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20 Nisan 2017 Perşembe

Serena Williams’s pregnant victory reminds us how amazing women’s bodies are | Natasha Henry

The news that Serena Williams won the Australian Open final while eight weeks pregnant has sent the world into a frenzy. Some evidently still think that women are the fairer sex, the weaker and the less capable of the two genders.


Believe me when I say we are far from fragile.


Williams is not the first elite athlete to compete during a pregnancy, but she is definitely the most prominent, given her recent win, defeating her big sister Venus. Triumphing 6-4, 6-4 in the final, she didn’t drop a single set on her way to lifting the trophy. I’ll repeat that: not a single set.


Now rumoured to be about 20 weeks – about halfway through a normal pregnancy – she will regain her place as world No 1 next week. That place at the top of women’s tennis will be held for her if she returns to competition within 12 months of giving birth, as per the Women’s Tennis Association special ranking rule.


Bryan Armen Graham (@BryanAGraham)

Serena’s snap suggests that she won the Australian Open without dropping a set while pregnant. pic.twitter.com/ltPndJRJBq


April 19, 2017


As much as I could pontificate about Williams’s achievements as a supreme athlete, role model and beautiful woman of colour all day, I just want to thank her for reminding us how amazing women’s bodies can be – particularly in an era when we are constantly peppered with examples of how they aren’t good enough, how we should alter them or how they should look.


While in the first trimester, the 35-year-old played tennis at the highest level in sweltering conditions. And as if her physical exertions weren’t enough, she also had to deal with the emotional stress of playing against her big sister.



Alysia Montaño, left, who at 34 weeks pregnant, competes in the 800m


‘Who can forget the picture of Alysia Montaño running the 800m while 34 weeks pregnant?’ Photograph: Rich Pedroncelli/AP

But as GP Dr Matt Piccaver told me: “In general, physical activity during any stage of life, including pregnancy, is a good idea. Serena Williams is an elite athlete, and has overcome a number of significant health challenges in her career. The human body is an amazing thing, and Serena proves that we are more robust than we think.”


Should she return to the tour and go on to win a grand slam, she will follow in the footsteps of Kim Clijsters, who won the US Open 18 months after giving birth to her daughter.


Jessica Ennis-Hill, Paula Radcliffe, Katie Chapman and Victoria Azarenka have all returned to compete at the top level in their respective sports after having children. And who can forget the picture of Alysia Montaño running the 800m while 34 weeks pregnant with her daughter?


Obviously every pregnancy is different, as is every woman’s relationship with fertility; but don’t the revelations of the last 24 hours remind you to consider what your body can do?


Like Serena Williams said: “You just have to prove to yourself that you can go out there and be the best that you can be and not prove anything to anyone.”


Maybe we should listen to her and just embrace our strength, our fabulousness and our beauty a bit more, as well as each other’s.



Serena Williams’s pregnant victory reminds us how amazing women’s bodies are | Natasha Henry

6 Ekim 2016 Perşembe

This victory on abortion has empowered Polish women. We’ll never be the same | Krystyna Kacpura

They call us Nazis and say that we are no better than Hitler because we think a woman should have be able to choose whether she gives birth to a seriously sick child – but we are used to such comparisons. They say these things about us because they are frightened. The government of Poland did not expect such huge protests against its proposed ban on abortion. In the last week, 7 million women were on strike all over Poland to protest against the draconian law and pushed the government to back down.


In Warsaw our protests, involving over 30,000 people, locked the city down. I was trembling at the sight of all these women. I have worked in reproductive rights in Poland for 25 years, and we used to be happy if 200 women attended our protests.


At first politicians ignored us, then they enraged us with their words. The foreign minister, Witold Waszczykowski, said: “Let them have fun. They should go ahead if they think there are no bigger problems in Poland … We expect serious debate on questions of life, death and birth. We do not expect happenings, dressing in costumes and creating artificial problems.”


These words mobilised even more women. I have never seen such huge protests. Something snapped in Polish women; we are empowered and we won’t stop. The protests were so spontaneous: with barely a few days’ notice thousands of women were walking out of work, and if they couldn’t get the day off, many told me, they said to their bosses they would not return because they could not work alongside people who did not believe in their rights.


Poland signals U-turn on total abortion ban after protests

On Saturday, at one of the protests, I gave a speech to the crowd that was directed at Polish gynaecologists. “Where are you?” I asked. “Why don’t you care about your patients? We need to rely on you, but instead we are afraid of you. We are afraid of your ‘conscientious objections’, we are afraid that you won’t tell us the truth when you are examining us or giving us blood-test results. Break your silence. We are your patients and we need you to support our health.”


Afterwards I received several anonymous messages from gynaecologists telling me that they will help Polish women, promising that they will work in their regions to tell the ruling party the truth about the real threat to women’s health if a ban on abortion was passed. I have been seeking this kind of support for years, there are maybe five or 10 doctors in the whole of Poland who will speak out for women’s rights, so for me this was a personal victory.


Although the Catholic church is seemingly silent in Poland, we know it was the bishops who also rejected the stop abortion law, despite helping to instigate it in the first place. They are threatened, and now they say they “don’t want women to be punished”. Women make up the majority of the people who attend mass, who give money. Many people have left the church lately.



Warsaw abortion rights protesters


‘In Warsaw our protests, involving over 30,000 people, locked the city down. I have worked in reproductive rights in Poland for 25 years, and we used to be happy if 200 women attended our protests.’ Photograph: Janek Skarzynski/AFP/Getty Images

The rejection of the proposed law, which would make all abortions illegal – even in cases of rape or when the woman’s life is at risk, with prison terms of up to five years for women seeking abortion and doctors who perform them – is only a small victory in the ongoing battle for women’s reproductive rights. We are expecting the church and the ruling party to prepare a compromise which would allow abortion when a woman has been raped, or there is a direct threat to her life, but they will seek to withdraw access to legal abortion if the fetus is damaged.


We want women to be free to make a decision on whether she gives birth to a seriously sick child herself. It is her right to choose, and if she does choose to have the child we advocate that she should be supported economically and psychologically, but all women should not be pushed to give birth in such circumstances because the politicians have ruled it so.




Women make up the majority of the people who attend mass, who give money. Many people have left the church lately




At the protests I spoke to many women and girls, young and old, and talked to them about how we are second-class citizens in our country. That the existing law is restrictive on paper, but even more so in practice. We don’t have adequate sex education, we don’t have access to modern contraception and we barely have access to legal abortion. In southern Poland nearly all doctors have signed conscientious objections making access to legal abortion all but impossible.


So our fight must continue. There is such solidarity among Polish women right now that we will take our fight to the European level and find a space to seek protection under EU law. We have international backing, and I have never been so proud of all the empowered, European, Polish women. We will never be the same again.



This victory on abortion has empowered Polish women. We’ll never be the same | Krystyna Kacpura

18 Temmuz 2014 Cuma

Statins advice to GPs is a victory for vested interests more than evidence | Kailash Chand

Statins could be prescribed to more men and women, with a smaller sized risk of heart condition, right after the NHS medicines watchdog lowered the bar for prescriptions.


Good (the National Institute for Overall health and Care Excellence) has issued advice that proposes lowering the cardiovascular primary prevention chance threshold – the degree of danger at which statins can be prescribed – from 20% to 10%.


Several believe that such advice would not have the self-confidence of the pros charged with its implementation. In Could a nationwide conference of general practitioners passed a unanimous movement calling for Good to recommend such adjustments only on the basis of a complete disclosure of trial information. This was followed in June by an unprecedented open letter to Wonderful from a variety of senior medical doctors and academics expressing four major areas of concern: medicating wholesome folks non-disclosed side-result information relying on market-funded statins trials and conflicts of curiosity within Good.


Nice is basing this advice on an examination of market-sponsored trials that might have exaggerated benefits whilst under-reporting harm. Most statins data is presented employing relative chance, which inflates benefit. For example, the heart safety review claimed a forty% reduction in mortality from cardiovascular disease, but the reduction in overall mortality was .3% per yr.


Concomitantly, the side-result information has been declared commercially out of bounds, leaving medics and individuals unable to evaluate the cost-advantage of these drugs.


I have been a GP for more than thirty years and prescribed statins with little concern, right up until I took statins myself for in excess of two years. I developed side-results like myalgia, backache and rest disturbance. I stopped taking statins and my signs and symptoms largely disappeared.


An intervention trial evaluating rosuvastatin unveiled that one particular in one hundred females taking a statin risked building type 2 diabetes at one.9 years. For these individuals the chance of contracting diabetes is roughly the same as the likelihood of keeping away from a non-fatal heart attack. For individuals with a minimal danger of cardiovascular illness, 130 men and women require to get statins for a 12 months to avoid just one undesired overall health outcome.


Wonderful describes itself as follows: “We offer independent, authoritative and proof-based advice on the most successful methods to avoid, diagnose and deal with ailment and unwell health …”


The health care occupation should hence assume Great to base its findings on full data disclosure and independently evaluated cost-benefit of statins. Nevertheless, it transpires that eight out of twelve people on the Wonderful guideline improvement group have ties to the drug organizations, and Wonderful is recommending this guideline on the basis of the Cholesterol Therapy Trialists Collaboration drug-business-funded trials. Nice simply asserting that is independent seems unconvincing.


At existing, it is estimated that about 7 million individuals in the United kingdom consider statins. If Great guidance is followed the number could enhance by numerous million. The evidence for the benefit in major prevention – ie preventing cardiovascular condition in men and women who do not have any diagnosed cardiovascular ailment – is weak.


Three-quarters of people having a 1st heart assault, for instance, have standard cholesterol amounts. According to the Planet Well being Organisation, 80% of cardiovascular illness is caused by smoking, inactivity, an unhealthy diet regime, and other way of life variables. Statins give the illusion of protection to numerous individuals who would be significantly much better served by merely strolling more and staying away from processed food.


Excellent medicine ought to usually be proof based and offered to the correct patient at the proper time. Statins have an important position in patients who have an current heart illness or have had a heart assault. Sufferers should be wary of these guidelines, and engage in meaningful dialogue with their medical doctor, just before deciding regardless of whether or not to medicate. If growing numbers of folks without having heart condition consider statins it will be a victory for vested interests more than proof.



Statins advice to GPs is a victory for vested interests more than evidence | Kailash Chand

16 Temmuz 2014 Çarşamba

Bounty Mutiny victory for Mumsnet: income reps need to be banned from NHS maternity wards

Income reps have no area on maternity wards


Soon after providing birth for the second time, I was lying in a maternity ward, a bit befuddled, overwhelmed and, I’m sure, hanging halfway out of my hospital gown. My daughter, who had but to meet any of her grandparents or uncles, was lying subsequent to me when an productive and officious female bustled into the room. She quickly scanned the occupants of the four beds in the ward, and then set about speaking to my 3 ward-mates, collecting their information and giving them their post-natal Bounty packs. When she acquired to my bed, and I asked her what on earth she was doing there, she informed me that I was “too posh”, “plainly did not require [her] hand-outs”, and trundled off. As my vowels are a lot more Brooklyn than Cheltenham Ladies’ University, I have no notion what gave her that impression – possibly the mere act of questioning her presence in my personalized room (how entitled am I?) – but both way, 4 hrs post-birth was not the time to be judged, or pressured to get any certain goods.


Permitting commercial revenue reps onto wards with any individuals is disgraceful. A patient’s privacy and dignity need to be leading priority at all times, and the only men and women going to them must be health pros or near household and pals – not salespeople. However the NHS has encouraged the practice for many years, reportedly earning £5.50 per child born through this money-for-accessibility deal.


There is ample evidence of revenue reps collecting information with out permission, and suggesting that individuals who refused to divulge private information would not be eligible to claim youngster benefit. A lot more than half of mothers surveyed by Mumsnet said the Bounty reps had “invaded their privacy”, and 60 per cent mentioned they had not been told (as they should have been) that their personal specifics would be sold on to other businesses. More than 4 out of five mothers imagined the Bounty reps need to be denied access to wards. The NHS ought to have banned this years in the past.


Now, thanks to Mumsnet’s Bounty Mutiny campaign, the Care Quality Commission (CQC) is last but not least examining the practice. Even though the campaign – in which the parenting network gathered far more than 90,000 signatures to a petition calling for an finish to the Bounty reps – has only just announced its victory, considering that April of this yr the CQC has been investigating no matter whether the reps invade the privacy of new mothers. A number of NHS trusts have announced previously that they will be terminating contracts with Bounty. But it is a victory no significantly less and I hope a rallying contact for widespread adjust.


Let’s hope that all NHS trusts adhere to suit quickly, so maternity wards can be risk-free, private areas for mothers, fathers and babies to bond. Soon after all, each and every single aspect of childhood is commercialised these days – let’s preserve the tough-sell out of the maternity ward.



Bounty Mutiny victory for Mumsnet: income reps need to be banned from NHS maternity wards

24 Haziran 2014 Salı

In A Victory For Gene Research, Vertex Drug Combo Clears Lungs Clogged By Cystic Fibrosis

In the war against genetic illness, scientists just gained some essential ground.


This morning, Vertex Pharmaceuticals Vertex Pharmaceuticals of Boston is announcing that a mixture of two medicines enhanced the lung capability of patients with the deadly condition cystic fibrosis, assisting them obtain excess weight and stopping infections that would have landed them in the hospital or required antibiotics.


The benefits are probably to be excellent information for Vertex’s stock, which Wall Street analysts have stated could trade up sharply on positive information simply because many doubted the scientific studies would realize success. But they are a larger victory for the science of building medicines to target genetic defects, which is essential in the two uncommon and widespread conditions including in cancer. They also will increase substantial inquiries about drug pricing. The combo could value $ 160,000 per patient per year, even though Vertex has no comment.


“This is my bias as a physician,” says Vertex Chief Executive Jeffrey Leiden. “For me each and every improvement in lung perform when you are dropping lung perform, each and every day you don’t devote in the hospital, and every single pound that you obtain is quite meaningful. When you really talk to patients, that’s what matters.”


VRTXCFTRIt took 23 many years from when researchers discovered how a genetic defect can cause cystic fibrosis, in 1988, till a drug that performs on that result in was accepted. That drug, Vertex’s Kalydeco, performs spectacularly, but only in the unusual individuals whose cystic fibrosis is brought on by a mutation named G551D. There are just two,200 throughout the world. The two research released today mix Kalydeco with yet another drug, lumacaftor, so that it can now aid half of CF sufferers – or 22,000 people over twelve in the U.S. alone whose disease is induced by two copies of a mutated gene acknowledged as F508del.


“I was truly extremely pleasantly stunned,” says Bonnie Ramsey, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Washington College of Medication, of the new outcomes. She led one of Vertex’s trials who has received no funds other than study funding from the company. “I was really pleased, and I’m usually quite critical.”


Information Could Make Stock Jump


But the new mixture is only a third as powerful for F508del patients as Kalydeco is for individuals with the G551D mutation. Medical doctors track lung conditions by how a lot air patients can force out, a measure named FEV1. A normal person’s FEV1 approaches a hundred% the CF individuals in these trials have been at closer to 60%. Kalydeco in G551D can improve FEV1 by a total ten percentage factors in a yr. By comparison, in F508del individuals, the new drug combo enhanced lung perform by only about 3 percentage points.


They did achieve weight – about one.6 lbs, Leiden says. Much more importantly, they have been less likely to have what are acknowledged as pulmonary exacerbations – infections that can land them in the hospital or on intravenous antibiotics and which permanently injury their lungs. There had been .57 exacerbations per patient in the placebo group, compared to .35 exacerbations amid these who acquired the drug.


The final results seem to be to be about as very good as Wall Street may well have expected. Mark Schoenebaum, an analyst at New York’s ISI Group, polled fund managers about the data in May possibly. At that time, they anticipated that to be clinically meaningful, the drug combo would have to show a three.5-point improvement compared to placebo. Only 34% believed that the drug would boost entire body fat, and 64% considered it would decrease pulmonary exacerbations. Only 35% of the managers imagined that the Vertex scientific studies would be the two clinically substantial and hit some of the key secondary endpoints. If they did, however, the fund managers predicted that Vertex stock, which closed yesterday at $ 66.61, could hit $ 109.


Some crucial caveats on the information: Vertex did the analysis itself, and even lead investigator Ramsey hasn’t had a chance to search at it deeply, as she will prior to it is published. The business shared the data with me ahead of its release this morning on the situation that I only speak to Vertex executives, Ramsey, and a representative of the Cystic Fibrosis Basis Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, which funded the medicines development. I think the information are strongly positive, but I haven’t had a possibility to show the outcomes to outside professionals as I usually would.


Massive Breakthrough, Large Cost


Wall Street’s expectations are predicated on a higher value for the new drug mixture. In Schoenebaum’s poll, traders thought that Vertex could charge $ 160,000 per patient per year for the blend in the U.S. if the FEV1 benefit have been clinically meaningful.


That would actually be a cost cut from Kalydeco, which charges $ 307,000 per patient per yr in the U.S. That substantial value is ironic given that, based mostly on Barry Werth’s current guide on Vertex, The Antidote, Vertex executives seemed to hold Kalydeco alive in component simply because the early study fees were totally borne by the Cystic Fibrosis Basis. It was a promising venture, but also a single that was of lower financial threat.


This method of philanthropy is becoming more and more well-known, in portion because the CF Foundation’s achievement in getting Kalydeco to industry. But it permits condition foundations no ability to dictate what the price of the new treatment will be. Last August, Francis Collins, the co-discoverer of the CF gene and the director of the National Institutes of Overall health, told me that dictating rates to drug businesses in early study was “a non-starter” and “a way to destroy the entire area.”


“The CF Foundation has no part in establishing the price tag of these items,” says Preston Campbell, Executive Vice President Health care Affairs at the CF Basis. “It’s our impression that all of these medicines ought to be accessible to all cystic fibrosis patients and available to them in what will in the long run be a sustainable vogue. We feel that these therapies are hopefully existence changing.”



In A Victory For Gene Research, Vertex Drug Combo Clears Lungs Clogged By Cystic Fibrosis

21 Nisan 2014 Pazartesi

Will Edwards Snatch Defeat From The Jaws Of Its Victory In excess of Medtronic?

On the heels of a sweeping victory in the courts over its rival Medtronic, Edwards Lifesciences is poised to dominate the TAVR (transcatheter aortic valve replacement) market– the revolutionary new catheter technologies that provides some individuals with existence-threatening aortic valve ailment an option to chest-splitting surgical procedure. Although the legal wrangling is not really over– Medtronic is attractive the determination and has requested that enforcement of the injunction be postponed– it seems likely that Edwards will in the end accomplish a broad legal and business victory.


But Edwards’ unprecedented victory also presents an unprecedented challenge to the firm. While the court appears to have offered Edwards everything it wished, the greatest outcome could make considerable harm to Edwards’ relationship to the interventional cardiologists who are its core clients. Much more importantly, there is now a distinct possibility that at least for numerous years numerous people who could probably benefit from the Medtronic technology will not be able to get it.


A Decisive Victory


In last week’s ruling a federal judge delivered a broad ruling in favor of Edwards:



Enforcing patent rights is specially essential the place there is egregious perform to be addressed and deterred, as there is right here. Medtronic disregarded the law in infringing Edwards’ patent and boldly continued to thumb its nose at the law by continuing its carry out even soon after getting found to be a willful infringer. The court can’t disregard the fact that it would serve as a reward of kinds to Medtronic and an incentive for onlookers to behave as Medtronic has need to the court allow Medtronic to freely commence revenue of its gadget. In light of all the relevant concerns, the court finds that the public curiosity weighs in favor of granting Edwards a preliminary injunction, subject to an accommodation for Medtronic to promote its devices to these individuals who can not be helped by Edwards’ products.



Most observers believe that Medtronic has known for a prolonged time that it was most likely to get rid of the case but decided that the long-term benefit of a safe foothold in this profitable new market place was really worth nearly any short-phrase penalty. From a legal and organization standpoint it is difficult to disagree with the judge when he states that “the public curiosity weighs in favor” of the injunction against Medtronic.


But it is also possible that Medtronic is just in a state of denial. In a press release issued on Saturday Medtronic entirely ignores the fact that a jury located that it had infringed on the patent, that this selection was upheld by an appeal court, and that the Supreme Court declined to evaluation the situation. Medtronic’s logic seems to be that it can just ignore court decisions with which it disagrees. It’s easy to picture that Edwards may possibly uncover it tough to negotiate with the business in this circumstance.


In a letter (PDF] sent to its “trusted clinical partners” the CEO of Edwards laid out his company’s case:



To completely realize the court’s extraordinary ruling, it is essential to overview the extraordinary historical past of how we received right here. As an investor in Percutaneous Valve Technologies (PVT) in 2002, Medtronic was properly conscious of PVT’s foundational Andersen patent. Edwards acquired PVT in full in 2004, and incorporated its technologies into what is these days the SAPIEN family of valves. As a outcome, Medtronic has known for far more than a decade about the significance of the Andersen patent for transcatheter valve improvement. CoreValve, then an independent company, was informed in 2005 that their device infringed the Andersen patent, and this situation was filed by Edwards in 2008. Regardless of this data, Medtronic decided to acquire CoreValve in 2009. A federal jury in 2010 identified Medtronic to be a willful infringer of the Andersen patent. Additionally, in 2014, Medtronic CoreValve was discovered to willfully infringe a 2nd Edwards patent.



A Lesson From The Previous


There is an instructive, but by no indicates excellent, historical analogy right here. In the 1990s Johnson &amp Johnson pioneered the stent marketplace. In the early 2000s it pioneered the drug-eluting stent market place. On the two events, as I’ve previously written, the organization totally revolutionized the field of interventional cardiology, and on both occasions the business spectacularly misplaced its major place and failed to develop a effective long-term stent company. On each occasion the business sought to exploit its early monopoly position by charging exorbitant charges for its stents. The outcome, on each occasion, was that the company alienated its core buyers, hospitals and interventional cardiologists. As quickly as alternative units grew to become available they had been swiftly adopted by a marketplace weary of J&ampJ’s strongarm techniques. In 2011 J&ampJ announced that it would no longer complete in the multibillion dollar stent marketplace.


The J&ampJ circumstances have been not primarily about patents, but it ought to be noted that shortly ahead of it exited the market place J&ampJ collected a $ 1.75 billion dollar payment from Boston Scientific for patent infringement. J&ampJ won the patent battle and collected a large verify but it lost the stent wars. Boston Scientific, by contrast, paid a enormous penalty but right now plays a significant part as an active participant in the profitable stent marketplace. One lesson to be discovered is that a strong patent position is no ensure of extended-phrase marketplace domination.


I don’t want to push the analogy too far. There are several important distinctions among the J&ampJ stories and the Edwards story. But the analogy does aid highlight the danger dealing with Edwards at the minute of a fantastic good results.


The Downside of Victory


Edwards is trying to portray itself as behaving generously toward Medtronic. In a letter final week to its “Trusted Clinical Partners” the CEO of Edwards wrote that the firm was “not seeking a total ban on CoreValve” in purchase to let some individuals to be handled with CoreValve:



In spite of the violations of our intellectual property, we are not seeking a total ban on CoreValve revenue, simply because we recognize the implications that could have for sufferers and physicians. In truth, we place forward several offers, in court and straight to Medtronic, that would permit individuals to carry on to be taken care of with CoreValve. But, regrettably, they have refused these offers. We motivate Medtronic to accept our standing supply to allow use of CoreValve at U.S. hospitals the place it is commercially obtainable right now.



Here is the danger for Edwards: the availability of CoreValve only at hospitals in which it is currently available these days indicates that the majority of sufferers will have no opportunity to receive CoreValve. But a substantial variety of doctors would very likely decide on CoreValve if they had a cost-free selection. Edwards seems to be determined to decrease the availability of CoreValve in the US.


Clinically, choosing between CoreValve or Sapien is hard since we are working with imperfect and incomplete info. There’s basically not sufficient information accessible now to enable any individual to really determine which device is greatest. CoreValve is obtainable in a broader assortment of sizes than Sapien, so for some sufferers it is the only alternative, but for most sufferers the determination can only be based on opinion and guesswork. There have been no huge-scale randomized comparisons of the gadgets created to assess clinical outcomes.


This problem is compounded simply because the judge’s decision came shortly following FDA approval of CoreValve and the release of a extremely optimistic clinical trial displaying that CoreValve was superior to surgical treatment in some patients. Prior to these events a sweeping injunction restricting CoreValve would have been far less problematic.


Then there is the matter of price and connected financial considerations. The issue cuts the two techniques. Clearly patent safety allows a firm to charge a lot more for its item. Edwards has argued that Medtronic will charge significantly less for CoreValve and that Edwards will have decreased profitability due to the fact it will have to decrease its value in buy to compete. So, yes, Edwards will be harmed by competitors. Payers, of program, could have a various view of the matter but defenders of capitalism and patents will reply that this is the only way to give financial incentives to true innovation.


An argument in favor of severely restricting CoreValve now is that if it remains on the market place Medtronic will most likely shell out substantial penalties right up until the patent expires in 2016, but the firm will benefit enormously after 2016 from having a considerably more substantial original presence in the market. If there are no significant restrictions now analysts believe Medtronic could have 50% of the industry in 2016.


The dilemma facing Edwards is illustrated in a Wall Street Journal article published on Friday. Its headline– ‘My Father Is Going to Die From Red Tape’– is a ideal instance of the public relations battle Edwards will most likely face.



Will Edwards Snatch Defeat From The Jaws Of Its Victory In excess of Medtronic?

7 Mart 2014 Cuma

Letting a widow maintain her husband"s sperm is a victory for compassion | Ally Fogg

Beth Warren won her high court fight to preserve her late husband

Beth Warren leaves court with her mom Georgina Hyde (right), and her in-laws Kevin and Helen Brewer, after winning the right to preserve her late husband’s sperm. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA




There can be couple of selections in daily life a lot more critical than opting to conceive a little one. Even inside the most secure and stable relationship and conditions, it is by no means effortless to be certain you have picked the correct time – emotionally, financially and for one’s future existence trajectory.


Who would not be moved by the story of Beth Warren whose partner of eight years, Warren Brewer, was diagnosed with a terminal brain tumour. Just before commencing Brewer’s treatment method, the couple froze his sperm to permit Warren to carry their baby if and when she wished to do so. They married in a hospice six weeks prior to his death, and she took his 1st identify as her married title.


At 28 many years of age, and grieving following her bereavement, Warren needed time to choose what to do subsequent, time the law did not allow her. The Human Embryology and Fertilisation Authority insisted that a donor should frequently renew consent for sperm storage, with no exception for the deceased. This indicates that the permission Brewer granted to his new wife to use his sperm to conceive a baby would have expired in April 2015.


Warren challenged that rule and now the large court has decided in her favour: she will be permitted to continue to store her late husband’s sperm for a time period of up to fifty five many years until finally April 2060.


The verdict is a victory for compassion, justice and typical sense. As a society we have prolonged accepted a mother’s right to make a decision to carry and raise a kid alone it happens fairly frequently for a broad variety of reasons. In interviews, Warren herself has acknowledged that it would be a massive ethical determination to carry a kid into the world in full knowledge that she or he will never ever know a organic father. That she recognises this is enormously to her credit, and just underlines that the choice need to lie in her risk-free hands, not the arbitrary rulings of state authority.


Sperm vial frozen Donors previously had to often renew consent for their sperm to be kept frozen. Photograph: David Levene


We can note that if she decides to proceed, the youngster or youngsters will not be born into the traditional ideal of a household unit, but all issues regarded as extremely handful of of us are. It would seem clear that any child born out of this determination will be brought into the planet with really like, devotion, caution and care, and that is a quite damned good start in existence for anyone.


There may possibly be other individuals who feel this is not in Warren’s very own interests. She is a youthful female with her complete existence ahead of her, who could move on to a new daily life, a new spouse and new prospective customers. That could be correct, but whether or not this kind of advice is excellent or negative is beside the point – it is no one’s business but her own. Conceiving a youngster with her late husband might not be the most rational selection, but because when was enjoy – either to a spouse or to their offspring – a question of rational equations?


There is also the problem of Brewer’s wishes. It looks clear that he desired his wife to have the freedom to choose to carry his infant ought to she wish to do so. Rules that had been drafted as a protection, to enable donors to modify their mind at a future date, had here become a restriction, obstructing the dying wishes of a young man.


Debates on such circumstances invariably turn out to be bogged down in regardless of whether or not conceiving with only a single residing mother or father is the correct or wrong choice. This is profoundly misplaced. The only query must be whose choice it is to make. For me, there can only be one reply. Today’s ruling is the right determination – not simply because it will permit Warren to conceive a youngster with her late husband, but since it does not force her to do so in a rush to judgment at a time of immense anxiety, sadness and upheaval, and with a non-negotiable deadline hanging above her head. Allow her now celebrate her legal victory, grieve and heal as nicely as she can, and make her determination when the time is correct for her. I do not doubt for a minute that she will choose nicely.




Letting a widow maintain her husband"s sperm is a victory for compassion | Ally Fogg

19 Ocak 2014 Pazar

Outcome Of 49ers And Seahawks Match-up Is A Victory For Children"s Hospitals

The Seattle Seahawks and San Francisco 49ers will battle it out nowadays in the Upper Northwest for a likelihood to signify the National Football Conference (NFC) in Super Bowl XLVIII.  Yet, based mostly on what has been transpiring off the field among the two organizations and its supporters, there will not truly be a actual winner and loser.  Instead, everybody wins.


pro football hall of fame 2000 enshrinee Ronnie Lott during the second quarter against the Denver Broncos at O.co Coliseum. The Broncos defeated the Raiders 26-13. Mandatory Credit: Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports

Professional football hall of fame 2000 enshrinee Ronnie Lott is a proud supporter of UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital. Image Credit: Kyle Terada-USA Today Sports



This previous December, a group of 49ers fans determined to obtain a billboard taunting their rivals in the Seattle area.  The supporters agreed that any extra donations that surpassed the $ seven,000 necessary for the billboard would be pledged to the Seattle Children’s Hospital Foundation.  When word spread of the organizors’ goodwill, Seahawks fans launched a comparable campaign to increase funds for UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital.  As a outcome, donations and contributions started pouring in for both charities in an energy to assistance children in their rivals’ cities.


“Communities strengthen children’s hospitals and we are thrilled that the two the Seattle and Bay Area communities are taking this pleasant competitors and assisting us to build San Francisco’s new free standing children’s hospital,” explained Kim Scurr, Executive Director of UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital.  ”Donations like these are what assist us create the spaces and programs that will increase the patient and family members expertise at the new location of our children’s hospital.”


The funds benefiting UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital will go toward the building of its new, freestanding hospital, which is set to open early next year.  Seattle Children’s Hospital will use the donated money to strengthen its uncompensated care fund that supplies services to individuals who do not have overall health care insurance coverage and cannot afford to shell out.


“The power surrounding this pleasant rivalry has been remarkable,” said Eve Kopp, Advancement Director at Seattle Children’s Hospital Foundation.  ”It is heartwarming to know that both teams and followers in the two cities are joining forces in support of sick and injured children.  Everybody wins.”


Lately, the San Francisco 49ers organization pledged to match up to $ a hundred,000 that would advantage each hospitals, whilst the Seattle Seahawks pledged to match $ 112,000.  To date, Seahawks fans have raised roughly $ 70,000, and 49ers fans’ contributions total approximately $ 28,000.


“This is all about champions enjoying for the love of other people,” stated Ronnie Lott, a 49er legend and long-time UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital supporter.  ”Champions come in all shapes, sizes and colors.  But what drives us all is the need to go past the phone of duty, to extend ourselves every and each and every day.  UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital does just that — going past the norm, healing other individuals when some hospitals may well turn their backs.  We are proud to be a component of that, and all the tiny things folks do there to attain out.”


Darren Heitner is a Spouse at Wolfe Law Miami, P.A. in Miami, Florida, Founder of Sports Agent Site, and Professor of Sport Agency Management at Indiana University.  Learn much more about him at http://www.darrenheitner.com.


This report included contributions by Mark J. Burns.



Outcome Of 49ers And Seahawks Match-up Is A Victory For Children"s Hospitals