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Nevada Assembly Passes Bill To Protect Physicians On J-1 Visas
The Nevada Assembly last week voted to approve a bill (SB 229) that would authorize the Nevada Department of Health and Human Services to stop the exploitation of foreign physicians who have come to the state to provide care to residents in underserved areas, the Las Vegas Sun reports. The measure now goes to Gov. Jim Gibbons (R) for his approval (Allen, Las Vegas Sun, 5/28). A September 2007 Sun investigation of the J-1 visa program found that some foreign physicians were forced by their sponsors to work up to 100 hours per week, and were being "cheated out of their salaries" and "diverted from the patients" in underserved areas whom they were supposed to help (Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, 8/6/08).The legislation would make violations of the J-1 program more clearly punishable under state law and prosecutable by the attorney general"s office; charge J-1 physician sponsors a fee to cover the cost of enforcing the law; and protect whistle-blowers (Las Vegas Sun, 5/28).
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Lilly Receives Fourth FDA Approval For ALIMTA(R) (pemetrexed For Injection)
Eli Lilly and Company (NYSE: LLY) announced it received a fourth approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for ALIMTA(R) (pemetrexed for injection). The latest approval is for ALIMTA as a maintenance therapy for locally advanced or metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), specifically for patients with a nonsquamous histology whose disease has not progressed after four cycles of platinum-based first-line chemotherapy. ALIMTA is not indicated for treatment of patients with squamous cell non-small cell lung cancer.
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California HIV Services Center Forced To Close
Declining private and public financial support has forced Vital Life Services, an Oakland, Calif.-based nonprofit that provided support, case management, mental health counseling and other services to roughly 400 low-income and homeless clients with HIV, to shut down, the Oakland Tribune reports. According to the Tribune, the 25-year-old center -- which also provided "unique" services such as daily meals and emergency housing assistance -- "has become a victim of the recession" (Burt, Oakland Tribune, 5/30).
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Women More Susceptible To Harmful Effects Of Smoking

Women may be more susceptible to the lung damaging effects of smoking than men, according to new research by Inga-Cecilie Soerheim, M.D., and her colleagues from Channing Laboratory, Brigham and Women"s Hospital and University of Bergen, Norway. They analyzed data from a Norwegian case-control study including 954 subjects with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and 955 controls. All were current- or ex-smokers, and the COPD subjects had moderate or severe COPD. "Overall our analysis indicated that women may be more vulnerable to the effects of smoking, which is something previously suspected but not proven," said Dr. Soerheim. The study results will be presented on May 18 at the 105th International Conference of the American Thoracic Society in San Diego. Examining the total study sample, there were no gender differences with respect to lung function (FEV1) and COPD severity, but the women were on average younger and had smoked significantly less than men. To explore these differences further, they also analyzed two subgroups of the study sample: COPD subjects under the age of 60 (early onset group) and COPD subjects with less than 20 pack-years of smoking (low exposure group). In both subgroups, women had more severe disease and greater impairment of lung function than men. "This means that female smokers in our study experienced reduced lung function at a lower level of smoking exposure and at an earlier age than men," said Dr. Soerheim. It has long been suspected that the effect of smoking on lung function may be modified by gender. Interaction analysis confirmed that being female represents a higher risk of reduced lung function and severe COPD, but this gender effect was most pronounced when the level of smoking exposure was low. "The gender difference in COPD susceptibility seems to be most important when smoking exposure is low. Women may tolerate small amounts of tobacco worse than men," Dr. Soerheim explained. According to Dr. Soerheim, the reason why women may be more susceptible to the effects of cigarette smoke is still unknown, but there are several possible explanations: "Women have smaller airways; therefore each cigarette may do more harm. Also, there are gender differences in the metabolism of cigarette smoke. Genes and hormones could also be important." "Many people believe that their own smoking is too limited to be harmful that a few cigarettes a day represent a minimal risk. However, in the low exposure group in this study, half of the women actually had severe COPD. Clearly, there is no such thing as a safe exposure to cigarette smoke. Our findings suggest that this is particularly true for female smokers," concluded Dawn DeMeo, M.D., M.P.H., of Channing Laboratory, Brigham and Women"s Hospital, the senior author of the study. American Thoracic Society (ATS)


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