UPI Health Business articles from May 2007

UPI Health Business archives from May 2007

Analysis: Gulf War vets' brains shrink.
May 1, 2007... Byline: ED SUSMAN BOSTON, May 1 (UPI) -- Something is happening to the brain structure of the 1991 Gulf War veterans -- especially among those soldiers who complain of multiple symptoms arising from duty performed in routing Iraqi troops...

HealthTips: Mind, eyes, spices, food prep.
May 1, 2007... Byline: LIDIA WASOWICZ May is 'Mental-Health Month' Those in the know say protecting your mental health means setting manageable goals. As part of its promotion of mental well-being during the "Mental-Health Month" of May, the...

Analysis: Cancer drug slows MS.
May 1, 2007... Byline: ED SUSMAN BOSTON, May 1 (UPI) -- Researchers said Tuesday the anti-cancer drug rituximab, which degrades part of the immune system, reduced by 90 percent signs of inflammation in the brain that heralds the onset of multiple...

Analysis: MedImmune sees Q1 earnings surge.(Financial report)
May 1, 2007... WASHINGTON, May 1 (UPI) -- MedImmune, which is slated to be acquired by AstraZeneca next month, delivered on its forecast of a three-fold increase in first-quarter earnings, driven by Synagis sales and revenues from HPV vaccines. Jim...

Caregiving: Good riddance, Imus.
May 1, 2007... Byline: ALEX CUKAN ALBANY, N.Y., May 1 (UPI) -- Radio is very important to some family caregivers of the elderly -- for some it is their only contact with the outside world -- so some caregivers are not unhappy to see Don Imus go. Many...

Analysis: Early MS therapy delays decline.
May 2, 2007... Byline: ED SUSMAN BOSTON, May 1 (UPI) -- The risk that a multiple sclerosis patient will decline in function can be dramatically reduced if that patient is treated at the first sign of an attack, U.S. researchers said Tuesday. "For the...

Eat To Live: Fruit drinks Laos-style.
May 2, 2007... Byline: JULIA WATSON LUANG PRABANG, Laos, May 2 (UPI) -- There are two essentials for a two-day trip down the Mekong River from the Thai border town of Chiang Khong to Luang Prabang in Laos: a blow-up seat cushion and a big bottle of...

Analysis: Estrogen, dementia link fuzzy.
May 2, 2007... Byline: ED SUSMAN BOSTON, May 2 (UPI) -- The ongoing controversy over the safety of hormone replacement therapy for women got murkier Wednesday with the presentation of a new study showing that use of estrogen in women over age 65 was...

Analysis: Biogen sees rise in key drugs.
May 2, 2007... Byline: STEVE MITCHELL WASHINGTON, May 2 (UPI) -- Biogen Idec's first quarter earnings fell short of Wall Street's expectations, but the Massachusetts-based company saw increased sales of Avonex and Tysabri. Goldman Sachs analyst...

Analysis: Statins cut stroke risk fast.
May 2, 2007... Byline: ED SUSMAN BOSTON, May 2 (UPI) -- Doctors meeting in Boston said Wednesday that stroke patients who are treated with the cholesterol-lowering drug atorvastatin -- sold as Lipitor -- dramatically reduce their risk of a second stroke...

Analysis: Lack of diversity dogs trials.
May 2, 2007... Byline: OLGA PIERCE WASHINGTON, May 2 (UPI) -- Vigorous efforts are under way to increase racial and ethnic diversity in clinical trials, but more needs to be done, researchers and advocates say. "We need to know the right dose and...

ER overcrowding leads to suffering, deaths.
May 3, 2007... Byline: ROSALIE WESTENSKOW WASHINGTON, May 1 (UPI) -- Emergency room staff around the country are drowning in a continual tide of patients, according to a national group of physicians. The problem has become increasingly worse in...

Analysis: WHO's steps to patient safety.
May 3, 2007... Byline: OLGA PIERCE WASHINGTON, May 2 (UPI) -- All countries -- from richest to poorest -- can make patients safer by following nine steps, the World Health Organization said Wednesday. "Healthcare has a ways to go in order to become a...

Analysis: Migraine high in Iraq vets.
May 3, 2007... Byline: ED SUSMAN BOSTON, May 3 (UPI) -- Soldiers returning from Iraq with migraine headaches often have an increased risk for depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder, Army doctors said Thursday. About 19 percent of...

The Age of Autism: Gluten clue from Case 2.
May 3, 2007... Byline: DAN OLMSTED WASHINGTON, May 3 (UPI) -- Finding a treasure trove of documents about the family of one of the earliest cases of autism has led this column to offer two observations: Mercury may be associated with the disorder from...

Analysis: Antidepressants to weather storm.
May 4, 2007... Byline: STEVE MITCHELL WASHINGTON, May 4 (UPI) -- The expanded suicide warning the U.S. Food and Drug Administration proposed for antidepressants this week will probably have minimal impact on sales and uptake of the drugs, according to...

Ped Med: Chelation stirs controversy.
May 4, 2007... Byline: LIDIA WASOWICZ SAN FRANCISCO, May 4 (UPI) -- Increasing numbers of autistic children are treated with a controversial technique traditionally reserved for patients suffering from heavy-metal poisoning. The method, called...

Eat To Live: Laos' culinary delights.(Recipe)
May 4, 2007... Byline: JULIA WATSON LUANG PRABANG, Laos, May 4 (UPI) -- Around 4 a.m. three times a week, a massive drum that hangs off ropes in the grounds of Luang Prabang's main Wat, or temple, beats out in an irregular pattern over this sleeping...

Health Tips: Spot depression, bust stress.
May 4, 2007... Byline: ALEX CUKAN Stigma thwarts treatment for mentally ill The stigma of mental illness keeps many of the 54 million Americans -- one in five -- who suffer from a mental disorder from seeking treatment, according to the National...

Analysis: Tobacco, taxes and healthcare.
May 4, 2007... Byline: OLGA PIERCE WASHINGTON, May 4 (UPI) -- In an ironic twist announced this week, Indiana's healthcare reform package -- one of the nation's most creative proposals passed at the state level to date -- will be financed by a 44-cent...

Analysis: Animal activists persist in U.S.
May 4, 2007... Byline: STEVE MITCHELL WASHINGTON, May 4 (UPI) -- As U.K. and European authorities raided the homes of animal-rights extremists this week, activists in the United States were planning disruptions at next week's biotech-industry meeting in...

Interview: John Boettiger on healthcare.
May 4, 2007... WASHINGTON, May 4 (UPI) -- United Press International interviewed John Boettiger, healthcare valuation leader at Deloitte & Touche USA, about the future of the financially tumultuous healthcare industry. All healthcare firms are facing the...

Street Pulse: Momenta's follow-on momentum.
May 7, 2007... WASHINGTON, May 7 (UPI) -- United Press International interviewed Craig Wheeler, the recently named chief executive officer of Cambridge, Mass.-based biotechnology firm Momenta, as the company moves to stake out a position in the emerging field...

Analysis: Pregnancy depression neglected.
May 7, 2007... Byline: ED SUSMAN SAN DIEGO, May 7 (UPI) -- About one in 10 women suffer depression during or immediately after pregnancy -- and much of the time that illness goes untreated or undertreated, medical researchers said Monday. ...

Analysis: Extremists may target biotech.
May 7, 2007... Byline: STEVE MITCHELL WASHINGTON, May 7 (UPI) -- As biotech companies continue to grow and reach the prominence of big pharma firms, they may become a target of animal-rights extremists, says the president of an organization that helps...

Eat To Live: I'll have the ant egg soup.
May 7, 2007... Byline: JULIA WATSON LUANG PRABANG, Laos, May 7 (UPI) -- The search for ant egg soup ended triumphantly at Tamarind in Luang Prabang, the capital, once upon a time, of Laos. Truth be told, it wasn't such a disappointment that the soup...

Analysis: Should feds decide best care?
May 8, 2007... Byline: OLGA PIERCE WASHINGTON, May 8 (UPI) -- Doctors need a single, reliable source to tell them which treatments are most effective and efficient, the nation's largest insurer said this week. "Fact-based decisions are key to...

Health Tips: Sex, cancer, sun protection.
May 8, 2007... Byline: LIDIA WASOWICZ Annual chlamydia screening recommended U.S. health experts recommend sexually active adolescent girls and young women undergo yearly screening for chlamydia. The American College of Obstetricians and...

Analysis: Focus on mental-health agency.
May 8, 2007... Byline: OLGA PIERCE WASHINGTON, May 8 (UPI) -- As Congress gears up to reauthorize the nation's top mental-health services agency, members of Congress and mental-health advocates delivered a wish list for changes. "Today's system of...

Analysis: Street split on Nastech.
May 8, 2007... Byline: STEVE MITCHELL WASHINGTON, May 8 (UPI) -- Nastech's first quarter fell short of Wall Street's expectations, leaving analysts split on the potential of the company's pipeline. Michael King, Jr., an analyst with Rodman and...

Analysis: Plan B barriers linger.
May 8, 2007... Byline: ED SUSMAN SAN DIEGO, May 8 (UPI) -- When the Food and Drug Administration approved the "morning after" pill known as Plan B to be available without a prescription, it didn't necessarily mean that a woman could walk into any drug...

Analysis: Advances in HIV, TB vaccines.
May 9, 2007... Byline: ADRIANNE APPEL BOSTON, May 9 (UPI) -- Scientists are zeroing in on discovering vaccines to control malaria, tuberculosis and HIV in poorer nations, say health experts involved in the effort. The diseases kill more than 6...

Analysis: Drug safety in the crosshairs.
May 9, 2007... Byline: ROSALIE WESTENSKOW WASHINGTON, May 9 (UPI) -- On the heels of the Senate's passage Wednesday of a bill bolstering the power of the Food and Drug Administration to regulate drugs, lawmakers continued debate at a House hearing on how...

Analysis: Quick clinics get longer look.
May 9, 2007... Byline: OLGA PIERCE WASHINGTON, May 9 (UPI) -- As the number of walk-in health clinics at grocery stores and pharmacies increases, so is the level of scrutiny they're receiving. The Illinois state Legislature is considering a bill that...

Analysis: Senate backs FDA reform bill.
May 9, 2007... Byline: TODD ZWILLICH WASHINGTON, May 9 (UPI) -- The Senate backed a bill reforming the Food and Drug Administration Wednesday, increasing fines for industry wrongdoing, but avoiding several efforts to strengthen the agency's authority....

Analysis: Stem cells closer to trials.
May 9, 2007... Byline: STEVE MITCHELL WASHINGTON, May 9 (UPI) -- Despite the limitations on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research, two companies recently said they are close to entering clinical trials with the versatile cells. Geron plans...

Caregiving: Radio minus Imus.
May 9, 2007... Byline: ALEX CUKAN Last week's column suggesting radio talk show Don Imus should be replaced with his wife Deirdre, an advocate for children with cancer, generated quite a bit of mail. As always, I appreciate every letter, but I want...

HealthSmarts: Heart-risk signs for women.
May 10, 2007... Byline: DR. TASNEEM BHATIA She could be your next-door neighbor. She could be your mother, your sister or your daughter. She could be one of thousands of young women in this country unaware of their risk for heart disease, and unable to...

Analysis: Drug firms going green?
May 10, 2007... Byline: ADRIANNE APPEL BOSTON, May 10 (UPI) -- More drug manufacturers are turning to natural substances as sources for new drugs, even though the road from plant to pill can be a bumpy one, industry executives said this week. However,...

Analysis: Street split on Onyx's Nexavar.
May 10, 2007... Byline: STEVE MITCHELL WASHINGTON, May 10 (UPI) -- Onyx's first quarter topped Wall Street's expectations, but analysts are split about the future of the company's kidney-cancer treatment Nexavar. Prudential analyst Jason Zhang liked...

Analysis: Panel urges anemia drug limits.
May 10, 2007... Byline: TODD ZWILLICH WASHINGTON, May 10 (UPI) -- An expert panel called on the Food and Drug Administration Thursday to curb the red blood cell stimulating drugs because of increasing concerns that the medications cause early death in...

Ped Med: Many sides of autism.
May 11, 2007... Byline: LIDIA WASOWICZ SAN FRANCISCO, May 11 (UPI) -- On the question of extraneous physical problems that beset many children with autism, many practitioners and parents are starting to come together. Mainstream medicine is beginning...

Eat To Live: The Lao, chickens and rice.(Recipe)
May 11, 2007... Byline: JULIA WATSON THABAK, Laos, May 11 (UPI) -- As the community generator in this remote tribal village in the mountains of northern Lao rumbled into action, the old Hmong woman slipped her bare feet into the flip-flops parked on the...

Analysis: Urban future tries world health.
May 11, 2007... Byline: OLGA PIERCE WASHINGTON, May 11 (UPI) -- Sometime in 2007, the majority of the world's population will live in cities for the first time in human history. Health systems are struggling to keep up. "Urban poverty and its...

Health Tips: Wisdom for weekend warriors.
May 11, 2007... Byline: ALEX CUKAN Avoid the pain of "de feet" As the weather gets warmer, many take up running or hiking, but Temple University podiatrist Dr. Howard Palamarchuk advises not to ignore foot and ankle pain. Palamarchuk also says...

Analysis: Another hit for Amgen.
May 12, 2007... Byline: STEVE MITCHELL WASHINGTON, May 12 (UPI) -- In what will probably be a blow to Amgen's and Johnson and Johnson's EPO drugs, a Food and Drug Administration advisory committee shocked Wall Street this week by recommending limitations...

Eat To Live: Cooking off Hanoi streets.(Recipe)
May 14, 2007... Byline: JULIA WATSON HANOI, Vietnam, May 14 (UPI) -- Western travelers in Vietnam weary of Pho noodle soup for breakfast stumble gratefully into KOTO in Hanoi. Laura Bush loves the place. She dined there when she and the U.S. president...

Analysis: Reforms cause La. health storm.
May 14, 2007... Byline: OLGA PIERCE WASHINGTON, May 14 (UPI) -- In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, plans were unveiled to make Louisiana's healthcare system a national model, but two years later, the talk is more modest. "We got a lot of...

Analysis: A fast track for Alzheimer's?
May 14, 2007... Byline: ED SUSMAN WASHINGTON, May 14 (UPI) -- By the year 2010 -- less than three years from now -- the annual cost to treat patients in the United States with Alzheimer's disease will reach $160 billion, researchers said Monday in...

Analysis: Low coverage for disabilities.
May 14, 2007... Byline: ROSALIE WESTENSKOW WASHINGTON, May 14 (UPI) -- American workers are apparently too optimistic about whether they'll become disabled yet overestimate the coverage available if an injury does occur, according to healthcare and...

Analysis: Street split on Dendreon vaccine.
May 14, 2007... Byline: STEVE MITCHELL WASHINGTON, May 14 (UPI) -- Wall Street is split on the future of Dendreon's Provenge after the Food and Drug Administration requested more data on the cancer vaccine, with some analysts thinking it will still...

Eat To Live: Shrimp farming in Vietnam.(Recipe)
May 14, 2007... Byline: JULIA WATSON HUE, Vietnam, May 14 (UPI) -- Traveling south towards Hue from Halong Bay, where the limestone islands soar out of the sea like a vampire's teeth, the coastal plain is dotted with little huts on stilts. During low...

Health Tips: Hearing, food, root canals.
May 15, 2007... Byline: LIDIA WASOWICZ Hearing aids can boost earning power Hard-of-hearing Americans who use a hearing aid make more money, on average, than those who go without, researchers report. In both cases, however, the earning power tends to...

Caregiving: Reality show reality.
May 15, 2007... Byline: ALEX CUKAN ALBANY, N.Y., May 15 (UPI) -- Five orphaned siblings are suing ABC-TV's reality program "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" alleging fraud, greed, racism and broken promises, but the cautionary tale here is that most of us...

Analysis: Street split on GPC Biotech drug.
May 15, 2007... Byline: STEVE MITCHELL WASHINGTON, May 15 (UPI) -- GPC Biotech's first-quarter revenues plunged, but the company may get a boost when a Food and Drug Administration advisory panel reviews its prostate-cancer drug, satraplatin, in July. ...

Analysis: Broad Alzheimer's plan urged.
May 15, 2007... Byline: LAURA GILCREST WASHINGTON, May 15 (UPI) -- A broad national policy that brings together the best minds from government, academia and industry is urgently needed to battle a predicted epidemic of Alzheimer's disease, which experts...

Analysis: House research bill unveiled.
May 15, 2007... Byline: OLGA PIERCE WASHINGTON, May 15 (UPI) -- House lawmakers Tuesday unveiled a $3 billion bipartisan plan to fund medical comparative effectiveness research. A bill co-sponsored by Reps. Tom Allen, D-Maine, and Jo Ann Emerson,...

Eat To Live: Pick a peck of Viet pepper.
May 16, 2007... Byline: JULIA WATSON HUE, Vietnam, May 16 (UPI) -- At a monastery in the countryside just outside Hue, Nguyen Van Qua reached for a vine wrapped round a mulberry tree and plucked away a handful of tiny olive green beads hanging from a...

Sun-smart (and not-so-smart) U.S. cities.
May 16, 2007... Byline: EMILY WALKER WASHINGTON, May 16 (UPI) -- Do people look more attractive with a tan? Is soaking up imitation sun in a tanning bed better than the sun because tanning salons emit a safer type of light ray? Is building a base...

Analysis: States ease Medicaid signup.
May 16, 2007... Byline: ROSALIE WESTENSKOW WASHINGTON, May 16 (UPI) -- Several states are boosting the number of children enrolled in public healthcare programs, targeting the large chunk of uninsured children whose families unknowingly forfeit coverage....

Analysis: More teen girls on medications.
May 16, 2007... Byline: STEVE MITCHELL WASHINGTON, May 16 (UPI) -- Over the past five years, the use of prescription drugs for diabetes, sleep problems and mental disorders in adolescent girls has risen faster than in boys, according to a report released...

Analysis: Medicare HMOs fend off oversight.
May 16, 2007... Byline: OLGA PIERCE WASHINGTON, May 16 (UPI) -- Facing down the threat of greater regulation, health insurers unveiled a plan to curb shady marketing practices to seniors at a congressional hearing Wednesday, but their efforts may come too...

HealthSmarts: How to choose supplements.
May 17, 2007... Byline: DR. TASNEEM BHATIA It is a $23 billion-dollar industry. According to National Institute of Health statistics in 2006, American use of nutritional supplements continues to increase. Additionally, we are spending close to $36 billion...

Analysis: Asthma patients can cut dose.
May 17, 2007... Byline: ED SUSMAN WEST PALM BEACH, Fla., May 17 (UPI) -- Researchers said Thursday that people with mild persistent asthma can safely reduce their medication and still control asthma symptoms. The report in the New England Journal of...

Analysis: New drug to wake up sleep market.
May 17, 2007... Byline: STEVE MITCHELL WASHINGTON, May 17 (UPI) -- Despite the recent problems that have hit the insomnia treatment field, the market is set to grow by $1.6 billion over the next 10 years, led by Sanofi aventis' first-in-class medication,...

Analysis: Are ERs really 'overused'?
May 18, 2007... Byline: OLGA PIERCE WASHINGTON, May 18 (UPI) -- Healthcare reformers say the United States can save a lot of money by reducing unnecessary emergency room visits, but number crunchers are not so sure. "The concept of 'inappropriate'...

Ped Med: Autism and healthcare access.
May 18, 2007... Byline: LIDIA WASOWICZ SAN FRANCISCO, May 18 (UPI) -- There is at least one dilemma that confronts virtually every family with an autistic child, at one point or another: the problem of access to needed services. By federal law, public...

Eat To Live: Food hints from Vietnam.(Recipe)
May 18, 2007... Byline: JULIA WATSON HOI AN, Vietnam, May 18 (UPI) -- When a person has learned how to make rice-paper wrappers from scratch and to carve a rose from a tomato, they can get a little above themselves. And these were only two of the...

Analysis: Hospitals face heat to cut error.
May 18, 2007... Byline: ROSALIE WESTENSKOW WASHINGTON, May 18 (UPI) -- Medical errors cause thousands of deaths in the United States each year, but an alliance of health systems this week proposed a set of tougher guidelines for hospitals to make patient...

Health Tips: Taking sweat out of summer.
May 18, 2007... Byline: ALEX CUKAN No reason to sweat about excessive perspiration The month of May ushers in the prom and wedding season, and those who suffer from hyperhidrosis, or excessive sweating, may not want to risk being embarrassed or...

Analysis: Cancer in nano's crosshairs.
May 18, 2007... Byline: ADRIANNE APPEL BOSTON, May 18 (UPI) -- With medical advances not making as big a dent in cancer lethality as scientists had hoped, researchers are increasingly turning to the nascent nanotechnology arena as a last best hope,...

Analysis: 'People power' vs. disasters.
May 18, 2007... Byline: OLGA PIERCE WASHINGTON, May 18 (UPI) -- Efforts to prepare for public health disasters are leaving out a critical component, experts say: the individual citizen. "Citizens have to get involved," said Maurice Ramirez,...

Grassroots-driven smoking bans catch fire.
May 21, 2007... Byline: CHRISTINE DELL'AMORE WASHINGTON, May 21 (UPI) -- Karlynn BrintzenhofeSzoc used to welcome the hazy wall of cigarette smoke that greeted her at Colonel Brooks Tavern, a restaurant and bar just down the street from Catholic...

Eat To Live: Feeding Pol Pot's children.
May 21, 2007... Byline: JULIA WATSON PHNOM PENH, Cambodia, May 21 (UPI) -- On the manicured lawn between the Royal Palace in Phnom Penh and the Tonle Sap River, a young couple sitting under a banyan tree offered me their 14-month-old son in exchange for...

Analysis: FDA likely to OK Roche's Mircera.
May 21, 2007... Byline: STEVE MITCHELL WASHINGTON, May 21 (UPI) -- The U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued just an approvable letter for Roche's Mircera, but Wall Street thinks the anemia drug will be approved by year's end and cut into the sales of...

Analysis: Combos best for blood pressure?
May 22, 2007... Byline: ED SUSMAN CHICAGO, May 22 (UPI) -- Combination products appear to be the wave of the present to treat individuals with high blood pressure, doctors said this week. In a series of presentations at the 22nd annual meeting of the...

Analysis: Street mixed on Avandia's future.
May 22, 2007... Byline: STEVE MITCHELL WASHINGTON, May 22 (UPI) -- A new study indicates GlaxoSmithKline's diabetes drug Avandia raises the risk of heart attack, but the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said because other clinical data are contradictory,...

Analysis: No one measuring the gender gap.
May 22, 2007... Byline: OLGA PIERCE WASHINGTON, May 22 (UPI) -- A recent spate of seemingly contradictory research results underline the need for more data on gender disparities in healthcare, advocates told congressional staffers at a briefing Monday....

Health Tips: All about cancer.
May 22, 2007... Byline: LIDIA WASOWICZ Cancer perception is not reality A study reveals patients, the public and even practitioners may have erroneous perceptions about cancer. Because patients have taken on an unprecedented role in deciding their...

Analysis: Cost worries Mom 'n Pop.
May 23, 2007... Byline: ROSALIE WESTENSKOW WASHINGTON, May 22 (UPI) -- An overwhelming majority of small-business owners point to cost as their primary healthcare concern, but say they don't want the government running the show, according to a recent...

Eat To Live: Chips are down for Cambodians.(Recipe)
May 23, 2007... Byline: JULIA WATSON SIEM REAP, Cambodia, May 23 (UPI) -- Carved deep into the walls of the 1,000-year-old temples of Angkor Wat are detailed and delicate carvings of fish. The inspiration for them probably comes from the Tonle Sap...

Analysis: Pharma swimming against IP tide?
May 23, 2007... Byline: OLGA PIERCE WASHINGTON, May 23 (UPI) -- In an effort to head off a potential worldwide flood of so-called compulsory drug licenses -- where foreign countries skirt intellectual-property laws and make generic versions of a patented...

Caregiving: Graduation mental health.
May 23, 2007... Byline: ALEX CUKAN ALBANY, N.Y., May 23 (UPI) -- May is mental-health month, and Mental Health America reminds us that we should set manageable goals, but May is when colleges and universities send their graduates out into the world...

Analysis: Allegations fuel Avandia fire.
May 23, 2007... Byline: STEVE MITCHELL WASHINGTON, May 23 (UPI) -- The controversy over whether GlaxoSmithKline's diabetes drug Avandia increases the risk of heart problems heated up Wednesday, with allegations the Food and Drug Administration was...