Health Highlights: March 19, 2004

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

U.S. Issues New Guidelines Limiting Fish Intake

Two U.S. government agencies issued new joint guidelines Friday on the consumption of mercury-tainted fish by women and young children. The recommendations are aimed to balance neurological risks to youngsters with nutritional benefits gained by all who eat fish, HealthDay reports.

The new guidelines, issued by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and Environmental Protection Agency, advise that pregnant women, women who may become pregnant, nursing mothers, and young children avoid eating meat from older, larger fish such as shark, swordfish, king mackerel, or tilefish.

Conspicuously absent from that list, however, is albacore tuna, which activists say may have even higher levels of mercury per serving than other species on the "banned" list.

The latest guidelines now encourage women and young children to eat six ounces -- about one meal's worth -- of albacore tuna per week.

While EPA Assistant Acting Commissioner Benjamin Grumbles called the new rules "an important improvement" over previous guidelines, Richard Wiles, senior vice president of the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit Environmental Working Group, described them as "a bad day for American moms and their children."

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Doctors Boycott Drug Company Over AIDS Therapy Price Hike

About 250 AIDS specialists and other health-care workers across the United States are boycotting drugs made by Abbot Laboratories in response to the company's price increase for the AIDS drug Norvir.

Those involved in the boycott are also shunning Abbot's sales representatives and severing research ties with the company, the Boston Globe reports.

In December, Abbot increased the wholesale price of a month's supply of Norvir from about $50 for a daily 100-milligram pill to more than $250. Doctors from well-known HIV practices, such as Fenway Community Health Center in Boston and AIDS Healthcare Foundation in Los Angeles, are part of the protest action.

While he does not begrudge Abbot a reasonable profit, Fenway's executive director, Dr. Stephen L. Boswell, says the new fee for Norvir is beyond any reasonable, justifiable increase.

"People depend on these drugs for their lives. We're going to object whenever we think what drug companies are doing is unreasonable and not in the best interest of the patients we're caring for," Boswell told the Globe.

Abbot officials defended the price increase by saying they're trying to get a fair return on a drug originally designed to be taken many times a day, but is now typically taken only once or twice a day.

One expert said this protest could be the start of a trend.

"If this is an effective mechanism, I suspect there's going to be a move of many more physicians across the country to use this kind of mechanism to attempt to control drug prices," Kenneth Kaitin, director of the Tufts University Center for the Study of Drug Development, told the Globe.

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Hunting for Primates Exposes Humans to Virus

The African practice of hunting and eating primates is exposing humans to a virus carried by monkeys and apes, Johns Hopkins University researchers write in the journal The Lancet.

The effect of this virus -- called simian foamy virus (SFV) -- on humans is unknown. This study found that 1,100 of 1,800 people from nine rural communities in Cameroon said they'd been exposed to primate body fluids or blood while hunting.

Of those 1,100 people, 10 had developed antibodies to SFV, BBC News Online reports.

"Our findings show that retroviruses are actively crossing into human populations, and demonstrate that people in central Africa are currently infected with SFV," lead researcher Dr. Nathan Wolfe told the BBC.

He and his colleagues say it's possible this may lead to the emergence of a human form of SFV.

It's believed that a virus called simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) was transferred from primates to humans and turned into HIV.

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Experts Warn About Alternative Cancer Therapies

Alternative cancer remedies have not been rigorously tested and could cause patients more harm than good, warn experts attending the European Breast Cancer Conference.

The use of complementary and alternative therapies (Cams) by European cancer patients is on the increase, even though the safety of these Cams is not fully understood, BBC News Online reports.

"Some Cams, as their name implies, complement conventional treatments, but others have the potential to interact dangerously with drug regimes and both doctors and patients need to be aware of this," said Dr. Gillian Bendelow, a medical sociology expert at the University of Sussex.

Harvard University breast cancer specialist Dr. Eric Winer said more thorough and properly conducted studies must be carried out on Cams. "Issues of safety with Cams are critical, but in many cases, extensive safety evaluation has not been undertaken," he said.

"Moreover, relatively few Cams have been tested in conjunction with standard treatments and this is a serous problem," he added.

"For instance, some Cams, such as St. John's wort, have been shown to have important and potentially detrimental interactions with standard drugs," Winer said.

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Infant Receives 8 New Organs

An Italian infant remains in recovery at a Miami hospital, six weeks after receiving what the facility calls a record-setting eight new organs.

Alessia Di Matteo, now 7 1/2 months, was born with a muscle disorder called megacystis microcolon syndrome, which prevented normal function of her stomach, intestines and kidneys. The condition is fatal if left untreated.

In a 12-hour operation Jan. 31 at Jackson Memorial Hospital, she received a new liver, stomach, pancreas, small intestine, large intestine, spleen, and two kidneys.

Alessia, from Genoa, Italy, now weighs about 13 pounds and is still fed through a tube. While she's out of intensive care, she'll have to remain hospitalized for several more weeks for observation, a hospital spokesman tells the Associated Press.

The United Network for Organ Sharing tells the wire service that it's difficult to confirm that the hospital has set a record for the most organs transplanted in a single operation, since other facilities record the stomach and intestine as one organ.

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Tammy Faye Has Inoperable Lung Cancer

Tammy Faye Messner has inoperable lung cancer, the televangelist announced on CNN's "Larry King Live" Thursday night.

"They can't take it out because it's too near the heart and there are too many blood vessels that are near the cancer," Messner told the CNN host.

The ex-wife of fellow televangelist Jim Bakker says she found out about the illness two weeks ago, and plans to begin chemotherapy treatments soon.