Medical News May 15th, 2008
Posted on May 15, 2008
Filed Under Uncategorized |
Study likely spells end for anti-bleeding drug
An anti-bleeding drug probably will stay off the market, experts say, after a rigorous study found patients getting the medication during heart surgery were much more likely to die than patients given other drugs.
Bayer AG, the maker of the drug Trasylol, said it is still deciding what to do and is awaiting details from the Canadian study. Bayer faces dozens of lawsuits claiming Trasylol led to excess deaths and that the company hid evidence of harm.
But experts in Canada and the United States say the study appears to seal the drug’s fate, given that several prior studies linked Trasylol to an elevated risk of death after surgery — and studies that didn’t find a higher risk had many weaknesses.
Physical Activity Linked to Lower Breast Cancer Risk
It has long been known that physical activity has a great impact on our health. Now, new research comes to support that by saying that exercising between the ages of 12 and 35 cuts women’s risk of developing breast cancer.
Researchers at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and Harvard University in Boston evaluated questionnaires from 64,777 premenopausal women involved in the Nurses Health Study II. The women detailed their physical activity starting from the age 12 to the present.
The study found that the women whose activity equaled 13 walking hours a week or 3.25 running hours per week had a 23 percent lower risk of premenopausal breast cancer compared with the less active women. Within six years of enrolling, 550 women were diagnosed with breast cancer before menopause.
“We don’t have a lot of prevention strategies for premenopausal breast cancer, but our findings clearly show that physical activity during adolescence and young adulthood can pay off in the long run by reducing a woman’s risk of early breast cancer,” said lead researcher Graham Colditz, professor and associate director of prevention and control at the Alvin J. Siteman Cancer Center at Washington University School of Medicine and Barnes-Jewish Hospital.
Dennis Quaid Defends Lawsuit Against Heparin Maker
Actor Dennis Quaid told Congress Wednesday that the near-fatal overdose of Heparin given to his newborn twins last November underscores the need to hold pharmaceutical companies accountable through lawsuits, a remedy that is becoming increasingly problematic for injured consumers.
At issue before the House Reform and Government Oversight Committee is a move by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to step in and defend the pharmaceutical companies against such lawsuits.
Click here for more on the Congressional hearings.
Quaid’s twins were hospitalized at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles last year for treatment for a staph infection. While under the hospital’s care, they were given an overdose of the blood thinner Heparin.
9-year-old girl’s twin is found inside her stomach
A 9-year-old girl who went to hospital in central Greece suffering from stomach pains was found to be carrying her embryonic twin, doctors said Thursday.
Doctors at Larissa General Hospital examined the girl and surgically removed a growth they later discovered was an embryo more than two inches long.
“They could see on the right side that her belly was swollen, but they couldn’t suspect that this tumor would hide an embryo,” hospital director Iakovos Brouskelis said.
The Republican Health-Care Surrender
Hillary Clinton’s presidential aspirations may have died in North Carolina last week, but her most famous bad idea is alive and well in Washington, D.C. With likely increases in Democrat ranks in the House and Senate, and a Democrat (possibly) in the White House, plan on a big fight in 2009 over who – you or the federal government – will control your family’s health-care decisions.
We won this fight last time around. One of the GOP’s shining moments was our principled opposition to HillaryCare in 1994. The first lady’s overreach helped lay the groundwork for the Republican takeover of Congress that November.
Generics Sharply Curbed ‘07 Drug Spending Growth: Medco
Spending on prescription medicines increased by only 2% last year for clients of the nation’s largest stand-alone pharmacy benefits manager as patients used more generic drugs, according to a report from Medco Health Solutions Inc. (MHS) .
Diabetes treatments replaced cholesterol-lowering drugs as the primary contributor to higher spending on prescription medicines, according to Medco, which also predicted that expenditures on cancer drugs will surge in the next three years.
Diabetes drug accounted for nearly 21% of the increase in drug spending among Medco clients last year, according to the company’s drug-trend report.
Study Supports Popular HIV Drug Regimen
The largest study of its kind supports the use of a popular three-drug regimen for HIV patients and suggests a cocktail of two classes of drugs is a good alternative.
But an older regimen works almost as well, said study lead author Dr. Sharon Riddler, assistant professor of medicine at the University of Pittsburgh.
“It’s not like 10 years ago, where there were huge differences between regimens,” Riddler said. “We’re looking at relatively small differences, trying to fine-tune what actually works pretty well.”
The revolution in AIDS/HIV treatment came more than a decade ago, when combinations of drugs known as “cocktails” entered the market. Patients infected with HIV or who had progressed to AIDS typically had to take numerous pills each day.
West Nile virus lookout begins
The Ann Arbor News
Washtenaw County Public Health Department officials say they have begun surveillance activities for the seasonal West Nile virus, a mosquito-borne virus that can cause mild-to-severe illness in humans and other animals.
County residents are urged to take precautions to prevent mosquito bites and to call the Washtenaw County West Nile Virus Hotline at 734-544-6750 to report dead birds or to receive general West Nile virus information.
Comments
One Response to “Medical News May 15th, 2008”
Leave a Reply
[…] drug probably will stay off the market, experts say, after a rigorous study found patientshttp://doctor-clinic.net/medical-news-may-15th-2008/Living with Lyme Northern ExpressPublic health officials in Lansing have heard next to nothing of […]