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UPI NewsTrack Health and Science News
28 October 2004
Viagra may be used for rare
lung disease NEW YORK, Oct. 28 (UPI) -- Viagra, the impotence drug
taken by millions of men, might soon be used to treat a rare lung
disease, The New York Times reported Thursday.
Sildenafil citrate, the ingredient in Pfizer's pill, showed effectiveness in a clinical trial as a treatment for pulmonary arterial hypertension -- extremely high pressure in the artery carrying blood to the lungs.
It is a very promising new therapy for the treatment of a very severe disease, said H. Ardeschir Ghofrani, an assistant professor at the University of Giessen in Germany, who presented the results at the annual meeting of the American College of Chest Physicians in Seattle Wednesday.
An estimated 100,000 people, mostly women,
in the United States and Europe are affected by the disease, which
can leave people breathless after even the most routine activity.
Pfizer spokesman Daniel J. Watts said the
company was in talks with regulators in the United States and Europe
about whether the drug could be approved for the new use but he
would not say when, or whether, the company plans to seek approval.
Pfizer has said that it would sell the drug for lung disease in a different form than the blue Viagra pill and under a different name, to avoid mistaken prescriptions. Watts would not confirm reports Pfizer had chosen the name Rovitio.
Publishers nervous about free-article plan WASHINGTON, Oct. 28 (UPI) -- Publishers are worried about a plan to make articles published in costly journals available online for free, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Any scientist whose work is funded by research-grant money from the National Institutes for Health should be posted on a free NIH Web site so other scientists, doctors, patients, students and anyone else can have access, the agency proposed.
The idea is supported by patient advocates who argue new scientific findings are often inaccessible to average citizens, with some journal subscriptions costing up to $6,000 a year.
In a letter to Congress, 25 Nobel laureates support free access to the articles.
When a woman goes online to find what treatment options are available to battle breast cancer, the cutting-edge, peer-reviewed research remains behind a high-fee barrier, the letter said. Families looking to read clinical trial updates for a loved one with Huntington's disease search in vain -- because they do not have a journal subscription.
Publishers had hoped the idea would fade, but recently launched a campaign to protect the lucrative scientific, technical and medical publishing industry, which gets about half of its $10 billion in revenue from such journals.
Feelings are running very high about this, says John Regazzi, an executive at Reed Elsevier Group PLC, which has 20 percent of the market. The notion that publicly funded research should be publicly available is a good one. But is this really the right solution?
Publishers were to meet with NIH Director John Zerhouni Thursday to urge him to proceed with the plan slowly.
English elms traced to Roman-era cloning MADRID, Oct. 28 (UPI) -- Spanish researchers suggest in a report published Thursday every elm tree in England is there as a result of Roman-era cloning of a tree native to Italy.
Dr. Luis Gil and colleagues in Madrid propose in the journal Nature the English elm is the same as the Atinian elm, a tree that can reproduce asexually but not by seed, which originated in Italy.
There, the elm was used to train vines for wine production, as recommended by an influential Spanish author of a how-to book on agriculture written in 50 AD.
We propose the Roman agronomist Columella introduced the Atinian elm and probably other Italian elms into Spain, to use them in his vineyards, said co-author Dr. Pablo Fuentes-Utrilla of the Forestry Engineer School in Madrid. We do not know who could have moved the clone from Spain to England.
The researchers found hardly any genetic variation between English elms from Spain and Britain, where the trees were not native until some 2,000 years ago.
Mercury-removal tech to be tested in Texas WASHINGTON, Oct. 28 (UPI) -- A Texas power plant was chosen Thursday as the testing site for a new technology to remove dangerous mercury from coal emissions.
The Energy Department said the Pegasus Project involves advanced technology that detects the mercury content of emissions at the Texas Genco power plant in Jewett and allows for increased removal of the heavy metal.
Mercury is found naturally in coal and has become a stumbling block to the increased use of the mineral in power generation.
The Energy Department's $6.1 million contribution to the Pegasus effort is part of the Bush administration's plan to cut mercury emissions from power plants 70 percent by 2015.
Critics say the 70 percent level is too generous, but the administration says larger cuts aren't possible until mercury-removal technology is developed further.
source :-http://www.rednova.com
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