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Tonight, Michigan became the thirteenth state to legalize the physician supervised possession and use of cannabis. According to early returns, more than 60 percent of Michigan voters decided in favor of Proposal 1, which establishes a state-regulated system regarding the use and cultivation of medical marijuana by qualified patients. Voters endorsed the measure despite a high profile, deceptive, and despicable ad campaign by Prop. 1 opponents — who falsely claimed that the initiative would allow for the open sale of marijuana “in every neighborhood, just blocks from schools.” (In fact, Proposal 1 does not even allow for the creation of licensed cannabis dispensaries.) Michigan’s new law goes into effect on December 4th, at which time nearly one-quarter of the US population will live in a state that authorizes the legal use of medical cannabis. Meanwhile, in Massachusetts, some 65 percent of voters (and virtually every town) decided “yes” on Question 2, which reduces minor marijuana pos...

Leukaemia drug can halt, reverse MS Thu Oct 23, 5:26 am ET LONDON (AFP) – Researchers at the University of Cambridge said Thursday they have found that a drug originally developed to treat leukaemia can halt and even reverse the debilitating effects of multiple sclerosis (MS). In trials, alemtuzumab reduced the number of attacks in sufferers and also helped them recover lost functions, apparently allowing damaged brain tissue to repair so that individuals were less disabled than at the start of the study. "The ability of an MS drug to promote brain repair is unprecedented," said Dr Alasdair Coles, a lecturer at Cambridge university's department of clinical neurosciences, who coordinated many aspects of the study. "We are witnessing a drug which, if given early enough, might effectively stop the advancement of the disease and also restore lost function by promoting repair of the damaged brain tissue." The MS Society, Britain's largest support charity for thos...

NEW YORK (AP) -- Monkeys taught to play a computer game were able to overcome wrist paralysis with an experimental device that might lead to new treatments for patients with stroke and spinal cord injury. Remarkably, the monkeys regained use of paralyzed muscles by learning to control the activity of just a single brain cell. The result is "an important step forward," said Dawn Taylor of Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, who studies the concept of using brain signals to overcome paralysis. She wasn't involved in the new work. The device monitored the activity of a brain cell and used that as a cue to stimulate wrist muscles electrically. Researchers found it could even use brain cells that normally had nothing to do with wrist movement, said study co-author Chet Moritz. So a large untapped pool of brain cells may be available for letting paralyzed people do things like grasping a coffee cup or brushing teeth, Moritz said. But he stressed the approach is years,...

ADAPT wasted no time challenging Policymakers on the housing crisis for persons with disabilities with low incomes. After setting up a tent city at HUD headquarters, ADAPT sent 100 activists to the Democratic National Committee (DNC) offices in Washington, D.C., and another hundred to a Sen. John McCain campaign office in Arlington, VA. ADAPT presented a platform for affordable, accessible housing. "The DNC was cordial, and accepted our housing platform, and invitation to visit 'DUH City,' which is HUD spelled backwards," said Barb Toomer, Utah ADAPT. HUD told us they had no authority to make decisions. We have to wait for the administrative appointees to make any decisions. Sen. John McCain's campaign staff not only refused to even look at our housing platform, they had eleven of us arrested." ADAPT's housing platform points to America's growing crisis in the availability of affordable, accessible integrated housing. Many people with disabilities liv...

University of Texas at Austin alumnus, Chris Stanford (MSEE '91), and Electrical & Computer Engineering undergraduates are working on making exercise fun for wheelchair users. For the last year, Stanford has been partnering with engineering seniors to test his idea for a virtual reality treadmill for the disabled. "Not many people realize," says Stanford who has been confined to a wheelchair since 1988, "the special health risks faced by wheelchair users. Everything is more difficult, including eating right and getting enough exercise. Because of this, the incidence of obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease is several times the rate of the general population." Stanford's solution, called TrekEase, approximates an arcade driving game. Users back a manual wheelchair into a frame, engage the flywheel for resistance, and start the driving software. "When Chris approached me last year about using [TrekEase] as one of our senior design projects,...

Original source Aug 8, 9:26 AM EDT NEW YORK (AP) -- Harvard scientists say they have created stems cells for 10 genetic disorders, which will allow researchers to watch the diseases develop in a lab dish. This early step, using a new technique, could help speed up efforts to find treatments for some of the most confounding ailments, the scientists said. The new work was reported online Thursday in the journal Cell, and the researchers said they plan to make the cell lines readily available to other scientists. Dr. George Daley and his colleagues at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute used ordinary skin cells and bone marrow from people with a variety of diseases, including Parkinson's, Huntington's and Down syndrome to produce the stem cells. The new cells will allow researchers to "watch the disease progress in a dish, that is, to watch what goes right or wrong," Doug Melton, co-director of the institute, said during a teleconference. "I think we'll see in years...

Original story Jul 31, 5:04 PM EDT WASHINGTON (AP) -- Using a new technique to reprogram cells, scientists are growing neurons from people with Lou Gehrig's disease, a possible first step in understanding how the deadly illness develops. Technically known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, the disease damages the nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord, eventually leading to death. The ALS Association estimates that as many as 30,000 Americans may have the disease at any given time. "What we now have in the culture dish is cells that have the same genetic makeup as the ALS patient and they are the same cells that are affected by the disease," said Dr. Chris Henderson, co-director of the Center for Motor Neuron Biology and Disease at Columbia University. That means that, for the first time, scientists hope to be able to observe the development of the disease in the cells and, from that, possibly begin studies of treatments. "There is no way we could go to an ALS patie...

Original article here Jul 31, 8:48 PM EDT Drug gives couch potato mice benefits of a workout NEW YORK (AP) -- Here's a couch potato's dream: What if a drug could help you gain some of the benefits of exercise without working up a sweat? Scientists reported Thursday that there is such a drug - if you happen to be a mouse. Sedentary mice that took the drug for four weeks burned more calories and had less fat than untreated mice. And when tested on a treadmill, they could run about 44 percent farther and 23 percent longer than untreated mice. Just how well those results might translate to people is an open question. But someday, researchers say, such a drug might help treat obesity, diabetes and people with medical conditions that keep them from exercising. "We have exercise in a pill," said Ron Evans, an author of the study. "With no exercise, you can take a drug and chemically mimic it." Evans, of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, Calif.,...

If You Only Knew ... Reader's Digest offered two dozen doctors a chance to tell it like it really is, and general practitioners, surgeons, shrinks, pediatricians, and other specialists took the challenge. Some wanted to be anonymous; some didn't care. But all of them revealed funny, frightening, and downright shocking things that can help you be a better, smarter patient. We're Impatient • I am utterly tired of being your mother. Every time I see you, I have to say the obligatory "You need to lose some weight." But you swear you "don't eat anything" or "the weight just doesn't come off," and the subject is dropped. Then you come in here complaining about your knees hurting, your back is killing you, your feet ache, and you can't breathe when you walk up half a flight of stairs. So I'm supposed to hold your hand and talk you into backing away from that box of Twinkies. Boy, do I get tired of repeating the stuff most...

NEW YORK (AP) -- Google's online filing cabinet for medical records opened to the public Monday, giving users instant electronic access to their health histories while reigniting privacy concerns. Called Google Health, the service lets users link information from a handful of pharmacies and care providers, including Quest Diagnostics labs. Google plans to add more. Similar offerings include Microsoft Corp.'s HealthVault and Revolution Health, which is backed by AOL co-founder Steve Case. Google Health differentiates itself from the pack through its user interface and things like the public availability of its application program interface, or API, said Marissa Mayer, the Google executive overseeing the service. Mary Adams, 45, a Cleveland Clinic patient who participated in the Google Health pilot, said that she was initially concerned about the privacy of her medical information. Still, she felt safe enough to enroll and has been using the service for about six months, linking ...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- They're the cold cases of medicine, patients with diseases so rare and mysterious that they've eluded diagnosis for years. The National Institutes of Health is seeking those patients - and ones who qualify could get some free care at the government's top research hospital as scientists study why they're sick. "These patients are to a certain extent abandoned by the medical profession because a brick wall has been hit," said Dr. William Gahl, who helped develop the NIH's new Undiagnosed Diseases Program. "We're trying to remove some of that." The pilot program, announced Monday, can only recruit about 100 patients a year. But federal health officials hope that unraveling some of these super-rare diseases in turn will provide clues to more common illnesses. "We believe this is not only a service to be rendered, but also knowledge to be gained," said NIH Director Dr. Elias Zerhouni. About 10,000 new patients a year s...

$115M stem cell research facility planned for San Diego SAN DIEGO (AP) -- A new nonprofit institution plans to build a $115 million stem cell research facility in San Diego that would open by 2010. Although funding still is being lined up, the San Diego Consortium for Regenerative Medicine proposes constructing a 23,740-square-foot building housing laboratories and support space. The facility would be located on more than 7 acres owned by the University of California at San Diego in the Torrey Pines area biotechnology cluster. The university is one of four members of the consortium. The others are the Burnham Institute, Salk Institute and Scripps Research Institute. The state is expected to provide a large portion of the facility's funding. Californians in 2004 approved a measure creating a $3 billion stem cell research agency. A panel for the state agency has determined the San Diego consortium is eligible for $43 million. A condition to receive the state funds is that the buildin...

Apr 9, 6:14 PM EDT WASHINGTON (AP) -- The House voted Tuesday to expand research into and surveillance of traumatic brain injuries, which affect some 1.5 million Americans every year and have come to be the signature wound of the war in Iraq. It also moved to ensure that all newborns get adequate screening for genetic or metabolic diseases. The brain trauma bill, passed 392-1 by the House, closely mirrors legislation already approved by the Senate, and the Senate is expected to act soon to send it to President Bush for his signature. The legislation authorizes National Institutes of Health programs through fiscal year 2011 and directs the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to conduct a study into national traumatic brain injury trends and identify treatments. It also supports Health Resources Service Administration grants to fund state projects to improve access to rehabilitation. It commissions a study into military personnel who have incurred traumatic brain injuries while se...

ScienceDaily (Mar. 2, 2008) — Cancer researchers at the University of Minnesota and North Carolina State University have found that humans and dogs share more than friendship and companionship -- they also share the same genetic basis for certain types of cancer. Furthermore, the researchers say that because of the way the genomes have evolved, getting cancer may be inevitable for some humans and dogs. Jaime Modiano, V.M.D., Ph.D., University of Minnesota College of Veterinary Medicine and Cancer Center, and Matthew Breen, Ph.D., North Carolina State University's Center for Comparative Medicine and Translational Research, collaborated on this research study. Their findings are published in the journal Chromosome Research, in a special edition on comparative cytogenetics and genomics research. Genomes are divided into chromosomes, which act as nature's biological filing cabinets with genes located in specific places. "Many forms of human cancer are associated with specific ...

ATLANTA (AP) -- Americans with disabilities smoke more than everyone else, according to the first national study to compare smoking rates between the two groups. About one in four disabled people are smokers, compared to about one in five among the non-disabled, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Wednesday. More people with disabilities also said they'd seen a doctor or nurse recently, and had been advised to quit cigarettes, the CDC study found. Having such national data is helpful, but the results aren't surprising, said Kenneth Warner, a leading tobacco researcher who is dean of the University of Michigan School of Public Health. The disabled population included people with mental illness and drug and alcohol addictions - groups known to have higher smoking rates. "It is very believable," Warner said, of the CDC study's findings. More than 10 million Americans with disabilities smoke, according to the study authors. They said many disa...

See, here's the deal... I burn x amount of calories a day, so I make sure I only eat x amount of calories per day. Simple, right? Not at first. Mainly because I'm so damn inactive and I burn very few calories in a day. So my caloric intake seems very low. But for my activity level, I actually eat just right, about 1400-1600 calories a day. Forget 3 meals a day with snacks. I eat two meals a day and that's it. Fruit for dessert. Trust me, you get use to it. I don't feel hungry and rarely have hunger pangs or cravings. Luckily, I had many years to figure this out, with my activity level going down slowly. But my weight certainly did creep up on me. At one point a few years ago, I was almost 200 lbs. Granted, I am 6 ft tall, but still, 200 lbs was ridiculous. And it didn't help when using the wheelchair. The muscles in the arms have a hard time doing the job of the large muscles of the legs. But I lost 30 lbs by finally figuring out that I couldn't eat ...

At a recent medical check-up, I had my doc check some suspicious brown spots that had appeared on the side of my left boob. I was concerned about possible skin cancer stuff. She checked them carefully and then said they were " liver spots ". Liver spots? Also known as AGE SPOTS. Oy.