Health Highlights: Dec. 10, 2005

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

White House Runs Bird Flu Response Drill

After staging a test of the government''s ability to respond to an outbreak of bird flu on Saturday, federal officials said there will need to be more preparation from local communities and more vaccines and medications produced, the Associated Press reported.

The four-hour tabletop exercise included Cabinet secretaries and government officials, although President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney were not present.

"It is part of the administration''s effort to be ready and have the entire federal government ready to respond in the event of a pandemic," White House Press Secretary Trent Duffy told the wire service earlier in the day.

"We have time to become the first generation, literally, in the history of man to do something to be prepared for a pandemic," Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt told reporters outside the White House once the drill was over.

The administration worked under a worst-case theory that up to 90 million Americans would become sick, and 2 million would die from the disease.

Fears of a pandemic have become real in recent months as a virulent virus infecting millions of birds has spread throughout Asia and parts of Europe. So far, the virus has killed roughly half of the 120 who have contracted it.

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CDC Officials Plan Changes to Oral HIV Test Because of False Positives

Federal health authorities plan to issue new guidelines on how to use an oral HIV test after clinics in San Francisco and New York City reported a high number of false positives with the fast-acting screen in recent months, the San Francisco Chronicle reported Saturday.

Approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in March 2004, the Oraquick Advance was considered a breakthrough in HIV detection because it produces results within 20 minutes using a swab from the mouth. It is currently being considered for over-the-counter sales use because of its convenience and ease of use.

But San Francisco officials have recorded at least 49 instances since May where people tested positive for HIV with the oral test, but were later found to be free of the virus. In New York City, health officials recorded 10 false positives in October and 30 in November alone, the Chronicle reported.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will issue an advisory that clinics start offering patients who test positive on the oral test an immediate follow-up blood droplet test to doublecheck the results, Dr. Bernard Branson, associate director for Laboratory Diagnostics at the federal agency, told the paper.

"What we intend to suggest is that if someone is tested with oral fluid and is positive, that person -- if it is possible at the clinic -- should get a finger stick test," he told the paper. Even if that second test is negative, the person would still need the more sophisticated lab test for a definitive diagnosis, he noted.

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Environmental Damage Threatens Human Health: WHO

Global environmental degradation is a threat to human health and may be partly responsible for the spread of new diseases such as SARS and bird flu, says a World Health Organization report released Friday.

It warned that environmental changes are already having an impact on human health and the effects could become more pronounced over the next 50 years, Agence France Presse reported.

Fresh water, clean air and a stable climate are basic human needs threatened by environmental damage. The report noted that water-borne diseases kill 3.2 million people a year -- about 6 percent of all deaths annually. More than a billion people have no clean drinking water and 2.6 billion lack proper sanitation, according to the report.

"Human health is strongly linked to the health of ecosystems, which meet many of our critical needs," said Maria Neira, who heads the WHO''s department to protect the human environment.

"SARS may have entered the human population via wild species, also raised domestically, and consumed as food in China. It is clear that ecosystem changes, including changed biodiversity, influences the risk of transmission of many diseases to humans," the report said.

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Stopping Tamoxifen Early May Save Lives of Breast Cancer Patients

Women with breast cancer might have a better chance of beating their disease if they are switched from tamoxifen to one of the newer aromatase inhibitors after two to three years instead of the current standard of five years, the Associated Press reported.

Researchers who presented the findings at a breast cancer symposium in San Antonio Friday noted this is the first time that aromatase inhibitors have been shown to actually save lives, not just prevent recurrences.

"This is a first attempt to get a grip on duration" of treatment, Mayo Clinic researcher Dr. James Ingle told the wire service. "Longer is better."

Tamoxifen has been a mainstay of breast cancer treatment for decades, but aromatase inhibitors have emerged as a potentially more effective way of keeping estrogen from fueling the cancer.

The biggest qustion now is whether women would be better off taking an aromatase inhibitor first, or switch to one after a couple of years on tamoxifen, Dr. Eric Winer, of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, told the AP.

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Breast Cancer Study Boosts Herceptin''s Promise

New research shows it may be possible to avoid the heart damage sometimes caused by the breast cancer drug Herceptin, a finding that makes the drug look more promising as a treatment for early- and late-stage breast cancer.

Finnish doctors said they found that nine weeks of Herceptin treatment, instead of the usual year of treatment, prevented cancer recurrence and did not increase the risk of heart failure. The research was presented Thursday at a breast cancer conference in San Antonio, the Associated Press reported.

The finding that Herceptin may also be effective when given for a shorter period of time could reduce the cost of the expensive treatment.

The Finnish study supports the use of the drug earlier in breast cancer treatment, said Stanford University breast cancer expert Dr. Robert Carlson. "The jury is in, and the jury has a very strong verdict," Carlson told the AP.

He said the findings suggest that virtually all women with breast cancer tumors of the type targeted by Herceptin should be given the drug, which is designed to act against a gene that''s overactive in about 25 percent of breast cancers, the AP reported.

Herceptin is approved for treatment of late-stage breast cancer. The drug''s maker, Genentech, wants to get approval to market Herceptin for treatment of early stage breast cancer. Most women have early-stage disease when they receive their diagnosis.

Last Updated: Dec. 10, 2005