Researchers say obesity is associated with lower prostate specific antigen (PSA) levels in men, making the screening test likely to produce unreliable results in this population. The full study is published in the March 1, 2005 issue of CANCER (http://www.interscience.wiley.com/cancer-newsroom), a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society.
Full Article: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-01/labr-lbm013105.php
The federal government is making its emergency stockpile of 3 million flu vaccines available to doctors nationwide in a new effort announced Thursday to immunize more people.
Article: http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2005-01-28-flu-usat_x.htm
BANGKOK, Jan 21 (TNA) - Monitoring measures on bird flu in Thailand are still being strictly imposed to prevent its re-emerging for the third time, Public Health Minister Sudarat Keyuraphan has affirmed.
"New cases of bird flu patients have not been found in Thailand since October," said Mrs. Sudarat.
The monitoring measures have been increased to the highest level of awareness, especially the preventative measures on human-to-human transfer.
Read more...MCOT
Wed Jan 19, 2005 9:27 PM ET
HANOI (Reuters) - An 18-year-old girl has died of bird flu in southern Vietnam and the first confirmed human infection in the country's north has raised concerns about possible human-to-human transmission of the virus.
The girl died in a Ho Chi Minh City hospital on Wednesday after battling the highly virulent H5N1 strain for nearly two weeks since she was hospitalized on Jan. 6 from the southern province of Tien Giang, the Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper said.
Read more...Reuters Health
Wed Jan 19, 2005 7:54 PM ET
By Patricia Reaney
LONDON (Reuters) - Scientists have discovered a new cancer-causing gene that they believe could be a molecular master switch for the disease.
Dubbed the Pokemon gene, it is one of several so-called oncogenes that lead normal cells to become cancerous. But it could be one of the most important.
"Pokemon is a main switch in the molecular network that leads toward cancer," said Dr Pier Paolo Pandolfi, of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) in New York who headed the team that identified the gene.
Read more...Reuters Health
Wed Jan 19, 2005 11:18 PM ET
By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - More Americans than ever before are surviving cancer and rates in general are falling, mostly because fewer people are smoking, the American Cancer Society reported on Wednesday.
The group predicts that 1.372 million Americans will be diagnosed with cancer in 2005 and 570,280 will die of it. This does not include a million cases of two not very threatening forms of skin cancer called basal and squamous cell carcinoma.
Read more...Reuters Health
Deaths from both fall, but heart disease at faster rate
Wednesday, January 19, 2005 Posted: 3:51 PM EST (2051 GMT)
(AP) -- For the first time, cancer has surpassed heart disease as the top killer of Americans under 85, health officials said Wednesday. The good news is that deaths from both are falling, but improvement has been more dramatic for heart disease.
"It's dropping fast enough that another disease is eclipsing it," said Dr. Walter Tsu, president of the American Public Health Association.
Read more...CNN Health
Deaths from both fall, but heart disease at faster rate
Wednesday, January 19, 2005 Posted: 3:51 PM EST (2051 GMT)
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(AP) -- For the first time, cancer has surpassed heart disease as the top killer of Americans under 85, health officials said Wednesday. The good news is that deaths from both are falling, but improvement has been more dramatic for heart disease.
"It's dropping fast enough that another disease is eclipsing it," said Dr. Walter Tsu, president of the American Public Health Association.
Read more...CNN Health
Gene transfer technique immunizes mice within 12 hours
Using gene transfer technology, investigators were able to immunize mice against anthrax in just 12 hours, according to new research featured in the February 2005 issue of Molecular Therapy, the peer-reviewed scientific journal of the American Society of Gene Therapy (ASGT).
In any bioterror attack, vaccines that provide a rapid, effective defense against the pathogen will be key to saving lives. Research underway at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City may provide health officials with a much quicker option than vaccines currently available, which can take weeks or months to gain full effect.
"This research is important, because in the event of an attack, it may not be known whether another attack is coming -- or who might be affected. In that case, you want immunity to be built up in key populations as quickly as possible," said Dr. Ronald G. Crystal, Chairman of the Department of Genetic Medicine, Weill Cornell Medical College and Chief of the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center.
Vaccines tend to fall into one of two groups -- active vaccines, where the body is prompted over time to build up antibodies against specific threats; and passive vaccines, where fully-formed antibodies are delivered to the body in vaccine form.
"Because the body continues to produce antibodies, active vaccines last much longer than the passive kind, whose effectiveness tends to diminish over time," Dr. Crystal explained.
Read more...Eurekalert
NEW YORK-- The best method for preventing HIV patients from developing drug resistance is a careful, dedicated adherence to their prescribed drug regimen, according to a long-term, large-scale study presented today in New York City at the American Medical Association Media Briefing, HIV/AIDS, The Drug Resistance Epidemic. Other key predictors of resistance include measures of how much virus was present in a person's bloodstream at the start of therapy and how much their immune status was compromised.
"We have a lot of studies showing that triple therapy works, as well as a lot of good information on the problem of resistance developing in triple antiretroviral therapy," said Richard Harrigan, Ph.D., director of the British Columbia Centre for Excellence in HIV Research Labs at St. Paul's Hospital in Vancouver and lead author of the paper. "The problem with past studies is that they were limited to people in clinical trials and as people drop out they are lost to the study. In this study, we followed people beginning initial triple therapy for 30 months and were able to really get a sense of how the therapy works outside of clinical trials."
Read more...Eurekalert
Increase fueled by Nigeria outbreak after vaccine boycott
GENEVA, Switzerland (AP) -- The number of worldwide polio cases last year rose by almost one-third after a vaccine boycott in Nigeria spawned a resurgence of the disease across Africa, the World Health Organization said Wednesday.
The number of cases worldwide in 2004 reached 1,185, compared with 784 in 2003, the United Nations health agency said.
Most of the cases were in Africa -- largely in Nigeria, the continent's most populous nation. Hardline Islamic clerics in Nigeria's northern Kano state led the immunization boycott, claiming the polio vaccine was part of a U.S.-led plot to render Nigeria's Muslims infertile or infect them with AIDS.
The boycott triggered an outbreak across the continent, infecting children in formerly polio-free countries and hurting WHO-led attempts to eradicate the crippling disease by December 31, 2005.
"It's slowed the efforts for sure," said Sona Bari, a spokeswoman for WHO's Polio Eradication Initiative. "It's going to take months to deal with the effects."
Amid the vaccine boycott, the Nigerian-rooted virus spread to neighbor countries including Benin, Chad and Cameroon. It also was exported farther afield, to Botswana, Burkina Faso, Central African Republic, Ghana, Guinea, Mali, Togo and even Saudi Arabia.
Vaccination programs restarted in Nigeria in July after local officials ended their 11-month boycott. WHO also boosted immunization across Africa.
Nigeria, which had 763 cases last year versus 355 the year before, is one of the six countries where polio is still considered endemic. India had 129 cases, Pakistan 46, Niger 25, Afghanistan four and Egypt one.
Read more...CNN Health
Increase fueled by Nigeria outbreak after vaccine boycott
GENEVA, Switzerland (AP) -- The number of worldwide polio cases last year rose by almost one-third after a vaccine boycott in Nigeria spawned a resurgence of the disease across Africa, the World Health Organization said Wednesday.
The number of cases worldwide in 2004 reached 1,185, compared with 784 in 2003, the United Nations health agency said.
Most of the cases were in Africa -- largely in Nigeria, the continent's most populous nation. Hardline Islamic clerics in Nigeria's northern Kano state led the immunization boycott, claiming the polio vaccine was part of a U.S.-led plot to render Nigeria's Muslims infertile or infect them with AIDS.
The boycott triggered an outbreak across the continent, infecting children in formerly polio-free countries and hurting WHO-led attempts to eradicate the crippling disease by December 31, 2005.
"It's slowed the efforts for sure," said Sona Bari, a spokeswoman for WHO's Polio Eradication Initiative. "It's going to take months to deal with the effects."
Amid the vaccine boycott, the Nigerian-rooted virus spread to neighbor countries including Benin, Chad and Cameroon. It also was exported farther afield, to Botswana, Burkina Faso, Central African Republic, Ghana, Guinea, Mali, Togo and even Saudi Arabia.
Vaccination programs restarted in Nigeria in July after local officials ended their 11-month boycott. WHO also boosted immunization across Africa.
Nigeria, which had 763 cases last year versus 355 the year before, is one of the six countries where polio is still considered endemic. India had 129 cases, Pakistan 46, Niger 25, Afghanistan four and Egypt one.
Read more...CNN Health
OTTAWA, Canada (AP) -- The Canadian government has confirmed a new case of so-called mad cow disease.
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency said Tuesday the brain wasting disease showed up in an Alberta cow under seven years old. Officials say no part of the animal has entered the human or animal feed system.
This is the second case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) found in Canada this year. Canadian Food Inspection Agency officials were to hold a news conference Tuesday afternoon to discuss the new case.
Read more...CNN News
Posted on : 2005-01-08| Author : James Q.
News Category : Health
World Health Organization (WHO) has warned that an outbreak of bird flu that is showing signs in Vietnam would create a difficult burden on top of the recent Asian earthquake and tsunami.
In this situation now, when we already have such a problem here in Asia with this earthquake and the aftermath of this earthquake, it will of course put a lot of strains on both individual countries like Vietnam as well as the international community, said WHO health experts.
Read more....EARTHtimes.org
Posted on : 2005-01-12| Author : Martin Booth
News Category : Health
Two new studies related to cancer research recently concluded and had their reports published in the Journal of American Research Association (JAMA). Both serve as eye-openers to people who have held myths about cancer and how it is formed.
One study concluded that having a regular diet that largely consisted of red meat greatly increased the chances of developing colorectal cancers by a considerable degree. This research was conducted by the American Cancer Society of Atlanta.
Read more...EARTHtimes.org
www.chinaview.cn 2005-01-08 16:02:34
KUNMING, Jan. 8 (Xinhuanet) -- Southwest China's Yunnan Province, which borders Vietnam, has taken a series of emergency measures to prevent bird flu in Vietnam from spreading into China, sources with the local government said Saturday.
All major transportation lines, poultry farms, regions on the Sino-Vietnam border and places which were hit by bird flu outbreak early last year have been urged to inject vaccine on poultry, the sources said.
Read more...China View
AFX News
01/07/05 7:50 AM PT
African-Americans had four copies of the CCL3L1 gene, compared with two and three in European-Americans and Hispanic-Americans. Each additional copy lowered the risk of acquiring HIV by between 4.5 and 10.5 percent.
Read more....TechNewsWorld
DermaVir, a novel treatment for HIV/AIDS, offers a new option which complements and improves present drug therapies. The vaccine, applied topically to the skin, has demonstrated efficacy in boosting immune responses and controlling virus replication in chronically infected monkeys. This treatment possibly offers a new, non-invasive option for HIV-infected patients.
"The immune system demonstrated an unexpected capacity for recovery after DermaVir vaccinations in these monkeys, some of which had already progressed to AIDS before starting treatment," states lead researcher, Julianna Lisziewicz, Ph.D. Though the immune control is not permanent, data shows that antiviral activity of immune responses induced by DermaVir are significantly longer than that of existing antiviral drugs. It is suggested that DermaVir would only need to be re-administered periodically, about 8 times a year, rather than daily.
Read more...Eurekalert.com
By Kurt Achin
Hong Kong
07-January-2005 1101
Health authorities are investigating new human cases of bird flu in Vietnam. They say the cases appear to be isolated, but they are watching closely for possible signs of a wider outbreak.
World Health Organization officials say a team of experts is in southern Vietnam, trying to determine how an 18-year-old girl may have contracted avian influenza, also known as "bird flu."
If confirmed, hers would be Vietnam's fourth case of bird flu in humans in recent weeks. This week, Vietnamese officials reported two new deaths from the disease: a six-year-old boy who died December 30, and a nine-year-old boy who died Tuesday. A 16-year-old girl is in the hospital in serious condition with the disease.
Read more...Voice of America
By Randy Dotinga
02:00 AM Jan. 07, 2005 PT
Throughout the history of the AIDS epidemic, a few lucky people have avoided infection despite being exposed again and again. Now, researchers are traveling back in evolutionary time to understand why some people are resistant -- and in some cases virtually immune -- to the AIDS virus.
Studies released this week and last year suggest that the roots of AIDS immunity extend back for centuries, long before the disease even existed. Our ethnic backgrounds and the illnesses suffered by our distant ancestors appear to play a crucial role in determining whether our genes will allow HIV to take hold in our bodies.
Read more...Wired News
Financial Gazette (Harare)
NEWS
January 6, 2005
Posted to the web January 6, 2005
By Charles Rukuni
Bulawayo
A drug that is being vigorously promoted in Zimbabwe as the answer to solving the mother-to-child transmission of HIV may have serious side-effects, especially if used as a single dose.
Reports now surfacing show that the drug, nevirapine, may cause long-term resistance to AIDS drugs if used as a lone dose, thus foreclosing other treatment options.
Associated Press says while the United States' National Institute of Health (NIH) knew about the problems way back in 2002, it did not tell the White House before President George W Bush launched a plan to spread nevirapine throughout Africa.
The NIH's AIDS division chief, Dr Edmund Tramont, even doctored a report by one of his subordinates, Dr Betsy Smith, that showed some of the negative safety concerns that had been discovered in Uganda during clinical trials there.
Tramont's report, submitted shortly before Bush's visit to Africa from July 7-12 2003, concluded that nevirapine was safe even when used as a single dose. Bush visited Botswana, South Africa, Uganda, Nigeria and Senegal.
Read more...AllAfrica.com
German researchers have developed a new treatment for HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. It is not a cure, but stops the virus from multiplying and is effective against strains that have become resistant to treatment.
The new treatment, developed by scientists at the Heinrich Pette Institute at the University of Hamburg and the Friedrich Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg, takes a slightly different approach to traditional HIV therapies. While conventional anti-retroviral treatments attempt to block the virus' own proteins to keep it from replicating, this time researchers have focused on a human protein which the virus needs to make copies of itself.
Read more....DW-WORLD.DE
Canada confirms 2nd mad cow case
TORONTO, Canada (AP) -- An older dairy cow from Alberta has tested positive bovine spongiform encephalopathy, otherwise known as mad cow disease, according to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.
The results confirmed preliminary tests released earlier this week.
The border was closed 19 months ago when a cow in northern Alberta was discovered with mad cow disease.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced last Wednesday that the border could be opened in March.
Despite learning of the new suspected case, the Bush administration said Thursday it would stand by its decision to renew Canadian cattle imports beginning in March.
Canadian officials said the United States was aware of the suspected case before they made their announcement Wednesday.
From CNN Health
02 Jan 2005
WHO has received informal reports of a laboratory-confirmed case of H5N1 infection in Viet Nam.
The patient, who has been hospitalized since 26 December, is a 16-year-old girl who fell ill in the southern province of Tay Ninh.
Vietnamese authorities are investigating the source of her infection, including the possibility of contact with infected poultry.
Read more...Medical News Today
