Stretches of DNA known as "jumping" genes are far more common than anyone thought, and almost everyone has a unique pattern of them, U.S. researchers reported on Thursday.
They also found an unexpectedly high number of these jumping genes, known as transposons, in lung tumors and said they may hold clues to the highly deadly cancer.
"We found that if you have a child, the child could have one or more new copies of these transposons that you don't have," Scott Devine of the University of Maryland School of Medicine said in a statement.
"From these findings, we predict that there is going to be more variation in human genomes than scientists first believed," added Devine, who led the research while at Emory University in Atlanta.
The findings could help fuel a revolution that scientists hope will lead to tailored medicine and far more targeted use of drugs and other therapies to treat and prevent disease.
Transposons are sequences in the DNA code that can replicate themselves. They "jump" from one place to another on the chromosomes. Devine's team found unique transposons in more than 90 percent of the 76 people they studied, they reported in the journal Cell.
These mutations can affect the functions of other genes. Stretches of DNA right in front of or behind a gene can turn it on, turn it off, or affect the way it functions.
That people have transposons is not new. "Forty-five percent of the genome is known to be transposon sequences," Devine said. But most hopped in and are now inactive, passing down unchanged and in place from one generation to the next.
"What we are interested in are the ones that are moving around today. We found an average of 15 new insertions per person," Devine said in a telephone interview.
CHEAPER NEW TECHNOLOGY
New genetic sequencing technology made it possible to find these transposons. It costs thousands of dollars to map an individual's genome, the entire genetic sequence, but companies such as Illumina , Life Technologies , Roche and others are driving the price down.
Devine's team used Roche's 454 sequencer to find 1,145 new inserted transposons that had not been documented before.
They developed a genetic probe that would target only these active jumping genes and estimated a new insertion is happening with each generation.
The human genome has 3 billion so-called base pairs - the A, C, T and G of the genetic code. "This could affect every base pair somewhere on the planet," Devine said.
"What is that doing to people? You could imagine that doing a lot of things, causing diseases."
Each person has the same basic 20,000 genes, but each gene is made up of many base pairs and there are subtle changes unique to everyone. In addition, DNA outside the genes affects the body in ways that are only beginning to be understood.
The transposons jump into these non-coding regions, but also sometimes into the genes.
"If you think of the human genome as a manual to build a complex machine like an aircraft, imagine what would happen if you copied the page that describes passenger seats and inserted it into the section that describes jet engines," Devine said.
When they looked at brain and lung tumors, Devine's team found transposons seem to be especially busy in lung cancer but not brain cancer. One of the many next steps will be to understand why this is.
SOURCE: link.reuters.com/fuq24m Cell, online June 24, 2010.
Friday, June 25, 2010
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Health insurance, check. But what about dental?
(Reuters) - An estimated 45 million Americans do not have dental insurance, according to a government report released on Wednesday, and recently passed healthcare reform offers little direct help.
Health
Overall most non-elderly people who already have private health coverage also have a dental policy, but roughly 70 percent of those who have to buy their own health plan do not, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report.
Under the health reforms passed in March, adults must buy health insurance or pay a fine starting in 2014. The law does not require them to buy other types of coverage like dental or vision, although some comprehensive health care plans include the additional coverage.
While health plans must cover at minimum services like emergency care and prescription drugs, they do not have to cover oral care for adults. Dental care for children is required.
Some advocates pushed for a wider dental component in the bill, pointing to the larger impact of oral health on conditions like heart disease and diabetes.
Among the 172 million people under 65 who already have private health insurance, nearly three-quarters have dental insurance too, mostly through an employer, the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics said.
The survey found that among those with dental coverage, 33 percent had a comprehensive plan with dental coverage, while 26 percent had a stand-alone plan. Fourteen percent had both.
Among those with employer-sponsored care, just 20 percent lacked a dental plan.
The CDC's statistics unit analyzed data from its 2008 nationwide survey of 65,495 people under age 65.
INCOME FACTOR
Not surprisingly, the researchers found a direct link between income and access to care. The higher a person's income, the more likely they were to have dental coverage.
An estimated 90 million Americans get health insurance through Medicare and Medicaid, which do not cover dental care for adults. But researchers Barbara Bloom and Robin Cohen said they could only look at private sector "because of the limited or nonexistent public coverage for dental care."
It is not clear how the new healthcare law will affect the dental insurance industry. Like its health insurance counterpart, the sector lobbied against any government-run health program while seeking to boost funds for dental care under Medicaid.
Medicaid, which serves 45 million low-income people, pays for dental care for those under 21, but patients can have trouble finding dentists. A separate government program, the Children's Health Insurance Program, also provides limited dental care.
Older Americans can buy separate dental policies from insurers.
Health insurers that offer dental plans include Aetna Inc, Cigna Corp, UnitedHealth Group Inc, Humana Inc, and Assurant Inc, according to the Association for Health Insurance Plans, which represents about 80 percent of all U.S. dental insurance plans.
Most Blue Cross Blue Shield Association plans, MetLife, and Principal Financial Group Inc also offer dental coverage, the industry's lobby group said.
(Reporting by Susan Heavey; Editing by Maggie Fox)
Health
Overall most non-elderly people who already have private health coverage also have a dental policy, but roughly 70 percent of those who have to buy their own health plan do not, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report.
Under the health reforms passed in March, adults must buy health insurance or pay a fine starting in 2014. The law does not require them to buy other types of coverage like dental or vision, although some comprehensive health care plans include the additional coverage.
While health plans must cover at minimum services like emergency care and prescription drugs, they do not have to cover oral care for adults. Dental care for children is required.
Some advocates pushed for a wider dental component in the bill, pointing to the larger impact of oral health on conditions like heart disease and diabetes.
Among the 172 million people under 65 who already have private health insurance, nearly three-quarters have dental insurance too, mostly through an employer, the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics said.
The survey found that among those with dental coverage, 33 percent had a comprehensive plan with dental coverage, while 26 percent had a stand-alone plan. Fourteen percent had both.
Among those with employer-sponsored care, just 20 percent lacked a dental plan.
The CDC's statistics unit analyzed data from its 2008 nationwide survey of 65,495 people under age 65.
INCOME FACTOR
Not surprisingly, the researchers found a direct link between income and access to care. The higher a person's income, the more likely they were to have dental coverage.
An estimated 90 million Americans get health insurance through Medicare and Medicaid, which do not cover dental care for adults. But researchers Barbara Bloom and Robin Cohen said they could only look at private sector "because of the limited or nonexistent public coverage for dental care."
It is not clear how the new healthcare law will affect the dental insurance industry. Like its health insurance counterpart, the sector lobbied against any government-run health program while seeking to boost funds for dental care under Medicaid.
Medicaid, which serves 45 million low-income people, pays for dental care for those under 21, but patients can have trouble finding dentists. A separate government program, the Children's Health Insurance Program, also provides limited dental care.
Older Americans can buy separate dental policies from insurers.
Health insurers that offer dental plans include Aetna Inc, Cigna Corp, UnitedHealth Group Inc, Humana Inc, and Assurant Inc, according to the Association for Health Insurance Plans, which represents about 80 percent of all U.S. dental insurance plans.
Most Blue Cross Blue Shield Association plans, MetLife, and Principal Financial Group Inc also offer dental coverage, the industry's lobby group said.
(Reporting by Susan Heavey; Editing by Maggie Fox)
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
FTC pushes back identity theft rules deadline -- for fifth time - Businesweek
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has once again pushed back its enforcement deadline for an identity theft --lated regulation called the Red Flags Rule.
The rule requires financial institutions and other organizations that extend consumer credit to develop and implement written policies for detecting and preventing identity theft.
Before this latest deadline change, the FTC was to have started enforcing the rule on June 1. Under the new deadline, it will now start doing so only after Jan. 1, 2011.
The FTC noted in a statement that the delay was prompted by requests from "several members of Congress" who are working on limiting the scope of the Red Flags Rule.
In the statement, the FTC expressed hope that Congress would work quickly on addressing certain "unintended consequences" of the legislation.
The FTC has previously delayed enforcement of the rule on four different occasions, the most recent being in October 2009, when it pushed the deadline back from Nov. 1 to June 1 of this year.
Today's extension comes just days after the American Medical Association (AMA), along with the American Osteopathic Association (AOA) and the Medical Society of the District of Columbia (MSDC), filed a lawsuit against the FTC, demanding that physicians be excluded from the requirements of the Red Flags Rule.
The lawsuit alleged that the Red Flags Rule was meant primarily for the banking sector, but was written so broadly that it now unintentionally covers physicians as well.
The suit follows almost two years of efforts by the AMA and the other two organizations to get the FTC to exclude physicians from the law. In January this year, the AMA, the AOA and two other groups formally petitioned the FTC to exempt physicians from the rule.
The recent lawsuit was filed after the FTC rejected the request.
"For two years, the AMA has made the case to the FTC that physicians are not creditors like banks and lenders, and the misguided red flags rule should not apply to them," a statement announcing the lawsuit noted.
The FTC's decision to apply the rule to physicians regardless of such complaints is 'arbitrary, capricious and contrary to the law', the lawsuit alleged.
The Red Flags Rule was developed as part of the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act (FACTA) and went into effect in January 2008. The original compliance deadline for the rules was Nov. 2008, but it has been pushed back repeatedly largely as a result of concerns in Congress about the applicability of the rules to organizations other than financial institutions.
The FTC has argued that unless the rule is tweaked by Congress, it applies equally to any entity that extends credit to consumers in any form -- like a physician would, for example, when waiting for an insurance company to make payments for services rendered earlier.
According to the FTC, entities that are covered under the Red Flags Rule include finance companies, auto dealers, mortgage brokers, health providers and telecommunications companies.
It's a position that has been challenged before. Last October, a federal court in Washington D.C ruled that the regulations could not be applied to lawyers and other legal professionals as the FTC had argued it did. The ruling was in response to a lawsuit brought by the American Bar Association against the FTC.
The AMA lawsuit argues that physicians who do not require or collect immediate payment from patients cannot be considered to be creditors, under Red Flags rules.
It also noted that requiring physicians to collect and investigate each patients identity would impose too high of an administrative burden on them and erode a lot of the patient-physician trust relationship.
The rule requires financial institutions and other organizations that extend consumer credit to develop and implement written policies for detecting and preventing identity theft.
Before this latest deadline change, the FTC was to have started enforcing the rule on June 1. Under the new deadline, it will now start doing so only after Jan. 1, 2011.
The FTC noted in a statement that the delay was prompted by requests from "several members of Congress" who are working on limiting the scope of the Red Flags Rule.
In the statement, the FTC expressed hope that Congress would work quickly on addressing certain "unintended consequences" of the legislation.
The FTC has previously delayed enforcement of the rule on four different occasions, the most recent being in October 2009, when it pushed the deadline back from Nov. 1 to June 1 of this year.
Today's extension comes just days after the American Medical Association (AMA), along with the American Osteopathic Association (AOA) and the Medical Society of the District of Columbia (MSDC), filed a lawsuit against the FTC, demanding that physicians be excluded from the requirements of the Red Flags Rule.
The lawsuit alleged that the Red Flags Rule was meant primarily for the banking sector, but was written so broadly that it now unintentionally covers physicians as well.
The suit follows almost two years of efforts by the AMA and the other two organizations to get the FTC to exclude physicians from the law. In January this year, the AMA, the AOA and two other groups formally petitioned the FTC to exempt physicians from the rule.
The recent lawsuit was filed after the FTC rejected the request.
"For two years, the AMA has made the case to the FTC that physicians are not creditors like banks and lenders, and the misguided red flags rule should not apply to them," a statement announcing the lawsuit noted.
The FTC's decision to apply the rule to physicians regardless of such complaints is 'arbitrary, capricious and contrary to the law', the lawsuit alleged.
The Red Flags Rule was developed as part of the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act (FACTA) and went into effect in January 2008. The original compliance deadline for the rules was Nov. 2008, but it has been pushed back repeatedly largely as a result of concerns in Congress about the applicability of the rules to organizations other than financial institutions.
The FTC has argued that unless the rule is tweaked by Congress, it applies equally to any entity that extends credit to consumers in any form -- like a physician would, for example, when waiting for an insurance company to make payments for services rendered earlier.
According to the FTC, entities that are covered under the Red Flags Rule include finance companies, auto dealers, mortgage brokers, health providers and telecommunications companies.
It's a position that has been challenged before. Last October, a federal court in Washington D.C ruled that the regulations could not be applied to lawyers and other legal professionals as the FTC had argued it did. The ruling was in response to a lawsuit brought by the American Bar Association against the FTC.
The AMA lawsuit argues that physicians who do not require or collect immediate payment from patients cannot be considered to be creditors, under Red Flags rules.
It also noted that requiring physicians to collect and investigate each patients identity would impose too high of an administrative burden on them and erode a lot of the patient-physician trust relationship.
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