Television really does act like a painkiller for kids
TV really does act like a painkiller when it comes to kids, reveals a small study published ahead of print in the Archives of Disease in Childhood.
The research team assessed 69 children between the ages of 7 and 12, who were randomly divided into three groups to have a blood sample taken.
One group was given no distraction while the sample was being taken. In the second group mothers attempted to actively distract their children by talking to them, soothing, and/or caressing them.
Internal body clock dictates timing of different types of stroke
The internal body clock, or circadian rhythm, seems to influence the timing of different types of stroke, suggests research published ahead of print in the Journal of Neurology Neurosurgery and Psychiatry.
The research team analysed data from almost 13,000 patients who had had one of three types of stroke for the first time, diagnosed by brain scan.
These patients’ data had been collected on a stroke register, showing that cerebral infarction, where blood flow to brain arteries is restricted, was the most common type of stroke. The rate was 89 per 100,000 of the population.
UK hospitals not prepared for terrorism
UK hospitals are poorly prepared to cope with a “major incident,” such as an act of terrorism, say doctors in Emergency Medicine Journal.
Prompted by the events of July 7 2005, in which 52 people lost their lives following acts of terrorism on public transport in London, the authors set out to discover if emergency care departments across the country were any better prepared than in 1996, when they were last surveyed and found severely wanting.
For the current survey the authors telephoned 179 senior doctors working in anaesthesia, emergency care, general surgery, trauma, and orthopaedics in 34 UK hospitals, to ascertain their readiness to respond to a major incident.
Lower Birth Rate and Fewer Girls Under China’s One Child Policy
Family size, fertility preferences, and sex ratio in China in the era of the one child family policy: results from national family planning and reproductive health survey BMJ Volume 333, pp 371-3
Since the start of the one child family policy in China, the total birth rate and preferred family size have decreased, and a gross imbalance in the sex ratio has emerged, finds a study in this week’s BMJ.
The one child family policy has been in force in China since 1979 and was intended as a short term measure. To examine the impact of this policy, researchers analysed data from the 2001 national family planning and reproductive health survey.
China Follows the West to Becoming Obese
People in China are becoming overweight and obese at an alarmingly fast rate, according to an editorial in this week’s BMJ.
Numbers of people in China who are now classified as overweight and obese have risen sharply in a relatively short time, says Professor Yangfeng Wu from the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences in Beijing.
They account for one fifth of the world’s population in this condition, despite China once being seen as country with a lean population.
H5 and N1 avian influenza found in two samples from wild mute swans in Michigan
The U.S. Departments of Agriculture and Interior has announced that routine surveillance has indicated the presence of H5 and N1 avian influenza subtypes in samples from two wild mute swans in Michigan.
Testing has ruled out the possibility of this being the highly pathogenic H5N1 strain that has spread through birds in Asia, Europe and Africa. Test results thus far indicate this is low pathogenicity avian influenza, which poses no threat to human health.
The swans were sampled as part of the expanded avian influenza surveillance program. They were showing no signs of sickness, which suggests that this is low pathogenicity avian influenza. Additionally, genetic analysis of the virus conducted at USDA’s National Veterinary Services laboratories (NVSL) in Ames, Iowa, suggests that it is similar to a low pathogenicity strain that has been found in North America.
Bristol-Myers sending AIDS doctors to Africa
U.S. drug giant Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. is sending 250 pediatric doctors over the next five years to sub-Saharan Africa to fight HIV/AIDS, part of a growing push to target infants and children in the battle against the epidemic.
The initiative is a joint venture with the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, and was announced Wednesday at the 16th International AIDS Conference in Toronto.
The United Nations AIDS agency UNAIDS estimates that 2.3 million children under 15 years of age were living with HIV in 2005, nearly 90 percent of whom live in sub-Saharan Africa.
Canada HIV/AIDS care falls short, advocates says
Canada’s government-funded public health system falls short on timely and equal access to medicines for HIV/AIDS patients, a health advocacy group said on Wednesday.
An unwieldy drug review process and a patchwork of federal, provincial and territorial drug reimbursement plans, each with different coverage standards, mean that patients often must relocate to get the drugs they need, the group said.
“It is a total myth that people have access, and equal access, across the country to medications,” Louise Binder, chair of the Canadian Treatment Action Council told reporters. “You literally have to move from one province to another to stay alive.”
Merck loses Vioxx case, told to pay $51 million
A federal jury on Thursday found that Merck & Co. Inc. was negligent and knowingly made misrepresentations about its withdrawn pain medicine Vioxx, and awarded $51 million to the plaintiff.
The New Orleans jury, in the second federal trial involving a Vioxx product-liability lawsuit, found that Merck had knowingly misrepresented or failed to disclose a material fact to the plaintiff’s physicians and that doctors in the case and the plaintiff himself were not at fault.
The plaintiff, Gerald Barnett, a 62-year-old retired FBI agent who had a heart attack in 2002 after taking Vioxx for 31 months, was awarded $50 million in compensatory damages and $1 million in punitive damages.
Food a basic need in HIV fight
Drugs are no good without food in the fight against HIV/AIDS in Africa, Asia and Latin America, and the essential role of proper nutrition has been forgotten, the United Nations World Food Program said on Wednesday.
Organizers of the 16th International AIDS Conference marked a small victory with the announcement that more than 1.6 million people globally now receive lifesaving HIV drugs.
But without proper food, victims of the disease have little will to live, the World Food Program said.
Electrically charged acyclovir speeds herpes healing
A device that uses “iontophoresis” to enhance tissue penetration of topically applied acyclovir speeds the healing of cold sores, a study shows.
Iontophoresis refers to the use of a small electric current to move ionized substances through the skin into tissues.
“The results of this study are very exciting because of the timing of treatment,” Dr. Dennis I. Goldberg from Transport Pharmaceuticals, Framingham, Massachusetts told Reuters Health.
Low testosterone may up death risk in male vets
In a study of male veterans, low blood levels of the male hormone testosterone appeared to increase the risk of death in the next few years by 88 percent.
In an earlier study, Dr. Molly M. Shores from the University of Washington in Seattle and colleagues had shown an increase in 6-month mortality among men with low testosterone levels. The goal of the present study was to examine this association in a larger group of men with up to 8 years of follow-up.
The study involved 858 male veterans who were at least 40 years of age, prostate cancer-free, and had repeated testosterone levels taken between October 1, 1994 and December 31, 1999.
Rapid tests mean more learn HIV status: study
Rapid HIV tests lead to more people getting tested and receiving their results, according to a study by the US Department of Veterans Affairs presented at the 16th International AIDS Conference.
Both traditional testing and newer rapid tests were likely to result in higher screening rates for HIV, according to the study. But patients who received rapid testing were much more likely to learn their results.
HIV testing is cost-effective, but testing rates for at-risk populations in the U.S. are low. “Even people who are in care and are seeing their doctor on a regular basis, and are identified as being at risk for HIV infection, are not being tested at nearly the rate that they should be,” said Dr. Henry Anaya, who presented the study.
Diabetic kids often have heart disease risk factors
Children and adolescents with diabetes commonly have additional risk factors for cardiovascular disease (CVD), according to a new report.
“This research emphasizes the importance of prevention, recognition, treatment and control of these risk factors,” Dr. Beatriz L. Rodriguez from the University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, told Reuters Health. “The prevalence of CVD risk factors was higher among ethnic minorities.”
Rodriguez and colleagues investigated the prevalence of CVD risk factors in a multiracial population-based sample of over 2,000 children and adolescents with diabetes. CVD risk factors specifically assessed were related to the metabolic syndrome cluster—high cholesterol, triglycerides, blood pressure and increased waist circumference.
