Last month, we reported that cases of potentially deadly diarrhea-related infections—known as CDAD or Clostridium difficile-associated disease—are seriously and dangerously on the rise, increasing in U.S. hospitals by over 200 percent between 2000 and 2005.   “It is the next major germ threat,” said Betsy McCaughey, the former lieutenant governor of New York state and current head of the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths (RID), an agency focused on improving infection control in hospitals and health care settings.  This incredible spike has experts worried.  Now, a recent study reveals that the number of people hospitalized with a C. diff super bug is growing by over 10,000 cases annually.

C. diff is a spore-forming, toxin-producing bacterium that infectious disease experts say is growing in speed and virulence similar to methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus—MRSA—and is moving from within hospitals to the community at large.  MRSA sickened over 94,000 and caused nearly 19,000 deaths in the U.S. in 2005.  Like MRSA, C. diff has become multi-drug-resistant.  C. diff is now crippling the healthy, has become antibiotic resistant, is a regular threat in healthcare facilities, and has been linked to nearly 300,000 hospitalizations in 2005, more than double the number in 2000. (more…)

U.S. health officials just proposed changes aimed at proving better information on prescription drug labels about the risks they pose to pregnant and breast-feeding women.  Today, there is little information indicated about how medicines may affect a fetus or breast-fed infant in many cases and physicians have long complained that available data is either not always present on drug labels or was presented in a confusing format.  About six million pregnancies occur in the United States annually and pregnant women take an average of three to five prescription drugs during pregnancy, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said.

The proposal seeks to eliminate confusing categories now used on prescribing instructions for doctors to indicate the risk to a fetus, the FDA said.  Under today’s lettering system, a  category “A” drug means studies have not shown a higher risk of birth defects, while “X” means the drug should not be used during pregnancy.  Other letters denote various levels of evidence for potential harm or a lack of data.  Instead, future drug labels would carry three summaries with information about risks to the fetus, the effects of the disease on the mother and baby, and supporting data.  Also, a lactation section would detail what is known about a drug’s potential effects on a breast-fed infant. (more…)

An Arkansas woman has filed a federal lawsuit against Playtex Products, accusing the baby bottle maker of using bisphenol A—BPA—in its products.  The lawsuit against Playtex seeks a nationwide class action status to represent what it says are thousands of people who bought plastic bottles containing BPA and also claims that Playtex failed to adequately disclose that its plastic bottle products are formulated using BPA.

BPA is a fairly ubiquitous chemical that mimics the hormone, estrogen, and is used in polycarbonate plastic products, including baby bottles and metal can coatings and could be linked to a range of hormonal problems.  In the lab, BPA is linked to sex-hormone-imbalances, including breast and prostate cancer, early puberty, miscarriage, low sperm count, and immune-system changes. (more…)

Pfizer Inc. has started a huge marketing blitz to save the reputation of its once-promising anti-smoking drug Chantix.  Chantix has been recently linked to a variety of ills, including suicidal thoughts and behavior, heart problems, seizures and traffic accidents.  But Pfizer has a lot riding on Chantix – the drug is its second biggest growth driver – so the drug maker is making a desperate effort to downplay Chantix side effects.

Chantix, approved in the US in 2006, works by blocking nicotine receptors to the brain. Chantix is the first such nicotine receptor partial agonist approved by the Food & Drug Administration (FDA). It was heralded as an alternative to other smoking cessation drugs and nicotine replacement therapy.  Some analysts had estimated that Chantix sales could reach $2.28 billion by 2012. (more…)

A recent review of clinical trial data suggests that cancer patients should perhaps avoid taking antioxidant supplements.  It seems that antioxidant supplements may actually diminish the effectiveness of chemotherapy and radiation treatment in cancer patients.

Although research analyzing antioxidant use during cancer treatment has been on-going on for about twenty years, such use remains a controversial topic, noted Dr. Brian D. Lawenda, from the Navel Medical Centre in San Diego, California, and colleagues in their article in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.  Findings from different studies are conflicting; therefore, further research is still needed in order to determine whether antioxidants can be safely taken during cancer therapy and if such supplements offer any benefit.

In their research of the impact of antioxidant use on radiation therapy, the team identified three other clinical studies that specifically addressed the topic.  Results from the largest of the three trials suggested that antioxidant therapy reduced overall survival; however there was other evidence that indicated that one antioxidant—amifostine—can protect certain healthy tissues from radiation damage without increasing resistance in cancerous tissue.

Sixteen trials were identified that reviewed the effects of antioxidant supplements on chemotherapy.  Although there was no evidence that antioxidants reduced treatment response rates, study authors warn that none of the studies were really large enough to sufficiently address this properly.  Lawenda’s team concluded that, “Despite some intriguing studies that have suggested the benefit of adjunctive antioxidant treatments in cancer patients, the totality of the available evidence is equivocal at best and leaves us with serious concerns about the potential for harm.”

Meanwhile, a study last February found use of the popular antioxidant supplements beta-carotene, vitamin E, or vitamin A slightly increases a person’s risk of death.  The detailed analysis of human studies of beta-carotene, vitamin A, and vitamin E revealed that people who take these antioxidant supplements don’t live any longer than those who don’t take them. In fact, those who take the supplements have an increased risk of death.  The finding was reported in The Journal of the American Medical Association from Goran Bjelakovic, MD, DrMedSci, of the University of Nis in Serbia; Christian Gluud, MD, DrMedSci, of Copenhagen University Hospital in Denmark; and colleagues.  “Our findings have already changed the way I counsel my patients about antioxidant supplements,” Bjelakovic said. “According to our findings, beta-carotene, vitamin A, and vitamin E cannot be recommended.  I am telling them that they should stop using these supplements.”  “There is no reason to take anything that hasn’t been proven beneficial. And these antioxidant supplements do not seem beneficial at all,” Gluud said.

Kathleen Zelman, MPH, RD, LD, and director of nutrition for WebMD, said she reviewed the Bjelakovic/Gluud study for a WebMD article.  “This is a very comprehensive, to-be-respected analysis. This isn’t just another study coming out,” Zelman says. “The bottom line is that antioxidant supplements are not a magic bullet for disease prevention. We hoped maybe they were, but they are not.”

Little Tikes Toy Cell Phones have been recalled because they may pose a choking hazard to small children.  Kids Station Toys, the maker of the recalled Little Tikes Toy Cell Phones, says it has received one report of a child who started to choke on a small piece that came apart from the toy.

The recall involves about 1 million Little Tikes Chit ‘N Chat Toy Cell Phones.  The toys were sold at department, juvenile product, and drug stores nationwide from June 2006 through March 2008 for about $8 (individually) or about $20 (set).  (more…)

Researchers are now reporting that lead exposure in early childhood, even as early as in the womb, can lead to permanent brain damage and may cause criminal behavior.  Two separate studies indicate that people with high levels of lead in childhood grew up with not only blocks of missing brain cells, but with a propensity for crime, some violent.  As a matter-of-fact, the lead effect is so strong it may account for a large percentage of inner-city area crimes, where old houses are likelier to have lead paint, according to Kim Dietrich of the University of Cincinnati in Ohio.  Dietrich led one of the studies in the Public Library of Science journal PLoS Medicine.

“There are some data that suggest that, in fact, lead does run in parallel with crime trends over the past several decades,” Dietrich said.  In collaboration with colleagues, Dietrich signed up pregnant women who lived in lead-contaminated Cincinnati neighborhoods between 1979 and 1984.  Researchers tested the women and their children from birth, continuing to follow the children.  Researchers correlated blood-lead level data from 250 of the children to criminal arrest records and found those with high lead levels before birth and during early childhood had higher arrest rates compared to those with lower lead levels.  About 55 percent of the now-grown children had at least one arrest, 28 percent involving drugs and 27 percent involving serious motor vehicle violations.  “Lower income, inner-city children remain particularly vulnerable to lead exposure,” Dietrich said.  “Although we’ve made great strides in reducing lead exposure, our findings send a clear message that further reduction of childhood lead exposure may be an important and achievable way to reduce violent crime,” Dietrich added.

Dietrich’s colleague, Dr. Kim Cecil of Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, performed magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans on the brains of the volunteers and discovered over one percent of total gray matter in their brains was missing.  “The most affected regions included frontal gray matter, specifically the anterior cingulate cortex,” Cecil’s team wrote in a second study.  This region of the brain is responsible for mood regulation and decision-making.  The study also found that men were far more affected than women.  “Our findings also suggest that this structural change is permanent,” they wrote. “Usually the effects of lead poisoning are irreversible,” Dietrich said.

Despite the numerous scares involving lead in water, imported toys, and some medications in recent months, Dietrich said that lead paint is the greatest source of poisoning and that the mothers studied probably had lead in their bodies from their own childhoods, exposing their babies in the womb.  “Many also grew up in these neighborhoods,” Dietrich said.

In a third, unrelated study, a team of University of Pittsburgh researchers showed adults can be inoculated with a second wave of lead as they age.  Lisa Morrow and colleagues showed that lead can leach into the blood from bones as people age and lose bone mass.  This study is documented in the Archives of Environmental and Occupational Health.

National Institutes of Health (NIH) Researchers in the United States are reporting that certain chlorinated pesticides put a school worker in South Africa at increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes.  The researchers also report that the greater the exposure, the greater the risk.

A compound containing the organoclorine lindane was used to fumigate a building on school property in Groblersdal in the Limpopo province of South Africa. In humans, lindane primarily affects the nervous system, liver, and kidneys, and may be a carcinogen and/or endocrine disruptor.  The occupational therapist working there was diagnosed with organochlorine poisoning; students also complained of symptoms.  The link to type 2 diabetes had not been previously explored in South Africa. (more…)

New research is suggesting that the children of mothers who use cell phones while pregnant are more likely to develop behavioral problems.  This, based on a study of 13,159 children in Denmark in the late 1990s.  The research claims to show a link between use of handheld telephones by pregnant women and problems such as hyperactivity in their children.  Also, the study indicates that these risks are increased if the child then uses a mobile themselves before the age of seven.  The report is being published in the journal Epidemiology.

The scientists behind the research at the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA) and the University of Aarhus in Denmark stressed that the results “should be interpreted with caution” and checked by further studies.  The scientists did say that, “If they are real they would have major public health implications.”  The study raises renewed questions over cell phone safety, which—in the past—has been linked to serious problems such as brain cancer. (more…)

It will be at least another year before new standards for sunscreen are enacted by the Food & Drug Administration (FDA).  Although some manufacturers of sunscreen have already started using the new four star system, the FDA is delaying making it mandatory so that it can review thousands of comments it has received on the proposal.

The FDA had first promised to propose new sunscreen labeling laws 28 years ago, but the agency kept delaying its proposal. Congress had ordered the agency to finish its proposal by May 2006, but the FDA missed the deadline. Members of congress then mounted a letter-writing campaign in order to pressure the FDA to issue new rules. In 2006, a class action lawsuit was filed against five of the leading U.S. makers of sunscreen lotions and sprays alleging that the products were deceptively promoted as offering protection from the sun’s harmful rays . (more…)