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Sustained-Release Drug-Dispensing Contact Lens Could Ease Treatment Of Glaucoma And Other Conditions
Taking eye drops multiple times a day can be difficult for patients to do, and because of blinking and tearing, as little as 1 to 7 percent of the dose is actually absorbed by the eye. Now, researchers led by Daniel Kohane, MD, PhD, director of the Laboratory for Biomaterials and Drug Delivery at Children"s Hospital Boston, have developed special contact lenses that can gradually dispense a constant amount of medication to the eye, at adjustable rates. They describe their prototype lens in the July issue of Investigative Ophthalmology and Visual Science.

What Is Shingles? What Causes Shingles?
Shingles is caused by the herpes varicella-zoster (or simply zoster) virus. This virus also causes chickenpox. Most of us get chickenpox during childhood, but after we recover the virus remains inactive (dormant) in our nervous system. Our immune system stops the virus from becoming active. However, later in life it may become reactivated, causing shingles. Shingles is an infection of a nerve and the area of skin around it.
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New Promise For Sleeping Sickness Treatment
NECT (Nifurtimox-Eflornithine Combination Therapy), a new treatment option for sleeping sickness, a fatal disease that threatens 60 million people across sub-Saharan Africa, has been added to the Essential Medicines List (EML) of the World Health Organization (WHO). The inclusion is based on an application submitted by the non-profit Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi), supported by the international medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders/Mç©decins Sans Frontiç¨res (MSF), and Epicentre, MSF"s epidemiological research center.
Endocrinology

Senate Confirms Hamburg As FDA Commissioner

The Senate on Monday by voice vote confirmed Margaret Hamburg as FDA commissioner, CQ HealthBeat reports (CQ HealthBeat, 5/18). As commissioner, Hamburg is expected to immediately begin working on the agency"s response to the H1N1 flu virus. She also has said she wants to overhaul the agency"s food safety efforts. According to CongressDaily, Hamburg hopes to restore confidence in the agency, which has experienced controversy surrounding drug and food safety issues in recent years (CongressDaily, 5/19). Hamburg is the 21st FDA commissioner and the second woman to hold the position in FDA"s 100-year history (AP/Washington Post, 5/19). Reprinted with kind permission from http://www.kaisernetwork.org. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery at http://www.kaisernetwork.org/dailyreports/healthpolicy. The Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report is published for kaisernetwork.org, a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. © 2009 Advisory Board Company and Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.


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