PharmFree: AMSA Releases PharmaFree Scorecard

Click to enlarge


PDF Link

AMSA Releases PharmFree Scorecard Grading Medical Schools' Policies On Pharmaceutical Company Access And Influence

Of all U.S. medical schools, only six received a grade of "A" on the American Medical Student Association's 2007 PharmFree Scorecard. The scorecard, which ranks medical schools according to their pharmaceutical influence policies, is the first of its kind and provides students with important new information about their medical school choices.

"It is important that we work to keep our medical schools and teaching hospitals free of the influence of pharmaceutical companies," said AMSA National President Jay Bhatt. "PharmFree medical students become PharmFree doctors and that commitment to evidence-based medicine benefits our patients and our colleagues."

The PharmFree campaign encourages medical schools and academic medical centers to develop policies that limit the access of pharmaceutical company representatives to their campuses and prohibit medical students and physicians from accepting gifts of any kind from these representatives.

Article continues at Link

Drug Reverses Mental Retardation in Mice

UCLA researchers discovered that an FDA-approved drug reverses mental retardation in mice with a genetic disease called tuberous sclerosis complex (TSC). Because half of TSC patients also suffer from autism, the findings offer a possible mechanism for addressing learning disorders due to autism.

Drug Reverses Mental Retardation in Mice

Newswise — UCLA researchers discovered that an FDA-approved drug reverses the brain dysfunction inflicted by a genetic disease called tuberous sclerosis complex (TSC). Because half of TSC patients also suffer from autism, the findings offer new hope for addressing learning disorders due to autism. Nature Medicine publishes the findings in its online June 22 edition.

Using a mouse model for TSC, the scientists tested rapamycin, a drug approved by the FDA to fight tissue rejection following organ transplants. Rapamycin is well-known for targeting an enzyme involved in making proteins needed for memory. The UCLA team chose it because the same enzyme is also regulated by TSC proteins.

“This is the first study to demonstrate that the drug rapamycin can repair learning deficits related to a genetic mutation that causes autism in humans. The same mutation in animals produces learning disorders, which we were able to eliminate in adult mice,” explained principal investigator Dr. Alcino Silva, professor of neurobiology and psychiatry at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. “Our work and other recent studies suggest that some forms of mental retardation can be reversed, even in the adult brain.”

“These findings challenge the theory that abnormal brain development is to blame for mental impairment in tuberous sclerosis,” added first author Dan Ehninger, postgraduate researcher in neurobiology. “Our research shows that the disease’s learning problems are caused by reversible changes in brain function -- not by permanent damage to the developing brain.”

Link

The single simplest thing that could be done to prevent retardation in children - see to it that they have sufficient IODINE from conception....