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ONGLYZA™ (Saxagliptin) Receives Positive Opinion In Europe For The Treatment Of Type 2 Diabetes
Bristol-Myers Squibb Company (NYSE: BMY) and AstraZeneca (NYSE: AZN) announced that their marketing authorization application for ONGLYZA™ (saxagliptin) received a positive opinion from the Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) for the treatment of type 2 diabetes in adults as add-on therapy with metformin, a thiazolidinedione or a sulphonylurea.
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Blogs Comment On Health Care Reform Legislation, Congressional Funding For D.C., Other Topics
The following summarizes selected women"s health-related blog entries.~ "Just the Facts, Sir: The False Dichotomy of Catholics vs. "Pro-Choice" on Common Ground," Jodi Jacobson, RH Reality Check: In anticipation of the release of the White House"s "common ground" proposal to reduce the need for abortion and help prevent unintended pregnancies, "numerous members of the male pontificator commentariat are trying to spark anxiety by claiming Obama will have to make a choice between "the Catholic vote" and "the pro-choice community,"" Jacobson writes. However, "[n]othing could be further from the truth," she states, noting that Obama received the majority of the Catholic vote in the election and that a "majority of Catholic voters approve of [his] performance to date." There is "no danger" of Obama losing Catholic support "on this particular issue, as long as the administration makes clear its values and principles and goals and objectives, and as long as it sticks to the facts," Jacobson continues. She lists several steps that the White House should take with its proposal, including making it clear that the administration is "committed to evidence-based policies in public health" and that "the best way to reduce unintended pregnancies, and hence the need for abortion, is to provide universal access to prevention services." By focusing on evidence-based public health policies, the Obama administration "can, in the long run, actually bring profound change to this debate," Jacobson writes. She concludes that "evidence-based policies put into practice will achieve many of the goals we seek and take the air out of the ideological fight in which we have been engaged" (Jacobson, RH Reality Check, 7/2).~ "Is Denying Women Abortions the Price of Bipartisanship?" Igor Volsky, Think Progress" "The Wonk Room": Volsky writes that Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Republican colleagues on the Senate Finance Committee reportedly are pushing health care reform legislation that would require insurers participating in a new national health insurance exchange to exclude coverage for abortion services. According to Volsky, the committee"s version of the bill would be the only piece of health care reform legislation "that specifically prohibits -- takes away, rations, if you will -- a medical service." Meanwhile, health care reform legislation being considered by the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee and the House"s three committees that govern health care "leaves the coverage decisions -- the design of the so-called essential benefit packages" -- to the HHS secretary or an expert committee. Volsky notes that approximately one in three U.S. women will have an abortion by age 45 and that private insurers usually cover the procedure. He writes, "As Republicans often argue, Congress should leave benefits decisions to the medical professionals." He adds that "if denying abortion services to women is the price of bipartisanship, then perhaps winning those one or two Republican votes isn"t worth the price of jeopardizing women"s health and well-being" (Volsky, "The Wonk Room," Think Progress, 7/6).~ "House Moves To Lift Bans On Abortion Funding, Needle Exchange, Domestic Partnership and Medical Marijuana in D.C.," Choice Words: The fiscal year 2010 appropriations bill currently under review in the House "would lift a number of reproductive justice-related funding bans" in the District of Columbia, including a ban on using locally-raised funds for abortion, the blog entry states. "Access to abortion in D.C. has been severely limited by anti-choice Congresspeople playing politics with the district," the blog says, noting that Congress has "supreme authority" over the district"s funding. The bill also would end bans on using funds for certain other purposes, such as domestic partnership registration and benefits, according to the blog. The blog concludes that the "fight to lift these funding bans is just beginning" and is an "important first step towards protecting reproductiv
News of the day
Colic: UT Houston Research Identifies Organism That Could Trigger Constant Crying
Researchers at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston say one organism discovered during their study may unlock the key to what causes colic, inconsolable crying in an otherwise healthy baby.
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Shedding Light On Racial Disparities In Cancer Survival - 2 Studies

Black women diagnosed with breast cancer have a greater chance of dying from the disease than white women, according to a new study published online July 7 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Age-standardized breast cancer mortality rates in the U.S. have remained higher and declined more slowly among black women. This study was undertaken because the underlying causes of this disparity were unclear. To explore this, Idan Menashe, Ph.D., of the Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics at the National Cancer Institute, in Rockville, Md., and colleagues used the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results program to investigate almost 250,000 women diagnosed with breast cancer from January 1990 through December 2003. Researchers calculated black-to-white ratios of mortality, incidence, hazard of breast cancer death (probability of dying from the disease), and incidence-based mortality, with some analyses stratified by estrogen receptor (ER) status and age. The researchers found a statistically significantly higher hazard of death in black women diagnosed with breast cancer compared to whites, especially in the first few years after diagnosis. Hazard rates of breast cancer death declined substantially for ER-positive tumors and modestly for ER-negative tumors but were persistently higher for blacks than whites. "These differences in hazard may reflect racial differences in response and access to innovations in breast cancer treatment, as well as other biological and non-biological factors," the authors write. "Hence, greater emphasis should be placed on identifying the reasons for these increased hazards among black women and on developing new therapeutic approaches to address the disparity." In another study, also published in this issue, Kathy S. Albain, M.D., of Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood, Ill., found that even when African American patients received the same care as all other patients, their survival rates were lower for breast, prostate and ovarian cancers, but were equivalent for all other major cancers. Albain and colleagues analyzed records of more than 19,000 patients who participated in phase III cancer clinical trials conducted by the Southwest Oncology Group. "Patients of all races had the same doctors and received the same state-of-the-art treatments," Albain said. "It was a level playing field for everyone. So our findings cast doubt on a widely accepted theory that African Americans" lower survival rates for certain cancers are solely due to such factors as poverty and poor access to quality health care." Albain"s study found no statistically significant association between race and survival for lung cancer, colon cancer, lymphoma, leukemia, or myeloma. The cancers that did show survival gaps -- breast, prostate and ovarian -- are gender-related and the survival disparity persisted after adjustment for treatment factors, tumor variables, and socioeconomic status. The findings therefore suggest that the survival gap for these cancers is most likely due to an interaction of tumor biologic factors, hormonal environment, and inherited variations genes that control metabolism of drugs, toxins and hormones, Albain said. In an accompanying editorial, Otis W. Brawley, M.D., of the American Cancer Society, said results of the Albain et al. study provide evidence that racial differences in the U.S. for certain cancers can be attributed to unequal care. He points out that blacks are less likely to have disease detected early and less likely to receive adequate treatment when it is detected. The Menashe et al. study, according to Brawley, showed clear differences in mortality by race. "Taken together, the two studies and others do not suggest that blacks have a different kind of breast cancer, but rather that there are multiple kinds of breast cancer and a higher proportion of black breast cancer patients have the worse kinds," the editorialist writes. "No race has a monopoly on the good kind, nor the bad kind of breast cancer, but the prevalences differ." Citations: Article: Menashe et al. Underlying Causes of the Black - White Racial Disparity in Breast Cancer Mortality: A Population-Based Analysis. J Natl Cancer Inst 2009, 101: 993-1000. Article: Albain et al. Racial Disparities in Cancer Survival Among Randomized Clinical Trials of the Southwest Oncology Group. J Natl Cancer Inst 2009, 101: 984-992. Editorial: Brawley O. Is Race Really a Negative Prognostic Factor for Cancer? J Natl Cancer Inst 2009, 101: 970-971. Steve Graff Journal of the National Cancer Institute


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