Last Province Aboard: New Brunswick and National Medicare

Introduced as a federal-provincial cost-sharing program in the 1960s, medicare aligned ideologically with Premier Louis J. Robichaud’s Equal Opportunity program. New Brunswick was one of the first Canadian provinces to support the adoption of universal healthcare, but it was the last province to implement medicare. This article examines the federal-provincial negotiations surrounding medicare in order to shed light on the scope of Robichaud’s program of Equal Opportunity, to re-evaluate the last years of the Robichaud administration, and to explore why the Progressive Conservative government of Richard Hatfield was responsible for the implementation of medicare in New Brunswick.Le régime d’assurance-maladie, introduit dans les années 1960 comme un programme fédéral-provincial à coûts partagés, était conforme à l’idéologie du programme « Chances égales pour tous » du premier ministre Louis J. Robichaud. Le Nouveau-Brunswick fut l’une des premières provinces canadiennes à appuyer l’adoption de l’assurance-maladie universelle, mais il fut la dernière province à la mettre en œuvre. Cet article examine les négociations fédérales-provinciales entourant le programme d’assurance-maladie en vue de jeter un nouvel éclairage sur la portée du programme « Chances égales » de Robichaud, de réévaluer les dernières années de l’administration Robichaud et d’explorer pourquoi c’est le gouvernement progressiste-conservateur de Richard Hatfield qui fut responsable de la mise en œuvre de l’assurance-maladie au Nouveau-Brunswick

Photoactivated release of membrane impermeant sulfonates inside cells.

Photouncaging delivers compounds with high spatial and temporal control to induce or inhibit biological processes but the released compounds may diffuse out. We here demonstrate that sulfonate anions can be photocaged so that a membrane impermeable compound can enter cells, be uncaged by photoirradiation and trapped within the cell

Global citizenship as the completion of cosmopolitanism

A conception of global citizenship should not be viewed as separate from, or synonymous with, the cosmopolitan moral orientation, but as a primary component of it. Global citizenship is fundamentally concerned with individual moral requirements in the global frame. Such requirements, framed here as belonging to the category of individual cosmopolitanism, offer guidelines on right action in the context of global human community. They are complementary to the principles of moral cosmopolitanism – those to be used in assessing the justice of global institutions and practices – that have been emphasised by cosmopolitan political theorists. Considering principles of individual and moral cosmopolitanism together can help to provide greater clarity concerning individual duties in the absence of fully global institutions, as well as clarity on individual obligations of justice in relation to emerging and still-developing trans-state institutions

The MyD88+ phenotype is an adverse prognostic factor in epithelial ovarian cancer

The prognosis of epithelial ovarian cancer is poor in part due to the high frequency of chemoresistance. Recent evidence points to the Toll-like receptor-4 (TLR4), and particularly its adaptor protein MyD88, as one potential mediator of this resistance. This study aims to provide further evidence that MyD88 positive cancer cells are clinically significant, stem-like and reproducibly detectable for the purposes of prognostic stratification. Expression of TLR4 and MyD88 was assessed immunohistochemically in 198 paraffin-embedded ovarian tissues and in an embryonal carcinoma model of cancer stemness. In parallel, expression of TLR4 and MyD88 mRNA and regulatory microRNAs (miR-21 and miR-146a) was assessed, as well as in a series of chemosensitive and resistant cancer cells lines. Functional analysis of the pathway was assessed in chemoresistant SKOV-3 ovarian cancer cells. TLR4 and MyD88 expression can be reproducibly assessed via immunohistochemistry using a semi-quantitative scoring system. TLR4 expression was present in all ovarian epithelium (normal and neoplastic), whereas MyD88 was restricted to neoplastic cells, independent of tumour grade and associated with reduced progression-free and overall survival, in an immunohistological specific subset of serous carcinomas, p<0.05. MiR-21 and miR-146a expression was significantly increased in MyD88 negative cancers (p<0.05), indicating their participation in regulation. Significant alterations in MyD88 mRNA expression were observed between chemosensitive and chemoresistant cells and tissue. Knockdown of TLR4 in SKOV-3 ovarian cells recovered chemosensitivity. Knockdown of MyD88 alone did not. MyD88 expression was down-regulated in differentiated embryonal carcinoma (NTera2) cells, supporting the MyD88+ cancer stem cell hypothesis. Our findings demonstrate that expression of MyD88 is associated with significantly reduced patient survival and altered microRNA levels and suggest an intact/functioning TLR4/MyD88 pathway is required for acquisition of the chemoresistant phenotype. Ex vivo manipulation of ovarian cancer stem cell (CSC) differentiation can decrease MyD88 expression, providing a potentially valuable CSC model for ovarian cancer

Lung Function and Risk of Type 2 Diabetes and Fatal and Nonfatal Major Coronary Heart Disease Events: Possible Associations With Inflammation

OBJECTIVE - We prospectively examined the relationship between lung function and risk of type-2 diabetes and fatal and nonfatal coronary heart disease (CHD) events and investigated the hypothesis that inflammation may underlie these associations. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS - A prospective study of 4,434 men aged 40-59 years with no history of cardiovascular disease (CHD or stroke) or diabetes drawn from general practices in 24 British towns and followed up for 20 years. RESULTS - There were 680 major CHD events (276 fatal, 404 nonfatal) and 256 incident type 2 diabetes during the 20 years follow-up. Forced vital capacity (FVC) and forced expiratory volume in 1 s (FEY1) but not FEV1-to-FVC ratio were significantly and inversely associated with incident type 2 diabetes and fatal CHD events (not nonfatal events) after adjustment for age, potential confounders, and metabolic risk factors. The adjusted relative risk (RR) for type 2 diabetes (Quartile 1 vs. Quartile 4) were 1.59 (1.07-2.56) and 1.74 (1.16-2.61) for FVC and FEV1, respectively (P = 0.03 and P = 0.04 for trend). The corresponding RR for fatal CHD were 1.48 (1.00-2.21) and 1.81 (1.19-2.76) (P = 0.002 and P = 0.0003 for trend). Lung function was significantly and inversely associated with C-reactive protein and interleukin-6; the inverse associations with type 2 diabetes for FVC and FEV1 were attenuated after further adjustment for these factors (P = 0.14 and P = 0.11 for trend) but remained significant for fatal CHD (P = 0.03 and P = 0.01, respectively). CONCLUSIONS - Restrictive rather than obstructive impairment of lung function is associated with incident type 2 diabetes (and fatal CHD) with both associations partially explained by traditional and metabolic risk factors and inflammation

The relationship between tumour T-lymphocyte infiltration, the systemic inflammatory response and survival in patients undergoing curative resection for colorectal cancer

There is increasing evidence that both local and systemic inflammatory responses play an important role in the progression of a variety of common solid tumours. The aim of the present study was to examine the relationship between tumour T-lymphocyte subset infiltration, the systemic inflammatory response and cancer-specific survival in patients with colorectal cancer. In all, 147 patients undergoing potentially curative resection for colorectal cancer were studied. Circulating concentrations of C-reactive protein were measured prior to surgery. CD4+ and CD8+ T-lymphocyte infiltration of the tumour was assessed using immunohistochemistry and a point counting technique. When patients were grouped according to the percentage tumour volume of CD4+ T-lymphocytes, there was no difference in terms of age, sex, tumour site, stage and tumour characteristics. However, there was an inverse relationship between percentage tumour CD4+ T-lymphocytes and C-reactive protein (P<0.01). On univariate analysis, both C-reactive protein concentrations (P<0.001) and percentage tumour volume of CD4+ (P<0.05) T-lymphocytes were associated with cancer-specific survival. The results of the present study show that low tumour CD4+ T-lymphocyte infiltration is associated with elevated C-reactive protein concentrations and both predict poor cancer-specific survival