muddy race. (A New York Times article described the winner's circle for Rachel Alexandra's Haskell run, saying, "Borel . . . handed over...pairs of goggles he had just worn for Jackson's charity to auction off in its effort to fight breast cancer. Tellingly, not a single one had a speck of dirt or splatter of mud.") In June Kendall-Jackson Winery announced the five-month-long charity auction featuring items, donated by winery owners Jess Jackson and his wife, Barbara Banke, that are related to Rachel Alexandra's already-historic thoroughbred racing season. A new item and new auction will be introduced every month through November. Earlier this week, Peter Martine of Sunnyvale, California, bid $5,800 to win the second item in the auction: the blue and white saddle towel worn by Rachel Alexandra in her 19-length Mother Goose Stakes win in June. So far, the first two items in the auction have raised $8,659.99 for The V Foundation. Each auction item has a "blind reserve" bid amount--that amount is guaranteed by Jess Jackson and Barbara Banke to be the least amount donated to the charity--even if bidding is below that amount and the item is not sold. The final, Grand Item will be auctioned in November. The cumulative total of all auction proceeds will be presented to The V Foundation after Rachel Alexandra's last race of the season, or no later than November 30, 2009. As bids are taken and recorded on the www.kj.com site, a real-time total shows where the price stands at any given moment. In addition, a cumulative total of money raised to date will be featured on the Kendall-Jackson web site home page. Every month, the winning bidders will be posted and announced to the press (unless they decline to be identified). Though 100% of each auction purchase will go The V Foundation for Cancer Research, a nonprofit qualified under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, purchases of auction items are not tax-deductible. The V Foundation for Cancer Research was founded by ESPN and Jim Valvano in 1993. Since that time The V Foundation has raised more than $80 million and has awarded cancer research grants in 38 states and the District of Columbia. Researchers have developed their laboratories and taken their science from the labs to the clinics with the help of funds raised by The V Foundation. SOURCE Kendall-Jackson Winery Website: http://www.kj.com  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Rally Against Wall Street's Health Care Takeover - Common Dreams Posted: 01 Sep 2009 12:04 PM PDT Saturday, August 29 I had the good fortune to speak at a community rally for health care reform in a city park in downtown Portland, Oregon. It was a broad-based and diverse group with many signs and placards supporting the 'public option' being debated by Congress, and others calling for 'single payer' reform like that working effectively in other countries such as Canada. Here is what I said: I would like to begin by apologizing to all of you for the role I played 15 years ago in cheating you out of a reformed health care system. Had it not been for greedy insurance companies and other special interests, and their army of lobbyists and spin-doctors like I used to be, we wouldn't be here today. I'm ashamed that I let myself get caught up in deceitful and dishonest PR campaigns that worked so well, hundreds of thousands of our citizens have died, and millions of others have lost their homes and been forced into bankruptcy, so that a very few corporate executives and their Wall Street masters could become obscenely rich. But It was only during the last few years of my career that I came to realize the full scope of the harm my colleagues and I had caused, and the lengths that insurance companies will go to increase their profits at the expense of working families. As I told the Senate Commerce Committee two months ago, the higher up the corporate ladder I climbed, the more I could see how insurance companies confuse their customers and dump the sick - all so they can satisfy those Wall Street masters. I described for the senators how insurers make promises they have no intention of keeping, how they flout regulations designed to protect consumers, and how they make it nearly impossible to understand -- or even to obtain -- information consumers need. I also told the Committee how the industry has conducted duplicitous and well-financed PR and lobbying campaigns every time Congress has tried to reform our health care system -- and how its current behind-scenes-efforts may well shape reform in a way that benefits Wall Street far more than average Americans. I noted that, just as the industry did 15 years ago when it led the effort to kill the Clinton reform plan, it is using shills and front groups to spread lies and disinformation to scare Americans away from the very reform that would benefit them most. Make no mistake, the industry, despite its public assurances to be good-faith partners with the President and Congress, has been at work for years laying the groundwork for devious and often sinister campaigns to manipulate public opinion. The industry goes to great lengths to keep its involvement in these campaigns hidden from public view. But I know from having served on many trade group committees that industry leaders are always full partners in developing strategies to derail any reform that might interfere with their ability to increase their companies' profits. My involvement in those activities goes back to the early '90s when insurers joined with other special interests to finance the activities of an organization called the Healthcare Leadership Council, which led a coordinated effort to scare Americans and members of Congress away from the Clinton plan. A few years after that victory, the insurers formed a front group called the Health Benefits Coalition to kill efforts to pass a Patients Bill of Rights. While it was touted as a broad-based business group, the Health Benefits Coalition in reality got the lion's share of its funding from Big Insurance. Like most front groups, the Health Benefits Coalition was set up and run out of a big and well-connected PR firm. One of the key strategies developed by the PR firm as the coalition was gearing up for battle in late 1998 was to stir up support among conservative talk radio hosts and other media. The PR firm formed alliances with groups like the Christian Coalition and the Family Research Council and persuaded them to send letters to Congress and to appear at press conferences. The firm also launched an advertising campaign in conservative media outlets. The message was that President Clinton owed a debt to the liberal base of the Democratic Party and would try to pay back that debt by advancing the type of big government agenda on health care that he failed to get in 1993. Those tactics worked. Industry allies in Congress made sure the Patients' Bill of Rights would not become law. The insurance industry has funded several other front groups since then whenever the industry has been under attack. It formed the Coalition for Affordable Quality Healthcare to try to improve the image of managed care in response to a constant stream of negative stories that appeared in the media in the late '90s and the first years of this decade. It funded another front group when lawyers began filing class action lawsuits on behalf of doctors and patients. The PR firm the industry hired to create that front group, by the way, had planned and conducted a similar campaign for the tobacco industry a few years earlier. The insurance industry hired that same PR firm again in 2007 to help blunt the impact of Michael Moore's movie, "Sicko." It created and staffed a front group called "Health Care America" specifically to discredit Moore and to demonize the health care systems featured in the movie. Among the tactics the PR firm used once again was to enlist the support of conservative talk show hosts, writers and editorial page editors to warn against a "government-takeover" of the U.S. health care system. The term "government-takeover" is one the industry has used many times over the years to scare people away from reform. Health Care America also placed ads in newspapers. One of those ads carried this message, "In America, you wait in line to see a movie. In government-run health care systems, you wait to see a doctor." With this history, you can rest assured that the insurance industry is up to the same dirty tricks, using the same devious PR practices it has used for many years, to kill reform this year, or even better, to shape reform so that it benefits insurance companies and their Wall Street investors far more than average Americans. Americans need to be alert to how the industry and its allies are working to influence their opinions and lawmakers' votes. I know from years as an industry PR executive how effective insurers have been in using scare tactics to turn public opinion against any reform efforts that would threaten their profitability. I warned earlier this year that Americans and the media should pay close attention to the efforts insurers and their ideological buddies would undertake to demonize health care systems around the world that don't allow for-profit insurance companies to have the free reign they have here. Americans must realize that the when they hear isolated stories of long waiting times to see doctors in Canada and allegations that care in other systems is rationed by government bureaucrats, the insurance industry has written the script. And Americans must realize that every time they hear we will be heading down the "slippery slope toward socialism" if Congress creates a public insurance option to compete with private insurers, some insurance flack like I used to be wrote that, too. Every time you hear about the shortcomings of what they call "government-run" health care, remember this: what we have now in this country, and what the insurers are determined to keep in place, is Wall Street-run health care. And know that we already have one of the most insidious means of rationing care in the world -- not by people we can hold accountable on election day but by insurance company executives who answer only to a few wealthy investors and hedge fund managers who care far more about earnings per share than your health and well-being. If Congress goes along with the "solutions" the insurance industry says it is bringing to the table and fails to create a public insurance option to compete with private insurers, the bill it sends to President Obama might as well be called the Insurance Industry Profit Protection and Enhancement Act. Some in the media believe the health insurers have already won. That's not only because the debate over reform seems to have been hijacked recently by insurance company shills and people who believe the lies they have been spewing, but because of the billions of dollars the insurers have been spending to influence votes on Capitol Hill. Folks, it is not too late to keep the insurers from winning, but time is running short. We need to think of the coming weeks as some of the most important weeks in the history of this country. We need to think that way because they will be, and we must redouble our efforts to make sure members of Congress put our interests above those of private health insurers and others who view reform as a way to make more money. If we want to take back control or our health care system from the big for-profit companies that have wrecked it, we must take back control of this debate. We must begin to talk in ways that reach our friends and neighbors who have been influenced by the lies. We need to tell them that we can continue to have a system that allows 20,000 Americans to die every year because they don't have insurance, or we can have a system that will make sure their sons and daughters are not one of them. We should ask the skeptics of a public option, who are afraid that giving people a choice of a government-run plan will lead to socialism, if they would want to go back to the day when Americans had to buy private fire insurance. Tell them if they lived in Ben Franklin's day and they didn't have a shield on the outside of their house indicating they were insured, their town's private fire insurance companies would let their house burn down. The private insurance companies would keep your fire from spreading to your insured next-door neighbor's house, but your house would soon be nothing more than a pile of ashes. We must remind our family members and our friends and neighbors why we are having this debate in the first place. If they tell you they don't think their tax dollars should be used to pay for someone else's coverage, point out to them that they already are paying for the care uninsured people receive when they go to the emergency room and can't afford to pay the exorbitant bills they get from the hospital. Those of us who are insured pay an extra thousand dollars in premiums every year just to cover that uncompensated care. If they say they don't want to saddle their children and grandchildren with additional taxes, ask them if they have thought what might happen to their children and grandchildren if they found themselves among the millions of people without health insurance or, maybe more likely, among the underinsured. Ask them how they would feel if their daughter came down with breast cancer soon after she and your son-in-law moved into their dream house and just as your grandchildren were beginning to think about college. Ask them how they would feel if their daughter and son-in-law learned that the insurance they thought would be there when they needed it required them to pay so much out of their own pockets that they couldn't afford to pay for their daughter's cancer treatments and also make the house payments. Ask them how they would feel if their children and grandchildren were forced out of their dream home and into bankruptcy, and ask them how they would feel if their grandchildren had to give up their dreams of going to college. Ask them how they would feel if their granddaughter fell into the wrong crowd and died of a drug overdose just as her high school friends were graduating from the college she herself had once dreamed of graduating from. Ask them how they would feel when they found out that this all happened because their daughter's private insurance company forced her to pay more for her care than her family could afford just so it could continue to pay its CEO $30 million a year and meet Wall Street's profit expectations. Folks, I believe we Americans by and large are a compassionate people. Yes, we believe in individual responsibility, but we also believe in the Golden Rule. I don't know a single American -- or at least I hope I don't -- who would knowingly wish the future I just described on anyone's family. But the sad reality is that many of the people who have become unwitting spokespeople for the insurance industry -- the people who are objecting to a public insurance option because they have bought into the lies the insurance industry's shills are telling them -- will ensure that that horrific future is a reality for millions of Americans, including their loved ones, if the insurance industry wins this debate again. So over the coming weeks, we must tell our conservative friends who are worried needlessly about a government-takeover of our health care system that what we all should really be concerned about is the Wall-Street takeover that has occurred while we were not paying attention. It is that takeover that has led to more and more working Americans being forced into the ranks of the uninsured. It is that takeover that has forced millions more of us into the ranks of the underinsured because insurers are making us pay thousands of dollars out of our own pockets before they'll pay a dime. It is that takeover that has forced many of our neighbors out of their homes and into bankruptcy. And it is that takeover that is causing more and more small businesses to stop offering coverage to their employees because of the exorbitant premiums that greedy, Wall-Street-driven insurers are charging them. I want to close by thanking you for being here today and for the hard work you've already been doing to try to persuade members of Congress to do the right thing. But as I pointed out earlier, the coming weeks will be some of the most important weeks of our lives. Let's pledge to each other that we will work even harder to ensure that America joins the rest of the developed world in making sure that ALL of its citizens -- our brothers and sisters, our sons and our daughters, our neighbors and our co-workers -- have good coverage we can all have the peace of mind knowing will be there when and if we need it. Thank you.
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| The Fight Over Rescissions - Newsweek Blog Posted: 01 Sep 2009 11:49 AM PDT
By Jeremy Herb At an Energy and Commerce Committee hearing this summer, members heard the story of Robin Beaton, a 59-year-old whose insurance was revoked after she got breast cancer. The reason? She didn't disclose she once was treated for acne. Beaton isn't unique. Her story resonates with the thousands of Americans who each year fall victim to rescission, the practice of revoking insurance. Even Republican subcommittee chair Joe Barton, who voted against the final Commerce Committee health-care bill, denounced rescissions, declaring he spoke for the committee "on both sides of the aisle." But when Oversight Subcommittee Chair Rep. Bart Stupak asked the three insurance executives at a June hearing if they would stop the practice, all responded with a "no." Rescissions are unique to the individual insurance market, occurring when companies issue a policy, then revoke it after a claim is filed. The practice, also called post-claims underwriting, is designed to help insurers guard against fraud, stopping people from purchasing insurance after they get sick. But its use with people like Beaton, whose acne treatment had nothing to do with her breast cancer, drew the ire of the congressmen on the subcommittee. "It's a bigger issue than people think," Stupak says. "I think it took everybody by surprise the extent that it goes on." The Commerce Committee investigation released the first public data on the practice, finding that the three companies, Wellpoint, United Health, and Assurant, rescinded nearly 20,000 policies from 2003-2007, saving $300 million. The committee found that at Wellpoint, employees were rewarded for rescinding policies based on how much money they saved the company. (A Wellpoint spokesman says the company has reformed its rescission practices). "The nature of competition is kind of a race to the bottom," says Georgetown professor Karen Pollitz, who has studied post-claims underwriting and has testified before the committee. "It just doesn't pay to cover somebody when they have cancer if your competition won't." A federal law passed in 1996 bans rescission except in cases of fraud. But the law goes unenforced because there's no regulation at the federal level and nearly all states have much weaker laws on rescission, says Pollitz. The Commerce Committee investigation found just four states tracked rescissions. More than one-third of state commissioners couldn't supply the committee with a complete list of insurers that offered individual health policies in their state. HR3200, the current house version of the health-care bill, clarifies the ban and creates a new office and commissioner for federal enforcement. Stupak says he also plans to introduce amendments limiting rescissions to 30 days after a policy is issued. Representatives of the health insurance industry say there's broad consensus in the industry about ending rescissions, but that appears contingent on the passage of broader reforms that would ensure universal coverage. With everybody covered, the practice becomes virtually obsolete. Robert Zirkelbach, a spokesman for Americas Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) says rescissions are already rare, occurring in less than 1 percent of policies. If all Americans had insurance, the incentives to drop people from insurance rolls change, especially as increasing numbers of healthy, currently uninsured people buy into the system. "In the situation of health reform, you get more of this horse trading aspect," says Hilary Haycock, who helped author a study on the practice for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, "where insurers would see it in their interest to trade guaranteed issue of coverage for promising not to drop people." While AHIP sent a letter after the June hearing clarifying the executives' statements and reiterating the industry's support to stop rescissions, Stupak and the Commerce Committee will keep hammering away on the issue. A spokeswoman for Stupak said the industry statements at the hearing "made it clear that they have no intention of changing their policies." As Congress returns this month, Stupak plans to launch a second investigation into rescissions, increasing the inquiry to ten companies from three and seeking more information about how companies choose to investigate claims. Stupak and Committee Chairman Rep. Henry Waxman also recently demanded salary and revenue information from 52 insurance companies, drawing sharp criticism from AHIP. On Monday, Waxman asked six insurers, including Wellpoint and Aetna, to provide information about the practice of "purging" small businesses by raising their premiums to unaffordable levels after employees fall sick and thus claims increase. In an increasingly explosive debate over health care, stories like Beaton's - and the possibility for more like hers to arise in further hearings - are easy ammunition for reform advocates. Michael Chernew, a health-care policy professor at Harvard, says that a topic like rescissions can vilify insurance companies to such an extent that the public perception of the industry is unrealistically negative. But with reform opponents threatening that the plug will be pulled on Grandma, how long will it be before we see ads about insurance companies pulling the plug on your insurance because you have acne? When it comes to health-care politics, playing dirty is nothing new. |
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