In earlier work, Northwestern University scientist Mary J.C. Hendrix and colleagues discovered that aggressive melanoma cells (but not normal skin cells nor less aggressive melanoma cells) contain specific proteins similar to those found in embryonic stem cells. [click link for full article]

Because President Bush “seems to have given up” on Social Security reform this year, Medicare is the “more likely playing field” to address long-term budgetary shortfalls in federal entitlement programs, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports (Lipman, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 5/1). [click link for full article]

The Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America (AAFA) today announced the launch of their “What’s My IgE?” campaign during May, National Asthma Awareness Month. The initiative is designed to educate the public about allergic asthma, raise awareness of IgE testing as a means of screening and motivate patients to speak with a specialist for improved asthma management. Asthma affects approximately 20 million people in the United States. [click link for full article]

Regular as clockwork, the flu arrives every year. And, according to the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 5 to 20 percent of the U.S. population on average will come down with it. About 36,000 people will die. But among health experts, a bigger concern than the seasonal flu is an outright flu pandemic, such as a human strain of avian flu. And officials say it is not a question of if such a health crisis will come but when. [click link for full article]

Resistance training, some of it job-specific, was successful in getting 90 percent of workers with severe rotator cuff injuries back to work, the majority (75 percent) at their previous job, after traditional physical therapy had failed to do so. Furthermore, all but one of the 42 employees in the study (98 percent) reported satisfaction with the resistance-training program and its outcome.Dr. [click link for full article]

Most research studies, media attention and cancer organizations ignorecancer prevention, over-emphasize pharmaceutical ‘cures’. Cancer is now or will soon be the #1 cause of death for women and men inCanada, StatsCanada says. About 200 types of malignancies will kill anestimated 73,000 men, women and children in 2007, including many of the160,000 Canadians who will be newly diagnosed with cancer this year. Thecancer epidemic is well known. [click link for full article]

When bile duct cancer cells were placed in the liver of animals with bile duct obstruction, they grew more rapidly than identical cells placed in animals without bile duct obstruction. In fact, half of the total liver mass of the rats with bile duct obstruction became replaced by cancer cells within three weeks compared to only 16 percent of that of animals without bile duct obstruction. [click link for full article]

Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) last week proposed legislation that would establish military medical centers dedicated to treating mental illness and brain injuries in troops returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the San Diego Union-Tribune reports. [click link for full article]

Being obese increases the risk of breast cancer in post-menopausal women, shortens the time between return of the disease and lowers overall survival rates. Italian researchers speaking at Experimental Biology 2007 in Washington, DC, now report evidence on how leptin, a hormone found in fat cells, significantly influences breast cancer development and progression in mice. This new understanding, says Dr. [click link for full article]