Home > News

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

Bird Flu Outbreak Widens in Vietnam

Vietnam is appealing for help from the international community after confirming several cases of avian (bird) influenza, which has killed 13 people so far.

The country is seeking protective equipment and training for workers who are doing a mass cull of chickens, according to Agence France-Presse.

So far, 2 million chickens have been slaughtered in the outbreak, and the country has banned sales of poultry in its largest metropolis, Ho Chi Minh City.

The World Health Organization (WHO) warned that more people are going to hospitals with respiratory illnesses, though it's too early to say whether they have avian flu. Vietnam on Saturday reported five new suspected cases, according to the Associated Press.

For the first time, the virus is affecting the southern part of the country, according to the AP.

Vietnam is the only country to have the problem thus far. There have been no person-to-person transmissions of the virus, but WHO officials say they worry it could happen if the outbreak widens, according to the AP.

-----

Atkins: Ease Up on the Meat and Fat

Promoters of the Atkins diet appear to be backtracking on their advice that people can lose weight while eating as much meat and saturated fat as they want.

The New York Times reports that a top official at Atkins Nutritionals, the company established by the late Dr. Robert C. Atkins to promote his weight-loss products, is now recommending at seminars that dieters should get only 20 percent of their calories from saturated fat.

For years, scientists have criticized the Atkins diet because they say that a low-carbohydrate, high-fat diet puts dieters on the road to heart disease and other health woes.

An Atkins spokesman told the Times that the official, Colette Heimowitz, the company's director of research and education, has been giving these seminars for five years and that it was not a radical departure.

The company says that Atkins has always said that people eat other foods, but the Times reports that that message hasn't gotten through to consumers.

According to the newspaper, Atkins faces increased competition from other low-carbohydrate diets, notably the South Beach diet, that recommend less fat.

-----

USDA Rounding Up Cows From Infected Herd

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) says it has found 19 of the 81 head of cattle in a Canadian herd that included one affected with the first case of mad cow disease in the United States.

The USDA is trying to find all the cattle in that herd, which entered the U.S. in 2001.

Also, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration says it has discovered prohibited animal tissue in the feed from six Canadian feed companies since the announcement of mad cow disease last month, the Associated Press reports.

Tainted feed is the likeliest way of spreading mad cow disease, which wastes the brain. It is a problem for humans because they can get a form of the disease by eating contaminated meat. Because of that concern, other countries closed their borders to American beef. Officials from the U.S., Canada, and Mexico failed to reach an agreement on reopening those borders, according to the AP.

-----

Doctors Dispute New Cloning Claim

An American fertility specialist is the latest to say that he has implanted a cloned embryo into a woman's womb, but other experts immediately greeted the claim with suspicion.

According to the BBC, Dr. Panos Zavos announced Saturday that he had implanted the embryo into an infertile 35-year-old woman. The embryo came from an immature egg from the woman and a skin cell from her husband, he said.

The BBC reports that Zavos claims to have filmed the procedure, which was a "very recent" event that did not take place in either the United States or Europe.

Other specialists were quick to throw cold water on the claim. "Like most scientists and doctors, I remain extremely skeptical of the claims made here today," Dr. Bob Ward of the U.K. National Academy of Scientists told the BBC.

He and others noted that Zavos offered no evidence to back up his claim, and that it is similar to a claim made by a Raelian cult 18 months ago. "One wonders what his motive is," Ward said.

-----

Drugmakers Urged to Stop Counterfeiting

Congress wants to know what major drug manufacturers are doing to stop the growing problem of counterfeit prescription medications entering the marketplace.

The Washington Post reports that the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee sent letters to Eli Lilly and Co., GlaxoSmithKline, Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, and Serono, all of which have drugs that have been the target of counterfeiters.

The letter is the latest attempt to crack down on fake drugs, which can endanger the lives of those who unknowingly take them.

"Despite the best efforts of many companies, the counterfeit drug problem is getting worse every day," committee spokesman Ken Johnson told the Post. "If we're going to turn the tide, clearly it will take a greater cooperation between the private sector and the federal government."

The drugmakers said they welcomed the request, and have tightened their distribution systems, according to the newspaper.

-----

WHO Dubious of Newest SARS Cases

The Chinese government on Saturday confirmed that it has two new cases of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), but the World Health Organization (WHO) urged China to test further to make sure the diagnosis is correct.

Thus far, China has had three cases of SARS, according to the Associated Press. The latest were a 20-year-old restaurant waitress and a 35-year-old businessman, the official Xinhua News Agency said.

Roy Wadia, a WHO spokesman in Beijing, told the AP that the agency was not convinced. "At this time it's difficult to tell what their antibodies are responding to. It could be the SARS coronavirus or a type of common cold virus," he said. "We encourage a little more testing to be done to be 100 percent sure of the outcome."

On Friday, WHO experts investigating the source of recent confirmed and suspected SARS cases in China's Guangdong province said there is "very good evidence" linking the SARS virus to civet cats.

Copyright © 2004 ScoutNews, LLC. All rights reserved.