Sunday News: Hepatitis C and Liver Health

Two weeks ago in the Gujarat state village in India a woman died of the insect-transmitted illness "Hemorrhagic Fever" , the doctor and nurse who treated her later also contracted the illness and died. Yesterday on the blog the state Health Minister Jay Narayan Vyas had this to say ; The National Institute of Virology (NIV), Pune that is flooded with serum samples from across the states after the outbreak of the Crimean Congo haemorrhagic fever (CCHF) in Gujarat, has said there is no need to panic.

Reported today from New Delhi
"There is no safe and effective vaccine available for human use. Ribavirin is the most effective drug and is widely available in the market as it is also used to treat Hepatitis C."

The virus that causes Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever (CCHF) is slow moving and will not spread across the country as fast as the H1N1 swine flu virus, experts have said. However, the mortality rate among those affected by Congo virus will be far more than H1N1. In an exclusive interview to TOI, Dr A C Mishra, director of the National Institute of Virology, Pune, said different viruses have different characteristics. Influenza viruses like H1N1 have very high transmissibility rate and could spread across a country or nations in no time. "That's not the case with the Congo fever virus. It is slow moving and can be contained within hospital or ICU settings with proper containment measures," Dr Mishra said.

"However, the CCHF virus has tremendously high pathogenecity which means mortality rate is very high among those infected. In comparison, H1N1 did not kill that many as it infected. So chances of the CCHF spreading across India from Gujarat - the place where it has infected humans for the first time - is very low," he added. Indian Council of Medical Research ( ICMR) director general Dr V M Katoch told TOI on Sunday that it was a case of local transmission and the fact that ticks carried the virus was a very dangerous proposition. So is there a vaccine available against CCHF? A health ministry official said, "There is no safe and effective vaccine available for human use. Ribavirine is the most effective drug and is widely available in the market as it is also used to treat Hepatitis C." A six-member central team of experts headed by Dr Veena Mittal of National Centre for Communicable Diseases (NCDC) returned to Delhi on Sunday from Gujarat. "It is clear that the transmission is local and has not been imported. If you see the geography of Rann of Kutch, it is clear that the virus cannot be brought into Gujarat from Pakistan. It is also not a porous border," a team member told TOI. "Now that we know that ticks carry the virus, there is no other option but to destroy them using chemicals called acarisites. This will be undertaken by the Gujarat Agricultural Institute," he added. NIV Pune has found high quantities of CCHF virus in ticks collected from Ahmedabad. This pointed to the possibility that the virus was now openly circulating in the environment and had not been brought into India from other CCHF endemic countries. Humans may become infected from a tick bite or through direct contact with blood or other infected tissues from livestock such as cattle, sheep and goats. Dr Katoch added, "We are not even looking at developing a vaccine. It was by chance that humans got infected in India and there is no large scale outbreak." A particular variety of ticks, Hyalomma, has been found carrying the CCHF virus in high quantities. Hyalomma is a genus of hard-bodied ticks common in Asia. The most important source for acquisition of the virus by ticks is believed to be infected small vertebrates on which immature Hyalomma ticks feed. Once infected, the tick remains infected through its development stages, and the mature tick may transmit the infection to large vertebrates, such as livestock. Domestic ruminant animals such as cattle, sheep and goats are viraemic (virus circulating in the bloodstream) for around one week after becoming infected. Patients with suspected or confirmed CCHF should be isolated and cared for using barrier nursing techniques. Specimens of blood or tissues taken for diagnostic purposes should be collected and handled using universal precautions. Sharps (needles and other penetrating surgical instruments) and body wastes should be safely disposed of using appropriate decontamination procedures.

Read more: 'Congo virus doesn't spread as fast as H1N1' -

Over at CCO in Practice is an update on: Hepatocellular Carcinoma
Free CCO inPractice Oncology Online Textbook
The CCO inPractice Oncology online textbook is frequently updated to include the latest clinical data, guidelines, and best practices. In the latest updates, CCO’s expert authors identified key research and other data important for you to have at the point of care...Keep reading..

Federal Research Center Will Help Develop Medicines
By GARDINER HARRIS
Creating a drug development center is a signature effort of Dr. Francis S. Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health.
The Obama administration has become so concerned about the slowing pace of new drugs coming out of the pharmaceutical industry that officials have decided to start a billion-dollar government center to help create medicines...Keep reading....

The Gregg Allman interview
Hard living caught up with Allman and he underwent liver transplant surgery in 2010, delaying the release of the album.
He was diagnosed with Hepatitis C in 2007 and says again, "my generation...we were all just such heavy drug takers. We didn't know no different. We didn't know no other way.
"It was what we did. And that's going to come back and hit ya - and it got me. But I've been clean a while now, I quit it all - finally - 16 years ago, thank god". He's feeling healthy now. He tells me the new liver is good, but "it was heavy - really heavy. It was the most painful thing that has happened to me. The most painful thing in my life and I know about pain in my life. God took care of me, that's all I can say, and I'm so thankful for that"... Keep Reading...

A healthy dose of empiricism for the debate on pot legality
By Ezra Shapiro
Contributing Columnist
Published: Monday, January 24, 2011
Updated: Sunday, January 23, 2011 19:01

"The mushrooming of medical marijuana clinics and the drug's application for pain relief for a diversity of diseases is a convincing fact, as well. Surely a drug with virtually no one-time-use damages is better than the prescription painkillers now legally used. Among their side effects are vomiting, headaches, dizziness, liver and kidney failure. To me, it's an easy choice."

Marijuana legalization has been raised countless times by politicians, newspapers, hippies and, of course, college newspapers. Again and again it has come up, to the point that it has become somewhat trite — a cliché policy issue that is urgent for no one. But just as a reminder: Marijuana for personal use is still illegal.
Under the Obama administration, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency has ceased federal prosecution of licensed medical marijuana clinics, ceding enforcement to state control. At the same time, though, Attorney General Eric Holder has said that legalization of marijuana as a commercial product was "off the table."
Even so, the debate is not over. Information about the real effects of marijuana use, both sporadic and habitual, abounds...Keep reading.......

Better future for liver tumour boy
IPOH: Two-year-old Chong Yao Xuan (pic) is on his way to leading a normal life after undergoing an operation to remove a liver tumour.
In thanking the public for its kind support and donations, his mother Fong Chooi Fun said Yao Xuan’s surgery at the KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital in Singapore recently had been a success.
“He is much better now. I’d like to thank everyone who contributed towards my son’s medical expenses and hope they can help us further by donating another RM10,000 for his follow-up treatment,” she said at the Perak MCA headquarters here on Friday...Keep reading....

Canada: Transplant Waiting Lists and Dialysis Costs Grow as Kidney Supply Lags Behind
André Picard(The Globe and Mail, Toronto, January 20, 2011)"Ballooning numbers of obese Canadians coupled with an aging population are fuelling a sharp rise in kidney failure, but the demand for transplants can't be met due to stagnant rates of organ donation. The result is patients waiting up to six years for a new kidney, and the stop-gap measure -- dialysis -- costs the health-care system almost 10 times more per patient than transplants."... Keep reading....

Public Release: 23-Jan-2011
Nature Genetics
Genetic sequencing alone doesn't offer a true picture of human disease
Despite what you might have heard, genetic sequencing alone is not enough to understand human disease. Researchers at Duke University Medical Center have shown that functional tests are absolutely necessary to understand the biological relevance of the results of sequencing studies as they relate to disease, using a suite of diseases known as the ciliopathies which can cause patients to have many different traits. National Institutes of Health, National Research Service, NIH/National Eye Institute, NIH/National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, NIH/National Institute of Child Health & Human Development, Foundation Fighting Blindness, et al.
Contact: Mary Jane Gore mailto:Gorebmary.gore@duke.edu
919-660-1309 Duke University Medical Center

Public Release: 23-Jan-2011
Journal of Biological Chemistry
Unexpected find opens up new front in effort to stop HIV
HIV adapts in a surprising way to survive and thrive in its hiding spot within the human immune system, scientists have learned. The the finding helps explain why HIV remains such a formidable foe after three decades of research, and it offers scientists a new, unexpected way to try to stop the virus. NIH/National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, US Department of Veterans Affairs
Contact: Tom Rickeymailto:Rickeytom_rickey@urmc.rochester.edu
585-275-7954University of Rochester Medical Center

Public Release: 23-Jan-2011 Nature Medicine
Culprit found for increased stroke injury with diabetes
Strokes that involve intracerebral hemorrhage (bleeding in the brain) are especially deadly, and there are no effective treatments to control such bleeding. Moreover, diabetes and hyperglycemia (high blood glucose levels) are associated with increases in bleeding during hemorrhagic stroke and worse clinical outcomes. But Joslin Diabetes Center researchers now have identified one key player that contributes to the increased bleeding. National Institutes of Health, others
Contact: Eric Bender mailto:Bendereric.bender@joslin.harvard.edu
617-309-2418 Joslin Diabetes Center


Drugs, Drugs,Drugs....

Drug Experiment ; What happens when an entire country legalizes drug use?
Keith O'Brien(The Boston Sunday Globe, January 16, 2011)
"In the end, there was no way to ignore the problem, and no way for politicians to spin it, either. Young people across Portugal were injecting themselves with heroin. HIV and Hepatitis C infection rates were soaring…Faced with both a public health crisis and a public relations disaster, Portugal’s elected officials took a bold step. They decided to decriminalize the possession of all illicit drugs -- from marijuana to heroin -- but continue to impose criminal sanctions on distribution and trafficking. The goal: easing the burden on the nation’s criminal justice system and improving the people’s overall health by treating addiction as an illness, not a crime. As the sweeping reforms went into effect nine years ago, some in Portugal prepared themselves for the worst. They worried that the country would become a junkie nirvana…and that tourists would come to Portugal for one reason only: to get high…But nearly a decade later, there’s evidence that Portugal’s great drug experiment not only didn’t blow up in its face; it may have actually worked. More addicts are in treatment. Drug use among youths has declined in recent years…Not everyone agrees…Many believe that Portugal’s new focus on treatment -- and prevention -- may have had as much, if not more, to do with its success than its policy of decriminalization. Still, the Portuguese findings come at a critical time in the global drug policy debate."
Full Text

Officials: 'Bath salts' are growing drug problem
FULTON, Miss. (AP) -- When Neil Brown got high on dangerous chemicals sold as bath salts, he took his skinning knife and slit his face and stomach repeatedly. Brown survived, but authorities say others haven't been so lucky after snorting, injecting or smoking powders with such innocuous-sounding names as Ivory Wave, Red Dove and Vanilla Sky....Keep reading..

Healthy You

A New Culprit: Antibiotics
Editorial
(The Boston Globe, January 20, 2011)"One of the great public health mysteries is why asthma has become more common among children, even as air pollution has decreased and fewer parents are smoking. One possibility is that antibiotics have kept infants’ immune systems from developing properly, making them vulnerable to asthma and allergies later on...Researchers found that infants treated with antibiotics in their first six months were...more likely to develop asthma and allergies by age 6 than babies who did not get antibiotics." Keep reading....

January 23: The 10 Commandments of Nutrition According to GOD
by Chuck Garcia on January 23, 2011

There is the old mantra followed the world’s most pragmatic nutritional gurus: If you grandmother doesn’t recognize it; it should not be eaten. While I am grateful for the many benefits of the modern world, this new age has not done food any favors. In fact, it has ruined the simplicity of food and causes untold stress regarding what to eat and when. It has completely changed what we perceive as food.

My biggest frustration is that in our modern world, we face a nutritional shell game in which identifying what should be eaten and what should not has become and increasingly difficult and challenging task. Faced with an avalanche of choices, we have succumbed to the giant food processors and accept the junk they put on the supermarket shelves as food. It’s not. No more!

You don’t have to get mad. You just have to know the rules and follow these simple commandments:
Eat only GOD food and avoid all MAN food.
GOD food: It comes from the earth and arrives at the supermarket with no processing: Fruits, vegetables, nuts, and the animals that walk, fly, or swim! There are no artificial additives or coloring.

MAN food: Something that used to be a fruit or vegetable, was processed, loaded with who knows what chemicals, put in a box or bag, sealed, and sits on a supermarket shelf for an eternity. It has lost any connection it may have had from earth.

Shop only on the periphery of the supermarket (GOD food). Avoid the dozens of aisles in between with MAN food that is in a box or bag. Those aisles are off-limits and out of bounds.

Forget the food pyramid; it’s ridiculous!
Stop counting calories!
Don’t pay attention to the glycemic index (how can you measure it?)
If someone is promoting it, don’t buy it. Chances are it’s not good for you (when is the last time you saw a TV advertisement for bananas)?

Avoid anything that includes the following ingredients on its label: shortening, hydrogenated vegetable oil and high fructose corn syrup. There are plenty more to add to this but these all belong in the AXIS OF EVIL!

Avoid anything with a label. Have you ever seen a label affixed to a pineapple describing what it is? Of course not, you don’t need one!
Stop drinking SODA. Let’s add that to the axis of evil.
Eat what’s OLD, not what’s new!

Keep this simple mantra in mind: If your Grandmother wouldn’t recognize it, don’t eat it. They didn’t have Pop Tarts when Grandma was around. They certainly had pineapples, pears, apples, oranges, blueberries, carrots, beets, kale, broccoli, cauliflower, spinach. See the World’s Healthiest Foods web site for a thorough list of GOD food.
GOD brought us 10 Commandments for a reason!

From Medscape Medical News > Alerts, Approvals and Safety Changes
FDA/CDC to Study Increase in Febrile Seizures After Flu Vaccination
Robert Lowes
Authors and Disclosures
Posted: 01/20/2011
January 20, 2011 — The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will investigate an increase in the number of young children who have febrile seizures after being vaccinated with a seasonal influenza vaccine (Fluzone; Sanofi Pasteur), the FDA announced today.
The agency noted that nearly all children who have febrile seizures recover quickly and experience no lasting effects, as was the case with the children whose seizures came after they were vaccinated with Fluzone... Keep Reading......

Group Secretly Tests Mercury in Tuna, Swordfish
Kelly Zito (San Francisco Chronicle, January 18, 2011)
"Tuna and swordfish collected from some California grocery stores and sushi restaurants contained mercury levels as much as three times the threshold that authorizes federal food regulators to pull seafood from shelves, according to a study by an environmental health group. And despite pervasive concerns about the toxic heavy metal in fish, not one of the restaurants and fewer than half of the grocery stores displayed signs warning consumers about the risks of mercury exposure.".. Keep reading.......

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