Gazette The Centre County
www.CentreCountyGazette.com
BRING ON PITT
The Penn State Nittany Lions will welcome the Pittsburgh Panthers to Beaver Stadium for a Sept. 9 cross-state matchup. See rosters, statistics, photos and more in this week’s edition of Gameday./Pages 19-22
September 7-13, 2017
NITTANY LIONS BRING DOWN THE HOUSE!
Volume 9, Issue 36
FDA approves treatment that saved Philipsburg girl By G. KERRY WEBSTER editor@centrecountygazette.com
TIM WEIGHT/For the Gazette
THE PENN STATE Nittany Lions opened the 2017 collegiate football season with an impressive 52-0 victory over Akron on Sept. 2. This week, the No. 4 ranked Lions will host cross-state rival Pittsburgh and will be seeking revenge for their heartbreaking 42-39 loss a year ago. For more on the game, see Page 19.
County leads state in rabies Four new cases confirmed in July By SEAN YODER syoder@centrecountygazette
Centre County continues to lead the state in the number of confirmed rabies cases this year, with three more raccoons and a fox added to the tally for the month of July, according to data from the Pennsylvania Department of Health. In the year to date, 15 Centre County animals have been confirmed to have rabies: one bat, 10 raccoons and four foxes. A game commission officer said the reason Centre County could be in the lead for rabies cases is that a family of animals may have all gotten rabies and been euthanized and tested all from one incident.
July had the highest number of rabies cases for a month in 2017 with 46 confirmed. There were 32 in June, 28 in May, 32 in April, 23 in March, 23 in February and 16 in January for a total of 200 cases. That’s down though from 223 rabies cases for the year in July 2016, but up from 187 year to date in July 2015. So far in 2017, no state agencies have reported rabies exposure of a pet or human. Rabies typically peaks in July or August in Pennsylvania. It was in June 2014 that Tracey Moriarty was bitten by a fox that turned out to have rabies. Rabies, Page 6
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PHILIPSBURG — An experimental cell replacement procedure that saved the life of a now 12-year-old Philipsburg girl will now save thousands of young lives across the world. On Aug. 30, the Food and Drug Administration approved a chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy for treatment of certain pediatric and young adult patients with relapsed or refractory B-cell precursor acute lymphoblastic leukemia. This therapy was first used on 5-year-old Emily Whitehead, and since she was deemed five years cancer-free just a few months ago, Emily, and her parents, Tom and Kari, have been on a mission to make the procedure that saved her young life available to everyone facing childhood cancer. In July, the family, as well as a group of doctors and industry experts, presented testimony about the procedure to a panel seeking to push the method into the FDA hands for approval. That panel of 10 unanimously saw the advantages of the procedure and recommended it for approval. The FDA, with the Whiteheads present, made it official last week. “It was very emotional for us to finally have the CTL019 T-cell therapy FDA approved,” Tom Whitehead told Centre County Gazette. “It made us even more proud and amazed at how much Emily surviving her treatment is changing the world.” The treatment, to be tradenamed Kymriah and carrying the generic name tisagenlecleucel, is sold by Novartis. The company said it will charge $475,000 for the one-time treatment.
“(THE FDA APPROVAL) made us even more proud and amazed at how much Emily surviving her treatment is changing the world.” Tom Whitehead,
father of cancer survivor Emily Whitehead Emily is a three-time cancer survivor alive today because of T-cell therapy. She was the first child patient in the world to receive the treatment in 2012, after relapsing EMILY following other WHITEHEAD treatments. Her initial diagnosis with acute lymphoblastic leukemia was made in 2010, at the age of 5. Typically, children diagnosed with this type of leukemia have an 85 to 90 percent chance of being cured; however, Emily relapsed in October 2011. A bone marrow transplant was scheduled for February 2012, but Emily relapsed again just weeks before the transplant date. Her leukemia was so aggressive that doctors felt they had run out of options and recommended that she go home on hospice care. But the Whiteheads were not ready to give up. They caught wind of a revolutionary new treatment that had just become available at Treatment, Page 10
Centre County volunteers deploy to clean up after Harvey By JAMES TURCHICK correspondent@centrecountygazette.com
In the wake of Hurricane Harvey’s extraordinary rainfall and devastation to millions of residents in Texas, Centre County Red Cross volunteers are making their way down to the afflicted areas to help in the recovery. The attention will die out after a few weeks, but the Red Cross is going to be there for years, said Kimberly Maiolo, Central Pennsylvania Region director of communications. One Centre County and one Perry County resident are driving to Baton Rouge in an emergency vehicle to help the relief efforts. Ken Horting and Dave Baran of the Mid-Central Pennsylvania Red Cross chapter are helping Police Blotter ..................... 2 Death Notices ................... 6
Opinion ........................... 11 Health & Wellness ........... 12
on the ground when they arrive, Maiolo said. The Red Cross volunteer deployment is for two-weeks. “The magnitude of this disaster is unlike anything we’ve ever seen,” Maiolo said. “We’re not talking weeks or months. This is going to take years.” Twenty-nine volunteers total from central Pennsylvania are in the affected areas to help assist the more than 35,000 people staying in shelters, Maiolo said. Most are helping with mass care, which assists people who have had to flee their homes for shelter. She said the volunteers have to fly or drive into surrounding areas and are still having trouble getting into certain parts of Texas because of flooding. Harvey, Page 6 Community ..................... 15 Gazette Gameday ........... 19
Sports ............................... 24 Around & In Town .......... 32
JAMES TURCHICK/For the Gazette
KEN HORTING, left, and Dave Baran from the Red Cross Mid-Central Pennsylvania Chapter prepare to take off for Baton Rouge in the Central Pennsylvania Region’s Emergency Response Vehicle to assist in Hurricane Harvey relief efforts. What’s Happening .......... 35 Puzzles ............................. 36
Business ........................... 37 Classifieds ........................ 39