**** HEALTH NEWS ****

  FDA approves first U.S. bird flu vaccine  

WASHINGTON,  -- A vaccine designed to protect humans against  
the H5N1 influenza virus, known as bird flu, has been ap-  
proved for the first time in the United States. The U.S.  
Food and Drug Administration announced the approval Tuesday.  
Officials said the vaccine could be used in the event of an  
influenza pandemic to provide early limited protection in  
the months before a vaccine tailored to a specific pandemic  
strain of the virus could be produced. "The threat of an  
influenza pandemic is, at present, one of the most signifi-  
cant public health issues our nation and world faces," said  
Dr. Andrew von Eschenbach, commissioner of food and drugs.  
"The approval of this vaccine is an important step forward  
in our protection against a pandemic." Officials said the  
vaccine was obtained from a human strain and is intended  
for immunizing people 18 through 64 years of age who could  
be at increased risk of exposure to the H5N1 influenza virus  
contained in the vaccine. The manufacturer, Sanofi Pasteur  
Inc., will not sell the vaccine commercially. Instead, the  
vaccine has been purchased by the federal government for  
inclusion within the U.S. Strategic National Stockpile for  
distribution by public health officials, if needed.   

Potential malaria cure is discovered  

BALTIMORE,  -- U.S. scientists have cured malaria-infected  
mice with single shots of a new series of synthetic drugs  
modeled on an ancient Chinese herbal folk remedy. The Johns  
Hopkins University team also developed several other com-  
pounds that defeated the febrile disease in rodents after  
three oral doses. The potent, long-lasting peroxide com-  
pounds, containing a crucial oxygen-oxygen unit, promise not  
only to be more effective than today's best malaria rem-  
edies, but also potentially safer and more efficient, said  
chemistry Professor Gary Posner, who led the study. "We are  
disclosing, for the first time, the curative activity of a  
new generation of compounds that are long- lasting and  
therapeutic, even when used by themselves," Posner said.  
"Older drugs in this family of peroxide anti-malarials also  
are known to be fast-acting, but they are unfortunately  
short-lived and not curative when used by themselves."  
Although the results are very promising, the researchers  
caution the new compounds must be thoroughly tested for  
safety and for how they are absorbed, distributed and meta-  
bolized in, and eliminated from, rodents' bodies before  
human tests can begin. The study is presented online in the  
ASAP section of The Journal of Medicinal Chemistry.  


             Selenium may fight prostate cancer  

BUFFALO, N.Y., -- A U.S. study suggests selenium might offer  
an intervention strategy for the treatment of prostate  
cancer. Yan Hu of the Roswell Park Cancer Institute said  
selenium, an effective chemopreventive agent for prostate  
cancer, has been found to down-regulate interleukin-6, of  
IL-6 -- a cytokine that induces the progression of the  
spread of androgen-independent prostate cancer cells. Most  
prostate cancer patients respond initially to anti-androgen  
therapy, but virtually all patients relapse due to the  
growth of androgen-independent tumor cells promoted by  
the overexpression of IL-6. Hu posits down-regulation of  
the cytokine by selenium might present an interventional  
strategy in prostate cancer therapy. He presented his study  
Monday in Los Angeles during the 2007 centennial meeting of  
the American Association for Cancer Research. The Roswell  
Park Cancer Institute, founded in 1898 in Buffalo, N.Y.,  
is the nation's first cancer research, treatment and ed-  
ucation center.  

Nursing home patients tested for superbugs  

BALTIMORE, -- A study of adults admitted to Baltimore's  
Johns Hopkins Hospital shows those from nursing homes were  
likely to be infected with drug-resistant bacteria. The  
study was intended to grasp the extent of one of the lesser  
known hospital superbugs -- multidrug-resistant Acineto-  
bacter. Results showed patients who had been in nursing  
homes, either admitted to Hopkins directly from a long-term  
care facility or transferred from home or another community  
hospital, were 12 times more likely than other patients to  
be carriers of the bacterium. Rates were even higher, 22  
times, among those patients who were wheelchair- or bed-  
bound because their legs were paralyzed. As a result of the  
study, Johns Hopkins Hospital officials will begin this  
summer to test all patients who have spent time in a nursing  
home, looking for drug-resistant bacteria at the outset of  
their hospital admission, while also using isolation pre-  
cautions until the test results are known. The study was  
presented Monday in Baltimore during a meeting of the  
Society of Health Care Epidemiology.  


         FDA seizes possibly unsafe medical devices  

WASHINGTON, -- The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has  
seized what it said were potentially unsafe implantable med-  
ical devices manufactured by Shelhigh Inc. FDA inspectors  
said they found significant deficiencies in the Union, N.J.,  
company's manufacturing processes that might compromise the  
safety, particularly sterility and effectiveness of the  
products. The seized products include pediatric heart valves  
and conduits, surgical patches, dural patches and arterial  
grafts. The tissue-based devices are used in many surgical  
settings, including open chest surgery and to repair soft  
tissue during neurosurgery and abdominal, pelvic and tho-  
racic surgery. The FDA said critically ill patients, ped-  
iatric patients and immuno-compromised patients might be at  
greatest risk from the use of the devices. Shelhigh is  
accused of manufacturing products in a facility with a poor-  
ly constructed and poorly maintained clean room, failing to  
adequately monitor its manufacturing environments for poss-  
ible microbial contamination, failing to properly test pro-  
ducts for sterility and failing to scientifically support  
product expiration dates. The FDA advised physicians to  
monitor patients with a Shelhigh implant for infections  
and proper device functioning.  

**** Reader's Submissions ****

A gentleman staying at the Ritz Hotel in London removes a card offering sexual services from a telephone box in Piccadilly. Back at the hotel he rings the number. A lady with a silky soft voice answers and asks if she can be of assistance. The gentleman says, "I'd like some afternoon delight." The lady says, "I think it sounds intriguing, sir, but you might like to press 9 first to get an outside line."

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An guy, who had spent his whole life in the desert, goes to visit a friend who had moved to town. He'd never seen a train or the tracks they run on.

While standing in the middle of the railroad tracks one day, he hears this whistle -- Whooee da Whoee! -- but doesn't know what it is. BAM!!, he's hit by the train and tossed to the side of the tracks. It was only a glancing blow, so he was lucky enough to live through it with a few broken bones and some bruises.

After weeks in the hospital recovering, he's at his friend's house attending a party one evening. While in the kitchen, he suddenly hears the teapot whistling. He grabs a baseball bat from the nearby closet and proceeds to batter and bash the teapot into an unrecognizable lump of metal. His friend, hearing the noise, rushes into the kitchen, sees what's happened and asks the guy, "Why'd you bust up my teapot?" The desert man replies, "You gotta kill these things when they're small."

A golfer stands over his tee shot for what seems an eternity. Looking up, looking down, measuring the distance, figuring the wind direction and speed. Driving his partner nuts. Finally the exasperated partner says, "What's taking so long? Hit the blasted ball!"

The guy answers, "My wife is up there watching me from the clubhouse. I want to make this a perfect shot."

"Forget it, man. You'll never hit her from here!"

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"Well, Mrs. O'Brian, so you want a divorce?" the solicitor questioned his client. "Tell me about it. Do you have a grudge?"

"Oh, no," replied Mrs. O'Brian. "Shure now, we have a carport." The solicitor tried again. "Well, does the man beat you up?" "No, no," said Mrs. O'Brian, looking puzzled. "I'm always first out of bed."

Still hopeful, the solicitor tried once again. "Well, does he go in for unnatural connubial practices?" "Shure now, he plays the flute, but I don't think he knows anything about the connubial."

Now desperate, the solicitor pushed on. "What I'm trying to find out are what grounds you have." "Bless ye, sor. We live in a flat...not even a window box, let alone grounds."

"Mrs. O'Brian," the solicitor said in considerable exasperation, "you need a reason that the court can consider. What is the reason for you seeking this divorce?"

"Ah, well now," said the lady, "Shure it's because the man can't hold an intelligent conversation!"
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AS A Switchboard operator in one of Philadelphia's busiest hotels, I often relay messages to guests. One evening a gentleman called me because the message light on his phone was flashing. "This is Mr. Branson in Room 1162. Do you have a message for me?"

"Yes," I replied, "the message is from Sue. She says she loves you and misses you."

There was silence on the other end before he asked, "Did she leave a last name?"

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One day, there was a blind man sitting on the steps of a building with a hat by his feet and a sign that read: "I am blind, please help."

A creative publicist was walking by and stopped to observe. He saw that the blind man had only a few coins in his hat. He dropped in more coins and, without asking for permission, took the sign and rewrote it.

He returned the sign to the blind man and left. That afternoon the publicist returned to the blind man and noticed that his hat was full of bills and coins.

The blind man recognized his footsteps and asked if it was he who had rewritten his sign and wanted to know what he had written on it.

The publicist responded: "Nothing that was not true. I just wrote the message a little differently." He smiled and went on his way.

The new sign read: "Today is Spring and I cannot see it."

~ Kim Klaver

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I'm embarrassed to admit it, but I've tried online dating. I haven't met anyone in person yet because the guys always stop writing before we can set up a date. I don't know what it is. Perhaps that handsome athletic thirty-two-year-old doctor was lying about his age, got grounded, and lost his internet privileges. Or maybe it was something I said, "I'd love to meet for coffee. Thursday's are best for me. That's when my neighbor picks up my four kids from my three previous marriages."

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After sustaining a serious injury to his Achilles tendon while playing racquetball, my husband was in considerable pain. Quite concerned, I asked just how bad it was. "Oh, Honey," he replied, "it hurts as bad as when we had the babies."

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My friend Stan Teplick was thrilled he could take his 87-year-old mother to finally see "Fiddler on the Roof," especially since she came from one of the countless Anatevka-like Russian shtetls so many decades ago. He spared no expense: best seats, limo, the works.

After the show Stan eagerly asked: "So Mom, what did you think? Did it bring back any memories?"

His mother thought for a moment and then, giving the classic Jewish mother shrug and nod, said: "Yes. But I don't remember that much singing."

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