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TB Booster Vaccine Trials To Begin Next Month In South Africa
A new two-year trial to test a tuberculosis vaccine aimed at boosting the efficacy of the BCG vaccine is scheduled to begin soon in South Africa, IRIN reports (IRIN, 6/4). The vaccine candidate, called MVA85A, will be tested next month in 2,874 children younger than age one. The new tests will be the "first concept trial of a new preventative TB vaccine for infants in close to 90 years," according to Reuters.
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Opposition To Abortion Rights Declining Among Black Voters, Opinion Pieces States
"In recent years, conservative political strategists have painted African Americans as being more opposed to abortion than the white population," but experts believe that there actually "is a declining black support for conservative social policies like abortion," Tracie Powell, a former congressional fellow with the American Political Science Association, writes in a CQ Politics opinion piece. According to Powell, a recent Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life survey found that 49% of black U.S. residents -- who generally are considered more religious than the entire U.S. population -- are in favor of keeping abortion legal in most or all cases.Powell continues that experts vary in their explanations of the declining opposition to abortion rights among blacks. She writes that Christopher Metzler, an associate dean at Georgetown University, said that economic concerns, such as the high unemployment rate for black workers, have become more important than abortion for the group. According to Powell, Metzler said that black U.S. residents also have started questioning the antiabortion-rights agenda because they received little support from conservatives in return.Powell writes that some experts believe the feelings of black U.S. residents regarding abortion might go "deeper than current economic and social realities." Powell adds that Salamishah Tillet, founder of the organization A Long Walk Home, said that reproductive injustice for black women dates to times of slavery, when they had no reproductive rights. According to Tillet, black women face reproductive injustice in modern times through underfunding of family planning programs, lack of access to contraception and legislation like the Hyde Amendment, which restricts access to abortion for low-income women, who are disproportionately black and Hispanic.Powell writes, "I doubt most Americans, including those who are black, consider abortion a civil rights issue, and I"m not arguing that it should be." However, "I do know that while black Americans remain one of the most religious demographics in the country, this isn"t the 1960s and African Americans no longer march lock-step behind the church," she writes (Powell, CQ Politics, 6/10).
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Early Switch From Cyclosporine To Sirolimus After Renal Transplantation Produces Sustained Improvement In Renal Function
BOSTON - Favorable 12-month outcomes are maintained through 30 months of follow-up when renal transplant patients are converted from a cyclosporine (CsA)-based regimen to a sirolimus (SRL)-based regimen three months post-transplant, according to results of the CONCEPT study announced here at the American Transplant Congress (ATC) 2009.
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Family History Predicts Presence And Course Of Psychiatric Disorders

A family history of depression, anxiety, alcohol dependence or drug dependence is associated with the presence of each condition and also may predict its course and prognosis, according to a report in the July issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. Family history of a psychiatric condition is generally known to increase an individual"s risk of developing that condition, according to background information in the article. "However, there is a need to go further and test whether family history is also associated with clinical features of the disorder thought to represent a continuum of seriousness among individuals who meet criteria for diagnosis," the authors write. Barry J. Milne, Ph.D., of University of Auckland, New Zealand, and colleagues studied 981 residents of Dunedin, New Zealand, born in 1972 or 1973. Participants were enrolled in the Dunedin Study at age 3 and followed up through age 32. Between 2003 and 2005, family history data were collected about each individual"s biological parents, grandparents and siblings older than 10 years. Four psychiatric disorders were studied: major depressive episode, anxiety disorder, alcohol dependence and drug dependence. "In general, we found that associations showed a consistent direction of effect across all four disorders: (1) family history was associated with the presence vs. absence of disorder for all four disorder types; (2) family history was associated with a recurrent course for all four disorders (but not significantly for women with depression); (3) family history was associated with worse impairment for all four disorders (but not significantly for depression and drug dependence); and (4) family history was associated with greater service use for all four disorders (but not significantly for anxiety disorders)," the authors write. The results suggest implications for researchers who wish to study genetic forms of a disorder and also for clinicians treating psychiatric conditions, the authors note. From a public health perspective, family history may be useful for determining which patients will have the poorest prognosis," they conclude. "For example, among those with depression, anxiety disorder, alcohol dependence and drug dependence, a family history screen may help determine whose illness will recur, whose illness will cause the greatest impairment and who will be the most likely to use treatment res. Thus, family history may identify a subgroup in need of primary or early intervention, and for whom treatments appropriate for recurrent, highly disabling disorder may be needed." Arch Gen Psychiatry. 2009;66[7]:738-747. Archives of General Psychiatry


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