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

Inhalant Use Rising Among Teens

Inhalant abuse among U.S. teenagers is on the rise at a time when overall use of illegal drugs is declining, a report released Thursday finds.

According to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, conducted in 2002, about 2.6 million people between ages 12 and 17 reported having tried inhalants in the past, CNN reports. Two years earlier, the figure was closer to 2.1 million.

Inhalants are commonly used household products such as glue, spray paint, and cleaners. Teenagers sniff the vapors to get high.

"The use of inhalants is a big concern since these products are legal and can result in irreparable brain damage or death," CNN quotes Charles Curie of the survey's sponsor, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, as saying. The agency is a division of the Department of Health and Human Services.

According to the CNN account, the report concluded that teens who abuse inhalants are also three times more likely to use other drugs. Overall, illegal drug use among teens has fallen 10 percent since 1998.

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Decline in TB Rates Wanes in United States

Rates of active tuberculosis in the United States have been declining for the last decade, but a new report finds that that drop began to level off in 2003.

Last year, 14,871 people were diagnosed with TB in the United States, according to the report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That marked a 1.9 percent decline from 2002, but it was the smallest dropoff since 1992, when TB cases peaked after a seven-year revival.

Despite the decline, the lung ailment was more concentrated in certain parts of the country and among certain populations. Twelve states and the District of Columbia had higher rates than the national average of 5.1 per 100,000 people, with California, Texas, and New York accounting for 42.4 percent of all cases.

TB was also more prevalent among those born outside the United States, the CDC reports. According to the survey, appearing in the March 19 issue of Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, foreign-born persons accounted for 53.3 percent of all cases; they were nine times as likely to contract TB as U.S.-born persons. Among those born in this country, the rate among blacks was eight times that of whites.

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Anti-Drug Groups Turn Eye to Prescription Abuse

Leading anti-drug groups, which for years have been focusing their efforts on illegal drugs like marijuana, cocaine, and heroin, are now turning their attention to the rising problem of prescription drug abuse.

The New York Times reports that the Bush administration is leading the effort to sound the alarm. The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy has for the first time told federal agencies with anti-drug programs to develop new strategies to combat prescription drugs' abuse and illegal marketing, the paper reports.

"We don't want to wait until we get what we had with the crack epidemic," John P. Walters, the nation's "drug czar," told the Times. "Hopefully we're a little bit earlier in the process."

A University of Michigan survey found that, between 2002 and 2003, the non-medical use of prescription drugs rose among students in the eighth, 10th, and 12th grades while the use of illegal drugs dropped 11 percent, according to the Times.

Some experts told the paper that the effort should have begun years ago, but that OxyContin abuse and Rush Limbaugh's legal woes with his admitted problem put the issue in the spotlight.

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Next Flu Vaccine to Protect Against This Year's Strain

A panel of experts with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, following the lead of the World Health Organization, decided Wednesday that the 2004-05 flu vaccine will contain protection from the strain that caused most illnesses and deaths in the current flu season.

The vaccine carries protection from three strains, two of which will be replaced next season. It will include the type A-Fujian strain, which was responsible for an outbreak in the United States and Europe early in the winter, according to the Associated Press. The current vaccine offers no protection against the Fujian strain.

When the decision to develop this season's vaccine was made, experts knew the Fujian strain was circulating but didn't have enough time or information to include it. Decisions about flu vaccine for the following year must be made many months in advance because of the time it takes to prepare it.

The new vaccine will also replace the B-Hong Kong strain with B-Shanghai, according to the AP. The third strain, A-Caledonia, will remain in the vaccine.

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FDA Panel Backs Artificial Heart

An expert advisory panel to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has voted to approve an updated version of the artificial heart that was first used more than 20 years ago, the Washington Post reports.

The CardioWest Total Artificial Heart is the modern version of the Jarvik-7, the mechanical pump implanted in Barney Clark's chest in 1982. Though the concept was first devised with the intention of someday permanently replacing the human heart, the CardioWest device won the panel's backing as a means to sustain patients in the hospital long enough to obtain a human transplant, the newspaper reports. Once it's implanted, patients are tethered to a power generator the size of a washing machine.

The device does have its risks, since implantation involves cutting out the bottom half of the heart, the Associated Press reports. Side effects could include infection, bleeding and stroke.

CardioWest must still win the approval of the entire FDA, which usually follows the recommendations of its expert committees. Approval would grant transplant centers nationwide wider ability to use the device, the Post reports. It would also make insurance companies more likely to cover the device, which costs about $100,000.

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Medicare May Cover Personal Defibrillators

Medicare is considering expanding coverage for stopwatch-sized implanted heart defibrillators that were shown to significantly reduce the risk of death in a recent government study, the Associated Press reports.

Medicare currently pays about $25,000 for each defibrillator that's implanted in the 40,000 patients annually who suffer from congestive heart failure. The government insurer is considering expanding that number to cover people with less severe forms of the disease, the AP reports.

The device is implanted under the skin with wires that attach to the heart. When it senses an irregular heartbeat, it shocks the organ back into a normal rhythm. Vice President Dick Cheney had the device installed in 2001.

A recent National Institutes of Health study involving 2,521 people found a 23 percent reduction in death among heart patients who wore defibrillators, the AP reports. While earlier research focused on the most severe cases of heart disease, the newer trials involved people with more moderate disease -- a category that includes as many as 2 million Americans, the wire service says.

Last Updated: Mar-18-2004