Health Headlines - June 22

Chinese SARS-Bird Flu Report Puzzles WHO

Chinese scientists Wednesday said that a man initially thought to have SARS actually died of bird flu in 2003 -- two years before the country reported any human bird-flu infections to the World Health Organization. But the scientists now want to withdraw their report to a leading medical journal.

WHO was surprised by the report, which came from eight scientists and not the Chinese government. The findings were printed Wednesday by the New England Journal of Medicine. At the last minute, however, at least one of the Chinese scientists e-mailed the journal Wednesday morning, requesting that the report be withdrawn. Journal editors were waiting to see whether the authors would now retract the paper, according to the Associated Press.

The confusion surrounding the man's death in Beijing raises the possibility that other cases in China already attributed to SARS may have actually been the deadly H5N1 flu. "It's hard to believe that this is the only person in all of China who developed H5N1" that year, Dr. John Treanor, a flu expert at the University of Rochester, told the news service.

A WHO spokesman in China said the agency would formally request that the Chinese Ministry of Health clarify the report and explain why it took more than two years to uncover the finding. Attempts to reach the Chinese scientists for comment were unsuccessful, the AP reported.

China didn't report its first human cases of bird flu outside Hong Kong until 2005. Eight infections and five deaths were recorded that year, and this year the government has reported at least 10 infections and seven deaths. The SARS outbreak in China began in November 2002, but was not recognized until the following spring. More than 1,450 cases of severe acute respiratory syndrome were confirmed, the vast majority in Asia. Many cases were diagnosed based on symptoms, which are similar to those of bird flu, and not lab tests.

During the SARS outbreak, some public-health experts questioned whether the Chinese government was being candid about the extent of the crisis.

The New England Journal of Medicine report raised the possibility that the two dangerous viruses emerged simultaneously. The newly disclosed case in Beijing means "there may be more jumps from birds to people than we realized," a journal editor told AP.

Health Insurance Coverage for Children Improved in 2005

American children experienced the greatest increase in health insurance coverage since 1997, but coverage for all Americans continues to vary by state, according to two new reports released Wednesday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The reports, which present the latest data on U.S. health habits, found that in 2005, an estimated 41.2 million persons of all ages (14.2 percent) were without health insurance, down from 15.4 percent in 1997. During the same time period, only 8.9 percent of children were without insurance, compared to 13.9 percent in 1997.

Among other key findings in the CDC report were a rise in both diagnosed diabetes and asthma, up to 7.4 percent and 7.8 percent of the population, respectively.

Texas lead the nation in persons not covered for health care with 24 percent lacking insurance. Massachusetts topped the list of 20 states for which statistics were available for the study, with just 6 percent of its residents lacking coverage.

The findings are available on the CDC's Web site at www.cdc.gov/nchs.

Limiting Teen Driving Cuts Crash Rates: Study

A study of young drivers has found that limiting the hours they drive and their number of passengers can reduce crash rates among teens by 20 percent.

Researchers with the Traffic Injury Research Foundation in Ottawa, Canada, compared accidents involving 16-year-old drivers in Oregon and Ontario in 2002. Oregon restricted unsupervised nighttime driving and the number of passengers, while Ontario did not carry the prohibitions at the time of the study, according to the Associated Press.

Crashes involving injuries and deaths were 20 percent fewer among the teen drivers in Oregon, which prohibits unsupervised driving between midnight and 5 a.m. for entry-level drivers and prevents drivers from having passengers under age 20 during the first six months of receiving a driver's license.

Traffic accidents kill about 6,000 U.S. motorists between the ages of 16 to 20 every year, making them the leading cause of death for teens, the AP noted. Safety experts say teens are more prone to crashes because they lack experience and driving skills.

Resistant Staph Infections Are Global Problem

As many as 53 million people worldwide may be carriers of a bacterial superbug that's becoming more resistant to antibiotics, the Times of London said Wednesday.

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), a serious staph infection, is frequently acquired by surgical patients and others in hospitals. While the germ can be carried harmlessly on the skin, the bacterium can be lethal if it enters the body.

The germ is spreading into the general community, where frequent physical contact can increase the risk of transmission, doctors at the Groningen University Medical Centre in the Netherlands wrote in the online version of The Lancet. Those most at risk of infection include homeless people, prisoners, military recruits, gay men, children in day-care centers, and athletes who participate in contact sports, the newspaper said.

The drug-resistant germ is becoming more prevalent even in Scandinavian nations that have waged the biggest campaign against MRSA, the scientists said.

Drug Prices in U.S. Jump in 2006, Surveys Find

Prices for the most frequently prescribed drugs jumped sharply in the first quarter of the year, as the new Medicare drug coverage program was going into effect, two independent U.S. surveys found.

Wholesale prices charged by pharmaceutical companies rose 3.9 percent in the first three months of the year -- four times the inflation rate during the same span, according to an AARP analysis reported by the Associated Press.

The price of the popular sleep aid Ambien shot up 13.3 percent, and the top-selling cholesterol drug Lipitor jumped 4.7 percent to 6.5 percent, depending on the dose prescribed, the AARP said.

A separate survey by the patient advocacy group Families USA found similar price rises, the wire service reported. For the typical older American who takes an average of four prescription drugs, the price jumps translated to a $240 average increase over the 12 months ended March 31, the AARP said.

A drug industry trade group, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers Association, issued a statement calling the surveys "erroneous," the AP reported. The group said prices, in fact, had risen less than 2 percent since Jan. 1.

Meanwhile, U.S. Senator Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) has accused Merck & Co. of conspiring with insurance companies to create lower copays for people who buy Merck's anti-cholesterol drug Zocor than for customers who would buy a soon-to-be released generic alternative, the AP said. Schumer asked the Federal Trade Commission to investigate.