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Health Highlights: Feb. 20, 2004

Posted on: Friday, 20 February 2004, 06:00 CST

Here are some of the latest health and medical news developments, compiled by editors of HealthDay:

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Deadly Asian Bird Flu Confirmed in Domestic Cats

Thai officials confirmed Friday that the deadly strain of bird flu sweeping Asia has made the jump to domestic house cats.

Three house cats that died from the disease in a province outside Bangkok are the first known domesticated animals to contract bird flu, the Associated Press reports. The virus has also been confirmed at a suburban Bangkok zoo in a white tiger, which has since recovered, officials tell the wire service.

The disease has killed 22 people in Vietnam and Thailand, while infecting birds in 10 Asian nations. A viral expert from the World Health Organization worries that the disease could spread more easily from pets to humans than from direct contact with infected birds -- the only confirmed method of transmission to people so far.

In Canada, meanwhile, officials are grappling with this week's discovery of a milder strain of bird flu at a farm in British Columbia. As a result, Japan and Hong Kong have imposed temporary bans on chicken imports from Canada. The Canadian strain -- the same one detected last week in three U.S. states -- is thought to pose no danger to people.

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Two Toxin Scares Have D.C. on Watch

The nation's capital is on watch Friday after two separate incidents that raised the possibility of exposure to dangerous toxins.

A suspicious white powder was found Thursday in a State Department building, though preliminary tests have come back negative for dangerous toxins, CNN reports. The powder reportedly was discovered in a package sent to the department's Visa Authentication Unit. City fire department and hazardous materials teams have launched investigations into whether the powder is, in fact, dangerous, and who might have been exposed.

The office in the State Department annex, across from the department's headquarters, has been sealed pending final testing, CNN reports. The employee who opened the package was treated, but the building wasn't evacuated.

And in an unrelated incident, a lab worker in a containment laboratory at nearby Fort Detrick Army base has been placed in isolation after accidentally sticking herself with a needle that may have been contaminated with a deadly form of the Ebola virus, the Washington Post reports.

The incident, reported Friday, occurred Feb. 11, though the scientist so far has shown no symptoms of deadly Ebola hemorrhagic fever. The incubation period for Ebola is two to 21 days, but the newspaper reports the woman will be isolated for up to 30 days. She's being allowed to have visitors because she has shown no signs of infection, the Post says.

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Artificial Blood Given Without Patient Consent

An experimental blood substitute is being tested on severely injured patients without their initial consent, the Associated Press reports.

The program was launched in January in Denver, and is also underway or under consideration in Houston; Memphis; Maywood, Ill.; and Rochester, Minn; the wire service says. Patients are being randomly selected to receive the product, called PolyHeme, at the injury scene or en route to a hospital. The project is aimed at achieving one of emergency medicine's longest-running goals -- to find a product that works like human blood on trauma victims but can be administered to people of any blood type.

Almost 100,000 people die of bleeding injuries each year in the United States. Because severely injured patients are often unable to give consent, medical centers testing the new product are exempted from consent rules under a 1996 federal rule that applies to lifesaving emergency research.

Under the rule, the research must be publicized in advance in affected areas -- offering people the chance to opt-out if they so choose. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved 15 no-consent studies since the rule was passed, the AP reports.

The advantages of PolyHeme, made by Illinois-based Northfield Laboratories, is that it has a longer shelf life than blood and can be used in patients of any blood type. The substitute safely dissipates in the body after about 24 hours, the company says.

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FDA Gives Flu Vaccine Annual Makeover

The Fujian strain of human flu that's been responsible for much of the world's flu-related misery this year will be added to next year's inoculation, a U.S. Food and Drug Administration advisory panel decided Thursday.

The formula is changed annually well in advance of the upcoming season, to give manufacturers time to produce the vaccine. This year's chief menace, A-Fujian, will be one of three strains represented in next season's version. A-Fujian was not included in this year's inoculation since its predominance was discovered after the vaccine had already been produced.

Despite the omission and an early start, this year's flu season hasn't been especially severe so far, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tells the wire service. The AP likened the death and infection tolls to 1999, the last time a particularly strong version of flu was dominant.

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Low-Dose Nicotine Patches Prove Effective

Low-dose nicotine patches appear as effective as higher-dose versions in satisfying cravings after users stop smoking, researchers at Virginia Commonwealth University report.

They say their findings raise questions about the common practice of beginning smoking cessation programs with higher-dose patches and gradually switching to lower-dose versions. This may expose smokers to unnecessarily high levels of nicotine without any added benefit, they suggest in a prepared statement.

Lead author Thomas Eissenberg and his colleagues studied 66 smokers from ages 18 to 55 who said they had smoked at least 15 "king size" cigarettes each day for at least two years. When they compared craving levels among users of higher-dose patches with low-dose versions, they were virtually the same, the researchers say.

Their ongoing study is funded by the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse.

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New Treatment for Enlarged Prostate Approved

Celsion Corp.'s Prolieve Thermodilation system won FDA approval Thursday to treat enlarged prostate, medically known as Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia (BPH).

The in-office device combines heat and urethral dilation and usually provides significant symptom improvement in two weeks, the company says in a prepared statement. A one-year, 14-center clinical trial found that men using Prolieve reported better symptom improvement after three months than those who had used a frequently prescribed BHP drug, Proscar, the statement adds.

BHP affects an estimated 9 million men in the United States and more than 26 million men worldwide, the company says. The disorder, whose risk increases with age, affects about 90 percent of all men over age 75 at some point in their lives, Celsion says.

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