FDA Campaign Warns Consumers About Risks of Online Pharmacies

On Friday, FDA launched a new national campaign -- called BeSafeRx -- and an accompanying website to educate U.S. residents about the prevalence of fraudulent online pharmacies that sell counterfeit medications that could be harmful or fatal, the AP/Boston Globe reports.
FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg said the new campaign's goal is to "increase awareness" and encourage individuals to "use appropriate [online] pharmacies."
The initiative -- which involves the collaboration of several federal agencies and departments -- was developed amid growing evidence that consumers increasingly are shopping for their medications online in an effort to save time and costs.

However, many of the drugs disbursed by pharmacies have been found to have numerous defects. For example, they might be:

• Contaminated;
• Expired;
• Contain no active ingredient; or
• Include the wrong amount of an active ingredient.

The National Association of Boards of Pharmacy, which represents state pharmacy boards, said it found that just 3% of the thousands of online pharmacies it reviewed follow state and federal laws.

Details of the Website

The campaign's website, FDA.gov/BeSafeRx, provides consumers with a list of the few dozen pharmacies that it has verified as legitimate and following the rules, such as requiring a valid doctor's prescription for medicine and having licensed pharmacists available to answer questions.

The site also offers tips on how to identify illegal pharmacies, links to state databases of licensed pharmacies and explanations of the dangers of using rogue online pharmacies.

In addition to sending fake drugs to consumers, illegal online pharmacies could:

• Infect consumers' computers with viruses;
• Sell consumers' personal or financial data to other rogue websites; or
• Charge consumers for products they never ordered or received (Johnson, AP/Boston Globe, 9/28).

Animals suspected in spread of new virus

LONDON (AP) — Britain's Health Protection Agency has published an early genetic sequence of the new respiratory virus related to SARS that shows it is most closely linked to bat viruses, and scientists say camels, sheep or goats might end up being implicated too.

So far, officials have only identified two confirmed cases and say the virus isn't as infectious as SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome, which killed hundreds of people, mostly in Asia, in a 2003 global outbreak.

In Geneva, World Health Organization spokesman Glenn Thomas told reporters Friday that so far the signs are that the virus is "not easily transmitted from person to person" — but analyses are ongoing. The agency said it's too early to tell how big a threat the new virus will be since it is unknown how exactly it spreads and whether it will evolve into a more dangerous form.

Global health officials suspect two victims from the Middle East may have caught it from animals.

"It's a logical possibility to consider any animals present in the region in large numbers," said Ralph Baric, a coronavirus expert at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. "Biologists now need to go into the area and take samples from any animals they can get their hands on, including camels and goats," he said. Baric said it was crucial to find out how widespread the virus is in animals and what kind of contact might be risky for people.

Baric suggested bats might be spreading the virus directly to humans since the two confirmed infections happened months apart. "If there was an established transmission pattern from other animals, we probably would have seen a lot more cases," he said.

WHO said it is considering the possibility the new coronavirus sickened humans after direct contact with animals. The agency is now working with experts in the Middle East to figure out how the two confirmed cases got infected but could not share details until the investigation was finished.

One patient was a Saudi Arabian man who died several months ago while the other is a Qatari national who traveled to Saudi Arabia before falling ill and is currently in critical but stable condition in a London hospital.

Earlier this week, WHO issued a global alert asking doctors to be on guard for any potential cases of the new respiratory virus, which also causes kidney failure.

Saudi officials have already warned that next month's annual Muslim Hajj pilgrimage, which brings millions to Saudi Arabia from all around the world, could allow the virus to spread. As a precautionary measure, they are advising pilgrims to keep their hands clean and wear masks in crowded places.

Experts said knowing where a virus comes from provides clues on how to stop it.

"This means we could prevent the fire before it starts instead of rushing towards it with fire trucks and water hoses afterwards," said Michael Osterholm, an infectious diseases expert at the University of Minnesota.

Osterholm said it was possible bats had simply passed on the virus from other animals and that there could be a complicated transmission chain that ultimately ended in humans.

Viruses reproduce as they infect animals and people, giving them more chances to evolve into a deadlier version.

"We don't know enough about coronaviruses to predict which mutations might make them more lethal or transmissible," Osterholm said. "But you don't want to tempt genetic fate with microbes because you're bound to lose most times."

____

Michael Casey in Dubai and Jamey Keaten in Geneva contributed to this report.

New 'Sars-like' not easily transmitted says WHO

A new respiratory illness - from the same family as the Sars virus - appears not to spread easily, experts at the World Health Organization (WHO) say.

A Qatari man, 49, with the virus is being treated in London. The first person known to have had it, in Saudi Arabia, died.

The WHO said on Friday that it appeared the new virus "cannot be easily transmitted from person to person."

The Sars virus, which emerged in China in 2002, killed hundreds of people.

Both Sars (severe acute respiratory syndrome) and the new, un-named, virus - as well as the common cold virus - belong to the coronavirus family

But this new virus is different from any coronaviruses previously identified in humans.

Both of the patients known to have had the virus experienced kidney failure.

 

Zoonotic

The WHO said it would continue to monitor the situation but was not recommending any travel restrictions for Saudi Arabia or Qatar.

However it said it was working closely with Saudi authorities in advance of the forthcoming Hajj, the annual Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca.

The WHO also announced diagnostic tests were being developed by scientists around the world as quickly as possible.

The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), which monitors disease in the European Union, said initial findings suggested the virus may have originated in animals - diseases known as zoonotic.

Writing in the journal Eurosurveillance, they said: "It is quite probably of zoonotic origin and different in behaviour to Sars."

The rise of clean teeth

 

• History of teeth-cleaning reaches as far back as 5000 BC, when Egyptians made tooth powder with ox hooves, myrrh, powdered and burnt eggshells, and pumice
• Romans and Greeks also used tooth powder but added crushed bones and oyster shells
• Toothpowder became available in England in 18th Century and included abrasive substances such as brick dust, crushed china, earthenware and cuttlefish
• Bicarbonate of soda used for basis of most toothpowders and the poor applied this directly with fingers
• William Addis credited with making first toothbrush in 1780 made from cattle bones and wild boar hair
• First synthetic toothbrush developed in 1930s America

A Point Of View: Mouthing off

Modern society is on the hunt for better teeth, but what is it that makes our pearly whites so alluring, asks Sarah Dunant. 

For moneyed Americans, perfect dentistry is a matter of course. When they venture out to local markets or mix with the older Florentines in bars or cafes I suspect they are taken aback by how other people's mouths don't come up to their standard.

Probably they don't register how we (I include myself - for my teeth are a more European affair) - stare at them in similar disbelief.

It's partly that we outnumber them. Not only in the present. The artistic revolution that marked Florence as the cauldron of the Renaissance covered its walls with vibrant images of its citizens; an unprecedented commentary of life and looks 500 years ago.

Inside the excuse of Biblical stories you meet all manner of Florentines, young, old, important, unknown, rich, poor, beautiful and ugly. But when it comes to open-mouthed smiles there are almost none on display. 

The acme of female beauty around this time was golden hair, dark eyes, lily-white skin and rose or pomegranate lips. Teeth if mentioned are tiny pearls glimpsed under the upper lip.
The most reproduced woman of Western art, Mary, mother of God, never really opens her mouth at all, even when a miracle is happening.

In Renaissance art, the annunciation - a moment where some joy might seem in order - is actually a study of a woman's complex emotional, spiritual journey: fear, incomprehension, wonder and quiet acceptance. To crack a big smile would be - well - too forward.

In portraits of ordinary men and women, smiles are equally rare. Being recorded for posterity was a serious business.

We could do a whole point of view on Mona Lisa's teasing little pout (Giorgio Vasari, 50 years later and not always reliable, writes that Da Vinci, while he was painting her "employed singers and musicians to keep her full of merriment".)

 

 Mary is not often pictured smiling, even when witnessing miracles

More telling perhaps are the Venuses that follow her. After Botticelli come an army of bathing, sleeping, lounging beauties covered only by their hair and then not even by that. Titian's famous Venus of Urbino, is brash enough to stare directly out from the canvas making eye contact - clearly modesty had its limits. Her lips however stay compressed.

I know what you're thinking. Tooth decay. Bad breath. They don't show their teeth in the past, because they all went black and fell out early.

Well, certainly there is some truth in that. Recipes for preserving and whitening teeth are everywhere, everyone from Hildegard of Bingen to Nostradamus - fennel, lovage, mint, rubbing with salt and sage, rinsing with alcohol, all have recognisable elements of modern mouth hygiene, though pulverising crystal, marble, glass, cuttlefish bone, fragmented pearls and riverbed stones into a paste makes one doubt Nostradamus' accuracy in others area of prediction. 

The first recognisable manufactured toothbrush arrives in Europe in the late 18th century, and proper toothpaste only really gets going after the Second World War.

But before we get too smug about modernity, we should factor in that it was the arrival of sugar as part of everyday diet that really accelerated rot. Forget whiteness and start contemplating the exquisite agony of toothache.

History again was on our side. The first ever public surgery using anaesthetic took place in 1846 in Boston general hospital (in a theatre now known as the ether dome). The procedure? The removal of a tumour in the neck. The surgeon: a dentist.

Back for a moment to those mouths of the past. Because that coyness when it comes to teeth - certainly female - is rich in subtext. The image of toothy open mouths - smiling or not - denote something - well something more predatory and sexual.

Let me be elliptically crude for a moment.

Think Chaucer's wife of Bath: large hips, scarlet stockings, a string of husbands and - very important - gap teeth: a sure sign to other pilgrims of possible lasciviousness.

Then there is that most dangerous of all women in mythology, Medusa. So horribly lovely - wild writhing snakes for hair - that she can only be safely viewed - and slaughtered - by reflection. Images of Medusa's decapitated head - from classical Greek through the great masters are unmissable: gaping mouth, teeth bared in violent fury.

 

The Wife of Bath: "God bad us for to wexe and multiplye"

Think Vampires - always most alluring in the body of lovely young women eager to test their canines on a male neck. Or the even more potent myth of vagina dentata - I trust you can manage that translation - the ultimate male nightmare which so continues to fascinate and appal that only few years ago it surfaced again in a rather splendid independent American movie - half comedy, half horror.

And finally imagine, if you will, those images of Monica Lewinsky that sped around the world: the young eager intern, flowing dark locks and wide generous mouth rising up from the crowd to greet the President of America, a man she would be happy to serve in whatever way she could.
Whether we are discussing the past or the present, the open smiling female mouth, carries with it definite psychosexual power.

How even more fascinating then to remember that perfect American teeth arrived during what masquerades as the chirpiest, cleanest decade of all - the 1950's. What provoked it? Well, certainly Americans were brushing more - GI's brought the institutionalised habit back from the army.

 

 Mitzi Gaynor was renowned both for her smile and her hair-washing abilities

But it's more than that. There is also the rise and rise of the Kodak camera (say "cheese") and arrival of Technicolor.

Think of the change from black and white dustbowl images of American men and women, blackened teeth and blank eyes staring into no future to that cinematic Doris Day smile, or more precisely the all American girl Mitzi Gaynor "washing that man right out of her hair" amid the technically enhanced colours of South Pacific, and you have a cultural shift as dazzling as the teeth that proclaimed it.
Post-war American optimism: the house, the car, the kids, the wife and the teeth to match the fridge doors behind her.

Here in Britain, with dentistry hanging on the tails of the NHS it was all a bit more hit and miss. Many baby boomers had some brush (I refuse to apologise for the word) with orthodontics.

trampolines are a danger to kids

US doctors say children should be discouraged from using trampolines because they are a health hazard.

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) estimates that almost 98,000 people are injured each year in the US on trampolines and many of these are children.

UK safety experts say recreational trampoline use is growing in popularity and related injuries are on the rise.

But they say trampolining can be a healthy way to exercise and good fun.

 

The renewed advice from the AAP says paediatricians need to "actively discourage" recreational trampoline use.

Dr Michele LaBotz, who co-authored the AAP report said: "Families need to know that many injuries occur on the mat itself, and current data do not appear to demonstrate that netting or padding significantly decrease the risk of injury."

The researchers found that most injuries occur when more than one person is on a trampoline.
Children under five are more likely to suffer serious injury, with 48% of injuries in this group resulting in fractures and dislocations.

Some injuries may even be fatal - failed attempts at somersaults and flips frequently cause cervical spine injuries, resulting in permanent and devastating consequences, says the AAP.
 

Supervision

 
But the UK's Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (Rospa) says trampolining can be enjoyed safely if a few simple rules are followed.

For example, put the trampoline on a softer surface like the lawn rather than concrete and consider using safety netting.

"But a safety net is not a substitute for adult supervision," a spokesman added.

More than half of all trampoline accidents occur while children are being watched by an adult, but using trained supervisors can greatly reduce this risk, says Rospa.

Latest UK figures show that, in 2002, 11,500 people in the UK ended up in hospital after a trampoline accident - an increase of more than 50% in five years.

Non-addictive, 'heroin-like' medicine may soon crush major depression

What could easily be the most important advance in the pharmacologic treatment of major depression and anxiety disorders is now unfolding.

A new investigational drug, currently known as ALKS 5461, could deliver all the mood-enhancing and anxiety-lowering effects that lead people to use opiates like heroin and Oxycontin—without the potential for getting high or addicted. That’s right: ALKS 5461 could be a non-abusable, non-addictive heroin-like compound.

ALKS 5461 is actually a combination of two molecules. The first is buprenorphine, which is already used to provide some of the benefits of opiates, without many of the worst side effects, allowing people to get off of street drugs (as an alternative to methadone). The second molecule is now known as ALKS 33—and that’s the magic part.

ALKS 33 interferes with the binding of buprenorphine to the receptors that are involved in making people feel euphoric. Those are the receptors also involved in getting people to crave opiates like alcoholics crave alcohol.

In a double-blind, placebo controlled study (meaning, the participants had no idea whether they were getting ALKS 5461 or a sugar pill), ALKS 5461 was rapidly effective in relieving symptoms in 32 patients with major depression. All 32 patients responded to the medicine—with results evident by seven days.

What’s more, all of them had failed to respond adequately to traditional antidepressants like Prozac or Effexor.

Ultimately, I believe ALKS 5461 could revolutionize the pharmacologic treatment of major depression and panic disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder.

It should come as no surprise that ALKS 5461 is the brainchild of scientists at Alkermes Pharmaceuticals, the same company, which invented and markets Vivitrol, a monthly injection that can take away the “high” of using alcohol and street drugs—and in my opinion, ought to be something that every family member of every addict clamors to get their loved one to take.

If ALKS 5461 comes to market (and I believe it will), then that scourge we call major depression will be dealt a massive blow. It will still be imperative to use insight-oriented psychotherapy to get to the bottom of what unique psychological issues have fueled each person’s depression, but that should be easier—not harder—when folks aren’t struggling just to get out of bed and over to their psychiatrists’ offices.