Health Highlights: Jan. 29, 2005

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

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 refill prescriptions.

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 ban will take effect on Feb. 1 for new prescriptions and March 1 for refills.

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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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.

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Illinois Lifts All Flu Vaccine Restrictions

Illinois officials have lifted all restrictions on the state''s flu vaccination program, the Associated Press reported Friday.

The announcement comes a day after the state admitted it could not resell 700,000 doses of the vaccine it had bought in Europe. Illinois taxpayers may have to foot some of the more than $6 million bill for the unused vaccine.

Governor Rod Blagojevich, along with some other state and city governments, agreed to buy the flu vaccine doses from Europe to cover expected shortages in the United States.

But now, officials from Cleveland who signed the deal say they don''t require their share of vaccine doses and don''t want to pay for them, the Associated Press reported. After initially balking, New York City agreed on Friday to pay for the 200,000 doses it requested, for $10 each; Cleveland had signed on to buy 4,500 doses at about $11 each.

A spokesperson for Blagojevich said that anyone who signed onto the deal is responsible for paying their share of the flu vaccine tab.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention took moves Thursday to loosen restrictions on who can get the vaccine. To increase supply around the country, the agency will sell back 3.1 million doses of flu vaccine it bought from Sanofi Pasteur so the company can, in turn, sell the vaccine to public and private providers. In addition, about 1.3 million doses that had been reserved for the Vaccine in Children program will be made available for other users.

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Ford Recalls 800,000 Trucks, SUVs for Fire Hazard

Ford is recalling nearly 800,000 pickups and sport utility vehicles to replace a faulty cruise-control switch that could short circuit and cause a fire.

The recall affects Ford F-150 pickups, Ford Expeditions and Lincoln Navigators from model year 2000, and model-year 2001 F-Series Supercrew trucks.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration launched an investigation last fall after receiving 36 reports of fires, the Associated Press said. No one was hurt in any of the incidents, all of which occurred when the vehicle was parked and the motor turned off.

Initially, Ford said, it will deactivate the cruise control switch until the company has an adequate supply of replacement switches, the AP said.