|
Malaria
vaccine safe in kids
SEATTLE —
Preliminary data on a new malaria vaccine show a very
promising 65% rate of protection. The study, published
online in The Lancet on October 17, also found
the vaccine (called RTS,S/AS02A) was safe and well tolerated
in infants, raising hope that the first vaccine for
the disease could become available within five years.
Phase III trials are now being planned.
Too
much pot pains patients
SAN DIEGO —
Imbibed in large enough quantities, marijuana ceases
to relieve pain and begins to contribute to it, University
of California, San Diego, researchers reported in the
November issue of Anesthesiology. Lead researcher
Dr Mark Wallace induced pain by injecting the chili
pepper extract capsaicin under subjects' skin, and then
gave some pot. Those who smoked a moderate amount felt
less pain after 45 minutes, whereas the higher patients
actually had more pain.
Marx's
boils led to socialism
LONDON, UK —
Father of communism Karl Marx has finally been diagnosed:
he had hidradenitis suppurativa (HS), a chronic skin
disease that causes boils, swelling, infections and
can contribute to psychological problems, according
to a new analysis by dermatologist Sam Shuster of the
University of East Anglia, published in the British
Journal of Dermatology. HS impeded the philosopher's
ability to work, leaving him impoverished. "This explains
his self-loathing and alienation, a response reflected
by the alienation Marx developed in his writing," Dr
Shuster told Reuters. "The bourgeoisie will remember
my carbuncles until their dying day," Mr Marx predicted
in 1867.
Frisco
ponders safe injection
SAN FRANCISCO
— San Francisco public health officials
are considering modelling their intravenous drug policy
after Vancouver's. City workers held a symposium on
October 19 to look at the experience of Vancouver's
Insite safe-injection clinic, which remains the only
centre of its kind in North America. UBC's Dr Thomas
Kerr, a lead researcher at the Vancouver clinic, told
the San Francisco conference that Insite's positive
results mean the idea is worth trying elsewhere, despite
the criticism it is sure to draw. The US federal government
announced its opposition to the plan later that day.
HPV
test touted for CA screening
MONTREAL —
The HPV screening test should replace the Pap test for
cervical cancer screening, say McGill researchers in
a study published October 17 in NEJM. Cancer
epidemiologist Eduardo Franco and his team found that
the HPV test identified cancers 95% of the time, compared
to just 65% for the Pap test. A Swedish study in the
same issue of the journal suggested combining the two
tests' results would eliminate concerns about the HPV
test's higher false positive rate.
Keith
Richards to NHS: get off my hospital
CHICHESTER, UK
— Keith Richards can't always get what he
wants from the UK's National Health Services administration,
but he's trying nonetheless. He's upset about the proposed
reorganization of three West Sussex hospitals —
a change that some 15,000 protesters claim could result
in St Richard's Hospital in Chichester, where the Rolling
Stones guitarist owns a home, losing its emergency and
maternity wards. Wearing a leather jacket, a trilby
hat and sunglasses, Mr Richards showed up to an October
27 protest to announce that the hospital is a "vital
local amenity."
Prescription:
sex every day
WASHINGTON, DC
— Good news for couples trying to conceive
— fertility specialists have reversed their advice.
Instead of waiting to have sex for several days in order
to boost the man's undamaged sperm count, as previously
recommended, couples should have sex every day, Sydney
University researchers reported at the American Society
for Reproductive Medicine conference in October. "This
research shows that when you put people on a daily ejaculation
regime, it reduces the figure for DNA damage," said
British Fertility Society secretary Dr Allan Pacey.
Cancer
psych undertreated
WASHINGTON, DC
— Cancer patients need psychiatric screening
as much as they need treatment for their disease, concluded
a US Institute of Medicine panel in late October. Patients'
lives are often disrupted and they need emotional support,
the panel found. "We have spent gazillions of dollars
for getting Cadillac treatments for the biomedical piece
of it. But we haven't spent money on the gas to make
it go," said panel chair Nancy Adler, a medical psychology
prof at the University of California, San Francisco.
|
