Glaxo says more govts will buy bird flu vaccine
GlaxoSmithKline Plc expects to sign more contracts to supply governments with its experimental bird flu vaccine for humans, following purchases by Switzerland and an unidentified Asian country.
“Between now and Christmas, I expect we will sign a few more in Europe and elsewhere,” Chief Executive Jean-Pierre Garnier told analysts in a post-results conference call.
Europe’s biggest drugmaker announced earlier this month that the Swiss Federal Office of Public Health had ordered 8 million doses of its H5N1 vaccine to protect its entire population in the event of an influenza pandemic, which many experts fear may be triggered by bird flu.
Combo of exercise and nicotine therapy ensures smokers quit
Researchers in Austria have found a way for people to quit smoking.
They say using a combination of either nicotine gum or transdermal patches and exercise makes it more likely that smokers will quit.
The combo they say offers a better chance of smokers kicking the habit and even those who failed to quit completely managed to cut down on the number of cigarettes they smoked.
Occupational therapy benefits stroke patients
Occupational therapy helps stroke patients recover their ability to care for themselves and also keeps them independent longer, according to a new scientific review of the best available data.
“The most important finding is that occupational therapy works,” Dr. Lynn Legg of the Glasgow Royal Infirmary in Scotland, the study’s lead author, said in a press release accompanying the study. “Very few interventions have had such an impact.”
Legg’s group points out that more information is needed the answer questions such as which occupational therapy approaches are the most effective, how long therapy should be offered, and how often patients should have it.
HK scientists identify cancer-blocking protein
Scientists in Hong Kong have identified a protein that can help suppress the growth of prostate cancer cells, the third most common cancer in men worldwide.
With half a million new cases a year, prostate cancer afflicts 1 in every 6 men in the United States and 1 in 50 males in Hong Kong.
But current therapies for advanced prostate cancer are far from satisfactory and have side effects.
Dozens die of alcohol poisoning in Russia
A Russian region has imposed a state of emergency after more than 400 people were taken to hospital and 15 died as a result of drinking tainted alcohol, Russian television reported on Thursday.
The state of emergency was declared in the Pskov region, about 700 km (435 miles) west of Moscow, but other regions across the country also reported mass outbreaks of alcohol poisoning with dozens of deaths.
Public health officials who seized alcohol on sale in the Pskov region found it contained substances usually used in medicines, Channel One television said.
Twins prone to early menopause
The prevalence of early menopause, also known as premature ovarian failure, among identical and fraternal twins is triple that of women in the general population, according to analysis of twin registries in Australia and the UK.
After hearing anecdotal reports about twin pairs having a higher than average rate of premature ovarian failure, Dr. Roger G. Gosden and his associates obtained data for 428 female twin-pairs in the Australian Twin Registry and 404 pairs in the UK Twin Registry.
Roughly half of the twin pairs were identical twins, who share the same DNA, and the other half were fraternal twins, who are as close genetically as other sisters.
Flu vaccine safe for babes and tots
A new study from the U.S. says it is safe for children as young as 6 months to have the flu vaccine.
Researchers at the Kaiser Permanente Clinical Research Unit in Denver Colorado examined data on 45,000 babies and toddlers aged 6 to 23 months throughout the USA, who received almost 70,000 vaccinations between January 1991 and May 2003, and say they found very few cases of side effects that led to medical treatments.
Study leader Dr. Simon J. Hambidge, says as a parent as well as a pediatrician, he was reassured by how few diagnoses there were that were linked to flu shots.
