MEDICA and COMPAMED defy financial crisis
Putting the success of the two events in a nutshell, Wilhelm Niederg'ker, Managing Director at Messe D'sseldorf, said: "Despite the worldwide financial crisis MEDICA and COMPAMED have confirmed their leading rank as the World Forum for Medicine. The year with the highest number of events ever in the history of Messe D'sseldorf has drawn to a satisfactory close. With 137,000 registered visitors the four days of the trade fair (and three days of COMPAMED) including the accompanying MEDICA Congress and the Deutscher Krankenhaustag (German Hospital Congress) closed on par with the previous year's event. Just under 40% of visitors came from abroad. The 4,313 exhibitors participating at MEDICA presented the complete spectrum of new products, services and processes for use in doctors' surgeries and hospitals. In addition to those areas traditionally generating strong interest like medical device technology and electrical medicine, physiotherapeutic processes and medical IT, in particular, also triggered increasing demand. MEDICA, the 40th World Forum for Medicine, also lived up to its reputation of being the sector's foremost event for decision-makers. Almost 90% of trade visitors are involved in relevant investment decisions, at least in a consultative capacity, while 70% are decision-makers or at least have co-decision-making rights. In line with these findings in many interviews exhibitors reported that the audience displayed a high propensity to invest overall.

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A major new collaborative research programme to transform the care of elderly citizens was announced in Hungary.  A broad consortium of private and public sector organisations, led by GE Healthcare, a unit of General Electric Company , has secured HUF 895 million (US $4.2 million) from the Hungarian government to research and develop new ways of monitoring the health of elderly citizens in their own homes.  GE Healthcare will invest an additional HUF 238 million (US $1.1 million) in the programme. 

Beginning in 2008, the three year programme will bring together the expertise of healthcare companies with leading academic institutions. The consortium will develop integrated systems and processes for the remote monitoring of the health of elderly citizens, particularly those who suffer from neurological diseases such as stroke, dementia and depression.  The consortium will also research and develop remote telemonitoring systems which monitor both activity levels and vital signs such as blood pressure and heart rate, alerting caregivers to changes that may signal potential health issues or emergency situations.  

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There won't be any brightly wrapped packages under Annette Peterson's Christmas tree this year.
Peterson, a 34-year-old from French Lick, Indiana, was out of a job as of the end of last week, and there's no extra money to buy presents. "It's really tough," said Peterson, a hospital registration clerk who contacted CNN through iReport.com. "I feel pretty guilty this holiday season."

Last year, Peterson and her husband, who works as a graphic artist, spent about $600 on gifts for their 3-year-old daughter. This year, Peterson wonders whether they'll have enough money to pay the electric bill and buy groceries."It's killing my husband not to be able to buy me a gift this year," she added, "but our bills are three and four weeks behind."
Peterson is not alone. More than a million Americans lost their jobs this year, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Many will be faced with tough choices about tightening their budgets during the holiday season.

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The human immune system will attack anything foreign that enters the body, including transplanted organs. That is why powerful and sometimes life-threatening drugs that suppress the immune system have always been imperative to prevent the rejection of new organs. That is, until now: the British medical journal The Lancet today lays out the first successful trachea transplant, which was also — and more importantly — the first tissue transplant to use stem cells and thus do away with immunosuppressive therapy.
The procedure's success, the result of collaboration by scientists across Europe, opens up a world of possibilities for "personalized" transplants that use recipient's stem cells and, as a result, require no immunosuppressive therapy.
"It's a very important demonstration that if different branches of science put together their forces, they can help people," says Professor Paolo Macchiarini, principle author of the study and head of thoracic surgery at Hospital Clinic of Barcelona, where the surgery was performed.

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Blood taken from a pregnant woman may reveal if her baby has a wide range of genetic diseases, researchers claim. A Chinese University of Hong Kong team said the technique could identify cystic fibrosis, beta-thalassemia and sickle cell disease. The only checks currently available carry a high risk of miscarriage. The test works by checking foetal DNA in the mother's blood against her own, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reported. People have two copies of every gene, one from their father and one from their mother. When they conceive a child they pass on one of these gene copies.

However, couples trying for a baby may be oblivious to a hidden threat posed by "recessive" genetic disorders. An estimated one in 25 people in the UK carries one copy of the gene for cystic fibrosis, but only people who have two "bad" copies will actually develop the disease. However, if both parents carry a single disease gene, there is a 25% chance that a child they produce will inherit both, and become ill.

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Earlier this month, the insurance company WellPoint announced a program that will allow employees of a Wisconsin printing company to get coverage for non-emergency surgeries in India. It's a first for WellPoint, but puts the insurer in good company. Over the past few years, U.S. insurance companies — dismayed at losing income from uninsured Americans who get cheap surergies abroad or clients who choose to pay out of pocket for discount foreign surgeries rather than expensive in-network co-pays — have announced plans to include foreign medical procedures among those covered by health plans.
It's no wonder. The medical tourism industry has experienced massive growth over the past decade. Experts in the field say as many as 150,000 U.S. citizens underwent medical treatment abroad in 2006 — the majority in Asia and Latin America. That number grew to an estimated 750,000 in 2007 and could reach as high as 6 million by 2010. Patients are packing suitcases and boarding planes for everything from face lifts to heart bypasses to fertility treatments.

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More than a decade since it was first pioneered, a technique that greatly reduces the trauma of lung surgery still isn't widely used. But that finally may be starting to change, doctors say.
The less invasive form of surgery for lung cancer can significantly decrease recovery time when compared to open chest surgery. That not only allows patients to go home sooner but also can play an important role in reducing pain and preventing complications.

"The earliest I've seen someone going back to work after the procedure is one week," Dr Daniel DeArmond, an assistant professor in cardiothoracic surgery at the University of Texas Health Science Center, said in regard to a patient of his who underwent the minimally invasive surgery. Recovery times vary depending on the patient, but because the procedure is less traumatic than traditional surgery, patients do not face strict limitations on their activity following surgery, he says.

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A group of leading scientists and MPs has attacked plans to reclassify cannabis as a more dangerous drug. In a letter to the Guardian newspaper, the signatories say it would be "very damaging" for the government to ignore expert advice not to upgrade the drug. The home secretary wants to change it from class C to class B, putting it on a par with amphetamines, such as speed. The letter says this would risk reversing the downward trend in the use of cannabis since 2004. It also says it would send confusing messages to the public about the more serious dangers of class B drugs.

Cannabis was downgraded to class C in 2004, but since then there has been growing concern about the potential impact on mental health, particularly of stronger "skunk" varieties. Despite these fears, in May, the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) concluded in a government-commissioned review that it should stay as class C. The council said cannabis was not as dangerous as other class B substances and evidence suggested only a "probable, but weak, causal link between psychotic illness, including schizophrenia, and cannabis use".

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