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Here are some of the latest health and medical news developments, compiled by editors of HealthDay:

Cholesterol Panel Has Ties to Drugmakers

Several panelists involved in drafting guidelines released this week that called for aggressive use of statin medications to combat high cholesterol had ties to major drug companies that could stand to profit by the new guidelines, Newsday reported Thursday.

Of the nine panelists, six had received grants or consulting fees from companies that produce the most popular statin drugs, the newspaper reported. The companies and the drugs they produce include Pfizer, Inc. (Lipitor), Bristol-Myers Squibb (Prevachol), Merck & Co., Inc. (Lovastatin), and AstraZeneca (Crestor).

The coordinator of the national Cholesterol Education Program, Dr. James Cleeman, called the omission of the panelists' ties an oversight. He told Newsday that the nature of the relationships would be posted soon on the Web site of the program's parent agency, the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.

While experts consulted by the newspaper said they didn't doubt the integrity of the panelists and their recommendations, they said the information should have been disclosed initially.

Some 36 million people in the United States are already taking statins, earning the drugs' manufacturers $20 billion annually, the newspaper reported.

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Rumors Swirl Around Cheney's Heart Health

Rumors about the heart health of Vice President Dick Cheney and his physical fitness to serve a second term are racing through political circles "like the latest low-carb diet," the New York Times reported Thursday.

The latest theory surrounds Cheney's recent dismissal of his doctor -- the one who in 2000 had pronounced the Vice Presidential candidate fit to undergo the rigors of four years in office. Dr. Gary Malakoff had declared Cheney "up to the task" despite the vice president's history of heart disease, the newspaper reported.

The Cheney camp has said Malakoff was dropped after the physician conceded he was addicted to prescription painkillers, according to the Times. But rumor has it that the real reason the doctor was dismissed is so Cheney could find a new one, who will subsequently find that the vice president's heart health renders him unable to serve again. This would spare President Bush from having to publicly drop Cheney, who some see as a political liability.

A spokesman for the Bush-Cheney campaign dismisses the rumor as "inside-the-Beltway coffee talk." Nonetheless, Washington is said to be abuzz in speculation that a replacement for Cheney could include Secretary of State Colin Powell, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, or Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.).

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Topical Cream Approved for Skin Cancer

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved the topical cream Aldara (imiquimod), already approved to treat genital warts, to treat a mild form of skin cancer called superficial basal cell carcinoma (sBCC).

The approval recommends the cream when the more preferred treatment method, surgical removal, is medically inappropriate, the agency said in a statement.

In clinical studies, 75 percent of sBCC patients had no evidence of the cancer after 12 weeks of treatment with the cream, the FDA said. A separate study found 79 percent of patients sBCC free two years after treatment with the drug, which is manufactured by 3M Pharmaceuticals.

Side effects noted during the trials included skin reactions at the treatment site, including redness, swelling, peeling, itching, and burning.

Basal cell carcinoma is the most common type of skin cancer, affecting at least 800,000 Americans annually, the FDA said.

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Internal Report Faults USDA Mad Cow Inspection

An internal report says the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has failed to test hundreds of cattle who displayed symptoms of a nervous system disorder that could have been mad cow disease.

The report, prepared by the USDA's Office of Inspector General and released by U.S. Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), a frequent critic of the agency, also found the USDA to be uncooperative with investigators.

According to the Los Angeles Times, the report said the USDA has provided little documentation about what kinds of cows are being tested. The agency also failed to consider that apparently healthy cattle could carry bovine spongiform encephalopathy, the formal name for the disease.

Ron DeHaven, administrator of the USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, told the Times that the report was based on a "snapshot" taken in March, and that those problems have been addressed in an updated inspection program.

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U.S. Snubs U.N. Chief on AIDS Funding

The Bush administration answered a flat-out "no" on Wednesday to United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan's request that the United States donate $1 billion in 2005 to a U.N. global fund to combat AIDS, the Associated Press reported.

"It's not going to happen," the wire service quoted U.S. AIDS coordinator Randall Tobias as saying. Tobias noted that Washington already is the world's largest donor to fighting AIDS.

Annan made his plea at the International AIDS Conference in Thailand, where he announced that the Global Fund to fight AIDS was well short of its $3.6 billion goal for 2005, the AP reported.

The United States is in the midst of carrying out a $15 billion, five-year plan for AIDS relief, mainly directed at sub-Saharan Africa. That money goes to countries that support Bush's abstinence-first policies, according to the wire service.

Some critics have instead called for the United States to give much of that money to the U.N. Global Fund, which reaches 128 countries.

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Study: 3.8 Million Will Lose Drug Benefits When Medicare Kicks In

Prescription drug benefits are likely to be curtailed or ended for one-third of all retirees with employer-sponsored prescription drug coverage once the Medicare drug plan begins in 2006, according to new government estimates cited by The New York Times.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services analysis says the actions by private employers is likely to leave 3.8 million retirees with fewer or no drug benefits, the newspaper reported.

The analysis appears to contradict the claims of senior department officials, who have said for weeks that they expect that federal subsidies will encourage the private employers to retain the retiree benefits, the Times said.

Under the new Medicare law, the government has budgeted $71 billion on subsidies to employers from 2006 to 2013. To qualify for a subsidy, each employer would have to certify that its drug plan is worth at least as much as the standard Medicare benefit, according to the Times account.

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