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PACKARD CENTER-VA COLLABORATION A POSSIBILITY This November, Packard Center representatives met in Washington with Secretary of Veterans Affairs, Anthony J. Principi, to look into a Packard partnership with VA clinician-researchers. Collaborations between the two could prove helpful for both, because of the Center’s expertise in key areas of ALS research and because of the VA’s ability to conduct reliable clinical studies.
Packard researcher Larry Goldstein and Center Director Jeff Rothstein briefed VA head Anthony Principi (center) at his Washington office “Because the VA has a very controlled patient population — mostly young men and women without previous illness and in a fairly narrow age range — and because its internal machinery for doing clinical trials is long-established and ‘well-greased,’” says Center scientist Larry Goldstein, “we’re really interested in working together on some specific trials.” With 158 hospitals throughout the country as well as large numbers of outpatient clinics, the VA could add necessary breadth to trials as well as offer a relative ease of setting them up. “They also keep excellent patient records,” Goldstein adds. At the recent meeting, Center Director Jeff Rothstein and Goldstein updated Secretary Principi and the VA’s scientific director on the Center’s recent ALS studies and future work. The VA has long underwritten research into health problems of veterans. Their ALS work is ongoing, especially since two studies published in Neurology a year ago suggested Gulf War veterans had increased risk of ALS. (Secretary Principi had earlier responded to the studies’ data by extending disability and survivor benefits to all Gulf War veterans with ALS.) Two VA environmental hazard research centers focus on possible health effects of exposures, according to an ALSA web site. Last year, Congress granted the VA $392 million for in-house research. More than 10,000 varied studies are currently carried out at 100 VA centers. |
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