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UPMC Senior Living Community To Host Health Fair And Blood Drive
Weatherwood Manor, a UPMC Senior Living Community, will host a health fair from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. and a blood drive from 12 to 5 p.m., Thursday, June 11. Weatherwood Manor is located at 896 Weatherwood Lane in Greensburg.

GM, UAW Nearing Deal To Use Company Stock For Half Of VEBA Obligation, s Say
General Motors and the United Auto Workers are close to finalizing a deal that would reduce the automaker"s cash obligation to a retiree health care trust fund, according to people with knowledge of the matter, the Wall Street Journal reports. UAW in 2007 agreed to establish the voluntary employees" beneficiary association, totaling $35 billion, that would cover health care costs of retired GM workers and their spouses starting in 2010. GM has paid about $15 billion into the fund, but under the deal now being discussed, the remaining $20 billion obligation could be paid using about $10 billion in cash and a 39% equity stake in the restructured GM that will be formed under the Treasury Department"s "controlled bankruptcy" plan for the firm. The deal would be subject to approval by UAW"s 60,000 GM members, who likely would face "steep cuts" in pay and benefits as a result, as well as 20,000 additional layoffs, according to the Journal. Union officials also have expressed concern that the GM stock making up the equity stake is "illiquid and hard to value, posing a big risk for UAW members," the Journal reports. GM and UAW could agree to a final version of the deal "as early as next week," according to the Journal (Stoll, Wall Street Journal, 5/15). Chrysler
News of the day
CeNeRx BioPharma Obtains Rights To Novel Drug Candidate For Prevention And Treatment Of Neurodegeneration Disorders
CeNeRx BioPharma, Inc., a clinical stage company developing and commercializing innovative treatments for diseases of the central nervous system (CNS), announced that it has obtained the rights to develop and market a novel agent for the prevention and treatment of neuropathies and neurodegenerative disorders. The drug candidate, CXB909, is a small molecule, orally active agent that enhances the effects of nerve growth factor (NGF). CeNeRx intends to initiate a Phase l trial of CXB909 for the treatment of chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy (CIPN) later this year.
Mental Health

Survivors Of Childhood Central Nervous System Cancer Face Persistent Risks As Adults

Long-term survivors of childhood central nervous system (CNS) malignancies remain at risk for death and are at increasing risk for developing subsequent cancers and chronic medical conditions over time, according to a new study published online June 17 in the JNCI. It was known that survivors of childhood CNS malignancies faced long-term side effects, but this large, 30-year study is one of the first to examine their long-term risks of subsequent cancers and debilitating medical conditions, as well as sociodemographic outcomes into adulthood. To address these risks, Gregory Armstrong, M.D., M.S.C.E., at St. Jude Children"s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn., and colleagues collected information on treatment, mortality, chronic medical conditions, and neurocognitive functioning from patients who had been diagnosed between 1970 and 1986 within the Childhood Cancer Survivor Study and had survived for 5 or more years after diagnosis. The researchers found that these survivors had a risk of death that was 13 times that of the general population. Recurrence or progression of primary disease was the most common cause of death in the first 30 years after diagnosis. The risk of developing a subsequent cancer was associated with radiation exposure during initial treatment, and this risk continues to increase over time in this population. For patients with certain tumor types, increased radiation therapy was also associated with neurocognitive impairment. Radiation of the frontal/temporal lobes was associated with lower levels of employment and marriage. "Continued follow-up will help determine temporal patterns in incidence and late effects as this cohort ages," the authors write. "Modern therapeutic regimens that increasingly use chemotherapy to reduce [radiation therapy] dose or use limited [radiation therapy] fields will likely improve long-term outcomes and minimize the risk of adverse late effects." Author: Summer Freeman Steve Graff Journal of the National Cancer Institute


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