Polls: Health care law rollout reviews not pretty

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Only a minority of Americans are giving a thumbs up to the rollout of the Affordable Care Act health care exchanges, according to a trio of new national polls.

Just 12 percent of people questioned in a CBS News poll released Tuesday say they think the process is going well, with nearly half saying it's not going well and nearly four in 10 saying they can't evaluate the signup process at HealthCare.gov.

The state level online exchanges, which opened for business on Oct. 1, are intended to allow those without insurance to sign up for health care, and are a crucial part of the ACA.

Less than 3 in 10 surveyed in a Pew Research Center poll released on Monday say the online exchanges are working very well, with 46 percent saying they are not.

Besides the expected partisan divide, the poll also indicates a racial gap. Just 24 percent of white respondents, but 51 percent of black respondents say the exchanges are working well.

And the survey points to generational and income divides.

"Young people and those with annual household incomes of less than $30,000 are divided in their evaluations of the exchanges, while the assessments of older and more affluent Americans are more negative," says a release from Pew Research.

An ABC News/Washington Post poll suggests that major problems with the health care law's website may just be an appetizer.

Fifty-six percent of those questioned in the survey, which was released Monday, say the website failures are a sign of broader problems to come, with four in 10 saying they are an isolated incident.

More than eight in 10 Republicans see the website failures as part of a larger problem with the measure, while most Democrats describe it as an isolated incident.

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Polls: Health care law rollout reviews not pretty

Report: Health care website failed early test

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WASHINGTON (CNN) -

The president's health care sign-up Web page was supposed to handle tens of thousands of people at once. But in a trial run days before its launch, just a few hundred users flatlined the site.

Despite the problems, federal health officials pushed aside the crash cart and rolled out HealthCare.gov on Oct. 1 as planned, The Washington Post reported.

The result? The website crashed shortly after midnight as a couple thousand people tried to start the process, two people familiar with the project told the Post.

The report is the latest criticism of the problem-plagued site -- criticism so acute that even President Barack Obama said there was " no sugarcoating" the difficulties Americans have faced trying to sign up for insurance coverage.

Webmaster in Chief

"Nobody's madder than me about the website not working as well as it should, which means it's going to get fixed," Obama said during an appearance Monday at the White House Rose Garden.

But he didn't specify exactly what went wrong or who was to blame for the problems, which include long waits to log onto the federally administered website and maddeningly long wait times once online.

There's "no excuse for the problems," Obama said. But he said tech industry experts were being brought in to help workers trying to fix the site.

Call it more fuel for the fire as the GOP continues its quest to defund the new health care system, popularly known as Obamacare.

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Report: Health care website failed early test

Late stage gene therapy for inherited blindness part of Children’s Hospital spinout

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A Children Hospital of Philadelphia gene therapy spinout is taking over development of a Phase 3 gene therapy program to treat inherited blindness by counteracting retinal degeneration. Its one of the most common causes of blindness in children.

Spark Therapeutics is advancing the work of CHOPs Center for Cellular and Molecular Therapeutics. The center was set up in 2004 as a center for gene therapy translational research and manufacturing. CHOP is giving it $50 million to advance its genetic therapies.

Inherited blindness is caused by mutations in the RPE65 gene. There is currently no drug or therapeutic treatment for this form of inherited retinal degeneration, according to the hospital statement. It ultimately causes irreversible blindness.

The treatment has produced some encouraging results. A clinical study of 12 patients with RPE65-related blindness demonstrated notable improvement in visual function. In some cases, children who were profoundly blind were able to recognize faces and move independently, according to the statement.All school-age patients enrolled in the trial were able to transfer from Braille classrooms to sighted classrooms. The next step is a Phase 3 open-label, randomized, controlled study that will expand on the study.

The gene mutation in one of 14 genes that cause Lebers congenital amaurosis. It disrupts development of the retina, causing people with the disease to have severe vision deficits from birth that progress slowly over time to total blindness.

Many of the centers leaders will take on management roles in Spark or work with the company as scientific advisers. Among those advisers is Dr. Katherine A. High, a gene therapy pioneer who has worked as the director of the center from the start.

The group is also developing a gene therapy for hemophilia B. The goal is to eliminate or reduce the need for regular infusions of clotting factor. It might even be able to help hemophilia B patients with inhibiting antibodies.

The company is also advancing toward the clinic with gene therapy programs to address neurodegenerative diseases and additional hematologic disorders and other forms of inherited blindness.

The company was co-founded by CEO Jeffrey D. Marrazzo, who has served as an entrepreneurial consultant to the hospital for the past three years. He said: The creation of Spark is the culmination of a decade-long commitment by CHOP and our founding team to drive the field of gene therapy forward during a time when many in the industry had moved away.

Last month, CHOP formed a partnership with Osage University Partners in a move to develop more partnership opportunities. One spin-off company CHOP has produced is Vascular Magnetics to treat peripheral artery disease. A rotovirus vaccine called RotaTeq produced through joint research between CHOP and Wistar Institute is now sold by Merck.

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Late stage gene therapy for inherited blindness part of Children’s Hospital spinout

New Gene Therapy Company Launches

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Spark Therapeutics hopes to commercialize multiple gene-based treatments developed at the Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia.

A new biotechnology company will take over human trials of two gene therapies that could offer one-time treatments for a form of childhood blindness and hemophilia B.

The gene therapies were developed by researchers at the Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia, which has committed $50 million to the new company called Spark Therapeutics. The launch is the latest hint that after decades of research and some early setbacks, gene therapy may be on its way to realizing its potential as a powerful treatment for inherited disease.

In December 2012, the European Union gave permission to Dutch company Uniqure to sell its gene therapy for a fat-processing disorder, making Glybera the first gene therapy to make its way into a Western market (see Gene Therapy on the Mend as Treatment Gets Western Approval). However, Glybera has not been approved by the U.S., nor has any other gene therapy.

Spark has a chance to be the first gene-therapy company to see FDA approval. Results for a late-stage trial of a gene therapy for Lebers Congenital Amaurosis, an inherited condition that leads to a loss of vision and eventually blindness, are expected by mid-2015. That treatment is one of several gene therapies in or nearing late-stage testing contending to be the first gene therapy approved by the FDA for sale in the U.S. (see When Will Gene Therapy Come to the U.S.).

In addition to taking the reins for two-ongoing human trials, Spark will also work on gene therapies for other eye and blood conditions as well as neurodegenerative diseases, says CEO Jeff Marrazzo. The gene therapy technology developed at the Childrens Hospital has been speeding down the tracks, he says, and the company will provide the vehicle to get these therapies to the people who need them.

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New Gene Therapy Company Launches

Freedom High School needs your vote for $100,000 grant

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Freedom High School is hoping to again win a $100,000 State Farm Insurance grant, but the Bethlehem Township, Pa., school needs your votes.

Last year, Freedom was the regional winner in the inaugural "Celebrate My Drive" contest thanks to a coordinated social media campaign.

But the grand prize of a free Kelly Clarkson concert for a small and a large school has heated up the competition this year. Freedom has already netted more votes than last year but, as of this afternoon, the school is fighting to stay in the top 50 of the large school competition.

Not far behind are Parkland High School at 59 and Pen Argyl Area High School at 60. Voting started Friday and remains open until Saturday.

While the grand prize is a Kelly Clarkson concert, Freedom students are more interested in the grants, said Jennifer Wescoe, school adviser to the Students Against Destructive Decisions (SADD) chapter vying for the grant.

State Farm is dishing out 10 $100,000 grants and 90 $25,000 grants to schools that win the competition. The competition launched in 2012 as a means of celebrating the teenage rite of passage of that first driver's license while promoting safe driving, said Dave Phillips, with State Farm media relations in Delaware, Pennsylvania and West Virginia.

Car crashes remain the No. 1 killer of teens in North America, but research has shown that positive messages about safe driving stick with teens longer than negative ones, such as mock car crashes, Phillips said.

"The first year behind the wheel on the road is the most dangerous," he said.

Freedom students have joined State Farm at events through the year, using students as spokespeople and using a YouTube video students made, Phillips said.

Freedom students crafted an ambitious list of projects to pursue if they won the 2012 grant and they followed through on every one of them, said Wescoe, who is also the school's theater director. The money was shared with the entire district through various events.

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Deep-sea oil blowout could decimate favourite kiwi beaches

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EMBARGOED UNTIL 00:01 WEDNESDAY 23 OCTOBER

Deep-sea oil blowout could decimate favourite kiwi beaches

A computer oil spill modelling report released today shows a deep-sea blowout could have devastating impacts on New Zealand's coastal waters and significant economic consequences.

Industry standard modelling by Wellington based data scientists Dumpark using ten years of climate and weather data, shows the blowout effects of two planned deep-sea drilling locations off the West Coast of the North Island and the East Coast of the South Island. The deepest current production well in New Zealand is 125 meters. Texan oil driller Anadarko is scheduled to begin the first deep-sea drilling (at 1500 meters) this summer off Aucklands West Coast.

We predicted the trajectory of a thousand oil spill scenarios at two sites in New Zealand using ten years of global archives of marine weather data. We are basically answering a what if question. What if a catastrophic blowout scenario occurred at these deep-sea drill sites? - Laurent Lebreton, Dumpark Ocean Modeller

The modelling for the north shows the likelihood of oil hitting Aucklands iconic West Coast beaches and harbours. In the south, a spill off the coast of Otago could spread across the Chatham Rise - a vital commercial fishing ground and marine wildlife habitat - reaching all the way to the Chatham Islands.

In the North Island scenario, a deep-sea blowout will probably have dramatic consequences for the entire Western coastline and harbours from Taranakis Cape Egmont to Opononi in Northland - including Aucklands West Coast beaches. For a blowout off Otago, most modelled trajectories drift eastward without encountering land for months between Christchurch and the Chatham islands. - Timo Franz, Dumpark Data Analyst

Spill modelling reports are a permitting requirement for oil drilling, however deep-sea oil spill modelling reports have not yet been made publicly available on the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) website.

Greenpeace Campaigner Steve Abel said The Government have been understating the real risks being taken with our oceans and coastlines, so today we are showing New Zealanders what the Government, Minister Simon Bridges and industry already know and have kept hidden - the full extent of the risk of deep-sea drilling.

Drilling at these depths is much riskier than the shallow drilling we currently have in New Zealand. This modelling suggests just how much of a threat deep-sea drilling could be to our values, our seas, our beaches, our way of life and our economic prosperity."

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Deep-sea oil blowout could decimate favourite kiwi beaches

Astronomy group eyes Mindanao observatory

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MALAYBALAY CITY (MindaNews / 22 Oct) Mindanao should have its own astronomical observatory because astronomy is an effective way of boosting interest in science and technology, Rodion Herrera, program director and head lecturer of Voyager Adventures said.

Herrera told MindaNewsSundaythat existing astronomical observatories like the Manila Observatory are inaccessible to Mindanaos students and instructors.

He said the group hopes to build an astronomical observatory in Mindanao either in Davao or in Zamboanga City to help raise the quality of science and technology education.

He acknowledged that this requires a huge investment and might take a long time to be realized so in the meantime, his group goes around Mindanao to bring the universe closer to the students.

Voyager Adventures, a Davao-based private group promoting the study of astronomy, ended its nine-day tour in BukidnonTuesday.

The group visited schools in Bukidnon from October 14 to October 22 as a follow up to their August 2013 run.

On October 14, the 12-member Voyager team went to Lantapan for an exhibit with elementary and high schools students and teachers. They proceeded to Valencia City Central School on October 16, to the Valencia City National High School on October 18 and in Malaybalay City on October 21 and 22, at the Bukidnon National High School, Bukidnons biggest high school.

The group first toured Bukidnon in August 2013, spending two weeks in the towns of Quezon, Maramag, Pangantucan, and Manolo Fortich.

The group has toured more than 200 schools around Mindanao, except in the cities of Surigao, Cotabato, Pagadian, Gingoog, and Cagayan de Oro, said Herrera.

The group uses educational events program with a state of the art Voyager Planetarium, mobile digital educational podium, as a visual and entertaining tool in teaching astronomy and other sciences.

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