Young Professionals Network (YPN) is a program of The Chamber of Commerce of Southwest Indiana dedicated to serving young professionals in Southwest Indiana by providing opportunities for professional development, civic and community involvement and networking. YPN is committed to broadening young professionals' scope of influence, developing their personal and professional skills, and engaging them in communities in Southwest Indiana through monthly membership meetings, social events and philanthropic projects.

YPN meets the third Thursday of each month at The Chamber's office in Downtown Evansville. Meetings begin promptly at 5:30 p.m. with a short time for networking, followed by a structured business meeting at 6 p.m. Insightful business leaders are regularly invited to speak to the group about career and professional development, work/life balance, community involvement and networking.

Recent meetings have featured Leadership Evansville Executive Director Lynn Miller-Pease; Harding, Shymanski & Co. President & CEO Trudy Stock; The Women's Hospital CEO Christina Ryan; and Evansville Mayor Lloyd Winnecke.

Membership in YPN is open to any young professionals employed by Chamber member businesses. There is no cost to join the group. For more information or to inquire about membership, contact Ben Wills at bwills@ccswin.com or 812-425-8147.

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YPN offers learning, networking opportunities

By Ray Pitz

The Times, May 31, 2012, Updated Jun 1, 2012

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The Sherwood School District will receive nearly $383,000 to help pay for professional development of teachers in the district.

The Oregon Department of Education recently announced that Sherwood was one of 11 school districts in the state awarded an Oregon School District Collaboration Grant of $382,825 to be spent during the 2012-13 school year.

The district plans to use the grant money for professional development and teacher release time for collaboration around the new Common Core State Standards, proficiency-based teaching and learning, and instructional technology.

The district joined the Creative Leadership Achieves Student Success Project (also known as CLASS) in 2007 and is one of the first three districts to participate in the program. CLASS is an innovative education initiative designed to empower teachers and raise student achievement, according to district officials.

It is built around four components linked to effective teaching: expanded career paths, effective performance evaluations, relevant professional development and new compensation models.

The grant is closely linked to the CLASS initiative and geared toward districts preparation for implementation in those areas.

Steve Sugg, interim chief academic officer for the Sherwood School District, worked alongside a team of administrators and certified association leaders to write the grant.

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Sherwood School District awarded hefty grant

June 1, 2012: Editor Note: The U.S. military is backing off from efforts to deploy combat lasers because none of the development efforts has produced a practical weapon. The following is a personal account of how the search for a combat laser began half a century ago because of an unexpected early success, followed by bizarre complications.

----------------------------------

This is how the U.S. Army developed the first combat laser in the 1960s and 70s, but refused to deploy it because it was considered too cruel. It all started with the Advanced Propulsion Technology Branch of the Propulsion Directorate in the Army Missile Command at Redstone Arsenal in the 1960's. Their mission was the development of advanced propulsion concepts such as liquid monopropellants, bipropellants, hybrids, air breathing, etc. for application to Army missiles.

One morning, after a staff meeting with the army generals Dr. Walter Wharton, our supervisor, announced, "Men I've got a new and unusual project for you. It's not propulsion but needs all the technology and skills of propulsion. Here's the pitch: Over the past two years one of our army contractors has failed to demonstrate chemical lasing in a hardware device. The general asked us to take over the effort. And, if we achieved a satisfactory demonstration of the chemical laser, we would be the nucleus of a new laboratory and weapons effort. I told the general the problem was a natural fit to our skills. With the chemists, physicists, engineers, and technicians on our staff and our background in hardware development and testing we could do the job expeditiously."

The basic problem with using a laser as a weapon is power. A laser is focused light energy, being sent from the laser to the target in a short burst. Using batteries or generators and capacitors are too heavy for this to be practical. But the right combination of chemicals can provide the needed energy, at least in theory. The solution is a bit more complex.

Dr. Wharton led us in the analysis and evaluation of the contractor's effort and data. Their device used gaseous hydrogen and gaseous fluorine. The attempt at lasing was through the kinetic reaction states in the laser cavity to form the end product HF. Dr. Wharton, a skilled chemist, immediately determined the critical issue. To allow the intermediate activated molecules the time and space to lase to ground states in the laser cavity, would require supersonic injection by the mixing nozzles and very low cavity pressure. That environment would slow down the kinetics and stretch out the reaction zone allowing the species to lase.

Wharton designated me (Joe Connaughton, a chemical engineer) as team leader for chemist Tony Duncan, laser device operator, physicist Bill Friday, cavity optics and power, and mechanical engineer, Ben Wilson, facility design and development. We had top priority in obtaining hardware, shop, and other support services. In a matter of weeks we had the device set up and ready for operation. The big day came when we were ready to test. Dr. Wharton said, "Get that machine cranked up and don't stop till you get it to lasing. I'll be in the office, so call me if you have any problems or when it starts lasing."

We spent most of the day adjusting the flow of the gases and setting our liquid nitrogen trap and pumping speed. But near the end of the day, Bill Friday held a piece of strip recorder paper three feet from the cavity optics and yelled, "Hey! Look guys at me burn holes in this paper by that invisible laser beam!" We probably didn't project more than a hundred watts of power but it worked. We had an operating HF chemical laser, and we were in business. The next day was show time, which included all day demonstrations to various levels of management including the Commanding General.

We were off and running to build a ten kilowatt HF laser that would define the operating parameters for scale up to weapon grade hardware. It was a large modular boilerplate device designed for research studies. Calorimetric cavity mirrors for precise power measurements and ports for optical flow field visualization were included. The modular design allowed the evaluation and development of laser components to advance the technology of high-energy lasers.

The group quickly expanded to include PhD level scientists, who began to study all aspects of the chemical laser and extrapolate data to weapon system needs. Dr. Barry Allen, with contractor support, researched solid sources for the reactants. He found hydrides and fluorides that had reactant densities greater than the cryogenics were appropriate. He also worked on the successful development of chemical pumps that would replace the huge vacuum blow down system required to pump the boilerplate laser.

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Scary Lasers

A MAJOR new community sport and activity programme to benefit young people in Coventry has signed up 250 children from the local community.

One Goal is to be launched this summer through Coventry Sports Foundation after CCFC chief executive Tim Fisher and development director Steve Waggott made personal donations to help finance the project which will be matched by the Foundation.

The programme aims to provide activities which will help youngsters' personal development and will include a trip to Weymouth with their families to watch the 2012 Olympics sailing competition, and enjoy the beach.

Around 250children will be accessing the summer programme andthe official launch will take place at the Alan Higgs Centre, with a huge family fun day.

One Goal will be primarily run by Coventry Sports Foundation staff with support from Sky Blues in the Community and CCFC.

After receiving the news that all the places for the scheme has been filled, development director Waggott was delighted to help support the local community.

He commented: "This summer's programme is just the beginning. We wanted to get a project underway quickly and that is why Tim and I decided to put our own money forward.

"The response to the project has been absolutely fantastic and we are delighted that we can support such an important initiative in Coventry.

"We want the football club to be at the heart of the community and with schemes like these, and the fantastic work of Sky Blues in the Community, our role in the young people's development in Coventry will only increase.

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NEWS: One goal signs up 250 children

How can business owners use LinkedIn to grow their companies vs. their personal brands?

The following answers are provided by theYoung Entrepreneur Council(YEC), an invite-only nonprofit organization comprised of the world's most promising young entrepreneurs. The YEC promotes entrepreneurship as a solution to unemployment and underemployment and provides entrepreneurs with access to tools, mentorship, and resources that support each stage of their businesss development and growth.E-mail your questions about best practices for starting up and/or managing a small businesstosmbs@foxbusiness.com.

No.1: What Do You Recommend? From Logan Lenz of Endagon

Not enough companies take advantage of the recommendation feature on LinkedIn. Plenty of personal brand accounts know about it and ask for endorsements proactively, but the same feature is underutilized for businesses. Send out an email to all of your current clients and ask them to recommend your business to their network. Rarely will you get a rejection; happy clients will gladly do it.

No.2: Tell Me a Story! From Michael Margolis of Get Storied

Company profile pages on LinkedIn are one of the first places that job candidates go when researching your company. Use this space to tell a story of what your company stands for. Let your personality shine and describe key elements of your work culture. What makes your company an exciting place to work? This will go a long way to recruiting top-tier talent.

No.3: Become a Groupie From Elizabeth Saunders of Real Life E

By either participating in existing LinkedIn Groups related to your business area or starting a group that will draw people interested in the topic, you can add value, enhance your brand and potentially draw new customers though Groups. Just be sure that if you're participating in an existing group that you follow their guidelines in terms of permissible business promotion.

No.4: Create Consistency From Ash Kumra of DesiYou

Your personal brand and where you work need to be aligned. Brands are all about people and the people are what make the brands.

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Using LinkedIn to Grow Your Business

LOS ANGELES, CA--(Marketwire -05/31/12)- MMRGlobal, Inc. (MMRF) ("MMR") today announced that it has entered into an amended services agreement with E-Mail Frequency (www.emailfrequency.com) to offer the Company's MyMedicalRecords Personal Health Record (PHR) products and services exclusively to a consortium of wholesale affinity and employee benefit Telemedicine Providers starting this July. The providers deliver services connecting patients to physicians online for consults and treatment from the privacy of their home or office. The agreement calls for E-mail Frequency to offer embedded PHRs to more than one million wholesale benefit recipients in the first year of service. E-mail Frequency clients already include AmeriDoc (www.ameridoc.com), a nationwide telemedicine service provider of 24/7 access to licensed physicians via telephone, video and secure e-mail, and National Benefit Builders, Inc. (www.nbbicard.com), an industry leader in marketing and distributing discount health, dental, vision and prescription drug networks headquartered in Florham Park, New Jersey with Regional Offices in New York, Texas, Florida, and elsewhere.

The American Medical Association Council on Medical Service recently issued a report emphasizing the importance and value of telemedicine services similar to those offered by the E-mail Frequency providers. The report also encourages reimbursement by private insurers for similar doctor on-call telemedicine services, which are currently covered under Medicaid in nearly half the country. As more employers and private insurers adopt similar policies, the market for this type of telemedicine services in the U.S. is expected to generate $3.6 billion in annual revenue over the next five years, according to a study by research firm Pike & Fischer.

David Loftus, CEO of E-mail Frequency, said, "It has taken over two years for E-Mail Frequency clients to understand what a Personal Health Record is, the importance of having one and why and when they need it. As a result, we are now embedding MyMedicalRecords in a bundled benefit offering surrounding telemedicine services on a wholesale level."

Because a Personal Health Record is the optimum way for a physician providing telemedicine services to document the history of a patient's visit and complete the continuum of patient care, MyMedicalRecords is uniquely positioned to benefit. MMR's patented Personal Health Record is the only PHR that allows patients to receive their records from any doctor or healthcare professional by fax, voice or file upload consistent with HIPAA guidelines in an easy to access image form. The affinity and employee benefit telemedicine program includes MyMedicalRecords as a fully integrated patient portal that enables employees and their family members to securely manage and maintain their Personal Health Record after a telemedicine visit or with any family member's existing medical records.

About MMRGlobal, Inc.

MMRGlobal, Inc., through its wholly-owned operating subsidiary, MyMedicalRecords, Inc., provides secure and easy-to-use online Personal Health Records ("PHRs") and electronic safe deposit box storage solutions, serving consumers, healthcare professionals, employers, insurance companies, financial institutions, and professional organizations and affinity groups. The MyMedicalRecords PHR enables individuals and families to access their medical records and other important documents, such as birth certificates, passports, insurance policies and wills, anytime from anywhere using the Internet. MyMedicalRecords is built on proprietary, patented technologies to allow documents, images and voicemail messages to be transmitted and stored in the system using a variety of methods, including fax, phone, or file upload without relying on any specific electronic medical record platform to populate a user's account. The Company's professional offering, MMRPro, is designed to give physicians' offices an easy and cost-effective solution to digitizing paper-based medical records and sharing them with patients in real time through an integrated patient portal. MMR is an Independent Software Vendor Partner with Kodak to deliver an integrated turnkey EMR solution for healthcare professionals. Through its merger with Favrille, Inc. in January 2009, the Company acquired intellectual property biotech assets that include anti-CD20 antibodies and data and samples from its FavId/Specifid vaccine clinical trials for the treatment of B-Cell Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. To learn more about MMRGlobal, Inc. visit http://www.mmrglobal.com. View demos and video tutorials of the Company's products and services at http://www.mmrtheater.com.

David Loftus is a shareholder of MMRGlobal, Inc.

Forward-Looking Statements

All statements in this press release that are not strictly historical in nature, including future performance, management's expectations, beliefs, intentions, estimates or projections, constitute "forward-looking statements." Such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the Company's actual results to be materially different from historical results or from any results expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Some can be identified by the use of words (and their derivations) such as "need," "possibility," "intend," "offer," "development," "if," "negotiate," "when," "begun," "believe," "achieve," "will," "estimate," "expect," "maintain," "plan," and "continue," or the negative of these words. Actual results and the timing of selected events may differ materially from the results predicted, and reported results should not be considered as an indication of future performance. Such statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties, including but not limited to those discussed or incorporated by reference herein. Factors that could cause or contribute to such differences include, but are not limited to, the risk the Company's products are not adopted or viewed favorably by the healthcare community and consumer retail market; business prospects, results of operations or financial condition; success of new distribution channels and personal health records adoption; timing and volume of sales and installations; length of sales cycles and the installation process; market acceptance of new product introductions; ability to establish and maintain strategic relationships; relationships with licensees; competitive product offerings and promotions; changes in government laws and regulations and future changes in tax legislation and initiatives in the healthcare industry; undetected errors in our products; possibility of interruption at our data centers; risks related to third party vendors; risks related to obtaining and integrating third-party licensed technology; risks related to a security breach by third parties; maintaining, developing and defending our intellectual property rights; marketing and exploitation of our patent portfolio both in the U.S. and internationally; and additional risks discussed in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The Company is providing this information as of the date of this release and, except as required by law, does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statements contained in this release as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

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MMRGlobal to Launch Embedded MyMedicalRecords Personal Health Record to Consortium of Telemedicine Portals

By George Liu - May 30, 2012 | Tickers: ALXN | 0 Comments

George is a member of The Motley Fool Blog Network -- entries represent the personal opinions of our bloggers and are not formally edited.

The Overview

On May 24, 2012, Alexion Pharmaceuticals(NASDAQ: ALXN) became the latest company to be included in the S&P 500 index, replacing Motorola Mobility (which has been acquired by Google). Upon news of this selection, Alexion's stock gained 5.2%, an increase which follows a long string of successes for the company and its stock. In fact, Alexion Pharmaceuticals has seen its stock price rise 29.3% YTD on positive developments such as its 2012 first quarter results.

On Tuesday, April 24, Alexion Pharmaceuticals announced its 2012 first quarter results. Its EPS handily beat estimates by $0.07 while its revenue of $245M beat estimates by $4M and constituted a 47.3% YOY gain. Net profit also increased 69% to $45.4M. These results show the continued strength of Alexion Pharmaceutical's core business and are positive indicators of Alexion Pharmaceutical's ability to grow and develop in the future.

The Niche

Alexion Pharmaceuticals is abiopharmaceutical company with a $17.28B market cap that generates revenues through its development of "orphan drugs" for ultra-rare and severe disorders. Orphan drugs, as mentioned on my analysis of Salix Pharmaceuticalshere, arepharmaceutical agents developed specifically to treat rare medical conditions. These drugs gain special exclusivity rights from the government; companies that successfully develop orphan drugs can usually market them for seven years without market competition. Alexion Pharmaceutical's orphan drug and key profit-driver is a drug known as Soliris.

Soliris is a drug approved in the US, EU, and Japan for patients with a rare blood disease known as PNH. Moreover, it is also approved in the US and EU as the first and, currently, only treatment for patients with a genetic disease known as aHUS. Soliris is the bread-and-butter for Alexion Pharmaceuticals, and it seen significant demand. In fact, in the first quarter of 2012, Alexion reported net product sales of Soliris increasing 47% YOY to $244.7M. The number of patients using Soliris for PNH continue to rise, especially in Alexion's core territories of the US, Western Europe, and Japan. The sales of Soliris will also be positively affected by of another significant catalyst:Alexion expects to begin serving aHUS patients with Soliris in initial European countries later in 2012. This will mark the opening up of an entirely new market of aHUS patients that will greatly benefit from Soliris.Moreover, other areas of treatment Soliris could be utilized for are currently being explored; recently published studies in theNew England Journal of Medicinehighlighted the success of Soliris in treating rare kidney diseases.

Although Soliris is Alexion's marquee drug, Alexion is currently expanding its other avenues of profitability, mainly through acquisitions and research. On December 28, Alexion agreed to acquire biotech firm Enobia for $1.08B. With its purchase of Enobia, Alexion gained full worldwide development and commercial rights to Enobia's lead product candidate, asfotase alfa. This treatmentwas awarded orphan drug designation in the U.S. and EU in 2008 and Fast Track status in the U.S. in 2009. Current clinical trials of asfotase alfa, which is in Phase II clinical development, show positive results. Alexion also currently has "lead development programs underway with five highly innovative therapeutics, including eculizumab (Soliris), being investigated across eight severe and ultra-rare disorders beyond PNH and aHUS." These trials as well as the acquisition of Enobia stand to significantly expand Alexion's pipeline and decrease its dependence on its flagship drug Soliris.

The Results

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Potential in Alexion Pharmaceuticals

A short philosophical history of personal music

If you are reading this on a computer, there is an excellent chance that you are wearing, or are within arm's reach of, a pair of headphones or earbuds.

To visit a modern office place is to walk into a room with a dozen songs playing simultaneously but to hear none of them. Up to half of workers listen to music on their headphones, and the vast majority thinks it makes us better at our jobs. In survey after survey, we report with confidence that music makes us happier, better at concentrating, and more productive.

Science says we're full of it. Listening to music hurts our ability to recall other stimuli, and any pop song -- loud or soft -- reduces overall performance for both extraverts and introverts. A Taiwanese study linked music with lyrics to lower scores on concentration tests for college students, and other research have shown music with words scrambles our brains' verbal-processing skills. "As silence had the best overall performance it would still be advisable that people work in silence," one report dryly concluded.

If headphones are so bad for productivity, why do so many people at work have headphones? And why are our bosses letting us drive ourselves to distraction?

There is an economic answer: The United States has moved from a farming/manufacturing economy to a service economy, and more jobs "demand higher levels of concentration, reflection and creativity." This leads to a logistical answer: With 70 percent of office workers in cubicles or open work spaces, it's more important to create one's own cocoon of sound. That brings us to a psychological answer: There is evidence that music relaxes our muscles, improves our mood, and can even moderately reduce blood pressure, heart rate, and anxiety. What music steals in acute concentration, it returns to us in the form of good vibes.

That brings us finally to our final cultural answer: Headphones give us absolute control over our audio-environment, allowing us to privatize our public spaces. This is an important development for dense office environments in a service economy. But it also represents nothing less than a fundamental shift in humans' basic relationship to music.

A SHORT HISTORY OF PRIVATE MUSIC

In 1910, the Radio Division of the U.S. Navy received a freak letter from Salt Lake City written in purple ink on blue-and-pink paper. Whoever opened the envelope probably wasn't expecting to read the next Thomas Edison. But the invention contained within represented the apotheosis of one of Edison's more famous, and incomplete, discoveries: the creation of sound from electrical signals.

Original post:
How Headphones Changed the World

LOS ANGELES, CA--(Marketwire -05/30/12)- MMRGlobal, Inc. (MMRF) ("MMR") today announced that Pets Best Insurance (www.petsbest.com), a nationwide organization dedicated to insuring the health of America's millions of dogs and cats, is now offering MMR's flagship MyMedicalRecords Personal Health Record (PHR) as part of its BestWellness Program. MyMedicalRecords is the only Personal Health Record that covers all members of a family including pets at no additional cost. The offer appears in more than 600,000 e-mails to vets and consumers starting this week, and is featured on the Pets Best website http://www.petsbest.com/community/special-offers. Pet owners can also access the offer at https://www.mymedicalrecords.com/petsbest.

Considering that more than 60% of Americans own a dog and 34% of American households have a cat, MMR believes this offer and others like it will ultimately be seen by millions of pet owners. The Company has already offered its Personal Health Record products through Dancing Paws (www.dancingpaws.com), a company partially owned by MMRGlobal's CEO Bob Lorsch.

MyMedicalRecords is MMRGlobal's premier consumer-controlled Personal Health Record product designed to allow families to maintain all their medical records for up to 10 family members, including their pets, in one secure online location and access them anytime from anywhere in the world over an Internet-connected device. MyMedicalRecords is the only PHR that can store actual copies of patient files in their original format from any healthcare professional and connect patients to their providers via a patented telecommunications platform which seamlessly integrates Internet, fax and voice. MyMedicalRecords also comes with a MyEsafeDepositBox in which important documents such as copies of birth certificates, advance directives, mortgage documents, marriage license, passport information, precious family photos and more can be stored at no extra charge.

Users who sign up for a MyMedicalRecords account can also receive a personalized Emergency Wallet Card featuring a picture of themselves with their pet that connects doctors and emergency personnel to potentially life-saving information accessed through MyMedicalRecords' special Emergency Login portal.

About MMRGlobal, Inc.

MMRGlobal, Inc., through its wholly-owned operating subsidiary, MyMedicalRecords, Inc., provides secure and easy-to-use online Personal Health Records ("PHRs") and electronic safe deposit box storage solutions, serving consumers, healthcare professionals, employers, insurance companies, financial institutions, and professional organizations and affinity groups. The MyMedicalRecords PHR enables individuals and families to access their medical records and other important documents, such as birth certificates, passports, insurance policies and wills, anytime from anywhere using the Internet. MyMedicalRecords is built on proprietary, patented technologies to allow documents, images and voicemail messages to be transmitted and stored in the system using a variety of methods, including fax, phone, or file upload without relying on any specific electronic medical record platform to populate a user's account. The Company's professional offering, MMRPro, is designed to give physicians' offices an easy and cost-effective solution to digitizing paper-based medical records and sharing them with patients in real time through an integrated patient portal. MMR is an Independent Software Vendor Partner with Kodak to deliver an integrated turnkey EMR solution for healthcare professionals. Through its merger with Favrille, Inc. in January 2009, the Company acquired intellectual property biotech assets that include anti-CD20 antibodies and data and samples from its FavId/Specifid vaccine clinical trials for the treatment of B-Cell Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. To learn more about MMRGlobal, Inc. visit http://www.mmrglobal.com. View demos and video tutorials of the Company's products and services at http://www.mmrtheater.com.

About Pets Best InsurancePet insurance plans offered and administered by Pets Best Insurance are underwritten by Independence American Insurance Company, a Delaware Insurance company. Independence American Insurance Company is a member of The IHC Group, an insurance organization composed of Independence Holding Company, a public company traded on the New York Stock Exchange, and its operating subsidiaries. The IHC Group has been providing life, health and stop loss insurance solutions for nearly 30 years. For information on The IHC Group, visit: http://www.ihcgroup.com. In states in which Independence American Insurance Company's new policy form has not yet received regulatory approval, Aetna Insurance Company of Connecticut will underwrite policies. To determine the underwriter in your state, please call Pets Best at 1-866-929-3807.

For more information, visit Pets Best Insurance at http://www.petsbest.com or phone 877-PetsBest (738-7237). You may also follow them on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/petsbestinsurance.

Forward-Looking StatementsAny statements contained in this press release that refer to future events or other non-historical matters are forward-looking statements, and some can be identified by the use of words (and their derivations) such as "need," "possibility," "offer," "development," "if," "negotiate," "when," "begun," "believe," "achieve," "will," "estimate," "expect," "maintain," "plan," "help" and "continue," or the negative of such terms and other comparable terminology. MMRGlobal, Inc. disclaims any intent or obligation to revise or update any forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are based on MMRGlobal, Inc.'s reasonable expectations as of the date of this press release and are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from current expectations. The information discussed in this release is subject to various risks and uncertainties related but not limited to changes in MMRGlobal, Inc.'s business prospects, its results of operations or financial condition; current uncertainty and instability in financial and lending markets including global economic uncertainties; the risk the Company's products and services are not adopted or viewed favorably by the healthcare community; new programs and distribution channels for our products; the ability to establish and maintain strategic relationships; competitive product offerings and promotions; government regulation and changes in healthcare initiatives; maintaining, developing and defending our intellectual property rights; licensing and exploitation of our patent portfolio both in the U.S. and internationally; and such other risks and uncertainties as detailed from time to time in MMRGlobal, Inc.'s public filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

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Pets Best Insurance Offers MyMedicalRecords.com Personal Health Record to 600,000 Veterinarians and Pet Owners ...

ScienceDaily (May 30, 2012) Researchers at the University of York headed a major international review aimed at enhancing efforts to better understand the impacts of chemicals used in pharmaceuticals or in personal care products, such as cosmetics, soaps, perfumes, deodorants and toothpastes (PPCPs), on the natural environment.

Over the last two decades, scientists and regulators have raised concerns over the potential environmental effects and risks of the 4,000 pharmaceuticals and substantial number of personal care products that are used by society.

Following use, these substances can be released to the sewer system and can end up in rivers, aquifers and soils. Many PPCPs have been detected in the natural environment across the world. Though reported concentrations are generally low, some people are worried that, due to the biological activity of these substances, they could be adversely affecting the health of the environment and may also be getting into drinking water supplies.

The researchers in the University of York's Environment Department, working with academic, government and industry colleagues in the USA, Canada, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, S. Korea and Argentina identified key outstanding issues regarding the effects on human and ecological health in order that future resources will be focused on the most important areas. Their findings are published in the latest issue of Environmental Health Perspectives.

They developed a 'Top 20' list of questions about issues that need to be addressed to better understand and manage the risks of PPCPs in the environment. An international expert workshop reduced an initial list of 101 potential questions to a final 20 ranked by importance.

The top 20 questions fell into seven categories:

Professor Alistair Boxall, of the Environment Department at York, who led the review, said: "A large body of information is now available on PPCPs in the environment. This exercise has prioritised the most critical questions to aid in development of future research programmes and policy development on this important topic The development of the 'top 20 list' should mean that researchers, regulators and industry can begin to work more closely together to answer the most pressing questions in a coordinated and timely manner."

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The environment and pharmaceuticals and personal care products: What are the big questions?