Public Health
Hypertension control poorer in blacks than whites
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Better compliance with treatment could improve racial differences in how well patients keep high blood pressure under control, VA researchers report.
“Nonadherence to a hypertension treatment regimen is a significant barrier to achieving hypertension treatment goals and is quite prevalent,” Dr. Hayden B. Bosworth from the Durham Veterans Affairs Medical Center, North Carolina, told Reuters Health.
Polish woman refused abortion goes to Europe court
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A Polish woman who was refused an abortion despite doctors’ warnings that giving birth could damage her eyesight accused Poland on Tuesday of failing to protect her rights under its strict abortion law.
Alicja Tysiac, whose vision worsened after the birth and is now registered as disabled, asked Europe’s human rights court to consider her complaint that she was unable to obtain an abortion on therapeutic or health grounds.
Concern Over Britain’s Refugee Detention Policy
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Experts in this week’s BMJ express concern over Britain’s policy of expanding detention centres for asylum seekers, despite evidence that it damages mental health.
Over 7 million of the world’s 17 million refugees remain “warehoused” under conditions of confinement, raising serious human rights issues about the treatment of people fleeing oppression.
UN announces two new victories in war on polio
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The World Health Organisation (WHO) on Wednesday declared two more states—Egypt and Niger—free of endemic polio, bringing the goal of eradicating the paralysing disease worldwide a step nearer.
Egypt, where polio has been traced back 5,000 years, has had no cases for over a year, and the nine reported in Niger were all due to imports of the virus from neighbouring Nigeria.
Most U.S. healthcare workers don’t get flu vaccine
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Just 38 percent of healthcare workers in the United States received an influenza vaccine in 2000, despite strong evidence showing that vaccination can reduce the rate of hospital-acquired infections in patients and employee absenteeism, according to a new report.
The Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices recommends influenza vaccination for healthcare workers who have direct patient contact. By contrast, the findings from the present study suggest that it is the workers with direct patient contact, such as health aides and medical assistants (but not physicians, who have the highest vaccination rates) who are least likely to be vaccinated.
British workers not eligible for asbestos awards
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Thousands of Britons who have been exposed to asbestos at work have no right to compensation, a court ruled on Thursday in a landmark judgment that may save insurers more than 1 billion pounds ($1.79 billion).
The Court of Appeal ruled that people suffering from pleural plaques, a thickening of the lining of the lungs caused by being exposed to the cancer-causing, fireproof fibre asbestos, are not eligible for compensation.
Korean cloning scandal shows system works
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South Korea’s cloning scandal shows that the current research system can police itself and that governments don’t need to crack down on scientific fraud, a stem cell expert said on Wednesday.
Scientist Hwang Woo-suk has been stripped of his titles at Seoul National University, and South Korean prosecutors have said Hwang’s team did not produce any human embryonic stem cells in 2004 and 2005, as it had claimed in landmark papers.
UNICEF seeks $805 million to save children worldwide
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The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) appealed on Monday for $805 million to provide aid to millions of children and their mothers caught up in 29 emergencies worldwide.
More than one-third of the total sought from donors for this year, $331 million, is for Sudan, where the survival of 1.4 million children in Darfur alone is threatened by conflict, it said.
Wine drinkers choose healthier foods, study shows
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Wine drinkers have healthier diets than people who prefer beer, according to research reported by Danish scientists on Friday.
They tend to buy more fruits, vegetables, olives, low fat cheese and cooking oil than beer drinkers who are more likely to consume ready meals, soft drinks, sugar, sausages, lamb and butter or margarine.
NY smokers sue Philip Morris for cancer screenings
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A group of heavy Marlboro smokers filed a lawsuit in federal court on Thursday, asking Philip Morris USA to pay for screenings that may detect the early stages of lung cancer.
The class-action lawsuit, which was filed on behalf of current and former Marlboro smokers over 50 years old who smoked a pack or more a day for 20 years, demands the tobacco company pay for an annual low-dose CT scan of the chest.
More bird flu deaths as experts seek funds
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Bird flu experts meeting in Beijing said on Tuesday the world urgently needed to amass a war chest of up to $1.4 billion to fight the deadly virus and prepare nations should a pandemic strain emerge.
Underscoring that urgency, Indonesia’s health ministry said a toddler who died on Tuesday was being tested for bird flu days after his 13-year-old sister died of the H5N1 virus, according to local tests. A surviving sister is also being tested.
US bird flu outbreak could cost insurers $133 bln
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A U.S. avian flu pandemic on the scale of one that took place in 1918 could take the lives of an estimated 1.9 million people and cost the life insurance industry $133 billion in extra death claims, according to a study released on Tuesday.
A moderate influenza outbreak, based on similar events in 1957 and 1968, could cause 209,000 deaths, according to a report released by the Insurance Information Institute (I.I.I.), which cites data from U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. That compares with a typical year when 36,000 Americans die from the flu.
Oslo promises crackdown after cancer cheat scandal
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Norway promised on Monday to speed up a new law that may bring jail terms for medical cheats after a hospital accused one of its cancer researchers of falsifying data published in a leading journal.
“There must be no doubt about the quality of our research,” Health Minister Sylvia Brustad told Norway’s NTB news agency. “So we are speeding up our draft law.”
Federal Standards for Blood Lead May Be Too High
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Federal safety standards for blood lead may be too high to prevent prenatal damage resulting in diminished intelligence later in childhood. According to a study recently accepted for publication in Environmental Health Perspectives, maternal blood lead levels well below the current standard of 10 micrograms per deciliter (µg/dL) during pregnancy had a significant negative impact on children’s intelligence up to age 10. Low-level lead exposure may be more harmful to the developing brain before birth than after birth.
Previous research has firmly established that low-level lead exposure during infancy and toddlerhood negatively affects a child’s intellectual development. There is less known about the effects of prenatal lead exposure on intelligence, and only a few studies have included measures of both prenatal and postnatal lead exposure. The current study is based on tests of mothers’ blood at regular intervals during pregnancy and on tests of their children’s blood for 10 years after birth.
Doctors urge change in child supplement guidelines
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Global guidelines for giving iron and folic acid supplements to young children should be revised because they could be dangerous for some youngsters, doctors said on Friday.
Researchers from the United States and Tanzania called for the rethink after discovering that the supplements can cause severe illness and death if they are given to children in areas with high rates of malaria.
