Press Releases

SAN MARCOS, Calif., Dec. 5 /PRNewswire/ -- As part of its on going philosophy to improve the quality of life for those with autism and other developmental disabilities, the Training, Education & Research Institute (TERI) today celebrated its 3rd Annual Cuvee delle Vite. The Italian-themed event, focused on "The Blending of Lives," and brought together parents, professionals and the community to benefit the $50 million Charles R. Cono Center Research & Life Planning. The Center, which officially broke ground on October 1, will transform the lives of special needs children and adults, and their families, by providing a comprehensive array of services and support programs covering an entire lifespan in one dynamic location.

"For nearly 10 years, we have worked to make the Center for Research & Life Planning a reality, and today's fundraiser has brought us one step closer," says Cheryl Kilmer CEO & Founder of TERI. "The Center is a new model for delivering the services we've developed over the past 30 years, and a venue to incorporate the ever-evolving programs we develop to meet the changing needs of our clients and their families. This university-like campus will be an internationally recognized resource for research, education, training and life quality - something that simply doesn't exist today."

Nestled in the hills of North San Diego County, the future home of the Center for Research & Life Planning once again played host to this year's Cuvee. Guests of the event enjoyed fresh Italian dishes donated and masterfully prepared by Vigilucci's Restaurant Group and Chef Mario Gutierrez from Bellagio Ristorante & Bakery; as well as wine tasting with Sommelier Derek Alten and pouring by award winning Leonesse Cellars.

Live music was performed by the Rey Vinole Big Band, with a special performance by award winning San Diego Master Chorale, a 125 voice choral group that is known as "The Voice of San Diego." There was also a client art exhibition and sale, with all proceeds benefiting the Center, as well as the world premiere of the "I am TERI" video, which highlights experiences of TERI clients, parents, staff and volunteers.

The 20-acre campus will include an exciting variety of state-of-the-art facilities; fitness, arts and education, childhood development, equestrian therapy, horticulture, culinary arts, extensive vocational training opportunities and aquatics. The Center will also be home to the TERI-led International Association for Life Quality, offering Special Needs Life Quality Plans(TM) and Special Needs Life Quality Coach(TM) training, applied research, and onsite and online training programs, serving children, adults and their families both regionally and internationally.

The Center is named in honor of the late Charles R. Cono, a San Diego entrepreneur and philanthropist who contributed $5 million of the first $8 million raised toward the center's construction. An additional $42 million is currently being raised for the next five phases.

For more than 30 years, TERI has been committed to improving the quality of lives for children and adults with autism and other developmental disabilities, and their families. TERI believes every individual with autism and other developmental and learning disabilities has the right to lead a valued, meaningful, and fulfilling life of uncompromised quality in their community.

For more information on TERI or how to make a donation to the Charles R. Cono Center for Research & Life Planning, please visit www.teriinc.org or call 760.721.1706.

SOURCE TERI, Inc.

NEW ORLEANS, Dec. 5 /PRNewswire/ -- The methods and outcomes for stem cell transplants are constantly improving as leading experts continue to investigate new approaches for reducing the serious adverse events associated with the procedure. Research presented today at the 51st Annual Meeting of the American Society of Hematology takes a closer look at complications of stem cell transplants, including veno-occlusive disease and graft-versus-host disease.

"While stem cell transplant is one of the best treatment options we have available for many blood cancers, unfortunately, it can sometimes result in severe complications," said moderator of the press conference Armand Keating, MD, Director, Division of Hematology, and Professor of Medicine at the University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. "The results of these studies are exciting because they highlight several new, innovative approaches we are taking that not only help reduce these life-threatening complications, but ultimately result in improved outcomes for our patients."

This press conference will take place on Saturday, December 5, at 2:00 p.m.

Adoptive Immunotherapy With Tregs Prevents Graft-Versus-Host Disease and Favors Immune Reconstitution After HLA Haploidentical Transplants for Hematological Malignancies

[Abstract #4]

Bone marrow transplant is often recommended to patients with acute leukemia (a rapidly progressing disease that results in the accumulation of immature, functionless cells in the marrow and blood) who are at high risk for recurrence. A common complication of bone marrow transplantation is graft-versus-host disease, which occurs when donor's immune system reacts against the patient's body. When a patient and donor are mismatched (known as haploidentical transplants), high doses of stem cells can overcome rejection, a principle that has been successfully pioneered in animal models by study co-author Yair Reisner, MD. However, in order to prevent graft-versus-host disease, the donor stem cells must be extensively depleted of T cells, which play an important role in immune response. As a result of this extensive reduction in T-cells, the recovery of the patient's natural immune response against infectious agents is delayed, leading to a high incidence of infection-related deaths. Researchers from the University of Perugia in Italy and the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, have addressed this key challenge by infusing donor T cells in an effort to improve immune recovery without causing graft-versus-host disease.

For the first time in humans, researchers in this phase I/II clinical trial evaluated the impact on graft-versus-host disease prevention and immunologic reconstitution of an infusion of donor T-regulatory cells (CD4/CD25+), which are a type of T cell that suppresses the body's immune response and has been shown in several mouse studies to control graft-versus-host disease. T-regulatory cells were infused immediately after isolation from donors, three days before administering the stem cell graft, which consisted of donor mature T-cells and a megadose of hematopoietic stem cells CD34+.

Twenty-eight patients with leukemia or lymphoma enrolled in the study: 22 with acute myeloid leukemia, five with acute lymphoblastic leukemia, and one with high-grade relapsed non-Hodgkin lymphoma. All patients underwent a conditioning regimen that included total body irradiation (8Gy single fraction) and a chemotherapy regimen of thiotepa (4mg/kg x 2), fludarabine (40 mg/m2 x 5), and cyclophosphamide (35 mg/kg x 2). Patients were then infused with CD4/CD25+ immune-selected T-regulatory cells (five patients received 4x106/kg; 22 patients received a 2x106/kg; one patient received a 1x106/kg ). Three days later, patients received immune-selected CD34+ cells (median 8.2 cells, range 5.0-19.1) together with donor mature T-cells (five patients received 2x106/kg; 17 patients received 1x106/kg; four patients received 0.5x106/kg; two patients did not receive donor mature T-cells because, for technical reasons, the T-regulatory cell infusion was contaminated with donor mature T cells).

Results revealed that long-term protection from graft-versus-host disease and robust immune system reconstitution can be achieved. For the first time, high doses of T cells were administered in patients who underwent a haploidentical transplant (stem cells from a relative who is a partial match only), which included freshly purified T-regulatory cells to prevent graft-versus-host disease. No graft-versus-host disease was observed in 25 of 26 patients who could be evaluated. Two patients developed self-limited (limiting own growth) acute cutaneous (skin) graft-versus-host disease, which was left untreated in accordance with current recommendations. One patient developed severe graft-versus-host disease.

In addition, the speed of immune recovery was enhanced. More specifically, researchers observed rapid and sustained immunological reconstitution in terms of CD4 and CD8 lymphocyte counts and high frequencies of specific CD4+ and CD8+ cells against microbial agents together with a significant reduction in post-transplant cytomegalovirus reactivation.

"This study demonstrates that T-regulatory cell-based therapy may be an innovative strategy to improve the outcome of patients who undergo bone marrow transplants," said Massimo F. Martelli, MD, Professor and Head of the Hematology and Clinical Immunology Section at the University of Perugia in Italy and senior author of this study. "We hope that this new method will reduce infection-related mortality and thus improve overall survival."

Dr. Martelli will present this study in the Plenary Scientific Session on Sunday, December 6, at 2:45 p.m. in Hall F.

Defibrotide (DF) for the Prevention of Hepatic Veno-Occlusive Disease (VD) in Pediatric Stem Cell Transplantation: Results of a Prospective Phase ll/lll Randomized, Multicenter Study

[Abstract #653]

The 100-day survival rates for pediatric patients who have received stem cell transplants has steadily increased. However, it is still associated with significant mortality and morbidity including complications such as veno-occlusive disease, a disease in which the small vessels in the liver become obstructed. This life-threatening condition has a particularly high incidence in children undergoing allogeneic stem cell transplantation. In this study, researchers from the University of Ulm in Germany assessed the safety and efficacy of defibrotide, an investigational drug, for the prevention of this disease in the largest-ever, international, multicenter study of high-risk pediatric patients undergoing stem cell transplants. The study was co-sponsored by the European Group for Blood and Marrow Transplantion (EBMT).

A total of 360 high-risk patients with a median age of five years were enrolled in the study (24 percent infants, 52 percent children ages 2-11, and 23 percent adolescents ages 12-18). Sixty-eight percent of the patients underwent allogeneic stem cell transplant (a procedure in which a person receives blood-forming stem cells from a genetically similar, but not identical donor), and 31 percent received an autologous stem cell transplant (a procedure in which blood-forming stem cells are removed from a patient, stored, and then re-injected following high-dose chemotherapy to accelerate the "rescue" of blood formation). Patients were prospectively randomized prior to stem cell transplantation to receive either defibrotide or no preventive therapy for veno-occlusive disease. The patients who were randomized to the defibrotide arm received intravenous infusions (25 mg/kg/day) from the start of conditioning (the time before transplant when a patient is given chemotherapy to suppress the immune system, to make room for donor marrow cells to grow, or to destroy remaining cancer cells) until 30 days post stem cell transplant or discharge from the hospital, whichever came first. In the control arm, patients did not receive any preventive therapy. The primary endpoint of this study was to measure the incidence of veno-occlusive disease after 30 days, which was adjudicated by a blinded, independent review committee of three expert hematologists. Secondary endpoints of the study were to measure veno-occlusive disease-associated morbidity, mortality, and the incidence and severity of graft-versus-host disease.

According to the study results, preventive use of defibrotide resulted in a 40 percent reduction in the overall incidence of veno-occlusive disease in these pediatric patients. Consistent with the role of defibrotide in protecting endothelial cells (the thin layer of cells that line the inside of blood vessels), both the incidence of renal failure (1 percent with defibrotide versus 6 percent in control) and also the overall incidence and severity of acute graft-versus-host disease (32 percent in defibrotide versus 43 percent in control) were significantly lower in the defibrotide arm. In addition, the safety of defibrotide was confirmed by the lack of significant toxicity; the defibrotide and control arms had similar numbers of adverse events reported. Results from this study also confirm that the mortality at 100 days post-transplant in patients who developed veno-occlusive disease was four times higher than the mortality in patients who had not developed this disease.

"For pediatric stem cell transplant patients who develop veno-occlusive disease, we unfortunately have limited diagnostic tools, poor understanding of potential risk factors and mechanisms of the disease, and no established therapies to help prevent or treat this condition," said lead study author Selim Corbacioglu, MD, Assistant Professor of the Department of Hematology, Oncology, Immunology, and Stem Cell Transplantation at the University of Ulm in Germany. "Our study confirms that defibrotide is safe and effective for preventing veno-occlusive disease in this high-risk population."

Dr. Corbacioglu will present this study in an oral session on Monday, December 7, at 5:30 p.m. in Room 353-355.

HLA-Identified Sibling-Matched, CD34+ Selected, T-Cell Depleted Peripheral Blood Stem Cells Following Myeloablative Conditioning for First or Second Remission Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML): Results of Blood and Marrow Transplant Clinical Trials Network (BMT CTN)

Protocol 0303 [Abstract #655]

Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is a type of blood cancer in which there is a rapid growth of abnormal white blood cells. While both children and adults of any age can develop AML, the incidence increases with age. Many patients who receive chemotherapy may enter complete remission, but in other patients, the disease returns (relapse). Allogeneic stem cell transplantation, a process in which a patient receives blood-forming stem cells from a genetically similar but not identical related or unrelated donor, is the most effective way to prevent the recurrence of AML. However, the patient's quality of life and overall survival are often affected by both acute (within the first 100 days after transplant) and chronic (later form) graft-versus-host disease, common complications of transplants.

Graft-versus-host disease is most effectively prevented by removing T cells (type of white blood cell that plays a central role in how the immune system responds to specific pathogens) from the donor's stem cells before they are transplanted into the patient. The T cells are removed because they may attack the patient's own cells. T-cell depletion, the process of removing T cells from the donor's stem cells, has not been used frequently because of logistical difficulties; lack of a U.S. Food and Drug Administration-approved method; and concerns regarding the potential risk of transplant rejection, post-transplant infections, and especially, leukemic relapse. Additionally, most reported T-cell depletion studies represent single centers, multiple disease types, and different processing methods with varying degrees of T-cell depletion, which are all factors that affect the overall outcome of patients.

The Blood and Marrow Transplant Clinical Trials Network (BMT CTN), co-sponsored by the National Institutes of Health's National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute and National Cancer Institute, designed BMT CTN 0303, a T-cell depletion trial using a single processing method that provides extensive T-cell depletion that did not require post-transplant graft-versus-host disease prevention in adult AML patients in first or second complete remission. The primary objective of this study was to achieve a six-month disease-free survival rate exceeding 75 percent following stem cell transplant. Secondary objectives included assessments of engraftment, transplant-related mortality, graft-versus-host disease, relapse, and the performance of a single T-cell depletion method at participating centers.

Researchers enrolled a total of 47 patients; 44 of these patients were then transplanted at eight different centers. Patients received a conditioning regimen that consisted of total body irradiation (1375 cGy in 11 fractions) with partial lung shielding, thiotepa (10 mg/kg), cyclophosphamide (120 mg/kg), and rabbit antithymocyte globulin (1.5 mg/kg). All stem cell donors were HLA-identical siblings and were given G-CSF (a cytokine that stimulates the production of white blood cells) to ensure a graft with a high CD34+ cell content. The majority of patients (84 percent) received the targeted CD34+ cell dose, and no patient received more than 1.0x10e5 CD3+ T-cells/kg (doses above this level can cause graft-versus-host disease). In addition, no further therapies were given for the prevention of graft-versus-host disease following transplant.

The study found that stem cell transplant following radiation and chemotherapy can be performed in a multicenter setting using a single T-cell depletion method without additional post-transplant graft-versus-host disease prevention methods, meeting the primary objective by producing an 81.3 percent disease-free survival rate at six months. Overall survival reached 74.3 percent at one year. While the most common way to prevent graft-versus-host disease is to give patients certain drugs to prevent it, the study shows encouraging results of low incidences of acute and chronic graft-versus-host disease without the use of these potentially toxic and less effective drugs. Additionally, there were no significant toxicities related to infusion of the CD34+ cells into the patients.

"By implementing a single method, we hope to make transplant procedures safer with less risk of graft-versus-host disease, ultimately leading to more patients benefiting from stem cell transplants," said lead author Steven M. Devine, MD, Associate Professor at the Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center in Columbus. "As this study examined patients who had matched sibling donors, we will conduct further studies to see if this same approach will work for recipients of cells from unrelated volunteer donors."

Dr. Devine will present this study in an oral session on Monday, December 7, at 4:30 p.m. in Room 293-296.

Identification of Single Human Hematopoietic Stem Cells Capable of Long-Term Multilineage Engraftment and Self-Renewal [Abstract #816]

Stem cell scientists are continually challenged by the need to expand and grow pure stem cells, which have the ability to recreate all blood lineages, in order to gain a better understanding of the gene expression signatures (markers that make it easy to identify the specific cells) that define these stem cells. Researchers from the University of Toronto in Ontario, Canada, developed a laboratory test to measure the activity of individual human hematopoietic (blood-forming) stem cells by taking human stem cells from cord blood and transplanting these cells into immune-deficient mice.

Over the past 20 years, researchers have been able to purify mouse stem cells and prove the potential of a single mouse stem cell to become several mature cell types that will re-populate and re-grow blood in transplanted mice. However, such success with human cells has neither been achieved nor been considered feasible until now. There is a scientific need to develop the same level of knowledge about what makes up human hematopoietic stem cells. In this study, investigators looked at developing better markers in order to obtain pure stem cells. A series of cell surface markers (Lin-CD34+CD38-CD90+CD45RA-RholoCD49fhi) were added to blood cells from either cord blood or adult bone marrow to isolate individual human stem cells and then test their stem cell activity by transplanting them into mice. Of the 29 mice that were transplanted with single human stem cells, five gave rise to human cells, indicating that a pure population of cells was achieved and that these cells reconstituted myeloid, B-cell, and T-cell lineages for 18 weeks; this duration is considered long-term engraftment in mouse studies. Approximately 20 percent of all the cells in these five mice were human hematopoietic cells, which is considered to be a high engraftment level from a single, transplanted stem cell.

"For more than 40 years, the approach for stem cell research has been focused on the mouse because scientists haven't had the tools to try and conduct experiments in humans," said senior author John E. Dick, PhD, Senior Scientist of the Division of Cellular and Molecular Biology at Toronto General Research Institute in Ontario, Canada. "This study is a major step forward in bringing stem cell research into human studies and advancing our ability for developing stem cell therapies."

Faiyaz Notta, BSc, MSc, will present this study in an oral session on Monday, December 7, at 7:15 p.m. in Room 275-277.

American Society of Hematology 51st Annual Meeting

The study authors and press program moderator will be available for interviews after the press conference or by telephone. Additional press briefings will take place throughout the meeting on new approaches in clotting disorders, advances in diagnosing and treating leukemia and myeloproliferative disorders, developments in cancer care and quality of life, and new trends and treatment options for sickle cell disease. For the complete annual meeting program and abstracts, visit www.hematology.org/2009abstracts. Up-to-date annual meeting information can also be obtained by following ASH on Twitter at ASH_hematology.

The American Society of Hematology (www.hematology.org) is the world's largest professional society concerned with the causes and treatment of blood disorders. Its mission is to further the understanding, diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of disorders affecting blood, bone marrow, and the immunologic, hemostatic, and vascular systems, by promoting research, clinical care, education, training, and advocacy in hematology. ASH provides Blood: The Vital Connection (www.bloodthevitalconnection.org), a credible online resource addressing bleeding and clotting disorders, anemia, and cancer. The official journal of ASH is Blood (www.bloodjournal.org), the most cited peer-reviewed publication in the field, which is available weekly in print and online.

SOURCE American Society of Hematology

Link to Audio: http://my.democrats.org/page/-/audio/WS320008Edit.mp3

Politico Story on Conference: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1209/30190.html

WASHINGTON, Dec 5 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ --This is an excellent opportunity to just have some dialogue and I want to share with all of you some thoughts about politics being a good thing. And then talk about 2009, 2010, some of the things we're doing at the Democratic Party. We've got a lot of students here. So I thought what I might do, just very of quickly, is tell you how I got into this line of work because there are those of you out in the audience who are kind of wrestling with you know, "is politics really a good thing?" and is it something you might want to be engaged in. I was a civil rights lawyer for 17 years and when I came to Virginia, my wife arm twisted me here - I really thought that's what I would be doing for my whole career. I was a fair housing lawyer. And one day after I practiced law for a decade in Richmond, I got mad at my city council and I ran for city council. And then two terms later, was mayor. And then two terms later was lieutenant governor and now I am in my last two months as governor. I consider politics kind of a 16 year accidental side light to my civil rights career, but it's gonna be extended a little bit beyond the 16 years because of my work at the Democratic National Committee.

(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20080519/DNCLOGO )

I've been a close confident of the President's since when I was running for Governor in 2005. If you're in Virginia, one of the great benefits you have is if you're running for office you can ask somebody from Washington to just drive across the Potomac to do a fundraiser for you. And so, I asked the new Senator Obama to do that. And the night that he was going to do a fundraiser, I stayed up the night before and read his first book Dreams OF My Father and then I was able to say to him when he walked in we've got a couple of things in common. We were both Harvard Law School graduates. Now it is true that President Obama was president of the Harvard Law Review and I went to a lot of Red Sox games when I was in law school but our diplomas look exactly the same. Second, we were both civil rights lawyers he did civil rights work in Chicago and I was fair housing lawyer in Richmond. Third we both spent formative time abroad: he in Indonesia and I was a missionary in Honduras for a year.

But the thing that cemented the relationship was when I was able to tell him, and you know when you say your dad's from Kenya and your mom's from a small farm town in Kansas, my mom's from the same town your mom is from - El Doredo, Kansas. And that kind of struck up this bond between us that has been a very strong one and I have been absolutely thrilled to be part of the campaign and now work with him in my capacity at the Democratic National Committee.

I haven't been a particularly political guy or a Washington guy. I kind of consider my political work as civil rights work by other means so I really focused in my public career on things like expanding pre-K, trying to keep the states business climate strong so that all will have opportunities, health care safety net and foster care reform. I'm really in to the serving people side of this not particularly being a Washington guy and I'm a little bit of an unusual choice to be chair of the party. I wrote the President a letter after his historic election and said Chairman Dean is stepping down and he was fantastic, here is someone who would be great to be party chair and I laid out in an incredibly persuasive way why this individual would be a wonderful party chair. The President and his team called me back and said we got your memo and we like that person but you have to do the job. As I talked to them and kind of figured it out and I think there is only one answer when the President asks and the answer is yes. But I also got kind of excited about it, I would normally have thought I would be going back into the civil rights work or work in the education sector, but I got very excited about it.

And let me before I talk about '09 and '10 talk about why I love my job. There is an amazing event that happens every year in Virginia in a little county called Wise County where my wife's family comes from and it's an event that happens in the last weekend in July. There's a woman there named Sister Bernie who is a Catholic nun who has a little thing called the St. Mary's health clinic. Sister Bernie, probably 15 years ago started driving a BW Beetle around the Appalachian handing out prescription medications to people who didn't have health insurance and couldn't get health care. And 10 years ago Sister Bernie said you know what, I'm going to try to recruit some doctors and dentists to the county fairgrounds and we'll just open up for the weekend and try to provide services. And so she did 10 years ago.

Since I've been Lieutenant Governor I've been going down to work the registrations. Let me tell you what this event has become. On Monday night, people start arriving in their cars often with kids in tow to camp out in this dusty county fairground parking lot. And they come by the tens, and then they come by the hundreds and then they come by the thousands. And on Friday morning they open the doors to the fairgrounds and then people come in and they get a number and then they wait with their number Friday, Saturday, Sunday eventually to see a doctor and maybe get a mammogram for the first time in their life, or to get their eyes tested at the age of 45 and find out they should have had eye glasses 15 years ago, or to see a dentist for the first time ever. If you're seeing a dentist for the first time ever as an adult there's only one thing the dentist is going to be able to do for you and that's pull out teeth to ease your pain. The first time that I went to this, it just struck me so vividly it reminded me so vividly of when I was a missionary in Honduras. When I worked in Honduras 25 years ago it was the second poorest country in the Western hemisphere and the missionaries I worked with would do health clinics in rural Honduras for people who didn't have health care. But I don't live in the second poorest country in the Western hemisphere, I live in the greatest nation in the history of the world and one of the wealthiest nations. And so when I saw this in Wise county, and these clinics happen all over the United States what I saw in Honduras it just strikes me every year and I go back to remind myself.

You walk through the parking lot at this health care clinic and you look at license plates, it's right on the border between Virginia and Kentucky so you would expect to see Virginia and Kentucky vehicles and maybe Tennessee, and North Carolina's not too far. But I saw a car from Oklahoma the first year, and I saw another vehicle from Florida. This year when my wife and I went down to work the registration booth we saw cars, there were people thousands of them from sixteen different states. And I tell you, that's why I love my job at the DNC. Because when we have the White House with a President like President Obama the opportunity to tackle the big tough issues is so exciting. And it really speaks to that civil rights lawyer in me.

We're engaged in this battle about health reform right now and I'll say a little more about it in a minute, but every other industrialized nation in the world has figured this out. They're not smarter than we are, they're not richer than we are, they're not more compassionate than we are. They're not more innovative or creative than we are but they've had a will that we haven't had. And so what we are doing and our primary motive at the DNC which is a little bit different, I have a different job than Howard Dean or Terry McCauliff, our primary motive is to promote the success of the presidency to make the change that people need so that we can lift the burden that's on citizens and that we can produce results that are spectacular including tackling tough issues like health care. So, the job, although it was a little bit of an unusual fit, has been something that I've found very very exciting and I'm really excited to tackle it in a major way as we're going through these elections.

Let me talk to you about 2009 and 2010. Obviously in 2009 from the national party standpoint we took some lumps that were painful and we won some races that made us feel very good. So I'm going to talk about the lumps -- state races, and the wins -- federal races. Virginia New Jersey Governorships this has more than a passing personal interest, trying to be successful in both of those. Governor Corzine in New Jersey, a great friend and obviously I wanted to put the keys to the executive mansion in the hands of a Democratic successor, but we recognized we were running against a headwind. For at least 24 years the party that wins the White House loses both of those governorships and in Virginia it had actually been 32 years, the party that wins the White House loses the governorship. We knew we were running against a headwind but still, even though those races largely revolved around local concerns we were disappointed.

On the federal side, we've actually had some pretty good news in 2009. Since President Obama was inaugurated, there have been five special elections in Congress and the Democrats have won all five. We've also added two Senators: the recount that produced the victory in Minnesota for Al Franken in June gave us another Senator, and early in the year the other side chased the Republican Senator Arlen Specter into our camp. So on the federal side, we have felt that all of the movement and all of the change this year has been in our direction.

In terms of the federal races, there's one factor that I think is really important going into 2010: GOP fighting and the tea party devouring the GOP. The year started with the Chairman of the RNC threatening to primary Republicans who voted for the Recovery Act. And Senator Arlen Specter said: Guess what? I'm not going to wait. I'll just become a Democrat right now.

The year ended in New York's Congressional District 23 with the race featuring Republican nominee Dede Scozzafava, a pretty well known member of the New York General Assembly, who was running in a district that hadn't gone Democratic since 1872.

The Republicans put a million dollars into her campaign, but then they ended up abandoning her in favor of a candidate whose candidacy had basically been inflated by talk show radio hosts. After the Republicans abandoned Dede Scozzafava, she endorsed the Democratic candidate Bill Owens, who is the first Democrat to win that seat in over a hundred and thirty years.

This showed the divide that we're seeing on the GOP side. We've got various factions on the Democratic side, but they're not corrosive, and they're not deep chasms. They're just the standard feature of having a diverse party.

The divide we're seeing on the Republican side -- exemplified by Specter joining our team and by the Republican right wing chasing Dede Scozzafava out of that race -- this is something that we expect to see going forward into 2010. We are already seeing corrosive primaries in the Texas governor's race, the Florida Senate race, and other races on the Republican side. And I think we will see more of that.

In fact, what I think we are seeing coming out of these elections in both parties is that from the Democratic side, our party is broadening. We're broadening geographically, broadening ideologically, and broadening demographically. While on the Republican side we see a party that is narrowing geographically, narrowing ideologically, and narrowing demographically.

How are we going to do in 2010? Since 1900, the average first-term president in their first midterm loses 28 House seats, 4 U.S. Senate seats, and faces headwind with governor's races. So we're very mindful of that going into 2010. I remember talking to President Obama about it when he arm-twisted me into doing this job last December. We knew 2010 could be pretty tough: the President was being left with a tough national environment, two wars, and an economy in a free-fall. He was coming into office at a time more difficult than any since FDR's presidency beginning in March of 1933.

We could still be facing some major challenges in the midterm, and so we acknowledge the headwind is blowing against us. It's just the historic norm is, and it's blowing against us.

But we feel like we've got a couple of strong cards up our sleeve as we go into 2010. The first is what I described earlier, that corrosive and persistent battle on the GOP side between the tea bag party and talk show radio hosts and that dwindling bunch of Republican moderates. We think that this continuing battle will give us some real opportunity in a number of places.

The second thing we feel we've got going for us in 2010 is that we're going to sell results to the American people. We feel that if we sell the President's record of achievement and the results we've achieved in a very difficult time, these successes will be our strongest suit going into 2010.

SOURCE Democratic National Committee

HONG KONG, Dec. 5, 2009 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- SNT Cleaning Inc. (Pink Sheets: SNTI) today announced that it is changing its name to Orofino Gold Corp. This name change reflects the Company's planned focus on becoming a resource development company, with an emphasis on precious metals exploration and development.

Concurrent with this new business focus, the Company has accepted the appointment of John Martin, a resident of Hong Kong, as the Company's new director in place of Robert Denman. Mr. Martin will be responsible for guiding the Company's new business and building a resource development team. Mr. Martin brings a strong background of international business development to the Company.

Forward-Looking Statements

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The OTC BB or Pink Sheets has not reviewed or does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. This news release may contain forward-looking statements including but not limited to comments regarding the timing and content of upcoming work programs, geological interpretations, receipt of property titles, potential mineral recovery processes, etc. Forward-looking statements address future events and conditions and, therefore, involve inherent risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from those currently anticipated in such statements.

CONTACT:  SNT Cleaning Inc.
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HONG KONG--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- The 5th East Asian Games (EAG) officially kicked off in Hong Kong today (December 5) with a dazzling 90-minute opening ceremony - including a magnificent fireworks display and special lighting effects which transformed world-renowned Victoria Harbour into a kaleidoscope of colour.

The Games are the biggest in EAG history, bringing together 2 300 elite athletes from nine countries or regions to compete for 262 gold medals in 22 sports. Among the athletes are Olympic gold medallists and world record holders from many sports.

Breaking with the tradition of holding such ceremonies in sports stadiums, the 2009 EAG opening took place on a floating stage in Victoria Harbour, and at the adjacent Hong Kong Cultural Centre Piazza on the Tsim Sha Tsui waterfront, with the city's stunning skyline as backdrop. Hundreds of thousands of spectators shared the occasion on both sides of the harbour.

The ceremony was produced by the same company responsible for the opening and closing ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics. Highlights included cultural performances, lighting of the EAG cauldron and a parade of beautifully adorned boats representing participating countries/regions.

Chinese State Councillor Madam Liu Yandong declared the Games open, with welcome speeches delivered by the Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, Donald Tsang, and an EAG official.

The countries/regions taking part are China; DPR Korea; Japan; Korea; Macao, China; Mongolia; Chinese Taipei; Guam and Hong Kong, China.

The Games will close on December 13.

For EAG schedule and ticketing information, visit www.2009eastasiangames.hk

For results of the competition events, visit http://results.2009eastasiangames.hk

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    Source: Information Services Department