Public Health
Chernobyl veterans ask Putin for treatment help
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Veterans of the desperate efforts to contain the Chernobyl nuclear disaster two decades ago pleaded with President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday for help treating the lingering effects of the accident.
Thanks to their heroic efforts to contain the disaster at the power station on April 26, 1986, the Soviet Union managed to build a concrete “sarcophagus” over its devastated fourth reactor, but not before it sent radiation across Europe.
Some of those sent to tackle the disaster died of acute radiation sickness, and many developed cancer and other long-term illnesses. Psychological problems have also been recorded in those involved.
Australian scientists tackle deadly Q fever
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Scientists at James Cook University have taken the lead in developing a new vaccine against a highly infectious cattleyard disease caused by a bacteria which has the potential to be developed as a bioterrorist weapon.
JCU’s Infectious Diseases and Immunopathogenesis Research Group, within the School of Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences, has secured a $300,000 grant from the Defence, Science and Technology Organisation (DSTO) in Melbourne to conduct research into Q fever over three years.
Research associate Ray Layton is one of a small team of scientists working on the groundbreaking project at JCU.
Drowsy driving risks surprise US researchers
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Drowsiness behind the wheel is a more significant safety problem on U.S. roads than previously thought, although cell phone use is the most common distraction for drivers, new research showed on Thursday.
Driver distraction was the cause of most auto crashes and near crashes in a year-long study of 241 drivers in the Washington, D.C., area conducted for federal safety regulators by the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute.
The most surprising finding, researchers said, was the accident rate among drowsy drivers. They were at least four times more likely to crash or narrowly escape an accident than rested motorists, the data showed.
Wal-Mart offers to help fix US health care
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Wal-Mart Stores Inc., at the center of debate over corporate responsibility for health care, said on Tuesday that it wants to use its cost-cutting expertise to help make the U.S. health care system more efficient.
Wal-Mart, the world’s biggest retailer, has become a lightning rod for labor unions, environmentalists, anti-sprawl groups and others who contend that the retailer pays poverty-level wages, pushes employees onto government-funded Medicaid health insurance, and devours green space for its massive stores.
Maryland recently passed legislation that requires Wal-Mart to spend more on employee health care, and similar bills have been proposed in dozens of other states as they try to defray rising costs.
Engineered yeast may cut cost of malaria drug
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US researchers have created a modified form of the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae that is capable of producing large amounts of artemisinic acid, which is needed to make the anti-malaria drug artemisinin.
Malaria, caused by the one-celled parasite carried by mosquitoes called plasmodium, kills at least one million people every year and makes 300 million people seriously ill. Ninety percent of malaria deaths occur in Africa, south of the Sahara, mostly among young children.
Artemisinin is the drug of choice for treating multi-drug resistant strains of Plasmodium species. Unfortunately, the drug, which comes from the wormwood plant Artemisia annua, is expensive and supplies are limited, meaning that many malaria patients in developing countries go untreated.
Study assesses formularies across Medicare drug plans
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Medicare’s new private stand-alone drug plans vary significantly - in terms of covered drugs, out-of-pocket costs for specific medications, and restrictions placed on the use of certain drugs - according to a new analysis released today by the Kaiser Family Foundation.
“The drug law was designed to encourage competition among plans, and in that respect, it’s working. But because there are big differences from plan to plan, choice matters,” Kaiser Family Foundation President Drew E. Altman said. “What’s not yet clear is how well people with Medicare can sort through all these differences to make informed decisions.”
Biofeedback—Mind Over Body
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Mind over body, is it possible? For some people, biofeedback therapy helps them understand and control aspects of their body that are usually beneath their level of consciousness.
In the April issue of Mayo Clinic Women’s HealthSource, biofeedback uses techniques and computerized instruments to identify information about subtle, involuntary physiological changes within the body—muscle tension, sweating, increased heart rate and shallow breathing—in response to different stressors. Biofeedback professionals believe you can learn to control these responses to promote positive changes in your health, such as fewer headaches or lower blood pressure. Biofeedback is used to treat many health conditions, including backaches, teeth grinding, high blood pressure, anxiety, migraines and asthma.
US FDA says one abortion pill death unrelated
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One of two recent deaths of women taking the abortion pill RU-486 was unrelated to an abortion or use of the drug, but the second case is still under investigation, U.S. regulators said on Monday.
The woman in the second case showed symptoms of infection, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said. Both cases were reported in March.
RU-486, also known as Mifeprex or mifepristone, is approved for terminating a pregnancy of 49 days or less. Another drug, misoprostol, is given two days later to complete the abortion.
Syria breaks taboo on violence against women
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Syria has broken a taboo by presenting a high profile study on violence against women, which found that one in four married women gets beaten—usually by her husband or father.
The study, released this week by the state-run General Union of Women and funded by United Nations Development Fund for Women, sheds light on the nature and extent of violence against women in Syria.
It also coincides with calls for a campaign to raise awareness of the problem.
Drug industry spends millions lobbying US states
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The pharmaceutical industry spent $44 million lobbying U.S. state officials during a two-year period with much of the money going to fight proposals that would have reduced prescription drug costs, according to report released on Thursday.
The Center for Public Integrity said industry representatives spent the money in 2003 and 2004, a time when more than half of all states were considering proposals to reduce the cost of medicines. Prescription medicines are one of the fastest-growing expenses for state governments, which are among the pharmaceutical industry’s biggest customers, the report said.
The investigative research center analyzed lobbyist disclosure documents and records from the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) as well as conducted interviews with current and former state representatives.
A Body Temperature of 98.6° Is Anything but Normal
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The 98.6° F “normal” benchmark for body temperature comes to us from Dr. Carl Wunderlich, a 19th-century German physician who collected and analyzed over a million armpit temperatures for 25,000 patients. Some of Wunderlich’s observations have stood up over time, but his definition of normal has been debunked, says the April issue of the Harvard Health Letter. A study published years ago in the Journal of the American Medical Association found the average normal temperature for adults to be 98.2°, not 98.6°, and replaced the 100.4° fever mark with fever thresholds based on the time of day.
Now, researchers at Winthrop University Hospital in Mineola, N.Y., have found support for another temperature truism doctors have long recognized: Older people have lower temperatures. In a study of 150 older people with an average age of about 81, they found that the average temperature never reached 98.6°. These findings suggest that even when older people are ill, their body temperature may not reach levels that people recognize as fever. On the other hand, body temperatures that are too low (about 95°) can also be a sign of illness.
WHO advisers urge drugs firms cut prices for poor
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International drugs companies should seek to reduce prices for medicines sold to the poorest countries and avoid filing for patent protection there, a report prepared for the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Monday.
The 228-page study, drawn up by an independent team led by former Swiss president Ruth Dreifuss, also urged rich states not to toughen intellectual property protection conditions in trade pacts to the point where they could limit access to medicines.
“All companies should adopt transparent and consistent pricing policies and should work toward reducing prices on a more consistent basis for low and middle income developing countries,” the report said.
US company claims to make stem cells from testes
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U.S. researchers said on Saturday they had transformed immature cells from men’s testicles into powerful stem cells, which they then coaxed into becoming nerve, heart and bone cells.
Their work has not been assessed by standard peer-review processes, but was presented at a meeting of stem cell researchers in Valencia, Spain. If other researchers can duplicate their efforts, the study offers a possible new source of valuable stem cells.
The researchers, at Irvine, California-based PrimeGen Biotech LLC, worked with immature cells found in testes and ovaries known as germ cells. Scientists have hoped to use germ cells as a source of tissues for transplant and other medical uses.
UK dentists warn on service as deal deadline looms
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Dentists warned the UK government on Friday that it could be harder to get treatment on the NHS as a deadline loomed for them to sign up to new contracts.
The British Dental Association said almost two thirds of dentists in areas they surveyed were only giving provisional agreement to the contracts, reserving the right to dispute the terms.
That could lead to some dentists turning to private work and refusing to treat patients on the NHS, adding the existing difficulty of finding an NHS dentist in some areas of the country. But Health Minister Rosie Winterton told the BBC that the “vast majority” of dentists were signing up to the new agreement, which takes force from April 1.
Australian Scientists Discover New Disease
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Extreme laziness may have a medical basis, say a group of Australian scientists in this week’s BMJ, as they describe a new condition called motivational deficiency disorder (MoDeD).
The condition is claimed to affect up to one in five Australians and is characterised by overwhelming and debilitating apathy. Neuroscientists at the University of Newcastle in Australia say that in severe cases motivational deficiency disorder can be fatal, because the condition reduces the motivation to breathe.
Neurologist Leth Argos is part of the team that has identified the disorder. “This disorder is poorly understood,” he says. “It is underdiagnosed and undertreated.”
