The News Review:

- Behind the scenes of clinical research
- Printer Friendly Format – Sunday Herald
- Caregivers Suffering Depression More Likely To Be Hostile To Children

Behind the scenes of clinical research
New Scientist – New Scientist (subscription) – Mar 22, 2008
200-behind-the-scenes-of-clinical-research. While those initials would make most people think of Jack Bauer fighting bloodthirsty terrorists what reality delivers here is the Medical Research Council’s Clinical Trials Unit the venue for a very unusual clinical trial which began this year. “It’s unlikely that anybody else in the world would be able to do this” says Richard Stephens the project leader. He is referring to QUARTZ (Quality of Life After Radiotherapy and Steroids) a study of people with cancer that has spread from the lung to the brain. Normally such patients are offered supportive care and radiotherapy.

Printer Friendly Format – Sunday Herald
Sunday Herald – Mar 22, 2008
Yet in medical terms it is relatively new with advances made year-on-year as new research yields new success in the fight against diseases such as leukaemia. Since the early 1960s when two Canadian scientists Ernest McCulloch and James Till first began looking at the stem cells medical research has never doubted their potential to make a hugely positive contribution to the treatment of human diseases including cancer Parkinson’s disease spinal cord injuries and many others. Certainties don’t exist in clinical research as the long fight to discover cures and new therapies for HIV and Aids has shown. But it is a certainty that if stem-cell research simply halts or backs off from new approaches then nothing of value will be discovered. Writing in this newspaper and speaking later today from the pulpit of a Roman Catholic church in Edinburgh Cardinal Keith ‘Brien states that claim after claim has been made for research that involves the use of stem cells taken from human embryos and that after a decade of promised cures and treatments not one new treatment or therapy has arrived. Like any prominent church leader the cardinal is entitled to his opinion an opinion that in the case of Roman Catholics in Scotland is expected to be followed without question as part of the church’s wider teaching. In the case of Catholic MPs the archbishop expects to see them vote against the government’s Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill which allows on the archbishop’s interpretation of the science “the creation of hybrid human-animal embryos” a procedure which involves a “monstrous attack on human rights human dignity and human life”… But by not making it clear if a three-line whip is going to be imposed the PM has created a heated forum where the views of Cardinal ‘Brien and others are given a public currency rather than being confined to the teachings within their own church. Brown should quickly make it clear there will be no three-line whip and that Labour MPs will be allowed to vote as their conscience directs. If the bill does not pass this field of clinical research and the benefits it may bring will not be lost. It will be conducted in another country – and when the medical advances do come which one of us will turn them away or deny them to our children? 11:24pm Saturday 22nd March 2008.

Caregivers Suffering Depression More Likely To Be Hostile To Children
Medical News Today – Medical News Today (press release) – Mar 22, 2008
—————————-Article adapted by Medical News Today from original press release. —————————-This study is published in the March 2008 issue of Family Process. Family Process is an international multidisciplinary peer-reviewed journal committed to publishing original articles including theory and practice philosophical underpinnings qualitative and quantitative clinical research and training in couple and family therapy family interaction and family relationships with networks and larger systems. Wiley-Blackwell was formed in February 2007 as a result of the acquisition of Blackwell Publishing Ltd. by John Wiley & Sons Inc. and its merger with Wiley’s Scientific Technical and Medical business. Together the companies have created a global publishing business with deep strength in every major academic and professional field.