A spoonful of buckwheat honey quells a child’s nighttime chest cold coughing better than the most common cough suppressant in nonprescription medicines, researchers said on Monday. (Continue reading…)

Early results from a necropsy performed on a beluga whale that died at the Georgia Aquarium produced no conclusive findings on the cause of death, officials said Monday.Marina had fallen ill at the aquarium and died early Saturday morning. (Continue reading…)

The study, which appears in the current issue of the journal Pediatrics, looked at a group of children born during or after 2000 and compared them to a group of children born between 1995 and 1997. The younger group reported exposure to peanuts at 12 months, and reported their first adverse reaction at 14 months. That’s in contrast to a decade ago, when first exposure was documented at 22 months, and first adverse reactions occurred at 24 months.

“This should be a wake-up call to all parents of young children,” says Wesley Burks, MD, chief of pediatric allergy and immunology at Duke University Medical Center, and the study’s senior author. “Kids are being exposed to peanuts and having allergic reactions much earlier than they did five or 10 years ago.”

“There’s a valid reason to delay introduction to products containing peanuts,” adds Todd D. Green, MD, the study’s lead author and assistant professor of pediatrics at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh. Green was a postdoctoral fellow at Duke where the research was conducted before joining Children’s Hospital. “When kids are older, it can be easier to manage bad reactions. They can tell you right away if their mouths feel funny. For that reason alone, it’s worth delaying exposing your child to a peanut product, especially if a child is at high risk.”

As many as 12 million Americans suffer from food allergies, including milk, soy, eggs, wheat, tree nuts, fish and shellfish, according to the American Academy of Allergy Asthma and Immunology. About 1.8 million Americans are allergic to peanuts, and studies show the incidence of peanut allergy in children has doubled in the past decade, Burks says.

“More research needs to be done to determine why peanut allergy in children is increasing and, most importantly, how to stop this increase,” says Anne Munoz-Furlong, director of the Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Network in Fairfax, VA. “Peanut allergy is life-long and causes the majority of severe or fatal allergic reactions from foods, particularly in teens.”

As many as one-third of patients allergic to peanuts have severe reactions that can be near-fatal and sometimes fatal. More specifically, about 200 deaths occur each year due to food-induced anaphylaxis, usually involving peanuts or tree nuts, Burks says.

Current medical studies suggest that strict avoidance of peanuts and peanut products in allergy-prone families is the only way to avoid an allergic reaction. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that children avoid peanuts for the first three years of life if immediate family members have food allergies.

In the study, patients with a family history or exhibited evidence of sensitivities to foods other than peanuts showed signs of peanut allergies at earlier ages.

Furlong says this is because “most parents are not aware of the AAP recommendations until after their child is diagnosed with peanut allergy.”

Burks and colleagues question whether the earlier signs of exposure are a result of the increased prevalence of peanut allergies, and their next steps are aimed at pinpointing why the exposure levels are rising.

At the same time, they are looking at whether early introduction of peanut products actually promotes tolerance, or could potentially prevent peanut allergies in some patients. A study currently under way at Duke is investigating whether ingesting small amounts of offending foods including peanuts, eggs and milk might desensitize children prone to food allergies, helping their immune system mount an appropriate response.

Despite current media reports about CDC’s estimates of new HIV infections in the USA, Dr. Kevin Fenton, Director, , National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention, CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) stresses the new estimates are not yet final. (Continue reading…)

Genentech’s drug Avastin did not help women with breast cancer live meaningfully longer, and it caused significant side effects, including a few deaths, the Food and Drug Administration said today in a review of the drug.

The analysis by the agency’s staff appeared to dim the prospects that Avastin, would win a approval as a treatment for breast cancer.

Genentech’s stock fell $2.75 today, or 3.6 percent, to close at $73.50.

An advisory committee to the F.D.A. will meet Wednesday to discuss whether Avastin, already a blockbuster drug used for colon and lung cancer, will win an additional approval for breast cancer. The drug had $1.7 billion in United States sales in the first nine months of the year. Roche, which owns a majority of Genentech, sells the product overseas.

The agency’s staff did not take a position on whether Avastin should be approved for breast cancer. The staff noted Avastin’s positive effect in delaying the period before cancer worsens , although it did not extend overall survival time. But that benefit must be weighed “against the increased toxicity, including deaths” associated with use of the drug, the F.D.A. staff said. (Continue reading…)

TOKYO — Japan has temporarily halted poultry imports from South Korea because of a bird flu outbreak among ducks, the Japanese Agriculture Ministry said Monday. (Continue reading…)

Alkermes, Inc. (NASDAQ: ALKS) today announced that it will receive up to $174 million in cash in connection with the acquisition of Reliant Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Reliant) by GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), announced earlier today. Pursuant to the terms of the acquisition, Alkermes will receive $166.3 million upon closing of the transaction and up to an additional $7.7 million subject to the terms and conditions of an escrow arrangement that will remain in effect for a 15-month period following the closing of the transaction. The acquisition of Reliant by GSK is subject to approval by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and is expected to conclude by the end of 2007. (Continue reading…)

Lately the FDA seems more reluctant to approve new drugs than it once was. Some observers believe that Merck’s (NYSE: MRK) 2004 Vioxx recall touched off a new safety-conscious attitude at the FDA, skewing the way the agency viewed a drug’s risk versus its benefit. Others think that the slowdown in approvals simply results from an overworked, understaffed agency. Let’s find out for ourselves, Fools, with a quick look at the actual numbers.
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In the United States, completed the second stage of clinical trials for vaccines against nicotine addiction, established company Nabi Biopharmaceuticals. The product has proved effective: among vaccinated smokers were almost three times more people emerged from the harmful habit, compared with the control group, tells WebMD.
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Pump and blow. These are the basic tenets of CPR. Sounds simple, and it is, yet millions of Americans are not trained.
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