Indonesia finds new polio cases - WHO
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Indonesia has found two new polio cases but the government has taken the right steps to control its first outbreak of the crippling disease in a decade, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Thursday.
The confirmation of new cases brings the total infections in Indonesia’s densely populated West Java province to six, said Georg Petersen, the U.N. health agency’s representative in Indonesia.
Indonesia is the 16th previously polio-free country to be reinfected in the past two years.
UK doctors demand wider smoking ban
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British doctors called on Thursday for a ban on smoking in all enclosed public places, saying government proposals for a partial ban could be unworkable.
The British Medical Association, which represents three quarters of the country’s doctors, said plans to outlaw smoking in workplaces, restaurants and in pubs serving food do not go far enough.
It wants Prime Minister Tony Blair’s re-elected government to follow the example of Ireland, Norway and other countries that have banned smoking in all restaurants and pubs.
Lonely students show weaker immunity: study
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First-year college students who consider themselves to be very lonely on campus and cut off from their friends and family back home may receive less benefit from flu vaccinations than their peers, new study findings suggest.
“The loneliness and social isolation that university freshman experience in their first semester is powerful enough to have a very real impact on immune function, with potentially health relevant implications,” said study author Sarah D. Pressman, a doctoral candidate at Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Melon University.
West Nile vaccine making progress
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People inoculated with a vaccine being developed to protect against West Nile virus infection suffer no ill effects, and nearly all of them develop antibodies that neutralize the virus, researchers report.
“These are the first complete phase I results from a clinical trial of a West Nile virus vaccine,” Dr. Thomas Monath, Chief Scientific Officer for vaccine maker Acambis, told Reuters Health.
Results with the vaccine, called ChimeriVax-West Nile, were presented Wednesday at the National Foundation for Infectious Disease’s 8th annual vaccine meeting in Baltimore.
Judge threatens California prison health takeover
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Outraged at what he called the poor quality of medical services for California’s prisoners, a federal judge threatened on Tuesday to take over the prison health care system of the most populous U.S. state.
“The prison medical delivery system is in such a blatant state of crisis that in recent days defendants have publicly conceded their inability to find and implement on their own solutions that will meet constitutional standards,” U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson wrote.
Israel moves to halt unauthorised patient tests
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Israel has tightened hospital supervision after an investigation uncovered a spate of unauthorised experiments on children, psychiatric patients and the elderly, the Health Ministry said on Wednesday.
A report from the state comptroller found that in one hospital, 40 geriatric patients had signed consent forms to undergo experiments - some with only a fingerprint - even though they had mental illnesses, including dementia.
The report has drawn intense criticism in the Israeli media with one headline calling it a ‘scandal’ and another accusing the ministry of negligence.
Intelligence doesn’t explain health disparities
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Although intelligence seems to play some role in a person’s well-being, new research casts doubt on the theory that intelligence explains the health disparities seen between low- and high-income people.
In a study of nearly 6,000 British adults in various civil service jobs, researchers found that a person’s intelligence—as measured by a standard test—was related to certain measures of health. It did not, however, explain the relationship between lower socioeconomic status and poorer health.
EU sets strict limits for banned dyes in spicy food
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EU authorities have set strict limits for a group of illegal dyes in food that may cause an increased risk of cancer, officials said on Wednesday.
Any products containing higher amounts of the industrial colourings - the Sudan and Para Red dyes - must be withdrawn from the market. Detection limits are set at between 0.5 and 1.0 milligrams per kilogram, but the aim is to lower this level.
Sudan dyes are a group of four red dyes used for colouring solvents, oils, waxes, petrol, and shoe and floor polishes. They have a carcinogenic effect and a potential risk of genotoxicity.
Yemen polio outbreak may cripple 100 children - WHO
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A polio outbreak in Yemen could cripple more than 100 children before it is brought under control, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Tuesday.
A Yemeni Health Ministry official said in the capital Sanaa on Monday the number of children diagnosed with the paralysing disease had risen to 40, nearly double the initial 22 cases the WHO confirmed in late April.
But the WHO said more suspected cases were under investigation.
Tsunami children suffering mental problems - WHO
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Up to a quarter of the children caught up in the Dec. 26 earthquake and tsunami in Indonesia’s Aceh have mental health problems that need professional treatment, the World Health Organisation said on Tuesday.
Most of the tsunami-affected adult population is also suffering from trauma-related distress, a WHO-funded study by the University of Indonesia found.
The mental health problems are far beyond the capabilities of Aceh’s lone mental hospital and so the government has decided Aceh will be the first Indonesian province to have community mental health services, said Dr. Stephanus Indrajaya, technical officer for WHO Indonesia.
Sweat scent study suggests gay men’s brains differ
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A compound taken from male sweat stimulates the brains of gay men and straight women but not heterosexual men, raising the possibility that homosexual brains are different, researchers in Sweden reported on Monday.
It also strengthens the evidence that humans respond to pheromones - compounds known to affect animal behavior, especially mating behavior, but whose role in human activity has been questioned.
The pheromone in question is a derivative of testosterone called 4,16-androstadien-3-one, or AND.
U.S. judge upholds Calif. smog agency on fleet fuel
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A U.S. federal judge has upheld a California air quality agency’s rule that fleet owners must use vehicles that run on the cleanest-burning fuels.
U.S. District Court Judge Florence-Marie Cooper, in a decision on Friday, said the South Coast Air Quality Management District can enforce its order for state and local government to purchase fleet vehicles that run on fuels like methanol and compressed natural gas instead of diesel fuel.
The district - the smog control agency for Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties - adopted the rules for both private and government fleets in 2000 and was challenged in federal court in Los Angeles by the Engine Manufacturers Association, a trade group.
UK doctors call for hepatitis B jabs for children
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Doctors called on Tuesday for all British children to be vaccinated against the Hepatitis B virus that can cause serious liver disease.
The British Medical Association (BMA) said transmission of the virus has more than doubled in the past decade.
“It makes sense to immunise all children against Hepatitis B.
Premature birth could have genetic component
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A woman has a higher risk of delivering a premature baby if a relative has also given birth too early, and there may be a way to determine risk by analyzing genes, researchers said on Monday.
Premature birth is “the No. 1 problem in obstetrics today and the incidence continues to grow,” said Dr. Kenneth Ward, chairman of the department of obstetrics-gynecology at the University of Hawaii School of Medicine and lead author of a study using genetic databases compiled by Utah’s Mormon population.
“There is an underappreciated genetic component to the problem,” he said at a meeting here of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.
Cocaine Users Face Greater Risk of Aneurysm
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Cocaine users face a newly discovered and possibly fatal risk: coronary aneurysms, a ballooning of the walls of coronary arteries. The condition increases the chance of suffering a heart attack, even years after users stop the drug, researchers in Minnesota are reporting.
The risk of developing an aneurysm was four times as high among cocaine users in their mid-40’s as among nonusers in the same age group, according to the study, reported yesterday in the journal Circulation, which is published by the American Heart Association.
