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Josh Bloom, Medical Progress Today Spotlight Feature April 14, 2011
The Real Reason Drug Companies are Failing?

An article yesterday in USA Today — which has apparently decided to become the bête noir of chemicals — demonstrates that even so-called “science journalists” are ill-informed about the risks (or, rather, lack thereof) associated with flame retardants used in household products. Unfortunately, their misinformation helps the public stay confused and afraid of useful and safe chemicals.

Although this concern seemed alarmist from the start, it is comforting to know that the results of a just-released 35-year study conducted by scientists on the Committee of the Medical Aspects of Radiation in the Environment (COMARE) find that there is no increased risk for leukemia among children living near nuclear power plants in the U.K.

We reported on a study in November about the marked efficacy of Gilead Sciences, Inc.’s HIV drug Truvada for protection against the transmission of HIV between male partners. Now a new trial carried out by researchers with the HIV Prevention Trials Network shows that such preventive anti-retroviral protocols dramatically reduce HIV transmission in heterosexual couples.

Pregnant women of normal weight who were taking a multivitamin four weeks prior to and eight weeks after their last menstrual cycle had a 20 percent lower risk of delivering a preterm or small-for-age baby. Those are the results of a study published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition of 36,000 Danish women conducted by researchers from the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh.

A U.K. study just published in The Lancet suggests that ambulatory blood pressure monitoring could soon become standard practice for patients thought to have high blood pressure. The method requires a patient to wear a blood pressure cuff for a 24-hour period, which takes readings automatically at hourly and half-hourly intervals, and generates a report from the recorded data when the patient returns the device.

Cardiovascular disease affects more than 100 million people worldwide, yet the inexpensive drugs that could lower the risk for recurrence of these life-threatening illnesses are not getting to the majority of patients who need them.

Dementia is among the leading causes of death among older adults, but researchers from the Division of General Internal Medicine and Geriatrics at Indiana University set out to determine if milder forms of cognitive impairment are also associated with an increase in long-term mortality among patients aged 60 and older. For the study, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, nearly 4,000 patients were recruited between 1991 and 1993 and screened for cognitive impairment.

Just in time for the 41st annual Earth Day last Friday, the news media went wild reporting on a trio of highly flawed studies published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, a periodical now notorious for reporting on junk science research.

With his website ranked the 390th most popular, Dr. Joseph Mercola uses his online notoriety to tout thermograms as diagnostic screening tools for early breast cancer detection. Marketed as the Med2000, this thermogram takes digital images of skin surface temperatures using a special camera, which Dr.

The FDA approved Optimer Pharmaceuticals’ antibiotic Dificid on Friday, marking the first new medicine in 25 years approved to treat diarrhea caused by the bacterium Clostridium dificile. This is welcome news, since “C-diff” is likely even more of a problem in hospital settings than the antibiotic-resistant Staph, MRSA. C.

In what has quickly become the first big health scare of the summer season, the World Health Organization (WHO) — via their cancer evaluation affiliate, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) — released a statement yesterday that classifies the radiofrequency electromagnetic fields associated with cell phones in their category IIB, meaning “possibly carcinogenic to humans.” One news source after another picked up and ran with the story, and links accumulated on Twitter feeds and Fa

Malaria has long been endemic to the country of Kenya a fact that s not helped by the population s low compliance with treatment guidelines. But because cell phone use happens to be about as widespread as malaria, some enterprising researchers decided to take advantage of this concurrence by using text-messaging to remind health workers to adhere to national malaria treatment guidelines.

Pediatricians may be missing out on opportunities to discuss diet and exercise with their overweight teenage patients, suggests new research published online Monday in the journal Pediatrics.

For twenty years, hepatitis C research mostly followed the HIV cocktail approach, where the gene products of the virus are isolated, and their function determined, thus providing the foundation for a rational drug design or screening-based campaign.

By Mischa Poppof
Meet the most powerful figure in the global organic industrial complex. No, it s not President Obama. It s Miles McEvoy, Obama s Deputy Administrator of the National Organic Program (NOP) at the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Consuming alcohol in moderate amounts, it seems, is something of a double-edged sword. As for its benefits, numerous studies have indicated that drinking one to two servings of alcohol a day reduces a person s risk for cardiovascular disease. However, a new study from Harvard Medical School shows that even a few drinks a week can increase a woman s risk of breast cancer.

Nearly a quarter of breast cancer patients who undergo a lumpectomy also commonly referred to as a partial mastectomy will have to return for repeat surgery, according to the results of a recent study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. And at least part of the cause, say the study authors, is a lack of consensus among surgeons about how much healthy tissue should be sacrificed when removing the tumor.

The American Council on Science and Health (ACSH) was among the first organizations in the United States to formally endorse tobacco harm reduction (THR) as a way to get smokers to be less risky with their behavior, and when smoking cessation was not s

It s a common perception that breast cancer is deadlier among younger women, but women over 75 are actually more likely to die from the disease, according to a large international study. The notion that breast cancer results in a higher rate of mortality in younger women stems from the fact that women under 65 are more likely than older women to have receptor-negative breast cancer, which is faster-growing and less susceptible to most trea

The practice of screening healthy people for conditions before they have symptoms has gone out of control, according to Dr. H. Gilbert Welch. In an op-ed in today s New York Times, Dr.

The folks at Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) have apparently run out of poisons to scare us with because they are now recycling some oldies. Their scare du jour is called 4-methylimidazole (4-MEI). Yawn.
Old, like in 1951--the earliest paper I could find in which the compound was studied for toxicity in rats. The rats are most likely no longer alive, but it wasn't because of the 4-MEI. Nothing happened to them during the experiment.

In his latest blog post, ACSH s Dr. Josh Bloom takes a look at what he calls the two faces of cancer that is, the discovery of a few amazing breakthroughs in the treatment of certain cancers, compared to the disappointing reality that the current generation of super drugs has not lived up to expectations. Tumor heterogeneity the wide range of genetic variations among cancer cells is turning out to be a bigger hurdle than expected. At Medical Progress Today, read Dr.

Given the unique health and medical needs of older adults, it makes sense to ensure that these patients receive special medical attention. Yet many health services in this country are not adequately addressingseniors health needs, according to a new survey by the John A. Hartford Foundation. In particular, this survey found that many seniors do not receive the preventive care recommended for their age group.

Another tip of the ACSH hat to Julie Gunlock, who, in her latest column for Independent Women s Forum, takes apart a recent study alleging that regular soda consumption is associated with a higher risk of stroke.