Antipsychotic drug use soars in UK children too
Mon, 05 May 2008 04:15:13 GMTBy LINDSEY TANNER, AP Medical Writer
CHICAGO - American children take anti-psychotic medicines at about six times the rate of children in the United Kingdom, according to a comparison based on a new U.K. study.
Does it mean U.S. kids are being over-treated? Or that U.K. children are being under-treated?
Experts say that's almost beside the point, because use is rising on both sides of the Atlantic. And with scant long-term safety data, it's likely the drugs are being over-prescribed for both U.S. and U.K. children, research suggests.
Among the most commonly used drugs were those to treat autism and hyperactivity.
In the U.K. study, anti-psychotics were prescribed for 595 children at a rate of less than four per 10,000 children in 1992. By 2005, 2,917 children were prescribed the drugs at a rate of seven per 10,000 — a near-doubling, said lead author Fariz Rani, a researcher at the University of London's pharmacy school.
The study is being released Monday in the May edition of the journal Pediatrics.
By contrast, an earlier U.S. study found that nearly 45 American children out of 10,000 used the drugs in 2001 versus more than 23 per 10,000 in 1996.
There are big differences that could help explain the vastly higher U.S. rate.
A recent report in The Lancet suggested that the U.K.'s universal health care system limits prescribing practices there. The report also said direct-to-consumer ads are more common in the United States. These ads raise consumer awareness and demand for medication.
While drug company ties with doctors are common in both the U.S. and U.K., Vanderbilt University researcher Wayne Ray said U.K. physicians generally are more conservative about prescribing psychiatric drugs. Ray co-authored the U.S. study, published in 2004.
The new U.K. study, involving 1992-2005 health records of more than 16,000 children, is the first large examination of these drugs in U.K. children. It found the increase was mostly in medicines that haven't been officially approved for kids. They were most commonly prescribed for behavior and conduct disorders, which include attention deficit disorder.
Side effects including weight gain, nervous-system problems and heart trouble have been reported in children using these drugs and there's little long-term evidence about whether they're safe for them, the study authors said.
"This highlights the need for long-term safety investigations and ongoing clinical monitoring," they said, "particularly if the prescribing rate of these medicines continues to rise."
One of the most commonly used anti-psychotics in the U.K. study was Risperdal, a schizophrenia drug that is sometimes used to treat irritability and aggression in autism. Its side effects include drowsiness and weight gain.
Thioridazine, sometimes used to treat hyperactivity in attention deficit disorder, was frequently used early on. Its use decreased after 2000 when a U.K. safety committee warned of heart-related side effects, the authors said.
Reasons for the increases are uncertain but may be similar to those in the United States, such as an increase in autism cases and drug industry influence.
In both countries, the issue isn't simply how many children are getting these drugs, said Dr. David Fassler, a University of Vermont psychiatry professor. "The more important question is whether or not the right kids are getting the most appropriate and effective treatment possible," he said. Fassler wasn't involved in the study.
Dr. William Cooper, a Vanderbilt pediatrician, said the study shows the drugs are being used "without full understanding about the risks."
"I find it really interesting that we're now seeing increases in other countries besides the U.S., which suggests that the magnitude of this issue is global," said Cooper, also an author of the 2004 U.S. study.
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On the Net:
American Academy of Pediatrics: http://www.aap.org
Who should MDs let die in a pandemic Report offers answers
Mon, 05 May 2008 04:14:14 GMTBy LINDSEY TANNER, AP Medical Writer
CHICAGO - Doctors know some patients needing lifesaving care won't get it in a flu pandemic or other disaster. The gut-wrenching dilemma will be deciding who to let die.
Now, an influential group of physicians has drafted a grimly specific list of recommendations for which patients wouldn't be treated. They include the very elderly, seriously hurt trauma victims, severely burned patients and those with severe dementia.
The suggested list was compiled by a task force whose members come from prestigious universities, medical groups, the military and government agencies. They include the Department of Homeland Security, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Department of Health and Human Services.
The proposed guidelines are designed to be a blueprint for hospitals "so that everybody will be thinking in the same way" when pandemic flu or another widespread health care disaster hits, said Dr. Asha Devereaux. She is a critical care specialist in San Diego and lead writer of the task force report.
The idea is to try to make sure that scarce resources — including ventilators, medicine and doctors and nurses — are used in a uniform, objective way, task force members said.
Their recommendations appear in a report appearing Monday in the May edition of Chest, the medical journal of the American College of Chest Physicians.
"If a mass casualty critical care event were to occur tomorrow, many people with clinical conditions that are survivable under usual health care system conditions may have to forgo life-sustaining interventions owing to deficiencies in supply or staffing," the report states.
To prepare, hospitals should designate a triage team with the Godlike task of deciding who will and who won't get lifesaving care, the task force wrote. Those out of luck are the people at high risk of death and a slim chance of long-term survival. But the recommendations get much more specific, and include:
_People older than 85.
_Those with severe trauma, which could include critical injuries from car crashes and shootings.
_Severely burned patients older than 60.
_Those with severe mental impairment, which could include advanced Alzheimer's disease.
_Those with a severe chronic disease, such as advanced heart failure, lung disease or poorly controlled diabetes.
Dr. Kevin Yeskey, director of the preparedness and emergency operations office at the Department of Health and Human Services, was on the task force. He said the report would be among many the agency reviews as part of preparedness efforts.
Public health law expert Lawrence Gostin of Georgetown University called the report an important initiative but also "a political minefield and a legal minefield."
The recommendations would probably violate federal laws against age discrimination and disability discrimination, said Gostin, who was not on the task force.
If followed to a tee, such rules could exclude care for the poorest, most disadvantaged citizens who suffer disproportionately from chronic disease and disability, he said. While health care rationing will be necessary in a mass disaster, "there are some real ethical concerns here."
James Bentley, a senior vice president at American Hospital Association, said the report will give guidance to hospitals in shaping their own preparedness plans even if they don't follow all the suggestions.
He said the proposals resemble a battlefield approach in which limited health care resources are reserved for those most likely to survive.
Bentley said it's not the first time this type of approach has been recommended for a catastrophic pandemic, but that "this is the most detailed one I have seen from a professional group."
While the notion of rationing health care is unpleasant, the report could help the public understand that it will be necessary, Bentley said.
Devereaux said compiling the list "was emotionally difficult for everyone."
That's partly because members believe it's just a matter of time before such a health care disaster hits, she said.
"You never know," Devereaux said. "SARS took a lot of folks by surprise. We didn't even know it existed."
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On the Net:
CHEST: http://www.chestjournal.org
U.S. Govt.: http://www.pandemicflu.gov
WHO deadly child virus in China not a threat to Olympics
Sun, 04 May 2008 21:38:18 GMTBy HENRY SANDERSON, Associated Press Writer
BEIJING - A highly infectious virus that has killed 24 children in China is unlikely to be a threat to the Beijing Olympics, although it is too early to tell whether it has peaked, the World Health Organization said Sunday.
The death toll from the virus, which mostly sickens children, rose to 24 Sunday as two more deaths were reported in a new province amid heightened efforts by China's Health Ministry to contain it.
The outbreak of enterovirus 71 — which causes a severe type of hand, foot and mouth disease — is another headache for the Communist government as it prepares for the Olympic Games, already tarnished by unrest among Tibetans in western China and an international torch relay disrupted by protests.
"I don't see it at all as a threat to the Olympics or any upcoming events ... This is a disease mainly affecting young children," WHO China representative Hans Troedsson told a news conference.
Troedsson said the virus normally peaks in June and July, meaning there could still be an increase in infections as the weather warms. The disease thrives in hot climates, and Asia has seen increased occurrences, including in Singapore, Vietnam and Taiwan, he said.
China's Health Ministry issued a nationwide alert over the weekend after the virus, also known as EV-71, infected more than 4,500 children in central Anhui province resulting in 22 deaths.
The two most recent reported deaths occurred about 1,000 miles to the south in Guangdong province.
"What we have seen so far is no connection between or among these different outbreaks," Troedsson said.
The first deaths in Anhui occurred in late March, but the public were not told until April 15, according to China's state broadcaster CCTV.
Troedsson said the delay was due to difficulties diagnosing the causes of the deaths, as they did not show the normal symptoms. WHO was told within 24 hours of the correct diagnosis, he said.
Suspicion continues to surround the Chinese government's handling of disease outbreaks following allegations of a cover-up during the 2003 emergence of severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, which originated in southern China and eventually killed nearly 800 people worldwide.
As of early Saturday, 3,736 cases of EV-71 were reported in Fuyang's rural outskirts, health officials said. Some 1,115 people remained hospitalized, 42 in serious or critical condition, said the health department of Anhui province.
Hand, foot and mouth viruses cause fever, mouth sores and rashes with blisters and are easily spread by sneezing or coughing. The viruses mainly strike children aged 10 and younger. Some cases can lead to fatal brain swelling.
There is no vaccine or specific treatment, but most children affected by the disease typically recover quickly without problems.
However, EV-71 can result in a more serious form of the illness that can lead to paralysis, brain swelling or death. Many of the severe cases in China did not exhibit typical symptoms, and the children eventually died from respiratory problems, which kept Chinese experts puzzled about the cause of the outbreak, Troedsson said.
The disease, which is not related to foot and mouth disease that affects livestock, is endemic across Asia and many countries experience annual flare-ups.
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Associated Press Medical Writer Margie Mason contributed to this story
Part II Straining to progress as family challenges mount
Mon, 05 May 2008 00:16:02 GMTBy PAULINE ARRILLAGA, AP National Writer
Day 1 at Project Walk fell on their 13th wedding anniversary. In years past, John and Marci Pou might have gone to dinner.
Instead, in a strange place thousands of miles from home, Marci watched as John fought to maneuver his broken body. It was June 26, 2006, the start of a regimen that would push John to the limit physically and challenge both of them emotionally and even spiritually.
Taking hold of John's sneaker, Chris Corpuz, a Project Walk recovery specialist, pulled his left leg straight out in front of him.
"All right," Corpuz directed, "bring your knee up to your chest."
John focused, trying to visualize the movement, something that 10 months earlier would have been as natural as blinking. But his leg hung immobile, until the trainer himself slowly pushed it in.
"Push it out," Corpuz said. Again John tried, but he just couldn't make a connection between what his brain wanted to do and his lifeless limb.
Corpuz then fanned John's leg out to the side and said, "Bring it in."
John's left knee suddenly arched in a spasm, and Corpuz asked: "Are you firing that, or is that just going on its own?"
John flashed a rare grin and chuckled. "That's just going on its own."
He wasn't entirely sure what "firing that" meant, considering he was a quadriplegic with no mobility in his legs following a diving accident.
John and Marci, along with their two young children, had left their home in Iron Station, N.C., seven days earlier on this cross-country quest to find him help. Their destination was Project Walk, a spinal cord injury recovery center in Carlsbad, Calif., that pledged improved function through exercise therapy.
Marci had discovered the place, but that didn't stop her tears as they began the trip west.
"Don't be sad," their kids, Chase and Kacie, tried to tell her. "We'll be back."
But Marci had no idea when, or if, that might happen.
They had vowed to give it a year; John's progress would be scored at six-month intervals. If he didn't show gains, the Project Walk staff would recommend quitting the program.
Improvement would be rated on a 0-to-40 scale that measured John's ability to roll, sit, kneel, stand and, the hope was, to walk — with spotting, assistive devices or even nothing at all.
To start out, John scored a 4.
___
Marci kept a diary, chronicling their journey.
Day 5: "Began the day w/leg workout. John was able to get basic leg connection on !"
Day 8: "John's able to stretch arms above head & touch his hands together."
Some Project Walk clients had, literally, walked out the door, getting around with pole-like crutches, canes or walkers. But John and Marci were told they would have to be patient.
Don't set timetables. Don't compare, because each client is different. Setbacks happen. Progress comes when it comes.
Those fits and starts would mark an incredible family endeavor. John and Marci shared details openly in interviews with The Associated Press over 18 months, inviting a reporter to join them during the lows and highs of exhausting therapy sessions.
At first, though, they weren't even entirely sure how the therapy was supposed to work.
They knew about actor Christopher Reeve, who in 2002, seven years after he was paralyzed, began feeling light touch and pin pricks and regained some motor function after making exercise a hallmark of his rehabilitation.
Reeve's workout regime included a bicycle that uses electrical stimulation to contract the leg muscles and help them to pedal, a treadmill that simulates walking, and underwater resistance training in a pool. A research team, led by neurologist John McDonald, published a paper crediting the activity-based therapy with much of Reeve's improvement. The actor died in 2004.
The underlying premise is that even quadriplegics have to "use it or lose it." If a paralyzed person never tries to move, any neural connections remaining between the brain and the spinal cord atrophy and essentially get turned off. Exercise those limbs, and the connections may be restored.
Some researchers believe the spinal circuitry alone can be retrained to control walking through "sensory patterned feedback" — using treadmills or other devices to break down walking movements and repeat them again and again.
A quarter million people in the United States live with a spinal cord injury, and there are some 11,000 new injuries each year. It is a desperate population, often unwilling to go along with the standard treatment: learning to live with the injury.
They hear about the idea of using human stem cells to stimulate regrowth of damaged spinal cord connections, but that's still in research. Some go to great lengths and expense to find a magic bullet, heading abroad to have shark embryo cells transplanted into their bodies or trying other unproven treatments.
But activity-based therapy "is not some kind of miraculous pie-in-the-sky thing. This is real stuff," says a leading spinal cord injury researcher, Dr. Wise Young.
Reeve's former doctor started such a program at the Kennedy Krieger Institute in Baltimore. A few other centers focus on exercise therapy — some affiliated with respected treatment facilities, such as Beyond Therapy at the Shepherd Center in Atlanta, others privately run.
Insurance won't cover it, and many doctors remain reluctant to recommend it, seeing it as still unproven by independent studies. That leaves folks like the Pous to fend for themselves.
Project Walk was founded in 1999 by Ted and Tammy Dardzinski. Ted, a former triathlete, and his wife Tammy, previously in marketing, were personal trainers running an athletic performance center in the San Diego area when a quadriplegic came in. He wanted to get back on his feet.
Using trial and error, Ted developed a workout routine. Less than two years later, the client, Mike Thomas, took his first steps, using crutches.
Through Thomas, other paralyzed clients sought out the Dardzinskis — and Project Walk was born. It started as a for-profit business, but has gone not-for-profit in recent years.
By the time the Pous arrived, the center had about 65 clients on site and many more who had visited, learned the premise and returned home to tackle the therapy.
Project Walk has its critics. The founders' lack of medical expertise has raised questions, and some quadriplegics conversing in chat rooms have wondered if the program instills false hope, using words like "pipe dream" and "Holy Grail."
"All I can say is, I can't believe it until I see hard, scientific evidence," wrote one man.
Others, too, are wary of the program's message. On the one hand, says Susan Harkema, rehabilitation director of the Kentucky Spinal Cord Injury Research Center, "There's a need for Project Walk," which she sees as making up for a shortage of programs for paralyzed people. But its cost is beyond reach for many, she says.
She adds: "If you're coming from the clinical world, you don't market that you're going to get people to walk again. And the feel of it right now is that's what people are paying for: To go and to walk again. ... But does everybody walk out?"
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Day 13: "The day started ... on the . John was able for the 1st time to get small pushes. Great day at PW!!!"
Day 23: "During some presses he felt tingling in ankles & calves."
John started at three times a week for three hours a day. The trainers would hoist him onto a machine to do pull-ups, rebuilding his triceps, biceps and back muscles. They'd place him on the floor, asking him to roll from his back to his stomach. Initially, he couldn't. Within a few weeks, it was one roll. Then two. Then more.
He worked out on a stationary bike, one trainer in front, another pushing his thighs from behind to make the pedaling motion. They would lay him on a Total Gym machine and jiggle his knees to help stimulate even the tiniest of pushes. At first, if the trainers let go, his legs collapsed beneath him. But soon he could hold himself up briefly, even manage a few tiny pushes on the sliding board.
Still, the stress could be overwhelming.
One morning, John exploded in a sudden rage, cursing Marci for not allowing him to die after the accident because he felt so worthless.
Later, after his workout, he would apologize. This, too, Marci recorded in her journal: "He told me how much he loved me and that it was us that he was living for."
She knew that he wondered endlessly whether they were doing the right thing.
Marci and John had traded five acres for a two-bedroom apartment in a complex where their son and daughter, Chase, now 8, and Kacie, 6, weren't allowed to even ride skateboards or bikes in the parking lot.
They'd tried to make it all sound like an adventure, knowing full well this "adventure" could bankrupt them. In North Carolina, they'd had a $1,365 mortgage. Marci found a friend to rent the house, but she and John still had to pick up part of the monthly payment — on top of the $1,800 in rent they were paying in Carlsbad.
They had John's police pension and some Medicare coverage, and had collected enough through fundraising and family donations to cover a year at Project Walk. It wasn't cheap: $100 an hour, $3,600 a month. And with the higher cost of living in California, and the cost of hanging on to their house, they'd be out as much as $100,000 over the course of the year.
John and Marci enrolled Chase and Kacie in karate to give them something familiar to do. But when they started a new school in the fall, Kacie cried that she had no friends.
"I miss home," she'd say.
John sometimes wondered if they should just head home to North Carolina and make their house there wheelchair adaptable.
Any real recovery, they now realized, would be slow. The "Gait Trainers" at Project Walk, those who were up and mobile, often had taken not one year but several to reach that point.
And yet there were also clients like Patrick Ivison and Isa Takunori, who had started taking steps — with assistance, admittedly — much sooner. Patrick, a 12-year-old whom everyone called "Little P," had managed his first steps only about a year and a half into his therapy.
Both were participating for the first time in the fall Steps to Recovery fundraiser — the Super Bowl of Project Walk, where the successful ones make their public walking debuts before astonished family and friends.
Marci had hoped John would be one of them, that he would show their mothers, their kids — perhaps, even, some of the doubters — that the seemingly quixotic dream they were chasing could come true. But that, she now knew, would have to wait.
The day of the fundraiser, the first-timers lined up at the back of the workout room, wheelchairs abandoned for rolling walkers. Ted Dardzinski introduced the lineup and then, "Ready? ... Go!"
Isa and Patrick grasped the handlebars of their walkers and inched forward, sneakers scooting in a slow-motion miracle across the carpet. Little P's face contorted with the effort of each step.
In his wheelchair, John stared at his two friends — at their legs, really.
He evaluated every bend of the knee, the strength of their hips. Sure, they had help: Four Project Walk trainers surrounded Patrick. Another three assisted Isa. But still ...
"Way to go, Isa!" John cried. "Out the front door!"
The packed audience whooped and cheered. Some shook their heads in disbelief. Marci was in tears.
This was what fed John and Marci's faith: proof that the payoff can come.
Little P managed 30 steps before plopping down in his wheelchair, exhausted and elated. Then he rolled over to John. The spiky-haired kid had a challenge: "You're walking next year."
"You tell him, Patrick," Marci piped in.
John smiled. "I'd love to," he said.
___
A few weeks later, not long before Christmas 2006, the Pous received John's six-month evaluation. He had strengthened his core, improved his balance and could finally hold himself in a kneeling position, with help.
And yet, on the 0-to-40 developmental activity scale, John had jumped just three points. He now scored a 7.
His trainers, nevertheless, believed he should continue at Project Walk. But John and Marci had more than scales and scores to consider.
The friend renting their house had lost her job and was behind on rent. The home's hot water heater broke. And most important, the kids were still struggling to adjust.
In prayers at dinner and bedtime, Chase and Kacie pleaded with God, "Please make Daddy happy and healed, and do good in Project Walk."
Then one day Chase came out of his room with his guitar to sing a song. He crooned:
"Oh where do I belong? Oh where do I belong? ...
"I look up at the sky and ask the Lord, oh Lord where do I belong?
"'Cause I just wanna go home ... I just wanna go home."
Marci knew: She and John would have to make some hard decisions about their family's future. And soon.
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TO BE CONTINUED
___
On the Net:
http://www.projectwalk.org/
___
NOTE — This story is based on interviews by AP's Pauline Arrillaga over 18 months with John and Marci Pou and their children; the founders, trainers and clients at Project Walk; and spinal cord injury experts, including Dr. Donald Leslie, medical director of Shepherd Center in Atlanta; Dr. John McDonald, a neurologist who worked with the actor Christopher Reeve and now directs the International Center for Spinal Cord Injury at Baltimore's Kennedy Krieger Institute; Dr. Wise Young, founding director of the W.M. Keck Center for Collaborative Neuroscience at Rutgers University; Susan Harkema, rehabilitation director of the Kentucky Spinal Cord Injury Research Center; and Laurance Johnston, former director of the Spinal Cord Research and Education Foundations for Paralyzed Veterans of America and author of the book "Alternative Medicine and Spinal Cord Injury." Quotes and scenes were observed by the reporter, were drawn from video recordings made by the Pou family or Project Walk staff, or, in some cases, are as remembered by those who spoke or heard them.
Chewing the fat New targets emerge for tackling obesity
Sun, 04 May 2008 23:31:11 GMTby Richard Ingham
PARIS - New investigations into obesity may identify people with an inherited risk of weight gain, explain why crash diets often fail and address a danger period in childhood that leads to obesity in adult life.
Sifting through the genetic codes of 77,000 people, a British-led international team say they have found culprit variants in DNA near a gene already fingered in the molecular ballet that causes obesity.
The gene, called MC4R, orchestrates appetite and energy expenditure.
Previous research has already found that MC4R, when flawed, triggers a form of chronic over-eating and weight gain which is rare but dramatic, especially when it strikes young children.
The newly-found variants are more common than the flaws on MC4R, though, according to the paper, published on Sunday in the journal Nature Genetics.
The variants do not lie on the gene but close to it. The theory is that they disrupt the workings of MC4R in some way, although how this happens remains unclear.
People who have the variants in both sets of their chromosomes on average increase in weight of about 1.5 kilos compared to counterparts who had no copies.
The telltales were found by a consortium gathering researchers from 77 institutions in Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Sweden and the United States, led by scientists in Cambridge and Oxford.
People who have double sets of the variants near MC4R and of a flawed gene called FTO are on average 3.8 kilos heavier than people without these characteristics, according to the new study.
Meanwhile, a paper released by the journal Nature has powerfully strengthened suspicions that adult obesity is often rooted in childhood.
Researchers at Sweden's Karolinska Institute found that fat cells, or adipoctyes, increase in number during childhood and adolescence.
By adulthood, the tally is stable, they say. As older fat cells die, they are replaced by new ones. On average, the annual turnover rate among adults is nearly 10 percent of adipocytes, regardless of the person's age or corpulence.
The implications of this are far-reaching, say the scientists.
New-born adipocytes may crave energy in the form of fatty molecules called lipids. As a result, the cells bulk out and the body weight returns.
"The results may, at least in part, explain why it is so difficult to maintain weight after slimming," said Peter Arner, a co-leader of the team.
"The fat cells generated during and after weight reduction need to fill up their lipids rapidly."
Another breakthrough is the determination that the number of adipocytes, for all people, is set during childhood and adolescence and remains largely unchanged, even if one loses weight.
Most obese adults have been obese since childhood. Less than 10 percent of children with normal weight go on to develop adult obesity, according to figures cited in the study.
By contrast, over three-quarters of obese children go on to become obese adults.
According to the team's calculations, among obese people, the moment when adipocytes start to rise is very early, at the age of 2.1 years on average, compared with 5.7 years for lean people.
Once the increase starts, the number of adipocytes multiplies at nearly twice the rate among the obese than among the lean. But, among the obese, the increase stops sooner, at 16.5 years, as opposed to 18.5 years for people who lean.
Two tempting targets thus open up for drug designers, say the authors.
One is a potential treatment that would curb the renewal of adipocytes in adulthood. Another is a putative drug to brake the expansion of fat cells among vulnerable children during the period at risk.
Obesity and obesity-related diseases such as diabetes have gained epidemic proportions in many developed economies.
The causes, though, are complex. Sedentary lifestyle, snacking on fat and sugary foods and genetic inheritance are the most frequently-named sources.
UKOdd Summary
Sat, 03 May 2008 14:04:45 GMTKentucky Derby champion loses his libido
TOKYO - The Japanese owners of former Kentucky Derby winner War Emblem are struggling to explain why the American thoroughbred has lost his libido. Even a private harem and a limitless supply of Viagra have failed to pep up the love life of a stallion his handlers freely admit has some personal issues.
Turkmenistan to move gold statue
ASHGABAT - A rotating gold statue of Turkmenistan's former leader is to be removed from the centre of the capital, state media said on Saturday, as his successor chips away at the late president's personality cult. Saparmurat Niyazov spent his 21 years in power building Turkmenistan into one of the world's most isolated regimes while imposing his mark on the gas-rich Central Asian state.
Prisoners scoop their way to freedom
CONAKRY - More than 30 prisoners escaped from a jail in southeastern Guinea by using spoons to scoop a hole in the baked earth wall of their prison building which had been softened by rain, prison authorities said. The 36 detainees made their escape this week after taking advantage of heavy rain which had fallen on the southeast city of N'Zerekore where the prison was located, the authorities, cited by state media in the West African country, said.
Blogger exposes life on the Underground
LONDON - Annie Mole's blog about the London Underground rail system began as a New Year's resolution to teach herself how to make an Internet Web site and has blossomed into a popular slice of commuter life. The criticisms, witticisms and daily observations posted on her "London Underground's Blog" www.london-underground.blogspot.com since she first began writing it in 2003 have struck a chord with commuters and the people who operate the rail system beneath the capital that is affectionately known as the "Tube".
Japan's Ganaha counts cost of garlic appeal
TOKYO - Japan striker Kazuki Ganaha is counting the cost of his bid to overturn a ban imposed for taking intravenous garlic infusions. The 27-year-old was suspended for six games last year for breaking the J-League's anti-doping rules after coming down with influenza.
Venice to fine tourists who feed pigeons
VENICE - The days when Venice tolerated tourists feeding pigeons in St. Mark's Square are over. Starting on Wednesday, it's illegal.
Japan city suspends official for surfing porn at work
TOKYO - A city bureaucrat in western Japan was suspended from his job after officials discovered he visited porn websites at work almost every day, often spending hours gazing at nude photos, a city official said. The 57-year-old man, who was working in the construction division of Kinokawa City in Wakayama, surfed porn sites from an office computer almost every day for eight months from June 2007, spending up to three hours a day on the websites, said Kazuhiko Ueyama, a Kinokawa City official.
Ancient meteorite goes unsold in NY as dung sells
NEW YORK - Some dinosaur dung was snapped up at auction in New York even as a 4.5 billion year old meteorite which was supposed to top the sale went unsold. The two chunks of 130-million-year-old coprolite, otherwise known as fossilized dinosaur dung, fetched $960 at Bonhams in New York on Wednesday, the auction house said.
It's just not cricket! Cheerleaders shake India
NEW DELHI - Cheerleaders are taking Indian cricket by storm, but some are wondering if this conservative South Asian nation is ready for dancers with bulging breasts and gyrating bellies parading in packed stadia. Many foreign cheerleaders have been imported to India with this month's inauguration of the India Premier League , a shortened form of traditional cricket that transforms the game into a more glitzy U.S.-style sponsored sport event.
Angry mother slams writer Houellebecq
PARIS - If anyone was wondering where French avant-garde novelist Michel Houellebecq got his talent for character assassination, the answer is clear: his mother. In his seminal 1998 novel "Les particules elementaires", known in English as "Atomised", Houellebecq vented a lifetime of anger against his mother by portraying her as an egocentric, sexually promiscuous hippie who neglected her children.
10 of U.S. Kids Using Cough Medicine Every Week
Sun, 04 May 2008 03:46:10 GMTSATURDAY, May 3 -- Approximately one in 10 U.S. children uses one or more cough and cold medications during a given week, according to new research from Boston University.
While cough and cold medications for children are widely marketed in the United States, how frequently they are used had not been scientifically studied. This new finding, from researchers at Boston University's Slone Epidemiology Center, gives increased weight to recent revelations that cough and cold medication use can lead to serious adverse effects, including death.
"Given concerns about potential harmful effects and lack of evidence proving that these medications are effective in young children, the fact that 1-in-10 U.S. children is using one of these medications is striking," study author Dr. Louis Vernacchio, an assistant professor of epidemiology and pediatrics at Boston University School of Medicine, said in a prepared statement.
Yet, the researchers also reported positive news in children's use of cough syrup and other drugs. The overall use of cough and cold medications declined from 12.3 percent in 1999-2000 to 8.4 percent in 2005-2006, they found.
The findings were scheduled to be presented Saturday at the Pediatric Academic Societies meeting in Honolulu.
Researchers analyzed data gathered between 1999 and 2006 through a national telephone survey and considered all oral medicines approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to treat children's coughs and colds.
In any given week, 10.1 percent of U.S. children took at least one cough and cold medication, the researchers found. In terms of active ingredients, most used were decongestants and antihistamines (6.3 percent each), followed by anti-cough medicines and expectorants .
Children aged 2 to 5 used the medications most often, but the rate was also high among those younger than 2.
More information
The American Association of Pediatrics has more about cold remedies for children.
Study links child39s autism parents39 mental illness
Mon, 05 May 2008 04:27:15 GMTCHICAGO - In another sign pointing to an inherited component to autism, a study released on Monday found that having a schizophrenic parent or a mother with psychiatric problems roughly doubled a child's risk of being autistic.
"Our research shows that mothers and fathers diagnosed with schizophrenia were about twice as likely to have a child diagnosed with autism," said Julie Daniels of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, who worked on the study.
"We also saw higher rates of depression and personality disorders among mothers, but not fathers," she said in a statement.
The study of families in Sweden with children born between 1977 and 2003 involved 1,227 children diagnosed with autism. They were compared with families of nearly 31,000 children who did not have autism. Sweden's detailed health registry provides a wealth of data for such studies.
Autism, which is marked by impaired social interaction and communication, or a related disorder like Asperger's syndrome, affects an estimated one out of every 150 U.S. children, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates. Asperger's is marked by mild social awkwardness.
No one knows what causes autism, but researchers think it is likely that several genes and possibly environmental factors contribute. Some autism advocates believe childhood vaccinations play a role, although most medical experts say it is extremely unlikely.
Which genes lie behind various mental illnesses are also poorly understood, according to the researchers, whose study appeared in the journal Pediatrics, published by the American Academy of Pediatrics.
"Earlier studies have shown a higher rate of psychiatric disorders in families of autistic children than in the general population," Daniels said.
The association between a child's autism and mental illness in the parent was strongest with schizophrenia, and was less powerful when the mother suffered from depression or personality disorders. There was little association between autism and parental addiction to alcohol or drugs or some other types of mental illness.
It was not clear if it was significant that having a mother, but not a father, with certain mental illnesses, raised the risk of autism.
"Establishing an association between autism and other psychiatric disorders might enable future investigators to better focus on genetic and environmental factors that might be shared among these disorders," Daniels said.
