Edmund's Newsletter February 24, 2009 Issue: #8 Volume 9 Check Out My Book Check Out My Book Join Our List In This Issue NASA Study Predicted Outbreak of Deadly Virus Patients Genetic Profiles Can Help Avoid Incorrect Dosing Of A Common, Dangerous Drug Clinicians Using Electronic Prescribing Override Most Medication Safety Alerts New Guideline for Prescribing Opioid Pain Drugs Published Prostrate Specific Attigen (PSA) Testing may Be Unneccessary For Some Older Men Disease-Fighting Chemicals In Apples Could Reduce The Risk Of Breast Cancer Forget The Antioxidants? Believe It Or Not News From MedWatch Recently Approved Drugs/Indications FDA Recalls and Safety Alerts in the Past 60 Days Drug Shortages Quick Links Edmund's Blog Edmund's Newsletter Edmund's Web Page Past Issues SPECIAL THANKS TO Michael R. Cohen President The Institute for Safe Medication Practices and Dr. Stephen Barrett Quackwatch Some links in Edmund's Newsletter will point to a page that requires registration.  In all cases the most you will have to do is fill out a simple form to enroll as a member.  In no case will I point you to a site that requires payment to view the page. PRAY FOR PEACE © 2001,2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 Join Our List NASA Study Predicted Outbreak of Deadly Virus A risk-assessment map shows the areas of increased risk of Rift Valley Fever (RVF) in eastern Africa from fall 2006 to spring 2007. Pink areas depict increased risk of disease, while pale green areas reflect normal risk. Yellow dots represent reported RVF cases in high-risk areas, while blue dots represent occurrences in non-risk areas. Credit: Assaf Anyamba and the NASA Earth Observatory > Larger image An early warning system, more than a decade in development, successfully predicted the 2006-2007 outbreak of the deadly Rift Valley fever in northeast Africa, according to a new study led by NASA scientists. Rift Valley fever is unique in that its emergence is closely linked to interannual climate variability. Utilizing that link, researchers including Assaf Anyamba, a geographer and remote sensing scientist with the University of Maryland Baltimore County and NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., used a blend of NASA and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration measurements of sea surface temperatures, precipitation, and vegetation cover to predict when and where an outbreak would occur. The final product, a Rift Valley fever "risk map," gave public health officials in East Africa up to six weeks of warning for the 2006-2007 outbreak, enough time to lessen human impact. The researchers described their findings in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The first-of-its-kind prediction is the culmination of decades of research. During an intense El Niño event in 1997, the largest known outbreak of Rift Valley fever spread across the Horn of Africa. About 90,000 people were infected with the virus, which is carried by mosquitoes and transmitted to humans by mosquito bites or through contact with infected livestock. Read more..... Patients Genetic Profiles Can Help Avoid Incorrect Dosing Of A Common, Dangerous Drug Your DNA affects your hair color, your blood type and even how you react to some medications. Now scientists have taken a big step toward folding your personal genetic profile into many of the prescriptions you carry away from the pharmacy. Most immediately, the advance will likely lead to the safer, more effective use of a common anticoagulant called warfarin that, when taken in the wrong amount, can be very dangerous. In the future, it could affect how doctors prescribe dozens of common medications. Because an effective amount of warfarin can vary by as much as 10-fold among individuals, physicians currently start most of their patients on a low dose and ramp up gradually until blood tests indicate the dose is correct - a process that can take months. "It appears that up to 46 percent of people will require a warfarin dose that is significantly higher or lower than average," said Russ Altman, MD, PhD, professor of bioengineering, genetics and medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine, noting that about 800,000 people are likely to be affected in the United States alone. "We're hoping that our research will help clinicians get it right on the first try." Read more..... Clinicians Using Electronic Prescribing Override Most Medication Safety Alerts Computer-based systems that allow clinicians to prescribe drugs electronically are designed to automatically warn of potential medication errors, but a new study reveals clinicians often override the alerts and rely instead on their own judgment. The study, led by investigators at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC), suggests that most clinicians find the current medication alerts more of an annoyance than a valuable tool. The authors conclude that if electronic prescribing is to effectively enhance patient safety, significant improvements are necessary. The study's findings appear in the Feb. 9 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine. "Electronic prescribing clearly will improve medication safety, but its full benefit will not be realized without the development and integration of high-quality decision support systems to help clinicians better manage medication safety alerts," says the study's senior author, Saul Weingart, MD, PhD, vice president for patient safety at Dana-Farber and an internist at BIDMC. Read more..... New Guideline for Prescribing Opioid Pain Drugs Published Researchers at Oregon Health & Science University provide evidence to support first published guideline for treating chronic non-cancer pain with opioid medications A national panel of pain management experts representing the American Pain Society (APS) and the American Academy of Pain Medicine (AAPM) has published the first comprehensive, evidence-based clinical practice guideline to assist clinicians in prescribing potent opioid pain medications for patients with chronic non-cancer pain. The long-awaited guideline appears in the current issue of The Journal of Pain, www.jpain.org. To create this guideline, researchers in the Oregon Evidence-based Practice Center (EPC) at Oregon Health & Science University collaborated with the APS and AAPM for two years, reviewing more than 8,000 published abstracts and nonpublished studies to assess clinical evidence on which the new recommendations are based.  "This guideline was a true multidisciplinary effort that sought to address in a balanced manner the many challenging issues that clinicians face with regard to when and how to prescribe opioids for chronic noncancer pain," said Roger Chou, M.D., principal investigator; director of the American Pain Society Clinical Practice Guidelines Program; scientific director of the Oregon Evidence-Based Practice Center at OHSU; and associate professor of medical informatics and clinical epidemiology, and medicine (general internal medicine and geriatrics) in the OHSU School of Medicine. Read more..... Prostrate Specific Attigen (PSA) Testing may Be Unneccessary For Some Older Men Certain men age 75 to 80 are unlikely to benefit from routine prostate specific antigen (PSA) testing, according to a Johns Hopkins study published in the April 2009 issue of The Journal of Urology. The researchers found that men in this age group with PSA levels less than 3 nanograms per milliliter are unlikely to die of or experience aggressive prostate cancer during their remaining life, suggesting that the use of PSA testing in many older men may no longer be needed. The study, led by researchers from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the National Institute on Aging's Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging (BLSA), reviewed data from 849 men (122 with and 727 without prostate cancer) who were participating in the BLSA and who had undergone regular PSA testing. Results showed that among men who were over 75 with PSA levels less than 3 nanograms per milliliter, none died of prostate cancer and only one developed high-risk prostate cancer. In contrast, men of all ages with a PSA level of 3 nanograms per milliliter or greater had a continually rising probability of dying from prostate cancer. Read more..... Disease-Fighting Chemicals In Apples Could Reduce The Risk Of Breast Cancer An apple a day can help keep breast cancer away, according to a study in rats by food scientists at Cornell University. "We found that tumor incidence was reduced by 17, 39 and 44 percent in rats fed the human equivalent of one, three or six apples a day, respectively, over 24 weeks," says Rui Hai Liu, Cornell associate professor of food science and lead author of the study. The Cornell researchers treated a group of rats with a known mammary carcinogen and then fed them either whole apple extracts or control extracts. Liu, who says this is the first study of the effects of apples on cancer prevention in animals, also found that the number of tumors was reduced by 25, 25 and 61 percent in rats fed, respectively, the equivalent of one, three or six apples a day. The report is published online at http://pubs.acs.org/cgi-bin/abstract.cgi/jafcau/asap/abs/jf058010c.html and will be published later this month in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry . Read more..... Forget The Antioxidants? For more than 40years, the prevailing explanation of why we get old has been tied to what is called oxidative stress. This theory postulates that when molecules like free radicals, oxygen ions and peroxides build up in cells, they overwhelm the cells' ability to repair the damage they cause, and the cells age. An industry of "alternative" antioxidant therapies -- such as Vitamin E or CoQ10 supplements in megadose format --has sprung up as the result of this theory. However, clinical trials have not shown that these treatments have statistically significant effects. And now researchers at McGill University , in a study published in the February issue of the journal PLoS Genetics, are calling the entire oxidative stress theory into question. Their results show that some organisms actually live longer when their ability to clean themselves of this toxic molecule buildup is partially disabled. Collectively, these molecules are known as reactive oxygen species, or ROS for short. Dr. Siegfried Hekimi of McGill's Department of Biology, said most of the evidence for the oxidative stress theory is circumstantial, meaning oxidative stress could just as easily be a result of aging as its cause. Read more..... Believe it or not South Korean woman fails driver's test 775 times A South Korean woman who has failed the driver's exam 775 times is not about give up on her hope of buying a truck one day to go into her own business, whether other drivers want her on the road or not. Cha Sa-soon, 68, has been trying since 2005 to pass the written portion of the test to get a licence, but she has so far failed to get the 60 percent required to clear it. "I've looked up some guidebooks to get a driver's licence, and they were saying it takes at most five years to get this," Cha said in North Jeolla province, where farmers on tractors or cows can be just as common on country roads as motor vehicles. "It's already been four years, so I might pass the test next time. That's what I hope for." Driving schools in South Korea offer courses to enable applicants to walk away with a licence in a week. Cha has not been fortunate enough to set foot in such a class, which tends to congregate more in busy metropolitan areas, but she remains unfazed, even after having spent more than 10 million won ($6,800) on test applications. "I believe you can achieve your goal if you persistently pursue it," she says. "So don't give up your dream, like me. Be strong and do your best." News From MedWatch Keep up-to-date on all of the recent MedWatch reports that gives you timely safety information on the drugs and other medical products regulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration by  CLICKING HERE   Recently Approved Drugs/Indications Keep up-to-date on all of the recently approved drugs and/or approved new indications on already FDA approved drugs by CLICKING HERE   FDA Recalls and Safety Alerts in the Past 60 Days: To see a list of all FDA Recalls and product safety alerts for the last 60 days CLICK HERE   Drug Shortages: As many of you are aware, many drugs in the US are either unavailable or in short supply.  To view a list of these drugs CLICK HERE   Recommend Edmund's Newsletter Edmund's Newsletter is published for only one reason and that is expand our knowledge base, join people together with like minds and to disseminate valuable information. If you feel this newsletter is of worth, please pass it along to your friends and colleagues. 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