Oral Contraceptives Not Immediately
Reversible After Discontinuation
News-Medical.Net
Hormonal changes induced by oral contraceptives (OC) are not immediately reversible after discontinuation of use, according to new research issued at the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists (AACE) Fourteenth Annual Meeting and Clinical Congress. Despite the benefits of OC, their use has been associated with sexual dysfunction and androgen insufficiency. OC are known to decrease serum testosterone levels by decreasing ovarian production of testosterone and by increasing production of sex hormone-binding globulin (SHBG) from the liver. It has been assumed that these changes are reversible after discontinuation of OC use. In the study of 102 pre-menopausal women with female sexual dysfunction, SHBG values in the OC group were seven times higher than those in the never-user group.

Use of Foster Kids in Experiments Varies
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON -- Standards for enlisting foster children in federal medical experiments vary widely among the states, and the Bush administration is examining how best to protect "the most vulnerable in our population," a top government health official says. "Foster children are certainly vulnerable and failing to protect them will not be tolerated," Health and Human Services Deputy Assistant Secretary Donald Young said in testimony prepared for delivery Wednesday to a congressional panel investigating the use of foster children in federal research. The House Ways and Means human resources subcommittee called the hearing to examine the practice after The Associated Press reported earlier this month that federally funded researchers had tested AIDS drugs on hundreds of foster children since the late 1980s, often without providing independent advocates to safeguard the children's interests.

State Secret: Thousands Secretly Sterilized
ABC News
From the early 1900s to the 1970s, some 65,000 men and women were sterilized in this country, many without their knowledge, as part of a government eugenics program to keep so-called undesirables from reproducing. "The procedures that were done here were done to poor folks," said Steven Selden, professor at the University of Maryland. "They were thought to be poor because they had bad genes or bad inheritance, if you will. And so they would be the focus of the sterilization."

Diabetes Out Of Control in U.S., Study Finds
MSNBC
WASHINGTON -- Two out of three Americans with type-2 diabetes do not have their disease under control and risk early deaths from stroke, heart attack or kidney failure as well as blindness and limb loss, according to a report published Wednesday. Doctors and patients alike need to do more to test for diabetes and then to control it with diet, exercise and, if necessary, drugs, the report said.

Breast Cancer Drug Study Halted After Two Deaths
Reuters
A test using two chemotherapy agents to treat breast cancer was halted after two women in the study died, French researchers reported on Tuesday. The test involved a combination of doxorubicin and docetaxel and followed a line of research that has shown combinations of certain breast cancer drug types are better that one kind alone to combat advanced and spreading breast cancer, the report said. "In conclusion, this study shows that the doxorubicin-docetaxel combination is associated with an increased risk of severe ... and life-threatening complications," said the study appearing in this week's Journal of the American Medical Association.

NYC Hospital Fails to Tell of Cancer Tests
The Associated Press
NEW YORK -- A New York City hospital admits that it didn't inform hundreds of women of their abnormal results on a cancer-screening test. An emergency review of all Pap smear tests at Jacobi Medical Center in the Bronx since late 2003 showed that 307 women were never notified of their atypical results. Most of the women had a low level of risk, meaning they probably had an inflammation or an infection, not cancer. But 30 patients tested for an elevated risk of cancer. Officials blame a clerical worker assigned to check the results and send letters to women who tested abnormally. The unidentified worker has been suspended.

GAO: FBI Health Care Fraud Funds Missing
ABC News
WASHINGTON -- Money earmarked for health care fraud investigations may be going to the fight against terrorism and other uses, congressional investigators said in a report Monday on the FBI. The FBI says that it has put all the money, $114 million a year, into investigations of fraud in the Medicare, Medicaid and other government health care programs. But the Government Accountability Office, Congress's investigative agency, said that assertion can't be verified because the "FBI did not have a system in place to capture its overall health care fraud investigation costs."

Infants' Exposure To Cereal Linked To Celiac Disease
NBC 5 Chicago
Cereal is an important part of a baby's diet. But in babies who have a family history of diabetes or celiac disease, cereals that contain a protein called gluten may cause health problems. A new study suggests these babies should still eat cereal, but that timing is everything. Doctors recommend that most babies start eating infant cereal at about six months. But for babies at risk of celiac disease, six months may be too late, according to a study published in Wednesday's issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Antidepressants Late In Pregnancy Can Affect Newborns
NBC 13
CHICAGO -- Researchers say taking antidepressants late in pregnancy may have an effect on newborns. A University of Pittsburgh study shows women who took the drugs in the last three months of their pregnancy raised the risk that their babies would suffer jitteriness, irritability, feeding problems and serious respiratory problems during their first couple of weeks.

Vitamin D May Help in Prostate Cancer
New York Newsday
PORTLAND, Ore. -- Men dying from prostate cancer may be able to extend their lives, thanks to a potent form of vitamin D developed at Oregon Health & Science University. A new study considered men who had advanced tumors growing despite surgery or radiation and subsequent drug treatment. Doctors now give such patients the chemotherapy docetaxel, which lets them live for about 16 months, on average. Adding the experimental vitamin pill DN-101 to that chemotherapy increased the average expectancy to roughly two years.