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Teens Are Exposed To Tobacco Content On Social Networking Sites
When teens surf the Internet, are they exposed to tobacco content or imagery? The study, "Exposure to Tobacco on the Internet: Content Analysis of Adolescents" Internet Use," tracked the Web pages viewed by 346 teens between the ages of 14 and 17 years. During a one-month period of data collection, these adolescents viewed 1.2 million Web pages. Of those pages, 0.72 percent contained tobacco or smoking content. Pro-tobacco content was found on 1,916 pages, anti-tobacco content on 1,572 pages, and complex and/or unclear content on 5,055 pages. Most of the tobacco-related content seen by teens was found on social networking sites. MySpace in particular represented 53 percent of the pages on which tobacco content was found. Previous studies have found a link between exposure to tobacco content in traditional media and adolescent smoking. The authors caution that as more communication occurs online in social networking sites, this may also impact adolescent smoking.
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The Right Cardiovascular Care For The Right Patient At The Right Time: ACC Positions Quality At Center Of Health-Care Reform
The American College of Cardiology (ACC) - long at the forefront of quality initiatives - is taking a leading role in health care reform. In partnership with patients, lawmakers and payers, the ACC is setting a new standard for health care delivery, one that centers on increasing the quality of care and ensuring greater patient access and value.
News of the day
Advocates Weigh Impact Of Tiller Murder On Future Of Abortion Debate
Opponents and supporters of abortion rights on Monday said they expect the murder of Kansas abortion provider George Tiller on Sunday to further intensify the debate over reproductive rights in the U.S., with some abortion-rights advocates expressing concern that the killing could spur a new wave of protests or violence from opponents, the Washington Post reports. Tiller, one of the few U.S. doctors who performed abortions later in pregnancy, was shot to death on Sunday at his church in Kansas. According to the Post, Tiller"s death has brought the issue of violence back into the spotlight in the abortion debate at a time when President Obama is urging both sides to find "common ground." Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, said the "ongoing pattern of hateful rhetoric" used by some in the antiabortion-rights movement contributes to violence like Tiller"s shooting (Slevin, Washington Post, 6/2). Keenan singled out groups that she said have used "hateful rhetoric" in recent months. "If they truly abhor the violence their rhetoric is encouraging, then they need to stop using the inflammatory phrases to describe the people they don"t agree with," she said, adding that "until then, I think their claims of the shock of Dr. Tiller"s murder ring very hollow." The antiabortion-rights group Operation Rescue is at the center of debate over whether certain rhetoric stokes violence in the movement, NPR"s "Morning Edition" reports. The group"s founder, Randall Terry, said after the shooting, "What that man did by shooting George Tiller is wrong. Period" (Rovner, "Morning Edition," NPR, 6/2). However, Terry also called Tiller a "mass murderer" who "reaped what he sowed" (Milligan, Boston Globe, 6/2). Tom McClusky, vice president of the Family Research Council"s legislative arm, said the group is concerned with "how an action like this might be exploited" by abortion-rights supporters, particularly the idea of condemning the entire antiabortion-rights movement for Tiller"s death. He said that FRC is "already seeing some indications of people trying to throw everybody into the same boat" ("Morning Edition," NPR, 6/2).The Rev. Rob Schenck, president of the National Clergy Council, said that Terry"s views do not represent the modern antiabortion-rights movement. Schenck added that he believes "that a lot of pro-life leaders from the past are not carefully, prayerfully thinking through the moral consequences of an act like" the shooting. Schenck and abortion-rights opponents also expressed concerns that the murder will harm the credibility of their attempt to block the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor. "When an act like this happens, it becomes a greater threat to the pro-life movement than anything the pro-choice movement" could do, Schenck said (Boston Globe, 6/2). Andy Wollen of the centrist group Kansas Traditionalist Republican Majority said that Tiller"s shooting "brings home the impact of the kind of rhetoric that the hard right uses when they talk about abortion." He said that when antiabortion-rights advocates "called him "Tiller the Killer" and they call their political opponents "baby killers," as they do on a regular basis, they"re opening the doors" to acts of violence.Meanwhile, USA Today reports that U.S Attorney General Eric Holder has increased security measures for abortion providers and clinics across the country, including Tiller"s clinic (Bello/Stone, USA Today, 6/2). Dan Monnat, Tiller"s attorney, said that the clinic is currently closed for mourning but will reopen next week to serve women who "came to Dr. Tiller because they had nowhere else to turn" (Washington Post, 6/2). Scott Roeder, the man accused of shooting Tiller, remained in custody in Wichita, Kan., the day after the shooting. USA Today reports that the district attorney has until today to file charges (USA Today, 6/1).
Diagnostics

Study Reveals A Reprogrammed Role For The Androgen Receptor In Adndrogen-independent Prostate Cancer

The androgen receptor a protein ignition switch for prostate cancer cell growth and division is a master of adaptability. When drug therapy deprives the receptor of androgen hormones, thereby halting cell proliferation, the receptor manages to find an alternate growth route. A new study by Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Ohio State University scientists demonstrates how. The shift from androgen-dependent to androgen-independent cell growth occurs, in part, because the androgen receptor switches on an entirely different set of genes in the latter group than in the former, the researchers report in the July 24 issue of Cell. In contrast to androgen-dependent prostate tumors, androgen-independent ones experience an uptick in the activity of genes that control cell division, or mitosis. One such gene, called UBE2C, which causes cells to ignore a natural pause in the division process, becomes especially active, the researchers report. This pause, or "checkpoint," ensures that cell division progresses normally; without it, daughter cells may grow even more aggressively and be harder to stop. "The evolution of prostate cancer from an androgen-dependent state to an androgen-independent one is a key step in its progression," says study senior author Myles Brown, MD, of Dana-Farber. "The discovery that the androgen receptor directs a distinct gene pathway in androgen-independent prostate cancers may lead to the identification of genes in that pathway that can be targeted by future therapies." Prostate cancers whose growth is fed by androgen are commonly treated with androgen-blocking drugs. Such medications can hold the disease in check for a period of time that varies from patient to patient, but the tumor almost invariably gains the ability to grow without external androgen. One of the ways such cells re-start their growth is by producing their own androgen, scientists have discovered. Another way involves the androgen receptor itself the "keyhole" in the cell nucleus that androgen molecules fit into but the actual mechanism by which it operates hasn"t been known. To find that mechanism, Brown"s team, including co-lead authors Qianben Wang, PhD, now of Ohio State, and Wei Li, PhD, now of Baylor College of Medicine, charted the activity levels, or expression, of genes controlled by the androgen receptor in androgen-dependent and androgen-independent prostate cancer cells. In the androgen-independent cells, they found a group of genes with epigenetic markings tiny attachments to DNA that switchs genes on and off that caused them to be especially active. The genes form a completely separate pathway from the one active in androgen-dependent cells. It"s not known what causes those epigenetic changes to occur, but "we are profiling the genome-wide epigenetic landscape of androgen-dependent and -independent cancers, trying both experimental and computational methods to identify additional regulators," says study co-senior author X. Shirley Liu, PhD, of Dana-Farber. "The androgen receptor clearly works by an entirely different program in androgen-dependent and -independent cancers," says Wang. "Having discovered that program, we"ll be in a better position to understand how it operates and how gene-targeted therapies may shut it down." The study was supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health, the U.S. Department of Defense, and the Prostate Cancer Foundation. Co-authors of the study include Yong Zhang, PhD, Kexin Xu, PhD, Mathieu Lupien, Meredith Regan, ScD, Clifford Meyer, PhD, Arjun Kumn Manrai, Michelangelo Fiorentino, MD, PhD, Christopher Fiore, Massimo Loda, MD, and Philip Kantoff, MD, Dana-Farber; Rameen Beroukhim, MD, PhD, Dana-Farber and the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT; Zhong Chen, PhD, Ohio State; Xin Yuan, MD, PhD, Hongyun Wang, PhD, and Steven Balk, MD, PhD, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston; Jindan Yu, PhD, Rohit Mehra, MD, Bo Han, and Arul Chinnaiyan, MD, PhD, University of Michigan; Tao Wu, PhD, Harvard Medical School; Jason Carroll, PhD, Cambridge Research Institute in the United Kingdom; Olli Janne, MD, PhD, University of Helsinki; Mark Rubin, MD, Weill Cornell Medical College; and Lawrence True, MD, University of Washington. Dana-Farber Cancer Institute


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