Effort to improve kids’ asthma care falls short
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For inner-city kids with Asthma, a school-based initiative to let their doctors know about the severity of the children’s asthma didn’t seem to make much difference, New York researchers report.
“Unfortunately,” Dr. Jill S. Halterman told Reuters Health, “provider notification of symptoms did not increase the likelihood of these children receiving enhanced preventive care, and many of the children were still inadequately treated at follow-up.”
WHO lists approved websites for vaccine safety
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The World Health Organisation (WHO), warning of one-sided and alarming reporting of vaccine safety on websites, on Tuesday issued a list of 23 sites it deemed reliable.
The approved sites meet the WHO’s criteria including credibility, content and disclosure of the group’s funding, according to a statement.
“We want to help Web readers and governments have access to reliable information. These sites have passed the criteria for good practices and will be reviewed every 18 months,” told Philippe Duclos, WHO medical officer.
U.S. group launches online medical record program
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Patients will be able to see, change and share medical records on the Internet with a service launched on Monday by a company set up by a coalition of professional medical groups.
They say the service, called iHealthRecord, will let patients control their own records, while allowing doctors vital access when they need it, eventually reducing the risks of mistakes such as prescribing errors.
And, they hope, it could provide a way for doctors and patients to replace thick medical charts and swap information without the need for costly and time-consuming office visits.
French surgeons begin UK ‘exile’
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Hundreds of French surgeons have begun a symbolic “exile” in Britain to demand the right to charge higher fees.
The private sector doctors plan to spend four days at the southern English resort of Camber Sands.
The group Surgeons of France says fees have remained static for 15 years while insurance rates have soared tenfold because of an explosion in lawsuits.
The group says the French government promised extra funds last year, but the money has not materialised.
UN warns WTO farm talks could worsen food crisis
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The head of the U.N. World Food Programme (WFP) warned on Monday that new rules on food aid as part of a global trade pact could reduce its flow and increase starvation in poor countries.
James Morris, executive director of the Rome-based agency, called instead on richer powers to boost food aid - in cash or kind - back to at least the annual 11 million tonnes of 2001 from the 7.5 million to which it dropped last year.
Drug makers working on U.S. advertising guidelines
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Drug makers are developing voluntary guidelines aimed at improving television and other advertisements as part an effort to rebuild public trust, the industry’s top lobbyist said on Monday.
Companies have been criticized for creating television commercials and magazine ads that glorify a drug’s benefits while minimizing the risks of side effects.
“We obviously have room for improvement,” said Billy Tauzin, president of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, known as PhRMA. The industry “needs to recapture the trust of the American people,” he told reporters.
Limit portions of farm-raised salmon, experts say
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People should avoid eating too much farm-raised salmon, which contains significantly more of the chemical dioxin than is found in fish caught in the wild, new study findings show.
After analyzing the dioxin content of farm-raised and wild salmon captured in different regions, a group of North American researchers found that farm-raised types contain between 3 and 10 times more dioxin than wild salmon.
Using guidelines from the World Health Organization, the researchers calculate that consumers should eat fewer than 10 meals of farm-raised salmon per month, and limit fish that’s raised on northern European farms to 4 times per month.
Preemies thrive on formula with added fatty acids
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Formula feeds containing fatty acids—specifically docosahexanoic acid (DHA) and arachidonic acid (ARA)—may improve the development of preterm infants, new research suggests.
The findings, which appear in the Journal of Pediatrics for April, are based on a study of 361 preterm infants who were randomized to receive formula containing DHA from algal oil and ARA from fungal oil, DHA from fish oil and ARA from fungal oil, or no supplementation. The babies were compared to a group of 105 full-term breast-fed infants.
Polio cases rise to 40 in Yemen
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The number of Yemeni children diagnosed with polio has risen to 40, almost double the figure quoted by the World Health Organisation (WHO) at the end of April, a Yemeni Health Ministry official said on Monday.
Yemen, which last reported polio in 1996, is the 15th country to have the disease reappear since mid-2003, including 13 African countries and Saudi Arabia.
Officials fear the disease - which mainly affects children under the age of five, causing irreversible paralysis - could still be spreading. The latest cases appeared in various provinces but mostly in the Red Sea port of Hodeidah.
Indonesia says it’s getting control of polio outbreak
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Indonesia is bringing its first outbreak of polio in a decade under control, but the virus may exist elsewhere besides a concentration of villages in West Java province, a senior health official said on Monday.
Umar Fahmi, the top official in charge of communicable diseases at the Health Ministry, told Reuters the number of positive cases of polio was now four, after one child had been cleared.
“We can say it’s under control, although it really depends on where the virus has travelled to.
U.N. may add new chemicals to ‘dirty dozen’ ban
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Countries at a U.N. meeting in Uruguay agreed on Friday to consider adding four new chemicals to the “dirty dozen” list of banned pesticides and industrial chemicals, a U.N. official said.
The week-long meeting that concluded on Friday also sought to reduce the legal exemptions included in the 2004 U.N. ban on the world’s most hazardous substances blamed for deaths, cancer or birth defects in humans and animals.
But exemptions for some toxins such as DDT were maintained to allow their use to fend off deadly insects despite their harmful effects.
Hungary PM wants more to contribute to health cost
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Hungary’s Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany said on Monday he would force people who work but do not pay national heathcare insurance to pay up and help finance the country’s ailing health system.
Economists estimate healthcare and pensions account for around a third of the budget deficit and the Socialist-led government hopes a system of individual social tax accounts will help track those who evade payments.
“There are about half a million people who are active, have a job, and do not insure themselves,” Gyurcsany told parliament.
Mexico drug use soars as U.S. meth labs shift south
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Crouched down a few yards south of a border fence dividing Mexico and the United States, vagrant drug addict Marco Aurelio takes a battered syringe and searches among the running sores on his skin for a vein to inject.
Pushing the charger in to the hilt, he slips into a $5 burst of euphoria that the Mexican says “neutralizes” life on the streets of Tijuana, one of the roughest cities along the border.
Cheaper than cocaine or heroin and with a longer-lasting high, methamphetamine has been widely snorted, smoked and injected by blue-collar drug users in towns and cities over the border in California for decades.
Red Cross launches $653 mln 5-yr tsunami aid plan
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The global Red Cross and Red Crescent body on Monday launched a $653 million five-year plan to help 10 Asian and African nations around the Indian Ocean to rebuild after last December’s devastating tsunami.
The wide-ranging project, covering 2005-2010, is the biggest and longest ever mounted by the Geneva-based International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), which links organisations in more than 181 countries.
The cost will be covered by funds already raised by its member bodies.
Iran watchdog rejects bill easing abortion ban
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Iran’s legislative watchdog rejected a bill that would have permitted the abortion of a handicapped foetus as un-Islamic on Monday, parliament’s Web site reported.
Lawmakers had last month approved a bill to allow abortions when a mother’s life was in danger or the baby would be handicapped.
Some lawmakers who backed the bill had said a handicapped child could be a financial burden on a family.
