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Video: Ajami Says Mubarak May Have Triggered Anti-U.S. Terror

by on January 31, 2011

Jan. 31 (Bloomberg) — Fouad Ajami, director of Middle East studies at Johns Hopkins University, talks about the anti-Mubarak uprising in Egypt and the outlook for that country’s political future and relationship with the U.S. He speaks with Carol Massar and Matt Miller on Bloomberg Television’s “Street Smart.” (Source: Bloomberg)

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Video: Ajami Says Mubarak May Have Triggered Anti-U.S. Terror

Video: Hanke Says Financial Rules May Slow Down Credit Growth: Video

by on June 25, 2010

June 25 (Bloomberg) — Steve Hanke, professor of applied economics at Johns Hopkins University and a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, talks about legislation to overhaul U.S. financial regulation and the outlook for the Group of 20 leaders’ meeting this weekend. Hanke speaks with Betty Liu on Bloomberg Television’s “In the Loop.” (Source: Bloomberg)

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Video: Hanke Says Financial Rules May Slow Down Credit Growth: Video

Video: Hanke Says Financial Rules May Slow Down Credit Growth: Video

June 25, 2010

June 25 (Bloomberg) — Steve Hanke, professor of applied economics at Johns Hopkins University and a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, talks about legislation to overhaul U.S. financial regulation and the outlook for the Group of 20 leaders’ meeting this weekend. Hanke speaks with Betty Liu on Bloomberg Television’s “In the Loop.” (Source: Bloomberg)

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Cancer Costs More Than Doubled Over 40 Years as Deaths Fell 16%, JAMA Says

March 16, 2010

By Ellen Gibson March 16 (Bloomberg) — The U.S. government has spent $100 billion funding cancer research since then-President Richard Nixon declared the “ War on Cancer ” in 1971, says an editorial in the Journal of the American Medical Association . The death rate from all cancers fell by almost 16 percent from 1991 to 2006, the editorial said. Much of that decline came from anti-smoking campaigns and early disease detection, said the commentary by researchers at the American Cancer Society in Atlanta. While new drugs, led by Roche Holding AG ’s Avastin and Eli Lilly & Co. ’s Erbitux, are helping, the cost of medical care including these treatments is straining the U.S. health system, researchers at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York said in a second commentary. Since 1990, cancer-related medical expenses have more than doubled to $90 billion, accounting for inflation, the second commentary said. The rate could be slowed by shifting to a system in which the cost of drugs, tests and other care are combined in a single- provider payment that would encourage doctors to “shop carefully for the services” patients need, the researchers wrote. “The expanding financial burden of cancer” including rising incidence rates “cannot be ignored,” wrote the commentary authors, led by Elena Elkin . This week’s special edition of the journal includes six editorials and commentaries assessing the country’s progress against cancer. Grouping Doctors The Sloan-Kettering researchers also suggested in their commentary that doctors and hospitals should be grouped into accountable-care organizations that would nudge physicians to act more cohesively, and could be rewarded by payers for providing care that delivers good results. Cancer remains the second-leading cause of death in the U.S., according to the American Cancer Society in Atlanta. In one survey cited in the journal, almost a quarter of respondents with health insurance said they used most or all of their savings during treatment for cancer. Avastin, the drug made by Roche of Basel, Switzerland, for breast, lung and colorectal cancer, can cost as much as $100,000 a year, according to UnitedHealth Group Inc. of Minnetonka, Minnesota, the biggest U.S. health insurer. Erbitux, the colon cancer treatment made by Indianapolis-based Lilly, can cost $40,000, said Les Funtleyder , a Miller Tabak & Co. LLC analyst in New York, in an e-mail today. High Bills Not only do high bills cause financial hardship for patients, they influence the choices doctors make, the authors said. In a separate survey noted in the editorial, 84 percent of oncologists said that concerns about patients’ out-of-pocket payments influenced their treatment decisions. The so-called war on cancer has led to $100 billion in cancer-research funding by U.S. agencies, according to a journal commentary written by Susan Gapstur , an epidemiologist at the American Cancer Society. These efforts resulted in a 1 percent annual drop in new cancer diagnoses between 1999 and 2006, her report said. There has been “remarkable progress” in the treatment of certain types of cancer, the report said, including breast cancer, Hodgkin’s disease , and testicular cancer . Almost 80 percent of children and adolescents diagnosed with cancer now survive at least five years, Gapstur said in a phone interview yesterday. Public Messages The main driver of progress has been public-health messages about tobacco use. The decrease in cigarette smoking in the U.S. over the past half-century accounts for 40 percent of the drop in cancer deaths in men since 1990, the year when the lung- cancer mortality rate for men peaked, Gapstur’s commentary said. “We’ve made progress, but people are still dying at too high a rate,” she said. “At the moment, we can’t put a dollar amount on when we stop. We have to continue our research efforts.” Early detection of colorectal and cervical cancers has reduced the mortality rates associated with those diseases. The challenge now, she said, is to improve early detection methods and enhance their usefulness. “For society, it’s less expensive to screen hundreds of people than to treat a single patient with cancer,” said Bert Vogelstein , co-director of the Johns Hopkins Ludwig Center in Baltimore, who is working to developing diagnostics to detect the genetic alterations that are seen in cancers. Aging Population There are a number of other challenges ahead, according to the report. An aging population means the number of cancer cases is likely to increase in the future, it said. Some cancers, including those of the liver , pancreas , and brain , are still linked to high mortality rates despite research efforts. As tobacco use wanes, the high rate of obesity in the U.S. could present a new public health challenge by raising cancer rates, Gapstur said. “Most epidemiologic studies have shown that obesity is a risk factor for cancer,” said Vogelstein in an interview yesterday. About 30 to 35 percent of all cancers can be attributed to nutrition, lack of physical activity, and obesity, Gapstur said. “Our concern is that, over time, that epidemic will have an impact on cancer mortality.” Gapstur’s essay notes that many articles have been written that are critical of the pace of progress in battling cancers and finding cures, especially in light of the “immense” economic costs. “We’ve been fighting this war on cancer since Nixon’s time, but we’ve only had the human genome for about a decade,” said Victor Velculescu , co-director of cancer biology at Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center . “It takes time to translate genetic info, but we’ve only just started getting it.” To contact the reporters on this story: Ellen Gibson in New York at egibson9@bloomberg.net ;

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Kidney Donors Don’t Shorten Their Lives by Giving Up Organ, Research Shows

March 9, 2010

By Nicole Ostrow March 9 (Bloomberg) — People who donate a kidney in the U.S. don’t die any faster than nondonors long term, according to a large study that looked at donors over 15 years. Within the first 90 days after surgery to donate a kidney, their death rate was slightly higher at 3 per 10,000, compared with less than 1 per 10,000 in healthy nondonors, according to research from Johns Hopkins University. Over 15 years, there was no difference in deaths of donors compared with others matched by age, health status, gender and race, said the study in today’s Journal of the American Medical Association . Kidney transplants have almost doubled over the past 15 years in the U.S. as more older people became eligible and higher rates of diabetes led to kidney disease and increased demand, said Dorry Segev , lead author of the study. The need for kidneys far outpaces the organs available each year, with more than 83,000 on a U.S. waiting list and 15,402 transplants performed from January through November last year, according to the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network . “Over the last 15 years, live kidney donation remains a very safe operation,” said Segev, an associate professor of surgery and epidemiology at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, in a March 5 telephone interview. “There is no evidence that living with one kidney rather than living with two kidneys after donating a kidney is associated with any increased risk of dying prematurely.” Earlier Evidence Previous studies that found kidney donation was safe have been much smaller and often lacked well-matched comparison groups, according to the study authors. The research analyzed data from a national registry of 80,347 living kidney donors in the U.S. who gave their organ from April 1994 to March 2009. They were compared with 9,364 people who were part of a national health survey . Over those 15 years, 25 people died in the first 90 days after surgery, making their risk of dying from surgery 3.1 per 10,000 cases. That compared with 0.4 per 10,000 people for similarly healthy people who participated in the health survey. That makes the short-term risk of death after kidney donation surgery six times lower than from dying after gallbladder removal , when patients are sent home the same day as their surgery, the authors said. Donating a kidney is “one of the safest operations you could ever undergo, although the risk is not zero,” Segev said. One Year Later A year following the surgery, the risk of dying for those who donated a kidney was similar to the nondonors who participated in the health survey, the study found. Men and black people had a slightly higher risk of dying following the procedure, but their overall risk was still small, the researchers said. The need for U.S. kidney donations has increased as rates of diabetes and obesity have risen. Diabetes can lead to kidney disease over 20 to 30 years, eventually requiring treatment by dialysis or a transplant, according to the International Diabetes Federation. In the U.S., the number of people with diabetes awaiting a kidney transplant has almost tripled e over the past decade to almost 25,000 from about 9,600, according to data from the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network. Most kidney donations from the living go to families and friends, Segev said. About 100 people every year will donate a kidney without a specific person in mind. The study was funded by the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network, supported by a federal agency. To contact the reporter on this story: Nicole Ostrow in New York at nostrow1@bloomberg.net .

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The Most Expensive U.S. Colleges: SEE The 10 Biggest Tuition Bills

October 21, 2009

This fall, as unemployment surged and the economy continued to hurt, students at both public and private colleges across the country saw a significant increase in the cost of their education. And tuition at the priciest schools in America is simply staggering. Campusgrotto.com compiled a list of the 100 colleges with the highest price tags (hat tip to Consumerist ). (Note: The ranking adds the advertised cost of tuition with room and board, and doesn’t take into account how much the average student at each school actually pays after financial aid.) Sarah Lawrence College, a tiny liberal arts school, tops the list. Here are the top ten: 1. Sarah Lawrence College — $54,410 2. New York University — $51,991 3. The George Washington University — $51,730 4. Bates College — $51,300 5. Skidmore College — $51,196 6. Johns Hopkins University — $51,190 7. Georgetown University — $51,122 8. Connecticut College — $51,115 9. Harvey Mudd College — $51,037 10. Vassar College — $50,875 To see the full list, go to CampusGrotto . Get HuffPost Business On Facebook and Twitter !

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AIDS Study Flushes Out Virus, Pointing to Possible Cure, Scientists Say

October 2, 2009

By Simeon Bennett Oct. 2 (Bloomberg) — Scientists, moving closer to a cure for AIDS, identified a way to find medicines that would help rid patients of the hardest-to-treat pockets of HIV. Current anti-HIV drugs reduce the virus to undetectable levels without eradicating it. The virus survives by lying dormant in immune-system cells, where the medicines don’t reach them. Scientists from Johns Hopkins University and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute reported yesterday that they developed a way of luring out these cells in laboratory experiments, an achievement they said may lead to a cure if repeated in humans. In 2007, about 2.7 million people were newly infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, and 2 million died of the disease, making it the world’s deadliest infectious malady, according to the Geneva-based World Health Organization , an arm of the United Nations. Scientists looking to stop HIV have turned to attacking so-called latent reservoirs of the virus after efforts to prevent infection, such as vaccines and gels, largely failed. “This is a way in which you could envision finding a drug that would, in conjunction with existing treatment, allow us to cure patients,” said Robert Siliciano , the professor who led the study at Johns Hopkins’s medical school in Baltimore. More research is needed, he said. For about 12 years, doctors have known that HIV, or human immunodeficiency virus, can lie dormant in immune-system cells called resting CD4s found in the lymph nodes, spleen and blood. There the virus stops replicating, avoiding the drugs designed to kill it. Roaring Back Studies have shown latent HIV comes roaring back when treatment is interrupted, condemning patients to a lifetime on drugs such as Abbott Laboratories’ Kaletra that can cause side effects including nausea, liver damage and fat buildup. Eliminating the last vestiges of the virus could cure patients of the disease, allowing them to stop treatment. Siliciano’s team mimicked HIV latency in a lab dish using a gene called Bcl-2 to turn normal CD4s into resting cells capable of hosting the dormant form of HIV. The researchers used the model to test 2,400 chemicals, finding 17 that coaxed the virus out of hiding, kick-starting its normal process of replication. In a human, that would make the virus susceptible to drugs. The best performer was a compound called 5HN found in the leaves, bark and roots of the black walnut tree. ‘Key Thing’ “They’ve found a way to find drugs — that’s the key thing,” said Stephen Kent , a professor of immunology at the University of Melbourne, in a telephone interview yesterday. “We’ve really just been guessing up to this point about ways to get at this. Having a system for screening drugs is a big advance over what we’ve had so far.” The result was achieved without rousing non-infected CD4 cells, avoiding a potentially fatal scenario called a cytokine storm in which the body’s immune system overreacts. The study has limitations, Siliciano said. First, 5HN may be too toxic for use in humans, he said by phone. “It’s going to require additional research to find something that does the same thing but doesn’t have lots of other effects,” Siliciano said. “We’re pretty confident that we’ll find lots of compounds that work, but whether any of those will be sufficiently free of other effects — that’s not clear,” he said. Second, recent studies have pointed to another reservoir of latent HIV that has yet to be identified, Siliciano said. No Test “We may have to find another drug to target that reservoir,” he said. “First we have to identify what it is.” There’s no test for identifying whether a patient has latent HIV, meaning the only way to be sure a drug has polished off the virus is to cease treatment and see if it returns, the University of Melbourne’s Kent said. The findings are an advance that may allow researchers to come up with a drug they could start testing in humans, Kent said. “To get something like that into clinical trials is only a few short years — it’s not decades,” he said. “Then it’s got to work.” The study was published yesterday in the Journal of Clinical Investigation , a peer-reviewed journal published by the American Society for Clinical Investigation, of Ann Arbor, Michigan. The research was funded by the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland; the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation in New York; and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in Chevy Chase , Maryland. To contact the reporter on this story: Simeon Bennett in Singapore at sbennett9@bloomberg.net

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AIDS Cure Moves Closer as Study Shows How to Kill Hidden Virus

October 1, 2009

By Simeon Bennett Oct. 1 (Bloomberg) — Scientists in the U.S. moved closer to a cure for AIDS, identifying a way to find drugs that would help rid patients of the hardest-to-reach pockets of HIV that now defy treatment. Current anti-HIV drugs reduce the virus to undetectable levels without eradicating it. The virus survives by lying dormant in immune-system cells, where the medicines don’t reach them. Scientists from Johns Hopkins University and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute reported today that they developed a way of luring out these cells in laboratory experiments, an achievement that they said may lead to a cure if repeated in humans. In 2007, about 2.7 million people were newly infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, and 2 million died of the disease, making it the world’s deadliest infectious malady, according to the Geneva-based World Health Organization , an arm of the United Nations. Scientists looking to stop HIV have turned to attacking so-called latent reservoirs of the virus after efforts to prevent infection, such as vaccines and gels, largely failed. “This is a way in which you could envision finding a drug that would, in conjunction with existing treatment, allow us to cure patients,” said Robert Siliciano , the professor who led the study at Johns Hopkins’s medical school in Baltimore. More research is needed, he said. For about 12 years, doctors have known that HIV, or human immunodeficiency virus, can lie dormant in immune-system cells called resting CD4s found in the lymph nodes, spleen and blood. There the virus stops replicating, avoiding the drugs designed to kill it. Roaring Back Studies have shown latent HIV comes roaring back when treatment is interrupted, condemning patients to a lifetime on drugs such as Abbott Laboratories’ Kaletra that can cause side effects including nausea, liver damage and fat buildup. Eliminating the last vestiges of the virus could cure patients of the disease, allowing them to stop treatment. Siliciano’s team mimicked HIV latency in a lab dish using a gene called Bcl-2 to turn normal CD4s into resting cells capable of hosting the dormant form of HIV. The researchers used the model to test 2,400 chemicals, finding 17 that coaxed the virus out of hiding, kick-starting its normal process of replication. In a human, that would make the virus susceptible to drugs. The best performer was a compound called 5HN found in the leaves, bark and roots of the black walnut tree. ‘Key Thing’ “They’ve found a way to find drugs — that’s the key thing,” said Stephen Kent , a professor of immunology at the University of Melbourne, in a telephone interview today. “We’ve really just been guessing up to this point about ways to get at this. Having a system for screening drugs is a big advance over what we’ve had so far.” The result was achieved without rousing non-infected CD4 cells, avoiding a potentially fatal scenario called a cytokine storm in which the body’s immune system overreacts. The study has limitations, Siliciano said. First, 5HN may be too toxic for use in humans, he said by phone. “It’s going to require additional research to find something that does the same thing but doesn’t have lots of other effects,” Siliciano said. “We’re pretty confident that we’ll find lots of compounds that work, but whether any of those will be sufficiently free of other effects — that’s not clear,” he said. Second, recent studies have pointed to another, as-yet- identified reservoir of latent HIV, Siliciano said. No Test “We may have to find another drug to target that reservoir,” he said. “First we have to identify what it is.” There’s no test for identifying whether a patient has latent HIV, meaning the only way to be sure a drug has polished off the virus is to cease treatment and see if it returns, the University of Melbourne’s Kent said. The findings are an advance that may allow researchers to come up with a drug they could start testing in humans, Kent said. “To get something like that into clinical trials is only a few short years — it’s not decades,” he said. “Then it’s got to work.” The study was published today in the Journal of Clinical Investigation , a peer-reviewed journal published by the American Society for Clinical Investigation, of Ann Arbor, Michigan. The research was funded by the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland; the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation in New York; and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in Chevy Chase, Maryland. To contact the reporter on this story: Simeon Bennett in Singapore at sbennett9@bloomberg.net

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Japan’s New Government to Seek Missile Defense Budget Cut, Yamaguchi Says

September 10, 2009

By Sachiko Sakamaki and Takashi Hirokawa Sept. 11 (Bloomberg) — Japan’s new government will likely cut missile defense spending because it isn’t effective in thwarting attacks from countries such as North Korea, a senior Democratic Party of Japan official said. “Missile defense is almost totally useless,” said Tsuyoshi Yamaguchi , a Lower House lawmaker who served as the party’s deputy defense spokesman prior to its Aug. 30 election victory. “Only one or two out of 100 are ever effective. Even in shooting down a normal bomber, the odds are maybe 20 or 30 percent,” he said yesterday in an interview in his Tokyo office. Reducing missile defense would come as North Korea, Japan’s closest military threat, boosts its nuclear and missile capability. Yamaguchi, the author of a book on the U.S.-Japan defense alliance, said trimming military expenditures is necessary to offset prime minister-designate Yukio Hatoyama’s plans to increase social welfare spending and tuition aid. “We’ll probably cut” the defense budget, said Yamaguchi, who holds a Ph.D. in international politics from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. “There’s so much else we have to do, such as child-care allowance, education, health care and pensions.” Japan’s defense ministry is requesting a 58 percent increase to 176.1 billion yen ($1.9 billion) on missile defense in next year’s budget, as part of 4.85 trillion yen in spending, up three percent from this year. The ministry is developing a missile shield using the land-based Patriot PAC-3 system and the Standard Missile-3 used on Aegis-equipped destroyers. LDP Policy Any reduction in missile defense development would contrast with the outgoing administration of the Liberal Democratic Party , which has governed Japan for all but 10 months since 1955. The party in June suggested Japan consider possessing the capability to attack enemy bases after North Korea fired a ballistic missile that flew over Japan in April. North Korea, which in May tested a second nuclear device, last week said it’s in the final stages of weaponizing plutonium and can either engage in negotiations or accelerate its program. The communist country has also tested several short and medium- range missiles this year, and in April walked out of disarmament talks involving the U.S., China, Russia, South Korea and Japan. “Regardless of the threat from North Korea, defense specialists must know that no number of SM3s or PAC3s can directly protect us,” Yamaguchi said. To contact the reporter on this story: Sachiko Sakamaki in Tokyo at Ssakamaki1@bloomberg.net .

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Circumcising HIV-Infected Men Doesn’t Stop Transmission to Women Partners

July 19, 2009

By Carey Sargent July 17 (Bloomberg) — Circumcising men infected with HIV didn’t stop transmission of the virus to female partners, a study published in The Lancet medical journal found. The trial, which took place in Uganda, was stopped early after 18 percent of the female partners of the circumcised men became infected with the virus compared with 12 percent of the partners of men who hadn’t undergone the procedure

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