Role of genetics in multiple sclerosis
News-Medical-Net Tue, 11 Dec 2007 9:15 AM PST
New research announced this week has found an association between certain genes and the severity of multiple sclerosis (MS).

Combination therapy including antibiotics may be beneficial for multiple sclerosis
News-Medical-Net Tue, 11 Dec 2007 2:00 AM PST
A preliminary study suggests that combining a medication currently used to treat multiple sclerosis with an antibiotic may slow the progress of the disease, according to an article posted online today that will appear in the February 2008 print issue of Archives of Neurology.

Addition of antibiotics to MS therapy could slow down progression of the disease
News-Medical-Net Tue, 11 Dec 2007 10:31 AM PST
Researchers from Louisiana State University in the U.S. are suggesting that the addition of antibiotics to standard drug therapy for multiple sclerosis, may slow down the progress of the disease.

Sainsbury Trust Funds "Vital" MS Research, UK
Medical News Today Tue, 11 Dec 2007 6:18 AM PST
A study funded by the MS Society that examines the use of a chemical compound of the cannabis plant in people with multiple sclerosis (MS) has received a donation of £120,000 from the Sainsbury Family Charitable Trusts. [click link for full article]

Adding Antibiotics To Medication May Slow MS
Medical News Today Tue, 11 Dec 2007 4:20 AM PST
A new US study suggests that adding antibiotics to current medication for treating multiple sclerosis could slow down the disease.The study is published in the early online issue of the Archives of Neurology and is the work of Dr Alireza Minagar, of the Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center, Shreveport, and colleagues. [click link for full article]

Health briefs
The Providence Journal Mon, 10 Dec 2007 8:40 PM PST
The Rhode Island Chapter of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society will hold the following self-help groups: Newport Hospital, community room, 11 Friendship St., Newport, 6:30 to 8 p.m., last Monday of the month.

Gene study offers MS treatment hope
The Scotsman Mon, 10 Dec 2007 5:44 PM PST
SCIENTISTS have discovered a gene that might influence how severely patients suffer multiple sclerosis.
 Colorado shooting highlights church security
When a black-clad gunman walked into New Life
Church on Sunday and started firing, he was shot
dead by a congregant with a concealed-weapons
permit and a law enforcement background.

TheStar.com | World | Colorado shooting highlights church security

http://www.thestar.com/article/284371

Eric Gorski

Associated Press

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo.–When a black-clad gunman walked into New Life Church on Sunday and started shooting, he was met with the church's first line of defence: a congregant with a concealed-weapons permit and a law enforcement background.
The armed volunteer, Jeanne Assam, shot the gunman. New Life's pastor credited her with saving dozens more lives.
Churches want to present an open and welcoming image, but in an era of mass-casualty shootings and terrorism threats, the violence at New Life highlights a new emphasis on security. Some of the U.S.'s estimated 1,200 megachurches – places where more than 2,000 worshippers gather each week – have been quietly beefing up security in recent years, even using armed guards to protect the faithful.
On Sunday, five people – including the gunman – were killed and five others wounded in eruptions of violence at the church and a missionary training school – some 12 hours and 110 kilometres apart.
The attacker had been thrown out of the missionary school about three years ago and had been sending the place hate mail, police said in court papers yesterday.
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The gunman was identified as Matthew Murray, 24, who was home-schooled by his family and raised in what a friend said was a deeply religious Christian household. Murray's father is a neurologist and a leading multiple-sclerosis researcher in Englewood, Colo.
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At Potter's House, a Dallas megachurch led by Pastor T.D. Jakes, a private security company employs a team of armed, uniformed and plainclothes guards that keeps watch over crowds in the thousands. Under a new Texas law, all nonprofits must use licensed security guards.
For the past three years, Potter's House has hosted a church security conference, drawing more than 400 people earlier this year to sessions on surveillance, background checks and other issues.
"You see security anywhere but churches," said Sean Smith, who formerly headed the church's security detail and now works for Classic Security. "You see it in malls, at banks, at concerts. Somehow, at churches we feel immune to violence. But it's been proven not to be the case."
The security plan at New Life Church may seem extraordinary. The church's volunteer security force is stocked with people with military or law enforcement experience, they carry radios and weapons, and there are evacuation plans for hustling worshippers into "secure zones" in an emergency.
But charismatic New Life, Colorado's largest church with about 10,000 members, is no ordinary church.
Even before the founding pastor, the now-disgraced Ted Haggard, became a player on the national political stage, the church endured death threats against him. There were bomb scares and vandalism, including animal blood being splashed on the walls, said Patton Dodd of Colorado Springs, a former New Life Church staff member and editor with the website Beliefnet.
"Even back then we had people undercover in the congregation who were armed," Dodd said. "It was a big church at the time, it was Christian, and some people really hate that stuff.
"Not only do we have military and ex-military all over, we have this sort of frontier mentality. People around here are serious about protecting their own.''
Haggard was fired last year after a male prostitute alleged a relationship with him.
His successor, Brady Boyd, told a news conference yesterday his security chief recommended heightened security early Sunday after the shooting at a missionary training centre dormitory.
Assam, the security guard, had attended the church's early service at 9 a.m., then stood watch in the rotunda of the busy church lobby as the second service was getting out.
There, she confronted the gunman, who managed to slay two sisters and wound three others before she shot him to death.
At a news conference yesterday, Assam said that she prayed for the Holy Spirit to guide her, and that her hands never shook.
"It seemed like it was me, the gunman and God," Assam said.
"There have been security concerns generally for many years, but they have certainly been heightened since 9/11," said Nathan Diament, public policy director for the Orthodox Union, which represents Orthodox synagogues in North America.
The U.S. Homeland Security Department created a grant program of nearly $50 million to improve security for religious and secular nonprofits considered at risk of terrorist attack.
Several Jewish groups have received individual grants, according to the Orthodox Union.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations also distributes a detailed security checklist.

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