Health Highlights: May 22, 2003
Here are some of the latest health and medical news developments, compiled by editors of The HealthScout News Service:
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U.S. Bans Canadian Products Possibly Tainted by Mad Cow Disease
The United States has banned the importation of at least 22 products from Canada following the discovery this week that a cow in the province of Alberta had become infected with mad cow disease. In addition, Mexico, Japan, and Australia have joined the United States in a ban on importing Canadian beef and cattle, reports The New York Times.
Other products barred from entering the United States include pet foods that contain animal protein, animal vaccines, and fats and oils produced from cattle. In 2002, the United States imported about one billion pounds of Canadian beef and one million head of Canadian cattle, according to the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association.
Although Canadian officials initially insisted that only one 8-year-old cow was infected and that the food supply was safe, a top official today said they’re now searching for other cows possibly infected with the disease, calling the effort “precautionary,” according to the Associated Press.
The precise source of the infection has not yet been determined, but at least two ranches have been quarantined. The infected cow was part of a herd of 150 that was used to breed calves for human consumption, reports The New York Times.
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U.S. Health Official May Have Contracted SARS in Taiwan
A U.S. health official investigating the outbreak of SARS in Taiwan may have fallen victim to the disease.
The Associated Press reports that the disease expert from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was returning to the United States Thursday evening after developing symptoms — including fever and muscle pain — two days ago. The CDC has not commented on the report.
Meanwhile, SARS continues to rampage through Taiwan, where 65 new probable cases of the disease were reported Thursday — the island’s largest single-day increase.
Taiwan officials also reported that eight more people died from SARS, bringing the death toll there to 60, BBC News Online reports.
In response to the situation in Taiwan, which now has the fastest growing SARS outbreak in the world, the World Health Organization (WHO) extended its earlier travel warning covering the capital Taipei to include the entire island.
In China, there are more signs the outbreak is being brought under control. Health officials there reported 12 news SARS cases in Beijing on Wednesday. That’s far less than the 150 new cases per day being reported there two weeks ago, BBC News Online reports.
Thousands of Beijing students returned to hundreds of schools Thursday, after four weeks of being told to stay home, the Associated Press reports.
Schools in Beijing were closed April 24 and 1.7 million students were told to remain home. Most of the students returning to school are senior high school students preparing for university entrance exams in June.
Junior and primary school pupils have been told they’ll have to stay home for at least another two weeks.
In the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh, doctors are observing a 16-year-old student who recently returned from southern China to determine whether he has SARS. If he does have the disease, it would be the first confirmed SARS case in Cambodia, the AP reports.
The Philippines was declared SARS-free Wednesday after going 20 days without any new detected cases of the disease.
Two more SARS deaths were reported in Hong Kong, where cases are on the decline.
The worldwide SARS death toll stands at more than 600 people. More than 7,800 people have been infected, mostly in Asia.
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Abandoned Drug Shows Promise Against Alzheimer’s
Prospects of a vaccine for Alzheimer’s disease in the not-too-distant future got a bit brighter today — although they stemmed from a somewhat unlikely source.
Follow-up tests on the first group of people with Alzheimer’s who’d received injections of an experimental vaccine — later abandoned because of side effects — showed what some experts describe as “remarkable” results, reports the Washington Post.
Of 28 people who got the shots, researchers reported steep mental declines in nine, marginal declines in 13, and stable scores or improvements in six. Further tests showed that the nine people with the worst scores had been in the control group, which did not receive the vaccine.
The vaccine was designed to trigger the immune system to attack and remove protein deposits, known as amyloid plaques, that experts believe are somehow related to the disease. The vaccine was pulled from testing about 15 months ago because 18 of the 300 people who got injections developed brain inflammation, the Post says.
But researchers working to solve the mysteries of Alzheimer’s — which causes progressive memory loss and dementia — say the results revealed today in the journal Neuron validate the concept of a vaccine and predict one will be available within five years.
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Company Sold Dangerous Blood-Clotting Medication, Report Says
A unit of the pharmaceutical giant Bayer continued sales to Latin America and Asia of a blood-clotting medication for hemophiliacs, despite growing evidence there was a high risk of HIV infection from the medicine, The New York Times reports.
And while the unit, Cutter Biological, kept selling the dangerous medicine overseas in the mid 1980s, it introduced a new, safer product for sale in the United States and other western countries, the newspaper says.
Documents show that the company continued overseas sales of the older medicine to avoid being saddled with large stockpiles of a product that was becoming difficult to market in the West, reports the Times.
The Times also reports that the human toll of this action is difficult to determine. Many patient records are no longer available. And a test for HIV/AIDS wasn’t developed until later, making it difficult to pinpoint whether hemophiliacs in those countries were infected with HIV before or after Cutter starting selling the new, safer medication to them.
But records and interviews show that more than 100 hemophiliacs in Taiwan and Hong Kong became infected with HIV after taking the older medication. Many of those people have died.
Cutter also continued to sell the older medication in Argentina, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia.
Bayer officials declined to be interviewed by the Times. But the company issued a statement that said Cutter “behaved responsibly, ethically and humanely” in selling the old product overseas.
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Buddhists Happier and Calmer Than Other People
If you’re a Buddhist and you’re happy, clap your hands.
That would provide an appropriate response to two new American studies that say Buddhists really are calmer and happier than other people, BBC News Online reports.
In one study, scientists at the University of Wisconsin at Madison used scanning technology to examine brain activity and found that brain areas associated with good mood and positive feelings are more active in Buddhists.
In the second study, researchers at the University of California, San Francisco Medical Center concluded that Buddhism tames an area of the brain called the amygdala, which is the hub of fear memory.
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