Health Highlights: March 1, 2003

Health Highlights: March 1, 2003

source: HealthScoutNews

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

Alcohol Ads Must Include Health Downsides With Benefits

The federal government will allow alcohol advertisements to list health benefits, but only if they also include the risks of consuming alcohol.

Under the new rules, announced Friday by the Treasury Department, ads and labels for wine, beer, or liquor may include health claims — but only if those claims are backed up by scientific evidence, the Associated Press reports.

The ads must also list the risks involved in drinking alcohol, such as the effects of having too much, according to the AP. They must also list categories of people for whom alcohol may be detrimental, and contain disclaimers like this: “This statement should not encourage you to drink or increase your alcohol consumption for health reasons.”

The AP says that the reaction to the rule was mixed. While some groups welcomed the rules, others find them to be too cumbersome to fit on a label.

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Vital Organs Removed from Dead Man

A man whose body was discovered in a dilapidated Philadelphia rowhouse Friday is posing a mystery because several vital organs were “neatly” extracted, the Philadelphia Inquirer reports.

The gruesome case has police wondering whether they’re dealing with a murder or with the mutilation of a dead body. It also has left them curious as to whether there’s a black market for these organs, the Inquirer reports.

The unidentified man had been cut from his neck to his abdomen, and his heart, liver, and a lung were taken out. Even his breastbone and ribs were missing. “It was a pretty gruesome sight,” the Philadelphia Daily News quotes homicide Capt. Charles Bloom as saying. “I’ve seen enough after all the years in this business, but this did it.”

Bloom wondered aloud whether someone was sick enough to keep the organs, or, as the Daily News quotes him, “Is there a market for this?”

An autopsy is scheduled for today.

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FDA Panel Seeks Gene Therapy Restrictions

Gene therapy for a rare but potentially fatal immune disorder should be restricted only to those patients who have no other medical options, a Food and Drug Administration panel recommended Friday.

The Washington Post reports that the advisory committee’s recommendation was “a serious blow” to the procedure, whose promise has been equaled by its frustration.

In this case, gene therapy appeared to show a major breakthrough, curing the disease called X-SCID, also known as “bubble boy” disease, in nine children. But French researchers later reported a setback: Two of the children later came down with leukemia.

The panel said that two U.S. trials that resemble the French one be limited only to children who had no access to or failed to respond to other therapies for the disease, the Post reports.

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White House Revises Drug Plan

After getting a stiff dose of criticism, the Bush Administration has revised its Medicare prescription drug proposal so that it offers limited coverage to seniors enrolled in Medicare.

Under the new proposal, senior citizens enrolled in the traditional fee- for-service Medicare program would be eligible for a discount drug card that would help them save money when buying prescription drugs, the Associated Press reports.

Government help will also be available to seniors having to cope with extremely high drug expenses.

Under this new proposal, seniors with private health plans or those in HMOs would receive more extensive drug coverage.

The revised plan was introduced after the earlier proposal was criticized for limiting the drug benefit only to seniors who would leave traditional Medicare and join insurance company managed health plans.

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Fewer Britons Dying from Mad Cow Disease

The number of people in the United Kingdom dying from the human form of mad cow disease each year is falling, says the National CJD Surveillance Unit.

Last year, 17 people died from the disease, compared to 20 in 2001, and 28 in 2000, the year that the disease killed the most people. There has been only one recorded death so far this year, BBC News reports.

The incurable disease has killed 122 people in the United Kingdom since it emerged in 1995. Eight people believed to have the disease are still alive.

Even though the disease seems to be on the decline, experts note that its incubation period may vary from person to person.

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Man Makes Profit Selling Cadavers’ Nails

A medical school supervisor in Galveston, Tex., has been fingered for allegedly pocketing more than $18,000 by selling fingernails and toenails from bodies donated for medical research.

The man was supervisor at the University of Texas Medical Branch’s Willed Body Program for more than 30 years. He was fired from the job about a year ago, the Houston Chronicle reports.

In one transaction, the man was paid $15 for each of 232 fingernails, and the same amount for each of 35 toenails. The nails were sent to a Salt Lake City company that used them to test experimental medicines.

U.S federal law prohibits anyone from profiting from the sale of human bodies. No one has been charged in the case, but the FBI is continuing its investigation.

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