Here are some of the latest health and medical news
developments, compiled by editors of
HealthDay:
FDA Data Notes Possible Link Between Suicidal Behavior and
Epilepsy Drugs: Report
A group of 11 popular epilepsy drugs may be linked to suicidal
behavior among users, according to an unpublished analysis from the
U.S. Food and Drug Administration cited by a
Wall Street Journal reporter in the newspaper's online
"Health Blog."
Clinical data that may spur the FDA to add warnings to the
medicines' labels were summarized last week to scientists meeting
in Phoenix and New York City, reporter Alicia Mundy wrote in
Wednesday's blog entry.
Attendees at the New York City meeting told Mundy that the FDA
appeared ready to lump the drugs together as a "class," she
wrote.
Mundy's entry mentioned the Pfizer drugs Lyrica and Neurontin
(now generically called gabapentin), Johnson & Johnson's
Topamax, Abbott Labs' Depakote, and UBC's Keppra.
The reporter cited an email from an unspecified FDA spokeswoman,
who said the agency "is working on finding the most appropriate
ways to convey to the public the risks of suicidality that were
seen in trials."
Experts advising the FDA on the drugs are set to meet early next
month, Mundy wrote.
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Cigarette Decline Outpaces Marijuana Drop Among Teens
Cigarette use among high school students fell markedly in 2007
to 20 percent from 23 percent two years earlier, a new federal
report shows. But marijuana use among these teens over the same
span dropped only slightly, to 19.7 percent in 2007 from 20.2
percent in 2005, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
said in its 2007 Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance report.
"Efforts to curb cigarette sales to teens have been wildly
successful, and it's past time that we applied those lessons to
marijuana," Aaron Houston, director of government relations for the
Marijuana Policy Project (MPP) in Washington, D.C., said in a
prepared statement.
A second analysis released this week, the 2007 Annual Synar
Report on tobacco sales to youth, showed a decline in illegal
tobacco sales to underage kids for the 10th straight year, the MPP
statement said. In 2007, 10.5 percent of retailers violated laws
against tobacco sales to minors, compared to 40.1 percent in 1997,
the report found.
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Merck Won't Have to Monitor Uninjured Vioxx Users: Court
Merck & Co., maker of the now defunct painkiller Vioxx,
won't have to monitor former users of the drug who aren't claiming
injury, the New Jersey Supreme Court said Wednesday.
Ruling 5-1, the court dismissed a lawsuit brought by users of
the painkiller, who said they didn't have current symptoms but were
more prone to health problems for having used the drug, the
Associated Press reported.
Late last year, Merck agreed to settle for $4.85 billion
thousands of lawsuits alleging that users' cardiovascular problems
were caused by Vioxx. The drug was withdrawn from the market in
September 2004 after a company study found that Vioxx doubled
users' risks of heart attack or stroke.
In its ruling on Wednesday, the New Jersey court said that since
these users weren't claiming injury, they "cannot satisfy the
definition of harm" in seeking to get Merck to pay for monitoring
their conditions, the
AP reported.
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Asian-Pacific Islanders at Greater Risk of Hospital
Complications
People of Asian-Pacific Island ancestry are 16 percent more
likely than whites to die from deadly complications acquired in
U.S. hospitals, a new federal report finds.
The 12.5 million Asian-Pacific Islanders in the United States
include native Hawaiians, Samoans, and people who trace their
ancestry to nations including China, Vietnam, the Philippines, and
India.
The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality study cited
possible reasons for the disparity in preventable complications,
including Asians being treated at hospitals that provided
lower-quality care, receiving inferior care compared with people in
the same hospital, cultural or language barriers that affected
quality of care, and being more vulnerable to complications than
people of other origins.
The study found that Asian-Pacific Islanders having surgery
were:
- 42 percent more likely to acquire a blood infection
(sepsis).
- 35 percent more likely to develop kidney failure.
- 21 percent more likely to develop internal bleeding or a blood
clot.
- 14 percent more likely to need a breathing ventilator.
The report analyzed race and ethnicity data from 23 states.
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Estrogen Cream Could Protect Men Against HIV
A once-a-week application of the female hormone estrogen to the
penis may act as a "natural condom" that helps protect men against
HIV infection, suggest Australian researchers.
They said an estrogen cream could quadruple the thin layer of
the protein keratin on the skin, providing a natural defensive
layer,
Agence France-Presse reported.
"You create what you could call a natural condom. You create a
biological membrane which (HIV) can't get through," Professor Roger
Short, of the University of Melbourne, said in an interview with
the
Australian Broadcasting System.
He said this method wouldn't protect against other types of
sexually transmitted diseases and wouldn't prevent pregnancy, but
could offer a safe and simple method of reducing HIV infection
around the world,
AFP reported.
Clinical trials are expected to be conducted in Africa. The
research was outlined in the journal
PLoS One.
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Scientists Block Sexual Development of Malaria Parasite
U.K. scientists have found a way to block the sexual development
of the malaria parasite, a finding that could lead to the
development of a drug that greatly reduces the spread of the
disease.
The researchers at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical
Medicine identified an enzyme critical to the parasite's sex cycle
and developed a way of halting it. The finding was published in the
journal
PLoS Biology.
"It acts as an inhibitor that stops the parasite from developing
sexually," team leader David Baker told
Agence France-Presse. "If we could develop a drug for
patients, it would enable us to block malaria transmission from
individual to individual," via the mosquitoes that carry the
disease.
Such a drug may even have a curative effect, Baker said.
Each year, half a billion people worldwide are made severely ill
by malaria, and more than a million die of the disease,
AFP reported.
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Simple Infection Control Steps Reduce Student Absenteeism
Student absenteeism can be reduced through a few simple
infection control measures such as daily disinfection of desktops
and other often-touched surfaces, and having children use
alcohol-based hand sanitizers before and after lunch, say
Children's Hospital Boston researchers.
Their study of children in Avon, Ohio, found that these measures
did not affect levels of respiratory illness in third-, fourth-,
and fifth-graders, but did reduce absenteeism for gastrointestinal
problems by 9 percent,
United Press International reported.
The findings were published in the journal
Pediatrics.
"The best ways to avoid common infections are cleaning your
hands and preventing exposure to the germs that cause these
illnesses," study leader Dr. Thomas Sandora, pediatric infectious
diseases specialist, said in a prepared statement. "Our research
indicates that elementary schools should consider a few simple
infection control practices to help keep students healthier."
