Companies set to fight food-label plansource: California Secretary of Statethose in favour of labelling argue that the public has the right to know what is in their food,
in June, the American Medical Association said that there was no scientific reason to label GM foods,
but recommended that long-term studies should be vigilant for any health effects. Benbrook says that,
the labelling could support health studies by helping to track people s food choices. Pro-GM plant scientists also point out that the crops can benefit the environment by enabling farmers to use less-toxic herbicides
and reduce insecticide use. But proponents of labels say that these benefits are temporary, and point to studies showing that weeds
earlier this year, a cigarette tax that would have funded disease research was defeated narrowly at the ballot after 67%of voters initially supported it.
even big forest patches are in fact largely empty of mammals a proxy for the general health of the ecosystem."
Swine-flu alert The number of reported cases in an outbreak of H3n2v virus a variant strain of swine flu that can pass from pigs to humans took a sudden spike last week.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia, reported 154 cases on 10 Â August, up from 16 on 3 Â August;
because it contains a gene from the H1n1 pandemic strain that may increase transmissibility among humans.
Drug-discovery split Irish pharmaceutical company Elan is to split into two, completely separating its drug-discovery work from the main business.
The firm which is based in Dublin, plans to spin off its research work into a small separate company called Neotope Biosciences,
Elan itself will keep ownership of assets such as its stake in multiple-sclerosis drug Tysabri (natalizumab.
focusing on materials for health and medicine. go. nature. com/tej8lw23-25 august The brain s connectome
3 9 august 2012h5n1 moratorium Researchers should continue a self-imposed moratorium on lab studies that give new properties to the highly pathogenic avian influenza virus H5n1, according to Anthony Fauci, director of the US National Institute
of Allergy and Infectious diseases. Fauci was speaking at a meeting of flu researchers in New york city.
The moratorium has been in place since late January; it was planned originally to last 60 days. See go. nature. com/3zwwq5 for more.
A. DI MEO/EPA/CORBISITALIAN dog-breeding facility at risk One of the largest suppliers of beagles (pictured) for mandatory drug testing in Europe could struggle to survive after an Italian court ordered its temporary closure
because they could bring pathogens into the facility. See go. nature. com/t7am4p for more.
with the aim of analysing 100,000  samples per year from massive epidemiology projects. The Medical Research Council (MRC) and the National institute of health Research (NIHR) are each putting £5  million (US$8  million) into the project.
Texas grant review The Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT) in Austin has appointed a compliance officer to review
and monitor its grant-applications process, it announced on 2 august. Meeting for the first time since controversy erupted over its grant funding, the state-funded institute approved 45 Â grants, together worth more than US$114 million.
Gene-test regulation Personal-genetics company 23andme announced on 30 Â July that it was seeking approval from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for its genetic tests related to health
but not for those for non-medical information such as ancestry or traits such as eye or hair colour.
because it provides information, not a medical service. See go. nature. com/cinowb for more.
Cancer vaccine The biotech firm behind the first approved cancer vaccine will slash 41%of its workforce, after tepid sales of its Provenge (sipuleucel-T) therapy for some prostate cancers.
) Dendreon hopes to market the vaccine in Europe by 2013. Alzheimer s setback Research has been halted on a keenly watched experimental drug aimed at treating Alzheimer s disease after it failed two late-stage clinical trials.
Pharmaceutical companies Johnson & johnson, based in New brunswick, New jersey, and Pfizer, based in Groton, Connecticut, said on 6 Â August that they would no longer work on the monoclonal antibody bapineuzumab.
It binds a peptide, amyloid-Ã Â, that may cause neurodegeneration in patients with Alzheimer s.
But in two phase III trials one reported on 23 july and one on 6 august the drug did not prevent cognitive decline.
Source: Thomson Reuters/Sciencewatchresearch papers with a single author are becoming a rare breed, show data for 2011 from Thomson Reuters Sciencewatch newsletter.
Last year, less than 20%of papers in the sciences, social sciences, arts and humanities had single authors (see chart.
In the sciences alone, single-author papers were down to 12%.%At the other end of the spectrum, 2011 saw some 600 Â papers written by more than 100 authors,
Officials act to secure cattle-plague virusrinderpest, a devastating cattle disease, has not been seen in the wild for a decade,
but it lives on in scores of labs. Twelve months after the world celebrated the success of a years-long vaccination campaign that made rinderpest only the second disease after smallpox to be eradicated,
Rinderpest is as deadly to cattle as highly pathogenic H5n1 avian flu is to chickens. In past decades, outbreaks ripped through herds and wiped out up to 90%of animals, often leaving famine,
a member of a seven-person multidisciplinary Joint Advisory Committee (JAC) on rinderpest that was set up to consolidate the eradication by the Rome-based Food and agriculture organization of the united nations (FAO) and the Paris-based World organisation for Animal health (OIE).
The committee would also approve all future research on live rinderpest virus to ensure that its benefits outweigh the risks.
or shipped to approved high-security labs. The approach is modelled on the post-eradication phase of the smallpox campaign
the Middle east and Asia, where rinderpest outbreaks were common until recently, and a handful of established rinderpest research centres,
such as the Institute for Animal health in Pirbright, UK, and the Plum Island Animal disease Center in New york state.
After smallpox was eradicated, a lab accident in Birmingham, UK, resulted in two infections and one death.
And an accidental release of foot -and-mouth virus from the Pirbright facility, which houses  a high-biosecurity,
-and-mouth and rinderpest, caused an outbreak in the United kingdom in 2007. Active research on rinderpest has waned as the disease has been brought under control over the past few decades,
says Michael Baron, a rinderpest researcher at the Pirbright centre. He and others say that the biggest threat is forgotten from long samples of virus from past research programmes,
and serum and other samples collected for diagnostic or other purposes, that may be lurking in lab freezers.
Rinderpest vaccine strains, which are stocked in many countries and consist of live attenuated virus, are also a concern.
and cause disease outbreaks. Until the world is certain that rinderpest is gone for good, vaccine strains will need probably to be maintained in high-security labs in several regions
so that they can be shipped swiftly to any outbreak, says Baron. But he says that just a couple of pure-research labs would be enough to pursue the valuable scientific opportunities that rinderpest still offers.
Although the virus is closely similar to the human measles virus, for example, cattle don t catch measles
and humans don t catch rinderpest. Understanding why this is so could provide insight into the pathology and basic biology of viruses,
Baron says. Of more immediate interest, investigators would also like to know whether vaccines can be developed against another related virus, the sheep and goat disease called peste des petits ruminants,
that might also protect against rinderpest. That would eliminate the need to keep any stocks of live attenuated rinderpest virus at all.
Baron s home lab contains more than 100 Â different rinderpest virus isolates, which he says represent"basically the history of the disease.
He intends to sequence them all in the next few years so that they can be recreated if ever needed
and then destroy them
Seven days: 21 27 september 2012drug-makers unite Ten giant pharmaceutical companies have formed a nonprofit organization called Transcelerate Biopharma, with the goal of making clinical trials more efficient.
By setting universal standards in trial design and data collection, the group could shave time
and expense off the drug-development process, says Garry Neil, head of Transcelerate and a former vice-president of science and technology at Johnson & johnson. Smaller companies are invited to join the team.
See go. nature. com/jj2sky for more. Dark Energy Survey Collaboration/FERMILABFIRST light for dark-energy lens A camera designed to hunt for signs of dark energy
a force thought to be responsible for the Universe s rapid expansion, snapped its first images on 12 Â September.
The images from the Dark Energy Survey camera (Nature 489,190-191; 2012), which is mounted on the 4-metre Blanco telescope in Chile,
were generated as part of a testing phase that is set to end in December. This stitched-together image of sections of sky shows the globular star cluster 47 Tucanae,
and prompted politicians to introduce legislation on 21 Â September that would limit the toxic substance.
and the US Food and Drug Administration released reports that found inorganic arsenic in rice products.
Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State Univ. AZT-maker dies Jerome Horwitz, the chemist who inadvertently created the first antiretroviral drug for AIDS,
azidothymidine (AZT), died on 6 Â September, aged 93. News of his death emerged last week.
Horwitz (pictured) created AZT in the 1960s to combat cancer, but he shelved the drug after it showed little efficacy against the disease.
A company that later became part of Glaxosmithkline patented AZT in the 1980s when it was found to be effective against AIDS.
Horwitz received no money for his discovery because he no longer owned the compound, but he did go on to produce treatments for diseases such as cancer at the Wayne State university School of medicine in Detroit, Michigan,
until he retired in 2005. Development boost Chinese President Hu Jintao announced a US$1. 5-million donation to TWAS, the academy of sciences of the developing world, on the opening day of the organization s 23rd
general meeting in Tianjin, China, on 18 Â September. The donation means that China overtakes Brazil as the largest contributor to the organization,
Chemist Bai Chunli, current president of the Chinese Academy of Sciences was elected also as the organization s president.
Fraud inquiry Cardiff University is launching an investigation into allegations of scientific misconduct in the laboratory of its dean of medicine, Paul Morgan,
Chimp research cut The US National institutes of health (NIH) is ending its funding for chimpanzee work at the largest centre for such research that it supports.
There are still 308 Â chimpanzees available for invasive experiments at two other NIH-supported centres;
Cancer ambitions A leading US cancer centre said last week that it will spend up to US$3 Â billion over the next ten years on a programme to significantly increase the odds of surviving eight cancers.
Under the Moon shots initiative, research teams at the MD Â Anderson Cancer Center in Houston,
Texas, will focus on cancer of the prostate, lung and ovary, and on a type of breast cancer as well as melanoma, two leukaemias and a related blood syndrome.
See go. nature. com/lrevbl for more. XMRV ruled out The retrovirus XMRV is linked not to chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS
a definitive study that cost US$2. 3  million concluded on 18  September. A 2009 paper found signs of XMRV infection in people with CFS (V.  C.  Lombardi et  al.
Science 326,585-589; 2009), but was retracted in 2011 because of concerns that the results were caused by contamination.
The latest study (H.  J.  Alter et  al. mbio 3, e00266-12;
and Chemical Toxicology, looked for adverse health effects in rats fed NK603 maize (corn), developed by biotech company Monsanto to resist the herbicide glyphosate
It reported that the rats developed higher levels of cancers had larger cancerous tumours and died earlier than controls.
The researchers have not conclusively identified a mechanism for the effect. The rats were monitored for two years (almost their whole life  span),
About a dozen long-term studies of different GM CROPS have failed to find such stark health effects2.
Other scientists point out that the Sprague-Dawley strain of rats used in the experiments has been shown to be susceptible to developing tumours spontaneously,
CRIIGEN bills itself as an"independent nonprofit organization of scientific counter-expertise to study GMOS, pesticides and impacts of pollutants on health and environment
They argue that most of the critics are not toxicologists, and suggest that some may have competing interests,
and that many fewer control rats developed tumours in middle age. The 90-day trial of Monsanto s NK603 maize used in its authorization also used Sprague-Dawley rats,
Josã Domingo, a toxicologist at Rovira i Virgili University in Reus, Spain, and a managing editor of Food and Chemical Toxicology, says that the study raised no red flags during peer review.
Domingo, who last year authored a critical review of safety assessments of GM plants4 has complained previously about the lack of independent feeding studies of GM foods.
Regulators rely mainly on more robust tests that compare the toxicological and nutritional profiles of GM foods with their non-GM counterparts to screen for potential concerns.
which can harbour human pathogens and must be kept at precise temperatures and fed particular nutrients.
But culturing mammalian cells is currently the only way to make some complex protein drugs.
For example, the rare lysosomal storage disease mucopolysaccharidosis I is treated using enzyme-replacement therapy. The enzymes must be made in cells,
and the high production costs mean that the drugs can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.
Canada, whose husband works with people who have lysosomal storage disorders, decided to develop a way to manufacture the necessary enzymes in maize (corn).
which could prompt a dangerous immune reaction if injected into patients. But today in Nature Communications1, Kermode and her colleagues describe how they avoided these modifications.
The team tweaked the protein-producing genes, not to alter the sequence of the human protein,
  Other plant systems have been used to make therapeutic proteins. In May, the US Food and Drug Administration approved Elelyso (taliglucerase alfa) a drug for the lysosomal storage disorder Gaucher disease which is produced in cultured carrot cells.
And drugs made in duckweed safflower and tobacco have progressed as far as clinical trials. However, making proteins with certain sugar patterns using these systems is still difficult or impossible.
In terms of controlling protein modifications, Kermode s localization technique is"a significant improvement for the production of biopharmaceuticals,
says Herta Steinkellner, a molecular biologist at the University of Natural resources and Life sciences in Vienna.
But there is a long way to go before maize-made drugs reach the market, says Kermode.
however, maize may one day become the go-to way to make complex protein drugs
The workers start out as nurses, which look after and feed the queen and larvae, and most then go on to become foragers,
if a forager reverts to being a nurse, its methylation pattern reverts too. Led by Andrew Feinberg of Johns hopkins university in Baltimore, Maryland,
and Gro Amdam of Arizona State university in Tempe, the researchers coaxed forager bees back into nursing roles by removing all the nurses from the hive
they noticed the lack of nurses, and about half of them took on nursing roles.
Examination of the methylation patterns in DNA from their brain cells showed that these too had switched back to the pattern associated with nurses."
"What is exciting is that the genes that change back are the same genes that changed in the other direction initially
noting that epigenetic effects on human behaviour might express themselves in addiction, learning and memory.
"Reversing possible bad epigenetic marks in human physical and psychological diseases is already a big research interest in biomedicine.
Need for flu surveillance reiteratedthe emergence of the H1n1 influenza virus that leapt from pigs to humans in 2009,
triggering a global pandemic, reminded us of the need to monitor animals such as pigs that can host the development of dangerous viral strains.
A study published today re-emphasizes that need. Young-Ki Choi at Chungbuk National University in Cheongju, South korea,
and his colleagues have isolated a new strain of H1n2 influenza from Korean pigs that kills infected ferrets the model animal of choice for influenza work
says Robert Webster of the St jude Children s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, one of the study s senior authors."
Like that responsible for the 2009 pandemic, the new strain, known as Sw/1204, is a'triple-reassortant'virus that is, one with genes from avian, swine and human flu.
Choi wanted to assess the pandemic potential of Korean strains. His team tested two H1n2
and two H3n2 viruses isolated from pig abattoirs before the 2009 pandemic. Most of these viruses did not cause any signs of serious disease in ferrets.
Sw/1204 was the exception. It replicated in the airways and lungs of three infected ferrets
killing one and causing such severe disease in the others that they had to be euthanized.
and growing in human lung tissues and airway cells than the parental strain, and could still thrive
but not transmissibility, in the pandemic H1n1 strain. NA315N has also been found before, but its role is less clear.
By introducing the two mutations individually into the original Sw/1204 strains the team showed that both contribute to the greater virulence and transmissibility of the virus. Malik Peiris,
a clinical virologist at the University of Hong kong, says the work shows how important it is for changes in haemagglutinin
When Choi added them to another H1n2 strain, they did not increase transmissibility or virulence to the same degree, suggesting that other genetic features of Sw/1204 also play a part.
Jeremy Farrar of the Oxford university Research Hospital Unit in Ho chi minh city Vietnam, says that the study"certainly underscores the need for surveillance of mammals.
Through the Recovery Act, my Administration committed over $100 billion to support groundbreaking innovation with investments in energy, basic research, education and training, advanced vehicle technology, health IT and health research
We have invested highly in important research being done to improve the health and wellness of all Americans so that we can continue to unravel clues to treating
or preventing some of life s most daunting and debilitating diseases, develop powerful new medicines,
and even define strategies that will prevent disease from occurring in the first place. We have made also critical investments in research and development to bolster our national security and defense.
And my budget continues to support making permanent the R&d tax credit which would allow businesses the ability to invest
Obamacare imposes an excise tax on the revenue of medical device companies that is already driving jobs and investment overseas.
Meanwhile, the FDA s slow and opaque approval process is rated less than one-fourth as effective as its European counterpart by medical technology companies.
Robust NIH funding will only have desired its effect if paired with sensible policies that facilitate medical innovation more broadly.
Recent experiments show how Avian flu may become transmissible among mammals. In an era of constant and rapid international travel,
what steps should the United states take to protect our population from emerging diseases, global pandemics and/or deliberate biological attacks?
To further improve preparedness, we must continue to invest in the best public health monitoring systems that can be built.
I will also encourage advancements in research and manufacturing to increase scientific understanding of new pathogens
and improve response time when they emerge. The development of new countermeasures, from diagnostics to antibiotics and antivirals to respirators, will help protect human lives in the face of new bugs and superbugs.
Unfortunately, the Obama Administration has taken numerous steps that are stifling medical innovation. He has imposed new taxes on innovative companies.
He has empowered bureaucrats to manage the marketplace. His FDA has slowed the drug development process and inserted requirements that drive up the cost of developing new antibiotics.
A robust public health system is only as strong as the tools available, and I will empower the private sector to pursue the breakthroughs that will equip society for the health challenges of the twenty-first century.
Increasingly, the global economy is driven by science, technology, engineering and math, but a recent comparison of 15-year-olds in 65 countries found that average science scores among U s. students ranked 23rd,
while average U s. math scores ranked 31st. In your view, why have fallen American students behind over the last three decades,
and what role should the federal government play to better prepare students of all ages for the science and technology-driven global economy?
Politicians have attempted to solve these problems with more spending. But while America s spending per student is among the highest in the world,
yet many Americans are concerned increasingly about the health and safety of our food. The use of hormones, antibiotics and pesticides,
as well as animal diseases and even terrorism pose risks. What steps would you take to ensure the health, safety and productivity of America s food supply?
When I started, our food safety system needed to be modernized. One in four people were getting sick every year due to food-borne illness,
and children and the elderly were more at risk. I signed the most comprehensive reform of our nation s food safety laws in more than 70 years â oe giving the Food and Drug Administration the resources,
authority and tools needed to make real improvements to our food safety system. We have strengthened standards,
bolstered surveillance used to detect contamination problems earlier, and responded to illness outbreaks faster. I am also working to bolster the use of organic farming methods
and minimize pesticides and antibiotics in our food. I set the ambitious goal to increase the number of certified organic operations by 20 percent â oe
and we expect to meet that target. I am protecting human health by ensuring that the foods the American public eats will be free from unsafe levels of pesticides by making sure that all new,
and even older pesticides, comply with strict science-based health standards. We are also making sure safer pesticides get to market faster,
so that we can decrease the use of those pesticides that have higher risks of health impacts.
And my administration is taking steps to limit antibiotic use for livestock. This will help ensure that antibiotics are used only address diseases and health problems
and not for enhancing growth and other production purposes. And I will continue to work on food safety issues to ensure that public health is the priority in our food safety system.
Preventive practices are the best tool to reduce the incidence of food-borne illnesses because they provide the greatest control over the potential risks of contamination
and are generally the most cost-effective. These practices are developed best by growers, handlers, processors,
and others in the supply chain with specific knowledge of the risks, diversity of operations in the industry,
and feasibility of potential mitigation strategies. In a Romney Administration the FDA will work closely with industry,
to develop specific guidance for the commodities most often associated with food-borne illness outbreaks.
100 water and waste water community infrastructure projects to safeguard the health of 18 million rural residents and support 135,000 jobs.
and through foreign policy to protect the environmental health and economic vitality of the oceans? We are directing additional funding to Gulf Coast restoration to bring back the fisheries and coastal ecosystems
which is targeting ecological problems such as invasive species, toxic hot spots, and pollution runoff. We are cleaning up the Chesapeake bay,
so we have the most accurate data possible on the health of our fisheries. These are significant steps that are helping us improve the health of our oceans and build more robust fisheries.
The federal government has a vital role to play in conducting sound science and making the resulting data available.
and industry associations should have access to the data to protect the health and vitality of the oceans and to adjust policy when necessary.
A Romney Administration will safeguard the long-term health of fisheries, while welcoming input from the fishermen most affected at every step
But a senior official responsible for assessing the health of the nation s forests says that recent surveys have overestimated the extent of the remaining forests.
boosting the risk of food-borne illnesses and diarrhoeal diseases, they add.""Food safety will in future be a crucial issue.
Swedish scientists discovered in 2002 that a wide range of baked and fried goods contain worryingly high levels of acrylamide1 a simple organic molecule that is a neuro  toxin and carcinogen in rats.
uncertainty about acrylamide s true health effects and the challenge of weeding out a mole  cule present in hundreds of products.
two teams one led by chemist Donald Mottram at the University of Reading, UK, the other by Richard Stadler at Nestlã in Lausanne,
Subsequent epidemiological studies involving tens of thousands of people have looked for links between acrylamide and various forms of cancer in humans
among those who had smoked never, women consuming about 40 â°micrograms of acrylamide per day doubled their risk of developing cancers of the womb
The US Food and Drug Administration has collected not routinely data on acrylamide in food since 2006,
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