Arkansas Bans Abortion at 12 Weeks, Earliest in U.S

LITTLE ROCK, Ark (Reuters) Mar 06 - Arkansas was set to enact the nation's most restrictive law on abortion, banning most abortions after 12 weeks of pregnancy, after the state's Republican-controlled House on Wednesday voted to override the governor's veto of the bill.

Representatives voted 56-33 to override the veto by Democratic Governor Mike Beebe, which followed the state Senate's override on Tuesday. In Arkansas, lawmakers can override a veto with a simple majority vote.

The Arkansas Human Heartbeat Protection Act will go into effect 90 days after the formal adjournment of the legislative session. The session was set to adjourn May 17, though it could be extended.

Arkansas will have the earliest abortion ban in the country, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research group that supports abortion rights.

The measure bans most abortions at about 12 weeks of pregnancy, once a fetal heartbeat can be detected by a standard ultrasound. It includes exemptions for rape, incest, the life of the mother and major fetal conditions. Doctors who violate the prohibition would have their licenses revoked by the state medical board.

The fetal heartbeat bill was one of several bills introduced by Arkansas Republicans this year seeking to restrict abortion. This is the first time the party has controlled both chambers since the Reconstruction era following the Civil War.

Beebe said in his veto letter the heartbeat bill "blatantly contradicts" the U.S. Constitution as interpreted by the Supreme Court, and he questioned the potential cost to taxpayers of defending it against legal challenges.

The ACLU of Arkansas was expected to challenge the 12-week ban in court.

More  ……………                              Reuters Health Information

Arkansas Bans Abortion at 12 Weeks, Earliest in U.S

.Mar 06, 2013

Micronutrients

micro-nutrients are needed only in minuscule amounts, these substances are the “magic wands” that enable the body to produce enzymes, hormones and other substances essential for proper growth and development. As tiny as the amounts are, however, the consequences of their absence are severe. Iodine, vitamin A and iron are most important in global public health terms; their lack represents a major threat to the health and development of populations the world over, particularly children and pregnant women in low-income countries.
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Antibodies Kill Most Known HIV Strains

This breakthrough could advance HIV vaccine design as well as therapy for other diseases.

THE GIST

Two powerful antibodies neutralize 90 percent of all known HIV strains.
The antibodies prevent the HIV virus from infecting cells.
The two antibodies are actually produced naturally and found in the blood of HIV-positive people.
U.S. researchers have discovered two powerful antibodies that neutralize more than 90 percent of all known strains of the HIV virus in the lab, new research released Thursday showed.
Scientists from the National Institutes of Health discovered the antibodies, known as VRCO1 and VRCO2, that prevent most HIV strains from infecting human cells. The find is a potential breakthrough for advancing HIV vaccine design, and antibody therapy for other diseases.
The authors, whose work is published in the July 9 issue of Science, also were able to demonstrate how one of these disease-fighting proteins gets the job done.
"The discovery of these exceptionally broadly neutralizing antibodies to HIV and the structural analysis that explains how they work are exciting advances that will accelerate our efforts to find a preventive HIV vaccine for global use," said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), National Institutes of Health.

Why First 30 Hours Critical for Killing HIV

News that a baby seems to have been functionally cured of HIV after early intervention has piqued the interest of the medical community worldwide and raised hopes that the procedure could be used to more easily and effectively prevent mother-to-child transmission of the virus. More than 3 million children are currently living with the virus that causes AIDS.
Doctors made the announcement Sunday at the 20th annual Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI) in Atlanta.
The timing of the intervention -- about 30 hours after the baby was born -- may have been the key to success, doctors involved with the case said.

A Way to Fight the AIDS Virus With a Virus

“Early treatment most likely contributed to the outcome of this child, but whether it's the only intervention that allowed this outcome is unclear and requires further study,” said Deborah Persaud, associate professor at Johns Hopkins Children’s Center and author of the report on the baby.
The current procedure for high-risk infants is a regimen of smaller doses of antiretroviral drugs until a blood test confirms HIV when the baby is six weeks old. But knowing that this baby was at high risk, Dr. Hannah Gay decided not to wait for the results, and started the baby on high doses of three standard drugs used for HIV-positive babies as soon as the baby was transferred to her at the University of Mississippi Medical Center. The child is now 2 ½ and has no signs of the functioning virus.
While pediatric AIDS researchers were surprised, and while they reiterate the need for the procedure to be repeated, they said it makes sense that the treatment worked. Persaud offered one hypothesis that she and Dr. Katherine Luzuriaga, an immunologist at the University of Massachusetts, plan on testing in clinical trials in the next few months: The HIV virus usually establishes itself in reservoirs where it stays in a dormant state.

Sitting Less Reduces Risk Of Type 2 Diabetes

People at high risk of developing type 2 diabetes can reduce the risk by sitting less and moving around more frequently, rather than exercising regularly. 
The finding came from a study at the University of Leicester which indicates that decreasing sitting time by 90 minutes in total each day may result in critical health advantages.

Patients at risk for type 2 diabetes are currently told to do moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) every week for at least 150 minutes.

However, the new research, published in Diabetologia demonstrates that individuals should actually be told to decrease their sedentary time. This means that they need to reduce the time they spend moving very little or not all, such as when they are lying down or sitting.

The investigation was led by Joseph Henson and a team from the Diabetes Research Unit, University of Leicester and National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Leicester Loughborough Diet, Lifestyle and Physical Activity Biomedical Research Unit (BRU), UK.

Scientists say baby born with HIV 'functionally cured'

WASHINGTON — A baby born with the virus that causes AIDS appears to have been cured, scientists announced Sunday, describing the case of a child from Mississippi who's now 2½ and has been off medication for about a year with no signs of infection.
There's no guarantee the child will remain healthy, although sophisticated testing uncovered just traces of the virus' genetic material still lingering. If so, it would mark only the world's second reported cure.
Specialists say Sunday's announcement, at a major AIDS meeting in Atlanta, offers promising clues for efforts to eliminate HIV infection in children, especially in AIDS-plagued African countries where too many babies are born with the virus.
"You could call this about as close to a cure, if not a cure, that we've seen," Dr. Anthony Fauci of the National Institutes of Health, who is familiar with the findings, told The Associated Press.

                                                                                            Associated Press - ‎Monday‎, ‎March‎ ‎4‎, ‎2013