Bone strength may play a role in ‘growing pains’
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Weaker-than-average bones may contribute to the “growing pains” some children experience in their legs, a small study suggests.
Israeli researchers found that some children who complained of such aches had less dense shinbones compared with the norm for their age. The finding, according to the study authors, suggests that relatively weaker bones may make some kids more vulnerable to pain from exercise.
That does not mean, however, that parents should stop their children from being active; the reduced bone strength seen in some children, say the researchers, is probably innocuous. Moreover, exercise helps build bone during childhood.
Russian bird flu advances, Kazakhs say virus deadly
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A bird flu outbreak extended its reach in Russian Siberia and spread to Mongolia on Wednesday, and neighboring Kazakhstan confirmed a fowl virus found in the Central Asian state could kill humans.
Officials said no people had been infected so far, but the highly potent H5N1 strain has killed over 50 people in Asia since 2003. Outbreaks in the ex-Soviet bloc raised fears the virus could infect humans and trigger a global epidemic.
Mystery illness kills 21 miners in Congo diamond town
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A mysterious illness sweeping through a remote town at the centre of a diamond rush in Democratic Republic of Congo has killed more than 20 miners and infected nearly 1,000, a U.N. aid worker said on Wednesday.
U.N. agencies, aid workers and government health officials are making their way to Libayakuyasuka, some 84 km (52 miles) northeast of Punia, a town in the north of Maniema province, where 10,000 miners are digging in a new mine.
Imported spices give seven children lead poisoning
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Two families who frequently cooked with spices purchased in the Republic of Georgia and India inadvertently gave their children lead poisoning, according to a new report.
When the children’s doctors found the kids had high levels of lead in their bodies, authorities inspected the children’s homes but found no obvious sources of lead. “It was a head-scratcher,” study author Dr. Alan D. Woolf of Children’s Hospital in Boston told Reuters Health.
Bird flu found in Tibet - OIE
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The deadly bird flu virus has been found in the Chinese region of Tibet, the director general of the world animal health body OIE said on Wednesday.
“We just received the information that bird flu has been detected in Tibet,” OIE director-general Bernard Vallat told Reuters.
Medicare drug benefit to cost less, official says
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Medicare’s controversial new drug benefit for seniors may end up costing less than projected because bids from insurers and others who will provide it have been very competitive, federal officials said on Tuesday.
Some seniors who sign up for the program may not even pay any premiums at all, and it will cost both beneficiaries and the government less than expected, Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Dr. Mark McClellan said.
Religion can trump medical advice, docs say
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Many US doctors believe that the religious convictions of their patients should outweigh their own professional advice when it comes to making certain medical decisions.
When the patient is a child, however, a large majority of doctors say that they, and not the child’s guardian, should have the final say, regardless of the guardian’s religious beliefs.
These findings and others come from a survey of 794 physicians nationwide who answered various questions about religion and its effect on healthcare in the United States in an August poll.
Exercise test spots trouble ahead for healthy men
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While apparently healthy men don’t routinely undergo exercise stress testing, it may be useful for raising a red flag about impending health problems, Norwegian investigators report based on a study of middle-age men.
Exercise stress tests are usually reserved for assessing cases of suspected Heart Disease. However, the new study shows that men who seem healthy but who terminate an exercise test only because they have trouble breathing actually have a high long-term risk of dying early from Heart Disease or lung disease.
Petrol sniffing continues to kill Aborigines
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Petrol sniffing played a part in the deaths of up to 60 Aborigines in Australia’s outback Northern Territory in the past seven years, a coroner was told on Tuesday as an inquest began into three of the deaths.
Outback health workers say there has been a dramatic increase in the number of Aborigines sniffing petrol since the last inquest in 1998, as black outback communities struggle to combat the habit in the face of poverty, disease and abuse.
Bird flu kills another Vietnamese
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Bird flu has killed another man in Vietnam, taking the number of deaths in Asia caused by the virus to 62, officials said.
The 35-year-old man died in the Mekong Delta province on July 31, a day after he was taken to hospital with a high fever, state newspapers said on Tuesday.
The Pasteur Institute in Ho Chi Minh City had confirmed the man slaughtered and ate two chicken that had the H5N1 virus, the Thanh Nien newspaper said.
US senator seeks probe of drug researcher payments
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A top Republican senator on Monday urged the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Justice Department to look into a report that Wall Street investors paid researchers to reveal confidential information about ongoing drug studies.
“Selling drug secrets violates a trust that is fundamental to the integrity of both scientific research and our financial markets,” Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa said in a letter to SEC Chairman Chris Cox and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.
The Seattle Times on Sunday said some medical researchers received up to $500 per hour to tell brokerages and hedge funds about the likelihood of a drug’s success and marketability.
Dutch doctors grant 44 percent of requests to die
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Dutch doctors whose patients asked for their help in dying assisted in their suicide nearly half the time and turned them down just 12 percent of the time, researchers said on Monday.
Doctors granted patient requests to die in 44 percent of the cases, 13 percent withdrew their requests and 26 percent of patients died either before the decision was made or before euthanasia could be carried out, according to study author Marijke Jansen-van der Weide of VU University Medical Center, Amsterdam.
S. African business slowly wakes up to AIDS challenge
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When Martin Vosloo told his work colleagues that he was infected with the virus that causes AIDS, some spat in his face and threatened to kill him.
That was about six years ago, soon after Vosloo, 48, joined South Africa’s power utility Eskom.
“They spat in my face. I was called names and on two occasions I had to flee because I was threatened with death,” said Vosloo, a healthy-looking white South African.
Russian bird flu epidemic to fade soon
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A bird flu epidemic in Russia is subsiding and should disappear by late August, a World Health Organization official said Tuesday.
But Russian health officials were less optimistic, suggesting birds migrating from the five Siberian regions where the deadly virus has been raging since mid-July could spread the disease as far afield as the United States.
WHO in talks with Roche on bird flu stockpile
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The World Health Organization is in talks with Swiss drug maker Roche on building a stockpile of the anti-bird flu drug Tamiflu capable of treating at least one million people, its director general said on Tuesday.
“What I am expecting to have is initially one million, and I hope that that can be multiplied,” Lee Jong-wook told reporters in Thailand, one of the countries worst hit by the virus which has killed 62 people in Asia since 2003.
