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Putting A Price Tag On Reform Spreads Unease
Taxes, fees for business and spending cuts could help lawmakers pay the $1-trillion-plus cost of health reform, but those possibilities have spurred a behind-the-scenes lobbying fight on Capitol Hill, and caused a fair share of anxiety among many interest groups, the Los Angeles Times reports. For instance, Anchor Brewing Co., a San Francisco beer-maker, chocolate milk sellers and labor unions have all attacked lawmakers over new tax proposals for liquor, soft drinks and employer-sponsored benefits that would affect their industries.
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Elekta Provides VMAT And Radiosurgery Solutions For New Jersey Health System
CentraState Medical Center (Freehold, New Jersey) has purchased two new state-of-the-art Elekta radiation therapy treatment systems, both with Volumetric Modulated Arc Therapy (VMAT). The first site in the world to have both Elekta Axesse and Elekta Infinity, CentraState will offer the most advanced cancer care available to its patients.
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White House Retools Message As GOP Opposition, Public Opinion Push Back
"[T]he White House team is retooling its message and strategy, hoping a more modest approach will reinvigorate Obama"s signature domestic policy initiative and give him a first-year victory for Democrats to carry into the 2010 midterm elections," the Washington Post reports. An early focus on "fast, broad and bipartisan" reforms has given way to realities including a stiff Republican opposition, lack on consensus in his own party, and falling poll numbers. As a result, the administration and Democratic allies have missed a self-imposed August deadline, turned to harsher critiques of industry players and now appear open to both less-ambitious proposals, and procedural measures that could bypass GOP opposition to achieve a partisan reform bill (Connolly, 8/2).
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Could Hormones Explain Gender Differences In Neurological Disease?

Neurological diseases including Parkinson"s, Tourette"s, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), Alzheimer"s, and schizophrenia are all associated with alterations in dopamine-driven function involving the dopamine transporter (DAT). Research published recently in the open access journal BMC Neuroscience suggests that a number of estrogens acting through their receptors affect the DAT, which may explain trends in timing of women"s susceptibility to these diseases. Rebecca Alyea and Cheryl Watson from the University of Texas Medical Branch investigated how physiological estrogen levels might influence neurochemical pathways including dopamine signalling. The authors tested the rapid nongenomic effects of several physiological estrogens (estradiol, estrone, and estriol) on dopamine efflux via the DAT in a non-transfected rat neuronal cell culture model that expresses the three membrane estrogen receptors ERí±, ERöź, and GPR30. The authors found that estradiol-mediated dopamine efflux is DAT-specific and not dependent on extracellular Ca2+-mediated vesicular release of dopamine. Using kinase inhibitors they also showed that estradiol-mediated dopamine efflux is dependent on specific signaling kinases (protein kinase C and MEK, but not on PI3K or protein kinase A). While inhibiting dopamine efflux, estrone and estriol caused DAT to leave the plasma membrane. Previous work by Alyea and Watson indicated that the suppression of efflux occurs mainly via ERí±, and in this new study they show a physical association of ERí± and ERöź with DAT before and during estrogen action, and trafficking of all three estrogen receptors in and out of the plasma membrane during dopamine efflux. "The significance of estrogen-coupled regulation of the DAT by both direct and indirect (kinase-mediated) interactions between estrogen receptors and the DAT should provide insights into how neurological diseases which involve the DAT are related to developmental, gender, and life stage issues," says Watson. "Such regulation may suggest new ideas about treatment and prevention of diseases associated with extreme hormonal fluctuations such as in postpartum depression." Women experience significant estrogen level changes at various life stages such as adolescence, menopause and as a result of monthly cycles. Women are also most likely to experience the onset or exacerbations of some neurological diseases at these times. Notes: Nongenomic mechanisms of physiological estrogen-mediated dopamine efflux Rebecca A Alyea and Cheryl S Watson BMC Neuroscience (in press) Article available at journal website: http://www.biomedcentral.com/bmcneurosci/. All articles are available free of charge, according to BioMed Central"s open access policy. Charlotte Webber BioMed Central


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