Study suggests rise in autism cases may not be real
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A rise in autism cases is not evidence of a feared epidemic but reflects that schools are diagnosing autism more frequently, a study said on Monday.
Children classified by U.S. school special education programs as mentally retarded or learning disabled have declined in tandem with the rise in autism cases between 1994 and 2003, the author of the study said, suggesting a switch of diagnoses.
Government health authorities have been trying to allay widely publicized concerns that vaccines containing the mercury-containing preservative thimerosal, which is no longer used, were behind an autism epidemic.
Canada scraps plan to decriminalize marijuana use
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Canada’s new Conservative government will scrap draft legislation that would have decriminalized the possession of small amounts of marijuana, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said on Monday.
The legislation, drawn up by the previous Liberal government, alarmed police officials in Canada and the neighboring United States who said it would only encourage the already booming trade in pot.
Once the Liberals lost the January 23 election after 12 years in power, the bill looked to be in deep trouble. One of Harper’s five priorities is to clamp down on crime.
Sexy media a siren call to promiscuity: study
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Sexually charged music, magazines, TV and movies push youngsters into intercourse at an earlier age, perhaps by acting as kind of virtual peer that tells them everyone else is doing it, a study said on Monday.
“This is the first time we’ve shown that the more kids are exposed to sex in media the earlier they have sex,” said Jane Brown of the University of North Carolina, chief author of the report.
Previous research had been limited to television, said the study that looked at 1,017 adolescents when they were aged 12 to 14 and again two years later. They were checked on their exposure during the two years to 264 items—movies, TV shows, music and magazines—which were analyzed for their sexual content.
Racial gap seen in chemo for colon cancer
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Black patients with colorectal cancer are 20 percent less likely than white patients to be recommended for add-on (or “adjuvant”) chemotherapy, new research indicates.
The finding comes from a look-back study that included all 17,174 black and white colorectal cancer patients diagnosed in Alabama during a recent 7-year period. Dr. Hanaa S. Elhefni, from Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio reported the results at the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research.
At a press briefing on health disparities, in which Dr. Elhefni’s study was highlighted, Dr. Olufunmilayo I. Olopade, an oncologist from the University of Chicago said: “This study shows that doctors are not recommending treatments for colorectal cancer that we know are effective and we need to find out why.”
Prolonged mobile phone use raises brain tumour risk
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The use of mobile phones over a long period of time can raise the risk of brain tumours, according to a Swedish study released on Friday, contradicting the conclusions of other researchers.
Last year, the Dutch Health Council, in an overview of research from around the world, found no evidence that radiation from mobile phones or TV towers was harmful. A four-year British survey in January also showed no link between regular, long-term use of cell phones and the most common type of tumour.
But researchers at the Swedish National Institute for Working Life looked at the mobile phone use of 2,200 cancer patients and an equal number of healthy control subjects.
Researchers Discover Cancer Cells May Move Via Wave Stimulation
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Mayo Clinic researchers have uncovered a new cellular secret that may explain how certain cancers move and spread—a feature of cancers that makes treatment especially difficult. If the mechanism that drives cancer movement—also called metastasis—can be understood well enough to manipulate it, new and better treatments can be developed for patients with metastatic cancers.
Significance of the Mayo Clinic Research
The Mayo researchers focused on odd protrusions observable by microscope on the surface of certain cancer cells: circular waves. Until now, no one has fully understood the function of these waves. The Mayo findings in the current edition of Cancer Research http://cancerres.aacrjournals.org/current.shtml are the first to show one role the waves play. They selectively round up activated growth-promoting proteins from the cell surface and take them to the interior of the cell. Under normal conditions, this process would help terminate signals from these growth-promoting proteins. However, in cancer cells it appears that either these waves may not function properly, or that the internalized proteins may remain active longer, which allows them to “instruct” a cell to acquire cancerous traits such as excessive growth and invasive movement that constitute metastasis. These waves are important for helping to keep these cancer-growth commands at bay.
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.
U.S. will dispose of feed infected by bird flu
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To help prevent the spread of bird flu, the Food and Drug Administration will draw up rules for the disposal of livestock feed that might carry avian influenza viruses, a U.S. official said on Thursday.
FDA also will develop tests for antiviral drug residues in poultry during fiscal 2007, which begins October 1, said Bruce Gellin, director of the National Vaccine Program Office at the Department of Health and Human Services.
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.”
Serum tumor markers predict extravesical disease in clinical stage T2 bladder cancer
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Bladder cancer clinical staging is notoriously poor in patients with muscle invasive disease.
While prospective randomized trials have demonstrated a small survival benefit when neoadjuvant chemotherapy strategies are employed, the selection criteria for preoperative chemotherapy are not well defined. Improving clinical staging with novel imaging or laboratory modalities remains a challenge.
In the April issue of the Journal of Urology, Margel and colleagues evaluated the utility of preoperative levels of CEA, CA-125 or CA 19-9 to predict extravesical disease in patients with clinical stage T2 bladder cancer. Quantitative beta-hcg was not measured. Serum levels of these markers were measured in 91 patients treated with radical cystectomy. Of these patients, 51% (46) had disease localized to the bladder and 49% had extravesical disease. Nineteen percent of patients had evidence of lymph node metastases.
Underutilization of partial nephrectomy for localized renal cell carcinoma in the U.S.
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In the past, the gold standard for the treatment of localized renal tumors has been radical nephrectomy. Over time however, experience with nephron sparing surgery and, now, laparoscopic approaches have demonstrated oncologic equipoise and may provide for an improved quality of life for patients as compared to those undergoing radical nephrectomy for localized renal masses.
The incidence of localized small renal tumors is increasing (3.8-5.6% annually) and one would predict that the incidence of nephron sparing approaches would increase in concert. Though more technically demanding than radical nephrectomy, nephron sparing offers the intuitive benefit of maximizing residual functioning renal tissue, while maintaining cancer control. A recent evaluation of the SEER database revealed that in 2001, 58% of patients with tumors < 2cm, and 80% of patients with tumors 2-4 cm were managed with radical nephrectomy. This study by Hollenbeck and colleagues suggests that while the use of nephron sparing approaches in the management of small renal masses has increased, it remains underutilized and very much regionalized to urban, teaching, high volume centers in the United States.
UK Plans for Pandemic Flu Don’t Go Far Enough
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The UK’s contingency plans for pandemic flu don’t go far enough, argues a director of public health in this week’s BMJ.
Plans for pandemic flu in the United Kingdom are said to be among the best in the developed world, but important lessons from the past have been missed, writes Hilary Pickles. These include the need to prepare for high death rates, being open with the public, and understanding population behaviour. Clear and appropriate accountability and communications are also needed, she concludes.
In response, David Salisbury, Director of Immunisation at the Department of Health, argues that preparedness has been strengthened through cross government working, enhanced communications, and international cooperation.
Real Battle Over Mental Health Law About to Begin
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The UK government’s climb down on reform of mental health legislation is not a victory - the real battle is about to begin, warns a senior doctor in this week’s BMJ.
The UK government’s announcement that it has abandoned its eight year attempt to achieve a new Mental Health Act for England and Wales is an apparent victory for patients, professionals, and liberal democracy, writes Professor Nigel Eastman of St George’s Hospital, London.
But faced with almost unanimous opposition from those with an interest in mental health care, the government has stated that it will instead introduce a shortened and streamlined bill amending the 1983 Mental Health Act.
Treatment reduces gastric ulcers in at-risk patients using long-term NSAIDS
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Results from two clinical trials, to be published in the April 2006 edition of the American Journal of Gastroenterology, indicate that esomeprazole magnesium can reduce the incidence of gastric (stomach) ulcers in patients at risk of developing gastric ulcers and who regularly take either non-selective nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) or COX-2-selective NSAIDs.
NSAIDs are a class of pain relief medications that include traditional, non-selective drugs, such as ibuprofen, naproxen and aspirin, and newer COX-2-selective agents. Nonselective NSAIDs are known for increasing the risk of gastric ulcers, particularly among older patients who take them regularly or who have a history of gastric ulcers.
Pooled data from the double-blind, randomized, six-month trials showed that significantly fewer patients taking either NEXIUM 20 mg or NEXIUM 40 mg, in addition to their regular non-selective NSAID/selective-COX-2 therapy, developed an ulcer at six months, compared to those taking a placebo (5.2 percent and 4.6 percent, respectively, vs. 17 percent, p<0.001). These differences were seen as early as the first month of treatment and maintained throughout the study duration.
Minimal genome should be twice the size
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The simplest bacteria need almost twice as many genes to survive than scientists first believed, according to new research published in Nature (30 March 2006).
Bacteria are some of the simplest forms of life and have been studied by scientists trying to identify the smallest collection of genes - or minimal genome - that is needed for maintaining life.
Traditionally scientists have done this by removing, or ‘knocking out’, a series of individual genes from a bacterial genome to see what effect this has on its ability to survive.
