Health Highlights: June 10, 2004

Here are some of the latest health and medical news developments, compiled by editors of HealthDay:

Guantanamo Detainees' Medical Files Shared

Interrogators at the U.S. detention base in Guantanamo Bay have been given access to prisoners' medical records in what critics call a violation of patient confidentiality and international medical standards.

The Washington Post reported that the files, which contain individual medical histories and other personal information about the detainees, were made available to the interrogators over the objections of the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Sources told the newspaper that, upon learning of the practice in mid-2003, the Red Cross stopped sending medical evaluation teams to Guantanamo for six months.

Ethicists said that standards bar the sharing of information to interrogators in an attempt to prevent them from squeezing information out of prisoners by withholding medicine.

"The role of health-care workers in any facility should be solely looking after the health of patients," Arthur L. Caplan, director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, told the Post. "Anybody who is not involved in that should not have access to medical records."

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Obesity in Pregnancy Raises Birth Defect Risk

Women who are obese during pregnancy put both themselves and their babies at risk, according to experts.

Newsday reported that experts are linking obesity to serious pregnancy complications for the mother as well as a disabling birth defect called spina bifida for the baby.

"Almost every horrendous complication that can occur during pregnancy is greater with obesity: hypertension, preeclampsia, diabetes, gestational diabetes" and blood clots, the paper quoted Dr. Laura Riley, an assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology and reproductive pathology at Harvard Medical School, as saying. "They're horrendous [for the mother], but they also influence what happens to the baby."

Citing statistics from the March of Dimes, Newsday reported that more than half of all women 20 to 34 years old are overweight, with 25 percent of those classified as obese.

Normal-weight women should gain 25 to 35 pounds during their pregnancy, Riley said, but overweight women should gain only 15 to 25 pounds and obese women less than 15 pounds.

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Most Stressful Jobs Involve Public Contact

A survey by business psychologists finds that the most stressful jobs are held by those who deal directly with the public.

The BBC reports that the survey of 25,000 British workers in 26 jobs finds that employees who are in contact with the public were more likely to suffer from stress than their bosses.

According to the BBC, paramedics had the most stressful jobs among those surveyed, followed by teachers and social workers.

Bosses were more likely to enjoy good health and job satisfaction and experience less stress. According to the survey, business managers, who often don't have direct contact with the public, were least likely to suffer from stress.

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FDA Weighs Eliminating Older Asthma Inhalers

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is considering whether to ban older asthma inhalers because they use chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), which have been linked to a thinning of the earth's ozone layer.

But the agency is looking for guidance from asthma patients before requiring that the products gradually be pulled from the market.

Two new inhalers that don't use CFCs are now available. Both contain albuterol, a bronchodilator that controls the symptoms of asthma. But the FDA wants to hear from the nation's asthma patients before deciding whether to pull the older inhalers from the market.

The FDA is expected to rule by next summer. An international treaty requires that products containing CFCs be phased out once viable alternatives are available, the agency said.

The American Lung Association sent a letter supporting the change because, "around the world, CFC alternatives are in widespread use, with no adverse impacts reported."

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Suicidal Youths Turn to Hanging Instead of Guns

A new report finds that suicidal young people are less likely to use firearms to take their own lives, but the survey finds little comfort in the trend because they are turning to more readily available methods.

In the last decade, suffocation -- notably hanging -- has overtaken firearms as the most common way for adolescents to kill themselves, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports.

The greatest change was among youngsters between 10 and 14 years old, where suicide by suffocation occurred twice as frequently as suicide by a self-inflicted gunshot. Firearms were the most common method before 1997, the report found.

Among those 15 to 19 years of age, however, suffocation suicides also increased, but firearms remained the method of choice in 2001.

In other findings, the CDC reported that young people who attempted suicide were four times as likely to have been involved in a fistfight in the previous year. However, a third survey found that those who committed a school-related suicide between 1994 and 1999 had no history of fighting or otherwise getting into trouble with the police.

The report in the CDC publication Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report had some good news: Overall, the suicide rate among people 10 to 19 years of age dropped from 6.2 per 100,000 people in 1992 to 4.6 per 100,000 in 2001.

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To Firefighters, Vehicles More Dangerous Than Flames

Firefighters are now more likely to die traveling to or from a fire than fighting one, an industry advocacy group says.

An annual study by the National Fire Protection Association concluded that vehicles now pose a greater threat to the average firefighter than flames. Last year, 37 firefighters died on the way to or from a fire, versus 29 that were killed at the fire site itself, the group said in a statement.

Of those who died traveling to or from an incident, 24 were involved in collisions or rollovers. Eight of those victims weren't wearing seat belts, and at least six were speeding, the NFPA said.

The 37 firefighters who were killed on the way to or from an incident added up to the highest total since 1977, when the group first started keeping records. By contrast, the 29 who died at the fire site itself amounted to the lowest total during the same period, the group said.