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Obama Names NYC Health Commissioner Frieden Next CDC Director
President Obama on Friday named New York City Health Commissioner Thomas Frieden as the new director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the New York Times reports. It has long been expected that Obama would select Frieden, an infectious disease specialist who is "widely admired" in the public health arena, according to the Times. In his seven years as health commissioner of New York City, Frieden pushed to establish HIV testing as a part of routine medical exams and defended a condom-distribution program that hands out more than 35 million condoms annually. Frieden is expected to take office in June and does not require Senate confirmation for the position. He will replace Richard Besser, the current acting director of CDC, who will return to his position as head of CDC"s coordinating office for terrorism preparedness and emergency response.The Times reports that Frieden will "inherit a host of immediate and long-term problems" at CDC, including organizational issues, low morale and the Obama administration"s health care reform agenda. "Health care reform also needs to be on his plate," Jeffrey Koplan, who served as CDC director from 1998 to 2002, said, adding, "There is a huge opportunity there to improve public health, and it"s one in which any CDC director will want to be a player." Several health care advocates praised the appointment, according to the Times. Dennis deLeon, president of the Latino Commission on AIDS in New York City said that Frieden is "willing to challenge the status quo in an effort to make a difference." Jeffrey Levi, executive director of the not-for-profit Trust for America"s Health, said Frieden is a "transformational leader" who "can take public health to a new place" (Harris/Hartocollis, New York Times, 5/15).
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Study Links Depressive Mood, Racial Disparities In Preterm Birth
Women who have depression symptoms prior to becoming pregnant are at an increased risk for having preterm births, with the risk twice as high for black women as for white women, according to a study in the Journal of Women"s Health, Reuters reports. For the study, Amelia Gavin of the University of Washington and colleagues examined the links between race, preterm birth and pre-pregnancy depressive mood among 555 women. The study used data collected from 1990-1996 as part of a larger, long-term investigation of heart disease risk.Researchers determined that 18.1% of the 249 black women in the study gave birth prior to 37 weeks" gestation, compared with 8.5% of the 306 white women in the study. The study also found that 9.4% of black women had pre-pregnancy symptoms of depressive mood, compared with 7.2% of white women. After researchers accounted for other factors associated with preterm birth, such as body weight and sociodemographic characteristics, black women"s risk remained more than twice that of white women.Gavin said, "The black-white disparity in preterm birth may be in part a consequence of different exposures to depressive mood prior to pregnancy." She said, "Reproductive outcomes must be viewed in light of women"s health over the entire life-course, as well as during pregnancy," adding that the study"s results suggest that "the experience of cumulative health disadvantages or "weathering"" might play a role in increased risk for preterm birth (Hendry, Reuters, 6/25).
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Breast Cancer Risk Signalled By Wet Ear Wax And Unpleasant Body Odors
If having malodorous armpits (called osmidrosis) and goopy earwax isn"t bad enough, a discovery by Japanese scientists may add a more serious problem for women facing these cosmetic calamities. That"s because they"ve found that a gene responsible for breast cancer causes these physical symptoms. The report describing this finding is featured on the cover of The FASEB Journal"s June 2009 print issue, and should arm physicians with another clue for detecting breast cancer risk.
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Symposium & Live Announcement Of Genetics And Neuroscience Prize Recipients: Gruber Prize Program 10th Anniversary

July 1, 2009 9:30am - Noon Caspary Auditorium Rockefeller University The Peter and Patricia Gruber Foundation International Prize Program will celebrate its tenth anniversary on July 1, 2009, with an event to be held at Rockefeller University in New York City. The 2009 Gruber Genetics Prize and Neuroscience Prize recipients will be announced live at the event, which will also include a symposium entitled DNA, the Brain, and Society. The discussion will feature a panel of distinguished scientists whose pioneering work is at the forefront of modern genetics and neuroscience: * Dr. David Botstein, 2003 Gruber Genetics Prize laureate and director of the Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics at Princeton University, who has helped lead the revolution in modern genetics with his innovative methods for mapping the human genome and the genes that cause disease, will speak on "The Fruits of the Genome Sequences for Society." * Dr. Linda Buck, associate director of Basic Sciences at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, whose research has provided key insights into the mechanisms that underlie the sense of smell in mammals and earned her the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, will speak on "Deconstructing Smell." * Dr. Fred Gage, professor in the Laboratory of Genetics at the Salk Institute and recipient of the Max Planck Research Prize, whose work may eventually make possible the replacement or enhancement of brain and spinal cord tissue lost or damaged due to neurodegenerative disease or trauma, will speak on "Brain Plasticity and Diversity." * Dr. Solomon Snyder, professor in the Department of Neuroscience at Johns Hopkins University Medical School, whose discoveries about communication mechanisms within and between brain cells earned him the National Medal of Science, will speak on "Novel Neural Messengers Impacting Neural Diseases." The Gruber Prize Program began in 2000 with the Cosmology Prize and was expanded thereafter with the Genetics and Justice Prizes added in 2001, the Women Rights Prize in 2003, and the Neuroscience Prize in 2004. The Program honors contemporary individuals whose groundbreaking work in those five fields provides new models that inspire and enable fundamental shifts in knowledge and culture. The Selection Advisory Boards choose individuals whose contributions in their respective fields advance our knowledge, potentially have a profound impact on our lives, and, in the case of the Justice and Women"s Rights Prizes, demonstrate courage and commitment in the face of significant obstacles. Alyson O"Mahoney Robin Leedy & Associates, Inc.


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