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Last Updated: Nov 19th, 2006 - 12:21:58 |
Health Highlights: Sept. 27, 2006
* Jury Rejects Vioxx Lawsuit
* Overcrowding Common in U.S. Emergency Departments
* U.S. Communities Not Ready for Rise in Elderly
* More Family Doctors Needed in U.S.
* New York City Moves to Limit Trans Fats Served in Restaurants
* French Doctors Perform First Zero-Gravity Surgery
Here are some of the latest health and medical news developments, compiled by the editors of HealthDay:
Jury Rejects Vioxx Lawsuit
A federal jury ruled Tuesday there was insufficient evidence to blame a Kentucky man's heart attack on the now-banned painkiller Vioxx.
Robert Garry Smith, 56, had taken Vioxx for knee pain for about 4 1/2 years. His lawsuit claimed the drug contributed to a heart attack he suffered in 2003 while shoveling snow, the Associated Press reported.
However, after deliberating for about three hours, the jury rejected Smith's claim.
Merck & Co. Inc., which made Vioxx, has now won five such cases and lost four. There are at least 14,200 Vioxx-related cases pending in the United States.
The painkiller went on sale in the U.S. in 1999 but was pulled from the market two years ago after a study concluded that the drug increased the risk of heart attack in people who took it for more than 18 months or longer.
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Overcrowding Common in U.S. Emergency Departments
Between 40 percent and 50 percent of U.S. hospitals experience crowded emergency departments (EDs), according to a report released Wednesday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Some of the report's other findings:
* Nearly two-thirds of metropolitan hospital EDs experienced crowding at times.
* Crowding in metropolitan EDs was associated with a higher percentage of nursing vacancies, higher patient volume, and longer patient waiting and treatment times.
* More than half the EDs saw fewer than 20,000 patients a year, but 10 percent handled more than 50,000 patients a year.
* About a third of hospitals reported having to divert an ambulance to another hospital's ED due to overcrowding or staff shortages.
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U.S. Communities Not Ready for Rise in Elderly
Fewer than half of the communities in the United States have started to prepare for the expected rapid increase in the population of elderly over the next few decades, a new study warns.
Only 46 percent of the 1,790 towns, counties and other municipalities surveyed said they are looking at strategies to deal with an aging population of baby boomers (people born between 1946 and 1964), the Associated Press reported.
By 2030, there will be more than 71 million Americans over age 65 -- double the number in the year 2000, noted the National Association of Area Agencies on Aging.
The Washington, D.C.-based group was one of the sponsors of the report, titled The Maturing of America -- Getting Communities on Track for an Aging Population.
The study looked at health care, nutritional programs, transportation, public safety and emergency awareness, volunteer opportunities and other services for older adults, the AP reported.
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More Family Doctors Needed in U.S.
At least five states -- Arizona, Florida, Idaho, Nevada and Texas -- could experience a serious shortage of family doctors by 2020, warns a report to be released Wednesday by the American Academy of Family Physicians.
While the report says more doctors will be needed all across the United States in coming years, population growth and increasing numbers of older people will make the need most critical in those five states, the AP reported.
From 1997 to 2005, the number of U.S. medical graduates going into family practice has declined by more than 50 percent. Many young doctors prefer to become specialists to get better pay and have more control over their work hours.
In order to meet demand, the number of family doctors in the United States must increase by 39 percent over the next 14 years, according to the report. There are currently about 100,000 licensed family doctors in the country, the AP reported.
To address the issue, Congress should increase Medicare payments to family physicians, the academy says.
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New York City Moves to Limit Trans Fats Served in Restaurants
Artificial trans fats may soon be severely restricted in New York City restaurants.
The city's Board of Health voted unanimously Tuesday to move ahead with plans to forbid the Big Apple's 20,000 restaurants from serving food that contains more than a minute amount of artificial trans fats, The New York Times reported.
Artificial trans fats are chemically modified ingredients believed to increase the risk of heart disease. This plan would set a limit of a half-gram of artificial trans fats per serving of any menu item.
The health board will accept written comments on the proposal and plans to hold a public meeting on Oct. 30. It will take a final vote on the plan in December. The health board can adopt the plan without the consent of any other agency.
Many of the city's restaurant owners oppose the move, saying it would increase their costs and change the taste of some food items, the Times reported.
Tuesday's Board of Health vote comes about a year after it conducted an unsuccessful campaign to persuade restaurants to voluntary eliminate trans fats from their menu items. If the plan is approved, New York would become the first major U.S. city to strictly limit such fats in all restaurants.
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French Doctors Perform First Zero-Gravity Surgery
French doctors on Wednesday said they had completed the world's first zero-gravity surgery, successfully removing a cyst from a man's arm during flight maneuvers that created near-weightless conditions.
The experiment is part of an effort to design surgical robots for use in outer space, the Associated Press reported. While prior surgeries conducted under zero-gravity conditions had been performed on a rat in 2003, this is the first such operation on a human.
A team led by Dr. Dominique Martin removed the cyst in about 10 minutes, while in an airplane that was soaring and diving in order to create a weightless environment. The five-member surgical team was strapped to the walls of the airplane as it made 25 roller coaster-like maneuvers (parabolas) to simulate zero gravity.
The patient chosen for the surgery, Philippe Sanchot, is an avid bungee jumper and therefore accustomed to dramatic changes in gravity, the AP reported. Cyst-removal surgery is relatively simple and requires only a local anesthetic.
The surgery went "exactly as we had expected," Martin told reporters gathered near Merignac airport outside Bordeaux. He said the doctors' experiences so far "allow us to think that operating on a human in the conditions of space would not present insurmountable problems."
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Last Updated: Sept. 27, 2006
Copyright � 2006 ScoutNews LLC. All rights reserved.
Islet Cell Transplants Not Cure for Type 1 Diabetes Yet
Study says improved techniques, immunosuppressants could brighten picture
By Serena Gordon
HealthDay Reporter
WEDNESDAY, Sept. 27 (HealthDay News) -- The latest study on islet cell transplantation has both good and bad news for people with type 1 diabetes.
The good news is that nearly half of those who receive an islet cell transplant are insulin-free at one year after transplant; the bad news is that by the end of the second year that number drops to about one in seven.
Still, researchers expect that with improvements in the technical aspects of the procedure, and better anti-rejection drugs, those numbers will improve.
"A phenomenal amount of glycemic control can be provided with islet transplantation," said study author Dr. A.M. James Shapiro, director of the clinical islet transplant program at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada.
For people with diabetes, he said, "There's excitement and definite hope on the horizon. There's a robust treatment happening today in humans, not just in mice or rats."
Results of the study were expected to be published in the Sept. 28 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.
"You can look at this as the glass being half full or half empty," said Dr. Jonathan Bromberg, who directs the transplant institute at Mt. Sinai School of Medicine in New York City.
For people with type 1 diabetes, Bromberg said, the glass is definitely half full as work on islet transplantation is moving forward and they're having some success. But, he said, for policymakers and health-care administrators, the glass is half empty because while there's been modest success for islet transplants, "They have to try to figure out if this is the best way to spend limited health-care dollars vs. doing screening and more intensive diabetes care to a large number of patients."
The field of islet transplantation is relatively young, with the first real success coming just six years ago from Shapiro's group in Edmonton.
"Up until the first Edmonton study came out, islet transplantation had been in the doldrums for a decade and a half," said Bromberg.
The procedure used by the Canadian researchers for that study was so successful that it's been dubbed the Edmonton protocol. The procedure involves collecting about 1 million islet cells from a donor pancreas, purifying the cells and then injecting them into the liver of someone with type 1 diabetes.
Thirty-six patients were involved in the current study, and to be included, they needed to have tried and failed standard diabetes treatments and had to have severe, recurrent episodes of low blood sugar (hypoglycemia).
The volunteers underwent islet transplantation at one of nine international centers. The islets came from deceased donors, and all were transplanted within two hours of being harvested.
As with other transplants, patients have to take immune-suppressing medications so their bodies don't reject the foreign cells.
After one year, 16 people (44 percent) were insulin-free. Another 28 percent had partial glycemic control from the functioning islets, while the remaining 28 percent had what's known as complete graft loss after a year. That means the transplanted cells were no longer functioning.
Of the 16 who were able to get off insulin for a year, five were still insulin-free at the end of two years.
"Overall, the results are impressive," said Shapiro. "The most important thing is to recognize that this is the first ever multinational trial to be done on islet transplantation. Some sites had never done this before."
"This field can be improved. With tweaks in protocol and changes in the anti-rejection drugs," Shapiro added, the success rate should go even higher. He noted his group is currently testing new anti-rejection drugs, something that's desperately needed because the current crop of immunosuppressants can be toxic to islet cells.
Shapiro said the issue of supply is going to be another problem that will have to be addressed as the technique improves and more people are transplanted.
"There's a lot of hope that islet transplantation may change the lives of people with diabetes, but a bigger picture view is that there are a lot of modalities available for treating diabetes today -- insulin pumps, semi-synthetic insulins and more -- all of which are improving the lives of diabetics," Bromberg said.
More information
To learn more about islet cell transplantation, visit the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases.
SOURCES: A.M. James Shapiro, M.D., Ph.D., director, clinical islet transplant program, and Wyeth-Ayers Canada/CIHR clinical research chair in transplantation, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada; Jonathan Bromberg, M.D., Ph.D., professor, surgery, immunobiology and gene and cell medicine, surgeon-in-chief and director, transplant institute, Mt. Sinai School of Medicine, New York City; Sept. 28, 2006, New England Journal of Medicine
Last Updated: Sept. 27, 2006
Copyright � 2006 ScoutNews LLC. All rights reserved.
© 2004-2005 by foodconsumer.org unless otherwise specified
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