Category Archives: Press Releases

New York’s Medical Schools Urge Congress to Preserve Federal Funding for Scientific Research & Workforce Development

The Associated Medical Schools of New York (AMSNY) today directed a letter to the New York State Congressional Delegation calling on them to reject a nearly 10-percent cut to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Medicare and Title VII health professions programs, that will take effect January 2, 2013.

“In order to meet the health challenges of an aging and increasingly diverse population, continue to foster the types of innovation that will drive our regional economy, and remain a vibrant force in the global economy, we need to invest more in medical research and the health care workforce, not less,” said Dr. Lee Goldman, AMSNY’s chair, and executive vice president and dean of the Columbia University College of Physicians & Surgeons. “Cuts to vital research and educational programs will delay medical progress and deny hope to millions of Americans.“

The AMSNY letter states that “the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) estimates the pending sequestration action will reduce NIH funding in FY 2013 by $2.5 billion. Medical schools and teaching hospitals would lose more than $1 billion nationally. Approximately $167 million in funding would be lost in New York State alone. According to a 2010 Tripp Umbach report commissioned by AMSNY, the state receives an economic return of $7.50 for each research dollar invested in New York’s medical schools. Therefore, a $167 million loss in NIH funding would equate to an overall loss of approximately $1.25 billion to New York’s economy and result in lost jobs.”

“The high quality of medical care we enjoy today is built upon years of effort by physicians, scientists and other medical professionals investigating the causes of, and potential treatments for, disease,” said Dr. Goldman. “For millions of patients and their families, medical research means hope. It is the promise for a future that will alleviate pain and illness for those suffering from diseases such as cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer’s, depression, and Parkinson’s. To fully realize this hope, we must sustain federal support for the NIH.”

As the largest federal funding agency for medical research, NIH invested more than $30 billion in FY 2012. More than 80 percent of the NIH’s budget goes to more than 300,000 research personnel at more than 2,500 universities and research institutions across the country. More than half of this funding goes to medical schools and teaching hospitals. These institutions are committed to pioneering tomorrow’s cures and medical advances, and bringing them to patients.

U.S. Representative Eliot Engel, a senior member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Health said, “I voted against the Budget Control Act because Congress must make these tough budgetary decisions, not the President, not any ‘Super Committee.’ Sequestration was the result of the Budget Control Act’s failure. Congress must do its job and pass a realistic deficit plan, not pass the buck. We have to work together and make the tough decisions we were elected to make. The cuts that are part of sequestration were supposed to be a deterrent to gridlock, as they are odious to everyone, especially New York’s hospitals and medical research efforts. We have to strike a real deal to avoid these cuts, and bring our nation’s debt under control.”

U.S. Representative Nita Lowey stated, “It is critical for medical schools and research institutions in New York and nationwide to replace arbitrary and reckless cuts from sequestration with targeted reductions that do not jeopardize our health and competitiveness. I will work with Dean Goldman and all New York research institutions to prevent these short-sighted cuts from occurring.”

U.S. Representative Carolyn B. Maloney said, “New York’s world-class hospitals and medical research facilities are not just the crown jewels of our nation’s health care system, they are a key driver behind our economic recovery and job growth, as well as a prime source for advances in combating disease and the development of cutting-edge technology. We must avoid triggering a sequestration of federal funding that will inflict devastating cuts to the research and development programs that are our hope for the future. I am determined to join colleagues in both parties and both houses of Congress to prevent our nation from being hijacked off the fiscal cliff.”

U.S. Representative Jerry Nadler stated, “Sequestration would have catastrophic effects on our economy, on jobs, and on the health care and services that millions of Americans depend on. If the National Institutes of Health suffer 8.2% cuts as planned, we would lose thousands of good local jobs and vital health care funding that New Yorkers depend on. Our children, seniors, middle class and low income people cannot afford such a blow, especially in the midst of a protracted recession.”

U.S. Representative Charles B. Rangel said, “We cannot afford these cuts. New York’s medical schools and teaching hospitals have pioneered the latest technologies and new cures for patients through their cutting-edge research. These institutions have dramatically improved Americans’ health and helped place our nation as the world’s leader in biomedical research. We must not jeopardize efforts to advance medical innovation.”

Dr. Allen M. Spiegel, the Marilyn and Stanley M. Katz Dean of Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University, said, “Now, when our ability to understand cancer, Alzheimer’s, autism and many other diseases has never been greater, is exactly the wrong time to cut potentially life-saving research supported by NIH.”

Dr. Kenneth Kaushansky, senior vice president for the health sciences and dean of the Stony Brook University School of Medicine, said, “Major cuts to National Institutes of Health funding that supports medical research would be devastating to the progress of academic medicine, a vital component driving the success of new discoveries and innovations to fight and cure disease. The NIH is the largest source of federal research funding to Stony Brook Medicine. This funding is absolutely critical to advancing our research on next-generation diagnostics and therapeutics for cancer, heart disease, and other conditions affecting millions.”

Dr. Ian Taylor, dean of SUNY Downstate Medical Center’s College of Medicine, said, “As an academic medical center in an inner-city environment, SUNY Downstate is acutely aware of how economic pressures can have a negative impact on providing clinical care, educating and training new health professionals, and conducting medical research. We urge Congress and the Administration to work together to avoid the sequestration mandated by the Budget Control Act and instead to continue to invest in health care, health education, and the research that brings new medical treatments to the marketplace.”

Dr. David Duggan, interim dean of SUNY Upstate Medical University, said, “We must avoid the devastating and unwarranted cuts to the National Institutes of Health, Title VII health professions training programs, and Medicare that would further reduce our nations health care workforce and undermine the research that has the promise to improve care for patients with diseases like cancer, neurological diseases and diabetes. The health of our children is too important to sacrifice.”

Dr. Laurie H. Glimcher, the Stephen and Suzanne Weiss dean of Weill Cornell Medical College, said, “Federal research funding through the National Institutes of Health provides the backbone for scientific discoveries in laboratories throughout the country and a vital economic engine in the communities that host them. Clinical therapies developed from these discoveries improve and save lives every day. Congress must act to avert the NIH cuts that would result from sequestration for both New York’s economy and for the health of all New Yorkers.”

The Congressional Delegation was also asked to oppose Medicare reductions that will limit educational and research initiatives at teaching hospitals, as well as funding cuts to Title VII, which supports the training of a diverse health care workforce.

“Maintaining current funding levels for NIH, Medicare and Title VII is critical to the economic well-being of New York State, as well as that of the nation,” said Dr. Goldman.

About AMSNY: The Associated Medical Schools of New York (AMSNY) is a consortium of the sixteen public and private medical schools across the State. Its mission is to promote high quality and cost-efficient health care by assuring that the NYS medical schools can provide outstanding medical education, care and research.

Amsterdam physicists' perfect chrystals experiment enroute to International Space Center

The Soyuz space rocket that departed for the International Space Station (ISS) on Sept. 10 is carrying an experiment developed by physicists at the University of Amsterdam (UvA) designed to  study the formation of perfect crystals without disturbance by gravity. The experiment will start on Sept. 14 after installation at the space station.

The linking of the Soyuz rocket to the International Space Station can be viewed live on NASA TV on September 12.

The research group, led by Dr. Peter Schall with the University of Amsterdam’s Van der Waals-Zeeman Institute, studies the physical properties of soft matter. This involves designing and studying particles which are approximately 1,000 times larger than atoms. The researchers use the so-called critical Casimir effect (an effect similar to a known quantum effect) to regulate the attraction of the particles in liquids. An example of material that can be made in this way are photonic crystals. The researchers build nano-structures by allowing the particles to float in a liquid. This creates a suspension (similar, for example, to fat particles in milk). By increasing the attraction of the particles – through a change in temperature – the particles subsequently bind together. But the more particles are clustered, the heavier the structure. This sinks to the bottom, making any ordered structure disappear. The weightless environment in the ISS’ European Columbus laboratory makes it possible to study the formation of perfect crystals without disturbance by gravity.

Fundamental insights

Astronauts will carry out the experiments, but the researchers themselves will have direct control. Imaging equipment aboard the ISS will record the growth process. These images will be sent directly back to earth via an internet connection (LAN). Researchers at the European Space Astronomy Centre (ESAC) near Madrid will adjust the temperature, and thus the interactions, based on the images. They can freeze the whole experiment and melt it to start again, or turn it around completely. The result of these efforts, which will hopefully be perfect crystals, will not however return back to earth. But this is no shortcoming of the experiment . The fundamental insight that the experiment yields are paramount.

The project is financed by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO). The research team includes Dr. Peter Schall, Prof. Gerard Wegdam and Dr. Sandra Veen from the University of Amsterdam and Dr. Marco Potenza and Dr. Matteo Alaimo from the Università degli Studi di Milano, Italy, in collaboration with Dr . Stefano Mazzoni of the European Space Agency (ESA).

Rectal cancer rates are rising in young individuals

A new analysis has found that while colon cancer rates have remained steady over the past several decades among people under the age of 40, rectal cancer rates are increasing in this population across races and in both sexes. Published early online in Cancer, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society, the study indicates that greater efforts are needed to diagnose rectal cancer in young individuals who show potential signs of the disease.

Rectal cancer is considered to be rare among young individuals in the United States. Because underestimating rectal cancer’s incidence may lead to missed or delayed diagnoses in younger people, Joshua Meyer, MD, a radiation oncologist currently at Fox Chase Cancer Center, led a team that analyzed trends in rectal cancer incidence in the United States compared with colon cancer trends.  Meyer worked on this research while at the New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York City.

By conducting a retrospective study using data from the Surveillance Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) cancer registry, the investigators identified 7,661 colon and rectal cancer patients under age 40 years between 1973 and 2005. The researchers then calculated the change in incidence over time for colon and rectal cancers.

Overall rates of colon and of rectal cancer were low during the years of the study (1.11 cases and 0.42 cases per 100,000, respectively). While colon cancer rates remained essentially flat in individuals under age 40 years in recent decades, rectal cancer rates have been increasing since 1984. Specifically, between 1984 and 2005, the rate of rectal cancer diagnosis rose 3.8 percent per year.

“We suggest that in young people presenting with rectal bleeding or other common signs of rectal cancer, endoscopic evaluation should be considered in order to rule out a malignancy,” said Dr. Meyer. “This is in contrast to what is frequently done, which is to attribute these findings to hemorrhoids. More frequent endoscopic evaluation may be able to decrease the documented delay in diagnosis among young people,” he explained. Because the overall incidence of rectal cancer is relatively low, the authors do not advocate for a change in screening guidelines.

Citation

“Increasing incidence of rectal cancer in patients under age 40: an analysis of the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results database,” Joshua E. Meyer, Tarun Narang, Felice H. Schnoll-Sussman, Mark B. Pochapin, Paul J. Christos, David L. Sherr. CANCER; Published Online: August 23, 2010 (DOI: 10.1002/cncr.25432).

 

Vitamin deficiency after weight loss surgery can cause vision loss in newborns: Case study reported in the Journal of AAPOS

Biliopancreatic diversion surgery for morbid obesity is known to cause multiple vitamin deficiencies that may worsen during pregnancy. In the June issue of the Journal of AAPOS, the Official Publication of the American Association for Pediatric Ophthalmology and Strabismus, a group of Australian clinicians report a child who was born blind as a result of Vitamin A deficiency caused by his mother’s obesity surgery.

Morning Test Helps Doctors Save Kidneys

A morning urine test is superior to all other tests for detecting declining kidney performance in patients with diabetic kidney disease, according to a study appearing in an upcoming issue of the Journal of the American Society Nephrology (JASN). The results suggest that clinicians should monitor kidney function by measuring the albumin:creatinine ratio from a first morning urine sample.

Steroids Help Preserve Kidney Function in Type of Kidney Disease

For patients with IgA nephropathy, a type of kidney disease, steroid treatment can prevent or delay loss of kidney function, according to a study appearing in an upcoming issue of the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (JASN). IgA nephropathy is an autoimmune disease that affects the kidneys and a major cause of end-stage kidney failure in younger people.

« Older Entries