Pharma news

 Protalix BioTherapeutics, Inc. (Amex: PLX), today announced that the Company anticipates completion, during the second half of 2008, of enrollment in its on-going pivotal phase III clinical trial of prGCD, a proprietary plant cell expressed recombinant form of human Glucocerebrosidase (GCD) for the treatment of Gaucher disease. Currently, clinical trial sites that are participating in the trial are recruiting patients in Europe, the United States, Israel and other countries.

“We are pleased to announce that, to date, we have enrolled more than 75% of the patients required for our phase III clinical trial for prGCD,” said Dr. David Aviezer, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Company. “Given the recent and current rates of patient screening and recruitment, we anticipate that we will soon be able to complete enrollment for this study. We expect to submit a New Drug Application (NDA) with the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the second half of 2009. In addition, we are very encouraged by the fact that Gaucher disease patients that have completed our phase III clinical trial have chosen to continue to be treated with prGCD as part of our on going follow-on extension study.”

The pivotal phase III clinical trial of prGCD is a multi-center, randomized, double-blind, parallel group, dose-ranging trial to assess the safety and efficacy of prGCD in 30 naive patients suffering from Gaucher disease. In the trial, patients are selected randomly for one of two dosing arms and receive IV infusions every two weeks for nine months. The primary endpoint of the study is the percent change in spleen volume from baseline, as measured by MRI.

About Protalix BioTherapeutics

Protalix is a biopharmaceutical company. Its goal is to become a fully integrated biopharmaceutical company focused on the development and commercialization of proprietary recombinant therapeutic proteins to be expressed through its proprietary plant cell based expression system. Protalix’s ProCellEx(TM) presents a proprietary method for the expression of recombinant proteins that Protalix believes will allow for the cost-effective, industrial-scale production of recombinant therapeutic proteins. Protalix is enrolling and treating patients in its pivotal phase III clinical trial in Europe, the United States, Israel, and other locations for its lead product candidate, prGCD, for its enzyme replacement therapy for Gaucher disease, a lysosomal storage disorder in humans, and has reached an agreement with the United States Food and Drug Administration on the final design of the pivotal phase III clinical trial through the FDA’s Special Protocol Assessment (SPA) process. Protalix is also advancing additional recombinant biopharmaceutical drug development programs. For more information, please visit our website at http://www.Protalix.com.

Safe Harbor Statement:
To the extent that statements in this press release are not strictly historical, all such statements are forward-looking, and are made pursuant to the safe-harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties that may cause actual future experience and results to differ materially from the statements made. These statements are based on our current beliefs and expectations as to such future outcomes. Drug discovery and development involve a high degree of risk. Factors that might cause such a material difference include, among others, uncertainties related to the ability to attract and retain partners for our technologies and products under development, the identification of lead compounds, the successful preclinical development of our products, the completion of clinical trials, the review process of the FDA, foreign regulatory bodies and other governmental regulation, and other factors described in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The statements are valid only as of the date hereof and we disclaim any obligation to update this information.

 
Summaries of two articles examining employer-sponsored health coverage trends appear below.Employee Plans: McClatchy/Raleigh News & Observer on Wednesday examined several recent surveys that found health care costs for employers who offer coverage will face increases in 2009 and some of those costs will be shifted to employees. A Mercer study found that the employer costs nationally would increase by an average of 8% to 10%, while a Towers Perrin study estimated the cost increase at about 6%, McClatchy/News & Observer reports. Meanwhile, a survey released by the Kaiser Family Foundation and Health Research & Educational Trust found that family premiums for employer-sponsored health insurance in 2008 increased to $12,680 annually, of which workers paid an average of $3,354 from their paychecks. By comparison, the total cost for family premiums in 1999 was about $5,790, of which workers paid about $1,543. According to Drew Altman, president and CEO of the Kaiser Family Foundation, employer-sponsored health benefits in 2009 will be “skimpier and less comprehensive,” and “[m]any working people will have higher out-of-pocket costs” (Stafford, McClatchy/Raleigh News & Observer, 10/15).

Health savings accounts: BusinessWeek on Monday examined the benefits and drawbacks of HSAs. According to BusinessWeek, “HSAs have been available since 1994,” but “the trend of ‘consumer-driven health care’ has not gained much traction with the American public … because most people are confused about how HSAs work.” Many people “simply don’t want to be their own health care manager” and the “high deductibles … scare off lower-paid workers,” BusinessWeek reports. In addition, “the cost savings just aren’t clear enough to lure employees whose employers still give them a choice between HSAs and a more traditional health insurance plan,” according to BusinessWeek. However, HSAs can help to shift some employer health care costs to workers, which is why more than half of the large employers in the U.S during the current benefits enrollment period will provide their employees with an HSA option during the current benefits enrollment period (Young, BusinessWeek, 10/13).

Reprinted with kind permission from http://www.kaisernetwork.org. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery at http://www.kaisernetwork.org/dailyreports/healthpolicy. The Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report is published for kaisernetwork.org, a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.

© 2008 Advisory Board Company and Kaiser Family Foundation.  All rights reserved.

 
Some New York state health care workers — including emergency department workers, paramedics and EMTs — are hoping to change a state law that requires written consent prior to HIV testing of patients in the event that health workers experience needle-stick injuries, the Albany Times Union reports. In cases of accidental needle pricks, New York state written consent requirements prohibit HIV testing if a patient is unconscious or deceased. Health care workers in the state often take post-exposure prophylaxis drugs in the event of possible HIV exposure, the Times Union reports. The prescribed drug regimen can cause a variety of symptoms, including headaches, gastrointestinal problems and weight loss.

Previous legislation attempting to change the law in the state has been unsuccessful, but Michael Daile, regional emergency medical services director at Albany Medical Center, said the he is hopeful the legislation will pass this year. “Our goal is to make sure we are not giving toxic medicine to people who don’t need them and we are sending health care workers back into the world knowing they are safe,” Daile said. John Janikas — director of emergency medicine at Samaritan Hospital in Troy, New York — said, “We basically risk our lives and livelihoods to help people out,” adding that in order for health care workers to have “peace of mind,” they should have the ability to test a patient for HIV in the case of accidental exposure (Crowley, Albany Times Union, 10/17).

Reprinted with kind permission from http://www.kaisernetwork.org. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery at http://www.kaisernetwork.org/dailyreports/healthpolicy. The Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report is published for kaisernetwork.org, a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.

© 2008 Advisory Board Company and Kaiser Family Foundation.  All rights reserved.

 Evotec AG (Frankfurt Stock Exchange: EVT; NASDAQ: EVTC) announced today encouraging results of a Phase I safety study investigating the potential interaction of EVT 302, a reversible and highly selective inhibitor of monoamine oxidase B (MAO-B) in development for smoking cessation, with tyramine. The study was undertaken to determine potential safety advantages of EVT 302 versus non-selective MAO inhibitors and less selective MAO-B inhibitors already on the market. These MAO inhibitors are known to interact with tyramine, a natural constituent of some drinks or food such as red wine, cheese or chocolate. In extreme cases, the interaction can dangerously elevate blood pressure. As a result, some agents require patients to adhere to strict dietary restrictions to prevent the intake of food containing high levels of tyramine.

The study results showed that at the lowest dose tested, predicted to be at least twice the therapeutic dose, EVT 302, like placebo, did not increase the sensitivity to tyramine. Doses of EVT 302 for the current study were chosen based on the previously performed human PET imaging studies which showed that the lowest dose chosen for this study was already supramaximal for full inhibition of brain MAO-B. Selegiline was included as a control as it is a marketed MAO-B inhibitor with less subtype selectivity than EVT 302. At its recommended therapeutic dose selegiline does not require dietary restrictions, although it increases tyramine sensitivity slightly. Higher doses produce more dramatic increases in tyramine sensitivity. In this study, the therapeutic dose of selegiline did increase the sensitivity to tyramine compared to placebo. At the highest EVT 302 dose tested (>5 fold the expected therapeutic dose), a small increase in tyramine sensitivity was produced, which was within the range of that produced by the therapeutic dose of selegiline.

Dr Tim Tasker, Executive Vice President Clinical Development at Evotec commented: “We are pleased that the results of this tyramine interaction study support a favorable profile for EVT 302. At a dose that we expect to be higher than the therapeutic dose, EVT 302 produced no increase in tyramine sensitivity and only showed changes at doses much greater than its expected therapeutic dose. Based on these results, the ongoing EVT 302 Phase II smoking cessation quit rate proof-of-concept study is being conducted without tyramine restriction. Overall, it is encouraging that supratherapeutic doses of EVT 302 show comparable results to selegiline at therapeutic doses and that at the lowest - supratherapeutic - dose, EVT 302 was not shown to be different from placebo.”

Tyramine when ingested with food is normally metabolized by MAO-A, and it is inhibition of this form of MAO by older generation MAO inhibitors which results in the potential for tyramine interaction. Such interaction with tyramine was not expected with EVT 302 since it is highly selective for MAO-B. Preclinical and clinical studies have demonstrated EVT 302 can achieve complete blockade of MAO-B without inhibition of MAO-A.

The study reported today was performed double blind in 59 healthy young male subjects. The study assessed whether EVT 302 (administered at 3 different doses up to steady state) resulted in an increase in the sensitivity to tyramine in enhancing blood pressure. The study included selegiline, a marketed MAO-B inhibitor with less selectivity than EVT 302 over MAO-A, and as an active comparator.

About Evotec AG

Evotec is a leader in the discovery and development of novel small molecule drugs. Both through its own discovery programs and through research collaborations, it is generating the highest quality research results to its partners in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. In proprietary projects, Evotec specializes in finding new treatments for diseases of the Central Nervous System. Evotec has four programs in clinical development: EVT 201, a partial positive allosteric modulator (pPAM) of the GABAA receptor complex for the treatment of insomnia, EVT 302, a MAO-B inhibitor in development for smoking cessation, EVT 101, a subtype selective NMDA receptor antagonist for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease and/or pain, and a P2X7 antagonist for the treatment of inflammatory diseases. In addition, Evotec has a number of proprietary projects in preclinical development as well as a worldwide license agreement with Pfizer to research, develop and commercialize small molecule vanilloid receptor (VR1) antagonists for the treatment of pain.
For additional information please go to http://www.evotec.com

Forward-Looking Statements

Information set forth in this press release contains forward-looking statements, which involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Such forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements about our expectations and assumptions concerning regulatory, clinical and business strategies, the progress of our clinical development programs and timing of the results of our clinical trials, strategic collaborations and management’s plans, objectives and strategies. These statements are neither promises nor guarantees, but are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond our control, and which could cause actual results to differ materially from those contemplated in these forward-looking statements. In particular, the risks and uncertainties include, among other things: risks that product candidates may fail in the clinic or may not be successfully marketed or manufactured; risks relating to our ability to advance the development of product candidates currently in the pipeline or in clinical trials; our inability to further identify, develop and achieve commercial success for new products and technologies; competing products may be more successful; our inability to interest potential partners in our technologies and products; our inability to achieve commercial success for our products and technologies; our inability to protect our intellectual property and the cost of enforcing or defending our intellectual property rights; our failure to comply with regulations relating to our products and product candidates, including FDA requirements; the risk that the FDA may interpret the results of our studies differently than we have; the risk that clinical trials may not result in marketable products; the risk that we may be unable to successfully secure regulatory approval of and market our drug candidates; and risks of new, changing and competitive technologies and regulations in the U.S. and internationally.
The list of risks above is not exhaustive. Our Annual Report on Form 20-F, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, and other documents filed with, or furnished to the Securities and Exchange Commission, contain additional factors that could impact our businesses and financial performance. We expressly disclaim any obligation or undertaking to release publicly any updates or revisions to any such statements to reflect any change in our expectations or any change in events, conditions or circumstances on which any such statement is based.

Source
Jörn Aldag
President & Chief Executive Officer
and
Anne Hennecke, anne.hennecke@evotec.com
http://www.evotec.com

View drug information on Selegiline tablets.

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LONDON: Low level of stress hormone
may trigger antisocial behaviour in male adolescents, a new study in Britain
shows.

The stress hormone, called cortisol, usually increases when
people undergo a stressful experience, such as public speaking, sitting for an
exam, or having surgery.

It enhances memory formation and is thought
to make people behave more cautiously and to help them regulate their emotions,
particularly their temper and violent impulses.

The University of
Cambridge team led by Graeme Fairchild and Ian Goodyer collected samples of
saliva over several days from a group of young men recruited for the study.

The samples were collected from them in a non-stressful environment
to measure levels of the hormone under resting conditions.

The young
men then took part in a stressful experiment that was designed to induce
frustration.

Samples of saliva were taken immediately before, during
and after the experiment to track how cortisol changed during stress.

While the average adolescents showed large increases in the amount
of cortisol during the frustrating situation, cortisol levels actually went down
in those with severe antisocial behaviour, reported science portal Science
Daily.

The results of the study suggest that antisocial behaviour
may be more biologically-based than previously considered, just as some
individuals are more vulnerable to depression or anxiety due to their biological
make-up.

 The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, has awarded 25 new grants to develop new and better diagnostics and treatments for radiation exposure after a nuclear attack. Several of these grants were awarded under Project Bioshield Authority, legislation that enables NIAID within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to use a rapid award process to help stimulate research on medical countermeasures against chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear (CBRN) threats.

In the event of a nuclear attack, people exposed to radiation would suffer from injuries to important tissues and organs, such as the skin, lungs, blood cells, nervous system and digestive tract. The severity of these injuries would vary. Proper diagnosis and prompt treatment of those affected is a key issue.

“These 25 new awards will help seed basic science research in areas of radiation exposure after nuclear attack that are not currently being addressed,” says Richard Hatchett, M.D., associate director of Radiation Countermeasures Research and Emergency Preparedness at NIAID.

In 2005 Congress identified the need to the expand research on countermeasures against CBRN threats and gave funding to HHS specifically for this purpose. HHS assigned NIAID the leadership role in managing basic research efforts to develop medical treatments and diagnostics for CBRN threats, and NIAID and the Biodefense Advanced Research and Development Authority collaborate to promote product development of promising candidate countermeasures. NIAID also works closely with the Food and Drug Administration for regulation and approval of all countermeasures developed to protect citizens against these agents.

According to Dr. Hatchett, the new awards support both focused and investigator-initiated projects intended to increase the current understanding about radiation damage to the body after a radiological or nuclear attack. Five investigators have received grants from NIAID, estimated to be up to $4 million over 18 months, via the Project BioShield Authority rapid award program, to explore methods or treatments to enhance blood platelet regeneration after radiation exposure. The investigators awarded these grants are as follows:
Amelia M. Bartholomew, M.D., University of Illinois at Chicago, IL

George Georges, M.D. Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, WA

Andrei V. Gudkov, Ph.D., Cleveland Biolabs, Inc., Buffalo, NY

Holger Karsunky, Ph.D., Cellerant Therapeutics, Inc., San Carlos, CA

Kathleen E. Rodgers, Ph.D., University of Southern California, Los Angeles

In addition to the Project BioShield awards, NIAID has funded 10 investigator-initiated grants focused on improving the diagnosis and treatment of individuals exposed to radiation. These five-year awards are estimated to be up to $4 million for the first year. The recipients are as follows:
R. Shane Addleman, D.Sc., Battelle Pacific Northwest Laboratories, Richland, WA

Susan M. Bailey, Ph.D., Colorado State University, Fort Collins

Tao Cheng, M.D., University of Pittsburgh at Pittsburgh, PA

David G. Kirsch, M.D., Ph.D., Duke University, Durham, NC

Andrei V. Gudkov, Ph.D., Roswell Park Cancer Institute Corporation, Buffalo, NY

James Palis, M.D., University of Rochester, NY

Amanda G. Paulovich, M.D., Ph.D., Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, WA

Gabor J. Tigyi, M.D., Ph.D., University of Tennessee Health Science Center, Memphis

Marcel R.M. van den Brink, M.D., Ph.D., Memorial Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research, New York, NY

Daohong Zhou, M.D., Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston

A new area of investigation being supported by NIAID is “radiation combined injury”. If a nuclear weapon attack were to occur in the United States, the wounded would also be expected to have other injuries such as burns, trauma or infections, in addition to radiation exposure. However, research in the area of radiation combined injury has been lacking.

The NIAID initiative will help stimulate research in the area of treating people with radiation combined injuries. Ten grants, estimated to be up to $2 million over five years, have been awarded to the following investigators:
Shyam Biswal, Ph.D., Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD

Nelson J. Chao, M.D., Duke University, Durham, NC

John R. Fike, Ph.D., University of California San Francisco

M. Waleed Gaber, Ph.D., and Duane D. Miller, Ph.D., University of Tennessee Health Science Center, Memphis

Juliann G. Kiang, Ph.D., Armed Forced Radiobiology Research Institute, Bethesda, MD

Elizabeth J. Kovacs, Ph.D., Loyola University Chicago, IL

James A. Lederer, Ph.D., Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, MA

David M. Rocke, Ph.D., and R. Rivkah Isseroff, M.D., University of California Davis

Ping Wang, M.D., Feinstein Institute for Medical Research, Manhasset, NY

Hartmut Weiler, Ph.D., Blood Center of Wisconsin, Incorporated, Milwaukee

Through these combined efforts, NIAID and HHS hope to accelerate the development of medical countermeasures against radiation exposure to help the public health community successfully protect and treat people in the event of a nuclear terrorist attack.

NIAID conducts and supports research - at NIH, throughout the United States, and worldwide - to study the causes of infectious and immune-mediated diseases, and to develop better means of preventing, diagnosing and treating these illnesses. News releases, fact sheets and other NIAID-related materials are available on the NIAID Web site at http://www.niaid.nih.gov/.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) - The Nation’s Medical Research Agency - includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services. It is the primary federal agency for conducting and supporting basic, clinical and translational medical research, and it investigates the causes, treatments and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit http://www.nih.gov.

Award descriptions can be found on the NIAID Web site under “Expired Opportunities” http://www3.niaid.nih.gov/research/topics/radnuc/funding/expiredOpportunities.htm

News releases, fact sheets and other NIAID-related materials are available on the NIAID Web site at http://www.niaid.nih.gov/.

Source: Julie Wu

NIH/National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases

 In an era of intense fluctuation in weather and climate patterns, the cost and availability of insurance are increasingly urgent issues - as the recent $46 billion insured losses from Hurricane Katrina and the $10 billion estimated damage from Hurricane Ike highlight.

In order to continue providing coverage that is widespread and affordable, commercial insurance companies and their governmental counterparts need dramatically improved methods of reducing uncertainty and anticipating financial risk, especially in storm-prone locations. Fortunately, advances in climate science are now reaching the point at which they can begin to fill many of those needs and to factor the requirements of end users into priorities for future research.

Find out how innovations in climate science can affect this crucial component of the nation’s economy at a special briefing on October 31. Experts from the insurance industry, the federal government and academe will discuss a strategy for devising new forecast models and describe their potential impact on insurance in both the public and private sectors.

Speakers:

Richard L. Thomas, Senior Vice President and Chief Underwriting Officer - Domestic General Insurance, AIG

Antonio J. Busalacchi, Director, Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center, University of Maryland, College Park.

Chester J. Koblinsky, Director, Climate Program Office, Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

Howard Kunreuther, Co-Director, Risk Management and Decision Processes Center, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania

Steve Halperin, Dean, College of Computer, Mathematical and Physical Sciences, University of Maryland, College Park

Notes:

Report from the Wharton School’s Risk Management and Decision Processes Center on Managing Large Scale Risks in a New Era of Catastrophes. This report, to be published by MIT Press, focuses on the role that insurance coupled with other policy tools can play in reducing losses from future hurricanes and other natural disasters. The report is available here.

The CIRUN web site: http://www.climateneeds.umd.edu/

The GAO Report on Climate and Insurance (http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-07-760T): “Many large private insurers are incorporating both near and longer-term elements of climatic change into their risk management practices. On the other hand, for a variety of reasons, the federal insurance programs have done little to develop the kind of information needed to understand the programs’ long-term exposure to climate change.”

The GAO Report on Federal Land Management (GAO-07-863): “[R]esource managers do not have sufficient site-specific information to plan for and manage the effects of climate change on the federal resources they manage. In particular, the managers lack computational models for local projections of expected changes and detailed inventories and monitoring systems for an adequate baseline understanding of existing local species. Without such information, managers are limited to reacting to already-observed climate change effects on their units, which makes it difficult to plan for future changes.”

The 2007 National Research Council report on the U.S. Climate Change Science Program (http://books.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=10635):

“…[P]rogress in synthesizing research results or supporting decision making and risk management has been inadequate. …Although the temperature trends assessment (CCSP, 2006b) was influential in the 2007 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 19 other CCSP synthesis and assessment products scheduled to be released by now are still in the production stage. Also, only a few small programs (e.g., Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessments program, Decision Making Under Uncertainty centers) have been initiated to identify and engage decision makers.

“Progress in understanding and predicting climate change has improved more at global, continental, and ocean basin scales than at regional and local scales. Information at regional and local scales is most relevant for state and local resource managers and policy makers, as well as for the general population, but progress on these smaller spatial scales has been inadequate.

“Improving understanding of regional-scale climate processes and their impacts in North America, for example, would require improved integrated modeling, regional-scale observations, and the development of scenarios of climate change and impacts.

“Our understanding of the impact of climate changes on human well-being and vulnerabilities is much less developed than our understanding of the natural climate system. Progress in human dimensions research has lagged progress in natural climate science, and the two fields have not yet been integrated in a way that would allow the potential societal impacts of climate change and management responses to be addressed. This disparity in progress likely reflects the inability of the CCSP to support a consistent and cogent research agenda as recommended in previous studies.”

Source: Mary Kearney

University of Maryland

 Nicotine gum might help pregnant women who smoke reduce the number of cigarettes they smoke, which could reduce their risk of having premature or low-birthweight infants, according to a small study recently published in Obstetrics and Gynecology, USA Today reports. According to the study, smoking doubles the risk of having low birth weight and premature infants, and causes up to 10% of infant deaths.

The study included almost 200 women who smoked an average of 18 cigarettes daily prior to pregnancy and an average of 10 cigarettes daily for the week before the study began. The women randomly were assigned to chew either nicotine gum or placebos and all were offered six counseling sessions. The women who were given nicotine gum reduced the number of cigarettes they smoked daily by five or six, and the women given placebo gum reduced the number of daily cigarettes by three or four. According to the study, physicians noticed that infants born to women who chewed nicotine gum had shorter hospital stays and were less likely to require intensive care; however, researchers say this could be due to chance, USA Today reports.

The American Cancer Society’s Thomas Glynn said that randomized trials involving nicotine replacement and pregnancy are rare and that the study is significant because of its focus on women with some of the highest smoking rates, such as women with low incomes, histories of mental health problems and low education levels. Study author Cheryl Oncken, associate professor at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine, said that approximately 85% of the women in the study had tried three times to quit smoking and that although nicotine gum has its own risks, it might be safer than tobacco smoke, which contains thousands of chemicals and carbon monoxide. Nicotine replacement products have not been approved for pregnant women, but 12% of pregnant women smoke, according to USA Today. Diane Ashton of the March of Dimes said that the study is promising but that researchers might need to conduct larger studies to determine if nicotine gum is safe during pregnancy (Szabo, USA Today, 9/30).

Reprinted with kind permission from http://www.nationalpartnership.org. 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, published by The Advisory Board Company.

© 2008 The Advisory Board Company. All rights reserved.

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Nearly 60 million women will give birth without any medical assistance this year, the World Health Organization said on Tuesday in a report calling for an overhaul of how health care is financed and managed globally.

The United Nations agency said in its annual World Health Report that the billions of aid dollars devoted to fight specific epidemics like AIDS had distracted attention from providing comprehensive care to mothers and children.

The difference in life expectancy between the richest and poorest countries still exceeds 40 years, said the report, whose launch coincided with a global financial crisis that could freeze aid flows and squeeze government budgets for health care.

Some 58 million of the 136 million women who will have babies this year will lack medical help during and after their births, it said.

Increasingly specialized and technical medicine in wealthy nations has also excluded and impoverished millions of patients, exposing failures of “laissez-faire” governance in health, according to WHO director-general Margaret Chan.

“We are, in effect, encouraging countries to go back to the basics,” Chan said in an introduction to the WHO report.

The report estimated that focusing more on disease prevention and health promotion —through vaccine and nutrition-boosting programs — could cut the global burden of infirmity by 70 per cent.

And despite huge foreign aid sums earmarked for programs fighting AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, and other killer diseases in developing countries, the WHO said quality care remained scarce outside of those specific areas.

“Disproportionate investment in a limited number of disease programs considered as global priorities in countries that are dependent on external support has diverted the limited energies of ministries of health away from their primary role,” it said.

Medical care fragmented

Medical care in the rich world has also become dangerously fragmented, according to the report. It said front-line health workers ought to better assess patients’ overall needs instead of referring them to costly specialists.

“This contributes to inefficiency, restricts access, and deprives patients of opportunities for comprehensive care,” it said. “In far too many cases, people who are well-off and generally healthier have the best access to the best care, while the poor are left to fend for themselves.”

Profit-driven care has also increased the use of unnecessary tests and procedures, prompted more frequent and longer hospital stays, driven up overall costs, and excluded those who cannot pay, the Geneva-based agency found.

Annual government spending on health worldwide varies from just $20 US to more than $6,000 US per person. More than 100 million people a year fall below the poverty line because of personal health expenditures, and as many as 5.6 billion people have to pay for more than half of their health expenditures themselves.

Chan, a former Hong Kong health director, said governments had a responsibility to extend health care to all who need it, and to support good community health through education, food and safety standards, and clean water and sanitation services.

She warned that inequitable access and impoverishing costs for health care could erode social stability in a number of vulnerable countries. “A world that is greatly out of balance in matters of health is neither stable nor secure,” Chan said.

With files from Reuters