Health Bits

[Guest guest]

Scientists develop an Ebola vaccine

WASHINGTON, Aug. 6 (UPI) -- Scientists say they've produced a

vaccine against the Ebola virus that works rapidly after a single

injection. The Washington Post said the unexpected development of the

vaccine means the nation could soon have a defense against one of the

most dreaded weapons in the terrorist arsenal. Although only tests

with monkeys have been performed, vaccines testing well in monkeys

usually do well in humans. Researchers said the monkeys were

completely protected against death from Ebola infections when they

were exposed to the virus a month after being inoculated. Scientists

told the Post the vaccine could be available as soon as 2006. That's a

decade sooner than many scientists thought it would take to develop an

Ebola vaccine. The work is to be reported in Thursday's edition of

the journal Nature.

 

Underwater active volcano discovered

LONDON, Aug. 6 (UPI) -- British scientists have discovered a

" smoking " volcano 3,500 yards below the surface of the Indian Ocean.

The BBC said Wednesday the team on board the research vessel RRS

Charles Darwin made the find when they spotted a huge, dark plume of

water, 700 yards thick and more than 24 miles wide, rising hundreds of

yards above a lava-strewn valley on the Carlsberg ocean ridge. " Black

smokers, " often teeming with exotic creatures, are known to exist in

the Pacific and Atlantic oceans but their discovery in the Indian

Ocean is new. The smoky plume comes from iron-rich particles that

solidify when hot mineral-laden fluids mix with cold deep-ocean water.

" If you think of a factory chimney pouring out smoke on a still day,

the smoke goes vertically upwards but as it entrains air, eventually

stops rising and starts to spread out, " explained Dr Lindsay Parson,

project leader of the mid-ocean ridge research group at Southampton

Oceanography Center.

 

WTC babies half-pound lighter

NEW YORK, Aug. 6 (UPI) -- Pregnant women who were near the World

Trade Center in New York City after the terrorist attacks had babies

with a lower birth weight. Mount Sinai School of Medicine

researchers proposed that air pollution from the pulverized,

smoldering wreckage was the most likely cause of the difference, the

New York Times reported. The researchers found the babies whose

mothers were near the collapsing towers were up to a half-pound

lighter than the babies of mothers who were not near the World Trade

Center when it collpased. The study revealed no other clues that

exposure to the disaster site or dust had affected the pregnancies.

The findings are published in the Journal of the American Medical

Association. New York City health officials said the implications of

this kind of study were limited by its size and methods, which, among

other things involved relying on the recollections of the women being

monitored.

 

Medicare to lower payment for cancer drugs

WASHINGTON, Aug. 6 (UPI) -- The Bush administration will soon

propose significant cuts in Medicare payments for cancer drugs, based

on data suggesting that the government pays too much.

Administration officials said they would also propose a modest

increase in payments to doctors who give the drugs to patients in

their offices. But, government documents show, the increased

payments for medical services would be dwarfed by the cuts in payments

to doctors for the drugs they buy, the New York Times reports. " It is

abundantly clear, from many studies and congressional hearings, that

we are significantly overpaying for outpatient drugs under Medicare, "

Thomas A. Scully, administrator of the federal Centers for Medicare

and Medicaid Services, told the Times. Ellen L. Stovall, president

of the National Coalition for Cancer Survivorship, an advocacy group

led by cancer survivors, said the proposals, " instead of expanding

access to lifesaving drugs, would limit access to cancer treatments

for some of the most seriously ill Medicare beneficiaries. "

 

© Copyright 2003 by United Press International. All rights reserved.

 

***********************************************************************