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Obama "Flexible" On All But One Issue: Passing A Reform Bill
"President Obama urged lawmakers Wednesday to work through partisan differences that are threatening health care legislation" at a White House meeting, the Associated Press reports. Members of both parties, who in recent days have been increasingly divided over issues like the prospect of a public insurance plan, were upbeat about the meeting, according to the AP: "A senior Republican who recently criticized Obama also sounded positive. "The president, I thought, was very flexible except on one thing, and that was getting it done," said Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa. "When the president is flexible on controversial things ... I think that that"s good news.""

Lawmakers Address Nurse And Primary Care Physician Shortages
A pending House bill would aim to address the nursing shortage by allowing "20,000 additional nurses to enter the U.S. each year for the next three years as a temporary measure to fill the gap," Business Week reports. The bill was introduced by Representative Robert Wexler, D-Fla., in May. If it doesn"t "pass on its own, lawmakers may include it in a comprehensive immigration reform package." Hospital administrators in some areas that face nursing shortages support the bill as "temporary relief," but "Wexler"s bill is opposed by labor unions, whose leaders say it would undermine efforts to produce a steady domestic workforce while sapping other nations" nurses. [President Barack] Obama has also expressed skepticism about the idea that the U.S. needs to import nurses, in particular because the U.S. unemployment rate continues to rise." Instead, Obama has said, the focus should be on improving the res to fund education for new American-born nurses. "The $787 billion economic stimulus bill included $500 million to address shortages of health workers in the U.S., with about $100 million to promote nursing and increase capacity at U.S. nurse-training schools."
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Personalized Anti-Cancer Vaccine Pivotal Phase III Results To Be Presented At ASCO Plenary Session

Biovest International, Inc. (Other OTC:BVTI), a majority-owned subsidiary of Accentia Biopharmaceuticals, Inc. (Other OTC:ABPIQ), announced that BiovaxID®, Biovest"s personalized anti-cancer vaccine targeting B-cell blood cancers, will be featured in an oral presentation during the Plenary Session at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting on Sunday, May 31st, 2009 in Orlando, Florida. Stephen J. Schuster, M.D., Associate Professor of Medicine at the Abramson Cancer Center of the University of Pennsylvania, will deliver the BiovaxID presentation titled, "Idiotype Vaccine Therapy (BiovaxID®) in Follicular Lymphoma in First Complete Remission: Phase III Clinical Trial Results." Note to editors: Pursuant to ASCO policy, this abstract is embargoed until 10:30 a.m. (EDT) on Sunday, May 31st, when it will be highlighted during ASCO"s official Press Program to the media. Dr. Schuster"s oral presentation is scheduled to be the second of four clinical trial results presentations at the ASCO Plenary Session on Sunday, which begins at 1:00 p.m. (EDT) at the Orlando Convention Center location Level 2, West Hall D2. In addition to the Plenary Session, BiovaxID will also be featured in a presentation to be delivered at ASCO by Larry Kwak, M.D., Ph.D., Chairman of the Department of Lymphoma and Myeloma and Associate Director of the Center for Cancer Immunology Research at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. Dr. Kwak"s presentation will be part of a Panel Education Session titled, "Cancer Vaccines: Where do we go from here?" This presentation is scheduled for Sunday, May 31st at 4:45 p.m. (EDT) at location Level 2, West Hall F1. About BiovaxID® BiovaxID is a personalized, patient-specific therapeutic vaccine designed to stimulate the patient"s own immune system to recognize and destroy cancerous B-cells that may remain in the body or may arise after the patient has been treated with chemotherapy. Unlike many other approaches to treating non-Hodgkin"s lymphoma, BiovaxID is designed to kill only cancerous B-cells, with the initial indication of follicular Non-Hodgkin"s lymphoma. Additionally, it is anticipated that BiovaxID could be used to treat other types of B-cell cancers, such as Mantle Cell Lymphoma, Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia and Multiple Myeloma. A Unique Approach to Immunotherapy Targeting B-Cell Blood Cancers B-cells (a type of white blood cell or lymphocyte) are a vital part of the human immune system, as they produce antibodies that seek out and bind to foreign substances in the body. In lymphoma, as cancerous B-cells grow and multiply unrestrained, each malignant B-cell expresses a unique idiotype or biomarker on the cell"s surface, specific to each patient. Research at Stanford University and the National Cancer Institute led to the development of BiovaxID as a personalized, therapeutic vaccine capable of selectively targeting only cancerous B-cells, while sparing healthy cells. This is achieved by using the idiotype obtained from a sample of the patient"s tumor by biopsy, and through proprietary bioengineering techniques in a patented cell line, a patient-specific vaccine is created that stimulates the immune system by recruiting a patient"s T-cells (immune cells that kill cancerous cells) to seek out and destroy only the diseased B-cells. Unlike other failed cancer vaccine therapies that attempted to target lymphoma, BiovaxID is the only hybridoma (fusion of human lymphocyte with cancer cell) anti-cancer vaccine that consists of a high-fidelity copy of the complete idiotype, believed to be critical in mounting a full and complete immune response against the cancer, as well as "training" the immune system to maintain continuous response if cancerous cells were to return. Biovest International, Inc.


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