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- Mouse is engineered to assist MD research
-
- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
-
- ST. LOUIS (August 24, 1997 2:34 p.m. EDT) -- Washington University
- scientists have engineered a mouse that will enable intensified study of
- Duchenne muscular dystrophy.
-
- The development could lead to better treatments and quicker
- understanding of the mechanisms of the disease, the researchers say. The
- study was reported in today's issue of the journal Cell. Among
- the authors were Joshua Sanes and Dr. R. Mark Grady, both of the
- university's School of Medicine.
-
- Duchenne muscular dystrophy, a muscle disease, mostly strikes boys. It
- usually kills them before age 20 after gradually weakening their
- muscles, including those needed to breathe.
-
- "This is another step toward the answer for children with Duchenne
- muscular dystrophy," said Debbie King, program services coordinator with
- the St. Louis office of the Muscular Dystrophy Association. "Anyone
- hearing about this would certainly be more hopeful. It's hope that keeps
- all of our families going right now."
-
- The MDA sponsors the annual telethon hosted by Jerry Lewis. This year's
- telethon is set for Aug. 31 and Sept. 1.
-
- Put simply, Duchenne results from a gene defect that acts as the
- blueprint for one of the building blocks of healthy muscle fibers. That
- building block is a protein known as dystrophin.
-
- The St. Louis researchers worked with two kinds of mice. One naturally
- lacked the gene for dystrophin. From the other kind of mouse, they
- removed the gene responsible for a different muscle protein, called
- utrophin.
-
- They bred the two kinds of mice to create a mouse that was deficient in
- both proteins. This mouse exhibited the same symptoms as a human with
- Duchenne.
-
- *** "The only effective way to develop new therapies is to test them in
- an experimental animal with symptoms of the disease," Sanes said in a
- statement made public by the university. *** [emphasis mine - AG]
-
- The MDA supported the research along with the National Institute of
- Neurological Disorders and Stroke.
-
- By WILLIAM ALLEN, St. Louis Post-Dispatch
-
- ===================================================
-
- Apparently, certain Washington U. researchers never heard of clinical
- research.
-
- Andy
- Date: Sun, 24 Aug 1997 20:57:52 -0700
- From: Andrew Gach <UncleWolf@worldnet.att.net>
- To: ar-news@envirolink.org
- Subject: Deadly Medicine
- Message-ID: <340102C0.3C48@worldnet.att.net>
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- Liposuction deaths show danger of quest for eternal youth
-
- The Associated Press
-
- Experts provide advice about liposuction
-
- LOS ANGELES (August 24, 1997 1:52 p.m. EDT) -- Judy Fernandez wanted the
- looks she had before she gave birth to three sons, and cosmetic surgery
- seemed to offer an acceptable trade-off: 12 hours of surgery costing
- $20,000 -- for a renewed face and body.
-
- She was 47 and in good health, and her sister-in-law, Marilyn Larsen,
- says her motives were obvious: "As a society, we really are encouraged
- to stay young, to look 40 at 60."
-
- But Fernandez never woke up from the liposuction and cosmetic procedures
- at "A New You Plastic Surgery Medical Group" in Irvine. She died March
- 17 from what the Medical Board of California called an overdose of
- anesthesia, fluid overload and a fatal dilution of the blood.
-
- The case is one of three liposuction deaths currently under
- investigation in California -- just the tip of the iceberg, experts say,
- in a burgeoning, unmonitored field driven by a quest for perpetual
- youth.
-
- The risks of cosmetic surgery are increasing as it becomes more
- accessible to the middle class, experts say. With more doctors in a
- variety of specialties offering the procedures, some are pushing
- the margins of safety -- often in private, outpatient surgical suites
- hidden from scrutiny.
-
- It was in just such a setting that Rosemarie Mondeck, 39, of San Diego,
- died June 21, 1994, from cardiac arrest after tummy liposuction at a La
- Jolla dermatologist's office.
-
- Deputy Attorney General Steven Zeigen said Dr. Nina Su, working without
- an anesthesiologist, administered too much epinephrine, a drug used to
- control local bleeding.
-
- "Once Mondeck started to crash, (Su) didn't know what she was doing,"
- Zeigen said. The board temporarily suspended Su's license on April 24
- pending results of a disciplinary hearing.
-
- Says her attorney, Richard K. Turner of Sacramento: "I don't think she
- did anything wrong."
-
- Tammaria Cotton, a 43-year-old municipal court clerk from Los Angeles,
- suffered massive blood loss and died of cardiac arrest June 22, 1996,
- hours after obstetrician-gynecologist Dr. Patrick Chavis removed fat
-