With technology that can now scan each of an individual's 46 chromosomes for minute aberrations, doctors are providing thousands of children lumped together as "autistic" or "developmentally delayed" with distinct genetic diagnoses. The symptoms, they are finding, can be traced to one of dozens of deletions or duplications of DNA that were previously hard or impossible to detect.
Purdue Pharma of Stamford, CT, hired Rudolph Giuliani and his consulting firm, Giuliani Partners, in 2002 to help stem the controversy about OxyContin. Among Giuliani's missions was the job of convincing public officials that they could trust Purdue because they could trust him.
Nemours Children's Clinic in Orlando, FL, announced that its new division of orthopedics will be led by Suzanne Jaffe Walters, an orthopedic surgeon who specializes in pediatric and adolescent sports medicine.
Scientists blamed Alzheimer's on misfolded proteins, broken neural pathways, misprinted gene maps, and much more. For years they have laid plans to fight the disease with all of the Big Pharma firepower they could muster. But they also talked about inhaling insulin, eating turmeric, fixing vitamin deficiencies, injecting stem cells and inventing neuro-protective vaccines.
Now, annual checkups for the nearly half a million Massachusetts children on Medicaid will carry a new requirement: Doctors must offer simple questionnaires to detect warning signs of possible mental health problems, from autism in toddlers to depression in teens. Over the last several years, such questionnaires have increasingly become the standard of care in pediatric practices, but spurred by legal action Massachusetts is jumping ahead of other states by requiring the screens for all its young Medicaid recipients.
Under a bill signed into law, all pregnant women in New Jersey will be tested for HIV as part of their prenatal care unless they object. The law also requires testing for newborns if the HIV status of the mother is unknown. The new testing procedures are some of the most aggressive HIV-prevention measures in the country for pregnant women and newborns, making New Jersey one of just a handful of states with laws requiring some form of prenatal testing.