Here are some of the latest health and medical news
developments, compiled by editors of
HealthDay:
Tiny Amounts of Estrogen May be Serious Threat to Fish
Population
Some ecosystems near large population centers can be quite
fragile, and a study presented over the weekend demonstrated this
by using an unlikely substance -- estrogen.
Scientists from Canada's Natural Sciences and Engineering
Research Council (NSERC) found that extremely tiny amounts of
synthetic estrogen -- the type found in birth control pills --
introduced from municipal wastewater plants into lakes and rivers
downstream can cause a decline (and even the elimination) of entire
populations of some species of fish.
According to a NSERC news release, the study was presented at a
session of the Association for the Advancement of Science's annual
conference in Boston Feb. 16. Researchers said they added tiny
amounts per trillion to a Canadian lake region in a re-creation of
what may normally be found in a municipal wastewater plant.
Results of the seven-year study were dramatic. Estrogen exposure
led to the near extinction of the lake's fathead minnow population,
and the population of larger fish such as pearl dace and lake trout
declined.
"Generally, the smaller the fish, the more vulnerable they are
to estrogen," said lead researcher Dr. Karen Kidd, a biology
professor at the University of New Brunswick (Saint John). "What we
demonstrated is that estrogen can wipe out entire populations of
small fish, a key food source for larger fish whose survival could
in turn be threatened over the longer term," she added in her
statement.
The researchers recommended that estrogen be removed from
municipal water supplies during the treatment process, just as
other contaminants are removed.
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Chinese Plant That Made Suspended Blood Thinner Not Licensed for
Pharmaceutical Manufacturing
The Chinese manufacturing plant that supplies a great amount of
the active ingredient in a blood thinner associated with four
deaths in the United states isn't even certified by its own
government to make drugs and other pharmaceutical products, the
New York Times reports.
This revelation comes only a few days after the U.S. Food and
Drug Administration admitted it violated its own policy by not
having inspected the plant before allowing pharmaceutical company
Baxter International, which uses ingredients from the Chinese
plant, to market the blood thinner heparin in the United States,
the
Times said.
On Feb. 11, Baxter International suspended sales multi-dose
vials of heparin after disclosing that 4 deaths and 350
complications resulted from use of heparin. A spokesman for China's
State Food and Drug Administration told the newspaper Friday that
the plant in question was not a drug manufacturer but "a producer
of chemical ingredients" and not licensed to make pharmaceutical
products.
When will the FDA get around to inspecting the Chinese plant?
Soon, the
Times reports agency spokeswoman Karen Riley as saying. She
didn't elaborate, but earlier in the week called the FDA's failure
to inspect the plant a "glitch", the newspaper said.
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Meta-Study: Hispanics Have More Difficulty Controlling Glucose
Levels
Confirming earlier studies, researchers at Wake Forest
University Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem, N.C. have found
that Hispanics have a measurably more difficult time controlling
their blood sugar.
Maintaining proper amounts of blood sugar (glucose) is a key
element in controlling type 2 diabetes, which is estimated to
affect more than 20 million Americans.
The study, which was underwritten in part by the U.S. Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention, found that Hispanic patients
with diabetes have glucose levels about 0.5 percent higher than
Caucasians, according to a Wake Forest news release.
The test used for the analysis was the A1C test, which measures
hemoglobin linked with glucose over a two-to-three month time
period. The higher the A1C values, the more difficult it is for
diabetes patients to control their blood sugar, the researchers
said.
The researchers began with 495 studies over a 13-year period and
narrowed their focus to 11 studies that comprised results of A1C
tests for Hispanics and non-Hispanic whites.
"The Hispanic population has a high prevalence of diabetes and
higher A1C than non-Hispanic whites," said Julienne Kirk, associate
professor of family and community medicine at Wake Forest, and lead
author of the study. "This further elucidates the health
disparities that characterize the Hispanic population."
The results of the study are in the February issue of
Diabetes Care.
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555 Americans Killed in All-Terrain Vehicle Accidents in
2006
At least 555 people died in 2006 from accidents involving
all-terrain vehicles (ATVs), the U.S. Consumer Product Safety
Commission said Thursday.
More than 100 children were among the fatalities, the agency
said. It expects the numbers to climb as additional data arrive
from hospitals and coroners across the country, the
Associated Press reported.
While groups representing consumers and parents have said for
years that the vehicles are unsafe, the industry that makes ATVs
cites driver error, the wire service reported.
"ATVs have never been shown to be an unsafe product, but there
have been bad decisions made by people sitting on the seat," said a
spokesman for the Specialty Vehicle Institute of America.
In its annual analysis released Thursday, the CPSC said
Pennsylvania has led the nation in ATV deaths since 1982, followed
by California, West Virginia, Texas and Kentucky. At least one ATV
fatality was reported in each of the 50 states.
In 2005, 666 confirmed ATV deaths were reported. And because the
CPSC said it is still analyzing data for that year, the toll could
rise to as high as 870, the
AP reported.
On the day the report was released, the CPSC announced the
recall of 95,000 Polaris-brand ATVs that had potentially defective
control panels that could ignite, the wire service said.
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Nearly 1 in 3 U.S. Births Are C-Sections: Report
Nearly one in three American women who gave birth in 2005 did so
by Cesarean section, the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and
Quality said Thursday in its latest
News and Numbers report.
The ratio was about one in five in 1995, the agency said in a
prepared statement.
The report also noted that:
- Some 1.3 million women had C-sections in 2005, a 38 percent
jump over the 800,000 performed in 1995.
- Vaginal deliveries in hospitals fell from about 3 million in
1995 to 2.9 million in 2005.
- Hospitals charged a combined $21.3 billion for patient stays
involving vaginal deliveries in 2005, compared to $17.5 billion for
those involving C-sections.
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Government-Issued Trailers for Hurricane Victims Pose Risks:
CDC
Many of the trailers used to house Gulf Coast victims of
hurricanes Katrina and Rita contain toxic levels of formaldehyde
fumes, U.S. health officials said Thursday.
Officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
said people living in the government-issued trailers should be
moved out as soon as possible because tests showed that fumes from
519 trailers and mobile homes in Louisiana and Mississippi averaged
about five times higher than levels found in most modern homes. In
some trailers, the levels were nearly 40 times higher, prompting
concerns that the residents could come down with breathing
problems, the
Associated Press reported.
The CDC urged the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which
supplied the trailers, to move people from the trailers as quickly
as possible, with priority given to families with children, elderly
people, or anyone with asthma or other chronic respiratory
problems.
"We do not want people exposed to this for very much longer,"
said Mike McGeehin, director of a CDC division that focuses on
environmental hazards.
FEMA provided about 120,000 travel trailers to victims of the
2005 hurricanes Katrina and Rita. In 2006, some occupants began
reporting headaches and nosebleeds. The complaints were linked to
formaldehyde, a colorless gas with a pungent smell used in the
production of plywood and resins, the
AP said.
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