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Ghana Launches Public-Private Partnership To Control Malaria
Ghana"s Ministry of Health recently launched the Nationwide Mosquito Control Programme (NAMCOP) in conjunction with the waste management company Zoomlion Ghana Limited, the Ghanaian Chronicle/allAfrica.com reports (Akweetey, Ghanaian Chronicle/allAfrica.com, 6/19). George Sipa Yankey, Ghana"s health minister, said the government is committed to eliminating malaria and that the initiative will be part of a sustained effort so that Ghana can be the first country in West African to eliminate the disease. He said the government also plans to help the region by transferring local malaria elimination skills to other countries in West Africa.
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Classifying Antiabortion-Rights Crimes As 'Terrorism' Unnecessary, USA Today Opinion Piece States
Scott Roeder, who is charged with the murder of abortion provider George Tiller, and James von Brunn, who is charged with last week"s shooting death of a Holocaust Memorial Museum guard, "appear to be murderers, not terrorists," Jonathan Turley, a professor of public interest law at George Washington University, writes in a USA Today opinion piece. Although "liberals denounced" the tendency of conservatives to call "every possible crime an act of terrorism" while former President George W. Bush was in office, now that there are antiabortion-rights and anti-Semetic suspects, "there is an insistence that these crimes must be treated as terrorism -- as if to call them "murder" or "hate crimes" would diminish their significance," Turley states. Many people who "kill strangers out of hate for their race or religion or some other association" are "loners or rogue operators who seek to satisfy a blood lust against different groups," Turley contends, noting that classifying a crime as an act of terrorism allows for a different types of prosecution, investigation and punishment. According to Turley, the "term "terrorism" once had a clear meaning before it was used as a point of emphasis to evaluate or distinguish certain crimes." The Bush administration"s broadening of the definition to include "any prosecution that disrupts a "potential" terrorism threat" served to further divert the term from its historical definition, he adds. Now, "many want to see terrorism investigations targeting antiabortion activists and other groups that use violent speech," Turley writes."We do not advance our efforts by classifying every hate crime as terrorism," Turley continues, adding that it would be "the terrorists who will benefit from our lack of focus" in the definition. According to Turley, the "fact is that even an authoritarian nation can do little to stop a determined rogue operator from walking into a church and killing someone like Dr. Tiller." Referring to "someone such as Roeder as a murderer does not diminish the crime or the victim" because "we do not have to call murder "terrorism" to take the crime or its causes seriously," Turley writes (Turley, USA Today, 6/17).
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Kohl Bill Would Save Consumers $3.5 Billion Per Year, According To FTC, USA
U.S. Senator Herb Kohl released the following statement on the announcement from U.S. Federal Trade Commission Chairman Jon Leibowitz that banning pay-for-delay settlements that keep generic drugs off the market would save consumers at least $3.5 billion per year and provide significant cost savings for federal government, which pays approximately one-third of all prescription drug costs. Senator Kohl"s bill, the Preserve Access to Affordable Generic Drugs Act (S. 369), would prohibit the anti-consumer practice of brand-name drug manufacturers using pay-off agreements to keep cheaper generic equivalents off the market. Introduced in February with Senators Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Russ Feingold (D-WI), Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), the bill is scheduled to be marked up by the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Public Health

Atherosclerosis Vaccine Development Receives EU Support

The atherosclerosis vaccine development program by AFFiRiS AG is receiving financial support from the EU"s EUROTRANS-BIO call. The respective project is being carried out in cooperation with German company EMC microcollections GmbH. The aim of atherosclerosis vaccination is to increase the amount of "good" high density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDLc) in the blood and thus reduce the occurrence of harmful fatty deposits in the arteries. Product candidates were delivered by AFFiRiS" AFFITOME® platform technology. The target is a protein known as CETP (cholesteryl ester transfer protein). Following vaccines for AlzheimerÂðs disease and Parkinson"s disease, the atherosclerosis vaccine is the third such project announced by AFFiRiS AG. Vienna-based AFFiRiS AG today announced that its atherosclerosis vaccine development program is receiving support from the EU"s EUROTRANS-BIO call. The supported project - known as CETP Vaccine (ETB-2008-28) - is based on the AFFITOME® technology of AFFiRiS AG and is being conducted together with EMC microcollections GmbH from TÃøbingen, Germany. The urgent need for an effective strategy against atherosclerosis is clearly evident from the relevant figures - diseases of the cardiovascular system are the number one cause of death in Europe and the U.S. In Europe, this is at the root of almost 50 % of all deaths. One of the primary causes of cardiovascular disease is atherosclerosis, a narrowing of key arteries due to fatty deposits. Although there are options for medication-based intervention in the form of statins, these are deemed to be of limited effectiveness despite some notable successes. CSO Dr. Frank Mattner explains: "Today"s therapies with Statins act on low density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDLc) and reduce its concentration in the blood. This type of treatment can reduce the likelihood of severe heart disease by as little as 30 % - and that"s only if the patient takes the necessary medication correctly and regularly. In contrast, our vaccine approach aims at decreasing the cholesterol transfer from HDL to LDL, thus increasing the concentration of the beneficial HDL. This vaccine approach with its long-lasting effects should avoid patients having to take life-long, daily medication to a strict regimen." The main item of the joint efforts of AFFiRiS and EMC is the vaccination against cholesteryl ester transfer protein (CETP). By transferring cholesteryl ester from HDLc to LDLc and VLDLc, this protein reduces "good" HDL and has a detrimental impact on the ratio of LDLc to HDLc. In the future, our vaccine will reduce the activity of this protein and shift the balance of HDLc and LDLc in the blood back in favour of HDLc. Outlining the major benefit of the AFFITOME® technology, project manager Dr. Sylvia Brunner adds: "CETP is one of the body"s own proteins. Trying to reduce its activity using a vaccine, we are faced with a formidable challenge. The body has many means of suppressing an immune response to its own proteins, or limiting the effectiveness of any such response. That"s why previous attempts to develop a vaccine against CETP failed. However, as AFFiRiS has already demonstrated in its work on a vaccine for Alzheimer"s disease, the AFFITOME® technology makes it possible to circumvent these mechanisms. We are now applying this principle to atherosclerosis." CEO Dr. Walter Schmidt continues: "So far, we have announced the development of vaccines for three diseases - Alzheimer"s, Parkinson"s and now atherosclerosis. Currently, four other indications are also part of our development pipeline, all of them characterised by a very high number of patients but also by a lack of satisfactory treatments. As a result, these indications fit in well with our long-term strategy. Our strategy itself is beginning to pay back as demonstrated by the licensing agreement worth EUR 430 million that we recently concluded with GSK Biologicals regarding the rights for the technology for our Alzheimer"s vaccine programs." The CETP Vaccine project is scheduled to last 30 months and is due to culminate in phase I clinical trials. Overall, the support provided to the project by the EU is worth several hundred thousand euros, while the two project partners are bearing around half of the total costs. AFFiRiS AG


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