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To: ChrisJP who wrote (99528)1/14/2002 6:25:43 PM
From: Jim Bishop  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 150070
 
Bush's Choking Episode Shows Chewing Is Important
By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush (news - web sites) has learned the hard way that his mother was right -- you should not stuff dry pretzels down your gullet and you should pay attention when eating, an expert said on Monday.

Doctors said there were several possible medical explanations for the incident on Sunday in which Bush apparently passed out after a pretzel went down the wrong way.

``My mother always said when you're eating pretzels, chew before you swallow,'' Bush told reporters on Monday.

Dr. William Ravich, who directs the swallowing center at Johns Hopkins University medical school in Baltimore, said choking can cause a person to faint, an occurrence known as vasovagal syncope.

Pain, such as that caused by a cramp or choking, sends a signal to the vagus nerve, which in turns signals the heart, slowing it down so much that the person faints.

``It refers to a neurologically mediated fainting episode that is usually brought on by stress or pain,'' Ravich said in a telephone interview.

``It is something like when a person sees blood, he or she faints from the sight of blood,'' Ravich said. ``It is a stress-related response. ... If somebody felt he couldn't breathe, stress could cause you to lose consciousness. It would essentially lower blood pressure.''

If Bush coughed and coughed to get rid of the pretzel, he could also have fainted from that, Ravich said.

Simply having one's trachea blocked by food can also cause a faint, Ravich said.

There were no witnesses, but Ravich said Bush would likely have turned blue before he fainted.

``It is the type of thing the Heimlich maneuver is performed for,'' he said.

The Heimlich maneuver is a carefully placed push that can help dislodge an object from a choking person's throat.

While choking is embarrassing, it is not unusual, Ravich said.

``It can occur if a person is distracted,'' he said, perhaps while shouting at a television screen during a sporting event. ''Maybe presidents are more distracted than others,'' he added.

``Most people at one time or another can recall feeling that something went down the wrong pipe.''

Choking can also be caused by a number of disorders, especially if the many muscles involved in swallowing do not work together.

So was grandma right when she advised chewing 30 times before swallowing?

``Who would possibly count?'' Ravich asked. ``You swallow 600 times a day. Those are old wives tales. But you do want to chew your food and when people get in trouble is when they are not paying attention to chewing.''

Bush's doctor checked him out after the incident and said he was fine, aside from a scrape on his cheek and a cut lip.



To: ChrisJP who wrote (99528)1/15/2002 1:47:15 AM
From: Joe Copia  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 150070
 
Chris, DD this please. GNTA may be what you are looking for. If it is simply say thank you. If not, sorry for the false trail. :)

Word on the message boards is the hegde-funds that have GNTA shorted upwards of 8 mil shares had informed Barrons with some lies about the company and its drug and shorted the stock more Friday hoping for negative article but the writer for Barrons did some DD of his own and came up with article below which has GNTA volume and share price running strong. Note the comment from GNTA CEO in last paragraph that confirms the last Strong Buy report from brokerage Thomas Weisel that a partnership is close at hand. The thing to keep in mind is the IMCL mishap lately had put pressure on GNTA and bio-tech sector ....GNTA is not going to make the same blunder as IMCL and also IMCL ran to $70+ level partly from the fact that its short interest was also at a peak when its partnership deal with Bristol Myeyers was announced.

A Blockbuster Cancer Foe?

Antisense treatments for diseases such as cancer have been a promising part of biotechnology ... for more than 10 years. The technique identifies the flawed genetic messengers inside a cell that are instructing the cell to misbehave in a way that causes a disease. Researchers then try infiltrating the cells with "antisense" snippets of genetic code that specifically pair up with the harmful messages, blocking their harm.

The trick has proven harder than it first looked, and the field of antisense stock plays has narrowed to two Nasdaq-listed firms: Isis Pharmaceuticals and Genta. While biotech stocks were flat last year, Isis and Genta nearly doubled to recent prices of 19 and 13, respectively. Isis is targeting a number of diseases; Genta has zeroed in on cancer with a molecule it calls Genasense.

The Genta drug blocks cells from producing a rogue protein called BCL2, which is a factor in a surprising variety of cancers. BCL2 helps cancer cells survive by jamming the self-destruct process otherwise triggered by chemotherapy, radiation or immune therapies. Investors have made large bets on the Berkeley Heights, New Jersey, company, which has nearly 66 million shares outstanding. Some eight million shares were sold short, at last count. The Aries hedge funds managed by Lindsay A. Rosenwald, on the other hand, reported owning 27 million shares as of September -- worth about $270 million at the time.

Genta shares stumbled in December on reports that doses of Genasense in a leukemia test had put a couple of patients into intensive care, with low blood pressure and fever. To make the drug tolerable, doctors had to reduce dose levels by half, says Michael Andreeff, a hematologist at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, where the 14-patient trial was coordinated.

Studies are proceeding in leukemia patients at the lower dose, as well as clinical studies against myeloma and melanoma, says Dr. Raymond P. Warrell Jr., who left a teaching post at Sloan Kettering to become Genta's chief executive. Warrell spoke to Barron's just after meeting with the Food and Drug Administration, whose reviewers requested no basic change in Genasense trials. Accompanying Warrell at the meeting was Dr. Kanti Rai, a distinguished leukemia researcher from Long Island Jewish Medical Center. While no patient staged a major recovery in the leukemia trial, Rai says he saw enough signs of Genasense's effectiveness to feel that the Genta drug could prove a blockbuster when combined with chemotherapy in larger drug trials.

Dr. Finbarr E. Cotter, a hematologist who has tested Genasense at the Royal London School of Medicine, also thinks the drug will prove a winner against several forms of cancer when combined with chemo or antibody drugs. From his contacts with doctors in Vienna who are testing Genasense with a chemo drug against melanoma, he thinks people will be "pleasantly surprised by the results."

Genta CEO Warrell says he's in the last stages of partnering with a large drug firm. "The shorts need to make their money quickly," he says, "because a happy event is going to catch them."