Health Highlights: Jan. 30, 2005

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

AIDs in Infants Almost Eradicated, U.S. Officials Say

Public health officials claim that AIDs among infants in this country may soon be nothing more than a painful memory, the New York Times reported Sunday.

In 1990, about 2,000 infants were infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, but that number has now dropped to about 200 a year. Health officials all over America are now starting to talk about eliminating the disease entirely in this vulnerable population because mother-to-child transmission has dropped so dramatically, the Times reported.

"This is a dramatic and wonderful success story," Dr. Vicki Peters, head of pediatric surveillance for the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, told the Times. She recently presented the good news at an international AIDs conference in Bangkok.

Health officials point to several factors that they say brought about the radical decrease in disease: better drugs, AZT in particular; stronger public education and testing programs; and cooperation at federal, state and local levels. Simply getting expectant mothers to find out their HIV status before birth was one of the biggest hurdles officials have managed to clear. With no drug intervention, the risk of transmission is 20 percent to 25 percent; a year after the introduction of AZT treatment among HIV-positive mothers, that risk dropped to 8 percent, the Times reported..

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Kaiser Permanente Bans Bextra From Company Pharmacies

Kaiser Permanente has told its pharmacies to stop dispensing Pfizer Inc.''s arthritis painkiller Bextra, the New York Times reported Saturday.

Officials of the nation''s largest managed-care organization told the Times this marks the first time it has banned use of a drug approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Bextra, along with Vioxx and Celebrex, belong to a class of drugs known as cox-2 inhibitors. All three have shown an increased risk of cardiovascular trouble in those who take them. Vioxx was pulled from the market by its maker, Merck & Co., last September. Celebrex, another Pfizer drug, remains on pharmacy shelves.

Kaiser said that its Bextra ban would take effect on Feb. 1 for new prescriptions and March 1 for refills.

Dr. Sharon Levine, associate executive director of the company''s Northern California unit, said Kaiser physicians had already avoided using Bextra. But "for safety and quality reasons, we don''t want to be involved in dispensing this drug," she told the Times.

Pfizer admitted last fall that studies showed Bextra posed an increased risk of heart attack and stroke among patients who have had coronary artery bypass surgery. Many experts have speculated that its risks could be as high as Vioxx''s, according to the Times. Kaiser doctors will continue prescribing Celebrex in low doses, company officials said.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has counseled physicians to limit prescriptions of both Bextra and Celebrex, and the agency has scheduled a three-day hearing of independent experts next month to discuss the benefits and dangers of all three painkillers. That panel is expected to recommend how the medicines should be regulated.

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Feds Begin Formal Vioxx Probe

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has begun a formal investigation into the events that led Merck & Co. to withdraw its premier arthritis drug, Vioxx, from the market in September, the company announced Friday.

The SEC action gives the agency the power to issue subpoenas for documents or testimony. Merck issued a brief statement saying the action had been expected, and wouldn''t offer additional comment, the Bloomberg news service reported.

As of Dec. 31, Merck said 575 lawsuits had been filed alleging Vioxx-linked side effects including heart attacks and kidney damage, Bloomberg said.

Meanwhile, a U.S. appeals court invalidated a patent on Merck''s osteoporosis drug, Fosamax, which could open the door to generic versions of the once-weekly drug beginning in 2008, the wire service said. Fosamax is the world''s best-selling drug for bone loss, Bloomberg added.

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Dick Clark Sent Home From Hospital

Dick Clark, the man behind "American Bandstand," is recuperating at home this weekend after being released from the hospital following a stroke seven weeks ago, the Associated Press reported on Sunday.

Clark, 75, was unable to host his "New Year''s Rockin Eve" show from Times Square, but his publicist, Paul Shefrin, said the show business icon appreciated the many letters and cards he received during his hospital stay.

"He was very touched by the outpouring of support, not only from the celebrity world but from the people on the streets of New York City," the publicist said. Shefrin wouldn''t discuss the impact of the stroke, which has been described as minor.

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Coffee Guards Against Liver Cancer

A new Japanese study finds that people who drink more than a cup of coffee a day are less likely to develop liver cancer than those who abstain from a daily jolt of java.

The researchers studied 61,000 people aged 40 and older for seven to nine years between 1984 and 1997. By the end of the study, 117 had developed liver cancer. After analyzing age, sex and other factors, the team found the chances for developing liver cancer was .58 for those who drank more than a cup of coffee a day, and .71 for those who drank less than one cup of java daily.

Although the researchers, from Tohoku University in Sendai, haven''t pinpointed the substance in coffee that works its magic on the liver, they did note that chlorogenic acid, which is present in coffee beans, reduced the risk of liver cancer in an animal study. The finding was presented at the Japan Epidemiological Association meeting in Otsu this month.

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First Case of Mad Cow Confirmed in Goat

A goat slaughtered three years ago in France is the first confirmed case of a non-bovine animal that contracted mad cow disease, the Agence-France Presse news agency reported Friday.

European Commission officials downplayed the report, saying the disease had crossed from cows to the goat naturally, and that the incident posed a minimal risk to people, AFP said.

At the same time, an EC spokesman said the commission is proposing testing 200,000 goats over the next six months to determine if this was an isolated incident. About 140,000 goats had been tested since 2002, the news service reported.

The goat affected with mad cow, formally known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, was slaughtered and then randomly tested in 2002. Another 300 goats in the same herd were destroyed as a precaution, although none showed signs of the brain-wasting disease.

A human form of mad cow called variant Creutzfelt-Jakob disease has killed 148 people in Britain and nine in France.