Change afoot in HIV's wild East
BEIJING — In an unprecedented gesture, Chinese president Hu Jintao appeared on state television sporting a red ribbon and glad-handing AIDS patients. Politics in communist China are subtle and slow moving, but observers say the sight of the president publicly making friendly with AIDS sufferers is a clear sign he's taking the country's AIDS epidemic seriously. In April, after years of mostly ignoring the epidemic, the state began offering free HIV tests for citizens. The UN estimates that 840,000 people in China are HIV-positive.

Umbilical-cord lassos adult cancer
PARIS & MILWAUKEE — It looks like umbilical-cord blood could help leukemia recovery in adults too. Two major studies on the topic — one American over three years, one European spanning two years — appear in the November 25 NEJM. The Euro group found the blood worked as well as bone marrow transplants in preventing leukemia recurrence. The American team's findings were similarly promising. Currently, stem cell-rich umbilical-cord blood is primarily used in youngsters stricken with leukemia.

Organ donation and Madison Ave don't mix
RESTON, VA — The story of Todd Krampitz, a Houston man who ran an advertising campaign on Texas billboards asking for a donor liver, ended with him getting his wish. A family saw the sign and gave him a deceased relative's liver. This queue-jumping tale set off ethical alarms at the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network and United Network for Organ Sharing (OPTN/UNOS) — a group that sets the waiting list for organs in the US. At their semi-annual meeting they came down hard on Mr Krampitz's methods by encouraging hospitals to turn away recipients who get organs through advertising.

Liar liar hippocampus on fire?
CHICAGO — Your hospital's overstretched MRI machine might have yet another demand on its time — as perhaps the world's most expensive lie detector. Researchers from Temple University found that brain activity during a fibbing session is dramatically different from the pattern that appears when the gospel truth is being uttered. They observed 12 volunteers hooked up to a polygraph machine and simultaneously having their brain activity monitored by a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanner. The study was presented at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America.

UK puts hospital stars on ice
LONDON — The UK National Health Service (NHS) is dumping a 'star rating' system for assessing the performance of hospitals. Critics roundly dismissed the scheme as politically motivated, simplistic and ridiculous. The ratings focused on waiting times for hospital trusts. The top-rated facilities, where patients were treated more quickly, earned three stars; two stars indicated a middling performance; and a no- star rating was reserved for the lollygagging dregs. A newly proposed measure to replace the star rating would make physician success rates available to the public and introduce random hospital spot checks.

MS drug stops WBCs in their tracks
OTTAWA — Health Canada has fast-tracked a new MS drug on the heels of an FDA announcement to do the same. Natalizumab is the first humanized monoclonal antibody approved for the treatment of the debilitating disease. The drug works by preventing white blood cells from migrating to the central nervous system and flooding the brain. Recent results from a study of 942 patients showed that after a year on the drug, patients experienced fewer relapses or attacks than those on placebo.

Infant euthanasia: Dutch up the ante
GRONINGEN — A hospital in the Netherlands, the first country to permit assisted suicide, has introduced guidelines on infant euthanasia. The Groningen Protocol would create a legal framework for doctors to actively end the lives of newborns believed to be in severe pain from incurable diseases and deformities. This includes babies who are extremely premature, have severe brain damage, or are surviving on life support. Groningen Academic Hospital then revealed they've already begun euthanizing terminal babies with sedatives.

At last! Chocolate as Tx
LONDON, UK — A study in the November 17 issue of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology Journal (FASEB) says that theobromine, an ingredient in chocolate, can help prevent coughs. Ten patients were given either theobromine, codeine, or a placebo and then took capsaicin to induce coughing. Theobromine patients could tolerate about a third more capsaicin without coughing than the codeine patients. It's a small study but it may pave the way for more effective cough medications — and more excuses to consume immoderate quantities of chocolate.

Protein palms off infection
KIEL, GERMANY — The best defence against common bacteria like E coli could be right at your fingertips. Researchers have discovered that a protein called psoriasin secreted by the skin kills several bacteria by destroying the zinc they feed on. Higher levels of psoriasin were found on the hands, armpits and face. Researchers also found that the protein was present on the skin of newborns, which they believe might protect babies from infection during birth. The study was published in the November 28 online edition of Nature Immunology.

One toke over the line
MAASTRICHT, THE NETHERLANDS — Marijuana may not be as dangerous as we once thought, but a new study says that frequent teen toking can be a stepping stone to adult psychosis. The researchers believe that the reason lies in cannabis' disruption of the dopamine balance in the brain. The study, published in the December 1 online edition of the BMJ, monitored 2,437 people aged 14 to 24 for four years. It found that pot moderately increases the risk of psychotic symptoms but that the risk significantly rises in those who are genetically predisposed to psychosis.

Stress shortens telomere lifeline
SAN FRANCISCO — New research confirms what many people had already guessed — stress cuts life short. A study in the December 1 online edition of PNAS, looked at 58 women, 39 of whom have chronically ill kids. Researchers found that these highly stressed women tended to have shorter telomeres, a cellular structure that mat affect lifespan. The difference in telomere length between the women with high-stress levels and low-stress levels was equivalent to 10 years.

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