Health Highlights: March 6, 2006

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

U.S. to Develop Second Bird Flu Vaccine

U.S. officials have authorized the development of a second kind of bird flu vaccine for humans in order to be better prepared for a possible flu pandemic, the Associated Press reported.

The U.S. government currently has a stockpile of several million doses of an early bird flu vaccine. But that vaccine was based on a sample of the bird flu virus collected in Vietnam in 2004. It''s believed that the virus has mutated since then and that the form now causing outbreaks in Africa and Europe may be different from the Vietnam version.

That''s prompted government officials to authorize the U.S. National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to start work on another bird flu vaccine for humans, the AP reported.

Since bird flu first appeared in Asia in 2003, it has infected at least 174 people, resulting in 94 deaths. Most, if not all, of those people were in close contact with infected animals. However, experts are worried that the virus may mutate into a form that''s easily transmitted between humans, which could spark a pandemic.

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South Dakota Bans Almost All Abortions

In a move likely to provoke a legal battle that will challenge the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion, South Dakota Gov. Mike Rounds on Monday signed legislation that bans almost all abortions in the state.

Under the bill, it would be a crime for doctors to perform an abortion unless a woman''s life was at risk. The bill makes no exceptions for pregnancies that result from rape or incest, the Associated Press reported.

The bill is supposed to take effect July 1, but it is expected that it will be suspended during a legal challenge. In a written statement, Rounds said he expects the bill will be tied up in court for years and will not take effect unless it''s upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Planned Parenthood said it will challenge the bill in court. The group operates the only abortion clinic in South Dakota. About 800 abortions are performed each year in the state, the AP reported.

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West Nile Infection During Pregnancy Poses Small Risk of Birth Defects

Pregnant women infected with the West Nile virus have only a small risk of delivering a baby with a birth defect, says a report by researchers at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

They studied 72 babies in 16 states whose mothers had West Nile during pregnancy and found that only three of the babies had problems that might be linked with exposure to the virus before birth, the Associated Press reported.

One baby was born with an extra toe, and two babies had abnormally small heads. One of the babies with a small head had severe birth defects and died three days after being born. The other baby with the small head seemed to grow out of the problem and appeared to be developing normally by the age of one.

In all three cases, the mothers of the babies had relatively mild cases of West Nile. The mother of the extra-toe baby contracted West Nile early in her pregnancy, while the other two mothers were infected in mid-pregnancy, the AP reported.

The report was published in the March issue of the journal Pediatrics.

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Virus-Related Brain ''Injury'' May be Linked to Chronic Fatigue: Study

Brain "injuries" caused during the early stages of glandular fever caused by the Epstein-Barr virus may be linked to some cases of chronic fatigue syndrome, says a study in the Journal of Infectious Diseases.

University of New South Wales researchers studied 39 people diagnosed with acute glandular fever, which causes symptoms such as fever, sore throat, tiredness and swollen lymph glands. While 31 of the patients recovered quickly, eight developed a "post-infective fatigue syndrome" that lasted six months or longer, BBC News reported.

"Our findings reveal that neither the virus nor an abnormal immune response explain the post-infective syndrome. We now suspect it''s more like a hit-and-run injury to the brain," explained Prof. Andrew Lloyd. "We believe that the parts of the brain that control perception of fatigue and pain get damaged during the acute infection phase of glandular fever."

"If you''re still sick several week after infection, it seems that the symptoms aren''t being driven by the activity of the virus in the body, it''s happening in the brain," he said.

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Parental Notification Laws Don''t Impact Teen Abortion Rates, Analysis Shows

State laws that require minors to notify their parents or get permission to have an abortion have little impact on teen abortion rates, according to an analysis by The New York Times.

The analysis included six states -- Arizona, Idaho, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia -- that introduced parental involvement laws in the last decade. The results showed varying trends.

In Tennessee, the teen abortion rate declined after a federal court suspended a parental consent requirement. The abortion rate then increased after the law came back into effect, the Times reported.

After a parental notification law went into effect in Texas, teen abortion rates fell, but not as quickly as they did in the years before introduction of the law. After Virginian introduced a parental notification law in 1998, there wasn''t much change in the teen abortion rate. However, the rate fell after a law requiring parental consent was put in place in 2003.

A separate analysis found that the absence or presence of a parental notification or permission law could not be used to predict whether teen abortions increased or decreased, the Times reported.

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Study Predicts Worldwide Increase in Overweight Children

By 2010, nearly half of all children in North and South America will be overweight, along with 38 percent of children in the European Union, says a study published Monday in the International Journal of Pediatric Obesity.

The study also said there will probably be a significant increase in the percentage of overweight children in the Middle East and Southeast Asia, the Associated Press reported.

Obese children tend to carry their weight problems into adulthood, which means they''re likely to plagued by weight-related ailments such as heart disease and stroke as they get older.

"This is going to be the first generation that''s going to have a lower life expectancy than their parents. It''s like the plague is in town, and no one is interested," Dr. Phillip Thomas, chairman of the International Obesity Task Force, told the AP.

He described the problem of overweight children as a global epidemic that''s taken hold in most countries around the world. He said governments need to stop the food industry from marketing unhealthy foods to children.

Last Updated: March 6, 2006