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Senate Judiciary Committee Vote On Sotomayor Reset For July 28
The Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday postponed its vote on Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor until July 28 at the request of Republican members who said they need one more week to review written answers she recently submitted to the panel, CongressDaily reports. Both Republicans and Democrats expect Sotomayor to be approved by the committee and confirmed by the Senate, CongressDaily reports (CongressDaily, 7/21).The delay came as Senate Republicans continued to weigh whether they would vote to confirm Sotomayor, the Wall Street Journal reports. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) announced plans to vote for Sotomayor and issued a statement calling the judge "committed to applying the law impartially without bias or favoritism." Four other moderate Republicans have said they will support Sotomayor, and Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) indicated that more might follow suit. "There are a number of Republicans who have announced they plan to vote for her," Leahy said, adding, "There are a number of others who"ve not made that announcement yet, but plan to vote for her" (Peterson, Wall Street Journal, 7/21). Leahy said he is confident that Sotomayor will be confirmed in time for the Supreme Court"s first meeting on Sept. 9.Some strong conservatives, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.), have said they will oppose Sotomayor (Hirschfeld Davis, AP/Denver Post, 7/22). Among the Senate Republicans who have not announced their intentions are Sens. John Cornyn (Texas), who serves on the Judiciary Committee, and Judd Gregg (N.H.) (Wall Street Journal, 7/21).NARAL Endorses Sotomayor NARAL ProChoice America recently said that it will endorse Sotomayor, the AP/Seattle Times reports. The group said that Sotomayor"s testimony shows that she is a stronger supporter of privacy rights than the last two Supreme Court nominees -- Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito. Sotomayor said several times during her confirmation hearings that privacy rights include a woman"s right to have an abortion, NARAL said. According to the AP/Times, NARAL did not endorse Sotomayor until now because of uncertainty over her views on abortion rights (Hirschfeld Davis, AP/Seattle Times, 7/21).
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Definitive Outcomes Of Radiofrequency Ablation For Barrett's Esophagus Using The HALO Ablation System Reported At The Digestive Disease Week
Results from a number of clinical trials were presented during the Digestive Disease Week (DDW) in Chicago this week, revealing new outcomes data related to endoscopic radiofrequency ablation using the HALO ablation system for eradicating a pre-cancerous esophageal condition known as Barrett"s esophagus. Among them, reports included durability outcomes from a randomized sham-controlled trial, safety and efficacy outcomes from a large U.S. registry of 429 patients, a randomized trial comparing ablation to endoscopic resection, and the largest European series to date in patients with high-grade dysplasia and early cancer.
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6,552 Confirmed Swine Flu Cases And 9 Deaths In The USA
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced at the end of the day of 22nd May, 2009, that so far 6,552 humans have been infected with the A(H1N1) influenza virus, also known as swine flu. This new A (H1N2) flu virus originates from pigs and was first identified in April this year. The virus is human transmissible, says the CDC, meaning it spreads from person-to-person, and has sparked a growing outbreak of illness throughout the USA. The CDC stresses that cases of confirmed human infection are occurring all over the world.
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New Risk Index Shows High Prediction Rate For Alzheimer's In Older People

US researchers have developed a new tool that assesses 15 risk factors for dementia that can predict whether people aged 65 and over have a high risk of developing Alzheimer"s. The study was the work of first and corresponding author Dr Deborah Barnes of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco, and colleagues, and was published online on 13 May in the journal Neurology. Barnes also works at the San Francisco Veterans Affairs Medical Center and is a member of the American Academy of Neurology. Scoring 8 or more points on the 15-point scale indicates that a person is at high risk of developing dementia in the next six years, said the researchers in a press statement. Many of the scale items are well-known risk factors for Alzheimer"s disease. These include: older age, having a gene that has been linked to the disease, and getting low scores on tests of thinking skills. Barnes and colleagues were suprised however by some of the other factors that predicted dementia. For instance, having had coronary bypass surgery, being underweight, not drinking alcohol, or being slow at physical tasks such as buttoning a garment, also predicted higher risk of developing dementia compared to not having these risk factors. Barnes said: "This new risk index could be very important both for research and for people at risk of developing dementia and their families." "It could be used to identify people at high risk for dementia for studies on new drugs or prevention methods," she added. It could also help to identify people who show no signs of dementia yet but who should be monitored more closely so that treatment can start sooner rather than later, and perhaps help them keep their thinking and memory skills and quality of life longer, explained Barnes. She and her colleagues developed the index by following 3,375 people taking part in the Cardiovascular Health Cognition Study who had an average age of 76 and had no symptoms of dementia at the start of the study which went on for six years. 59 per cent were women and 15 per cent were Afirican American. Over the six years of the study, 480 participants (14 per cent) developed dementia. The researchers used a statistical method called logistical regression analysis to identify the cluster of risk factors assessed in the examinations that most closely linked with cases of dementia. They created the 15-point index from these factors. The results showed that 56 per cent of the participants with high scores on the risk index developed dementia, compared with 23 per cent who only had moderate scores and 4 per cent who had low scores. Overall, the risk index correctly classified 88 per cent of the participants, said the researchers. The next stage is to make the index more robust by validating it with other studies, said Barnes, who with her colleagues is hoping to create a shorter, simpler version that is just as accurate. The Cardiovascular Health Study is a longitudinal study of risk factors for cardiovascular disease among nearly 6,000 community-dwelling people aged 65 and over that included a large number of people who also underwent extensive neurological examinations for dementia and cognitive impairment. "Predicting risk of dementia in older adults. The late-life dementia risk index." D. E. Barnes, K. E. Covinsky, R. A. Whitmer, L. H. Kuller, O. L. Lopez, and K. Yaffe Neurology, first published online on May 13, 2009 doi:10.1212/WNL.0b013e3181a81636 Additional s: American Academy of Neurology. Written by: Catharine Paddock, PhD Copyright: Medical News Today Not to be reproduced without permission of Medical News Today


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