Health Glance
An exhaustive study of autism in one community has found that the disorder is far more common than suggested by earlier research. The study of 55,000 children in Goyang, South Korea, found that 2.64 percent — one in every 38 children — had an autism spectrum disorder.
"That is two and a half times what the estimated prevalence is in the United States," says Roy Richard Grinker, a professor of anthropology at The George Washington University and one of the study's authors.
Autism May Be Far More Common, Study Suggests
Doctors' groups welcome medical company dollars
From the time they arrived to the moment they laid their heads on hotel pillows, the thousands of cardiologists attending this week's Heart Rhythm Society conference have been bombarded with pitches for drugs and medical devices.
St. Jude Medical adorns every hotel key card. Medtronic ads are splashed on buses, banners and the stairs underfoot. Logos splay across shuttle bus headrests, carpets and cellphone-charging stations. And at night, a drug firm gets the last word: A promo for the heart drug Multaq stood on each doctor's nightstand Wednesday.
Who arranged this commercial barrage? The society itself, which sold access to its members and their purchasing power.
Pancreatic Cancer Drug Afinitor Approved By FDA
Pancreatic cancer drug Afinitor by Novartis AG's has been approved by the U.S. FDA for a rare type of pancreatic cancer that has few treatment options, reports Reuters. The Swiss drugmaker said in a statement, "Data show Afinitor delays tumor growth and reduces risk of disease progression in patients with advanced neuroendocrine tumours (NET) of pancreatic origin."
"This marks the first approval of a treatment for this patient population in the United States in nearly 30 years," they added, Reuters reports.
Painkiller ignorance adds to liver failure
Ignorance about ingredients found in more than 600 over-the-counter and prescription drugs could account for increasing liver failure, U.S. researchers say.
Senior author Michael Wolf of Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago says his study found only 31 percent of participants knew Tylenol contained acetaminophen; 75 percent of participants knew Bayer contained aspirin; 47 percent knew Motrin contained ibuprofen; 19 percent knew Aleve contained naproxen sodium and 19 percent knew Advil contained ibuprofen.
The Meat You Should Never, Ever Eat...
By now most people probably realize that ground beef contains the meat from hundreds of animals from different parts of the world, but few would ever suspect that the same can be true for prime cut steaks! Well, that's possible through the use of so-called meat glue, used to "super-glue" small chunks of meat together that are too small to sell, and passing it off as prime cuts...
Interestingly enough, Ajinomoto is one of the leaders in transglutaminase. You may recognize that name as they are also one of the leaders in aspartame. According to their website, transglutaminase is also used to "improve the general texture" of a variety of foods aside from meat, such as fat-free yoghurt and cheese.
FDA approved Big Pharma drugs without effectiveness data
A case in point: it turns out that only about half of the new prescription medications pushed onto the market over the last decade had the proper data together for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration - yet the FDA approved them anyhow.
The researchers found that only about half of 197 eligible approved NMEs between 2000 and 2010 had comparative efficacy data available at the time they were approved to be marketed.
Meanwhile, another recent study throws needed light on the limited data behind the safety and effectiveness of some Big Pharma drugs.
Boy, two, with brain cancer is 'cured' after secretly being fed medical marijuana by his father
A desperate father whose son was suffering from a life-threatening brain tumour has revealed he gave him cannabis oil to ease his pain. And he has now apparently made a full recovery.
The little boy had to have arduous chemotherapy treatment to reduce the growth, which had drastic side effects including seizures and a blood infection.
His distraught parents were repeatedly told he was likely to succumb to the illness because the condition was so bad.
More Articles...
Page 108 of 233
