BEIJING – A municipal court in central China has accepted the country’s first lawsuit alleging work discrimination because of HIV status, state media reported Tuesday.
The China Daily newspaper said a court in Anhui province’s Anqing city accepted the case Monday. The plaintiff, who was not identified by name, alleges that the city’s education bureau denied him a teaching job after he tested positive for HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, the paper said.
After ignoring or demonizing people with AIDS for much of the 1980s and ’90s, China’s authoritarian government has taken a more compassionate line on the disease and combating its spread in recent years. But people with HIV and AIDS still face discrimination when seeking education and work.
The China Daily said the man passed the written test and interviews for the job but was denied the position after a required health screening showed he was HIV positive. The man’s lawyer, Zheng Jineng, told the China Daily that his client is seeking the job he applied for and no compensation.
“I hope the case can draw the public’s attention and help protect job seekers against any kind of discrimination,” Zheng was quoted as saying.
The paper said the trial is scheduled to begin in two weeks.
The HIV virus that causes AIDS gained a foothold in China largely due to unsanitary blood plasma-buying schemes and tainted transfusions in hospitals. Health authorities say sex has overtaken drug abuse as the main way HIV is transmitted.
The report did not say how the man was infected.
AIDS was the top killer among infectious diseases in China for the first time in 2008, a fact that may reflect improved reporting of HIV/AIDS statistics in recent years.
Government statistics from 2009 showed that there were 319,877 Chinese confirmed to be living with HIV-AIDS, though Health Minister Chen Zhu has said the actual level of infections is probably near 740,000.

WASHINGTON – Allergan Inc., the maker of wrinkle-smoothing Botox, has agreed to pay $600 million to settle a yearslong federal investigation into its marketing of the top-selling, botulin-based drug.
The Justice Department and the company said Wednesday in a statement it will plead guilty to one misdemeanor charge of “misbranding,” in which the company’s marketing led physicians to use Botox for unapproved uses. Those included the treatment of headache, pain, spasticity and cerebral palsy in children.
Companies are prohibited from promoting drugs for unapproved, or “off-label,” uses.
Allergan said it will pay $375 million in connection with the plea, which includes the forfeiture of $25 million in assets. Additionally, the company will pay $225 million in civil fines — $210 million to the federal governments and the rest to several states — related to the investigation, although the company denies liability for the civil claims.
Allergan, based in Irvine, Calif., also struck an agreement with the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of the Inspector General that requires the company to submit compliance reports, and to post on its website any payments to doctors, such as honoraria, travel or lodging.
Allergan “paid kickbacks to induce physicals to inject Botox for off-label uses and Allergan also taught doctors how to bill for off-label uses, including coaching doctors how to miscode Botox claims leading to millions of dollars of false claims being to submitted to federal and state programs,” Assistant Attorney General Tony West said.
Allergan officials will make their first appearance in federal court on Thursday. The settlement is not official until approved by a federal judge.
“The FDA had approved therapeutic uses of Botox for only four rare conditions, yet Allergan made it a top corporate priority to maximize sales of far more lucrative off-label uses that were not approved by the FDA,” said Sally Yates, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia. “Allergan further demanded tremendous growth in these off-label sales year after year, even when there was little clinical evidence that these uses were effective.”
The investigation was sparked by a whistleblower complaint, officials said, and five whistleblowers will split $37.8 million of the government’s share of the settlement.
Allergan’s product sales topped $4.4 billion in 2009, with Botox accounting for more than $1.3 billion of that total.
The Justice Department’s investigation covered Allergan’s marketing of Botox from 2001 through at least 2008.
Wells Fargo analyst Larry Biegelsen said the settlement is a positive for the company’s stock because it removes uncertainty.
“We view the settlement as a positive for Allergan as it provides cost certainty … and eliminates additional related litigation cost,” Biegelsen wrote in a note to investors.
In recent years, federal investigators have reached multibillion dollar settlements with Pfizer, Eli Lilly and other drug companies over their marketing practices.
Botox is most famous for its ability to smooth frown lines on aging foreheads, but the drug — introduced in 1989 — is also approved to treat neck spasms, eye muscle disorders and excessive underarm sweating.
Last year the drug won approval to treat spasms in the elbows, wrists and fingers. The drug is also widely used off-label to treat cerebral palsy in children as well as in adults, and Allergan says it is in discussions with U.S. health regulators to approve the use of Botox for children with the neuromuscular disorder.
In guidelines published earlier this year, the American Academy of Neurology endorsed Botox as an “effective and generally safe treatment” for children with cerebral palsy. While the use is not approved by the Food and Drug Administration, the guidelines stated that there are more studies supporting Botox than other movement-disorder drugs.
Botox works by blocking the connections between nerves and muscle, temporarily paralyzing muscles that cause wrinkles as well as certain types of spasms. The drug is a purified form of botulinum, one of the most toxic substances in the world.

As part of the settlement, Allergan agreed to drop a lawsuit against the FDA in which the company pressed for greater leeway to discuss off-label uses with doctors.

The company argued it had a First Amendment right to educate doctors about how to safely use Botox, even for uses that are not currently approved. FDA’s rules are designed to stop companies from promoting drugs for uses that haven’t been federally confirmed as safe and effective.

Some legal experts speculated that Allergan’s lawsuit against FDA was primarily aimed at gaining leverage in its negotiations with the Justice Department, which was a separate matter.

Shares of Allergan rose $1.86, or 3 percent, to $63.28.

___

Associated Press Writer Jesse J. Holland contributed to this report.

Some families, alas, are fatter than others. But for dieters continually at war with their genes, there’s good news in a study published in this week’s PLoS Medicine: they can burn off 40% of their genetic predisposition to obesity by exercising.
Led by Dr. Ruth Loos from the Medical Research Council Epidemiology Unit in Cambridge, U.K., the study evaluated more than 20,000 Britons aged 39 to 79, asking about their exercise habits and surveying their genes. Researchers focused on 12 genetic variants known to increase the risk of obesity, and calculated a genetic obesity-predisposition score for each individual based on how many variants the person had. (Watch an audio slide show on obesity rehab.)
Researchers then compared the volunteers’ scores with their body mass index (BMI), the commonly used ratio of height and weight that defines obesity, and further examined the impact of exercise on BMI. Unlike many past studies that have only zeroed in on variants of one gene, the well-known FTO obesity gene, the new result is a more complete picture of how physical activity affects a person’s susceptibility to obesity – and one that offers reason for hope. (See three lifestyle changes that can help curb obesity.)
For a 5-ft. 7-in. (1.7 m) person, the study found, each additional genetic variant inherited from either parent led to an extra pound (0.45 kg) of weight on average, compared with people with no genetic predisposition to obesity. Here’s the good news: the more active the person was, the smaller the weight gain. The avowed couch potatoes in the study, who reported working a sedentary job and engaging in zero recreational physical activity, weighed the equivalent of an extra 1.3 lb. (0.59 kg) per variant. “Moderately inactive” people – those who worked at a standing job or reported less than 30 minutes a day of recreational activity on top of a sedentary lifestyle – were comparatively less overweight, logging an extra 0.87 lb. (0.39 kg) per variant.
Moderately active people – those who combined a sedentary job with 30 to 60 minutes a day of physical activity, or had a standing job with less than half an hour a day of exercise – gained even less, with each variant translating to an extra 0.85 lb. (0.38 kg). And active people – those exercising more than an hour a day outside their sedentary job, say, or working in heavy manual labor – were thinnest, gaining an extra 0.8 lb. (0.36 kg) per variant, a full 36% less than their least active peers. Overall, by exercising they had reduced their genetic risk of obesity by 40% compared with their inactive peers. (See how obesity is being traced back to the womb.)
Not surprisingly, a similar relationship between physical activity and obesity risk held for people who were not genetically predisposed to be heavy. But the exercise effect was smaller: regardless of size, a person wired to be heavy will reduce his or her odds of obesity more through physical activity than a person who’s genetically lean. In other words, not only can those wired big benefit from exercise, but also they can actually benefit more by working out than their counterparts with the right genes for skinny jeans.
Scientists hope the findings could pave the way for personalized obesity treatments in the future.
Unlike some past research – such as a 2008 study of about 700 Amish people that found it may take a punishing three to four hours a day of exercise to whip your genes into shape – the new paper suggests that even little boosts (like taking the stairs at lunch and parking a bit farther away from the office) can make a big difference in overcoming your genetic makeup. “You don’t have to run marathons,” says Dr. Loos. “It is sufficient to do some physical activity.”
The authors speculate that the differences in results could be due to characteristics specific to the populations in past studies or the small sample sizes in previous research. The strengths of Loos’ study include its range of included genetic variants and its large sample size. But there is also a notable weakness: the fact that participants were required to self-report their exercise habits rather than actually be observed on the Stairmaster by scientists.
Still, with the number of obese adults worldwide expected to bloat to 700 million by 2015, any suggestion that we can overcome our genes and whittle our waistlines is welcome news.
See how to prevent illness at any age.
See the top 10 medical breakthroughs of 2009.
View this article on Time.com

Related articles on Time.com:

• Losing Weight: Can Exercise Trump Genes?
• Teen Obesity: Lack of Exercise May Not Be to Blame
• Runners’ High: Joggers Live Longer
• Is There a Laziness Gene?
• Exercise to Protect Aging Bodies

Scientists are reporting a major advance in diagnosing tuberculosis: A new test can reveal in less than two hours, with very high accuracy, whether someone has the disease and if it’s resistant to the main drug for treating it.
The test could revolutionize TB care and replace the 125-year-old process used now, which is slow and misses more than half of all cases, experts say. A better test would be a powerful tool to curb TB in poor countries, where most people spread the lung disease before they are diagnosed and treated, and many don’t return for follow-up doctor visits to get test results.
In the United States, it could be a big help in inner city clinics, where diagnosing a drug-resistant strain on someone’s first visit enables proper treatment right away.
“You can tell the patient before they leave the office if they have TB and if it’s drug-resistant. It’s transformational,” said Dr. Peter Small, head of TB programs at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which helped fund the work, along with the U.S. government.
The World Health Organization will meet with experts over the next few days to review results and plan steps forward, says a statement from one of its TB experts, Dr. Mario Raviglione.
“These results suggest that it has the potential to revolutionize TB care, and WHO will treat it as a top priority,” the statement says.
A study of the test was published online Wednesday by the New England Journal of Medicine.
TB kills about 1.8 million people a year and increasingly is caused by bacteria that are resistant to one or more drugs. The best test — growing the bacteria in a lab dish from a mucus sample — takes a week or more, so the most common approach is to look for bacteria in a sample under a microscope. That misses many cases, tells nothing about drug resistance, and doesn’t usually give an answer before a patient leaves the clinic.
“It’s antiquated,” said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. “If you have 50 patients in a clinic and one person looking at a microscope it could take hours and hours.”
The government set out to develop a better test with a host of partners: Cepheid, a California-based diagnostics company; the University of Medicine and Dentistry in New Jersey, and the Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics, a Swiss-based nonprofit group supported by the Gates Foundation.
The test they devised is simple enough to be done with minimal training. It requires only 15 minutes of manual labor, for taking the mucus sample, mixing it with chemicals and putting it in an inkjet-like cartridge that goes into a machine. The machine amplifies the DNA in the sample and checks for bits of bacterial genes.
The whole process takes less than two hours.
The study tried it on 1,730 patients with suspected TB in Peru, Azerbaijan, South Africa and India. The test successfully identified 98 percent of all confirmed TB cases and 98 percent of ones resistant to rifampin, one of the top drugs to treat the disease.
It correctly picked out nearly three-quarters of TB cases that were mistakenly declared negative from the microscope exam. And it accurately ruled out TB in 99 percent of people who did not have it.
Besides WHO endorsement, Cepheid will seek U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval for the test, which went on sale late last year in Europe. The test costs about $63 there, but the company has agreed to provide it for less than half that in poor countries, said John Bishop, Cepheid’s chief executive officer. The machine costs around $30,000, but would be priced under $20,000 in poor countries, he said.
While the cost per test is higher, it doesn’t take a sophisticated lab to do the test, so the overall cost may be lower, Bishop said. It also tells the diagnosis and drug resistance for that price.
The microscope-sample method costs a few dollars, plus $15 for drug-resistance testing, said Small of the Gates Foundation. He agreed that the new test may be viewed as more cost-effective because it’s more accurate, fast and gives more information.
Further study is under way to see if the test can reveal multi-drug-resistant strains. If TB is resistant to rifampin, it’s often resistant to another commonly used drug, Fauci said.

Testing for TB in someone who has symptoms is not the same as the TB screening skin tests that many people get. The skin test just shows whether someone has been exposed to TB at some time, and may warrant further testing to ensure they don’t have a latent case.

___

Online:

Medical journal: http://www.nejm.org

To most human males, the thought of your mother anywhere near your sex life is probably horrifying. Not so for the bonobo, one of our closest primate relatives. A new study confirms that hanging out with mom boosts male bonobos’ chances of getting intimate with a fertile female.

The study found that when their mothers are around, low- to mid-ranking bonobo males get more opportunities to mate. Mothers facilitated sons’ presence in their social circle so they were able to interact with more females, and also chased away rival males who might try to break up their sons’ blooming relationships.

The mothers aren’t just busybodies, say the researchers. In fact, taking an active interest in their sons’ love lives helps mothers pass on their own genes.

“If they support their sons, they can have more grandkids,” study researcher Martin Surbeck, a biologist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany, told LiveScience.

Bonobo mama’s boys

As any newlywed can tell you, parental interest in offspring’s reproduction is common. Orcas are known to form strong mother-son bonds, and according to a study published in August in the journal Nature Communications, being born to a high-ranking mom gives male hyenas a reproductive boost later in life.

In primates, mothers have been shown to improve the survival of their daughters’ offspring. But mother-son bonds are harder to measure, because most primate males leave their mother’s side at puberty. Bonobos, a cousin to chimpanzees, are an exception. Bonobo communities are female-dominated, and males stick with their mothers in adulthood.

Researchers have long known that the status of bonobo males is linked to the status of their mothers, and field observations suggested that moms were taking an active role in facilitating their sons’ mating, said Surbeck. To figure out the maternal role, he and his colleagues used DNA information to tease out the relationships between the bonobos in their field area at Salonga National Park in the Congo. Then they observed the bonobos over a 10-month period, watching how often they fought, mated and became fertile.

Maternal matchmakers

They saw that while the primates split into different “parties” during the day, sons stuck with their mothers between 81 percent and 92 percent of the time. When moms weren’t around, the dominant male was responsible for about 41 percent of sexual encounters with fertile females. But when the mothers of low-to mid-ranking males were present, that proportion dropped to 25 percent. In other words, moms kept the dominant male from monopolizing the most fertile females, allowing their own sons to mate, too.

Sometimes, the moms interfered, chasing unrelated males away from females or backing up fights involving their sons. Other times, they stood guard while their sons mated, keeping competitors at bay.

But in large part, the mom’s role may be more like that of a matchmaker. Since females have lots of social status in bonobo communities, Surbeck said, a mother’s presence allows a son to play a more central role in the group. Being in the center of the social group means more interactions with females and more opportunities to mate.

Evolutionary cousins

The study, published this week in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, “confirms largely what we’ve known for a long time” about the importance of mothers in bonobo communities, said Jo Thompson, the director of the Lukuru Wildlife Research Project in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Thompson, who researches bonobos but was not involved in the current study, said the research raises new questions about the influence of a mother’s social rank on her son’s success, as well about how other family members, like brothers, might influence mating. She also warned that while the current study showed low- and mid-ranking males got to mate more with fertile females when their moms were present, it didn’t investigate whether they actually had more offspring.

“This is a good solid study that continues to build on the knowledge we have, and leads to more questions,” Thompson said. “The next step is where we really get interesting.”

Studying bonobos is important for conservation reasons, as the animals are threatened by habitat loss and poaching, said University of California Los Angeles anthropologist Joan Silk, a primate researcher who was not involved in the study. But because humans share an evolutionary ancestor with bonobos, the studies may also give us hints about our own evolutionary background, Silk said.

“Seeing both chimpanzees and bonobos gives us an idea of the range of possibilities of our ancestors’” behavior and social structure, Silk said. “They help us imagine what early human ancestors might have been like.”

• Gay Animals: Alternate Lifestyles in the Wild
• Top 10 Swingers of the Animal Kingdom
• Top 10 Missing Links

• Original Story: For Bonobo Males, Mom Is the Best Wingman

LiveScience.com chronicles the daily advances and innovations made in science and technology. We take on the misconceptions that often pop up around scientific discoveries and deliver short, provocative explanations with a certain wit and style. Check out our science videos, Trivia & Quizzes and Top 10s. Join our community to debate hot-button issues like stem cells, climate change and evolution. You can also sign up for free newsletters, register for RSS feeds and get cool gadgets at the LiveScience Store.