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Unspoken Memories Of Holocaust Survivors Find Silent And Nonpathological Expression
A faculty member of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the University of Haifa presented the results of a new research at an international Holocaust conference held at the University of Haifa.
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Obama Announces Appeals Court Judge Sotomayor As Supreme Court Nominee
President Obama this morning announced Judge Sonia Sotomayor of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals as his nominee to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice David Souter, the New York Times" "The Caucus" reports. Sotomayor, if confirmed, would be the first Hispanic to serve on the court and, with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, bring the number of female justices currently on the court to two. White House officials said the president made his decision over the Memorial Day weekend after narrowing his list of candidates to four. s close to the selection process said the other candidates included Federal Appeals Judge Diane Wood, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Solicitor General Elena Kagan (Zeleny, "The Caucus," New York Times, 5/26). According to the Washington Post, Obama has set a deadline of having Sotomayor confirmed before the Senate"s five-week recess that begins Aug. 7 (Shear et al., Washington Post, 5/26). Sotomayor, a graduate of Princeton University and Yale Law School, joined the federal district court in 1992 after being nominated by former President George H.W. Bush. Former President Clinton nominated her to the appeals court in 1997, and she was confirmed in 1998 (Baker/Zeleny, New York Times, 5/26). The Post reports that many analysts considered Sotomayor a likely pick to replace Souter, who announced his retirement earlier this month (Washington Post, 5/26). According to the Times, Sotomayor"s past statements that her ethnicity and gender are important factors in serving as a judge "could generate debate" during the nomination process. In a 2002 lecture, Sotomayor said, "I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn"t lived that life" (New York Times, 5/26). Both liberal and conservative advocates were quick to release statements on the selection after the announcement this morning. Doug Kendall, president of the liberal Constitution Accountability Center, said, "We already know that she is a brilliant lawyer who is committed to ruling based on the Constitution and the law, not on her own personal political views." Wendy Long, counsel to the conservative Judicial Confirmation Network, said in an e-mail to reporters that Sotomayor "is a liberal judicial activist of the first order who thinks her own personal political agenda is more important than the law as written. She thinks that judges should dictate policy, and that one"s sex, race and ethnicity ought to affect the decisions one renders from the bench" (Washington Post, 5/26). According to Politico, of the nominees Obama was considering, Sotomayor was the one that Republicans indicated "they would complain most loudly about." However, the Democratic control of the Senate makes it unlikely that Republicans could block her confirmation, Politico reports (Allen/Martin, Politico, 5/26). Over the weekend, Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said that senators from both parties "reserve the right to not only oppose a nomination, but also prevent the vote on a nomination" (Wilson, The Hill, 5/25). Kyl also said that although the GOP likely does not have enough votes for a filibuster, he would attempt to delay the nomination if Obama chose someone outside what he considers the mainstream. He said, "We will distinguish between a liberal judge on one side and one who doesn"t decide cases on the merits but, rather, on the basis of his or her preconceived ideas" (Washington Times, 5/25). Obama Discusses Nomination in C-SPAN InterviewIn an interview on Friday with C-SPAN, Obama said he would like to choose a Supreme Court justice who has "a little bit of a common touch" and a "practical sense of how the world works," the Post reports. Obama added that he "continue[s] to believe" that "empathy" is an important quality in a justice, despite Republican criticism that his emphasis on the quality means that he seeks a judge with an "activist" agenda, the Post reports
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Health Net Federal Services Statement On TRICARE Award Announcement
Health Net Federal Services, LLC, the government operations division of Health Net, Inc. (NYSE:HNT), released the following statement today in response to the Department of Defense"s release of the TRICARE contract awards:
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Breast Cancer Drug Shows Promise Against Serious Infections

An FDA-approved drug used for preventing recurrence of breast cancer shows promise in fighting life-threatening fungal infections common in immune-compromised patients, such as infants born prematurely and patients with cancer. Some scientists suspected that tamoxifen has antifungal properties; now new research from the University of Rochester Medical Center shows that it actually kills fungus cells and stops them from causing disease. "It"s still early, but if tamoxifen, or molecules like it, turns out to be an effective treatment against serious fungal infections, it"ll be a welcome addition to our arsenal," said Damian Krysan, M.D., Ph.D., author of the research recently published in the journal Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy and assistant professor of Pediatrics at the University of Rochester Medical Center. While serious fungal infections are generally isolated to patients with cancer, patients in intensive care units, patients with HIV or patients taking immune-suppression medications for chronic conditions, they are among the deadliest infections. Fungus is the third most common cause of blood stream infection in premature infants in the neonatal intensive care unit. The survival rate for children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia is about 95 percent, but if they acquire a Candida albicans fungal infection, that drops to 80 percent. Bacterial meningitis has a 5 percent risk of death, but the risk of death for C. albicans blood stream infection is 20 percent. Tamoxifen is given to prevent breast cancer from returning. It is given orally, and often for months at a time. Scientists had known that tamoxifen has anti-fungal properties in test tubes, but it was Krysan and his team, including Melanie Wellington, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor of Pediatrics, that found that it kills yeast in mice with Candida infections. This is a crucial step toward developing tamoxifen or structurally related molecules for use in patients. At high levels about the same as those used, experimentally, to treat brain tumors tamoxifen reduced yeast levels by 150 fold. In fact, the drug caused the fungus cells to break apart and die (lysis), and it didn"t allow the surviving cells to morph into their disease-causing state. In the past 20 years, only one new class of antifungal drugs has been introduced and they must be administered intravenously, not orally, which presents challenges in outpatient settings. The most widely used antifungal drug that can be given orally slows the growth of fungus cells but it doesn"t kill them, which means that patients whose immune systems are compromised may have trouble completely fighting off the infections. "We don"t have vaccines against fungal infections and the few drugs we do have aren"t always effective," Krysan said. "We"ve got a lot more work to do to figure out whether tamoxifen could be used in high doses or whether it could be used in combination with other treatments, but we"re excited about the possibility of giving doctors another way to help these critically ill patients." University of Rochester Medical Center


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