Experts warn of bird flu risk during haj pilgrimage
Millions of pilgrims who gather in Mecca for the annual haj pilgrimage risk creating the conditions in which a pandemic strain of flu could emerge, health experts said on Monday.
“It’s the worst case scenario we can have,” said Didier Pittet, director of the Infection Control Programme at Geneva’s University Hospitals.
When Mum’s stressed at work kids feel it too
Researchers say that children whose mothers do not enjoy their jobs also suffer increased stress.
A research team from the universities of Bath, Kent and Bristol, say they found higher levels of the stress hormone cortisol in those children whose mothers found their jobs less rewarding or left them feeling emotionally exhausted, compared to women who reported more enjoyment from their work.
Who gets bird flu vaccine first when there’s not enough to go round?
According to the top health official in the U.S., it will be three to five years before the United States can produce enough bird flu vaccine to inoculate its population against a potentially deadly outbreak in humans.
Michael Leavitt, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, says that until production capacity is sufficient for the entire population, supplies would have to be rationed in the event of an outbreak.
Viagra improves urinary symptoms in men
Treatment with Viagra (sildenafil) can improve urinary tract symptoms in men with erectile dysfunction and benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH), a common disease in older men that involves urinary symptoms due to enlargement of the prostate gland, according to study findings presented here Monday at a meeting of the Sexual Medicine Society of North America.
“The improvement in urination with Viagra is dramatic,” lead author Dr. Kevin V. McVary, from Northwestern University in Chicago, told Reuters Health. “The improvement is on par with what we’ve come to expect from some of the medications commonly used to treat BPH symptoms. In fact, better than some of the other medications.”
Tamoxifen reduces the risk of invasive and noninvasive breast cancer
Data from additional years of follow-up of a large randomized placebo-controlled clinical trial of tamoxifen for the prevention of breast cancer confirm that the drug reduces the risk of invasive and noninvasive breast cancer, according to a report that appears in the current issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
The National Surgical Adjuvant Breast and Bowel Project (NSABP) Breast Cancer Prevention Trial (P-1) began in 1992. More than 13,000 women aged 35 years and older who were at high risk for breast cancer were randomly assigned to receive either a placebo or tamoxifen for 5 years. In 1998, the study’s independent data monitoring committee recommended that the study be unblinded.
Record new HIV cases in 2005
Almost 5 million people were infected by HIV globally in 2005—the highest jump since the first reported case in 1981—taking the number living with the virus to a record 40.3 million, the United Nations announced on Monday.
The 4.9 million new infections were fueled by the epidemic’s continuing rampage in sub-Saharan Africa and a spike in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, Central Asia and East Asia, the UNAIDS body said in its annual report.
Evidence Supports First Non-Injectable Insulin as Alternative Treatment for Diabetes
There is clear evidence from clinical trials that a new inhaled formulation of insulin, Exubera®, is as effective as traditional subcutaneous injections in controlling blood glucose in patients with type 1 or type 2 diabetes. The new formulation, which is likely to be the first non-injectable insulin on the market, was preferred by a majority of patients due to ease of use.
Clinical trials with Exubera are reviewed in the journal Core Evidence, the first international peer-reviewed publication to assess medications by critically evaluating evidence on clinical effectiveness and outcomes.
Spanking children fuels aggression, anxiety
Children who are spanked when they misbehave are more likely to be anxious and aggressive than children who are disciplined in nonphysical ways, research shows. This is true even if spanking is the “cultural norm.”
Whether parents should spank their children or use other forms of physical discipline is controversial. Some experts argue that children should not be spanked when they act out citing evidence that it leads to more, rather than fewer, behavior problems and it could escalate into physical abuse. There are data to support this argument.
