Public Health
Debate Over Wider Use of Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis
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Preimplantation genetic diagnosis—first used in assisted reproduction 15 years ago—is becoming more and more widely used. But whether it should be employed universally drew heated debate here.
Researchers here say that data show preimplantation genetic diagnosis is becoming accurate to the point that in some settings it can dramatically improve the rate of successful pregnancies by winnowing out all but the completely normal embryos.
UK plans mass vaccination against pandemic flu
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Britain plans to buy enough vaccine to protect the entire population in case a deadly bird flu virus develops into a pandemic strain capable of killing millions of people, the government said on Wednesday.
Chief Medical Officer Liam Donaldson said vaccine manufacturers are being invited to tender contracts to supply 120 million doses, enough for two shots per person, once the pandemic strain is known.
Study finds Australia veterans in poorer health
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Australia’s surviving Korean War veterans are in poorer health than the rest of the community and are more likely to suffer depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, a new study has found.
The study for Australia’s Department of Veterans Affairs, released on Tuesday, found that 50 years after the conflict, Korean War veterans also had lower life satisfaction and a poorer quality of life compared with other Australian men of the same age.
EU ministers hold emergency bird flu talks
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EU foreign ministers held emergency talks on the approaching danger of avian flu on Tuesday, as Greece investigated what could prove the first appearance of the deadly strain in an EU member country.
Swiss drugmaker Roche, pressed to raise output of antiviral flu drug Tamiflu, said it would consider allowing rival firms and governments to produce it under license for emergency pandemic use. A Dutch company said it was working on a vaccine.
Hurricane Katrina Perspectives Detail Personal Drama and Public Tragedy
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Tales of heroes and hooligans will swirl through this storm-ravaged city for months and years to come, and the editors at the New England Journal of Medicine this week contributed seven compelling Hurricane Katrina stories.
Four of the seven are personal accounts of New Orleans physicians - three Ochsner Clinic physicians and an infectious disease specialist who was among the last evacuees from Charity Hospital.
Official Pakistan quake death toll now 25,000
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The number of people who died in the earthquake that devastated northern Pakistan at the weekend stands at 25,000 and is expected to rise, the government said on Thursday.
Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said 15 to 20 percent of the area hit by Saturday’s 7.6 magnitude quake, including the Neelam and Jhelum Valleys in Pakistani Kashmir, has not been reached to check casualty figures.
Yahoo shuts chat rooms promoting adult-child sex
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Yahoo Inc., the online media company, has agreed to shut down Internet chat rooms designed to promote sex between adults and children.
The agreement with the attorneys general of New York and Nebraska is the first to institute systemwide controls over chat rooms likely to be frequented by child predators.
$200 mln urged to fight neglected African diseases
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Parasitic diseases afflicting millions of African adults and children could be treated and cured for just $200 million a year, a tiny fraction of the amount earmarked to fight AIDS, medical experts said on Tuesday.
At present, the majority of those affected do not get treatment, even though three of the four drugs they need are given away free by manufacturers and the other costs just 7 U.S. cents.
US cuts cholesterol with drugs, not lifestyle
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Older Americans have lowered their cholesterol levels thanks to popular statin drugs, but adults of all ages have resisted making the healthy lifestyle changes that can cut the fat, according to a study reported Tuesday.
The decline in average blood cholesterol levels was observed between 1995 and 2002 among men 60 and older and women 50 and older but not among younger U.S. adults, according to the study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Stroke Mortality Highest Among Blacks Living in the South
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Preliminary results of a National Institutes of Neurological Disorders and Stroke funded study suggest that while African Americans have an overall higher risk of dying from stroke than whites, that risk is even greater for blacks who live in the south.
For example, African American men living in South Carolina are almost four times more likely to die from a stroke than are white men living in that same state.
Toronto’s mystery illness is legionnaires’ disease
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Canadian health officials on Thursday identified the “mystery illness” that killed 16 people in a Toronto nursing home as legionnaires’ disease.
The disease, a type of pneumonia, is contracted by people breathing in small droplets of water contaminated with the bacteria—often from ventilation systems. It is rare in Ontario, though the bacteria are common in the environment throughout North America.
Medicare prescription-drug coverage plan
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The new Medicare prescription-drug coverage plan doesn’t cover all of the expenses for all of the people, but it may make the difference between meals and medicine for many fixed-income retirees.
Clearly Medicare Part D is better than nothing for many of the estimated 43 million elderly and disabled Americans who are enrolled in the program. That said, Medicare’s new prescription-drug coverage will never live up to its hype as a comprehensive prescription drug plan.
Ten people dead as mystery virus hits Toronto home
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Ten people have died from a mystery viral outbreak at a Toronto nursing home and another 40 are in hospital, public health officials said on Tuesday as they raced to contact anyone who visited the home recently.
The outbreak, an unidentified respiratory virus, has sparked memories of the SARS outbreak two years ago that killed 44 people in Canada’s largest city.
WHO sees ‘global epidemic’ of chronic disease
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Developing countries can tackle a “global epidemic” of chronic disease by adopting cheap measures that have helped cut heart disease deaths in some rich nations by up to 70 percent, the World Health Organization (WHO) said.
In a report published on Wednesday, the WHO said nearly half of all deaths from heart disease, cancer, respiratory infections, strokes and diabetes—to which about 35 million people will succumb this year—were preventable.
Primary Care Clinics May Speed Early Alerts to Disease Outbreaks
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Disease outbreaks can be spotted quickly by automated daily data reporting of office-based diagnostic billing codes, according to a pilot study in a family practice clinic.
Investigators found in a North Carolina family practice clinic that that the daily data reporting was faster and more efficient than the emergency room surveillance systems already in place in the state, reported Philip D. Sloane, M.D., of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
