2005 Health: 'Super Flu'
Fears Grip World
NewsMax.com Wires
Wednesday, Dec. 14, 2005
What a difference a year makes ... or not. We head into 2006 the
same way we began 2005: Worried about flu and not enough
vaccine.
Last year, the concern was ordinary flu because the United States
had only half its usual supply of flu shots. Bird flu creeping
across Asia was a vague and distant threat.
This year, bird flu extended its reach, spawning fears that it
might mutate into a worldwide super-flu that kills people, not just
avians.
Countries scrambled to order an experimental bird flu vaccine and
Tamiflu, the lone drug known to work against the germ, but both
take achingly long to make and are in short supply. In October, the
federal government released a plan to deal with a flu pandemic,
relying heavily on low-tech measures like quarantine and travel
restrictions.
"Right now the U.S. public should not be worried," because the germ
doesn't spread person to person, Drs. William Schaffner and Tom
Talbot recently wrote to fellow staffers at Vanderbilt
University.
"Until the virus develops this ability, if it ever does, your
chances of being infected are virtually zero. Leave worrying about
this virus to the infectious disease specialists for now," they
advised.
Amid the flu fears there actually was a lot of good news this year.
Cancer overtook heart disease as the leading cause of death among
Americans 85 and under. Why is that good, you ask? Because deaths
from both are falling, it's just that those from heart disease have
fallen more dramatically.
Two vaccines proved effective against human papilloma virus, or
HPV, the leading cause of cervical cancer, a big killer around the
world.
New-generation cancer drugs like Avastin and Herceptin, which more
precisely target the disease and leave healthy cells alone, also
scored big victories in studies on lung and breast cancer patients
respectively, notes the American Society of Clinical Oncology in
its first annual report on cancer progress.
Five years ago, these drugs were in the "hope" stage but now are in
wide use, said Dr. Roy Herbst, a lung cancer expert at the
University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center.
In the future, "the goal is going to be to combine the targeted
therapies and leave the chemotherapy and radiation aside," sparing
patients the harsh effects of these older treatments, he
said.
Meanwhile, the federal Food and Drug Administration continued to
battle allegations that it has been too slow to act against
dangerous products, and that political concerns were trumping
science.
Despite advisers saying the drug is safe, the FDA has refused to
allow over-the-counter sales of Plan B, a "morning after" pill to
prevent pregnancy.
A top FDA scientist quit over the dispute, and it held up Lester
Crawford's confirmation as FDA commissioner. Two months after
winning the job, he abruptly resigned amid questions about ethics
and financial reporting. Federal officials are investigating.
Other FDA-related developments:
More bad news about pain killers. Merck's withdrawal of the popular
arthritis medication Vioxx from the market in September 2004 was
followed in March by Pfizer's withdrawal of Bextra. Both were tied
to increased heart risks. Merck lost the first but won the second
of many lawsuits alleging it hid information on Vioxx's dangers,
and the third ended in a mistrial after a medical journal said
Merck failed to report three deaths in one Vioxx study.
Over-the-counter medications became suspect, too. Warnings were
posted on non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, or NSAIDS, a wide
class of pain killers including Motrin, Aleve and Advil. Aspirin
wasn't included because studies show that it cuts heart risks
rather than increases them.
Three makers of heart defibrillators issued huge recalls. Guidant
Corp. drew criticism for waiting three years to warn doctors and
patients about a defect with one model that's been linked to two
deaths.
Silicone-gel breast implants took a step toward returning to
market. FDA advisers recommended that one company be allowed to
resume selling them but voted against similar plans by
another.
BiDil, the first race-based pill, won approval for blacks with
heart failure.
Natrecor, another heart failure medication, was ordered to carry
warnings that it might raise the risk of death.
Pargluva, a novel Type 2 diabetes drug that had been expected to
win government approval, was dealt a blow when a study linked it to
higher risk of deaths, heart attacks and strokes.
But the biggest concern about drugs for many people remained how to
pay for them. As 2005 drew to a close, seniors struggled to make
sense of the complex choices that will give them their first
prescription drug benefits under Medicare, starting in 2006.
In other medical news:
_The Terry Schiavo case became a referendum on the right to die as
the comatose Florida woman's husband battled her parents to remove
a feeding tube keeping her alive. She died last spring after her
husband prevailed. An autopsy revealed her brain had stopped
working years ago.
French doctors said they had done the world's first partial face
transplant, grafting a nose, mouth and chin from a person who
recently died onto a 38-year-old woman mauled by a dog. In the
United States, the Cleveland Clinic proceeded with plans to do a
full face transplant, interviewing about a dozen potential
candidates who were severely burned or disfigured and had exhausted
normal reconstructive surgery methods.
Prostate cancer got big attention. Researchers held the first major
scientific conference focused on the disease, which is more deadly
to men than breast cancer is to women.
Research mounted on the benefits of vitamin D, a nutrient the body
makes from sunshine. A prominent Harvard doctor made it the topic
of his keynote lecture at a major cancer conference, and the
American Cancer Society has been reviewing its sunscreen guidelines
to see whether modest amounts of sunshine can be termed
beneficial.
Smoking rates continued to decline in the United States. Lung
cancer awareness increased with the deaths of newsman Peter
Jennings and actress Barbara Bel Geddes, and the diagnosis of the
disease in Dana Reeves, a non-smoker.
Researchers argued about how many deaths obesity really causes, and
how bad it is to be overweight. Researchers are keeping an eye on
rimonabant, an experimental medication under FDA review that fights
overeating in a new way, by blocking a pleasure center in the
brain.
April marked the 50-year anniversary of the Salk polio
vaccine.
*******
Will year 2006 be a better year?
