Excerpts from the Globe's blog on the Boston-area medical community.
Life expectancy has been steadily rising for Americans, but better-educated people are adding years to their lives, while those with high school diplomas or less are falling further behind, according to a Harvard study in the current issue of Health Affairs.
In 2000, life expectancy for someone with 12 years of education or less was nearly 75 - the same as a decade earlier. But for someone with more education, life expectancy had jumped from 80 to 81.6 years during the decade, according to an analysis of death certificates, Census population estimates, and national mortality data. Different rates of smoking accounted for much of the disparity.
"It's not that surprising to see people making different gains in different places at different rates," said Ellen Meara of Harvard Medical School. But "we find it unsettling when one group enjoys such a great health advantage in terms of the lifespan they can expect."
ELIZABETH COONEY
Old vaccine focus of new trial
Boston researchers are testing an old tuberculosis vaccine in a new clinical trial to treat Type 1 diabetes, enlisting the low-grade inflammation it causes in an effort to disarm abnormal immune cells that destroy insulin-producing cells.
The phase 1 clinical trial at Massachusetts General Hospital is based on experiments in mice directed by Dr. Denise Faustman. Dr. David M. Nathan, director of the MGH Diabetes Center, will lead the human study, which is recruiting participants (Call 617-726-4084 or e-mail DiabetesTrial@partners.org.).
ELIZABETH COONEY
A "brilliant, powerful, and vibrant research and educational enterprise" is simply treading water while a generation of researchers is discouraged by increasingly longer delays until their first grants from the National Institutes of Health, according to Drew Gilpin Faust's testimony before the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.
Readers were also inspired to comment on the testimony and the issue:
"As a graduate student at UC Berkeley, I applaud the efforts of Dr. Faust. The Bush administration and NIH have obliterated funding for BASIC research in biomedical fields, neurosciences, and humanities. They argue that anything without a "human application" cannot get funded. But new discoveries cannot be made without the groundwork of past publications. The logic is completely flawed and it is driving our universities and students away from academia. The strength and future of this nation was in its tolerance - personal and academic. While the rest of the world (ie. Europe, China) are making advances, we, the richest nation in the world, are being send back to the Dark Ages to fumble around with candlesticks."
Samuel Sakhai
"A researchers FIRST grant has now been pushed back to on average . . . 42 years of age. This means that a researcher has to wait till middle age now in order to even start an academic position. This also doesn't imply future success or funding. Who wants to start a career that involves massive amounts of hours, low pay, an extremely long education and training process (decades) followed by no academic freedom due to no grant support? The best minds will find other paths."
Drew March
"The wealthiest university on earth is whining because it can't get even more money from the taxpayers. Why not a call for Harvard to open its own coffers?"
Turl Whiting
"I was an assistant professor at an Ivy League university and have chosen to leave academic research for reasons related to this article. One excellent point is the conflict that arises when the junior faculty must compete for dollars that once went to their adviser or mentor. It creates a hostile environment."
David
"Researchers in the European Union used to look at migration to the USA as a mark of excellence. Now they laugh at the concept, because it is so much easier to get research funding there. Young scientists who used to immigrate to the USA are now in inverse immigration. They are heading back to China and Japan and Europe in much larger numbers, as the historic USA brain-sink turns into a brain-drain because other nations fund research more readily."
Dave
"I'm a Type 1 diabetic. That means that I wear an insulin pump ALL THE TIME. . . . I would love to be pump-free, but with fewer science money, I guess I just have to be stuck with it. . . . I want to be a nondiabetic, and I don't much care HOW that happens! WE NEED MORE SCIENCE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
Ruth Aydelott
