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NPA Offers Private PGD Opportunity To Members - Seasonal Flu Vaccination
The NPA has launched an exciting new service enabling members to offer seasonal flu vaccinations to customers under a private Patient Group Direction (PGD) that the NPA is facilitating for its members, in line with our objective to provide additional business opportunities. Currently regulators require registration with the Health Care Commission and the involvement of a medical agency before a private PGD service can be set up. Members can now set up new services under private PGD without having to undertake this bureaucratic burden themselves.
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New Study Shows Nplate(R) Significantly Reduces Splenectomy Rate And Treatment Failure In Patients With Chronic ITP
Amgen Inc. (Nasdaq: AMGN) today released the results of a new study comparing Nplate(R) (romiplostim) to the medical standard of care (SOC) in non-splenectomised adult patients with chronic immune thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP). Chronic ITP is a serious autoimmune disorder characterised by low platelet counts in the blood (thrombocytopenia), which can lead to serious bleeding events. The study results show Nplate significantly reduced the incidences of splenectomy and treatment failures in non-splenectomised adult patients with chronic ITP when compared to medical SOC. The results were presented today as an oral presentation at the 14th congress of the European Hematology Association (EHA abstract #1672).
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Opinion Pieces Respond To Obama's Call For 'Empathy' In Supreme Court Justice
Two newspapers recently published opinion pieces responding to President Obama"s comments on the need for "empathy" in candidates to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice David Souter. Summaries appear below.~ Ellen Goodman, Boston Globe: When discussing Souter"s replacement, Obama said he will seek a nominee ""who understands that justice isn"t about some abstract theory. ... It is also about how our laws affect the daily realities of people"s lives,"" Globe columnist Goodman writes in an opinion piece. According to Goodman, Obama"s emphasis on the need for judicial "empathy" has sparked outrage among a "phalanx of horrified conservatives" who claim that "empathy is just a code word for the sentimental liberal bias in favor of underdogs over the Constitution." However, she continues, "let us remember that empathy is not sympathy. It doesn"t require that we take sides. Nor is it an emotional shortcut that upends all legal reasoning to declare a winner." According to Goodman, empathy "is rather the ability to imaginatively enter into the experience of others." She writes that the "capacity to recognize another person"s reality is not just liberal," adding that empathy "doesn"t trump reason, it informs reason." Goodman writes, "The truth is that we want judges who "get it,"" adding that the "myth of justice as a matter of pure objective reasoning that could be meted out by a computer is just that, a myth" (Goodman, Boston Globe, 5/22).~ Mike Rosen, Denver Post: Although Obama"s emphasis on empathy might seem "[c]ompassionate and seductive" to some, his stance "represents a radical and dangerous departure from traditional American jurisprudence," radio host Rosen writes in a Post opinion piece. Rosen writes, "When empathetic judges rule on their feelings, they are exceeding their authority," adding that the "role of the judicial branch of our government is to rule on the Constitution as written and the law as passed by Congress and signed by the president." According to Rosen, the courts "are a co-equal branch of government, not a superior branch," and judges should not "rule on what they think the law ought to be" because that would be "government by a presumptuous, unelected judiciary." Rosen continues that "judges are referees, not rule makers" because they are "not there to empathize with the fans or the players. They represent the rule book, and they aren"t authorized to … make it "fairer."" According to Rosen, the "dispute between conservatives and liberals on judicial activism is philosophical and irreconcilable." He concludes that Senate confirmation hearings for Obama"s nominee "should make for an interesting debate on these principles" (Rosen, Denver Post, 5/22).
Public Health

Study Of Infant Sleep Patterns And Parenting

Infants" sleep patterns and their parents" influence on it are the focus of the SIESTA II project, supported by a five-year, $2.67 million grant from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development to Douglas M. Teti, professor of human development and psychology, Penn State. SIESTA II -- Study of Infants" Emergent Sleep Trajectories, Phase II -- will study the role of parenting in the development of infant sleep patterns. Researchers will visit 150 homes in the Hershey, Harrisburg and State College areas to collect data and 25 percent of the homes will have minority families. Researchers will visit each home seven times in two years. Infrared cameras in participants" homes will document several aspects of bed time and night time rituals for infants including daily bed time routines, use of close contact, soothing vs. arousing behaviors, parental reactions to infant sleep disruptions, parental emotional availability and infant emotional reactions. Parents will also keep infant sleep diaries. "Most literature on infant sleep patterns comes from pediatric journals, but tends to ignore perspectives from developmental science -- we hope to change that," says Teti. "There"s probably not one universal formula that parents should use to promote sleep quality and well-being in infants. It"s more likely that how parents feel about their children"s sleep and how well they adapt emotionally plays just as large a role in the development of infant sleep as the parenting practices being used." The researchers will test whether consistent bed time rituals promote self-regulated sleep habits in infants; whether support from a partner enhances a mother"s ability to adapt to a temperamental infant; whether parents who do not adapt are less emotionally available to their infants and experience more stress, and whether parents" stress increases the number of infant sleep disruptions. They will also test the idea that cognitive functions in infants, such as the capacity for information processing, are sensitive to and influenced by sleep quality. As part of the project, the grant will be used to fund several graduate students who will work as researchers at the University Park or Harrisburg campuses. SIESTA I, which was funded by Penn State"s Children, Youth and Families Consortium, was a pilot study and laid the groundwork that makes SIESTA II possible. Researchers established that infrared cameras would provide clear video and audio and accurately capture the emotional quality of infant and parental behaviors in the middle of the night. SIESTA I also gave the investigative team the opportunity to pilot a number of different measures and procedures currently being used in SIESTA II. Co-investigators for SIESTA II include Pamela Cole, professor of psychology; Cindy Stifter, professor of human development and psychology; Mike Rovine, professor of human development, all from Penn State; Ian Paul, professor of pediatrics, Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center, and Thomas Anders, professor emeritus of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, University of California, Davis. A"ndrea Elyse Messer Penn State


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