A World Health Organization analysis of the H5N1 bird flu virus that killed several members of an Indonesian family found it to be mutated somewhat from the most common versions. But, WHO officials in Jakarta say, it does not appear to have become an exceedingly virulent form nor, more important, did it go any...
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A World Health Organization analysis of the H5N1 bird flu virus that killed several members of an Indonesian family found it to be mutated somewhat from the most common versions. But, WHO officials in Jakarta say, it does not appear to have become an exceedingly virulent form nor, more important, did it go any further then the one family. One epidemiologist told reporters it may have mutated in one boy, who passed it to his father, but then died with him.
Stories:
AP Margie Mason; Bloomberg; Reuters ...
Shortly after the FDA's approval of the vaccine Gardasil for girls as young as nine to prevent human papillomavirus infection and thereby avoid its preamble to cervical cancer, a study in the New England Journal of Medicine comes out to say that condoms also do a pretty good job of it. Condoms may not work as well...
Shortly after the FDA's approval of the vaccine Gardasil for girls as young as nine to prevent human papillomavirus infection and thereby avoid its preamble to cervical cancer, a study in the New England Journal of Medicine comes out to say that condoms also do a pretty good job of it. Condoms may not work as well as the vaccine. But the study seems to refute one, anti-condom (ie, anti-sex) argument of those who promote abstinence as the only good way to reduce risk of HPV and cervical cancer. University of Washington researchers enrolled women students on campus who had never had sex and tracked the rates of HPV among those who then did. Those who said their partners always used condoms were 70 percent less likely to become infected than those whose partners seldom wore protection. An additional advantage of condoms is that they presumably work as well against all variants of the virus. Whereas the vaccine works extremely well on its most common, dangerous strains, it does not...
In a surprise revelation, eight Chinese researchers say that their government's report in 2003 of one man's death from Sudden Acute Respiratory Syndrome, or SARS, was actually due to the H5N1 avian, or bird, flu virus. That is two years before China admitted any cases of bird flu. Many epidemiologists have doubted...
In a surprise revelation, eight Chinese researchers say that their government's report in 2003 of one man's death from Sudden Acute Respiratory Syndrome, or SARS, was actually due to the H5N1 avian, or bird, flu virus. That is two years before China admitted any cases of bird flu. Many epidemiologists have doubted China really went that long with no bird flu. In another twist, at least one of the authors of the NEJM letter, where the information appears, tried to withdraw it at the last moment. But that bird had flown the coop. Officials with the World Health Organization now are requesting a fuller account from China on just who died of what, and when, and particularly on what they actually know about the history of bird flu in that country. AP's Marilynn Marchione reports that the development does not raise any extra worry about bird flu, but is cause for concern about China's candor in sharing important public health information.
Stories...
In a step that a Johns Hopkins researcher calls an important "proof of principle," damaged spinal cords in rats grew new connections to restore motor movement after treatment with mouse embryonic stem cells...
In a step that a Johns Hopkins researcher calls an important "proof of principle," damaged spinal cords in rats grew new connections to restore motor movement after treatment with mouse embryonic stem cells. The experiment's success also depended on a cocktail of growth hormones and other specialized substances to encourage assembly of a complete motor neuron circuit. Some of the new nerves completed circuitry all the way to targeted muscle groups. Human tests are some time off, but the researchers say they are optimistic. The results are to be published next week in the Annals of Neurology. The word from Johns Hopkins is that Reuters broke the journal's embargo.
Stories:
AP Lauran Neergaard;...
This may not be the most statistically robust study in the world, but what the Tribune-Review's Jennifer Bails reports could explain a lot to sport fans, if it's correct. It comes from a graduate student from Brock University, in Ontario, who reported it at a big neuroendocrinology meeting. He...
This may not be the most statistically robust study in the world, but what the Tribune-Review's Jennifer Bails reports could explain a lot to sport fans, if it's correct. It comes from a graduate student from Brock University, in Ontario, who reported it at a big neuroendocrinology meeting. He found among high school ice hockey players that both testosterone and the stress hormone cortisol spiked before games and, most important, the effect was greater before home games than away games. Most reporters linked the finding to the recent finals of the National Hockey League season.
Stories:
Pitts. Trib-Review Jennifer Bails; Globe and Mail Unnati Gandhi; Canadian Press...
A study in JAMA, by Univ. of Wisconsin researchers, finds that cholesterol-lowering statin drugs seem to be significantly reducing the incidence of cataracts. This is a surprise, reports the LA Times's Thomas H. Maugh II, partly because among the FDA snags that some proposed statins hit was that...
A study in JAMA, by Univ. of Wisconsin researchers, finds that cholesterol-lowering statin drugs seem to be significantly reducing the incidence of cataracts. This is a surprise, reports the LA Times's Thomas H. Maugh II, partly because among the FDA snags that some proposed statins hit was that they seemed to increase eye cloudiness. But the study of 1300 people found a 45 percent cataract reduction. Even the lead author says the finding must be regarded as preliminary, with extensive followup to find out what's going on and whether it may lead to uses of such drugs specifically for eye problems. For the moment, she said, that's not merited.
Stories:
LA Times Thomas H. Maugh II; AP...
Any one with the slightest tendency to germ phobia might best stear clear of this Carl Zimmer story in the Times. Toxoplasma is a very clever...
Any one with the slightest tendency to germ phobia might best stear clear of this Carl Zimmer story in the Times. Toxoplasma is a very clever and also very creepy pathogen, even though most people and other animals it infects don't usually get very sick. It hijacks one's own dendritic cells, which are components of the immune system, so that they wriggle crazily through one's organs to smuggle the microbe to distant tissues. Brain tissue is a favorite. Its cysts sit semi-dormant for years, and then break open. Sometimes, if an immune system is weak, it becomes a fulminant and potentially fatal disease. And what is really weird, it apparently takes over the brains of mice and rats it infects so that they seek out cats. To them, it says here, cats suddenly smell good. The result is that the rodents get eaten, of...
More than half of American women undergoing menopause dose themselves with non-prescription items such as soy supplements or herbs, and often don't tell their doctors. The women tend to say that want to take something natural, reports the Times's Nicholas Bakalar, and they want something that is...
More than half of American women undergoing menopause dose themselves with non-prescription items such as soy supplements or herbs, and often don't tell their doctors. The women tend to say that want to take something natural, reports the Times's Nicholas Bakalar, and they want something that is safer than drugs a physician may tell them to use. The story notes that doctors tend to regard the science of such nostrums as practically non-existent, so the stuff probably does no good, and could actually interfere with prescribed medications. But many people, it appears, think they themselves know plenty enough about "alternative" therapieswhile their doctors, whom they generally trust on other matters, don't know diddly.
Growing discovery of genetic predisposition to certain diseases means a growing medical business in preemptive treatments. And for one family, that means prophylactic removal of their stomachs. The AP's Alicia Chang and Malcolm Ritter, and the Bee's Dorsey Griffith...
Growing discovery of genetic predisposition to certain diseases means a growing medical business in preemptive treatments. And for one family, that means prophylactic removal of their stomachs. The AP's Alicia Chang and Malcolm Ritter, and the Bee's Dorsey Griffith, profile a family in which several members have died of stomach cancer, the discovery of the gene (first found among Maoris in New Zealand) at fault, and the decision by eleven family members, all cousins, to have their stomachs removed. Biopsies showed several of the organs already had growing tumors.
Sacramento Bee Dorsey Griffith; AP Alicia Chang, Malcolm Ritter;
Grist for the Mill...
With recent FDA approval of Gardasil, the Merck vaccine that prevents a viral infection that often leads to cervical cancer, medical writers are adding detail and reminders to readers about how it works and why it is best given to girls before they become sexually active. Shari Roan's piece in the...
With recent FDA approval of Gardasil, the Merck vaccine that prevents a viral infection that often leads to cervical cancer, medical writers are adding detail and reminders to readers about how it works and why it is best given to girls before they become sexually active. Shari Roan's piece in the LA Times warns that the vaccine still does not get all forms of the virus, and that the cancer can arise for other reasons, so that pap smears should still be part of the health regimen even among women who have had the pricey vaccination.
Stories:
Columbus Dispatch Misti Crane; LA Times Shari Roan; Eugene Register-Guard...
19Jun 2006
Nobody has yet filled any animal with enough human cells or genes to confer anything close to human traits, and nobody plans to do so (or if they do, it's their secret). But the list of experiments that implant human cells into monkey, goats, rats, and other creatures is steadily growing, reports Newsday's ...
Nobody has yet filled any animal with enough human cells or genes to confer anything close to human traits, and nobody plans to do so (or if they do, it's their secret). But the list of experiments that implant human cells into monkey, goats, rats, and other creatures is steadily growing, reports Newsday's Paul Elias. Much of the work, he writes, overlaps "hot button" issues such as human cloning or creation of "human-animal hybrids."
It's hard for residents of developed nations to imagine a city of 4.5 million people with almost no sewage treatment and hardly even any drains except in the homes of the wealthy. But that's Luanda, capital of Angola in southwest Africa. Drinking water is from the Bengo river, a muddy course of garbage and trash....
It's hard for residents of developed nations to imagine a city of 4.5 million people with almost no sewage treatment and hardly even any drains except in the homes of the wealthy. But that's Luanda, capital of Angola in southwest Africa. Drinking water is from the Bengo river, a muddy course of garbage and trash. Cholera is spreading through the broad slums where children play in filth, killing 1,600 people since February. The Times's Sharon LaFraniere takes readers there for a look at how this struggling but corrupt nation, despite hefty oil income, has little sign of the sort of public health infrastructure that most industrial nations have had for more than a century. An experienced aid doctor told LaFraniere he never had seen a city with such bad conditions on such a wide scale.
A great deal of media interest has followed the case of two 10-month-old girls joined from the breastbone to the hip and their surgery at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles to separate them. The NYTimes's...
A great deal of media interest has followed the case of two 10-month-old girls joined from the breastbone to the hip and their surgery at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles to separate them. The NYTimes's Maria Newman and the LA Times's Juliet Chung today provide two particularly good medical accounts of the task that faced the surgical team, how it went, and the girls' conditions. Hope is now rising that the girls, born in LA to a (legally) visiting Mexican couple, and who benefited from months of preparation by the surgical team, will recover and live lives close to normal.
Stories:
NY Times Maria Newman; LA Times...
Thirty eight deaths from one disease usually don't even register on a developing nation's health stats, but if it's bird flu, standards shift. With 38 deaths, second to the 42 in Vietnam where stern measures have prevented any deaths at all this year, Indonesia's response has been disorganized and underfinanced,...
Thirty eight deaths from one disease usually don't even register on a developing nation's health stats, but if it's bird flu, standards shift. With 38 deaths, second to the 42 in Vietnam where stern measures have prevented any deaths at all this year, Indonesia's response has been disorganized and underfinanced, the World Bank says. The Times's Donald G. McNeil reports that conditions seem to be getting worse.
In Nature online Scottish researchers report rising hope for a way to reprogram adult cells back to their pluripotent stem-cell state. If successful, such things might be equivalent to embryonic stem cells but not run afoul of bans on morally-based bans on their use. The scientists, at the University of Edinburgh,...
In Nature online Scottish researchers report rising hope for a way to reprogram adult cells back to their pluripotent stem-cell state. If successful, such things might be equivalent to embryonic stem cells but not run afoul of bans on morally-based bans on their use. The scientists, at the University of Edinburgh, are fusing mouse embryonic stem cells with neurons to reprogram the brain cells into more primitive states. Most important, they say they are starting to understand how a cell reprograms itself via a few key genes, including one they call Nanog after a mythical Celtic land of eternally young fairies. But Carl T. Hall of the SF Chronicle reports wide opinion that to find a way to reprogram cells into an embryonic state will not happen quickly, and that use of true embryonic stem cells is likely to be a key to the research.
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SF Chronicle...
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