Health Highlights: Aug. 29, 2008
Feds Can Bar Mad Cow Tests: Court
Diabetes Drugs May Cause Heart Failure: Study
Bassinet Warning Issued After 2 Infant Deaths
New York City's HIV Infection Rate 3 Times U.S. Average
Almost 1,000 People Died From Katrina: Study
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Here are some of the latest health and medical news developments, compiled by
editors of HealthDay:
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.
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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.
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Bassinet Warning Issued After 2 Infant Deaths
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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.
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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.
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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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Almost 1,000 People Died From Katrina: Study
Some 986 deaths in Louisiana were caused directly or indirectly by Hurricane Katrina, making it the deadliest hurricane to hit the U.S. Gulf Coast in 80 years, new research timed to the storm's third anniversary finds.
Study authors were from the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals, and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In a news release, they said the leading cause of death was drowning (40 percent), followed by injury and trauma, then heart conditions.
Almost half of the victims were 75 or older. Eighty percent of the deaths occurred on the day of the storm -- Aug. 29, 2005.
"What we learned from Hurricane Katrina is that disaster preparedness efforts must focus on evacuating and caring for vulnerable populations -- particularly the elderly -- including those in hospitals, nursing homes and private residences," said lead study author Joan Brunkard of the CDC.
The study was published on the Web site of the American Medical Association's journal Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness.
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