Health Headlines - March 2

Chronic Kidney Disease Increases 16% in U.S.

Data from 1999 to 2004 showed that nearly 17 percent of American adults had chronic kidney disease, a 16 percent increase from 1988 to 1994, says an article published in Friday's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR).

The article said that people over the age of 60, those with less than a high school education, and those with diabetes, heart disease and high blood pressure were most likely to have chronic kidney disease (CKD).

Blacks and Mexican Americans were more likely than whites to have CKD. The data in the article was taken from national health surveys conducted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which publishes the MMWR.

The CDC is working to establish a CKD surveillance system and is sponsoring research to learn more about the health consequences, costs, and disabilities associated with CKD.

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Hospitalizations for Traumatic Brain Injury on the Rise

In 2003, the rate of hospitalization for traumatic brain injury (TBI) in nine U.S. states was 87.9 people per 100,000, compared with 79.0 per 100,000 in 12 states in 2002, says a study in Friday's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, published by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The 2003 rate is based on figures reported by nine states reporting to the agency's TBI surveillance system. In those nine states, a total of 28,819 people were hospitalized for traumatic brain injury in 2003.

Among the nine states, Arizona had the highest rate (105 per 100,000), while Nebraska had the lowest rate (51.8 per 100,000). Rates in the other seven states were: South Carolina (69.6); Utah (83.1); Minnesota (89.5); Oklahoma (90.5); Colorado and Maryland (91.8); and Alaska (93.3).

Motor vehicle traffic accidents and falls were the leading cause of hospitalization for traumatic brain injury. Prevention measures should focus on these two leading causes in order to reduce rates of traumatic brain injury, the study said.

Each year in the United States, traumatic brain injury results in about 1.1 million hospital emergency room visits, 235,000 hospitalizations, and 50,000 deaths, according to the U.S. government.

Prescription Drug Abuse Overtaking Illegal Drug Use: Report

Worldwide abuse of prescription drugs is about to become more common than the use of illicit drugs, says a report released Wednesday by the U.N.-affiliated International Narcotics Control Board.

In certain parts of Africa, Europe and South Asia, prescription drug abuse has already overtaken the use of illegal drugs such as cocaine, Ecstasy and heroin, said the board's annual report for 2006, the Associated Press reported.

The Vienna-based board said that in the United States, abuse of painkillers, stimulants and tranquilizers currently exceeds the use of practically all illegal drugs, with the exception of marijuana.

In 2003, 15.1 million Americans abused prescription drugs, compared to 7.8 million in 1992.

The board report noted that this trend toward abuse of prescription drugs has generated a dangerous new trade in counterfeit painkillers, sedatives and other medicines that can seriously harm or kill people, the AP reported.

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Company Introduces New, Inexpensive Malaria Drug

A new, inexpensive, easy-to-take anti-malaria pill is being introduced Thursday by French drug maker Sanofi-Aventis in partnership with Drugs for Neglected Diseases, a campaign started by the international medical charity Doctors Without Borders.

Sanofi-Aventis will sell the drug, called ASAQ, at cost to international groups such as UNICEF, the World Health Organization, and the Global Fund for AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. Treatment with the drug will cost less than $1 for adults and less than 50 cents for children, The New York Times reported.

Adults with malaria will take two ASAQ pills a day for three days. Three smaller-sized once-a-day pills will be given to children. ASAQ is a combination of artemisinin (a Chinese-invented malaria treatment that uses sweet wormwood) and an older malaria drug called amodiaquine.

There has been a demand for drug companies to stop making anti-malaria pills that contain artemisinin alone, because experts fear that using such drugs would lead to resistant strains of malaria, The Times reported.

"This is a good thing. They're responding to the kind of drug profile we've been promoting," said Dr. Arata Kochi, chief of the WHO's global malaria program.

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University Operates Bird Flu 'Futures Market'

In an attempt to help predict the occurrence of a potential bird flu pandemic, a bird flu futures market will be operated by the University of Iowa.

Health experts will pay about $100 each to bet on the spread of the H5N1 bird flu virus. The goal of the program is to more quickly gather expert opinion about the potential spread of an outbreak of bird flu, the Associated Press reported Thursday.

"Farmers have used futures markets for decades to make decisions about what crops to plant. We're just borrowing that concept to help people in public health and health care make decisions about the future," Dr. Phil Polgreen, assistant professor of medicine at the University of Iowa, told the AP. He helped create the project.

Organizers of the two-year experimental project would like to recruit at least 100 epidemiologists, veterinarians and other experts from around the world to take part in the bird flu futures market.

In related news, Chinese state media reported Thursday that a farmer in the southeast region of the country contracted the H5N1 strain of bird flu. He was diagnosed with the virus on Feb. 18. It was the first confirmed human case of bird flu in China since Jan. 10, the Associated Press reported.