June 10th 2009
This week in medicine
The following will appear in the June 13 issue of The Lancet:
FDA food fees The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has announced new plans to enforce fees of US$1000 per year on all food companies, to fund more frequent inspections of food facilities. The fees are expected to raise an extra $375 million per year, which the FDA says is needed to help avoid further scandals such as the contaminated spinach and peanut outbreaks of recent years.
Congo malnutrition A quarter of children in the Republic of Congo are chronically or acutely malnourished, according to a UNICEF survey. A joint statement from UNICEF and the government attributed the situation to poor feeding practices, in particular low levels of exclusive breastfeeding and diets deficient in vitamin A. Limited access to maternal health services was also blamed.
ASCO news The big news from the American Society of Clinical Oncology’s annual meeting last week was the advent of poly ADP-ribose polymerase inhibitors, a new class of drugs for hard-to-treat breast cancer. Phase II results were promising and phase III trials are now underway in women with triple-negative breast cancer and those with BRCA mutations.
Human rights reported Amnesty International has released its annual report detailing the state of human rights around the world. Shocking human rights abuses are present on every continent. The global financial crisis has forced many people into poverty, making them more vulnerable to human rights violations. The report is reviewed in depth in The Lancet Student.
Compulsory MMR vaccination? Former chairman of the British Medical Association Sandy Macara proposed last week that children in the UK should not be allowed to go to school unless they have had the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine. His call was prompted by a recent drop in MMR vaccination rates and a substantial rise in measles cases.
STIs in children The number of children diagnosed with sexually transmitted infections (STIs) in Scotland is on the increase. In 2004, 249 children aged 10-15 years were diagnosed with chlamydia, compared with 318 in 2008. The number of cases of gonorrhoea and genital warts also increased in the same period.
Road safety On June 15, WHO will release its Global Status Report on Road Safety. Funded by a US$9 million grant from Bloomberg Philanthropies, the report is a scorecard aimed at showing what individual countries have achieved, and the gaps that remain, in relation to WHO’s 2004 world report on prevention of road traffic injuries. Such injuries are predicted to become the eighth leading cause of death by 2030.
H1N1 update As of June 8, 25 288 cases of influenza A (H1N1) infection have been officially reported across 73 countries, including the first African country, Egypt. There have been 139 deaths worldwide so far. WHO has still not raised the alert level to 6, despite the criteria being met (sustained community-level outbreaks in two or more countries in one WHO region, and at least one other country in another WHO region).
No refuge Zimbabweans fleeing to South Africa from the ongoing disaster in their home country continue to endure “intolerable suffering” once they get to their destination, according to a report from Médecins Sans Frontières. The organisation is calling on the South African Government and UN agencies to address urgently the basic needs of these vulnerable people.
Homoeopathy plea Members of the Voice of Young Science network have written to Akpan Etukudo of WHO’s African region calling for WHO to condemn the promotion of homoeopathy for killer diseases such as HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis. Homoeopathy clinics thrive in many African countries, where some claim to provide “affordable natural medicine for the people of Africa”.
Women in disasters The Bangladesh Red Crescent Society has launched a project aimed at teaching women disaster preparedness. Women attend community-based training sessions and are then encouraged to relate the information gleaned to their neighbours. Bangladesh is regularly hit by natural disasters, the latest being cyclone Aila, which struck the country in late May.
From the hip Across the USA, increasing numbers of high-profile sports stars and junior athletes are developing hip injuries. A focus on training to prevent knee injuries might be to blame for placing stress on hip joints and leading to torn cartilage. 34 major league baseball players were unable to play because of hip injuries in 2008, compared with 20 in 2007.
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