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GOP State Sens. Ask Bayh, Lugar To Oppose DOJ Nominee Johnsen; Senate Confirms FDA Head Hamburg
In a May 15 letter to Sens. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) and Dick Lugar (R-Ind.), 31 Republican Indiana state senators asked the lawmakers to oppose the confirmation of Indiana University law professor Dawn Johnsen, President Obama"s nominee to head the Office of Legal Counsel in the Justice Department, due to her support for abortion rights, the AP/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports. The state senators wrote that Johnsen"s support for abortion rights "is more than simply pro-choice" and that "she is pro-choice in an extremely radical way," citing Johnsen"s statements and writings. The letter, which was signed by all but two of the state"s Republican senators, asked Bayh and Lugar to consider what Johnsen"s nomination "could mean for the future of the country." Indiana Senate President Pro Tem David Long (R) said, "It"s a statement from a very strong pro-life caucus," adding, "It is not based on the fact she is pro-choice, it is based on the fact that she is radically so." According to Long, the letter originated with a request from Indiana Right to Life to urge Bayh and Lugar to oppose Johnsen"s confirmation.Johnsen in an e-mail said that as a nominee she would not make public comments to the media. White House spokesperson Amy Brundage said that Johnsen "will bring unquestioned integrity and a commitment to non-partisan interpretation of the law to the Office of Legal Counsel, and we"re pleased that both of Indiana"s senators have expressed support for her nomination." Lugar spokesperson Andy Fisher on Monday in an e-mail said that although the senator has said he would not oppose Johnsen"s confirmation, Senate Democrats currently do not have enough support to move forward with the confirmation process. Bayh supports Johnsen"s confirmation, according to Bayh spokesperson Eric Kleiman (Smith, AP/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 5/18).Senate Confirms Hamburg as FDA CommissionerThe Senate on Monday by voice vote confirmed the nomination of Margaret Hamburg to be FDA commissioner, CQ HealthBeat reports (CQ HealthBeat, 5/18). According to the AP/Washington Post, Hamburg"s priorities include leading the development of a swine flu vaccine and overhauling the U.S. food safety system. During her confirmation hearing, Hamburg, a bioterrorism expert, said that she wants to increase consumer confidence in the agency by increasing transparency and accountability. Previously, Hamburg served as an assistant health secretary under President Clinton (AP/Washington Post, 5/19).

A "Light Bulb" Moment For People With Dementia
Change the lighting; improve your health. It"s a strategy researchers from Case Western Reserve University"s Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing and the School of Medicine, the Geriatric Research Education and Clinical Center at the Louis Stokes Cleveland Veterans Affairs Medical Center (GRECC), Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute"s Lighting Research Center and GE Consumer & Industrial have begun to test in a long-term care facility where daylight, which has proven health benefits, is not readily available.
News of the day
Blood Test Shows Statistically Significant Association With Alzheimer's Disease (AD), May Predict Conversion Of Mild Cognitive Impairment To AD
Dr. Zsuzsanna Nagy of the University of Birmingham presented data from a clinical study, funded by Cytox Limited, demonstrating that a simple blood-based biomarker discriminated between patients with Alzheimer"s disease (AD) and control subjects. The findings were statistically highly significant, and the test discriminated between the two groups with 80% sensitivity and 80% specificity. The results also showed that 40% of the mild cognitive impairment (MCI) patients tested had the same test results as AD patients. Follow up study of MCI patients enrolled in an earlier study found that the test allowed early identification of those MCI patients who later developed dementia. The results were presented at the 2009 Alzheimer"s Association International Conference on Alzheimer"s Disease (ICAD 2009), held in Vienna, Austria.
Nutrition

Defeating Nicotine's Double Role In Lung Cancer

A lung cancer treatment that inhibits nicotine receptors was shown to double survival time in mice, according to Italian researchers. The results of the early phase animal model study were reported in the June 15 issue of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine. Changes in genes encoding nicotine receptors are strongly associated not only with the tendency to smoke, but with susceptibility to lung cancer. Nicotine exposure also heightens the expression of the nicotine receptors, which leads to increased cell proliferation and inhibition of apoptosis, further setting the stage for cancer. Patrizia Russo, Ph.D. and Laura Paleari, Ph.D. of the Lung Cancer Unit of the National Cancer Research Institute in Genoa, Italy and colleagues from San Raffaele Pisana Scientific Institute for Research, Hospitalization and Health Care (IRCCS), Catholic University, Campus Biomedico University in Rome, Mario Negri Institute in Milan and CEA Gyf sur Yvette in France showed in past research that an antagonist of nicotine acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs), may serve as an anticancer agent. The antagonist, called d-tubocurarine/í±-Cobratoxin (í±-CbT), specifically targeted the í±7 subunit of nAChRs, the area primarily associated with increased cell proliferation. In this study, the authors took the research a step further and showed that í±-CbT could inhibit non-small cell lung carcinoma (NSCLC) growth and prolong life in non-obese/severe combined immunodeficient (NOD/SCID) mice that had human NSCLC grafted to their lungs. This study attempted to mimic human cancer conditions more closely by delaying treatment until the tumors were well-established. In addition to control mice that were untreated, the researchers randomized one third of the mice to receive standard chemotherapy. They found that NOD/SCID mice treated with the standard chemotherapy agent, cisplatin, had a 16 percent longer median survival time than untreated mice (p= 0.05). Mice treated with í±-CbT, however, had an increased median survival time of 1.7-fold over the cisplatin-treated mice and 2.1-fold over the no-treatment controls (p=0.0005). "The results of this study show that í±-CbT, a powerful, high-affinity í±-7-nAChR inhibitor, induces antitumor activity against NSCLC by triggering apoptosis," wrote Dr. Russo. "The prolonged survival of í±-CbT-treated animals in our mouse model of NSCLC is most likely the result of several mechanisms, including various antiproliferative and antiangiogenic effects." The research also found that unaffected (i.e., noncancerous) cells showed no inhibition of proliferation when treated with í±-CbT, suggesting that the treatment would have limited if any toxic effects. Dr. Russo and colleagues postulated that this finding may be due to the reduced number of receptor binding sites on normal cells as opposed to cancerous cells. Conversely, they reported that cancer cells with the greatest number of receptor binding sites seemed to respond with the greatest sensitivity to the treatment. "The goal of this research line is to explore the widest range of possibilities of intervention on the΀  í±7-nAChRs. We hope to move further on towards the clinical setting experimentation phase for the assessment of potentially new treatment strategies for NSCLC," said Dr. Russo. An editorial in the same issue of the journal asked if nicotine may be to lung cancer what estrogen is to breast cancer. Eliot R. Spindel, M.D., Ph.D., of Oregon Health & Science University, stated that estrogen can stimulate the development of breast cancer and estrogen-receptor antagonists, such as tamoxifen, provide therapeutic benefit. In support of a carcinogenic role for estrogen, the incidence of breast cancer appears to be decreasing as estrogen hormone replacement therapy is being used less often. Likewise, nicotine may promote lung cancer yet nicotine receptor antagonists may offer treatment options for patients with lung cancer. John Heffner, M.D., past president of the ATS stated that "this research clearly has profound clinical implications regarding the role of nicotine in stimulating lung cancer and nicotine receptor antagonists in treating the disease. The highly addictive nature of nicotine, however, complicates patients" ability to quit smoking and avoid ongoing nicotine exposure." "This [addictive nature of nicotine] underscores the importance of potential FDA regulation of nicotine in tobacco products to limit exposure to this drug that promotes tumor growth," wrote Dr. Spindel. American Thoracic Society


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