Health & Medicine thread...

[waltky]

...`cause Granny says dey ain't no Health & Medicine forum.

AIDS complicates TB treatment...

Tough TB Responds to Drug Treatment
October 22, 2012 - An antibiotic used to treat severe infections shows promise against a very resistant and deadly form of tuberculosis. XDR-TB is resistant to at least four of the drugs used most often against the disease.

Extensively drug resistant tuberculosis – or XDR-TB – is still considered rare, although cases have been reported in nearly 80 countries. Health officials believe the number of XDR-TB cases is underreported because there’s no specific test for it. It can be cured, but the odds against that happening are often quite high. It can kill quickly, especially if a person is co-infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

Dr. Ray Chen, a staff clinician at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, says XDR-TB is the next step after MDR-TB, or multi-drug resistant tuberculosis, which is a lot more common. “That’s been a known problem for many years, primarily as a result of people who don’t take their drugs well. And then the tuberculosis bug slowly develops resistance to the drugs that are used,” he said.

MDR-TB is resistant to two of the top line drugs used for standard tuberculosis therapy. When the disease becomes resistant to two additional first-line drugs, it’s upgraded to XDR-TB. “It came to world attention in 2006 in a study in South Africa where a number of patients were found to have this extensive resistance to tuberculosis drugs, and they had a very high mortality rate. And so it became recognized as a major problem for tuberculosis,” he said.

More http://www.voanews.com/content/xdrtb...2/1530836.html

[waltky]

Granny says dis place gots a Religion & Philosophy forum - but no Health an' Medicine forum...

Panel: Pregnant women, get whooping cough shot
24 Oct.`12 — An expert panel is urging every expecting mother to get a shot preventing whooping cough, preferably in the last three months of her pregnancy to help protect her baby.

The advice follows a frightening resurgence of the dreaded childhood disease. More than 32,000 cases, including 16 deaths, have been reported so far this year, and 2012 is on track to be the nation's worst year for whooping cough since 1959. It's only the second time a vaccine has been advised for all women during pregnancy. Flu shots were first recommended for them in the 1990s.


The new advice was approved in a vote Wednesday by the government's vaccine advisory panel. Federal health officials usually adopt the group's guidance and promote it to doctors and the public. Whooping cough, or pertussis, is a highly contagious disease. Its name comes from the sound children make as they gasp for breath.


Despite long-standing childhood immunizations, cases have been climbing in the past decade. Most are infants two months and younger — too young to be vaccinated because their immune systems are too immature. Health officials increasingly have pushed to get older children and adults vaccinated, to reduce the number of carriers who might infect vulnerable infants. An estimated 30 to 40 percent of infected newborns got the disease from their mothers.


In recent years, a combination vaccine — that included protection against pertussis— was offered to women immediately after they gave birth. Then after a whooping cough epidemic in California, the panel last year recommended a one-time dose of a combination vaccine for expectant mothers, either before or during pregnancy.


More http://news.yahoo.com/panel-pregnant...152229676.html

[waltky]

Such ignorance from so-called 'educated' people...

Boy kicked out of school because he has gene for cystic fibrosis
A California boy has been ordered to transfer to another middle school because he carries the gene for cystic fibrosis, even though he doesn't actually have the incurable, life-threatening and non-infectious disease. His parents have gone to court to fight the move.

Their son, 11-year-old Colman Chadam, was told last week that he’d have to transfer from Jordan Middle School in Palo Alto, Calif., to a school three miles away because he posed a risk to another student at school who does have the disease, according to TODAY. “I was sad but at the same time I was mad because I understood that I hadn’t done anything wrong,” Colman told TODAY. He added: “It feels like I’m being bullied in a way that is not right.”


An inherited condition, cystic fibrosis causes the body to create a thick mucus that clogs the lungs and can lead to life-threatening lung infections. About 30,000 American adults and children have the disease and patients have an average life expectancy in the late 30s.
While it is not contagious, doctors say people with cystic fibrosis can pose a danger to each other through bacterial cross-contamination if they are in close contact. “In general, we would prefer that there not be more than one cystic fibrosis patient in a school,” Dr. Thomas Keens, the head of the cystic fibrosis center at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, told TODAY.


The district’s assistant superintendent, Charles Young, told NBC News that officials relied on medical authorities who said “a literal physical distance must be maintained” between patients and that the "zero risk option" was to transfer Colman. But Colman’s parents, who are home-schooling him while they await a court hearing next week, say the school is overreacting. “Why take a child who’s new to the district, who’s just making friends, who’s just building a support network, who’s just getting to know his teachers, who’s been well his whole life ... why stigmatize him?” his father, Jaimy Chadam, said on TODAY.


Jennifer Chadam said her son has attended two other schools with students who have cystic fibrosis. “It has never been an issue. Ever,” she said. Colman’s parents told the school about his condition on a form at the start of the school year, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. Colman has not suffered from lung problems, never needed treatment and had a negative result on a sweat test, the most accurate test for the disease, his parents told the Chronicle last week. They told the paper their son has never had a clinical diagnosis of cystic fibrosis.

MORE

[Adelaide]

I found the following seriously cool:

Scientists have found that cancer cells from leukaemia sufferers are killed when they are exposed to a type of matter known as cold plasma.

These streams of ionised gas, similar to the material found inside decorative plasma balls and plasma televisions, are thought to trigger the in built self destruct mechanism in the cancerous cells while healthy cells remain unscathed.

The researchers now believe it will be possible to develop a dialysis style treatment where the blood of leukaemia is patients is passed through plasma streams to destroy the cancer cells.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/s...of-plasma.html

[waltky]

New MS drug effective but expensive...

Multiple sclerosis: New drug 'most effective'
1 November 2012 - MS attacks nerves in the brain and spinal cord

A new drug is the "most effective" treatment for relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis, say UK researchers. During MS the body's immune system turns on its own nerves causing debilitating muscle problems. Researchers at the University of Cambridge say a cancer drug, which wipes out and resets the immune system, has better results than other options.

However, there is concern that a drugs company is about to increase the cost of the drug as a result. Around 100,000 people in the UK have multiple sclerosis. When the condition is diagnosed most will have a form of the disease know as relapsing-remitting MS, in which the symptoms can almost disappear for a time, before suddenly returning.

Built from scratch

The researchers tested a leukaemia drug, alemtuzumab, which had shown benefits for MS in small studies. In leukaemia, a blood cancer, it controls the excess production of white blood cells. In MS patients, the dose eliminates the immune cells entirely, forcing a new immune system to be built from scratch which should not attack the nerves. Two trials, published in the Lancet medical journal, compared the effectiveness of alemtuzumab with a first-choice drug, interferon beta-1a. One compared the effectiveness in patients given the drug after being diagnosed, the other looked at patients given the drug after other treatments had failed. Both showed the drug was around 50% more effective at preventing relapses and patients had less disability at the end of the study than when they started.

Dr Alasdair Coles, from the University of Cambridge, said: "Although other MS drugs have emerged over the last year, which is certainly good news for patients, none has shown superior effects on disability when compared to interferon except alemtuzumab." He told the BBC: "It is certainly the most effective MS drug, based on these clinical trials, but this is definitely not a cure." However, he warned there were side-effects. These include developing other immune disorders. He said he thought the drug would be most useful for patients for whom standard treatment had failed and in a "minority" of patients as a first-choice drug. Eventually relapsing-remitting MS can become progressive MS as the good spells become shorter and less frequent. The drug will have no effect on this form of the disease.

Expense fears

[waltky]

Are pharmas gettin' rich off international malaria scheme?...

Concern raised about finance scheme for malaria drugs
24 October 2012 - Combining drugs can reduce the risk of resistance

The charity Oxfam has cast doubt on an international scheme that aims to boost the provision of the most effective treatment for malaria. The UK government has contributed £70m to the Affordable Medicines Facility for malaria (AMFm). Oxfam says there is no evidence the programme has saved the lives of the most vulnerable people. The body behind the AMFm says an independent study shows it has improved access and reduced drug prices.

The scheme was introduced three years ago by the Global Fund to Fight Aids, TB and Malaria. It acts as a global subsidy to provide greater access to combination therapy for malaria, particularly through private-sector drug retailers in developing countries. The idea is to reduce the use of older treatments that carry a higher risk of resistance, and to untap the potential of the private sector in reaching remote communities.

More than 200 million people contract malaria every year and 655,000 die from the disease - most of them are young children. The scheme is being piloted in seven countries including Kenya, Ghana and Nigeria. Its future will be considered at a meeting of the Global Fund's board next month. Oxfam has criticised it as "risky and dangerous".

The charity's senior health policy advisor, Dr Mohga Kamal Yanni, said: "It is dangerous to put the lives of sick children in the hands of a shopkeeper with no medical training, and to pursue a scheme that doesn't help those people who need it the most. "There is no cheap option or short cut to combat malaria. "The AMFm is a dangerous distraction from genuine solutions like investing in community health workers, who have slashed the number of malarial deaths in countries such as Zambia and Ethiopia. "The Global Fund board must act on the evidence and put a stop to the AMFm now." The Global Fund said Oxfam's claims were "simply untrue".

More http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-20046199

See also:

Longevity Traced to Grandmothers
October 24, 2012 - In modern society, grandmothers are often called upon to babysit. But a few million years ago, when primate grandmothers first started doing that, they apparently had a major impact on human evolution. Scientists believe it’s a big reason why we live much longer than other primates. It’s called the “grandmother hypothesis.”

University of Utah Anthropology Professor Kristen Hawkes says humans are distinct among primates when it comes to longevity. “One of the things that’s really different about us humans, compared to our closest living relatives, the other great apes, is that we have these really long lifespans. We reach adulthood later and then we have much longer adult lives. And an especially important thing about that is that women usually live through the childbearing years and are healthy and productive well beyond,” she said.

Other primates are not as lucky. “In other great apes, females, if they make it to adulthood, they usually die in their childbearing years and they get to be old, frail and gray and less able to do all the things that we associate with getting old. Well, of course, it happens to all of us, but it happens slower and later to us compared to the other great apes,” she said.

Hawkes said climate change may have set things in motion by affecting food supplies. Savannahs started replacing forests in Africa. “One of the things it did was restrict the availability of the kinds of things that little kids, little apes, can feed themselves on. So that meant that ancestral moms had two choices. They could either follow the retreating forests, or if they stayed in those environments, then they just would have to feed their kids themselves. The kids couldn’t do it,” she said.

So, if mothers decided to feed their offspring themselves they would not be able to give birth as often. They’d just be too busy finding food. Here’s where granny primate steps in to help. She said, “It would also mean that older females, whose fertility was coming to an end, could now make a big difference in their fitness by helping their daughters feed those grandchildren. And that would mean that moms could wean earlier.” The act of early babysitting had long-range effects.

More http://www.voanews.com/content/grand...2/1532183.html

[waltky]

Pharmas usin' poor people as drug test subjects...

Have India’s poor become human guinea pigs?
31 October 2012 - Drug companies are facing mounting pressure to investigate reports that new medicines are being tested on some of the poorest people in India without their knowledge.

"We were surprised," Nitu Sodey recalls about taking her mother-in-law Chandrakala Bai to Maharaja Yeshwantrao Hospital in Indore in May 2009. "We are low-caste people and normally when we go to the hospital we are given a five-rupee voucher, but the doctor said he would give us a foreign drug costing 125,000 rupees (£1,400)." The pair had gone to the hospital, located in the biggest city in Madhya Pradesh, an impoverished province in central India, because Mrs Bai was experiencing chest pains.


Their status as Dalits - the bottom of the Hindu caste system, once known as untouchables - meant that they were both accustomed to going to the back of the queue when they arrived and waiting many hours before seeing a doctor. But this time it was different and they were seen immediately. "The doctor took the five-rupee voucher given to BLPs [Below the Poverty Line] like us and said the rest would be paid for by a special government fund for poor people," Mrs Sodey explains. "This was really expensive treatment for the likes of us."


What Mrs Sodey says she did not know was that her mother-in-law was being enrolled in a drugs trial for the drug Tonapofylline, which was being tested by Biogen Idec. Neither could read and Mrs Sodey says she does not remember signing a consent form.
Mrs Bai suffered heart abnormalities after being given the trial drug. She was taken off it and discharged after a few days. Less than a month later, she suffered a cardiac arrest and died at the age of 45. The trial, which was registered in the UK by Biogen Idec, was later halted due, say the company, to the number of seizures recorded. The company also says Mrs Bai's death was not reported to them. Her case is not an isolated incident.


In a different trial with a different company, Narayan Survaiya says neither he nor his late mother Tizuja Bai were asked if she wanted to participate, or even told that she was taking part in one, when she sought treatment for problems with her legs. And, like Mrs Sodey, he claims the family were told that a charity was footing the bill for the care. A few weeks after taking the drug, Mr Survaiya says his mother's health deteriorated and she was left unable to walk. "I told the doctor, but he said don't stop the doses. It is a temporary paralysis and the drug will make it better." His mother died a few weeks later.

More http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-20136654

[Captain Obvious]

Pharmas usin' poor people as drug test subjects...

Have India’s poor become human guinea pigs?
31 October 2012 - Drug companies are facing mounting pressure to investigate reports that new medicines are being tested on some of the poorest people in India without their knowledge.

India is clearly still a second-world country, which is a scary thought considering they're a nuclear power.

[waltky]

New outbreak of Ebola in Uganda...

Uganda Faces Fresh Outbreak of Hemorrhagic Fever
October 24, 2012 — Uganda is struggling to contain the spread of the deadly Marburg virus, just weeks after an outbreak of Ebola killed at least 16 people.

Last week, health officials declared an outbreak of the rare and deadly Marburg virus, a type of hemorrhagic fever similar to Ebola. Five people have died so far, six have been placed in isolation and over 150 more are being monitored for symptoms. One of the cases is being treated in the capital, Kampala. The outbreak comes just two weeks after Uganda was declared free of Ebola earlier this month. At least 16 people died of Ebola, a virus which in the past has killed hundreds.

The cases of Marburg have all come from the southwestern district of Kabale, a heavily forested area where the vectors for the disease, monkeys and bats, are most commonly found. Ministry of Health spokesperson Rukia Nakamatte says the medical team working to contain the outbreak has considerable experience handling such diseases, which have been recurring in Uganda for decades. “There is a team of experts that is in Kabale district. These are experts that have handled the previous outbreaks, like the Ebola we had in Gulu in 2000. Most of these people are trained in handling patients of Ebola and Marburg," she said.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC, this is the first outbreak of Marburg in Uganda since 2008, when a Dutch tourist died after visiting a cave filled with bats. But in terms of the number of fatalities, the current outbreak is the most severe in Uganda since the first reported cases in the 1960s. The Marburg virus kills around 80 percent of those infected. It is highly contagious, and is spread through contact with bodily fluids. Symptoms of the virus include fever and headache, followed by a skin rash and, eventually, severe hemorrhaging.

MORE

[waltky]

Outdated drugs have no affect on DR-malaria...

Outdated Drugs Slow Nigerian Malaria Treatment
October 25, 2012 — A large percentage of people killed by malaria each year are in Nigeria, and the disease is the country’s number one killer of small children. Health officials say modern life-saving drugs are available but the widespread use of out-dated drugs on a resistant strain of malaria continues to cost lives.

In this hospital in Nigeria's Zamfara State, these small patients have malaria. Mothers travel for hours to get to treatment for their children because there is no medicine in their villages. "I brought the baby here because I noticed he had a high fever, and then he got diarrhea,” explains a mother. Aid workers say the current surge in malaria began over the summer, and patients continue to pour in. "At the end of July, my team called me and said, ‘Malaria exploded," says Chloe Wurr, a physician with Doctors Without Borders in the northern state of Sokoto. "We have so many children coming. Some of them arrived and we could barely keep them alive. They died before we could give them treatment."

Wurr says one out of every 10 children with severe malaria here dies, and that's with the best of care. "Heath personnel are often very committed and want to help their community but they often don’t have the resources to treat people," she said. "If I do find any treatment present, it’s usually that that health worker has gone to a local pharmacy and purchased a drug and the drug they are most likely to purchase is chloroquine.” The doctor says chloroquine can treat malaria in some countries. But in Nigeria, the disease has been resistant to the drug since the 1980s. There are drugs that have been effective against malaria in Nigeria for the past decade and they are known as ACTs.

However Doctors Without Borders says the vast majority of clinics they have visited in the country don't have them, and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control says they are not available to most Nigerians. The Nigerian government says it’s planning to increase ACT availability along with providing more bed-nets, which can keep the mosquitoes that transmit the disease from biting in the night. But with the U.N. Children's Fund (UNICEF) saying that 250,000 Nigerian children under the age of five die every year from malaria, aid workers claim the program has a long way to go.

Source