Training Day: Cadets Learn About The Illegal Wildlife Trade

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Newswise — NEW YORK (October 21, 2013) – The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and the U.S. Military Academy at West Point released this photo of West Point cadets examining illegal wildlife items, including a preserved elephant’s foot, commonly found for sale in areas where U.S. soldiers are deployed. On October 2nd Dr. Heidi Kretser, Livelihoods and Conservation Coordinator for WCS, talked to 150 cadets about illegal wildlife trafficking, the dangers of purchasing illegal wildlife items while stationed overseas, and the consequences that such actions can have on their careers and missions.

“The cadets were very receptive to this information.” said Kretser. “Many were unfamiliar with the laws and potential consequences for soldiers related to purchasing illegal wildlife products, and to the species put at risk by these crimes. In addition, they made the connection on how the purchase and transport of such products can result in the inadvertent support of organized crime, threats associated with disease, and the depletion of scarce and/or culturally significant natural resources.”

Wildlife products available on bases in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere, which include claws, teeth, pelts, meat, horns, and ivory products, come from locally or globally threatened or endangered species. Law enforcement authorities are finding that organized crime groups that smuggle weapons and drugs are increasingly involved with the trade of illegal wildlife – a trade that is estimated to reach into the billions of dollars and also threatens U.S. security.

To raise the awareness level, Kretser has spoken to cadets for the last four years at West Point, Fort Drum, and to other units being deployed to Afghanistan. Cadets are particularly important as they will step into leadership roles in the military. In addition, WCS has created a series of outreach tools in an ongoing initiative supported by the DoD Legacy Program, including the attached training video (seen here).

Media Notes

• WCS, with support from USAID, is also working in Afghanistan to train military personnel on bases across the country about the dangers – to both wildlife and to the military – of purchasing and transporting illegal wildlife products. They are also working with Customs officials and the military police to control and restrict illegal wildlife product sales and movement within Afghanistan and overseas.

• To address the significant effects of wildlife trafficking on the national interests of the United States, President Obama recently created a Presidential Task Force that includes a senior representative from the DoD and WCS President and CEO, Cristián Samper, among others.

Growing impacts poor and stressed as an adult brain function

Newswise - Child poverty and chronic stress can lead to problems of regulation of emotions as an adult, according to research published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"Our findings suggest that the burden of stress of growing poverty can be an underlying mechanism that represents the relationship between poverty as a child and how the brain works as an adult," said Dr. K. Luan Phan, Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine and lead author of the study.

The study was conducted by researchers at the UIC, Cornell University, University of Michigan and the University of Denver.

The researchers found that test subjects who had family incomes less than 9 years old exhibited, as adults, increased activity in the amygdala, an area of the brain known for its role in fear and other negative emotions. These individuals showed less activity in areas of the prefrontal cortex, an area of the brain that regulates negative emotion.

Amygdala and the prefrontal cortex dysfunction has been associated with mood disorders such as depression, anxiety, impulsive aggression and substance abuse, according to the authors.

Phan said that it is well known that the negative effects of poverty can set "a cascade of increasing risk factors" for children to develop physical and psychological problems as an adult. But it is not known how child poverty might affect the functioning of the brain, particularly in emotional regulation. The ability to regulate negative emotions can provide protection against the consequences of physical and psychological health of acute and chronic stress, he said.

The study examined the associations between the poverty of children at age 9, exposure to chronic stress factors during childhood and neuronal activity in brain areas involved in emotional regulation at age 24.

49 Participants were part of a longitudinal study of child poverty. We collected data on household incomes, exhibitions stressor responses of physiological stress, social-emotional development and interactions, parents and children. Approximately half of the participants were from low-income families.

Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, the researchers evaluated the brain activity of the participants while they performed a task of emotional regulation. Subjects were asked to try to suppress negative emotions and viewing pictures, using a cognitive coping strategy.

"This serves as an index of brain-behavior of daily capacity of a person to cope with stress and negative emotions as those found" said Phan.

Perhaps the most important finding, Phan said, was that the amount of chronic stress from childhood to adolescence, such as substandard housing, overcrowding, noise and social stressors as familial disorder, violence or family separation - determines the relationship between childhood poverty and prefrontal brain function during the emotional regulation.

Co-authors include Pilyoung Kim of the University of Denver; Gary Evans of Cornell University; and Michael Angstadt, Shaun Ho, Chandra Sripada, James Swain and Israel Liberzon of the University of Michigan.

The study was supported by the national institutes of health (RC2MD004767), the Foundation of W.T. Grant, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Network on socioeconomic status and health, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

[This press release, together with accompanying photos, illustrations or multimedia files is online at http://news.uic.edu/?p=17630.

Low Vitamin D Levels Raise Anemia Risk in Children

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Newswise — Low levels of the “sunshine” vitamin D appear to increase a child’s risk of anemia, according to new research led by investigators at the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center. The study, published online Oct. 10 in the Journal of Pediatrics, is believed to be the first one to extensively explore the link between the two conditions in children.

The researchers caution that their results are not proof of cause and effect, but rather evidence of a complex interplay between low vitamin D levels and hemoglobin, the oxygen-binding protein in red blood cells. The investigators say several mechanisms could account for the link between vitamin D and anemia, including vitamin D’s effects on red blood cell production in the bone marrow, as well as its ability to regulate immune inflammation, a known catalyst of anemia.

To capture the interaction between the two conditions, researchers studied blood samples from more than 10,400 children, tracking levels of vitamin D and hemoglobin. Vitamin D levels were consistently lower in children with low hemoglobin levels compared with their non-anemic counterparts, the researchers found. The sharpest spike in anemia risk occurred with mild vitamin D deficiency, defined as vitamin D levels below 30 nanograms per milliliter (ng/ml). Children with levels below 30 ng/ml had nearly twice the anemia risk of those with normal vitamin D levels. Severe vitamin D deficiency is defined as vitamin D levels at or below 20 ng/ml. Both mild and severe deficiency requires treatment with supplements.

When investigators looked at anemia and vitamin D by race, an interesting difference emerged. Black children had higher rates of anemia compared with white children (14 percent vs. 2 percent) and considerably lower vitamin D levels overall, but their anemia risk didn’t rise until their vitamin D levels dropped far lower than those of white children. The racial difference in vitamin D levels and anemia suggests that current therapeutic targets for preventing or treating these conditions may warrant a further look, the researchers say.

“The clear racial variance we saw in our study should serve as a reminder that what we may consider a pathologically low level in some may be perfectly adequate in others, which raises some interesting questions about our current one-size-fits-all approach to treatment and supplementation,” says lead investigator Meredith Atkinson, M.D., M.H.S., a pediatric kidney specialist at the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center.

Untreated, chronic anemia and vitamin D deficiency can have wide-ranging health consequences, including organ damage, skeletal deformities and frequent fractures, and lead to premature osteoporosis in later life.

Long known for its role in bone development, vitamin D has recently been implicated in a wide range of disorders. Emerging evidence suggests that low vitamin D levels may play a role in the development of certain cancers and heart disease and lead to suppressed immunity, the researchers note.

Anemia, which occurs when the body doesn’t have enough oxygen-carrying red blood cells, is believed to affect one in five children at some point in their lives, experts say. Several large-scale studies have found severe vitamin D deficiency in about a tenth of U.S. children, while nearly 70 percent have suboptimal levels.

“If our findings are confirmed through further research, low vitamin D levels may turn out to be a readily modifiable risk factor for anemia that we can easily tackle with supplements,” says senior study investigator Jeffrey Fadrowski, M.D., M.H.S., also a pediatric kidney specialist at Johns Hopkins.

The research was funded by the National Institute of Diabetes, Digestive and Kidney Diseases under grant number K23 DK084116.

Other investigators involved in the research included Michal Melamed, M.D., M.H.S., of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in Bronx, New York; Juhi Kumar, M.D., M.P.H., of Weill Cornell Medical College; Cindy Roy, Ph.D., and Edgar Miller III, M.D., Ph.D., of Johns Hopkins; and Susan Firth, M.D., Ph.D., of The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

Related article on the Web:
Memo to Pediatricians: Screen All Kids for Vitamin D Deficiency, Test Those at High Risk

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Founded in 1912 as the children's hospital of the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, the Johns Hopkins Children's Center offers one of the most comprehensive pediatric medical programs in the country, with more than 92,000 patient visits and nearly 9,000 admissions each year. Hopkins Children’s is consistently ranked among the top children's hospitals in the nation. Hopkins Children’s is Maryland's largest children’s hospital and the only state-designated Trauma Service and Burn Unit for pediatric patients. It has recognized Centers of Excellence in dozens of pediatric subspecialties, including allergy, cardiology, cystic fibrosis, gastroenterology, nephrology, neurology, neurosurgery, oncology, pulmonary, and transplant. For more information, visit www.hopkinschildrens.org.

Johns Hopkins Medicine (JHM), headquartered in Baltimore, Maryland, is a $6.7 billion integrated global health enterprise and one of the leading health care systems in the United States. JHM unites physicians and scientists of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine with the organizations, health professionals and facilities of The Johns Hopkins Hospital and Health System. JHM's vision, “Together, we will deliver the promise of medicine,” is supported by its mission to improve the health of the community and the world by setting the standard of excellence in medical education, research and clinical care. Diverse and inclusive, JHM educates medical students, scientists, health care professionals and the public; conducts biomedical research; and provides patient-centered medicine to prevent, diagnose and treat human illness. JHM operates six academic and community hospitals, four suburban health care and surgery centers, and more than 30 primary health care outpatient sites. The Johns Hopkins Hospital, opened in 1889, was ranked number one in the nation for 21 years in a row by U.S. News & World Report.

Legal expert: breast milk must come from known, trusted sources

News that human breast milk for sale online for babies can contain dangerous bacteria should not come as a surprise, says Sarah Jane Hughes, a legal expert and member of the Faculty in the University Maurer School of law in Bloomington Indiana.

"Breast milk should be from sources known, or acquired through sources known as hospitals, to reduce the risk of contamination," said Hughes, the University and Fellow Student in commercial law at the school of Maurer.

"Breast milk for donation often is frozen quickly after an expression to be preserved," added Hughes. "If they are not managed correctly, it can deteriorate quickly. Donor breast milk to hospitals should be pre-selected for diseases, such as AIDS or hepatitis".

In a study published online in the journal Pediatrics, the researchers bought and analyzed 101 samples of breast milk sold by women on a popular website, which did not identify. Three-fourths of the samples contained bacteria at levels high enough as to sick babies, the researchers found.

A member of the faculty since long ago at Maurer school, Hughes also has experience as a breast milk donor in the metropolitan area of Washington, D.C.. You can contact her at 812-855-6318 or sjhughes@indiana.edu.

Promoting experts in your organization with the expert pitch. Do reporters: follow @Expert_Pitch to receive instant updates via Twitter looking for an expert in different? Journalists can submit a
Expert consultation.

Case Western Reserve School of Medicine Scientist Wins Prestigious NIH New Innovators Award

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Newswise — Derek Taylor, PhD, a member of the Case Western Reserve School of Medicine, has been awarded the prestigious New Innovator Award by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The NIH awards this grant to scientists proposing highly innovative approaches to major contemporary challenges in biomedical research, under the agency’s High Risk-High Reward program.

“Only the absolute top notch scientists compete for this award, which undergoes intense review by leaders at the NIH,” stated Stanton Gerson, MD, Asa and Patricia Shiverick- Jane Shiverick (Tripp) Professor of Hematological Oncology, director of the Case Comprehensive Cancer Center and director of the Seidman Cancer Center at UH Case Medical Center. “Derek continues to excel as a cancer scientist at Case Western Reserve. I have been impressed with his continuous innovative approaches to fundamental questions in cancer. Telomere research is critical since this process is central to how cancer continues to grow and outlive normal cells.”

Taylor is an assistant professor, Department of Pharmacology, at Case Western Reserve School of Medicine, and a member of the Case Comprehensive Cancer Center. He received the New Innovator Award to support his research on the induction of cancer cell death by selective DNA misincorporation.

Taylor’s laboratory studies chromosome stability. His lab is particularly interested in telomeres, the specialized structures that cap and protect the ends of chromosomes. Dr. Taylor’s research also focuses on a special enzyme, telomerase, which interacts with telomeres to contribute to chromosome stability. As telomerase is upregulated in the majority of human cancers, the Taylor lab is investigating how to use its unique mechanism to deliver toxic compounds to cancer cells selectively.

Taylor’s research will use telomerase as a “Trojan horse” to deliver toxic drugs exclusively to cancer cells. The results obtained from the proposed experiments could lead to an entirely new, and more successful, method for treating a diverse set of human cancers.

The New Innovator Award initiative, established in 2007, supports investigators who are within 10 years of their terminal degree or clinical residency, but who have not yet received a Research Project Grant (R01) or equivalent NIH grant, to conduct exceptionally innovative research.

Taylor is the only scientist in Ohio to receive a 2013 New Innovator’s Award.

About Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine
Founded in 1843, Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine is the largest medical research institution in Ohio and is among the nation’s top medical schools for research funding from the National Institutes of Health. The School of Medicine is recognized throughout the international medical community for outstanding achievements in teaching. The School’s innovative and pioneering Western Reserve2 curriculum interweaves four themes--research and scholarship, clinical mastery, leadership,
and civic professionalism--to prepare students for the practice of evidence-based medicine in the rapidly changing health care environment of the 21st century. Nine Nobel Laureates have been affiliated with the School of Medicine.

Annually, the School of Medicine trains more than 800 MD and MD/PhD students and ranks in the top 25 among U.S. research-oriented medical schools as designated by U.S. News & World Report’s “Guide to Graduate Education.”

The School of Medicine’s primary affiliate is University Hospitals Case Medical Center and is additionally affiliated with MetroHealth Medical Center, the Louis Stokes Cleveland Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center, and the Cleveland Clinic, with which it established the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine of Case Western Reserve University in 2002. http://casemed.case.edu.

About Case Comprehensive Cancer Center
Case Comprehensive Cancer Center is an NCI-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center located at Case Western Reserve University. The center, now in its 25th year of funding, integrates the cancer research activities of the largest biomedical research and health care institutions in Ohio – Case Western Reserve, University Hospitals (UH) Case Medical Center and the Cleveland Clinic. NCI-designated cancer centers are characterized by scientific excellence and the capability to integrate a diversity of research approaches to focus on the problem of cancer. It is led by Stanton Gerson, MD, Asa and Patricia Shiverick- Jane Shiverick (Tripp) Professor of Hematological Oncology, director of the National Center for Regenerative Medicine, Case Western Reserve, and director of the Seidman Cancer Center at UH Case Medical Center.

Investigador recibe donación de $681K para examinar el impacto de huracán Sandy en personas mayores

Newswise - STRATFORD - Rachel Pruchno, PhD, director of research at the Institute of New Jersey for the aging successful at Rowan University School of Osteopathic Medicine, has received a two-year scholarship $681.000 from the United States Department of health and human services to examine the effects of the hurricane Sandy in a large representative sample of more than 3,200 seniors living in nine New Jersey counties most affected by the storm. The study will identify aspects of social capital that promote resilience of older adults exposed to the disaster. Because the participants were also evaluated twice (in 2006 and 2011) before Hurricane Sandy, the study offers a unique opportunity to understand the resilience in the elderly.

"Natural disasters tend to have an impact disproportionate in older people interrupting the resources they need to function independently," said Pruchno, "older people accounted for 65 percent of the deaths related to Hurricane Sandy. Understand how affects the social capital of neighborhood resilience primarily to expand the scope of the investigation of the disaster and identify ways that help to protect the health and safety of seniors in emergency situations.

Pruchno estimated that nearly two-thirds of the eligible participants will have had any exposure personal disaster. The results of this study will provide information critical to informing individual and community-based interventions that can help to minimize the vulnerability of older persons, both before and after a disaster strikes.

"The resistance of an individual is not only a function of that individual's characteristics, resources, and exposure to the disaster," said Pruchno. "Resilience is also affected by the districts where they lived before, during and after the hurricane. Growing evidence suggests that the characteristics of the environment are considerable variations in resistance, and that these effects are stronger in later life".

In addition to interviewing the participants of the study in the nine counties of New Jersey, the researchers gather to be data from a variety of sources, including Medicare and Medicaid claims data, the 2010 Census and providers of community focus groups.

This project is being funded by a grant from the office of the Assistant Secretary for preparedness and response at the Department of health and human services of the United States.

Journalists interested in speaking with Rachel Pruchno, PhD, should contact Jerry Carey, Rowan University media communication and public relations, at careyge@rowan.edu or 856-566-6171.

About Rowan University
Rowan University is an institution of State public inquiry appointed with campuses in Glassboro, Camden and Stratford, N.j., offered through doctoral degree programmes to 14,000 students. In the past two years, Rowan created a school of Biomedical Sciences; He opened the University Cooper medical school of Rowan based in Camden; and the school of medicine Osteopathic, which formed part of the University of medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, making Rowan only the second University in the nation to grant medical degrees both M.D. and D.O. built-in. Rowan is also scheduled to collaborate with Rutgers-Camden to create a new University of Health Sciences in Camden, with degree programs related to the growth of necessary medical services in the future. Recently appointed by the State only the second institution of comprehensive public research in New Jersey, Rowan plans to increase sponsored research to $100 million a year. These new initiatives will be added to Rowan Rohrer College of Business and powers of communication and creative arts, education, engineering, graduate and continuing education, humanities and social sciences, performing arts and science and mathematics.

Los Angeles residents vote Cedars-Sinai No. 1 for the quality of care and staff

 

Newswise - LOS Angeles (October 22, 2013) - for 18 years in a row, Cedars-Sinai has won a national award from consumption to provide the medical care of high quality and staff in the Los Angeles region based on a survey of households in the area.

Cedars-Sinai has received an award of the 2013-14 National Research Corporation consumer choice. It is only medical center in the Los Angeles area to win the prize to the best professional quality of health in general, image, reputation, doctors and nurses.

"Cedars-Sinai is gratified by this important recognition of our community," said Thomas M. Priselac, President and Chief Executive Officer. "It reflects our commitment to providing compassionate, high quality care for residents in the region."

More than 270,000 households were contacted across the country for the study of knowledge about market research Corporation. Consumers in local markets were asked to which hospitals preferred based on service and quality of care.
Cedars-Sinai is one of only 37 hospitals throughout the country which won, or shared, in their local markets every year since its inception in 1996.

The award is the latest recognition of the commitment of Cedars-Sinai's quality of care.

Earlier this year, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services released data showing that Cedars-Sinai is the only hospital in California (and one of only five in the nation) that have a mortality rate 30 days best that the national rate for five consecutive years in the following major categories of disease: heart failurepneumonia and the acute myocardial infarction (heart attack).

The distinction is significant for Cedars-Sinai treats many patients with advanced heart disease requiring complex interventions, including heart transplants. The programme has made adult heart transplant more than any other medical center in the nation for three consecutive years.

"We are proud of our history of quality," said Michael Langberg, MD, senior Vice President of Medical Affairs and Chief Medical Officer. "It is the result of our personnel, paying special attention to even the smallest detail when it comes to patient care".

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