H5 and N1 avian influenza found in two samples from wild mute swans in Michigan
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The U.S. Departments of Agriculture and Interior has announced that routine surveillance has indicated the presence of H5 and N1 avian influenza subtypes in samples from two wild mute swans in Michigan.
Testing has ruled out the possibility of this being the highly pathogenic H5N1 strain that has spread through birds in Asia, Europe and Africa. Test results thus far indicate this is low pathogenicity avian influenza, which poses no threat to human health.
The swans were sampled as part of the expanded avian influenza surveillance program. They were showing no signs of sickness, which suggests that this is low pathogenicity avian influenza. Additionally, genetic analysis of the virus conducted at USDA’s National Veterinary Services laboratories (NVSL) in Ames, Iowa, suggests that it is similar to a low pathogenicity strain that has been found in North America.
Food a basic need in HIV fight
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Drugs are no good without food in the fight against HIV/AIDS in Africa, Asia and Latin America, and the essential role of proper nutrition has been forgotten, the United Nations World Food Program said on Wednesday.
Organizers of the 16th International AIDS Conference marked a small victory with the announcement that more than 1.6 million people globally now receive lifesaving HIV drugs.
But without proper food, victims of the disease have little will to live, the World Food Program said.
Merck loses Vioxx case, told to pay $51 million
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A federal jury on Thursday found that Merck & Co. Inc. was negligent and knowingly made misrepresentations about its withdrawn pain medicine Vioxx, and awarded $51 million to the plaintiff.
The New Orleans jury, in the second federal trial involving a Vioxx product-liability lawsuit, found that Merck had knowingly misrepresented or failed to disclose a material fact to the plaintiff’s physicians and that doctors in the case and the plaintiff himself were not at fault.
The plaintiff, Gerald Barnett, a 62-year-old retired FBI agent who had a heart attack in 2002 after taking Vioxx for 31 months, was awarded $50 million in compensatory damages and $1 million in punitive damages.
Canada HIV/AIDS care falls short, advocates says
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Canada’s government-funded public health system falls short on timely and equal access to medicines for HIV/AIDS patients, a health advocacy group said on Wednesday.
An unwieldy drug review process and a patchwork of federal, provincial and territorial drug reimbursement plans, each with different coverage standards, mean that patients often must relocate to get the drugs they need, the group said.
“It is a total myth that people have access, and equal access, across the country to medications,” Louise Binder, chair of the Canadian Treatment Action Council told reporters. “You literally have to move from one province to another to stay alive.”
Bristol-Myers sending AIDS doctors to Africa
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U.S. drug giant Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. is sending 250 pediatric doctors over the next five years to sub-Saharan Africa to fight HIV/AIDS, part of a growing push to target infants and children in the battle against the epidemic.
The initiative is a joint venture with the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, and was announced Wednesday at the 16th International AIDS Conference in Toronto.
The United Nations AIDS agency UNAIDS estimates that 2.3 million children under 15 years of age were living with HIV in 2005, nearly 90 percent of whom live in sub-Saharan Africa.
Low testosterone may up death risk in male vets
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In a study of male veterans, low blood levels of the male hormone testosterone appeared to increase the risk of death in the next few years by 88 percent.
In an earlier study, Dr. Molly M. Shores from the University of Washington in Seattle and colleagues had shown an increase in 6-month mortality among men with low testosterone levels. The goal of the present study was to examine this association in a larger group of men with up to 8 years of follow-up.
The study involved 858 male veterans who were at least 40 years of age, prostate cancer-free, and had repeated testosterone levels taken between October 1, 1994 and December 31, 1999.
Electrically charged acyclovir speeds herpes healing
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A device that uses “iontophoresis” to enhance tissue penetration of topically applied acyclovir speeds the healing of cold sores, a study shows.
Iontophoresis refers to the use of a small electric current to move ionized substances through the skin into tissues.
“The results of this study are very exciting because of the timing of treatment,” Dr. Dennis I. Goldberg from Transport Pharmaceuticals, Framingham, Massachusetts told Reuters Health.
Diabetic kids often have heart disease risk factors
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Children and adolescents with diabetes commonly have additional risk factors for cardiovascular disease (CVD), according to a new report.
“This research emphasizes the importance of prevention, recognition, treatment and control of these risk factors,” Dr. Beatriz L. Rodriguez from the University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, told Reuters Health. “The prevalence of CVD risk factors was higher among ethnic minorities.”
Rodriguez and colleagues investigated the prevalence of CVD risk factors in a multiracial population-based sample of over 2,000 children and adolescents with diabetes. CVD risk factors specifically assessed were related to the metabolic syndrome cluster—high cholesterol, triglycerides, blood pressure and increased waist circumference.
Rapid tests mean more learn HIV status: study
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Rapid HIV tests lead to more people getting tested and receiving their results, according to a study by the US Department of Veterans Affairs presented at the 16th International AIDS Conference.
Both traditional testing and newer rapid tests were likely to result in higher screening rates for HIV, according to the study. But patients who received rapid testing were much more likely to learn their results.
HIV testing is cost-effective, but testing rates for at-risk populations in the U.S. are low. “Even people who are in care and are seeing their doctor on a regular basis, and are identified as being at risk for HIV infection, are not being tested at nearly the rate that they should be,” said Dr. Henry Anaya, who presented the study.
Back to School Safety: Avoiding Backpack Injury
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While it seems that every child carries a backpack during the school year, most parents - and children - are unaware of the potential injury that too-heavy packs can cause.
With school starting in just a few weeks, Dr. Leonel Hunt, director of spine trauma at Cedars-Sinai Institute for Spinal Disorders and Orthopedic Center, offers some advice to reduce the back and shoulder pain that as many as half of all school children experience each year.
“While backpacks are considered the most efficient way to carry books and other items kids need for school, it’s important they weigh less than 15 percent of a child’s body weight,” says Hunt. “Otherwise, over time, a child can experience back pain and soreness that can lead to problems that may require medical treatment.”
Racial differences in hepatitis C viral responses
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African American patients with hepatitis C (HCV) infections experience a lower response rate to the peginterferon alfa-2a and ribavirin combination treatment than Caucasian Americans*, according to a study published in the August issue of Gastroenterology, the journal for the members of the American Gastroenterological Association (AGA).
Racial differences in viral responses were seen as early as the fourth week of treatment. A pegylated interferon combined with ribavirin is standard therapy for HCV.
Researchers from the Study of Viral Resistance to Antiviral Therapy for Chronic Hepatitis C (Virahep-C), which is funded by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), conducted the study to determine the potential mechanisms of antiviral resistance among patients who fail to respond to current optimal therapy regimens. While African Americans have a higher prevalence of HCV infection, they have been underrepresented in most therapeutic clinical trials, making it difficult to estimate response rates in these patients.
Cost of stroke in U.S. expected to skyrocket
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The cost of treating people who suffer strokes in the U.S. is projected to exceed $2 trillion between 2005 and 2050, according to new estimates.
The researchers who came up with this estimate hope that the figure will spur improvements in stroke prevention and treatment, particularly in underserved populations.
For their analysis, reported in the journal Neurology, Dr. D. L. Brown, from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, and colleagues used data from two stroke surveillance studies and from the 2000 US Census. They added in the cost of ambulance services, inpatient hospitalization and rehabilitation, nursing home care, drugs and outpatient services. Also included were costs of informal caregiving, and potential lost earnings.
Sex workers march for rights at AIDS conference
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Sex workers and their supporters from 21 countries marched on Wednesday through the 16th International AIDS Conference to demand their own place not only at the conference, but in their own societies.
Wearing turquoise T-shirts, they marched from a gauze-draped bed in the Toronto conference’s Stiletto Lounge, one of the exhibits at the meeting, through art displays, exhibits about prisoners with AIDS and around booths offering information to drug users and religious groups.
“Sex work is work. Sex workers are workers,” said Philal Sri Kumzaw from Thailand, standing amid pillows and sex toys in the Lounge.
Man aged 50 dies in Scotland from anthrax
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A 50-year-old man has died in Scotland from the deadly toxin anthrax—the first such case there since 1987, health officials said on Wednesday, stressing that there was little risk to anyone else.
The man, who worked with materials including untreated animal hides, died in July after a short illness and the cause of death has only just been diagnosed.
“Anthrax is a very rare disease and generally presents as a skin infection,” Health Protection Scotland said in a statement. “Working with animal hides is known to be a risk factor for acquiring anthrax.”
Immunisation gaps linked to China polio outbreak
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A group of Chinese scientists has linked a 2004 outbreak of polio in an impoverished Chinese province to gaps in China’s immunisation program, according to a study to be published in September.
In the article, to be published in The Journal of Infectious Diseases, the scientists recommend more widespread immunisation of China’s population as well as an end to the use of vaccines containing live but weakened strains of the polio virus.
“The outbreak ... highlights the need to carefully reconsider the risks associated with OPV (oral polio vaccine with live virus) use when formulating future polio immunization policies for China,” the researchers wrote in the article.
