US proposes effort to analyze DNA from 1 million people

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InterAksyon.com The online news portal of TV5

WASHINGTON - The United States has proposed analyzing genetic information from more than 1 million American volunteers as part of a new initiative to understand human disease and develop medicines targeted to an individual's genetic make-up.

At the heart of the "precision medicine" initiative, announced on Friday by PresidentBarackObama, is the creation of a pool of people - healthy and ill, men and women, old and young - who would be studied to learn how genetic variants affect health and disease.

Officials hope genetic data from several hundred thousand participants in ongoing genetic studies would be used and other volunteers recruited to reach the 1 million total.

"Precision medicine gives us one of the greatest opportunities for new medical breakthroughs we've ever seen," Obama said, promising that it would "lay a foundation for a new era of life-saving discoveries."

The near-term goal is to create more and better treatments for cancer, Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), told reporters on a conference call on Thursday. Longer term, he said, the project would provide information on how to individualize treatment for a range of diseases.

The initial focus on cancer, he said, reflects the lethality of the disease and the significant advances against cancer that precision medicine has already made, though more work is needed.

The president proposed $215 million in his 2016 budget for the initiative. Of that, $130 million would go to the NIH to fund the research cohort and $70 million to NIH's National Cancer Institute to intensify efforts to identify molecular drivers of cancer and apply that knowledge to drug development.

A further $10 million would go to the Food and Drug Administration to develop databases on which to build an appropriate regulatory structure; $5 million would go to the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology to develop privacy standards and ensure the secure exchange of data.

The effort may raise alarm bells for privacy rights advocates who have questioned the government's ability to guarantee that DNA information is kept anonymous.

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US proposes effort to analyze DNA from 1 million people

Obama rolls out plan to invest $215 million in "precision medicine"

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President Obama on Friday rolled out a proposal to invest $215 million this year in an initiative to advance "precision medicine," an approach to disease prevention and treatment that moves beyond a "one-size-fits" all approach.

Precision medicine "gives us one of the greatest opportunities for new medical breakthroughs that we have ever seen," Mr. Obama said from the East Room of the White House.

"Doctors have always recognized that every patient is unique," he continued, noting that doctors that can match a blood transfusion to a blood type.

"What if matching a cancer cure to our genetic code was just as easy?" the president asked. "That's the promise of precision medicine, delivering the right treatments at the right time, every time, to the right person."

Precision medicine takes into account people's genes, environments and lifestyles, giving clinicians tools to better understand the mechanisms underlying certain diseases and conditions -- and which treatments to use. Already, it's used for a small but growing number of patients. For instance, doctors can use genetic testing to determine whether an HIV patient will be helped by a certain antiviral drug.

"What's so exciting is we have the possibility of leading a new era of medicine," Mr. Obama said.

"We shouldn't just celebrate innovation, we have to invest in innovation... and make sure that we're channeling it in ways that are most productive," he continued, noting how the Polio vaccine was distributed widely with the help of Congress.

Mr. Obama said the time is right to invest in precision medicine because of the advances in technology and medicine, as well as the bipartisan political support for it.

"This is how you know the moment is right, is there's bipartisan support for the idea here in Washington," he said.

Specifically, Mr. Obama's budget will include a proposal to give the National Institutes of Health (NIH) $130 million for the development of a voluntary national research cohort of at least a million volunteers. The proposal would give $70 million to the National Cancer Institute (part of NIH) to scale up efforts to identify genomic drivers in cancer. Another $10 million would go to the Food and Drug Administration to develop high-quality databases for the reach, while the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology would get $5 million to develop privacy and security standards for the research.

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Obama rolls out plan to invest $215 million in "precision medicine"

Google Record Spending on Lobbying…to KEEP Internet Freedom & Net Neutrality – Video

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Google Record Spending on Lobbying...to KEEP Internet Freedom Net Neutrality
Google is spending record amounts on lobbying to maintain internet freedom and net neutrality http://www.pcworld.com/article/2873752/google-facebook-apple-spent-record-amounts-on-lobbying-in-20 ...

By: David Pakman Show

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Google Record Spending on Lobbying...to KEEP Internet Freedom & Net Neutrality - Video

Freedom to camp – youth travellers in New Zealand

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'A myth that young tourists are stingy' SARAH-JANE O'CONNOR

Sarah-Jane O'Connor Sarah-Jane O'Connor Sarah-Jane O'Connor Dean Kozanic Dean Kozanic

Olivia Clark, 23, and Byron Fay, 28, from Canberra are on a whirlwind, nine-day tour of the South Island.

GLOBETROTTERS: Bill Jackman, 28, and Hebe Henderson, 21, from Cornwall are squeezing a five-week NZ trip in between visiting Australia and Thailand.

ON TOUR: Inbar Nir, left, and Liron Yadlin, both 25, from Israel have been staying in DOC campgrounds.

No Camping signs have been erected in the public carpark in New Brighton.

German visitors, Danilson Dala, left, and Andrew Triendade pack up their gear after using the New Brighton carpark.

Sarah-Jane O'Connor

Bill Jackman, 28, and Hebe Henderson, 21, from Cornwall are squeezing a five-week NZ trip in between visiting Australia and Thailand.

Freedom-camping tourists have been filling the media with their poor behaviour. SARAH-JANE O'CONNOR goes in search of the youth tourist market and finds there are many more than the proverbial bad apples.

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Freedom to camp - youth travellers in New Zealand

Hambycast: Searching for freedom in Iowa

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Standing before a conservative audience at the first annual Iowa Freedom Summit, in an auditorium usually reserved for the Des Moines ballet, the firebrand Senator from Texas distilled the state's prized leadoff role in the presidential nominating process down to its essence.

"In a Republican primary, every candidate's going to come in front of you and say I'm the most conservative candidate to ever live," he said. "'Gosh-darnit-who-diddly, I'm conservative!' Well, talk is cheap."

Cruz did his thing, stroking the id of Iowa's right-leaning Republican electorate with a burst of conservative bromides, trying to prove that he's more than just talk, a high bar for a lawyer-turned-senator best known for a 21-hour pseudo-filibuster just before the 2013 government shutdown. But judging by the waves of applause, it worked.

Depending on how elastic your definition of "candidate" is, there were anywhere between eight and 12 potential presidential contenders who came here to perform the same kind of conservative ego-stroking as Cruz. Familiar attacks against Obamacare and "amnesty for illegals" and Hillary Clinton erupted in speech after speech from a cast of characters that included celebrities like Donald Trump and Sarah Palin, and people actually running for president, like Chris Christie, Rick Perry and Rick Santorum.

Reality check: Jeb Bush's conservative record

Like many of these political gatherings, the event was organized around a cascade of speeches from White House hopefuls we heard 10 hours of them! And as is the case with many of these political gatherings, there was no actual news to be had, just storylines that needed to be fed.

Where was Jeb Bush? Is Mike Huckabee really running or just selling books? Is Scott Walker the second coming of Tim Pawlenty? Is Chris Christie, who has styled himself as Mr. Electability, really this tight with Steve King, the polarizing immigration hardliner who hosted the event? What is Sarah Palin talking about? Can we get dinner reservations at Centro?

Romney gives GOP advices on minority outreach

These were questions the hundred or so journalists in attendance, shoehorned into a balcony space above the stage, answered with an avalanche of links, tweets and live shots. The Freedom Summit offered a feeding frenzy of quotes, color and interviews for the press.

But it was, first and foremost, a Republican pageant show. Reporters dubbed it the starting gun of the 2016 Republican presidential race. They were right. But it's only the first of many similar events to come in 2015 in New Hampshire, in South Carolina, in Washington and elsewhere.

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Hambycast: Searching for freedom in Iowa

Freedom from religion

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The nation's largest group of freethinkers strives to improve the image of atheists

The folks who lead the Freedom From Religion Foundation are used to drawing heat.

In a move opposed by liberal and conservative religious leaders alike, the Madison-based group challenged a federal law that gives clergy tax-free housing allowances. Under current law, ministers can deduct housing costs from their pre-tax salary -- including mortgage payments, property taxes and homeowners insurance -- if the money is designated specifically as a housing allowance.

The group, which defends the constitutional separation of church and state, won its case in federal circuit court in 2013, but the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed the lawsuit in November, ruling the organization did not have standing.

Undeterred, co-presidents Annie Laurie Gaylor and her husband, Dan Barker, a former evangelical minister, plan to prove they've been damaged by the clergy-only tax exemption by applying for it themselves. Once denied, they will file their lawsuit again.

"As far as I can tell, every single church in the United States is against us on this, including the Unitarians, Universalists, American Baptists -- they're all gunning for us on this," says Gaylor, a short, slender blond who speaks in a high tone with an explosive vocabulary and unwavering conviction. "The ministers and churches sure don't want to give up their perks and privileges."

Gaylor is used to being the lone wolf on issues of church and state. Even some progressives wonder whether her group should concern itself with crches in public parks or Christmas trees in capitol buildings.

Or, for that matter, with restaurants that offer discounts to customers for praying in public or showing they are otherwise church-goers.

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, in mid-December, took the foundation to task for complaining about a diner in Winston-Salem, N.C., that offered a discount for public prayer. It was not a sympathetic spin. "You're a dick," the correspondent told Barker.

Barker says he doesn't mind. He used the large platform to make his point -- that so-called church bulletin discounts violate the federal Civil Rights Act because they discriminate against nonbelievers.

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Freedom from religion