Healthy Me - At Home and Away: Kaiser Permanente

Showing posts with label Kaiser Permanente. Show all posts

Monday, January 2, 2012

"No heart attack risk" from ADHD drugs

Posted: 13 December 2011

WASHINGTON: Most adults do not face a higher risk of heart attack when taking stimulant medications to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, US researchers said on Monday.

The study is the largest and among the first to look specifically at the risks of taking ADHD drugs for people aged 25-64, and is published in an early online version of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).

Previous studies have shown that some ADHD drugs can raise blood pressure and heart rate, but follow-up research has been unable to find any higher risk of death or major complications.

A separate study last month in the New England Journal of Medicine found no higher risk among youths aged two to 24 who take stimulant medications like Ritalin, after concerns were raised years ago about potential links.

The JAMA observational study, funded by the US Food and Drug Administration and the Agency for Health Research Quality, was based on pharmacy data and medical records for 150,000 people at four clinical sites in the United States.

Comparing those who used the drugs to those who did not, and honing on one the specific subgroups of ADHD drugs, researchers found no higher risk of heart attack, sudden cardiac death or stroke.

However, the study did have some limitations, such as spanning a relatively short period -- about one year -- and excluding people over 65.

"It's important to note that this is an observational study and not a randomised clinical trial," said lead author Laurel Habel, a research scientist with the Kaiser Permanente Northern California Division of Research.

The drugs included in the study were stimulants such as methylphenidate, dextroamphetamines, amphetamine salts and pemoline; and the non-stimulant atomoxetine.

All were labelled for treatment of ADHD in children or adults as of December 31, 2005.

According to the latest FDA data from 2005, about 1.5 million US adults are taking ADHD medication. Of all the US prescriptions issued to children and adults, grownups account for nearly one third.

- AFP/wk

Taken from ChannelNewsAsia.com; source article is below:
"No heart attack risk" from ADHD drugs

Thursday, November 3, 2011

Whooping cough vaccine fades after 3 years: study

Posted: 21 September 2011

Vaccine shot

CHICAGO - The vaccine for whooping cough commonly administered to young children loses its effectiveness after three years, according to the preliminary results of a new US study.

The results released on Monday come from a survey of 15,000 children in Marin County, California, where an outbreak of the bacterial disease killed 11 infants and infected more than 8,000 people in 2010.

"When we first started having a pertussis outbreak, we assumed that this would be primarily in the unvaccinated population," Dr David Witt, of Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in San Rafael, California told a conference in Chicago, using the scientific name for the once-common childhood disease.

"What we pretty quickly identify is that the bulk of the outbreak was in fully vaccinated children" in the 8-12 age group, he said.

"Older kids and younger kids seemed to be pretty well protected but the age of eight to 12 was the vast bulk of the cases. And when we examined that, it was correlated to being more than three years from the last vaccine booster dose."

He added that a lot of the children did not seek care because the vaccine mitigated the symptoms.

He cautioned that more research was necessary as he presented the preliminary results at the Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy (ICAAC) organized by the American Society of Microbiology.

In the group of 15,000 children surveyed, doctors found 171 confirmed cases of whooping cough across all age groups, including 103 in the group of eight to 12-year-olds.

These children were up to 20 times more likely to become infected than those whose last booster injection was more recent, Witt said.

He insisted, however, that parents should get their kids vaccinated, saying the vaccine provided good protection for the first two to three years and appeared to mitigate the symptoms of those who became infected.

The infection causes coughing fits lasting up to 10 weeks and can be fatal, especially in infants. It is commonly treated with antibiotics, which are used to reduce symptoms and prevent the spread of the disease.

The disease infects 30-50 million people worldwide each year and kills some 300,000, according to the US-based Center for Disease Control (CDC).

- AFP/al

Taken from ChannelNewsAsia.com; source article is below:
Whooping cough vaccine fades after 3 years: study

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Shingles-less by 55%

WASHINGTON : People over 60 who were given a vaccine against shingles, a painful rash that arises from a dormant chicken pox virus, saw a 55 per cent lower risk of developing the condition, a study said Tuesday.

Nearly one in three people risk acquiring shingles, also known as herpes zoster, at some point in their lives.

Shingles can linger for weeks or years, causing blistering rashes and body pain mainly in older adults and those with weak immune systems.

A vaccine was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration in 2006 but only about 10 per cent of the US population is currently taking it, experts said.

The study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, took a retrospective look at health data from 300,000 people in California from 2007 to 2009.

By comparing how many people got shingles in vaccinated versus unvaccinated populations, researchers determined that the vaccine resulted in a 55 per cent lower risk.

The risk appeared to stay lower in populations over age 75, a group that was previously found by a clinical study of 38,000 patients not to glean much benefit from the vaccine.

"Our study shows the vaccine has the potential to prevent tens of thousands of cases of shingles, a painful, lingering disease," said study lead author Hung Fu Tseng, a research scientist with the Kaiser Permanente Department of Research and Evaluation in Pasadena, California.

"We suggest clinicians follow the CDC's (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) recommendations to talk to their patients about the option of vaccination against this serious condition."

Researchers said more than one million cases of shingles are recorded annually in the United States.

Zostavax, made by Merck, is licensed for use in people 60 years old and older to prevent shingles, according to the CDC.

"The older a person is, the more severe the effects of shingles typically are, so all adults 60 years old or older should get the shingles vaccine," the CDC said.

- AFP/sh

Taken from ChannelNewsAsia.com; source article is below:
Shingles vaccine reduces risk by 55%

Friday, March 26, 2010

DOC ACCUSED OF DANGEROUS OPS

Dancing with Dr Death: The Inside Story of Doctor Jayant Patel and the Bundaberg Base Hospital

----------------------------
BRISBANE - An American doctor was accused yesterday of scheduling unnecessary and dangerous operations that prosecutors said resulted in the deaths of three patients and the serious harm of another.

Indian-born surgeon Jayant Patel pleaded not guilty to three charges of manslaughter and one count of grievous bodily harm in a crowded courtroom at Brisbane Supreme Court.

His trial is expected to take four to six weeks and hear testimony from some 90 witnesses. The trial comes more than 25 years after questions were first raised about Patel's competency, and five years after a government inquiry found he may have directly contributed to patient deaths.

Patel, 59, has not spoken publicly about the charges, which relate to four patients he treated while working as director of surgery between 2003 and 2005 at a state-run hospital in Bundaberg, a sugar industry town. He faces a possible sentence of life in prison if convicted. The case has received massive media attention throughout Australia.

Prosecutors say Patel repeatedly performed surgeries he had been banned from undertaking in the United States, misdiagnosed patients and used sloppy, antiquated surgical techniques.

In his opening statement, prosecutor Ross Martin said the fact the patients consented to the operations was irrelevant. "To put it shortly and crudely, one cannot consent to one's own death or grievous bodily harm," he said.

In 1984, Patel was fined by New York health officials and placed on probation for three years for failing to examine patients before surgery. He later worked at Kaiser Permanente Hospital in Oregon. Kaiser banned him from liver and pancreatic surgeries in 1998 after reviewing 79 complaints about him. The Oregon Board of Medical Examiners later cited Patel for "gross or repeated acts of negligence". AP

----------
From TODAYOnline.com, Tuesday, 23-Mar-2010