One in 15 UK doctors has drink/drug problem -BMA
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One in 15 British doctors has had a problem with alcohol or drugs but the profession is in denial and needs government help, a British Medical Association (BMA) chief said on Monday.
BMA Ethics Committee chairman Michael Wilks told the BBC the government needed to do more to help.
Diabetes hospitalization rates falling in US, CDC says
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Americans with diabetes are less likely to need hospitalization for serious complications such as kidney failure than they were a decade ago, according to new research from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
One CDC study found that the rate of people with diabetes admitted to a hospital for a potentially preventable reason fell 35 percent between 1994 and 2002.
Possible fifth Tysabri-related case - WSJ
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A possible fifth case of a rare and often fatal brain infection linked to the multiple sclerosis drug Tysabri has been reported to federal regulators, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday.
The case was reported on May 16 through the Food and Drug Administration’s Adverse Event Reporting System, which collects reports of possible drug reactions from physicians and drug makers. An FDA spokeswoman told the Journal that these reports do not represent confirmed cases.
EU food agency says illegal GMO maize probably safe
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A genetically modified (GMO) maize that is illegal in Europe but found its way into EU countries probably does not pose a risk to either animals or humans, Europe’s food safety agency said on Monday.
While data on the maize, known as Bt-10 and made by Swiss agrochemicals group Syngenta, was incomplete, it seemed that mixing of Bt-10 with a similar strain Bt-11—which is approved in the EU—was probably harmless.
U.S. moves to spur digital health record network
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The U.S. government is taking steps to help spawn a nationwide network of electronic medical records that are easily accessible but protect patient privacy, Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt said on Monday.
A new advisory panel will make recommendations aimed at prodding the private sector to establish standards so medical records can be shared throughout the health-care system, Leavitt said.
Whopping cough vaccine cost effective in U.S. teens
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One-time whopping cough vaccination for all adolescents in the U.S. is likely to be cost effective, according to a report published in the medical journal Pediatrics. If implemented, such a strategy may help stem the rise in whopping cough rates seen in the past two decades.
By contrast, the study did not find adult vaccination for whopping cough, also known as pertussis, to be cost effective, nor was the use of booster shots.
Drug testing company sues PETA over videos
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Covance Inc., a pharmaceutical testing firm, said on Monday it filed suit against animal rights group PETA, charging it with fraud and conspiracy for illegally videotaping animals at a Covance plant.
Covance said an agent for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals misrepresented herself to get hired by Covance and then violated her employee contract when she videotaped the firm’s Vienna, Virginia facility.
One in 10 UK kids bullied by picture phone-survey
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One in 10 British children say they have been threatened or made uncomfortable by people taking a photograph of them with a mobile phone, according to a survey published on Tuesday.
Children’s charity NCH said nearly a sixth of this total believed their image had then been sent to someone else.
A recent craze of “happy slapping”, where random attacks on strangers are filmed by camera phone, has fuelled concerns about youth crime in Britain where tackling anti-social behaviour is a top political issue.
No human clones this century - stem cell expert
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There will be no human clones this century because the work is dangerous, complicated and unethical, a South Korea scientist at the forefront of stem cell research and cloning technology said on Tuesday.
“I don’t think we will have any chance to meet a cloned human being within the next 100 years, at least,” said Woo-Suk Hwang, the head of a team of South Korean scientists who cloned the first human embryo to use for research.
Cough suppressant may ease fibromyalgia pain
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A medication normally used to quiet a stubborn cough may also help ease the chronic pain of fibromyalgia, a small study suggests.
Researchers found that the cough suppressant, dextromethorphan, temporarily diminished pain perception in both fibromyalgia patients and healthy adults. The benefit appears to stem from the fact that dextromethorphan blocks the action of a chemical messenger known as NMDA, which helps relay pain signals to the brain.
Amylin says diabetes drug helps obese shed weight
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Amylin Pharmaceuticals Inc. said on Friday that a high dose of its diabetes drug Symlin, given three times a day by injection, helped obese patients shed weight in a mid-stage clinical trial.
A phase II trial of 204 obese subjects found they lost 3.6 percent of their weight after 16 weeks of treatment, the company said.
The results, to be presented at medical meetings in Athens, Greece and San Diego, also showed that the weight loss was progressive and did not show signs of a plateau, said Dan Bradbury, chief operating officer, at San Diego-based Amylin.
Low zinc intake may sap exercisers’ energy
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Active people who get too little zinc in their diets may run out of juice sooner than they should, new research suggests.
The study found that when 14 active young men followed a 9-week diet low in zinc, their cardiovascular fitness dipped in comparison to their performance during 9 weeks on a zinc-fortified diet.
EU must prepare now for flu pandemic - commissioner
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Europe will almost certainly be hit by an influenza epidemic, possibly a mutation of bird flu which has already killed more than 50 people in Asia, the European Union’s health commissioner said on Friday.
Launching the EU’s European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) in the Swedish capital, Commissioner Markos Kyprianou said EU states must make immediate preparations for tackling such an outbreak.
An “influenza pandemic seems inevitable,” he said.
Immunotherapy injections help treat warts
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Injecting warts directly with any of a number of selected antigenic proteins appears to be a useful way of resolving the problem, researchers report. This form of immunotherapy seems to clear up not only the injected warts but also others not even in the same vicinity.
“Intralesional immunotherapy is a highly effective and safe method for treating any patient with a wart, but particularly for patients with large or numerous warts in any location,” lead investigator Dr. Thomas H. Horn told Reuters Health.
Dr. Horn, of the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Little Rock, and colleagues, studied 233 patients who had at least one wart that was injected with skin test antigens for either mumps, Candida or Trichophyton.
UK court rules against medicinal cannabis users
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A group of Britons appealing against convictions for illegally using cannabis for pain relief suffered a blow on Friday when three of the country’s top judges ruled they were not exempt from the law.
The five people mounting the test case argued they were entitled to a defence of “necessity” because the drug was needed for pain relief, was more effective than some conventional medicines and did not have the associated side effects.
