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Health Highlights: Feb. 19, 2006(HealthDay Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge)Here are some of the latest health and medical news developments,compiled by editors of HealthDay: Clinton Pushes for Use of Low-Cost AIDS Drugs Former U.S. President Bill Clinton on Saturday urged public and private groups to buy HIV-suppressing medications from low-cost manufacturers to help ensure more poor children get access to the lifesaving treatments, the Associated Press reported. Speaking on Saturday while on a private trip to India, Clinton noted that his own HIV/AIDS-centered foundation has saved money by buying generic versions of AIDS drugs from makers in Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean. The strategy has allowed the Clinton Foundation to use its resources "wisely and be more cost effective," said Clinton, who toured a production plant run by generics maker Cipla in the southwestern Indian city of Goa. "We've had a three-year partnership with Cipla," he told the AP, "and because of them an enormous number of HIV/AIDS-infected people are alive." Clinton said his organization hopes to distribute anti-AIDS drugs to 60,000 HIV-infected children in the developing world this year. ---- France, India Report First Bird Flu Cases Health officials in India and France reported their first cases of H5N1 avian flu among fowl on Saturday, with India planning to cull over a half million domestic birds in an attempt to curb the spread of the virus, the Associated Press reported. The French case occurred in a wild duck found dead in a bird reserve in the town of Joyeux, 20 miles northeast of Lyon. Officials there have ordered that all domestic fowl be kept indoors or vaccinated against the disease. "There's a little bit of panic because we don't know what to do," Joyeux resident Madeleine Monnet, 60, told the AP. "Here everybody has a little bit of fowl -- chickens or ducks -- for their personal consumption." In India, over 30,000 chickens have died in the area around Navapur, in the state of Maharashtra. Anees Ahmed, the state's minister for animal husbandry, told the AP that police have cordoned off the area around the affected poultry farms. Authorities plan to kill 500,000 birds to help stem the spread of disease. All poultry not killed will be vaccinated against the H5N1 strain, Ahmed said. So far bird flu has failed to mutate to human-to-human transmission, the step needed to spark a deadly worldwide pandemic. Cases of bird-to-human transmission have so far killed 91 people in Asia and Turkey. ---- Merck Wins Another Vioxx Lawsuit Pharmaceutical giant Merck is batting .666 with a victory in federal court Friday concerning its controversial pain-killing drug Vioxx. The Wall Street Journal reports that a jury in New Orleans U.S. District court found that Merck & Co. did not have any responsibility in the death of a Florida man who had a heart attack after taking Vioxx for only a month. This was the second time around for the family of Richard "Dicky" Irvin. His widow sued Merck after Irvin, 53, suffered a fatal heart attack. Vioxx and other prescription pain-killers, known as cox-2 inhibitors, had come under medical scrutiny after evidence surfaced showing there might be an association between their use and increased heart attack and stroke risk. Merck had voluntarily pulled Vioxx, used for severe pain, from distribution in the autumn of 2004. Even though an FDA panel narrowly recommended its use in 2005, the drug has remained off the market. Since the medical evidence became public, thousands of legal actions have been filed against Merck. Last year, Merck lost a multi-million dollar suit in a Texas court, but it won a similar case in New Jersey. The New Orleans case is the first federal case to be concluded. ----- Ebola Vaccine Passes First Safety Test Researchers at the U.S. National Institutes of Health announced Friday that a vaccine aimed at protecting against deadly Ebola virus has passed its initial safety test, the Associated Press reported. Speaking at a microbiology meeting in Washington, the research team said 21 people received the experimental vaccine, which is made of DNA strands encoding for three Ebola proteins. The volunteers were given increasing doses of the vaccine and began to produce Ebola-specific immune antibodies, providing "some confidence that the vaccine is having an effect on the immune system," according to lead researcher Dr. Gary Nabel. The scientists also noted no side effects from the vaccine. Ebola hemorrhagic fever is highly contagious and kills between half and 90 percent of those infected within days. The disease has so far been confined to Africa, but officials worry that the virus might be used as a bioterror weapon. Nabel stressed that the vaccine is still in the very early testing phase. The next step, he said, is to see if the volunteers' immune systems reacted similarly to those of monkeys already immiunized against Ebola by the vaccine. ----- FDA Delays Approval of Weight-Loss Drug The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Friday issued an "approvable letter" to drug maker Sanofi-Aventis delaying the release to market of its weight-loss medication Accomplia (rimonabant), the New York Times reported. The letter outlines specific conditions that the agency says must be met before the drug reaches drug store shelves. FDA spokeswoman Kathleen Quinn said the agency would not disclose those conditions at this time, so the duration of any delay remains unclear. Sanofi-Aventis spokeswoman Julissa Viana told the Times that the company would cooperate with the agency to gain approval for Accomplia. The drug acts on the same reward pathways in the brain that give marijuana users "the munchies," but to opposite effect, effectively dampening appetite. Patients bent on weight loss must also follow a diet to get results. ----- |