Health Headlines - December 14

Male Circumcision Cuts Risk of HIV Infection, U.S. Concludes

Circumcision of adult males greatly reduces their risk of getting HIV through heterosexual intercourse, U.S. government researchers reported Wednesday.

A two-year study of 2,784 men in Kenya found that circumcision cut the risk by 53 percent, while a study of 4,996 men in Uganda found that it cut the risk by 48 percent.

Both trials were halted early because of the strong positive findings, according to the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), which is part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

"Many studies have suggested that male circumcision plays a role in protecting against HIV acquisition," Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, NIAID director, said in a prepared statement. "We now have confirmation -- from large, carefully controlled, randomized clinical trials -- showing definitively that medically performed circumcision can significantly lower the risk of adult males contracting HIV through heterosexual intercourse."

"These findings are of great interest to public health policy makers who are developing and implementing comprehensive HIV prevention programs," Dr. Elias A. Zerhouni, NIH director, added.

The Associated Press reported that the link between male circumcision and HIV prevention was first noted as in the late 1980s. The first major clinical trial, of 3,000 men in South Africa, found last year that circumcision cut the HIV risk by 60 percent.

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Taco John E. coli Outbreak Widens

An E. coli outbreak first detected at a Taco John's restaurant in Cedar Falls, Iowa, has widened to include two Taco John's in southern Minnesota. Nearly three dozen people became sick after eating at the Cedar Falls outlet and 14 people fell ill after eating at the restaurants in Albert Lea and Austin, Minn. All the people ate at the restaurants in late November and early December.

The three outlets get their produce from the same supplier but it hasn't been determined whether produce was the source of the E. coli, a spokesman for Wyoming-based Taco John's told the Associated Press.

"We're still trying to pinpoint exactly what happened," spokesman Brian Dixon added, noting that the chain is testing all types of food from the three outlets.

E. coli, which is found in the feces of humans and livestock, can be present in undercooked meat. The germs can be spread by people who don't thoroughly wash their hands after using the washroom.

There's no indication of a link between the outbreak at the Taco John's outlets and an outbreak at Taco Bell restaurants in the U.S. Northeast that sickened 64 people, U.S. federal health officials said. The two companies are not affiliated.

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U.S. Approves Chagas Screening Test

U.S. federal regulators have approved the first test to screen potential blood, organ and tissue donors for Chagas, a sometimes fatal tropical disease that's present in as many as 100,000 Hispanic immigrants.

The test, made by Ortho-Clinical Diagnostics, will help prevent infected donors from passing along the disease, the Associated Press reported.

Chagas affects millions of people in parts of Mexico and Central and South America and kills about 50,000 a year, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In those regions, the disease is commonly spread by blood sucking "kissing bugs" that emerge at night to bite sleeping humans. It can also be spread from mothers to unborn children and through organ transplants and blood transfusions, the AP reported.

Since 1987, there have been five known cases in the United States of Chagas being spread through blood transfusion, along with two known cases in Canada.

Studies show that this new test is 99 percent accurate, the FDA said.

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Interns' Long Hours Threaten Patient Safety: Study

Extra-long shifts worked by U.S. hospital interns can greatly increase the risk of medical errors that harm or kill patients, says a study published online Tuesday in the journal PLoS Medicine.

The study found that interns who worked five extra-long shifts (24 hours or more at a time without rest) a month were seven times more likely to report at least one fatigue-related preventable adverse event that contributed to the death of a patient during that month.

Interns who worked between one and four extra-long shifts a month were about three times more likely to report such an event, the report said.

The more extra-long shifts an intern worked in a month, the more likely they were to fall asleep during lectures, rounds and clinical activities, including surgery.

For the study, researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston analyzed data from 17,003 monthly reports from 2,737 interns. The study was funded by the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.

The findings are important because interns routinely work extended shifts in U.S. teaching hospitals, the study authors said. They noted that guidelines for graduate medical education in the United States allow up to nine "marathon" shifts (30 hours at a time) a month.

"It is clear that sleep deprivation takes its tool over time on physicians," study author Laura K. Barger, a research associate at Brigham and Women's and Harvard, said in a prepared statement.

"While tradition holds that forcing young doctors to work extended-duration shifts teaches them to become better doctors, the evidence shows that this method of education is dangerous to patients," she said.

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Norovirus Outbreak Linked to Frozen Oysters From South Korea

An outbreak of norovirus linked to raw, frozen oysters on the half shell from South Korea is being investigated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and officials in five states.

Eight people became sick after eating raw oysters at a private event in Woodburn, Ore. On Dec. 8, the FDA tested oysters from the same production lot as those served at the event and found the oysters were positive for norovirus.

The affected oysters were from the Central Fisheries Company in South Korea, and imported by Fortuna Sea Products Inc. of California. The frozen oysters were distributed to proprietors in California, Colorado, Nevada, Oregon and Texas.

Fortuna Sea Products issued a recall of the 1,100 cases of frozen oysters that were in the affected lot.

Consumers who have frozen oysters on the half shell that they bought between mid-October and early December should contact their retailer to determine if the oysters are from the affected South Korean lot and need to be returned, the FDA said.

Norovirus can cause symptoms such as nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, stomach cramps, low-grade fever, chills, headache, muscle aches, and tiredness. Most people show symptoms within 48 hours of exposure to the virus and the illness typically lasts one or two days.

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Exercise May Reduce Women Smokers' Lung Cancer Risk

Exercise may help reduce the risk of lung cancer in women smokers, suggests a U.S. study in this month's issue of the journal Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers & Prevention.

Researchers analyzed data on 36,410 older women and found that physically active smokers were 35 percent less likely to develop lung cancer than sedentary smokers, the Associated Press reported.

But the finding doesn't mean that women should believe that exercising gives them an excuse to smoke, warned study lead author Dr. Kathryn Schmitz, assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Center for Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics.

"The most important thing that smokers can do to reduce the risk of lung cancer is quite smoking," Schmitz told the AP. She noted that the risk of lung cancer among people who quit smoking is 10 to 11 times lower than among smokers.

It's not clear why exercise may help prevent lung cancer in smokers. Some experts suggest that it could be because improved pulmonary function in smokers who exercise reduces the amount of cancer-causing particles in the lungs, the AP reported.

Health Headlines - December 13

FDA Targets Unapproved Quinine Drugs

U.S. companies that make unapproved prescription drugs that contain quinine have been given 60 days to stop producing the products, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said Tuesday.

The unapproved drugs are most often prescribed to prevent or treat leg cramps but there are serious safety concerns, including patient deaths, associated with drugs that contain quinine, the FDA said.

Quinine is approved for the treatment of malaria. Because malaria is life-threatening, the risks associated with quinine are justified, the FDA said. There is one FDA-approved quinine drug to treat certain types of malaria without complications. That drug is not affected by the FDA order announced Tuesday.

The label on the approved drug includes warnings about the potential serious side effects of quinine and other important safety information. Quinine drugs can cause cardiac arrhythmias, severe hypersensitivity reactions, and thrombocytopenia, a decrease in blood platelets that can cause hemorrhage or clotting problems.

In addition, there can be serious interactions between quinine drugs and other drugs.

Since 1969, the FDA has received 665 reports of serious adverse events, including 93 deaths, associated with quinine drugs.

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Moderate Drinking May Lengthen Life

A drink or two a day may help extend your life, suggests an Italian study in the journal Archives of Internal Medicine.

A team at the Research Laboratories of the Catholic University of Campobasso analyzed data on more than a million people and concluded that men who drank up to four small bottles of beer or four small glasses of win a day reduced their risk of dying by almost 20 percent. The same degree of benefit was noted in women who drank two 100 milliliter glasses of wine or two 200 milliliter bottles of beer a day, reported the Daily Express in the U.K. One hundred milliliters is equal to just under 4 ounces.

It was already known that moderate consumption of red wine lowered the risk of heart disease. But this study suggests that moderate drinking reduces the risk of death from all causes.

It's believed that wine, beer and cider may help reduce levels of bad cholesterol and boost levels of good cholesterol. The scientists who conducted this study said that certain compounds found in wine and beer can also help cells repair DNA damage, the Daily Express reported.

"Alcohol contains substances that can protect the body from diseases such as cancer, diabetes and heart disease and this study underlines its beneficial effects," said Professor Giovanni de Gaetano, director of the Research Laboratories. "But the key is not to drink too much as excess immediately increases the risk of an early death."

He noted that other studies have found that spirits don't offer the same protective effects as beer and wine.

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Gene Mutation Linked to Family's High Risk for Pancreatic Cancer

U.S. researchers have identified a genetic mutation that may be linked to inherited pancreatic cancer in a Washington state family that's stalked by the disease.

Members of the Chappell family inherit a 50 percent risk of pancreatic cancer. If further research confirms that the genetic mutation is indeed responsible, then the mutation could be used to identify which family members are at risk for the disease, USA Today reported.

Family members without the mutation could have some peace of mind while those with the mutation could be screened in an effort to catch the disease at the early stages, said study senior author Dr. Teri Brentnall of the University of Washington in Seattle.

The study was published online in the journal PLoS Medicine.

While the Chappell family's high risk level may be unique, research into the genetic factors that influence their high rate of pancreatic cancer may help scientists learn more about this and other forms of cancer, USA Today reported.

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FDA Approves Drug to Treat Relapsed Lymphoma

The cancer drug Velcade (bortezomib) has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for treatment of patients with relapsed mantel cell lymphoma (MCL).

MCL is an aggressive type of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. The approval offers a new treatment option for these patients. Currently, there are no generally accepted treatment approaches and few options. Velcade is the first drug to receive FDA approval for treatment of patients with relapsed MCL.

A study found that 31 percent of MCL patients who'd received one or two prior therapies responded to Velcade, including eight percent who achieved a complete response that lasted a median of 13. 5 months.

The most common side effects included gastrointestinal problems, fatigue, and numbness and tingling in the hands and feet.

There are about 10,000 MCL patients in the United States. The average life expectancy for patients with relapsed MCL is one to two years. About 20 percent of patients with relapsed MCL survive at least five years.

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FDA Would Widen Patient Access to Experimental Drugs

New rules that would provide easier access to experimental drugs for seriously ill patients who have no other treatment options are being proposed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

The proposed regulatory changes would also clarify the circumstances and costs for which drug makers could charge for an experimental drug.

"FDA hopes this proposal will increase awareness in the health-care community of the range of options available for obtaining experimental drugs for seriously ill patients," Dr. Janet Woodcock, FDA's deputy commissioner for operations, said in a prepared statement.

"By clarifying and streamlining the processes, FDA also hopes to encourage companies to make such drugs available, and reduce barriers for health-care practitioners in obtaining them," Woodcock said.

In order for an experimental drug to be approved for patients, the FDA would have to be satisfied that the potential benefits of the drug outweigh the risks.

The proposed changes, released Monday, are subject to comment for 90 days.

Health Headlines - December 12

FDA Would Give Patients More Access to Experimental Drugs

New rules that would provide easier access to experimental drugs for seriously ill patients who have no other treatment options are being proposed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

The proposed regulatory changes would also clarify the circumstances and costs for which drug makers could charge for an experimental drug.

"FDA hopes this proposal will increase awareness in the health-care community of the range of options available for obtaining experimental drugs for seriously ill patients," Dr. Janet Woodcock, FDA's deputy commissioner for operations, said in a prepared statement.

"By clarifying and streamlining the processes, FDA also hopes to encourage companies to make such drugs available, and reduce barriers for health-care practitioners in obtaining them," Woodcock said.

In order for an experimental drug to be approved for patients, the FDA would have to be satisfied that the potential benefits of the drug outweigh the risks.

The proposed changes, released Monday, are subject to comment for 90 days.

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'Inkjet' System Directs Stem Cell Growth

U.S. scientists have created an "inkjet" system that can direct how and where stem cells grow. This technology may enable the creation of multiple types of tissue from a single population of stem cells, researchers said Sunday at a meeting of the American Society for Cell Biology.

The scientists, from the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University, used this inkjet method to direct muscle-derived stem cells from mice to grow into both muscle and bone cells, CBC News reported.

Using a "bio-ink" that's able to stimulate or inhibit growth factors in stem cells, the scientists sprayed a complex pattern onto protein slides. Depending on the bio-ink that the stem cells interacted with, they grew into either bone or muscle cells.

"Previously, researchers have been limited to directing stem cells to differentiate toward multiple lineages in separate culture vessels," said Phil Campbell, research professor at the Institute for Complex Engineered Systems at Carnegie Mellon University. "This is not how the body works; the body is one vessel in which multiple tissues are patterned and formed."

The study authors said that being able to manipulate stem cells to grow into desired patterns and types of cells is essential if scientists want to engineer replacement tissues for use in treating trauma injuries, diseases, or genetic abnormalities, CBC News reported.

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Experts Assess Bird Flu Situation

While there are still sporadic outbreaks, the bird flu situation around the world is relatively quiet and scientists are trying to determine what's changed since earlier this year when there were serious concerns about the possibility of a pandemic.

Some experts suggest that weather may be one factor, the Associated Press reported. One possibility: The bird flu virus survives longer at cooler temperatures and therefore is more likely to spread in colder months of the year.

"Many of us are holding are breath to see what happens this winter," Dr. Malik Peiris, a microbiology professor at Hong Kong University, told the AP. "H5N1 spread very rapidly last year. So the question is, was that a one-off incident?"

Other experts suggest that poultry vaccinations may be obscuring detection of the bird flu virus. Vaccination does reduce the amount of virus in circulation. However, low levels of the bird flu virus may still be causing outbreaks, but not the bird deaths that would trigger an alert.

Despite the fact that there has been no pandemic, experts say the risk is still there, the AP reported.

Since 2003, bird flu has killed 154 people and prompted the slaughter of hundreds of millions of fowl worldwide.

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E. coli Suspected in Taco John's Outbreak

Nearly three dozen people became ill after eating at a Taco John's restaurant in Cedar Falls, Iowa. Health officials said the customers' symptoms were consistent with infection by E. coli bacteria. Results of tests to determine whether E. coli was responsible were expected Monday, the Associated Press reported.

Fourteen of the sick customers had to be hospitalized. All suspected food ingredients have been removed from the menu and the restaurant has been sanitized. A representative for the company, based in Cheyenne, Wyo., has been sent to review the Cedar Falls restaurant's food storage and cooking procedures and to check cleaning reports and worker health records.

Taco John's is not associated with Taco Bell. Health officials have confirmed 61 cases of E. coli-related illness in people in five states -- New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware and South Carolina -- who ate at Taco Bell restaurants.

On Sunday, the New York City Health Department said a Staten Island resident was the first person in the city to become ill with the same E. coli strain that caused the other confirmed cases. The person was admitted to a hospital Nov. 24 after eating at a Taco Bell, but has since recovered, the AP reported.

Scallions were the likely source of E. coli at the Taco Bell restaurants, the company said. It has switched produce suppliers. The company said independent laboratory tests confirmed all other ingredients on the Taco Bell menu were safe and that there were no plans to use green onions again.

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Cruise Ship Hit by Second Outbreak of Illness

For the second straight cruise, there's been an outbreak of gastrointestinal illness on Royal Caribbean's Freedom of the Seas, the world's largest cruise ship.

U.S. health officials said the ship should delay its next scheduled departure and remain in port in Florida for a thorough cleaning. In addition, two doctors and 45 extra cleaning staff will be on the ship when it leaves for its next voyage. The departure is scheduled for Tuesday, the Associated Press reported.

On the latest cruise, 97 passengers and 11 crew members became ill due to norovirus. On the previous voyage, more than 380 passengers and crew were sickened by the same virus. The ship was cleaned after that cruise.

Another cruise ship, Princess Cruises' Sun Princess, also had an outbreak of illness. When the vessel docked at Port Everglades, Fla., on Sunday, it had 97 sick passengers. Cleaning crews were scouring the ship, the AP reported.

Norovirus -- a group of viruses that can cause stomach cramps, vomiting and diarrhea -- can be spread through contact with contaminated surfaces or through contaminated food or liquids.

Health Headlines - December 11

Taco Bell Pulls Green Onions From its Menu

Believing that all of its other ingredients are safe to eat, Taco Bell Corp. has announced that it has removed green onions -- also known as scallions -- from its its 5,800 restaurants across the United States.

"After removing green onions from our restaurants, we believe that all of our other ingredients are perfectly safe based on our test results," Greg Creed, president of Taco Bell Corp., announced in a company news release Saturday.

The green onions were identified by U.S. government investigators as the possible cause of E. coli 0157:H7, a bacterial infection that has shown up in 61 people in the Northeast, all of whom ate at Taco bell restaurants since early November.

Creed said that independent laboratory tests confirmed all other ingredients on the Taco Bell menu were safe and that there were no plans to use green onions again.

While the source of the infected vegetables hasn't been pinpointed, investigators are looking into the possibility of it may have been from fields in southern California, near where an E. coli outbreak involving fresh spinach occurred earlier in the fall.

Unlike the spinach infestation, there have been no deaths in the 61 cases in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware, although 49 people have been hospitalized. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, seven patients suffered kidney failure.

The CDC describes E. coli symptoms to include bloody diarrhea, abdominal cramps and/or vomiting.

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'Laser Surgery' Cost Greatly Reduced By Using High-Heat Lamps, Researchers Say

Israeli researchers say they've found a way to use laser surgery techniques to operate on malignant tumors at a fraction of the cost.

BBC News reports that instead of using an expensive laser beam, researchers at Ben Gurion University in Beersheva have found that lamps that generate a lot of heat -- such as those used in movie projectors -- can be used with fiber optics to burn out cancerous tumors. Because the cost is so much cheaper, lead researcher Jeffrey Gordon said, this technique could be used by medical facilities throughout the world that couldn't afford the more highly-developed laser technology.

"We used a new generation of ultra-bright lamp - brighter than car headlamps - which can be harnessed if you develop the proper optic to harness it," the BBC quotes Gordon as saying. "We performed surgery on livers and kidneys of rats and the results were at least as good as the corresponding results one reads about in laser surgery. But our technique is 100 times cheaper."

The technique needs to be refined, the scientists said, by developing methods to make the surgery more infinitely precise, but the basic method is sound, they maintain.

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Nations Pledge $475 Million Against Bird Flu

The world's nations have pledged an additional $475 million to fight bird flu, United Nations officials said in concluding a three-day avian flu conference in the African country of Mali.

The United States topped the list with a pledge of $100 million, followed by Canada ($92.5 million), the European Union ($88.2 million), and Japan ($67 million), the Agence France Presse news service reported.

At the last similar world meeting in January in Beijing, donors pledged $1 billion in loans and donations toward fighting bird flu. Experts have long feared that the current H5N1 strain could mutate from a deadly form that affects mostly birds to one that is more easily transmitted between people, sparking a human pandemic.

H5N1, primarily spread so far to people by contact with sick birds, has killed more than 150 people worldwide since late 2003, AFP said. The virus also has led to mass culls of tens of millions of domestic poultry.

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Chewable Birth Control Pill Launched in U.S.

The first chewable birth control tablet in the United States was officially launched Thursday by drug maker Warner Chilcott.

The company says that Femcon Fe provides an option for women who don't like swallowing pills and want to carry their birth control with them. The chewable tablet, which is aimed at women who occasionally forget to take their pills, contains the same hormones as standard oral contraceptives, the Associated Press reported.

Femcon Fe is packaged in the typical 28-day cycle -- 21 days of active pills and seven days of inactive pills. Women must drink 8 ounces of water when taking a tablet. A month's supply will sell for $44 wholesale. The price will be slightly more at pharmacies.

The spearmint-flavored tablet can also be swallowed without chewing.

"This isn't a great leap forward, but I think this is a helpful step," Dr. Lee Shulman, chairman of the Association of Reproductive Health Professionals, told the AP.

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Ebola Could Push Gorillas to Extinction

A strain of Ebola virus has killed about 5,500 gorillas in the Republic of Congo and Gabon since 2001. The virus, combined with hunting, may be enough to cause extinction of the great apes, says a study in the current issue of the journal Science.

European researchers looking into reports of large-scale gorilla deaths conducted an investigation at the Lossi Sanctuary in the Congo. Between 2002 and 2003, 93 percent of the gorillas in the sanctuary died, CBC News reported.

Tests on the remains of dead gorillas were positive for Ebola Zaire, one of the four strains of the virus. Chimpanzees in the region were also severely affected, with a 77 percent death rate due to Ebola.

"Ape species that were abundant and widely distributed a decade ago are rapidly being reduced to remnant populations," the researchers wrote. "Add commercial hunting to the mix, and we have a recipe for ecological disaster."

In humans, Ebola causes massive internal and external bleeding and kills about 90 percent of people who are infected with the virus. Since it was first recorded in 1976, Ebola has killed more than 1,200 people, CBC News reported.

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Malaria/HIV Co-Infections Major Problem in Africa

Malaria and HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, are promoting each other's spread in sub-Saharan Africa, says a U.S. study published Friday in the journal Science.

Researchers identified a large overlap between the two diseases in the region, Agence France Presse reported.

Malaria helps to multiple by 10 times the amount of HIV in the blood of an HIV-infected person, which means that person is more likely to transmit HIV to a sex partner. And due to their compromised immune systems, people with HIV are more susceptible to malaria infection, the study said.

The researchers estimated that this kind of co-infection has resulted in millions of malaria cases and tens of thousands of HIV infections, AFP reported.

The findings suggest that other co-infections such as tuberculosis or genital herpes may also have contributed to the large numbers of HIV cases in Africa, the researchers said.

Health Headlines - December 10

Nations Pledge $475 Million Against Bird Flu

The world's nations have pledged an additional $475 million to fight bird flu, United Nations officials said in concluding a three-day avian flu conference in the African country of Mali.

The United States topped the list with a pledge of $100 million, followed by Canada ($92.5 million), the European Union ($88.2 million), and Japan ($67 million), the Agence France Presse news service reported.

At the last similar world meeting in January in Beijing, donors pledged $1 billion in loans and donations toward fighting bird flu. Experts have long feared that the current H5N1 strain could mutate from a deadly form that affects mostly birds to one that is more easily transmitted between people, sparking a human pandemic.

H5N1, primarily spread so far to people by contact with sick birds, has killed more than 150 people worldwide since late 2003, AFP said. The virus also has led to mass culls of tens of millions of domestic poultry.

Chewable Birth Control Pill Launched in U.S.

The first chewable birth control tablet in the United States was officially launched Thursday by drug maker Warner Chilcott.

The company says that Femcon Fe provides an option for women who don't like swallowing pills and want to carry their birth control with them. The chewable tablet, which is aimed at women who occasionally forget to take their pills, contains the same hormones as standard oral contraceptives, the Associated Press reported.

Femcon Fe is packaged in the typical 28-day cycle -- 21 days of active pills and seven days of inactive pills. Women must drink 8 ounces of water when taking a tablet. A month's supply will sell for $44 wholesale. The price will be slightly more at pharmacies.

The spearmint-flavored tablet can also be swallowed without chewing.

"This isn't a great leap forward, but I think this is a helpful step," Dr. Lee Shulman, chairman of the Association of Reproductive Health Professionals, told the AP.

Ebola Could Push Gorillas to Extinction

A strain of Ebola virus has killed about 5,500 gorillas in the Republic of Congo and Gabon since 2001. The virus, combined with hunting, may be enough to cause extinction of the great apes, says a study in the current issue of the journal Science.

European researchers looking into reports of large-scale gorilla deaths conducted an investigation at the Lossi Sanctuary in the Congo. Between 2002 and 2003, 93 percent of the gorillas in the sanctuary died, CBC News reported.

Tests on the remains of dead gorillas were positive for Ebola Zaire, one of the four strains of the virus. Chimpanzees in the region were also severely affected, with a 77 percent death rate due to Ebola.

"Ape species that were abundant and widely distributed a decade ago are rapidly being reduced to remnant populations," the researchers wrote. "Add commercial hunting to the mix, and we have a recipe for ecological disaster."

In humans, Ebola causes massive internal and external bleeding and kills about 90 percent of people who are infected with the virus. Since it was first recorded in 1976, Ebola has killed more than 1,200 people, CBC News reported.

Malaria/HIV Co-Infections Major Problem in Africa

Malaria and HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, are promoting each other's spread in sub-Saharan Africa, says a U.S. study published Friday in the journal Science.

Researchers identified a large overlap between the two diseases in the region, Agence France Presse reported.

Malaria helps to multiple by 10 times the amount of HIV in the blood of an HIV-infected person, which means that person is more likely to transmit HIV to a sex partner. And due to their compromised immune systems, people with HIV are more susceptible to malaria infection, the study said.

The researchers estimated that this kind of co-infection has resulted in millions of malaria cases and tens of thousands of HIV infections, AFP reported.

The findings suggest that other co-infections such as tuberculosis or genital herpes may also have contributed to the large numbers of HIV cases in Africa, the researchers said.

Smoking Boosts Men's Risk of Knee Arthritis

Smoking increases the risk of knee osteoarthritis in men, says a Mayo Clinic-led study in this week's online issue of the journal Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases.

Over 30 months, 159 men were given three MRI scans. The results showed that smokers had a faster loss of knee cartilage than non-smokers, CBC News reported.

Compared with men who never smoked or had quit, current smokers had a 2.3-fold increased risk of cartilage loss in the medial tibiofemoral joint, which connects the thighbone and shinbone. Smokers also had a 2.5-fold increased risk of cartilage loss at the patellofemoral joint, located between the knee cap and thigh bone.

"This is a novel finding. Previous studies showed no association between cigarette smoking and knee osteoarthritis or even a protective effect of smoking," said Dr. Shreyasee Amin, a clinical rheumatologist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.

He and his colleagues wrote that smoking "increases the levels of toxic substances in the blood and starves tissues of oxygen, which may hasten the loss of cartilage, " CBC News reported.

Keep Toys With Magnets Away From Young Kids, CDC Warns

U.S. health officials are warning parents to keep toys with magnets away from small children because swallowing the magnets can lead to digestive tract blockages and other problems.

Since 2003, one child died and 19 others have required surgery after they swallowed magnets found in toys, according to a report released Thursday in the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

Magnets in separate sections of the bowel can become magnetically attached, resulting in obstructions, perforations, and a life-threatening bloodstream infection (sepsis). Initial signs and symptoms are non-specific, which can result in delayed diagnosis and greater harm to the child.

A radiological examination cannot tell a doctor whether swallowed objects are magnetic or whether they have trapped tissues between them, the report, from the noted. It did suggest that doctors pass a compass close to the abdomen in order to help them determine whether an unidentified object in a child's bowel is a magnet.

Parents should not let children younger than 6 years old play with toys that have magnets or allow younger children in areas where older children are playing with such toys, the report said. In addition, healthcare providers should be aware of the potential complications caused by ingestion of magnets.

Health Headlines - December 9

Chewable Birth Control Pill Launched in U.S.

The first chewable birth control tablet in the United States was officially launched Thursday by drug maker Warner Chilcott.

The company says that Femcon Fe provides an option for women who don't like swallowing pills and want to carry their birth control with them. The chewable tablet, which is aimed at women who occasionally forget to take their pills, contains the same hormones as standard oral contraceptives, the Associated Press reported.

Femcon Fe is packaged in the typical 28-day cycle -- 21 days of active pills and seven days of inactive pills. Women must drink 8 ounces of water when taking a tablet. A month's supply will sell for $44 wholesale. The price will be slightly more at pharmacies.

The spearmint-flavored tablet can also be swallowed without chewing.

"This isn't a great leap forward, but I think this is a helpful step," Dr. Lee Shulman, chairman of the Association of Reproductive Health Professionals, told the AP.

Ebola Could Push Gorillas to Extinction

A strain of Ebola virus has killed about 5,500 gorillas in the Republic of Congo and Gabon since 2001. The virus, combined with hunting, may be enough to cause extinction of the great apes, says a study in the current issue of the journal Science.

European researchers looking into reports of large-scale gorilla deaths conducted an investigation at the Lossi Sanctuary in the Congo. Between 2002 and 2003, 93 percent of the gorillas in the sanctuary died, CBC News reported.

Tests on the remains of dead gorillas were positive for Ebola Zaire, one of the four strains of the virus. Chimpanzees in the region were also severely affected, with a 77 percent death rate due to Ebola.

"Ape species that were abundant and widely distributed a decade ago are rapidly being reduced to remnant populations," the researchers wrote. "Add commercial hunting to the mix, and we have a recipe for ecological disaster."

In humans, Ebola causes massive internal and external bleeding and kills about 90 percent of people who are infected with the virus. Since it was first recorded in 1976, Ebola has killed more than 1,200 people, CBC News reported.

Malaria/HIV Co-Infections Major Problem in Africa

Malaria and HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, are promoting each other's spread in sub-Saharan Africa, says a U.S. study published Friday in the journal Science.

Researchers identified a large overlap between the two diseases in the region, Agence France Presse reported.

Malaria helps to multiple by 10 times the amount of HIV in the blood of an HIV-infected person, which means that person is more likely to transmit HIV to a sex partner. And due to their compromised immune systems, people with HIV are more susceptible to malaria infection, the study said.

The researchers estimated that this kind of co-infection has resulted in millions of malaria cases and tens of thousands of HIV infections, AFP reported.

The findings suggest that other co-infections such as tuberculosis or genital herpes may also have contributed to the large numbers of HIV cases in Africa, the researchers said.

Smoking Boosts Men's Risk of Knee Arthritis

Smoking increases the risk of knee osteoarthritis in men, says a Mayo Clinic-led study in this week's online issue of the journal Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases.

Over 30 months, 159 men were given three MRI scans. The results showed that smokers had a faster loss of knee cartilage than non-smokers, CBC News reported.

Compared with men who never smoked or had quit, current smokers had a 2.3-fold increased risk of cartilage loss in the medial tibiofemoral joint, which connects the thighbone and shinbone. Smokers also had a 2.5-fold increased risk of cartilage loss at the patellofemoral joint, located between the knee cap and thigh bone.

"This is a novel finding. Previous studies showed no association between cigarette smoking and knee osteoarthritis or even a protective effect of smoking," said Dr. Shreyasee Amin, a clinical rheumatologist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.

He and his colleagues wrote that smoking "increases the levels of toxic substances in the blood and starves tissues of oxygen, which may hasten the loss of cartilage, " CBC News reported.

Keep Toys With Magnets Away From Young Kids, CDC Warns

U.S. health officials are warning parents to keep toys with magnets away from small children because swallowing the magnets can lead to digestive tract blockages and other problems.

Since 2003, one child died and 19 others have required surgery after they swallowed magnets found in toys, according to a report released Thursday in the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

Magnets in separate sections of the bowel can become magnetically attached, resulting in obstructions, perforations, and a life-threatening bloodstream infection (sepsis). Initial signs and symptoms are non-specific, which can result in delayed diagnosis and greater harm to the child.

A radiological examination cannot tell a doctor whether swallowed objects are magnetic or whether they have trapped tissues between them, the report, from the noted. It did suggest that doctors pass a compass close to the abdomen in order to help them determine whether an unidentified object in a child's bowel is a magnet.

Parents should not let children younger than 6 years old play with toys that have magnets or allow younger children in areas where older children are playing with such toys, the report said. In addition, healthcare providers should be aware of the potential complications caused by ingestion of magnets.

Health Headlines - December 8

Consumer-Driven Health Plans Not Attracting People: Survey

Americans are not attracted to new consumer-driven health plans, according to a survey released Thursday by the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) and the Commonwealth Fund.

Enrollment in the plans, which feature reduced premiums but higher annual deductibles, remains low, and consumer satisfaction with the plans is lower than with more comprehensive health insurance, the survey of 3,158 adults showed.

The survey defined consumer-driven and high-deductible plans as having deductibles of $1,000 or more for employee-only coverage and $2,000 or more for family coverage.

As of September 2006, 1 percent of privately insured people ages 21-64 (1.3 million people) were in consumer-driven health plans. That percentage was unchanged from the previous year. Another 8.5 million people had plans with deductibles high enough to qualify for a health savings account but didn't have an account.

The survey appears in the December 2006 EBRI Issue Brief.

"Despite their tax benefits, consumer-driven health plans are not attracting large numbers of adults without insurance coverage, relative to other insurance. New strategies are needed to provide affordable and meaningful insurance to the nation's 47 million uninsured," Karen Davis, president of the Commonwealth Fund, said in a prepared statement.

Keep Toys with Magnets Away From Young Kids, CDC Warns

U.S. health officials are warning parents to keep toys with magnets away from small children because swallowing the magnets can lead to digestive tract blockages and other problems.

Since 2003, one child died and 19 others have required surgery after they swallowed magnets found in toys, according to a report released Thursday in the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

Magnets in separate sections of the bowel can become magnetically attached, resulting in obstructions, perforations, and a life-threatening bloodstream infection (sepsis). Initial signs and symptoms are non-specific, which can result in delayed diagnosis and greater harm to the child.

A radiological examination cannot tell a doctor whether swallowed objects are magnetic or whether they have trapped tissues between them, the report, from the noted. It did suggest that doctors pass a compass close to the abdomen in order to help them determine whether an unidentified object in a child's bowel is a magnet.

Parents should not let children younger than 6 years old play with toys that have magnets or allow younger children in areas where older children are playing with such toys, the report said. In addition, healthcare providers should be aware of the potential complications caused by ingestion of magnets.

EPA Announces Final 9/11 Testing and Cleanup Program

The final 9/11 contamination testing and cleanup program in New York City will be launched next month, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said Wednesday.

Under the $7 million program, workers will test the air and dust in commercial buildings and apartments near the World Trade Center site. The tests will look for four contaminants -- asbestos, lead, man-made fibers and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons -- associated with the collapse of the twin towers, the Associated Press reported.

In 2002 and 2003, the EPA checked more than 4,000 units in the area.

"The vast majority of occupied residential and commercial spaces in lower Manhattan have been repeatedly cleaned, and we believe the potential for exposure related to dust that may remain from the collapse of the World Trade Center building is low," said EPA official Dr. George Gray.

The agency has been criticized for not doing enough to protect public health following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorists attacks. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D.-N.Y.) called the new program "incredibly frustrating and disappointing," the AP reported.

"EPA has now acknowledged that additional testing is necessary, but the program announced today is totally inadequate," Clinton said in a statement released Wednesday.

Schizophrenia Drug Shows Promise

The investigational schizophrenia drug iloperidone was effective in a late-stage clinical trial, Vanda Pharmaceuticals Inc. said Thursday.

During the four-week trial of 604 patients, the drug was tested in two doses. The data showed that patients who took iloperidone, an atypical antipsychotic, showed statistically significant symptom improvement compared to those who took a placebo, the Associated Press reported.

Patient responses to the drug and a placebo were measured on the Positive and Negative Symptom Scale (PANSS), which lists hallucinations, delusions, racing thoughts and other psychotic symptoms as positive symptoms. Negative symptoms include moodiness, inability to feel pleasure, difficulty concentrating, and sleeping and eating disturbances.

The results of this study increase the likelihood that Vanda will file a new drug application for iloperidone with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in late 2007, the AP reported.

Brain Scans Could Help Predict Schizophrenia

MRI brain scans could help predict schizophrenia, researchers at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland say.

They found that MRI can detect key changes in the brain's gray matter before a person develops symptoms of schizophrenia. The researchers said that tracking these changes over time, combined with traditional assessments, could help doctors predict the mental health disorder, BBC News reported.

In this study, the researchers analyzed a series of MRI brain scans (taken, on average, 18 months apart) of 65 young people at high risk of developing schizophrenia because two or more members of their family had been diagnosed with the illness.

Within about 2.3 years of the first scan, eight of the 65 participants had developed schizophrenia. The MRIs of those eight people showed they had experienced changes in their brain gray matter before they developed symptoms of schizophrenia, BBC News reported.

The changes involved a reduction of gray matter in an area of the brain that's linked to the processing of anxiety. The findings appear in the journal BMC Medicine.

"Although there are no preventative treatments for the illness, an accurate predictive test could help researchers to assess possibilities for prevention in the future," said lead researcher Dr. Dominic Job.

Health Headlines - December 7

Consumers Warned About Jamba Juice Smoothies

Consumers in the U.S. Southwest are being warned that Jamba Juice Co. smoothies containing strawberries may be contaminated with the potentially deadly Listeria monocytogenes bacterium.

The warning applies to smoothies sold at Jamba Juice stores in Arizona, southern Nevada and southern California from Nov. 25 to Dec. 1, the Associated Press reported.

There have been no reports of illness, said the San Francisco-based company, which issued the warning Tuesday after it learned that some frozen strawberries from one of its suppliers tested positive for Listeria monocytogenes.

Jamba Juice immediately stopped shipments from that supplier -- Cleugh's Frozen Foods of Salinas, Calif. -- and removed all strawberries supplied by that company, the AP reported.

Listeria monocytogenes can cause potentially deadly infections in children, the elderly and other people with weakened immune systems. The bacterium can also cause miscarriages and stillbirths in pregnant women.

U.S. Companies to Give Workers Electronic Medical Records

Workers at five of the largest employers in the United States will soon have electronic medical records that they can access from any computer.

The medical records of about 2.5 million workers and their dependents will be compiled by an independent, nonprofit organization and stored in a database that will only be accessible to the employees, the Associated Press reported.

The five companies -- Applied Materials; BP America Inc.; Intel Corp.; Pitney Bowes; and Wal-Mart -- hope the move will reduce health-care paperwork and reduce administrative costs, medical errors and duplication of care. The savings may make it easier for the companies to continue sponsoring health insurance for their employees.

The companies did not say how much the program will cost, the AP reported.

Scientists Find Potential 'Achilles' Heel' in Bird-Flu Virus

U.S. scientists say they may have found the "Achilles' heel" of the H5N1 bird-flu virus and other influenza strains. This weak point may offer a target for new drugs to fight the viruses, the researchers say in a report to be published Thursday in the journal Nature.

The potential vulnerability is a loop in the long, flexible protein tail that's essential for flu virus replication. A single mutation in the amino building blocks that comprise this loop is enough to stop the virus from replicating, Agence France Presse reported.

"We know from previous genetic studies that this tail loop is almost identical across strains of influenza A, so drugs that target the tail have a high potential of being effective across multiple strains, including the H5N1 strains," research team leader Yizhi Jane Tao, of Rice University in Houston, said in a prepared statement.

"Such new antivirals are especially needed at the moment as some H5N1 viruses are resistant to the flu drug Tamiflu," Tao noted.

U.S. Urged to Ban Children's Jewelry Containing Lead

The United States should ban children's jewelry that contains lead, says the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), an independent federal regulator responsible for overseeing the safety of consumer products.

The CPSC staff said Tuesday that the commission should prohibit the manufacture, sale and importation of toy jewelry that contains more than .06 percent lead by weight, the Associated Press reported.

Currently, most children's products with more than .06 percent lead are only subject to a recall. By prohibiting toy jewelry with that much lead, the CPSC could fine companies that knowingly make, sell, or import such products, said CPSC spokesman Scott Wolfson.

"The goal is to make the marketplace safer when it comes to children's jewelry by having a simpler policy for companies in their manufacturing and CPSC in assessing safe from dangerous," Wolfson said.

He said lead paint in older homes is still the leading lead danger for children in the United States but the threat from toy jewelry has become a major issue in recent years. In 2004, the CPSC issued a recall for 150 million pieces of children's jewelry with unsafe lead levels. It was the largest recall in the commission's history, the AP reported.

FDA Warns Cos. to Stop Making Compounded Anesthetic Creams

Five U.S. companies have been warned to stop compounding and distributing topical anesthetic creams, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said Tuesday.

The compounded creams are being marketed for general distribution, rather than for the unique medical needs of individual patients, and the FDA is concerned about the possible health risks posed by these creams. Exposure to the high concentrations of local anesthetics in the creams can cause serious reactions, such as irregular heartbeats and seizures.

Two deaths have been connected to compounded topical anesthetic creams made by Triangle Compounding Pharmacy and University Pharmacy, two of the companies that received warning letters from the FDA. The other three are Custom Scripts Pharmacy, Hal's Compounding Pharmacy, and New England Compounding Center.

"Compounded topical anesthetic creams, like all compounded drugs, are not reviewed by FDA for safety and effectiveness, and are not FDA-approved. These high-potency drugs may expose patients to unnecessary risk, especially when they are used without proper medical supervision," Dr. Steven Galson, director of FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, said in a prepared statement.

Compounded topical anesthetic creams are often used to reduce pain in patients having procedures such as laser hair removal, tattoos and skin treatments. There are FDA-approved topical anesthetic products.

Australia Legalizes Cloning of Embryos for Stem Cell Research

Australian legislators voted Wednesday to legalize the cloning of human embryos for stem cell research.

The House of Representatives voted 82-62 in favor of lifting a four-year-old ban on the procedure. Conservative Prime Minister John Howard and the other major party leaders voted against the bill, the Associated Press reported.

Last month, the Senate passed the bill. The new law will take effect in about six months, after government health and science officials establish guidelines for egg donation and research licensing.

In 2002, Australia's Parliament passed the country's first laws on stem cell research. Under those rules, scientists were only permitted to extract stem cells from spare embryos intended for in-vitro fertilization, the AP reported.

A Note You Should All Read

Hello there,

My name is Mary Whittle and I work for Edelman doing online public relations for the Consumer Healthcare Products Association.

I was writing first to introduce myself – Hello!

Second, I read your blog regularly and think I might have something of interest for you.

By way of background, my client, CHPA, is working on a campaign to raise public awareness about the growing problem of kids abusing dextromethorphan – that’s an ingredient in some cough medicine. As part of that effort, they have been pushing for congressional legislation to ban bulk sales of DXM on the Internet.

Happily, just a few hours ago, the House of Representatives passed the bill (HR 5280) by voice vote (http://clerk.house.gov/cgi-bin/lgwww_bill.pl?205280).

If you would like, I’ve got a lot more information on DXM abuse, HR 5280, and why it all matters that I’d be happy to send your way.

In the meantime, along with the legislative campaign, there are two educational web sites that you and/or your readers might be interested in taking a look at. Both were developed by CHPA and the Partnership for a Drug-Free America as resources for teens and parents, respectively:

www.dxmstories.com

www.drugfree.org/Parent/Resources/Cough_Medicine_Abuse


Have a great evening,
Mary

Health Headlines - December 6

New York City Bans Trans Fats at Restaurants

New York City's Board of Health voted unanimously Tuesday to make the city the first in the United States to ban trans fats at restaurants.

As of July 2007, restaurants will not be permitted to use most frying oils that contain artery-clogging trans fats and by July 2008 they won't be allowed to serve any foods that contain trans fats, the Associated Press reported.

It's believed that trans fats increase the risk of heart disease by increasing bad cholesterol while lowering good cholesterol. The average American eats 4.7 pounds of trans fats per year, according to the Food and Drug Administration.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg has dismissed critics who say the city crossed a line by trying to legislate what people eat, the AP reported.

"Nobody wants to take away your french fries and hamburgers -- I love those things too. But if you can make them with something that is less damaging to your health, we should do that," Bloomberg said recently.

Chicago is considering a law to severely limit the amount of trans fats that can be used in restaurants. Many food makers and fast food chains have already stopped using trans fats or plan to stop using them.

VA Fails to Track Spending on Mental Health Services: Report

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs didn't spend the entire $300 million it budgeted in recent years to increase mental health services for veterans with post-traumatic stress disorders and substance abuse problems, and it also failed to keep tabs on how some of that money was spent, a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report contends.

To improve mental health services for veterans, the VA added $100 million in 2005 and another $200 million this year. The money was to be given to the VA's regional network of medical center, hospitals, and clinics, the Associated Press reported.

But the GAO report said that VA's spending on new mental health services fell short by $12 million in 2005 and by about $42 million in fiscal 2006. The VA provided $35 million to its 21 health care networks in 2005, but failed to tell the networks that the money was to be used for mental health services.

The GAO report also said that VA medical centers returned $46 million to VA headquarters because they were unable to spend the money in fiscal 2006, the AP reported.

The VA is also unable to ascertain how much of $112 million was spent on new or improved mental health services in fiscal 2006, the GAO said.

In September, the VA said that more than one third of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans who sought medical treatment from the VA in the previous 18 months reported symptoms of mental health problems, the AP said.

Minnesota Tops State Health Rankings

For the fourth straight year, Minnesota has taken first place in state health rankings in the annual United Health Foundation report, which also found Americans 0.3 percent healthier in 2006 than they were last year.

Minnesota has taken top spot in 11 of the 17 years of the survey by the United Health Foundation, an independent, not-for-profit foundation funded by the UnitedHealth Group health care company.

The report's rankings are based on a number of factors including access to care, incidence of preventable disease, smoking rates, child poverty rates, and motor vehicle deaths, the Associated Press reported.

Minnesota took top spot due to its low rates of: uninsured (8.4 percent); children in poverty (10 percent); infant mortality (5.1 deaths per 1,000 live births). The other states in the top five were Vermont, New Hampshire, Hawaii and Connecticut.

Louisiana was rated the least-healthy state. Others in the bottom five were Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee and Arkansas, the AP said.

The report also listed states with the largest improvements and declines in overall health since last year. The states with the most improvement were Illinois, Ohio, Wisconsin and Kansas. Those with the worst declines were New Mexico, Idaho and West Virginia.

From 1990 to 2006, the percentage of uninsured Americans increased from 13.4 percent to 15.9 percent, the report said.

U.S. Government Scientist Charged with Taking Drug Company Perks

A senior scientist at the U.S. National Institute of Mental Health (NIMN) was charged Monday with accepting $285,000 in consulting fees and travel expenses from drug maker Pfizer Inc. without first getting authorization from his superiors and ethics watchdogs, the Baltimore Sun reported.

Federal prosecutors charged 55-year-old Pearson "Trey" Sunderland III, chief of NIMN's geriatric psychiatry branch, with conflict of interest. If convicted, Sunderland could be sentenced to up to one year in prison and fined up to $100,000. He's scheduled to make his first court appearance Friday.

Sunderland is still an employee of the NIMH, part of the U.S. National Institutes of Health.

This is the latest in a series of cases involving federal government researchers and officials with financial ties to the drug industry, the Sun reported.

In October, former U.S. Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Lester M. Crawford pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor charges. He admitted he lied about owning stock and options in companies regulated by the FDA.

On Monday, NIH officials confirmed to the Sun that more than 40 of the agency's scientists are believed to have had outside, fee-based relationships with private companies. Almost none of them were charged with crimes. Most were disciplined internally or retired from the NIH.

U.S. Must Prepare for Hispanic Aging Boom

The number of older Hispanics in the United States will triple over the next two decades and a national approach to dealing with Hispanic aging issues will be needed to cope with that growth, warns a report released Tuesday by the National Alliance for Hispanic Health and the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin.

This aging boom is partly due to the fact that Hispanics live longer than blacks and whites. But the report, released at a meeting of the Gerontological Society of America, also noted that longer lives mean Hispanics live more years with health problems.

By 2030, Hispanics aged 65 and older will outnumber elderly black Americans by one million people, the report said. The number of elderly Hispanics in the United States is expected to reach 13.8 million by 2050, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

But the U.S. health care and long term care systems have not yet adapted to the needs of Hispanics, said the report, which is based on information presented at the Second Conference on Aging in the Americas held in September at the LBJ School of Public Affairs.

In health terms, Hispanics tend to do best when they're connected to their culture and community, the report noted. This is an important clue about the positive role that connectedness and family, faith and culture can play in dealing with the Hispanic aging boom in the U.S.

In related news, a study from the nonprofit RAND Corporation found that rates of healthy habits among U.S. Hispanics -- such as exercise and good nutrition --- stay stagnant over succeeding generations, or even decline.

Health Headlines - December 5

Groups Update Guidelines for Sedating Children

Updated guidelines designed to prevent injuries and deaths when doctors and dentists sedate children during procedures outside of hospitals were released Monday by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry (AAPD).

The guidelines advise doctors and dentists to closely monitor young patients for problems while they're under sedation. Health workers must also have the proper training and equipment needed to take quick action in case of an emergency, the guidelines added.

As reported by the Associated Press, the guidelines stress that children also need to be assessed for sedation risk factors. The new recommendations were published in the December issue of the journal Pediatrics.

The guidelines were under review for several years and weren't issued in response to the death of a 5-year-old Chicago girl on Sept. 23, said the presidents of the AAP and AAPD.

Diamond Brownridge did not awake from sedation after treatment at a storefront dental clinic. The Cook County medical examiner's office concluded that she died from lack of oxygen caused by anesthesia, the Associated Press reported.

World Facing Diabetes Epidemic

The world is facing a diabetes epidemic, according to a report that predicts that about 380 million people (7 percent of the world's adult population) will have the disease by 2025 if action is not taken to counter it, CBC News reported.

"Diabetes is fast becoming the epidemic of the 21st century," said the International Diabetes Federation report, which was released Monday at the start of a four-day conference in Cape Town, South Africa.

Currently, about 246 million people worldwide have diabetes, up from 30 million two decades ago. The report found that diabetes kills 3.8 million people a year -- the same toll taken by HIV/AIDS, CBC News reported.

China and India have the greatest number of diabetics (about 40 million each) and cases of Type II diabetes are increasing most rapidly in the Middle East and the Eastern Mediterranean.

"Wherever poverty and a lack of sanitation drive families to low cost-per-calorie foods and packaged drinks, Type II diabetes thrives," the federation said in a statement.

CDC Awards Contracts for Rapid Bird Flu Test

Contracts totaling $11.4 million have been awarded to four companies working to develop new rapid diagnostic tests for H5N1 bird flu and other kinds of influenza viruses, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Monday.

The tests would allow doctors and field epidemiologists to quickly and accurately test patients for influenza viruses, the CDC said. Such tests could help public health experts get an early warning about viruses that could cause an influenza pandemic.

"We have seen avian influenza infections since 1997 but we unfortunately still do not have a good way to quickly and easily distinguish at a patient's bedside whether they suffer from H5N1 or a more common type of influenza," Dr. Julie Gerberding, CDC director, said in a prepared statement.

"These contracts will support development of promising technology that could help doctors treat their patients faster and help public health authorities track influenza viruses that could spur a pandemic," she said.

The four companies awarded the contracts are: Cepheid of Sunnyvale, Calif.; IQuum of Marlborough, Mass.; Meso Scale of Gaithersburg, Md.; and Nanogen of San Diego, Calif.

FDA Advisers Have Financial Ties to Stent Makers: Report

Six doctors with financial ties to companies that make heart devices will serve this week on an U.S. Food and Drug Administration panel reviewing the safety of drug-coated stents that are used to prop open arteries. The stents have been linked with an increased risk of blood clots that can cause heart attacks and strokes.

Critics have condemned the FDA for allowing the doctors to serve on the panel, which will make recommendations that could influence FDA guidelines involving drug-coated stents, Bloomberg News reported.

To clear the way for the six doctors to take part in the review, the FDA has waived rules that prohibit experts from involvement in matters that affect companies with which the experts have consulting contracts or in which they own stock.

The fact that the six doctors hold shares in, or receive fees from, companies that make stents is outweighed by their expertise on heart disease, Randall Lutter, the agency's associate commissioner for policy and planning, noted in a posting on the FDA's Web site.

A number of studies have suggested that drug-coated stents increase the risk of blood clots, Bloomberg reported. That includes a Cleveland Clinic Foundation study released in late November that said heart patients who receive drug-coated stents are five times more likely to develop blood clots than patients who receive bare metal stents.

Blood clots caused by drug-coated stents may cause an extra 2,160 deaths each year in the United States, according to an editorial by U.S. cardiology experts posted online Oct. 11 by the American College of Cardiology.

Norovirus Sickens Hundreds on Caribbean Cruise

An outbreak of norovirus sickened 338 passengers and 46 crew members on the Royal Caribbean's ship Freedom of the Seas during a seven-day Caribbean cruise.

The sick passengers and crew were treated with over-the-counter medications during the cruise, and crew members sanitized railings, elevator buttons, door handles and other frequently touched surfaces, the Associated Press reported.

The Freedom of the Seas, which was carrying about 3,800 passengers and 1,300 crew members, returned Sunday as scheduled to the Port of Miami. It's believed that a passenger previously exposed to the norovirus brought it on board Nov. 26, Royal Caribbean said.

Last month, about 700 passengers and crew were affected by a norovirus outbreak during a trans-Atlantic cruise by the Carnival Cruise Line's Liberty, the AP reported.

Norovirus, which causes stomach flu-like symptoms, affects about 23 million Americans each year, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Exercise Boosts Health of Obese Women

If they exercise, obese women may not need to diet to improve their health, a study by British researchers suggests.

The team from Leeds Metropolitan University and the University of Hull found that encouraging obese women to exercise for four hours a week led to significant improvements in their health and mental well-being, BBC News reported.

The 62 women, ages 24 to 55, weren't encouraged to diet but were taught about good eating habits, including how to read food labels and to cook healthy meals. They also received behavioral therapy to help them understand and respond to body cues such as hunger and feeling full, BBC News reported.

After one year, the women had lost only a few pounds but were much fitter and happier with themselves. Their respiratory fitness increased and their blood pressure, cholesterol and heart rate levels declined, the study said.

The findings were presented at a meeting of the U.K. Society of Behavioral Medicine.

Health Headlines - December 4

Pfizer Shuts Down Cholesterol Drug Development

The world's largest drugmaker has shut down development of its star cholesterol drug because of an unexpected number of deaths and cardiovascular problems in patients who used it.

Pfizer Inc. announced that an independent board monitoring a study for torcetrapib, a drug that raises levels of good cholesterol, HDL, recommended Saturday that the trial end because of "an imbalance of mortality and cardiovascular events," the Associated Press reported.

Pfizer said it has asked that all clinical investigators conducting trials warn patients to stop taking the drug immediately.

According to Pfizer spokesman Paul Fitzhenry, in a trial of 15,000 patients, 82 of those taking the combination of torcetrapib and Lipitor had died, compared to 51 deaths among those taking only Lipitor alone. Pfizer said that the study didn't raise any questions about Lipitor's safety.

There had been concerns about torcetrapib, which was designed to be taken with a statin like Lipitor, because a recent study showed it triggered a slight increase in blood pressure.

But only two days ago, Pfizer had announced its intention to file an application with the Food and Drug Administration for approval of torcetrapib by the second half of next year.

The company had expected to sell torcetrapib in combination with Lipitor, which lowers bad cholesterol and is the company's -- and the world's -- best-selling drug.

Dr. Philip Barter, chairman of the steering committee overseeing the study, said in Pfizer's news release that the findings were a surprise "in light of prior study results," the AP reported.

"We believed that the study was coming along as expected, and this new information was totally unexpected and disappointing, given the potential benefits of this drug," said Barter, director of the Heart Research Institute in Australia.

Fewer Older Americans Struggle With Disabilities: Study

The number of older Americans with a chronic disability has dropped dramatically in the last 20 years, and the rate of decline has accelerated as well.

That's the encouraging news from a new federal study that found the prevalence of chronic disability among people 65 and older fell from 26.5 percent in 1982 to 19 percent in 2004-05. The findings suggest that the health of older Americans continues to improve at a critical time in the aging of the population, the researchers said.

"This continuing decline in disability among older people is one of the most encouraging and important trends in the aging of the American population," said Dr. Richard J. Hodes, director of the National Institute on Aging (NIA).

"The challenge now is to see how this trend can be maintained and accelerated, especially in the face of increasing obesity," added Richard Suzman, director of the NIA's Behavioral and Social Research Program. "Doing so over the next several decades will significantly lessen the societal impact of the aging of the baby-boom generation."

According to the study, from 1982 to 2004/2005:

Chronic disability rates decreased among those over 65 with both severe and less severe impairments, with the greatest improvements seen among the most severely impaired.
The proportion of people without disabilities increased the most in the oldest age group, rising by 32.6 percent among those 85 and older.
The percentage of Medicare enrollees 65 and older who lived in long-term care institutions such as nursing homes dropped from 7.5 percent to 4 percent.
If the downward trends continue, they could bode well for the Medicare program's fiscal health, suggested the study, a joint effort between the NIA and Duke University. It was published in this week's Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Experimental Ultrasound May Detect Breast Cancer

An experimental ultrasound technique may allow doctors to determine if a woman has breast cancer without having to perform a biopsy, suggest the findings of a study reported this week at a meeting of the Radiological Society of North America.

The technique, called elastography, measures how easily breast lumps compress and bounce back. The study of 80 women found that elastography was nearly 100 percent accurate in distinguishing between malignant and benign breast lumps, the Associated Press reported.

Elastography correctly identified 105 of 106 benign lumps and 17 of 17 cancerous lumps.

If the same kind of results are achieved in a larger study, the technique could spare many women the discomfort, stress, and cost of having a breast biopsy, experts said.

"There's a lot of anxiety, a lot of stress, a lot of fear involved," with a biopsy, Susan Brown, manager of health education at the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, told the AP. "And there's the cost of leaving work to make a second appointment. If this can be done instead of a biopsy, there would be a real cost reduction."

Concerns Raised About Clotting Drug Used on U.S. Troops

The U.S. Defense Department should look into the use of the blood clotting drug Factor VII on wounded troops in Iraq, two U.S. Senators say.

Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) and Senate Minority Whip Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) called for the investigation after reports that the drug may have caused life-threatening clots, the Associated Press reported.

In a letter to Dr. William Winkenwerder Jr., Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs, Mikulski said the Pentagon should track all patients who receive Factor VII on the battlefield in order to assess whether they are at increased risk for blood clots and other complications. As of Thursday morning, she had not received a reply.

In related news, a group of experts that specialize in hematology and blood clotting says there are "rightful concerns" about the use of the drug on the battlefield, the AP reported.

The seven scientists and doctors made the comment in an editorial they wrote for an upcoming issue of the journal Applied and Clinical Thrombosis/Hemostasis.

"Our soldiers are already in great danger and the availability of a lifesaving drug such as [Factor VII] is welcome," they wrote. "It is, however, equally important to recognize and investigate the reported adverse reactions with its use to avoid additional risk to these Army personnel."

Factor VII was originally designed to treat patients with rare forms of hemophilia. The U.S. military says the drug gives front-line doctors a way to control potentially fatal bleeding in wounded troops, the AP said.

Health Headlines - December 3

Fewer Older Americans Struggle With Disabilities: Study

The number of older Americans with a chronic disability has dropped dramatically in the last 20 years, and the rate of decline has accelerated as well.

That's the encouraging news from a new federal study that found the prevalence of chronic disability among people 65 and older fell from 26.5 percent in 1982 to 19 percent in 2004-05. The findings suggest that the health of older Americans continues to improve at a critical time in the aging of the population, the researchers said.

"This continuing decline in disability among older people is one of the most encouraging and important trends in the aging of the American population," said Dr. Richard J. Hodes, director of the National Institute on Aging (NIA).

"The challenge now is to see how this trend can be maintained and accelerated, especially in the face of increasing obesity," added Richard Suzman, director of the NIA's Behavioral and Social Research Program. "Doing so over the next several decades will significantly lessen the societal impact of the aging of the baby-boom generation."

According to the study, from 1982 to 2004/2005:

* Chronic disability rates decreased among those over 65 with both severe and less severe impairments, with the greatest improvements seen among the most severely impaired.
* The proportion of people without disabilities increased the most in the oldest age group, rising by 32.6 percent among those 85 and older.
* The percentage of Medicare enrollees 65 and older who lived in long-term care institutions such as nursing homes dropped from 7.5 percent to 4 percent.

If the downward trends continue, they could bode well for the Medicare program's fiscal health, suggested the study, a joint effort between the NIA and Duke University. It was published in this week's Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Experimental Ultrasound May Detect Breast Cancer


An experimental ultrasound technique may allow doctors to determine if a woman has breast cancer without having to perform a biopsy, suggest the findings of a study reported this week at a meeting of the Radiological Society of North America.

The technique, called elastography, measures how easily breast lumps compress and bounce back. The study of 80 women found that elastography was nearly 100 percent accurate in distinguishing between malignant and benign breast lumps, the Associated Press reported.

Elastography correctly identified 105 of 106 benign lumps and 17 of 17 cancerous lumps.

If the same kind of results are achieved in a larger study, the technique could spare many women the discomfort, stress, and cost of having a breast biopsy, experts said.

"There's a lot of anxiety, a lot of stress, a lot of fear involved," with a biopsy, Susan Brown, manager of health education at the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, told the AP. "And there's the cost of leaving work to make a second appointment. If this can be done instead of a biopsy, there would be a real cost reduction."

Concerns Raised About Clotting Drug Used on U.S. Troops

The U.S. Defense Department should look into the use of the blood clotting drug Factor VII on wounded troops in Iraq, two U.S. Senators say.

Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) and Senate Minority Whip Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) called for the investigation after reports that the drug may have caused life-threatening clots, the Associated Press reported.

In a letter to Dr. William Winkenwerder Jr., Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs, Mikulski said the Pentagon should track all patients who receive Factor VII on the battlefield in order to assess whether they are at increased risk for blood clots and other complications. As of Thursday morning, she had not received a reply.

In related news, a group of experts that specialize in hematology and blood clotting says there are "rightful concerns" about the use of the drug on the battlefield, the AP reported.

The seven scientists and doctors made the comment in an editorial they wrote for an upcoming issue of the journal Applied and Clinical Thrombosis/Hemostasis.

"Our soldiers are already in great danger and the availability of a lifesaving drug such as [Factor VII] is welcome," they wrote. "It is, however, equally important to recognize and investigate the reported adverse reactions with its use to avoid additional risk to these Army personnel."

Factor VII was originally designed to treat patients with rare forms of hemophilia. The U.S. military says the drug gives front-line doctors a way to control potentially fatal bleeding in wounded troops, the AP said.

U.S. Workers Prefer Traditional Health Plans

A survey released Friday shows that Americans with employer-sponsored health coverage are more likely to sign up for traditional plans instead of consumer-directed products, which have been promoted as a way to reduce healthcare costs.

When given a choice of at least two plans, 55 percent of workers chose a preferred provider organization (PPO), 40 percent selected a health maintenance organization (HMO), and 19 percent went with a consumer-directed plan, the Associated Press reported.

The survey by the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Studying Health System Change also found that 39 percent of the 2.7 million people enrolled in employer-sponsored consumer directed health plans in 2006 were not offered other choices.

Consumer-directed health plans feature high deductibles and tax-advantaged savings accounts. This type of plan is supposed to help reduce health care costs by making patients more accountable for their health spending decisions, the AP reported.

However, the survey findings suggest that Americans don't necessarily want that kind of responsibility, said Jon Gabel, one of the study authors and vice president of the Center for Studying Health System Change.

"Most Americans are risk-averse. They don't like making financial decisions," Gabel told the AP.

Young Adults Who Cook Eat Healthier

Young American adults who buy their own food and prepare meals at home eat fast food less often, consume more fruits and vegetables, and eat a more healthy diet overall than those who don't take part in the planning and cooking of their meals, according to University of Minnesota researchers who surveyed more than 1,500 people, ages 18 to 23.

The survey found that 31 percent of young adults who were heavily involved in meal preparation ate five servings of fruits and vegetables a day, compared with 3 percent of those with little involvement in meal preparation.

But even among those who did take part in buying and preparing food, many did not meet recommended dietary guidelines.

"Cooking skills, money to buy food and time available for food preparation were perceived as inadequate by approximately one-fifth to more than one-third of the sample," the study authors wrote. "To improve dietary intake, interventions among young adults should teach skills for preparing quick and healthful meals."

The study appears in the December issue of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association.

Health Headlines - December 2

Experimental Ultrasound May Detect Breast Cancer

An experimental ultrasound technique may allow doctors to determine if a woman has breast cancer without having to perform a biopsy, suggest the findings of a study reported this week at a meeting of the Radiological Society of North America.

The technique, called elastography, measures how easily breast lumps compress and bounce back. The study of 80 women found that elastography was nearly 100 percent accurate in distinguishing between malignant and benign breast lumps, the Associated Press reported.

Elastography correctly identified 105 of 106 benign lumps and 17 of 17 cancerous lumps.

If the same kind of results are achieved in a larger study, the technique could spare many women the discomfort, stress, and cost of having a breast biopsy, experts said.

"There's a lot of anxiety, a lot of stress, a lot of fear involved," with a biopsy, Susan Brown, manager of health education at the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, told the AP. "And there's the cost of leaving work to make a second appointment. If this can be done instead of a biopsy, there would be a real cost reduction."

Concerns Raised About Clotting Drug Used on U.S. Troops

The U.S. Defense Department should look into the use of the blood clotting drug Factor VII on wounded troops in Iraq, two U.S. Senators say.

Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) and Senate Minority Whip Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) called for the investigation after reports that the drug may have caused life-threatening clots, the Associated Press reported.

In a letter to Dr. William Winkenwerder Jr., Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs, Mikulski said the Pentagon should track all patients who receive Factor VII on the battlefield in order to assess whether they are at increased risk for blood clots and other complications. As of Thursday morning, she had not received a reply.

In related news, a group of experts that specialize in hematology and blood clotting says there are "rightful concerns" about the use of the drug on the battlefield, the AP reported.

The seven scientists and doctors made the comment in an editorial they wrote for an upcoming issue of the journal Applied and Clinical Thrombosis/Hemostasis.

"Our soldiers are already in great danger and the availability of a lifesaving drug such as [Factor VII] is welcome," they wrote. "It is, however, equally important to recognize and investigate the reported adverse reactions with its use to avoid additional risk to these Army personnel."

Factor VII was originally designed to treat patients with rare forms of hemophilia. The U.S. military says the drug gives front-line doctors a way to control potentially fatal bleeding in wounded troops, the AP said.

U.S. Workers Prefer Traditional Health Plans

A survey released Friday shows that Americans with employer-sponsored health coverage are more likely to sign up for traditional plans instead of consumer-directed products, which have been promoted as a way to reduce healthcare costs.

When given a choice of at least two plans, 55 percent of workers chose a preferred provider organization (PPO), 40 percent selected a health maintenance organization (HMO), and 19 percent went with a consumer-directed plan, the Associated Press reported.

The survey by the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Studying Health System Change also found that 39 percent of the 2.7 million people enrolled in employer-sponsored consumer directed health plans in 2006 were not offered other choices.

Consumer-directed health plans feature high deductibles and tax-advantaged savings accounts. This type of plan is supposed to help reduce health care costs by making patients more accountable for their health spending decisions, the AP reported.

However, the survey findings suggest that Americans don't necessarily want that kind of responsibility, said Jon Gabel, one of the study authors and vice president of the Center for Studying Health System Change.

"Most Americans are risk-averse. They don't like making financial decisions," Gabel told the AP.

Young Adults Who Cook Eat Healthier

Young American adults who buy their own food and prepare meals at home eat fast food less often, consume more fruits and vegetables, and eat a more healthy diet overall than those who don't take part in the planning and cooking of their meals, according to University of Minnesota researchers who surveyed more than 1,500 people, ages 18 to 23.

The survey found that 31 percent of young adults who were heavily involved in meal preparation ate five servings of fruits and vegetables a day, compared with 3 percent of those with little involvement in meal preparation.

But even among those who did take part in buying and preparing food, many did not meet recommended dietary guidelines.

"Cooking skills, money to buy food and time available for food preparation were perceived as inadequate by approximately one-fifth to more than one-third of the sample," the study authors wrote. "To improve dietary intake, interventions among young adults should teach skills for preparing quick and healthful meals."

The study appears in the December issue of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association.

Another study in the same issue of the journal found that drinking a large sweetened beverage, such as soda, at a meal can increase the total amount of calories consumed by more than 25 percent.

The University of Pennsylvania study of 33 people found that drinking an 18-ounce soda at a meal increased calorie intake by 10 percent for women and 26 percent for men. Drinking unsweetened beverages or water at meals can help reduce calorie intake, the researchers concluded.

Family Cancer History Boosts Black Men's Prostate Cancer Risk

Black American men with siblings who've had prostate or breast cancer appear to have an increased risk for prostate cancer, according to a study by researchers at the University of Michigan (U-M).

The findings, published in the November issue of the journal Urology, support previous research that found an increased risk of prostate cancer in men whose brothers had the disease.

The study included 121 prostate cancer patients and 179 men who did not have the disease. The prostate cancer patients were 4.8 times more likely to report having a brother diagnosed with prostate cancer and about 4 times more likely to report having a sister diagnosed with breast cancer.

"Previous studies have suggested having a brother with prostate cancer confers higher risk than another relative, such as a father or son. But this is the first time a link has been shown between sisters with breast cancer and prostate cancer risk among African-American men," study lead author Jennifer Beebe-Dimmer, assistant research scientist and lecturer, department of epidemiology, U-M School of Public Health, said in a prepared statement.

Health Headlines - December 1

Deal Will Cut Cost of HIV/AIDS Drugs for Children

The Clinton Foundation and two Indian drug makers have reached an agreement that's expected to greatly reduce the cost of treating children with HIV/AIDS in developing countries.

Under the deal announced Thursday, Cipla and Ranbaxy Laboratories will produce 19 different antiretroviral drugs designed for children at an average price of 16 cents a day ($60 a year). That's about 45 percent below the current lowest price, The New York Times reported.

The low-priced drugs will be available to 62 developing nations and will result in the treatment of an additional 100,000 young HIV/AIDS patients in 2007, according to the Clinton Foundation, founded by former President Bill Clinton.

"This is historic because it's doing for children what was always available for adults," Stephen Lewis, the United Nation's special envoy for HIV and AIDS in Africa, told the Times.

While aid groups and governments have strived to improve access to HIV/AIDS drugs among adults in developing countries, children have been left behind. That's because they need special versions of drugs to suit their different ages and weights.

A new report underscores the plight of HIV-positive children: Fewer than half of South Africa's 15-year-olds will live to see their 60th birthday because of HIV/AIDS.

An estimated 950 people died each day during 2006 from AIDS-related diseases and an additional 1,400 were infected each day -- a total of 530,000 new infections, said the study by the Actuarial Society of South Africa and the Medical Research Council, the Associated Press reported.

Study Confirms Protocol to Reverse Type 1 Diabetes in Mice

New data from U.S. National Institute of Health researchers provide further support for a protocol to reverse type 1 diabetes in mice.

The NIH data also offer new evidence that adult precursor cells from the spleen can contribute to the regeneration of beta cells, according to a news release from the Iacocca Foundation, which supported the research.

In previous studies in 2001 and 2003, researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) demonstrated that this protocol was effective in reversing type 1 diabetes in mice. Three studies published earlier this year in Science confirmed that the MGH-developed protocol can reverse the underlying disease in mice. However, the three studies were inconclusive on the role of spleen cells in the recovery of insulin-producing pancreatic islets.

"This data from the NIH and the earlier studies have added significantly to the understanding of how diabetes may be reversed," Dr. Denise Faustman, director of the Immunobiology Laboratory at MGH, said in a prepared statement.

She was primary author of the two earlier MGH studies and is co-corresponding author of the new NIH study, published in the Nov. 24 issue of the journal Science.

"It is still early, but it appears that there are multiple potential sources for regenerating islets," Faustman said.

Youth Smoking Varies by Racial/Ethnic Groups

Youth anti-smoking programs targeted at specific racial/ethnic groups in the United States need to be developed, suggests a study in this week's issue of the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, published by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Researchers analyzed data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health and found wide variations in smoking among different ethnic/racial groups of youngsters ages 12 to 17.

Rates of smoking in this age group were: 23.1 percent among American Indians/Alaska Natives; 14.9 percent among non-Hispanic whites; 9.3 percent among Hispanics; 6.5 percent among non-Hispanic blacks; and 4.3 percent among Asians.

There were large variations in subgroups of these populations. For example, smoking among Asians ranged from 2.2 percent for Vietnamese to 6.8 percent for Koreans. Among Hispanics, smoking rates ranged from 7.3 percent for Central and South Americans to 11.2 percent for Cubans.

The researchers also concluded that about 20 percent of nonsmokers ages 12 to 17 are susceptible to start smoking.

New Hampshire 1st State to Offer Free Cervical Cancer Vaccine

Beginning in January, New Hampshire will become the first state to offer the new vaccine to protect against cervical cancer free to all girls, ages 11 through 18.

State officials hope about 17,000 girls -- 25 percent of those eligible -- will come forward in 2007 to get the vaccine against the human papilloma virus (HPV) that was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in June for girls as young as 9 years old, the Associated Press reported.

HPV is a sexually transmitted virus that can cause cervical cancer, which is the second leading cause of cancer deaths in U.S. women.

The vaccine doesn't protect girls who've already been exposed to HPV, so it's important for them to get vaccinated before they become sexually active, the AP reported.

"Some say giving the vaccination to 11-year-old girls is a license to promiscuity. I disagree," said John Stephen, the state's Health and Human Services Commissioner.

Drug-Coated Stents Boost Blood Clot Risk: Study

Compared with bare-metal stents, drug-coated stents can increase the risk of potentially deadly blood clots in heart patients by as much as five times, according to a Cleveland Clinic Foundation study published Wednesday in the American Journal of Medicine.

The researchers reached their conclusion after analyzing 14 studies involving 6,675 heart patients who received the two kinds of stents, Bloomberg News reported.

In September, European doctors said they'd found a link between drug-coated stents and higher death rates. Next week, a U.S. Food and Drug Administration advisory panel will meet to discuss clotting risks and drug-coated stents and to consider limits on the devices.

Boston Scientific and Johnson & Johnson dominate the worldwide market for drug-coated stents.

Boston Scientific spokesman Paul Donovan said the ability of drug-coated stents to prevent scar tissue growth and repeat procedures outweighs any increased clotting risk, Bloomberg News reported. New data on the risks/benefits of drug-coated stents will be presented at the FDA advisory panel meeting, he said.

Gene Transfer Therapy May Help Treat Impotence

Using gene transfer therapy to treat erectile dysfunction (ED) showed promising results in the first human study of the technique, say U.S. researchers.

Unlike gene therapy, gene transfer does not change the DNA or genetic code of cells. Instead, small pieces of DNA reach the nuclei of cells, causing them to boost production of particular proteins that help relax smooth muscle cells. These type of cells are found in the penis. Relaxing the smooth muscle cells allows the penis to fill with blood and become erect.

This study of 11 men with ED found that the gene transfer therapy was safe and well-tolerated. Improvements in erectile function were maintained through the 24 weeks of the study. The findings were published online today in the journal Human Gene Therapy.