(Israelnationalnews.com) U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy, who died late Tuesday of brain cancer at the age of 77, was one of the first American legislators to study Israel's health care system, President Shimon Peres noted Wednesday in a statement of condolence.
He called Ted Kennedy a "great American leader who was also a great friend of the State of Israel."
Peres recalled the 1986 visit to the Jewish State by the Massachusetts senator, which he said had been specifically aimed at learning about Israel's health care system. It "was basically for the first time to study the health insurance system in Israel because he saw already at that time that the health issues are going to be central ones for the American people," said Peres.
Kennedy, who called health care reform "the cause of my life," once said "the achievements of yesterday are the problems of today, namely that we have to achieve things anew and not just be satisfied with the past," Peres said.
The issue did indeed become Kennedy's signature cause and also continued to dog American administrations throughout the senator's career. Health care reform is a major centerpiece of the current Obama White House as well.
The Senate committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, which was headed by Kennedy, passed new health care legislation last month. The bill is now being debated in Congress.
'Family Knew Great Tragedies' Senator Edward "Ted" Kennedy served as a federal Democratic lawmaker for 46 years. Two of his older brothers, one a U.S. president and the other also a U.S. senator, were both shot to death by assassins while serving in office.
President John F. Kennedy was killed in 1963 during a motorcade in Texas by 24-year-old Lee Harvey Oswald, a former Marine. The assassin was himself killed within hours by Dallas nightclub owner Jack Ruby as he was being transferred from police headquarters to the county jail, leading to decades of speculation by conspiracy theorists.
U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy was killed in 1968 while celebrating his successful primary election campaign in California for the Democratic U.S. presidential nomination. The assassin was a 24-year-old Palestinian Arab immigrant named Sirhan Sirhan, who remains incarcerated in a U.S. prison to this day.
Ted Kennedy came from a family "that knew great tragedies," Peres noted, "but also has shown greatness in many ways. We listened to him as a world leader because he was great on all issues of our time and our generation. It is a real loss to the American people it is also a painful loss for us," he said.
What makes a man a man? Socially, that is a complicated question. Genetically, however, it is as simple as a single Y chromosome.
But guys, that chromosome is in trouble.
In a new study, researchers say there is a dramatic loss of genes from the human Y chromosome that eventually could lead to its complete disappearance -- in the next few millennia. While the Y chromosome's degeneration has been known to geneticists and evolutionary biologists for decades, the study sheds new light on some of the evolutionary processes that may have contributed to its demise and posits that, as the degeneration continues, the Y chromosome could disappear from our genetic repertoire entirely.
"It's certainly possible, but it's difficult to predict when it will happen," said Kateryna Makova, an associate professor of biology at Penn State University, who led the study, which was published Thursday in the journal PLoS Genetics.
Although geneticists and evolutionary biologists agree that the Y chromosome is degenerating -- and far more rapidly than its X counterpart -- they reject the idea of a world far in the future where men are obsolete.
"The idea that the Y chromosome has just bailed out of an airplane without a parachute simply doesn't fit the facts," said Dr. David Page, director of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research in Cambridge, Mass., and a Y chromosome expert. "The evidence from studies on natural deletions of [genes on] the human Y chromosome shows there are consequences, especially for sperm production, that implies very strong natural selection against the loss of genes on the human Y chromosome."
Y Chromosomes Had Problems From the Start
Humans have 23 pairs of chromosomes packed with genes that dictate every aspect of our biological functioning. Of these pairs, the sex chromosomes are different; women have two X chromosomes and men have an X and a Y chromosome. The Y chromosome contains essential blueprints for the male reproductive system, in particular those for sperm development.
But the Y chromosome, which once contained as many genes as the X chromosome, has deteriorated over time and now contains less than 80 functional genes compared to its partner, which contains more than 1,000 genes. Geneticists and evolutionary biologists determined that the Y chromosome's deterioration is due to accumulated mutations, deletions and anomalies that have nowhere to go because the chromosome doesn't swap genes with the X chromosome like every other chromosomal pair in our cells do.
Y Chromosomes Are Rapidly Losing Genes
However, Melissa Wilson, lead author of the study and graduate research fellow at Penn State University, pointed out that if there is no difference between a male who has lost a particular gene and one who still retains it, especially if both are still fertile, then that gene must be nonessential.
"Because they can lose [a gene] ... we conclude that it's on its way to dying in humans," she said.
Yet the Y chromosome perseveres, despite its rapid rate of deterioration.
"The key flaw in the logic [of Y chromosome deterioration] is the assumption that the Y chromosome can only lose genes," Page said. "But the human Y chromosome has gained genes not even on the X chromosome. Men who lose those genes do not transmit their Y chromosome."
Y Chromosome Can Gain Genes
Page pointed out that, while the Y chromosome may not share genetic material with the X chromosome, it can swap genes with other chromosomes as well as keep multiple copies of functional genes to increase their number on the Y chromosome. Makova and Wilson said that the increased rate of mutation on the Y chromosome could give rise to new genes that may prove beneficial and, therefore, remain on the chromosome.
Genetic change, whether by mutation, environmental stressors or by swapping bits of chromosomes, is the natural course of evolution, and evolution is weighted towards survival. Perhaps most importantly, Y chromosomes with defective male-specific genes, especially those involved in sperm production, are unlikely to reproduce and pass on those genes to their sons, which knocks highly defective chromosomes out of the gene pool. Genetic changes that do not favor reproduction are likely to get weeded out of the system.
"The most fundamental [principle] to all evolution is reproduction," said Dr. Ronald Crystal, chairman of the Department of Genetic Medicine at Weil Cornell Medical College. "No one knows why the Y chromosome has more pressures to evolve. It may be that the genes are irrelevant. ... But evolution figures out a way to maintain reproduction."
Reproduction Is Still Paramount for Evolution
Even if the Y chromosome becomes obsolete, reproduction will continue, in some form. Makova and Wilson said that new sex chromosomes may rise from non-sex chromosomes or that essential genes might move to other chromosomes, which has happened in some species of deer. "Presumably, we will have moved genes around," said Dr. Harry Ostrer, director of the Human Genetics program at the New York University School of Medicine. "But the reproductive structures will be well conserved."
In other words, men will not fade away, even if their Y chromosomes do.
NEW YORK – Two cases of the human swine influenza have been confirmed in Kansas and one more in California, bringing the U.S. total to 11. At least eight students at a New York City high school probably have swine flu also, but health officials said Saturday they don't know whether they have the same strain of the virus that has killed people in Mexico.
New York Gov. David Paterson on Saturday directed the state Department of Health to mobilize its infectious-diseases, epidemiology and disaster preparedness workers to monitor and respond to possible cases of the flu. He said 1,500 treatment courses of the antiviral Tamiflu had been sent to New York City.
A strain of the flu has killed as many as 81 people and sickened more than 1,000 across Mexico, where authorities have extended school closures in the capital and two neighboring states with outbreaks. The World Health Organization chief said Saturday the strain has "pandemic potential" and it may be too late to contain a sudden outbreak.
Kansas health officials said Saturday they had confirmed swine flu in a married couple living in the central part of the state after the husband visited Mexico. The couple, who live in Dickinson County, were not hospitalized, and the state described their illnesses as mild.
Dr. Jason Eberhart-Phillips, the state health officer, said, "Fortunately, the man and woman understand the gravity of the situation and are very willing to isolate themselves."
The man traveled to Mexico last week for a professional conference and became ill after returning home. His wife became ill later. Their doctor suspected swine flu, but it wasn't confirmed until flu specimens were flown to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.
Swine flu is a respiratory disease of pigs caused by type A flu viruses, the CDC's Web site says. Human cases of swine flu are uncommon but can happen in people who are around pigs and can be spread from person to person. Symptoms of the flu include a fever of more than 100 degrees, body aches, coughing, a sore throat, respiratory congestion and, in some cases, vomiting and diarrhea.
At least nine swine flu cases have been reported in California and Texas. The new California case, the seventh there, was a 35-year-old Imperial County woman who was hospitalized but recovered. The woman, whose illness began in early April, had no known contact with the other cases.
The 11 U.S. swine flu victims range in age from 9 to over 50. All recovered or are recovering; at least two were hospitalized.
Health officials are worried because people appear to have no immunity to the virus, a combination of bird, swine and human influenzas. Also, the virus presents itself like other swine flus, but none of the U.S. cases appears to involve direct contact with pigs, said Eberhart-Phillips, who called the strain "a completely novel virus."
"It appears to be able to transmit easily between humans," Eberhart-Phillips said. "It's something that could potentially become very big, and we're only seeing, potentially, the very beginning of a widespread outbreak."
New York health officials said more than 100 students at the private St. Francis Preparatory School, in Queens, had come down with a fever, sore throat and other aches and pains in the past few days. Some of their relatives also have been ill.
New York City Health Commissioner Thomas Frieden said nose and throat swabs had confirmed that eight students had a non-human strain of influenza type A, indicating probable cases of swine flu, but the exact subtypes were still unknown.
Samples had been sent to the CDC for more testing. Results were expected Sunday.
Parent Elaine Caporaso's 18-year-old son Eddie, a senior at the school, had a fever and cough and went to a hospital where a screening center had been set up.
"I don't know if there is an incubation period, if I am contaminated," Caporaso told the Daily News. "I don't want my family to get sick, and I don't want to get anybody else sick."
The symptoms in the New York cases have been mild, Frieden said, but the illnesses have caused concern because of the deadly outbreak in Mexico, where classes in Mexico City, neighboring Mexico state and the northern state of San Luis Potosi have been canceled until May 6 and where up to 81 deaths are suspected and 20 have been confirmed.
Health officials were trying to determine if any of the New York students or their relatives had visited Mexico.
Frieden said that if the CDC confirms that the students have swine flu, he will likely recommend that the school remain closed Monday "out of an abundance of caution."
One factor, he said, is that the illness appears to be moving efficiently from person to person, affecting as many as 100 to 200 people in a student body of 2,700.
"We're very concerned about what may happen," he said, although he noted that the pattern of illness appeared different from in Mexico, where much larger groups of people have become much sicker. Overall, he said, flu cases have been declining in the city in recent weeks.
The school was being sanitized over the weekend but still was holding a reunion featuring cocktails, dinner and dancing for hundreds of alumni from as far back as 1939. A health department spokeswoman said the sanitization was just a precaution because it's not really the environment that passes the flu.
Alumna Joyce Kal, of the Class of 1979, said she wasn't worried about getting sick.
"I did think about it, but I didn't, you know, worry, because if it's the kids, I don't think it's going to linger," said Kal, a physical therapist from the Bayside neighborhood.
The city health department has asked doctors to be extra vigilant in the coming days and test any patients who have flu-like symptoms and have traveled recently to California, Texas or Mexico.
Investigators also were testing children who fell ill at a day care center in the Bronx, Frieden said. And two families in Manhattan had contacted the city, saying they had recently returned ill from Mexico with flu-like symptoms.
Frieden said New Yorkers having trouble breathing due to an undiagnosed respiratory illness should seek treatment but shouldn't become overly alarmed. Medical facilities in the part of Queens near St. Francis Prep, he said, had already been flooded with people overreacting to the outbreak.
MEXICO CITY – A unique strain of swine flu is the suspected killer of dozens of people in Mexico, where authorities closed schools, museums, libraries and theaters in the capital on Friday to try to contain an outbreak that has spurred concerns of a global flu epidemic.
The worrisome new virus — which combines genetic material from pigs, birds and humans in a way researchers have not seen before — also sickened at least eight people in Texas and California, though there have been no deaths in the U.S.
"We are very, very concerned," World Health Organization spokesman Thomas Abraham said. "We have what appears to be a novel virus and it has spread from human to human ... It's all hands on deck at the moment."
The outbreak caused alarm in Mexico, where more than 1,000 people have been sickened. Residents of the capital donned surgical masks and authorities ordered the most sweeping shutdown of public gathering places in a quarter century. President Felipe Calderon met with his Cabinet Friday to coordinate Mexico's response.
The WHO was convening an expert panel to consider whether to raise the pandemic alert level or issue travel advisories.
There is no vaccine that specifically protects against swine flu, and it was unclear how much protection current human flu vaccines might offer. A "seed stock" genetically matched to the new swine flu virus has been created by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, said Dr. Richard Besser, the agency's acting director. If the government decides vaccine production is necessary, manufacturers would need that stock to get started.
Authorities in Mexico urged people to avoid hospitals unless they had a medical emergency, since hospitals are centers of infection. They also said Mexicans should refrain from customary greetings such as shaking hands or kissing cheeks. At Mexico City's international airport, passengers were questioned to try to prevent anyone with flu symptoms from boarding airplanes and spreading the disease.
Epidemiologists are particularly concerned because the only fatalities so far were in young people and adults. It's possible that more vulnerable populations — infants and the aged — had been vaccinated against other strains, providing some protection.
The eight U.S. victims recovered from symptoms that were like those of the regular flu, mostly fever, cough and sore throat, though some also experienced vomiting and diarrhea.
U.S. health officials announced an outbreak notice to travelers, urging caution and frequent handwashing, but stopping short of telling Americans to avoid Mexico.
Mexico's Health Secretary Jose Angel Cordoba said 68 people have died of flu and the new swine flu strain had been confirmed in 20 of those deaths. At least 1,004 people nationwide were sick from the suspected flu, he said.
Scientists have long been concerned that a new flu virus could launch a worldwide pandemic of a killer disease. A new virus could evolve when different flu viruses infect a pig, a person or a bird, mingling their genetic material. The resulting hybrid could spread quickly because people would have no natural defenses against it.
Still, flu experts were concerned but not alarmed about the latest outbreak.
"We've seen swine influenza in humans over the past several years, and in most cases, it's come from direct pig contact. This seems to be different," said Dr. Arnold Monto, a flu expert with the University of Michigan.
"I think we need to be careful and not apprehensive, but certainly paying attention to new developments as they proceed."
The CDC says two flu drugs, Tamiflu and Relenza, seem effective against the new strain. Roche, the maker of Tamiflu, said the company is prepared to immediately deploy a stockpile of the drug if requested.
Both drugs must be taken early, within a few days of the onset of symptoms, to be most effective.
Cordoba said Mexico has enough Tamiflu to treat 1 million people, but the medicine will be strictly controlled and handed out only by doctors.
Mexico's government had maintained until late Thursday that there was nothing unusual about the flu cases, although this year's flu season had been worse and longer than past years.
The sudden turnaround by public health officials angered many Mexicans.
"They could have stopped it in time," said Araceli Cruz, 24, a university student who emerged from the subway wearing a surgical mask. "Now they've let it spread to other people."
The city was handing out free surgical masks to passengers on buses and the subway system, which carries 5 million people each day. Government workers were ordered to wear the masks, and authorities urged residents to stay home from work if they felt ill.
Closing schools across Mexico's capital of 20 million kept 6.1 million students home, as well as thousands of university students. All state and city-run cultural activities were suspended, including libraries, state-run theaters, and at least 14 museums. Private athletic clubs closed down and soccer leagues were considering canceling weekend games.
The closures were the first citywide shutdown of public gathering places since millions died in the devastating 1985 earthquake.
Mexico's response brought to mind other major outbreaks, such as when SARS hit Asia. At its peak in 2003, Beijing shuttered schools, cinemas and restaurants, and thousands of people were quarantined at home.
In March 2008, Hong Kong ordered more than a half-million students to stay home for two weeks because of a flu outbreak. It was the first such closure in Hong Kong since the outbreak of SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome.
"It's great they are taking precautions," said Lillian Molina, a teacher at the Montessori's World preschool in Mexico City, who scrubbed down empty classrooms with Clorox, soap and Lysol between fielding calls from worried parents.
U.S. health officials said the outbreak is not yet a reason for alarm in the United States. The five people sickened in California and three in Texas have all recovered.
It's unclear how the eight, who became ill between late March and mid-April, contracted the virus because none were in contact with pigs, which is how people usually catch swine flu. And only a few were in contact with each other.
CDC officials described the virus as having a unique combination of gene segments not seen before in people or pigs. The bug contains human virus, avian virus from North America and pig viruses from North America, Europe and Asia.
Scientists keep a close eye on flu viruses that emerge from pigs. The animals are considered particularly susceptible to both avian and human viruses and a likely place where the kind of genetic reassortment can take place that might lead to a new form of pandemic flu, said Dr. John Treanor, an infectious disease specialist at the University of Rochester Medical Center.
The virus may be something completely new, or it may have been around for a while but was only detected now because of improved lab testing and disease surveillance, CDC officials said.
The most notorious flu pandemic is thought to have killed at least 40 million people worldwide in 1918-19. Two other, less deadly flu pandemics struck in 1957 and 1968.
By MARK STEVENSON, Associated Press Writer Mark Stevenson, Associated Press Writer
London, January 17 : Doctors treating an elderly Chinese woman for stomach ache were stunned when they found that she had been carrying an unborn child for 60 years.
Ninety-two-year-old Huang Yijun, of Huangjiaotan, revealed that her child had died in the womb way back in 1948, and that she did not have it removed because doctors would charge 100 pounds for the job.
"It was a huge sum at the time - more than the whole family earned in several years so I did nothing and ignored it," the Sun quoted her as saying.
The secret surfaced after Huang hurt her stomach, and went to hospital for a scan.
Dr Liu Anbin, at Qingshen hospital, said: "I couldn't believe my eyes when I discovered she had a baby in her belly. I've been a doctor for more than 40 years and it's the first time I have seen something like this."
The doctors are presently carrying out further tests to determine whether Huang would require an operation to remove the baby.
Consultant Xu Xianming, director of the Obstetrics and Gynecology department at the hospital, said: "Normally a dead foetus would decay. It's very rare that Huang can be so healthy."
Recent Comments