Early Bird Registration Deadline June 12
Join NAASO in Vancouver, October 15 - 19. Register by June 12 for huge cost savings! Registration includes admission to all oral and poster sessions, symposia, debates, workshops, exhibits, opening session & reception, and conference materials.
Not a NAASO Member? Now is a great time to join. Members receive even greater registration discounts! Download a Member Application today, or contact membership@naaso.org

More Registration Benefits
Register for the NAASO Annual Meeting and access lectures, tutorials, workshops -- all online and free to Annual Meeting attendees. This new service will allow registrants to organize schedules with an itinerary planner, download personalized schedules to a PDA or calendar, increase CME opportunities, and view select material all through the year! Check our Annual Meeting Webpage often for more details.

Prominent Obesity Experts Address Hot Issues
NAASO's Annual Meeting will host world-renowned leaders in the obesity field. Speakers you won't want to miss include:
Katherine Flegal, PhD - Deaths Attributable to Obesity
Andrea Dunaif, MD - PCOS
Luciano Rossetti, MD - Nutrient Sensing
Gregory Collier, PhD - Novel Approaches to Gene Discovery
Gokhan S. Hotamisligil, MD, PhD - Endoplasmic Reticulum Stress
Plan to join NAASO in Vancouver and hear these and more cutting-edge and absorbing scientific presentations!

Showcase your Prodcuts
Join the growing list of Annual Meeting exhibitors. Don't miss out on an opportunity to let interested and pre-qualified obesity experts know about your company's products and services. Reserve your booth space today. Contact Tricia Cavallo or download the Exhibitor Application and Floor Plan.

Corporate Sponsored Symposia
Does your company have educational information that would benefit NAASO Annual Meeting attendees? Consider participating in Corporate Sponsored Symposia and deliver your company's key educational message to the forerunners in the obesity community. For more information see our Corporate Sponsored Symposia Guidelines and Application, or contact Tricia Cavallo.

Other Sponsorship Opportunities
Heighten awareness of your company's commitment to obesity research, treatment, prevention, and management. Many opportunites are available to fit your company's needs and budget.

For the Media
NAASO encourages and invites media participation at our Annual Scientific Meeting. This is a great opportunity to hear innovative, late-breaking science from the foremost obesity experts. Media registration is complimentary. Visit our Media Information Webpage for registration information and media guidelines.

On May 12, the American Society for Bariatric Surgery and the American Obesity Association, submitted to Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) a request for a National Coverage Determination (NCD) for bariatric surgery for the treatment of obesity. On May 24, CMS posted on their website a tracking sheet for this NCD request. What Medicare decides has implications for all insurance carriers, which makes any decision by CMS extremely important to the obesity community as a whole.

You may view this tracking sheet, the request letter and supporting evidence on the CMS Website.

The timelines for the NCD process are legislated, and once a submission is formally submitted and a tracking sheet is posted on the CMS website, the "clock" begins for the evaluation process. Following the tracking sheet posting, CMS accepts public comments for 30 days. The comment period for this NCD request will run from May 24 - June 24. For this NCD request, CMS has asked for public comment on the following questions:

• Is the evidence adequate for evaluating health outcomes of the bariatric surgery procedures listed in the request?
• Should CMS define the list of comorbid conditions that qualify a patient for bariatric surgery?
• Should CMS adopt criteria for facilities or surgeons who deliver these procedures?
• Is there a need for routine data collection on the delivery or outcomes of bariatric surgery?

Commenters are asked to respond to these questions, but can also make any additional comments that they feel are relevant to the decision. Instructions for comments are also on the website. CMS then evaluates these comments along with any relevant supporting evidence, and posts a proposed decision memorandum. This is anticipated to be completed on or before November 24, 2005, and would be followed by instructions to Carriers by February, 2006. Once a final decision is made, posted, and instructions provided, all Carriers are obligated to provide coverage for the service. This will remove local discrepancy in Medicare coverage policies. In the request letter (also on the website), you will note that in addition to the request for coverage for specific bariatric surgical procedures, it was requested that CMS also provide coverage for the necessary long-term follow up care provided by the appropriate clinicians. The request reads: "Coverage be provided for long-term postoperative follow-up care after bariatric surgery. Long-term postoperative follow-up care would be provided by health care professionals (Bariatricians, Primary Care Physicians, Internists, Surgeons) beyond the normal surgical postoperative care period. Educational programs would be developed to optimize long-term post-bariatric surgery follow-up." This is an important point, and if CMS agrees to include this in the final NCD, would for the first time expand the coverage available for the treatment obesity to include the medical long-term follow up care.

On June 1, HHS Secretary Leavitt announced the launch of We Can!, Ways to Enhance Children's Activity & Nutrition. We Can! is a national education program from NIH to help prevent overweight and obesity among children ages 8-13.
NAASO is a founding partner in this science-based program to help parents teach children the importance of physical activity and the benefits of healthy eating.
Communities across the nation are already committed to implementing the programs. Thirteen community sites have been chosen to recieve training and will participate in evaluations of the We Can! program.

HHS seeks nominations of public and private sector organizations to receive the 2005 Secretary's Innovation in Prevention Awards Initiative. This activity is part of the Steps to a Healthier U.S. Initiative and will identify and celebrate organizations that have implemented innovative and creative chronic disease prevention and health promotion programs.

To be nominated, a program must address at least one of the following risk factors: obesity, physical activity or nutrition.

Nominations must be received by 5:00 PM, June 9, 2005. Nominations can only be made online. For more information, contact Partnership for Prevention at (202) 785-4943 or 2005InnovationAwards@prevent.org

NAASO Member Appointed President of the Endocrine Society
Andrea Dunaif, MD, Chief of the Division of Endocrinology, Metabolism, and Molecular Medicine at Northwestern University's Feinberg School Medicine, becomes the President of the Endocrine Society at their 87th National Meeting in San Diego, CA on June 7th. She has also recently been appointed to the Advisory Board for Research on Womens Health at the NIH.

East
Kathleen Keller reports
The second edition of "Human Body Composition" will be released at the end of this month. The book is edited by Steven B. Heymsfield, MD (Columbia University, Merck), Timothy G. Lohman, PhD (University of Arizona), Zimian Wang, PhD (Columbia University), and Scott B. Going, PhD (University of Arizona). Many NAASO members have contributed chapters and expertise to this book.

Jennifer Nasser, PhD, RD, a faculty member at the New York Obesity Research Center, presented a workshop for the Texas Dietetics Association conference on the obesity epidemic in April. She also presented a talk on the role of taste perception and binge eating tendency in food intake regulation in obese humans at the Nestle Research Center, Lausanne Switzerland in April.

Doctoral student Melissa Scharoun-Lee was awarded a three-year predoctoral fellowship from the NICHD to study "Sociodemographic Status, Inactivity, and Obesity: Health Disparity across the Transition to Adulthood".

Gary Foster, PhD, Clinical Director of the Weight and Eating Disorders Program at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, will be presenting an overview of obesity at the conference "Bridging the Cultural Canyon: Reducing Health Inequities for American Indians," held June 9 - 11, 2005.

Midwest
Elizabeth Parks writes
Brian Wansink has moved from the University of Illinois to Cornell University, where he will hold the John S. Dyson Professor of Marketing and of Applied Economics.

Margot Cleary, from the Hormel Institute of University of Minnesota, will present a talk entitled, "Prevention of mammary tumor development by intermittent caloric restriction: Importance of the manner in which calories are consumed," at the DOD meeting, Era of Hope 2005, in Philadelphia June 8- 11th.

After teaching at a tribal college in northern Wisconsin for two years, Don Sweet has moved back to Minnesota, and started a new postdoctoral research fellowship at the Alzheimer's Research Center at Regions Hospital in St. Paul.