Health Headlines - August 25

Experts Want Global Bird Flu Database

A new global database to share bird flu data needs to be created to encourage research and help avert a worldwide health catastrophe, experts said in a letter published in the journal Nature.

The letter was signed by 70 of the top bird flu scientists, including six Nobel laureates. It said researchers taking part in the Global Initiative on Sharing Avian Influenza Data would agree to publish their findings collaboratively, the Associated Press reported.

Several countries afflicted by bird flu have been criticized for refusing to share their data on the disease, a move that hinders the global fight against the dangerous H5N1 virus.

And the World Health Organization has been criticized for having a "secret database" of bird flu sequences that's available only to a select group of scientists, the AP reported.

It's unclear how the proposed global bird flu database would actually improve monitoring of avian flu, since the world's top experts already have wide access to the WHO's bird flu data, said WHO spokesman Dick Thompson.

Sterilized Surgical Instruments May Still Have CJD Proteins

Even after sterilization, surgical instruments may still be contaminated with proteins that cause Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), a fatal degenerative brain disorder, says a study by researchers at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland.

It's believed that CJD is caused by mutated proteins called prions, which are known to be able to cling to the surface of surgical instruments, BBC News reported.

The researchers tested sterilized surgical instruments taken at random from five hospitals and found that every instrument was contaminated with enough protein residue to pose a potential infection risk to patients.

The average level of protein contamination on the instruments was 0.2 micrograms per square millimeter. That's much greater than the level of prions needed to infect humans. The highest levels of protein residue were found on instruments used to remove tonsils, one of the tissues known to harbor prions, BBC News reported.

The study appears in the Journal of Hospital Infection.

Apple Recalls 1.8 Million Notebook Batteries

Apple Computer Inc. said Thursday that it's recalling about 1.8 million Sony lithium-ion batteries used in its Macintosh notebooks because the batteries could overheat and burn users or cause a fire. There have been nine reported incidents of batteries overheating and two people have suffered minor burns.

Last week, Dell Inc. announced a recall of 4.1 million Sony laptop batteries.

The batteries in the Macintosh recall are in Mac iBooks and PowerBooks sold between October 2003 and August 2006, said the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC).

"The batteries pose a fire hazard, and we want consumers to take this recall seriously. We want them to take the batteries out of the laptops immediately," CPSC spokesman Scott Wolfson told Bloomberg news.

The recall affects about 1.1 million Mac notebooks sold in the United States and about 700,000 sold in other countries.

Report Details 11 Cases of Advanced Black Lung in Va. Miners

A report that describes 11 newly identified cases of advanced coal worker's pneumoconiosis (CWP) -- commonly called black lung -- in working coal miners in southwestern Virginia highlights the need for improved safety measures, according to U.S. researchers.

CWP is caused by the inhalation of coal dust.

The report will be published Friday in the U.S. Center's for Disease Control and Prevention's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR). It includes data collected between March and May 2006 from 328 of the estimated 1,055 underground coal miners currently employed in Lee and Wise counties in Virginia.

The 328 workers ranged in age from 21 to 63 years. Their mean tenure of working in underground coal mines was 23 years. Thirty (9 percent) of the miners showed evidence of CWP and 11 of those miners had advanced cases.

Among those 11 miners, the mean age was 51 years (range 39 to 62 years), and the mean number of working years working at the coal face was 29 years. The coal face is the cutting surface where coal is sheared from the wall and where dust levels typically are greatest.

"The continuing occurrence of advanced forms of CWP emphasizes the importance of comprehensive measures to control coal mine dust effectively and reduce the potential for inhalation exposures in coal mining," said a CDC news release.

Reductions in the levels of CWP were noted among active coal miners after the U.S. government in 1969 mandated dust limits to protect the respiratory health of miners. However, during 1996-2002, clusters of rapidly progressive CWP were found among miners in certain areas of the country, predominately in eastern Kentucky and western Virginia.

Genes Variants Greatly Increase SIDS Risk: Study

Babies born with flaws in three immune system-related genes are 14 times more likely to be victims of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), say British researchers.

The link between increased risk of SIDS and faults in the three genes -- Interleukin-10, Interleukin-6, and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) -- was identified by a team from Manchester University, BBC News reported.

The findings appear in the journals New Scientist and Human Immunology.

All three genes are involved in the production of cytokines, which play an important role in the proper functioning of the immune system, BBC News reported.

Specific variants of the two Interleukin genes may cause an infant's immune system to become overactive when it encounters a bacterial infection. This could lead to SIDS, the researchers said.

The variant of VEGF linked to SIDS could also cause poor fetal lung development, the study said.

This research could help identify babies at risk for SIDS, who could then be closely monitored, BBC News reported.

U.S. to Withhold Medicare Payments in Late September

The U.S. government will withhold Medicare reimbursements to doctors, hospitals, and numerous other health-care providers during the last nine days of the current federal budget, from Sept. 22-30.

Delaying the payments means that $5.2 billion in Medicare expenses will be shifted to next year's budget, the Associated Press reported.

"The alternative was to cut reimbursements to providers this year. With this payment shift we avoid that cut," said Senate Finance Committee spokeswoman Jill Kozeny.

Health-care providers who look after older people and the disabled will receive their full payments after the new federal budget year begins Oct. 1, but they won't be paid interest on the amount they're owed, the AP reported.

Critics said the hold on payments was unfair and underhanded and could cause financial problems for some health-care providers.