- Here are some of the latest health and medical news developments,
compiled by
editors of HealthDay:
Alcohol to Blame for 12% of Native Americans'
Deaths: Report
An estimated 12 percent of the deaths among American Indians and Alaska
Natives are due to alcohol, a figure that's more than three times higher
than for the general population.
That's the conclusion of a federal report released this week that found
that 11.7 percent of deaths among American Indians and Alaska Natives
between 2001 and 2005 were alcohol-related, compared with 3.3 percent for
the population as a whole, the Associated Press reported.
Dwayne Jarman, one of the study authors and an epidemiologist with the
U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said the report was the
first national survey to measure the alcohol-related death rate among
American Indians. And, he said, it should serve as a “call to action” for
federal, state, local and tribal governments to combat the problem.
The two leading causes of alcohol-related deaths among Indians were
traffic accidents and alcoholic liver disease; each caused more than 25
percent of the 1,514 alcohol-related deaths recorded over the study's
four-year period.
The report also listed homicide to blame for 6.6 percent of
alcohol-related deaths; suicide, 5.2 percent; and injuries due to falls,
2.2 percent, the AP said.
Sixty-eight percent of the victims were men, and 66 percent were people
younger than 50 years old; 7 percent were less than 20 years old, the
report found.
And the situation may be even more dire because the report didn't count
deaths related to some diseases for which alcohol is believed to be a risk
factor, such as tuberculosis, pneumonia and colon cancer, the AP
said.
—–
Feds Can Bar Mad Cow Tests: Court
The U.S. government has the authority to bar meat companies from
testing their animals for mad cow disease, a federal appeals court has
ruled.
The Department of Agriculture's failure to test more than a fraction of
cows for the brain-wasting disease prompted one meat company to announce
that it would test all of its bovines, the Associated Press
reported.
But the government turned thumbs down on that request, from Kansas meat
producer Creekstone Farms. Bigger meat packers feared the move would force
them to employ the costly test on all of their cows, as well, the wire
service said.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, in overturning
a lower court ruling, upheld the government's right to prevent Creekstone
from testing its cows, the AP said.
—–
Diabetes Drugs May Cause Heart Failure: Study
A number of related drugs for type 2 diabetics may boost their risk of
heart failure, a Wake Forest University School of Medicine study
finds.
Thiazolidinediones, which regulate users' blood sugar, appear to double
the risk of congestive heart failure among people with type 2 diabetes,
study authors Dr. Sonal Singh and Dr. Curt Furberg said in editorial
published in the journal Heart.
Drugs in this class include rosiglitazone (Avandia) and pioglitazone
(Actos), reports United Press International.
Almost one-quarter of diabetics also have some form of heart disease,
the wire service said. More than half of elderly diabetics will develop
congestive heart failure, the study authors wrote.
—–
Bassinet Warning Issued After 2 Infant Deaths
The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission has ordered retailers to
stop selling bassinets that have been linked to two infant deaths, the
Washington Post reported Friday.
The “close-sleeper/bedside sleeper” bassinets were made by Simplicity
Inc. of Reading, Penn. The agency's safety alert was prompted by the death
of a 6-month-old Kansas girl, who died from strangulation Aug. 21 after
getting caught in the product's metal bars, the newspaper said.
In September 2007, a 4-month-old Missouri infant became entrapped in
the metal bars and died, the CPSC said.
alt="withdrawn bassinets"/>
Some 900,000 of the 3-in-1 and 4-in-1 convertible bassinets may be in
circulation. Their metal bars are spaced farther apart than 2 3/8 inches,
which is the maximum allowed by federal law, the agency said. This warning
does not cover bassinets produced recently that have fabric permanently
attached over the lower bar, the CPSC added.
The agency issued the warning after SFCA, the company that bought
now-defunct Simplicity's assets earlier this year, refused to issue a
recall, the Post reported. The warning was issued under sweeping
new authority granted the agency by a two-week-old law called the Consumer
Product Safety Improvement Act.
While the agency has the authority to mandate a recall, doing so
generally takes some time. As a result, most product recalls are
voluntarily issued by the manufacturers or distributors, the Post
said.
An attorney for SFCA said his company was cooperating with the
government. Because it had merely purchased Simplicity's assets, SFCA
didn't “take on the legal responsibility for the products,” the newspaper
reported.
—–
New York City's HIV Infection Rate 3 Times
U.S. Average
People in New York City are contracting HIV, the virus that causes
AIDS, at three times the U.S. average, the Associated Press
reported.
According to the city's health department, nearly 4,800 people in New
York acquired HIV in 2006, or about 72 of every 100,000 residents, the
wire service said. That compares to a national rate of about 23 per
100,000.
Local health officials cited the city's large populations of gay men,
blacks, and other groups that tend to have above-average incidence of HIV
infection.
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