Barefoot Lifestyle Has Its Dangers

(HealthDay News) -- Going barefoot is one of the simple pleasures of summer, but some who doff their shoes and socks suffer injuries such as cuts and puncture wounds. In some cases, those injuries develop infections that require surgery.

If you do go barefoot, check out these safety tips from the American College of Foot and Ankle Surgeons:

• Make sure you're vaccinated against tetanus. Teens and adults should get booster shots every 10 years.
• Apply sunscreen to the tops and bottoms of your feet to protect them from sunburn. Rare, but deadly, skin cancers can develop on the feet.
• Wear flip-flops or sandals around swimming pools, locker rooms and beaches. They'll help protect against cuts and abrasions from rough anti-slip surfaces and sharp objects hidden in beach sand, and prevent contact with viruses and bacteria that can cause athlete's foot, plantar warts and other foot problems.
• Use common sense. Every year, people lose toes while mowing the lawn barefoot and others suffer serious burns from accidentally stepping on stray campfire coals or fireworks. Remember that murky rivers, lakes and ponds can conceal sharp objects underwater.
• People with diabetes should never go barefoot, even indoors, because they may not "feel" a foot injury.
• If you suffer a puncture wound in your foot, see a doctor within 24 hours. A puncture wound must be cleaned properly and monitored throughout the healing process to avoid complications such as tissue and bone infections or damage to tendons or muscles in the foot.
• Inspect your feet on a routine basis for skin problems such as warts, calluses, ingrown toenails, suspicious moles, spots or freckles. The sooner a condition is detected, the easier it is to treat.

More information

The American College of Foot and Ankle Surgeons has more about puncture wounds.

One in 4 Teen Girls Has a Sexually Transmitted Disease

(HealthDay News) -- More than 3 million teenaged girls have at least one sexually transmitted disease (STD), a new government study suggests.

The most severely affected are African-American teens. In fact, 48 percent of African-American teenaged girls have an STD, compared with 20 percent of white teenaged girls.

"What we found is alarming," Dr. Sara Forhan, from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said during a teleconference Tuesday. "One in four female adolescents in the U.S. has at least one of the four most common STDs that affects women."

"These numbers translate into 3.2 million young women nationwide who are infected with an STD," Forhan said. "This means that far too many young women are at risk of the serious health effects of untreated STDs, including infertility and cervical cancer."

These common STDs include human papillomavirus (HPV), chlamydia, herpes simplex virus and trichomoniasis, Forhan said.

Forhan announced the results as part of the CDC's 2008 National STD Prevention Conference, in Chicago.

"These findings are really giving us a lot of pause about how we provide care to adolescent girls who are sexually active," said Dr. Elizabeth Alderman, an adolescent medicine specialist at Children's Hospital at Montefiore in New York City and chairperson of the Executive Committee of the Section of Adolescent Health of the American Academy of Pediatrics. "The numbers are really astonishing."

Forhan noted that most of the burden of STDs falls on young African-American women. "Among African-American teenagers, about one in two were affected compared to one in five white teens," she said.

In terms of the racial disparity, "it's what we've always seen, which is very unfortunate," Alderman said.

In the study, Forhan's team collected data on 838 girls aged 14 to 19 who took part in the 2003-2004 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. The study did not include syphilis, gonorrhea or HIV, as earlier studies found very low prevalence of these diseases in this age group.

HPV and chlamydia are the most common STDs found among teenage girls, Forhan said. "Almost one in five overall had a strain of HPV associated with cervical cancer or genital warts," she said.

"We need to be screening adolescent girls who are sexually active and providing them with HPV vaccine," Alderman said. "The recommendations are to screen sexually active girls, but many girls don't disclose to their health-care provider that they are sexually active, even when asked," she said.

As for chlamydia, 4 percent of teenaged girls had this STD, Forhan said. "The majority of chlamydia infections do not have symptoms. If left untreated, it can lead to pelvic inflammatory disease, which leaves these young women at risk for atopic pregnancy, chronic pelvic pain or infertility," she said.

In addition, the study found that 2.9 percent of young women had trichomoniasis, and 2 percent were infected with genital herpes, Forhan said.

According to Forhan, about 50 percent of the teens reported having sex, and the prevalence of STDs in this group was 40 percent. "Even for young women with only one reported lifetime sexual partner, one in five had an STD," she noted.

"If you choose to be sexually active, you need to protect yourself and be screened for these infections," Alderman said. "And all girls between the ages of 11 and 26 should get vaccinated for HPV."

Among women with an STD, 15 percent had more than one infection, Forhan added.
"These data provide a clearest picture to date of the overall burden of STDs in adolescent women in the United States," Forhan said. "The study also underscores the importance of addressing racial disparities in STD rates among young women."

Race itself is not a risk factor for STDs, Forhan said. However, factors such as limited access to health care, poverty, community prevalence of STDs, and misperceptions about individual risk are some of the reasons that STD rates are particularly high among African-Americans, she said.
More information
For more on STDs, visit the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Cancer Killed Almost 8 Million Worldwide in 2007

(HealthDay News) -- Cancer continues to cut a deadly swath across the globe, with the American Cancer Society reporting 12 million new cases of malignancy diagnosed worldwide in 2007, with 7.6 million people dying from the disease.

The report, Global Cancer Facts & Figures, finds that 5.4 million of those cancers and 2.9 million deaths are in more affluent, developed nations, while 6.7 million new cancer cases and 4.7 million deaths hit people in developing countries.

"The point of the report is to promote cancer control worldwide, and increase awareness worldwide," said report co-author Dr. Ahmedin Jemal, director of the society's Cancer Occurrence Office.

The number of cancers and cancer deaths around the world is on the rise, Jemal said, mostly due to an aging population. "There is increasing life expectancy, and cancer occurs more frequently in older age groups," he noted.

Lifestyle may be another reason for the rise in malignancies in developing countries, Jemal said, as people adopt Western behaviors such as smoking, high-fat diets and less physical activity.

The best way to stem the increasing number of cancer cases and deaths is prevention, especially in poorer countries, the expert said. In many developing nations, the health-care infrastructure simply isn't there to offer cancer screening and treatment for most people, Jemal added.

In developed countries, the most common cancers among men are prostate, lung and colorectal cancer. Among women, the most common cancers are breast, colorectal and lung cancer, according to the report.

However, in developing countries the three most common cancers among men are lung, stomach and liver, and among women, breast, cervix uteri and stomach.

Worldwide, some 15 percent of all cancers are thought to be related to infections, including hepatitis (liver cancer) and human papilloma virus (cervical cancer). But the incidence of infection-related cancers remains three times higher in developing countries compared with developed countries (26 percent vs. 8 percent), according to the report.

In addition, cancer survival rates in many developing countries are far below those in developed countries. This is mostly due to the lack of early detection and treatment services. For example, in North America five-year childhood cancer survival rates are about 75 percent compared with three-year survival rates of 48 percent to 62 percent in Central America, the report notes. The report estimates that 60 percent of the world's children who develop cancer have little or no access to treatment.

The report also includes a section on the toll tobacco use takes around the world. In 2000, some 5 million people worldwide died from tobacco use. Of these, about 30 percent (1.42 million) died from cancer -- 850,000 from lung cancer alone.

Jemal believes smoking is a key culprit.

"Smoking prevalence is decreasing in developed countries. So, as tobacco companies are losing market in developed countries they are trying to expand their market in developing countries," he said.

In China alone, more than 350 million people smoke. "That's more than the entire population of the United States," Jemal said. "If these current patterns continue, there will be 2 billion smokers worldwide by the year 2030, half of whom will die of smoking-related diseases if they do not quit," he added.

In the 20th century, tobacco use caused about 100 million deaths around the world. In this century, that figure is expected to rise to over 1 billion people. Most of these will occur in developing countries.

One expert agreed that many cancer deaths can be avoided through lifestyle changes.
"What is most provocative here is not the total global burden of suffering and death cancer causes, dramatic though that may be, but the variations in cancer occurrence around the world, and the insights provided about how much of the cancer burden need not occur at all," said Dr. David Katz, director of the Prevention Research Center at Yale University School of Medicine.

In developing countries, cancer of the uterine cervix is a leading cause of death in women, Katz noted.

"Yet this infection-related cancer is now preventable by vaccine, and long treatable when detected early using the Pap smear. As a result, death from cervical cancer in developed countries is dramatically lower. Its toll in the developing world is testimony to missed opportunities to apply our resources effectively, and equitably," he said.

Cancer of the liver, often related to hepatitis infection, is a leading cause of death in developing countries, but not so in developed countries. "Again, an infection preventable with vaccine is causing death because of inequities in the distribution and use of existing resources," Katz said.

Prostate and colon cancers are more common in wealthier countries, where they are likely related to poor diet and obesity, Katz said. "Unnecessary suffering and death are occurring in affluent countries due to dietary excesses," he said.

Katz also noted that tobacco-related cancer is largely preventable. "The toll of tobacco-related disease, including lung cancer, is an appalling example of a global willingness to tolerate preventable suffering and death for the sake of profit," he said.

These data show both developed and developing countries how to move toward the lower rates of specific cancers, Katz said.

"It will be a tragic failure for public health if instead of applying these lessons developed countries continue to export tobacco and dietary transgressions so that the developing world adds to its current cancer burden ours as well," he said.

More information
For more information on cancer, visit the American Cancer Society.

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Fibers in Semen Help HIV Penetrate Cells

(HealthDay News) -- In a discovery that perplexes HIV experts, an international team reports that tiny fibers commonly found in semen drastically enhance the ability of the virus to do its damage.

According to a study in the Dec. 14 issue of Cell, the fibers capture the virus and then ferry it to target cells, increasing its ability to infect someone by more than 50 times in some cases and more than 100,000 times in others.

The findings could help scientists better understand how AIDS is transmitted. But Rowena Johnston, director of research with the Foundation for AIDS Research (amfAR), noted that the value of the research is limited, because it doesn't "necessarily reflect transmission in the 'real world.' "

"This is intriguing, and it's worth further investigation," said Johnston. "But there's nothing yet that makes me have a 'Eureka' moment."

While scientists have long known about the basics of AIDS transmission, it's not clear why the virus travels more easily through some routes than others.

For example, male-to-female sexual transmission is usually more common than the other way around but not always. And it's also not clear why the virus has become so prevalent even though it has a tiny presence in blood.

In the new study, led by a German team, scientists tried to figure out if components of human semen might affect transmission of the AIDS virus.

"We were not expecting to find an enhancer and were even more surprised about the strength," study author Dr. Frank Kirchhoff, of the University Clinic of Ulm, said in a statement. "Most enhancers have maybe a two- or threefold effect, but here, the effect was amazing, more than 50-fold, and, under certain conditions, more than 100,000-fold. At first, I didn't believe it, but we ran the experiment over and over, always with the same result."

Dr. Jeffrey Laurence, a professor of medicine and director of the Laboratory for AIDS Virus Research at Weill Medical College of Cornell University, said there could be something similar at play in cervical fluid that affects transmission. "In a lot of situations in the real world, women transmit HIV quite easily...," Laurence said.

He added that many other factors affect transmission of HIV, from bodily abrasions to menstrual cycles and use of oral contraceptives.

Could this latest finding bring scientists closer to an AIDS vaccine? Laurence, who thinks a vaccine is decades off, is doubtful. Prevention, however, might be another matter.

Laurence said it might be possible to develop an "antidote" for the virus-boosting powers of semen and put it in a microbicide that people could use before sex.

More information
Learn more about the basics of AIDS from aids.org.

Pill Poses Little Cervical Cancer Risk

(HealthDay News) -- Women taking oral contraceptives are at a slightly increased risk for developing cervical cancer, but a decade after stopping the pill even this very small risk disappears, a new British study suggests.

However, that finding doesn't change the recommendation for women to continue getting screened for cervical cancer, experts say.

"This is good news," said lead researcher Dr. Jane Green, an epidemiologist in the Cancer Epidemiology Unit at the University of Oxford. "We have been able to estimate the lifetime risk of cervical cancer for women on the pill and find it's really quite small," she said.

"The small increase in cervical cancer we see in women who are taking oral contraceptives starts to fall once pill use stops and has really gone away by 10 years after stopping use," Green said.

"The pill has many other benefits, including reducing the risk of other cancers, such as ovarian cancer and womb cancer," Green added.

The report is published in the Nov.10 issue of The Lancet.

In the study, Green and her colleagues from the International Collaboration of Epidemiological Studies of Cervical Cancer collected data on almost 16,600 women with cervical cancer and more than 35,500 women without cervical cancer. These women had participated in a total of 24 studies.

Green's team confirmed that the risk of cervical cancer among women who use oral contraceptives does increase over time. But this increase in risk is very small -- women who take contraceptives for five years or more have only about twice the risk compared with women who never took the pill.

In absolute terms, that means that a 20-year-old woman living in a developed country who uses an oral contraceptive for 10 years increases her odds of developing cervical cancer by age 50 from 3.8 cases per 1,000 women (without Pill use) to 4.5 per 1,000 women after using oral contraception. In less developed countries, where access to cervical cancer screening is more limited, that risk rises from 7.3 to 8.3 cases per 1,000 women, the researchers estimated.

Similar risk was seen for invasive and localized cancer and in women who have the human papillomavirus (HPV), which causes about 70 percent of all cervical cancers, Green noted.
Although the risk for cervical cancer associated with the Pill is small, Green advised women to still be screened for the disease. "Screening for cervical cancer is effective," she said. "The advice is to go for regular screenings."

Eventually, Green hopes that the vaccination against the human papillomavirus will go a long way to preventing many cases of cervical cancer.

One expert agreed that the findings showed the risk for cervical cancer from oral contraceptives was very small.

"This is reassuring news for women," said Dr. Peter Sasieni, from the Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine at Queen Mary University of London and author of an accompanying journal comment. "There is really a minimal risk from oral contraceptives, and that risk disappears fairly soon when you stop taking them," he said.

"When making a decision about what from of contraception to use, women shouldn't worry about cervical cancer," Sasieni concluded. "It's not an issue," he said.

However, he believes that taking oral contraceptives is another good reason to get screened regularly for the disease. "By going for regular screenings, a women can reduce her risk by 80 percent," Sasieni said.

Another expert agreed that women shouldn't worry about the Pill and cervical cancer risk.
"I don't think women are basing their decision of which form of contraception to use on the risk for cervical cancer," said Debbie Saslow, director of breast and gynecologic cancer at the American Cancer Society. "People who want to use oral contraceptives should not be alarmed over the slight increase in cervical cancer risk," she said.

However, women -- whether they take oral contraceptives or not -- should be getting regular cervical cancer screening, Saslow said.

More information
For more on cervical cancer, visit the American Cancer Society.
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Cervical Cancer Vaccines Won't Fight Existing HPV Infection

(HealthDay News) -- Cervical cancer vaccines that prevent infection with the human papillomavirus (HPV) do not reduce or eliminate preexisting infections, a new study suggests.

That means that shots such as Gardasil, or a similar, yet-to-be-FDA-approved vaccine, Cervarix, should not be viewed as a treatment for women who've most likely contracted the highly common, sexually transmitted virus through their partners.

"From a public health perspective, a population-wide perspective, the best approach is to vaccinate girls and women before they initiate sexual activity," said study researcher Allan Hildesheim, senior investigator in the division of cancer epidemiology and genetics at the U.S. National Cancer Institute.

"You can then protect individuals prior to their being exposed, since the vaccine doesn't have any effect after infection has happened," he said.

The findings, reported in the Aug. 15 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, support a recommendation in June from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that vaccination focus on girls 11 and 12 years of age, most of whom would not have already become sexually active.

Gardasil, which targets four cancer-causing strains of the virus -- 6, 11, 16 and 18 -- should be added to the list of routine school vaccinations, experts say.

On the other hand, "for women who have initiated sexual activity, cervical cancer screening is probably a better preventive measure than vaccination," Hildesheim said.

His team's NCI-funded study, which focused on the Cervarix vaccine, was conducted in Costa Rica and included almost 2,200 women aged 18 to 25. Cervarix has not yet been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, but its maker, GlaxoSmithKline, has said it believes the shot will gain approval sometime in 2008.

According to Hildesheim, prior studies had already strongly suggested that both Gardasil and Cervarix would be ineffective against preexisting viral infections.

"However, we noticed shortly after the initial licensure of the [Gardasil] vaccine that there was tremendous confusion -- both in the clinical and the lay community, regarding the use of this vaccine among women who were already infected," he said.

Other specialists have noticed similar confusion among their peers.

"Each of us has received anecdotal reports of doctors thinking that you can benefit [an infected] woman by vaccinating her," said Dr. Howard Strickler, professor of epidemiology and population health at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, in New York City. "There are misconceptions in the field," he said.

Even though HPV occurs in a wide variety of strains, Cervarix targets the two strains thought to cause 70 percent of cervical malignancies -- strains 16 and 18.

In the study, the researchers gave the vaccine to about 1,100 young women, all of whom had tested positive for genetic traces of HPV at the beginning of the study. Another group of infected young women received a hepatitis A shot as a "control."

By the end of 12 months, rates of HPV 16 and/or 18 "clearance" -- or absence -- from the body was 48.8 percent in the HPV vaccine group and 49.8 percent among the controls -- a statistical dead heat.

As the experience of the control group showed, the human immune system naturally clears many HPV infections over time. Giving women the vaccine appeared to provide no added benefit, the researchers said.

The investigators also observed no differences between the two groups in terms of the extent of HPV-linked disease, viral antibody load or the results of cervical cell tests conducted in the lab.

"Our results reinforce the notion that this vaccine is meant to protect against infections when they occur, but it isn't effective at helping clear the infection once it has established itself," Hildesheim said.

Still, given the array of HPV viral strains, wouldn't vaccination help protect against viral types a woman had perhaps not yet encountered? Theoretically, that's true, the experts said, and it is for exactly that reason that the CDC recommends the vaccine for women up to age 26.

However, there's currently no test that can determine a woman's HPV history.

"If you are sexually active, there is no way for you to know for sure whether or not you have been exposed to these particular [carcinogenic] strains," explained Hildesheim. They "are very common, and, typically, exposure happens fairly shortly after the initiation of sexual activity," he said. "That's why the best policy is to try and get the vaccine administered prior to sexual debut."

So, for both girls and women, vaccinated or not, the expert advice on avoiding cervical cancer remains the same: Get regular Pap smears.

"Remember, even [Gardasil] is just working against four strains," noted Dr. Stephanie Blank, a gynecologic oncologist and assistant professor of gynecologic oncology at New York University School of Medicine. "There are many more strains than that. So, the Pap smear recommendations have remained unchanged."

More information
There's more on cervical cancer at the American Cancer Society.

Combo Human-Bird Antibody May Ward Off Avian Flu

(HealthDay News) -- "Humanized" bird flu antibodies could work as both vaccine and treatment during a major outbreak in people, a new study indicates.

Researchers reporting in the Oct. 12 issue of the open-access journal Respiratory Research say they've bioengineered antibodies that are active against H5N1 bird flu virus by attaching a portion of a related human antibody.

The work produced two different, so-called "humanized monoclonal" antibodies.

Mice who received the first type of antibodies via injection three days before being exposed to H5N1 were completely protected from the virus, say a team of researchers from the DSO National Laboratory in Singapore and St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn.
Higher doses of these antibodies were effective against the disease when given after infection, the researchers added.

The second antibody was less protective, working only when given in a high dose before infection.

"We have shown here the proof of principle that passive antibody therapy can be an effective tool for both prophylaxis against and treatment of highly pathogenic H5N1 influenza virus, providing the immediate immunity needed, which combined with social distancing could limit the transmission of H5N1 to others and contain a future influenza pandemic," the researchers said.
Other experts were only cautiously optimistic.

Proof of principle is fine, said Dr. John Treanor, a professor of medicine, microbiology and immunology at the University of Rochester, but lots of different things need to be done to put the findings to practical use.

"You could look at different animal models," Treanor said. "You could make additional monoclonal antibodies. You could make a mixture of antibodies. All of this would be interesting and would help to define the situation better."

But ultimately, he said, "what you really need to do is to take some product like this monoclonal antibody, find people with H5N1 influenza and see if it made them better."

Such a test might be difficult to arrange. Only a few hundred people are known to have been infected with avian flu.

The most important thing to be done now, said Richard J. Webby, an American member of the research team, is to look at different strains of the H5N1 virus.

The biggest limitation of the humanized antibody is that "it recognizes only a small portion of the virus," said Webby, who works at St. Jude. "If the virus changes only a little bit, it might not be effective. We have to look at how this antibody works against the variants that are out there in Africa and the Middle East."

The researchers will be working with different animal models other than the mouse, Webby said. They also will work on large-scale production of the humanized antibody.

The idea of humanizing animal antibodies isn't new, Treanor said. One such antibody is on the market to protect high-risk infants against respiratory syncytial virus, an infection of the lungs and breathing passages.

Treanor led a trial of a standard vaccine against bird flu, financed by the U.S. National Institutes of Health. "We tested an inactivated vaccine," he said. "The finding was that the vaccine would work, but you would have to give a very high dose."

If the humanized antibody now being reported is found to work in humans, "it would be a bit cleaner and easier to deal with," Treanor said.

The World Health Organization is now testing a different approach to avian flu vaccination, a vaccine that contains part of the H5N1 virus and an adjuvant, an additive that increases effectiveness.

In related news, a team from the University of Rochester Medical Center -- led by Treanor -- said that an initial priming shot, given in advance of a "booster" shot, might help shield people against the bird flu virus.

The researchers focused on 37 people from Hong Kong. All had received two shots of vaccine as part of a 1998 study -- a response to an outbreak in poultry that had occurred there that year.
Earlier in 2006, the researchers gave these individuals a new vaccine, this time formulated to fight new strains that had emerged in 2004-2005.

Compared to people who received their very first experimental bird flu shot in 2005, those who had already gotten vaccine in 1998 were twice as likely to develop protective antibodies to the H5N1 virus, Treanor's group reported.

"If the findings hold up, then it might open up a number of options beneficial for planning," Treanor said in a prepared statement. "One might consider giving a priming shot to members of the community who would be a central part of the response if a pandemic were to occur, such as health care workers," he said.

The findings were presented Thursday at the annual meeting of the Infectious Diseases Society of America.

More information
There's more on bird flu on at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Health Highlights: Sept. 10, 2006

Here are some of the latest health and medical news developments, compiled by the editors of HealthDay:
Ibuprofen Can Lessen Aspirin's Cardiovascular Benefits, FDA Says

Taking the pain relievers aspirin and ibuprofen at the same time may lessen aspirin's effects in preventing a heart attack, a U.S. government agency warns.

The Food and Drug Administration says that combining low dose aspirin (usually 81 mg) with 400 mg of ibuprofen (e.g., Advil, Motrin) reduces the antiplatelet effect on the heart the low dose aspirin provides.

In its Sept. 8 report to consumers, the FDA said there is no evidence that taking the two anti-pain medications is harmful, but that ibuprofen has been shown to reduce aspirin's cardio-protective benefit.

But, says the FDA, you can take the two drugs within a reasonable time of each other, under certain circumstances. The research showed that a person could take ibuprofen 30 minutes after taking aspirin. Or aspirin could be taken 8 hours after taking ibuprofen.

Most important, the agency says, check with your physician, especially if you're taking aspirin as part of a daily heart regimen.
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Anti-Inflammatory Drugs Could Cause Damage After Hip Surgery

Anti-inflammatory drugs used six months after hip replacement surgery demonstrate no more pain relief than when they're not used, a new study from Australia and New Zealand says. Furthermore, the use of ibuprofen (e.g., Motrin, Advil) may actually cause unnecessary bleeding, the researchers found.

Scientists from The George Institute for International Health studied post-operative treatment of more than 900 patients, concentrating on the development of ectopic bone formation, which can occur 6-to-12 months after hip surgery. This bone develops in about one-third of hip replacement patients, the researchers say. It forms in soft tissue around the operated hip and can cause inflammation and pain.

While ibuprofen can "greatly reduce" the chances of ectopic bone formation, the scientists, said, it also considerably increases the chance of internal bleeding. And, they note, patients who didn't use ibuprofen reported no greater pain and discomfort 6-to-12 months after surgery than those who used the drug.
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Anticipating a Bad Event Can Make the Memory of it Worse, Study Says
Sometimes, too much knowledge can be a dangerous thing.

In a small study, researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have found that being aware that something bad is about to happen is going to make a person remember it more vividly after the event occurs.

BBC News reports that the study, published in the latest issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal, found that a part of the brain that triggers memory retention activated when people anticipated an adverse event.

Researchers first showed 36 study subjects a series of symbols, followed by pictures depicting gruesome images, BBC news reported. The symbols indicated the subjects either were going to see the bad photos or be spared the experience. The subjects were quizzed 30 minutes after first having seen the pictures and again two weeks later.

The scientists concluded that those who saw the gruesome images were more likely to remember them more vividly than those who saw benign material. "Our study illustrates how the power of expectancy can extend to memory formation as well, the BBC quotes lead author Jack Nitschke as saying. "Just the expectation of seeing something bad can enhance the memory of it after it happens."

The research may be used in developing ways to treat post traumatic stress disorder, the researchers say.
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Polio Vaccination Effort Begins in Parts of Africa
Attempting to counter claims by some Islamic clerics that the polio vaccine is part of a U.S. plot, officials from the World Health Organization (WHO) have embarked on a campaign to immunize almost 3 million children in the Horn of Africa this year against polio.

According to the Associated Press, the crippling disease has re-emerged in parts of Africa in recent years, and WHO officials are targeting children under 5-years-old in Somalia, Kenya and Ethiopia. According to the health organization, Somalia has reported 215 cases, Ethipia has 37 reported cases since 2004, and Kenya has had no reported cases in 22 years.

The problem is that many people in Africa are nomadic, so the possibility of polio spreading is a real threat, the wire service reports. "Nomadic people move between these countries all the time, so the idea is to try to get to these children and protect them," the A.P. quotes Dr. Mohamed Dahir Duale, a Kenya-based doctor with WHO, as saying.

In 2003 some radical Islamic clerics claimed that the polio vaccine, first developed Dr. Jonas Salk in the United States in the 1950s, was part of a U.S.-led plot to render Nigeria's Muslims infertile or infect them with AIDS. The vaccination program was stopped for more than a year, and cases of polio began to appear.
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Major Changes in NYC Healthcare Use After 9/11: Study
There was a sharp decline in healthcare usage in the New York City region during the three weeks after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, but usage then rose above expected levels over the following months, concludes a study in the September issue of the journal Biosecurity and Bioterrorism.

Researchers analyzed health insurance claims from January 2000 to March 2002 for more than two million residents of the New York City region.

The greatest decline in healthcare usage in the weeks after Sept. 11 was among people who lived closest to the World Trade Center (WTC) site. For example, there was an overall 11 percent decline in visits to doctors' offices in the three weeks after 9/11, but a 15 percent decline in office visits by people who lived within a 10-mile radius of the WTC.

The decline in office visits in those first few weeks was likely related to disruptions in access to healthcare services or transportation, the researchers said. In addition, many people may have decided to postpone healthcare visits in order to take care of more immediate issues.

Insurance claims for mental health services were lower than expected for the six months after 9/11. The researchers suggested a number of possible reasons, such people taking advantage of free mental health services, or many not recognizing their need for mental health care. Mental stress may have also manifested as physical illness, which resulted in increased healthcare use for conditions such as chest pain, ulcers, fainting, and irregular heart beats.

Between October 2001 and March 2002, the number of visits to doctors' offices was more than 200,000 over expected levels, the study found.

In related news, residents living near the World Trade Center site said the U.S. federal government has ignored health problems they have suffered as a result of the 9/11 attacks.
At a meeting held Thursday, accountant Tom Goodkind, 52, said that while there are programs for rescue/cleanup workers, little has been done for area residents, the Associated Press reported.

"I don't think that any of these groups have looked at the children of our neighborhoods," Goodkind said.

"Collateral damage, that's what I feel like," said tenant group leader Diane Lapson.
Also on Thursday, the Bush administration said it would provide $75 million for health programs for sick Sept. 11 rescue/cleanup workers.

Feds Approve Unnecessary Cervical Cancer Vaccine That Will Make Drug Company Billions

I warned you the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (AICP) would formally rule on the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine, that claims to protect women from infections that cause cervical cancer and other infections.

No great surprise, the committee officially and unanimously approved a recommendation yesterday that urges young female patients (ages 11-26) to be vaccinated.

What's more, the decision will force American health officials to shell out up to $2 billion to treat the poor. Eager to distance themselves from the ongoing Vioxx debacle, Merck says its Gardasil vaccine will be ready in a few days.

According to the CDC, HPV is the most common sexually transmitted disease in America (more than 6 million women contract it annually), yet the immune systems of many women are strong enough to clear up these infections on their own.


Also, a New England Journal of Medicine study found the use of condoms reduces the incidence of HPV by 70 percent. By comparison, Gardasil counteracts four varieties of HPV that cause 70 percent of the cases of cervical cancer and 90 percent of genital warts.

So, does your daughter or wife really need it? Before you make that choice, please review some of the pieces I've posted regarding the dangers of relying on vaccines to protect the health of your loved ones.

New York Times June 30, 2006 Registration Required
USA Today June 30, 2006

How Much Did The Flu Really Harm Your Health?

You remember the forecasts: At least 36,000 Americans die annually from flu-related symptoms, even though those estimates are largely based on faulty numbers.
Fact is, this year's flu season in America was one of the mildest in years, with the worst of it limited to five northern states. Of course, health "experts" wanted to give all the credit to an effective vaccine. However, there's no numbers to back up how many Americans actually got a flu shot or if they took all this hand-wringing about the possibility of an Avian flu pandemic that never happened seriously at all.
And, no apologies or retractions for recommending a useless and unnecessary vaccine laced with thimerosal, the mercury-based preservative.
Of course, all this "non-news" won't prevent some from trying to scare us about flu seasons to come. Nevertheless, should the need arise, there are many safer and less expensive options at your disposal for avoiding the flu.

USA Today April 27, 2006

Why Would Anyone Take an Antibiotic for Asthma?

Although I'm not opposed to all uses of antibiotics, I believe patients have been harmed far more often by them than they've been helped. In fact, it's been my experience antibiotics are used inappropriately well over 95 percent of the time.

So why would you ever take one to treat your asthma?
That's the gist of my objections about vaccine-maker Sanofi-Aventis' latest antibiotic drug -- telithromycin (brand name Ketek) -- for treating asthma. If you read some reports, however, you may be led to believe telithromycin is helpful, according to a recent study in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Patients taking telithromycin enjoyed twice the improvement in asthma symptoms compared to those taking a placebo, and recovered much sooner too. On the flip side, this study, funded by the very same drugmaker, found the breathing capacity of asthmatic patients didn't improve over the long haul. And, patients suffered more frequent bouts of nausea too.

Makes you wonder if Sanofi-Aventis was trying to squeeze one more "effective" use out of the drug, considering it's come under more scrutiny lately after reports of liver poisoning.

Before you even consider an antibiotics for asthma, you'll want to read a study I posted two weeks ago about tripling a baby's future asthma risks because of them. In fact, taking a drug is nothing more than a potentially toxic Band-Aid that never gets to the real heart of the problem.
New England Journal of Medicine, Vol. 354, No. 15, April 13, 2006: 1589-1600
The Age April 16, 2006
Canada.com April 15, 2006
DrEddyClinic

Why is More Tamiflu Being Produced For a Nonexistent Pandemic?

Despite its reputation as a worthless drug in the "battle" against the avian flu, you'll be seeing more of Tamiflu. Mega-drugmaker Roche Pharmaceuticals will expand production of its flu drug by a third over the course of 2006.
I suspect this excess production is connected to Roche's agreement with 65 countries to stockpile Tamiflu should a flu pandemic ever occur. For that matter, the supply of Tamiflu shouldn't exceed the debatable demand either. Roche has agreements with 15 other companies to produce the components necessary to make Tamiflu and has sublicensed its patent to companies in India and China to make generic versions of the useless drug.
Amazing how that pandemic the so-called experts and media pundits predicted this past winter just never came to pass...
Just another reminder, you don't need any drug or vaccine to protect you from the flu, if you follow my safe and proven flu protocol.
USA Today March 16, 2006

Which are the most important auto+lied therapy procedures?

Native self-blood therapy (NEB):
0,1 to at the most 10.0 ml blood is taken out of the Vene and injected then with or without additives into the gesaessmuskel or under the skin.
Homoeopathi self-blood therapy:
In the medical practice blood is removed from the patient, which is prepared homoeopathisch in a laboratory then in the pharmacy or. The in such a way won ' medicine ' can be injected intra or subkutan (into or under the skin), be taken orally (by the mouth) or be rubbed in percutaneous (into the skin). The Homoeopathi self-blood therapy was introduced by the Arnsberger child lady doctor Hedwig Imhaeuser in the 50's.
Gegensensibilisierung:
Here the serum of the patient with additives is shifted and worked on then likewise homoeopathisch (production in a special specialized laboratory).This method developed the physician Karl Theurer, likewise in the 50's.
Self-blood ozone therapy:
The patient blood is mixed with an oxygen ozone mixture and returned then either in small quantities (1-5 ml) into the gesaessmuskel or in larger quantities (50-100 ml) than infusion.
UVB/HOT:
The patient blood (usually 50 - 100 ml) is illuminated with ultraviolet light and returned then as infusion.
Self-blood therapy after Hoeveler and Garthe :
A small quantity self-blood is shifted with hydrogen peroxide and other materials, then illuminated, well through-vibrated and electrolytically works on. After end of the irradiation 2-5 is injected ml into the gesaessmuskel.
Autovakzine therapy:
Germs are bred from the chair, Bronchialschleim or other elimination products and prepared then than a kind vaccine, which is usually injected into the skin; with chronic inflammations.

more info at:
http://www.dreddyclinic.com/integrated_med/integrated_med.htm

How Congressional Scandals Influence Your Trip to the Pharmacist

I've been following the ethics/lobbying calamity going on in Congress with great interest these past few weeks. If you're as time-challenged as I am and looking to get up to speed with this scandal in a hurry, I urge you to read this comprehensive piece from this morning's USA Today (free text link below).

Down near the bottom of this awesome piece is a section on lobbying perks doled out by the bushel to Congressmen to "buy" their influence. In the section on travel favors, Senate Majority Bill Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) -- a familiar name to blog readers for his helpful hand to vaccine makers -- made that list.

Special travel arrangements, according to the piece, are among the best things companies can do to make fast friends with federal legislators. Frist was the "poster child" for such excesses, using the corporate plane owned by drugmaker Schering-Plough after the 2004 election for multiple trips to the Southeast to congratulate newly elected Republican senators.

Although this article doesn't dig much deeper on drug companies, this sector remains, without question, the largest political lobby in Congress, so expect some major fireworks before too long...

USA Today January 10, 2006

more info at:
Integrated Medicine Forum

Outsourcing Drug Trials to India

I told you before about the procedures drugmakers were using to test the potentially dangerous and useless avian flu vaccine on 150 healthy patients in the Washington D.C. area. One day, we may not see nearly as many drug trials as we do today -- at least in this country -- because drug companies are moving them to India.

This abominable practice exploits both ends of the spectrum in India: Its educated work force administering those trials and the uneducated living in poverty who have no idea what harm they're doing to their bodies for $100. The practice began after pressure from the World Health Organization forced Indian officials to ban the formulation of drugs developed in other nations (thanks to reverse engineering) nine months ago.

Considering moving trials could save potentially save drugmakers 60 percent in development costs, one business expert estimates such outsourcing to India may amount to a $2 billion industry there.

Supposed ethics standards adopted by the Indian government claim to ensure the treatment naive -- business-speak for people who may not understand the health-harming consequences of their bad decisions -- won't be harmed by clinical research performed there.

Folks, are the lives of the poor in India worth any less than yours or those of your family's?
Wired News December 19, 2005

Integrated Medicine Forum

Merck Turns To Vaccines To Save The Day

An interesting piece in the Chicago Tribune unveiled Merck's latest plans for turning the embattled drugmaker's fiscal fortunes around with the help of three new vaccines in the FDA regulatory pipeline:

Gardasil, a drug intended to protect women from four kinds of human papillomavirus,
that accounts for the lion's share of cervical cancer cases.
Zostavax, a vaccine for shingles.
Rotateq, an oral remedy for common gastrointestinal illnesses in children.

The company is certainly looking for a home run, considering its well-publicized legal wrangling with patients over the health-harming Vioxx, and Zocor running out of patent protection.

However, what you and many other consumers may not recall -- and what Merck is probably betting on -- is news of a scandal I posted earlier this year involving the mislabeling of hepatitis B vaccines for babies that weren't thimerosal-free.

Chicago Tribune December 14, 2005 Registration Required

Integrated Medicine Forum

How Are Vaccines Tested?

If you read my blog with any regularity, you know how dangerous and health-harming vaccines can be. Imagine what it's like for patients who volunteer for a vaccine study...

With that in mind, I'm sure you'll want to review this interesting Washington Post piece about how current avian flu vaccines are tested on 150 patients at a University of Maryland site in Baltimore.

Half of the patients -- largely law and medical students and faculty members at the University of Maryland along with local residents -- received a placebo while the rest got the active vaccine that varied from as little as 7.5 micrograms of dead virus per injection to 10 times that amount.

After receiving the placebo or vaccine, volunteers kept a diary documenting any problems, took their temperature each day, had follow-up blood work done and answered some questions, all of them compensated in the several hundred dollar range. And, if volunteers got the real thing, they would be eligible to participate in a stage 2 trial.

No amount of money could compensate patients who took an active vaccine, however, for the potential harm they may have done to their bodies, especially in light of the fact the avian flu -- despite what you may have heard -- is likely no epidemic at all.
Washington Post December 8, 2005

Integrated Medicine Forum

Marketing Fear: The Flu Vaccine

Apparently, more people are catching on to the CDC's ruse to scare people into getting vaccinated for the flu, regarding the intermingling of statistics from flu- and pneumonia-related deaths (free text link below).The CDC would have you believe some 36,000 Americans die annually from the flu, although, before a pivotal 2003 study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, yearly estimates were in the 20,000 range.

A review of health records from the CDC's own National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), however, shows the true average annual mortality rate between 1979-2002 was less than 1,400. What's more, flu deaths decreased by an average 30 percent during the 90s over the 80s.So, why the huge discrepancy? Because the CDC claims NCHS figures represent a "a very substantial undercounting," they use "indirect modeling methods" to arrive at their yearly estimate of flu-associated deaths, a huge difference from the number of fatalities directly caused by the flu.

Makes you wonder if the CDC will be begging Americans once again to get a flu shot, considering Congress is deliberating the Flu Protection Act which would require the agency to pay for any unsold vaccines.Remember, the best treatment for the flu is proactive prevention, not a pill or vaccine.
British Medical Journal, Vol. 331, No. 7529, December 10, 2005: 1412 Full Free Text Article
USA Today December 12, 2005

Just What Is In The Flu Shot?

This hilarious parody from the Royal Canadian Air Farce TV show (free video link below) illustrates, not only the ignorance most people have about what is in the flu shot, but creative ways you can make your own toxic concoction. Because the video is Canadian, the flu shot is ''free'' up there as a result of their socialistic medical policies, but certainly not any safer.

The sketch hit home with me even more because one observant and knowledgeable writer made sure to include multiple references to mercury, the health-harming metal contained in thimerosal used as a preservative in flu vaccines and other medicines.

Royal Canadian Air Farce


if You're At high risk of getting the Flu, your first line of defense is an annual Flu shot. for some people, antiviral medications taken within 24 to 48 ...
http://www.dreddyclinic.com//findinformation/ff/influenza.htm

get an annual flu shot. Many cases of acute Bronchitis result from influenza. getting A yearly flu shot can help protect You from both Bronchitis and the ...
http://www.dreddyclinic.com//findinformation/bb/bronchitis.htm

Because pneumonia can be a complication of the flu, getting a yearly flu shot is a good way to prevent pneumonia. In addition, get a vaccination against ...
http://www.dreddyclinic.com/findinformation/pp/pneumonia.htm

No Shortage of Flu Vaccine This Time

Last year, U.S. health officials were panicking about a spoiled vaccine supply cooked up to prevent a flu epidemic that never materialized. No chance of any vaccine shortfall this time around, even if there's not a flu epidemic to worry about...

Sanofi Pasteur shipped some 58 million flu vaccines by the end of last month, six weeks ahead of schedule, and plans to deliver some 4 million more in January. And, Chiron, GlaxoSmithKline and MedImmune will produce the remainder of the 81 million vaccines for the U.S. market.

Although federal health officials expected a record-setting 100 million Americans would take advantage of this worthless and potentially toxic "treatment" last year, blunders in preparation prevented that from happening making a flu shot an even tough sell.

Two facts you MUST consider before justifying the need for a flu shot:

CDC numbers show less than 800 people died from the flu in 2002, not the 36,000 deaths many pundits claim.
You run the risk of receiving a vaccine loaded with toxic, mercury-laden and health-harming thimerosal.

Yahoo News December 1, 2005