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Based On New Study, Tobacco Control Researchers Call On FDA To Require Complete Disclosure From Tobacco Companies Of Changes Made To Cigarettes
As President Obama prepares to sign a bill giving the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) oversight of the tobacco industry, a new study from Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) researchers shows that tobacco manufacturers have continually changed the ingredients and the design of their cigarettes over time, even if those changes have exceeded acceptable product variance guidelines. The result, say the researchers, is that consumers who buy the same brand of product are not made aware of how that product has been altered and what effect those alterations might have on their levels of addiction or harm.

Medtronic And Abbott Laboratories Resolve Global Vascular Patent Disputes
Medtronic, Inc. (NYSE: MDT) announced global resolution of all outstanding intellectual property litigation with Abbott Laboratories.
News of the day
Movie Documents Three Men's Efforts To Promote Safe Sex During Onset Of HIV/AIDS Epidemic In Early 1980s
The Los Angeles Times examined the documentary movie "Sex Positive," which chronicles the lives and efforts of three men who sought to promote safe sex during the early years of HIV/AIDS in the U.S. According to the Times, late singer-songwriter Michael Callen, activist Richard Berkowitz and Joseph Sonnabend, a virologist and personal physician of Callen and Berkowitz, together "actually invented the notion of safe sex." With professional guidance from Sonnabend, in 1983, Callen and Berkowitz co-authored "How to Have Sex in an Epidemic: One Approach," the "first document to identify and advocate "medically safe sex," which encouraged condom use" along with other practices, the Times reports. "Sex Positive" will debut in theaters on Friday (Goldstein, Los Angeles Times, 6/14).
Diagnostics

Daily Potassium Citrate Wards Off Kidney Stones In Seizure Patients On High-fat Diet

Children on the high-fat ketogenic diet to control epileptic seizures can prevent the excruciatingly painful kidney stones that the diet can sometimes cause if they take a daily supplement of potassium citrate the day they start the diet, according to research from Johns Hopkins Children"s Center. A report on the work is published in the August issue of Pediatrics. "We can confidently say this is a safe and powerful way to prevent kidney stones, and it should become part of standard therapy in all ketogenic dieters, not just those who already show elevated urine calcium levels," says senior investigator Eric Kossoff, M.D., a pediatric neurologist at Hopkins Children"s. "If you wait, it might be too late." The ketogenic diet, believed to work by initiating biochemical changes that eliminate seizure-triggering short circuits in the brain"s signaling system, is given to many children whose seizures do not respond to medications. But the diet, which consists of high-fat foods with very few carbohydrates, causes a buildup of calcium in the urine and the formation of kidney stones in about 6 percent of those on it. Hopkins Children"s adopted the preventive treatment with potassium citrate two years ago, and doctors now believe this one major side effect of the diet is a thing of the past, allowing more children to remain on the diet for longer. Potassium citrate taken twice daily, either as powder sprinkled on food or dissolved in water, is believed to inhibit stone formation. In their study of 301 children treated for epilepsy with the ketogenic diet at Hopkins Children"s the researchers found that those who got potassium citrate twice daily were seven times less likely to develop kidney stones one of 106 (0.9 percent) developed a kidney stone compared to 13 out of 195 (6.7 percent) who were given potassium citrate only after testing positive for elevated levels of blood calcium. Most children received one 30-milliequivalent packet (about 1, 170 milligrams or 0.04 ounces) of potassium citrate twice daily. Although rarely serious, kidney stones can cause significant pain, along with kidney and urinary tract infections, and may require surgery. The research was funded in part by the NIH and the Carson Harris Foundation. Johns Hopkins Medicine


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