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Research Scientists Discover How Flu Damages Lung Tissue
A protein in influenza virus that helps it multiply also damages lung epithelial cells, causing fluid buildup in the lungs, according to new research from the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) and Southern Research Institute . Publishing online this week in the journal of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology, the researchers say the findings give new insight into how flu attacks the lungs and provides targets for new treatments.

Risk For Sleep Apnea In Musicians May Be Reduced By Playing A High Resistance Wind Instrument
The naturalistic respiratory muscle training with high resistance wind instruments may potentially reduce musicians" risk for obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), according to a research abstract presented at SLEEP 2009, the 23rd Annual Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies.
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Bill Would Allow Federal Funding For Needle Exchange Programs
House Democrats on Friday as part of a spending measure to fund the Departments of Labor and HHS for fiscal year 2010, "unveiled legislation to lift a ban on federal funding for needle-exchange programs, a shift to try to reduce [HIV infections] but one that will probably spark a fight," Reuters/Boston Globe reports (7/11). The ban has been included in the annual spending bill in previous years. House Appropriations Committee Chair David Obey (D-Wis.) said, "Scientific studies have documented that needle exchange programs, when implemented as part of a comprehensive prevention strategy, are an effective public health intervention for reducing [HIV] infections and do not promote drug use" (Reuters, Pelofsky, 7/10). "The move is in keeping with a pledge [President] Obama made during the primaries to remove the prohibition on such funding, although the ban was carried in his budget request this year," CQ Today reports (Wolfe, 7/10). However, "Republicans are girding for a fight over the ban and lawmakers could try to restore it as the legislation moves through the House during the next two weeks," according to Reuters (7/10). The bill also addresses sex education and "appears to continue Democrats" slow march away from funding abstinence-only sex education," CQ reports (7/10).
Public Health

Silver Nanoparticles Show "immense Potential" In Prevention Of Blood Clots

Scientists are reporting discovery of a potential new alternative to aspirin, ReoPro, and other anti-platelet agents used widely to prevent blood clots in coronary artery disease, heart attack and stroke. Their study, scheduled for the June 23 issue of ACS Nano, a monthly journal, involves particles of silver - 1/50,000th the diameter of a human hair - that are injected into the bloodstream. Debabrata Dash and colleagues point out that patients urgently need new anti-thrombotic agents because traditionally prescribed medications too-often cause dangerous bleeding. At the same time, aging of the population, sedentary lifestyle and spiraling rates of certain diseases have increased the use of these drugs. Researchers are seeking treatments that more gently orchestrate activity of platelets, disk-shaped particles in the blood that form clots. The scientists describe development and lab testing of silver nanoparticles that seem to keep platelets in an inactive state. Low levels of the nanosilver, injected into mice, reduced the ability of platelets to clump together by as much as 40 percent with no apparent harmful side effects. The nanoparticles "hold immense potential to be promoted as an antiplatelet agent," the researchers note. "Nanosilver appears to possess dual significant properties critically helpful to the health of mankind - antibacterial and antiplatelet - which together can have unique utilities, for example in coronary stents." American Chemical Society


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