UAB health economist Bryce Sutton warns that swine flu fears could compound weak consumer spending for airlines, hotels and tourism and stall GDP growth. He notes the SARS outbreak cost Asia between 0.5 and 2 percent of regional GDP.
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Health News
Drugs, disease, healthcare, government and lifestyle: health news beyond the plate.
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Drug
New Formulation of OxyContin May Reduce Abuse Potential
FDA scientists said Purdue Pharma's plastic-coated reformulation of OxyContin is not fully abuse-resistant but may be better than current versions, ahead of an advisory panel vote. Crushed or chewed, the drug delivers a heroin-like high.
Government
Women charged in website drug scheme (pr)
Federal prosecutors charged Yamila Abraham, 34, of Las Vegas with mail fraud and misbranding over a website selling “Snurf” as an herbal alternative to street drugs. The indictment alleges the pills held no herbs, only dextromethorphan far above the FDA's recommended cough dose.
Lifestyle
Sleep: A Commodity You Can’t Afford to Lose
Depending on the report, 75 to 90 percent of US adults are said to be losing sleep over the uncertain economy. Prescription sleep aids exist, but two women describe side effects they could not live with: one has no memory of a nighttime conversation, the other feels hung over until noon.
Drug
Flu linked to deaths from heart attack and heart disease
A review of 39 studies from 1932 to 2008 found 30 to 50 percent more deaths from heart disease and heart attacks during flu season, and linked vaccination to lower risk of dying. The article argues vitamin D deficiency may explain the seasonal pattern.
Drug
Accidental Prescription Drug Deaths Spike Upward
U.S. deaths from unintentional injury rose 11 percent between 1999 and 2005, with poisonings among people aged 15 to 64 and falls among those 45 and older making up 89 percent of the increase. Researchers attribute much of the poisoning rise to prescription drugs.
Disease
Wait and See Approach Appropriate for Many Cases of Prostate Cancer
A JAMA study from the Cancer Institute of New Jersey, drawing on SEER and Medicare data, found men diagnosed with early prostate cancer are more likely to die of unrelated causes in the following decade. Only 10% of older men choose watchful waiting over treatment.
Healthcare
Girl Rejects Gardasil, Loses Path to Citizenship
Simone Davis, born in Britain in 1992 and raised in Florida by her grandmother, was denied a moral and religious waiver from the Gardasil requirement US immigration imposes on female applicants aged 11 to 26, blocking her path to citizenship and to college.
Miscellaneous
Do We Really Want to be Like Vogue's Anna Wintour?
A skeptical review of R.J. Cutler's documentary The September Issue, which questions Vogue editor Anna Wintour's fashion authority and her hold over designers, stylists and photographers, and compares the film to Scorsese's Shine a Light.
Miscellaneous
CHANGE 'Breast Cancer Awareness Month' to 'Breast Cancer PREVENTION Month' - (press release)
A GrassrootsHealth announcement for a vitamin D seminar at the University of Toronto on November 3, 2009, where Cedric Garland and Tracey O'Connor will make the case for renaming Breast Cancer Awareness Month as Breast Cancer Prevention Month.
Healthcare
Expanded Criteria Organs May Soon Make the Donor A-List
With 81,000 patients on the kidney waiting list against 16,000 transplants last year, surgeons increasingly accept organs outside the usual criteria, such as an older kidney for an older recipient. Such organs made up 11 percent of transplants last year, and the share is expected to rise.
Drug
Why you should not vaccinate your children against the flu this season
The piece relays Bill Sardi's article listing eighteen reasons he says parents should not give children the H1N1 flu vaccine, among them that the virus is less virulent than seasonal flu, that adjuvants and thimerosal carry risks, and that trials used mock vaccines in healthy volunteers.
Disease
Level of Daily Function Serves as Predictor of Alzheimer’s
Archives of Neurology reports that 28 of 111 people with mild cognitive impairment developed Alzheimer's within two years, and researchers now estimate 10 to 15 percent of MCI patients convert each year. Losing the ability to manage daily affairs is the key predictor.
Government
FDA Okays four H1N1 flu vaccines
The FDA approved four H1N1 vaccines on Sept. 15, three injectable and one nasal, expected within four weeks. It lists ingredients, notes multi-dose vials carrying 24.5 micrograms of thimerosal per shot, and reports side effects such as injection-site pain, headache, malaise and muscle aches.
Lifestyle
37% of U.S. Teen Girls Got HPV Vaccine
A CDC survey found 37% of US teenage girls had received at least one Gardasil injection and 18% had all three. The vaccine covers four HPV strains, so the piece notes girls still need regular Pap smears; the CDC counts 25,000 cervical cancer diagnoses a year.
Miscellaneous
Uninsured death rates spike since 1993
Harvard researchers tie lack of coverage to 45,000 US deaths in 2005 and report that uninsured people faced a 40 percent higher risk of death than the privately insured, up from 25 percent in 1993. Study author Steffie Woolhandler says extending coverage would save lives.
Miscellaneous
Inconvenient Truths About Gardasil and Swine Flu Vaccines
Mercola's piece counts one adverse-event report to the government's VAERS system for every 1,855 Gardasil doses, including fainting and seizures; four girls died after clots reached their lungs. He doubts reactions to school-given swine flu vaccines will be reported at all.
Miscellaneous
What to do If You Are Forced to Take Swine Flu Shot
Dr. Russell Blaylock lists what he says the seasonal flu shot contains, from egg proteins and gelatin to formaldehyde and thimerosal, and argues 2009 data showed swine flu hospitalizations and deaths running no higher than seasonal flu, with no sign the virus had mutated.
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