Archive for March, 2010

Switzerland suspends Glaxo’s rotavirus vaccine

Wednesday, March 31st, 2010

Tue Mar 23, 2010 2:49pm EDTRelated NewsUPDATE 3-Glaxo’s rotavirus vaccine use suspended – US

Mon, Mar 22 2010

ZURICH, March 23 (Reuters) – Switzerland has urged doctors to temporarily stop using GlaxoSmithKline Plc’s (GSK.L) Rotarix vaccine, regulators said on Tuesday, making it the latest country to caution against its use.

U.S. authorities and the company said on Monday doctors should temporarily stop using the vaccine against a diarrhoea-causing virus called rotavirus because the vaccine is contaminated with an apparently harmless pig virus. (more…)

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FDA Warns of Zocor Risk to Muscles

Tuesday, March 30th, 2010

Muscle Injury Risk With Higher Zocor Doses, Certain Other Drugs

By Daniel J. DeNoon

WebMD Health NewsReviewed by Laura J. Martin, MDMarch 19, 2010 — Based on new data, the FDA today warned that higher doses of the cholesterol-lowering drug Zocor, sold generically as simvastatin, carry an increased risk of muscle injury.

The FDA also warns that mixing Zocor with certain other drugs also increases patients’ risk of muscle injury, including the rare but serious complication known as rhabdomyolysis. Rhabdomyolysis can sometimes result in fatal kidney damage.

The combination products Vytorin and Simcor also contain simvastatin, the active ingredient in Zocor. Zocor is a member of the class of drugs known as statins. All statin drugs carry a risk of muscle damage, but new data suggest that this risk may be particularly high for the 80 milligram dose of Zocor.

The data come from the SEARCH study, in which muscle damage was seen in nearly 1% of patients taking the 80 milligram dose of Zocor but in only 0.02% of patients taking the 20 milligram dose of Zocor.

Rhabdomyolysis was rare in the SEARCH study. It happened in only 11 of 6,031 patients (0.02%) in group taking the 80 milligram dose of Zocor, but was not seen in patients taking the 20 milligram dose. (more…)

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Too Many Infants Short on Vitamin D

Monday, March 29th, 2010

 

Most should be getting supplement to meet 400 IU daily requirement, study finds

By Steven Reinberg

MONDAY, March 22 (HealthDay News) — Most infants in the United States aren’t getting enough vitamin D and should be given supplements, a new federal government report shows.

In 2008, the American Academy of Pediatrics raised the recommended daily requirement of vitamin D for infants from 200 International Units (IU) a day to 400 IU, the researchers noted. However, too few infants are getting these new levels.

“Vitamin D receptors are present in almost every type of cell in the body,” said lead researcher Cria G. Perrine, from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Epidemic Intelligence Service in the Office of Workforce and Career Development, and Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Obesity.

Lack of vitamin D has been linked to many diseases including cancer, type 1 diabetes and respiratory problems, Perrine added. (more…)

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Pass The Butter…Please

Sunday, March 28th, 2010

Pass The Butter… Please.    

This is interesting . .. …

Margarine was originally manufactured to fatten turkeys. When it killed the turkeys, the people who had put  all the money into the research wanted a payback so they put their heads together to figure out what to do with this product to get their money back.

It was a white substance with no food appeal so they added the yellow colouring and sold it to people to use in place of butter. How do you like it? They have come out with some clever new flavourings….    

DO YOU KNOW.. The difference between margarine and butter?

Read on to the end…gets very interesting!    

Both have the same amount of calories.

Butter is slightly higher in saturated fats at 8 grams; compared to 5 grams for margarine.

Eating margarine can increase heart disease in women by 53% over eating the same amount of butter, according to a recent Harvard Medical Study.

Eating butter increases the absorption of many other nutrients in other foods.

Butter has many nutritional benefits where margarine has a few and only  because  they are added!

Butter tastes much better than margarine and it can enhance the flavours of other foods.

Butter has been around for centuries where margarine has been around for less than 100 years.

And now, for Margarine..

Very High in Trans fatty acids.

Triples risk of coronary heart disease .

Increases  total cholesterol and LDL (this is the bad cholesterol) and  lowers HDL cholesterol, (the good cholesterol)

Increases  the risk of cancers up to five times…..

Lowers  quality of breast milk.

Decreases immune response.

Decreases  insulin response.

And  here’s the most disturbing fact…. HERE  IS  THE PART THAT IS  VERY INTERESTING!

Margarine  is but ONE MOLECULE away  from being PLASTIC… and shares 27 ingredients with PAINT

These facts alone were enough to have me avoiding margarine for life and anything else that is hydrogenated (this means hydrogen is added, changing the molecular structure of the substance).    

You can try this yourself:

Purchase  a tub of margarine and leave it open in your garage or shaded  area.  Within a couple of days you will notice a couple of things:

*  no flies, not even those pesky fruit flies will go near it  (that should tell you something)

 *  it does not rot or smell differently because it has no nutritional value ; nothing will grow on it. Even those teeny weeny microorganisms will not a find a home to grow.

Why? Because it is nearly plastic. Would you melt your Tupperware and spread that on your toast?

 

For More Information Please Visit:  www.The9Steps.com/6

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Tougher warning for eczema drugs?

Saturday, March 27th, 2010

FDA: Dozens of new reports of cancer, infection in children

WASHINGTON – Novartis AG and Astellas Pharma eczema drugs may need their warning labels expanded after dozens of new reported cases of cancer and infection in children, U.S. Food and Drug Administration staff said in documents released on Thursday.

Agency scientists said 46 cancer cases and 71 infection cases have been reported in patients aged 16 and younger from 2004 to 2008 with Novartis’ Elidel and Astellas’ Protopic.

Both drugs — also known as pimecrolimus and tacrolimus respectively — already carry strong warnings about cancer and infection, but officials should consider expanding them to include the new post-marketing reports, they wrote. (more…)

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Bicycle Bells Recalled for High Lead Levels

Friday, March 26th, 2010

 

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: March 18, 2010

  • WASHINGTON (AP) — The hardware store chain Do It Best Corp. is recalling a series of children’s bicycle bells because the paint on the products contains too much lead.

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission and Do It Best announced the voluntary recall on Thursday.

The bells are red, black and white and have ”I (heart) My Bike” printed on the top. The packaging, which is green and white, reads ”bike bell” and ”$1.” The products were sold for about $1 at Dollar Stores and Do It Best Hardware locations nationwide from August 2008 through August 2009.

The red paint on the bells contains more lead than federal standards allow. No incidents or injuries have been reported.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission said consumers who own one of the bells should immediately return it to the store for a refund.

For more information, people can call Do It Best Hardware’s toll-free recall hotline at (877) 326-8954 or visit the company’s Web site at www.doitbest.com.

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V.A. Is Fined Over Errors in Radiation at Hospital

Thursday, March 25th, 2010

 

By WALT BOGDANICH
Published: March 17, 2010

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Wednesday announced its second-largest fine ever against a medical institution — $227,500 — after finding that the veterans hospital in Philadelphia had caused an “unprecedented number” of radiation errors in treating prostate cancer patients.

N.R.C. fines for medical errors involving radiation rarely exceed several thousand dollars. But commission officials said the size of the fine was justified by the magnitude of the failure at the hospital.

Federal investigators said the hospital made significant errors, misplacing radioactive seeds, in 97 of 116 procedures involving patients with prostate cancer from 2002 to 2008.

“The lack of management oversight, the lack of safety culture to ensure patients are treated safely, the potential consequences to the veterans who came to this facility and the sheer number of medical events show the gravity of these violations,” said Mark Satorius, a regional administrator for the commission, which regulates the use of nuclear isotopes in medical treatment. (more…)

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China Accused of Selling Bad Vaccines

Wednesday, March 24th, 2010

By KEITH BRADSHER

Published: March 18, 2010

HONG KONG — A newspaper article by one of China’s best-known investigative reporters has reawakened a controversy over whether provincial authorities improperly stored vaccines in rooms without air conditioning, rendering them ineffective, and then let them be administered to children.

China’s Health Ministry said on Thursday that it would look into the report, by Wang Keqin in the China Economic Times, while cautioning that it had examined the evidence in late 2008 and not found a widespread problem.

But Chen Taoan, the former chief spokesman of the Shanxi Province Disease Control and Prevention Center and still on the center’s staff, said in a telephone interview on Thursday that a senior official there had been relieved of all duties at the end of last year because of improprieties related to the vaccines.

Mr. Chen said that the center, which is part of the Shanxi Health Department, had required all hospitals in the province to buy vaccines at steep prices. To monitor compliance by the hospitals, the center put a sticker on each package of vaccine to show that it had been approved. (more…)

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Constitutional lawyer has read the entire proposed healthcare bill

Tuesday, March 23rd, 2010

   Wait until you read this…      A retired Constitutional lawyer has read the entire proposed healthcare bill. Read his conclusions and pass this on as you wish. This is stunning!       Please take the time to read this and forward it out as you see fit.  Thanks The Truth About the Health Care Bills – Michael Connelly, Ret. Constitutional Attorney    Well, I have done it!  I have read the entire text of proposed House Bill 3200: The Affordable Health Care Choices Act of 2009. I studied it with particular emphasis from my area of expertise, constitutional law.  I was frankly concerned that parts of the proposed law that were being discussed might be unconstitutional. What I found was far worse than what I had heard or expected.   To begin with, much of what has been said about the law and its implications is in fact true, despite what the Democrats and the media are saying.  The law does provide for rationing of health care, particularly where senior citizens and other classes of citizens are involved, free health care for illegal immigrants, free abortion services, and probably forced participation in abortions by members of the medical profession.   (more…)

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Warning Letter to Glenmark for Selling Unapproved Drug

Monday, March 22nd, 2010

Submitted by Amit Pathania on Wed, 03/17/2010 – 10:47 Pharmaceutical Sector Featured Health TNM Glenmark

 

On Tuesday, the Food and Drug Administration warned Glenmark Pharmaceuticals Ltd. for selling nitroglycerin tablets without approval. (more…)

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