WHO: Epilepsy, Treat it, Defeat it Over 50 million people around the world suffer from epilepsy. This video seeks to address some of the misconceptions surrounding this disease, explaining how it is caused, where the burden... By: World Health Organization (WHO) … Continue reading →

WOODSTOCK A Lake in the Hills man must attend treatment for his autism diagnosis, as part of a sentencing agreement stemming from child pornography charges. Jonathon A. Morgan, 30, pleaded guilty Friday to attempted obstruction of justice. McHenry County Assistant State's Attorney John Gibbons said Morgan had tried to delete a computer image of a child engaged in lewd poses. Morgan initially was facing three to seven years on each of the three child pornography charges against him. Instead, Gibbons agreed to reduce the charge to a misdemeanor, and Morgan was sentenced to 30 months of probation ending in July 2017. "Based on the nature of the facts and his mental handicap, we don't believe he possesses the required mental state to sustain the criminality of the original charge," Gibbons said outside the courtroom. Two additional child pornography charges were dropped in exchange for his guilty plea. The plea deal was accepted by Judge Sharon Prather. In addition to autism treatment, Morgan must attend individualized sex offender treatment, live with his parents, and pay fines and court costs totaling $2,315. Morgan was charged in August as part of Attorney General Lisa Madigan's Operation Glass House, and with the cooperation of … Continue reading →

WOODSTOCK A Lake in the Hills man must attend treatment for his autism diagnosis, as part of a sentencing agreement stemming from child pornography charges. Jonathon A. Morgan, 30, pleaded guilty Friday to attempted obstruction of justice. McHenry County Assistant State's Attorney John Gibbons said Morgan had tried to delete a computer image of a child engaged in lewd poses. Morgan initially was facing three to seven years on each of the three child pornography charges against him. Instead, Gibbons agreed to reduce the charge to a misdemeanor, and Morgan was sentenced to 30 months of probation ending in July 2017. "Based on the nature of the facts and his mental handicap, we don't believe he possesses the required mental state to sustain the criminality of the original charge," Gibbons said outside the courtroom. Two additional child pornography charges were dropped in exchange for his guilty plea. The plea deal was accepted by Judge Sharon Prather. In addition to autism treatment, Morgan must attend individualized sex offender treatment, live with his parents, and pay fines and court costs totaling $2,315. Morgan was charged in August as part of Attorney General Lisa Madigan's Operation Glass House, and with the cooperation of … Continue reading →

President Obamas $215 million plan to expand research for cancer treatments to fit each individuals genetic makeup could mark a major shift in modern medicine, according to local geneticists. I think there may be a tipping point soon when people realize genomic medicine is valuable, and this may be part of it, said George Church, professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School. This seems to be part of a grass-roots groundswell that will lead to everyone wanting to have access to their genomic data. The effort, which Obama called the precision medicine initiative, would study the genes of about a million volunteers to figure out how to personalize treatments for patients instead of using the same approach for each condition. Doctors have always recognized that every patient is unique, and doctors have always tried to tailor their treatments as best they can to individuals, Obama said yesterday at the White House as he announced the initiative. You can match a blood transfusion to a blood type. That was an important discovery. What if matching a cancer cure to our genetic code was just as easy, just as standard? The initiative will be in the budget Obama sends to Congress on … Continue reading →

InterAksyon.com The online news portal of TV5 WASHINGTON - The United States has proposed analyzing genetic information from more than 1 million American volunteers as part of a new initiative to understand human disease and develop medicines targeted to an individual's genetic make-up. At the heart of the "precision medicine" initiative, announced on Friday by PresidentBarackObama, is the creation of a pool of people - healthy and ill, men and women, old and young - who would be studied to learn how genetic variants affect health and disease. Officials hope genetic data from several hundred thousand participants in ongoing genetic studies would be used and other volunteers recruited to reach the 1 million total. "Precision medicine gives us one of the greatest opportunities for new medical breakthroughs we've ever seen," Obama said, promising that it would "lay a foundation for a new era of life-saving discoveries." The near-term goal is to create more and better treatments for cancer, Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), told reporters on a conference call on Thursday. Longer term, he said, the project would provide information on how to individualize treatment for a range of diseases. The initial focus on … Continue reading →