Flawed embryos seen as source for stem cells

From what is now considered medical waste might be fashioned bio-treasure: stem cells able to form into any of the body's 220 cell types, including blood, nerves, bone, and skin tissue, new research suggests. The poor quality embryos are "an ethically acceptable source" for the creation of stem cell lines. Scientists at Children's Hospital Boston have forged stem cells from the "flawed" and "poor quality" early-stage embryos that in vitro fertilization clinics discard by the hundreds of thousands every year, according to research published yesterday in the journal Nature Biotechnology.

Lilly Considers $1 Billion Fine to Settle Case

Eli Lilly and federal prosecutors are discussing a settlement of a civil and criminal investigation into the company’s marketing of the antipsychotic drug Zyprexa that could result in Lilly’s paying more than $1 billion to federal and state governments. If a deal is reached, the fine would be the largest ever paid by a drug company for breaking the federal laws that govern how drug makers can promote their medicines. . . . Zyprexa has serious side effects and is approved only to treat people with schizophrenia and severe bipolar disorder. But documents from Eli Lilly show that from 2000 to 2003 the company encouraged doctors to prescribe Zyprexa to people with age-related dementia, as well as people with mild bipolar disorder who had previously had a diagnosis of depression. Although doctors can prescribe drugs for any use once they are on the market, it is illegal for drug makers to promote their medicines for any uses not formally approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

State Response to Virginia Tech Shootings

A bill passed by the [Virginia] House Courts of Justice Committee would ensure that those who have been ordered to seek treatment are monitored by mental health workers. Seung Hui Cho, the gunman who shot and killed 32 students and teachers at Virginia Tech in April before killing himself, was ordered into treatment in 2005, but the local mental health agency never followed up. . . . Currently, people must be deemed an "imminent danger" to be hospitalized against their will. Under Howell's bill and a similar one advanced by a House committee last week, there must be a "substantial likelihood" that a person would cause "serious physical harm to himself" in the near future or could "suffer serious harm due to substantial deterioration."

Happiness is being young or old, but middle age is misery

People are most likely to become depressed in middle age, according to a worldwide study of happiness. The team of economists leading the work found that we are happiest towards the beginning and end of our lives, leaving us most miserable in middle years between 40 and 50.
The results, published in the journal Social Science & Medicine, showed that people's levels of happiness followed a U-shaped curve, a pattern that was remarkably consistent in the vast majority of countries the researchers looked at, from Azerbaijan to Zimbabwe. For both men and women in the UK, the probability of depression peaked at around the age of 44. In the US, men were most likely to be unhappiest at 50, while for women the age was 40.

Soldier Suicides at Record Level

Suicides among active-duty soldiers in 2007 reached their highest level since the Army began keeping such records in 1980, according to a draft internal study obtained by The Washington Post. Last year, 121 soldiers took their own lives, nearly 20 percent more than in 2006.
At the same time, the number of attempted suicides or self-inflicted injuries in the Army has jumped sixfold since the Iraq war began. Last year, about 2,100 soldiers injured themselves or attempted suicide, compared with about 350 in 2002, according to the U.S. Army Medical Command Suicide Prevention Action Plan.
The Army was unprepared for the high number of suicides and cases of post-traumatic stress disorder among its troops, as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have continued far longer than anticipated. Many Army posts still do not offer enough individual counseling and some soldiers suffering psychological problems complain that they are stigmatized by commanders. Over the past year, four high-level commissions have recommended reforms and Congress has given the military hundreds of millions of dollars to improve its mental health care, but critics charge that significant progress has not been made.

A wave of change in medical schools puts emphasis on care of seniors

At Brown University medical school in Providence, students discuss why the organs of their cadavers look different from their own. They spend hours studying how the brain ages. They practice physical examinations on residents of an assisted living complex. And even in obstetrics and gynecology, they learn about problems affecting seniors.
The new emphasis on aging is part of a wave of change sweeping medical schools nationwide as they focus - many for the first time - on preparing all newly minted doctors to treat the growing population of older Americans. Although students have traditionally trained in hospitals filled with older patients, many graduated with little knowledge of how elderly patients' bodies and minds differ from younger ones.

California Health Plan Defeated

In handing Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger his biggest legislative setback, members of a Senate panel expressed concerns Monday that his plan to cover most Californians without health insurance was inadequately funded and would worsen the state budget crisis.
But the legislation negotiated by the Republican governor and Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez, D-Los Angeles, was unable to surmount several political hurdles beyond the annual tab, now estimated at $14.9 billion. A proposed tobacco tax drew high-powered opposition. The fact that raising taxes takes a two-thirds vote in the Legislature made finding financing a complicated exercise. Republicans never supported the measure. Democrats weren't on the same page.

Lax oversight favors doctors over patients

PART 1: [Wisconsin's] lax system of oversight favors doctors over patients. A Journal Sentinel review of five years' worth of disciplinary action found that the board is slow to look into complaints, keeps many of its investigations secret and rarely imposes serious discipline, even when patients die.

PART 2: The patient, a man who had been injured on the job, was feeling out of it and dizzy and his vision was blurred. Huffman checked the patient's IV, according to court records. The next thing the man knew, he said, he felt Huffman performing oral sex on him. Three months after the February 1991 incident, a second patient at St. Mary's Hospital in Milwaukee said he awoke to Huffman indecently touching him. In June 1991 Huffman was charged with two felonies. He pleaded guilty to reduced charges of misdemeanor sexual assault in January 1992. The doctor went to jail. But he didn't lose his medical license. State officials say they took progressively harsher action against Huffman over the next decade - action they thought would protect patients. They were wrong.
Despite his record, Huffman managed to get hired at three other facilities. Patients at two of them accused him of sexual misconduct. His license was revoked effective Feb. 28, 2002 - 11 years after his first documented sexual assault of a patient.

Medicaid Managed Care Plans Place More Burden On Patients And Families With Severe Mental Illness, AJP Study Shows

Managed care health plans for Medicaid patients with schizophrenia and other severe mental illnesses may result in lower costs to the Medicaid system, but lead to greater personal expenditures and higher caregiver burden for patients and their families, new research indicates. . . . The managed care strategies employed by plans led to savings within the Medicaid budget, but these savings were offset by personal expenditures and the contributions of family and friends of the enrollees in the managed care plans. Managed care was not associated with increased overall costs to non-Medicaid government programs. Despite the Medicaid-specific savings, society's total costs were not reduced by managed care. This wider public health perspective is especially important when considering patients with long-term disabling illnesses, who have multiple needs that cross different types of services and payers. Although an earlier report by the same authors indicated similar clinical outcomes for the patients in the three plans studied, the outcomes may have depended in part on substantial contributions from families and friends. Cost substitution may further impoverish already destitute individuals and result in inefficient treatment.

States lead in rush to reform health care

An estimated 47 million Americans gamble daily that they won't suffer a major illness or injury and often go without needed medicine. With rapidly-rising health care costs, the number of uninsured has grown from 43 million in 2006. U.S. lawmakers have argued over reform plans for years, and the spiraling problem is a hot topic in the 2008 presidential campaign with leading Democrats and Republicans alike acknowledging changes are needed. But state leaders say they are tired of waiting for answers from Washington and at least a dozen states are trying to pass far-ranging health reforms this year.

Lackluster Legacy On Health Care

President Bush didn't dally on the matter of health care during last night's State of the Union address, but he did flick at some tired themes: tax breaks for individual health insurance buyers (as opposed to employers); pooled insurance policies that help small businesses save money by spreading risk; and the expansion of Health Savings Accounts, which allow consumers to sock away pretax dollars to cover medical expenses. Yet the one issue that didn't merit mention--the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP)--may likely be the linchpin of Bush's legacy on health care, both for small businesses and the Republican party. Twice last fall, Bush vetoed bills to double funding for SCHIP, a 10-year-old program that offers free or low-cost health insurance to children of low-income families. Last week, the House again failed to override the president's veto.

Job Stress and Heart Disease

Work really can kill you, according to a study on Wednesday providing the strongest evidence yet of how on-the-job stress raises the risk of heart disease by disrupting the body's internal systems. The findings from a long-running study involving more than 10,000 British civil servants also suggest stress-induced biological changes may play a more direct role than previously thought, said Tarani Chandola, an epidemiologist at University College London.
"This is the first large-scale population study looking at the effects of stress measured from everyday working life on heart disease," said Chandola, who led the study. "One of the problems is people have been skeptical whether work stress really affects a person biologically."

The Age of Ambition

With the American presidential campaign in full swing, the obvious way to change the world might seem to be through politics. But growing numbers of young people are leaping into the fray and doing the job themselves. These are the social entrepreneurs, the 21st-century answer to the student protesters of the 1960s, and they are some of the most interesting people here at the World Economic Forum (not only because they’re half the age of everyone else).

Employers put health coverage in workers' hands

Nick Trikolas plans to drop health insurance for his employees and give them money to buy their own coverage. He says doing so will put him in the vanguard of a movement by employers searching for answers to rising health costs. "This may be the future of health insurance," says Trikolas, CEO of Ilios Partners in Chicago, which plans to switch its 100 employees from group to individual coverage this year. As health insurance costs continue to rise, some employers are adopting a controversial new approach: ending group coverage and giving employees $50 to $200 or so a month to help them buy their own.

Puberty is arriving ever younger in American females

At 8 or 9 years old, the typical American schoolgirl is perfecting her cursive handwriting style. She's picking out nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs in sentences, memorizing multiplication tables and learning to read a thermometer.She's a little girl with a lot to learn. And yet, in increasing numbers, when girls this age run across the playground in T-shirts, there is undeniable evidence that their bodies are blossoming. The first visible sign of puberty, breast budding, is arriving ever earlier in American girls.Some parents and activists suspect environmental chemicals. Most pediatricians and endocrinologists say that, though they have suspicions about the environment, the only scientific evidence points to the obesity epidemic. What's clear, however, is that the elements of female maturity increasingly are spacing themselves out over months, even years -- and no one quite knows why.

Health Effects of Marriage

Decades of data collection have shown that marriage--for all its challenges--is like a health-insurance policy. A 2006 paper that tracked mortality over an eight-year period found that people who never married were 58% likelier to die during that time than married folks were.

Crying Out For Help

Latinas ages 12 to 17 are the largest minority group of girls in the country, and growing. They are more likely to try to take their lives than any other racial or ethnic group their age. Twenty-five percent say they've thought about suicide, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and about 15 percent attempt it, compared with approximately 10 percent of white and black teen girls. Other studies put the proportion of attempters at 20 percent -- slightly less than the fraction who smoke cigarettes.
In most cases, a girl swallows pills at home, according to Luis Zayas, a psychologist and professor of social work at Washington University in St. Louis. Zayas is in the middle of a five-year study of more than 150 young Latina girls who have attempted suicide. He says cutting is also finding a following among Latinas.

List of problem prescription drugs is growing

An increasing number of prescription drugs - some that have been widely promoted through seductive advertising - are turning out to have problems long after they've reached the market. With more than 40 percent of the U.S. population taking at least one prescription medication, the ever-growing list of medication concerns is drawing public attention and a sharp eye from consumer watchdogs. Research within the past week has raised questions about Vytorin, a popular cholesterol-lowering drug, and an analysis published in the New England Journal of Medicine suggested doctors and patients may have been misled about the effectiveness of many antidepressants.

psychiatric side effects of experimental medicines

After decades of inattention to the possible psychiatric side effects of experimental medicines, the Food and Drug Administration is now requiring drug makers to study closely whether patients become suicidal during clinical trials. The new rules represent one of the most profound changes of the past 16 years to regulations governing drug development.

Texans find gaps in candidates' health coverage plans

While health coverage is shaping up as one of the major issues of this presidential campaign, no candidate, Democrat or Republican, has proposed a plan that would address all of Texas' concerns. Democrats' stump speeches talk of covering all Americans but so far have avoided the politically explosive issue of whether to treat the 12 million illegal immigrants living in the U.S.
Along with such immigrants, Texas also has the second-highest number of uninsured residents – and some of the nation's highest rates of pre-existing chronic illnesses. Those illnesses could create problems if Republican candidates' plans to encourage more reliance on individual insurance policies are enacted because those people couldn't find insurance.

Veto Stands on Measure to Expand Health Plan

Democrats cited the nation’s economic problems as a reason to expand a popular health insurance program for children on Wednesday, but their effort failed as the House sustained President Bush’s veto of a bill to provide coverage to nearly four million uninsured children.
The vote for the bill was 260 to 152. Supporters were 15 votes short of the two-thirds majority needed to pass the measure over the president’s objections.

Blunt won’t seek re-election

JEFFERSON CITY Gov. Matt Blunt, facing a tough re-election fight and a slowing economy, bowed out of the race Tuesday, declaring that he had accomplished all he set out to do.
In a video posted on the YouTube Internet site, Blunt said he decided not to seek re-election because he had little left to achieve. . . . “You could have knocked me over with a feather,” said Rep. Margaret Donnelly, a St. Louis County Democrat who is running for attorney general.
The announcement came just a week after Blunt’s campaign filed a quarterly fundraising report showing he had raised $9.88 million for his re-election bid.

Please Review the Candidates Positions on Mental Health Policy

The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) has sent a questionnaire to all presidential candidates in each party. We also encouraged candidates to provide us with other relevant materials or explanations of their positions if they did not have time to respond to our questionnaire.
NAMI does not endorse specific candidates and any materials posted are intended for educational purposes only. They should not be used by any affiliate to endorse a candidate. Non-profit charitable organizations, including NAMI affiliates, are prohibited by law from endorsing specific candidates.

35 years after Roe: A legacy of law and morality

The January 22, 1973, Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion remains the law of the land, and passions remain high on both sides of the issue, with annual protests on the anniversary. Access to abortion, then and now, is more than just about simple legalities. Social, religious and family values, as well as finances and politics, still play a role in shaping the abortion issue, but many legal and medical experts say the debate has become predictable.

Could comparative-effectiveness studies rein in health-care costs?

MOST industries have grasped the idea that new products should be measured against rival offerings. From laptops to double-glazed windows, consumers have ready access to comparative studies from consumer magazines, independent testing bodies and the like.
When it comes to health care, however, comparative-effectiveness studies for new drugs, devices and procedures are rare. Drugs trials often compare new treatments with placebos, not rival pills. Device makers rush to get new gizmos into action before cost-benefit analyses can be done. In America the federal government's health programmes eschew comparative-effectiveness tests as a matter of policy. Now moves are afoot in America's Congress to promote the use of such techniques to rein in rampant cost inflation.

What are your views on ECT?

Electroconvulsive therapy, discredited in a previous incarnation as "shock therapy," has gained acceptance from patients and doctors alike in recent years. As the means of administering the electric current have grown more sophisticated and less harmful, the benefits of the treatment have become more apparent, especially for people suffering depression.
The Mayo Clinic estimates that 100,000 people a year undergo the treatment in the United States -- a number that has roughly tripled in the last 25 years.

Out from the shadow of teen suicide

It was fall 2005. Three Needham students had already committed suicide, and there would soon be a fourth. And as Haas, just 16, flirted with suicidal thoughts of his own, his parents, Chris and Ronnie Haas, were busy planning Michael's college education, not seeing signs of his deepening depression. It is the classic parent-child disconnect, mental health specialists said yesterday at a State House forum about teenage depression. Specialists say that depression often goes unnoticed by parents, which can lead to more serious problems, like the suicides in Needham or more recently Nantucket, where three teenagers - ages 15, 16, and 17 - have killed themselves in the last 11 months. The problem with teenage depression, specialists said yesterday, is that many people do not want to or do not know how to talk about it and often retreat into silence for fear of what others might think or say.

Change the environment to treat obesity

Several recent studies, papers and a popular weight-loss book argue that eating is an automatic behavior triggered by environmental cues that most people are unaware of -- or simply can't ignore. Think of the buttery smell of movie theater popcorn, the sight of glazed doughnuts glistening in the office conference room or the simple habit of picking up a whipped-cream-laden latte on the way to work.Accepting this "don't blame me" notion may not only ease the guilt and self-loathing that often accompanies obesity, say the researchers behind the theory, but also help people achieve a healthier weight.

Antidepressant Studies Unpublished

The makers of antidepressants like Prozac and Paxil never published the results of about a third of the drug trials that they conducted to win government approval, misleading doctors and consumers about the drugs’ true effectiveness, a new analysis has found.
In published trials, about 60 percent of people taking the drugs report significant relief from depression, compared with roughly 40 percent of those on placebo pills. But when the less positive, unpublished trials are included, the advantage shrinks: the drugs outperform placebos, but by a modest margin, concludes the new report, which appears Thursday in The New England Journal of Medicine.

Shelters can't help all fleeing abuse

Domestic violence shelters across the state are becoming overwhelmed and are increasingly turning victims away, driving some of those seeking help back to abusive partners or to the streets, according to advocates and shelter program directors. The number of victims turned away from shelters more than quadrupled, from 1,374 in fiscal 2003 to 5,520 in fiscal 2005, according to Jane Doe Inc., a statewide coalition against sexual assault and domestic violence that also tracks trends. On many days, only one bed will be available in the state for 100 people who call domestic violence hotlines seeking shelter. Sometimes, none can be found.

Do you support mandatory random drug-testing for student-athletes?

The Illinois High School Association on Monday joined a small but growing number of states to implement mandatory random drug-testing for student-athletes. Its Board of Directors voted 10-0 to begin testing with the 2008-09 school year. The timing was coincidental with two highly publicized incidents regarding drugs and sports. Last month the Mitchell report on the use of performance-enhancing substances in baseball included allegations Clemens, the seven-time Cy Young Award-winning pitcher, had taken steroids and human growth hormone.Last week a U.S. District Court judge sentenced former Olympic track champion Jones to six months in prison in part for lying about her use of performance-enhancing drugs.

Psychologists in state ask for authority to prescribe

Missouri psychologists and their patients are asking lawmakers for the authority to write certain prescriptions for mental health disorders, saying it will improve access to badly needed care.
It's a question of service and need, say advocates with Missouri Families for Access to Comprehensive Treatment.
The state has fewer than 400 licensed psychiatrists, the only mental-health professionals in Missouri allowed to prescribe drugs, advocates say. And, they add, waiting times to see a psychiatrist ranges from two weeks to eight months, especially in underserved rural and inner-city communities.

Bush signs new gun bill

President Bush signed legislation on Tuesday aimed at preventing the severely mentally ill from buying guns, in a rare bipartisan agreement with the Democratic-led Congress after the bloody Virginia Tech shooting.
The bill authorizes up to $1.3 billion in grant money for states to improve their ability to track and report individuals who shouldn't qualify to buy a gun legally, including those involuntarily confined by a mental institution. Much of the money, to be spent over five years, would be used to increase state feeds to a national system used to run background checks on gun purchases.

The Anti-Drug Drugs

Researchers are developing a range of vaccines—which are normally used to combat infectious diseases—against such highly addictive substances as cocaine, nicotine, heroin and methamphetamine. If these new drugs come to market, experts hope they can overcome one big hurdle that previous anti-addiction medications have failed to clear. "The idea of vaccines is not anywhere near as stigmatized as giving medication to the addicted," says Thomas Kosten, the Baylor Medical School psychiatrist who is leading research on the cocaine vaccine. "Vaccine sounds more wholesome than drug." Addiction is often seen as a personal weakness, not a medical condition to be treated or cured. Some experts say that stigmatization has stymied research into potential treatments for the estimated 20 million Americans who struggle with drug addiction.

Help your heart with exercise - and booze

Moderate drinkers are at 30% lower risk of heart disease than teetotallers, according to a study of nearly 12,000 people. And those who combine a mild tipple with regular exercise are even less likely to die of the disease. Their risk is between 44% and 50% lower than couch potatoes who abstain from alcohol.
The team behind the 20-year study said that previous research has shown that moderate drinking and exercise both lower the risk of heart disease. But this is the first time scientists have quantified the benefits of both together.

New smoking restriction ignites debate

Never before has California banned smoking on private property used exclusively by members of the owner's family – until now.
Beginning this month, motorists can be fined $100 for lighting up a cigarette, cigar or pipe in their own car, even in their driveway, if one passenger is a child.
The law marks a new frontier in more than two decades of state smoking restrictions that focused on workplaces, public buildings, restaurants, airplanes, tot lots and gathering spots.
It also comes as cigar-smoking Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is teaming with Democrats to push a proposed ballot measure that would increase cigarette taxes by $1.75 per pack to expand health insurance.