Gene Therapy Offers Hope for Severe Hereditary Eye Disease

SATURDAY, Oct. 24 (HealthDay News) -- Gene therapy can improve the vision of people with a severe form of genetically inherited retinal degeneration called Leber congenital amaurosis (LCA), a new study shows.
People with LCA, which is caused by mutations in any of least 13 genes, have severe vision loss and abnormal eye movements in early infancy and during early childhood. Most people with the disease are blind by their 30s or 40s. There is no cure, according to background information provided in a news release.
The new phase I trial included 12 patients, aged 8 to 44 years, who were injected in one eye with genetic material meant to correct LCA. The gene therapy led to at least a 100-fold increase in pupillary light response (constriction of the pupil when it's exposed to light) in the participants. An 8-year-old patient developed nearly the same level of light sensitivity as a person with normal vision, the study authors reported.
In general, the greatest improvements were seen in children aged 8 to 11, all of whom gained ambulatory vision -- being able to see well enough to walk unaided.
"All 12 patients given gene therapy in one eye showed improvement in retinal function. The effect was stable during follow-up. The results support our hypothesis that the response to subretinal gene therapy depends on the extent of retinal degeneration and, therefore, the age of the patient," wrote Dr. Jean Bennett, of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in Philadelphia, and colleagues.
"The most noteworthy result was the ability of children to navigate an obstacle course independently and accurately, even in dim light," the study authors wrote. "The visual recovery noted in the children confirms the hypothesis that efficacy will be improved if treatment is applied before retinal degeneration has progressed. Assessment of whether the treatment alters the natural progression of the retinal degeneration will be possible in follow-up studies," they added.
"The success of this gene therapy study in children provides the foundation for gene therapy approaches to the treatment of other forms of LCA and of additional early onset retinal diseases," the researchers concluded.
The study is published in the Oct. 24 online edition and in an upcoming print issue of The Lancet.

Win at Weight Loss

Miriam Nelson, Ph.D., doesn't work with celebrities. Her clients are real women with real jobs, real families, and real bodies. She's also part of the prestigious committee of scientists and researchers that created the government's physical activity recommendations. That's why we tapped Nelson to develop an exclusive plan to put a firmer, slimmer body and better health within reach in as little as 10 minutes most days of the week.
"Many women think if they can't do an hour of exercise every day, they may as well do nothing," says Nelson. But you can see results with far less. Nelson should know—that's how she stays healthy: "There are plenty of days that I have just 10 minutes to fit in a walk. At least once during the week, I get in a run or bike ride. Then on the weekend, I exercise a lot more."
The best way to shorten your sessions is to boost the intensity, says Nelson. Research has found that a vigorous 20 minutes can melt 5 times more fat than a leisurely 40-minute workout—music to the ears of many 40-something women who find their waistlines expanding just as their free time is shrinking.

Our plan uses a point system based on the federal physical activity guidelines* that lets you exercise as much (or as little) as needed, based on your goal. You'll get a weekly point target, then you decide how to hit your mark. Simply pick from our customizable cardio and strength routines, plus a bonus list of calorie-torching activities. You'll lose inches all over, firm up, or reach your goal weight in no time. (Federal guidelines recommend at least 150 minutes of moderate intensity or 75 minutes of vigorous intensity physical activity, plus two or more strength workouts a week.

What is home insurance?

Homeowners insurance, or home insurance, compensates you for losses to your home and your possessions inside it, so purchasing a homeowners policy provides added security for your investment. Home insurance also protects you if you're legally liable for someone's injuries on your property, as well as from financial losses caused by storms, fire, theft and other events outlined in your policy.
Why buy condo insurance?
Home insurance isn't your only option when it comes to protecting your belongings. When you own a condominium, you — not your condo association — are responsible for what's inside your condo. That's why having a personal condo insurance policy is important.
Why buy renters insurance?
Renters insurance protects you in situations that everyone can face: fire, theft, water damage and other unforeseen circumstances — situations your apartment owner's policy doesn't cover.

Homeowners insurance, or home insurance, compensates you for losses to your home and your possessions inside it, so purchasing a homeowners policy provides added security for your investment. Home insurance also protects you if you're legally liable for someone's injuries on your property, as well as from financial losses caused by storms, fire, theft and other events outlined in your policy.
Why buy condo insurance?
Home insurance isn't your only option when it comes to protecting your belongings. When you own a condominium, you — not your condo association — are responsible for what's inside your condo. That's why having a personal condo insurance policy is important.
Why buy renters insurance?
Renters insurance protects you in situations that everyone can face: fire, theft, water damage and other unforeseen circumstances — situations your apartment owner's policy doesn't cover.

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How Mobile Cloud Computing Will Change Tech

What happens when you promise end-users a persistent connection to data, applications and services regardless of the device they’re using? Mobile cloud computing aims to deliver just such a promise. Mobile access to popular web-based services such as Facebook and Gmail, combined with next-generation smartphones like the iPhone, Palm Pre and Android devices, is driving broad adoption of mobile data. However, the center of economic gravity is shifting. Historically, access to the mobile network was the service. But as users have expanded the uses for those bits, what the user does in a given session becomes fundamental to how much the service provider can charge the user or a third party (e.g. an advertiser). Thus, it’s likely that the mobile, IT and MCC sectors will continue their current marriage of convenience to attack a rare convergence of both short-term and longer term opportunity. However, in the process of adapting to an Internet that’s becoming more global, mobile and web-based by the day, the mobile and IT industries will be forced into new ways of doing business.

One of the original goals of Google has always been to help people find the information they are looking for and get out of the way as fast as possible. It was a point of pride, and in fact a design principle, to get people off the search results page to other places on the Internet. Yahoo was the site that tried to keep you from ever leaving, Google was the opposite. Well, it was easier to send people away when Google was just a search engine. Now it has apps and Gmail and Google Maps and Google Books, and a lot of other reasons to stick around on Google itself. But there is still a clear demarcation between its content/communication sites and search. At least there was until late last week when it launched Google Places on Google Maps. Google Places is a local search page for restaurants and other local businesses that brings together the address, phone number, Website, maps, description, directions, photos and reviews all on one page. When you click on a pin for a local business or place of interest on Google Maps a bubble will open up, and if you click “more info” sometimes it will take you to the Google Places page. So far, so good. Google Places is simply making Google Maps better, right? The concerns arise, however, back on Google’s main search page, where Google is indexing these Places pages. Since Google controls its own search index, it can push Google Places more prominently if it so desires. There isn’t a heck of a lot of evidence that Google is doing this yet, but the mere fact that Google is indexing these Places pages has the SEO world in a tizzy. And Google is indexing them, despite assurances to the contrary. If you do a search for the Burdick Chocolate Cafe in Boston, for instance, the Google Places page is the sixth result, above results from Yelp, Yahoo Travel, and New York Times Travel. This wouldn’t be so bad if Google wasn’t already linking to itself in the top “one Box” result, which shows a detail from Google Maps. So within the top ten results, two of them link back to Google content. Your chances of clicking on a Google page for this particular search are pretty high. Google isn’t sending you away anywhere. And if you do go to the Google Places page for Burdick Chocolate, it is made up of rehashed content from other sites: snippet descriptions from InsiderPages, Judy’s Book, a menu link from AllMenus, photos from CityGuide and Yelp, and reviews from Igougo and CitySearch. On the right is a small Google Map and below that are Google search ads. It’s actually a pretty useful page, and there is certainly value in aggregating all of this information in one place. Google might even license the data, which would mitigate any protests that it is “stealing” the content like we see with Google News. But nobody really cares about that. The real issue is whether or not Google is going to favor its own pages in its index when it comes to local search. SInce Google’s algorithm is a black box, there is no way to know one way or another. But the question is out there. Maybe the Google Places page for Burdick Chocolate ranks highly only because Google used it as an example in its pre-briefings and a lot of bloggers subsequently linked to it. The point, though, is that these Google Places are getting into Google’s index. (Tartine Bakery is another example). Even if they make it onto the first page of Google search results for legitimate reasons, their very presence goes against the fundamental principle that Google’s main purpose is to link out to the best information on the Web, not to hoard the links for itself. We know what will happen if it keeps going down this path. It will turn into Yahoo. Update: It appears that Google is now taking steps to remove Places pages from its organic results. It’s added a “Disallow: /places/” tag to the robots.txt for Google maps. (The robots.txt tells Google’s search engine how to treat the content on a site, and a disallow tag instructs it not to crawl indicated portions of a site). Update 2: A Google spokesperson came back with the following explanation: From the time of launch, we did not intend for the Place Pages to be crawled or appear in organic results – we even confirmed that publicly. We did discover that some URLs were still open (the example in question, Burdick, was the one that we heavily promoted in all our blog posts, as Matt [Cutts] pointed out), so we’ve blocked those over the past 24 hours to stay consistent with our original plan for this launch. These should no longer appear in our organic search results. Also, I know there have been some questions about the URL structure: they were designed to be “friendly” URLs with the specific intention of making them easier to share and link.

Half of Michigan residents to forgo swine flu shot

Nearly 55 percent of Michiganians say they do not plan to get vaccinated for the H1N1 flu or have their children vaccinated for the virus, according to a poll released Monday.

And nearly 40 percent of the respondents said they have no plans to get vaccinations for the seasonal flu.

The findings come as the number of cases of swine flu are surging across the United States and are expected to increase in Michigan in the coming months. And they come as more questions are being raised about the safety and effectiveness of the vaccine.

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Charlene Akers, 46, of Garden City said she has mixed feelings about the vaccine, but for now has no plans on getting it.

"I don't think there's enough study done on the shot to know what's it's going to do," said Akers, a teacher's aide at Garden City School. "You know how the horror stories or rumors get going."

As of last week, 86 children had died from swine flu in the United States since it burst on the scene in the spring, with 43 deaths reported in September and early October. In past winters, the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has counted 40 or 50 child deaths for the entire flu season.

In Michigan, 15 have died from H1N1. None were children.

Dr. Walter Davis, pandemic flu coordinator for the Office of Public Health Emergency Preparedness and the Detroit Department of Health and Wellness Promotion, described the poll results as unfortunate.

"We've had more pediatric deaths during this H1N1 flu epidemic than we normally have during the entire flu season, and it isn't even flu season yet," he said.

The poll of 600 registered voters was conducted Oct. 11-15 by Lansing-based EPIC-MRA. It has a margin of error of plus or minus four percentage points.

Dr. Eden Wells, medical epidemiologist with the Michigan Department of Community Health, said the Michigan poll results were "a bit disheartening."

"It reflects a lot more education that we should be working on getting out to folks to make these decisions," she added.

One parent does intend to follow his doctor's advice.

Jeremy Lewis of West Bloomfield said he plans to have his 20-month-old son, Max, receive both vaccines.

"There seems to be a somewhat irrational fear of vaccinations," Lewis said. He recalled an incident earlier this year when a stranger approached him at a park and urged him and his wife to avoid vaccinating their child, saying it could stunt his child's mental development.

"We figure (doctors) know best," said Lewis, 31.

Lewis is among the 29 percent of poll respondents who said they plan to get the seasonal flu shot. Another 28 percent said they had already received a flu shot.

But the respondents were less enthusiastic about the H1N1 vaccine, with 29 percent saying they intended to get vaccinated and only 1 percent reporting having already been vaccinated.

The poll also found that nearly 40 percent of parents said they would have their children vaccinated for the H1N1 virus.

Doris Hill, 64, of Southfield said she had no plans to get the vaccine or discuss it with her doctor during her regular visit this week. She said she feared adverse reactions. "I guess I'm afraid of all the things I hear about it," said Hill, who retired from Ford Motor Co. two years ago.

"I don't want anything else to happen to me," said Hill, who also suffers from high blood pressure, borderline diabetes and had a stroke two years ago.

"I have ailments as it is."

Vashaunda Martin said she is still undecided about whether her children will get vaccinated.

"I really haven't made up my mind," said Martin, who has a 13-year-old son and 14-year-old daughter. "I really do need more information, about what are the benefits and what are the risks."

Martin, of Detroit, said her children will be getting their regular flu shots by next month.

Davis said his greatest fear is that while most of the nation is struggling with the pandemic, it hasn't hit Michigan hard yet so people don't understand. He's frustrated by reports of so many people refusing to get vaccinated and parents failing to sign the consent forms their children have been bringing home from school. He is concerned the issue will not be taken seriously until people begin getting sick and die.

"If you hear a fire alarm, you look around and you don't move because you don't smell any smoke," he said.

"Others may smell a little smoke, but they won't leave the building until they see flames. We're in a pandemic right now. We have a national emergency right now and the thing is we don't see it in Michigan."

ktaylor@detnews.com (313) 222-2058