Spain wants diet on U.N. treasures list
Mon, 16 Jul 2007 20:04:58 GMT
By CONSTANT BRAND, Associated Press Writer
BRUSSELS, Belgium - Spain launched a drive Monday to win European support for a bid to include the traditional Mediterranean diet on a U.N. list of protected world cultural treasures.
Spanish officials say the cuisine based on olive oil, fish and vegetables should be the first diet on the UNESCO list of traditions, festivals, rituals and crafts from around the world which the U.N. body certifies as part of a unique cultural heritage.
No diets are currently on the list, but Spain quickly received backing from its Iberian neighbor, Portugal.
It is "a very good idea by a member state with a very good cuisine, just like Portugal, France, Italy and Greece," said Portugal's Agriculture Minister Jaime Silva, whose country holds the EU presidency.
Spain wants the diet included when UNESCO updates its cultural heritage list this year.
The U.N. cultural agency's compilation of so-called "intangible" cultural treasures complements its better-known list of World heritage sites that includes Australia's Great Barrier Reef, the Great Wall of China and the Statue of Liberty in New York.
"We have high hopes for this endeavor and believe that the characteristics of this exemplary diet will make it clearly deserving of the distinction, which is why we will spare no effort in championing it," said a document presented by Spain to a meeting of EU agriculture ministers.
It said medical studies found the Mediterranean diet's blend of olive oil, fresh fruit, vegetables and fish, combined with a "moderate" intake of wine provides "a quality nutritional model: rich, varied, balanced, healthy and appetizing."
It leads to fewer heart problems and a longer life, the document said.
It said the diet was "a very important component of the cultural, social, territorial, environmental and gastronomic heritage" of the countries and peoples in the region, "historically forming part of a way of life."
It did not mention a Spanish government study released in May that found that half of Spain's adults were overweight or obese.
That study did not offer an explanation of why Spaniards are getting heavier, but health experts and doctors often blame sedentary lifestyles dominated by television and computers, and changing dietary habits in which young people eat more junk food.
Coming soon safer cigarettes
Mon, 16 Jul 2007 18:25:56 GMT
By ANDREW BRIDGES, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - The federal agency charged with keeping food and drugs from harming people may soon be asked to take a consumer product that kills more than 400,000 people a year and make it safer.
The product is the cigarette — generally acknowledged as anything but safe. Smoking accounts for nearly one in five deaths in the United States.
That toll can be reduced, tobacco foes say, and they point to a bill that is expected to pass a Senate committee Wednesday as the tool to make it happen.
The legislation would give the Food and Drug Administration the same authority over cigarettes and other tobacco products that the regulatory agency already has over countless other consumer products. It's not something the agency necessarily wants, according to past comments by FDA commissioner Dr. Andrew von Eschenbach.
The bill would allow the FDA to regulate the levels of tar, nicotine and other harmful components of tobacco products. Cigarette smoke alone contains some 4,000 chemicals, more than 40 of which are known to cause cancer.
"Are we going to cut cancer in half with FDA control? No. Can we do with cigarettes things that are important in regulating a product to minimize its toxicity? Yes, I think we can," said the University of California, San Diego's Dr. David Burns, scientific editor of several surgeon general reports on tobacco.
New products would need FDA approval before they could be sold, according to the legislation. The bill also would authorize the FDA to set national standards for tobacco products to control how they are made, as well as force the disclosure of their ingredients, including compounds and additives, and in what quantities. That, supporters claim, should help expose and ultimately limit the ways cigarettes are engineered to the detriment of the public's health.
"If the FDA only prevented tobacco companies from manipulating their products to make it easier to start and harder to quit, it will make a major contribution to reducing the number of people who die," said Matthew Myers, president of the National Center for Tobacco-Free Kids, a supporter of the legislation, which has faltered in previous Congresses.
No one among those for or against the Senate bill, mirrored by matching legislation in the House, believes it could result in a safe cigarette. There is consensus that there is no such thing. But some foes of the bill maintain it could create that impression.
"It would still be a deadly product. They are not going to make it a safe product by taking out particular smoke constituents. The problem is the public is going to perceive the product is safe because the FDA has assumed jurisdiction," said Dr. Michael Siegel, a Boston University School of Public Health professor.
Advocates say the bill would at a minimum give the FDA the authority to go where the scientific evidence takes it and only then make decisions based on the science.
"There is a broad range of actions that the FDA potentially could take, some of which we understand now and some we can only see dimly," Burns said. "To say that there's nothing we can do is nihilistic in thinking and inconsistent with science."
The bill also would keep tobacco companies from tinkering with their products in ways that would make them any more dangerous, supporters add.
"The tobacco industry would not be allowed to manipulate the ingredients — like increase nicotine or decrease nicotine or whatever they do — without disclosing it. The bill would put the burden of proof on industry to demonstrate to the FDA that what they're doing would not be more harmful," said M. Cass Wheeler, chief executive officer of the American Heart Association.
When asked for some likely targets that regulators could tackle, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention chemist David Ashley rattled off more than a half dozen compounds in tobacco and smoke that worry scientists, even though it's unclear just how beneficial removing or reducing their levels would be. They include:
_Nitrosamines, a potent carcinogen. The burley tobacco used in American cigarettes is especially high in nitrosamines.
_Acetaldehyde, a potential carcinogen that may make tobacco more addictive. It's produced when sugars, added to tobacco, are burned.
_Cadmium and lead, two heavy metals that are toxic. Their levels generally depend on the environmental conditions where the tobacco was grown.
The elegance of the bill, Myers said, is it wouldn't dictate to the FDA how to proceed.
"This bill wisely doesn't try to predict what a cigarette will look like once FDA begins to take action. Instead, it says to the scientists at the FDA, 'You have the power to require changes in tobacco products in whatever ways you believe,'" Myers said.
But Ashley, an expert in the constituents of tobacco and tobacco smoke, cautions that cigarettes are a very complex product and have traditionally changed with time as manufacturers tinker with them.
"One problem from a scientific standpoint is the product changes so often but the health effects are long-term. The cigarettes people are smoking today aren't the cigarettes of 10 years ago," Ashley said. "It's hard to link a change in the products to a particular health end point because there's nothing you can get your hands around."
Another expert called the task of figuring out how to reduce tobacco's harm basic "bread-and-butter stuff" for the FDA.
"This is what they do all the time: develop performance criteria for products," said Jack Henningfield, a former tobacco researcher at the National Institute on Drug Abuse. That in turn would act as an incentive for tobacco companies to create products that are less harmful, he added.
As for the FDA, commissioner von Eschenbach said recently he wouldn't want his agency put in the position where it had to determine a cigarette is safe.
Nor would it appear that the agency could approve any new cigarette, even if it were purportedly safer, under the legislation, said Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., who opposes the bill.
"It's an impossible pathway to understand at an agency tasked with a mission that is to prove safety and efficacy," said Burr, contending such an arrangement could keep any new reduced-harm tobacco product from coming on the market.
Philip Morris USA, maker of Marlboro, the nation's top-selling cigarette brand, supports the bill. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. and others oppose the legislation, saying its restrictions on advertising would help cement Philip Morris' No. 1 market position.
___
The bill is S.625
For bill information: http://www.thomas.gov/
VA will expand mental health services
Mon, 16 Jul 2007 19:10:58 GMT
By HOPE YEN, Associated Press Writer
ALEXANDRIA, Va. - Veterans Affairs Secretary Jim Nicholson pledged Monday to add mental health services at more than 100 VA medical centers to fight resistance to seeking help for depression and other illnesses.
The VA is being pressed by growing cases of mental health problems such as post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury from veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, Nicholson said at a national forum of VA mental health experts. He said the department will work harder to meet the challenge.
To fight stigma against seeking help for anxiety and depression, the VA this year is devoting $37.7 million of its nearly $3 billion mental health budget toward placing psychiatrists, psychologists and social workers within primary care clinics.
Such a move will help allow the VA to begin testing all veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan for mild to moderate brain injury, an often unseen problem that can emerge months after finishing service. It would also allow for brief treatment for those who may not require specialty care, Nicholson said.
"Given the possible reluctance of some veterans to talk about emotional problems, increasing our mental health presence in primary care settings will give veterans a familiar venue in which to receive care without actually going to an identified mental health clinic," he said.
Other measures now underway:
_Adding 23 new VA-run Vet Centers, which are small, storefront walk-in clinics with a staff of about 5 people, to a total of 232 centers nationwide. The centers provide combat stress counseling, marriage therapy, job assistance and medical referrals, although recent congressional surveys found them to be understaffed with long wait times due to increased demand for services.
_Hiring more suicide prevention coordinators for VA medical centers and keeping emergency services for mental health open around the clock, as well as starting a full-time suicide prevention hotline. This comes after the VA inspector general earlier this year found that veterans were at increased risk of suicide because of spotty services in clinics nationwide.
_Hosting state mental health conferences to facilitate collaboration of veterans services on a state, local and community level. Some state officials have complained that the VA needs to do a better job of sharing information about wounded soldiers returning home so states can help.
Monday's VA forum comes amid renewed focus on veterans health care because of the prolonged Iraq war.
Following disclosures earlier this year of shoddy outpatient treatment at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, both the VA and the Pentagon have acknowledged missteps in planning for the surge of injured veterans returning home. That has prompted several reviews by congressional panels and presidential commissions on ways to improve care.
A recent Pentagon study found about 38 percent of soldiers and 31 percent of Marines report psychological conditions such as brain injury and PTSD after returning from deployment. Among members of the National Guard, the figure is much higher — 49 percent — with numbers expected to grow because of repeated and extended deployments.
"VA is advancing its mental health program in a full court press," Nicholson said.
___
On the Net:
Department of Veterans Affairs: http://www.va.gov/
UK autism doctor faces misconduct probe
Mon, 16 Jul 2007 16:44:54 GMT
LONDON - The doctor behind a controversial study linking a common children's vaccine to autism went before an investigative panel Monday probing misconduct allegations, including whether he took blood samples from children at a birthday party.
Britain's General Medical Council is examining claims that Dr. Andrew Wakefield failed to disclose his links to autism litigators and conducted the study without proper ethical approval. Wakefield denies any misconduct.
Wakefield's study suggested that the combined measles-mumps-rubella vaccine, which is administered throughout the world, could put children at risk of autism or bowel disease. The finding published in The Lancet medical journal in 1998, and the subsequent media coverage, led many parents to refuse to vaccinate their children.
But the study was soon discredited, and 10 of its 13 authors have since renounced its conclusions. The Lancet also said it should not have published the study, saying Wakefield's links to litigation against the manufacturers of the MMR vaccine were a "fatal conflict of interest."
In addition to Wakefield, two other authors of the paper — John Walker-Smith and Simon Murch — are being investigated by the medical council.
Numerous studies have concluded that there is no link between the MMR vaccine and autism or bowel disease. Wakefield suggested that vaccines be administered separately. The vast majority of the medical establishment supports the combined vaccine's use.
"It is one of the safest, best-studied vaccines," said Dr. Philip Minor, head of virology at Britain's National Institutes of Biological Standards and Control. Doctors warn that the MMR controversy has led many parents to underestimate the dangers of the diseases. Last April, for the first time in more than a decade, a 13-year-old boy died from measles in Britain.
Wakefield stands accused of conducting operations on children — including colonoscopies and lumbar punctures — which were arguably unnecessary, of coordinating his research with lawyers for autism patients, and of taking blood from a group children at his son's birthday party — paying them 5 pounds each for their contributions and later joking about the incident.
The council said Wakefield could be barred from practicing in Britain if the allegations are proven. The hearings are expected to last through October.
The number of measles cases surged as the proportion of vaccinated children in Britain fell below 80 percent, leading researchers to warn that the disease — once all but wiped out — could become endemic in Britain.
Mounting concern over the disease even prompted the intervention by then Prime Minister Tony Blair, who lead a campaign to reassure concerned parents. Vaccination rates have since rebounded, but not to a level sufficient to protect the entire population from the diseases.
Before Monday's hearing, parents gathered to show their support for Wakefield, holding signs, clapping and cheering as he walked in.
The doctor and his wife posed for pictures while a few parents chanted: "There's only one Andrew Wakefield," One shouted: "It's a witch hunt."
Sanofi obesity drug faces tough EU safety review
Mon, 16 Jul 2007 13:41:08 GMT
By Ben Hirschler, European Pharmaceuticals Correspondent
LONDON -
Sanofi-Aventis SA's obesity pill
Acomplia faces a tough review from European drug safety experts
this week, with data suggesting officials see issues over the
drug's link with suicidal thoughts.
The European Medicines Agency safety assessment
comes a month after a U.S. advisory panel recommended the drug
should not be approved in the world's biggest market because it
may increase depression and suicidal thinking.
That decision prompted France's Sanofi to withdraw its
pending application to sell the medicine in the United States,
dealing a major blow to what had been its biggest new drug
hope.
In Europe, by contrast, Acomplia -- which is also known by
the brand name Zimulti and generically as rimonabant -- has
been on sale since last year.
Most industry analysts expect European officials to allow
it to stay on the market but with stricter warnings that will
limit its commercial potential. Acomplia use is already limited
to patients with no history of major depression.
The EMEA's Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use
convened in London on Monday and is due to announce its
decision on Thursday. It has a range of options available.
&;They will recommend whatever they think is appropriate. It
ranges from nothing to new warnings or other restrictions or
contra-indications to suspension or withdrawal,&; an agency
spokeswoman said.
Doing nothing seems unlikely.
Data compiled by the EMEA and presented to the U.S. Food
and Drug Administration advisory panel last month underscores
suspicions about Acomplia's link to psychiatric side effects.
After just one year on the market, the EMEA's
post-marketing data showed there were 208 psychiatric adverse
events reported with Acomplia, including 27 cases of suicidal
thinking.
That compares with 14 cases of suicidal ideation with Roche
Holding AG's obesity drug Xenical in the nine years since its
1998 launch and 15 cases with Abbott Laboratories Inc.'s
Reductil/Meridia, which went on sale in 1999.
The figures are not directly comparable, however, since the
Acomplia reports are a result of patient monitoring while those
for Xenical and Reductil were unprompted.
Acomplia is the first in a new class of drugs that switch
off the same brain circuits that make people hungry when they
smoke cannabis.
Its unique mode of action and ability to reduce several
risk factors for cardiovascular disease led to predictions it
would become a multibillion-dollar-a-year blockbuster. In
practice, however, sales to date have been modest.
Worldwide sales of Acomplia in the first quarter of 2007
totaled just 15 million euros , down from 20
million in the fourth quarter of 2006.
Sex education creates storm in AIDSstricken India
Mon, 16 Jul 2007 13:37:14 GMT
By Krittivas Mukherjee
MUMBAI -
Moves to bring sex out of the closet in
largely conservative India have kicked up a morality debate
between educators who say sex education will reduce HIV rates,
and critics who fear it will corrupt young minds.
It's an emotive issue pitting modernists against
conservatives in a country with the world's highest number of
HIV cases at about 5.7 million, a figure that experts say may
balloon to over 20 million by 2010.
Biology teacher Thelma Seqeira infuriates conservatives in
India every time she tells her students about masturbation,
condoms and homosexuality.
Seqeira is doing exactly what India's federal government
wants the country's 29 states and seven federally-administered
regions to do -- fight the exponential spread of HIV/AIDS with
information on safe sex.
&;Sex education is the best way to prepare my students for
adolescence and protect them from HIV/AIDS,&; said Seqeira, who
teaches at a private school in Maharashtra state, western
India.
But the governments of Maharashtra, Gujarat and Madhya
Pradesh don't agree. They have banned sex education at public
schools because they say the learning modules are too explicit,
and some pictures are too graphic.
Private schools are able to continue the lessons, but many
have watered them down to avoid controversy.
The southern states of Kerala and Karnataka -- considered
among India's progressive states with high literacy rates --
are also considering bans.
The Indian government has been unable to stop these bans
even as it seeks to curb the spread of HIV. In India, about 86
percent of HIV infections occur through sexual intercourse, one
key reason being that migrant workers in cities visit
prostitutes and infect their wives when they return home.
KAMA SUTRA
Ignorance about sex is widespread in the land of the Kama
Sutra, where explicit sex acts are celebrated in ancient temple
architecture.
But at home, mothers hesitate to talk to daughters about
something as simple as menstruation, and even the basics of the
human reproductive system are taught with much embarrassment in
schools.
Experts are calling for a change in prudish attitudes to
help counter the spread of HIV/AIDS. They say the winds of
change must first blow through the country's schools.
&;Sex education does not mean you are encouraging sex which
is how it's interpreted,&; Renuka Chowdhury, India's minister
for women and child development, told Reuters last month.
&;Sex education is an insurance for your child. It will
protect your child.&;
Among the course elements that have generated much heat are
discussions on homosexuality and descriptions of sex acts,
including masturbation.
Proponents of the ban say the sex education course --
modeled on those taught in many Western countries, will make
students imbibe &;decadent western morality.&;
They point to polls showing that an increasing number of
young people -- mostly India's moneyed youngsters that live in
cities -- have postponed marriage, but not sex.
An India Today poll revealed one in four Indian women
between 18 and 30 in 11 cities had sex before marriage. One in
three said she was open to having a sexual relationship even if
she was not in love.
&;AIDS is spreading because of cultural decadence and sexual
anarchy,&; said Shajar Khan, a prominent student leader who
opposes sex education at schools.
Analysts say conservative political parties, such as the
Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, India's main
opposition group, are panning sex education courses at least
partly to make political capital out of opposing the West.
But for parents bringing up children in rapidly modernizing
India, sex education may be a matter of life and death.
&;The argument that if you teach about sex the children are
going to run out and have sex is very unfounded,&; said Roshni
Behuria, a mother of two girls.
&;Killing the education bit won't reduce the propensity
towards sex. But it just might end up killing safe-sex ignorant
young people.&;
Eye exam may spot dementia risk in elderly
Fri, 13 Jul 2007 19:46:10 GMT
By David Douglas
NEW YORK -
Examining the blood vessels in
the retina of the eye may give a clue to the mental status of
elderly people and their risk of developing dementia,
researchers report.
The presence of retinal damage, or retinopathy, &;is a
marker of early damage to the blood vessels in the brain, and
is a harbinger of future stroke risk,&; senior investigator Dr.
Tien Yin Wong of the University of Melbourne Centre for Eye
Research, Australia, told Reuters Health.
In order to see if retinopathy might also be linked to
cognitive function and dementia, Wong and colleagues studied
retinal photographs of 2211 people aged 69 to 97 years. More
than half of them had hypertension, i.e., high blood pressure.
After adjusting for factors such as age, diabetes, and
smoking status, subjects with retinopathy had lower scores on a
standard test of cognitive status than those without (39 versus
41), the team reports in the medical journal Stroke
In subjects with high blood pressure, retinopathy doubled
the likelihood of having dementia. No such relationship was
seen in those without high blood pressure.
The investigators concluded that there is a &;modest
cross-sectional association between retinopathy signs and
poorer cognitive function and, in persons with hypertension,
with dementia.&;
SOURCE: Stroke, July 2007.
FDA approves JJ test for breast cancer spread
Mon, 16 Jul 2007 20:24:36 GMT
WASHINGTON -
A Johnson & Johnson test to detect
if breast cancer has spread to a patient's lymph nodes won
approval from U.S. health officials, the Food and Drug
Administration said on Monday.
The test, called the GeneSearch Breast Lymph Node Assay, is
manufactured by Johnson & Johnson unit Veridex LLC.
The molecular-based laboratory test was approved by the FDA
to find cancerous growths in lymph node tissue removed from
breast cancer patients. The aim is to help doctors quickly
decide whether to remove more nodes during surgery, or risk
having the patient undergo a second operation.
Clinical trials of more than 300 U.S. patients showed the
test correctly identified 95.6 percent of people whose cancer
had spread to the lymph nodes, Veridex said in a statement.
That compares with about 85 percent with another procedure.
The improved accuracy means the new test could prevent
second surgeries in as many as 5,200 U.S. breast cancer
patients each year, Veridex said.
&;Results of this rapid test are available while patients
are on the operating table, providing a way for some women to
avoid a second operation,&; said Dr. Daniel Schultz, director of
the FDA's Center for Devices and Radiological Health.
An FDA advisory panel voted 9-1 in November to urge
approval for the Veridex test, but members questioned how well
it would help determine the best care for patients.
The test does not show the size of the growths or how many
a patient may have -- two things that can help decide future
treatment, they said.
An estimated 180,000 breast cancer cases are expected to be
diagnosed in the United States in 2007, according to the
American Cancer Society. Nearly 41,000 Americans are projected
to die from the disease this year.