Med News Today

NARAL Releases Statement on Health Reform

2009-12-22T14:01:00.000-08:00

NARAL Pro-Choice America President Nancy Keenan has issued the follow statement on the Health Care Reform Bill currently being hashed out in the U.S. Senate:

"Since the health-reform process began, we have fought against anti-choice lawmakers' attempts to use this historic legislation to launch attacks on a woman's right to choose. Like many of our allies in the broader progressive community, we often feel that, as soon as we achieve some progress, another challenge emerges.

"It is outrageous that, two weeks after pro-choice Americans came to Capitol Hill united against the egregious Stupak-Pitts amendment, the Senate has succumbed to including further anti-choice language in its bill. While the Senate bill does not include the Stupak-Pitts provision, this new language is unacceptable. It is inexplicable that a bill seeking to expand health coverage for Americans would impose such great administrative burdens on women who purchase abortion coverage and plans that offer it.

"At every turn, our standard has been consistent and clear: Women should not lose ground in the new health-care system. The bill does include other provisions that will improve women's access to reproductive-health services significantly. However, the language regarding abortion coverage comes at too high a price for reproductive health. Thus, we must oppose this new Nelson language. And NARAL Pro-Choice America withholds support from the overall health-reform legislation until we assess the totality of provisions in the final bill that comes out of a conference committee between the House and Senate.

"This situation is a reminder that, despite our significant pro-choice gains in the last two election cycles, anti-choice lawmakers still outnumber our allies. Until those numbers change, women's reproductive health will continue to be a bargaining chip. We call on members of America's pro-choice majority to channel their anger into action. Join us in working to re-elect those members of Congress who stood with women and defeat anti-choice politicians."

Physician Talks Truth About End-of-Life Care

2009-08-17T13:53:00.000-07:00

Time magazine interviewed Dr. Laurie Jacobs, vice chairman of the Department of Medicine at Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Montefiore Medical Center in New York City, about the real issues concerning end-of-life care that has many people - stirred up by the un-truths fostered by the right-wing media - foaming at the mouth and screaming so loudly they can hear the truth.

Here is a sampling of her interview:

How important is Medicare reimbursement for doctors counseling patients about end-of-life care?
For some people one conversation is enough, and you get the whole picture and they tell you exactly what they want. For other people, 10 conversations in 10 weeks won't suffice. Coverage for this is expensive, but I think offering it is a wonderful first step in highlighting the importance of it by paying for it.

What kind of end-of-life-care counseling do you provide to your patients? How does it work?
Many patients have chronic illness and some disability or medical issue, and part of providing care is to speak with them about what to expect with their illness, what alternatives exist, and to have a conversation about what their preferences are. This shouldn't just happen at the end of life. You should get to know people and have these conversations throughout providing care. I like to talk individually with the patient if they are comfortable with that. If they are more comfortable with having family members there at the time, then I do it with the group. What I need to know from the patients is how they view their illness in the context of their life. Did they know somebody else with the same condition and therefore they have some [preconceived] idea about this? What are their values? How to they want to live their life? I also talk to them about whether there is someone who could make decisions for them if they are unable in the future.

Drug Companies Settle Vytorin Case for $41.5 Million

2009-08-05T08:54:00.000-07:00

The Associated Press reports:

TRENTON, N.J. – Merck & Co. and Schering-Plough Corp. said Wednesday they will pay $41.5 million to settle lawsuits claiming the drugmakers, partners on two blockbuster cholesterol drugs, delayed unfavorable study results because they would hurt sales.

Shares of both companies initially rose after the news, then fell with the broader market.

In January 2008, the companies released long-awaited study data showing Vytorin and Zetia were no more effective than an older, less-expensive cholesterol treatment at reducing plaque buildup in arteries of people whose genes gave them stratospheric cholesterol.

Instead, the study showed $100-a-month Vytorin, which combines Zocor and Zetia, was perhaps a bit worse than Zocor alone, which is sold as a generic for a third as much. The study also cast doubt on whether Zetia, which works by a different mechanism, has much effect on cholesterol levels, and subsequent data have raised questions about their safety.

The companies finished the study, called ENHANCE, in 2006. Merck and Schering-Plough were criticized for not releasing the data earlier, and didn't do so until Congress began investigating the delay.

But don't start feeling too sorry for the pharmaceutical companies. They are still money ahead; billions, in fact.

In 2007, sales of the two drugs brought in $5.2 billion. The revenues dropped to $4.6 billion in 2008. That's nearly $10 billion after the report was issued.

A tidy profit for a couple of drugs that are not as effective as the one they replaced and potentially dangerous.

The settlement is a joke.

Disability Claims Expected to Rise

2009-07-31T12:13:00.000-07:00

The Social Security Administration is bracing for an expected increase in the number of people filing disability claims.

The Associated Press reports:

Officials estimate they'll receive 3.3 million new disability claims over the next year, up from their previous estimate of 3 million projected just five months ago.

The unprecedented wave of new applications raises questions about the agency's ability to curb historic backlogs and cut processing delays, a problem that has plagued the agency for years. Officials had been making progress in reducing a massive backlog of disability appeals cases.

Also adding to the problem are recent moves in at least 10 states to furlough hundreds of employees who process initial benefit claims.

Agency officials say the extraordinary increase is driven by the recession and an aging baby boomer work force reaching their most injury-prone years. Long waits for the agency to process claims and resolve appeals can leave some claimants struggling to make ends meet.

U.S. Obesity Rates Continue Climb

2009-07-27T14:37:00.000-07:00

A recent report by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation shows an increase in obesity rates in 23 states in the past year with no state reporting a decrease.

Other findings:

Mississippi had the highest rate of adult obesity, 32.5 percent, for the fifth year in a row.

Three additional states now have adult obesity rates above 30 percent, including Alabama, 31.2 percent; West Virginia, 31.1 percent; and Tennessee, 30.2 percent.

Colorado had the lowest rate of obese adults, at 18.9 percent, followed by Massachusetts, 21.2 percent; and Connecticut, 21.3 percent.

Mississippi also had the highest rate of overweight and obese children, at 44.4 percent. It's followed by Arkansas, 37.5 percent; and Georgia, 37.3 percent.

Senator Wants to Lower Health Costs by Taxing Benefits

2009-06-02T09:19:00.001-07:00

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont.,wants to control health care costs by taxing some benefits provided by employers. President Barack Obama has previously ruled this out.

"I know that's an issue we have to work out with the president, but I think it's an issue we will work out," said Baucus, who is among several Senate Democrats scheduled to meet with Obama Tuesday afternoon.

Baucus says the tax-free benefit packages Americans now enjoy are a big factor in the high costs of the country's health care system, because they provide workers free or low-cost access to too many health care services.

The senator's recommendation came at a White House event where Obama advisers released a new economic report that links fixing the economy with overhauling the costly U.S. health care system.

Obama is pushing Congress to enact sweeping health legislation this year to hold down costs and provide health coverage for 50 million uninsured Americans.

Perhaps Baucus will find some support for his plan from the general public if he includes taxing the benefits Congress enjoys at the public's expense.

Red Meat Will Kill You

2009-03-23T13:58:00.000-07:00

Now there is proof that red meat is the scourge of health that vegetarians have been calling it for years:

CHICAGO – The largest study of its kind finds that older Americans who eat large amounts of red meat and processed meats face a greater risk of death from heart disease and cancer. The federal study of more than half a million men and women bolsters prior evidence of the health risks of diets laden with red meat like hamburger and processed meats like hot dogs, bacon and cold cuts.

Calling the increased risk modest, lead author Rashmi Sinha of the National Cancer Institute said the findings support the advice of several health groups to limit red and processed meat intake to decrease cancer risk.

The findings appear in Monday's Archives of Internal Medicine.

Pain 'national health-care crisis'

2008-10-30T08:06:00.000-07:00

From McClatchy Newspapers:

WASHINGTON — Medical science has learned a great deal about the causes of pain and ways to relieve it, pain experts say, but for a host of reasons, the treatment of pain and suffering has improved hardly at all in recent years.

John Seffrin, the president of the American Cancer Society, calls this "a national health-care crisis of under-treated pain.''
"Nearly all cancer pain can be relieved, but fewer than half of our patients report adequate pain relief,'' Rebecca Kirch, the society's associate director of policy, told a pain seminar in Washington last week.

Hospitals do a little better than that in managing pain for patients with all kinds of illnesses, according to a survey to be published Thursday in the New England Journal of Medicine.
The survey of hospitals in 40 metropolitan areas by the Harvard School of Public Health found that one-third of patients felt that their pain wasn't well controlled. The percentage of those who were satisfied by their pain care ranged from 72 percent in Birmingham, Ala., to 57 percent in New York City hospitals.

Evil Research

2008-10-27T11:35:00.000-07:00

From Scientific American:

TROY, N.Y.—The hallowed halls of academia are not the place you would expect to find someone obsessed with evil (although some students might disagree). But it is indeed evil—or rather trying to get to the roots of evil—that fascinates Selmer Bringsjord, a logician, philosopher and chairman of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute's Department of Cognitive Science here. He's so intrigued, in fact, that he has developed a sort of checklist for determining whether someone is demonic, and is working with a team of graduate students to create a computerized representation of a purely sinister person.

"I've been working on what is evil and how to formally define it," says Bringsjord, who is also director of the Rensselaer AI & Reasoning Lab (RAIR). "It's creepy, I know it is."

To be truly evil, someone must have sought to do harm by planning to commit some morally wrong action with no prompting from others (whether this person successfully executes his or her plan is beside the point). The evil person must have tried to carry out this plan with the hope of "causing considerable harm to others," Bringsjord says. Finally, "and most importantly," he adds, if this evil person were willing to analyze his or her reasons for wanting to commit this morally wrong action, these reasons would either prove to be incoherent, or they would reveal that the evil person knew he or she was doing something wrong and regarded the harm caused as a good thing.

Testing for the cancer gene

2008-09-22T10:47:00.000-07:00

Should kids be tested for the cancer gene?

Experts say no!

About 100,000 tests for breast cancer gene mutations were done last year, double the number in 2005. The trend may grow even more because of widening insurance coverage and a new law banning genetic discrimination.

Medical experts advise against such testing before age 25, saying that little can be done to prevent or screen for breast or ovarian cancer until then, so the knowledge would only cause needless worry.

However, new studies and interviews by The Associated Press show that many people who have BRCA gene mutations — and even more of their offspring — disagree. Cornell University freshman Jenna Stoller is one.

"I'm the kind of person that, like my mom, am more comfortable knowing something about myself than not knowing," said Stoller, who tested positive earlier this year, shortly after her 18th birthday. Her mother made her wait five years after revealing her own positive test result, even though Jenna wanted to be tested at age 13.

Warnings issued on rheumatoid arthritis drugs

2008-09-06T04:35:00.000-07:00

From the Cleveland Plain Dealer via Associated Press:

Washington - The Food and Drug Administration ordered stronger warnings Thursday on four medications widely used to treat rheumatoid arthritis and other serious illnesses, saying they can raise the risk of possibly fatal fungal infections.

The drugs - Enbrel, Remicade, Humira and Cimzia - work by suppressing the immune system to keep it from attacking the body. For patients with rheumatoid arthritis, the treatment provides relief from swollen and painful joints, but it's "a double-edged sword," said the FDA's Dr. Jeffrey Siegel. That's because the drugs also lower the body's defenses to various kinds of infections.

Lack of protection from sunscreens

2008-07-08T08:14:00.000-07:00

From LiveScience.com:

The Environmental Working Group (EWG), a Washington-based research group and habitual gadfly to the business world, has found that 4 out of 5 of the nearly 1,000 sunscreen lotions analyzed offer inadequate protection from the sun or contain harmful chemicals. The biggest offenders, the EWG said, are the industry leaders: Coppertone, Banana Boat and Neutrogena.

While 3 out of 3 industry leaders are rather upset with the EWG report, and while some dermatologists criticize it for hyperbole, the report does underscore several long-standing health concerns:

Sunscreens do not offer blanket protection from the sun and do little to prevent the most deadly form of skin cancer; reliance on them instead of, say, a hat and protective clothing, might be contributing to skin cancer; and the Food and Drug Administration has yet to issue any safety standards, mysteriously sitting on a set of recommendations drafted 30 years ago.

Life After Cancer

2008-05-20T08:40:00.000-07:00

What would you do if you faced a rare form of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in late 2006?

Well, if you were Boston Red Sox pitcher Jon Lester you would come back a year later and pitch in the World Series. Then, this season you would throw a no-hitter against the Kansas City Royals.

What a guy.

Lester (3-2) allowed just two baserunners, walking Billy Butler in the second inning and Esteban German to open the ninth; he also had an error when he threw away a pickoff attempt.

Lester struck out nine, fanning Alberto Callaspo to end the game before pumping both fists in the air.

Catcher Jason Varitek, who has been behind the plate for a record four no-hitters, lifted his pitcher into the air. Manager Terry Francona gave a long, hard embrace to Lester, who missed the end of the 2006 season after he was diagnosed with a rare form of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.

"I've been through a lot the last couple of years. He's been like a second dad to me," Lester said. "It was just a special moment right there."

Heparin Held at the Border

2008-03-15T06:01:00.000-07:00

The federal government is stopping all heparin imports at the border so the blood thinner can undergo testing for a contaminant thought to have caused the deaths of 19 people in the United States.

The Food and Drug Administration announced the move Friday, the latest step in its widening investigation of hundreds of allergic-type reactions linked to Baxter International's heparin injections.

The FDA found the contaminant in 20 of 28 samples of raw heparin that the agency tested from Baxter's main supplier, a Chinese factory owned by Wisconsin-based Scientific Protein Laboratories.

A different brand of heparin also has been recalled in Germany after 80 patients there got sick, and the German manufacturer said Friday that it was narrowing down the source of contamination to another Chinese supplier.

FDA announced some good news Friday, saying it had learned of no additional deaths and just two more allergic reactions since Baxter recalled the last of the suspect heparin late last month.

Scientists don't yet know exactly what the contaminant is, except that it mimics heparin so closely that standard drug-purity tests won't catch it. Nor is it certain that the contaminant is to blame for the allergic reactions, although it is the prime suspect.

Genetic Link to Gout Discovered

2008-03-10T05:31:00.000-07:00

A reason why millions worldwide fall prey to the painful joint condition gout may have been uncovered.

A rise in UK gout cases has been blamed on increasingly unhealthy lifestyles. However, genetic analysis of more than 12,000 people, published in the journal Nature Genetics, has found that a gene variant may also raise the risk.

Researchers at the MRC Human Genetics Unit, in Edinburgh, said the gene, and the protein it controls, might one day be targeted by new gout drugs.

Food Poisonings Rise in China

2008-03-09T07:06:00.000-07:00

Incidence of food poisoning deaths in China showed a dramatic increase last year.

Citing figures from the Ministry of Health, Xinhua News Agency said 258 people were killed last year, up 32 percent from the previous year. The report said that while the number of deaths rose in 2007, overall cases of food poisoning fell to 506, 26 percent less than the previous year.

"Most of the fatal food poisoning incidents were caused by toxic seafood, meat and produce," Xinhua said.

It was not possible to verify whether the figures included all the food poisoning cases in China, a country of 1.3 billion people. Many cases in rural areas, where food is often mislabeled and sanitation problems are common, go unreported or are covered up by local authorities.

Pregnancy, Caffeine Do Not Mix Well

2008-01-22T06:02:00.000-08:00

A new study indicates caffeine may increase the risk of miscarriage, so researchers suggest pregnant women decrease their intake or do away with it altogether.

The new study, published Monday in the Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, finds that pregnant women who consume 200 milligrams or more of caffeine a day —- the amount in 10 ounces of coffee or 25 ounces of tea —- may double their risk of miscarriage.

Pregnant women should try to give up caffeine for at least the first three or four months, said the lead author of the study, Dr. De-Kun Li, a reproductive and perinatal epidemiologist at the Kaiser Permanente Division of Research in Oakland, Calif.

"If ... they really can't do it, think of cutting to one cup or switching to decaf," Li said.

Professional groups such as the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the American Society for Reproductive Medicine have not taken official positions on caffeine.

On Friday, the March of Dimes Web site said most experts agreed the amount of caffeine found in 8 to 16 ounces of coffee a day was safe. It noted that some studies had linked higher amounts to miscarriage and low birth weight, but stated: "However, there is no solid proof that caffeine causes these problems. Until more is known, women should limit their caffeine intake during pregnancy."

Now, having reviewed the new study, the March of Dimes plans to change its message to advise women who are pregnant or trying to conceive to limit their daily caffeine intake to 200 milligrams or less, said Janis Biermann, its senior vice president of education and health promotion.

Merck Agrees to Settle Vioxx cases

2007-11-09T08:00:00.000-08:00

After spending millions in legal fees, Merck sees the light, or at least the bottom line, and agrees to settle pending Vioxx lawsuits.

The pharmaceutical giant Merck reverses its course and agrees to settle Vioxx lawsuits. Merck will pay nearly $5 billion to settle nearly 27,000 pending lawsuits. Up until this time, the company's policy was to fight each suit individually, a strategy it was winning. But after spending an estimated $600 million a year in legal fees, Merck suits must have realized it wouldn't take long to exceed the settlement amount. Of course the real winners will be the lawyers. What else is new?

Chinese Toys Include 'Date Rape' Drug

2007-11-08T12:02:00.000-08:00

This is unbelievable. Chinese toys are killing us.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Millions of Chinese-made toys have been pulled from shelves in North America and Australia after scientists found they contain a chemical that converts into a powerful date rape drug when ingested. Two children in the U.S. and three in Australia were hospitalized after swallowing the beads.

With only seven weeks until Christmas, the recall is yet another blow to the toy industry -- already bruised by a slew of recalls this past summer.

In the United States, the toy goes by the name Aqua Dots, a highly popular holiday toy distributed by Toronto-based Spin Master Toys. They are called Bindeez in Australia, where they were named toy of the year at an industry function earlier this year.

It could not immediately be learned whether Aqua Dots beads are made in the same factories as the Bindeez product. Both are sold by Australia-based Moose Enterprises.

The toy beads are sold in general merchandise stores and over the Internet for use in arts and crafts projects. They can be arranged into designs and fused together when sprayed with water.

Scientists say a chemical coating on the beads, when ingested, metabolizes into the so-called date rape drug gamma hydroxy butyrate. When eaten, the compound -- made from common and easily available ingredients -- can induce unconsciousness, seizures, drowsiness, coma and death.

Naren Gunja from Australia's Poisons Information Center said the drug's effect on children was "quite serious ... and potentially life-threatening."

Chemotherapy increases heart disease risk

2007-10-08T14:42:00.000-07:00

WASHINGTON - Breast cancer survivors may face increased risk of heart disease — and doctors are debating if it's time to largely abandon a chemotherapy mainstay that is one reason for the problem.

Drugs called anthracyclines are a breast chemo staple despite a well-known risk: They weaken some women's hearts. What's new is research suggesting the drugs work no better than safer alternatives for most women.

It's a controversy born of success: Treatment advances are enabling more women than ever before to beat breast cancer, and some 2.4 million survivors are alive today. Now a move is under way to determine just how many women are vulnerable to heart disease because of their cancer battle, and how to help them.

Implanted chips linked to tumors

2007-09-10T07:08:00.000-07:00

Several years ago, the Food and Drug Administration approved the use of implanted microchips by the a company called VeriChip Corp. What neither the company nor the FDA mentioned were earlier studies indicating the implants were linked to malignant tumors in animals.

"The transponders were the cause of the tumors," said Keith Johnson, a retired toxicologic pathologist, explaining in a phone interview the findings of a 1996 study he led at the Dow Chemical Co. in Midland, Mich.

Leading cancer specialists reviewed the research for The Associated Press and, while cautioning that animal test results do not necessarily apply to humans, said the findings troubled them. Some said they would not allow family members to receive implants, and all urged further research before the glass-encased transponders are widely implanted in people.

To date, about 2,000 of the so-called radio frequency identification, or RFID, devices have been implanted in humans worldwide, according to VeriChip Corp. The company, which sees a target market of 45 million Americans for its medical monitoring chips, insists the devices are safe, as does its parent company, Applied Digital Solutions, of Delray Beach, Fla.

"We stand by our implantable products which have been approved by the FDA and/or other U.S. regulatory authorities," Scott Silverman, VeriChip Corp. chairman and chief executive officer, said in a written response to AP questions.

The company was "not aware of any studies that have resulted in malignant tumors in laboratory rats, mice and certainly not dogs or cats," but he added that millions of domestic pets have been implanted with microchips, without reports of significant problems.

"In fact, for more than 15 years we have used our encapsulated glass transponders with FDA approved anti-migration caps and received no complaints regarding malignant tumors caused by our product."

The FDA also stands by its approval of the technology.

Mississippi Fattest State

2007-08-28T16:25:00.000-07:00

Chalk it up to all the fried food, but Mississippi has the dubious distinction of being the fattest state in the union.

JACKSON, Miss. - Experts say Mississippians need to skip the gravy, say no to the fried pickles and start taking brisk walks to fight an epidemic of obesity.

According to a new study, this Deep South state is the fattest in the nation. The Trust for America's Health, a research group that focuses on disease prevention, says Mississippi is the first state where more than 30 percent of adults are considered obese.

Aside from making Mississippi the butt of late-night talk show jokes, the obesity epidemic has serious implications for public policy.

If current trends hold, the state could face enormous increases in the already significant costs of treating diabetes, heart disease and other ailments caused by the extra poundage.

"We've got a long way to go. We love fried chicken and fried anything and all the grease and fatback we can get in Mississippi," said Democratic state Rep. Steve Holland, chairman of the Public Health Committee.

Poverty and obesity often go hand in hand, doctors say, because poor families stretch their budgets by buying cheaper, processed foods that have higher fat content and lower nutritional value.

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee — a self-described "recovering foodaholic" who lost 110 pounds several years ago — explained during a Southern Governors' Association meeting in Biloxi last weekend that there are historical reasons poor people often fry their foods: It's an inexpensive way to increase the calories and feed a family.

Mississippi is one of the poorest states in the nation, and the Delta is the poorest region of Mississippi.

Dr. Marshall Bouldin, director of the diabetes and metabolism center at the University of Mississippi Medical Center, told the Southern governors that if the Delta counties were excluded, "Mississippi would wind up being about 30th in diabetes problems in the United States."

Mississippi's public schools already are taking steps to prevent obesity.

Marijuana and Psychosis

2007-07-29T07:03:00.000-07:00

A recent study of previous studies on the effects of smoking marijuana claims a link between the weed and psychosis. However, do direct link has been shown.

“The available evidence now suggests that cannabis is not as harmless as many people think,” said Dr. Stanley Zammit, one of the study’s authors and a lecturer in the department of psychological medicine at Cardiff University.
The researchers said they couldn’t prove that marijuana use itself increases the risk of psychosis, a category of several disorders with schizophrenia being the most commonly known.
There could be something else about marijuana users, “like their tendency to use other drugs or certain personality traits, that could be causing the psychoses,” Zammit said.

Bush to have colonoscopy

2007-07-20T12:19:00.000-07:00

In what is described as a routine procedure, George W. Bush is set to have a colonoscopy on Saturday.

No word on if the doctors expect to find his head.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush will undergo what aides described as a routine colonoscopy on Saturday at the Camp David presidential retreat.
During the time Bush, 61, is under anesthesia, he would delegate power to Vice President Dick Cheney, White House spokesman Tony Snow said.

A colonoscopy allows doctors to look inside the large intestine for possible tumors. A small camera is threaded into the colon and usually is equipped to remove any suspicious-looking lesions on the spot.

Snow said the procedure will be a follow-up to a test Bush had in 2002. Bush had small growths called polyps removed prior to becoming president, although none was found in 2002.

Saturday's procedure will be done by a team from the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, under the supervision of Bush's physician, Dr. Richard Tubb, Snow said.

"Although no polyps were noted in the exam in 2002, age and history would suggest that there's a reasonable chance that polyps will be noted this time," Snow said. "If so, they'll be removed and evaluated microscopically."

While benign, polyps can develop into cancer over time if left untreated.

Teen Birth Rate Down

2007-07-13T12:44:00.000-07:00

The birth rate for U.S. teens is lower because they are having less sex and using condoms more often.

From the AP:

More young people are finishing high school, too, and more little kids are being read to, according to the latest government snapshot on the well-being of the nation's children. It's good news on a number of key wellness indicators, experts said of the report being released Friday.

"The implications for the population are quite positive in terms of their health and their well-being," said Edward Sondik, director of the National Center for Health Statistics. "The lower figure on teens having sex means the risk of sexually transmitted diseases is lower."

In 2005, 47 percent of high school students — 6.7 million — reported ever having had sexual intercourse, down from 54 percent in 1991. The rate of those who reported having had sex has remained the same since 2003.

Thirty-four percent of the students reported having had sex during a three-month period in 2005. Of those, 63 percent — about 3 million — used condoms. That's up from 46 percent in 1991.

The teen birth rate, the report said, was 21 per 1,000 young women ages 15-17 in 2005 — an all-time low. It was down from 39 births per 1,000 teens in 1991.

"This is very good news," said Sondik. "Young teen mothers and their babies are at a greater risk of both immediate and long-term difficulties."

FDA Approves Dementia Patch, Says Novartis

2007-07-09T10:07:00.000-07:00

Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp. is claiming approval of a skin patch to treat dementia by the Food and Drug Administration.

From Wire Reports:

The drug in the patch, called Exelon or rivastigmine, is the same as that now available in capsule form but provides a regular and continuous dose throughout the day, according to Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp. Since the drug enters the bloodstream directly, the patch also eliminates some of the gastrointestinal side effects associated with the drug when swallowed.

The drug is meant to treat the symptoms of mild to moderate dementia in patients with Alzheimer's disease. It also won Food and Drug Administration approval to treat patients with mild to moderate Parkinson's disease dementia, Novartis said.

About 4.5 million Americans have Alzheimer's. As the disease progresses, it robs patients of their memories and changes how they both think and behave. It's ultimately fatal.

Stem Cells Created from Eggs

2007-06-28T13:29:00.000-07:00

NEW YORK - Scientists say they've created embryonic stem cells by stimulating unfertilized eggs, a significant step toward producing transplant tissue that's genetically matched to women.

The advance suggests that someday, a woman who wants a transplant to treat a condition like diabetes or a spinal cord injury could provide eggs to a lab, which in turn could create tissue that her body wouldn't reject.

Ethicists disagreed on whether the strategy would avoid the long-standing ethical objections to creating embryonic stem cells by other means.

Circumscision Rate Drops

2007-06-19T09:21:00.000-07:00

From the LA Times:

According to data from the National Health and Social Life Survey, the U.S. circumcision rate peaked at nearly 90 percent in the early 1960s but began dropping in the '70s. By 2004, the most recent year for which government figures are available, about 57 percent of all male newborns delivered in hospitals were circumcised. In some states, the rate is well below 50 percent.

Experts say immigration patterns play the biggest role in the decline, which is steepest in Western states with big populations from Asian and Latin American countries where circumcision is uncommon. The trend has also accompanied a change in Americans' attitudes toward medicine and their bodies.

"The rates of drug-free labor and breast-feeding all rose during the 1980s, while the initial declines in male circumcision rates began during the 1980s as well," said Katharine Barrett, an anthropology lecturer at Stanford University. "It may have been part and parcel of the wider effort to reclaim bodies -- adult female and infant male -- from unnecessary and potentially harmful medical interventions."

FDA Cracking Down On Cadaver Parts

2007-06-12T12:37:00.000-07:00

The Food and Drug Administration, while saying no major problems exist, are nonetheless increasing the number of inspections it conducts of companies supplying body parts, including bone tissue, from cadavers for transplant.

From the Associated Press:

WASHINGTON - Federal regulators say they have dramatically boosted inspections of companies that harvest cadaver body parts for transplant, acknowledging weaknesses in government oversight of the multibillion-dollar human tissue industry that last year was rocked by scandal.

The U.S.
Food and Drug Administration said the inspections turned up no serious problems. But an internal task force report urges agency officials to set up a method for tracking body parts from cadaver to transplant patient — a system that currently doesn't go that far.

The targeted companies remove bones, tendons, cartilage, heart valves and other non-organ parts from corpses. These tissues are used in roughly 1 million medical procedures in the United States each year, many of them for routine knee and back surgeries.

TB Patient Denys Travel Ban

2007-06-06T13:11:00.000-07:00

From CNN:

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The tuberculosis patient who set off an international health scare by flying to Europe then Canada before driving back to the U.S. told lawmakers Wednesday that doctors told him he was not contagious.
Federal and local officials contended otherwise during testimony before a Senate Appropriations subcommittee.
Andrew Speaker, the 31-year-old lawyer from Atlanta, Georgia, who is now in isolation in a Denver, Colorado, hospital also told the panel that he was never ordered to stay in the United States.
"I've cooperated with anything anyone has asked me to do," Speaker said. "I looked to the people who I believe I should trust to tell me whether or not I'm a threat to those around me, and they told me I wasn't."
He added, "I didn't go running off or hide from people. It's complete fallacy and it's a lie."
A Fulton County, Georgia, health official, however, insisted that Speaker was told he was not highly contagious, rather than not contagious at all. Dr. Steven Katkowsky added that about 17 percent of TB cases are transmitted by people who are considered not highly contagious.
"The patient's chart indicates he was told he was not highly contagious," Katkowsky said.
Federal and local health officials said Speaker took an international flight two days earlier than planned after he was told he had a drug-resistant form of TB and should not travel.

Obama Takes Hits Over Universal Health Care

2007-05-30T09:00:00.000-07:00

From ABC News:

It's the issue of the day for Democrats: health care.

Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., released his plan for what he calls "universal" health care Tuesday, announcing, "As president, I will sign a universal health-care plan into law by the end of my first term in office."

Universal health care is something the majority of Americans -- 56 percent -- say they want, according to an ABC News poll. While Obama's plan may curry favor with voters, it's making him a target among his fellow contenders.

Immediately after Obama unveiled his plan, Democratic candidate John Edwards called it "simply inadequate."

Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., commended Obama for "entering" the debate, but took a shot at the coverage of his plan, saying, "We have to achieve true universal health care."

While Clinton's efforts to promote universal health care nearly sank her husband's presidency in 1993, in the upcoming election, a health-care plan is emerging as a "must have" for every serious candidate. Some say for Democrats, it needs to be universal.

"This is really an issue for everybody, because health-care costs are skyrocketing," said Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA, a health-care advocacy organization.

But the candidate to keep up with may be a Republican. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney is using his state's universal plan as one of his greatest legislative achievements.

Some say the issue could soon get even hotter with the release of Michael Moore's new film, "Sicko," his scathing look at the American health-care system.

Woman Gives Birth At 60

2007-05-24T09:14:00.000-07:00

Sixty-year-old Frieda Birnbaum of New Jersey is the oldest woman in the U.S. to give birth. She defended her decision on NBC's Today program:

Woman defends decision to give birth at 60

Those who believe it is wrong for older women to bear children need to get in step with a society that is living longer, a 60-year-old woman who gave birth to twins this week said Thursday on TODAY.

“It's wonderful. It's wonderful,” Frieda Birnbaum, who delivered healthy baby boys on Tuesday, said during a live interview from a New Jersey hospital.

“I think those people need to get ready for what's coming up in our society. Whenever there's anything new, people cannot comprehend or have difficult getting comfortable ... There are a lot of middle-aged women [having babies] — 40s, 50s, now I just turned 60. That's going to be acceptable. They have to just keep up with what's going on with society.”

Study: Avandia causes heart risks

2007-05-22T11:36:00.000-07:00

From The Los Angeles Times:

A widely prescribed drug to treat Type 2 diabetes substantially increases the risk of heart attacks and death from cardiovascular disease, according to a study released today that critics say questions the government's ability to monitor drug safety.

Patients who took Avandia to reduce their blood sugar levels were 43% more likely to have a heart attack than patients who were given other medications or a placebo.

Researchers also found that the drug boosted the chances of dying of heart disease by 64%, according to the report in the New England Journal of Medicine.

The Food and Drug Administration responded by issuing a safety alert on Avandia, recommending that diabetes patients who take the medication discuss the heart risk with their doctors.

Military Moms Need Help

2007-05-14T13:48:00.000-07:00

A congressional report says more help is needed for wives of service personnel in war zones.

WASHINGTON - Mothers in the U.S. military are stressed, poorly paid and need more help caring for their children, according to a report issued by Congress on Friday.

Nearly half of all women in the active-duty military have been deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, and 24,475 women are there now, the report by the Joint Economic Committee said.

Yet child-care services are not keeping up with longer and more frequent deployments, said the report, released to coincide with Mother’s Day.

Deal on AIDS drugs announced by Former President Clinton

2007-05-08T10:18:00.000-07:00

From wire reports:

NEW YORK - Former President
Bill Clinton announced agreements with drug companies Tuesday to lower the price in the developing world of
AIDS drugs resistant to initial treatments and to make a once-a-day AIDS pill available for less than $1 a day.

The drugs to battle so-called "second-line" anti-retrovirals are needed by patients who develop a resistance to first-line treatment and currently cost 10 times as much, Clinton said. Nearly half a million patients will require these drugs by 2010.

Clinton's foundation negotiated agreements with generic drug makers Cipla Ltd. and Matrix Laboratories Ltd. that he said would generate an average savings of 25 percent in low-income countries and 50 percent in middle-income countries.

Clinton also announced a reduced price for a once-daily first-line AIDS pill that combines the drugs tenofovir, lamivudine and efavirenz.

Does Pot Trigger Psychoses?

2007-05-01T10:43:00.000-07:00

A British study maintains that one of the ingredients in marijuana - tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC - can trigger psychoses in some people. The study was small - only 15 subjects.

From the Associated Press:

The results, to be presented at an international mental health conference in London on Tuesday and Wednesday, provides physical evidence of the drug's damaging influence on the human brain.

"We've long suspected that cannabis is linked to psychoses, but we have never before had scans to show how the mechanism works," said Dr. Philip McGuire, a professor of psychiatry at King's College, London.

In analyzing MRI scans of the study's subjects, McGuire and his colleagues found that THC interfered with activity in the inferior frontal cortex, a region of the brain associated with paranoia.

"THC is switching off that regulator," McGuire said, effectively unleashing the paranoia usually kept under control by the frontal cortex.

Bad Pet Food Probe Expands

2007-04-25T09:23:00.000-07:00

The Food and Drug Administration is planning to test hogs that ate tainted pet food to see if any entered the food chain for humans.

Excerpt From MSNBC:

However, the Food and Drug Administration said the urine of some hogs tested positive for the chemical, melamine, in North Carolina and South Carolina as well as California.

“At this point, I don’t have a definitive answer other than to say that the issue is being addressed,” Stephen Sundlof, the FDA’s chief veterinarian, told reporters when asked if any of the hogs had entered the human food supply. A poultry farm also may be involved, he added.

The California Agriculture Department said separately it was trying to contact 50 people who bought pork that may have come from pigs fed food containing melamine. The state’s health department recommended humans not consume the meat, but said any health risk was minimal.

There is little research on melamine’s effect on humans, according to World Health Organization, but the chemical has been studied in animals for its risk of kidney problems and cancer. The WHO does not classify the chemical as a carcinogen for people.

New Jersey Company's Medical Devices Seized

2007-04-24T08:49:00.000-07:00

Shelhigh, Inc. of Union, NJ, has had its medical devices seized by the FDA. The company will fight the order in federal court.

April 22, 2007 -- U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) investigators and U.S. Marshals recently seized all implantable medical devices from Shelhigh, Inc. after FDA inspectors claimed significant deficiencies in the company's manufacturing processes that may compromise the safety and effectiveness of the products, particularly their sterility. Shelhigh denies all FDA claims upon which the seizure was based and intends to challenge the decision in Federal Court (07 Civ 1769 WJM, New Jersey).

"I am deeply disappointed by the FDA decision which was made after the full cooperation of Shelhigh during an intensive 10 week inspection of our facility by the FDA," said Shelhigh founder and Chief Scientific Officer, Shlomo Gabbay, M.D. "During this inspection Shelhigh fully addressed all observations raised by FDA personnel, repeatedly requested corrections of statements made by the FDA in their site report, and also repeatedly requested meetings with the FDA to discuss any outstanding issues as well as concerns which arose during the 10 week inspection, and these meetings were also refused by the FDA."

Getting Paid for blogging

2007-04-13T14:38:00.000-07:00

We love this blog and we love doing it. What more could we ask?

How about making money for doing what we were doing for free!

The affiliate program at Team Link Network is doing just that. We signed up for free, put their banner up with our ID and that's it.

They pay 25 percent of every sale we generate and they pay weekly. We think we have died and gone to blogger heaven.

You've got to take advantage of this great network.

Do supplements work?

2007-04-09T08:36:00.000-07:00

This CNN report says dietary supplements claiming to help people lack scientific evidence.

Exerpt:

When studies have been done -- conducted by academic researchers, not supplement-makers -- the results are less than impressive. Here are just a few examples:

Vitamin Eexternal link: In a massive study two years ago involving nearly 40,000 woman, the famed Women's Health Initiative found that taking vitamin E supplements they did nothing to improve cardiovascular health or prevent cancer.

Ginkgo bilobaexternal link:The popular memory aid didn't help 230 people OVER 60 who were tested by Williams College researchers in a 2002 study.

Coenzyme Q10:external linkAccording to the Web site of the National Cancer Institute, "Coenzyme Q10 has not been carefully tested to see if it is safe and effective."

Mental Health Concern for US Troops

2007-03-29T09:09:00.000-07:00

Thousands of US troops are returning from Iraq suffering from post traumatic stress disorder. Will the finally be getting the help the need?

From Reuters:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Retired
U.S. Navy medic Charlie Anderson twice thought about committing suicide: once when he feared he would be sent back to
Iraq in 2004 and again last year when a friend and fellow veteran killed himself.

"I can't say that I can't go because we don't do that, I also can't go because I'm putting people in danger if I do," he said of his first brush with suicidal thoughts, which came while he was awaiting his second deployment.

In the end, Anderson was not deployed but it sparked a two-year effort to get help for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), one of thousands of soldiers returning from the wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan facing a battle to re-enter everyday life.

While much of the attention has been on physical wounds like traumatic brain injuries, as well as squalid living conditions for recovering soldiers, doctors, families and lawmakers are expressing growing concerns that veterans are not be getting the right mental health help.

Those worries come as
President George W. Bush has ordered almost 30,000 more troops to Iraq. Already 1.5 million soldiers have been deployed in the U.S.-led war on terrorism, with one-third serving at least two combat tours, which increases the chances of PTSD.

Despite finally receiving treatment, Anderson finds himself in the middle of a divorce and still constantly on edge -- jumpy at loud noises and always eyeing the exits of rooms.

"I have triggers every day, but I'm learning how to deal with them," he said.

The
Department of Veterans Affairs estimates 12 percent to 20 percent of those who served in Iraq suffer from PTSD. A 2004 Army study found 16.6 percent of those returning from combat tested positive for the disorder.

Individuals suffer from PTSD if they relive the trauma, experience emotional numbness, isolation, depression, substance abuse, and memory problems. These often lead to job instability and marital troubles.

Bad News for "Good" Cholesterol

2007-03-26T13:00:00.000-07:00

Recent studies show that the new drugs to increase the "good" cholesterol do not prevent heart disease.

From AP:

NEW ORLEANS - The hot new strategy of trying to prevent heart disease by raising good cholesterol had more setbacks Monday as new studies showed that experimental drugs didn't work and also had safety problems.

The news follows Pfizer Inc.'s abandonment in December of an $800 million investment in torcetrapib, the leading contender in this class of drugs, because it raised the risk of heart attacks and deaths.

Heart specialists have been anxious to know whether the problems extend to all such drugs and doom this approach.

"A lot of people think it's the next big thing, and we'll need to understand what went wrong with torcetrapib to move forward," said Dr. Steven Nissen, a Cleveland Clinic heart specialist who is president of the American College of Cardiology.

Cancer Returns to the Edwards Family

2007-03-22T13:13:00.000-07:00

CNN is reporting this:

CHAPEL HILL, North Carolina (CNN) -- Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards said Thursday his wife's cancer has returned but his bid for the White House will continue.

"The campaign goes on," the former senator from North Carolina said at a news conference, contradicting earlier media reports to the contrary.

John Edwards said tests this week had shown his wife, Elizabeth, had cancer in a rib on her right side. He said the cancer is treatable but not curable.

"We are very optimistic about this," he said, noting that the tumor is small in size and has a "relatively minimal presence."

Elizabeth Edwards said she was "incredibly optimistic" and said her expectations about the future were unchanged.

"I expect to do next week all the things I did last week. And the week after that, and next year at the same time," she said.

And she wanted her husband to continue his run for the presidency.

Weekend heart attacks

2007-03-19T09:38:00.000-07:00

Heart attacks more deadly on weekend, study finds

TRENTON, N.J. — Heart attack patients have a slightly higher risk of death if they go to the hospital on the weekend, when they are more likely to miss or wait longer for crucial treatments, one of the largest studies of the issue finds.

Although the increased risk of death is small, roughly 5 percent higher in the month after an attack occurs, it can mean potentially thousands more deaths in the United States annually. The study indicated that weekend patients waited longer for angioplasty and other procedures, likely because of reduced staffing.

Even so, doctors say you shouldn't avoid a weekend hospital visit if you think you are having a heart attack or stroke. A delay of even an hour or two raises chances of death or serious heart or brain damage.

Is HPV Vaccine health boon?

2007-03-13T11:31:00.000-07:00

From AlterNet:

Merck launched its new cervical cancer vaccine with a major advertising and lobbying blitz, and pushed to make the drug mandatory for all 11- to 12- year-old girls. Cervical cancer, caused by the sexually transmitted human papillomavirus (HPV), affects 10,000 women in the United States every year, and kills 3,700. The toll is far greater in the developing world, where women lack diagnostic Pap tests.

Gardasil may well be what Merck claims: a lifesaving vaccine that protects against key HPV strains without any significant side effects. Because the drug is most effective on unexposed populations, the FDA recommends vaccinating girls as young as nine -- before they are sexually active.

Merck -- along with Women in Government (WIG), a recipient of Merck funding -- went one step further, advocating mandatory vaccination. WIG has introduced bills in 20 states; in Florida, Merck helped write the legislation. In Texas, brushing aside abstinence junkies and the legislature, Gov. Rick Perry issued an executive order requiring vaccination for all girls entering the sixth grade unless parents opt out.

The stealth timing (late on Friday, just before Super Bowl Sunday), politics (Perry is a pro-abstinence Christian Conservative), and speed of Perry's order (just months after the FDA approved the vaccine and before all the data have been published) raised questions. It soon emerged that the WIG state director is the mother-in-law of Perry's current chief of staff, and his former chief of staff is now one of Merck's three Texas lobbyists. The governor received $6,000 from Merck's political action committee.

The rest of the article

Where's the money?

2007-03-11T10:47:00.000-07:00

From the wasteful government files:

WASHINGTON - More than five years after the Sept. 11 attacks, the government cannot show how the $5 billion given to public health departments has better prepared the country for a bioterrorism attack or flu pandemic.

Congress responded to the 2001 strikes and anthrax-tainted letters sent to lawmakers by putting much more money toward emergency preparedness. State health departments typically get tens of millions of dollars per year to prepare for bioterrorism; it was in the hundreds of thousands before Sept. 11.

The money came with a catch: Washington had to set criteria to evaluate how well the dollars were spent. That assignment fell to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which has struggled with the task.

"We're not able to demonstrate accountability," said Craig Thomas, chief of the
CDC office that evaluates and monitors public health departments. "It's not just accountability to the CDC. It's accountability to your community. It's accountability to your local stakeholders and the people who fund you as well."

Thomas was speaking to public health leaders at a recent conference in Washington. His candid assessment does not mean local departments have squandered the money. Indeed, health officials say the departments are much better able to respond to major threats than they were five years to 10 years ago.

It is, however, an acknowledgment the CDC relies on anecdotal evidence to demonstrate the improvement. Congress demanded hard, statistical evidence.

New Lunch Standards?

2007-03-07T10:49:00.000-08:00

From Consumer Affairs:

March 6, 2007

Senators today introduced and began discussions on legislation that would enforce stricter regulations on unhealthy snack foods and beverages found in public schools.

"Unhealthy weight, even obesity, among children has increased dramatically over the past 30 to 40 years," Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) said at a Senate Agriculture Committee hearing.

"Rates of obesity among U.S. children and teens tripled between 1980 and 2002," Mary Lou Hennrich, executive director of Community Health Partnership, said at the hearing. "For individuals born in 2000, the chance of developing diabetes during their lifetime is 39 percent for females and 33 percent for males ... One needs to re-examine both the value and the effectiveness of local control with regards to children's health and nutrition."

Harkin, chairman of the Agriculture Committee introduced legislation that will update school nutrition mandates that are almost 30 years old.

Salmonella source in peanut butter found

2007-03-01T13:53:00.000-08:00

The Food and Drug Administation says the source of salmonella in Peter Pan and Great Value peanut butter has been found.

From MSNBC:

WASHINGTON - Federal inspectors found the strain of salmonella behind a recent food-poisoning outbreak at the ConAgra Foods Inc. plant that made the tainted peanut butter, the Food and Drug Administration said Thursday.

Beyond the Sylvester, Ga., plant, the strain also has been isolated from open jars of the company’s peanut butter and some of the 370 people who have fallen ill in the outbreak, the FDA said.

Is global warming making us sick?

2007-02-25T08:17:00.000-08:00

The LA Times has an article talking about the spread of illnesses to new places due to global warming. It's the kind of article that makes you think, unless you are Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe and are incapable of thinking.

Exerpt:

The spread of human disease has become one of the most worrisome subplots in the story of global warming. Incremental temperature changes have begun to redraw the distribution of bacteria, insects and plants, exposing new populations to diseases that they have never seen before.

A report from the World Health Organization estimated that in 2000 about 154,000 deaths around the world could be attributed to disease outbreaks and other conditions sparked by climate change.

The temperature change has been small, about 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit over the last 150 years, but it has been enough to alter disease patterns across the globe.

Free Drugs From Employers

2007-02-21T11:12:00.000-08:00

No, not those drugs, medications.

From The New York Times:

For years, employers have been pushing their workers to pay more for health care, raising premiums and out-of-pocket medical expenses in an effort to save money for the company and force workers to seek only the most necessary care.

Now some employers are reversing course, convinced that their pennywise approach does not always reduce long-term costs. In the most radical of various moves, a number of employers are now giving away drugs to help workers manage chronic conditions like diabetes, high blood pressure, asthma and depression.

Major employers like Marriott International, Pitney Bowes, the carpet maker Mohawk Industries and Maine’s state government have introduced free drug programs to avoid paying for more expensive treatments down the road.

Companies now recognize that “if you get people’s obesity down, cholesterol down, asthma down, you save a lot of money,” said Uwe E. Reinhardt, a health economist at Princeton University.

Salmonella fond in peanut butter

2007-02-16T08:41:00.000-08:00

The FDA issued a wrning about peanut butter that has been responsible for salmonella poisoning in 39 states since last year.

Consumer Affairs reports:

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is warning consumers not to eat certain jars of Peter Pan peanut butter or Great Value peanut butter due to risk of contamination with Salmonella Tennessee, a bacterium that causes foodborne illness.

The affected jars of Peter Pan and Great Value peanut butter have a product code located on the lid of the jar that begins with the number "2111." Both the Peter Pan and Great Value brands are manufactured in a single facility in Georgia by ConAgra. Great Value peanut butter made by other manufacturers is not affected.

If consumers have any of this Peter Pan or Great Value brand peanut butter in their home that has been purchased since May 2006, they should discard it.

Symptoms of foodborne illness caused by Salmonella include fever, diarrhea and abdominal cramps. In persons with poor underlying health or weakened immune systems, Salmonella can invade the bloodstream and cause life-threatening infections.

Individuals who have recently eaten Peter Pan and Great Value brand peanut butter beginning with product code 2111 and have experienced any of these symptoms should contact their doctor or health care provider immediately. Any such illnesses should be reported to state or local health authorities.

UK battle over right to die

2007-02-12T06:43:00.000-08:00

A terminally ill woman in the United Kingdom wants to die with dignity. Her doctors say no.

A 30-year-old terminally ill woman is to launch a legal battle to force doctors to allow her to die.

Kelly Taylor, from Bristol, who has been given less than a year to live, wants doctors to increase her medication to induce a coma-like state.

Mrs Taylor, who has heart and lung and spinal conditions, has also made a "living will" asking doctors not to provide artificial food or hydration.

Her doctors have refused her requests, saying it amounts to euthanasia.

Autism rate higher than thought

2007-02-09T11:57:00.000-08:00

From CNN:

ATLANTA, Georgia (AP) -- About one in 150 American children has autism, an urgent public health concern, said U.S. health officials Thursday who reported on the largest study done so far on the troubling disorder.

The new numbers, based on 2002 data from 14 states, are higher than previously reported.

Advocates said the study provides a sad new understanding of how common autism is, and should fuel efforts to get the government to spend hundreds of millions of additional dollars for autism research and services.

"This data today shows we're going to need more early intervention services and more therapists, and we're going to need federal and state legislators to stand up for these families," said Alison Singer, spokeswoman for Autism Speaks, the nation's largest organization advocating more services for autistic children.

The study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention calculated an average autism rate 6.6 per 1,000. That compares with last year's estimated rate of 5.5 in 1,000.

More kids having surgery for obesity

2007-02-07T03:34:00.000-08:00

Seems that surgery for being obese is not limited to adults. CNN says more kids are receiving the operations.

Exerpt:

A group of four hospitals, led by Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center in Ohio, are starting a large-scale study this spring examining how children respond to various types of weight-loss surgery, including the gastric bypass, in which a pouch is stapled off from the rest of the stomach and connected to the small intestine.

Three more hospitals have approval from the Food and Drug Administration to test how teens fare with a procedure called laparoscopic gastric banding, in which an elastic collar installed around the stomach limits how much someone can eat.

Is it time for National Health Insurance?

2007-02-02T07:26:00.000-08:00

Americans have the most expensive, least effective health system in the world. So what is the Bush Administration's big plan? Take coverage away from the middle class and give the lower class a tax deduction for insurance premiums.

The problem with this is that most of the lower class do not have enough income left over from paying food, housing and transportation to afford the premiums in the first place.

Which lead us to a National Health Insurance program. Read this on the subject from Stephen Fleischman.

Radiation patients sounding alarms

2007-01-30T08:45:00.000-08:00

If you have received radiation treatment for a medical issue, be aware that your body may set off the radiation detectors at airports and some public events.

From MSNBC:

MIAMI - When 75,000 football fans pack into Dolphin Stadium in Miami for the Super Bowl on Feb. 4, at least a few may want to carry notes from their doctors explaining why they’re radioactive enough to set off “dirty bomb” alarms.

With the rising use of radioisotopes in medicine and the growing use of radiation detectors in a security-conscious nation, patients are triggering alarms in places where they may not even realize they’re being scanned, doctors and security officials say.

Nearly 60,000 people a day in the United States undergo treatment or tests that leave tiny amounts of radioactive material in their bodies, according to the Society of Nuclear Medicine. It is not enough to hurt them or anyone else, but it is enough to trigger radiation alarms for up to three months.

A Must Read

2007-01-25T07:45:00.000-08:00

February in Black History Month and we recommend the following book:

Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present

Review exerpt:

Slavery and racism represent the evil underside of America's history -- along with the slaughter of Native Americans. We need go no further than the current Bushevik regime to see how many Americans still see white Christian supremacy over people of color as some sort of divine destiny.

That self-serving "mandate from God" was used as a justification for slavery -- and, as "Medical Apartheid" so ably illustrates, allowed the medical exploitation of American blacks in the most gruesome of experiments.

What could be dismissed by many readers as a book too troubling to take on is given a starred review by Publishers Weekly and praised for the author's gripping unfolding of this too-neglected racist legacy that America would like to bury.

In extolling the book, Publishers Weekly notes: "This groundbreaking study documents that the infamous Tuskegee experiments, in which black syphilitic men were studied but not treated, was simply the most publicized in a long, and continuing, history of the American medical establishment using African-Americans as unwitting or unwilling human guinea pigs. Washington, a journalist and bioethicist who has worked at Harvard Medical School and Tuskegee University, has accumulated a wealth of documentation, beginning with Thomas Jefferson exposing hundreds of slaves to an untried smallpox vaccine before using it on whites, to the 1990s, when the New York State Psychiatric Institute and Columbia University ran drug experiments on African-American and black Dominican boys to determine a genetic predisposition for "disruptive behavior." Washington is a great storyteller, and in addition to giving us an abundance of information on "scientific racism," the book, even at its most distressing, is compulsively readable."

Men: eat your veggies

2007-01-16T10:36:00.000-08:00

Men should eat their vegetables, especially a comination of tomato and broccoli to help ward off prostate cancer according to a new study. Of course the study was done with rats, but some women feel that is appropriate.

Exerpt:

University of Illinois researchers fed a diet containing 10 percent broccoli powder and 10 percent tomato powder to a group of rats that had been implanted with prostate cancer cells. Other groups of rats received either tomato powder or broccoli powder alone; a supplemental dose of lycopene (the red pigment in tomatoes believed to be an anti-cancer agent); or finasteride, a drug prescribed for men with enlarged prostates. Another group of rats was castrated.

After 22 weeks, the researchers found that the combined tomato/broccoli diet was the most effective at prostate tumor reduction. Of the other treatments, castration was the only one that came close to being as effective.

Sounds like it sure beats the alternative.

Blood Test Could Identify Heart Risk

2007-01-11T06:50:00.000-08:00

Consumer Affairs reports that some researchers have found that a simple blood test could identify those at risk of heart attack or stroke.

In light of the fact that heart attack and stroke are two of the three top killers of Americans, this could prove vital in lowering the death rate.

Of course, people will not only have to have the test, but follow the advice of their physicians to make it work.

Healthcare costs rises slowing

2007-01-10T11:32:00.000-08:00

According to a government report, the rapid rise in healthcare cost is slowing a bit. Is this good news?

Depends on how you look at it. It, like the LA Times you write a headline like "Healthcare spending eases off", you can pretend it's an overall good thing.

But the bottom line is that the rates continue to rise and many people, including those in the middle class, have to make choices between health and hunger.

Know the difference between cold, flu

2007-01-09T10:52:00.000-08:00

Knowing the difference between the common cold and the flu is vital this time of year.

More than 200,000 people in the U.S. are hospitalized and nearly 36,000 people die each year from influenza. Peak months for flu are December, January, February.

Check out the Science Daily video.

New hope for stem cell research

2007-01-08T13:03:00.000-08:00

The recent discovery that "some stem cells in human amniotic fluid appear to have many of the key therapeutic benefits of embryonic stem cells while avoiding their knottiest ethical, medical and logistical drawbacks" may be a boon to researchers.

"So far, we've been successful with every cell type we've attempted to produce from these stem cells," said study senior author Anthony Atala, director of the Institute for Regenerative Medicine at Wake Forest University School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, N.C. The report was published online by the journal Nature Biotechnology.

The finding points to a promising avenue of research that sidesteps the hurdles facing embryonic stem cell research, which has been hampered by moral objections to the destruction of embryos that occurs when the cells are harvested.

Actions against DuPont, Teflon

2007-01-02T07:20:00.000-08:00

AlterNet has listed the actions taken against DuPont by the government, environmental groups and private citizens and the chemicals they make including Teflon.

They include:

The 2004 settlement of a class-action lawsuit brought by Ohio and West Virginia residents living in the vicinity of DuPont's Washington Works plant required the company to spend more than $100 million to ensure that homes in the area are supplied with water uncontaminated with PFOA.
That settlement also led to initiation of a court-ordered C-8 Health Project, a five-year study correlating PFOA blood-serum levels in more than 60,000 area residents with the incidence of nine types of medical conditions, starting with cancer, heart disease and birth defects.
A court-appointed Science Panel of three prominent epidemiologists assigned to analyze and interpret the C-8 Health Project data requested permission this fall to study the effects of PFOA on nearly 5,000 Washington Works employees, many of whom have extremely high blood PFOA levels. DuPont is fighting to keep its employees out of the study, claiming that its own surveys of its workers have demonstrated that there are no health risks.
The EPA sued DuPont in 2004, charging that the company had for years been concealing information on PFOA pollution at Washington Works. A year ago, without admitting any wrongdoing, DuPont agreed to pay $16.5 million in fines and support of research and education -- the largest civil judgment EPA had ever obtained.
Since 2003, mostly small amounts of PFOA have been detected in groundwater and going into the Cape Fear River near DuPont's Fayetteville Works plant in North Carolina. Then, in 2005, water in a well close to the plant showed an extremely high level of 765 parts per billion (ppb). DuPont began producing a salt of PFOA at Fayetteville in 2002, when 3M, its former supplier, halted manufacture of the chemical at a plant in Minnesota in response to public pressure.
Last January, a Scientific Advisory Board appointed by the EPA to review the agency's risk assessment of PFOA voted, by a 12-4 majority, to recommend labeling PFOA as "likely to be carcinogenic" in humans, based on animal studies. DuPont disputes the designation, and EPA has not included it in its as-yet unfinished assessment.
In April, residents of the area around DuPont's Chamber Works plant in Salem Co., New Jersey, filed a lawsuit claiming that the plant had contaminated their water supply with PFCs and that the company had known for years that it was doing so.
Around the same time, class-action cases against DuPont in 12 states were consolidated as one big case in federal court in Iowa, alleging that the company did not inform consumers that it knew Teflon can emit harmful fumes when overheated.
In a Nov. 20 consent order, EPA forced DuPont to agree that if the water supply of any household near Washington Works showed a PFOA concentration above 0.5 ppb, the company would pay to provide water treatment or an alternative water supply. The agreement was prompted by findings that people living near the plant had very high blood concentrations of PFOA, 60 times the national average.
Also in November, a committee of California's Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment met to consider making PFOA a top-priority chemical for review as a possible carcinogen under state's Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act. The committee is currently divided on the issue, but if the agency decides to designate PFOA as cancer-causing, any product containing the chemical will have to be so labeled. To have their products carry that stigma in a state the size of California would no doubt mean heavy financial losses to DuPont and other companies.

Science and ghosts

2006-12-30T05:59:00.000-08:00

A recent study proves ghosts are only electrical impulses in the brain. Or does it?

Ghosts in the Machine

Virus Grounds Cruise Ship

2006-12-12T07:36:00.000-08:00

From the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

MIAMI — The world's largest cruise ship was held in port Monday for intensive cleaning after a second outbreak of gastrointestinal illness in two voyages sickened 108 people.

More than 380 passengers and crew members aboard Royal Caribbean's Freedom of the Seas were sickened by norovirus during a cruise Nov. 26-Dec. 3. The ship was cleaned before its next cruise, but 97 passengers and 11 crew members became sick with the same illness last week, officials at the Miami-based cruise line said.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended keeping the ship in port and will oversee repeated cleaning of "high-touch" surfaces such as door handles, railings and elevator buttons, officials said. Two additional doctors and 45 more cleaning staff will be aboard for its next voyage, now scheduled to begin Tuesday.

The ship carried more than 3,900 passengers on its latest cruise.

More>>>

Study Termination Stuns Pfizer

2006-12-04T07:08:00.000-08:00

From the LA Times:

Pfizer Inc., the world's largest pharmaceutical company, suffered a severe blow this weekend when it terminated clinical trials of a touted cholesterol drug after a high number of patient deaths.

The decision to stop all clinical trials of torcetrapib also cast doubt on what medical experts had hoped would be a great advance in the treatment of heart disease.

"I am very disappointed," said Dr. Steven Nissen, chairman of cardiovascular medicine at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio and chief medical investigator in Pfizer's trials, which were halted Saturday. "We had high hopes for this drug."

Investment analysts warned that Pfizer would have to expand its cost-cutting program and accelerate other projects to buttress its shares, which are likely to drop today as investors cool to the company's prospects.

More...

Treatment for Spinal Cord Injury Pain

2006-11-28T06:13:00.000-08:00

From Newswise:

Newswise — Spinal cord injury patients with moderate to severe nerve pain experienced less pain and in some cases no pain while taking the drug pregabalin, according to a study published in the November 28, 2006, issue of Neurology, the scientific journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

“The findings are promising as spinal cord injury pain is a condition which generally responds poorly to currently available treatments,” said study author Philip J. Siddall, MBBS, PhD, with Royal North Shore Hospital in Sydney, Australia.

The study, considered to be the largest randomized controlled trial of spinal cord injury patients with nerve pain, involved 137 adults in Australia over a 12-week period. Half of the group received pregabalin; the other half received a placebo.

Researchers found at the end of 12 weeks, fewer than 16 percent of patients taking pregabalin had severe pain compared with 43 percent in the placebo group. And over one-third of patients in the pregabalin group had no or mild pain.

The study also found pregabalin reduced sleep and anxiety problems compared to the placebo group.

More>>>

Anemia drug may damage heart

2006-11-16T13:59:00.000-08:00

From the New York Times:

A medical study to be released today suggests that high doses of a best-selling drug used to treat anemia in dialysis and cancer patients may increase the risk of heart problems and deaths.

Almost a million Americans a year receive prescriptions for the drug, known as epoetin, or darbepoetin, a closely related drug also used in anemia treatment. Worldwide, sales of the two drugs — sold under the brand names Epogen, Procrit and Aranesp — topped $9 billion last year for Amgen and Johnson & Johnson, their makers.

Researchers for the study, to be published in The New England Journal of Medicine, divided anemic patients with kidney disease into two groups. One group received epoetin with a goal of almost fully correcting their anemia, a lack of red blood cells associated with fatigue and shortness of breath.

The others were allowed to remain more anemic and generally received less epoetin. Patients in the first group were 34 percent more likely to die or suffer heart problems than those in the second.

Dr. Ajay Singh, an associate professor at Harvard Medical School and the study’s lead author, said the results were surprising and should encourage doctors to treat anemia less aggressively.

Store-Brand Acetaminophen Caplets Recalled

2006-11-10T07:08:00.000-08:00

The Food and Drug Administration alerted the public to a voluntary recall of generic acetaminophen caplets manufactured by Perrigo Company of Allegan, Michigan.

The FDA published a list of the batch numbers affected and encouraged people to check their bottles of the pain reliever against the list. The caplets were distributed under the store-brand names of Wal-Mart, CVS, Safeway, SuperValu and more than 120 other major retailers.

Be careful when buying contacts

2006-11-06T08:24:00.000-08:00

From Consumer Affairs:

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott has filed lawsuits against two San Antonio businesses that have dispensed contact lenses to consumers without prescriptions.

The suits request an injunction to halt their illegal practices, which, in the case of one business, New Look Cosmetics, resulted in at least one eye injury to a person, resulting in temporary vision impairment.

New Look Cosmetics and its owner, Florencio Landin Jr., and Main Optical and its owners, Yanett Salinas and Hector Salinas Gomez are named in the suits. Both operated from local flea markets illegally, and both were allegedly placing consumers at risk for eye injury by selling contact lenses without obtaining the proper prescriptions from eye doctors.

Medicare Coverage Gap to Widen

2006-11-03T06:28:00.000-08:00

Consumer Affairs reports that the coverage gap in the new Medicare prescription drug plan will grow for some seniors in 2007.

A consumer group warns that some seniors who depend on the new Medicare prescription drug benefit will find it less helpful in 2007.

Families USA says its analysis shows changes to the plan will affect seniors in the so-called "doughnut hole" -- the coverage gap that Congress designed to make the Medicare Part D program less expensive.

That gap refers to the cutoff in Medicare drug coverage that occurs when a participant's total drug costs reach $2,250. The coverage picks back up again after costs exceed $5,100.

In 13 states next year, there will be no drug plans that offer coverage in the so-called "doughnut hole," the big drug coverage gap in the Medicare Part D prescription drug program, for the top medicines prescribed to seniors, according to the report.

In 2006, there were only four such states, but the number of seniors without access to such doughnut hole coverage will increase from 375,000 to 6.6 million in 2007 - an 18-fold increase.

Reversing Heart Damage

2006-11-02T09:03:00.000-08:00

From Reuters:

BOSTON (Reuters) - A device that helps severely damaged hearts pump may be able to do what was once thought impossible -- reverse heart failure in people who are weeks away from death, British researchers reported on Wednesday.

The left ventricular assist device, or LVAD, can boost the heart's ability to function, allowing it to recover if used with the right drugs, the researchers said in a study.

Meanwhile, a second study found that statin drugs, already found to lower the risk of heart attack, stroke and other heart conditions, reduced the rate of death from heart failure by 24 percent.

The studies, published in this week's issues of the
New England Journal of Medicine and the
Journal of the American Medical Association, bring new hope for heart failure -- one of the most devastating chronic heart conditions.

Trans-fat ban gains traction

2006-10-31T09:52:00.000-08:00

New York City's proposed ban on trans-fats is gaining momentum:

NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York City's proposal for a near ban on artificial trans fat in restaurant food received overwhelming support at a hearing on Monday, as fast-food chain KFC separately said it would stop using oil containing the artery-clogging fat.

The American College of Cardiology was one of several medical groups that told the New York City Health Department hearing that trans fat needed to be removed to help the United States combat obesity and heart disease.

"We're all starting to look like Mr. Potato Head," said Howard Weintraub of New York University Medical Center. He was one of nearly 70 people who addressed the public hearing, a vast majority of whom supported the proposal.

FDA Issue Effexor Warning

2006-10-26T06:46:00.000-07:00

The Food and Drug Administration has issued an advisory asking physicians to prescribe Effexor in the smallest doses possible to avoid the risk of overdose.

From MSNBC:

“Health care professionals are advised to prescribe Effexor and Effexor XR in the smallest quantity of capsules consistent with good patient management to reduce the risk of overdose,” the FDA said.

The reported overdoses resulted in death or symptoms such as rapid heartbeat, coma, seizures, vomiting and vertigo, Wyeth said in a letter it sent to doctors and health care providers.

“Epidemiological studies have shown that venlafaxine-treated patients have a higher pre-existing burden of suicide risk factors than SSRI-treated patients,” the Wyeth letter said.

College students getting fatter

2006-10-23T08:19:00.000-07:00

Americans, even college students, are getting fatter and fatter:

The "Freshman 15" is more like 5 to 7, but it is followed by the "Sophomore 2 or 3," say researchers who led two of the largest and longest studies ever done of weight gain among college students. The research also showed that males piled on significantly more pounds than females.

Doctors say it is good news that the number of pounds gained is less than the widely believed 15, but bad news that "Generation XL" kids seem to be learning patterns of gradual weight gain that could spell trouble way beyond graduation.

"It may be 10 or 8, but it continues. That, to me, is a bigger problem," said Rena Wing, a psychologist and director of the weight control center at Brown University Medical School in Providence, R.I.

High does of ibuprofen may increase heart risks

2006-10-19T11:48:00.000-07:00

From ScienceDaily:

High doses of some common pain relievers, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), like ibuprofen, may increase one's risk of stroke or heart attack as much as COX 2 inhibitors, a new study shows.

This news comes a few months after the U.S. withdrawal of two commonly-prescribed pain relievers, Vioxx and Bextra, because of studies that showed these drugs, called COX 2 inhibitors, can increase by up to five times a person's risk of heart attack and stroke when taken in high doses.

Many people were initially given COX 2 inhibitors as a pain reliever because they may be gentler to the stomach then NSAIDs, which are linked to serious gastrointestinal side effects, such as ulcers. But many patients switched back to NSAIDs because of the increased cardiac risk. This change may have been made in vain.

Doctors Listening for Cancer?

2006-10-18T03:40:00.000-07:00

From Reuters:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Doctors looking to see if cancer has spread may be able to simply listen for it in the future, U.S researchers reported on Tuesday.

Researchers at the University of Missouri-Columbia said they used a technique called photoacoustic detection to pick up the characteristic vibrations of melanoma cells in the blood.

They said their method could let oncologists spot as few as 10 cancer cells in a blood sample, catching a tumor's spread before it can settle into another organ.

Writing in the journal Optics Letters, the University of Missouri team said they combined laser techniques from optics and ultrasound techniques from acoustics, using a laser to make cells vibrate and then picking up the characteristic sound of melanoma cells.

Vitamin D may slow breast cancer

2006-10-17T05:37:00.000-07:00

From Reuters:

LONDON (Reuters) - High levels of vitamin D may help slow the progression of breast cancer, researchers suggested on Tuesday.

n a small study of women with the illness they found that patients with early breast cancer had higher levels of the vitamin than those with more advanced disease.

"Vitamin D levels are lower in women with advanced breast cancer than in early breast cancer," said Dr Carlo Palmieri, of Imperial College London.

"It lends support to the idea that vitamin D has a role in the progression of breast cancer," he told Reuters.

FDA clears implant maker

2006-10-13T09:02:00.000-07:00

Reuters reports:

WASHINGTON, Oct 12 (Reuters) - U.S. health regulators said on Thursday they found no evidence that silicone breast implant maker Mentor Corp. committed any wrongdoing after examining a former employee's allegations that the company withheld safety data.

In a letter to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, advocacy group Public Citizen said a former Mentor scientist contacted the FDA in June to alert regulators about safety risk data on leaking gel, toxicity levels and other issues.

Bar employees healthier after smoking ban

2006-10-11T07:54:00.000-07:00

From AFP:

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The health of bar employees sharply improved after smoking bans in their workplaces, a study of the effects of second-hand smoke showed.

Waiters and bartenders in bars in Tayside, Scotland showed a quick decline in respiratory ailments as well as a clear improvement in the functioning of their lungs in the two months after a smoking ban was imposed on the bar.

Researchers at Ninewells Hospital and Medical School in Dundee, Scotland led by doctor Daniel Menzies undertook the study after Scotland implemented a general smoking ban for public places in March 2006.

The researchers studied 105 bar workers who didn't themselves smoke, beginning with detailed health tests a month prior to the ban.

Progesterone can cut death risk in traumatic brain injury

2006-10-10T08:21:00.000-07:00

A recent study has shown that certain traumatic brain injury patients may have their death risk cut in half with the administration of progesterone.

Exerpt:

"We found encouraging evidence that progesterone is safe in the setting of traumatic brain injury, with no evidence of side effects or serious harmful events," said Dr. Wright. "In addition, we found a 50% reduction in the rate of death in the progesterone-treated group. Furthermore, we found a significant improvement in the functional outcome and level of disability among patients who were enrolled with a moderate brain injury."

More contamination on the way?

2006-10-04T08:52:00.000-07:00

A food safety expert says the U.S. better be prepared for more contaminated food.

Sanford Miller, senior fellow at the University of Maryland Center for Food, Nutrition, and Agriculture Policy, says consumers should prepare for a series of bacteria problems in the food supply.

Miller says the lines of defense against the multitude of organisms in the world are under constant threat of breaking down. He says the breach can come from a variety of sources, including the water used to irrigate produce, which is what he thinks happened in the case of the contaminated spinach.

But the E. coli that attached itself to the spinach crop, he says, could come from a variety of sources.

"If the producers were organic farms, it might be improperly processed organic fertilizer. A less likely event would be storage of the product at relatively high temperatures such as might have occurred if a refrigerated railway car lost its temperature control. Probably, a number of factors were involved," Miller said.

Fake Insurance

2006-09-29T08:41:00.000-07:00

From Consumer Affairs:

Authorities in several states are warning consumers to avoid a new scam, which solicits participants in a phony group health insurance plan.

The solicitors, operating under the name National Trade Business Alliance of America, claim to provide inexpensive health plans through a number of legitimate insurers.

In most cases, consumers are being asked to pay an application fee of $136 and a monthly premium of as much as $207. The consumers, it turns out, get nothing for their money.

So far, more than 300 people nationwide have been victimized by the scam. An investigation by the Kentucky Office of Insurance has found more than seven victims in the state.

Americans want health care protection, guarantee

2006-09-27T07:41:00.000-07:00

The Citizens’ Health Care Working Group has issued a report showing that Americans want two main things from its health care system: protection for all from high medical expenses and guaranteed coverage for specific checkups and treatments.

The group was created by Congress and their report was released Monday, Sept. 25.

From the Executive summary:

Americans want a health care system that works for everyone. But the reality is that the health care system that captures vast amounts of America’s resources, employs many of its talented citizens, and promises to both promote health as well as relieve the burdens of illness is failing far too many of us.

Over the past year, the number of uninsured has grown by more than one million, and
tens of millions more are underinsured, and at immediate risk of financial ruin if they are seriously ill or injured. Individuals, families, employers, and every level
of government are feeling the financial pressure of rising health care costs. More often than not, people do not receive the best care that science has to offer. Many are bewildered by the complexity of health care and insurance coverage. As one citizen voiced to us, you cannot “navigate the health care system without luck, a relationship, money and perseverance.”

The need for change is clear, but transforming health care so that it works for all
Americans is a daunting prospect. It will involve difficult decisions about how health care is organized, delivered, and financed. Years of stalemate on health reform prompted a bipartisan call to go back to the American people, to explore their values and aspirations for the health care system, and to provide the energy needed to sustain real health reform.

The Citizens’ Health Care Working Group was established by Congress to “engage in an
informed national public debate to make choices about the services they want covered,
what health care coverage they want, and how they are willing to pay for coverage.”
What we heard was that many Americans believe that public policy designed to address
the growing crisis in health care cannot succeed unless all Americans are able to get the health care they need, when they need it.

NY Times Editorial Supports AIDS Testing

2006-09-25T08:20:00.000-07:00

An editorial in The New York Times has come out in favor of the CDC's call for widespread AIDS testing.

Exerpt:

Federal health officials took the right step last week when they recommended that all teenagers and all adults up to the age of 64 be tested for H.I.V. infection when they receive routine medical care. This welcome effort to remove barriers in the way of widespread testing offers the best hope to reduce the stubborn persistence of H.I.V. infections in the American population.

Long after the AIDS epidemic burst onto the American and international scenes, it is a public health scandal that some 40,000 Americans are still newly infected each year; that a quarter of those with the disease, or some 250,000 Americans, don’t even know they are infected; and that more than 40 percent of those who find out they are infected are tested only because they are already seriously ill.

Read Editorial

CDC Seeking HIV Testing of Most Americans

2006-09-22T08:25:00.000-07:00

HIV testing should be part of regular medical check-ups for all Americans between the ages of 13 and 64, says the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Reports The New York Times:

The proposal is a sharp break from the early days of the AIDS epidemic, when the stigma of the disease and the fear of social ostracism caused many people to avoid being tested.

That led to heated debate about whether positive test results could be shared by medical and governmental authorities in their effort to contain the epidemic by reaching out to partners of those who might be infected.

Under the agency’s plan, which states can adopt or modify if they choose, patients would be advised they were being tested, but the tests would be voluntary.

Don't Eat Fresh Spinich

2006-09-19T07:43:00.000-07:00

The recent E. coli outbreak has prompted the Food and Drug Administration to warn consumers to not eat fresh spinich.

On top of that, the FDA warned California farmers nearly a year ago about the safety of their produce.

Don't worry, Popeye is safe. As we all know, he only ate canned spinich.

Vitamin D may cut cancer risk

2006-09-18T07:24:00.000-07:00

Consumer Reports has an article about a research study that indicates that vitamin D cuts the risk of pancreatic cancer in half.

Exerpt:

Consumption of Vitamin D tablets was found to cut the risk of pancreatic cancer nearly in half, according to a study led by researchers at Northwestern and Harvard universities.

The findings point to Vitamin D's potential to prevent the disease, and is one of the first known studies to use a large-scale epidemiological survey to examine the relationship between the nutrient and cancer of the pancreas.

The study, led by Halcyon Skinner, Ph.D., of Northwestern, appears in the September issue of Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers & Prevention.

The study examined data from two large, long-term health surveys and found that taking the U.S. Recommended Daily Allowance of Vitamin D (400 IU/day) reduced the risk of pancreatic cancer by 43 percent. By comparison, those who consumed less than 150 IUs per day experienced a 22 percent reduced risk of cancer. Increased consumption of the vitamin beyond 400 IUs per day resulted in no significant increased benefit.

Helmets One Factor in Maryland Brain Injury

2006-09-15T07:54:00.000-07:00

The National Transportation Safety Board recently conducted a forum on motorcycle crashes.

Brought out at the meeting was the fact that Maryland is one of only 20 states that require all motorcycle riders to wear helmets in an attempt to cut down brain injury.

Opponents of mandatory helmet laws claim such laws violate their freedom of choice.

That freedom is being purchased at a steep price:

· Almost half of the 4,553 motorcyclists who died in the United States last year were not wearing helmets.

· In those 30 states that do not have helmet laws that apply to all riders, about two-thirds of the fatally injured motorcycle riders were not wearing helmets.

· In those states that do have such universal laws, 14 percent of the fatally injured motorcycle riders were not wearing helmets.

Last year Maryland had 85 motorcycle fatalities, an increase of 23 percent. Nine of those killed were not wearing helmets.

Bush Administration Kills Only Program Helping Overweight Kids

2006-09-14T08:53:00.000-07:00

From MSNBC:

WASHINGTON - One in five children is predicted to be obese by the end of the decade. But efforts to turn that tide are scattershot and underfunded, and the government killed one of the few programs proven to work, specialists said Wednesday.

Programs that target youngsters’ growing waistlines are sprouting around the country, an encouraging sign that the threat to children’s health is being taken seriously, said the report by the Institute of Medicine.

* * *

To reinforce that point, Wednesday’s report spotlighted the government’s VERB campaign, a program once touted as spurring a 30 percent increase in exercise among the preteens it reached. It ended this year with Bush administration budget cuts.

VERB encouraged 9- to 13-year-olds to take part in physical activities, like bike riding or skateboarding. Slick ads, at a cost of $59 million last year, portrayed exercise as cool at an age when outdoor play typically winds down and adolescent slothfulness sets in.

The demise of the program “calls into question the commitment to obesity prevention within government,” the panel concluded.

[Emory University's Dr. Jeffrey] Koplan was more blunt, calling it a waste of taxpayer money to develop a program that works and then dismantle it.

Pediatric Head Trauma Significant Health Care Cost

2006-09-12T11:07:00.000-07:00

A study published in the August isue of Pediatrics indicates "Pediatric traumatic brain injury is a substantial contributor to the health resource burden in the United States, accounting for more than $1 billion in total hospital charges annually."

Researchers at the Center for Injury Research and Policy (CIRP) in the Columbus Children's Research Institute at Columbus Children's Hospital conducted the study.

Exerpt:

An analysis was conducted of data from the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project Kids' Inpatient Database from January 1 through December 31, 2000, which included 2,784 hospitals in 27 states. Based on these data, there were an estimated 50,658 TBI-associated hospitalizations among children 17 years of age and younger in that year, with 15- to 17-year-old patients accounting for the highest hospitalization rate. TBI includes such diagnoses as skull fractures, intracranial bleeding, concussions, and shaken baby syndrome.

“Based on our research, pediatric TBI patients accrue more than $1 billion in total hospital charges annually,” said CIRP Director Gary Smith, MD, DrPH, the senior author of the study and a faculty member of The Ohio State University (OSU) College of Medicine. “Injury costs for children are often greater than those for adults because they include acute treatment, long-term rehabilitation and loss of productivity for the parent or guardian. TBIs resulting from unintentional trauma constitute the primary cause of death among U.S. youth and are often the most serious consequences of nonfatal injuries.”

Brain Injury Victim Wins Lawsuit Against Hunter

2006-09-11T13:01:00.000-07:00

A pregnant woman who suffered a traumatic brain injury from a bullet fired by a hunter has won her case against the hunter and the landowner.

The jury hearing the lawsuit brought on behalf of Casey Kantner, who was represented by attorney Joel S. Rosen, found that the hunter, Craig T. Wetzel, was 90 percent negligent and the landowner, Daniel W. Haas, was 10 percent negligent.

A separate jury will decide the amount of damages.

NIH Slams Scientist's 'Misconduct'

2006-09-10T05:55:00.000-07:00

No Disciplinary Action Taken
From the LA Times

Officials at the NIH concluded late last year that the actions of Dr. Thomas J. Walsh, who has helped lead major clinical trials involving cancer patients, might result in dismissal from federal government service. No disciplinary action has been taken.

The internal review, conducted by lawyers and other ethics specialists within the office of the NIH director, found that from 1999 to 2004, Walsh received fees totaling $100,970 from pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. He accepted fees from 25 companies and has led government-sponsored research involving some of those companies' drugs.

The doctor's lawyers have said the rules were complicated but his intentions were good.

Woman in coma playing tennis?

2006-09-09T06:17:00.000-07:00

Here's more fuel to the fire over people in comas: Woman in vegetative state plays tennis in her headExerpt:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- A woman in a vegetative state for five months appeared in brain scans to imagine playing tennis and to respond to commands, researchers reported on Thursday.

They said their study showed the woman was conscious despite her coma-like state, although several experts disagreed.

The researchers stressed that the study was unlikely to shed light on issues such as the controversial case of Terri Schiavo, a Florida woman who spent 15 years in a persistent vegetative state and was allowed to die in March 2005 after a long court battle.

Some worried about President's mental status

2006-09-05T10:57:00.000-07:00

Read these articles:

Examining Bush in August

Has Bush gone over the edge?

U.S. unprepared for nuclear radiation

2006-09-01T07:37:00.000-07:00

A study by Physicians for Social Responsibility shows the United States is still not prepared for a terrorist nuclear attack.

Half a decade after the September 11, 2001 attacks and one year after Hurricane Katrina overwhelmed a region’s health care system, the United States remains dangerously unprepared to deal with the medical aftermath of a terrorist attack involving nuclear weapons, dirty bombs or explosions at nuclear power plants, according to a new report.

To evaluate U.S. readiness, Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) created casualty maps for three plausible nuclear terrorism scenarios – a nuclear weapons blast in lower Manhattan, an attack on a nuclear power plant near Chicago, and detonation of a dirty bomb near the White House – and evaluated the medical and public health consequences. The authors then examined steps that should be taken to try to minimize deaths and injuries.

Dr. Ira Helfand, one of the co-authors of The U.S. and Nuclear Terrorism: Still Dangerously Unprepared, explained, “We found that the U.S. government lacks a workable plan to respond to the likely medical needs. Thousands of American civilians injured by a nuclear terrorist attack could survive with better preparedness.” Dr. Helfand, a Massachusetts emergency physician, is a member of PSR’s board of directors.

Other findings from the report include:

The U.S. has no system for determining whether people should try to evacuate or take shelter at home or work after an attack

No central coordinating authority has been designated to step in to direct response and rescue efforts

Plans for establishing field medical care, mobilizing health care personnel, and deploying supplies to the site of an attack are inadequate

The U.S. public health system, which would bear a large burden in responding to nuclear terrorism, is under-funded and under-staffed

Human Tissue Under Study

2006-09-01T07:33:00.000-07:00

The Food and Drug Administration has finally decided to take a look at the human tissue industry.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today announced the formation of a multidisciplinary FDA task force on human cell and tissue safety. The FDA Human Tissue Task Force (HTTF), which will be led by senior FDA officials from within the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER) and the Office of Regulatory Affairs (ORA), was established as part of the agency’s efforts to strengthen its comprehensive, risk-based system for regulating human cells and tissue.

The main priority of HTTF will be to assess the effectiveness of the implementation of the new tissue regulations, which went into effect in 2005. Of particular interest will be a review of recently reported findings that some tissue recovery establishments are not following federal requirements for tissue recovery.

“The primary goal of the new task force is to identify whether any additional steps are needed to further protect the public health while assuring the availability of safe products,” said Jesse Goodman, MD, MPH, director of CBER. “The creation of this task force is part of the agency's overall plan to ensure that all human cells and tissues are as safe as possible.”

Wonder what took them so long.

FDA: Avoid certain online drugs from Canada

2006-09-01T07:18:00.000-07:00

The Food and Drug Administration has issued a consumer warning about buying prescription drugs online from certain web sites.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is advising consumers not to purchase prescription drugs from websites that have orders filled by Mediplan Prescription Plus Pharmacy or Mediplan Global Health in Manitoba, Canada following reports of counterfeit versions of prescription drug products being sold by these companies to U.S. consumers. FDA is investigating these reports and is coordinating with international law enforcement authorities on this matter.

The FDA lists the following suspect drugs:

LIPITOR - Cholesterol disorders

CRESTOR - Cholesterol disorders

ZETIA (US name) / EZETROL (Canadian name) - Cholesterol disorders

DIOVAN - High blood pressure

HYZAAR - High blood pressure

ACTONEL - Osteoporosis in postmenopausal women

NEXIUM - Gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD)

CELEBREX - Arthritis-related pain

ARIMIDEX - Breast cancer

PROPECIA - Male-pattern baldness

Web sites under investigation include:

www.RxNorth.com;

www.Canadiandrugstore.com;

www.Rxbyfax.com;

www.Northcountryrx.com;

www.Canada-pharmacy.com;

www.My-canada-pharmacy.com;

www.NLRX.com;

www.Canampharmacy.com;

www.Canada-Meds-For-Less.net;

www.Canadian-safe.com

Celebrex bad for the heart

2006-08-31T13:25:00.000-07:00

The pain reliever Celebrex may be effective in preventing colon cancer, but it's risk to the heart outweighs the benefit, according to two studies published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

USA Today reports:

... Celebrex doubled the risk of serious cardiovascular problems, including heart attacks, strokes, heart failure and death, according to a separate analysis in the journal Circulation released Wednesday. That makes Celebrex too risky to be used for polyp prevention, according to an editorial in the New England Journal by Bruce Psaty of the University of Washington and John Potter of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle.

Are Doctors Really Medical Mechanics

2006-08-30T07:40:00.000-07:00

Robin Cook, bestseller author and physician (does he still practice?), has an op-ed piece in The New York Times today in which he decries the state of the primary care physician and calls for them to be paid by the hour.

His ideas certainly deserve study. But why stop there. If Dr. Cook doesn't like the current share of American medicine, perhaps he should consider calling for a complete revamping.

Instead of going to the idea of doctors as medical mechanics, maybe it's time to revisit the call for universal health care.