Girl Dies from Cervical Cancer Vaccine
September 29, 2009
Reuters
Matthew Jones
GlaxoSmithKline’s cervical cancer vaccine Cervarix probably did not cause the death of a British teenager shortly after she was given the drug, a health official said on Tuesday.
“I think it is unlikely that will be the case,” said Dr Caron Grainger, joint director of public health in the area where the 14-year-old girl died, when asked about the possibility of any connection between the death and Cervarix.
News of the death came shortly before a possible decision by U.S. health regulators on whether to approve Cervarix for sale in the United States.
“I think once we get into the investigation … we may discover there is another cause of her death,” Grainger told the BBC.
“The message for parents at this moment in time and for young girls receiving this vaccine is that you should go ahead with the vaccination,” said Grainger, who works for the National Health Service in the central English city of Coventry.
Police are treating the girl’s death as “unexplained” and said a post-mortem was taking place on Tuesday.
The teenager, named by a police source as Natalie Morton, fell ill on Monday after being vaccinated at her school under a national immunization program against the sexually-transmitted human papilloma virus (HPV).
NO PLANS TO HALT PROGRAM
Britain’s Department of Health said there were no plans to halt the program under which more than 1.4 million doses of Cervarix have been administered. “The vaccine has a strong safety record so precautionary measures are focused on the batch,” it said in a statement.
Grainger said only about 2,000 people had suffered any adverse reactions to the immunization program and that these were mostly minor. GlaxoSmithKline said on Monday it was working with regulators to understand the case better.
Sudden teenage deaths, in general, are not unknown. “Unfortunately, some young people do die suddenly for a variety of reasons, including cardiac causes. Sometimes they have been entirely well before their death,” said Dr David Elliman of London’s Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children.
A small number of other girls at the Blue Coat Church of England School reported suffering from dizziness and nausea but were not admitted to hospital, health officials said.
The drug is given in three shots over six months.
The program to vaccinate girls aged 12 to 13 began in September 2008. Cervical cancer is the 12th most common women’s cancer in Britain, killing more than 1,000 women each year.
Should Cervarix gain U.S. approval it would compete with Merck & Co’s Gardasil, which has been on the U.S. market since 2006 and had sales of $268 million in the second quarter.
GlaxoSmithKline won support for its cervical cancer vaccine from an advisory panel to Japan’s Health Ministry on Tuesday, putting it on track to be the first company to offer such a vaccine in the world’s second-biggest drug market.
GlaxoSmithKline shares were trading 0.4 percent lower in London at 1223 GMT, down slightly more than the broader market.
Click on this link for the full report.
Genetic Testing of Embryos May Cause Dementia, Obesity In Adulthood
September 28, 2009
Natural News
By S.L. Baker
Preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) has become an important part of the booming infertility and baby-making medical industry. This example of unnatural selection allows for the chromosomes of an embryo created through in vitro fertilization (IVF)to be analyzed. If there’s a problem, the embryo can be discarded or, at the very least, frozen away. PGD has helped many couples conceive children believed to be totally healthy and the procedure is promoted as a widely used and safe medical test — at least, until now. A new long-term analysis of PGD suggests that this procedure may hold serious long-term risks for humans subjected to this test while they were embryos. Animal tests have come up with worrisome evidence PGD could increase risks of obesity and dementia in adulthood.
Developed in the early 1990’s, PGD is used so couples can prevent a pregnancy affected by a genetic condition or chromosomal disorder. It’s performed by removing one or two cells (called blastomeres) for biopsy from the preimplantation embryo at the six to ten cell stage (about day three of development). If one or both parents-to-be have a known genetic abnormality and their child might be at increased risk for Tay Sachs disease, cystic fibrosis, muscular dystrophy, Fragile X syndrome, spinal muscular atrophy or other conditions, PGD can show if the embryo is likely to grow into a person with that potential problem. If that’s the case, most like a decision will be made not to implant a specific embryo in a woman’s womb.
While it’s almost hard to believe, no rigorous long-term studies have been carried out in order to see whether PGD poses any serious health risks down the line — even though the procedure involves manipulating a developing embryo. So Chinese scientists Ran Huo, Qi Zhou and colleagues decided to work with experiments in lab mice to examine how a blastomere biopsy, as the key manipulation used during the PGD procedure, actually impacts fetal, neonatal and adult development.
Their research, just published in the journal Molecular and Cellular Proteomics found there were no differences in embryo development prior to uterine implantation in the biopsied and control groups. However, successful births from biopsied embryos were significantly lower than in controls. As the mice grew after birth, the researchers looked to see if there were any differences in the bodies or behaviors of the animals that had experienced biopsies as embryos when compared tothose that had not been subjected to biopsies.
The results were disturbing. While the two groups of mice looked similar at first glance, the biopsied group of mice on average were fatter. What’s more, they demonstrated significantly poorer memory in maze tests.
To try to find out what was going on, the scientists (who are based at Nanjing Medical University and the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing) performed a detailed analysis of the adult mouse brains. In all, 36 proteins displayed significant differences between biopsied and control groups — and 17 of these differences are closely associated with neurodegenerative disorders like Alzheimers and Down Syndrome.
Bottom line: the research team concluded that the developing nervous system may be sensitive to blastomere biopsy. They are calling for more studies to be performed in order to get to the bottom of any possible long-term adverse effects of PGD.
Click here for the full report from Natural News
Diabetes Drug Could Cause Pancreatic Cancer
September 28, 2009
Natural News
By David Gutierrez
The popular diabetes drug sitagliptin (marketed as Januvia) may increase the risk of pancreatic cancer, according to study conducted by researchers from the University of California-Los Angeles and published in the journal Diabetes.
“Type 2 diabetes is a lifelong disease — people often take the same drugs for many years, so any adverse effect that could over time increase the risk for pancreatic cancer would be a concern,” said lead researcher Peter Butler. “A concern here is that the unwanted effects of this drug on the pancreas would likely not be detected in humans unless the pancreas was removed and examined.”
Previous research has suggested that the diabetes drug Byetta might increase the risk of pancreatic inflammation (pancreatitis), a known risk factor for pancreatic cancer. Byetta and Januvia both act by enhancing the activity of a gut hormone known as glucagon-like-peptide-1 (GLP-1), thereby resulting in lower blood sugar.
Byetta manufacturer Amylin Corp. has insisted that the connection between Byetta and pancreatitis could be coincidence, since no mechanism to explain the correlation has yet been found. The new study suggests, however, that enhanced GLP-1 activity might itself be a risk factor for pancreatitis.
Researchers conducted the study on rats that had been genetically engineered to simulate the metabolism of humans with Type 2 diabetes, as well as their Islets of Langerhans. They treated 40 rats with either Januvia or a Januvia-metformin combination for 12 weeks.
The Islets of Langerhans are hormone-producing regions of the pancreas. Metformin is an older diabetes drug that is believed to have tumor-suppressing properties.
The researchers found that rats treated only with Januvia had significantly higher proliferation of beta cells in their Islets of Langerhans, while some developed pancreatic abnormalities or inflammation. Rats treated with both drugs did not exhibit this effect.
Beta cells produce the blood sugar-regulating hormone insulin.
Click here for the full report from Natural News
EU to Limit MP3 Player Volumes
September 27, 2009
Reuters
By Bate Felix
The European Commission issued new volume standards for MP3 players on Monday to help prevent music lovers damaging their hearing.
The new standards will require small technical changes to I-Pods and other MP3 devices so they play at a safe volume by default. There will also be a health warning so consumers who choose to override the default settings know the risks.
“The evidence is that particularly young people, who are listening to music at high volumes sometimes for hours each week, have no idea they can be putting their hearing at risk,” European Union Consumer Affairs Commissioner Meglena Kuneva told a news conference.
The Commission plans to adopt the standards as the norm for new products after a 24-month consultation procedure with scientists, industry and consumers.
An EU scientific body raised the health alarm in January, warning that up to 10 million young people are in danger of damaging their hearing by playing their MP3 players too loud.
Listening to personal music devices at high volumes for long periods of time can cause hearing loss and tinnitus, a ringing sensation in the ears, the EU Scientific Committee on Emerging and Newly Identified Health Risks said.
There is currently no cure for hearing loss or tinnitus, the committee noted in its report.
Kuneva said 5-10 percent of MP3 users risk permanent hearing loss if they listen to a music player at high volume for more than 1 hour per day, each week over at least 5 years.
“It can take years for the hearing damage to show, and then it is simply too late,” she added.
The Commission said it was estimated that about 50 to 100 million people may be listening to portable music players on a daily basis.
Click here for the full report from Reuters
Swine Flu Surge Closes Schools, Tests Hospitals
September 27, 2009
The Washington Post
By Rob Stein
In Austin, so many parents are rushing their children to the Dell Children’s Medical Center of Central Texas with swine flu symptoms that the hospital had to set up tents in the parking lot to cope with the onslaught.
In Memphis, the Le Bonheur Children’s Medical Center emergency room got so crowded with feverish, miserable youngsters that it had to do the same thing.
And in Manning, S.C., a private school where an 11-year-old girl died shut down after the number of students who were out sick with similar symptoms reached nearly a third of the student body.
“It just kind of snowballed,” said Kim Jordan, a teacher at the Laurence Manning Academy, which closed Wednesday after Ashlie Pipkin died, and the number of ill students hit 287. “We had several teachers out also. That was the reason to close the school — so everyone could just be away from one another for a few days.”
After months of warnings and frantic preparations, the second wave of the swine flu pandemic is starting to be felt around the country, as doctors, health clinics, hospitals and schools are reporting rapidly increasing numbers of patients experiencing flu symptoms.
“H1N1 is spreading widely throughout the U.S.,” said Thomas R. Frieden, director of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta during a briefing on Friday. At least 26 states, including Maryland and Virginia, are now reporting widespread flu activity, up from 21 a week earlier, the CDC reported. “H1N1 activity is now widespread,” Frieden said.
While so far most cases are mild, and the health-care system is handling the load, officials say the number of people seeking treatment for the flu is unprecedented for this time of year. Even though some parts of the Southeast that started seeing a surge of cases first now seem to be showing a decline in cases, that could be a temporary reprieve, Frieden said. And other parts of the country are likely just starting to feel the second wave.
Maryland health authorities on Friday said a Baltimore-area youth with an underlying health problem had died of swine flu, the state’s first such fatality involving a youth.
Despite new federal guidelines aimed at keeping schools open, the pandemic has already prompted scattered school closings around the country in recent weeks, including 42 schools that closed in eight states on Friday, affecting more than 16,000 students.
Many colleges and universities have been hit particularly hard, forcing some to open separate dorms for sick students. Ninety-one percent of the 267 colleges and universities being surveyed by the American College Health Association are now reporting cases.
At the Le Bonheur Children’s Medical Center, the number of patients coming in each day shot up from about 180 to a peak of more than 400, prompting officials to erect a 2,500-square foot tent in the parking lot to handle the surge. More than 300 patients are still coming in every day.
“What we initially did was try to bring in extra folks, but you soon run out of extra people and extra spaces to put people,” said Barry Gilmore, the hospital’s medical director for emergency services.
Doctors, nurses, paramedics or other workers screen patients in the tent and decide who can safely go home. Anyone with other health problems that put them at risk, such as asthma, heart disease or kidney disease, is sent immediately to the emergency room. All patients who are sent home are contacted within 24 to 48 hours to make sure they are recovering.
“We are mostly dealing with the worried well or kids who are mildly ill but not severely ill,” he said.
At least 14 patients, however, were admitted to the hospital and perhaps six required intensive care, he said. One teenager died.
Swine flu, also known as H1N1, tends to strike more younger people than the usual seasonal flu. At least 49 children have died from complications caused by the virus so far in the United States.
At the Dell Children’s Medical Center, the number of patients coming in each day shot up from about 180 to more than 340, prompting the hospital to require staff to work extra shifts and erect two tents outside the emergency room to handle the overflow and keep possibly infected patients separate from others.
“We are able to take care of them really rapidly without a long wait, and they don’t have to be mixed in with other patients who do not have the flu,” said Pat Crocker, chief of emergency medicine. “It’s been highly efficient.”
But Crocker, noting that the hospital is already busier than it was in the wake of hurricanes Katrina and Rita, said the hospital has a third tent ready to be set up.
Click here to continue reading the full article from the Washington Post
China Investigates American Chicken
September 27th, 2009
Associated Press
By Gillian Wong
China on Sunday started investigating complaints that American chicken products are being dumped in China and are unfairly benefiting from subsidies, adding to a string of trade disputes with Washington.
The Commerce Ministry said the probe was launched Sunday on broiler products and chicken products, following requests by Chinese companies to investigate the U.S. imports they say are hurting the domestic industry.
The investigation comes at a time of mutual finger pointing Washington and Beijing accusing the other of protectionism, which both say will hurt efforts to end the global economic crisis.
A U.S. labor union and three paper companies announced last week they had filed a new trade complaint over imports of Chinese paper. The move came a week after Beijing filed a World Trade Organization challenge to Washington’s decision to raise tariffs on imports of Chinese-made tires.
The two governments also are involved in disputes over access to each others’ markets for steel pipes, music and movies. On Tuesday, China appealed against a U.S. victory in a trade dispute over restrictions on the sale of U.S. music, films and books in the Chinese market.
The same week, U.S. President Barack Obama and his Chinese counterpart, Hu Jintao, were attending a summit of leaders of the Group of 20 major economies in Pittsburgh, which issued sweeping promises to fix a malfunctioning global economic system including a vow to “reject protectionism in all its forms.”
At the summit, China played down growing trade tensions with the United States, saying the two trading partners must focus on long-term relations and settle their differences through friendly talks.
Click here for the full report.
Obesity Will Be Biggest Cancer Cause Within 10 Years
September 24, 2009
The Telegraph
Already up to one in twelve new cases of the disease are attributed to being overweight or obese and this proportion is set to increase as more quit smoking and stop hormone replacement therapy.
Dr Andrew Renehan, a cancer expert at the University of Manchester, told a medical conference: “Obesity is catching up at a rate that makes it possible it could become the biggest attributable cause of cancer in women within the next decade.”
Last year, the number of cancer cases in Europe linked to weight jumped to at least 124,050, almost double the number in 2002.
In men, 3.2 per cent of new cancers could be attributed to being overweight or obese and in women it was 8.6 per cent. Obesity related cancers in the UK were 3.3 per cent for men and 4.8 per cent for women and.
Colorectal cancer, breast cancer in menopausal women and endometrial cancer accounted for 65 per cent of all cancers linked to being fat.
Dr Renehan, of the University of Manchester, said: “I must emphasise we are trying not to be sensationalist about this. These are very conservative estimates, and it’s quite likely the numbers are, in fact, higher.”
The number of new cases of obesity-related oesophageal cancer was particularly high in the UK relative to the rest of Europe.
Dr Renehan, who presented his findings to a joint meeting of the European Cancer Organisation and the European Society for Medical Oncology in Berlin, said it accounted for 54 per cent of new cases across all 30 countries.
This may be due to interactions between smoking, alcohol, excess body weight and a condition called acid reflux, but more research is needed to understand the reason.
Scientists aren’t sure why being fat boosts your cancer risk, but suspect it is connected to hormones. As people become fatter, they produce more hormones like oestrogen that help tumours grow. People with big bellies also have more acid in their stomachs, which can lead to stomach, intestinal or oesophageal cancer.
Dr Renehan said new strategies were needed to help people stay slim. “We need to find the biological mechanism to help people find other ways of tackling obesity,” he said. “Just telling the population to lose weight obviously hasn’t worked.”
Click here for the full report from the Telegraph
Tylenol Recalls Some Children’s Medications
September 24, 2009
MSNBC
Liquid products pulled for possible contamination of inactive ingredient
The makers of Tylenol have recalled more than 20 types of children’s and infant’s medications as a precaution against possible contamination. The liquid products were being voluntarily pulled from stores and warehouses because bacteria were detected in one of the inactive ingredients, the company said.
The ingredient with the bacteria was not used in packaged Tylenol products sold in stores, but was manufactured at the same time.
The company did not announce whether any children had been sickened by the medicines.
The recalled products include: Children’s Tylenol Cold MS Suspension 4 oz. Grape, Children’s Tylenol Plus Cough & Runny Nose 4 oz. Cherry, and Infant’s Tylenol Suspension Drop 1 oz. Grape.
The recalled products were made between April and June 2008. The recall involves only liquid Tylenol products. Consumers with concerns about the recalled products are asked to call McNeil Consumer Call Care Center at 1-800-962-5357.
Click here for the full report from MSNBC
Choose Natural Sugars When You Have a Sweet Tooth
September 23, 2009
Natural News
By Sheryl Walters
The word is out about the dangers of High Fructose Corn Syrup. This sticky sweet substance shows up in nearly all processed foods and headlines in soft drinks. Studies have linked HFCS to obesity. Caution should be practiced though as sugar in general has gotten a bad rep in the past years. Diets like Atkins and South Beach shun all sugar, natural or not, and have led everyone to question what sugars they eat and where they come from. In a world of myriad choices on how to sweeten your foods, what are the benefits or options of good sweet things out there?
Whole food that happens to be sweet is the best bet, namely fruits and vegetables. These contain fructose. By itself, fructose is not a good option, though studies once thought that it was helpful for diabetics, it actually leads to an increased risk of weight gain. Whole fruits have fiber, vitamins and minerals which balance out the naturally occurring sugars with their beneficial qualities. This is why it is essential to eat the whole fruit to keep blood sugars even.
Fruit has been said to be nature’s candy, though that does not always satisfy our sweet tooth. Reaching for artificial sweeteners might be your calorie free answer, but aspartame and saccharin are dangerous chemicals that the FDA link to 75% of adverse food additive reactions.
Real sugar can have its place in a balanced diet; though, take the time to find whole natural sources of sugar. Cleaner options include honey, sourced locally and organic if possible. Raw honey in particular has made its way onto the health market, since none of the nutrients which make honey a healing food have been destroyed.
Maple syrup can be experimented with to sweeten desserts. Agave, a honey like sweet syrup, is currently a hot trend since it doesn’t cause high spikes in blood sugar. Sucanat, Raw Sugar and Turbinado are less refined versions of real sugar that can be used in coffee, tea, baking and cooking; but what are these? Found in health food stores, Sucanat is a form of the sugar plant where the sugar and the existing molasses are kept together and never separated (brown sugar is when the molasses is taken out and added back in, creating a highly processed sugar.) Turbinado is made from the first pressing of the sugar cane plant, resulting in larger crystals and a truer molasses type flavor. Date sugar is made from dates and not refined like cane sugar.
Though calories for these sugars are similar to refined white sugar, they are less processed, offer some minor benefits and act more with your body more than against it. To stay sweet the right way, just make sure the amount of sugar in your diet does not account for more than 10% of your daily calories.
Click here for the full report from Natural News
Chemical Cocktail in Consumer Products Destroys Male Fertility
September 23, 2009
Natural News
By David Gutierrez
Hormone-disrupting chemicals found in a variety of consumer products are destroying male reproductive health, according to a report released by the nonprofit CHEM Trust.
An increasing number of widely used chemicals are being exposed as endocrine disruptors, many of them ingredients in plastics, cosmetics, cleaning products and even food. Most of these simulate the action of the female sex hormone estrogen.
According to report author Richard Sharpe of the Medical Research Council, long-term exposure to a wide variety of these chemicals is probably to blame, at least in part, for rising incidence of a condition known as Testicular Dysgenisis Syndrome (TDS). Exposure to endocrine disruptors can “feminize” male children even in the womb, he said, by blocking the activity of the male sex hormone testosterone
TDS refers to a collection of observed disorders of the male reproductive system, including reduced sperm counts, malformed penis and testicular cancer.
While exposure to one endocrine disruptor might not have a great effect, Sharpe said, there are so many different chemicals out there that their cumulative results must be taken into account.
“Because it is the summation of effect of hormone-disrupting chemicals that is critical, and the number of such chemicals that humans are exposed to is considerable, this provides the strongest possible incentive to minimize human exposure to all relevant hormone disruptors, especially women planning pregnancy, as it is obvious that the higher the exposure the greater the risk,” he said.
“Chemicals that have been shown to act together to affect male reproductive health should have their risks assessed together,” said Elizabeth Salter Green of the CHEM Trust. “Currently that is not the case, and unfortunately chemicals are looked at on an individual basis. Therefore, government assurances that exposures are too low to have any effect just do not hold water because regulators do not take into account the additive actions of hormone disrupting chemicals.”
“It is high time that public health policy is based on good science and that regulatory authorities have health protection, rather than industry protection, uppermost in mind,” she said.
Click here for the full article from Natural News
