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 Back to Medical News Today Archives
Medical News Today: 02-13-2006
Free Injection System, designed specifically to allow fast, accurate and safe injections, is rapidly moving toward establishing itself as a valuable instrument in the fight against disease in both humans and animals. With its patented ability to adjust pressure and volume to meet varied conditions Med-Jet(human) and Agro-Jet(animal) puts the Company in a unique situation especially should there be a pandemic as predicted by many... click link for more info.
Views are being sought on the implementation of measures aimed at limiting and eradicating an outbreak of avian influenza - Defra announced today. The Avian Influenza Directive was recently adopted in Europe and now requires implementation into UK law. The Directive introduces new powers and disease surveillance measures including: -- Allowing member states to slaughter birds found to have a low pathogenic strain of the virus and introduce movement controls around the affected area-- Boosting surveillance for the disease with programmes for sampling of flocks-- Introducing powers to restrict movements on suspicion of disease and national or regional movement restrictions after disease is confirmed-- Allowing state vets to apply controls flexibly to keep industry operating in a biosecure way-- Surveillance in pigs if they are found to be infected with the virus-- Requiring Member States to keep a central register of commercial poultry keepersWhilst the Directive maintains the basic strict requirements for notification of disease, slaughter and movement controls, for the first time it allows a flexible risk-based approach in response to individual situations... click link for more info.
As Greece, Italy and Bulgaria confirm the presence of the virulent H5N1 bird flu virus strain, European Union countries have upped their contingencies while poultry farmers throughout the continent look on in alarm. Europe is bracing itself for the coming bird migratory season, which starts in Spring, when birds will start flying northwards from Nigeria, where bird flu is spreading fast... click link for more info.
Bulgarian authorities say a second swan was also infected with the lethal H5N1 bird flu virus strain. Two more samples, of two more swans found dead near the Black Sea coast, have been sent to labs in the UK for confirmation, which could bring the number of confirmed cases up to four. No human cases have been found in Bulgaria... click link for more info.
The Greek Agriculture Ministry said that a European Union laboratory has confirmed the pathogenic H5N1 strain in a sample of the Skyros wild goose. Skyros is a Greek island in the Aegean sea. This is now the fourth bird found to have the H5N1 bird flu virus strain in Greece. Three swans were found to be infected in Thermaikos a couple of days ago... click link for more info.
Digital Healthcare, a Cambridge company that is the UK's leading supplier of software for diabetic retinal screening programmes and ophthalmology, has scooped a top prize at the Microsoft Healthcare Users Group (MS-HUG) Annual Awards 2006, which recognise outstanding technology innovations that improve patient healthcare... click link for more info.
Boston Scientific announced that the data from its TAXUS Clinical Trial Program, including the Meta Analysis, shows excellent efficacy and safety in treatment of small vessels (http://www.bostonscientific.com. REFERENCES: 1 TAXUS meta-analysis II, IV, V, VI presented by G. Stone at ACC 2005 2 REALITY study presented by M... click link for more info.
UniCare Life & Health Insurance Company has unveiled an innovative health insurance plan for Texas called Sound?, which caters to the unique needs of adults between the ages of 19 and 29. There are an estimated 1.2 million uninsured people between the ages of 19-29 in Texas. And nationwide, nearly half of all full-time workers in this age group lack employer-based health benefits... click link for more info.
Results from the SAINT I (Stroke Acute Ischemic NXY-059 Treatment) trial, published today in the New England Journal of Medicine, report the effect of AstraZeneca's investigational drug, NXY-059, intended for the treatment of acute ischemic stroke (AIS). The data showed a statistically significant reduction with NXY-059 versus placebo on the primary outcome of stroke-related disability, as assessed on the Modified Rankin Scale (mRS) (p=0... click link for more info.
As doctors await the results of a wide-ranging government review of medical regulation, Sir Donald Irvine, former President of the General Medical Council, has called for fresh changes to help restore the public's trust in the profession. In an article published in the latest edition of the monthly medical journal Medical Education, Sir Donald takes a critical look at the 150-year history of the GMC... click link for more info.
A new hard-hitting campaign showing the emotional impact of smokingrelated diseases, was launched today by Public Health MinisterCaroline Flint. The emotionally charged campaign features a terminal lung cancerpatient who has already chosen the plot where she will be buried.Forty three year old Trudi Endersby, along with her two daughters,Kia (11) and Kirsti (20) represent the thousands of families everyyear who are coming to terms with the devastating consequences ofsmoking... click link for more info.
After running a maze, rats mentally replay their actions - but backward, like a film played in reverse, a researcher at the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory at MIT reports Feb. 12 in the advance online edition of Nature. In 2001, Matthew A. Wilson, a professor in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, reported that animals have complex dreams and are able to retain and recall long sequences of events while asleep... click link for more info.
The American Society of Bariatric Physicians (ASBP) is concerned that a recent WHI study, appearing in the latest Journal of the American Medical Association, will result in the American public feeling as if the "rug has been pulled out from under them." Who can the public trust to provide advice on healthy eating? Seek an expert... click link for more info.
There is a specific mechanism in our brains that deals only with recognising peoples' faces and it is separate from the mechanism that allows us to recognise objects like houses, cars, horses or even people's bodies, according to a study led by Dr Brad Duchaine at UCL (University College London). He shows how we recognise faces by analysing one man, who can't tell one face from another, in a paper that will appear online in Cognitive Neuropsychology journal on 13th February 2006... click link for more info.
A new tool to predict epidemics of malaria up to five months in advance has been developed by a scientist at the University of Liverpool.The model uses predictions of climate variability to indicate the level of risk of an epidemic up to five months in advance of the peak malaria season â?" the earliest point at which predictions have ever been made... click link for more info.
Commenting on the last edition of Frontline Scotland on violence at work (BBC 1, Wednesday 8 February 2006), the BMA once again called for greater protection for healthcare workers in the community. The programme highlighted the experience of Dr Mustafa Kapasi, a retired GP, who spoke of some of the most traumatic experiences of his career... click link for more info.
Millions of people with Medicare enrolled in prescription drug plans are leaving pharmacy counters with their prescription drugs, and at a significant savings since the drug coverage began on Jan. 1. "Medicare's new prescription drug coverage is working for millions of seniors and people with disabilities... click link for more info.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced today it will work with the National Oncologic PET Registry (NOPR) to collect data nationwide to assist in management of patients with various forms of cancer. "Working closely with NOPR is another example of CMS collaborating with the physician community to enhance the availability of innovative treatments and improve patient care," said Mark McClellan, CMS Administrator... click link for more info.
The Center will use IBM technologies to advance research into new drugs for the treatment of some of today's most life-threatening diseases, including cancer. The Center's research will be headed by one of the world's leading systems biologists, Dr. Jeffrey Skolnick, the Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar in Computational Systems Biology... click link for more info.
Kitchen chemistry is alive and well at New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) as chemical researchers report cooking up a new and more water- soluble strain of carbon nanotubes. An article about this work, "Rapidly Functionalized, Water-Dispersed Carbon Nanotubes at High Concentration," appeared Jan... click link for more info.
Public awareness of oral cancer is high, but knowledge of the early signs of the condition and alcohol's status as a contributor to the disease remain low. That's the conclusion of new research published in the latest edition of the British Dental Journal.The research, carried out by staff at University College, London and Guy's, King's and St Thomas' Dental Institute, found that more than 95 per cent of those surveyed had heard of mouth cancer; a higher level of awareness than the 56 per cent recorded in a similar study in 1999... click link for more info.
According to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) report "Optimizing Bone Health and Calcium Intakes of Infants, Children, and Adolescents," getting enough calcium during childhood and adolescence is necessary for peak bone mass development, which may help reduce the risk of fractures and osteoporosis later in life... click link for more info.
The Public Health Agency of Canada is recommending that health care providers in Canada not prescribe amantadine to treat and prevent influenza during the current flu season. The interim recommendation follows testing showing viruses currently in circulation are resistant to the drug. The Agency's National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg tested 47 influenza A/H3N2 isolates and found that 43 (91%) are resistant to amantadine, an antiviral recommended by the National Advisory Committee on Immunization (NACI) to prevent and control influenza outbreaks in institutions, such as long term care facilities... click link for more info.
The mystery of cot death may be explained by new research published online in Nature Neuroscience (Sunday 12 February 2006). A failure to 'gasp' has long been proposed as the basis for sudden infant death syndrome, or cot death. A team at the University of Bristol has discovered a subset of cells in the brain that have the ability to self-generate nervous impulses, which appear essential for gasping... click link for more info.
Anti-malarial drugs are most effective in people with lupus who are genetically predisposed to high levels of tumour necrosis factor alpha and low levels of the cytokine IL-10. A study published today in the journal Arthritis Research & Therapy reveals that anti-malarial drugs, widely used to treat systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), bring serum levels of tumour necrosis factor alpha (TNF-alpha) back to normal in SLE patients... click link for more info.
Vice President, Dick Cheney, accidentally shot a friend, Harry Whittington, 78, in the neck, cheek and chest during a quail hunt in Texas. According to Katharine Armstrong, the owner of the ranch where the hunting trip took place, Whittington is doing fine in hospital (CNN). Apparently, Whittington had shot a quail and was rummaging around in the long grass trying to find it... click link for more info.
Providence, RI - A new study from infectious disease researchers at The Miriam Hospital and Brown Medical School finds that a drug already given orally to treat HIV is also safe when applied as a vaginal microbicide gel. Microbicides are designed to prevent the sexual transmission of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases and may be formulated as vaginal gels, foams, creams, or suppositories... click link for more info.
The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded three University of Pittsburgh professors the Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award, its most prestigious honor for junior faculty members. The award supports the early career-development activities of those teacher-scholars who most effectively integrate research and education within the context of the mission of their organization... click link for more info.
Fifty years after MIT researchers pioneered the use of electron microscopy to study viruses, MIT scientists have helped produce the most detailed images yet of the tiny infectious agents.The images, which show for the first time a virus poised to inject its genetic material into a host cell, grace the cover of the Feb... click link for more info.
A project led by a researcher from the University of Western Sydney has found that music therapy can help sick babies in intensive care maintain normal behavioural development, making them less irritable, upset and less likely to cry.Dr Stephen Malloch, a Research Fellow at the University's MARCS Auditory Laboratories at Bankstown Campus, says one of the aims of this three-year project, which was carried out in collaboration with the Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne, was to see what impact music therapy had on infants in intensive care... click link for more info.
USA Today on Tuesday examined abortion-rights opponents' efforts to reduce access to abortion by placing restrictions on women seeking the procedure rather than directly challenging Roe v. Wade -- the 1973 Supreme Court ruling that effectively outlawed state abortion bans. Although the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito "put a national spotlight on" abortion and whether the justice might play a role in the "legal avalanche that eventually topples" Roe, most current debate over abortion in state legislatures center on abortion-rights opponents' "continuing push to emphasize the interests of the fetus and to create more hurdles for women seeking abortions," USA Today reports... click link for more info.
Viruses and humans have evolved together over millions of years in a game of one-upmanship that, often as not, left humans sick or worse.Now, a University of California, Berkeley, researcher has shown that viruses - in this case, a benign one - can be forced to evolve in ways to benefit humans... click link for more info.
Cancer researchers at the University of Helsinki, in trying to find a novel tumor suppressor gene, instead found an important evolutionary change that occurred in a key developmental signalling pathway. The finding suggests a potential mechanism for evolution of complex intercellular signalling pathways... click link for more info.
Male U.S. representatives with daughters are more likely to vote in favor of abortion rights and "more liberally on a range of women's issues" than male representatives without daughters, according to a working paper published this month in the National Bureau of Economic Research, the Washington Post reports... click link for more info.
The technology used in the world's first cervical cancer vaccine will be tweaked to fight the most common sexually transmitted disease, genital warts.Australian of the Year and University of Queensland (UQ) cervical cancer vaccine creator Professor Ian Frazer launched a therapeutic vaccine trial for genital warts today (Tuesday, February 7)... click link for more info.
The two ends of human DNA have different structures that are treated differently as a cell divides, UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers have found in a study that could help lead to cancer therapies.The study - published in the Feb. 3 issue of the journal Molecular Cell - focuses on the ends of DNA, which are capped by segments called telomeres... click link for more info.
Scientists in India, led by a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) international research scholar, have identified five key genes that enable Mycobacterium tuberculosis to acquire the iron it needs to sustain growth and promote infection."Targeting genes within this cluster represents a good strategy for preventing tuberculosis and other mycobacterial infections," said Rajesh S... click link for more info.
The Dallas Morning News on Tuesday examined the health care system in Switzerland, where every resident is required to buy health insurance, and those who do not purchase insurance face "stiff penalties." Swiss insurance companies and providers each year negotiate health care prices, which then are reviewed and approved by local Swiss governments, the Morning News reports... click link for more info.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today announced the licensing of a new vaccine against a disease responsible for tens of thousands of hospitalizations in the United States and hundreds of thousands of deaths around the world each year. The vaccine, developed by Merck & Co., Inc., will be sold as ROTATEQ® and will protect infants against rotavirus infection... click link for more info.
Women's health and lung cancer advocacy groups, led by the Society for Women's Health Research, vowed today to make lung cancer education and advocacy, especially among women, a top priority for their organizations in 2006 and beyond. The roundtable meeting took place at the National Press Club, where health experts and advocacy leaders discussed sex-based research advances in lung cancer and the challenges in elevating public dialogue about the deadly disease... click link for more info.
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