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Nude
Carla Bruni makes MD philanthropist blush
PHNOM PENH —
A prominent Swiss pediatrician and humanitarian turned
down a large donation to his Cambodian hospital charity
because the money came from the sale of a nude photo
of French First Lady Carla Bruni Sarkozy. "Accepting
money obtained from exploitation of the female body
would be perceived as an insult [in Cambodia]," Dr Beat
Richner told Agence France-Presse. Not so in the West:
the photo sold for $91,000 at auction in New York City.
Plan
B to come out of hiding
OTTAWA —
The Plan B emergency contraceptive pill may soon be
even easier to access: the National Association of Pharmacy
Regulatory Authorities is considering whether it should
be in front of the counter, rather than forcing women
to consult a pharmacist first. An expert advisory committee
and the director of U of T's Health Equity and Law Clinic
have already recommended the change, but the Canadian
Pharmacists Association has expressed doubts. The decision
will be announced May 14.
Common
incontinence drugs accelerate cognitive decline
CHICAGO —
When one of Dr Jack Tsao's elderly patients started
hallucinating and talking to dead relatives after starting
on an incontinence drug, he suspected something was
up. He'd heard similar reports of mental decline, so
he and his colleagues launched a study of 870 Catholic
priests, nuns and brothers on common anticholinergics.
The eight year study, presented at the American Academy
of Neurology meeting April 17, found that those taking
the drugs had a 50% faster rate of mental decline than
the control group. "It may be better to use diapers
and be able to think clearly than the other way around,"
he warned.
Rigged
spacer OK for puffers
BOGOTA, COLUMBIA
— In research that would make MacGyver proud,
a homemade spacer for asthma puffers made of pop bottles
or foam cups may be just as effective in children as
the commercial variety, according to a review published
in The Cochrane Library last month. But a spokesperson
from the American Academy of Allergy Asthma & Immunology
has complained the review didn't test the new hydrofluoroalkane
propellant inhalers commonly in use now.
Viruses
fuel lung cancer
GENEVA —
Common viruses may have a hand in the development of
lung cancer, said multiple researchers at the 1st European
Lung Cancer Conference last month. In one study, five
of 23 patients with non-small-cell lung cancer were
found to be infected with human papilloma virus (HPV).
Another paper reported finding the measles virus in
over 50% of tissue samples taken from patients' lung
cancers. Both theorized that the viruses contributed
to the cancers' development.
MDs
warn of climate change
TORONTO —
As emissions continue to climb and sea levels continue
to rise, more and more physicians are starting to speak
out against climate change. "The negative health effects
of climate change are profound, and will be irreversible
if we don't get our act together now and stop damaging
our environment," Dr Renee Arnold, president of the
Ontario College of Family Physicians, told the Canadian
Press on April 7. The same day, WHO director-general
Dr Margaret Chan warned climate change will help spread
malaria and dengue fever.
LSD
inventor dead at 102
BASEL —
If Timothy Leary were writing the obituary for Swiss
chemist Albert Hofmann, PhD, the inventor of LSD, he
might have said that he had turned on, tuned in and
now, at age 102, he's finally dropped out for good.
Dr Hofmann first tested LSD on himself in 1943 and proposed
it as a psychiatric medication. Some drug enthusiasts
attributed his long life to his frequent LSD trips,
reported the Washington Post recently, but he claimed
it was actually down to the raw egg he ate every day.
Journal
blasts ghostwriting
NEW YORK CITY
— Medical articles about the now-withdrawn
NSAID rofecoxib were often written by the employees
of the drug's manufacturer, Merck, not the academic
investigators who purported to be their primary authors,
say two articles in the April 16 issue of JAMA.
In the same issue, an editorial proposes new guidelines
on conflict-of-interest disclosure to prevent such problems.
'Thin
fat people' found
CHICAGO —
A healthy weight may not be so healthy, after all. In
fact, what has typically been considered a healthy weight
could actually qualify as obesity in many people whose
body fat percentage exceeds safe limits (20% for men,
30% for women), regardless of their BMI. "Thin people
can be fat," glibly warned CBS News after Mayo Clinic
researchers announced their discovery of "normal weight
obesity" last month at a meeting of the American College
of Cardiology in Chicago.
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