Health Highlights: Feb. 9, 2005

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

Medicare Drug Benefit''s Cost: $720 Billion

U.S. taxpayers will foot a $720 billion bill to fund the first 10 years of the Medicare prescription drug program slated to begin in 2006, the Bush Administration estimates.

That number is far higher than previous estimates. But the Associated Press said prior estimates of $400 billion to $534 billion covered the 10 years from 2003, when the landmark Medicare legislation was passed. Those numbers accounted for three years before the prescription drug benefit actually took effect, the news service said.

The latest estimate accounts for soaring drug costs, which have been rising far faster than inflation, the AP said. The program will cost an estimated $100 billion in each of the years 2014 and 2015 alone, according to the Bush administration numbers issued Tuesday.

Under the program, beneficiaries will pay average monthly premiums of $35 in 2006 and the first $250 in drug costs. Medicare will pick up 75 percent of the next $2,000 in drug costs, after which participants would be responsible for all costs up to $5,100. Medicare would pay 95 percent of any prescription costs above $5,100, the wire service reported.

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Researchers Urge Routine Screening of Babies for Toxoplasmosis

Doctors should conduct routine screening of babies for toxoplasmosis, an infection that can cause brain damage and blindness, say the authors of a study on risk factors for the infection.

"What it takes is a little push to get this going. I believe our paper ought to be a push in that direction," study leader Dr. Kenneth Boyer, pediatrics chairman at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, told the Associated Press.

The study appears in the February issue of the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

Even if doctors ask pregnant women all the correct questions about known risk factors, they fail to identify about half the women who give birth to babies with the infection, the study found.

Toxoplasmosis is caused by the parasite Toxoplasma gondii, which can infect all animals and is also found in soil. Cats can spread the parasite in their feces. The parasite can also be contracted while working in the garden or by eating raw or undercooked eggs or meat.

Pregnant women who become infected can pass it along to their babies. While some infected babies have severe symptoms at birth, others show no symptoms until damage caused by the infection becomes apparent.

While daily treatment of infected babies during their first year of life can prevent some serious symptoms, the treatment isn''t perfectly effective, the AP reported.

Pregnant women are advised not to clean cat litter boxes and to wear gloves while gardening. They should also avoid eating raw or undercooked food.

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Testosterone Spray Increases Sexual Desire in Women

A testosterone spray improved sexual desire in women with low libido, according to clinical trial results released Wednesday by Vivus Inc., which makes drugs and medical devices to treat impotence.

This mid-stage trial is the first to demonstrate that a testosterone spray is effective in pre-menopausal women, the company said.

The 28-week study included 261 pre-menopausal women with low serum testosterone and low libido that caused distress. One group of women received a once-a-day dose of the testosterone spray on their abdomen. Another group of women received a placebo spray, the Associated Press reported.

Women in the group where the spray was most effective (those receiving the second highest dose level) reported that their satisfactory sexual events more than doubled while they received the treatment.

Reported side effects included increased hair growth and skin irritation.

Another study released earlier this week found that a drug called PT-141 increased sexual desire and arousal in pre-menopausal women. PT-141 is in a class of compounds known as melanocortin receptor agonists that seem to act on the pathway that controls sexual function. The drug is delivered as a nasal spray.

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FDA Panel Recommends Tighter Blood Donor Restrictions

People who''ve received a blood transfusion in France since 1980 should not be allowed to donate blood in the United States, a federal advisory panel recommended as part of the effort to help prevent the spread of the human form of mad cow disease.

This ban would add some additional safeguards to the U.S. blood supply without seriously reducing the number of potential blood donors, the Food and Drug Administration''s advisory committee said Tuesday.

The committee voted down a proposal to bar blood donations from all people who''d received a blood transfusion anywhere in Europe, the Associated Press reported.

People who lived more than three months in Great Britain or who received blood transfusions there since 1979 are already barred from giving blood in the United States. Britain has recorded the most cases of the human form of mad cow disease.

There have been nine cases in France. Last year, it was reported that blood from an infected donor in France was given to 10 people and also used to manufacture medicines, the AP reported.

The committee''s recommendation still has to be accepted by the FDA.

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Illinois Sues Drug Companies Over Pricing Policies

Illinois has joined 19 other states in accusing the nation''s drug companies of artificially inflating prices, the Chicago Sun-Times reported Wednesday.

Nearly 50 drug firms are named in the consumer-fraud action filed by state Attorney General Lisa Madigan, the newspaper said. The suit claims the state has overpaid millions of dollars to the drug firms in Medicare and Medicaid costs, and consumers have had to pay higher than needed insurance co-pays.

The legal action alleges that the companies reported heavily marked-up "average wholesale prices" to the state government, while actually selling the drugs to doctors and pharmacies for significantly less, the Sun-Times said.

The doctors and pharmacists typically sought reimbursement based on the wholesale price quoted, not the actual price paid, the state lawsuit alleges.

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Evidence Lacking that Gun Laws Suppress Violence: Study

There''s insufficient evidence that laws barring specific firearms or "zero-tolerance" policies that cover guns brought to schools have actually prevented gun violence, according to new research from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Evidence is lacking that any of the federal, state, or local gun laws reviewed had a measurable effect on gun-related deaths and other violent crimes, the CDC''s Task Force on Community Preventive Services concluded.

But the report''s lead author, Dr. Robert Hahn, stressed that the panel''s conclusions don''t mean that gun laws are necessarily ineffective. "We mean simply that we do not yet know what effects, if any, the laws have" on gun-related violence, Hahn said in a statement. He said his research was hampered by poor or missing data, and underreporting of violent gun-related crimes.

The report appears in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.