Antibiotics overprescribed for children: US study

(REUTERS) - Pediatricians in the United States write more than 10 million unnecessary antibiotic prescriptions every year for conditions such as the flu and asthma, contributing to potentially dangerous drug resistance, a study said.

Researchers looked at a nationally representative sample of almost 65,000 outpatient visits by children under 18 during 2006 to 2008, with findings reported in the journal Pediatrics.

In total, doctors prescribed an antibiotic at one in every five visits, with most dispensed for children with respiratory ailments such as sinus infections and pneumonia.

Marijuana: Signs, Detection and Treatment

Marijuana is perhaps the most widely used drug out there. many drug abusers have admitted to have used marijuana first before trying any other drug, thus it has been known as a “gateway drug,” a term which is heavily contested by medical marijuana advocates.

Signs of Marijuana Use

External signs of marijuana use on a person are quite obvious. It may slow down motor functions and may affect mental functions; usually leading to slowed reaction time, slurred speech with a confused disposition. This is due to the effect of marijuana to a person’s brain. It is not uncommon for a marijuana user to tend to be in a state of altered perception and he would probably have red bloodshot and sunken eyes. Perhaps the most obvious sign is the marijuana’s distinct smell when it is burned or smoked. It easily stays within a room or on one’s clothing.

Dengue vaccine could be ready by 2015

French drugs group Sanofi said on Friday that its vaccine against dengue, a mosquito-borne infection that kills thousands of people around the world each year, could be launched in about four years. -- PHOTO: AP

BANGKOK - FRENCH drugs group Sanofi said on Friday that its vaccine against dengue, a mosquito-borne infection that kills thousands of people around the world each year, could be launched in about four years.

'The vaccine could be available... around 2015,' Jean Lang, head of vaccine development at the group's subsidiary Sanofi-Pasteur, told reporters in Bangkok.

A birth-control pill for men?

A posed photo of a man popping pills into his mouth. Contraceptives for men could be developed soon, according to scientists at Columbia University -- ST PHOTO ILLUSTRATION: WANG HUI FEN

CONTRACEPTIVE pills for men could be developed soon, Daily Mail reported on Tuesday.

Scientists at Columbia University in New York claimed that they have developed 'a drug which temporarily stops sperm production without causing any long-term harm to male fertility.'

Scientists have been trying to come up with a male equivalent of the pill for years, but have not yet succeeded. The new pill impairs the male body's ability to use vitamin A, which is vital for the production of sperm.

2 million will get resistant TB by 2015

GENEVA - THE World Health Organisation says over 2 million people between 2011 and 2015 will contract a form of tuberculosis that is resistant to treatment with many drugs.

WHO's top TB official Mario Raviglione says hundreds of thousands of people around the world will die from multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis unless greater efforts are made to contain the disease.

US rejects weight-loss drug

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ARENA Pharmaceuticals Inc on Saturday said the Food and Drug Administration has rejected the company's application for lorcaserin, one of three drugs seeking to become the first new FDA-approved prescription weight loss drug in more than a decade.

New pneumonia vaccine

WASHINGTON - PFIZER Inc's new version of a blockbuster vaccine that fights pneumonia, meningitis and other diseases caused by pneumococcus bacteria won approval from US health officials on Wednesday.

Government vaccine advisers recommended the new Prevnar 13 vaccine for infants who have not been immunised with the original version. They also urged one shot of Prevnar 13 for children up to age 5 who have already received all four doses of the earlier vaccine.

Prevnar 13 was the most important experimental product the company acquired in last year's purchase of Wyeth. It fights 13 strains of Streptococcus pneumoniae bacteria. The original Prevnar, which targeted seven strains, was introduced in 2000 and has annual sales around US$3 billion (S$4.24 billion).

Infections caused by pneomococcus greatly declined after the original Prevnar was launched. At the time, the seven targeted strains accounted for 80 per cent of invasive pneumococcal infections in young children in North America. By 2007, cases had dropped 99 per cent in children younger than 5 years old, according to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Studies also showed disease rates fell in unvaccinated people, especially the elderly.

'Although the rates of invasive pneumococcal disease have declined dramatically, there are still children in the United States who are suffering with this serious illness,' Dr. Karen Midthun, acting head of the FDA's unit that reviewed Prevnar 13, said in a statement. The new version 'will help prevent pneumococcal disease caused by' the six additional strains, she said.

Pfizer has estimated that the added protection from Prevnar 13 could reduce deaths from pneumococcus by an extra 9,800 over 10 years. The new vaccine targets a strain called 19A that has emerged as the most common cause of pneumococcal infection in the United States. That strain is becoming harder to treat as it develops resistance to antibiotics, said Dr. Emilio Emini, Pfizer's chief scientific officer for vaccine research. -- REUTERS

Smokers have lower IQ

NEW YORK - CIGARETTE smokers have lower IQs than non-smokers, and the more a person smokes, the lower their IQ, according to a study of over 20,000 Israeli military recruits.

Dr Mark Weiser and colleagues from Sheba Medical Center in Tel Hashomer found that young men who smoked a pack of cigarettes a day or more had IQ scores 7.5 points lower than non-smokers. 'Adolescents with poorer IQ scores might be targeted for programmes designed to prevent smoking,' they conclude in the journal Addiction.

While there is evidence for a link between smoking and lower IQ, many studies have relied on intelligence tests given in childhood, and have also included people with mental and behavioral problems, who are both more likely to smoke and more likely to have low IQs, Dr Weiser and his team noted.

To better understand the smoking-IQ relationship, the researchers looked at 20,211 18-year-old men recruited into the Israeli military. The group did not include anyone with major mental health problems, because these individuals are disqualified from military service.

According to the researchers, 28 percent of the study participants smoked at least one cigarette a day, around 3 per cent said they were ex-smokers, and 68 percent had never smoked. The smokers had significantly lower intelligence test scores than non-smokers, and this remained true even after the researchers accounted for socioeconomic status measured by how many years of formal education a recruit's father had completed.

The average IQ for non-smokers was about 101, while it was 94 for men who had started smoking before entering the military. IQ steadily dropped as the number of cigarettes smoked increased, from 98 for people who smoked one to five cigarettes daily to 90 for those who smoked more than a pack a day. IQ scores from 84 to 116 are considered to indicate average intelligence. -- REUTERS

Call to ban diet drug

The European Medicines Agency advised doctors to stop prescribing medicines containing sibutramine, which are sold under the names Reductil, Reduxade and Zelium in Europe.

WASHINGTON - EUROPEAN authorities urged a halt on Thursday to sales of a diet pill made by Abbott Laboratories Inc after concluding heart-related risks were too great.

The European Medicines Agency advised doctors to stop prescribing medicines containing sibutramine, which are sold under the names Reductil, Reduxade and Zelium in Europe and Meridia in the United States, saying: 'The risks of these medicines are greater than their benefits.'

The European Commission will consider the recommendation for suspension of marketing approval.

In the United States, the Food and Drug Administration said it had concluded the drug increased the chances of a heart attack or stroke for people with cardiovascular disease.

The FDA said Abbott had agreed to add a stronger warning that explicitly states the drug should not be used in patients with a history of cardiovascular disease.

The agency said it would hold a public advisory committee meeting to gather outside input on whether more regulatory action was needed. The meeting will take place after the agency reviews a full report from a study called Scout, which tested Meridia compared with a placebo in about 10,000 patients. -- REUTERS