KOBE, Japan (AFP) -
Japan reported 178 swine flu infections Tuesday and closed more than 4,000 schools, colleges and kindergartens for the rest of the week to slow the spread of the virus, officials said.

People wear facemasks on way to work in Kobe, Hyogo prefecture. Japan has reported 178 swine flu infections and closed more than 4,000 schools, colleges and kindergartens for the rest of the week to slow the spread of the virus(AFP/Kazuhiro Nogi)

Experts warned that infections had probably already spread to other regions including the capital Tokyo, which with almost 36 million people is the world’s most populous urban area and the heart of the Japanese economy.

“The virus’s spread to Tokyo is near certain, and it would be little wonder if the virus had already landed in Tokyo undetected,” said Yukihiro Nishiyama, a virologist at Nagoya University in central Japan.

“Of course, there is no need to overreact, but authorities and people in the capital should go ahead with their preparation,” Nishiyama told AFP.

Visitors to many public places — from the parliamentary visitors’ gallery to the national sumo tournament in Tokyo — have been asked to disinfect their hands on entry, wear surgical face masks, or both.

Japan’s first domestic cases of the (A)H1N1 virus were confirmed Saturday in the western cities of Kobe and Osaka, where they spread quickly in and between two high schools that had met for a volleyball tournament.

Hundreds have since been tested for the virus, and face masks have become ubiquitous on subways and in shopping centres of the affected prefectures of Osaka and Hyogo in the central region of the main island of Honshu.

The government has urged calm and reminded people that no one in Japan has so far died of the disease and that most infections are mild.

A total of 4,043 kindergartens, schools, colleges and universities were closed for at least this week in the two prefectures at the request of the government, up from some 2,000 Monday, an education ministry official said.

Neighbouring Kyoto prefectures closed eight schools voluntarily.

Japan’s number of confirmed cases rose to 178 — the fourth largest national figure on the world infection table, according local authorities

Japan’s first confirmed cases of swine flu were four people who tested positive after they flew in from North America earlier this month. They were immediately quarantined along with about 50 fellow passengers.

The central government has been revising its anti-virus measures, which previously focused on stopping infected persons at the borders and quarantining them before they could leave the airports.

“Day by day, we have to change what action we should take,” Health Minister Yoichi Masuzoe told a news conference, adding that the ministry may scale down airport quarantine measures gradually.

Finance Minister Kaoru Yosano said the government was ready to take action to fend off a possible impact of the outbreak on the Japanese economy already battered by the worst recession since World War II.

“Economies obviously declined — although temporarily — when a bird flu outbreak occurred,” Yosano told reporters. “We have to consider measures to limit the effect.”

- Weight loss and malnutrition are serious threats to patients battling cancer, who can find that their tumors or treatment sap their appetite, cause nausea and other side effects and block absorption the nutrients they do force down. Here are some tips from cancer specialists and dietitians to help:

_Try to eat five or six small meals throughout the day rather than three large ones.

_Cancer patients tend to need more protein than healthy people. Peanut butter crackers, yogurt and fruit, a hard-boiled egg and piece of toast all are good mini-meals.

_Drink between meals, not with them, to avoid filling up on liquid.

_Don’t try your comfort food if you’re vomiting. It may create an aversion.

_Foods high in fat or fiber make nausea last longer.

_White, bland foods tend to help with nausea, such as Cream of Wheat, mashed potatoes, cottage cheese.

_Odors often worsen nausea, and foods served at room temperature rather than warm tend to have milder odors.

_Fresh ginger about 30 minutes before eating also can take the edge off nausea, but not ginger flavoring common in many sodas. A study published last week found ginger capsules work, too.

_Certain cancer medications, particularly painkillers, cause constipation, so keep up the fiber whenever the nausea passes.

_Take special care to stay hydrated when diarrhea strikes. Bananas, rice, applesauce and toast are good options.

_Many patients find foods that once tasted good now taste metallic. Citrus sometimes counters that; try sucking lemon drops, or drinking lemonade with meals, or using citrus-based marinades. Other patients may have a treatment-caused, and correctable, zinc deficiency.

_Tell your doctor about any over-the-counter dietary supplements. Some, such as St. John’s wort, can cause dangerous interactions with numerous anticancer medications. Even high amounts of acidic vitamin C can worsen stomach problems.

_Staying hydrated and eating foods moistened with sauces and gravies helps dry mouth; doctors also can prescribe an artificial saliva.

_High-protein, high-calorie milkshakes and canned supplements like Ensure help sneak in extra nutrients and are especially helpful for patients with mouth sores. Make your own with whole milk and a few tablespoons of dry milk or protein powder.

_Ask for a consultation with a dietitian who specializes in cancer before you start losing weight. Specially designated cancer centers have dietitians on staff, and insurance may cover other consultations if the doctor orders it. The American Cancer Society’s toll-free hot line — 1-800-ACS-2345 connects patients in the Southeast to dietitians on call, and will find nutrition answers for people elsewhere. To find nearby dietitians, try http://www.eatright.org.

_Look for recipes targeted to cancer patients. The cancer society posts some at http://www.cancer.org, and plans a new cookbook in July.

GENEVA (Reuters) -
The H1N1 flu virus is likely to keep spreading rapidly between people, within countries and across the globe, the head of the World Health Organization said on Monday.

Tourists wearing masks walk down the street in Osaka May 15, 2009. Japan confirmed on Monday 125 people — many who have not been abroad — had been infected with the new strain of H1N1 flu, after New York saw its first death from the virus and Chile reported its first two cases. REUTERS/Kyodo

U.S. health officials also expressed concern about who the new swine flu virus is infecting — mostly children, teens and young adults — and outbreaks in schools.

Ministers and experts began a meeting in Geneva to discuss how to fight the virus with vaccines and drugs, as well as what would trigger the WHO to declare a full pandemic.

“For the first time in humanity, we are seeing, or we may be seeing, pandemic influenza evolving in front of our eyes,” WHO Director-General Dr Margaret Chan told her U.N. agency’s World Health Assembly.

New York City recorded its first death from the virus and Chile reported two new cases, adding to its first two cases reported on Sunday. Japan also confirmed that 125 people, many of whom had not been abroad, had been infected with the new strain.

Tests confirmed the first case in Greece, a Greek man traveling from the United States, the Health Ministry said.

Forty countries have confirmed cases of the new strain. Almost all of the 74 dead were in Mexico, but mostly, people have had relatively mild symptoms.

Addressing the WHO’s annual congress, Tonga’s health minister said it was lucky the H1N1 strain had spread first to affluent countries such as the United States, Canada, and Japan.

“Somehow, somebody decided to start this epidemic in very rich countries … This helped all of us,” said Health Minister Viliami Tangi. Poor countries lack the medical staff, laboratories, drug stockpiles, and vaccine-making capacity to deal with the outbreak in a sophisticated manner, he said.

MIXING WITH BIRD FLU

Chan said H1N1 may pose a particular risk if it somehow mixed with the H5N1 avian flu virus, now entrenched in poultry in several countries.

“No one can say how this avian virus will behave when pressured by large numbers of people infected with the new H1N1 virus,” she said.

Egypt’s envoy noted there had been three new human cases of H5N1 in his country in the last week.

Dr Anne Schuchat of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said most of the 200 or so Americans hospitalized with the new swine flu strain were younger — as opposed to seasonal flu, which hits the elderly the hardest.

“That’s very unusual, to have so many people under 20 to require hospitalization, and some of them in (intensive care units),” Schuchat told reporters in a telephone briefing.

“We are now experiencing levels of influenza-like illness that are higher than usual for this time of year,” Schuchat added. “We are also seeing outbreaks in schools, which is extremely unusual for this time of year.”

New York City health officials said 16 schools were closed there due to outbreaks. Most of Japan’s new infections were among high school students in the western prefectures of Hyogo and Osaka who had not travelled abroad, the Health Ministry said.

But Canada lifted travel warnings about Mexico.

“With the H1N1 virus circulating within Canada, travel to Mexico is no longer a heightened risk factor for the spread of the virus,” Chief Public Health Officer Dr David Butler-Jones told a conference call with reporters.

PANDEMIC ALERT

WHO raised its global pandemic alert level last month to 5 on a 6-point scale.

WHO has said it is watching the situation in Japan closely, but it was not clear yet whether the outbreak, the largest outside the Americas, would trigger a move to level 6.

Under WHO rules, signs that the disease is spreading in a sustained way in a second region of the world would prompt a declaration that a full pandemic is under way. Other large clusters have been seen in Spain and Britain.

A WHO designation of a full pandemic would put countries on even higher alert about the flu strain and give more impetus to pharmaceutical efforts to fight it.

Chan and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will meet pharmaceutical executives on Tuesday to discuss their ability to make vaccines to fight the strain.

Delegates will seek an agreement on how samples of the virus should be handled and shared with pharmaceutical companies.

However, rich and poor countries remain at odds over whether the biological material can be patented. The meeting will also discuss poor countries’ needs for antiviral drugs like Roche and Gilead Sciences Inc’s Tamiflu and GlaxoSmithKline’s Relenza and any vaccines developed to confront the strain.

(Additional reporting by Yoko Kubota and Stanley White in Tokyo, Chris Michaud in New York and Antonio de la Jara in Santiago; Stephanie Nebehay, Katie Reed and Jonathan Lynn in Geneva; Janet Guttsman in Toronto; Writing by Maggie Fox; Editing by Eric Beech)

WASHINGTON, (AFP) -
The US Justice Department and 16 states have joined two whisteblower lawsuits against Wyeth, alleging that the drugmaker has defrauded the government of hundreds of millions of dollars.

A doctor scans a barcode on the bracelet of a patient. The US Justice Department and 16 states have joined two whisteblower lawsuits against Wyeth, alleging that the drugmaker has defrauded the government of hundreds of millions of dollars.(AFP/Getty Images/File/Joe Raedle)

According to the lawsuits, filed in a federal district court in Massachusetts, Wyeth avoided paying hundreds of millions of dollars in rebates due to state Medicaid programs — which provide health insurance to low-income families or people with disabilities — for its Protonix Oral and Protonix IV stomach acid drugs.

Medicaid, which is financed by the federal government and states, is qualified to obtain the lowest prices on prescription drugs. Drugmakers such as Wyeth in turn are required to pay rebates to states based on any other discounts they have offered.

But the Justice Department claimed Monday that between 2000 and 2006, “Wyeth offered steep discounts to thousands of hospitals nationwide” through the “Protonix Performance Agreement.”

That pricing arrangement provided up to 94 percent discounts off the Protonix Oral list price and 80 percent off that of Protonix IV.

“Our complaint charges that Wyeth created the Protonix bundle so they could increase their market share at the expense of the Medicaid program — a program to provide the least advantaged Americans with necessary medical care and services,” Assistant Attorney General Tony West said in a statement.

“By offering massive discounts to hospitals, but then hiding that information from the Medicaid program, we believe Wyeth caused Medicaid programs throughout the country to pay much more for these drugs than they should have.”

In addition to the capital Washington (District of Columbia), the states that joined the lawsuit were: California, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Massachusetts, New York, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and Wisconsin.

KOBE, Japan (AFP) -
Authorities in Japan stepped up measures to halt swine flu, which the World Health Organization declared was not yet a pandemic even as it claimed two more lives in Latin America.

People wear facemasks on way to work in Kobe, Hyogo prefecture. Authorities in Japan stepped up measures to halt swine flu, which the World Health Organization declared was not yet a pandemic even as it claimed two more lives in Latin America.(AFP/Kazuhiro Nogi)

WHO chief Margaret Chan told member states at the opening of the UN health body’s annual assembly they may be facing a “calm before the storm” but there was no reason to raise the alert level to its maximum six.

The current level of five indicates a pandemic is imminent, although swine flu is now present in 40 nations, infecting nearly 8,300 people and causing 74 deaths.

“We need to warn the public whenever necessary, but reassure them whenever possible. This is a difficult balancing act,” Chan told the WHO meeting.

Those WHO figures do not include two more deaths reported Monday in Mexico, epicentre of the influenza A(H1N1) virus outbreak but where the disease is now waning.

In Japan, authorities ordered more than 4,000 school and kindergartens to shut — double the previous day — to slow the spread of swine flu, which has so far infected 173 people in the country.

Many people in the affected urban areas were wearing face masks after the western cities of Kobe and Osaka became the first in Japan to suffer domestic outbreaks of the virus, which spread rapidly through two schools.

The virus is believed to have spread after high schools from the two cities played in a volleyball tournament, and some players and coaches felt feverish afterwards.

Experts warn the virus will likely soon spread to other regions, including Tokyo, which with almost 36 million people is the world’s most populous urban area and the heart of the Japanese economy.

“The virus’s spread to Tokyo is near certain and it would be little wonder if the virus had already landed in Tokyo undetected,” said Yukihiro Nishiyama, virologist at the medical department of Nagoya University in central Japan.

Apart from Mexico, swine flu has killed six people in the United States — although the WHO lists four dead — and one each in Canada and Costa Rica.

New swine flu cases have been reported in Chile, Greece, Hong Kong, Japan, Panama, Peru, South Korea and the United States.

In New York, 12 schools have been temporarily closed following the death of a 55-year-old school assistant principal.

Separately, the US government reported Monday more than 400 new cases, to take the nation’s total number of infections above 5,000.

“We cannot stop the virus from spreading. We should not be surprised to see more cases,” New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg warned.

Meanwhile Canada ended a recommendation to postpone “non-essential” travel to Mexico, saying the risk of contracting A(H1N1) had levelled off.

In Geneva, Chan acknowledged scientific uncertainty surrounding the virus and the need for more information.

“We do not know how long this period will take, if this is the calm before the storm,” Chan told the assembly, adding that there was “every reason to be concerned with the interaction with other viruses.”

Health authorities have said they expect the number of A(H1N1) flu cases to rise in the southern hemisphere over the next months as the region enters its autumn and winter seasons.

The WHO also advised the pharmaceutical industry not to switch the focus of its production onto the new swine flu virus, recommending that making seasonal flu vaccines was still the priority.

KOBE, Japan (AFP) -
Authorities in Japan stepped up measures to halt swine flu, which the World Health Organization declared was not yet a pandemic even as it claimed two more lives in Latin America.

People wear facemasks on way to work in Kobe, Hyogo prefecture. Japan has reported 178 swine flu infections and closed more than 4,000 schools, colleges and kindergartens for the rest of the week to slow the spread of the virus(AFP/Kazuhiro Nogi)

WHO chief Margaret Chan told member states at the opening of the UN health body’s annual assembly they may be facing a “calm before the storm” but there was no reason to raise the alert level to its maximum six.

The current level of five indicates a pandemic is imminent, although swine flu is now present in 40 nations, infecting nearly 8,300 people and causing 74 deaths.

“We need to warn the public whenever necessary, but reassure them whenever possible. This is a difficult balancing act,” Chan told the WHO meeting.

Those figures do not include two more deaths reported Monday in Mexico, epicentre of the influenza A(H1N1) virus outbreak but where the disease is now waning.

In Japan, authorities ordered more than and kindergartens to shut — double the previous day — to slow the spread of swine flu, which has so far infected 173 people in the country.

Many people in the affected urban areas were wearing face masks after the western cities of Kobe and Osaka became the first in Japan to suffer domestic outbreaks of the virus, which spread rapidly through two schools.

The virus is believed to have spread after high schools from the two cities played in a volleyball tournament, and some players and coaches felt feverish afterwards.

Experts warn the virus will likely soon spread to other regions, including Tokyo, which with almost 36 million people is the world’s most populous urban area and the heart of the Japanese economy.

“The virus’s spread to Tokyo is near certain and it would be little wonder if the virus had already landed in Tokyo undetected,” said Yukihiro Nishiyama, virologist at the medical department of Nagoya University in central Japan.

Apart from Mexico, swine flu has killed six people in the United States — although the WHO lists four dead — and one each in Canada and Costa Rica.

New swine flu cases have been reported in Chile, Greece, Hong Kong, Japan, Panama, Peru, South Korea and the United States.

In New York, 12 schools have been temporarily closed following the death of a 55-year-old school assistant principal.

Separately, the US government reported Monday more than 400 new cases, to take the nation’s total number of infections above 5,000.

“We cannot stop the virus from spreading. We should not be surprised to see more cases,” Mayor Michael Bloomberg warned.

Meanwhile Canada ended a recommendation to postpone “non-essential” travel to Mexico, saying the risk of contracting A(H1N1) had levelled off.

In Geneva, Chan acknowledged scientific uncertainty surrounding the virus and the need for more information.

“We do not know how long this period will take, if this is the calm before the storm,” Chan told the assembly, adding that there was “every reason to be concerned with the interaction with other viruses.”

Health authorities have said they expect the number of A(H1N1) flu cases to rise in the southern hemisphere over the next months as the region enters its autumn and winter seasons.

The WHO also advised the pharmaceutical industry not to switch the focus of its production onto the new swine flu virus, recommending that making seasonal flu vaccines was still the priority.

- SUNDAY, May 17 (HealthDay News) — Breathing polluted air for even a
short period of time can cause some genes to undergo reprogramming, which
may affect a person’s risk of developing cancer and other diseases, say
Italian researchers.

Comparisons of blood DNA samples from healthy workers who were exposed
to high levels of airborne particulates at a foundry near Milan revealed
that after only three days of exposure, changes occurred in four genes
that have been linked to tumor suppression, according to research
presented Sunday at the International Conference of the American Thoracic
Society, in San Diego.

This finding indicates “that environmental factors need little time to
cause gene reprogramming, which is potentially associated with disease
outcomes,” investigator Dr. Andrea Baccarelli, assistant professor of
applied biotechnology at the University of Milan, said in a news release
issued by the conference’s sponsor.

“As several of the effects of particulate matter in foundries are
similar to those found after exposure to ambient air pollution, our
results open new hypotheses about how air pollutants modify human health,”
Baccarelli said.

The changes in the foundry workers’ genes may have been caused by DNA
methylation, a chemical transformation process that has been linked to
gene reprogramming and has been found in the blood and tissue samples of
lung cancer patients, Baccarelli noted.

“The changes in DNA methylation we observed are reversible, and some of
them are currently being used as targets of cancer drugs,” said the
researcher, who added that it might be possible to design early
interventions that could program that gene back to normal and mitigate the
increased health risks of air pollutants.

“We need to evaluate how the changes in gene reprogramming we observed
are related to cancer risk,” Baccarelli said.

More information

The U.S. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute has more about >lung disease.

- SUNDAY, May 17 (HealthDay News) — Raising hopes for the development
of an AIDS vaccine that might actually work, researchers report they were
able to protect monkeys against infection with simian immunodeficiency
virus (SIV), the primate version of HIV.

They did so by using a novel approach that delivered antibody-producing
genes directly to the animals’ muscles. Typically, vaccines are aimed at
ramping up the immune system to fight off infection, but this strategy
eliminated that middle step.

“Traditional approaches toward developing an HIV vaccine that have
worked for other viruses like influenza have just has not worked for HIV
and, quite frankly, might not work for a long time or ever,” explained the
study’s author, Dr. Philip R. Johnson, chief scientific officer at
Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and a professor of pediatrics at the
University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.

“But Mother Nature has allowed us a few breaks, in that we know that in
a very few cases, people who have been infected for a very long time have
been able to naturally develop antibodies that neutralize a lot of the
circulating virus,” he said. “So, we thought perhaps we could take the
genes that represent these antibodies ‘off the shelf,’ so to speak, give
them directly to patients and, in essence, bypass the immune system.”

“So, first we worked through mice and showed we could do it with mice,”
Johnson explained. “And now we’ve shown that we can actually transfer
these genes into monkeys and protect these animals from SIV.”

The findings are in the May 17 online issue of Nature
Medicine.

The researchers’ efforts focused on preventing SIV infection in nine
macaque monkeys who were “immunized” against SIV by inserting genes
already known to express anti-SIV antibodies directly into the monkeys’
muscles.

Once the genes were injected, they prompted the muscles to produce
antibodies that were released into the bloodstream and began attacking the
SIV.

After being exposed to SIV four weeks later, six of the nine monkeys
appeared to be fully protected from infection because they remained
completely uninfected, and none of the nine immunized monkeys went on to
develop AIDS or died from exposure to the virus, the researchers
reported.

In contrast, six non-immunized monkeys exposed to SIV all became
infected, and two-thirds died.

Johnson and his team concluded that their immunization strategy
triggered the development of long-lasting and complete protection against
SIV infection among monkeys.

“I’m not about to over-hype this,” Johnson cautioned. “But we are
continuing our work with monkeys in parallel with moving forward to begin
human trials in two years, if everything goes perfectly with our work with
the FDA to develop safety preparations, which is absolutely appropriate.
And if the immunization trials work, then you have another few years to
gear up. So, in the best of all possible worlds, you’re looking at five
years down the road for a practical benefit for patients. But,
scientifically, we believe we are on the right track.”

Rowena Johnston, director of research at the Foundation for AIDS
Research in New York City, described the work as “one of the most
interesting and potentially promising concepts to come out of the vaccine
field in quite a while.”

“They’ve cut straight to the chase and eliminated the middle man,” she
explained. “That is the really exciting thing they’ve done. We already all
know that the traditional approaches to a vaccine won’t work for HIV. And
so HIV is a field where researchers are required to come up with ideas
that nobody has needed to think about before, and that is where the
challenge is. And here what they’ve done is to get antibodies to the virus
themselves being produced directly, rather than waiting for the very
slow-moving immune system to respond. And that is so elegant.”

“Of course, the caveat is that this paper is a concept, and not yet a
solution,” Johnston noted. “But as concepts go, this is very, very
interesting, even if it seems so obvious after you see it, like all good
research.”

More information

The World Health Organization has details on efforts to develop an >HIV vaccine.

- MONDAY, May 18 (HealthDay News) — Overweight teens, or those who
believe they are, are more likely than other teens to attempt suicide,
according to a U.S. study.

Researchers looked at more than 14,000 high school students to
determine if there’s a link between suicide attempts and body mass index
(BMI), as well as a teen’s belief that he or she might be overweight —
whether it’s true or not.

The study found that teens who were overweight and those who believed
they were overweight were more likely to attempt suicide than those who
weren’t and those who didn’t believe they were overweight. The findings
were equally strong for girls and boys.

The study appears online in the Journal of Adolescent
Health.

“Our findings show that both perceived and actual overweight increase
risk for suicide attempt,” the study’s lead author, Monica Swahn, an
associate dean for research at the College of Health and Human Sciences
and an associate professor in the Institute of Public Health at Georgia
State University, said in a news release from the school.

“This is a major concern since more and more children and youth are
becoming overweight and obese,” she said.

A better understanding of the link between weight issues and suicide
risk in teens can help in the development of appropriate strategies for
suicide prevention, according to the researchers.

“We cannot only focus prevention strategies on those who are overweight
and who are concerned about their weight, but we also need to include
youth who feel that they are overweight even though they may not be,”
Swahn said. She added that teens “feel very pressured to fit in and to fit
certain limited ideals of beauty.”

Dr. Hatim Omar, chief of the Division of Adolescent Medicine at the
University of Kentucky, said in the news release that the study “adds
another wake-up call to providers, parents, teachers and society about the
need for screening for depression and suicide risk in all teens, with
special attention to teens with perceived or actual obesity.”

More information

Mental Health America has more about >teen suicide.

- MONDAY, May 18 (HealthDay News) — A new aerosol spray may help keep
the airways of cystic fibrosis patients moist and clear, researchers
say.

Using a special agent called GS-9411, the spray prevents sodium from
being absorbed too quickly, which is a common problem for people with
cystic fibrosis. The quick absorption of sodium from the surface of the
airway causes their airways to dry, and allows mucous and bacteria to
accumulate.

In tests on airway surface cells grown in a laboratory, GS-9411 helped
the cells retain moisture for more than eight hours while tests on animals
found the spray helped clear excessive mucus for at least four hours.

The findings were presented Sunday at the American Thoracic Society’s
annual international conference in San Diego.

“GS-9411 administered by aerosol can effectively increase airway
surface liquid and enhance mucous clearance in an animal model,” study
author Andrew Hirsh, senior director of drug discovery and preclinical
development for Parion Sciences, a pharmaceutical company, said in a news
release. “The results demonstrate that GS-9411 warrants further
investigation as a new drug therapy to decrease respiratory infection and
improve pulmonary function.”

In cystic fibrosis, a genetic defect causes the airway to absorb
sodium, and therefore moisture, too quickly. When the airway is too dry,
the body can’t clear mucus, a key defense mechanism of the respiratory
system, Hirsh said. This deficiency can cause cystic fibrosis patients to
have chronic respiratory infection and impaired lung function, he
explained.

“The potency and the length of time that the drug was effective in
cells and in animal studies was an outstanding feature that distinguishes
this compound from other agents,” he said.

More information

The March of Dimes has more about cystic
fibrosis.