Whilst the Pharma industry is showing an 8% growth year on year, the sector is under more and more competitive pressure, particularly in sales, to maintain this rate. The challenges for Pharma sales forces have become more acute than ever in how to bring increased ROI. These challenges will be the main focus for the forthcoming eyeforpharma’s Sales Force Effectiveness USA, which will take place in Philadelphia, November 12th 2007.

Eye for Pharma are world renowned for providing business information and conferences for the Pharma Industry and are bringing together over 300 pharma experts from around the globe and a wealth of new research to make the Summit one of the most eagerly awaited events of the year.

New statistics reveal that most of the positive factors come from the effects of Medicare Part D , generics and the biotech sector. Over the last 10 years there has been there has been almost twice as much money ploughed into sales than for R&D and yet currently 90% of the revenues come from products that have been in the market for over 5 years and sales force visits on average last no longer than 90 seconds.

It is therefore essential for pharma sales forces to get new strategies in place to find solutions for these challenges and the Sales Force Excellence Summit has previously been the catalyst for choosing the most effective and efficient sales force deployment, including sizing, for the product portfolio – and also sales effectiveness- creating the right processes and coaching climate to maximize sales force productivity.
The summit is designed to provide a complete and thorough analysis for any pharma executive to increase sales force effectiveness through the following modules.

– Implementation and execution of SFE strategies that will achieve sustainable ROI

– Sales force sizing and deployment – territory alignment

– Interpreting and analyzing impact of longitudinal and patient level data on SFE – Improving usage OF Rx data

– Performance measurement: Incentive plans/compensation schemes

– Training and Development: Improving sales techniques, recruiting star performers, retaining key reps

– Analytics and sales reporting – how marketing analytics can help with true CRM

– Targeting and segmentation – effective tools to better profile key prescribers

– Sales Accountability and measurement

– Selling Effectively in US managed care system

For more information visit:
www.eyeforpharma/salesusa07/index.shtml

About eyeforpharma

eyeforpharma is a global pharmaceutical business strategy information provider with a highly reputable and worldwide presence in the Pharma industry. It is renowned for producing top level conferences that attract the highest level of speakers to deliver presentations on cutting edge pharmaceutical business strategies. We provide business intelligence and analysis online at eyeforpharma and through an email briefing twice a month. eyeforpharma also has a very strong foothold in the European, US and Japanese markets. Continue reading →

Neuroendocrine tumors (NETs) are a group of rare cancers that pose unique challenges in diagnosis and treatment. In a recent issue of Pancreas, official journal of the American Pancreatic Association, presents the newly developed consensus guidelines of the North American Neuroendocrine Tumor Society (NANETS). The journal is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health, a leading provider of information and business intelligence for students, professionals, and institutions in medicine, nursing, allied health, and pharmacy.

The culmination of years of dedicated efforts by a host of worldwide experts, the NANETS consensus guidelines present an up-to-date synthesis of the best available knowledge on the classification, diagnosis, and treatment of NETs. “Our hope is that these guidelines will provide the practical information necessary for professionals from a variety of specialties to reach a proper diagnosis and develop a treatment plan for their NET patients,” write NANETS Chair Emeritus Larry K. Vols, M.D., and Executive Director Kari L. Brendtro. “In particular, we anticipate that these will be useful resources for busy physicians who may only encounter these tumors infrequently.”

Up-to-Date Guidelines on a Rare Group of Cancers

The diagnosed incidence of neuroendocrine tumors is increasing, and the overall prevalence in the United States has been estimated to exceed 100,000 individuals. Neuroendocrine tumors are often characterized by the ability to secrete different hormones, and can occur in most organs of the body, including the stomach and pancreas, intestines, thymus, and thyroid-anywhere there are “neuroendocrine” cells. One of the more common types of neuroendocrine tumors are carcinoid tumors, which are sometimes associated with symptoms of flushing and diarrhea (the carcinoid syndrome). In addition to carcinoid tumors, other subtypes of NETs include pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors such as insulinomas, glucagonomas, and gastrinomas, as well as less common neuroendocrine tumors such as pheochromocytomas.

If detected early, NETs can often be treated successfully with surgery. Unfortunately, NETs can be present for a long time before symptoms appear. Many patients go for years before the correct diagnosis is made, by which time the cancer has spread and is no longer curable

Developing the consensus guidelines as a practical resource for medical management of NETs was the first task decided on after the formation of NANETS in 2006. Scientists, physicians, and surgeons-all with a special interest in NETs-were organized into working groups to address specific topics. A review process was developed to ensure that the guidelines represented a synthesis of the best available scientific and medical knowledge of these unfamiliar tumors.

Specific Guidance on NET Diagnosis and Treatment

The eight papers published in the August issue of Pancreas present an up-to-date overview of the different types of NETs and their clinical management. A key issue is a review of systems for classification of NETs, focusing on the essential information needed to clarify the exact type of tumor that is present. The NANETS guidelines present specific information on the diagnosis and management of the different types of NETs occurring in various locations. The overriding goal is to help physicians and other health professionals recognize, as early as possible, the symptoms that suggest a possible diagnosis of NETand to provide patients with appropriate treatment for their malignancy.

The NANETS guidelines are accompanied by a “critical appraisal” of current treatments for NETs. Because NETs are rare, there have, to date, been relatively few FDA approved treatments for this indication. The critical review of available treatments accompanying the guidelines therefore represents another important resource for physicians and their patients.

The NANETS guidelines are freely available on the Pancreas website: pancreasjournal and on the NANETS website. (To access the papers, navigate to the August, 2010, issue.) With the August issue, NANETS joins Pancreas as an official affiliate society. Vay Liang W. Go, M.D., Editor-in-Chief of Pancreas and member of the Executive Committee of NANETS, comments, “We are pleased to announce this affiliation, and are confident that will help to n further the ultimate goal of developing effective strategies that will improve quality of life and optimize survival for patients with NETs.”

Source:

Wolters Kluwer Health: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins

North American Neuroendocrine Tumor Society Continue reading →

Several years ago, Suparna Rajaram noticed a strange sort of contagion in a couple she was close to. One partner acquired dementia-and the other lost the nourishing pleasures of joint reminiscence. “When the other person cannot validate shared memories,” said Rajaram, “they are both robbed of the past.”

From this observation came a keen and enduring interest in the social nature of memory, an area of scholarship occupied mostly by philosophers, sociologists, and historians-and notably unattended to until recently by cognitive psychologists.

So Rajaram, a psychology professor at Stony Brook University, began to specialize in “collaborative memory”-or how people learn and remember in groups. People generally believe that collaboration helps memory-but does it always? “How is memory shaped by being experienced in a social context?” These are the questions Rajaram investigates in the lab-and addresses in a new paper published in Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

Some findings in the field of collaborative memory research have been counter intuitive. For one, collaboration can hurt memory. Some studies have compared the recall of items on lists by “collaborative groups,” or those who study together, and “nominal groups,” in which individuals work alone and the results are collated. The collaborative groups remembered more items than any single person would have done alone. But they also remembered fewer than the nominal groups did by totaling the efforts of its solitary workers. In other words, the collaborators’ whole was less than the sum of its parts.

This so-called “collaborative inhibition” affects recall for all sorts of things, from word pairs to emotionally laden events; it affects strangers or spouses, children or adults. It is, in scientific lingo, “robust.”

What explains this? One dynamic is “retrieval disruption”: Each person remembers in his or her own way, and compelled to listen to others, can’t use those strategies effectively. Sometimes that effect fades. Sometimes it squashes the memories for good, causing “post collaborative forgetting.” Then there’s “social contagion” of errors, wherein a group member can implant erroneous recollections in another’s memory.

On the other hand, collaborative learning helps-which is why people hold it in high esteem. Individuals recall different information or events; after time, they can get together, contribute their bits, and reeducate each others’ memories and expand the group’s recall, mitigating the costs of collaboration. People can also correct each other’s erroneous memories, a process Rajaram and her colleagues call “error pruning.” Or they can “cross-cue”-bring up recollections that jog memories others have forgotten.

Rajaram’s work involves small groups in the controlled laboratory environment. Yet, like others in her field, she believes it can inform the understanding of the wider “networks in which social memory phenomena are occurring”-classrooms, institutions, communities, subcultures, or nations.

“If a small group can reshape memories, we see how individuals come to hold certain viewpoints or perspectives,” she says. “That can serve as a model for how collective identities and histories are shaped.”

Source:

Association for Psychological Science Continue reading →

A report of the American Psychological Association (APA) calls attention to the increasing mental health needs of military personnel and their families – needs that are straining the current military health services system. Many service personnel and their family members are going without mental health care because of the limited availability of such care and the barriers to accessing care.

The report, developed by an APA Presidential Task Force on Military Deployment Services for Youth, Families and Service Members, notes that while service delivery efforts by individual military mental health providers are laudable, the military system falls short in its ability to meet the psychological health needs of deployed personnel and their families.

The APA Task Force examined several studies and surveys of military personnel completed over the last four years to determine the effect of military deployments on service members and their families (spouses, children and significant others), the significant barriers to receiving mental health care from the Department of Defense (DoD) and the Veterans Affairs (VA) system, and the availability and effectiveness of current programs. The Task Force was further charged with creating recommendations to improve the delivery of mental health services to deployed personnel, those returning from a combat zone, and military families.

“Deployment can be a complex, and for some families, overwhelming process,” states Michelle D. Sherman, PhD, co-chair of the APA Task Force. “Deployment means extended separations and the uncertainty of having a loved one in a combat zone. The situation creates an environment in which the development of significant emotional problems for military personnel and their families is a real possibility.”

According to the APA Report, a growing number of military personnel and their families are reporting emotional problems resulting from deployment stress. More than 30 percent of all soldiers met the criteria for a mental disorder but less than half (23-40%) of those with mental health concerns sought help. Moreover, these figures do not include those who don’t identify concerns or those who develop symptoms after returning from deployments.

Stress can be more severe for both military personnel and their families when certain risk factors exist, according to the report. Families with a history of problems, young families experiencing their first military separation or families who recently moved to a new duty station are more vulnerable to the stresses of deployment. Additionally, families with foreign-born spouses, service members without a unit affiliation or those serving in the National Guard or Reserves are more likely to experience higher stress levels.

Serious barriers to accessing quality mental health care for military personnel and their families are prevalent, the report found. The shortage of psychologists (close to 40% vacancy) in active duty slots hampers the availability of treatment. This shortage has increased stress and diminished morale among the providers remaining within the military care system. The increased job stress for these providers is leading to high attrition rates and creating an overflow of referrals to civilian psychologists who may not have as much training as military psychologists on issues related to the military and deployment.

Reduced access to care due to long waiting lists, limited clinic hours, breakdowns in the referral process and hard-to-reach locations also make it difficult for returning military personnel and their family members to get help, cites the report. The problems range from maintaining mental health care for service members who are transitioning from active duty to veteran status, to finding health services for National Guard and Reserve personnel who live far from military bases.

Further, according to the report, stigma and negative attitudes within the military about obtaining mental health treatment often prevent those in need of care from seeking it.

Children of military families are also dealing with the effects of deployment. Currently, 700,000 children in the U.S. have at least one parent deployed overseas for military duty. Having a primary caretaker in a war zone can be one of the most stressful events a child can experience, states the report.

The APA makes the following recommendations:

* Establish centralized leadership of military mental health services to better coordinate the services on military bases and surrounding communities.

* Educate military leadership about the importance of mental health care among service members and their families and about reducing stigma associated with seeking mental health services.

* Undertake more research on mental health issues related to deployment to guide policies, program development and treatment plans for service members and their families.

* Ensure that treatment is available to service members and their families throughout the deployment cycle with special focus on posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and traumatic brain injuries (TBI).

* Increase recruitment efforts to hire more psychologists and to retain well-trained and experienced psychologists.

* Provide special ongoing training in deployment stress for all psychologists in the military system – both military and civilian providers.

* Allocate additional funding to ensure access to high quality mental health care for service members and their families.

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Presidential Task Force on Military Deployment Services for Youth, Families and Service Members: Chair: Shannon J. Johnson, PhD, Naval Medical Center, San Diego, CA; Co-Chair: Michelle D. Sherman, PhD, Oklahoma City Veterans Affairs Medical Center ; Jeanne S. Hoffman, PhD, Tripler Army Medical Center; Larry C. James, PhD, Tripler Army Medical Center; Patti L. Johnson, PhD, Madigan Army Medical Center; John E. Lochman, PhD, ABPP University of Alabama; Thomas N. Magee, PhD, Offut AFB ; David Riggs, PhD, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences

The American Psychological Association (APA), in Washington, DC, is the largest scientific and professional organization representing psychology in the United States and is the world’s largest association of psychologists. APA’s membership includes more than 145,000 researchers, educators, clinicians, consultants and students. Through its divisions in 54 subfields of psychology and affiliations with 60 state, territorial and Canadian provincial associations, APA works to advance psychology as a science, as a profession and as a means of promoting health, education and human welfare.

Contact: Pam Willenz

American Psychological Association Continue reading →

An analysis of the data which are available, published in the European Journal Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, discloses that the maker’s claims are not warranted.

Duloxetine inhibits both serotonin and norepinephrine reuptake and is marketed as a treatment for both the core emotional symptoms and painful physical complaints that often accompany depression. Some studies have found that duloxetine is efficacious in treating painful symptoms associated with depression but these findings have been inconsistent. Several narrative review articles have reached positive conclusions about the efficacy of duloxetine as an analgesic in depression but there has been no quantitative systematic review regarding the impact of duloxetine on pain among this population.

A meta-analysis of data pertaining to duloxetine’s purported analgesic effects on depressed patients was thus undertaken. Studies were selected through searching Medline and Cochrane Trial databases as well as examining Lilly’s public clinical trial database. A random effects model was used. Across five trials, the results indicate a very small (d = 0.115) and statistically nonsignificant (p = 0.057) analgesic effect for duloxetine.

Additionally, some of the relevant data on duloxetine’s effects have not been reported fully, making it likely that the obtained results reflect an overestimate of its true impact on painful physical symptoms in depression. The current analysis is based on a small number of studies; further trials may yield significant results favoring duloxetine. Based upon the currently available evidence, the marketing of duloxetine as an antidepressant with analgesic properties for people with depression does not appear to be adequately supported.

PSYCHOTHERAPY AND PSYCHOSOMATICS
karger/pps Continue reading →

Blacks have a rate of peripheral artery disease, or PAD, that is three times higher than that of whites, and traditional and nontraditional risk factors do not fully explain the disparity, according to study published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, Reuters Health reports. The condition affects circulation in the legs and can lead to pain and difficulty walking.

For the study, researcher Joachim Ix of the University of California-San Diego and colleagues sought to determine what nontraditional risk factors could be contributing to blacks’ high PAD rates. In previous studies, traditional risk factors, such as diabetes and hypertension, have failed to fully account for high rates among blacks.

Researchers studied 104 participants with PAD and a control group of 164 participants and found that factoring in the traditional risk factors and certain nontraditional risk markers, blacks were only two times as likely as whites to have the disease. The most significant contributing nontraditional risk factors were levels of fibrinogen, which is associated with clotting, and lipoprotein (a), which is involved in plaque build-up in arteries.

Ix said traditional and nontraditional risk factors together accounted for about 60% of the higher prevalence of PAD among blacks, adding, “Thus, approximately 40% of the higher prevalence remains unexplained in our study.” Researchers said lifestyle and genetics could further explain the disparity (Reuters Health, 6/24).

An abstract of the study is available online.

Reprinted with kind permission from kaisernetwork. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery at kaisernetwork/dailyreports/healthpolicy. The Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report is published for kaisernetwork, a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.

© 2008 Advisory Board Company and Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved. Continue reading →

For the first time, scientists have discovered that cells passed from mother to child during pregnancy can differentiate into functioning islet beta cells that produce insulin in the child. The same study also found that maternal DNA was found in greater amounts in the blood of children and young adults with Type 1 diabetes than their healthy siblings and a control group, implying that they may be attempting to repair damaged tissue.

The findings suggest a beneficial role for this type of maternal microchimerism. Microchimerism is the term used when an individual harbors cells or DNA that originate from another genetically distinct individual.

In this study, published in the Jan. 22 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, J. Lee Nelson, M.D., a member of the Clinical Research Division at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, and colleagues found no evidence that the mother’s cells were attacking the child’s insulin cells and no evidence that the maternal cells were targets of an immune response from the child’s immune system.

“We think the maternal cells may be helping to regenerate damaged tissue in the pancreas,” Nelson said.

She said investigators are excited about new possible approaches to treat Type 1 diabetes raised by their findings. For example, if maternal microchimerism results in cells that make insulin, a mother’s stem cells might be harvested and used to treat her diabetic child. Such cells would have a genetic edge over donated islet cells from a cadaver that are usually completely genetically mismatched.

“The child is probably tolerant to the mother’s half-matched cells because the child acquired the cells during its life as a fetus while its immune system was still developing,” Nelson said.

Originally, the study of 172 individuals and pancreatic tissue from four males was designed to ask the question whether these small numbers of maternal cells might be involved in any way in Type 1 diabetes. “My initial theory was that perhaps, in some situations, too many mother cells cross over to the fetus at the wrong time, becoming beta cells that make insulin in the child. Could diabetes result because the child lost tolerance to those cells because they are genetically half foreign? Our research disproved this,” she said.

Instead, the researchers found a small number of female islet beta cells in male pancreatic tissue (procured from autopsies) that produced insulin. “To our knowledge a maternal contribution to endocrine function has not previously been described,” the authors said. “Our findings also raise the possibility that naturally acquired microchimerism might be exploited to therapeutic benefit.”

The study found significantly higher levels of maternal DNA in the peripheral blood of 94 children and adults with Type 1 diabetes as compared to 54 unaffected siblings and 24 unrelated healthy subjects they studied. Maternal microchimerism first was recognized in children with severe combined immunodeficiency in the 1970s. In 1999, a study by Nelson et al was first to show that maternal microchimerism persists into adulthood for persons with uncompromised immune systems (Journal of Clinical Investigation 104:41-47).

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The study was funded by grants from the National Institutes of Health, the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (to co-author Kathleen Gillespie, University of Bristol, UK), the Iacocca Foundation (to co-author Laurence Loubiere at the Hutchinson Center) and the Wellcome Trust (to co-author Edwin Gale, University of Bristol).

At Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, our interdisciplinary teams of world-renowned scientists and humanitarians work together to prevent, diagnose and treat cancer, HIV/AIDS and other diseases. Our researchers, including three Nobel laureates, bring a relentless pursuit and passion for health, knowledge and hope to their work and to the world. For more information, please visit fhcrc/.

Contact: Dean Forbes

Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center Continue reading →

Most babies can reach out for and eat finger food by six to eight months, according to a study in the January issue of Maternal and Child Nutrition.

However baby-led weaning – which advocates babies feeding themselves solid foods, rather than being spoon fed purees – could lead to nutritional problems for the small number of children who develop later than average.

That is why UK researchers – led by child health specialist Professor Charlotte M Wright from the University of Glasgow, Scotland – recommend combining self-feeding with solid finger food with traditional spoon feeding.

The research team used data from the Gateshead Millennium Study in north-east England, which provided information on when 602 children first reached out for food and other developments such as walking unaided and meaningful speech. Food diaries provided further information on 447 children, documenting the first five occasions they reached out for food.

By six months, 56 per cent of the babies were reaching out for food and 40 per cent were eating it – these figures had risen to 94 per cent and 90 per cent at eight months. After one year, only one baby covered by the study was not eating finger food.

“We also found clear parallels between the age at which babies reached out for food, walked unaided and spoke meaningful words” says Professor Wright from the University’s Paediatric, Epidemiology and Community Health Unit.

“However, this does not suggest that providing babies with finger food at an early stage influences the speed at which they reach other key development milestones. It merely demonstrates that some babies develop a range of new skills earlier, or later, than others.”

“There has always been a lot of debate about when babies should be weaned onto solids and the World Health Organization currently suggests six months” says Professor Wright. “The debate has now moved on to how babies should be weaned and, while some experts advocate babies being spoon-fed pureed solids, others support the baby-weaning approach, with babies being offered solid finger foods and encouraged to feed themselves from the outset.

“Baby-led weaning has already proved popular with parents, but there has been little formal research into its benefits and disadvantages.”

Other key findings of the study included:

* Infants who had reached out for food at six months were more likely to be walking unaided at one year than those who had not (54 per cent of the 602 children, versus 38 per cent).

* They were also more likely to be speaking meaningfully at one year. For example, 68 per cent of the children who reached out for finger foods between four and five months were speaking, compared with 43 per cent of those who reached out at seven to eight months.

* The most common finger foods were bread, rusks or biscuits but by the fifth occasion, 20 per cent were eating fruit or vegetables. Only two per cent were eating meat with their fingers and five per cent were eating confectionery.

* 40 per cent of the children covered by the food diaries had eaten finger food by six months and 90 per cent by eight months. The average age at which children ate their first finger food was 6.35 months.

* By eight months, just over 90 per cent of the infants were having daily finger foods, but 35 per cent of parents still felt that their children needed to be fully fed at meal times. This suggests that parents didn’t make finger food an integral part of meals or regard them as particularly important.

“Our findings suggest that baby-led weaning may be feasible for most infants, but could lead to nutritional problems for the small number of children – six per cent in our study – who develop more slowly” says Professor Wright. “We feel that it is more realistic to encourage infants to self-feed with solid finger food during family meals, but also give them spoon fed purees.”

Is baby-led weaning feasible? When do babies first reach out for and eat finger foods? Wright et al. Maternal & Child Nutrition. 7, pp 27-33. (January 2011). DOI: 10.1111/j.1740-8709.2010.00274.x

Source:
Annette Whibley
Wiley-Blackwell Continue reading →

The European Medicines Agency is seeing an increase in applications in 2006. The initial application forecast for the year has been revised from 61 to 91 applications, an increase of 49%.

At the Management Board’s 28 September 2006 meeting, Thomas L?nngren, EMEA Executive Director, indicated that this unforeseen increase was due in part to applications for new innovative medicines and for new uses of approved medicines, and in part to some additional generic, biosimilar and multiple applications.

Above all, it was stressed that the applications were unexpected and the Executive Director urged companies to enter into dialogue with the Agency earlier to discuss their filing strategy.

European Medicines Agency (EMEA)
emea.europa.eu Continue reading →

The Arthritis Foundation announces the publication of a new book for
parents of children with juvenile arthritis (JA). Released in conjunction with Juvenile Arthritis
Awareness Month in July, the all-new Raising a Child with Arthritis addresses many of the concerns
parents have about JA – from diagnosis and treatments to family and financial issues.

From the editors of the Arthritis Foundation’s Kids Get Arthritis Too award-winning national
newsletter, the book is written in easy to understand terms and offers solutions for the challenges
parents face when their child has arthritis. Raising a Child with Arthritis provides facts about various
types of JA and information about new treatments such as biologic drugs, while also providing
practical information on giving shots, navigating the education system, coping with flares and
managing daily activities without pain. In addition, parents and young adults who grew up with the
disease share their experiences and tips for success throughout the book.

“It is important for all parents of children with arthritis to gain knowledge about the disease
so it doesn’t overshadow their child’s life,” says Patience H. White, M.D., M.A., Arthritis
Foundation chief public health officer and a pediatric rheumatologist. “With one in 250 children
diagnosed with arthritis or related conditions, it is essential for parents to feel empowered to assist
their child. This book can help them understand more about their child’s disease and treatment
options to improve the quality of life for their child and family.”

With nearly 300,000 children and teenagers under the age of 18 affected by arthritis or other
rheumatologic conditions, JA is one of the most common childhood diseases in the U.S. A study
conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows that children diagnosed
with JA and other rheumatologic conditions account for approximately 827,000 doctor visits each
year, including an average of 83,000 emergency department visits.

In an ongoing effort to help youth with JA and their families, the Arthritis Foundation
recognizes Juvenile Arthritis Awareness Month each July and works to promote programs and
projects that bring attention to this over-looked disease. In addition to the release of Raising a Child
with Arthritis, the following Arthritis Foundation activities will take place in July during Juvenile
Arthritis Awareness Month:

- National JA Conference – The Arthritis Foundation hosts the National JA
Conference each year to bring together children with arthritis and their families along
with health professionals who are knowledgeable about JA. The goal is to help
families understand their treatment options, better cope with JA and find strength
from others living with arthritis. This year’s conference will be held in Costa Mesa,
Calif. from July 10-13.

- Juvenile Arthritis Alliance Web Site Launch – In effort to provide more clear and
concise information to families living with JA, the Arthritis Foundation introduced
the Juvenile Arthritis Alliance Web site this month. The new site offers content
aimed at the entire community of people interested and involved in the lives of those
who have JA including parents, young adults, caregivers, teachers, health care
providers, researchers and advocates.

Raising a Child with Arthritis will be released on July 18. The Arthritis Foundation thanks
Amgen and Wyeth for underwriting the development of this book. Pre-order sales will begin on July
10. To order a copy of Raising a Child with Arthritis or for more information about Juvenile Arthritis
Awareness Month activities, visit arthritis/ja-information.

About the Arthritis Foundation

The Arthritis Foundation is the leading health organization addressing the needs of some 46
million Americans living with arthritis, the nation’s most common cause of disability. Founded in
1948, with headquarters in Atlanta, the Arthritis Foundation has multiple service points located
throughout the country.
The Arthritis Foundation is the largest private, not-for-profit contributor to arthritis research
in the world, funding more than $380 million in research grants since 1948. Celebrating its 60th
anniversary this year, the foundation helps individuals take control of arthritis by providing public
health education; pursuing public policy and legislation; and conducting evidence-based programs to
improve the quality of life for those living with arthritis. Information is available 24 hours a day,
seven days a week at 1-800-283-7800 or arthritis.

The Arthritis Foundation Continue reading →