2pound tumor taken from newborns neck
Sat, 28 Apr 2007 08:32:14 GMTDENVER - Doctors removed a 2-pound tumor from the back of a newborn's neck and the baby girl appeared to be doing fine a day after she was born, her parents said.
An ultrasound detected the fast-growing, grapefruit-sized tumor on Monday during mother Kari Whittington's visit to her doctor's office. No abnormalities were detected in the previous ultrasound a month earlier.
Her daughter, Addison, was delivered by Caesarean section Thursday, five weeks premature, and stabilized before a nine-person surgical team started working on her.
"The mass itself started to spontaneously bleed ..." pediatric surgeon Steven Rothenberg said Friday. "If we'd been short one pair of hands, she wouldn't have made it."
Rothenberg said the growth, called a cervical teratoma, is rare and occurs in about 1 in 50,000 births. The blood-swollen tissue and veins made up 40 percent of Addison's weight.
"It was definitely overwhelming," Whittington, 28, told the Rocky Mountain News. "Everything happened so quickly."
Addison could be hospitalized for up to two weeks. The scar on her neck and along her jaw line should disappear over time, Rothenberg said.
Va. doctor convicted of drug trafficking
Sat, 28 Apr 2007 07:34:36 GMTBy MATTHEW BARAKAT, Associated Press Writer
ALEXANDRIA, Va. - A pain-management doctor who prescribed large amounts of opiates and drew patients from across the country to his northern Virginia clinic has been convicted on 16 counts of drug trafficking by a federal jury.
The jury acquitted William E. Hurwitz on 17 other counts on Friday, and a judge dismissed 17 others, including the most serious charge — drug trafficking resulting in death.
It was the second time in three years that a federal jury convicted Hurwitz of drug trafficking. His 2004 conviction — and 25-year prison sentence — was tossed out by a federal appeals court, which ruled that a judge improperly barred the jury from considering whether Hurwitz was acting in good faith.
Hurwitz faces up to 20 years on each count when he is sentenced on July 13.
Prosecutors argued that Hurwitz was no better than a common drug dealer who ignored obvious signs that his patients were dealers or addicts.
"Drug traffickers come in all shapes and sizes — this one just happened to wear a white coat and be a doctor," U.S. Attorney Chuck Rosenberg said in a statement issued after the verdict.
Numerous patients had prescriptions for hundreds of pills a day, and one had a prescription for 1,600 pills a day. Several of his former patients testified against him, and prosecutors played tapes of conversations in which Hurwitz seemed to know that his patients were selling their prescriptions.
Defense lawyers argued that Hurwitz was one of a handful of doctors in the country who was willing to risk persecution by authorities and prescribe the doses necessary to alleviate patients from crippling pain. Several of his former patients and their family members testified on his behalf.
Hurwitz, whose high-profile advocacy of high-dose opioid treatment once landed him on "60 Minutes," has been scrutinized by authorities for decades, and has had his medical license suspended twice, in 1991 and 1996.
Between 1998 and 2002, Hurwitz drew more than 400 patients from 39 states to his clinic in McLean. Prosecutors said the waiting room was frequently occupied by stoned or sleeping patients with track marks on their arms.
The case against Hurwitz was part of a long-running federal, state and local investigation dubbed "Operation Cotton Candy" that netted more than 130 convictions in Virginia and elsewhere for drug trafficking and prescription fraud of Oxycontin and other drugs.
Numerous physician and patient advocacy groups supported Hurwitz, and said his case should be dealt with by state medical boards rather than criminal courts. Hurwitz received extensive pro bono legal assistance at his second trial.
Calls to Hurwitz's lead attorney, Richard Sauber, placed late Friday were not immediately returned.
FDA agents raid pet food plant offices
Sat, 28 Apr 2007 04:20:43 GMTBy ANDREW BRIDGES, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - Federal agents searched facilities of a dog and cat food manufacturer and one of its suppliers as part of an investigation into the widening recall of pet products, the companies disclosed Friday.
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FDA rejects Mercks Vioxx successor
Sat, 28 Apr 2007 03:53:06 GMTBy LINDA A. JOHNSON, AP Business Writer
TRENTON, N.J. - The http://www.merck.com
