Health Headlines - April 14

Stores Told to Stop Selling Contact Lens Solution

Eye-care products maker Bausch & Lomb on Thursday asked retailers across the United States to temporarily stop selling ReNu with MoistureLoc contact lens solution, which is being investigated as a possible cause of 109 reported fungal eye infections since last June.

Bausch & Lomb is recommending that consumers use another contact lens solution while U.S. health officials conduct their investigation. The company plans to place advertisements in major newspapers to inform consumers about alternative products, The New York Times reported.

"We find ourselves in a position where the safety of one of our products, ReNu with MoistureLoc manufactured at our United States plant, is in question," company chairman and chief executive Ronald L. Zarella said in a statement.

U.S. Food and Drug Administration inspectors have spent weeks at Bausch & Lomb's plant in Greenville, S.C., but have not been able to detect any source of contamination, the Times reported.

On Thursday, a New York man filed a lawsuit against Bausch & Lomb, claiming the company knew in February that ReNu with MoistureLoc could cause fungal eye infections but waited until this week to halt sales of the product. The suit seeks unspecified damages and class-action status.

'Goths' Have High Rates of Self-Harm and Attempted Suicide

Goths -- a subculture of young people fascinated by death and the dark aspects of human nature -- have high rates of self-harm and attempted suicide, says a University of Glasgow, Scotland study in the current issue of the British Medical Journal.

Researchers surveyed more than 1,258 young adults several times through their teen years and found that 53 percent of teens who said they were goths admitted to self-harm (deliberately cutting, burning, hitting or poisoning oneself) and 47 percent said they'd attempted suicide, ABC News reported.

"Although only fairly small numbers of young people identify themselves as belonging to the goth subculture, rates of self-harm and attempted suicide are very high among this group," lead researcher Robert Young said.

He added that teens were more likely to have hurt themselves before they became involved in the goth scene. This suggests that troubled teens may be attracted to goth culture, not that the subculture promotes self-harm, ABC News reported.

Teens who were into hip-hop, "indie" rock, or pop culture had much lower rates of self-harm, the study found.

FDA Approves Injectable Drug to Treat Alcoholism

Once-a-month injections of the drug Vivitrol (naltrexone) to treat alcoholism received U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval Thursday. The drug was previously only sold in daily pill form.

The injectable form of the drug will be made by Alkermes Inc. of Cambridge, Mass., and will be marketed and sold by Cephalon Inc. of Frazer, Pa., the Associated Press reported.

Vivitrol blocks neurotransmitters in the brain believed to be associated with alcohol dependence.

The companies hope the once-monthly injections, done at a doctor's office, will make it easier than the daily pill for alcoholics to stick with their treatment program, which also includes counseling or group therapy.

"Daily adherence to medication is challenging for most people, and even more challenging for people with alcoholism," said Richard Pops, Alkermes' chief executive officer.

The price of the injectable drug won't be decided until it's launched in the United States in late June, the AP reported. The drug will carry a black-box warning cautioning patients that it can cause liver damage. The pill form carries a similar warning.

Canadian Officials Checking Possible Mad Cow Case

Canadian officials are investigating a suspected case of mad cow disease in a six-year-old dairy cow in British Columbia.

A final series of tests is being conducted by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency after initial tests failed to determine whether the cow had bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), CBC News reported.

Initial tests by provincial authorities were inconclusive. Samples from the cow, being raised on a farm in the Fraser Valley, were then sent to the National Centre for Foreign Animal Disease, where further testing indicated "a preliminary positive result."

This third series of tests is expected to be completed over the weekend, CBC News reported. If confirmed, this would be the fifth native-born case of BSE in Canada.

Officials say the case does not pose any danger to humans. No part of the cow entered the human or animal food systems and the cow's entire carcass has been placed under control.

Doctors Reverse Heart Transplant

British doctors reversed a "piggyback" heart transplant in a 12-year-old girl after they determined her own heart was strong enough to pump blood on its own again.

Hannah Clark had received the donor heart 10 years ago, but doctors left in her diseased heart. She recently developed severe complications with her immune system, so doctors decided to remove the donor heart so the girl could be taken off immune suppression drugs that prevented her from rejecting the transplanted heart, the Associated Press reported.

After the donor heart was removed, Hannah's own heart was able to cope on its own. She made a quick recovery and went home a week after the operation.

"It is a very unique situation for a piggyback heart transplant to offer a window, a period of time, for the diseased heart to recover sufficiently to take over the circulation again 10 years later," said Dr. Victor Tsang, one of the surgeon's who removed the donor heart.

Even though Hannah is doing well at the moment, doctors said this is a unique case and could offer no long-term prognosis.

FDA to Discuss Nano Materials

The increasing use of nanotechnology in everyday products has prompted the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to schedule an October meeting to discuss new kinds of nano materials being developed for products the agency regulates, such as drugs, foods, cosmetics, and medical devices.

Because of their incredibly small size, nano materials can pose different safety issues than larger materials. The meeting will help alert the FDA to any scientific issues about nanotechnology.

The FDA's announcement about the meeting comes as German officials investigate why nearly 100 people suffered respiratory problems after using a new cleaning product that contains nano particles, the Associated Press reported. The product, Magic Nano, is not available in the United States and has been withdrawn from the German market.

"These incidents have demonstrated that the introduction of new technologies in consumer products must be coupled with an assessment of the possible risks arising from their use. It is incumbent on science to communicate this message to consumers as well," Andreas Hensel, president of Germany's Federal Institute for Risk Assessment, said in a statement.