WHO backs away from 150 million flu deaths
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The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday that 2-7.4 million deaths was a reasonable working forecast for a global influenza pandemic - distancing itself from a top U.N. official’s figure of up to 150 million.
Dr. David Nabarro, named on Thursday as the U.N. coordinator for global readiness against an outbreak, had said that the world response would determine whether a flu virus ends up killing 5 million or as many as 150 million.
PDAs expected to change healthcare in future
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Personal digital assistants (PDAs) could change the way healthcare is delivered in the future by providing doctors with easy access to patient data and the latest information on treatment.
Palm pilots and other hand-held computers were originally designed as personal organizers but they are becoming increasingly popular with doctors, medical students and even patients to improve the quality of care and safety.
Computer games help diagnose young kids’ asthma
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Interactive computer games can help identify asthma in children as young as 2 years old, according to a new study.
Researchers in Israel found that animated computer games were useful in teaching young children how to use a spirometer, an instrument that measures lung capacity and helps diagnosed asthma.
1.4 million children could be saved with vaccines
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An estimated 1.4 children under five years of age die unnecessarily each year from measles, whooping cough or tetanus, all of them preventable with vaccines, the U.N. Children’s Fund, UNICEF, reported on Thursday.
The worst affected areas are in west and central Africa, in countries of conflict but also in Nigeria, said a new UNICEF report.
Health services not meeting obesity challenge-experts
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Healthcare systems have failed to come to grips with the global obesity epidemic and its serious health consequences, leading experts said on Friday.
More than a billion people, 10 percent of whom are children, worldwide are obese or overweight. It is the sixth most important risk factor in the overall burden of disease.
Heart doc says Vioxx may have caused heart attack
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The cardiologist for a man who sued Merck & Co. Inc., blaming Vioxx for his 2001 heart attack, testified on Thursday that the withdrawn painkiller and not heart disease was likely responsible.
Dr. David Sim, an Idaho cardiologist who has treated plaintiff Frederick “Mike” Humeston since his heart attack, said he was able to eliminate many of the most common high risk factors for causing a heart attack.
Marriage, kids, career hits female sex drive
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The sex drive of women plummets sharply as they juggle the increasing demands of partners, children and careers, researchers said on Thursday.
One in 10 women questioned for a survey admitted losing interest in sex for at least six months in the past year.
Parties for HIV+ men may pose health risks
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Parties for HIV-positive gay men to meet others infected with the virus may help to prevent its spread but scientists said on Thursday the events may also raise the risk of exposure to superinfections.
So-called “POZ Parties” began in New York in the
Obesity may be advantage after heart attack
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Being overweight or obese, compared with being normal weight or very obese, appears to confer a survival advantage following a heart attack or near heart attack—collectively called acute coronary syndrome.
However, researchers caution that these findings must be interpreted carefully “and should not be used as evidence against weight reduction.”
Treatment prevents defects from CMV infection
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An expensive but widely established treatment for cytomegalovirus, a common and usually benign virus, can reverse potentially dangerous complications of the disease in the fetus, a study showed on Wednesday.
The study by doctors in the United States and Italy, published in The New England Journal of Medicine, also suggests that ultrasound may be an easy way to screen unborn children for the infection.
U.S. women taking fewer folic acid supplements
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Fewer American women are taking daily vitamins with folic acid during their childbearing years, raising fears of a jump in spina bifida and other birth defects, a U.S. study suggested on Thursday.
The incidence of these devastating birth defects has been shown to fall by up to 70 percent when women take 400 micrograms of folic acid daily as part of a healthy diet before conception and in the first trimester of pregnancy.
Lilly to add suicide risk warning to Strattera
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Eli Lilly and Co. on Thursday said it will add strong warnings to its label for Strattera, used to treat attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, including the risk of suicidal thoughts among children and adolescents.
Strattera will now carry a “black box” warning, the strongest required by U.S. regulators. Such warnings typically hurt sales of products by raising concern among doctors and patients about the safety of a drug.
Pregnancy complications tied to later stroke risk
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Women who suffer certain complications during pregnancy apparently run a higher risk of having a stroke later in life, according to findings reported Tuesday at the annual meeting of the American Neurological Association in San Diego, California.
Dr. Monique V. Chireau and colleagues at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina, used the university’s Perinatal and Health Services Outcomes database to investigate a possible link between pregnancy complications and stroke risk.
China vows to cut drug prices to appease angry public
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China said on Wednesday it would lower the retail prices of 22 kinds of medicine as a means of reeling in some of the soaring costs of health care sparking social discontent across the country.
The failure of health reforms and rising costs of medical care have become flash points for social anger and unrest in China, where hundreds of millions of people cannot afford to see doctors or get medicine.
Indonesia mulls final anti-polio drive in November
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Indonesia hopes to hold another polio immunization drive in November to stamp out the disease, an official said on Wednesday, a day after launching a program to vaccinate millions of children for the second time this year.
There have been 240 polio cases in Indonesia since May, when the crippling disease re-emerged after being eradicated from the world’s fourth most populous country a decade ago.
