Health & Environment News

2009-10-01T11:36:00.000-07:00

PHOTO BY JANE LOPES/The Gazette A MEMORIAL GARDEN: at the steps to the Town Hall was dedicated prior to Monday night’s selectmen’s meeting in memory of former selectman M. Victor Sylvia, who served on a number of town boards and advocated for the cleanup of hazardous waste sites and research on the cause of ALS, Lou Gehrig’s Disease. Attending were members of Mr. Sylvia’s family, from left, great-granddaughter Julia Axon, daughter Cheryl Sylvia-Kirwin, his wife Marion, son Roy and his wife Susan, granddaughter Kerry Sylvia, niece Danielle Axon, daughter Debbie Axon and her husband Dane.

Garden in Middleboro to be dedicated to former selectman, environmental activist

2009-10-01T11:29:00.000-07:00

By Eileen Reece
Mon Sep 21, 2009, 02:56 AM EDT
MIDDLEBORO -
M. Victor Sylvia’s lasting legacy in town was his fight against industrial pollution and advocating for the cleanup of the Rockland Industries on Plymouth Street.
On Saturday, a garden will be named in honor of the former selectman and town advocate will be dedicated during a ceremony 6 p.m. at Town Hall.
Light refreshments will be served.
Selectwoman Muriel Duphily spearheaded the drive to create the garden in Sylvia’s memory along with The Friends of Middleboro who helped finance the project and will oversee its maintenance.
Sylvia died in his sleep at age 78 on Feb. 23, 2008.
A town advocate, he often frequented selectmen’s meetings long after he left the board.
Sylvia was a strong believer that pollution was the main contributor to the high rate of Lou Gehrigs disease in Middleboro.
He convinced town meeting in 2007 to vote to support a committee to begin a data base of cancer victims.

State announces release of ALS registry report this summer, cites concerns in Middleboro

2009-07-06T07:58:00.001-07:00

MIDDLEBORO - The state will release its first report of the ALS registry this summer, containing information on the occurrence of Lou Gehrig’s disease statewide and in communities.
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease or motor neuron disease, is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord and is usually fatal.
Middleboro has one of the highest concentrations of ALS in the country. Former selectman and environmental advocate M. Victor Sylvia, who died in February at age 78, for years had documented the high cases of cancer and Lou Gehrig’s disease in Middleboro. He believed there was a link to hazardous waste sites in the town, and advocated for the cleanup of Rockland Industries on Plymouth Street.
Christine Fischetti, epidemiologist and ALS Registry Coordinator for the Department of Public Health, said in a written statement, “In Middleboro, there has historically been a concern about the occurrence of ALS, as well as any connection that may be possible between ALS and environmental contaminants identified by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Mass. Department of Environmental Protection at multiple sites in the community.”
Fischetti said the ALS Registry will allow investigators to explore any possible environmental association with ALS in Middleboro.
The data is collected from physicians, hospitals, vital statistics, nursing homes and hospices, and advocacy groups to ensure all ALS cases are captured. They are medically verified from patient medical records.
Massachusetts is the first state in the nation to create a statewide registry for ALS. The registry will be available online at www.mass.gov/dph/environmental_health.
Selectmen also learned this week, through Suzanne Dube, chairman of Middleboro’s Citizens Environmental Health Impact Committee, that the DPH is developing a first-of-its-kind web-based system to track key environmental hazards and health problems across Massachusetts.
Suzanne K. Condon of the Bureau of Environmental Health, in a statement said the network “will help us identify threats to our state’s health posed by the environment and improve our response to those threats.”
The tool also provides the location of schools, and environmental data such as the location of hazardous waste sites and active landfills, along with the cancer incidence data. The Tracking Network is part of a national initiative led by the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention.

ALS registry information to be released

2009-07-05T05:32:00.000-07:00

ALS registry information to be released
Boston Globe
State health officials are poised to soon release their report on information collected in a statewide amyotrophic lateral sclerosis registry, created in 2008 to track the neurodegenerative disease often referred to as ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease.
Christine Legere
July 5, 2009

MIDDLEBOROUGH

ALS registry information to be released
By Christine Legere
Globe Correspondent / July 5, 2009
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State health officials are poised to soon release their report on information collected in a statewide amyotrophic lateral sclerosis registry, created in 2008 to track the neurodegenerative disease often referred to as ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease.

Residents in Middleborough and across Southeastern Massachusetts will find the upcoming report, to be released sometime this summer, of particular interest, since the region is known to contain hot spots for ALS.
Prevalence estimates, developed by the state Department of Public Health in 2007, showed there were 4 to 6 cases of ALS per 100,000 statewide, compared with 9.5 cases per 100,000 in Plymouth County and across Southeastern Massachusetts.
ALS, which is almost always fatal, deprives its victims of the ability to control their movements, speech, and eventually their breathing. Most patients die within two to five years of diagnosis.
Many Middleborough residents have long thought there is a connection between the town’s high rate of ALS, particularly in the Everett Square area, and the proximity of several known contam inated sites. Most of the 27 cases that residents have counted, plus a number that have since been reported to the registry, are clustered around the site of the former George E. Keith factory north of Sumner Street that burned down in a four-day fire in 1974, Middleboro Plating on Cambridge Street, and a property adjacent to the plating company where chemicals were handled and shipped.
Contamination at those sites has been confirmed either by the federal Environmental Protection Agency or the state Department of Environmental Protection. A fourth property, Rockland Industries, lies down-gradient of the three sites and is listed by DEP as a Tier IA contaminated site.
A spokesman for the ALS Association’s Massachusetts chapter called the ALS Registry’s upcoming report “a victory’’ for advocates, as it will be the first time any of the information contained in the registry, the first in the nation, is made available.
The report will document the rates of the disease and ultimately track any trends across the state. Once released, it will be placed on the Department of Public Health’s website at www.mass.gov/dph/environmental_health.
Information for the registry is supplied by neurologists, major hospitals, nursing homes, and hospices, who report on the gender, age, address, and diagnosis of each person with ALS. Information on some 700 cases was provided to the registry in its opening year. Wherever clusters of the illness are detected, health officials will search for possible environmental causes. And if a definite link can be established, the focus can turn to developing ways to control and prevent those causes, officials said.
“Hopefully, the registry is going to unlock a lot of secrets about clusters of ALS and their locations,’’ said ALS Association spokesman Richard Lombardo.
Middleborough selectmen chairman Patrick Rogers said it is important that local officials collect as much information on ALS as possible, so they are able to “determine just where the issues lie.’’ He added the Middleborough Citizens Environmental Health Impact Committee has served as liaison between the town and the state, conveying information related to the prevalence of ALS in town.
Lombardo called the registry long overdue. “We believe the pathway to a cure is strongly tied to the registry, as clusters of the disease are found and their locations studied,’’ he said.
Suzanne Dube, who chairs the Middleborough Citizens Environmental Health Impact Committee, recently outlined other ALS-related efforts. State health officials are reviewing records of the state Department of Environmental Protection regarding chemicals found on the four contaminated sites in Middleborough. Their aim is to identify common denominators.
Christine Legere can be reached at christinelegere@yahoo.com.

Middleboro selectmen hear about continuing effects of contaminants from Rockland industries

2009-07-03T10:14:00.000-07:00

Chemicals from Rockland Industries site may be entering brook

The Enterprise
Posted Jul 02, 2009 @ 01:31 AM
MIDDLEBORO —
By Eileen Reece
For more than 40 years the town has dealt with the effects of chemical contamination from Rockland Industries on Plymouth Street, and selectmen learned Monday night there may yet be contaminants from the site entering Purchade Brook.
Selectmen this week met with Middleboro’s Citizens Environmental Health Impact Committee, which recently hired a consultant, Environmental Strategies & Management Inc., to conduct a review of the site using a $10,000 grant from the state Department of Environmental Protection.
Thomas Sylvia, ES&M principal chemical engineer who grew up near Rockland Industries, said placing the top soil was a cost-effective remedy but more needs to be done. Specifically, he said the “hot spots” ought to be dug up and removed.
“I feel contaminants are still migrating down the swale and entering the wetlands and entering Purchade Brook,” said Sylvia, adding the contaminants “don’t look to be too gross and it doesn’t stress vegetation and there aren’t fish kills anymore.”
Historically, known chemicals of concern found at Rockland Industries include chlorobenzenes, metals, including arsenic, mercury, zinc, and chromium; cyanide; formaldehyde; diesel fuel; and chlorinated solvents.
Sylvia said he agreed with the DEP’s assessment that while there are contaminants at the site, there is no immediate human health risks since the site is not actively used.
The Mass. Department of Public Health has long been concerned about the high occurrence of ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s Disease, in Middleboro and any possible connection between the disease and environmental contaminants found at multiple sites, including Rockland Industries.
Residents are familiar with the history of the site. What was once farmland became the site of Rockland Industries when the Striar family purchased the land on Plymouth Street in 1960.
Before its transformation to a textile chemical plant, fish swam freely in Purchade Brook, adjacent to the property, which empties in the Taunton River. But within 10 years all that changed. In 1968 the Board of Health began investigating whether there was a link between dead fish now found in the brook and chemical discharges from the plant.
In 1981, the federal Environmental Protection Agency shut down the plant and began a cleanup of the site. In 1994 the DEP declared it a Tier 1A hazardous waste site that required its direct oversight.
The cleanup has been slow, and in 2002 the DEP renegotiated a remedial cleanup strategy with the Striar family to place an 18-inch layer of soil over the lagoon and swale area to act as a cap on the site.
More information on the site cleanup is available at the Citizens Environmental Health Impact Committee Web site at www.middleborough.org/cehic.

Stem cell injection offers fresh hope for MS sufferers

2009-02-02T10:33:00.000-08:00

(Agencies)Updated: 2009-02-02 17:34
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/life/2009-02/02/content_7439309.htm

Stem cell injections can reverse the crippling effects of multiple sclerosis, a study published today says.
Four out of five adults in the early stages of MS who were injected with stem cells taken from their bone marrow saw an improvement in symptoms after three years. The rest of the patients saw their condition stabilise.
Dr Doug Brown of the MS Society said: 'These are very encouraging results and it is exciting to see that in this trial not only is progression of disability halted, but damage appears to be reversed.
'Stem cells are showing more and more potential in the treatment of MS. The challenge we now face is proving their effectiveness in trials involving large numbers of people.'
Evidence previously had showed stem cell treatment could stabilise MS but had not suggested it could reverse the condition.
MS is the most common disabling neurological condition, affecting around 85,000 people in the UK.
Damage to myelin - a protective sheath surrounding nerve fibres --leads to difficulties with sensation and muscle control. The study was designed to see whether injections of stem cells from bone marrow would migrate to parts of the nervous system damaged by MS and repair them.
Among the 21 men and women in the trial, aged between 20 and 53, 17 had improved on a scale of disability after three years.
None of them reported a worse score. The report in The Lancet Neurology medical journal today says the technique suppresses cells that cause damage and effectively 'resets' the immune system.
Study leader Dr Richard Burt of Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, said: 'It is a feasible procedure that not only seems to prevent neurological progression, but also appears to reverse neurological disability.' A trial involving 100 patients is to get under way soon.

Obama names Besser acting CDC head

2009-01-24T07:08:00.000-08:00

http://www.sciam.com/blog/60-second-science/post.cfm?id=obama-names-besser-acting-cdc-head-2009-01-23

Pres. Obama late yesterday named bioterrorism and infectious disease expert Richard Besser interim director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Besser, 49, a pediatrician and longtime CDC researcher, will fill the slot—at least temporarily—vacated by Julie Gerberding, who headed the agency for six years during the Bush administration. Besser, most recently director of the CDC's Coordinating Office for Terrorism Preparedness and Emergency Response, is an expert on biological and chemical weapons and on preparing for and responding to public health emergencies. He studied food-borne illness in the agency's Epidemic Intelligence Service and led a nationwide campaign to prevent overuse of antibiotics, which as been blamed for a rise in drug-resistant infections. Besser, who earned his medical degree at the University of Pennsylvania and did his pediatric residency at Johns Hopkins University Hospital in Baltimore, has published scientific papers on topics related to biological and chemical weapons as well as on antibiotic resistance.

Director of Disease Control Centers Resigns

2009-01-13T09:11:00.000-08:00

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: January 10, 2009
ATLANTA (AP) — Dr. Julie L. Gerberding has resigned as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and will be replaced on an interim basis by a deputy as of Jan. 20, the day President-elect Barack Obama is inaugurated.

Susan Walsh/Associated Press
Dr. Julie L. Gerberding has led the C.D.C. since 2002.
Her resignation was announced in an e-mail message to employees on Friday night.
Dr. Gerberding, the first woman to direct the agency, led the C.D.C. through a post-Sept. 11 world of bioterrorism fears and was considered an effective communicator with legislators and the public.
In a November e-mail message to staff members, Dr. Gerberding said she expected that she might leave the post after the Bush administration left office. But colleagues said she had quietly held out hope that she would be allowed to stay on.
A spokesman for the agency, Glen Nowak, said Dr. Gerberding was traveling in Africa on agency business and was not available for comment.
Mr. Nowak said in a prepared statement that the Bush administration, “as part of the transition process,” had requested resignation letters from “a number of senior-level officials, including Dr. Julie Gerberding. This week, the administration accepted Dr. Gerberding’s resignation, effective Jan. 20.”
The agency investigates disease outbreaks, researches the cause and prevalence of health problems, and promotes illness prevention efforts. In a 2007 Harris Poll, the C.D.C. was rated the government agency that does the best job.
Dr. Gerberding is also head of the sister agency to the C.D.C., the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. The two have a combined budget of about $8.8 billion and more than 14,000 full-time, part-time and contract employees.
Dr. Gerberding receives a total compensation of $202,200.
Dr. Gerberding, 53, was named director in July 2002. She had been an infectious diseases specialist at the University of California, San Francisco, and joined the disease centers in 1998 to lead a patient safety initiative.

New website for people with multiple sclerosis

2009-01-08T02:34:00.001-08:00

MS Invigor8 is a website developed by researchers at the University of Southampton to treat fatigue in people with multiple sclerosis (MS) using cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT).
The research team led by Professor Rona Moss-Morris at the School of Psychology, with the technological side led by Dr Gary Wills at the School of Electronics and Computer Science, now seeks 40 people in the UK who experience MS fatigue to take part in the web-based trial which will begin on 12 January.
The team adopted an approach which used eight sessions of manualised CBT to treat fatigue in MS effectively, and developed an Internet based version of the package.
'We know this works because six months after the manual treatment, not only had fatigue substantially reduced, but people with MS reported levels of fatigue that were significantly lower than those of a matched healthy, non-fatigued group,' said Professor Moss-Morris.
The researchers found that a limitation of the manual package is that skilled CBT therapists are not available to many people with MS due to the lack of available resources and difficulty of access. The new web-based package will enable effective treatment for more people with minimal therapist time.
The team used expert services users to work with them to develop eight sessions to assess users’ levels of fatigue, their patterns of activity and rest and then to enable them to manage issues such as sleep patterns and stress. The programme is interactive and personalised allowing people to set goals for managing their fatigue and work towards developing and maintaining a healthier lifestyle.
Lawrence Gilbert, an expert service user who has been very involved in the process from the outset, said: 'MS can be like a Duracell battery, you could be going along fine and then suddenly the energy drains out of you. My concern has always been that the fatigue, which is a part of the condition, could be wrongly attributed to being just "all in the mind". The approach taken by the Southampton team is not like that at all.'
More information about the programme can be found at: http://octopussy.ecs.soton.ac.uk/MSInvigor8/Intro/index.php

BREAST CANCER INCIDENCE & HORMONE REPLACEMENT THERAPY

2008-12-21T05:31:00.001-08:00

In the years following the end of World War II, the number of breast cancer cases diagnosed each year began to climb in the United States, and they kept on climbing until, in 2003, a historic decline in the annual incidence of breast cancer suddenly appeared. One year earlier, another dramatic event related to breast cancer also occurred. A huge prospective, randomized, placebo-controlled hormone replacement therapy (HRT) clinical trial, the Women’s Health Initiative study, prematurely terminated the portion of the study evaluating combination HRT pills (the most common type of HRT medication prescribed throughout the world). The plug was pulled on this clinical study because a worrisome excess of breast cancers (as well as cases of cardiovascular disease) was observed among the women who were secretly randomized to receive HRT pills containing both estrogen-like and progesterone-like female hormones (estrogen-only HRT pills are reserved for women who have previously undergone hysterectomy, as this type of HRT is associated with an increased risk of uterine cancer). The preliminary results of this study’s adverse findings, published in 2002 in the Journal of the American Medical Association, identified a nearly 30 percent increase in the risk of breast cancer among the women who had been randomized to take combination HRT pills.

Many of us in the cancer research and treatment community have been arguing, for decades, that the continuously rising incidence of breast cancer observed in the post-war United States has been due to, at least in part, the rising use of HRT medications. Even prior to the publication of the Women’s Health Initiative study’s adverse findings, there have been numerous clinical studies that have linked a woman’s lifetime exposure to female sex hormones to the risk of developing breast cancer. In fact, even decades-old epidemiological studies have, repeatedly, identified an early onset of menstrual periods and a late arrival of menopause as risk factors for breast cancer (these events mark the beginning and end of ovarian hormone production, respectively). More recently, large breast cancer prevention studies have confirmed that estrogen-blocking medications can reduce the risk of breast cancer by about 50 percent in women who are at high risk for this type of cancer.

However, despite decades of clinical and scientific evidence linking HRT to breast cancer risk, it took the sobering results of the Women’s Health Initiative study to finally convince large numbers of women, and their physicians, that HRT increases the risk of breast cancer (and, contrary to the findings of less rigorous and much older epidemiological studies suggesting that HRT reduces the risk of cardiovascular disease in women, the opposite effect actually appears to be the case). Following widespread reporting of the negative findings of the Women’s Health Initiative study, new HRT prescriptions in the United States declined an average of 40 percent over the first three years following the publication of the study’s results.

Several clinical studies over the past 5 years have compared HRT prescribing trends with the incidence of breast cancer in the United States. These studies have shown a significant decrease in the number of new HRT prescriptions filled each year since 2002, and when plotted on a graph, the curve of this decline in new HRT prescriptions matches up very nicely with the curve of the declining number of new breast cancer cases observed each year since 2003. And yet, a significant number of doubters still remain. Some have hypothesized that a small downturn in the number of women undergoing screening mammograms might explain the fewer cases of breast cancer that have been diagnosed each year since 2003. Others have come up with even less likely potential explanations, hoping to explain away the growing and already substantial research evidence linking HRT with an increased risk of breast cancer. However, two new breast cancer research updates further confirm the link between HRT and breast cancer risk.

An update of a previous breast cancer incidence study, from the National Cancer Institute and the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, has just been published online in the journal Breast Cancer Research & Treatment. In this study, the authors reviewed and analyzed the newly updated SEER (Surveillance Epidemiology & End Results) database, which is the national cancer statistics database maintained by the National Cancer Institute.

When compared to the period between 2000 and 2002, significant declines in the number of new cases of breast cancer were observed between 2003 and 2005. Altogether, a 20 percent drop in the incidence of new breast cancer cases was observed during the period beginning in 2003 and ending in 2005, and this historic trend closely mirrors the results predicted by the 2002 Women’s Health Initiative study report. Moreover, nearly the entire decline in breast cancer cases was observed in postmenopausal women over the age of 50, and in breast cancers sensitive to estrogen, further linking this dramatic decrease in breast cancer incidence to decreased HRT use among women.

The other dramatic breast cancer research update was announced at the world’s largest annual breast cancer research conference, the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, less than two weeks ago. At this symposium, the researchers from the Women’s Health Initiative study provided an update on the women who participated in the combination HRT group. These updated results offer striking proof that combination HRT pills are associated with a significantly increased risk of developing breast cancer. Among the study volunteers who took combination HRT pills for an average of 5 years, their risk of breast cancer is now 100 percent greater than what is being observed among the women volunteers who were secretly randomized to receive identical placebo (sugar) pills. This means that the incidence of breast cancer among the women who received combination HRT pills is now fully twice as high as is being observed in the women who did not take HRT pills.

I have, for almost two decades now, recommended against taking HRT medications. In 85 to 90 percent of women, the symptoms of menopause subside significantly within 2 to 3 years. Although they are not quite as effective as HRT drugs in relieving the symptoms of menopause, there are also a variety of prescription and non-prescription remedies available that can reduce the severity of the hot flashes, night sweats and irritability that often accompany the early phases of menopause. (I will have much more to say on the topic of breast cancer prevention in my forthcoming book, “A Cancer Prevention Guide for the Human Race.”) Today, in 2008, my recommendations against HRT drugs remain even more vigorous than ever before.

New Drugs to Battle Multiple Sclerosis

2008-12-18T02:34:00.000-08:00

Sources:Los Angles Times
Related articles by Zemanta

Several new drugs that treat inflammation caused by the disease are showing promise, although serious side effects are still an issue.
…………..
Multiple sclerosis remains a cruel medical mystery. It strikes in the prime of life and runs an unpredictable course that can end in total disability. Scientists are a long way from halting the disease entirely, but several promising drugs are in late-phase clinical trials and experts anticipate better lives for patients in the near future.
“We will see many new drugs on the market and many new options for patients,” says Dr. Diego Centonze, a neurologist at Tor Vergata University in Rome, who is running clinical trials for three new experimental compounds, including one called fingolimod that is the first oral MS drug to move to Phase 3 clinical trials.
In the early 1990s, there were no Food and Drug Administration-approved therapies for MS on the market. Today, there are at least half a dozen, and Centonze expects as many as eight or nine by 2010.
But there are still many challenges, says Dr. Ari Green, assistant director of the multiple sclerosis center at UC San Francisco, which also is running drug company-sponsored trials. None of the approved drugs is ideal, and each of the new experimental drugs has significant adverse side effects.
MS is an autoimmune disease: The body’s immune system attacks some of its own tissues. The common form, known as relapsing-remitting, begins when disease-fighting lymphocytes launch an attack on the brain and spinal cord. These relapses cause short-term inflammation and symptoms such as numbness, but eventually lead to a progressive decline of the nervous system.
The less common form of MS — primary progressive — doesn’t manifest itself with acute attacks, although patients still exhibit neurodegeneration, leading to fatigue, pain, problems with walking and balance, dizziness and bladder and bowel dysfunction.
Currently approved drugs primarily work by reducing the activity of lymphocytes or reducing their ability to travel from the blood into the nervous system. Some of the new ones do that too — while others function in different ways.
The first drugs to gain approval in the mid-1990s were interferon beta-1b (Betaseron), interferon beta-1a (Avonex or Rebif) and glatiramer acetate (Copaxone). Because they have minimal side effects (such as flu-like symptoms) they are used as a first line of defense. But they are only moderately effective, says Dr. Rhonda Voskuhl, director of the UCLA multiple sclerosis program. Patients “fail them, and then move on” to more powerful drugs such as natalizumab (Tysabri) and mitroxantrone.
Mitroxantrone, approved in 2000, is a chemotherapeutic drug that suppresses the immune system and can lead to leukemia or heart damage.
Natalizumab (Tysabri), which received accelerated FDA approval in 2004 and is considered the most effective drug available today, was taken off the market in February 2005 after three patients in clinical trials developed progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy, a fatal viral disease. After an FDA review, it has been available under a special program in which patients are closely monitored for opportunistic infections.
On the horizonThere’s clearly a lot of room for improvement, which is one reason why doctors are excited about options on the horizon.
Fingolimod, originally developed to prevent organ rejection in transplant patients, blocks a signal that allows T-cell lymphocytes to cross into the brain. At the American Academy of Neurology meeting this year, researchers reported that 173 patients with a relapsing form of MS showed a decline in the relapse rate over 36 months from 0.31 relapses per year to 0.20, a 30% decrease in their relapse rate when they took fingolimod. In just six months, the number of patients with brain lesions decreased from an average of 2.2 per patient when taking the placebo down to 1.29. In addition, after 36 months, brain scans revealed that 89% of patients had no evidence of inflammation.
Fingolimod is promising not only for effectiveness but because it comes in pill form, Centonze says. “For patients that must receive injections every other day or every single day, the quality of life is really affected. Taking pills can change this.”
Another compound on the horizon is alemtuzumab (Campath), a monoclonal antibody designed and FDA-approved for fighting leukemia. In a trial of 334 patients published in October in the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers reported that the drug could reduce the relapse rate in early-stage MS patients by two-thirds relative to the standard MS drug interferon beta-1a.
UCSF’s Green says the findings are impressive because this is the first MS trial to compare a new drug to an approved compound rather than a placebo and yet “it still had a remarkable effect on reducing disease activity.”
Rituximab, an antibody that was designed for treating rheumatoid arthritis, is also being studied, in a clinical trial headquartered at UCSF. Rituximab is directed at the immune system’s B cells, rather than T cells that have been targeted by MS researchers since the 1970s.
Biology of MSIn February, a team led by Dr. Stephen Hauser of UCSF reported in the New England Journal of Medicine that in a 48-week trial of 104 patients, rituximab halved the number of patients experiencing relapses relative to a placebo. “It’s led to a whole new understanding of the biology of MS,” Green says. “There are now a ton of potential therapies that are going to be B-cell directed.”
But the downside of taking powerful modulators of the immune system are their serious side effects, including making patients more susceptible to infections and other chronic diseases. Two patients died after taking fingolimod, one with a brain infection and the other with shingles.
And in the alemtuzumab trial published in October, researchers reported that one-quarter of the patients developed an autoimmune disease attacking the thyroid and three developed an autoimmune disease of the blood platelets.
“Drugs like this are toxic,” Voskuhl says. “It’s a hard sell to people who are very young to expose them to drugs that have dramatic side effects.”
A larger problem with the current slate of therapeutics is that they address only the inflammation side of the disease. “But we now know for sure that neurodegeneration is not just caused by inflammation,” Centonze says.
As excited as he is about the burgeoning treatment options, he says, “Before judging the real quality of these drugs, you must treat many, many patients for several years.”

Our Board Members

2008-10-12T13:36:00.000-07:00

Chair: Suzanne Dubé - M.B.A. Licensed Insurance Advisor & Broker

Vice Chair: Wally Glendye - I.T. Officer & Network Design Engineer

Clerk: Open Position

Treasurer: Edward Thomas - ConCom Member & Medical Device Patent Holder

Charles Cristello - Town Manager

Marsha Brunelle - Board of Selectman

Adam Bond - Chairman of the Board of Selectman & Attorney

A.L.S. Stem Cell Treatement

2008-10-12T10:29:00.000-07:00

Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis
Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), also called Lou Gehrig's disease or Motor Neuron Disease, is a rapidly progressive, invariably fatal neurological disease that attacks the nerve cells (neurons) responsible for controlling the voluntary muscles. In ALS, both the upper motor neurons and the lower motor neurons degenerate or die, ceasing to send messages to muscles. Unable to function, the muscles gradually weaken, waste away (become atrophic), and typically twitch (fasciculate).
Eventually the incapability of the brain to start and control voluntary movement is the triggering mechanism. Individuals with ALS lose their strength and the ability to move their arms, legs, and body. When muscles in the diaphragm and chest wall fail, individuals finally lose the ability to breathe without ventilatory support.
The disease does not affect a person's ability to see, smell, taste, hear, or recognize touch, and it does not usually impair a person's thinking or other cognitive abilities. However, several recent studies suggest that a small percentage of patients may experience problems with memory or decision-making, and there are subtypes that may even lead to a form of dementia.
The Xcell-Center Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis treatment
No cure has yet been found for ALS. The United States Federal Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the first drug treatment for the disease: Riluzole. Riluzole is believed to reduce damage to motor neurons and prolongs survival by several months, mainly in those patients with swallowing difficulty.
Stem cell therapy can be used to reduce some symptoms, improve a patient’s quality of life and slow down chronic consequences of ALS. The exact process behind the workings of the stem cells re-introduced to the patient’s body is not yet fully understood.
The stem cells are first collected from a patient’s bone marrow, extracted from the hipbone (iliac crest) then implanted back into the body days later. Prior to re-implantation of the cells, the bone marrow is processed in one of our labs, where the quantity and quality of the stem cells is also checked.
Results
16 out of 53 patients reported no change in muscle spasticity, sensation, mobility or feeling of wellbeing after the treatment.
19 out of 53 patients reported an overall improvement, with improved mobility (legs, arms) and/or improved breathing and or/ improved strength. Some patients reported a regaining of muscle strength and/or an improvement of balance, sleeping or a reduction of spasms.
One patient reported a strong improvement, with a marked improvement of mobility, breathing, speech and swallowing.
17 out of 53 patients reported a perceived deterioration of the quality of their life. A majority of these patients saw a reduction of mobility, strength, speech/swallowing or balance. The treatment could neither stop nor reverse the advance of the ALS symptoms. It is believed that the treatment has not adversely affected the patients.

MassDEP Awards $80,000 in Technical Assistance Grants

2008-09-06T06:03:00.000-07:00

MassDEP Awards $80,000 in Technical Assistance Grants
to Promote Citizen Involvement in Contaminated Site Cleanups

Funds Awarded to Ayer, Deerfield, Fall River, Hyde Park, Middleborough, New Bedford, Norwood, and Somerville

The Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP) has awarded a total of $80,000 to two municipalities and six citizen groups as part of the 2008 Technical Assistance Grant (TAG) Program.

The TAG Program provides funding to promote citizen involvement in the planning process for cleaning up contaminated sites, and it assists citizens in obtaining and understanding the technical information that is used to make cleanup decisions at these sites.

The $10,000 grants were awarded to: People of Ayer Concerned About the Environment; Town of Deerfield; Citizens for Environmental Justice in Fall River; the Neponset River Watershed Association in Hyde Park; the Citizens Environmental Health Impact Committee in Middleborough; Old Bedford Village Economic Development Commission in New Bedford; the Norwood Health Department; and the Friends and Neighbors of Glen Park in Somerville.

"Public participation is an essential part of the Commonwealth's efforts to ensure that contaminated sites get cleaned up in a timely manner," said MassDEP Commissioner Laurie Burt. "The TAG Program empowers local residents to get involved, helps them better understand the sometimes complicated cleanup strategies, and results in a better environmental and public health outcome for all parties."

Over $890,000 in TAG funds has been awarded since the initial grant round in 1995. TAG awards are used to hire a consultant, or other technical expert to conduct an independent analysis/review of the waste site cleanup activities. The findings are presented to the group, and the public-at-large, in a variety of formats to foster greater community input via community meetings, web information, translation of site information and local media coverage in newspapers and community cable.

The consultant will provide an independent analysis of the reports and technical data generated for the site cleanup and will develop a more "community friendly" interpretation of the site activities. The report back to the community group is a critical step that encourages education, communication and involvement so that the plan to cleanup the property is one that is understood and supported by all sides.

The People of Ayer Concerned About the Environment (PACE) will use the funding for involvement at a former dry cleaner/video store that has experienced perchloroethylene (PCE) contamination of the groundwater, soil and indoor air.

The Town of Deerfield will use the TAG for continued public involvement in the East Deerfield Rail Yard, which is contaminated with petroleum products, chlorinated solvents and asbestos in soils and groundwater.

The Citizens for Environmental Justice in Fall River will use the funding for continued involvement in the former Shell Bulk Storage Facility, which has petroleum products and heavy metals contaminating the soil and groundwater.

The Neponset River Watershed Association in Hyde Park will use the TAG for public involvement in the former L.E. Mason industrial site, which is contaminated with polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) that may have migrated off-site into the river.

The Citizens Environmental Health Impact Committee in Middleborough will use the funding for continued involvement in the Rockland Industries chemical manufacturing site, which has volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and other contaminated fluids contaminating groundwater.

The Old Bedford Village EDC of New Bedford will use the TAG for continued public involvement in the Morse Cutting Tool site, where groundwater, soil and indoor air is contaminated by solvents and VOCs.

The Norwood Health Department will use the funding to raise local awareness of the Zimble Drum and Winslow Tanner sites, which is contaminated with heavy metals, PCBs, petroleum hydrocarbons, and dioxin.

The Friends and Neighbors of Glen Park in Somerville will use the TAG for continued public participation in the former dry cleaner packaging facility at 50 Tufts St., which has perchloroethylene (PCE) contamination in the groundwater, soil and indoor air.

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MassDEP is responsible for ensuring clean air and water, safe management and recycling of solid and hazardous wastes, timely cleanup of hazardous waste sites and spills, and the preservation of wetlands and coastal resources.
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ALS study undergoing peer review

2008-08-31T04:52:00.000-07:00

By CHARIS ANDERSON
Standard-Times staff writer
August 31, 2008 6:00 AM

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By CHARIS ANDERSON
Standard-Times staff writer
August 31, 2008 6:00 AM

For decades, Middleboro residents have lived under the specter of a terrible disease that seems to attack town residents in much higher numbers than normal.

The disease — amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease — and whether its high incidence in Middleboro can be tied to environmental causes is the subject of a study conducted by the state Department of Public Health.

Many of the town's ALS cases stemmed from the area around Everett Square, a heavily populated part of town adjacent to many former industrial factories.

Results of the study are still undergoing final peer review, but could be released by the end of the year.

Meanwhile, in January the state launched a first-of-its-kind ALS registry that will track incidences of the disease statewide.

Similar registries have been created for cancer, but Massachusett's registry is the first database across the country tracking ALS.

"We truly believe that the ALS registry is revolutionary in the potential that it has to find treatments and a cure for ALS," said Rich Lombardo, communications manager for the ALS Association's Massachusetts chapter.

Mr. Lombardo also is a member of the state's ALS Registry Advisory Committee, a group of people ranging from neurologists to elected officials, selected to guide implementation of the registry.

Across the U.S., about 5,000 people a year are diagnosed as having ALS, and about 20,000 people have the disease at any given time, according to statistics from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.

The disease affects nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord and is nearly always fatal.

ALS is difficult to diagnose, and only about 10 percent of ALS cases have a genetic link. The other 90 percent are sporadic, or random.

That randomness has made the cause of the disease difficult to pinpoint. Creating a registry of information about all ALS cases in the state will ultimately allow researchers to sift through data, looking for commonalities, according to Mr. Lombardo.

The 90 percent that are "random, it won't be random anymore," he said.

Additionally, having a data repository will make it easier not only to identify possible clusters but also to determine the cause of those clusters, said Marybeth Barker, a social worker with a master's degree in public health who is on the advisory committee.

"Sometimes, there are clusters that happen because of just randomness," she said. "And then there are clusters that may happen because there is something going on there, and it would be very good to understand the difference."

Although that kind of cutting-edge research is still in the future, "the first step really is collecting the data," Mr. Lombardo said.

The state's registry is in its first year of gathering data, according to Suzanne Condon, director of the state's Bureau of Environmental Health.

In January 2008, neurologists across the state were asked to report all cases of ALS diagnosed during 2007, Ms. Condon said.

Halfway through the year, about 88 percent of doctors contacted had already responded, a good participation rate, she said.

Data collection will continue each January, with information from the prior year, she said.

"Ultimately, we'll be publishing some kind of annual report on the incidence and prevalence of ALS across the state," Ms. Condon said.

"It would definitely be a tool for us in the same way the cancer registry is a tool."

Contact Charis Anderson at canderson@s-t.com.

Middleboro officials hear reports of barrels buried at hazardous site

2008-08-05T12:09:00.000-07:00

Officials pressure the state to clean up Rockland Industries hazardous waste site.
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By Alice C. Elwell
ENTERPRISE CORRESPONDENT
Posted Jul 29, 2008 @ 03:34 AM

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MIDDLEBORO — After years of allegations, public meetings and reams of reports that reach back more than 20-years, officials for the first time heard two eyewitnesses confirm that something is buried at the Rockland Industries hazardous waste site on Plymouth Street.

“I saw buried barrels,” said Russell Enos, an activist on the matter for years, as he spoke Monday during a packed meeting of selectmen.

He pointed out a location on a map of Rockland Industries, saying probes of the area will back up his claim.

Enos said at 12 inches, the probes found asphalt.

William A. Marzelli told selectmen he was a project manager in the late 1970s when he was hired to put up a building on the site. When excavation began for a foundation, he found “some of the worst smelly black slime I’ve seen in 30 years.”

“It was a mess, very nasty, obviously it had been filled,” Marzelli said. He said the slimy soil was capped with cement and the building was put up.

The good news is the owners of the site are planning to dig out the contaminated soil and get rid of it.

“We thought they should have done that years ago,” said Molly Cote, project manager for the state Department of Environmental Protection.

A united front, composed of the selectmen, the Conservation Commission, the Citizens Environmental Health Impact Committee, State Sen. Marc R. Pacheco and Reps. Thomas J. Calter, William M. Straus and Stephen R. Canessa put pressure on the environmental agency charged with overseeing the cleanup.

The DEP is being called to task for allowing the cleanup to lag, but bureau chief Gerard Martin cautioned that the family of the polluter, the late Daniel Striar, could conceivably stop all work on the grounds it will cost too much to clean up.

Chairman of the Board of Selectman Adam M. Bond led a two-hour session, questioning Martin and Cote. The main issue was the lack of testing at the site, which could reveal higher levels of contamination than documented.

Martin said the site is contaminated with chlorinated solvents, as well as zinc, mercury, lead and other pollutants. He said two gallons of chlorinated solvents can contaminate five million gallons of ground water.

But Martin said without written proof, he was limited to what testing he can require the Striar family to do.

“There may be drums in that lagoon area, that doesn’t mean they have to dig them up,” Martin said.

“Through the years there’s been allegations that drums of contaminates were buried on the site,” Cote said before Enos’ disclosure. “There’s no indication to believe there’s an area of drums. They would be leaking.”

Cote said the opinion was based on readings from probes and test pits.

“If there were buried barrels, you’d find some evidence,” Cote said.

“The only thing we’re fairly certain, I don’t believe, based on science and investigation, is there’s not some unknown dump of barrels,” Cote said.

Calter, a freshman state representative, said he isn’t satisfied with the DEP’s progress.

“I’m really disappointed,” he said after the meeting. Calter’s qualified opinion comes from 30 years of experience in hazardous waste cleanups, both as an employee of one firm and owner of another.

Calter is joining with Pacheco to reach out to the DEP, “with the sincere understanding reasonable people all look at the same data and reach the same conclusions ... it’s time for remediation.”

The meeting came on the heels of a notice the town received Monday, asking for a two-year extension on the cleanup.

“I am not for any extension unless an extension is consistent with what environmental agencies recommend for a remedial plan,” Pacheco said in a phone call from Beacon Hill, minutes before the meeting. He wants the contaminants removed from the site.

“They have to get that done, it’s been far too long,” he said.

“I believe at some point in time we need to have a plan for remediation at the site and stop studying it. That time is upon us,” Calter said.

Senator demands better cleanup at waste site in Middleboro

2008-08-05T11:57:00.000-07:00

Senator demands better cleanup at waste site in Middleboro
By Alice C. Elwell
Mon Jul 28, 2008, 02:22 PM EDT

MIDDLEBORO -
State Sen. Marc R. Pacheco, D-Taunton, says the current cleanup plan for Rockland Industries, a Tier 1A hazardous waste site on Plymouth Street isn't working, and is demanding the DEP step up to the plate and get the site cleaned up.

"We're not getting the results we hoped for," Pacheco said.

Selectmen will meet tonight with representatives from the Department of Environmental Protection to discuss the issue. Pacheco said he won't be at the meeting because he expects the Senate to be in session, but he met with the state organization last Friday.

"I called on the DEP to move forward and renegotiate another (cleanup) strategy." Under the current enforcement order, the owners, the Striar family, has until December to meet the conditions, but Pacheco said we shouldn't wait. "Bottom line, get it done."

"After the meeting, it was my understanding everyone is in agreement, including the owner, it's not working," Pacheco said. "The DEP has recognized the existing strategy being used is not getting the results we hoped for... I called on the DEP to move forward aggressively and renegotiate another consent order."

Patricia J. Cassady, the local conservation agent, said an 18-inch layer of soil was spread over the lagoon and swale area. It was intended to act as a cap, Cassady said, but the measure did not take into account ground water.

"There is ground water and that's why it's not working. We don't know if there's contamination of the soil." Cassady said presently the water is tested, but not the soil.

Pacheco is also concerned with unresolved public health issues. He said a report is due out regarding the high number of ALS victims in Middleboro. (ALS, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis is commonly known as Lou Gehrig's Disease) At issue is whether the site contributed to the numbers and whether it still is.

Stem Cell Breakthrough for Lou Gehrig's Disease (ALS)

2008-08-03T04:44:00.000-07:00

By: Drucilla Dyess Published: Saturday, 2 August 2008

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A new technique for reprogramming cells has allowed scientists to grow neurons from cell samples donated by people suffering from Lou Gehrig's disease (ALS) that genetically match the bad cells in the spinal cords of ALS patients. This breakthrough may lead to an understanding of how the disease develops.
ALS, technically known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that causes motor neurons in the brain and spinal cord to die, which can lead to paralysis or death. It is estimated that 30,000 people in the United States have the disease, according to the ALS Association.
Scientists at Harvard and Columbia universities have become the first to succeed in the laboratory creation of a supply of cells with the same genetic makeup as a patient with a specific disease. The same technique used for the creation of these cells can be used to study other genetic diseases in hopes of better understand what causes these diseases and allow for the testing of new drugs to battle against them. The accomplishment of creating these cells has been a fundamental reason for performing stem cell research since its inception.
Stem cells have the capability of developing into various cell types in the body and can act as a repair system within the body. These cells can continue to divide and replace other cells in the body as long as the body lives. Stem cells divide and each new cell can remain a stem cell or become another type of cell with a specialized function.
The researchers worked with a form of ALS that is caused by a defect in a single gene using patches of skin removed from the arm of an 82-year-old woman and her 89-year-old sister, who share a rare genetic mutation that causes only about 2 percent of ALS cases.
The research team used a technique that was developed two years ago by Japanese stem cell researchers. During the procedure skin samples were placed into a laboratory dish. The researchers then inserted four genes into the DNA of the skin cells, which reprogrammed the cells. These skin cells then formed cell colonies much like embryonic stem cells called induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells. Then, the iPS cells were coaxed by signaling molecules into motor neurons. The resulting patient-specific cells will be studied to see how the development of diseases such as ALS occurs.
According to co-author Dr. Kevin Eggan of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute Eggan commented, "Since the cloning of Dolly the sheep and the first derivation of a human embryonic stem cell line by Jamie Thomson some 10 years ago, it's been the hope of scientists to generate stem cell lines that have the genes of a patient." He went on to explain, "This really suggests that it's going to be possible to make these cells from patients suffering from other diseases." Eggan noted that the research team plans to study the cells in the lab and compare them with cells of someone who doesn't have that disease next.
Another long term goal is to actually repair defects in the cells and then transplant them back into patients, however, the current technique used to create the iPS cells necessitates adding viruses and genes to the damaged cells that can cause cancer.