Health Highlights: April 8, 2003

Here are some of the latest health and medical news developments, compiled by editors of The HealthScout News Service:

Do Roaches Carry SARS?

As the mystery over severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) deepens and the illness and death tolls mount, Hong Kong authorities puzzled over a cluster of cases in a single apartment complex are investigating whether roach infestation may have helped spread the illness, according to wire service reports Tuesday.

SARS has now been blamed for 103 deaths and more than 2,600 reports of illness across the globe since it was first detected in China in November. Forty-five more cases were reported in Hong Kong Tuesday, taking the territory’s toll to 928 sickened and 25 dead. About 40 percent of the new cases were health care workers who had been treating the ill.

Almost three hundred of Hong Kong’s cases have been diagnosed in a single apartment in the Kowloon district, leading authorities to theorize that cockroaches may have helped spread the virus through the complex’s waste system, reports the French wire service l’Agence France-Presse. Health officials are also testing rats as possible carriers.

Because it’s not known exactly how the virus is spread, the World Health Organization (WHO) has warned travelers to stay away from Hong Kong as well as Guangdong province in southern China.

In an apparent bit of good news, Chinese officials said Tuesday that cases have dropped sharply in Guangdong, where the outbreak appears to have begun. Only 21 new cases have been diagnosed in the first week of April, reports the Associated Press.

Elsewhere across Asia, Singapore officials are considering installing cameras in the homes of quarantined people to make sure they don’t leave. And Vietnam says it may ban visitors from countries where the illness has been particularly widespread.

In the United States, where 150 cases have been reported in 30 states, an official with the federal Department of Health and Human Services (news – web sites) says the illness appears to be slowing down, but warns that it’s too soon to declare the epidemic over.

“We don’t know whether we’re through act one of a two-act play or whether we’re just four lines into a three-act play,” acting assistant secretary Jerry Hauer tells the AP.

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Herbal Supplement That Contains Viagra Recalled

An herbal supplement touted as a sexual stimulant is being recalled because it contains the prescription ingredient included in the anti-impotence drug Viagra, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration says.

Phoenix-based Ultra Health Products Inc. says it’s recalling at least 750,000 of its Vinarol supplement tablets after FDA tests revealed they contained sildenafil, Viagra’s active ingredient.

The FDA says the drug-laced product, whose distribution could actually be in the millions, could pose a severe danger to cardiac patients who use nitrates to treat chest pain, reports the Associated Press.

Heart disease patients frequently have impotence. The FDA says it investigated the supplement because its manufacturers promoted it as an herbal mix that increases sexual desire and performance.

The company says it doesn’t know how the contamination occurred, but cites possible employee tampering or the shipment of tainted herbs from China.

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Buying Drugs on the Internet is Risky, Study Concludes

Few Internet pharmacy Web sites give consumers enough information to use their medications effectively and safely, a new Australian study finds.

Particularly troublesome of the study’s conclusions, reports BBC News Online, is that many pharmacy sites fail to tell customers about the potential dangers of taking more than one drug at the same time.

Monash University researchers surveyed 104 pharmacy sites in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Two of three sites were prepared to sell their drugs to people in other countries, the researchers say.

“Consumers cannot make an informed decision about purchasing a medicine using information provided by e-pharmacies because balanced information about the benefits and risks of taking medicines was largely not available or of poor quality,” they write in the latest edition of the journal Quality and Safety in Health Care.

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Schools Near Nuke Plants Should Stock Radiation Pills

Potassium iodine pills should be stocked in schools, child-care centers and homes near nuclear power plants to protect children from radiation released by accident or by a terrorist attack, a new American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) policy recommends.

The pills protect people who’ve been exposed to radiation from developing thyroid cancer. No prescription is required to buy the pills, which are available at certain drug stores and also can be purchased over the Internet and by phone, the Associated Press reports.

Children are particularly vulnerable to radiation. Their bodies absorb and metabolize substances differently than adult bodies. Children are also closer to the ground, where fallout settles.

The AAP recommendation appears in the June issue of the journal Pediatrics.

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Hypothyroidism May Cut Breast Cancer Risk

Women who have hypothyroidism seem to have a lower risk of developing invasive breast cancer, says a study by researchers at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center.

In a news release, the researchers say their study of 2,226 females found that women newly diagnosed with breast cancer were 57 percent less likely to have hypothyroidism, compared to women without breast cancer.

Hypothyroidism is a common disorder that occurs when the thyroid gland fails to produce enough thyroid hormone. That lack of thyroid hormone can affect all body functions and lead to physical and mental lethargy.

The researchers suggest their findings indicate a possible role for thyroid hormone in developing ways to prevent breast cancer. The study results were published in the Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research.

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