FDA Approves New Vaccine From Fraudster Pfizer
February 26, 2010
The Wall Street Journal
The Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday approved a new version of the widely used children’s vaccine Prevnar.
The current Prevnar vaccine is given to infants and toddlers to prevent seven strains of bacteria known as streptococcus pneumoniae that cause a range of illnesses like ear infections, pneumonia, bloodstream infections and meningitis, an infection of the covering of the brain and spinal cord.
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More People Dying Of Infections Acquired At Hospitals
February 23, 2010
Reuters
Pneumonia and blood-borne infections caught in hospital killed 48,000 patients and cost $8.1 billion in 2006, according to a report released on Monday.
The study is one of the first to put a price tag on the widespread problem, which is worsening and which some experts say is adding to the growing cost of healthcare in the United States.
“In many cases, these conditions could have been avoided with better infection control in hospitals,” said Ramanan Laxminarayan of Resources for the Future, a think tank that sponsored the study.
Sepsis — a blood infection — killed 20 percent of patients who developed it after surgery, Laxminarayan and colleagues reported in the Archives of Internal Medicine.
They studied hospital discharge records from 69 million patients at hospitals in 40 U.S. states between 1998 and 2006, looking for two diagnoses — hospital-acquired pneumonia and sepsis.
Patients who developed sepsis after surgery had to stay in the hospital on average nearly 11 days extra, at a cost of $32,900 per patient, they found. And just under 20 percent of them died.
Pneumonia patients stayed an extra 14 days after surgery, at a cost of $46,400 and more than 11 percent of them died, the researchers found.
“That’s the tragedy of such cases,” said Anup Malani of the University of Chicago, who worked on the study.
“In some cases, relatively healthy people check into the hospital for routine surgery. They develop sepsis because of a lapse in infection control and they can die.”
The researchers said that 1.7 million healthcare-associated infections are diagnosed every year.
Many are due to drug-resistant bacteria, such as methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus or MRSA, which cost more to treat because only a few drugs can work against them. These infections can also be caught outside hospitals and some studies show that such community-acquired infections are also on the rise.
One estimate from Pfizer Inc suggested that treating MRSA alone cost $4 billion a year.
Measures to prevent infection are simple and include careful handwashing, hygiene and screening patients when they check in. However, these measures are difficult to enforce, many studies have found.
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Affordable Healthcare in Mexico
February 22, 2010
Natural News
By David Gutierrez
As the debate over health care reform remains stalled in Congress, many U.S. residents are taking matters into their own hands by simply driving to Mexico for affordable care and prescriptions.
“I’m very lucky to live near enough to Mexico to get good healthcare at a reasonable price,” said retired police officer Bob Ritz, who lives in Tombstone, Ariz. Although Ritz does have insurance, many of his medical costs are simply not covered, or the co-pays and deductibles are so high that he cannot afford them on his fixed income.
“I pay $400 a month for my health insurance, and it’s still cheaper to come to Mexico,” he said.
In contrast to Ritz, approximately 46 million U.S. residents live without any medical insurance at all.
According to a study by the University of California-Los Angeles’ Center for Health Policy Research, roughly one million people go to Mexico for dental or medical care or prescriptions every year from California alone.
The primary difference between Mexican and U.S. health care is the cost — with many U.S. doctors having trained at Mexican medical schools and vice versa, and similar hygienic standards in place. Responding to the influx of people from the U.S. seeking affordable care, clinics in Mexican border towns now offer everything from regular dental care to cosmetic and weight-loss surgeries or other major procedures like hysterectomies.
In Naco, Mexico, Dr. Sixto de la Pena Cortes charges roughly $20 for a standard checkup. He says he gets about 15 patients from the United States every week. The most common complaints that he treats are “bronchitis, pneumonia and stomach problems,” he said, but he has also treated broken bones. Once, he referred a patient to a hospital for an appendix removal operation that cost $2,000.
“I waste up to four hours coming to an appointment, but it’s worth it as we’ll save thousands of dollars,” said Beatriz Iturriaga of Eastlake, California, who paid $6,500 for bariatric surgery in Tijuana.
A typical bariatric surgery in the United States costs as much as $40,000.
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Bill Gates in Vaccine Game
February 1, 2010
Times Online
By Sam Lister
Bill Gates, the Microsoft founder and philanthropist, is to make the largest ever single charitable donation with a pledge of $10 billion (£6 billion) for vaccine work over the next decade.
Mr Gates said that he hoped the coming ten years would be the “decade of the vaccine” to reduce dramatically child mortality in the world’s poorest countries. It is calculated that his pledge could save more than 8 million lives.
Announcing the commitment, which far outstrips even the enormous previous donations by his own foundation, Mr Gates called for increased investment by governments and the private sector to help to research, develop and deliver vaccines.
“We must make this the decade of vaccines,” Mr Gates said. “Vaccines already save and improve millions of lives in developing countries. Innovation will make it possible to save more children than ever before.”Mr Gates and his wife, Melinda, made their announcement at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting at Davos, Switzerland, where they were joined by Julian Lob-Levyt, the head of the vaccine consortium, the GAVI Alliance.
“Vaccines are a miracle. With just a few doses, they can prevent deadly diseases for a lifetime,” Mrs Gates said. “We’ve made vaccines our No 1 priority at the Gates Foundation because we’ve seen firsthand their incredible impact on children’s lives.”
Among the infections to be targeted with the money are rotavirus, which causes severe diarrhoea, and pneumococcal disease, which causes pneumonia, blood poisoning, and a form of meningitis.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has used a model developed by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, in Baltimore, to project the potential impact of vaccines on childhood deaths over the next decade.
By significantly scaling up the delivery of life-saving vaccines in developing countries to 90 per cent coverage — including the new vaccines to prevent severe diarrhoea and pneumonia — the model suggests that the deaths of 7.6 million children under the age of 5 could be prevented between now and 2019.
It also estimates that an additional 1.1 million children could be saved with the rapid introduction of a malaria vaccine beginning in 2014.
Mr Gates said that if additional vaccines such as for tuberculosis were developed and introduced in this decade even more lives could be saved.
The new funding is in addition to the $4.5 billion that the Gates Foundation has already committed to vaccine research, development and delivery over the past ten years.
A large portion of the money is expected to go to the GAVI Alliance — which was launched at the World Economic Forum ten years ago this week. To date GAVI, which focuses on public private partnerships, has reached 257 million additional children with new and underused vaccines and prevented 5 million deaths.
Mr Lob-Levyt, the organisation’s chief executive, said that, in the coming years, GAVI would focus on rapidly introducing vaccines to tackle diarrhoea and pneumonia.
Two studies published this week in the New England Journal of Medicine showed that vaccines against rotavirus, which can kill babies and young children within days by causing severe diarrhoea, could save 2 million children over the next decade.
The research suggested that vaccinating babies against rotavirus significantly cut deaths from diarrhoea — by 61 percent in Africa and by 35 percent in Mexico.
Rotavirus is the leading cause of severe diarrhoea, which kills more than 500,000 children under the age of 5 every year, nearly half of them in Africa. Rotavirus vaccines are now given as part of the standard immunisations in many developed countries, although it has yet to be introduced in Britain.
There are around 130,000 episodes of gastroenteritis caused by rotavirus each year in the UK. Around 12,700 children are hospitalised and four die each year.
Speakers at the press conference at Davos today underscored the need for major new funding from donors, governments and the private sector to rapidly scale immunisation programmes, conduct more laboratory research and clinical trials, and ensure a steady market for vaccines in developing countries and an adequate supply from manufacturers.
Commenting on Mr Gates’s announcement, Margaret Chan, the World Health Organisation’s director-general said: “The Gates Foundation’s commitment to vaccines is unprecedented, but just a small part of what is needed. It’s absolutely crucial that both governments and the private sector step up efforts to provide life-saving vaccines to children who need them most.”
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1 Tourist Killed, 2 Sick From Hotel Water
December 14, 2009
Fox News
By Associated Press
MIAMI — About 300 guests have been relocated from a luxury Miami hotel after one guest died and at least two others became sick from a bacteria in the water.
Health officials say the guests at the Epic Hotel in downtown Miami were sent to nearby hotels Sunday to prevent further contact with the Legionella bacteria. It can cause potentially deadly pneumonia. It spreads in contaminated mist or vapor, not from person to person.
An investigation last week by county and state officials revealed that the hotel had installed a water filter powerful enough to remove chlorine from its city-supplied water, a move that encouraged bacterial growth.
In an unrelated case, the bacteria killed a man in Gainesville last week. He had contracted the disease from the water supply at Shands Cancer Hospital.
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PPI Drugs for Acid Reflux Have Side Effects
December 7, 2009
Natural News
By E. Huff
A new commentary published in the November, 2009 issue of Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Survery warns doctors to be cautious when prescribing proton pump inhibitors (PPIs), drugs commonly recommended for reflux diseases such as gastroesophageal reflux (GERD) and laryngopharyngeal reflux (LPR). Research is revealing that acid is not the only contributor to reflux diseases and that PPIs are not always an effective treatment.
PPIs come with a slew of negative side effects that include inhibited calcium absorption that can lead to hip fractures, alteration of the gastric pH levels that can negatively affect vitamin B12 and iron assimilation, and increased propensity to develop certain types of diarrhea and pneumonia. For these reasons, researchers are urging doctors to carefully monitor patients prescribed these drugs.
In the past 20 years, there has been a four-fold increase in the number of people in Western countries seeking medical help for their reflux symptoms. As a result, there has been a corresponding increase in the volume of PPIs being administered despite the fact that they may often be causing more harm than good.
The study authors are encouraging doctors to weigh the pros and cons and carefully consider whether PPIs are necessary before prescribing them so freely. They implore doctors to consider venturing towards a more holistic approach in which dietary modifications and lifestyle changes are prescribed rather than drugs.
Mainstream medicine claims ignorance about the causes of acid reflux but it is increasingly clear that the over-processed, nutrient-deficient Western diet is to blame for the rapid increase in acid reflux problems among the population. For this reason, it is wise advice to consider a dietary reformation in response to acid reflux symptoms.
Regular intake of probiotic-forming foods like kefir, fermented fruits and vegetables, raw milk, yogurt, kombucha, and probiotic supplements will help tremendously in balancing the digestive system and eliminating the problems of over-acidity. Reducing carbohydrate intake while increasing intake of other foods like fruits and vegetables, nuts, and grass-fed meats may help to eliminate the symptoms of acid reflux as well.
Many people have had great success treating acid reflux symptoms with apple cider vinegar. Highly inexpensive and incredibly alkaline-forming, apple cider vinegar is an excellent addition to one’s daily health regimen. Keeping digestive enzyme supplements on hand for use as needed is another great option; they work great in a pinch and will not damage the body like PPIs do.
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Expert Warns of Pandemic Flu Mutation
November 25, 2009
Reuters
By Stefanie McIntyre
China must be alert to any mutation or changes in the behavior of the H1N1 swine flu virus because the far deadlier H5N1 bird flu virus is endemic in the country, a leading Chinese disease expert said.
Zhong Nanshan, director of the Guangzhou Institute of Respiratory Diseases in China’s southern Guangdong province, said the presence of both viruses in China meant they could mix and become a monstrous hybrid — a bug packed with strong killing power that can transmit efficiently among people.
“China, as you know, is different from other countries. Inside China, H5N1 has been existing for some time, so if there is really a reassortment between H1N1 and H5N1, it will be a disaster,” Zhong said in an interview with Reuters Television.
“This is something we need to monitor, the change, the mutation of the virus. This is why reporting of the death rate must be really transparent.”
The World Health Organization warned on Tuesday that H5N1 had erupted in poultry in Egypt, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam, posing once again a threat to humans.
“First, it places those in direct contact with birds — usually rural folk and farm workers — at risk of catching the often-fatal disease. Second, the virus could undergo a process of “reassortment” with another influenza virus and produce a completely new strain,” it said.
“The most obvious risk is of H5N1 combining with the pandemic … (H1N1) virus, producing a flu virus that is as deadly as the former and as contagious as the latter.”
Zhong told the Chinese media last week that China may have had more H1N1 flu deaths than it has reported, with some local governments possibly concealing suspect cases.
The doctor is known for his candor and work in fighting Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome in 2003, when nationwide panic and international alarm erupted after it emerged that officials hid or underplayed the spreading epidemic.
Cover-ups by local governments in 2003 during the SARS epidemic led to the sackings of several officials. More than 300 people died in that outbreak.
Study: Chest Ultrasound as Effective and Safer than CT Scan
November 20, 2009
Eureka Alert
Chest ultrasound can serve as a viable alternative to chest CT in the evaluation of pediatric patients with complicated pneumonia and parapneumonic effusion (a build-up of fluid between the lung and chest wall), according to a study published in the December issue of the American Journal of Roentgenology.
Pneumonia in the pediatric population is common. Both the diagnosis and therapy of complicated pneumonia is guided by imaging — CT, to date, playing a central role in complicated cases.
In the study, performed at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, N.Y., both chest CT and chest ultrasound were performed on 19 children with complicated pneumonia accompanied by parapneumonic effusion. “Our results showed that chest CT did not provide additional clinically useful information that was not also seen on chest ultrasound,” said Terry L. Levin, M.D., lead author of the study.
“No consensus exists on the optimal technique for imaging complicated pneumonia in children. Although chest CT allows rapid image acquisition, the rising use of CT in the pediatric population raises the concern of an increasing ionizing radiation burden,” said Levin. “The benefits of chest ultrasound over chest CT include its portability, absence of need for patient sedation, and that ultrasound does not use ionizing radiation,” she said.
“As a result of our study, we suggest that the evaluation of children with complicated pneumonia include chest radiography and chest ultrasound. Chest CT may be reserved for patients in whom chest ultrasound is technically difficult or discrepant with the clinical findings,” said Levin.
Mutated Form of the Virus Detected in 3 Norwegians
November 23, 2009
Washington Post
By Rob Stein
The level of swine flu activity in the United States appears to be declining, although officials are worried about another increase of cases during the Thanksgiving holiday when many people travel and families gather.
The number of states reporting widespread activity of the H1N1 virus dropped to 43 from 46 in the past week, and activity fell in all 10 regions of the country, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
But flu cases are still rising in some states, including Maine and Hawaii, and it is too soon to know whether activity will surge again, said Anne Schuchat, director of the CDC’s Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases.
“Influenza is unpredictable, and it is so early in the year to have this much disease. We don’t know if these declines will persist, what the slope will be, whether we’ll have a long decline or it will start to go up again,” she said Friday.
The news came as scientists in Norway announced that they had detected a mutated form of the swine flu virus in two patients who died of the flu and in a third who was severely ill. It is the most recent report of mutations in the virus that is being watched closely for any change that could make it more dangerous.
In a statement, the Norwegian Institute of Public Health said the mutation “could possibly make the virus more prone to infect deeper in the airways and thus cause more severe disease,” such as pneumonia.
The institute said that there was no indication that the mutation would hinder the ability of the vaccine to protect people from becoming infected or impair the effectiveness of antiviral drugs in treating people who became infected.
Scientists have been analyzing the H1N1 virus from “a number of patients as part of the surveillance of the pandemic flu virus” and have detected several mutations, the statement said. While the existence of mutations is normal, and most “will probably have little or no importance . . . one mutation has caught special interest.”
The two patients who had the mutation and died were the first swine flu fatalities in Norway. The third patient found to have the mutated form of the virus also became severely ill.
“Based on what we know so far, it seems that the mutated virus does not circulate in the population, but might be a result of spontaneous changes which have occurred in these three patients,” the statement said.
Schuchat said the mutation is no reason for alarm.
“I don’t think it has the public health implications that we would wonder about,” she said, noting that some patients have gotten severely ill, including developing pneumonia, after being infected with strains of the virus without the mutation.
The World Health Organization said viruses with a similar mutation had been detected in several other countries, including Brazil, China, Japan, Mexico, Ukraine and the United States. “No links between the small number of patients infected with the mutated virus have been found and the mutation does not appear to spread,” the WHO said in a statement.
“Influenza is a mutable virus, and changes are to be expected,” said Arnold S. Monto of the University of Michigan in an e-mail. “This is typical early in the spread of a pandemic virus.”
Scientists around the world have been tracking the virus carefully for any signs that it had mutated into a more dangerous form. While a variety of mutations have been detected, most have not appeared to have affected the virus in any significant way. There have been some mutations that make the virus more resistant to antiviral drugs, experts said. But like the mutation that may cause more severe illness, those too seem self-contained.
The CDC is investigating a cluster of four cases of patients at the Duke University Medical Center in Durham, N.C., who were found to be infected with H1N1 virus that was resistant to the antiviral drug Tamiflu.
William Schaffner, a medical professor at Vanderbilt University, said mutations that make episodes of swine flu more severe are most dangerous only if they are “easily transmissible.”
“That would make it a more severe disease. Apparently this has that capacity. But in order for it to become really quote dangerous to the population it also has to be easily transmissible,” he said. “That’s a different characteristic. And apparently that does not appear to have happened to this virus. It does not seem to be spreading in the general population.”
Detection of the mutation should be reassuring, Schaffner said, because it shows the intensity of the global effort to monitor the virus. “The virologists are keeping an eye on H1N1 and this is evidence of that,” he said.
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Scientists Warn of Mutated Swine Flu
November 20, 2009
The Washington Post
By Ron Stein
Scientists in Norway have identified a mutated form of the swine flu virus that is raising concern because it was found in two patients who died of the flu and a third who was severely ill with the disease, officials announced Friday.
In a statement, the Norwegian Institute of Public Health said the mutation “could possibly make the virus more prone to infect deeper in the airways and thus cause more severe disease,” such as pneumonia.
Scientists have analyzed about 70 viruses from confirmed Norwegian swine flu cases and found the mutation in only those three patients, Geir Stene-Larsen, the institute’s director general, said in the statement.
“Based on what we know so far, it seems that the mutated virus does not circulate in the population, but might be a result of spontaneous changes which have occurred in these three patients,” the statement said.
The institute has been analyzing H1N1 virus from “a number of patients as part of the surveillance of the pandemic flu virus,” and has detected several mutations, the statement said. While the existence of mutations is normal, and most “will probably have little or no importance . . . one mutation has caught special interest.”
The two patients who had the mutation and died were the first swine flu fatalities in Norway. The third patient found to have the mutated form of the virus also became severely ill.
The institute said there was no indication that the mutation would hinder the ability of the vaccine to protect people from becoming infected or impair the effectiveness of antiviral drugs in treating people who became infected.
Officials from the World Health Organization and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention could not immediately be reached for comment.
Several flu experts said that the mutation should not cause widespread alarm. “Influenza is a mutable virus, and changes are to be expected,” said Arnold S. Monto of the University of Michigan in an e-mail. “This is typical early in the spread of a pandemic virus.”
Scientists around the world have been tracking the virus carefully for any signs that it had mutated into a more dangerous form. While a variety of mutations have been detected, most have not appeared to have affected the virus in any way. There have been some mutations that make the virus more resistant to antiviral drugs, experts said, but — like the mutation that may cause more severe illness — those, too, seem self-contained.
“It is, at the moment, reassuring that this appears not to be spreading,” said William Schaffner, of Vanderbilt University. He said mutations that make episodes of swine flu more severe are most dangerous only if they are “easily transmissible.” “That’s a different characteristic,” Schaffner said. “And apparently that does not appear to have happened to this virus. It does not seem to be spreading in the general population.”
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