Here are some of the latest health and medical news
developments, compiled by the editors of HealthDay:
HPV Vaccine Also Prevents Anal Cancer, FDA Panel Says
An advisory panel to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said
Wednesday that the Gardasil human papilloma virus (HPV) vaccine --
already approved to prevent cervical cancer -- can also prevent
anal malignancies in males and females.
The recommendation was based on a study of 4,000 men conducted
by the vaccine's maker, Merck & Co, the
Associated Press reported. The panelists said that the
findings could also apply to women.
Gardasil is currently approved to help ward off cervical cancer
and genital warts in females aged 9 to 26, and genital warts in
males within the same age range. The vaccine blocks four common
strains of HPV.
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Cholera Confirmed in Florida Woman
A Florida woman who visited family in Haiti returned home with
cholera, but the disease is unlikely to spread because of better
sanitation in the United States, say state health officials.
It's the state's first confirmed case of cholera linked to the
Haiti epidemic.
The women, who cannot be identified due to privacy laws, visited
family residing along Haiti's rural Artibonite River, where the
cholera outbreak began in October. She returned to her home in
Collier County in southwest Florida and has recovered from cholera,
said Dr. Thomas Torok, of the Florida Department of Health, the
Associated Press reported.
Other suspected cases of cholera are under investigation, said
the health department. There have not been any reports of locally
acquired cases of cholera.
Since an earthquake devastated Haiti in January, there has been
increased travel between Florida's large Haitian community and the
Caribbean country, the
AP reported.
Florida health officials have asked doctors to report cases of
watery diarrhea in people who recently went to Haiti and to submit
specimens to state laboratories.
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Hospital Stay Caused Cheney's Weight Loss: Spokesman
Former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney's thin appearance is the
result of weight loss during a long hospital stay after he had
heart surgery in the summer, according to a spokesman.
Cheney, who appeared Tuesday at the groundbreaking for the
George W. Bush Presidential Center, wants to keep the weight off
for health reasons, said spokesman Peter Long, the
Associated Press reported.
The former vice president also used a cane during his
appearance. Cheney needed the cane because a bad knee from playing
high school football acts up occasionally, Long said.
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Diabetes Drug Mediator Linked to 500 Deaths
The banned diabetes and weight loss drug Mediator (benflourex)
may have contributed to the deaths of about 500 people, say health
officials in France.
The European Medicines Agency banned Mediator last year but
France's health products safety agency said that people who used
the drug between 2006 and 2009 should get checked for possible
heart valve problems, the
Associated Press reported.
About five million people have used Mediator since 1976,
according to the French agency.
When the European Medicines Agency said it decided to pull the
drug from the market because it had little effect on diabetes and
could lead to a dangerous thickening of heart valves, the
AP reported.
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U.S. Cancer Patients' End-of-Life Care Varies Widely: Study
There are wide regional variations in the proportion of cancer
patients who die in the hospital and get hospice care, say U.S.
researchers.
They analyzed the records of 235,821 Medicare patients with
cancer, ages 65 and older, who died between 2003 and 2007. Overall,
one-third of the patients spent their final days in hospitals and
intensive care units. However, regional rates ranged from 46.7
percent in New York City's Manhattan to only 7 percent in Mason
City, Iowa, the
Washington Post reported.
Overall, 6 percent of patients received chemotherapy in their
last two weeks of life, but the rate was more than 10 percent in
some places, said the researchers at the Dartmouth Atlas Project in
Lebanon, N.H. Studies have shown that chemotherapy has little or no
value for frail elderly patients and those with advanced
cancer.
There was also wide variation in hospice care. At least 50
academic medical centers failed to provide hospice services for
more than half of their patients with a poor prognosis. The
researchers also found that some hospitals referred patients to
hospice care too late to provide much comfort, the
Post reported.
"The care that patients receive has less to do with what they want and more to do with the hospitals they happen to seek care from," study leader David Goodman said during a briefing. "Geography is destiny."
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