News

23rd International Conference on Tuberculosis and Lung Diseases Eastern Region - (IUATLD-ER) Lahore - Pakistan 25-28 September 2005

• The Pakistan Anti TB (PATA) is holding an International Conference from 25-28 September 2005 in Lahore under the auspices of IUATLD-ER, National TB Control Program Government of Pakistan and Chest Society of Pakistan.
  
  400 doctors from Pakistan, 400 doctors from SAARC countries and 200 doctors from other foreign countries are expected to attend the Conference. Ten world known professors have been invited as a guest speaker to deliver lectures to the delegates participating in this Conference.
  
  The most important aspect of this Conference is that it has been developed and signed in such a way that it will benefit to the medical professional of TB high burden countries that is SAARC countries which consists of 1/4th population of the world and 40% case load of TB patients of the world.
  
  For details contact Pakistan Anti TB Association at Phone #+92-42-5756986, 5871180 or E-mail: pata@brain.net.pk

Most people believe risk from mobiles is greater than benefit

• Two thirds of people now believe the risks of emissions from mobile phones outweigh the benefits, according to a Government survey.
  
  This represents a reversal of the pattern of two years ago when more than twice the proportion believed the benefits exceeded the risks, according to a Mori research report, Science in Society, commissioned by the Department of Trade and Industry.
  
  Sir William Stewart, head of the National Radiological Protection Board, Britain's radiation watchdog, recently warned that the dangers of mobile phones - particularly to children - were still unknown. And a Swedish study has linked long-term use with double the risk of a rare tumour on a nerve that connects the ear to the brain.
  
  The Science in Society survey also draws attention to how dangerous other technologies are considered to be.
  
  In the case of GM food, far more people say the risks exceed the benefits (58 per cent versus 16 per cent). With radioactive waste, the majority also felt the risks outweigh the benefits (71 per cent versus 12 per cent).
  
  The survey, of around 2000 people, is published today to coincide with National Science Week.
  
  Copyright © 2005 The Daily Telegraph. Source: Financial Times Information Limited - Europe Intelligence Wire.

Taking vitamin E 'could raise risk of heart failure'

• Taking vitamin E to cut the risks of heart disease or cancer has no effect and might even increase the chance of heart failure, doctors said yesterday.
  
  Researchers in Canada strongly advise against people with existing heart disease or diabetes taking vitamin E supplements.
  
  Their study in the Journal of the American Medical Association followed patients for almost seven years and is one of the longest trials of vitamin E supplement use.
  
  The trial, by Dr Eva Lonn of Ontario's Population Health Research Institute and McMaster University and her colleagues, involved more than 700 patients aged at least 55. They all had vascular disease or diabetes already.
  
  Those studied received either a high dose of vitamin E or a placebo. Dr Lonn said in the journal: "Daily administration of vitamin E had no clear impact on fatal and non-fatal cancers, major cardiovascular events or deaths.
  
  "We observed an increase in the risk of heart failure, which is of concern. Although this adverse effect of vitamin E was unexpected and cannot be confirmed at this time by other trials, our data are internally consistent."
  
  The researchers recommend testing this finding by studying all existing trials.
  
  "With its lack of efficacy, the potential for harm suggested by our findings strongly supports the view that vitamin E supplements should not be used by patients with vascular disease or diabetes," Dr Lonn warned.
  
  "Our study also has wider implications. There is a tendency to accept 'natural products' [vitamins] as being safe, even if they have not been proven to be effective.
  
  "Our findings emphasise the need to thoroughly evaluate all vitamins, natural products and complementary medicines before they are widely used for presumed health benefits."
  
  Pamela Mason, a Health Supplements Information Service adviser, said that people with health conditions should consult doctors before taking supplements.
  
  But she commented: "This study featured high vitamin E doses, well above the recommended daily allowance, in older patients with vascular disease or diabetes.
  
  "There is no evidence to suggest that moderate doses of vitamin E taken by healthy adults pose any risks at all."
  
  Copyright © 2005 The Daily Telegraph. Source: Financial Times Information Limited - Europe Intelligence Wire.

Cancer experts reverse warnings about the sun and say too little can cause harm

• CANCER SPECIALISTS around the world are rethinking their advice to cover up in the sun amid growing concern that staying in the shade may be causing harm.
  
  Australia is revising its warnings about the risks of sun exposure because of fears about vitamin D deficiency, which increases the risk of a range of diseases from cancer to osteoporosis, in what public health doctors have described as a "revolution".
  
  The British charity Cancer Research UK launches its annual SunSmart campaign today highlighting the dangers of too much sun. But in Australia health experts warn that some people are getting too little. In a statement this month, the Cancer Council of Australia said: "A balance is required between avoiding an increase in the risk of skin cancer and achieving enough ultraviolet radiation exposure to achieve adequate vitamin D levels."
  
  Australia is one of the sunniest countries in the world, and vitamin D deficiency is likely to be significantly worse in Britain.
  
  A survey in Geelong in Victoria, southern Australia, cited in the cancer council's statement, found that 43 per cent of women suffered a mild vitamin D deficiency and 11 per cent had moderately severe deficiency during winter. Geelong gets an average of 2,007 hours of sunshine a year, 60 per cent more than Glasgow which has 1,250 hours, according to the UK Meteorological Office.
  
  Bruce Armstrong, professor of public health at Sydney University, said: "It is a revolution. I have worked in public health and been preaching sun avoidance for 25 years. But this statement says there are two sides to the story."
  
  Vitamin D is made by the action of the sun on the skin and can be stored by the body for up to 60 days. Between October and March the sun in Britain is too weak to generate vitamin D so by the end of winter most people are deficient.
  
  A lack of vitamin D can cause rickets in children, leaving their legs deformed. New research shows it is also linked with multiple sclerosis, diabetes and cancers including those of the colon, breast, ovary and prostate.
  
  Some dermatologists are challenging the orthodox view that there is "no such thing as a safe tan" saying instead that the real risk is from sunburn, especially before the age of 20.
  
  Neil Walker, chairman of the UK Skin Cancer Prevention Working Party, says that warnings to avoid the sun entirely are "draconian and unnecessary". His view was supported by Professor Brian Wharton, chairman of the British Nutrition Foundation, who said: "We do need some sensible use of the sun and we have been swinging too strongly against it."
  
  Sara Hiom, head of health information at Cancer Research UK, said concern about vitamin D deficiency was growing, and an international conference hosted by the World Health Organisation was planned.
  
  "We do take on board the new evidence coming through. We are seriously looking at this. We need more research on who is at risk. We are not going to tell people to go out and sunbathe, but we do need to focus on those most at risk - with fair skin or lots of moles - and tell people some sunlight is good for them."
  
  Copyright © 2005 Independent Newspapers (UK) Limited Source: Financial Times Information Limited

Pushy parents can be a pain in the tum

• PUSHY parents can damage their children's health, doctors say today.
  
  Severe childhood stomach pain is often caused by stress and psychological problems.
  
  ``Functional abdominal pain'' (FAP) is a recognised condition which can be made worse by the ``illness behaviour'' of the child or its parents. A study from the gastroenterolgy department at the Institute of Child Health and Great Ormond Street Hospital, London, says parents of children with FAP ``show, not uncommonly, symptoms of anger and hostility towards the medical profession and may be reluctant to accept medical reassurance''.
  
  Dr Keith Lindley and colleagues investigated 23 cases of FAP. The children were 14 years old on average and 15 had been seen by between two and seven consultants. Often parents went to other specialists for opinions and investigations without the knowledge of the consultant or the GP.
  
  Seven parents were unhappy with offered tests and demanded different ones even though there was no clinical reason for them.
  
  Twelve families made formal complaints to the hospital or their MP about some aspect of the child's care and only 13 would accept a psychological referral. Of these 11 children got better within a year.
  
  Ten of the families refused psychological help and among these only three children eventually improved. In 12 families there was a ``significant degree'' of family conflict or dysfunction and ``lack of insight into the consequences of parental behaviour on the illness pattern'' was evident.
  
  Dr Lindley says: ``Robust systems are needed to protect the child and perhaps his or her physician from the effects of health care consumerism.''
  
  Copyright © 2005 The Daily Telegraph. Source: Financial Times Information Limited - Europe Intelligence Wire.

The forgotten killer

• MORE THAN half a billion people are suffering from malaria today, twice as many as scientists thought had been affected by one of the biggest killers in the developing world.
  
  The new figures are the result of detailed research that gives the most accurate assessment yet of the disease that kills at least a million people a year. Scientists now believe there are about 515 million cases of malaria out of 2.2 billion people who are at risk - about a third of the world's population.
  
  The discovery throws the slow progress of the world's fight against malaria into sharp relief.
  
  In countries such as Malawi, malaria claims more lives each year than Aids, but attracts a fraction of the attention. Coachloads of overseas visitors come to view the Aids projects run by Medicins Sans Frontieres in the country, but few are interested in malaria.
  
  Malaria has never captured the public imagination as Aids has done, even though children are its chief victims. Malaria is old and Aids is new. Most important, malaria is not a disease that affects the West - except for those fortunate enough to holiday in the tropics - whereas Aids threatens us all. The scale on which the parasite, transmitted by the mosquito, kills is breathtaking. A new malaria map of the world suggests that the incidence of malaria in Africa is some 50 per cent higher than previous estimates by the World Health Organisation and up to 200 per cent higher for areas outside Africa, such as in south-east Asia.
  
  Professor Robert Snow, of the Wellcome Trust Research Laboratories in Nairobi, Kenya, who led the study, warned that the true figures for the spread of malaria across the globe may even be higher than these latest estimates.
  
  "We have taken a conservative approach to estimating how many attacks occur globally each year but even so the problem is far bigger than we previously thought," he said.
  
  "Getting numbers right is important. Not knowing the size of the problem limits our ability to articulate how much money we need to tackle the problem - not knowing where the problem is located means you can't spend wisely," he said.
  
  For 40 years chloroquine was the standard treatment for malaria. Patients swallowed a couple of pills at the onset of the fever and within 48 hours they would be better. It was safe, effective and cheap.
  
  But over recent decades, a drug-resistant strain of malaria, Plasmodium falciparum, has been growing in Africa and now accounts for well over 90 per cent of cases. Surveys in east Africa show that almost two-thirds of patients given chloroquine and nearly half of those on its successor, sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine, have died. The only effective therapies are those based on artemesinin, a drug derived from a weed that grows wild in Africa and the Far East.
  
  Six years ago the WHO set a target to halve the number of deaths by 2010, but instead the toll has risen by at least a quarter, and in some areas by as much as 50 per cent, because victims have not had the right drugs. Hundreds of thousands of children have died needlessly and the disease
  
  has gone virtually unnoticed in the West. Malaria has been a scourge of humanity since antiquity and although it is largely preventable with the use of mosquito nets and insecticides it remains one of the biggest killers of children under five.
  
  The disease, caused by a blood parasite transmitted in a mosquito bite, was eradicated from industrialised countries of the northern hemisphere about half a century ago but it still threatens some 40 per cent of the world - mostly in the poorest countries of Africa, South America and southern Asia.
  
  More than 80 per cent of malaria deaths occur in sub-Saharan Africa and the WHO estimates that every day the disease kills 3,000 children. Those that survive often suffer brain disease or paralysis. Economists for the United Nations have identified malaria as one of the top four causes of poverty with many African governments spending up to 40 per cent of their total health budgets on the medical care or control of malaria.
  
  In Africa alone the total economic burden of malaria is estimated at $12bn (pounds 6.7bn) a year, according to the WHO.
  
  The deadliest form of malaria is the single-cell parasite Plasmodium falciparum and the latest estimates of its spread suggest that there are more cases in south-east Asia than previously suggested.
  
  "Our work has demonstrated that nearly 25 per cent of worldwide cases occur in south-east Asia and the western Pacific, whereas most people regard Plasmodium falciparum as a problem particular to Africa," Professor Snow said.
  
  In 1998, the WHO produced estimates of the extent of malaria based on reports of cases compiled by individual countries and data on the intensity of transmission within a particular region. However, it is widely accepted that the two methods are flawed because many cases of malaria are not reported to the authorities and transmission rates can vary widely because of local factors such as the weather.
  
  The new study uses a more proactive approach with a combination of epidemiological, geographical and demographic data. "We have taken a science-driven approach to working out who is at risk, where they are located and what their chances would be of developing an attack of malaria," Professor Snow said.
  
  Copyright © 2005 Independent Newspapers (UK) Limited Source: Financial Times Information Limited