6 arrests made in kidney selling case
Sat, 26 May 2007 08:12:03 GMT
LAHORE, Pakistan - Police arrested the owner of a private hospital in eastern Pakistan and three doctors after they were implicated in the illegal trade and transplant of kidneys, police said Saturday.
The arrests were made in overnight raids at two private hospitals in Lahore, said Tasaddaq Hussain, a police investigator. He said the doctors were being held for questioning.
The arrests came hours after police detained two men accused of enticing poor people to sell their kidneys for money.
The pair led officers to the city's two hospitals, where the four others were taken into custody, Hussain said.
"The illegal kidney transplant to other patients is not possible without the involvement of doctors," he said.
Acting on a tip, police on Friday raided a house in Lahore where 10 poor people were being held against their will. Four of the 10 had sold their kidneys for money, despite a government ban on selling human organs.
"These poor men had been assured by the arrested men that nothing will happen to their health, if they sold one of their kidneys," Hussain said. Hussain said each "donor" had been paid about $1,000.
Local media reports suggest scores of people in Pakistan sell their kidneys each year, usually to pay off debts. Arrests in such cases are rare.
Costa Rica seizes tainted toothpaste
Sat, 26 May 2007 03:51:23 GMT
SAN JOSE, Costa Rica - Health officials said Friday they have seized more than 350 tubes of Chinese-made toothpaste tainted with a deadly chemical reportedly found in tubes sold elsewhere in the world.
Health Secretary Maria Luisa Avila said 56 tubes of toothpaste containing diethylene glycol, a chemical commonly used in antifreeze and brake fluid, were found in the northern city of Liberia, and 306 more were seized from a warehouse in the capital of San Jose.
Avila also said her department issued a nationwide alert although there have been no reports of anyone falling ill.
China has formed a government task force to investigate after contaminated toothpaste was also found in Australia, the Dominican Republic and Panama.
Diethylene glycol, or DEG, is a thickening agent used as a low-cost — but frequently deadly — substitute for glycerin, a sweetener commonly used in drugs.
DEG was blamed for the deaths of at least 51 people in Panama last year after it was mixed into cough syrup, another case with possible ties to China.
Vaccines getting to poor nations faster
Sat, 26 May 2007 03:29:50 GMT
By ARTHUR MAX, Associated Press Writer
AMSTERDAM, Netherlands - The timeline for getting new vaccines to poor countries that need them most is being shortened from decades to less than two years, an alliance of U.N. agencies and government and private groups said Friday.
Vaccines for diseases such as hepatitis B, measles and polio have typically taken 15 to 20 years from the time they are developed in Western countries until they are available in poor countries.
But according to the GAVI Alliance, a vaccine licensed last year in the United States and Europe against rotavirus, which causes diarrhea and dehydration, will take less than two years from the laboratory to village clinics with new international funding.
Rosamund Lewis, a program director for the Geneva-based GAVI Alliance, said the organization raised $3.6 billion since its creation in 2000. It has since helped to buy vaccines for more than 70 developing countries to immunize the majority of their children.
Immunization rates in the countries increased to 73 percent from 40 percent in 2000, Lewis said Friday in an interview before addressing the Fifth European Congress on Tropical Medicine and International Health.
Lewis described a radical makeover in delivering vaccines at prices poor countries can afford.
Vaccine producers slash prices when guaranteed a market base of millions of users, she said. The vaccine against some forms of bacterial meningitis, which costs $60 per dose in the West, is available for $3.50 when bought in bulk by
UNICEF, the U.N. children's fund which is part of GAVI.
"We created a market where one didn't exist before by saying we have the money for these countries to buy vaccines," Lewis said. "Pharmaceutical companies have an incentive to reduce the cost because there's a much larger market out there, and it makes them look good."
The program was expected to accelerate further with a new financing mechanism created last year in which seven countries — Brazil, France, Italy, Norway, South Africa, Spain, Sweden and Britain — issue 20-year bonds and make the proceeds available to GAVI.
Other partners in the alliance are the
World Health Organization, the
World Bank, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, 12 donor governments, and academic and nongovernment institutions which help countries assess their needs. The organization was formerly known as the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization.
The board that determines which vaccines to offer already is considering ordering the anti-cervical cancer vaccine HPV, which was only approved for sale by most Western governments last year. It would be the first vaccine targeting young women rather than children.
About 3 million people die each year from diseases for which vaccines exist, nearly all of them in the developing world, GAVI says.
With guaranteed markets, more producers outside the industrial world are entering the field, with companies in India, China, Indonesia, South Africa and Brazil making vaccines. Competition should further drive down the price.
Betweenmeal snacks OK for elderly
Sat, 26 May 2007 01:18:19 GMT
By DESIREE HUNTER, Associated Press Writer
MONTGOMERY, Ala. - Jo Spann used to be a steak-and-potatoes, three-squares-a-day type, but as the years have gone by, the 72-year-old now finds herself snacking "all the time." A full meal now is usually a once-a-day event. Researchers say such snacking is OK — in fact, regular nibbling can be good for older people.
An Auburn University study of the diets of 2,000 people aged 65 and older found that snackers ate more calories at a time in their lives when they are susceptible to weight loss and poor nutrition. Snacking provided significantly more protein, carbohydrates and fat.
So while snacking might fuel obesity for the young, it may ensure that seniors are eating enough calories, said Claire Zizza, an assistant professor of nutrition at Auburn and lead author of the study published in this month's Journal of the American Dietetic Association.
She said several factors, including health problems, medication and changes in taste could lead to poor appetite and weight loss in seniors. Compared to 25-year-olds, 70-year-old men ate 1,000 to 1,200 fewer calories; the decline for women was between 600 to 800 calories a day, according to the study.
Zizza's research, based on a federal nutrition survey from 1999-2002, found that snackers ate about 250 more calories than non-snackers.
Jean Lloyd, national nutritionist for the U.S. Administration on Aging, said the study "does a couple of real important things" by indicating that healthy eating can be reached various ways and by providing guidance to health professionals.
"You're not always sure in clinical practice how to handle a patient with decreased appetite who may have other health problems. You don't know if you should tell them to eat something small after lunch because maybe then they won't be hungry later and won't eat dinner," Lloyd said.
"The answer in this article says, 'No, that's good,'" she said. "...You can suggest with confidence that having a small snack midmorning or midafternoon is a good behavior."
Lloyd and Zizza both caution against chips, cakes, cookies and other "empty snacks." The snacks should be healthy to have the biggest benefit, Zizza said.
Lynelle Bumgardner, who directs the Daleville Senior Center in southeast Alabama, said a hot lunch is served there five days a week. She often sees patrons eating cookies, crackers and fruit before and after the noontime meal, which is provided using federal Meals on Wheels money and contains one-third of the U.S. Agriculture Department's recommended dietary allowances.
Some of the seniors save the bread, cookies or juice from their lunches to eat later and load up on the snacks offered by the center to take home and share with elderly spouses, Bumgardner said.
"I think for some of them, cooking for one is too much trouble and they'd rather just have a TV dinner or go out to eat and sometimes that's not nutritious," she said. "That's why I think the lunch meal is so important. For some of them, this is it for the day."
Spann, a Daleville resident, agrees. She usually finds one square meal a day sufficient — along with the snacks.
"I used to eat three big meals a day and some more in between," she said in a recent phone interview during a lull between bingo games at the senior center. "I'm a Yankee — I still love my potatoes. I used to like meat, but your taste buds change as you get older."