Health Highlights: Oct. 12, 2005

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

U.N. Seeks to Boost Bird Flu Vaccine Output

United Nations officials say they''re trying to increase global stockpiles of vaccine against the possibility the bird flu virus mutates and triggers a human flu pandemic.

Currently, it could take about six months to create a stockpile of vaccines and that may not be fast enough, David Nabarro, U.N. coordinator for avian and human influenza, told the Associated Press.

"We will need to have vaccines much more quickly than six months," Nabarro said.

He told the AP that the World Health Organization and various governments are investigating how to pull together vaccine manufacturers in order to speed up vaccine production.

"The World Health Organization as we speak is looking at options to get a scaling up of vaccine production capacity," Nabarro said.

The virus will only become a global human health threat if it mutates into a form that can be easily transmitted from person to person. Until such a strain actually emerges, efforts to create an effective vaccine are limited, the AP reported.

In an attempt to be prepared for a possible pandemic, some countries are preparing a vaccine based on the most common bird flu virus currently in circulation in birds.

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Obesity Linked to Fat Gain in Muscles: Study

The muscles of obese people appear to be genetically prone to gathering fat, Duke University researchers say.

A fat-building enzyme called SCD1 is three-times more prevalent in obese people than in the muscles of lean people, the researchers wrote in the Oct. 12 issue of Cell Metabolism. The phenomenon continued even when obese participants'' cells were removed from their bodies and grown in the lab, according to an account by the Scripps Howard News Service.

Senior author Deborah Muoio, an assistant professor of medicine, said the findings could explain why obese people often have such trouble losing weight and keeping it off. "The good news is it''s possible to change your energy balance through exercise. Exercise can enhance muscle''s ability to burn fat," the news service quoted her as saying.

The researchers found that levels of the SCD1 enzyme were linked with a person''s tendency toward obesity and with diminished fat-burning within muscles.

"Obesity is a very complex disease, and this ... probably does not fully explain obesity, but we now know that SCD1 is at least a very important contributor," Muoio said.

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Joan Kennedy Has Breast Cancer Surgery

Joan Kennedy was recovering Wednesday from breast cancer surgery, the Associated Press reported.

Kennedy, 69, is the former wife of Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and the mother of Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-RI). She underwent lumpectomy surgery Tuesday at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, an unidentified source told the wire service.

The surgery comes on the heels of a legal battle with her children, who have contended she is unable to care for herself due to chronic alcoholism, the AP reported.

Two of Joan Kennedy''s three children have had cancer: Edward Kennedy Jr., who lost a leg to bone cancer in 1973; and Kara Kennedy Allen, who had a lung tumor removed in 2003, the wire service said.

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New Orleans Floodwaters Not Unusually Toxic: Study

The floodwaters that submerged New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina weren''t as toxic as first believed, according to a Louisiana State University study released Tuesday.

The researchers concluded that the floodwaters weren''t unusually toxic and were typical of storm water runoff in the region. The findings were published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology.

"What it looks like is the storm water that is present in New Orleans every time it rains. We still don''t think the floodwaters are safe, but it could have been a lot worse. It was not the chemical catastrophe some had expected," research team leader John H. Pardue, an environmental engineer at Louisiana State University, told the Washington Post.

He and his colleagues concluded that most of the gasoline-derived substances in the floodwaters evaporated quickly and that there was also a gradual decline in the bacteria from sewage.

The major threat in the floodwaters was from metals that are potentially toxic to fish. However, there have been no reports of fish kills in Lake Pontchartrain, which received about 80 percent of the floodwaters pumped out of New Orleans, the Post reported.

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U.S. Supreme Court Refuses to Hear Generic Drug Case

The U.S. Supreme Court refused to intervene on Tuesday in a case involving a generic drug company''s appeal to speed up licensing of a cheaper substitute for the Pfizer antidepressant drug Zoloft.

Without comment, the justices denied a review of Teva Pharmaceuticals'' appeal to reverse a lower court ruling in favor of Pfizer. Teva, an Israeli company, had argued that Pfizer deliberately delayed release of generic Zoloft. One of Pfizer''s patents on the drug expires next year, the Associated Press reported.

Three Supreme Court justices did not participate in the case -- new Chief Justice John Roberts and justices Sandra Day O''Connor and Stephen Breyer. While justices don''t have to give reasons for excusing themselves, personal investments are often the reason, the AP reported.

Generic drugs typically are cheaper than brand-name medicines. An attorney for the Generic Pharmaceutical Association told the wire service that drug companies deliberately drag out legal fights over patents to "perpetuate paralyzing uncertainty that allows them to continue selling their branded drugs at monopoly prices."

The AP report did not include a reaction from Pfizer.

Last Updated: Oct. 12, 2005