CDC to destroy oldest smallpox vaccine
Sat, 01 Mar 2008 02:05:26 GMT
By MIKE STOBBE, AP Medical Writer
ATLANTA - The government announced Friday that it has said goodbye to one of the world's greatest lifesavers — the oldest smallpox vaccine. The
U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention this month made arrangements to dispose of the last of its 12 million doses of Dryvax, and notified other health departments and the military to do the same by Feb. 29.
Dryvax — produced by scraping virus off the skin of infected calves — is being replaced in federal vaccine stockpiles by a more modern product manufactured in laboratories.
Dryvax was unusually dangerous for a vaccine, blamed in recent years for triggering heart attacks and a
painful heart inflammation in some patients.
Still, attention should be paid on the occasion of its demise, said Dr. William Schaffner, chairman of
Vanderbilt University's department of preventive medicine.
It is a "historical moment, because it's our oldest vaccine," Schaffner said. "It was a vaccine that eliminated smallpox from the United States."
Smallpox is a deadly, infectious disease that plagued the world for centuries and killed nearly a third of the people it infected. Victims suffered scorching fever and body aches, then spots and blisters that would leave survivors with pitted scars.
Dryvax was created in the late 1800s, by the company that became
Wyeth Laboratories.
Wyeth was a primary U.S. manufacturer of smallpox vaccine by the mid-1940s, and was the only company left making it by the early 1960s, said Dr. D.A. Henderson, a
University of Pittsburgh vaccine expert who played a key role in international
smallpox eradication efforts.
The United States was able to end routine childhood vaccination against the disease by the early 1970s.
World health authorities declared the disease was eradicated from nature in 1980.
Wyeth stopped making the vaccine in the 1980s. But government officials kept a stockpile of about 15 million doses. The Dryvax came in handy in 2003, when it was used to help contain an outbreak of monkeypox in the United States.
"There are situations where one does have to have a smallpox vaccine," said Dr. Neal Halsey, director of John Hopkins University's Institute for Vaccine Safety.
U.S. officials had also been worried that smallpox might resurface as a result of
bioterrorism. Following the 9/11 attacks and the anthrax-containing letters that surfaced a month later, the government in 2002 ordered certain military personnel vaccinated and recommended shots for front-line health care workers.
The government also pushed for manufacture of a new vaccine. It hired a company named Acambis Inc., which had produced nearly 200 million doses by the end of 2003, Henderson said.
Last September, the
U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved licensure of the company's ACAM2000 vaccine. That product is now the mainstay of the
CDC stockpile, Henderson said.
Dryvax had problems. It was long suspected of triggering neurological complications, including encephalitis, in rare cases. Then, in 2003, three adults who received the vaccine died suddenly of heart attacks. As a precaution, health officials advised people with heart disease to skip the vaccination.
A study published in 2005 suggested that Dryvax triggered a
painful heart inflammation in a small number of emergency workers vaccinated after Sept. 11.
"Times had changed, and our awareness, sensitivity and tolerance for adverse events associated with vaccines was much greater" than during the
smallpox vaccination campaigns of the 20th century, Schaffner said.
ACAM2000 is created in laboratories, not on a farm, so there's much less possibility of bacterial contamination in the production process. However, it's derived from Dryvax, and it's not clear it will have fewer side effects than the old vaccine, some vaccine experts said.
___
On the Net:
CDC: http://emergency.cdc.gov/agent/smallpox/vaccination/index.asp
Schwarzenegger kicks off fitness expo
Sat, 01 Mar 2008 12:57:50 GMT
COLUMBUS, Ohio - California Gov.
Arnold Schwarzenegger is in
Ohio to help celebrate the 20th anniversary of his sports and fitness festival at the
Veterans Memorial Auditorium.
Schwarzenegger received a loud round of applause Friday night when he presented a series of awards at a women's figure and fitness competition. He waved to the crowd, interviewed a few winners but did not make a speech.
The three-day
Arnold Sports Festival features 17,000 competitors in 37 events, including 12 Olympic sports. Schwarzenegger has staged sports and fitness events in Columbus since 1989.
The Republican governor's visit comes days before a crucial presidential primary. He has endorsed likely
GOP nominee John McCain.
FDA Dont swallow inhaler capsules
Sat, 01 Mar 2008 01:09:44 GMT
By The Associated Press
WASHINGTON - Respiratory disease medications Spiriva and Foradil capsules should be used with the intended inhalation devices and not swallowed,
federal health officials warned on Friday.
These drugs were developed to facilitate breathing in patients with asthma and
chronic obstructive lung disease, including chronic bronchitis and emphysema.
But the
Food and Drug Administration said it has received several reports of the capsules being swallowed. The agency warned that these products will only properly assist breathing if inhaled through the
Spiriva HandiHaler or Foradil Aerolizer, which were designed to deliver these drugs.
The agency indicated that not many of the patients who swallowed the capsules reported side effects.
Spiriva was developed by
Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals Inc., which co-markets it with
Pfizer Inc. Foradil is manufactured by
Novartis AG and marketed in the United States by
Schering-Plough Corp.
Study Spanking can bring problems later
Sat, 01 Mar 2008 01:15:59 GMT
DURHAM, N.H. - New research by a
University of New Hampshire domestic abuse expert says spanking children affects their sex lives as adults.
Professor Murray Straus concludes that children who are spanked are more likely as adults to coerce partners to have sex, to have unprotected sex and to have masochistic sex.
Other studies have shown the link between spanking and physical violence, but Straus said his research is the first to show a link between corporal punishment and sexual behavior.
"My underlying motive was to bring this to the attention of parents and of more people," Straus said, "in the hope it will help continue the decrease in the use of corporal punishment."
Straus, co-director of UNH's
Family Research Laboratory, conducted a study in the mid-1990s in which he asked 207 students at three colleges whether they'd ever been aroused by masochistic sex. He also asked them if they'd been spanked as children. He found that students who were spanked were nearly twice as likely to like masochistic sex.
He has bundled that study with three new ones that explore the connections between corporal punishment, coerced sex and risky sex. He presented all four studies this week at the American Psychological Association's Summit on Violence and Abuse in Relationships in
Bethesda, Md.
Straus said his study found adults who were spanked as children are more likely to coerce their partners to have sex.
Straus asked 14,000 college students in 32 different countries whether they strongly disagreed, disagreed, agreed or strongly agreed with this statement: "I was spanked or hit a lot before age 12." He also asked whether they had ever verbally or physically coerced an uninterested partner to have sex.
He found a big difference between students who said they'd been hit a lot before age 12 and those who said they hadn't. For every increased step on Straus's four-step scale of agreement, men were 10 percent more likely to have verbally coerced sex from a partner by insisting on sex or threatening to end the relationship if the partner refused. Women were 12 percent more likely to have done that.
Previous studies have shown that 90 percent of parents strike their toddlers, a statistic that's held steady throughout the 30 years Straus has researched corporal punishment. Meanwhile, the number of parents who hit older children has drastically decreased. Straus said it's unclear why, though he has some theories. One is that 2- and 3-year-olds are less likely to respond to repeated verbal warnings.
Straus said he would like more pediatricians and child-rearing experts to warn against spanking. He'd also like lawmakers to take a stand by dedicating state money to teaching parents about the dangers of corporal punishment.
"The best-kept secret in child psychology is that children who were never spanked are among the best behaved," Straus said.
___
Information from:
Concord Monitor, http://www.cmonitor.com
Carb Intake Obesity Tied to Rise in Esophageal Cancers
Sat, 01 Mar 2008 04:47:26 GMT
FRIDAY, Feb. 29 -- There may be a link between
rising rates of carbohydrate intake and obesity and the increasing number
of esophageal cancer cases in the United States, a new study says.
Researchers noted that cases of esophageal cancer increased from
300,000 in 1973 to 2.1 million in 2001, which closely mirrors increases in
carbohydrate intake and obesity over the same time.
Obesity is a major risk factor for many types of cancer, and a diet
high in calories from refined carbohydrates is a common contributor to
obesity, the researchers noted. They also said no other studied nutrients
were found to correlate with esophageal cancer rates.
"If we can reverse the trends in refined carbohydrate intake and
obesity in the U.S., we may be able to reduce the incidence of esophageal
cancer," study senior author Dr. Li Li, an assistant professor in the
department of family medicine and the Case Comprehensive Cancer Center at
Case Western Reserve University/University Hospitals Health System, said
in a prepared statement.
The study was published in a recent issue of
The American Journal of
Gastroenterology.
The causes of esophageal cancer are largely unknown, and despite recent
advances, patients with this type of cancer have a poor prognosis. The
five-year survival rate is less than 20 percent.
More information
The
American Cancer Society has more about esophageal cancer.
Cultural practices buttress Sierra Leone poverty U.N.
Sat, 01 Mar 2008 11:30:16 GMT
By Katrina Manson
FREETOWN -
Harmful cultural practices such as
female genital mutilation are hampering efforts to reduce
poverty in
Sierra Leone, which has the world's worst child and
maternal mortality rates, a top U.N. official said.
Discrimination against women is also partly responsible for
the social problems that have persisted since the 1991-2002
civil war, said
Ann Veneman, executive director of child agency
UNICEF, after a three-day visit to rural clinics and schools.
"Sierra Leone needs to change a number of the harmful
traditional and cultural practices," Veneman told reporters
late on Friday, citing female genital mutilation , child
marriage and pregnancy, and under-age labor.
According to the
United Nations, more than a quarter of
children die before their fifth birthday in the former British
colony, and one in eight women die in childbirth.
Seventy percent of the population live below the poverty
line and fewer than 30 percent are literate.
Veneman criticized the high rates of sexual violence that
have continued since the war when thousands of women were
raped, kept as sex slaves and forced into marriage by rebels.
"A tremendous amount of sexual violence still goes on in
this country," Veneman told Reuters after the news conference.
"It has to be unacceptable in this society to allow
sexual
violence against women and children to continue."
Ignorance due to a tradition of not sending girls to school
was contributing to problems such as feeding newborns with
dirty water and rice milk instead of breast milk, which boosts
the immune system, and the failure to use bednets against
malaria.
"Poverty is the big problem," Veneman said. "But the young
girls have a double problem: they are highly discriminated
against and there is a total disregard for women and girls."
She also said girls were prey to secret societies -- closed
traditional groups solely for women, that meet in the bush.
"They have secret societies where you learn how to be a
woman and how to take care of a man and this is where you get
your FGM," she said.
"These women who do this are running a business and have an
economic interest in doing it. But it is a harmful practice: it
can cause infection, bleeding and HIV/Aids."
UNICEF estimates 90-94 percent of women in
Sierra Leone are
cut and Veneman says attitudes are not changing quickly enough.
"There are still young people out there who have suffered
in such terrible ways," said Veneman. "It's a special burden."
ADHD Drugs Won39t Raise Risk of Substance Abuse
Sun, 02 Mar 2008 00:01:24 GMT
By Sherry Baker
HealthDay Reporter
SATURDAY, March 1 -- Parents of children who are
prescribed psychostimulants for attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder
might have one less thing to worry about now that a new study
concludes these kids are no more likely than their peers to abuse drugs
and alcohol as young adults.
The report, which was funded by the
National Institutes of Health, is
published in the March issue of the
American Journal of
Psychiatry.
"The results should reassure clinicians who might be hesitant to treat
ADHD because of concerns about future substance abuse," said study
co-author Michael C. Monuteaux, assistant director of research at the
pediatric psychopharmacology program at
Massachusetts General
Hospital.
Past research looking for a link between ADHD medications and substance
abuse has produced conflicting conclusions.
"Some previous studies showed an increased risk of substance abuse
associated with stimulant treatment, and other studies showed both no
association and also a protective effect from treatments," Monuteaux said.
"But those studies had some methodological limitations, and not all of
them followed their samples well into late adolescence and early
adulthood."
The
Massachusetts General Hospital investigators designed their study
to overcome the shortcomings of previous studies. They followed their
research subjects up to a median age of about 22, included an assessment
for psychiatric problems such as conduct disorder that are associated with
substance abuse, and applied rigorous methods to accurately analyze
data.
The research study team interviewed 112 young men (ranging in age from
16 to 27) a decade after they had been diagnosed with ADHD about their use
of alcohol, tobacco and a variety of psychoactive drugs. Seventy-three
percent of the subjects had been treated with stimulants at some time, and
22 percent were currently taking the stimulant medications.
The study found no relationship between having ever received stimulant
treatment and the risk of future alcohol or other substance abuse. The age
at which stimulant treatment began and how long it continued also had no
impact on substance use.
"This study is a continuing effort to explicate the factors that
mediate risk. It is methodologically sound and suggests that, as always,
things are more complicated than we want them to be. The study
demonstrates that the use psychostimulants for ADHD children do not
increase the risk for substance abuse in adulthood, but it also suggests
there is no protective effect, said Dr. Jon A. Shaw, director of the
Division of
Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Behavioral Science at the
University of Miami.
Symptoms of ADHD include impulsiveness, hyperactivity and inattention.
According to a study published last fall in the
Archives of Pediatrics
& Adolescent Medicine, almost 9 percent of American children have
ADHD, but only 32 percent of them are getting the medication they
need.
"There is sufficient evidence that parents should be reassured that the
use of psychostimulant medication for the treatment of ADHD in children
and adolescents does not increase the risk for substance abuse in later
life and remains the most effective treatment for this condition," Shaw
said.
More information
For more on ADHD, visit the National Institute for Mental
Health.
UK lawmakers urge action to cut childbirth deaths
Sun, 02 Mar 2008 01:28:53 GMT
LONDON -
Hundreds of thousands of women in poor
countries die each year during pregnancy or childbirth from
largely avoidable causes, British lawmakers said on Sunday.
The International Development Committee said there had been
little progress in reducing maternal deaths in developing
countries in the last 20 years and it criticised a lack of
political will to improve women's health.
One in seven women in
Niger dies in childbirth, compared to
one in 8,200 in
Britain, it said.
Of the Millennium Development Goals set by the
United
Nations in 2000, there had been least progress on the target of
reducing maternal mortality by 75 percent, the committee said.
On current trends, the goal will not be met by the 2015
deadline.
"A key factor in this collective failure has been
insufficient political will to drive actions to improve the
health of women, both at the international and national
levels," it said in a report to coincide with Mothers' Day in
Britain.
Studies estimated maternal deaths worldwide in 2005 at
536,000 although the true figure could be as high as 872,000,
because of a tendency to under-report such deaths and poor
data, said committee chairman Malcolm Bruce, an opposition
Liberal Democrat.
"It has ... been estimated that for each woman who dies, 30
further women will become disabled, injured or ill owing to
pregnancy, so it is reasonable to assume that millions of women
suffer in some way due to childbirth," he said.
Only two in five women in sub-Saharan Africa deliver their
babies with the help of skilled medical staff, the report said.
Addressing a huge shortage of midwives worldwide and
increasing the availability of emergency obstetric care to all
women must remain the main focus of the British government's
overseas aid department, the committee recommended.
Increasing access to basic drugs and equipment including
family planning supplies was vital, as was tackling gender
inequalities that prevented women gaining access to health
care.
Study finds dogs robots cheer elderly
Sat, 01 Mar 2008 09:26:34 GMT
By CHERYL WITTENAUER, Associated Press Writer
ST. LOUIS - Dogs may have a hard time wrapping their paws around this one: Robotic competition is nipping at their heels in the man's-best-friend department. A study by Saint Louis University found that a lovable pooch named Sparky and a robotic dog,
AIBO, were about equally effective at relieving the loneliness of nursing home residents and fostering attachments.
The study, which appears in the March issue of the Journal of The American Medical Directors Association, builds on previous findings by the researchers that frequent dog visits decreased loneliness of nursing home residents.
Andrew Ng, who leads
Stanford University's team in building a home-assistance robot and was not involved in the study, said the strength of the research is very encouraging.
If humans can feel an emotional bond with robots, even fairly simple ones, some day they could "not just be our assistants, but also our companions," he said.
To test whether residents responded better to Sparky, a trained therapy dog, or the
Sony-made robot dog, researchers divided 38 nursing home residents into three groups at a trio of long-term care facilities in
St. Louis.
One group had weekly, 30-minute one-on-one visits with Sparky; another group had similar visits with AIBO; a control group did not visit with either dog. Their level of loneliness — determined by residents' answers to several questions — was tested at the beginning and near the end of eight weeks of visits.
Investigator Marian Banks delivered the dogs, but did not interact with the residents. In the end, both groups were less lonely and more attached.
Most of the elderly used Sparky, a 9-year-old, reddish-brown mutt with a white muzzle and floppy ears, as a confidant, telling him "their life story," Marian Banks said.
"He listened attentively, wagged his tail, and allowed them to pet him," said Banks, who adopted and trained Sparky after finding him in an alley behind her home seven years ago.
Those who visited with AIBO took a little longer — about a week — to warm up to the metallic creature. Over time, they grew more comfortable with AIBO, and petted and talked to him. He responded by wagging his tail, vocalizing and blinking his lights.
"AIBO is charismatic if you start to interact with him," said the study's author, Dr. William Banks, a professor of geriatric medicine at Saint Louis University. "He's an engaging sort of guy."
The research could mean that a world is possible where robots could substitute for living dogs and help people, William Banks said.
"They could be personal, not an intrusive crazy inanimate object," he said.
Sara Kiesler, professor of computer science and
human-computer interaction at
Carnegie Mellon University who was not involved in the study, said the results of the study are encouraging but not completely convincing.
The problem is inferring it was the robotic dog that reduced the loneliness, and not the human who brought him into the room, she said. She said another study could compare a visit from AIBO with someone stopping by with a stuffed animal or even just a candy bar.
__
Journal of The American Medical Directors Association: http://www.jamda.com/
Vitamin E Supplements May Raise Lung Cancer Risk
Sat, 01 Mar 2008 04:47:38 GMT
By Ed Edelson
HealthDay Reporter
FRIDAY, Feb. 28 -- Vitamin supplements won't protect
people against lung cancer and taking vitamin E may even heighten the
risk, a new study finds.
The survey covered the supplement-taking habits and
lung cancer
incidence of almost 78,000 adults in the state of Washington over a
four-year period.
"Our study of supplemental multivitamins, vitamin C, vitamin E and
folate did not show any evidence for a decreased risk of lung cancer,"
study author Dr. Christopher G. Slatore, a fellow in the division of
pulmonary and
critical care medicine at the
University of Washington, said
in a statement. "Indeed, increasing intake of
supplemental vitamin E was
associated with a slightly increased risk of lung cancer."
As reported in the March issue of the
American Journal of
Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, the research focused on men
and women aged 50 to 76 taking part in the four-year VITAmins and
Lifestyle study. Lung cancer was diagnosed in 521 participants
surveyed.
In addition to the expected association with smoking, family history
and other
lung cancer risk factors, there was a slight but statistically
significant association with vitamin E supplementation and incidence of
the disease, the researchers found.
Every increase in vitamin E of 100 milligrams per day was associated
with a 7 percent rise in lung cancer risk -- translating into a 28 percent
increase in risk over 10 years for someone taking 400 milligrams of
vitamin E daily.
"This provides additional evidence that taking vitamin supplements does
not help prevent lung cancer," said Eric Jacobs, strategic director of
pharmacoepidemiology at the
American Cancer Society.
The society does not currently recommend use of any vitamin supplement
to prevent malignancy, Jacobs said. However, "our dietary guidelines do
recommend eating five or more servings of a variety of vegetables each
day," he noted.
A representative of the supplements industry called the study results
"not all that surprising."
"Vitamins are essential nutrients that act to maintain health and
prevent vitamin deficiency," Pamela Mason, spokeswoman for the
London-based Health Supplements Information Service, said in a statement.
"They were never intended to be used to prevent chronic disease such as
cancer. Indeed, it would be asking a lot of a vitamin pill to expect it to
prevent cancer."
Since the primary cause of lung cancer is smoking, the best preventive
measure is simply not to smoke, Jacobs said. Nutrients can play an
auxiliary role, he noted. Anyone who cannot quit should avoid taking
beta-carotene supplements, because studies have linked them to an
increased risk of lung cancer, Jacobs said.
On the other hand, "for former smokers, there is some evidence that
vegetables high in carotinoids, such as carrots and sweet peas, decrease
the risk," he said.
Some vitamins have been linked to a reduced risk of other cancers,
added Edward Gorham, an associate professor of family and preventive
medicine at the University of California at
San Diego.
"We have worked with vitamin D, and we found a protective effect of
vitamin D on colon cancer, breast cancer and ovarian cancer, and recently
a modest effect on lung cancer," Gorham said.
But that effect came not from supplements but from sunlight, which
causes vitamin D to be formed in the human body, he said.
"These results with multivitamins dont surprise me because there is so
little vitamin D in multi-supplements, 100 or 200 International Units,"
Gorham said. "To achieve the effect, it takes 2,000 IU. If youre in the
tropics, that amounts to 10 or 15 minutes in the sun. In southern
California, it takes 10 or 15 minutes in the summer and longer in the
winter because the sun angle is so low."
One study has also associated vitamin D supplements with a decreased
risk of colon and
breast cancer in women, Gorham said.
More information
There's more on
nutrition and cancer prevention at the American Cancer Society.