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

Plant-Based Cancer Vaccine Shows
Promise

A plant-based cancer vaccine that kick-starts the immune system and can
be tailored to target specific tumor types shows promise, according to
U.S. researchers who tested the vaccine on 16 people with incurable
follicular B-cell lymphoma.

More than 70 percent of the patients developed an immune response and
none of them showed any significant side effects, Agence
France-Presse reported. The study appears in the journal
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“The idea is to marshal the body's own immune system to fight cancer,”
said study senior author Ronald Levy of the Stanford Medical Center. “We
know that if you get the immune system revved up, it can attack and kill
cancer.”

He and his colleagues are the first to test a plant-based cancer
vaccine on people, AFP reported. It's not yet clear whether the
immune response triggered by the vaccine is sufficient to destroy
cancer.

—–

New Drug Seems Effective Against Aggressive
Prostate Cancer

A new drug called abiraterone may prove to be a breakthrough treatment
for aggressive prostate cancer. Scientists say the drug — which blocks
hormones that fuel the cancer — could potentially treat up to 80 percent
of patients with a deadly form of the disease that's resistant to
chemotherapy, BBC News reported.

A study of 21 patients with advanced, aggressive prostate cancer
treated with the drug found significant tumor shrinkage and a decline in
levels of a key protein produced by the cancer. Many patients reported a
significant improvement in their quality of life, and some were able to
stop taking morphine to ease the pain caused by the spread of the cancer
into their bones.

The findings appear in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

“We believe we have made a major step forward in the treatment of
end-stage prostate cancer patients,” according to lead researcher Dr.
Johann de Bono, who was quoted by BBC News.

“These men have very aggressive prostate cancer which is exceptionally
difficult to treat and almost always proves fatal. We hope that
abiraterone will eventually offer them real hope of an effective way of
managing their condition and prolonging their lives,” de Bono said.

Currently, the drug is being assessed in an advanced clinical trial
involving 1,200 patients around the world, BBC News reported.

—–

South Korea Begins Year-Round Bird Flu
Monitoring

South Korea plans to establish about 23 teams to conduct year-round
monitoring for bird flu, the agriculture ministry said Tuesday. The
decision comes after the country experienced its worst bird flu outbreak,
which led to the slaughter of more than 8 million domestic birds.

As part of the new program, migratory and resident wild birds will be
monitored regularly and all chicken and duck farms will be inspected every
other week for strains of bird flu, Agence France-Presse
reported.

Until now, South Korea went on heightened bird flu alert from November
to March, when migratory birds stay in the country and weather conditions
can promote the spread of bird flu. But this year, an outbreak began in
early April and spread through most of the country.

Even though the country has had three major bird flu outbreaks, no
person in South Korea is known to have contracted the disease, AFP
reported. Worldwide, the H5N1 bird flu virus has killed more than 240
people since 2003.

—–

Deep Brain Stimulation Eases Depression:
Study

Deep brain stimulation can help many patients with tough-to-treat
depression, says a Canadian study. In deep brain stimulation, electrical
impulses are delivered through electrodes implanted in the brain.

The patients in the study had major depressive disorder, a severe form
of depression that's unresponsive to other treatments. One month after the
start of deep brain stimulation, 35 percent of patients responded well to
the therapy, with 10 percent of them entering remission, CBC News
reported. Six months after the start of treatment, 60 percent of patients
showed a good response and 35 percent were in remission.

“Our research confirmed that 60 percent of patients have shown a
clinically significant response to the surgery and the benefits were
sustained for at least one year,” Dr. Andres Lazano, a neurosurgeon at the
Krembil Neurosciences Centre at Toronto Western Hospital, said in a news
release.

Lozano and colleagues said there were few serious side effects and no
patients suffered long-term harm from the surgery to implant the
electrodes, CBC News reported.

The study was published in the journal Biological
Psychiatry.

—–

Study Challenges Stereotypes About Obese
Workers

Overweight workers aren't lazier, more emotionally unstable, or more
difficult to get along with than other workers, say U.S. researchers who
examined the relationship between body weight and personality traits among
3,500 adults.

The findings, which contradict widely held perceptions, mean that
employers should not use weight as a predictor of personality traits when
it comes to hiring, promoting or firing people, said study author Mark
Roehling of Michigan State University, United Press International
reported.

“Previous research has demonstrated that many employers hold negative
stereotypes about obese workers and those beliefs contribute to
discrimination against overweight workers at virtually every stage of the
employment process, from hiring to promotion to firing,” Roehling said in
news release.

The study was published in the journal Group & Organization
Management.

—–

Asian Nations Need to Act Against
Drug-Resistant TB: WHO

The lack of action by Asian nations to combat the spread of dangerous
multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) poses a threat to international
public health, says the World Health Organization.

The WHO said each patient with untreated MDR-TB could infect five to 10
people a year, and that an uncontrolled local epidemic could spread across
international borders, Agence France Presse reported.

Only 1 percent of the estimated 150,000 people with MDR-TB in East Asia
and the Pacific are receiving appropriate treatment, the WHO said in a
statement released Monday.

“We are more vulnerable than ever to the MDR-TB threat. Countries must
act responsively to safeguard global health,” the WHO said, AFP>
reported.

The U.N. agency said MDR-TB is a “serious problem in China and the
Philippines, and of concern in Mongolia, the Republic of Korea and
Vietnam.”