Health Highlights: Oct. 30, 2005

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

Potential Greek Bird Flu Case Tests Negative

Follow-up tests conducted in the U.K. on Greek turkeys suspected of carrying the avian flu virus have come back negative, the Greek agriculture ministry said Saturday.

According to the AFX news agency, the ministry issued a statement that "The European Commission laboratory at Weybridge, Britain, announced today that tests taken on samples from the suspect bird flock on [the eastern Aegean islet of] Oinousses have not located the H5N1 avian flu strain."

The Greek ministry lifted alarm measures meant to contain the spread of the virus after the announcement. Previous testing in Greece had also turned up no trace of H5N1 in the sick poultry.

Meanwhile, recent outbreaks of avian flu in three separate Chinese provinces have sent poultry markets in that country into a tailspin, AFX reported Sunday. In Guantang, China''s largest poultry market, sales have fallen 80 percent.

"My income has been cut in half since the bird flu panic started," Xu Min, a Beijing fowl retailer told the China Daily.

Chinese officials on Friday said no human cases of bird flu have yet been confirmed in the country. However, officials at the World Health Organization are pressing China for more extensive tests in the case of a 12-year-old girl who died earlier this month with a flu-like illness, and her younger brother, who has also fallen ill.

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Gates Foundation To Boost Malaria Research

Calling the current lack of funding for malaria research "a disgrace," Microsoft mogul Bill Gates on Sunday announced that his charity, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, will earmark another $258.3 million in grants toward prevention and treatment of the mosquito-borne scourge.

The new funding comes on top of previous monies the foundation has designated for malaria research, the Washington Post reported. The new grants mean the foundation is now the single largest funder of malaria research worldwide, eclipsing the U.S. government.

Experts estimate that malaria kills 1.2 million people annually, most of them African children under 6 years of age. "It''s really a tragedy that the world has done so little to stop this disease that kills 20,000 African children every day," Gates said in a press conference in New York. "If those children were in rich countries we''d have headlines, we''d take action."

One of the foundation grants, for $107.6 million, will fund sped-up research on what is hoped to be the world''s first-ever malaria vaccine, currently being developed in Germany by a division of drug giant GlaxoSmithKline PLC. Researchers hope a cheap, easily distributed vaccine will be ready for use in just six years.

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Researchers Find Key Stem Cell Trigger

U.S. scientists announced Saturday they had moved a big step closer to growing human organ tissue in the laboratory using embryonic stem cells, according to a report in The Times of London. The discovery could help pave the way for lifesaving treatments for a variety of illnesses, with stem cells someday being used to repair or replace lost tissues.

Reporting in the journal Nature Biotechnology, researchers at biotech company CyThera said they have found a way to turn embryonic stem cells in endoderm, a layer of cells in human embryos that eventually develops into organs.

CyThera scientific director Emmanuel Baetge told the Times that "If you were to use human embryonic stem cells to make products that treat disease such as diabetes or liver failure, you would have to go through the endoderm stage to get [them]."

Experts have hailed the results as proof of principle that stem cells can be manipulated to give rise to endoderm, which has so far been extremely difficult to obtain.

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Texas Oil Company Employees Given Fake Flu Shots

Up to 1,000 Houston-area workers of the Exxon-Mobil company, as well as 14 residents of a local senior citizens home received shots of purified water instead of the flu shot, officials announced Friday.

U.S. Attorney Chuck Rosenberg told the Associated Press that Iyad Abu El Hawa, 35, the owner of three Houston home health care centers, has been arrested and charged with Medicare fraud in connection with the fake shots given to 14 elderly residents of a home in LaPorte, Texas on Oct. 21. Charges stemming from the shots given to the Exxon-Mobil workers at a company health fair have not yet been filed.

"This is a very callous and disturbing crime," Rosenberg told the AP. "[El Zawa] purposefully put at risk many, many people." Medicare fraud carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

According to Rosenberg, the alleged fraud came to light when a nurse noticed irregularities in the handling of the flu shots.

The nurse, who was not identified, thought it odd that El Zawa''s employees seemed ignorant of lot numbers used to track vaccines, and that they would not let a doctor at the health fair check the syringes. She kept two of the syringes for herself and gave them to the FBI.

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Lyme Disease Often Misdiagnosed as Psychiatric Illness

Adults with chronic Lyme disease often display mood swings that can be misdiagnosed as psychiatric illness, causing delays in treatment for this debilitating condition, a new study found. On average, researchers say the average patient with chronic Lyme disease waits more than a year before receiving a proper diagnosis.

The four-year study, conducted by a team from Columbia University, New York, also found that over three-quarters of female Lyme disease patients, and about one-quarter of males, suffer from significant pain and disability linked to infection with the tick-borne illness.

"While much is known about early Lyme disease, very little is known about chronic Lyme disease, despite its rising prevalence and disabling effects," lead researcher Dr. Brian Fallon said in a prepared statement. The findings were presented Saturday at the annual Lyme Conference in Philadelphia.

In another study presented at the conference, researcher Dr. Daniel Cameron, director of First Medical Associates in Mt. Kisco, New York, found that the average quality of life for patients with chronic Lyme disease falls below that of patients with other chronic conditions such as heart failure. Re-treatment with the antibiotic amoxicillin can help ease patients'' symptoms, however.

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Last Updated: Oct. 30, 2005