U.S. Hits Illegal Steroid Labs
More than 120 people were arrested and dozens of labs that made growth hormone for sale on the black market were raided as U.S. authorities conducted the largest-ever crackdown on illegal steroids, the Associated Press reported.
The Drug Enforcement Administration said Monday that agents seized 56 labs and confiscated 11.4 million doses of steroids. The 18-month Operation Raw Deal also involved a number of other federal agencies, including the FBI, Internal Revenue Service, and the Food and Drug Administration.
Nine other countries -- including Canada, China, and Mexico -- also took part in the investigation.
U.S. officials said high school athletes, body builders, and ordinary people who just want to improve their appearance were likely among the labs' customers, the AP reported.
"We were a little bit stunned at the amount of labs we found as a result of this investigation," DEA spokesman Garrison Courtney said Monday. "It's not something that's on a scale that we've ever seen."
-----
Employer, Worker Health Costs Continue to Rise
In 2007, employer health premiums for workers increased by more than twice the rate of inflation, according to a study released Monday by the global human resources company Hewitt Associates.
On average, employers paid 5.3 percent more to provide health coverage for their workers in 2007, which was the smallest increase in nine years, the study said. In 2006, there was a 7.9 percent increase, the Wall Street Journal reported.
While there was a smaller increase in 2007, the Hewitt study predicted that premiums for employer-provided health coverage will increase an average of 8.7 percent in 2008. That would increase the average annual premium per employee to $8,676, from $7,982 this year.
In recent years, employers used funds carried over from previous years' budgets to cushion health premium increases. But "that surplus is now gone," said Bob Tate, chief actuary in Hewitt's Health Management Consulting business, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The study also predicted that in 2008 workers are likely to pay an average of $3,597 in out-of-pocket expenses, through co-payments, annual deductibles, and co-insurance. That's an increase of 10.1 percent or more from this year.
-----
Study Questions Value of Annual Physical Exams
For healthy American adults, the benefits of an annual physical exam may not justify the cost, according to a study in the current issue of the journal Archives of Internal Medicine.
"A lot of doctors don't think physical exams are very helpful," said author Ateev Mehrotra, assistant professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.
The study found that 80 percent of preventive care occurs during other kinds of patient visits to doctors, such as a complaint about a minor ailment, said US News and World Report.
"The annual physical is not necessary," said Rick Kellerman, president of the American Academy of Family Physicians. He said people don't need to be concerned if they miss an annual physical, or several, as long as they have their doctor's approval and remain in close communication with their doctor.
However, a 2005 survey of 800 primary care physicians in Boston, Denver and San Diego found that 65 percent of them believed that an annual physical was a necessity, said US News and World Report. The survey also found that 74 percent of the doctors said annual exams improved early detection of illness, and 94 percent believed they improved patient-doctor relationships.
-----
E.U. Approves New Cervical Cancer Vaccine
The European Union has approved the sale of Cervarix, a vaccine against certain types of the human papillomavirus (HPV) that cause cervical cancer, British pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline said Monday.
The approval means the vaccine can now be prescribed by doctors in 27 E.U. countries to females ages 10 to 25 to help protect them against cervical cancer. It is the second most common cancer in women, a Glaxo executive said in a statement, Agence France-Presse reported.
A U.S. Food and Drug Administration decision on whether to approve Cervarix is expected in January.
Currently, Merck's Gardasil is the only HPV vaccine approved in the United States.
-----
Too Little -- or Too Much -- Sleep Increases Risk of Death
Both too little and too much sleep can increase the risk of death, says a U.K. study presented Monday to the British Sleep Society.
University of Warwick researchers studied 10,308 people between 1985 and 1988 and between 1992 and 1993 and found that seven hours of sleep a night was optimal for the average adult, CBC News reported.
People who slept five hours a night had a 1.7-fold increased risk of death from all causes and a two-fold increased risk of cardiovascular-related death. But the study also found that those who slept eight hours a night were more than twice as likely to die as people who slept for seven hours.
Researcher Francesco Cappuccio noted that a lack of sleep has been shown to be a risk factor for weight gain, hypertension and type 2 diabetes, CBC News reported.
"But in contrast to the short sleep-mortality association, it appears that no potential mechanisms by which long sleep could be associated with increased mortality have yet been investigated. Some candidate causes for this include depression, low socioeconomic status and cancer-related fatigue," Cappuccio said.
-----
Brain Activity Different in Pedophiles: Study
Using functional magnetic imaging, a Yale University team found that pedophiles have distinct differences in brain activity compared to the general population. When shown adult, erotic material, pedophiles had less activity in the hypothalamus, which is known to play a role in arousal and hormone release.
The findings, published in the journal Biological Psychiatry, are the first to provide real-time evidence of differences in pedophiles' thought patterns, BBC News reported.
"Our findings may thus be seen as the first step towards establishing a neurobiology of pedophilia which ultimately may contribute to the development of new and effective means of therapies for this debilitating disorder," said lead researcher Dr. Georg Northoff.
Journal editor Dr. John Krystal said he didn't know if the pattern of different brain activity noted in this study could be used to predict a person's risk of pedophilia, BBC News reported.
The findings do "provide clues to the complexity of this disorder, and this deficit (in brain activity) may predispose individuals who are vulnerable to pedophilia to seek other forms of stimulation," Krystal said.
No comments:
Post a Comment