Earlier this month, Texas Gov. Rick Perry issued a highly controversial executive order mandating that, starting September of 2008, all Texas girls, ages 11 and 12, must receive Merck’s HPV vaccine, known as Gardasil, upon entering the sixth grade.

“The HPV vaccine provides us with an incredible opportunity to effectively target and prevent cervical cancer,” said Perry. “Requiring young girls to get vaccinated before they come into contact with HPV is responsible health and fiscal policy that has the potential to significantly reduce cases of cervical cancer and mitigate future medical costs.”
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The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is warning pediatric health-care professionals and consumers about potentially life-threatening side effects associated with Merck’s RotaTeq vaccine. According to the agency, several infants who’ve received the rotavirus vaccine have suffered from twisted or blocked intestines.

The FDA noted “28 post-marketing reports of intussusception following administration of Rotavirus, Live, Oral, Pentavalent vaccine (trade name RotaTeq), manufactured by Merck and Co. One portion of the intestine telescopes into a nearby portion, causing the intestinal obstruction. The most common site is where the small intestine joins the large intestine.”
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A new study published last month in the journal Arthritis Research & Therapy sheds new light on why the class of painkillers known as COX-2 inhibitors may lead to an increased incidence of heart attacks. Researchers at Winthrop-University Hospital in Long Island have determined that controversial drugs such as Vioxx and Bextra may impede the body’s ability to purge excess cholesterol.

“To our knowledge, this is the first study that describes the effects of COX inhibition on reverse cholesterol transport proteins,” the authors wrote. “Our results suggest that the cardiovascular hazard observed with COX inhibitors may result not only from enhanced platelet aggregation [blood clots], but also from interference with cholesterol outflow.”
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In what may be a major breakthrough for the research and development of antipsychotic drugs, brain scientists at Johns Hopkins University believe they have discovered a major cause of the weight gain suffered by many patients taking antipsychotic medication. Scientists now claim that powerful drugs such as Zyprexa (olanzapine), Clozaril (clozapine), and Risperdal (risperidone) may affect production of an enzyme known as AMPK, which influences appetite.

“We’ve now connected a whole class of antipsychotics to natural brain chemicals that trigger appetite,” said Dr. Solomon H. Snyder, professor of neuroscience at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. “Our identification of the molecular players that link such drugs to increased food intake means there’s now hope for finding a newer generation of drugs without the weight-gain side effects.”
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In what may be a major breakthrough for the research and development of antipsychotic drugs, brain scientists at Johns Hopkins University believe they have discovered a major cause of the weight gain suffered by many patients taking antipsychotic medication. Scientists now claim that powerful drugs such as Zyprexa (olanzapine), Clozaril (clozapine), and Risperdal (risperidone) may affect production of an enzyme known as AMPK, which influences appetite.

“We’ve now connected a whole class of antipsychotics to natural brain chemicals that trigger appetite,” said Dr. Solomon H. Snyder, professor of neuroscience at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. “Our identification of the molecular players that link such drugs to increased food intake means there’s now hope for finding a newer generation of drugs without the weight-gain side effects.”
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Citing various safety issues, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has changed the approved usages for the antibiotic Ketek (telithromycin). Two of the three currently approved indications acute bacterial sinusitis and acute bacterial exacerbations of chronic bronchitis will be removed from the product’s label.

“The agency has determined that the balance of benefits and risks no longer support approval of the drug for these indications,” the FDA explained. “Ketek will remain on the market for the treatment of community acquired pneumonia of mild to moderate severity (acquired outside of hospitals or long-term care facilities).”
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According to the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, poisoning mortality rates in the United States increased each year from 1999 to 2004, rising 62.5 percent during the five-year period. The large majority of those deaths resulted from unintentional drug overdoses. By 2004, only motor-vehicle accidents were responsible for more unintentional fatal injuries than poisoning in the United States. The findings were released as part of the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

According to the CDC, “Unintentional drug poisoning mortality rates increased substantially in the United States during 1999-2004. Previous studies, using multiple cause-of-death data, have indicated that the trend described in this report can be attributed primarily to increasing numbers of deaths associated with prescription opioid analgesics (e.g., oxycodone) and secondarily to increasing numbers of overdoses of cocaine and prescription psychotherapeutic drugs (e.g., sedatives), and cannot be attributed to heroin, methamphetamines, or other illegal drugs.” They added that “the mortality increases might be the result of greater use and abuse of potentially lethal prescription drugs in recent years.”
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A new study has found that as many as 20 percent of all women who get lung cancer have never smoked cigarettes, compared to only 8 percent of men with lung cancer. The results may lead to a closer examination of the effects of secondhand smoke, especially on females. The study is published in the current issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

“Although smoking remains the predominant cause of lung cancer, lung cancer in never smokers is an increasingly prominent public health issue,” wrote Dr. Heather A. Wakelee of the Division of Medical Oncology, Stanford Clinical Cancer Center. Dr. Wakelee and her colleagues studied roughly 1 million individuals with lung cancer, ages 40 to 79, and discovered lung cancer among never smokers ranged from 14.4 to 20.8 per 100,000 person-years in women and 4.8 to 13.7 per 100,000 person-years in men, confirming a widely held theory that “women are more likely than men to have non–smoking-associated lung cancer.”
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On November 9 of last year, a writer who publishes the blog Bent Corner discovered that Wal-Mart was selling T-shirts with a Nazi emblem on it–the divisional insignia of the 3rd SS Division Totenkopf. That discovery led to a public apology by the company and a promise to remove all of the controversial shirts immediately. However, three months after that story caused a national stir, there are reports that the shirts are still available at some Wal-Mart stores.

Rep. Jan Schakowsky, an Illinois Democrat, and 21 Congressional colleagues sent a letter to Wal-Mart’s CEO, H. Lee Scott Jr., demanding that sale of the so-called “death head” logo be halted at once, according to the Chicago Tribune. The emblem is still used today by various neo-Nazis, especially because it isn’t as well-known.
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In a significant blow to the federal government, a U.S. District Court judge ruled on Friday that the Army Corps of Engineers may be sued for negligence with regard to the flood damage that ravaged New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. If the Corps is found liable in court, they may be responsible for billions of dollars in damages.

At the core of the issue is the controversial channel known as the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet (or MRGO), a waterway through the city that connects the Gulf of Mexico with the Mississippi River. Many observers believe that the channel served to increase storm surge levels, which ultimately led to the levee breaches that devastated the city.
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