Makers of drug-test fakes silent before U.S. panel
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Marketers of detoxifying drinks, prosthetic penises and other products to thwart drug tests refused to answer questions on Tuesday from U.S. lawmakers threatening legislation to crack down on an industry that investigators said is booming on the Internet.
Owners of three companies, including one that sells a fake penis called “The Whizzinator,” appeared at a congressional hearing under subpoena but exercised their constitutional right not to testify.
Texas Republican Rep. Joe Barton stressed the executives still must respond to requests to supply congressional investigators with documents about the business.
U.N. food agency warns of looming aid shortage
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The United Nations food agency warned on Tuesday that it would soon have to reduce rations to refugees in Africa unless donors came up quickly with the $315 million it needed.
The World Food Programme (WFP), which aids some 2.2 million people worldwide, said it had received only $460 million of the $775 million sought in funding for 2005, of which 75 percent is spent in Africa.
“Many of the refugees rely almost entirely on food aid for their survival,” said WFP deputy executive director John Powell.
Testosterone may protect against atherosclerosis
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Contrary to the thinking in some circles, middle-aged men who maintain normal testosterone levels appear to be protected against hardening of the arteries, Finnish and UK researchers report.
Despite findings from animal studies that suggest that male hormones encourage build up of plaque in the arteries, clinical studies “have suggested that testosterone may protect elderly men from developing atherosclerosis,” said Dr. Olli T. Raitakari of the University of Turku.
Tawain spurns China pact with WHO on assistance
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Taiwan’s health minister on Monday rejected a pact between China and the World Health Organisation to help the island in any health emergency, because Taipei had not been consulted.
The accord, a memorandum of understanding, was announced at the WHO’s annual assembly by China’s Health Minister Gao Qiang during a brief debate on Taiwan’s bid - again unsuccessful - for observer status.
Indonesia polio outbreak nearly contained
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Indonesia has nearly contained its first polio outbreak in a decade because of fast action in vaccinating children in affected areas and a willingness to seek international help, health officials said on Monday.
Indonesian officials have detected eight polio-infected patients since discovering the first case last month about 100 km (62 miles) south of Jakarta. Several suspected cases are under investigation and a mass vaccination is set for May 31.
UK ruling on terminally ill patients goes to court
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Britain’s General Medical Council (GMC) went to court on Monday to clarify how much treatment should be given to terminally ill patients.
Last year 45-year-old Leslie Burke, who has a degenerative brain condition, won a court ruling to stop doctors letting him starve to death should he become too ill to feed himself or communicate.
Optimistic Gates doubles funds for disease research
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Microsoft founder Bill Gates more than doubled his financing for key health research to $450 million on Monday after telling assembled health ministers the world had a “historic chance” to tame killer diseases.
In a speech to the opening session of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) annual assembly, the world’s richest man said a combination of “astonishing” scientific advances and rising global awareness of the suffering caused by disease gave real hope for progress.
U.S. lawmakers battle over “specialty” hospitals
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Battle lines were officially drawn Thursday on Capitol Hill over whether lawmakers should ban the further spread of physician-owned “specialty” hospitals that only treat patients with select conditions.
On Wednesday, Republican Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa and Democratic Senator Max Baucus of Montana introduced legislation that would continue a moratorium on construction of new specialty facilities beyond its June 8 expiration.
U.S. Medicaid commission draws unusual interest
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When it comes to the Medicaid health program for the poor, the question in Washington has moved from whether to cut the program to how.
The budget blueprint approved by the U.S. Congress late last month calls for legislation to trim Medicaid spending by $10 billion over five years. But, in a compromise with moderate Republicans in the Senate, the deadline for that legislation to be written was pushed back to September, and the Bush administration agreed to appoint a bipartisan commission to make recommendations for how the program should be restructured.
Asian states hampering bird flu checks - UN agency
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A top U.N. agency official accused Asian nations of blocking proper monitoring of the deadly bird flu virus by giving too few samples to scientists, but denied a charge that his own agency was failing to share specimens.
The head of the Animal Health Service of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said countries were failing to export samples of the H5N1 bird flu virus that has killed more than 50 people in Asia since 2003.
England, Wales in grip of mumps epidemic
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England and Wales are in the grip of a mumps epidemic affecting mostly adolescents and young adults, scientists said on Friday.
More than 5,000 cases of the disease, which causes swelling and pain in one or both of the salivary glands, have been reported in the first five months of 2005.
Last year there were 16,436 sufferers - four times as many as the previous year.
Severe dengue outbreak kills 12 in Thailand
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Thailand, where mosquitoes are a pest in every home, is facing a severe outbreak of dengue fever with 12 people dead so far this year, almost double the toll a year earlier, a health official said on Thursday.
Dengue has infected 7,200 people as of May 7, of whom 12 have died, up from seven deaths in the same period last year, Department of Disease Control chief Thawat Suntrajarn told Reuters.
“No province in Thailand is immune from dengue outbreaks because we have mosquitoes everywhere,” Thawat said, adding the outbreak usually peaks between late June and July when wet season rains are the heaviest.
Indonesia finds new polio cases - WHO
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Indonesia has found two new polio cases but the government has taken the right steps to control its first outbreak of the crippling disease in a decade, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Thursday.
The confirmation of new cases brings the total infections in Indonesia’s densely populated West Java province to six, said Georg Petersen, the U.N. health agency’s representative in Indonesia.
Indonesia is the 16th previously polio-free country to be reinfected in the past two years.
UK doctors demand wider smoking ban
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British doctors called on Thursday for a ban on smoking in all enclosed public places, saying government proposals for a partial ban could be unworkable.
The British Medical Association, which represents three quarters of the country’s doctors, said plans to outlaw smoking in workplaces, restaurants and in pubs serving food do not go far enough.
It wants Prime Minister Tony Blair’s re-elected government to follow the example of Ireland, Norway and other countries that have banned smoking in all restaurants and pubs.
Lonely students show weaker immunity: study
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First-year college students who consider themselves to be very lonely on campus and cut off from their friends and family back home may receive less benefit from flu vaccinations than their peers, new study findings suggest.
“The loneliness and social isolation that university freshman experience in their first semester is powerful enough to have a very real impact on immune function, with potentially health relevant implications,” said study author Sarah D. Pressman, a doctoral candidate at Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Melon University.
