Should storing cord blood be standard?

By Terri Coles

TORONTO (Reuters) -- Public or private? That's the controversial question being asked about a potentially life-saving practice in which cord blood -- the blood collected from a newborn's placenta and umbilical cord -- is stored for future use.

Because cord blood is rich in hematopoietic stem cells, it is one of three possible sources of blood-forming cells used in transplants, along with bone marrow and circulating blood. One of the advantages of cord blood, which is frozen and stored in either a public or private bank, is that there is evidence that the donor/recipient match doesn't have to be as exact as it does for bone marrow and circulating blood.

But the collection of cord blood after birth hasn't been standardized, and some physicians oppose its storage for private use. The American Academy of Pediatrics recently discouraged the use of private cord blood banks, except when a relative has a current need for a transplant, because it is unclear that banked cord blood benefits the individual it was collected from.

Instead, the AAP encourages parents to donate to public cord blood banks, which make the blood available to patients with diseases such as leukemia, neuroblastoma, lymphoma, sickle cell anemia and thalassemia, as well as immune deficiencies and genetic diseases. So far, the appeal has fallen short: Public cord blood banks have received between 60,000 to 70,000 units of cord blood and have used about 6,000 for transplants, the AAP said. Private banks store an estimated 400,000 units, but only 35 to 40 have been transplanted.

The availability of public units is important because 10,000 people a year are diagnosed with diseases that can be treated with cell transplants, and while 30 percent of those people will have a related donor available, 70 percent will not, said Kathy Welte, the director of the United States' National Marrow Donor Program's Center for Cord Blood.

The Center for Cord Blood is connected with related organizations around the world, Welte said, and their resources are available to patients in other countries. Canada, for example, lacks a national public cord blood bank. Many of the transplants done there use cord blood units from the United States and Europe, though they have come from as far afield as Taiwan and Australia, said Dr. John Doyle, director of the blood and marrow transplant program at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto.

If families choose to store their infant's cord blood at a private or family bank, where it will be kept -- for a fee -- it will only be available for that child, a sibling or another family member.

Privately banking cord blood is most often recommended when there is someone in the family who already needs a donation, Doyle said -- for example, a sibling. It also appeals to families who have a history of metabolic disorders, or who feel that their ethnic background is unusual enough that the donor pool would be impossibly small if they were to become ill. (Ethnicity is one of the determinants for an HLA match, which is important for a successful transplantation.)

Dr. Clifford Librach, the founder of CReATe Cord Blood Bank in Toronto, Canada, says public banking options are limited in Canada -- only the provinces of Alberta and Quebec have public cord blood banks -- and CReATe gives parents the chance to store a biological resource that would otherwise be wasted. "It's either throw it in the garbage or bank for your family," Librach said.

Though they do deal with some families with a specific need -- CReATe will bank for free for a child in immediate need of a cord blood transplant -- they mostly deal with families who are banking because they want the blood available just in case. "There's a possibility that anyone could use this at any time in their life," Librach said. "What you really are doing is banking for your own family. It's like having insurance for your family."

Some experts say that both banking options offer benefits. "I think there's plenty of room for both private and public cord blood banking," said Doyle. "I don't think there needs to be one or the other, I think that both can coexist." But he warns that families should do their homework and make sure the bank they deal with has been accredited.

The CReAte clinic will be inspected for accreditation with the American Association of Blood Banks in the coming month, Librach said. CReATe has also been inspected by Health Canada and found to comply with their mandatory regulations, he said.

Today, cord blood transplants are used to treat metabolic and malignant disorders like sickle cell anemia and leukemia, but the uses of cord blood could expand in the future. "That potential can be huge," Doyle said. It's possible that stem cells could be used to develop other types of human tissue, such as muscle tissue that could be used to repair damaged hearts. They are also being examined in the treatment of spinal cord injuries. One study found that cord blood transplants were life-saving for infants with Krabbe's disease, an inherited degenerative disorder.

But those uses remain potential uses, and there isn't sufficient research to say for certain that any of them will happen, Doyle said.

But as North American populations become more diverse, publicly-banked cord blood will become more important, Doyle said. "We are going to be increasingly faced with unique HLA types," he said, and those types will be harder to match with the available donor pool.

U.S. sees record world food crops easing crisis

By Charles Abbott

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Good weather will help the world's farmers reap record wheat and rice crops this year, the U.S. government said on Friday, which should allay fears of shortages and help bring prices down from current high levels.

The U.S. Agriculture Department also forecast a record global crop of feed grain, used to feed livestock.

The USDA announcement was expected to calm fears of food shortages, worsened by the cyclone that hit Myanmar's rich rice-producing Irrawaddy delta last week, and by a larger than expected 500,000 metric ton Malaysian rice purchase on Thursday.

Disappointing harvests, the boom in biofuels and higher meat consumption have pushed up grain prices in the past two years, raising food prices and sparking protests in some 40 poorer countries whose people have felt the effect most strongly.

Officials at the U.N. Human Rights Council said it would hold a special session on May 23 to assess the effect of the food crisis on the right to food of millions of people suffering from high prices, notably in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.

"We're keeping our fingers crossed that we get good harvests this year ... and that it brings prices down some from their high peaks," said analyst David Orden of the International Food Policy Research Institute, a think tank.

Even with bountiful crops, Orden said, larger international food aid efforts would be vital because prices would be higher than usual for the next couple of years at least.

The USDA said the world wheat crop would rise 8 percent to a record 656 million metric tons in 2008/09. It projected global rice output at a record 432 million metric tons, up 5 million metric tons from 2007/08."This ought to take the edge off commodity prices" said private U.S. consultant John Schnittker, making it easier for poor people to buy enough food.

Other signals that the supply crisis might be easing came from India, which said on Friday that it might allow limited rice exports, and from the Philippines, where traders held off purchases hoping for new crops soon from southeast Asia.

India, the world's second-biggest rice exporter last year, banned shipments of all rice except basmati in March, one of a series of protectionist measures worldwide that triggered a wave of panic buying.

"We are reviewing the situation and may allow limited exports," Commerce Secretary Gopal Pillai said on the sidelines of a conference in Kochi, adding that the government might also review an export tax on basmati rice.

The USDA forecast depressed wheat prices on the Chicago Board of Trade, but rice prices rose on the USDA prediction that Cyclone Nargis would reduce Myanmar's rice crop by 7 percent. The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation had said it expected Myanmar to export 600,000 metric tons of rice this year.

The soaring cost of food has fuelled unease among governments and street protests from Haiti to Bangladesh. The situation has worsened as grain exporting nations curb shipments to ensure domestic supplies and keep inflation under control.

The Philippines, the world's biggest rice importer, has so far bought about 1.7 million metric tons of the 2.2 million metric tons of rice it needs this year, and officials and traders said they expected prices to fall within a few months.

The USDA said the record harvests expected this year meant there would be an end-year world wheat surplus of 124 million metric tons, despite a rise in consumption of 3.5 percent.

The higher rice crop would leave a stockpile of 82.6 million metric tons, the largest in six years, it said.(Additional reporting by Rosemarie Francisco in Manila, Debiprasad Nayak in Kochi)

(Writing by Tim Pearce)

Video games don't create killers, new book says

By Scott Hillis

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Playing video games does not turn children into deranged, blood-thirsty super-killers, according to a new book by a pair of Harvard researchers.

Lawrence Kutner and Cheryl Olson, a husband-and-wife team at Harvard Medical School, detail their views in "Grand Theft Childhood: The Surprising Truth About Violent Video Games and What Parents Can Do", which came out last month and promises to reshape the debate on the effects of video games on kids.

"What I hope people realize is that there is no data to support the simple-minded concerns that video games cause violence," Kutner told Reuters.

The pair reached that conclusion after conducting a two-year study of more than 1,200 middle-school children about their attitudes towards video games.

It was a different approach than most other studies, which have focused on laboratory experiments that attempt to use actions like ringing a loud buzzer as a measure of aggression.

"What we did that had rarely been done by other researchers was actually talk to the kids. It sounds bizarre but it hadn't been done," Kutner said.

They found that playing video games was a near-universal activity among children, and was often intensely social.

But the data did show a link between playing mature-rated games and aggressive behavior. The researchers found that 51 percent of boys who played M-rated games -- the industry's equivalent of an R-rated movie, meaning suitable for ages 17 and up -- had been in a fight in the past year, compared to 28 percent of non-M-rated gamers.The pattern was even stronger among girls, with 40 percent of those who played M-rated games having been in a fight in the past year, compared to just 14 percent for non-M players.

One of the most surprising things was how popular mature games were among girls. In fact, the "Grand Theft Auto" crime action series was the second-most played game behind "The Sims", a sort of virtual dollhouse.

Kutner and Olson said further study is needed because the data shows only a correlation, not causation. It is unclear whether the games trigger aggression or if aggressive children are drawn to more violent games.

"It's still a minority of kids who play violent video games a lot and get into fights. If you want a good description of 13-year-old kids who play violent video games, it's your local soccer team," Olson said.

The researchers also try to place video games in a larger context of popular culture. The anxiety many parents voice over video games largely mirrors the concerns raised when movies, comic books and television became popular.

"One thing I like about their approach is that they've tried to historicize the whole concept of a media controversy and that we've seen this before," said Ian Bogost, a professor at Georgia Tech known for his studies on video games.

The book urges a common-sense approach that takes stock of the entire range of a child's behavior. Frequent fighting, bad grades, and obsessive gaming can be signs for trouble.

"If you have, for example, a girl who plays 15 hours a week of exclusively violent video games, I'd be very concerned because it's very unusual," Kutner said.

"But for boys (the danger sign) is not playing video games at all, because it looks like for this generation, video games are a measure of social competence for boys."Many video game fans have embraced the pair as champions of the industry, a label that makes them uncomfortable.

"We're not comfortable doing pro and con. We've been asked to do the pro-game side in debates, and I don't consider myself a pro-game person. Video games are a medium," Olson said.

source : reuters

After "Grand Theft" revs up, how much in its tank?

By David Ward

SAN DIEGO (Hollywood Reporter) - While there's little doubt about the power of this week's launch of "Grand Theft Auto IV," there is some question about the video game's legs.

The latest chapter in the wildly popular and controversial criminal action franchise will likely smash the $300 million global first-week sales figure for Microsoft's "Halo 3" in September, but how the game will fare by year's end is subject to debate.

"I think all the preorder programs now in place for these top titles really end up taking the long-term sales out of many games," said Michael Goodman, director of digital entertainment at Yankee Group. "So I don't think 'Grand Theft Auto IV' is going to have those kind of legs."

Many stores are opening up at midnight Monday to accommodate eager customers.

Take-Two Interactive Software Inc, parent company of developer Rockstar Games, even suggested that worldwide actual game sales could reach 6 million, generating $400 million for the publisher as it battles a hostile takeover attempt from rival Electronic Arts.

"Halo 3," for example, exhausted 67% of its total U.S. sales-to-date in its first month, and though NPD games analyst Anita Frazier said the game still is selling 100,000 copies a month, it no longer is in the tracking firm's top 10 monthly charts.

But David Cole, president of market research firm DFC Intelligence, stressed that "Grand Theft Auto IV" always has been a different type of franchise. "If you look at 'Halo' titles historically, they've always been the type of games that everybody rushed out to buy, but the 'Auto' titles have always had lots of legs," he said.

Because "Grand Theft Auto" depicts carjacking, murder and other questionable content that has upset parents, Cole noted many people forget that the games are very accessible and have real mass-market appeal, despite their M (for Mature) rating. Cole said "Grand Theft Auto 3" not only was the best-selling title of 2001 but also the second-best-selling tile of 2002 -- right behind "Grand Theft Auto: Vice City."

From Take-Two's standpoint, Goodman said the expected massive sales for the new title will at the very least give it some breathing room in its efforts to fend off Electronic Arts' $2 billion hostile takeover offer.

"EA is going to have to either up their bid significantly or pull back for six months to a year and hope the 'Grand Theft Auto' hoopla dies down, keeping their fingers crossed that Take-Two is not on a winning streak," he added.

Reuters/Hollywood Reporter

Battles kill 13 in Sadr City, blockade eased

By Wisam Mohammed

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. and Iraqi forces killed at least 13 gunmen in heavy battles overnight around Baghdad's Sadr City, the U.S. military said on Saturday, but authorities went ahead and eased a two-week-old blockade of the slum.

Cars were allowed in and out of Sadr City through some entrances, although other routes remained blocked and the sound of fighting was still audible on Saturday morning.

A U.S. military statement described a "complex" battle in the slum, a stronghold of militiamen loyal to Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. Residents described the clashes as among the worst fighting there since Iraqi forces launched an offensive into the area a week ago.

The Sadr City fighting, we well as fierce battles in the southern city of Basra between security forces and Sadr's Mehdi Army militia late last month, has thrust the Iraq war back onto the centre stage of the U.S. presidential election campaign.

U.S. forces fired at least one Hellfire missile from drone aircraft and two rounds from the main battle gun of an M1 tank against fighters who targeted them with roadside bombs, rifles and rocket-propelled grenades, the military said.

"No U.S. or Iraqi army soldiers were seriously injured and we went on to complete our mission," Major John Gossart, executive officer of the battalion involved in the fighting, said in a statement.

Police said seven people had been killed and 17 wounded in the overnight fighting. Sadr City's two hospitals said they received at least 33 wounded.

Despite the fighting, the Iraqi government's Baghdad security spokesman, Major-General Qassim Moussawi, said the situation was stable and the overnight clashes would not interfere with long awaited plans to lift the blockade.
"If more such clashes take place, we will deal with them by raiding the targets in an intelligent way," he said, adding that some roads were still shut to clear away bombs.

The blockade has led to skyrocketing food prices and days of claustrophobia for residents in the densely populated slum, which is under nightly bombardment. Residents said they were relieved to get out but wary about the future.

"I went today to university and it felt to me like a new fresh day in my life after two weeks of being isolated from the world," said law student Ahmed Kadhim.

But Nadeem Qasim, a civil servant in the water department, said he would not be optimistic "as long as the Iraqi army vehicles are still there and U.S. planes hover over the city. It means the problems and bombardment may resume".

LOUDSPEAKERS

As the fighting raged overnight, loudspeakers on mosques blared out speeches in support of Sadr's Mehdi Army fighters.

"We will not allow the Americans to enter the city whatever happens, if we lose our lives and our sons," they called out.

A Reuters correspondent who spent the night inside Sadr City said U.S. helicopters and jets flew overhead before midnight and several of the aircraft could be seen firing missiles.

The sound of heavy gunfire erupted in several parts of the slum, and fighters could be seen on the streets carrying rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns into battle."If more such clashes take place, we will deal with them by raiding the targets in an intelligent way," he said, adding that some roads were still shut to clear away bombs.

The blockade has led to skyrocketing food prices and days of claustrophobia for residents in the densely populated slum, which is under nightly bombardment. Residents said they were relieved to get out but wary about the future.

"I went today to university and it felt to me like a new fresh day in my life after two weeks of being isolated from the world," said law student Ahmed Kadhim.

But Nadeem Qasim, a civil servant in the water department, said he would not be optimistic "as long as the Iraqi army vehicles are still there and U.S. planes hover over the city. It means the problems and bombardment may resume".

LOUDSPEAKERS

As the fighting raged overnight, loudspeakers on mosques blared out speeches in support of Sadr's Mehdi Army fighters.

"We will not allow the Americans to enter the city whatever happens, if we lose our lives and our sons," they called out.

A Reuters correspondent who spent the night inside Sadr City said U.S. helicopters and jets flew overhead before midnight and several of the aircraft could be seen firing missiles.

The sound of heavy gunfire erupted in several parts of the slum, and fighters could be seen on the streets carrying rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns into battle.
Hundreds have died in clashes between Sadr's followers and U.S. and Iraqi forces since late last month, when Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki launched a crackdown against the militia in the southern city of Basra.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Sadr would not be treated as an enemy if he played a peaceful political role.

"Those who are prepared to work within the political process in Iraq, and peacefully, are not enemies of the United States," Gates told reporters at the Pentagon on Friday.

A top aide to Sadr, related to the cleric by marriage, was shot dead in the Shi'ite holy city of Najaf on Friday.

Assassinations have been a frequent part of the power struggle between Shi'ite groups in southern Iraq, but the slaying of someone so close to the cleric could increase tension. Police imposed a curfew in Najaf, and a Reuters correspondent in the city said it was quiet on Saturday.

(Additional reporting by Khalid Al-Ansary, Aws Qusay and Peter Graff; Writing by Peter Graff; Editing by Michael Winfrey)

By Daisuke Wakabayashi and Kenneth Li SEATTLE/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp wants to stick with its original takeover offer for Yahoo Inc, but

By Daisuke Wakabayashi and Kenneth Li

SEATTLE/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp wants to stick with its original takeover offer for Yahoo Inc, but is not ruling out News Corp joining its bid or other options, a source close to the company said on Friday.

Separately, a source familiar with the matter said News Corp continues to talk directly with Yahoo on reaching a deal without Microsoft. The source declined to provide details on what a potential deal structure would look like.

The source close to Microsoft said the company's preference all along has been to retain the original deal structure that would involve paying $31 per share in cash and stock to acquire Yahoo. But Microsoft has not ruled out bidding with partners.

Earlier, the Wall Street Journal, which is owned by News Corp, reported that people close to Microsoft said the software maker plans to pursue Yahoo alone rather than with News Corp, which had held talks with Microsoft on a joint bid for Yahoo.

The Journal also said Yahoo's board of directors met on Friday to assess their options, including deepening their negotiations with Time Warner Inc's AOL on a deal to merge Yahoo and AOL, but that no decisions were reached.

Spokesmen for Microsoft, News Corp, Time Warner and Yahoo were not immediately available to comment.

The newspaper's Web site cited unnamed sources as saying that Time Warner had been expecting Yahoo's board to move closer to backing an AOL deal and that Yahoo's delays suggested that the company was hesitant to proceed.

A source familiar with the situation was unwilling to confirm to Reuters the Journal's characterization of Time Warner's thinking, but said that talks continue between Time Warner and Yahoo.
Microsoft had threatened last Saturday to launch a hostile bid for Yahoo and could lower its offer of $42.4 billion around April 26 if it does not get a deal.

The New York Times reported on Wednesday that News Corp was in talks to join Microsoft's bid for the Web pioneer.

Yahoo also announced on Wednesday a test to outsource Web search advertising to Google Inc, which sources say is part of a three-way alliance that would combine Yahoo with Time Warner Inc's AOL instead of Microsoft.

(Additional reporting by Eric Auchard in San Francisco; Editing by Braden Reddall)

Apple has biggest impact on world consumers: survey

By Rachel Sanderson

LONDON (Reuters) - The Apple brand has the biggest impact on the world's consumers, while Microsoft and the United States nation brand are those considered most in need of a remake, a survey showed on Monday.

The poll by online magazine brandchannel.com asked its readers to identify the brands with the greatest impact on their lives, and say how they affected readers' behaviour and their view of the world.

The nearly 2,000 professionals and students who voted named Apple overwhelming winner. The creator of the iPod and Mac computer triumphed in six categories including most inspiring brand and the one readers cannot live without.

Microsoft, the world's largest software maker was also a winner, but it received the dubious honor of the brand most readers wanted to argue with, and the one they most wanted to revamp. Voted into second place in the category was brand USA.

"Apple has clearly captured the hearts and minds by leading across most categories. Others, such as the USA nation brand, which ranks highly as most in need of a rebrand, requires help according to our readers," said brandchannel editor Jim Thompson.

The poll does not take account of economic brand value, the murky science of assigning a financial value to brand, which regularly puts Coca-Cola Co's (KO.N) Coke in first place.

One of the more surprising results from the survey, was that few of the respondents -- who came from 107 countries -- thought that there was such a thing as a "green" brand.

The result comes despite millions of dollars spent by some of the world's biggest companies to rebrand themselves as "environmentally-friendly". Discussing Apple, one anonymous reader said there was "never a dull moment" with the company "reinventing itself all along and providing, over and over again, a new perspective on what we thought was carved in stone".

At the other end of the spectrum, Microsoft had "gone from innovative and bold to stodgy and follower," said another unnamed reader.

After Apple, the most inspiring brands were Nike, Coca-Cola, Google and Starbucks, the survey showed.

The same brands, except with Virgin in place of Starbucks, were the brands most readers would "like to sit next to at a dinner party".

The rankings by brandchannel.com were based on answers from almost 2,000 readers from 107 countries. The survey was conducted online from February 24 to March 9.