The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) just announced that caulk found around windows and doors in hundreds of schools nationwide may contain PCBs, which are potentially cancer causing, reported the Associated Press (AP).

Boston.com wrote that the EPA urges building owners, such as school building owners, to test “brittle, aging masonry and window caulking” for PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls), especially in older structures. The recommendation involves buildings built or renovated between 1950 and 1978; PCBs were banned in 1978, said Boston.com. More EPA Tells Schools Caulk May be Toxic

An emerging study, appearing in October’s Pediatrics, suggests that serious adverse drug reactions affect over 500,000 children each year, according to the Associated Press (AP). In many cases the children require hospitalization, said the AP

The AP pointed out that children under the age of five—about 43 percent—are most impacted and that penicillin and other prescription antibiotics are among those drugs most commonly resulting in reactions that include rashes, stomach distress, and diarrhea. Lead author Dr. Florence Bourgeois, a pediatric physician at Children’s Hospital in Boston said, “first-time medication exposures may reveal an allergic reaction,” quoted the AP. The article suggests physicians advise parents about potential reactions for new drugs, and parents be aware of when children first take new drugs, citing Dr. Bourgeois. More Serious Drug Reactions Affect Half Million Kids

Lawyers for Chinese drywall victims are warning clients that some Chinese manufacturers may simply choose to ignore lawsuits filed in the U.S. According to an Associate Press report, attorneys for the thousands of homeowners who have filed lawsuits over Chinese drywall are already considering contingency plans should this occur.

Chinese drywall poured into the U.S. between 1999 and 2007 because of the high demand created by the housing boom. Imports accelerated when the rebuilding that followed Hurricane Charley in Florida in 2004, and Hurricane Katrina along the Gulf Coast in 2005, created a drywall shortage. According to The Wall Street Journal, some 500 million pounds of Chinese drywall was imported to the U.S. during the housing boom. That means as many as 100,000 homes throughout the country could have been built with the material. More Chinese Drywall Manufacturers May Try to Evade Lawsuits

Swiss health regulators are investigating Yaz following the “sudden” death of a young women who suffered a pulmonary emboli while taking the popular birth control pill.

Yaz was approved in the U.S. in 2006. It is a low-estrogen pill, and is made with a type of progestin called drospirenone. As we’ve reported previously, drospirenone is known to carry some health risks not seen with other forms of the hormone. Most notably, it can increase the levels of potassium in the blood, which can lead to a disorder called hyperkalemia in high risk patients. This condition may result in potentially serious heart and health problems, including fatal cardiac arrhythmias. High potassium levels are especially dangerous for people who are obese, or who have diabetes or high blood pressure. More Yaz Faces Swiss Probe Following User’s Sudden Death

Phthalates, chemicals that enable flexibility in plastics and vinyls, for instance pacifiers and rubber ducks, and which are known in laboratory testing to cause reproductive disturbances such as decreased sperm count, infertility, and reproductive tract malformations, are turning up in all sorts of foods.

Ubiquitous in a wide array of consumer products and industry, phthalates are also found in cosmetics, personal care products, pharmaceuticals and medical devices, food packaging, and cleaning and building materials, noted the National Academy of Sciences in a report it recently published on the issue. Now, a study out of ETH Zurich has stated that even when adopting a healthy eating lifestyle, the chemical is difficult to avoid, reported Science Daily. The compound is also found in, said Science Daily, flooring, cables, packaging materials, medical products, and cosmetics and, because of the toxin’s ubiquity, can be introduced quite easily into the food chain and the human body. More Phthalates Present Even In Healthy Foods

The Associated Press (AP) is breaking with news that not only has the drinking water at thousands of schools nationwide been found to contain a variety of dangerous toxins, but its investigation found these contaminants to be present in schools in every state.

Unsafe and dangerous levels of pesticides, leads, and an array of other chemicals and toxins have been found in schools’ drinking water and, worse, said the AP, the issue is basically going unchecked by the government, with the problem escalating and most prevalent at schools in which water is fed by wells. About one in five schools has been found in violation of the Safe Drinking Water Act over the past ten years, said the AP, citing the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). More Dangerous Toxins Taint Drinking Water in Many Schools

The $4.85 billion Vioxx settlement announced by Merck & Co. in 2007 will include payments to the families of over 3,000 people who died of a heart attack or stroke while taking the now-withdrawn painkiller, according to a report on Bloomberg.com.

Vioxx was approved for use in 1999, and quickly became a blockbuster for Merck, with annual sales of $2.5 billion. However, the painkiller was pulled off the market in 2004 after an analysis of patients using Vioxx linked the defective drug to more than 27,000 heart attacks or sudden cardiac deaths in the U.S. from 1999 through 2003. More Vioxx Settlement Fund Will Pay 3,000+ Death Claims

Kristen Diane Parker, 26, who is infected with hepatitis C has agreed to a plea agreement on charges stemming from her alleged theft of fentanyl syringes. Parker allegedly stole the syringes for her own use, replacing them with saline after injecting herself and potentially infected countless others with the disease.

Hepatitis C is spread by contact with infected body fluids, especially blood. The disease attacks the liver, and can lead to cirrhosis or cancer of the liver. There is no vaccine for hepatitis C and the incurable disease can be fatal. Hepatitis C is considered the leading cause of liver transplants.
More Guilty Plea in Colorado Hepatitis Case

Another study involving Avandia has found an increased risk of heart failure among patients taking the controversial diabetes drug. The Canadian study was published this month in the British Medical Journal.

Avandia’s cardiovascular side effects first became the subject of concern in May 2007, when an analysis of 42 clinical trails published by the Cleveland Clinic showed that patients taking the drug had a 43-percent higher risk of having a heart attack. That summer, GlaxoSmithKline and the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) came under fire for an apparent failure to warn the public about the cardiac risks associated with Avandia. In November 2007, a warning detailing Avandia’s association with myocardial ischemia was added to the drug’s boxed warning. More Greater Heart Failure Risk with Avandia, Study Finds

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is reviewing adverse event information for Exjade from a database that tracks all patients prescribed Exjade, as well as a company-sponsored global safety database. According to information obtained by the FDA, there may be a greater risk for adverse events such as kidney failure, gastrointestinal hemorrhage (potentially fatal bleeding), and deaths in patients with myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) compared to patients without these conditions.

Many of these patients are over the age of 60 and the adverse events are not uncommon in people with MDS, said the FDA. The number of deaths and serious adverse events seem to be fewer in younger patients with other chronic anemias such as β Thalassemia and Sickle Cell disease. In reviewing the reports of adverse events and deaths, the FDA found several factors that make it difficult for the Agency to draw conclusions without further analysis, including advanced age, disease severity, other medical disorders, and the need for blood transfusions. More Exjade Under Review for Kidney Failure, Other Problems