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California Mental Health Advocates Raise Concern Over Treatment Of ICE Detainees
The San Diego Tribune on Monday profiled the La Mesa, Calif.-based private psychiatric hospital Alvarado Parkway Institute. Some advocates say that the hospital is in a network of private hospitals that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement uses to hold "severely" mentally ill detainees nationwide, often "out of reach of lawyers and even their families," the Tribune reports. The number of immigration detainees has increased dramatically over recent years. According to the Tribune, about 35,000 people are being detained in a system of public or private jails and detention centers awaiting the outcomes of their immigration cases. It is unknown how many of the detainees are mentally ill and how many are held in private facilities.Some disability-rights lawyers and advocates for the mentally ill say that conditions at many of the private facilities, including API, violate state and federal laws governing treatment of mentally ill people. Ann Menasche, a lawyer with the legal advocacy group Disability Rights California, last month sent a letter to ICE claiming that after visiting API and interviewing detainees, she found that the conditions are "excessive, unjustifiable and punitive." Menasche said that immigration detainees could not socialize, exercise or participate in group therapy, and noted that they also were kept shackled to hospital beds. She said the patients also are being denied their rights to daily visitors, access to a telephone and other lawful permissions. She said other patients were not subjected to such conditions. Earlier this month, Menasche sent another letter to county officials requesting that they investigate the facility.Hospital CEO Patrick Ziemer said that the measures taken at the hospital are done for security reasons required by ICE. He added, "Patients can move about and walk around, a few steps from their bed." ICE officials declined to answer specific questions about the treatment of patients at API but said in a statement that the agency is reviewing "visitation and telephone access practices for immigration detainees being housed in private psychiatric facilities to ensure they have appropriate access to both." Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano also has ordered a broader review of all ICE detention conditions (Moran, San Diego Tribune, 5/18).

DNA Deletion Makes Swedish Chlamydia 'Invisible'
New sequencing and analysis of six strains of Chlamydia will result in improved diagnosis of the sexually transmitted infection. This study provides remarkable insights into a new strain of Chlamydia that was identified in Sweden in 2006 after spreading rapidly across the country by evading most established diagnostic tests.
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Care Watchdog Staff Praised For Exam Success, Scotland
Staff at Scotland"s care watchdog have been praised for completing a specialist course aimed at improving care standards across the country.
Cardiovascular

Ventana's Promising New Anti-Obesity Patent

Ventana Biotech Inc ("Ventana")(PINK SHEETS:VNTA), a biotechnology company that is developing a appetite-suppressing chewing gum, released detailed information about its innovative Anti-Obesity Chewing Gum. The goal of Ventana"s Anti-Obesity Chewing Gum is to combat the growing global obesity epidemic while capturing a share of the multi-billion dollar market for anti-obesity drugs. How it works Ventana"s proprietary chewing gum contains an extract of hoodia gordonii and 2-hydroxyoleic acid. Hoodia gordonii is a leafless, cactus-like plant that grows naturally in Southern Africa that was historically used by native populations to suppress appetite when making long hunting trips in the Kalahari Desert. The plant has also been found to possess the ability to lower blood glucose levels, thereby also making it an attractive candidate for the treatment and prevention of diabetes. The active ingredients in the plant extracts are released into the patient"s blood stream, and trigger a hormonal response in the part of the brain (the hypothalamus) that tells the body it is "full", thereby suppressing the appetite of the obese patient. Because the plant extracts activate hormones that naturally exist in the body, there are no harmful side effects. The simple logic is that the Anti-Obesity Chewing Gum eliminates the feeling of "hunger", which in turn leads the patient to ingest less food, which in turn leads to weight loss. Obesity is a growing problem in developed nations, and is associated with increased mortality, Type 2 Diabetes, and heart disease. With Ventana"s proprietary Anti-Obesity Chewing Gum, users can safely control their appetites. Early indications show the Gum is able to reduce appetite by between 15 and 25 percent. Ventana continues to perfect this promising biotechnology and plans to eventually out-license it to Big Pharma companies. The royalty cash-flow from a successful anti-obesity drug is estimated at 1.5 - 1.7 billion Dollars. The outlook for anti-obesity treatments such as that of Ventana"s is promising, as the anti-obesity market continues to grow, while concurrently, the availability of successful patents is lacking. Morgan Stanley estimates the market for drugs combating Type 2 Diabetes (strongly correlated to obesity) to be in excess of $35 billion by 2012. Ventana Biotech Inc


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