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A new treatment for H1N1 flu may already be on pharmacy shelves -- cholesterol-lowering statin drugs like Lipitor and Zocor.
A large study -- involving 2,800 people in 2007-2008 -- found that people who were taking these drugs when they caught seasonal flu and had to be hospitalized were twice as likely to survive than those who were not on such medicines.
Doug
CDIstaffing.com
As many as 5.7 million Americans were infected with the H1N1 virus between April and late July, U.S. researchers said on Thursday, offering the clearest picture yet of how quickly and widely swine flu can spread.
Researchers used computer models to estimate the number of people who have contracted swine flu, which began infecting Americans in April.
They estimated that 1.8 million to 5.7 million cases of swine flu occurred between April and July 23, sending between 9,000 and 20,000 people to the hospital.
About 6 percent of people who were hospitalized with the virus died, the team, led by Carrie Reed at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, reported in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases.
This suggests that as many as 1,300 people died from their infections between April and July. Officially, 1,000 U.S. deaths have been attributed to H1N1 since April.
Doug
CDIstaffing.com
Foreign aid may provide the best value for money spent by the U.S. government, Bill and Melinda Gates said on Tuesday, but few seem to know it.
They launched a new project to try to publicize some public health successes in foreign aid, to encourage the U.S. and other governments to keep giving money.
"Dollar for dollar, global health is America's best investment for saving lives," Gates told reporters. "U.S.-supported global health programs are saving and improving the lives of millions of people."
Gates, the billionaire Microsoft founder who retired in 2008, has given millions of his own money to programs such as the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization or GAVI and the Global Fund for AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.
But he said government money is vital, too, and a new website, www.livingproofproject.org, shows it is working, he said.
Doug
CDIstaffing.com
Arzerra, an antibody drug, is approved for patients with chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL) who do not respond to Genzyme's (GENZ.O) Campath or the chemotherapy drug fludarabine.
"The approval of Arzerra marks a key milestone for Genmab as it is our first antibody to reach the market," Genmab Chief Executive Lisa Drakeman said in a statement.
The regulatory decision had been widely expected, following a positive recommendation from an FDA panel of experts in May.
Genmab shares rose 6 percent in early trade on Tuesday -- a modest rise by the yardstick of volatile biotech stocks. Analysts at Jefferies said the response was tempered by ongoing funding concerns and uncertainty over Arzerra's sales ramp-up.
The drug, which causes the body's immune system to fight against normal and cancerous B-cells, will be available for prescription use in the coming weeks.
Glaxo, whose shares were barely changed by 0815 GMT, bought global rights to Arzerra in December 2006 in a deal worth up to $2.1 billion, a record sum for a biotech product agreement at the time
Doug
CDIstaffing.com
Pennsylvania researchers using gene therapy have made significant improvements in vision in 12 patients with a rare inherited visual defect, a finding that suggests it may be possible to produce similar improvements in a much larger number of patients with retinitis pigmentosa and macular degeneration. The team last year reported success with three adult patients, an achievement that was hailed as a major accomplishment for gene therapy. They have now treated an additional nine patients, including five children, and find that the best results are achieved in the youngest patients, whose defective retinal cells have not had time to die off.
Doug
CDIstaffing.com
Malaria kills close to 300 people daily, especially children under five years.
Doug
CDIstaffing.com
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation have decided to give out 76 grants of $100,000 each to researchers in 16 countries for unconventional approaches to world problems.
One of them will help a UCLA doctoral candidate to delve deeper into the idea of using chewing gum to detect malaria biomarkers in saliva. Another idea will provide funds to a researcher at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York to test chocolate for combating the malaria parasite.
The UCLA student, Andrew Fung, admits that his idea came about as an intellectual exercise designed to express his creativity for a potential post-doctorate employer. He was not aiming to get a research grant although he might get both these.
His idea originated from the need to bring about a malaria test which did not need a blood draw but would use the saliva for detecting other diseases. Saliva is much easier to collect and it is a painless process and the gum test doesn't require a battery or computer to run.
On the other there are certain drawbacks since there more biomarkers in blood than in saliva and the primary target of this test will be children who might swallow the gum or hide it away.
Fung said that he is delighted that the Gates Foundation thought that his unconventional idea was worth exploring further.
Doug
CDIstaffing.com
A union is threatening a one-day strike involving 16,000 registered nurses at 39 hospitals in California and Nevada, saying hospitals aren't providing enough protections against swine flu for its members.
The 86,000 member California Nurses Association, which covers all 50 states and is the nation's largest union representing nurses, is negotiating contracts that expired in June, covering 13,000 nurses.
The planned Oct. 30 protest underscores the continuing debate over what kind of masks are needed to protect health-care workers against the H1N1 virus, as well as broader issues of staffing levels that have become a contract-negotiating issue. Nurses have long complained that hospitals keep nurse-staffing levels artificially low.
Doug
Cdistaffing.com
Pet turtles are spreading potentially life-threatening salmonella bacteria in an outbreak of the illness that has sickened more than 100 people across the United States, according to a new report from the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA).
The AVMA said the current outbreak of salmonella, which began in 2007, has sickened 107 people in 34 states, with about one-third of those affected requiring hospitalization for the illness. So far, there have been no deaths linked to salmonella spread by turtles kept as pets, officials said.
Doug
CDIstaffing.com
Giving acetaminophen to babies to prevent fever after routine inoculations reduces the immunity that some common vaccines provide, Czech researchers said.
After initial vaccination at 3 to 5 months, infants who received acetaminophen -- commonly known by the brand name Tylenol -- had reduced immune responses to vaccines against pneumococcal disease, Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib), diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis (whooping cough), according to Dr. Roman Prymula of the University of Defence in Hradec Kralove, Czech Republic, and colleagues.
Doug
CDIstaffing.com
Giving acetaminophen to babies to prevent fever after routine inoculations reduces the immunity that some common vaccines provide, Czech researchers said.
After initial vaccination at 3 to 5 months, infants who received acetaminophen -- commonly known by the brand name Tylenol -- had reduced immune responses to vaccines against pneumococcal disease, Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib), diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis (whooping cough), according to Dr. Roman Prymula of the University of Defence in Hradec Kralove, Czech Republic, and colleagues.
Doug
CDIstaffing.com
The study shows that "bridge employment" -- which researchers define as a part-time job or self-employment -- is in general good for health after official retirement.
The study is published in the October issue of the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology.
The researchers found that people who find post-retirement work that is related to their previous jobs report better mental health than those who just call it quits and retire. But the study also shows that retirees with financial problems are more likely to work in a different field after official retirement.
Doug
CDIstaffing.com
Another major finding by the panel: Smoking bans work.
“The report confirms that eliminating smoking in workplaces, restaurants, bars, and other public places is an effective way to protect Americans from the health effects of secondhand smoke, particularly on the cardiovascular system,” CDC Director Thomas R. Frieden, MD, MPH, says in a news release.
Doug
CDIstaffing.com
According to a report on 60 min., 150,000 concusions occur in High School Football games in the US each year. With just a few of these to one kid and the incidence of permant brain damage is assured. What a way to start life, what are we thinking.
Doug
CDIstaffing.com
Increased use of contraceptives has pushed global abortion rates down, but unsafe abortions kill 70,000 women each year and seriously harm or maim millions more, a global report said on Tuesday.
Despite easier access to abortion with restrictions being relaxed in many countries, the number of abortions fell from an estimated 45.5 million in 1995 to 41.6 million in 2003, the report by the U.S.-based Guttmacher Institute said.
But the study found a stubbornly high number -- almost 20 million -- of unsafe abortions, mostly in poorer countries and often carried out by the women themselves using inappropriate drugs or herbal potions, or by untrained traditional healers.
Doug
CDIstaffing.com
One-third of the time, the parent was drinking or used drugs before falling asleep with the child, often on a couch, according to the study in the British Medical Journal. The researchers reviewed all unexpected infant deaths in southwest England between 2003 and 2006, comparing families who had a child die from what is known as SIDS to similar families to look for differences that might have placed the infants at risk.
The findings add to the controversy about co-sleeping, when parents and infants sleep together in what is known colloquially as the family bed. While the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends against sleeping together, it’s not clear if that advice is too simplistic, the researchers said.
Doug
CDIstaffing.com
One-third of the time, the parent was drinking or used drugs before falling asleep with the child, often on a couch, according to the study in the British Medical Journal. The researchers reviewed all unexpected infant deaths in southwest England between 2003 and 2006, comparing families who had a child die from what is known as SIDS to similar families to look for differences that might have placed the infants at risk.
The findings add to the controversy about co-sleeping, when parents and infants sleep together in what is known colloquially as the family bed. While the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends against sleeping together, it’s not clear if that advice is too simplistic, the researchers said.
Doug
CDIstaffing.com
Two studies, published in the Oct. 12 online issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, indicate smoking-cessation programs that involve motivational techniques and personalized behavioral skills training by phone can make it easier for teens to give up the habit early.
Arthur V. Peterson, PhD, and colleagues at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle designed a smoking- cessation program to evaluate the effectiveness of individualized telephone counseling.
They identified more than 2,000 smokers through classroom surveys of juniors in 50 high schools in Washington state. In half of those schools, teen smokers received smoking-cessation counseling that combined motivational interviewing and cognitive behavioral skills training.
The techniques used the smoker’s own words and values to increase the importance of quitting, anticipating and coping with stress and other smoking triggers, and making plans to stop, the researchers say.
More than a year after the intervention started, nearly 22% of counseled teen smokers reported six months of abstinence, compared to almost 18% among students in a non-interventional group. For teens who were daily smokers, the difference in six-month smoking abstinence was statistically significant (10% vs. 6%).
Doug
Cdistaffing.com
A new study published by the American Academy of Pediatrics has concluded that as many as one in every 91 children age 2-17 are autistic, with more than half of those boys. The latest numbers show higher numbers of children who are Caucasian versus other ethnic groups. These new numbers have increased by almost a third over the previous most-current research. Whether or not these statistics reveal more cases -- or just better or different reporting techniques -- the numbers are still large enough to be food for thought by every parent.
Doug
CDIstaffing.com
Shingles is caused by reactivation of the chickenpox virus, also called varicella zoster virus, which lays dormant in nerve fibers. When it's reactivated, often by trauma or stress, the virus can produce very painful skin blisters.
It's estimated that roughly one out of five people will at some point in their lives suffer an attack of shingles.
Dr. Herng-Ching Lin, from Taipei Medical University, Taiwan and associates found that a bout of shingles raises the risk of stroke over the subsequent year by roughly 30 percent.
Varicella zoster virus is the only human virus known to replicate in arteries in the brain, they note in a report published Thursday in the journal Stroke. The virus is thought to spread along the nerve fibers to the blood vessels where it induces harmful inflammatory and blood-clotting effects.
Doug
CDIstaffing.com
A virus linked to prostate cancer also appears to play a role in chronic fatigue syndrome, according to research that could lead to the first drug treatments for a mysterious disorder that affects 17 million people worldwide.
Researchers found the virus, known as XMRV, in the blood of 68 out of 101 chronic fatigue syndrome patients. The same virus showed up in only 8 of 218 healthy people, they reported on Thursday in the journal Science.
Judy Mikovits of the Whittemore Peterson Institute in Nevada and colleagues at the National Cancer Institute and the Cleveland Clinic emphasized that the finding only shows a link between the virus and chronic fatigue syndrome, or CFS, and does not prove that the pathogen causes the disorder.
Doug
CDIstaffing.com
Birth control pills, according to a review of the literature published today in the journal Trends in Ecology and Evolution, may alter the menstrual cycle in such a way that both women and men are affected in their appetites for the opposite sex.
But researchers caution it is too early to draw conclusions about the effects of the pill, and some even doubt if science could ever answer how much hormones dictate human attraction.
"While the general trend certainly points to the direction that the pill might indeed affect mate preferences in both sexes in a very intriguing way, we badly need further studies experimentally testing these effects," said Virpi Lummaa, a Royal Society University research fellow at the University of Sheffield in the United Kingdom and one of the review authors. "So, at this point, I wouldn't like to raise any concern among the pill users, just awareness that these type of effects might also be possible."
Doug
Cdistaffing.com
Birth control pills, according to a review of the literature published today in the journal Trends in Ecology and Evolution, may alter the menstrual cycle in such a way that both women and men are affected in their appetites for the opposite sex.
But researchers caution it is too early to draw conclusions about the effects of the pill, and some even doubt if science could ever answer how much hormones dictate human attraction.
"While the general trend certainly points to the direction that the pill might indeed affect mate preferences in both sexes in a very intriguing way, we badly need further studies experimentally testing these effects," said Virpi Lummaa, a Royal Society University research fellow at the University of Sheffield in the United Kingdom and one of the review authors. "So, at this point, I wouldn't like to raise any concern among the pill users, just awareness that these type of effects might also be possible."
Doug
Cdistaffing.com
Ground beef is usually not simply a chunk of meat run through a grinder. Instead, records and interviews show, a single portion of hamburger meat is often an amalgam of various grades of meat from different parts of cows and even from different slaughterhouses. These cuts of meat are particularly vulnerable to E. coli contamination, food experts and officials say. Despite this, there is no federal requirement for grinders to test their ingredients for the pathogen.
Using a combination of sources — a practice followed by most large producers of fresh and packaged hamburger — allowed Cargill to spend about 25 percent less than it would have for cuts of whole meat.
Those low-grade ingredients are cut from areas of the cow that are more likely to have had contact with feces, which carries E. coli, industry research shows. Yet Cargill, like most meat companies, relies on its suppliers to check for the bacteria and does its own testing only after the ingredients are ground together. The United States Department of Agriculture, which allows grinders to devise their own safety plans, has encouraged them to test ingredients first as a way of increasing the chance of finding contamination.
Unwritten agreements between some companies appear to stand in the way of ingredient testing. Many big slaughterhouses will sell only to grinders who agree not to test their shipments for E. coli, according to officials at two large grinding companies. Slaughterhouses fear that one grinder’s discovery of E. coli will set off a recall of ingredients they sold to others.
“Ground beef is not a completely safe product,” said Dr. Jeffrey Bender, a food safety expert at the University of Minnesota who helped develop systems for tracing E. coli contamination. He said that while outbreaks had been on the decline, “unfortunately it looks like we are going a bit in the opposite direction.”
Food scientists have registered increasing concern about the virulence of this pathogen since only a few stray cells can make someone sick, and they warn that federal guidance to cook meat thoroughly and to wash up afterward is not sufficient. A test by The Times found that the safe handling instructions are not enough to prevent the bacteria from spreading in the kitchen.
Doug
CDIstaffing.com
A combination of cholesterol and blood pressure medicine can cut the incidence of attacks by up to 60%, a report says. But how to keep patients taking their dosages?
An inexpensive combination of one drug to lower cholesterol and one to lower blood pressure can reduce the incidence of heart attacks and strokes by as much as 60% -- but getting patients to begin the regimen and then to stay on it is an extremely difficult task, Kaiser Permanente researchers reported Thursday.
Giving the drugs to nearly 70,000 people with cardiovascular disease or diabetes prevented an estimated 1,271 heart attacks and strokes in one year, Dr. James Dudl of Kaiser Permanente's Care Management Institute and his colleagues reported in the American Journal of Managed Care.
The inspiration for the study came from the Archimedes Model, a sophisticated computer simulation of the human body that predicted that lowering blood pressure and cholesterol simultaneously in those at the highest risk for cardiovascular problems could reduce the incidence by 71%. But no study had been performed to test the prediction.
doug
Cdistaffing.com
British researchers found that deleting a gene linked to nutrients and growth helped mice to live 20 percent longer on average, and partly explained why eating less appears to improve health and increase longevity.
The findings also offered a possible genetic drug target for protecting against aging-related diseases, they said.
"What we have shown is that this gene is one that regulates life span and also determines how healthy animals are in middle and late age," said Dominic Withers of the Center for Diabetes and Endocrinology at University College London.
Withers and his colleagues used so-called knockout mice -- mice bred with a certain gene removed or knocked out -- in this case the ribosomal S6 protein kinase 1 (S6K1) gene.
Deleting S6K1 meant the mice's bodies behaved in a similar way to mammals whose calorie intake is restricted, they said.
"These mice were resistant to type 2 diabetes ... and they also appeared to have reduced incidence of the mouse-equivalent of osteoporosis -- so they had stronger bones," Withers said.
Balance, strength and coordination all improved in the knockout mice, and they were more inquisitive, suggesting their brains were healthier.
"Our results demonstrate that S6K1 influences healthy mammalian life span," the researchers wrote in their study published in the journal Science.
Most calorie restriction studies have found that a lifetime of deprivation is needed to achieve the longer-life benefits, and many researchers are working on ways to replicate the findings with drugs.
Withers said he knew of various pharmaceutical companies looking at developing drugs that could manipulate the S6K1 pathway, and his study showed they may also prove useful in age-related diseases, assuming they are safe in the long term.
But he also noted that his study had shown that another well-known target, known as AMP-activated protein kinase or AMPK, was on the same pathway as S6K1, meaning existing drugs could be explored to see if they might have the same effect.
Metformin -- a common diabetes drug that works by stimulating AMPK, a master circuit for energy metabolism in the body -- could be examined in this context, he said.
Since people live far longer than mice, it is almost impossible to study fully the effects of restricting calories in humans, but this study in mice and another recently in monkeys offer good clues for humans, Withers said.
"The big implication is that intervening in aging protects against a broad spectrum of aging-related diseases, and there is now a druggable pathway providing a means to do this which could be used, in principle, in people," he said. Continue
A top FDA official said more heparin may be needed for certain patients. John Jenkins, director of the FDA's Office Of New Drugs, said heparin is administered by health-care professionals and dosing is different for each patient.
The change, adopted by the United States Pharmacopeia, or USP, a nonprofit standards-setting organization, includes a revised reference standard for the drug's unit dose. The changes also require companies to test for a contaminant found in batches of Baxter International Inc.'s (BAX) heparin last year that was manufactured with tainted ingredients from China.
The change went into effect Thursday, but the FDA has asked four companies that market heparin in the U.S. to hold off shipping new heparin products until Oct. 8 to allow hospital pharmacies time to adjust dosing practices. Heparin is used in many surgery patients and patients undergoing kidney dialysis.
The FDA said the revised USP reference standard and unit definition for heparin is about 10% less potent than the former USP unit.
"Although the FDA-approved labeling for heparin has not changed, including the recommended doses, it is essential that health-care professionals be aware of the potential difference in potency between the old and new vials of heparin when administering the drug," Jenkins said.
Doug
Cdistaffing.com